Tag Archives: dating

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Why won’t tall women date short men? A theory…

I’m 5′ 11”. In my life, I have slept with a fair few men, most of whom were the same height as, or taller than me. Am I horribly shallow? No, not really. But I can tell you that as a tall girl it’s genuinely quite difficult to find shorter guys who are actually willing to fuck me.

Of those who might be up for a shag, many have spent a long time making excruciatingly tedious comments about how massive I am, or listing ways in which I need to slightly adjust (take off heels, slouch a bit, sit down) in order to meet with their approval. That tends to put me off a bit, to be honest.

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Do I really need an online dating photo?

About five years ago when my online dating activity was at its peak, and I spent at least as much time checking OKCupid as I did checking Facebook, I didn’t have a profile photo. Nothing.

I had previously had a profile furnished not just with a picture of my face but a couple of online dating photo ‘action shots’, by which I mean ‘pictures of me in a pub drinking’ and one awkwardly posed ‘full body’ shot. Because having just one photo meant I got messages from people asking for more. They kept asking, though, and eventually I got rid of all the photos – roughly around the time I started this blog.

When you don’t have a profile photo, most of the messages you get will be from people demanding one.

“What do u look like?”

“I won’t date u without a pic.”

“How do I know you’re not a man tho lol.”

They will explain to you, in patronising terms, that you will get far more responses with a photo. Like they think you simply forgot, and you’ll slap your forehead and go “Of COURSE! Thank you kind stranger for telling me what OKCupid tries to tell me every FUCKING TIME I log in!”

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How do I get my partner to like Marmite?

If you’re not British, you might not be familiar with Marmite. It is either:

  • a delicious brown substance created during the brewing process, which you spread on toast with butter before having a mouthgasm OR
  • diarrhoea brewed in the anus of Beelzebub.

For me it’s the former, for others it’s the latter. I pick Marmite because not only is it a great example of something that has divided a nation (their literal slogan is ‘you either love it or you hate it’) but also because there is no moral value in either liking or disliking Marmite: you’re not a better person if you choose to try it. However, you are a bit of a dick if you try to sneak it into someone’s breakfast without them noticing.

Pretty much all sex acts are like Marmite. Oral sex? Some love it, some don’t. Probably a larger group of the former than the latter, but whatever. Likewise hand jobs, using sex toys, doing anal, bondage: any act that two or more people can take part in.

Here’s where sex acts diverge from Marmite: sometimes you really want your partner to try something. No one really cares if I like Marmite or not. It won’t break my heart if Jon Hamm announces, on our wedding day, that he won’t be eating any of the brown stuff. Sex, on the other hand, is something you can enjoy with your partner, and so if you have a particular kink and your partner’s not keen, that can be pretty gutting. If Jon Hamm tell me that he really hates spanking, I’ll be very upset (as well as surprised, tbh, given how much he loves spanking in all those dreams of mine he’s shown up in).

Anyway, given the Marmite nature of various sex acts, I can see why people often ask me the following question:

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My brand new system on how to be the best at dating

Did you know that men have evolved to have slightly louder voices than women? Well, it’s true. As a general rule, men will speak at a higher volume than women do, and will tend to dominate more conversations. This is because, in our evolutionary past, it was necessary for men to put in most of the hard work to find mates. Alongside the usual: standing around looking rugged, they also used their mating megaphones (a primitive feature which eventually evolved into the mouth) to shout for female attention. ‘Ugg!’, or what have you – I don’t know, I don’t speak neanderthal, but it was basically a primitive version of ‘hey darling, I am ready to impregnate you in order to further the species! Check out my spaff-packets and make your choice!’ The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, before you start writing me angry letters about how actually neanderthal men communicated by dropping a dead mammoth at the feet of their lover, please understand that I made all of the above up. I mean, obviously.

The initial fact may or may not be true, I don’t know. It sounds maybe a bit plausible, doesn’t it? That men have evolved louder voices? I’ve not checked it, of course, that would take ages. But what I have done is constructed a vaguely plausible story as to why people might have evolved that way, then carefully ignored any facts or examples that might not fit.

Do I win £5?

Crappy evolutionary dating theories

Believe it or not, I get sent quite a few emails from people who have found The Answer when it comes to dating – ‘how to be an alpha male by killing the metaphorical 21st century mammoth’ or what have you. Normally I delete and ignore.

Yesterday’s captured my imagination, though, because it was funnier than the others.

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How to get better at dating

It’s rare that I get the opportunity to offer a really specific piece of advice. As a general rule, when people email me to ask “how do I get laid though?” or “can you tell me how to make people fall in love with me?” my answers will be the kind of fence-sitting waffle you’d expect from someone who isn’t paid per word to clickbait. Because the truth is generally not very clickbait-friendly. “Top ten ways you suck at dating” sounds way better than “well everyone’s attracted to different things and it’s all a bit more complicated than that.”

However, every now and then, something arises on which I can offer solid, useful advice. I’m as shocked as you are, but here goes – my number one tip for being better at dating:

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