He had both paws in the bowl and was really going after it and the bowl was sliding across the floor giving up the last of it’s watery goodness. I looked at Mr. Flirty and said sweetly, “what the fuck is he doing????” I used the f word because I knew I was going to be the one cleaning it all up. Mr. Flirty is a prorammer.. that’s all I need to say.

Apparently because he has a stainless steel bowl and I had just washed it so it was nice and shiny and full of clean water, he could see a dog in the bottom of the bowl. So he stepped on that dog and he moved. No, he’s still there. Step on him again and he went away. No, he’s there again. He did this until there was no water left in the bowl.

So why didn’t Mr. Flirty stop him from drowning the kitchen? He thought it was really cute that he was going after the other dog.

Mopping took about 10 minutes and then I refilled his bowl and turned around. You guessed it, the dog was back!! I got him before it was a full mop job and only put a few laps worth of water in the bowl.

So far today, the dog in the bowl is safe. He forgot about him.

Proper social skills allow you to progress through life and achieve your goals in a manner that’s harmonious with and pleasant to other people you meet. It’s simple, so why is it so difficult for some people? People are influenced by your behavior and attitude, there’s no getting away from it. If you’re a shit and you act like a shit, people won’t stick around for very long. Not unless you bully them to the point where they are afraid of you but that’s something even a flirty old woman won’t get into.

You don’t have to be a smarmy used car salesman to be considered to have good social skills. You need to be seen as a nice person - genuinely friendly, outgoing, interesting and likeable. It’s really easy to be nice. There is always something nice you can think of to say in any situation. Sure we all get wound up and spout off at inappropriate times and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to be perfect, just likeable.

If someone had bad role models growing up, that could cause a problem for them in social situations. When they’re uncomfortable and insecure they won’t act in a likeable way. That’s where they might be right now, but it is possible to change. All they need is the “want to” to make it happen.

Start by hanging around with someone they think is friendly and likeable. Watch what they do and how they interact with other people. They’ll look for nice things to say to people. They’ll be genuinely interested in what others say and about what goes on in other peoples’ lives.

Try to see themselves as others do. This can be tricky but they should be aware of what they’re saying and how they’re saying it and listen for feedback. Having someone shake their head at you and say, “man, you’re weird,” is feedback they should listen to. Someone who is not aware of how they come across to other people often think that they’re a great catch and can’t understand why they keep getting rejected.

If they make a mistake, don’t beat themselves up. We ALL make mistakes we wish we hadn’t. Ask Mr. Obama how many states there are and see how he feels about mistakes! Simply do their best not to make the same mistake again and let the mishap go.

Ask advice from a friend. If they think you can take any criticism (and some cannot) then they should ask someone they respect to give them some pointers on what they could do to improve their social skills. They might find that it’s only a couple of things that are keeping them from their goal.

It turns out that this Mr. Wonderful had indeed written to four women, none of whom replied to him. On that bit, he was certainly right. When I looked up his details, his nickname was “lickmybutt” with a few numbers at the end. I won’t put the exact nickname here for obvious reasons. He was on the high side of 40 and lived in a small town in the mid-west. A very small town. So first off, he’s not going to get huge numbers of women to contact within 4 miles of his home, but what woman is going to reply to a nickname like that in the first place?

He might very well like getting his butt licked but is that how you want to start up a conversation? Imagine inviting HIM to your next cocktail party!

“Hello, I’d like to introduce my friend Mike, he just moved in 3 doors down,” you say.

“Hi, most people call me Mike but online I’m known as Lickmybutt,” he says with a big smile.

DEAD SILENCE

So you can imagine the fun I had explaining that it wasn’t my fault that he was stupid. He (and frankly a few other men online) don’t stop to think that the people on dating sites are normal, everyday people that you’d meet anywhere in your town. If he would be uncomfortable saying something to a stranger at the grocery store, he shouldn’t say it online to a person he’s trying to impress enough to get a date in person.

I asked him to change his nickname, upload a photo with his smiling face on it and to write to the same four women and see if he got a different response. He did! Two women have already replied to him and he has since written an apology to me along with thanks for being honest about what he’d done. Of course I did the superior dance around my office. I love it when people finally “get it” about online dating. It’s the same as in person dating except you aren’t in the same room.

There are heaps of sites promoting one pheromone product or another and the hype is pretty outstanding. One site told me that all I had to do was wear this “perfume” into a bar and I could get a man within 5 minutes. I wanted to write and tell him that most women could walk into a bar and flirt for a bit and pick up a man in 5 minutes because it’s not that difficult to do. What is difficult is picking up the right man at the right time. I left that site and continued looking around the net for more sites and more information.

I did find a site that talked about a blind clinical study where the research showed that the men participating added a few drops of liquid into their aftershave every day for eight weeks. The ones who had the concentrated pheromone reported having significantly more sex, hugs and kisses than before the study. The ones with the placebo reported no change at all.

Now I don’t know if the pheromones would work for me, I AM a bit over the age of most people who frequent bars for pickups AND I have Mr. Flirty who wouldn’t appreciate me coming home with strays, but I do wonder what it would do for my sex life at home. Anyone currently dating who has tried human pheromones and can report any success or failure?

I received an “invitation” from Social Spark to join their advertising program. So I did. They asked me to deposit some money into my account, which I did. I deposited $100 for a trial to see if it was worth pursuing. We created a campaign and when we hit the submit button, they charged my credit card for an additional $93. From my way of thinking if I had $100 in there and I spent $93, there should be $7 left. No so, they want to hold my $100 for some reason only known to them.

