Relationships

It’s been a while since I wrote for you guys about this sort of thing. I took a week and jetted off to Vegas (those of you who follow our Facebook page may have witnessed some of my drunken ramblings) and while I was there, I experienced a lot of offers for ‘free drinks.’ Buying girls drinks is one of those things that is starting to be viewed unfavorably by both sexes. As guys, you feel like every girl out there is a floozy out to take your money and run, and as girls, you feel like asshole bros are going to force feed you bad lines and cheap drinks so they can try to force feed you something else. This is ridiculous. What kind of state are we in in the dating world? The bar is hardly the place to find love – obviously- and you shouldn’t be throwing around money and alcohol to attract people to you. However, buying girls drinks can be fun, natural, and a great opener that will save you from being taken advantage of while helping her appreciate you as a no-pressure, normal guy.

The LIGHTBOYS are a designer and craftsman team out of Germany, and they specialize in creating ultra-flat, brilliant light and art hybrids. Frankly, The POLABOY, The LIGHTWALL and Rooftop Lights are some of the coolest pieces of art I’ve seen in ages, let alone awesomely interchangeable lighting solutions. Essentially, the LIGHTBOYS have created a process to enlarge photographs- either designer or your own- and combine them with high powered lightboxes with hidden mountings that are powerful enough to illuminate a room while maintaining the integrity of the photo. Really, what it comes down to is the most banging set of man cave accessories I’ve seen in a while. Check out a gallery of some of our favorite pieces after the jump.

“I’m not mad… I’m just disappointed.” No guy wants to hear these words, and rightly so; disappointment is actually more likely to kill a relationship than passionate anger. All women may be different, but there are certain things we’re all on the same page about. If she’s acting like you’ve dropped the ball, and you’re left scratching your head as to why, check our cheat sheet- we’ll help you fix it, and avoid future drama that can lead to the death of your relationship.

You have bad judgement

So maybe you thought shaving off a friend’s eyebrow when he passed out was a great idea- but now she’s raising hers at you, and you realize that the room temperature’s dropped to below zero. Whether or not your girl has the same sense of humor as you, there are a lot of decisions that you think are funny or cool that are going to have her thinking twice about you.

We’ve already gone over some of the reasons that a woman will fudge the truth when it comes to her man; yesterday I overheard a conversation between two men that made me realize that a lot of guys think that they’re required to have the same skills. When should a man tell the truth to his girl, and when should he be fabricating a little extra to cover his ass? One of these guys walking ahead of me was talking about how his girlfriend looked awful in a dress, and asked the others’ opinion. The response he got? “Just lie. Lie as hard as you can, lie about everything- lie until she’s out the door.” I wanted to jump into the conversation and punch the advice giver in the mouth, but I prefer to be crazy only on the internet…wouldn’t want to blow my cover out there in the real world. Read on for tips on when the white lie actually does more harm than good.

As a man, you can likely feel the bad vibes when a woman is upset with you; it’s not because she’s terrible at hiding it, but rather that she wants you to know. Men have pretty set ways of dealing with their anger or hurt, and they usually function like a light switch: flip it up, and they’re a raging angry yell-face; flip it down, and they bottle everything up inside until it gives them a tumor. Women, on the other hand, will usually talk or yell it out if it’s important enough, but when you’ve done something that’s just enough to upset her… all bets are off.  Often, because most men tremble at the thought of talking, women take ‘direct’ action with- ironically- passive aggressive behavior. While we’ve provided a lot of articles about improving yourself, it’s time to get some tips on how to stop letting women manipulate you. It may not be fair, but what it means is that with our help you’ll be able to keep an eye out for the signs of an impending storm, and you can head it off at the pass. By learning the techniques a woman might use to express her dissatisfaction with you, you can learn how to stop them, and hopefully pick up on whatever behavior you may need to change to avoid her needing them again. It’s a win all around.

Women are undisputed masters of the white lie, but before you get too torqued out imagining all the dirty falsehoods your girl’s been telling you, let’s talk about why we do it. Believe it or not, we don’t care to deceive you, but we do care about you. The white lie is a powerful tool that everyone uses at some point in their day, and whether for good or for evil, it’s a pretty normal human interaction. People don’t give a damn about how your lunch went most of the time, and they’re rarely going to stand up and tell you how badly they straight out disagree with you. Consider the white lie as the soothing balm that keeps the nutsack of the world from sticking to its leg; while it may not be a life-saving necessity, it certainly keeps everyone more comfortable and happy. While there are white lies that can help you get out of trouble (“I was just helping my buddy move his patio furniture!” …past the gorgeous, sun-kissed, twenty something neighbor girl), women usually tell white lies to help keep unnecessary man-drama to a minimum (this may be a fairly startling revelation; sometimes, just sometimes, it is the man who’s getting too worked up about something.) The only problem with this is that it may create a sense of security that isn’t 100% true, and if you’re feeling like everything is just a bit too perfect and bland, you may be getting fed a steady diet of polite bull shit. We’ve put together some of the most common white lies that women specifically use with men, and a guide to what they actually mean.