Tag: life

Links To My Recent Articles, A Quick Comment About Medium, and Other Updates

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-vintage-typewriter-163084/

Here are links to a bunch of articles I’ve written on Medium but just haven’t cross-posted here on my personal site. In order of recency:

Women Are Willing To Sell Their Bodies To Pay Off Student Loans

“You Must Be This Tall To Ride This Ride”

Some Very Disturbing (And Gross) Stats About STDs, Especially When It Comes To Black Women

River Is A Solid Bitcoin-Only Exchange

Three Cold Hard As Fuck Truths For Why You’re Single

They Sang Along To Ye’s “Heil Hitler,” Now They’re Getting Doxxed, Harassed, And Threatened

She Calls A 5-Year-Old ‘N-gger,’ Now May Cash Out With A Million Dollars In Online Donations

Medium

Medium continues to be a massive disappointment this year. Due to either an algorithm change or some kind of shift in how it distributes traffic, I barely get the engagement in years prior, and substantially smaller payouts and fewer followers, consequently. Though some of my articles caught on in Google’s rankings, I see zero money for non-Medium members who read my stuff. That’s really frustrating, as some of my “stories” (as Medium likes to call them) have caught tens of thousands of views.

It’s not that I soullessly write for money. It’s just that I would like to see commensurate compensation for when I do write something that lands.

Still, I’ve kept plugging away. Either foolishly or just out of stubborn persistence and the desire to maintain stasis. Medium is a solid platform, for sure. But it has a low ceiling. Whereas a platform like YouTube will (assuming you are monetized) at least pay you for ALL the views you get, not just Medium members. As such, YT has basically uncapped potential, though it too has its issues.

YouTube

As much as I love YouTube and the idea of being a YouTuber, I don’t know that it’s the right venue for me, either. Nor do I care to contort myself into the tortuous content creation pretzel shape that YT demands if you want to have a shot at gaining traction. YT seems to favor TikTok-style shorts anymore, and such snappy, soundbite quippings are not in my wheelhouse. The few videos I’ve posted this year are long, thoughtful, and reflective, which is not really conducive to YT’s dazzling discothèque guppy-attention-span content that seems to predominate on there.

I’m a writer at the end of the day. A fiction writer, specifically. I try to be. While I like dropping spicy op-eds from time to time, Medium and this whole “content game” thing often just proves a procrastinative distraction and a futilely unfulfilling endeavor. I get so little satisfaction out of writing even a “banger” article that gets a good traffic spike it’s not funny.

Whereas, a good fiction writing session puts me on cloud nine.

I don’t care to just crank out a bunch of noise, trying to surf the trend waves. I’d rather spend the time on my books. I have a lot of them in various states of editing, and I have a lot of ideas for more.

My latest will be out soon.

Conundrum

Which brings me to the conundrum. To be a successful fiction writer, you need a platform to help market your work. But to get a platform, you have to play the mind numbing algo/traffic/pretzel twist game I just talked about. A successful writer is a successful salesman, not just a good tapper of keystrokes. Like many writers, this rustles my introvert jimmies. I hate “putting myself out there,” though I’m not a wallflower by any means.

I see many other writers, especially self-published ones, market themselves via YouTube and social media, either by book or movie reviews, or by being (usually godawful) cultural critics and posting daily ragebait commentary on whatever headline caught their ire that morning. I don’t care to waste the time being a “culture warrior.” That’s very cringy to me. And there are frankly certain audiences I just don’t care to attract.

I will never be a fucking “writing coach.” I will never sell a fucking course or some bullshit consulting like so many of those hustlers out there do. No. Just no. I will never make “writing about writing” my thing. Never going to happen. I don’t care to waste the time, and I sure as hell don’t need to do it for the money.

I could see doing long form book or movie reviews, however.

And even though some of my finance-themed articles have actually performed the best, I think I’m done with that niche. Save and invest your money. Stay out of debt. Control your spending. Slow and steady (i.e. boring) compound gains will make you wealthy, not get-rich-quick crypto/stock/real estate/side hustle schemes. Stop listening to stupid influencers and their bullshit products. There, what the hell else needs to really be said?

Conclusion

As a compromise, I’ll keep posting non-fiction stuff, but likely just focusing on books, movies, and shows. Since Medium has proven near pointless to continue with, I may just go old school and post stuff on here exclusively instead. I blogged a lot way back in the day, and I see that era of the internet returning. Content has become far too siloed on digital slave farms like Facebook and other social media. It’s time for it to decentralize like it used to be. A.I. slop has ruined a lot of content sites also. In fact, I think A.I. is part of why the algo machine has completely broken down across the web.

I’ll invest more time interacting with social media in a qualitatively productive manner. I’ll also continue to experiment with YouTube. Perhaps there are actually people out there who’d rather look at my face and hear me talk than read my stuff. Hey, it’s possible.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’ll have more updates for you soon, including my latest book. See you in the sun. 🙂

Seriously, WTF?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

A billboard in Bismarck, ND blew my mind.

Source: Photo by The Glorious Studio from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-diamond-rings-12427696/

I had to go out of town recently for a dentist appointment as medical service providers are few and far between in the great stupid state of North Dakota. Since there was nobody in network in my town, and my previous dentist office hardly ever has an actual dentist on staff — just hygienists and one moron office manager— I had to drive three and a half hours to go to a new dentist for X-rays and a cleaning.

Yes, I had to stay over night in a hotel, rent a car, and drive halfway across a state just for a one hour appointment. It’s insane, I know.

But that’s nothing compared to a completely fucking insane billboard I saw while I was down there.

I was parked at a Wendy’s eating my actually not bad spicy chicken sandwich when I looked across the road and I saw a big yellow billboard for a jeweler in town advertisting payment plans for engagement rings for as long as 48 months.

What??? I almost dropped my sandwich in shock. Who the fuck is financing a diamond engagement ring for four years? Good Christ, most marriages don’t even last seven years. You might be getting divorced by the time you pay the damn thing off.

My mind was blown. I was utterly floored. Are people — “men” — actually doing this, I wondered. I couldn’t believe it. Then I began to think about the many, many imbecilic male slobs I’d encountered in my life. Slovenly creatures in backwards hats, flip flops, scruffy beards, cargo shorts, forearm tattoos, fast food afficionados, fantasy football betting, sports-enthused, vape-toking, video game playing, Monster Energy drink sipping Neanderthals — yes, I could totally see many of these specimens going “Hur dur, happy wife, happy life,” and walking into that jewelry store ready to sign up for basically car payments on a twinkling rock for their idiot girlfriends.

Am I the only one who sees how insanely stupid this is?

How dumb do you have to be to sign up for four long years of debt just for a rock? There are a million better things to spend money on in a new marriage than a piece of bling.

Dear men, stop doing this to yourselves. Seriously.

No woman who truly loves you and wants to be with you would want you to finance a rock for four years. Only a gold-digging Instagram thot who takes seflies at the gym in her booty shorts would demand that, not someone truly worthy of years of your sacrifice and financial hardship.

A worthy woman would want you to put that money toward a house, furniture, a car, baby things, or other practical purchases that really matter and help build the foundation for a successful marriage and family. Not a shiny stone.

An engagement ring is just a symbol. She didn’t win the fucking Super Bowl, gents. Buy her something modest and within your budget, and move the fuck on in life.

