Tag Archives: dating

tyd.com presents: BBC 101: black boyfriends through film

Posted on October 12, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”  So when you find your own life imitating art, what do you do?  I’m sure most of you would respond with, “it depends on the art.”

The life and times of black boyfriends throughout history has manifested itself through the art of film on numerous occasions.  And just like partners in a relationship, all films are not created equal*.  Now normally, you would be on your own to sort through these various artistic representations of interracial relationships but not this time.  Miranda Hobbes didn’t waltz in on Dr. Leeds knee deep into a ménage à trois just for me sit here, turn a blind eye, and allow you all fall terminally ill from jungle fever.  In this installment of The Black Boyfriend Chronicles I will outline some noteworthy films in black boyfriend history, while pointing out some key lessons and themes.  Grab your popcorn folks.

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tyd.com guide on how to melt an Ice Queen (the prestige)

Posted on August 17, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Through all of the pain and struggle, all of the obstacles and turmoil, we are finally at the last chapter in the tyd.com guide on how to melt an Ice Queen saga.  I didn’t go and see the last Harry Potter movie, but trust me when I say that by the end of this post you’re going to possess way more magical abilities than that dude.  Last I checked he never melted an Ice Queen in literature or the silver screen.  Of course if you’re not yet up to speed, please go here, then here, and then here and get your learn on…

So you’ve shocked and awed her, wined and dined her, but the mission isn’t complete just yet.  Steve Urkel didn’t spend years seasons mixing up that Boss Sauce that he poured into the transformation chamber to become Stefan Urquelle just for you to forget to dot your i’s and cross your t’s.  You’re in the final stretch so stay sharp.  What I’m now going to present to you is icing on the cake.  Gentleman, prepare for the prestige…

Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige.”

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tyd.com guide on how to melt an Ice Queen (the pledge)

Posted on July 18, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I hope you have your microwaves set to defrost, because we’re back with the next installment and the official first chapter in the highly anticipated tyd.com guide on how to melt an Ice Queen.  Now, if this is your first time reading, stop right now , go back and study the prelude.  I won’t be responsible for any casualties that occur from young men taking on this challenge untrained.  It’s a quick read, and it might save your life, trust me.

Some of you are probably wondering why I decided to call this chapter the pledge.  Well, I believe that magic is probably the best analogy to describe what you’re going to learn.

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t.

What I’m going to teach you is nothing short of wizardry, and like a magician one botched step could cost you not only the trick, but your reputation…maybe even your career.  Contrary to popular belief, an Ice Queen’s most dangerous weapons aren’t her ice daggers™, but her power to completely ignore you as if your parents never conceived you.  Your biggest hurdle will be capturing her attention…while dodging a shit load of ice daggers™ she’ll surely be flinging in your general direction.  We’re going to show you how to do just that.

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tyd.com guide on how to melt an Ice Queen (the prelude)

Posted on July 12, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Every group of girls has had one in the bunch at some point in their social lives.  Hell, it might’ve even been you.  Every guy has encountered one.  Most of them don’t even make eye contact, for fear that they will turn to stone or have their egos thrown into a Magic Bullet food processor.  Kanye even made Heartless about one.  Yeah, I’m talking about…

Ice Queens.  Word, I even had to make the font blue so you would get those chills and goosebumps when you read that tho…but yeah, um…Ice Queens are some of the most feared females in all of the land.  Usually extremely attractive and camouflaged amongst a group of fun-loving and generally approachable female companions, Ice Queens are everything but fun-loving and approachable.   Ice Queens make illustrious careers out of leaving unprepared men tattered and scarred after an uncalibrated advance.  By throwing what we here at tyd.com call ice daggers, in just as little as four words, they’ve been known to send guys back to their origins with their tails between their legs.

No one really knows how they became this way.  The Ice Queen can be traced back wildddd far tho.  Some say Eve was the first Ice Queen, scorned after Adam decided not to speak to her after she ate the apple first and got them 86′d from the garden.  Others say the first Ice Queen appeared upon the invention of the appletini and was used as a basic survival mechanism against the struggish male clientele who frequented the bars during that period.  No one really knows, but as the Ice Queen has become more of a staple in society, the faint weeping of their victims can usually be heard on Friday and Saturday evenings as you commute home.

