Lauren Larson

There live among us people who take romantic rejection very well: I call them super-rejects. Like the rocks in the belly of the crocodile, rejections can pile up inside these super-rejects without causing any damage, until they are passed into the riverbed, unnoticed.

When you turn down one of these super-rejects, they do not send you a multi-text dirge. They do not spiral or throw themselves into the stiff, unrewarding embrace of whatever rom-com is playing on TBS. They experience a healthy moment of woe, and they move on.

The chillness of the super-reject often awes me, and then instantly unsettles me: Did he want me to break it off? But there have been a few times when Ive turned down a guy after a few dates, or even after a slurred pickup attempt in a bar, and hes gone off. The opposite of the super-reject is a guy I barely know who just cant let it go. That can be really scary. Like many women, I think about the day in 2014 when a young man killed six people and injured 14 more near the UC Santa Barbara campus to punish women for not being attracted to him. I think about a man I read about in November who used an app hed installed in his ex-girlfriends car to stalk herthe app also allowed him to control the cars stop-and-start function.

Granted, its just as scary when a scorned woman overreacts. Last year, a woman in New Jersey burned a mans house down after he reportedly booty-called her at 4:00 a.m. but fell asleep before she arrived. (The woman was intent on having a hot date anyway, wrote a New York Daily News reporter.) Female stalkers are almost as likely as male stalkers to threaten physical violence against their victims.

But men are far less likely to be stalked. According to the latest National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from the CDC, one in 17 men says hes felt fearful or believed that he or someone close to him would be killed as a result of stalking, but one in six women has, and some women are even more likely to be stalked. According to the Department of Justice, 28 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced stalking, compared with 16 percent of white women.

Thats why a super-reject is such a relief. A man who takes rejection in stride, or even one who pretends to take rejection in stride, is so attractive that it often makes one want to unreject him. (Of course, that should not be the goal of a rejection responsethe goal should be freeing yourself from a cycle of shame and self-judgment.)

I once had the pleasure of rejecting a super-reject. After two dates, I sent him my go-to: Hey!!! I had fun hanging out with you, but I just dont feel a spark here. Sorry!!! (I always gag at the earnestness of a spark, but there really isnt a less Bachelorette word.) Then I held my breath. He responded about 30 minutes later: Nooo!!!! Thanks for letting me know, I had a really great time as well. No worries!

I bet that when he doesnt get a job, he writes an email like that and they hire him a year later. Maybe well get married down the line. First, he nodded to his disappointment, which is cathartic for the reject and flattering for the rejecter, and he did it in a funny way. (Nooo, I should point out, is very different from NO.) When he said that hed also had fun on our dates, I stopped imagining him seething in a basement over the hours of his life that I, a tease, had wasted. He used a lot of exclamation points, which made him seem completely nonthreatening. No worries let us both off the hook. It is the breeziest, most final sign-off.

\"Rejection is bad, but theres no reason to make it even more painful by piling on embarrassments.\"

His was a particularly magnanimous response, but responding to a rejection like that doesnt just soothe the rejecter. An explicit rejection is an opportunity to reclaim your dignity. Some people can do that by not responding at all, but I think its helpful for everyone involved to acknowledge receipt. Heres how to handle several hypothetical rejections like the self-assured and laissez-faire super-reject we know you can be:

You got ghosted.

Everyone maintains the right to ghost until, say, date four. But it is the cardinal dick move, because it denies the ghostee the chance to politely, generously accept the rejection. The only way to keep your dignity when you get ghosted is to cut your losses and remain silent, because literally anything you say will appear mournfully desperate. Especially a 900- word rant about UGLY B****ES who think they can just GHOST men like ME.

You hit on someone in a bar, and they weren't into it.

The near certainty of immediate rejection is what makes flirting with a stranger so bold. If you take your shot in a bar and get rebuffed, just say, Sorry, have a good night! Do not approach her again. Do not say, Come find me later if you change your mind. Do not say, But I bought you a drink. If she darts to the bathroom, dont follow her to tell her how unconcerned with the rejection you are. Just disappear into the night. Hitting on a stranger isnt inherently a bad choice; its just the inability to accept a rejection that gets people into trouble.

You received a "no spark" text after a few dates.

Use the formula of the super-rejects text above. First, briefly and cheerfully acknowledge your disappointment (Bummed to hear that!). Thank the rejecter for being honest and, implicitly, for not ghosting you. Then deliver a final-feeling sign-off: Good luck with [that thing she talked about for three hours]! Delete her number, then spend the next 15 minutes cataloging her faults in your mind. Watch an episode of King of the Hill. Move on.

<a href="https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a31195173/kumail-nanjiani-buff-interview/" id="3c4cb9a4-d496-3290-ac5e-94abab5c4ff0"> You tweet at Kumail Nanjiani a lot </a> , but he still loves his beautiful, funny wife and still hasn't noticed you.

Rejection is bad, but theres no reason to make it even worse by piling on embarrassments. Nobody has ever regretted not sending an angry missive in response to a ghosting or a disappointing text. Be the mighty crocodile. Fill yourself up with rejection rocks until you can digest an entire capybara in a single day. Take a tenuous metaphor to its logical conclusion!

Just dont send that indignant text.

The Secret to Dealing With Rejection and Moving on

Crocodiles often swallow rocks, which can then tumble around harmlessly in their stomachs for years. A bellyful of rocks may even help crocodiles control their buoyancy and digest prey. (Theres a point to this, I promise.)