In fact, this makes for a good litmus test. The bigger the rock she expects, the bigger the undeserving asshole she likely is.

This simp epidemic has to stop. I mean, think about the underlying misandry of that billboard’s message. It reflects a societal expectation that men go out and financially fuck themselves royally as a traditional precursor to marriage.

Now imagine the message, but directed at women. Imagine that billboard was offering payment plans on appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, and dryers that women go buy so when they get married they can be good little stay at home housewives. Or imagine it was advertising payment plans on BOOB JOBS so hubby can have a nice set of flesh pillows to bury his face in after a hard day’s work. Imagine all the outrage at that.

Well, it’s the same thing with this silly and frankly asinine expectation that men burden themselves for years for a stupid rock.

Fuck. That.

I could see dropping like $5k on an engagement ring. Maybe even $10k if it’s within your budget. But only if you can pay that in cash and it’s not going to force you into indentured servitude for the length of a presidential term.

Marriage is tough enough without additional and unnecessary financial burdens. Why make it needlessly harder on yourself?

I wouldn’t care if it were Sydney Sweeney. I’d rather be single for life than finance a rock for ANYONE.

Seriously, WTF?

The Shockingly Little Amount I’ve Paid For Cars In My Life

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

A sentimental listing of my senior vehicles current and past.

My Saturn.

I’ve never been a car guy. Probably that’s due to growing up dirt poor. It’s not like I had a choice there anyway. But it’s more than that. A lot of guys connect their whole identity or sense of masculinity to a set of wheels. I never did that. Never cared.

Sometimes, I wish I could be a car guy. One of those guys who waxes eloquent about this engine or that engine. But for me, a car has always been a metal box with wheels meant to get me from one point to another.

I currently drive a “senior vehicle,” as I’ve written about in the past. Which is a nice way of saying it’s a beater. Even though I could easily afford a new car in cash, I choose to keep driving like I’m broke. I love my old Saturn. She’s a stick shift coupe with almost 200,000 miles. She’s semi-retired now. I’m fortunate to have a work truck I use to get to where I need to, you know, work. And because I live in a small town, I really just use my car for grocery store runs, and the occassional day trip across state. Even in brutally cold winters and burning hot summers, my senior vehicle has just kept chugging along on her minor assignments. Eventually the day will come when she’ll finally give out. When that day comes I’ll give her a Viking funeral for her many years of service. For now she just keeps hanging on like a loyal dog.

Just yesterday I calculated about how much I’ve spent on vehicle purchases over the course of my driving life so far, and I was shocked. I’ll itemize all of my car purchases in a moment, but I’ll just state the number up front here to get it over with. This is approximately how much I’ve spent on cars over 26 years of driving:

— — $12,500 — —

That’s it. From age 16, when I bought my first car, until now, at age 42. Not even thirteen grand. That wouldn’t even buy half of a new base model Honda Civic nowadays after taxes and fees. This absurdly low number is an aberration when you consider that most people are driving around with ginormous car payments and cars that cost as much as houses. I know a guy at work who got a raise, then immediately ran out and financed a $65,000 SUV. That’s more than 5x more than what I’ve paid for vehicles my whole life, just on ONE purchase. Insane.

My first car was a 1982 Buick Skylark. Cost — $200

The same make and model and year even of the car in My Cousin Vinny. I bought it from a mechanic who was a friend of the family. You always remember your first time. My Skylark had a weird tick where it needed to be warmed up for several minutes before it could be driven, or else it would stall out. So, everytime I started it I had to sit there and let it idle before I could go anywhere. Not the worst feature, really, as I used to smoke at the time, and I was a teen with not exactly the busiest of schedules. I’d sit there and smoke a Marlboro, then take off.

My Buick wasn’t exactly a hot rod. But it only cost two hundred. Eventually, when it became impractical to fix, I wound up donating it to some veteran’s charity. I wish I had taken some pictures of it, or at least appreciated it more while I had it. That car represented a big life transition for me. I moved out of my parent’s house at 17 and graduated high school in that car. I miss it sometimes, but I’m glad it was able to go to help people in need at the end of its life.

My second car was a 1987 Toyota Celica. Cost ~ $1,200.

Aw man, I was hot shit driving this around. This was an upgrade. ’82 to ’87. A whole five years! It was a coupe, too, which meant it was practically like a race car.

I kid, of course. I liked this car, but I was never under the illusion that it was anything other than a semi-reliable hunk of aluminum. This car’s tick was an issue with the flywheel. Every so often when I went to start the flywheel would SQUEAL loudly. This made it super embarassing to drive, of course. So, I used to always look around to see if anyone was around before cranking the ignition.

I remember this car more because of how I bought it. I found it in the paper (this was the year 2000, mind you), advertised by this wealthy Main Line physician. It had been his daughter’s college car, and he was just looking to offload it ASAP. After agreeing to buy it, we went to the title and registration, where he proceeded to lie about the price of the car, saying it was $200 instead of the agreed-upon $1,200. This was to save money on taxes and other fees. I was kind of a naive kid at the time, so someone blatantly doing this just to save a couple bucks was a surprise. You mean people LIE to save money? OMG.

This car helped get through a few years of community college. It wasn’t the worst vehicle to have. But it’s not really a car I miss.

My third and fourth cars were 1990 Toyota Corollas. Cost ~$2,200 (combined).

Madonna had her goth phase. Western Civilization had its Romantic Age. I had my Toyota Corolla Era. This was a gilded period where I happened to luck into two very reliable Corollas of the same year back-to-back. The first was a plucky automatic that safely manuevered me across the country in a move from Pennsylvania to Tennesse, and then back again 14 months later. That one was about $1,000.

The other was a stick shift that I didn’t even know how to drive when I bought it. I was a quick learner, though. I’d practiced previously in other vehicles, and so was able to get this back home, only stalling out a few times in the process. This one set me back about $1,200.

Toyota Corollas are perfect little economy cars. It was such a shame I lost both of them due to accidents, neither of which were my fault. The first one I was rear-ended by a lady on my way to work. The other I was side-swiped by a tow truck. The cars were totaled each time. I miss those two cars, and I sometimes think that if it hadn’t been for the accident, I might still be driving the stick shift one. Oh, well. As my boss at the time said, “You can replace a car, but you can’t replace you.”

My fifth car was a 1990(ish) Toyota Tercel. Cost: $400.

I hate to speak ill of any of my senior vehicles, but this thing really was a piece of shit. It didn’t have a muffler, so it sounded like a jet engine driving down the road. It was coming apart at the seams when I got it, but I needed a ride to work, and so I had to get it.

Do you have any idea how nerve-wracking it is to drive on Route 76 from Philadelphia into New Jersey everyday on a rusted bucket of bolts that sounds like it’s going to rattle loose any second, leaving you sitting in the highway holding a steering wheel in your hands? It’s Heart Attack City, man.

Mr. Tercel only made it a few months before shutting down and needing a tow to the big junkyard in the sky. Good riddance, too, as he probably would have wound up killing me at some point.

My sixth car was a 1997 Nissan Maxima. Cost~$1000.

This was another short-timer. It’s issue was an ongoing oil leak. Bad, I know. Cars kind of need oil to keep running. Except I didn’t have any money to fix it. You might have noticed a recurring theme of low-income issues here. Just buying these cars themselves was breaking the bank for me. At the time I had to squeeze every dollar I could. I couldn’t afford luxuries like properly running engines.