Yet shrouded in that cloak of rapid fire insults, defense mechanisms, and stone cold glares can be a girl worth bringing home to Mom and Dad.  Well, the good people here at the dilemma are here to let you know that contrary to popular belief, Ice Queens are NOT invincible!  Yes, my friends, Ice Queens can in fact be melted…that is, if you know the proper approach.

Now, fair warning to my comrades reading this right now.  Not everyone is about that melting the Ice Queen life.  Some of you just aren’t built for it, plain and simple.  Ice Queens don’t set their phasers to stun, they set them to kill.  If your heart pumps tender fluids like warm apple cider or Capri Sun instead of ice cold rye bourbon, you won’t make it past this prelude alive.   Much less the first chapter

See, there are three rules you’re going to have to abide by if this guide is going to work for you.  Stick to them, and you will have her defrosting by the time you execute phase one.  Deviate, and you’ll be just another meal for the man-eater.  Rule #1: Stay cool.  The key to sauteing an Ice Queen is keeping a calm, level head no matter what’s happening.  If she is truly the Frozen Water Royalty, she probably has slander in her arsenal that can make the average dude crumble to the ground faster than a game of drunk Jenga.  Be prepared, and stay cool.  Rule #2:  Patience.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Ice Queens aren’t thawed out overnight.  This is a process fellas.  The Rebel Alliance didn’t just send Billy Dee Williams & Chewbacca into the middle of the Death Star to blow it up right away, right?  Hell nah, they had to put in that hard work on the ground to get those shields down first, before the real assault could go down.  Let that marinate in your mind a little bit.  This is not a feat the rewards running before you can walk.  Last but not least, Rule #3:  Persistence.  And that stems from believing in yourself, knowing that you have a strong enough aura to pull this off with a finely ground seasoning of flair.  Keep in mind, this guide has three parts.  Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t go three levels to successfully pull off Inception for ya’ll to give up after chapter I.

I know some of my loyal female readers have already cracked their knuckles in a preemptive rage to refute the three chapters I have not yet published.  I kindly ask you to hold your fire and refrain from filling my G-chat with slander until we at least get into the bread and butter of the gems we’re about to share with the interwebs.  I’ll also have you know that Millsy is a seasoned veteran in the art of bringing Ice Queens down to room temperature, but there may be an opportunity for any self proclaimed Ice Queens to offer rebuttals when the smoke clears.

But anyway, now that you’ve learned the basics, stay tuned for chapter 1 in the tyd.com guide on how to melt an Ice Queen in the next few days….

-Millsy F.

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tyd.com guide to finding a good man

Posted on February 28, 2011 by | 17 Comments

“Where have the good men gone?” has been the question reverberating through the social interwebs as of late and causing uproar amongst my groups of friends.  For me, it all began when a WSJ article slithered its way into my News Feed by way of a fiery female friend of mine (whom I love to death might I add. I know she will inevitably read this).   By the end of the day, it had reappeared half a dozen times, sending me into shock.  Click here to see the article in full if you haven’t already read it.  While my immediate reaction was to rampage the comments sections’ of the ladies who posted it, afterward I took some time to really think about where they were coming from, and re-read the article.  Below are some quotes that stood out in particular:

“Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.”

“Single men have never been civilization’s most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with “Star Wars” posters and crushed beer cans and to treat women like disposable estrogen toys, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does. Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men’s attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they have to do.”

Unarguably a harsh assessment, but one that is equally as undismissible given how many women this piece seems to be resonating with.   There is more to this issue than what our friend Kay Hymowitz is positing, but  how do we make sense of this sentiment?   Well, we can safely assume that the women who read that article and promptly marched over to Facebook to smear it on the News Feed of their friends and loved ones with a sassy little smirk probably share a few commonalities:

  • They are single (for reasons I will later explain) and have had very little to no luck with men lately. Or ever.
  • They are successful in most other aspects of their lives and see themselves as relatively eligible bachelorettes.
  • They really couldn’t explain the above phenomenon their own, and “it’s not you, it’s them,” said in sociological jargon sounds great to just about anyone.