It was July 2003, and trucks were getting blown up every day in Iraqinsurgents often dropped grenades from overpasses. Bobby Somers, a 23-year-old specialist in the U.S. Army, sat behind the wheel of the second beat-up Humvee, fondly code-named Bertha. Clad in tan fatigues, he had one hand on the wheel, the other on a machine gun pointed out the window. A tiny earbud snaked into his left ear, pumping 50 Cents Get Rich or Die Tryin album from a CD player tucked beneath his seat. Somers had driven thousands of miles like this without incident, and he felt invincible.

As the trucks emerged from another overpass, Somers saw the orange Mirinda soda can clink, clink, clink across his trucks hood. In a split second, he registered that the can was cut open, with a pineapple-shaped grenade inside. He saw light shoot from the cracks as it blew up.

The blast shattered Berthas windshield, shooting glass into Somerss face and ears. Because the truck was moving at such high speed, the wind blew a lot of shrapnel away from him. He survived and returned to duty soon after.

That was the first time Somers almost died. The second time was the following January. Now with a little more armorhed started wearing his neck protectorSomers was driving again when someone fired a howitzer. He doesnt remember much after that. It felt like God had a bat the size of my body, he says. The shell pushed the Humvee over more than a full lane as it exploded.

Somers woke up a few minutes later in a panic. He thought he was late for high school football practice. Then he saw the gunpowder, the dirt, and the blood. He was taken to a field hospital. His first sergeant sat next to his bed, shaking.

After both attacks, Somers was offered a medical discharge, but he stayed. I remember when I got back into that truck, I was crying, he says. I didnt want to drive out the gate. But I was more scared to let people know I was scared.

Which brings us to another time Somers nearly died, years after hed finished his tour, while at his home in Texas. He went into his bathroom, put a gun in his mouth, and almost pulled the trigger. Fate had intervened twice to save Somerss life. Now he would need a different kind of help.

"I WAS A SOLDIER," Somers, 39, says on the day I meet him, as if that somehow explains everything at once. Were at Performix House in Manhattan, the mother ship of Performix, a brand that began as a line of supplements and has grown to include a vast elite gym.

Walking into Performix House is like throwing open a warehouse door to a secret, futuristic special-ops training facility. Fit men and women, almost all wearing gray and black, are chatting and idly stretching everywhere. Somers looks like everyone else at Performix Houseintimidatingly built and endorphin-cheerfulexcept that he has way more tattoos. He started getting them to cover scars, he says, pointing to a shiny spot on one arm where the ink didnt take.

Somers came to Performix through a foundation run by founder Matt Hesse called FitOps. The group operates a three-week program that teaches veterans to apply their skills to personal training. Somers now volunteers as FitOps head chef.

I was a soldier. That partly explains why Somers felt duty bound to stay and protect his comrades despite his injuries, why he never complained when he started to feel afraid of going outside the gates, and perhaps how he compartmentalized his trauma almost to the point of self-destruction. It doesnt explain how he survived his inner monsters: PTSD and traumatic brain injury from both attacks.

Thats where Matt Hesse comes in. Hesse, 42, transitioned out of active duty when his mother was paralyzed in a car accident, but he wanted to help his fellow veterans. He founded FitOps in 2016 and has since enrolled more than 300 vets. In week 1, personal trainers talk about the industry. Week 2 covers marketing and business practices. Week 3 involves practicing client assessments, doing mock job interviews, and prepping for the C.P.T. (certified personal trainer) exam.

The true game changer, however, is what Hesse and Somers call the circle of tears. Every night, Hesse gathers the class, roughly 40 men and women, and invites them to describe not only why they are there, but what led them to this point in their journey. As in an AA meeting, its freeing for veterans to tell their stories to people with shared experiencestheres no judgment and total understanding.

When Somers arrived for his training in 2017, hed spent 12 years trying to distract himself from his mental pain: with classes, and with drugs and alcohol. In the circle of tears at FitOps, he faced it head-on.

There were issues before the attacks. Somers grew up in El Paso, Texas, among drug cartels and gang members. He was the child of an affair, and his skin was darker than his siblings. People called him cerillomatch in Spanish; they meant he looked like a burnt matchstick.

Somers recalls being beaten. He remembers using bleach in the shower in an attempt to lighten his skin. I thought all brown kids got treated that way, he says.

He did look up to an uncle, a veteran who had joined a cartel. He saw his uncles beautiful house, his car, his wife, and his wallet, fat with cashalways cash. Thats what Im going to do, Somers thought. Ill be a gangster, and then a soldier. When Im done, I can go be a gangster again.

When he got to Iraq, all Somers cared about was being badass. That was what grit meant to him. His unit called their base San Quentin, because there wasnt much to do except lift weights before missions. He could bench 315 pounds, but his first sergeantthe one who later cried next to him in the hospitalcould bench 400. Somers wanted to catch up. That was literally one of the biggest things I was worried about, he says now with disbelief.

In July 2004, seven months after being blown up a second time, Somers returned to the U.S. I was still so worried about dying every day, he says of his overseas deployment. It didnt hit me until I had nothing to do.

He began seeing doctors about his injuries but wouldnt be diagnosed with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury until 2011. In 2005 he attended recruiting school, and for the next three years he worked 18-hour days as a military recruiter in Upland, California, trying to keep his mind occupied. There he met his now wife, Nicole, who was also in the service. In 2010 he moved to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he was given a medical retirement. Next came welding school, and after he graduated, he enrolled in culinary school.