I liked this car a lot when I first got it. It was smooth, roomy, and finally got me out of the year 1990, where I’d been stuck for almost ten years. Then the oil issue finally caused the engine to seize up on the highway, where I had it towed away for good.

My seventh and current car is a 2006 Saturn Ion. Cost ~ $7,500.

That brings me to my present senior vehicle. This was the first car I bought through financing. I’d never bought a vehicle other than through a private party prior to this, and always in cash, so this was a new deal for me. I was desperate for a car. I wasn’t happy to have to take on monthly payments for a vehicle. The whole thing felt alien and just plain wrong to me. Still does, actually. But I had once been a car salesman for Saturn some years prior, and I knew they were generally reliable vehicles. I happened upon a good deal for one in 2011, a month or so after my Maxima died, and with trepidation, signed for the loan on the dotted line.

I actually hated this car at first. She gave me nothing but problems the first year. She had some electrical issues that made the doors unlock and lock constantly. When it rained a leak let water in through the passenger side door. So during bad thunderstorms I’d come out and find the floor filled with water. She needed a water pump that cost me over $1,200 to fix. And she was a stick shift, too, which was a pain in the ass to drive in bumper to bumper traffic on the highways into work.

But looking back, my Saturn was one of the catalysts that motivated me to change my life and seek out better economic opportunities. See, between the auto loan payment and the insurance, I was paying over $500 A MONTH just to drive the thing. That’s not counting the cost of repairs, the maintenance, the gas, and the PA/NJ tolls. I was literally working just to keep the car, so I could use it to go to work to continue to pay for the damn car. A vicious, demoralizing cycle, to say the least. Plus, everytime something broke, I’d end up maxxing out my credit cards to fix it. Then pay off the card. Only for something else to break on it again and have to start all over. It was madness.

My Saturn got me out to North Dakota, where I eventually found work in the oilfields. She took me on a West Coast Tour, when I decided to use some time off to drive all the way from North Dakota to Washington to Los Angeles, to back home in Philly, to back in ND. She got me through my two last years in college. All while bravely surviving the brutal cold and winds of this upper midwest hellhole.

I paid my Saturn off way back in 2013. Her purchase price was something like $6,995, but after interest payments and such, it comes out to around $7,500 total. I wound up paying her off early, and then vowing never to finance another vehicle. I’ll ride a bike or thumb a ride before doing that. Fuck debt.

My Saturn is semi-retired now. She still runs just fine when I need her on a day trip somewhere. I give her oil changes early. I never take her out in bad weather. Baby doesn’t get her shoes wet. If I were forced to take a job where I had to drive my own car back and forth to work, or if I were to move to a city, I’d have to upgrade vehicles. But for now I’m in a good and rare situation where I can keep her for as long as she’ll run. When I travel longer distances I usually rent a car or fly. My Saturn could blow up today, and she would have paid for herself many, many times over. Hopefully, whenever that day comes for her to finally give up the ghost, there will be a place I can park her in the Louvre, because that’s where she belongs. Frankly, I don’t think I could ever give her up. We’ve been through too much together at this point. She’s gray and unassuming. Her driver’s side window molding flew off a while ago. She doesn’t have anywhere near the pep she used to have. But she still starts when I turn the key. I love her a great deal. Perhaps I am a car guy, afterall.

Tired of Getting No Matches On Dating Apps? Just Lower Your Standards Into The Basement

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

My brief experience with Match.com.

Made with Midjourney

As an experiment, last night I created an account on Match.com. I know, I know. Why the hell would I do that in this day and age? Dating apps have gone the way of the dodo bird and all. Well, I like to think of myself as a sexy rogue scientist. I don’t have any credentials, degrees, or research papers to show for it. But so what? Edgar Allan Poe dreamt up black holes and the Big Bang theory (the theory itself, not that stupid show) while scribbling drunk off his ass decades before so-called “real scientists” confirmed them. If he can theorize things, I can too.

I says to myself, there’s just no way all these reports I hear of the shockingly low number of quality female matches on these apps can be correct. It has to be Red Pill Propaganda. Fake news designed to demoralize men so they don’t even bother trying in the first place. Disinformation to help juice the search algo for all those Andrew Tate “woman-hating” clones out there. I refused to believe any of that. I will remain an eternal optimist.

Anyway, I create my profile. It’s easy, and only takes a few minutes. I even uploaded a few hot pics of myself. I mean, all pics of me are hot, but just to clarify. After inputing all the necessary info, Match then confronted me with some criteria questions. Would you date a woman with kids? Since there’s not a “Fuck no, I’m not a step-sucker,” option, I had to contend with just clicking the box for “No.” Then there’s a tab you can click that says “must-have.” That means single mommies will be EXCLUDED from your results. Good riddance, says I. I’m not into funding some other man’s sperm bank. I mean, when you go into Mcdonald’s, do you start digging into the trash can for a leftover half-eaten Big Mac? No. You walk up to that counter and order a brand new one. Only degenerates, beggars, and the mentally ill eat out of trash cans. So, why would you treat your dating life any different?

Next came the age criteria. I’m 42 so I usually set the age between 27–35, but I was feeling magnanimous so I upped it to 37. I know super old Bill Belichick, 70s, is dating some hot chick in her 20s these days. But since I haven’t won any Super Bowls (yet) and I’m not worth $100 million+ (yet) I have to try to be realistic. It is what it is.

I live in the upper midwest, which is basically like living on Mars at a giant truck stop. So, usually on ANY dating app I have to expand the search zone out as far as reasonable in order to get any matches whatsoever. This time I set it to 350 miles. Though honestly, 345 miles of that is just me humoring the site. I don’t think I’d make the effort to even cross the street these days for a date, much less travel across an entire state. But you can’t just put five miles where I live, and even 50 miles wouldn’t be enough. Tree fiddy felt like a happy medium.

Then, it was off to the races. If by races, you mean a pitiful rogues gallery of candidates. Like, I’m pretty sure Batman fought some of the freaks I saw. Match doesn’t let you search by grid unless you have an upgraded account, so I was forced to inspect each profile one by one “swipe-’em” style. It took about as long to get through them as it does to read this paragraph.

How did I do, overall? It was absolutely awful, to be blunt. I ran into the same issue I had with speed dating, which I talk about in this article here. Out of about 20 or so candidates, realistically I’m left with only about 2–3 that are legit potentials. Meaning women who aren’t too old, aren’t fat, don’t exhibit a bad attitude toward men or have “trauma,” aren’t covered in sleeve tattoos, don’t have a list a mile long of necessary atttributes for the perfect man, and haven’t done the ol’ slut-to-born-again-Christian routine so many post-30 year-old ladies like to do these days.

Match has the gall to beg for pricey upgrades. Like I’m going to pay $40 for a meager 2–3 above average profiles that are most likely months old and long forgotten by their users, or are getting spammed by a hundred other dickheads on the daily.

Sometimes, Match would get clever and try to sneak one in from my reject list. I’d be swiping along and then suddenly see a half-decent female, click on their profile, only to see she had two kids at home, or see that she was 48 years old, or see some other disqualifying bullshit. LOL, nice catfish, Match, but this guy has standards.

