5 Physical Deal Breakers For Men

A few weeks ago I addressed the 5 Physical Deal Breakers For Women: Bad Breath, Greasy Skin, Ugly Hands, Nasty Feet and Excess Body Hair. All easily rectified with a little regular grooming maintenance.

Men also have their deal breakers when looking for a woman. I know, it seems most men are looking for the perfect woman with the perfect face, the perfect abs, and the perfect perky breasts. But, according to a recent survey I conducted, these are the top five physical deal breakers men have when looking for a girlfriend:

UNDER WEIGHT: That’s right, ladies, men don't think thin is beautiful; women do. Men find anorexic-looking women, or as I call them tits on a stick, unattractive. Skinny is not sexy. Toned is sexy. Moreover, men don’t want to hear a woman complain about her weight or hear her say she's fat. So, grab a club sandwich with extra mayo and get that body fat up to a healthy 24% and lift a few weights while your at it.

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3 Reasons Why Not To Dress Like a Ho

Ho, ho, ho! No, Christmas hasn’t come early this year. I’m referring to the women of Los Angeles. I wasn't sure whether I should write about how not to dress like a ho or why not to dress like a ho. One would think that the how is fairly simple: wear age-appropriate clothing that is appropriate in length, don't show too much cleavage, and don’t wear tight clothing. Fairly simple. And yet, I look around Los Angeles and see plenty of women who think that dressing like they’re on the cover of Maxim or Playboy is perfectly acceptable. Newsflash, ladies, its not!

Another way to put it is: go to the bar of Mastro's any evening between 10pm and closing time, note the black chicks with the airbrushed and bejeweled ultra long fingernails, Pamela Anderson hair, transvestite makeup, and dresses that look like they've been spray painted on, and do the opposite! Now that we covered how not to dress like a ho, here are 3 reasons why not to dress like a ho:

1. It Sends The Wrong Message: Unless, the message you’re trying to send is $500 for an hour in your hotel room, anal is extra. A quality man will immediately write you off as being nothing more than an easy lay if you dress trashy. And he won’t respect you in the morning. In fact, he will be long gone by the time you’re ready for your first Starbucks. Intelligent women know that being respected and on equal ground with your man is critical to a long-lasting relationship—or a relationship of any kind, for that matter. Take heed to Aretha’s great lyrics and make sure the message you send is one of respect. If you want him to respect you (which, by the way, you do) then show some respect for yourself!

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3 Tips To Safe Online Dating For Women

Robyn Gardner and her boyfriendAbout a month ago, I was working out in a hotel gym. I love hotel gyms! With no audio book on my iPod and my iPad battery drained to 3%, I was left with only the TV to keep me entertained while striving for my goal of an hour on the elliptical. Sweating off the 350 calories that would allow me to justify two glasses of wine at dinner, I watched Headline News columnist Nancy Grace report on the disappearance of a beautiful blond woman in Aruba on August 2nd. The beautiful 35-year old, surgically-enhanced, unemployed blond who was missing had been accompanying, Gary Giordano, a man she hardly knew—a man who was not her boyfriend. Now, she was presumably dead.

Evidently, she knew that Gary Giordano had a history violence towards women, and yet she still agreed to go away with him. I ask myself "what the fuck was she thinking!" and, what kind of boyfriend lets his girlfriend go on vacation with another man? To a romantic, remote tropical island, no less! The whole thing sounds awfully suspicious and makes me wonder if she met her boyfriend and this Gary character on one of the many online dating sites geared towards arrangements. Robyn had recently lost her job. In this economy, one could assume she was a little desperate. Sugar daddies, friends with benefits, arrangements—whatever you want to call it—it’s dangerous! If Robyn Gardner does turn up, which by this point is highly unlikely, I hope she realizes how stupid she was being.

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Good Friends

I was walking through Whole Foods the other day noting how much the aisles look like a movie set where the products all have unrecognizable brands so as to avoid a lawsuit or give anyone any free publicity. And, I came across a rather creepy looking photo on a cereal box.

The cereal is called Good Friends. The photo is of a hispanic man and white woman in their sixties, smiling very uncomfortably while holding a giant bowl of high-fiber cereal that appears as large as their heads. Whether they are uncomfortable from consuming 50% of their daily fiber, from marketing a product targeted to seniors, or due to some unspoken interracial tension, I will never know. But it got me thinking about what else is wrong with this picture.

How often do you see a handsome older man with a woman of his age group? Never in Los Angeles, I tell you. On the rare occasion you do, the man is not smiling. He is not canoodling. He is not playing footsie. He is sitting across from his septuagenarian counterpart eating in silence and gawking at whatever hot, young woman crosses his line of vision. Not unlike one of the opening scenes in Crazy Stupid Love when Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore, as Cal and Emily, are having dinner.

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Wine & The Single Girl: Home Alone

Truth be told, the single girl does not have time to shop. She doesn’t have time to cook. She doesn’t have much time to entertain and when she does have time, she'd rather be home alone in front of the TV ordering delivery food from Why Cook?, catching up on her Directv and surfing online dating sites. Of course, the best thing to do is get out of the house and actually meet people face to face instead of Facebook to Facebook, but getting dolled up after a long day of work can seem exhausting in itself. So much easier to just order in. With that in mind, I thought I would suggest a few wine suggestions that will make your home alone experience more palatable.

THAI FOOD: The main ingredients in Thai food are coconut milk, chili, lemongrass, garlic, turmeric, and tamarind. In wine pairing, the key is to balance the sweet, salty, sour, bitter and pungent with similar qualities in the wine. Wines with tropical notes like pineapple, mango, peaches, apricots, lemongrass, and floral notes pair well with the exotic flavors of Thailand. The residual sugars in slightly sweet wines such as Rieslings or light Muscats tame the heat of the chili, while complementing the underlying sweetness of coconut milk, lemongrass and mint. The peppery notes of Austrian and German wines such as Grüner-Veltliner can be complimentary and the floral notes of an Italian Falanghina or Fiano go nicely with the mint and sweet warm spices.

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5 Ways Not To Fight Like A Girl

(followed by a contest on how to win a copy of my novel)

How you handle fights or disagreements, as I prefer to call them, will greatly impact your relationship. Women deal with conflict in entirely different ways than men. If you want to communicate effectively with the man in your life, then you need to speak his language. Here are five tips on how to get through a fight with your relationship intact:

1. Think before you speak: Women tend to be emotional and reactionary. Men don't respond well to either of these qualities. They like calm, rational presentations. Take a moment (or a day) to get over the anger, gain some perspective, and analyze what you are upset about and why it upsets you, and then present your concern in a clear, concise manner. Never send an angry email. You can write it, but wait 24 hours and read it again, and even bounce it off a friend, before hitting send.

2. Sotto Voce: If you want to be heard, don’t yell. You will only strain your vocal chords. Men are experts at tuning out the noise, and to them, yelling is noise. A better strategy is to use your "inside voice". Imagine a baby is sleeping and you don't want to wake it when you address what upset you. Mary Poppins said it best: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...”

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