Somers started working as a private chef, cooking healthy meals for clients at gyms and for some reserve soldiers. One day, one of themarriving with a chaotic carful of dogs, as godsends often dotold him about FitOps. She said it was offering free certifications for physical trainers. (Not quite: FitOps is free, but certifications are hard-earned.)

By August 2017, he was married and had kids. Somers thinks often about the suicide of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, and the video that Benningtons wife posted of the day before his death, in which hes laughing and playing with his family. He thinks about Robin Williams. That dude was supposedly the happiest guy in the world, he says. But like with me, sometimes the voices just get so loud.

When they got too loud for Somers, he put a gun in his mouth. He only stopped himself because he realized he hadnt said goodbye to his daughter that morning. He could wait a minute. He learned hed been accepted to FitOps that day. It could wait just a minute more.

WHEN HESSE FIRST MET Somers, the tattooed vet was crying under a table in the FitOps barracks. On its surface, FitOps gives veterans new practical skills, but Hesse also credits it with helping them open up to one another about tough experiences. Somers had struggled to share his story, and the prospect of facing trauma overwhelmed him.

Bobby Somers in uniform in 2000, before surviving two roadside attacks in Iraq.

He had an extreme loss of purpose, combined with several brain injuries from war, says Hesse, who has become close with Somers. And his story goes back further even than war. He was dealing with what I call multiple compartmentalizations.... The thing that the military teaches you very well, through excruciating fitness and physical pain, is how to compartmentalize.

Somers had been a master compartmentalizer since childhood. In the Army, that was a strengthit allowed him to climb back behind the wheel after getting blown up. But when he returned from Iraq, it became a weakness. Bottling up any trauma can be destructive. When you get home, if you dont unlock those compartments and deal with them one by one, eventually they will overtake you, Hesse says. Thats where suicide happens.

FitOps, which counts zero suicides among its alumni, cracked Somers open like that first grenade did. For most of his life, he had been motivated by men around himhis cartel-wealthy veteran uncle, or his hardcore first sergeant. In telling his story, and seeing how other people were affected and moved to tell theirs, Somers found his own strong sense of purpose.

To keep acting like I dont have these conversations in my head is stupid to me, he says. He still has suicidal thoughts sometimes, but he talks about them readily, always in unvarnished language. People like to be like, Well, you know, a soldier might want to hurt himself. Say suicide. Thats what kills an average of 17 soldiers a day, according to 2017 data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Somers now volunteers as the head chef and a program ambassador at FitOps and proudly sheds tears and emotional baggage.

In Hesses terminology, this is called creating a bigger blast radius: The more one veteran can learn to open up, the more others in his or her community might feel okay doing the same. Somers cries often now. He doesnt wipe the tears away or try to hide them. While we talk at Performix House, they flow freely down his cheeks.

After graduating from FitOps, he stopped searching for the next thing. He has since become an ad hoc FitOps spokesman, recently telling his story in an online testimonial alongside John Cena, a vocal and financial supporter of the mission.

My job, till I die, is to let men know that we have tear ducts, just like an exhaust pipe, Somers says. Ive had the gun in my mouth, he says in the video, tearing up. Lately, more veterans have been approaching Somers in tears. Big dudes, like big muscle dudes. And theyre like, Thank you. Hugging me. Crying. Maybenot even maybethats what Im here for.

FROM ABOVE, YOU WOULD have seen two battered Humvees streaking down a rutted freeway, one behind the other in the center lane, surrounded by miles of Iraqs parched terrain. As they approached an overpass, one moved into the far-left lane and the other moved far right. Afterward, the trucks weaved back into the same lane.

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Ive always liked hooking up while the TV is on-I dont pause to turn it on every time Im about to get naked with someone, but I definitely leave it on if its already on. I like how TV dissolves the pressure of the situation: Were not Making Love, were getting it on during Riverdale. Netflix and chill was a strategy to break the ice before a first-time sexual encounter, but Id argue that the ambient noise and flicker of a TV makes sex really low-stress and fun no matter what stage of a relationship youre in.

Theres also a practical reason to leave the TV on: I think it creates better sound privacy. To have sound privacy, according to <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-worst" id="a0ea3e59-4608-3add-affe-6672bfbf94a4"> a 2013 study </a> of people who work in cubicles, is to be able to control what you hear and, crucially, who can hear you. The study found that a lack of sound privacy was the top complaint of cubicle workers: People were very stressed by the thought that others could hear their every move. The same, Id argue, is true of sex.

I think that in a sexy setting, the TV provides better sound privacy than, say, a hookup playlist. For one thing, Im always super embarrassed the first time I play my boink playlist for a man. (Its, like, earnest.) Furthermore, where my neighbors wont blink an eye if Im watching Riverdale at top volume-theyre used to it-if I start blasting Pony by Ginuwine, theyll know Im having sex, Ill know they know Im having sex, and then Ill be too self-conscious to focus on the sex. From a sound privacy perspective, TV is much better white noise.

But when youre seeking an ambient hookup show, not all shows are equal. The best sex shows are just mindless enough that you dont feel any pressure to pay attention to them while youre boning. Neither of you should be stressed about missing something while youre hooking up. You should only be enjoying the task at hand.

When youre seeking an ambient hookup show, not all shows are equal.