It’s hard to understate how atrocious these results are. This is Match.com, which is basically the Wal-Mart of dating apps. The Match Group owns like half the online dating sites. I think Match itself is the biggest dating site on the planet. Yet by simply tweaking a few parameters over a massive region and adjusting for women in the PRIME dating/marriage range, I was met with nothing but slim pickens, though ironically few were actually slim. If Match results are total shit, I can’t even imagine what lesser sites might produce. Probably something from the Garbage Pail Kids. Gross.

It’s not really Match’s fault, I guess. They only show you whoever signs up. Dating apps aren’t as popular as they once were. The best people are typically not on or in need of dating apps. Or maybe they’re using Facebook, Instagram, or other sites.

Then it hit me. My eureka moment. What if I were to lower my standards? Or abandon them altogether? What if I tried removing ALL my previously set parameters. Surely that would open the floodgates of opportunity. Surely, by some chance, I’d happen across a nugget of gold in this landfill. Right?

Nah, fuck that, I thought, and deleted my account less than an hour after opening it. So long, Match. Burn in hell.

Years ago, when I was a little kid, I had this sudden weird urge to dig a hole in my backyard one day. Why? Hell if I know. It made sense at the time. So, I grabbed a shovel and started digging out behind a giant bush in the corner of the property. I dug and I dug and I dug until it was past nine o’clock. The sun was still out as it was summer. I had probably reached maybe three feet and had a nice heap of dirt beside me. My step-dad came out and asked me why I was digging the hole. I didn’t have an answer. What kid has a rational explanation for anything he does? I just kind of stood there, shrugged, and then went back to digging. He was wearing shorts and tube socks pulled all the way up. He was the kind of guy who needed his tube socks always pulled up past his calves. He stands there a bit. I keep shoveling with his stupid step-dad tube-socked feet in the corner of my eye. Finally, I hear him sigh and then walk away from me, leaving me in peace at last. Not long after my hole has become the shape of an upside-down tear drop as I couldn’t flatten the sides anymore. And that’s when I see something at the bottom.

A little piece of blue something. I reached down to pick it up, straining my shoulders against the top of the hole, until I am able to pinch it between my fingers. It’s a piece of plastic. Maybe from a shopping bag. Or perhaps the coating of a pipe that peeled away. Except there’s no pipe in my hole. It’s just this random tidbit that somehow got down in the dirt and stayed there until I rescued it from oblivion. I take this little blue “treasure” inside with me and store it away. I’ve since lost it. But it became a haunting metaphor for life about chance, timing, opportunity, and such, that I’ve thought about from time to time. I’ve applied the metaphor to job searches, school applications, business ideas, stories, and now of course dating websites. Dig and dig only to end up with a piece of trash. But who knows. Maybe if I’d dug just six feet to the right where my step-dad’s tube-socked feet were standing I might have dug up a wheat penny. Or maybe hit an electrical line and shocked myself to death.

Dear Broke Old Men Knocking Up Young Women In South East Asia: You’re Not Mick Jagger

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Cradle-robbing, wrinkly, and penniless sad sacs are giga-generating single moms and fatherless kids in SEA. That is some bullshit right there.

For a guy who sings about not getting any satisfaction, Rolling Stones frontman, the legendary (and knighted) Mick Jagger actually has eight kids. His latest, named Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger, arrived back in 2016 when the singer was freaking 73 years old. At the time his partner, American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, was 29 years old.

To that I say, good for you, buddy. With the population plummeting across most of the world, we need stone cold Sperminator’s like the old Mickster firing on all cylinders, so to speak. Afterall, the guy’s got to be a billionaire at this point. He’s been a rock and roll legend for over five decades. If he croaks tomorrow, he’ll be leaving an enormous estate to his wife and children. I bet each of his kids already has a $50M+ trust fund in their name ready to go for fast cars, vintage clothing, and high-quality blow, or whatever it is trust fund babies get up to these days.

While a massive pile of cash can never replace your one and only father, it certainly goes very far in securing you a comfortable existence, and allows you to appreciate the legacy of your sire.

But is this good idea for every old guy out there with a solid sperm count?

Having children in your 70s as a man, while biologically possible, is fraught with various risks and downsides. Chiefly that you likely won’t be around to see your kids grow up, or won’t be in any kind of shape to do so anyway. It’s hard to play catch with a 12-year-old when you’re in a nursing home hooked up to an IV.

But hey, love is love, and if you’re a guy like Jagger with “wealth and taste” and still able to get that sweet, sweet honey, I say go for it.

However, pulling a Mick Jagger is not something that can work or should work for most men. Which brings me to my point of outrage in this article.

What the fuck is up with broke and old ass loser geriatrics knocking up young hotties in South East Asia, and then leaving behind penniless single moms and fatherless children after they croak?

There’s an old guy I follow on YouTube who lives in the Philippines. He chronicles his experiences there, interviews other expats, and shares pearls of widom about love, life, money, and getting older. He’s married to a beautiful Filipina in her 20s. Just this year his wife gave birth to a son.

But just recently, this guy died unexpectedly from a stroke and heart attack at the tender age of 69.

I won’t name or link to the channel out of respect for the friends and family of the guy. He had an interesting life story. He moved to the Philippines about five years ago out of desperation, unemployed, broke, with only social security, needing to live in a place with a very low cost of living. But most importantly wanting to restart his life somewhere after years of health and employment problems in the States. He’d been divorced for some time, and had grown children. After settling in, he started his YouTube channel, which eventually blew up and has nearly 100,000 followers now.

Now, I liked this guy, don’t get me wrong. He was a model expat in some ways. Productive, enterprising, intelligent, and contributing back to his adoptive country. However, his wife and a friend posted a video where they announced his passing, and then proceeded to ask for donations to a PayPal link for help during this tough time. This guy was not totally broke. He was living off SS and YouTube revenue. But now with him gone his wife is a single mom and will likely have to move back in with her parents. She has no financial support. They intend to probably keep his channel going, but YouTube channels die quick deaths if you don’t post regularly, and even “successful” channels don’t all make a lot of money. This poor woman is only in her late 20s. She still has a long life ahead of her. Worst of all, this infant child will now grow up without ever knowing his father.

I’m sorry, but that is some bullshit. I don’t have a problem with age gaps in relationships. Even wide ones like this guy and his wife had. I don’t even care so much if these old farts are knocking these young women up. However, if you’re going to do that, you’d better have plenty of resources to leave behind if/when you die, so that, you know, you don’t leave your wife and offspring in dire fucking straits.

Obviously this old guy was going to die way before his young wife. It’s great that he met someone and fell in love and had a kid. But you have to take into account the problems you’re creating when you leave your family nothing. The Philippines, and South East Asia in general, is filled with impoverished single moms who got either got ditched by expats, or the expat up and died. Many old men go over there and find relationships with younger women. That’s all fine. But let’s not pretend that these women are not naive about the risks. Many of them just want to have a White baby with a foreigner. They don’t care or are not aware of how screwed they can get.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy old guys are able to make a go of the expat life over there. I’m happy these old guys are able to restart their lives. But let’s not pretend the West is “sending its best” over there. Most of these guys are broke losers who wouldn’t get a glance from women their own age back home. Most of these guys are barely getting by on pensions or SS. Many of the Filipinas over there don’t realize that, of course. They just see a Western guy and think that’s their ticket to security. Or they see a White guy and want their shot at a mixed-race baby with White genes. I’ve visited the Philippines before myself. Fuck how these YouTubers glamorize that tropical country, people are desperate as hell over there.

