I can’t believe my little sister is finally moving away to college. She spent her first two years commuting to a community college, taking general education classes, but worked hard and got a full-ride scholarship to a school two states away. I’m so proud of her, but man it’s hard to say goodbye. We are a very tight knit family. Most of us live within an hour or so of each other, and thinking of the fact that Amanda’s going to be eight hours away is a little stressful. As an older brother, I am really protective of my younger sis, and this is the first time in our lives I won’t be there to have her back when things go wrong.

Even though I do worry about her, I know she’s a smart girl, though. I also remember what dorm life was like, so I decided to take her under my wing and show her the ropes / tell her what to look out for. Granted, I lived on campus in a college half an hour from the house, a lot of the experience will be the same. One of the most important lessons I’ve been trying to pass on to her is the fact that privacy, for the most part, doesn’t exist in a dorm room. I shared all of the things I could think of, and told her to only take things she’ll absolutely need, but being eight hours from home she’ll need quite a bit more stuff than I did.

Because of the fact she’ll be taking her laptop, smart phone, and some other valuables, I decided to buy her a little dorm safe (check them out here: www.deansafe.com/resaforstdoo.html). Honestly, after checking this thing out I wish I would have had one of these things when I was in school. It doesn’t cost a lot, but it has some cool security features. It’s a small safe. In fact, it’s designed to fit in a closet and it’s built to be big enough to store an 18” laptop. Instead of having some kind of combination lock or key, it actually has a card reader and a keypad. She can either swipe a credit card or her driver’s license, or she can use a PIN number to access the safe. The safe even has a little pass-through so she can cable tie her safe to something in the room so that somebody can’t walk off it with. Overall, I think she’ll be very excited to get this thing. In fact, I almost want to get one for myself to take to work.

So again I’m asking myself “how can I save more money?”  Every few months I try to go through my expenses and everything and see if there are any ways I can save, or anything I can do to lower the costs of stuff that I use on a regular basis.  For example, here are some of the things I’ve done in the past:

Cable TV – This one was kind of a pain.  I had to call the cable company a few times and basically try to negotiate with them.  I didn’t want to say I was going to cancel my service because even though I’ve heard that works, I didn’t want them to say “ok” and turn it off.  I do watch TV enough to warrant having cable, although I do have the smallest package.  They always call me and try to get me to upgrade to a bigger package with a bunch of movie and sports channels and I’m like no, stop calling me!  They also try to get me to upgrade to their landline service.  I don’t even own a normal phone anymore; I just have a cell phone.  So I finally got them to lower my bill by $15 a month which helps.  I’ve thought about canceling the TV portion of my service a few times but there are enough shows I watch that I would miss if I did that.

Car stuff – A few months ago I was looking for cheap car insurance in Ocala because I figured I could get one that costs less than I pay now.  There are enough car insurance commercials on TV that I figure it’s a pretty competitive industry and I’d be able to find someone who wants to give me a better deal.  I was able to save about $10 a month which is cool.  I mean it’s some, and every bit is helpful, you know?  That works out to about $120 per year which is a nice dinner or a pedal for my guitar or something else I could use that money for.

Clothes – I think I buy more than half my wardrobe on sale or clearance.  I like to get the stuff from the previous season when they put it on sale at the beginning of the next season.  So I’ll buy like winter sweaters in spring when they’re trying to get rid of the rest of the previous winter’s inventory.  I’ll wear it the following year.  I don’t care.

So it’s time for me to sit down and go through my stuff again and see if I can find anything else I might have overlooked.  I do this every few months so I can approach it with a fresh mind.

I have trouble dealing with those types of people other than removing myself (or them) from the situation.

I have seen some people who are very good at pushing the boundary to the point where if there were no laws, they would get their asses kicked. But because the person being “trolled” is usually a good, law abiding person, they won’t escalate to physical violence.

So basically it’s great trolling because if you harm them physically, you lose (legally). And if you sit there and take it, you “lose.” Sometimes the “loss” is not only a loss to the troll, but also a loss of social value to the venue because you just got tooled.

There was one dude I stopped hanging out with cuz he was a master troll/player. This same dude was the best at gaming chicks I’ve ever seen. You would pick any woman in the venue and he would get her to come over and talk to him with eye contact alone. Ridiculous. Average looking, pale white dude with an accent. A+ game. When this dude wasn’t stealing the rare set that I got, he was relentless in pushing the boundaries with me. Of course, the rest of our group would feed into it by laughing at him (and some of it was funny, admittedly), but it was CONSTANT. I was going through a rough time in my life and he was getting in my head every time we went out simply because he enjoyed doing so. One night he pushed the boundaries a bit too far and started getting personal and I almost kicked his ass. I was reacting big time. But didn’t because he’s my friends’ friend and I didn’t want any drama. So I was just like screw it, I’m not going to hang out with him anymore.

I’m sure I was a good target cuz I would react to all his actions, but other than actually beating him up, which would’ve been the wrong choice, I wasn’t sure what to do other than to just stop hanging out with him. Every single thing I did he would reframe as me reacting to him, lowering my own value and raising his. TBH if I met him now we’d probably be friends, but at the time I was pretty depressed from a recent breakup and I’m sure he picked up on that, cuz you know, it’s fun for some people.  And look, I get teasing. I really do. It’s fun, but I don’t do it CONSTANTLY. I’m pretty good at picking up on other people’s emotions and if someone is actually feeling bad, or depressed, or whatever, I stop. But you know, some people like to kick you when you’re down.

It was fun for a while cuz I got to watch him in action. Dude was a boss. But after a while it was just like, dude, I’m going to kick your ass if we hang out again.