Which naturally leads to the question, “where have the good men gone?”  Now, my goal here is not to invalidate the experience of the women who’ve honestly had to deal with the man-boy struggle.  I’m not here to take any bullets for members of my sex who would rather peruse BarstoolSports.com all day and bum money off their parents to buy cheap shots for chicks at the local dive bar.  And since I know a few out of the tens of thousands of women who shared that WSJ article, I’m not here to slander you ladies either.  All I know is that I see a bunch of young, ambitious, well-educated city-dwelling women with professional careers lamenting about the dilemma of finding a good man.  And let’s be honest: being seen reading Kay Hymowitz’ latest book in public during your daily commute isn’t going to help the cause.

A yuppie dilemma was posed and so a yuppie dilemma shall be addressed.

So take a deep breath ladies and get comfortable, because we’re hooking you up with The Yuppie Dilemma Guide to Finding a Good Man.

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the dude-with-the-crappy-phone dilemma

Posted on September 1, 2010 by | 1 Comment

I was lurking through the internet and found a really interesting article on The Society Pages. It pointed out that Best Buy commercial that’s been airing lately, where a dude is sitting on next to this smoke show of a female passenger on a plane right as it lands. She takes out her phone to check all of her missed…eh, just see for yourself below

A sociologist/blogger by the name of David Mayeda was reflecting on this scene and had this to say:

So, as a male, if you don’t have the financial capital to possess a kick ass phone, you are a deviant male, with a low-end job (sharing a cubicle), without technical prowess (can’t stay on top of your e-mail or access the net), and bottom line, you aren’t an attractive mate.

Now, this statement is of particular interest to me. Research predicts almost 1 in 5 phones sold this year will be smartphones, and as editor-in-chief of tyd.com, I’d be willing to take bets that a fair amount of those people are members of the yuppieo Genus. However, that still leaves 80% of people buying run of the mill cell phones. And let’s be serious folks: a smartphone + data plan isn’t cheap. But the part of Mr. Mayeda’s quote that caught my attention the most were those last couple of lines.

See, I’m a bit of a geek. Technology (particularly smartphones) has always been a hobby of mine and I’ve even been blessed enough to be able to make a decent career out of fiddling with cool gadgets all day long. And believe me, I love it! I could talk about smartphones until I ran out of breath, much to the misfortune of my friends who don’t own one. But for the ones who do, I try to be handy where I can. Want advice on when to upgrade? Sure, I’ll give you my two cents. Need help setting up your e-mail? Piece of cake. Phone not working altogether? Save a trip to the store, I’ll give it a shot. But what I began to notice was that (no offense kids), a good portion of my friends own $200+ devices that are probably costing them, or their parents, $100/month in service, and have no very little idea how to use them.

HTC EVO 4G

Here’s an example that may explain better. I once gave a talk at a leadership summit back in college. The topic was getting involved on campus, and I used a smartphone as an analogy. I proposed that being the average student at our expensive University was like being the average person who owns a kick ass smartphone. Sure, a fancy diploma (or Blackberry) looks great in your hands, but most people only do a few things with it: you go to class (make phone calls/text) and you party (check e-mail or a few websites). Most of the features I listed were all things you could do with a relatively cheap, halfway-decent dumb phone, so if you’re gonna spend so much money on something, why not take the time to learn exactly what it has to offer and then take advantage of it? Well, if that Best Buy commercial is at all accurate, and having a cheap dumb phone makes you look like a schmuck, then no wonder people are spending almost $250k to booze for 4 years busting down the doors of the cell phone dealers.  Yuppie dilemma much?

Yet, I wouldn’t dare conclude that just because a guy has an expensive phone means they have technical prowess any sooner than I’d assume a guy with an expensive car knew the first thing about driving. I mean, we all secretly know that the real reason guys buy nice cars is so they can try to get laid.  So could there maybe be a shred of truth to this theory about the attractiveness of a tech savvy fella? Well, according to another recent survey, iPhone users get a fairer share of…action, in comparison to the owners of other phones. But I believe that survey about as much as I believe anyone reading this post on their iPhone has full bars of service. So not at all basically.