I grew up without ever knowing my real father. There isn’t a day that goes by where it doesn’t hurt that I lost that opportunity. While I’ve since connected with my dad, who’s still alive and active, this expat guy’s son will never have that chance. I think it’s very foolish and irresponsible to leave your wife and kids in that situation like this expat guy did. But he’s not the only one. There’ are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of old dudes doing the same thing, and leaving these women and children behind in the same conditions, if not worse.

I’m not saying you’ve got to be a multi-millionaire if you’re a geriatric with plans for having a late family. But you’d better have enough so your wife isn’t going on the internet with a virtual change cup and asking internet strangers for alms for the poor. What the hell kind of a legacy is that to leave behind?

Online Dating Profile Clichés That Annoy The Hell Out Of Me

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

They’re also what’s possibly killing the dating app industry.

“She’s fluent in sarcasm, too? That’s the third one in ten minutes.” (Made with Midjourney)

Online dating is a pathetic slog anymore. Which is why I gave it up years ago. It’s like rummaging through the junk drawer looking for your favorite keyring, and instead finding a rusty pair of scissors, chewed-up No. 2 pencils, and a coupon for Lay’s Potato Chips that expired 18 months ago.

Dating apps make it easy to doom scroll through infinite faces, thumbing left or right with snap decisions. Though I found it was often what was written (or the lack thereof) in the bios that put me off, no matter the attractiveness of the face. People put so little thought into their profiles when it’s all you have to go on.

Your writing reveals a lot about you. What and how you write can indicate your intelligence, wit, self-awareness, education, social class, and perhaps even your character.

Here are some annoying cliché phrases I came across far too often, and my no-holds-barred opinions of them.

“If you want to know more, just ask.”

Thank God, because I have a detailed census questionnaire to send your way.

I mean, of course if I want to know more, I’ll just ask. No shit. That’s the whole idea of using an online index of random single people. Do you think if I find your profile and become interested but I DON’T see an invitation to “just ask” I’ll just be stuck wondering what to do next like a Sim person walking in place against a wall?

“ . ”

No, that’s not a mistake. I’ve really come across profiles with nothing on them except a simple period. Yes, some people do this with the intention of filling in their bio later, but I’ve seen it on profiles I knew were weeks old.

What is it about bio pages that stymies so many people? How hard is it to write about yourself? Even just a few lines? Are women too modest? Are they skeeved out by putting down details about themselves onto the internet? It shouldn’t be that hard to summarize yourself in a few sentences. No doubt any woman at least in her early 20s and beyond has had to do job interviews where they’ve had to talk about themselves on the spot. Yet a simple bio page renders them mute? Weird.

“Do I look like I need to add details about myself?” (Made with Midjourney)

“I’m fiercely independent.”

This is like the “Eat, Pray, Love” of 28+ professional boss bitches. Yeah, we get it, you’ve got a business degree and you’re making $78K a year in the big city working for Dipshit, Inc. Congrats on making it to mediocrity. Girls really do get it done.

If you’re truly “fiercely independent” then you’re most likely not really interested in a relationship. Those are kind of 50/50 things. So then why the hell are you even on here? You do realize that a phrase like “fiercely independent” sends a not too subtle message of unfriendliness, hostility, and a desire to be left alone, right?

My theory is that this phrase springs up due to an unconscious conflict between a woman’s need for affection and her feminist I-need-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle social conditioning. Like how in Get Out the personality submered in the Sunken Place emerges when they see a flash of light. “Fiercely independent” is the compromise. Yes, I deserately need love. But I’m also totally strong and independent, too.

“Fluent in sarcasm.”

Aww man, just what every guy wants. A sarcastic asshole to deal with.

I saw this one a lot as well. I suspect it’s evidence of the toxic “Twitterification” of discourse. Or it could be a stupid Moo-llennial thing, in which one becomes buried under so many layers of irony and unseriousness that one’s head becomes lodged up one’s rectum. Or maybe it’s just another bothersome cliché signifier of hipness and badassery.

It’s one thing to be snarky writing online articles or tweets. Or with your friends at the bar. But I wouldn’t lead with my ability to caustically banter if I was trying to attract a partner.

“You could be a part of this.” (Made with Midjourney)

“My kid(s) are my whole world.”

I bet they are. If only contraceptives or the idea of choosing a man who isn’t a loser or psychopath to be the father of your children were also your “whole world” as well. Maybe then you wouldn’t be a broke single mom on a dating app looking to snare some poor sucker who should know better.

I don’t date single moms for the same reason I don’t visit places like Chernobyl or go on deep sea dives inside oil barrels operated by Xbox controllers. No man should. And if more didn’t, this epidemic of single mother households would begin to diminish.

Fellows, please. You’re not a stepdad. You’re a step-sucker.

Single moms will write this down to communicate how much they love their child(ren). Which is great, of course. But how much could you really love them if you’re willing to bring some strange man into their lives, especially one who may have no kids of his own? There are substantially higher rates of conflict and abuse between step-family. To say nothing of the difficulties that often occur in the adjustment period of a new family dynamic. It’s rarely The Brady Bunch.

“Tired of the games. I want something real.”

This is almost always written by someone with excessive baggage. Baggage that they brought on themselves due to poor partner decisions and bad lifestyle choices that they’ve taken little to no acountability for. When I see this it’s the equivalent of seeing those highway reflector cones police put up near a bad wreck. Proceed with caution or avoid altogether.

A common variation of this is something like, “Looking for a real man.” Or, “I want a real man.” Excuse me, but what the hell does that even mean? What is a “real man?” There’s never a concrete definition. It’s just an empty phrase. You might as well be asking for a “good person.”

“Are there any real men left?”

Nope. We were all replaced in the 1970s with pod people. Didn’t you know? It was known as The Great Swap. The Deep State’s been covering it up. I’ll probably be killed for mentioning it.

Aside from the slightly insulting and entitled undertone of this cliché phrase, there’s also the subtext that a woman’s screwed around a lot with fake men (i.e. fuck boys) and now that the party of her youth is over, is looking for a legit relationship that doesn’t involve being used like a public toilet. Or it’s evidence of relationship baggage and “trauma.” Either way, it’s just more highway cones.

“I’m not here for hookups.”

This one isn’t totally bad. It’s like putting up a “Please stay off the grass” sign, even though you know the neighborhood kids are going to come clomping through anyway.

Except very often, like the previous two phrases, it’s indicative of a woman with a rough past. Of one who’s trying to break out of the party life. It even comes off like it’s something she’s telling herself more than telling potential guys scrolling through the app. Like an affirmation.

And does it even work? Will your typical fuck boy read that and go, “Hmm, this one will obviously be immune to my innate charm. I think I’ll leave her alone. Afterall, if she wrote that, she must surely mean it.” Or will he be like those neighborhood kids and come racing through the corner of the lawn anyway? If I know fuck boys, they usually don’t follow the rules or care about things like feelings. That’s why they’re fuck boys.

“I’ve been hurt before.”

Thanks for letting me to know that you’re in all likelihood a complete basket case. I’ll be sure to steer clear.