A good ambient hookup show isnt distracting, either. Horror movies are an obvious no-nothing like a blood-curdling scream to ruin an orgasm-and so are comedies. We'd be banging and I'd start laughing at 30 Rockand she'd think I was laughing at her, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/4wpbla/how_do_you_feel_about_leaving_the_tv_on_during_sex/" id="47a20d9f-4555-3e5d-a575-a6ea68a28bf7"> one Redditor wrote </a> on the subject, or that I didn't think she was worth paying attention to. And I'm just like, ... No... It's 30 Rock... You couldn't have put anything else on?

Stick to these five mindless, sexy options.

You and me baby aint nothin but mammals. If youve never had sex with someone while David Attenborough narrates, youre in for a treat. His gentle voice soothes the senses. Hes there to cheer you on in the good times and to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo" id="6687b7dd-8cf6-36ab-ab10-d9f9e7b1a75a"> commiserate </a> , should things go awry. (Its hard not to feel deflated when even your best isnt good enough.) For the eco-aroused, the beautiful vistas remind us that we are all just horny organisms on a desperate quest to procreate.

Twin Peaks is engrossing if you let yourself get into it, but its also easy to check out from: The action is slow and sultry. Plus, theres a good chance youll make mid-coital eye contact with Kyle MacLachlan. Wink at him.

I contend that nobody has ever watched a whole episode of Riverdale. This show is loosely based on the Archie comics, but the plot is too bonkers to follow seriously (cults! gangs! drugs! corruption!) Everyone on the show is attractive, and sometimes the showrunners just grease up Archie (KJ Apa) and throw in a shirtless boxing match for the hell of it. Riverdale was meant to be sexy background viewing.

For the uninitiated, Rome was HBOs Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones would be a good hookup show except that its plot is too dynamic (exception: the very boring hours-long rom-com sequence between Jon Snow and Daenerys) and its too jumpy-outy. Rome has all the nudity and high production value of Game of Thrones, but without [spoiler from last weeks episode!] a zombie child, impaled on a wall, screaming and burning. Again, a blood-curdling scream does not a mood set.

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When I say Ive watched Twin Peaks, what I mean is that Ive watched about 15 minutes of every episode of Twin Peaks. A former boyfriend had the DVD box set, and for about six months, every time we boned down at his house, we boned down to Twin Peaks. I still have a Pavlovian response every time I hear the retro tunnnnng-tung-tung of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXrjMaVoTy0" id="d38706dd-b3c0-3385-a273-d8b9f9876f4a"> theme song </a> .

5 TV Shows to Have on During Sex

Oh my God. Its like heaven, he says.

Tonight, Crews will make do with just a burger burger. Were sitting in the garden of West Hollywoods Soho House, a members-only club. A woman in a black dress with a deep slit up the leg walks by, trailing a waddling pit-bull terrier. If the building were zoned for fowl, there would be peacocks strutting around, feeling right at home. Crews is not one of those guys who look really strong on TV but shrink in person. He seems even bigger: People spend long hours Photoshopping themselves to look this muscular. Even in a sweater and white button-down, he looks perma-flexed throughout our four-hour conversation. He orders the burger and some fries, lays out plans for dessert, and then returns to discussing his soul sandwich with the barely contained desire of a man on an Everest climb reminiscing about home.

Charismatic isnt the right word. When he talks, his face resembles a series of stock photos of human emotion. Hes angry, then suspicious, and then wide-eyed at the wonders of the world (Fat Sals Deli, for example). Even when hes describing something menial, its like hes telling a ghost story. He speaks either very quietly or very loudly: I know, he says when I comment on it. I have no middle. Crews often touts his intolerance for the middle. That character is me, he says of the guy he played in his Old Spice ad campaign-always shirtless, always shouting. Im all or nothing! I live life!

When Crews is listening, he listens with every feature. He doesnt blink. He leans in, tilts his head, and narrows his eyes at you. He stays perfectly still until youve fumbled through whatever is on your mind. He doesnt start talking after you stop talking, which makes you just...say more stuff. He often doesnt seem extreme at all. He seems secure, inquisitive, restrained, friendly, and understanding. Hes the opposite of self-involved or intense.

Anyone can get Crewss biceps, triceps, and as-yet-unnamed-ceps, but its this ability to stay extremely in the middle that makes him appear so strong in person.

Terry Crews would be a great celebrity interviewer.

He doesnt seem distracted at all, in spite of the days cyclone of activity. Crews, 50, has come directly from his Mens Health video shoot. He spent the 20- minute car ride to Soho House attending to his social media ahead of the finale of the latest season of Americas Got Talent, which he hosted.

On Terry: Nike Basketball Jersey, Jordan Basketball Shorts, Skechers Sneakers, Tissot Watch. On Rebecca: Athleta Tank, Nike Leggings, Nike Sneakers.

Crews loves Twitter. He fires off somewhere between 10 and 900 thoughts a day. Men have got to not only do better, but call out this behavior among ourselves as unacceptable, hell tweet, or hell post a GIF of himself, or hell say, simply, Wow, with a link.

Social-media vigilance aside, Crews barely looks at his phone during our time at Soho House. He sets it on the table-as though to test himself-and even when it lights up he doesnt glance at it. Crews says that growing up in a turbulent household in Flint, Michigan, with a father who beat his mother, taught him to tune out distractions better than most people. Thats certainly one reason hes such an attentive listener.

