My Story of Stupidity, Poor Judgement & Thinking with the Penis & Not The Brain

[Olga_Mouse]

Would you rather live with some mousy creature?

...and what can you possibly have against us mice, W_O? 

[andrewfi]

Brad, I agree with most of what you write about except this about walking away. Walking away is easy and safe but many things in life take work and walking away because there is a problem is not the solution.
I guess it depends upon how much you think YOU want and how much you think SHE wants. If you think either or both WANTS is not very much then, yes, toddle off into the sunset.
If you think that BOTH want and much then walking off may become necessary but it should not be done too soon. (What is the right time to walk away? Aha!, know that and become the richest and most loved man inthe world!)

Dbneely and skiiingandrunning, there is an old saying 'age and experience buys youth and beauty' and I believe this to be true. The big issue is that in this particular market men are told that the cost of youth and beauty is lower than it truly is. I tend to think that, as with so many costly things, if you have to ask the price you can't afford it.
From what I have seen, older guys with younger girls do not really have to try very hard, they ARE attractive in whatever terms their particular partner of the moment chooses to see the attraction. The attraction is rooted less in the money or power per se but rather in the attributes that got them the money/power/whatever and they were attractive throughout their lives.

Sadly, many men, for all sorts of reasons believe what they are told, probably because they want to believe.
Last night Petra and I were going over some profiles of blokes for her mother - won't go into why right now - anyway, we saw endless profiles from hopeful sixty year olds looking for women as young as 18 and many for 25 to 30 year old women. It was quite shameful to see as a member of the male gender.
Thing is that these were very 'average' guys who were blarting on about how wealthy they were, what a great change they'd make to their young bride's life etc etc. Truth be told, from what we saw, none of them had anything to make an 18 year old do anything other than have chills up and down her spine.

A few guys can pull it off, but they sure as hell do not need marriage agencies to do it! Sadly, Petra's conclusion was that it was going to be hard to find a man for her 56 year old mother. I agree.

Olga don't forget, you are the Mouse That Roars!

[Brasscasing]

Folks,

I've removed the original link info and the links supplied in the subsequent post and quote.

The OP and an Administrator at this forum were the recipients of an on line attack this evening which involved making public, private/personal information. In light of the nature of the attack and the unscrupulous behaviour of the attacker (a banned former member of this forum), I believe that if the attacker were to gain access to the information I've removed, he would use it to continue his harassment.

I'll leave it to the OP to elaborate if he so chooses but at this point I'd rather be cautious as this young lady does not deserve to have a similar attack perpetrated on her as a result of the information posted here and I have no doubt that would be the case.

My apologies for this somewhat cryptic post.

Brass

[dbneeley]

Dbneely and skiiingandrunning, there is an old saying 'age and experience buys youth and beauty' and I believe this to be true. The big issue is that in this particular market men are told that the cost of youth and beauty is lower than it truly is. I tend to think that, as with so many costly things, if you have to ask the price you can't afford it.
From what I have seen, older guys with younger girls do not really have to try very hard, they ARE attractive in whatever terms their particular partner of the moment chooses to see the attraction. The attraction is rooted less in the money or power per se but rather in the attributes that got them the money/power/whatever and they were attractive throughout their lives.

A few guys can pull it off, but they sure as hell do not need marriage agencies to do it! Sadly, Petra's conclusion was that it was going to be hard to find a man for her 56 year old mother. I agree.

Andrewfi, for the most part I agree with you. However, the bit about "it's not the money or power per se but rather the attributes that got them..." and that "...they were attractive throughout their lives" I do not agree with. True enough in some cases, perhaps, but unless you have been close to power and have seen the magnetic attraction it holds over some women, you are not very qualified to speculate.

I served as campaign press secretary many years ago now for a U.S. Senator who had originally been elected somewhat by accident, having been an obscure college professor previously. He narrowly won re-election several times subsequently. (John Tower of Texas, if anyone cares.) Traveling with him and watching women throwing themselves at the man was something of a revelation to me--and not in a good way. Power is for many an aphrodisiac, and unless you have seen it up close you may not understand this. It had little, if anything, to do with qualities that got them the power, and much to do with the perceived power itself.

In various capacities, I have subsequently been around some very wealthy people from time to time, more than a few of which are somewhat personally obnoxious. Still, none of them had any difficulty in attracting women if they wished to.

In short, my experience indicates that you speak from pure speculation and, it seems, little directly observed experience.

David

[andrewfi]

David, I do have some knowledge of what I speak and I am sure that you understand this: in order to be where we are we need to have certain attributes.
Money, power and social position are merely outward manifestations of the attributes that got the person those outward manifestations. That is what I meant and I apologise for not making myself clear enough to be readily understood.

There are plenty of men with money who are not attractive. There are plenty of men with power who are not attractive, There are plenty of men with social position who are not attractive. Money alone is not enough except to buy a prostitute.