So what are we to conclude about this claim? Do ladies really dig a guy who knows his tech? We can’t be certain, but I’ll answer this question: are women knocking down MY door because they get hot thinking about how good I am at figuring out why their screens suddenly froze? HELL NO. Maybe in a perfect world, but I’d hope that in that same world I’d be getting paid millions to write this blog in a hot tub with a waterproof laptop and the Chromeo album on repeat. But who knows? But maybe the tech savvy man is today’s Mr. Fix-it. If so fellas, you better start doing your homework. There may not be Milkmen these days, but catching the guy from the Geek Squad sprinting out your back door, clothes in hand, isn’t going to feel much better.

-MillsyF

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tyd.com’s guide to dating a Harvard graduate

Posted on August 31, 2010 by | 1 Comment

You know, it can be a very lonely place out there for discerning women. If you happen to be a discerning woman you may have discovered this on your own, through trial and error perhaps.  This world we live in, getting more shallow and complacent by the day, simply seems to lack a sufficient amount of eligible bachelors.  And by eligible bachelors, we mean “educated men determined to make a difference in the world as foremost doctors, lawyers, businessmen, academics and professionals.“  All of whom attended Harvard University, of course.

Well, thank goodness for dateHarvardsq.com, otherwise you discerning ladies out there would be Ivy League screwed.

Founded just this year (but unaffiliated with Harvard University), DateHarvardSQ is The e-solution that will finally enable discerning women to have the meaningful life that only a relationship with a Harvard alumni can provide. All she must do to cash in on happiness is sign up, and she’s guaranteed five matches a week with single Hah-vahd educated hunks. Why, oh why are there are so many single, yet wildly successful Harvard graduates running around? And how on earth is DateHarvardSQ able to pry so many them away from their careers and convince them to joint this database just to meet women??  Well, lets just say we have our own hypotheses on this phenomena, but according to their website:

Our team is based in Boston, New York and London, working 24/7 to help our members find the partner of their dreams world-wide.

A 5:1 Harvard-male-to-discerning-female ratio and a team that works without sleep in three cities? Discerning ladies, they might be onto something!

But why exactly, you ask, is it so difficult for a discerning woman to find herself a wildly ambitious and stunningly successful gent with a Harvard degree? Well, lest we forget, every year Harvard’s daily newspaper, The Crimson, reminds us that there are at least FIFTEEN hawt Harvard froshies with the only goal of stealing your potentially wealthy soul mate while you discerning ladies  sit back and…discern! Just look and see for yourself below!

We’re going to go out on a limb and say that these Harvard gals too “place a premium on intelligence, poise, and ambition.” Which leaves the rest of you discerning women, sans Harvard diplomas, dead in the water.  Or forced to join eHarmony and cross your fingers. But who actually signs up for that website…

So at the end of the day, it seems like there really is a need for DateHarvardSQ, and not a moment too soon. We’re all busy people, but does that mean some of us more discerning folk deserve to be alone?  Not in a digital age it doesn’t!  A girls gotta get her discernment on, right?! Makes perfect sense.

Unless of course, the only thing she’s discerning is how to marry a guy with money. Then we’re just confused.

-MillsyF

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The next-day-email dilemma

Posted on August 17, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Have you ever done this trying to write an e-mail after meeting someone at a bar?

Yeah, us neither…

-Millsy F

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the Cougle dilemma

Posted on May 18, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Like any other narcissistic young adult, I enjoy being objectified every now and again. The difference is that I’m pretty open about it.  I guess it’s somewhat of a guilty pleasure because I’m aware that it’s a deeper issue for others.  But truthfully, I don’t mind it.  Really.  However, it’s pretty rare that I’m indulged by those around me. It’s no big secret that I could probably survive on bread, water, and ego-boosts alone and so my friends do a pretty decent job of keeping me on the verge of starvation. It’s for my own good, they tell me.

During the warmer months, I somehow develop this allergy to shirt sleeves, and sometimes shirts altogether (weird right?) which I am also shameless about.  On the occasions that I decide to go for a run during these months, I take a scenic route in one of the nearby suburbs where the traffic is calmer and the people a bit more docile. It’s actually kind of nice to get away from the bustle of the city so quickly. But what’s also become part of the routine are the smiles I get from some of the neighborhood housewives in passing. Sometimes winks even.

Now don’t get me wrong. These are no Eva Longoria’s and I’m no pool boy, but I don’t think there’s anything terribly wrong with being a bit of eye candy for the young ladies. I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to turn theyuppiedilemma.com into a cougar dating website right? Or am I…
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