Another reason: Crews has been unable to hear sounds in certain registers since he was a kid. Really high voices like his granddaughters, for instance, tend to fall out of his range. When he was 44, his doctor told him that hed actually been relying on lip reading, without realizing it, for much of his life. There are times where I dont hear people, Crews explains, and then I just mimic the way theyre acting. They dont know. They start laughing and I go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! Im such a big fake. Theres a lot of mimicry, so you kind of learn to build facial expressions.

I suddenly feel insecure, worrying that hes just been expertly interpreting my questions through my face. No, youre good, he says, not particularly convincingly.

Terry Crews, the Strongest Man in Hollywood

Crewss expressions are part of whats made him so recognizable as an actor. So are his pecs. And abs. And lats. (Those lats!) From 1991 to 1997, Crews played football with the Los Angeles Rams, the San Diego Chargers, the Washington Redskins, and the Philadelphia Eagles. He weighs 240 pounds, and he has about 6 percent body fat. To make your strength funny, you have to be really, really strong, and Crews is. For a long time, he was that guy, stealing scenes in scores of films and TV shows. He was that guy from Idiocracy and that really horny guy who sings A Thousand Miles in White Chicks. For some, he will forever be that guy from the Old Spice ads. These days, besides hosting Americas Got Talent, he plays a cop, also named Terry, on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

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And in 2017, after hed built a career playing all those different guys, Crews became the #MeToo guy. He came forward to describe how hed been groped by talent agent Adam Venit at a party in Hollywood in 2016. He was gratified by the supportive responses and unfazed by those who were convinced that hed been paid to come forward to further the agendas of white women. Ive had people tell me that we had a previous relationship and it went sour, Crews scoffs. People have to fill in the blanks. There was a much larger contingent that couldnt believe Venit could have molested Crews and walked away. They wondered why Crews didnt just hit him.

Crews used to think that being strong meant proving how strong you are all the time. He learned that growing up in Flint. My father made sure, every time he came in the house, that we were uncomfortable. He was not happy until we were uncomfortable. That meant: Now I got respect. Thats so many men. That was me. Then, and certainly when Crews was playing football, strength meant pushing your body to its limits, and pushing everyone around you to their limits. It meant being a great football player but, often, a terrible husband.

In the winter of 2010, right before The Expendables came out, when Crewss career was taking off, his wife, Rebecca King-Crews, left him. Hed admitted to her that a decade earlier, hed gotten a happy ending in a massage parlor, and for King-Crews it was the last straw. To put his family together again, hed have to tell her about everything-even the pornography addiction that until then had been a carefully guarded secret. Hed have to study those things himself. Crews found himself alone, with nobody to impress and nobody to validate his behavior. I didnt have a circle, he says. I was literally all by myself. There was nobody to call. No group of guys I could go to: Tell me Im good. They would have been like, She doesnt understand you, dog. Lets go have a drink.

Ordinarily, Im skeptical of any man who claims to have figured out toxic masculinity and reformed his behavior. But Crews is not just any man. He was raised in a rigidly Christian home, for one thing, and though he now considers himself more spiritual than religious, he has a very Christian belief in ones endless capacity for self-reinvention. He also has a superhuman ability to find motivation within: While most people have only one act, or even half an act, Crews has pulled off careers in two of the most competitive industries in America. He was desperate to change-he felt like hed lost everything-and he had the perseverance to do it.

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Hearing that the man before me is a less intense version of some raging proto- Terry is hard to grasp. Its like learning that a crocodile is descended from some dinosaur supercrocodile. The modern-day crocodile is still pretty intense.

The sun is going down, Crewss burger has yet to arrive, and by my calculations, he hasnt eaten in about 24 hours. Every morning, he wakes up before 5:00. He grabs his workout clothes, which he laid out next to his bed the night before. He takes a boatload of healthy ingestibles: multivitamins, essential fatty acids, a fat burner, enzymes for digestion, garlic, glutamine, horny goat weed.... He mixes amino acids into water and heads to one of several gyms he belongs to. Then he fasts until 2:00 p.m. Wed met earlier in the day at his Mens Health video shoot, which began before 2:00, and I didnt see him snacking at all. But Crews does not appear to suffer from the existential fussiness that most people experience when they havent eaten in many hours. Hes the opposite of hangry. Hes jovial and energetic-a talker incarnate.

Fasting made a lot of sense, because once, I was in rehab for a pornography addiction, and they put me and my wife on a 90-day sex fast, he says nonchalantly. Crews has turned his personal life inside out so much in the past few years that he says he no longer feels any self-consciousness. (As a woman, I find Crewss honest answers to my questions about what its like to be a guy revelatory and unsettling.) Sometimes my gauge is gone, he says. I remember going out with a superstar couple, my wife and I, and I was like, I was addicted to porn. They were like- He widens his eyes and puckers his lips.

The first time Crews and his wife attempted their sex fast, they made it only 75 days, but the next year, they tried it again and made it all 90 days. This is the deal, he says. Everything that is within your grasp doesnt need to be in your hand. You have to tell your body no. Because if you listen to your body, youre gonna be off.

I point out that intermittent fasting seems like exactly the kind of thing the old Terry Crews-the one obsessed with proving his strength all the time-would have done. Crews explains why its not: He now practices intermittent fasting because it feels good, but proto-Terry would have imposed it on other people as a way to demonstrate his control over his world. I would require it for everyone, and thats where the line gets crossed, he says. My whole family eats whatever they want.

