welcome to elaney!

Good morning, elaney readers!  Today is the day.  Elaney has handed the reigns of her media empire to me, a ridiculously opinionated married man.  It’s unclear why she has chosen to bestow this honor on me, but I’ve happily accepted.

Our format today is simple: Q&A.  You Q, and I A.  Before we begin, however, a caveat: mine are just one man’s opinions.  If you think I’ve got it wrong, well… call me out in the comments.

And so, on to our first question:

What does it normally mean if you go on a first date and everything seems to go well enough and he doesn’t call?

This is a great, tough question.  I wish an easy answer existed, but it depends on the guy.  Maybe he got crushed at work, maybe he experienced a personal tragedy.  Perhaps he met somebody else last week.  Worse still: he might have talked to his friends about you and heard something he didn’t like.

You could worry—and probably have worried—yourself to death with these permutations.  But the scary truth is that you’ll never know… Which leads to the more important (and substantially more controversial) point: girls inadvertently reward a guy’s under-communication in this situation.

Personally, I believe it’s incumbent on the guy to provide an explanation for ending things if you’ve been on more than two dates.  BUT, and this is a very strong but, you aren’t allowed to get mad at him if he tells you a painful truth.

I’ve seen this too often: girl and guy go out.  All is well.  Guy decides he doesn’t like girl and tells her so.  She asks why, he says, “You make a weird clicking sound when you chew and it’s driving me crazy.”  Or, “I thought you were pretty, but it turns out that you’re annoying.”  Our ladyfriend gets hurt feelings, her friends hate him, and everyone in a five mile radius is forbidden from dating him.

If you were the guy in the this situation, and if you knew the scorched-earth outcome of your honesty, would you call her up and tell her why you’re ending it?  Absolutely not.  You’re not an idiot.  You know you’ll be punished for your honesty, so you keep silent.

I, however, think the girl and her friends should applaud this guy’s unkind candor, and under no circumstances should he be black-balled.  Why?  Because it took integrity for him to own his feelings and guts to communicate those feelings to the girl.

Consider the alternative scenario, where the guy remains silent: the girl and her friends don’t get mad because they’re hoping he’ll call tomorrow.  Perversely, the guy is rewarded for the very silence that gave rise to this reader’s question.  Our lonely lady and her friends should be irate at his cowardice.

Moral of the story: Guys owe it to girls to tell them why they’re not interested after two dates.  Girls owe it to themselves and to guys to stay calm and be grateful for his tough love.

Guys, is this about right?  Or am I too dry after years out of the dating pool?  Girls, what do you think about all this?  Have you fallen prey to the temptation described above?  As always, feel free to ask any follow-up questions in the comments; if you’ve got unrelated questions you want answered, put ‘em in the comments, too!

Isn’t it crazy how we think we are all so original and then we stumble onto a internet personality quiz and have our entire personality shown to us five minutes later on a website with a pink background?  Here’s a quick Myers-Briggs test.  For a fun exercise – take the test, read about your personality type, and report back to us!  eLaney is an infj - what are you? 

Male Readers, please skip this one.

There is a lot written in elaney about clothes, looks, makeup and fashion.  I wanted to take a quick moment to share my thoughts on outer beauty, so as to not be misperceived.  Outer beauty is obviously not the be all end all.  There is always someone younger and prettier (quote Gwyneth Paltrow).  Not to mention, it inevitably fades.  You can’t put your stock in your looks, because you’ll never be good enough.  I am certainly victim to attaching worth to my outer shell, and I hope that my blog doesn’t serve to further the completely unfair demands that are put on the female appearance.

What I do hope: 

I hope that making yourself feel pretty and dressed up and put together is a reminder of the beauty of every woman in the world.  You should dress up…if it reminds you of the worth that the Lord gave to you and sees in us.  Dress up if it makes you rejoice!…if it feels like an outer reflection of the inner beauty that far surpasses any pretty dress on sale. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b).

And so, to beautiful hearts…

To Whom It May Concern:

There’s been some conversation on our blog about monogram bumper stickers.  We want to state that we are categorically, emphatically, and adamantly against these monstrosities.  Monogram bumper stickers are why everyone beyond our Mason Dixon bubble thinks Southerners are not cool.  And unfortunately, if you put one of these stickers on your car, you are not cool either.  Bottom line:  STOP THE MOVEMENT. 

Thanks,

Management

We have quite a few New Year’s Resolutions this year.  From standard “exercise 5 days a week” and “take more pictures,” to “move out of my parents house and never return for real this time.”  But whether you feel you want to improve upon, we offer one word of advice:

Whether you are an artist or a student or a writer or a dancer or a singer or a thinker or a runner or a dreamer, paint and work and write and dance and sing and think and run and dream as if your life depends on it.  Because it does.  The talents we are given that we foolishly waste are precious gifts that should be fostered, protected, and developed.  Developed and shared with the world…