Tips for non-physical ways of handling these things?

You would do bad because you have a bad attitude.

As I’ve said in the past, I’ve been on fire one night and then had no success at all the following night. Did my looks change? No. Did I get taller? No. But I was in a negative mindset on the second night. Chicks are more tuned into energy and vibes than you can imagine.

Good looks help, but they’re not the determining factor. They don’t matter as much as you think they do for guys. You can apply a Fisher transformation (link) to men’s looks on a 1-10 scale. A guy who you see and go “that guy is a 9″, it’s really only as important as a 7 would be for woman.

Your problem is just that you don’t see yourself as a good-looking person, so you let it affect you, and you don’t give yourself permission to be successful because in the back of your mind is the thought “I don’t deserve success because I’m not good-looking therefore I won’t do well.” That stuff comes through in your actions, your interactions, and the vibes you give off.

I highly doubt the majority of women are seeing you and thinking “eww.” Sure, some are, because everyone has a “type” and you will be the polar opposite of some women’s “type,” but on average I bet it’s your attitude, energy, vibes, and all that stuff that is causing your lack of success.

Your problems are all in your mind.

It’s the kind of thing you might not understand until you actually experience it. When your objective experiences will conflict with your mindset of “I am ugly therefore I can’t have success.” It will mess with your head for a while, as those beliefs are hard to change when you have had them for a while.

I’m sure you’ll just reply to this with golden ratio studies and stories about your tall handsome friends getting tons of attention and chicks pushing you out of the way while making eww faces at you because your looks are so offensive to them they just can’t help it.

But seriously, where do you live that you never see average looking men with more attractive women?

I’m pretty sure you’re talking about dating, or casual relationships, whereas I’m talking more long term or marriage terms, but here it is.

People are seeing compatibility as everything has to match up exactly, with “everything” being a long list or ridiculously high expectations that it becomes unrealistic. Building walls that can’t be navigated is how I view it. If you build a high wall that no one could possibly get through, you don’t have to have intimacy in the relationship, be hurt or feel vulnerable, but you can be foreveralone.jpg I also think walls are built because either the person making the excuse isn’t ready or that isn’t the right person for them and they don’t know how else to express it or maybe don’t know it.

People live in denial of their own faults by blaming incompatibility issues. I see increasing numbers of people who can’t look at themselves in the mirror and admit their piece of the pie let alone take a corrective route to grow and learn from the experience. So many people are never ever to blame and it was all the other person’s fault and if you ask them, they had no choices in the situation.

Also back to the other part … I’ve posted this before but don’t know if you’ve seen it. I would call my grandparents on their anniversary and they would both pick up their phone extensions so I could talk to them at the same time. I would wish them happy anniversary and they would say thanks, it’s been “x” many years. Then I would say “that’s a long time to put up with someone else’s shit” and they would both laugh. They were married 65 years before my grandma passed away. I see it as both length and ability to keep working together. Also for my parents’ 40th anniversary, my dad said the good times far outweigh the bad times. And my parents have some pretty bad times in their marriage. Peoples’ perspectives in the evolution of generations have changed and it seems like a drastic shift to me.

Yeah, I get what you mean.

When I say compatibility, I don’t mean that every little individual thing needs to line up just perfectly. I’m just meaning that you have to be willing to talk stock of what you are and aren’t willing to accept in a relationship. Even IF one of those things would be something as seemingly petty as chewing with your mouth open or some shit like that.

If you can’t handle it, you can’t handle it. And that’s what I mean by ending relationships for whatever reason you choose. Being completely aware of things you just can’t handle or even trusting your instincts about a situation where there doesn’t APPEAR to be anything wrong.

I think too many people are afraid of trusting their instincts, though, and are too quick to compromise things that adds to a growing discontent within the relationship because the current ideas surrounding relationships is that “it takes work to make it work.”

I dunno about the ever popular advice of “just get out of it and run like hell”. While that might be then end result, you’ve already invested 2 years of your life to this woman. I think you at least owe it to yourself to see what the heck the problem is. I can’t imagine she was always like this. Something had to have happened in her world/her head that changed and was the catalyst for this demise.

I realize you feel resentful and annoyed and over it…but something IS keeping you here to see how it pans out. I’d have a serious heart to heart with her and explain to her how her shitty disposition is literally bringing your soul down and how her lack of drive personally, socially etc is smothering to your relationship. And that the negative complainy bit has really gotta change because its really making you reconsider the future of the relationship. Its not exactly an ultimatum if you choose not to word it that way, but she needs to know you won’t stick around if this is how its gonna be from here on out.

She’s in a funk. And sometimes its hard to get out of a funk. Chemically you’re filled with a ton of bummery hormones and your body reacts to it. I’ve been in that exact spot (hating life, being really negative, being clingy and co-dependent with SOs)…something just has to click and shake you out of it. Now I make an active attempt to look at things positively, and bright-side-ish. And if I DO catch myself being negative, I call myself on it and force an adjustment of perspective. Its a behavior habit. You just have to keep reminding yourself to function in a different way. Doing activities that make you happy etc.

She also sounds insecure about a lot…namely your position in the relationship.

Are you a jerk for not wanting this negativity in your life? Absolutely not. We all want happiness and want the people we surround ourselves with to share in that mentality.

Sounds like something is going on with her emotionally, hormonally and personally. You can choose to salvage your investment by helping her identify how her behavior is affecting others, specifically you, and help figure out what’s wrong, and maybe help her find more productive and positive was of coping with the things that bring her down. Or you can choose to bail out. But from the sounds of it, you can’t continue doing nothing and standing by while she continues to be miserable.