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When we start to discuss Crewss assault in earnest, its dark outside. The restaurants woodsy lanterns light up, and L.A.s twinkly sprawl unfolds below. An acquaintance of his who stopped by to say hello when he arrived has dined at another table and gone.

Finding the line between doing something for yourself and doing something to intimidate or impress others has been the greatest test of Crewss life. He didnt vanquish Adam Venit. William Morris Endeavor, Venit, and Crews settled, and Venit retired from the agency.

Did I get everything I was supposed to get? Did I win? Did he go to jail? No. Did he get punished by the court? By society? No.

When he was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last June regarding proposed sexual-assault legislation, he described how hed held back, even though his first instinct was to be violent.

Why didnt you? Senator Dianne Feinstein interrupted. Crews looked as exasperated as youre allowed to look when a senator asks you a stupid question. Youre a big, powerful man. Why didnt you- She mimed pushing someone.

Senator, as a black man in America- Crews paused for a few seconds. The idea that Crews might have Hulk-smashed Venit into oblivion without risking his acting career reflects a severe alienation from reality. (Crews is more magnanimous toward Feinstein: Look at her era. Look where she comes from. Youre supposed to knock the guy out.) Crews took a deep breath and looked down at the table. Say it as it is, Feinstein said.

Crews spoke firmly when he addressed Feinstein. Im from Flint, Michigan. I have seen many, many young black men who were provoked into violence-they were imprisoned or they were killed. And theyre not here. My wife, for years, prepared me. She said, If you ever get goaded, if you ever get prodded-if you ever have anyone try to push you into any situation-dont do it. Dont be violent.

The first of those discussions had happened a decade before Adam Venit molested Crews. He and King-Crews had been standing on a busy street in Pasadena when a young man began hassling him for an autograph. The man got aggressive. Crews and his wife had just learned she was pregnant with their fifth child. The man jabbed her, and Crews snapped into action. It was a flash of body flying everywhere, he says. Im stomping this guy on the pavement. The police arrived, and they were about to arrest Crews when a white man stepped forward from the crowd. He says, Sir, sir, stop, stop! He stands between me and the cops, Crews recalls. The man explained that Crews was protecting himself and his wife. The police believed him. They werent gonna believe me. I could have said the same thing. I was going to jail or getting shot. Im a big, giant man. I look like Nino Brown [in New Jack City], stomping a man on the street. But they didnt know the circumstances.

It was a close call, and King-Crews wanted it to be their last. The fight occurred in 2006, postWhite Chicks, when Crews was just breaking out as an actor. It was also three years after Mike Tyson was charged with assaulting two men when they taunted him at a hotel in Brooklyn. I pulled it up on the Internet, King-Crews remembers. I said, You are gonna be him if you dont quit. Our babys money for college is gonna go to some idiot in a bar. You have got to learn to just chill.

Over dinner, Crewss eyes get wet as he describes his wifes talking-to. Ten years later, in 2016, that incident [with Venit] would happen. I remembered my promise. This is after we built our lives together and went through all this therapy. I gotta do what she wants here. I got in that car and I was gonna rip the steering wheel off. She just kept saying, Im proud of you, Terry. He pauses, eyes glistening. It saved my life. I wouldnt be here now if Id have done it. Who would have believed me?

After Venit groped him, Crews and his wife made their exit from the party as quickly as possible. I wanted to break a glass and go crack the guy over the head, I was so angry, King-Crews says. We just held on to each other. We ran to the car and sat in the car. I just touched his arm and I said, Im proud of you.

By then the couple had survived a marital gantlet. Back in 2010, when King-Crews told him she was leaving him, Crews was self-destructing, spiraling in what hes since described as a cult of toxic masculinity, and he was taking his family down with him. I was like, Wait a minute. Im successful. Ive got this and this. Im living the dream. And she was like, You can have this dream. Id rather be broke. Id rather be by myself. Crews let her go. I said, All right, leave. Ill go get four more girls. Ill be fine. Everybody thinks Im great. This is how men work: We roll in a circle, and that camaraderie doesnt allow for introspection.

Now Crews travels around the U.S. and beyond to discuss how he broke out of that spiral of toxic masculinity. He wrote a book on the subject called Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One. Crews does miss the brotherhood of toxic masculinity sometimes. You miss buddies. You know, men bond through pain. Thats the thing I miss. I loved being on teams. I loved being in these sports. I loved, like, Man, were doing this together. You know what I mean?

I dont, really-women establish lifelong bonds just by standing next to each other in line for a bar bathroom-but I do see the appeal of a fraternity forged in fire, and I see why one might miss it. But the Terry Crews sitting across from me also seems totally incongruous with the old Terry Crews whom hes described: the guy who used to crave the validation of his buddies; the guy who had a pornography addiction; the guy who beat a man on a crowded street in Pasadena; the guy who would have knocked out Adam Venit.

For one thing, hes destroying a lemon tart. He appears totally at ease with himself. Soon hell go home to King-Crews and wont be awake past 10. Hell wake up at dawn tomorrow and work out alone. Now, he says, its about healthy Terry.

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If you are what you eat, then Terry Crews is a mega sandwich from Fat Sals Deli in Los Angeles, a giant la carte Frankenstein of everything the place offers, conceived in the most unrestrained corner of his mind. Crews goes to Fat Sals once or twice a week for his cheat meal. In his sandwichs warm hoagie embrace are the following: assorted lunch meats, potato chips, bacon, a hamburger patty, and a hot dog. You can double or triple it up, he adds. The sandwich is fully optimized-other sandwich...