Also, and to emphasise the point, there are plenty of men without power, wealth or social position who are attractive to women however because it is easier to recognise those outward manifestations (money, power, social position) it is easy to recognise and ascribe the attractiveness directly to them. The lie to the truth of the idea that it is simply the money, for example, and nothing else is the rich men who are not with young attractive women, who are not attractive to women.

One thing that is certainly true is this: experience and the insight to make use of our lifetime learning IS a great assister when seeking a mate. The knowledge to be able to deploy one's resources to best effect is very useful. A rich bloke who has no idea as to how to use his money/power/position to best effect is going to do less well than a bloke who knows exactly what buttons to press in a particular case with a particular woman.

Aside from the genetic accident of inherited good looks and accompanying youth, most men who are attractive to women know WHY they are attractive to women and, in one way or another, they HONE their skills, whether with one woman or many.

BTW, academics seem to do pretty well in this game. I doubt the examplar you gave was unknowing or nieve here. I'd lay odds that he knew what was going on and worked it, he was probably pretty much of a fox in the chicken coop at his university.
As a decently socialised bloke he'd also know, I am sure, of the positive power effect that accrues from the presence of women around a man, it'd be a tool of his trade, used to emphasise his postion.
I bet most most men would not even notice how he worked, seeing only the effect. Of course, reputation also has a part here, nothing succeeds like success, but that is surely too basic to need noting here.

[dbneeley]

Money, power and social position are merely outward manifestations of the attributes that got the person those outward manifestations. That is what I meant and I apologise for not making myself clear enough to be readily understood.

There are plenty of men with money who are not attractive. There are plenty of men with power who are not attractive, There are plenty of men with social position who are not attractive. Money alone is not enough except to buy a prostitute.

One thing that is certainly true is this: experience and the insight to make use of our lifetime learning IS a great assister when seeking a mate. The knowledge to be able to deploy one's resources to best effect is very useful. A rich bloke who has no idea as to how to use his money/power/position to best effect is going to do less well than a bloke who knows exactly what buttons to press in a particular case with a particular woman.

BTW, academics seem to do pretty well in this game. I doubt the examplar you gave was unknowing or nieve here. I'd lay odds that he knew what was going on and worked it, he was probably pretty much of a fox in the chicken coop at his university.

Actually, Andrew, Senator Tower was picked to run against Lyndon Johnson for the Senate, knowing that any Republican in those days had no chance against the then-Majority Leader of the Senate. Origiinally, Tower was a scrifcial lamb. However, Lyndon decided to run with JFK and had his pet Texas Legislature pass a special law, allowing him to run for Senate and Vice President at the same time--just in case he lost the VP slot. After JFK/LBJ won, there was a non-partisan special election, in which there were over twenty different candidates. Since Tower had been on the ticket just two months before, he had better name recognition -- and the Democrats were divided up by all the various candidates. Thus, Tower was able to pull off a minor miracle and win--the first Republican in Texas state-wide races since Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War.

He had been something of a non-entity previously at a very minor college, teaching government. So no, your speculation was very far from the mark. He was re-elected twice, both by incredibly thin margins. The second re-election was the one I worked in as Press Secretary in 1979. Republicans were still rare in those days in Texas: the dominance in elected offices for them did not come until quite a bit later.

Tower was somewhat stand-offish, mostly because he was very shy in many ways and thus came across quite often as brusque. He could be quite funny and warm with people he knew well, but was rarely comfortable with strangers and really didn't like political campaigning much. He also lacked the people skills to understand why he needed to actively thank many people after the election who had worked very hard for him. Thus, each time his campaigns had to recruit almost entirely new volunteers throughout the State--a major undertaking in itself. I mention these details to illustrate that he was in many ways deficient in the kinds of "people skills" that contribute to success with the opposite sex in many people.

He had also studied under a scholarship at the London School of Economics, and from his time there had become fond of Saville Row custom shirts and suits--obviously very nice, but they made him something of an odd figure in Texas. 

So no, there were few elements of his background and personality that "got him where he was"--as I say, that was largely an accident in the beginning and a continuing surprise when he was re-elected twice.

As for wealthy people "not knowing how to use their wealth"--that seems rarely the case with the self-made types. The more clueless wealthy, in my experience, tend to be those with inherited wealth. That seems especially the case with the mega-wealthy, who often understand very well how to use every advantage they can marshal to attain their goals. That is, after all, how they became wealthy to begin with in nearly every case.

One extremely common characteristic of the very wealthy, though, is a very high level of confidence. This is often a quality highly effective with members of the opposite sex...and one which is also present in many who aren't so wealthy where it works for them as well. In my experience, most women respond favorably to a man who knows what he wants and sets out to attain it. What turns most of the ladies off is a man who is indecisive, timid, and weak. Men who are scared off by a few stories of other men who have failed in this quest, for example, would seem to many women to be weak and lacking in self-assurance. That alone can be the kiss of death in this pursuit.

David