Only known to them because we’ve written to them several times and all we get is the acknowledgement that they’ll look into it.

That’s not the worst of it. Now that I have nearly $200 invested with these people, they tell us that we’ll have to advertise another site because mine is too adult.

Wait a minute, I thought. If they KNEW I was adult when they emailed me their fricken spam, why didn’t they say right up front that they’d like me to give them $200 and go away.

So, they mislead you going in, don’t reply to emails in anything like a timely manner and keep your money and give you nothing of value. If you were considering spending any money with them, check them out because my experience was rotten.

Why is it that so many women poop out in the sex department? There are some people who’ll tell you that it’s the way women are wired. We want sex til we get a man and then once we have babies we don’t really need them any more.

I think it’s way more basic than that. I think today’s lifestyles are so hectic that sex is always on the back burner. Do you make time for a loving, sexual experience like you did when you were first intimate? Maybe you do but the rest of us don’t.

Imagine a woman with 2 or 3 kids and a home to care for and a job. She gets up early, makes breakfast, gets the kids ready for school, does the dishes, makes her bed, showers and goes to work. She works a full day and she might be on her feet for much of it. She leaves work and stops at the grocery store to pick up supplies for dinner and goes home.

The kids need her attention, the house looks like crap and she’s got to start dinner. By the time dinner is cooked, eaten and cleaned up, there’s the kids’ homework to check and stories to listen to and then stories to read, there’s laundry to do and maybe a bit of vacuuming if there’s any energy left.

She falls into bed and her husband can’t understand why she doesn’t want him any more.

Now take this same woman and when she falls into bed, her husband who loves and appreciates her knows how tired her body is and gives her a wonderful massage. He takes the time to get the knots out of her shoulders and doesn’t instantly decide that the most tired spot on her body is between her legs. Trust me, she’ll see right through that one. If he relaxes her body her exhaustion will lift and she might initiate sex all on her own.

Once he has touched her with loving hands and she’s relaxed for the first time that day, she will want to hold him and kiss him. I’m of the firm belief that if you put a man and a woman together in that situation, sex just happens. It happens because both want the sensations and release that sex gives.

I couldn’t figure out why more people weren’t coming back in to see what others were writing. When you create a profile or place an ad on a dating site, you want to know who’s been looking at you. One of the most popular links is the one that tells members how many profile hits they’ve had since they logged in last. So I went to sleep and thought about how I could let people know in a way that was meaningful.

When I woke up, I knew it was peeking. I wrote a short memo letting them know that someone had been peeking at their profile (or photo) and had left a comment and here was the login url to read it and approve it (or delete it, if it didn’t please them). Sure enough, people started coming back to read and approve. People who are serious about meeting online are coming back and leaving comments for others.

The commenting on profiles and photos is fairly recent for us and we’re overwhelmed at how many people check out the photos and leave really nice notes. One I read yesterday made me crack up. He said, “Oh my god.. if I don’t get to meet you my life will never be the same. You are a goddess.” I clicked on the woman’s photo and if she was under 250 pounds I’m 10 feet tall. It just goes to prove what I always say - there is someone for everyone and the “two tits on a stick” figure type is not the most popular body size by far.

I thought we might name the dog Chewy because he looks a lot like chewbacca but Mr. Flirty didn’t like that idea. Charlie seems to fit him just fine. He comes when we call him and he sits on command. Sounds good but he still has a few accidents on the mat at the door. He knows he’s supposed to go outside to do his business but if the door is closed, well, it’s on the mat. He hasn’t learned to bark.

Charlie is a cavoodle. Half cavalier king charles spaniel and half miniature poodle. He’ll be about the size of a cocker spaniel the breeder tells me. He has wool-like fur like a poodle, it doesn’t smell “doggy” and it’s in beautiful chocolate brown curls everywhere except between the toes of his back feet, on his chest, under his bottom lip and a few white hairs at the tip of his very crooked, twisty tail. Ok, so he’s not perfect and he wouldn’t win any prizes in a dog contest. He won my heart and that’s enough for me.

What’s life with a new puppy like? It’s been a long time since we’ve had a puppy in the house. My runners don’t stay tied, my bras and panties get dragged from the laundry room to his hiding place behind the night table along with all the toys he’s not currently trying to bite into oblivion and there are little sticks everywhere that he drags in after piddle time.

He’s absolutely wonderful.

I might have a lot of cleaning up after him but the way he snuggles that little head in my neck and then lets out a big sigh is priceless. Here’s Charlie today.

I suggesed Eddy.. no, that wouldn’t do.

I suggested Curly.. no, that wouldn’t do.

He’s been home for 2 hours and I’m calling him dog and that won’t do!

He’s a cavoodle. That’s half cavalier king charles spaniel and half poodle. He’s got curly brown hair and a bit of white on his belly and on one foot. Here he is.. so what’s his name??

If you’re thinking, “Geez, don’t those people ever mow their lawn?” You’d be right. Mondays are mow days for me and it was pouring. It rained yesterday too. Today we went dog shopping, hence no mowing today. Hopefully we’ll get it mowed tomorrow so the poor puppy can walk across the lawn without bumping into tall grass and weeds. It’s all volcanic soil so when it rains you can hear the grass grow.

Australians are very down to earth and accept all bodily functions as normal and acceptable. If you want to sell tampons to women, then make the ad interesting and funny. Like this Australian commercial for U tampons.

The Australians are fond of the saying, “Thank God that we got the convicts and the Americans got the Puritans.” Nothing says it more than this commercial about all the things a beaver is good for.