Terry Crews Is the Strongest Man in Hollywood

I think we threw the baby (informed, well-intentioned advice) out with the bathwater (mansplanations of the birth canal or, in the case of Solnit, her own books.) For me, one of the best things about being in a relationship is having someone around to be the rational one when Im irrationally stressed. But theres a time to advise and a time to sit very still and let your partners complaints wash over you, and knowing the difference can remove a lot of stress from your relationship.

Every day, across the nation, couples are having some variation of the same fight:

Her: Do not mansplain my own job to me!

Her: I didnt want advice, I just wanted you to listen!

Him: Well if youre complaining about a problem, Im going to try to fix the problem!

Her: I wasnt complaining, I was venting!

And so on, louder and louder, until theyre both sitting as far apart as you can possibly sit on a loveseat, pretending to watch Billions but really seething.

To understand how to give advice without man-vising, its helpful to understand why we feel compelled to give it at all. I took that question to Dr. Peter Pearson, a marriage counselor who co-founded The Couples Institute with his wife, Dr. Ellyn Bader, in 1984. (That Pearson and Bader remain married after so long working together is very reassuring, like when your dentist has incredible teeth.) Sometimes, Pearson says, we really do give advice just to be helpful: Maybe our advice was solicited, or maybe we have a unique expertise in the situation. Other times, we give advice to stop our own empathic distress: When someone is describing a distressing situation to you, Pearson explains, that distress is contagious, so we give advice in the hopes that if I can get you to feel better, then I will feel better.

Often, we give advice just because it makes us feel valuable in our relationship. In one of on the effects of giving and receiving advice, researchers from MIT asked unemployed people to give advice on job-seeking to other unemployed people. 68 percent of people reported that giving advice made them feel more motivated and confident than receiving advice. In another experiment, the researchers assigned 318 middle school students the role of advice-giver or advice-receiver. The advice-givers spent 38 percent more time on their homework. Dishing out wisdom gives us a little self-esteem boost.

Make sure youre clear on whats expected of you before you dive in with your opinion.

The trick, then, is in knowing when youre giving advice for your own sake-to soothe yourself-and when youre giving advice for your partners sake. Pearson says that the easiest way to do that is to ask. When someone is complaining, he says, you should make sure youre clear on whats expected of you before you dive in with your opinion. Youll know whats expected by asking: What kind of response would be helpful to you right now? And then listen for the answer-and this is critical-and actually do what they suggest.

Pearson says its also important for the complainer to know what theyre expecting. (Im very bad at this.) If youre feeling bad, and you want to talk to your partner, figure out ahead of time what response you would like. Do I want reassurance? Do I want to vent? Maybe I just want a hug!

Even when youve been given the green light to advise, you should still tread lightly. Pearson says condescending advice usually starts with You should... or Why dont you... Those are very parental phrases, Pearson explains, It triggers all the times we got unwanted advice growing up. Its true that Why dont you sends me into an immediate rage: Do you THINK I am so STUPID that I have not already DONE that? Instead, Pearson recommends starting in with You might consider doing X, or Have you considered doing Y? Those phrases allow the advice recipient to save face.

In theory, once youve been in a relationship long enough you should be able to intuit each others advice needs. Until then, ask.

Giving advice without being condescending has always been an art. But advice-giving has become even more fraught  , when writer Rebecca Solnit brought us the term mansplaining, which referred to men delivering lengthy, unsolicited explanations to women about things they are likely already familiar with.

Are You "Manvising" the Woman in Your Life?

I bought the next round and tried to forget.

For a few days, Id been badgering male acquaintances about the sleep habits of the women in their lives. By the time I confronted my ex, Id heard enough stories of drooling and sleep-talking to know that everyone does something. I have my own encyclopedia of nighttime horror stories. I once watched a man sleepwalk across my bedroom, pee in and around my wastebasket, and then sleepwalk out of the room. I was too spooked to follow him, so I dont know where else in my home he peed that night. When I mentioned it, he laughed and said that its just something that happens when I drink whiskey.

Nobody sleeps well with a new partner, and some of us even have trouble sleeping with people weve been with for a long, long time

Weve reevaluated so many things about dating. Weve changed our tune on how we meet (Tinder!) and how we ask for consent (often!), and I move that we change the rules of sleepovers, too. Nobody sleeps well with a new partner, and some of us even have trouble sleeping with people weve been with for a long, long time. I used to think that if I didnt sleep with someone after we had sex, the sex would be somehow cheapened, but curling up together for half an hour after sex can be just as pleasant a capstone as spending the night together, and you wont spend the next day feeling destroyed, resenting your partner for disrupting your sleep cycle. But before you barrel out of your lovers apartment under the banner of enlightenment, it can help to understand some of the anxieties at play here.

I, for example, have always harbored a fear that Ill unknowingly do something unattractive in slumber. When Im on a date, I may appear charming and relaxed-even smooth, if Im on my third drink-but actually every organ is engaged in an effort not to do anything ugly. When Im lying next to someone, as much as I want to fall asleep, Im also battling the temptation to remain awake and totally in control of my faculties. Maybe the Thanksgiving-dinner-level fatigue men get after they ejaculate overwhelms these concerns, or maybe Im just extra self-conscious. When you regard it as a sex act, sleeping next to someone is as intimate as it gets. My body might betray me in any number of ways, or my mate might study me in the dead of night-drooling, hair akimbo-and decide that I am hideous. We like to believe in a social contract that prevents us from judging each other for things we do while were sleeping, but I did judge the sleep-pisser. And even if my ex didnt judge me per se, the incident clearly carries an outsize weight in his memory of our time together.

