I’m a fan of the unquestioningly bold and bullshit driven personality type. People who are built to commit acts both loud and lewd with gusto and pride, if nothing else, provide much entertainment. Particularly when the yarn they spin wrt their exploits isn’t especially based on reality.
My dad and I had breakfast with one of these characters this morning who is a longtime friend of the family. Howdy (his actual nick name) has known my father for years, which is great for me and bad for my father (all those old stories of misdeeds past can be harmful, after all).
Most of the conversation revolved around the imparting of sage wisdom learned by the 65-year-old-perpetual-bachelor’s love life, including but not limited to:
- The “aim low and score” philosophy of finding a woman that is good enough and yet still obtainable, thus getting what you need and not exactly what you want.
- Treating all women the same, which is to say average, because it’s not hard to look like a knight when most of them have been treated like dirt by some jerk in the past.
- Not dating women with children unless the children are not:
- alive, or
- living with the same state
- unless they are incarcerated, or
- otherwise confined to an institution
- Don’t go out of your way to impress a woman because all it does is set a precedent that you’re not going to keep. Keep her expectations low and everyone will be happy, especially you.
These lessons were driven home by examples in his life about such and such woman who he screwed while her husband had left her “in his care” to look after while he was gone, or the women that he won’t go out of the way to visit in another town because she’s got to come to him if she wants the goods, etc.
Also, most of that was bullshit.
I’m guessing that you can figure out why this man has never been married. However, for everyone there is someone, and even Howdy has had a 20+ year relationship with a woman that was healthy for both until unavoidable circumstances drove them apart.
The one true story that still blows my mind is that my dad used Howdy to get my aunt to stop dating a jerk way back in the day. It worked, because apparently my aunt fell for him and pulled her away from the guy my dad didn’t like. After my aunt moved away from her previous beau to be close to Howdy, Howdy dumped her. When my asked asked why, Howdy told her that my dad had been paying for the dates and he was just in it because my dad asked a favor. I don’t think that went over well with my Aunt.
[I should note here that this is advice that I will not be taking, FYI.]