Why would you broadcast this? What is the relevance? What am I, a random dude, supposed to take from this statement? Is this supposed to activate some white knight gene that will compel me to ride to to the rescue? Is this like a Bat Signal for simps, to come and lavish you with emotional support and free dinners? GTFO of here. Learn to deal with your past on your own and be discreet about things. You think you’re the only one? Everybody’s been hurt before. That’s life.

Anyway, that’s quite enough. I appreciate the numerous women who used the above clichés in their shoddily-detailed “profiles” that resemble more the scribblings you’d see on a toilet stall than a mini-biography indicating one firmly resolute in finding a suitable partner. They served as excellent sign posts alerting me which entities to avoid. They also saved me money as I realized paying for a subscription was clearly a total waste. They might even be the reason Bumble’s stock has crashed 90% since its inception. Who knew clichés could kill a billion dollar industry?

Examining A Cynical Red Pill Dicktum: “Women Hang Out at the Finish Line and They Pick the Winner.”

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Source: Midjourney

The other day I went to visit a Lamborghini dealership and found a bunch of hot supermodels hanging out by the front entrance.

“Hey, what are you fine ladies all doing here?” I asked, after stepping out of my 2006 Saturn Ion.

“We’re hanging out at the finish line and picking the winners,” said one, who was still wearing her Miss America Contest sash across her clingy low-hanging silver dress.

“Isn’t that just like gold digging?” I asked.

“No, we’re just trying to find a high value man who will support us so we don’t have to work. This is totally different.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks. Have a nice day,” I said, and went inside to see if I could use the restroom.

If you hang around the Red Pill communities on X or YouTube enough, you’ll certainly run into the “dicktum” in the title of this article. It’s an expansion on the concept of hypergamy, wherein women searching for a guy will always look to date one who’s at a minimum across and up from her in terms of hierarchy and status. It’s caustically cynical, and more misogynistic than meanginful. Another smarmy throwaway is the oft-repeated, “She’s not yours it’s just your turn.” But that one is for another time.

Like many red pills maxims, there’s some truth in the statement mixed in with a whole lot of carnival philosophy. I’d argue everyone is looking to date “up,” both men and women. No one wants to date a “loser.” But everyone has different weights and measures when it comes to determining a “champion” verus a “chump.”

It’s not all about money or even looks. I’ve stated before that personality and geographic proximity have a lot more to do with attraction than most other things. If someone is with you just because you’ve got money or you look like Brad Pitt or Sydney Sweeney, your relationship probably won’t last or be very worthwhile. If you’re a guy who can’t get a girlfriend, it’s probably not because you’re cursed or something. It’s likely because you’re not social enough and therefore your potential partners don’t even know who the hell you are.

I’ve come across all kinds of weird and “illogical” relationships in my life. Ones that didn’t seem to make sense on the outset. I had a friend once who had been a “lazy weed dealer” (his words) who was in a commited relationship with a beautiful, college-educated, and very capable woman. She cooked, she cleaned, she even managed the finances. And she was in love with him. They’re married now.

I had a coworker; an attractive woman in her late 20s. She was always complaining about her boyfriend, who was unemployed and kind of weird. Then one day I asked if he’s so terrible then why did she have three kids with him? She couldn’t answer. Many such cases.

Point is, social proof markers and attraction are often very subjective, unpredictable, and even chemical things. Relationships are sloppy and rarely make perfect sense. The prince doesn’t always marry the princess.

“Women hang out at the finish line and they pick the winner” is an attempt at systemetizing courtship. As if it were as easy as just be jacked and rich and you’ll be sure to “get da girlz.” Sure, the beefy, rich dude might have an easier time at the bar with the floozy who just wants to have a good time. But there are plenty of guys and girls in that superficial category who end up as lonely assholes in life.

The statement does a real disservice to the whole idea of love and romance. It’s demoralizing to men in particular. It makes them think that if they’re not some handsome billionaire then they’re not worthy of a relationship. It turns women from human beings into essentially animals driven entirely by survivalist instinct. Like the xenomorph from Alien, or something.

I mean, if it were really true, you’d see single women lined up outside Goldman Sachs or Corvette dealerships all the time, looking to snag a “high value” alpha male. The last time I walked down Wall Street I didn’t see any hot girls holding signs with “Pick me!” written on them, I just saw some homeless guy puking into a trash can.

When Will You Disappear From Memory?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Calculating my “Moment of Oblivion.”

Source: Midjourney

They say you aren’t totally dead until your name is spoken for the last time.

For some it will take longer than others. Much, much longer. I can’t imagine we’ll stop saying Julius Caesar’s name anytime soon. He did pay a high price of admission into Club Immortality, though, what with all those knife wounds in the back.

Or Genghis Khan. Especially when he was such a prolific baby daddy that even today 1 in 200 men in the former Mongol Empire share a common male ancestor — which was almost certainly him. Guy must have had a hell of a Tinder profile.

Adolf Hitler will be hanging around for a bit. History is filled with noteworthy murderers. In fact, that seems to be your best bet for a ticket into the remembrance afterlife. We won’t soon forget Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong either.

Most of your prominent dictators, kings, barbarians, and major leaders down through history, good or evil, beloved or reviled, will likely live on in the collective consciousness. Ozymandias’ statue may have crumbled in the desert, but hey, we’re still talking about him, aren’t we?

After that, the list starts to really narrow. It’s mainly inventors and scientists like Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. Influential artists and thinkers like Shakespeare, Socrates, or Leonardo da Vinci. Explorers such as Christopher Columbus or Neil Armstrong. Religious figures like Jesus Christ or Muhammad. Then a smattering of other human highlights. Your Typhoid Marys (Mary Mallon), Rube Goldbergs, and Roland the Farters.

Yes, Roland the Farter was a real person, and apparently, he was gastronomically quite skilled.

Sadly, I don’t think many Medium writers will make the recall cut past even 100 years from now, except maybe Barack Obama and other big names who happen to have accounts here. Sure, some server in a cave somewhere will probably have all of us stored away. But how desperate will those of 2124 be to read through hot takes from the 2020s? How many bestselling books or films do you know of from the 1920s? I can think of one off the top of my head — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It’s a sobering thought experiment calculating your “moment of oblivion.” Mine is probably around the year 2135. I was born in 1982. The average male life span in the United States is 80. I’m currently childless. If I were to have two children in the next ten years, my kids might be in their 30s by the time I die.

Everyone remembers their parents and talks often about them. So, at the least, I’d be remembered by my own kids until they pass away, possibly sometime early next century.

If my kids have children of their own, my grandkids would certainly remember me, assuming I live long enough to get to know them. Everyone loves their grandparents. If my future grandkids are born while my kids are in their late 20s or early 30s, they would live until around 2135.

After that, it starts to get real murky. Very few people ever know their great grandparents personally. Often you just know their name and some basic biographical information. Maybe a few family members have stories about them. I have no idea who my great great grandparents even are.

So, that’s it then. 2135. My Moment of Oblivion.

I could improve on my date with nothingness by living longer. Maybe I add ten more years then. Or I could have more kids than just two. Working against me there is the fact that I’m starting late. But if I were to live to my 90s and have five kids, and my kids have a bunch of kids, then perhaps I could stretch my remembered self to the mid-2100s. I’d have to be a real prodigious procreater like Genghis Khan to make it past the next century via genetic legacy alone.

If I don’t have any kids, then I’d be reliant on my nieces and nephews to remember their favorite uncle. That would get me no farther past sometime early next century. Aunts and uncles are rarely remembered past one generation.

