There Is A Light

And In The Darkened Underpass . . . 

So, Marty's financial advisor got a case of the smarts and decided that she didn't want to date her clients. Which means I won't be able to say "Yeah, she's putting my assets into a Roth IRA" as a euphemism for anything. The lawyer side of me is frankly a bit relieved--I've seen business actions go completely bugfuck because of soured relationships. The "man she has an ass you can bounce a stack of quarters off of" side is disappointed--I mean really disappointed. Think when the waiter brings by the dessert plate and shows you a mouthwatering cheesecake with a fresh strawberries and creme and says it's all yours, and just when you're going to bite, he takes it away and says he's oh so sorry, another table actually had ordered the cheesecake before you. Man, why do I keep using food imagery to get across romantic and sexual points? Excuse me, it's time for my daily binging and purging.

The Financial Advisor and I got into a rather interesting discussion about the genders. She apparently keeps getting into situations where her male friends or her clients become romantically interested, so she talked to her guy friends about why this might be. It seems that guys are always optimistic, and much more direct in their communications, whereas chicks don't feel comfortable being direct and hence tend toward giving "hints." And that's where the problem arises I told her.

See, Financial Advisor is attractive, smart, and fun to hang out with. A guy who is able to make her laugh is stupid if he doesn't try to tap that. And she's right, most guys are optimistic--and it's a real bitch of time trying to figure out if that optimism is well founded or just false hope. So when a woman tells a guy she's able "to keep being friends separate with anything else that might develop", or she's "not interested in focusing on romantic relationships now", that little spark of optimism in guys focuses on all the modifiers--"might develop," "now". To us, that's not being direct at all. When a woman tells a guy that she can't hang out because she's "busy", well, she could honestly be busy. Whereas to the chica, she's being as direct as she can and thinking that should take care of it. And therein lies the rub. The guy will keep sniffing around with this hope in his heart that something might develop later, the hope blooming and expanding and having a life of its own, while the chica is totally uninterested, and that leads to bad drama later.

Now lucky for the both of us that I was able to be direct and forthright, and forced her to be so as well. Situations where you're thinking "Oh my God she's so into me" while she's thinking "Gosh, I really like vanilla" six months down the line are awkward enough as it is, but doubly so if she's managing your money.

And what have we learned? Yes, I know Snoop Doggy Dog advised "Don't sweat the pussy," which is all fine and good advice. But we also know that in reality, if guys were truly able not to sweat the pussy, that male market in hand lotion would collapse overnight.

The practical lesson for the rest of us guys is to have the chicas define their boundaries as early as possible. Otherwise, you might think you're about to storm her castle when you're actually 50 miles outside her state line playing pinochle. Now, you have to be smart and simple about it--don't make it about you. Just lay out that you like her, you don't want to put her in an awkward position which is why your letting her know that you would like to be more than friends, but that if she doesn't feel the same way that you understand. And that if she wants to stop hanging out, you perfectly understand. That way you're defining your expectations without creating an ultimatum (which is a sure way dropping nookie probability to 0%)and allowing her a way out if she really isn't interested.

Financial Advisor's main qualm was that she wasn't comfortable with being that direct. Well, we're not comfortable trying to read women's minds. So if a man is honest enough to be direct with you and is polite enough to leave you an out, the least that you can do is be direct and honest with him, and define your boudaries.

If you think that the hints and such are a necessary part of the game, well, as a man you should be prepared to find out that she was thinking about how much she liked vanilla the whole time and start stocking up on hand moisturizer, and as a woman, you should be prepared for annoying phone calls from pissed off guys three months after you thought you told the chump (indirectly and never saying the words)"I'm not interested."

As for the Financial Advisor and me, I needed a financial advisor and was going to use her even if she had told me she wasn't interested, gay, had plans, was clinically dead the first time we spoke. We have fun when we hang out, so I see no reason not to hang out with her every once in a while (though not more than that because a man can only be around a tight ass like that before something bursts somewhere in his body). In the meantime, it's onward for me. Plus there's always that 22-year old file clerk in the office who has a female crush on Zhang Ziyi. Heh heh, girl on girl crushes. Excuse me while I get some hand lotion.