Dear Sweezey – Conflicted

Dear Sweezey,

So, I wish I had a girlfriend but girls annoy the piss outta me. Anytime I find one remotely interesting I think to myself, "Self, you're the man. Talk to her, ask her out." and when I go to actually do it my inner voice says, "PSYCH! You suck loser. You're not interesting and she's not interested in you." I don't know anybody in Dallas and I get lonely a lot. I used to be a really confident person and now I just feel like a loser. I guess I only see the negative in myself but I see the positives in everyone else. I just haven't had a lot of affirmation lately from anyone about how I'm doing in life. I literally stay in my apartment until it's time for work. I drive to work, I drive home, and repeat. It's tough to go out when you don't know anybody cuz you don't want to be the guy who goes to the bar or the movies by himself. I go to the gym every once in a while but I can't gather up the courage to talk to anyone that I don't know. Seriously, who wants to be bothered by some big ogre looking dude while they're trying to work out? I don't know where I got this negative self-image from but it sucks. I need someone to stroke my ego. Not you though....Thats another thing, I don't want any help from anyone ever. I bitch about how much my life sucks but when people try to throw me a bone I tell them to keep it. I don't know what the point of me writing this is but whatever, I wrote it.

- Conflicted

Dear Conflicted,

I think you DO want my help, or you wouldn’t have written me. So I will give it a shot.

First thing is that you think too much. Dude, if you see a chick you like, talk to her. In your case, let the little head do the thinking for you. That grey crap between your ears is what is killing you. And don’t over think this stuff, you make it way more complicated than it needs to be. Don’t look at a girl and start to visualize having a family with her, think about having dinner with her first. Don’t put the cart before the horse.

There are several ways that you can get to know people. First one is to get one of those dating websites. Seriously, if you just want to go and meet people and have some fun, sign up. I have a buddy who works for Match.com, who was in town from London over the weekend. He was telling us that there are literally millions of people on these sites. If you don’t want to drop the cash to join one I think Yahoo has free personals.

You got to do something other than sit in your apartment if you want to meet people. Unless you got the hots for the pizza delivery guy or the mailman you got to get out and be seen. I doubt highly that there are any chicks who just go door to door seeing who is inside incase they want to get to know them. Come on dude, get your goofy ass out to where people are. What are your hobbies/likes? Go to places where people do things you like. You like music? Go to a club that has live music. You like technology stuff… go to… Best Buy or somewhere like that. You like cars, go to car shows. See a trend here? And go to the mall, shop for a shirt, if you see a chick that you like, ask her what she thinks about that shirt for you or something. Just open your cake hole (make sure you brushed your teeth) and talk to them. Go to the grocery store and ask a girl if she knows how to tell if a melon is ripe, which works on two levels! Do something, damn dude, go get a cup of coffee at Starbucks, they are on every damn corner in town. An just strike up a conversation with a girl. Just not politics, religion or gun control.

The reason that I am sending you to look for girls is two fold, one – it’s the easiest way to get to know people if you have an interest such as physical attraction. And two, I guarantee you that she is going to have friends, and she is going to want to go out with these friends, which you will get invited along. Instant networking.

But the simplest and most effective way to meet people is to throw a party. Yeah, hell yeah, have a party at your apartment. Clean it up, hide your stroke mags and comic books and invite everyone that you work with. The reason you invite everyone is because until people get to know you the majority of the people you work with aren’t going to come and people have VERY different lives outside of the office. So the biggest A-hole in the office might be a hell of a lot of fun after-hours. Oh, and make sure you let them know that they can bring friends to the party too. The next thing you need to do is to have something for people to snack on and have at least plenty of beer. Turn on a popular radio station or something and just keep smiling.

If that is not quite your style, maybe you should try something we used to do called Viewing Parties. They are very simple and work quite well. Find something to watch with a theme and invite people over. So, say on Thursday night you set up a Cheech and Chong Viewing Party. You go and rent or buy all of the Cheech and Chong movies (or Eddie Murphy movies, or Star Wars or what ever), again either pizza or snack and beer and invite everyone. It’s not about what you are watching, it’s about social networking. You invite Bob from work and Bob is popular and he brings his date Mary, well the next time you have a party Bob and Mary bring their friend Cindy and bam, you just made new friends. Get it?

Damnit, I started to go off on you and ended up giving you real advice. I didn’t unleash a barrage of sarcasm on you.

Crap!

- Sweezey

Don’t get dead