Aside from being remembered by family, I’m left with having to do something extraordinary to make a big enough impact. I’m not a king, scientist, or explorer. I’m just a writer. Even if I were to write a huge bestselling book — like the next Jaws or Gone Girl — that probably only buys me notoriety for a few decades. The only two authors living today that I could see still being remembered in 100+ years solely due to their writing and not counting their offspring are Stephen King and J. K. Rowling. I don’t see myself getting that lucky.

Of course, if I were to somehow manage to kill millions of people, that’d be sure to keep me in everyone’s thoughts for centuries to come. But I’d have to really raise the bar there. I’m competing with some heavy hitters. Hitler killed around 17 million. Stalin whacked 23 million. Mao had a whopping 49–78 million extinguished.

How many would I need to kill to ensure I stick around forever? 80 million? 100 million? I think I’d better shoot for 100 million just to be sure. That’s a nice round number.

No, I think I’m okay with 2135 being my final goodbye year. That’s still 153 years of being thought about and talked about. Not a bad run for an average person.

When do you think your Moment of Oblivion will be?

“Why Don’t Men Attend Singles Events?”

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Or, why speed dating blows.

Back in the late 2000s, early teens, when I cared about going to such things, I attended three speed dating events in Philadelphia.

I was in my late 20s, working full-time, lived in an apartment on my own, had my own (beater) car, and made a slightly below-average but above-median income for the time. I hadn’t finished college yet, having only around 72 credits towards a bachelor’s. I’m of mixed heritage, part White, part Hispanic. From the lower-middle class. Unremarkable looks. Thin, non-athletic. Six feet tall, though. I was just an average guy living in Philly.

Speed dating, if you’re unaware, is like playing Russian Roulette. But instead of a 1/6 chance you paint the walls with your brain matter, you have a near 100% chance of disappointment, frustration, awkwardness, some anger, relief when it’s over, maybe a few laughs, and a piercing sense of humiliation. And also dehydration.

I went through some outfit called Speed Dating Philly, which was/is I think a subsidiary of Speed Dating USA. I don’t know if they still operate.

Basically, you have a room filled with a bunch of guys and gals. The way Speed Dating Philly did it, the gals would sit in one spot, and the guys would get up and move. You’d get five minutes to talk to someone before moving onto the next. At the end of the night, you went home and filled out an anonymous survey filled with just the first names of each attendee. If you clicked on someone’s name and they clicked on yours, it was a match, and you’d get each other’s email addresses or phone numbers.

I went to three of these events over a two-year span or so. Enough to learn that speed dating blows. Lately, I’ve seen Tiktok videos reposted on YouTube of women bemoaning why men don’t attend singles events, and only women show up or guys who already have girlfriends.

So, I thought I’d share some brutally honest reasons from the perspective of a man about why men generally avoid these events. These are solely based on my experiences as a single average guy living in a major city.

1. It’s Not Fun. It’s a Pain in the Ass Just to Go and It Costs Money

At the time I went to these events, I wasn’t making much money. I worked from 4 PM to 12 AM Sunday through Thursdays. Speed Dating Philly only held events on Thursday nights, of course. Which meant if I wanted to go, I had to take the day off from work. I only had two weeks (ten days) of vacation a year.

The event organizer also charged around $40 to attend. I later found out that only the men paid. Women got to attend for free or at a severe discount if Speed Dating couldn’t fill enough slots (which they never could). That didn’t seem fair, but whatever. Chivalry and all.

These speed dating events were held downtown in the city, which meant I had to drive across town, and then look for a place to hide my scrap heap. Luckily, I was usually able to at least find free parking spots.

Thus far, I’m down one day off and out forty bucks, which was a lot to me then. But hey, that’s a small price to pay for the potential to find true love, right?

The events were always held in the cramped private upstairs room of some hot, stuffy bar, with loud music playing. Speed Dating Philly comped one free “drink.” I mean, it was liquid, yes, with a whole lot of ice, and hardly any flavor.

So, I’ve no sooner entered than I’m already sweating, dehydrated, can hardly hear anyone talk due to the shitty loud music playing, and having to crunch ice from my “drink” the whole night to keep my thirst at bay. Things that would make anyone annoyed and irritable. Not exactly a pleasant atmosphere for socializing.

2. The Boy/Girl Ratio is Out of Whack

I don’t know where some of these modern ladies are getting the idea that only women go to these singles events. Maybe that’s the case now. But back then, it was quite the opposite.

Speed Dating Philly tried to set up events with 15 men and 15 women in a similar age group. Well, there were ALWAYS 15 dudes there. But there were NEVER also 15 chicks. Often, there’d be just twelve. So, from the getgo the gender ratio is at a disadvantage for men.

From a customer perspective, I’m seeing this and getting even further annoyed, demoralized even. Granted, these kinds of public events are tricky to pull off. An equal number of women is not guaranteed. But I’ve paid money and taken the night off to come here. I at least want a shot at the maximum number of women possible.

It’s not a total dealbreaker, though. I’m here, so I might as well make the best of things. But mentally I’m already kind of checking out, and the night’s barely started. Not good.

3. Few if Any Viable Prospects

Okay, here’s where things get spicy. Sorry, not sorry.

After taking in the hot, sweaty, noisy ambiance, of course the next thing I do is scan the room to check out the potential partners who didn’t flake out. You know how in The Terminator when we see things from Arnold’s Terminator POV? It’s like that with the male gaze. I’m running calculations, checking odds, trying to determine realistic probabilities of an actual match.

Race, of course, plays a factor. These speed dating things were often White-dominant. But typically there’d be at least three, maybe four Black ladies. Let me be more specific. Black ladies from the city. Ladies whom for damn certain were not interested in a racially ambiguous guy like me, and whom I was likewise not interested in whatsoever. I’m not attracted to Black women in general, and in the case of these ladies from the city, there was also a clear difference in culture and background. In every five-minute chat session I had with them over the three events I attended, it was a waste of time for both sides. It is what it is.

As for others, there were maybe a few Asian or Hispanic women there once in a while. Maybe one woman who was mixed or biracial. Other than that, it was mostly White/Black.

Look, race matters in mate selection whether you agree or not. The majority of people marry within their own race. Something like 80% of White women marry White men. People can say whatever they want about being color-blind. But when it comes to making major life decisions — who they marry, where they live, where they work, and who they tend to freely associate with — they often stick with their own kind.

So, now we’re down to eight or nine potential prospects. Except, not really.

Typically, you could count on around 4–5 women at these events who knew each other, and were only there on a girl’s night out, and/or for their own amusement. You might have two besties yucking it up the whole time, and then a group of three being professionally ironic for the evening. Well, you could always write these fine ladies off, because they weren’t there to be serious. They were just there to pregame for a party.

So, what are we down to now on this awful reality show? Five prospects? That’s five remaining women that I now have to hope I find attractive, and for whom I’m potentially competing against fourteen other guys. We’re not quite in Hail Mary territory yet. But you know how in Super Bowl XLII, right after David Tyree caught the ball on his helmet, when he got the Giants on the Patriots’ 24-yard line and in position for the go-ahead score? That’s where we are now. The game’s not lost yet, but getting dangerously close.

With the five left, I could often count on at least one being a professional career woman with some advanced degree who was looking for her Mr. Big from Sex and the City. As I was not a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or some Ivy League grad with a hotshot job, I was not in her class.

That leaves four candidates left. Not matches, because remember I have to also find them attractive myself, and then hope they think likewise of me. These are just four in the maybe pile.

Well, now Plaxico Burress has scored and the Giants are up 17–14 with 35 seconds left. We are officially in Hail Mary territory.

4. Rudeness/Poor Attitudes

The last two reasons for why speed dating sucks have been centered around diminished numerical odds.

This reason has more to do with the sometimes poor, sarcastic, and rude attitudes many women had that I encountered. Some of these women were in the “not viable candidate” list anyway. Some were in the maybes, and so disqualified themselves on behavioral grounds.

For the most part, people were nice and polite at these things. But there was often this palpable awkward sense of sad resignation, resentment, and mild despair that I sensed from many of the women there. And if I’m being honest, from myself as well. A weird veil of hopelessness. An anxious sense that things went horribly wrong somewhere in life and that they should not be here. I can’t imagine these singles events are any less stressful for women than they are for men.

Then there were the rude and/or weird assholes. I had one lady who started complaining to me because some guy was there that she’d gone out with on a date before who’d ghosted her afterward. When it became clear I wasn’t going to serve as her temp therapist, she took her phone out and started texting while I was still sitting there. Disappointingly, she’d been in the maybe pile. Then there was the party girl who, between giggles with her bestie, asked me what my fetishes were.

Thankfully, the vast majority of my interactions at these events were forgettable. For the first two I clicked on a few names I liked in the follow-up survey. For the third and final, I clicked on all of them just as an experiment. I never got one match in any.

In short, speed dating, and singles events in general, hold no real advantage over any other form of “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” style mate seeking. It’s no better than using dating apps, or going to a bar. So why bother paying extra or going out of your way for some “special” event, when there is no real statistical upside? Men are (at least they try to be) logical creatures. I suspect many men share my experiences, and so they’ve determined it’s just not worth their time or effort.

Speaking to the business model of speed dating, however, it’s just short the border of a scam or grift. You pay good money to get shafted with fewer women than advertised, in a crappy bar, with a piss poor free “drink,” music blasting, in front of a meager few candidates who look like they’d sooner step on your face than talk to you. Yeah, that sounds like a great evening.

Final Thoughts

I don’t think ALL singles events are a waste of time. Speed dating is a very specific kind of singles activity, and my experiences are limited to the mere three I attended. That’s not a large sample size, for sure.

However, I don’t think these types of contrived social situations are ideal if you’re looking for a potential mate. You should try to be in a relaxed, enjoyable, and healthy atmosphere. Some hot, stuffy bar with loud music, crammed in with 25 or so people is not that.

This is why college is often the best place for meeting someone. You’re around your peers and age group, you naturally group together based on common interests, and there is a diverse and ample variety of potential partners. Especially at big universities. Churches are also good, although hardly anyone goes to church anymore.

After that, the list of good meet market places starts to drop off pretty hard. The workplace? Hmmm, risky with today’s HR. Dating apps? If you’re a masochist. Grocery stores? Get real. Bars and nightclubs? Maybe if you’re a fuckboy (which I’m not).

I’m not even against going to singles events in the future, if solely for the entertainment value.

My experiences were not a total loss, either. They (and many others) were part of what inspired me to write my novel The Lek, a dystopian-set thriller set in a world where men have to compete for women in a deadly tournament. It’s a satirical X-Rated Hunger Games. Check it out.

But here’s another cold hard truth about why men don’t go to these things, and I suspect likely why many women don’t go either. If you’re at a singles event, especially post age 25, then most likely you missed your best chance to meet someone and find love. It probably wasn’t your fault. That’s just how it went. But you’re leftovers. You’re the weird-looking piece of chicken on the buffet no one wanted to eat. You’re not high value, because if you were, you wouldn’t be there. You know it. Everyone knows it. And everyone’s sour about it, even if unconciously. That kind of poisons the air. Who the hell wants to breath that in for two hours?

What the Hell is Suze Orman Smoking?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Two million dollars is “pennies” according to the finance guru.

“Suze Orman.” Created by author with Midjourney.

Did you know you need anywhere from $5 million to $10 million to comfortably retire early? That’s according to Suze Orman, who spoke on the “Afford Anything” podcast.

She goes on to say:

“If you have $20 [million], $40 [million], $50 [million] or $100 million, be like me, okay. If you have that kind of money and you want to retire, fine.”

To which I have to politely ask of the lady with the ultimate “Can I speak to the manager?” haircut, what the hell is she smoking?

$20 million to retire early???

Are we retiring in a downtown Manhattan loft with a personal limo chauffeur service and a live-in butler named Yeevis? Are we settling down for the golden years in a gated mansion in Beverly Hills, with a private helicopter pad to avoid downtown rush hour traffic?

You have to be in the top 1% of wealth to buy a cheap condo in Tampa, FL and play shuffleboard in a pair of loafers? What kind of unexpected expenses might a senior citizen run into that they’d NEED $20 million plus for? A full T-Rex skeleton that’s suddenly become available on the black market? A Blue Origin trip to the moon? A cybernetic sex robot? A 24K gold toilet?

“A retirement necessity.” Made with Midjourney by the author.

Statistically, the bottom 99% cannot achieve $10 million or more by retirement. So Orman is basically saying to work until you die.

My issue here is not about working hard to become wealthy. Nor is this about hating the rich. I’m all about grinding to become Mr. Monopoly.

What I’m not about though is what I’d call toxic wealth accumulation due to uncertainty paranoia. A mindset rooted in chronic anxiety. Making money and building wealth should be an empowering process. Not one you do out of fear the sky is going to fall on you if you don’t have “enough.”

Interestingly, some in the finance community agree with Orman. The Yahoo Finance articles states:

This idea resonates with a segment of the financial community that sees the wisdom in ensuring a substantial financial buffer to address uncertainties in retirement, especially given potential long-term trends such as increasing health care costs and ongoing economic fluctuations.

I get it. Twenty-plus years of retirement is a long time. Anything could happen. A civil war. Meteor strike. Or just a good old-fashioned $58,000 heart surgery.

But how much calamity can one reasonably prepare for that justifies sacrificing your entire life working? Wealthy Cubans were turned into paupers overnight when Castro took over the country. All of John Jacob Astor IV’s millions couldn’t save him from the sinking on the Titanic.

Say you do get to $10 million or $20 million by the time you’re 85, and you’re finally ready for an Orman-approved retirement. So what? You’re fucking old. How much life do you even have left? What are you going to do then, climb Mount Everest? Yeah, right. You’re going to sit at home, watch TV, and bitch about politics like everyone else. You know how much that costs to do? Well, NOT $10 million, that’s for sure.

These kinds of click-baity pronouncements by Orman and others are meant to be “helpful.” Except they really come across more like hyperbolic sales talk from people trying to sell a pyramid scheme.

I’m all about chasing the money dragon to a reasonable extent. If you’re someone with a worthwhile career that’s put you on the path to the top percentile, great. CEO, Instagram influencer, entrepreneur, elite assassin, by all means keep riding that carousel. But if you’re like most, and slaving away at Dipshit, Inc., dont think you’ve got work till you drop just because Suze “Karen Hair” Orman says so. Go live your life.