If my ex had told me I snored, I would have spiraled.

On the other hand, I was relieved to learn that my worst sleep infraction, horrifying as it was, was an isolated occurrence (or so I hope). A much greater fear is that I habitually do something that disrupts the sleep of my bedfellows: If my ex had told me I snored, I would have spiraled. Like many women, I often struggle to balance my own needs with my pathological courtesy. (One time on a plane, a man asked me if he could sit in my aisle seat, because his legs were too long for the middle-they werent-and I said yes, even though Id paid extra to sit on the aisle.) The thought of someone else losing sleep on my behalf literally keeps me up at night. When I said as much to a light-sleeping friend, she nodded somberly. I havent slept well in two weeks because I feel bad kicking out the guy Im dating, she said. He lives an hour away, and I dont want to inconvenience him. A martyr for the ages: She would rather subject herself to six hours locked in sleepless torment than subject a man to one hour on public transit.

Especially early on, theres a good chance that your mate will be secretly relieved if you dont stay over, but you still have to be delicate about leaving (and even more delicate about asking someone to leave). Because of the stigma rom-com culture has placed on leaving after sex, broaching the subject deserves a larger discussion. Be specific, honest, and, ideally, self-deprecating about why you dont want to sleep over. Saying, I snore and I dont want to keep you up, so I probably wont stay over makes you seem respectful and responsible, whereas saying, I have to get up really early tomorrow as youre putting on your clothes makes you seem like a jerk. Even if you really do have to get up early tomorrow, the context makes it feel like a rejection. If theres a window, deploy your excuse earlier, precoital, when youre on your way up to her apartment or your apartment-when, in short, youre sure its on. When you move to leave later, it wont feel like a slap in the face. It will feel like the plan.

Then, when youre starfished in your own bed, dont lose any sleep over it: Shes starfished in her bed, thinking not of the dumb face you make while youre sleeping but rather of your six-pack and lumberjack arms.

I recently summoned a trusted ex to a bar. I wanted to ask him a question, but I wasnt sure I wanted to know the answer. It took me one round of drinks to get to it. Have I ever done anything...weird? Or gross? Like, in bed? But not, like, in bed, I added. Like, sleeping. He pretended to think about it, but I could tell he already had something in mind. Finally, he began to speak. I drained my whiskey ginger. He told me the story of a night right out of Paranormal Activity. A story that laid ...

Why It’s OK to Leave Right After Sex

Here are four situations when its okay to send a breakup text:

<h1> Youve gone on fewer than four dates. </h1>

The whole point of an in-person breakup is to open a dialogue about why youre not compatible. When youre ending a relationship-relationship, a face-to-face conversation can be really helpful for both of you. From that conversation you can get insights into your behavior that might help you out in your future relationships (i.e. your snoring is unworkable). But when youre only three dates in, you dont know each other well enough to have valuable insights into the other persons character. All you really know is whether youre attracted to the person or not, and having a whole discussion about why youre not isnt constructive for anyone.

In these early days, you should feel free to text a kind lie. My preferred excuse is: My ex is back in my life and were going to try to make it work (inserting another person into the equation adds an extra layer of finality to the breakup) but you can also tell her youre not dating right now or youre moving to Ukraine. Make it about you. Three dates in, the dumpee probably isnt emotionally invested in your whatevership at all, and shes not going to read too far into whatever you say. You dont have to be honest, you just have to be conclusive.

One rarely discussed advantage to sending a breakup text beyond the fourth date is the fact that the recipient will probably never forgive you. Last May, found that because remaining love feelings for an ex-partner are negatively associated with recovery from a romantic break-up, it may be helpful to decrease those love feelings. The study found that negative reappraisal was a far more effective strategy for getting over a breakup than positive reappraisal of love feelings (reminiscing about the happy times) or distraction (rebounding with women you met on Tinder.) If you dont care about maintaining a friendly acquaintanceship with the dumpee, you might actually be doing them a favor by delivering one last reminder that youre an asshole.

In these early days, you should feel free to text a kind lie.

, from 2017, found that the best way to break up with someone is to be direct and even a little bit cold. The study showed that while most dump-ers eased into the breakup slowly, with a lot of buffers and small talk, dumpees actually responded better to a quick buffer (we need to talk) followed by a blunt breakup.

A pre-conversation text also gives the dumpee the chance to steel themselves to the conversation thats about to happen. When youre going to meet up with someone to break up, you dont want them to arrive with no idea whats about to happen. You want them to arrive feeling composed.

Earlier this month I read an in response to a woman whose long-distance boyfriend had after two years together. While I can justify the cowardice that goes into a breakup text, the cowardice that goes in to ghosting (especially after two years, but even in early days) is unforgivable. Breaking off a relationship in a text message isnt great, but its a hell of a lot better than ghosting. That karmic vortex you were worried about? Thats where the ghosts go.

There is little on this good earth more satisfying than making a problem go away with a text. The sweet moment after you deploy a made-up excuse, thus terminating all your responsibilities in an instant, rivals sex. Breaking up with someone is no exception. Most of the time, sending a breakup text has no consequences-that is, if you can get past the nagging fear that in doing so, youve consigned yourself to a karmic vortex that will leave you unable to ejaculate for three to seven years.

These Are the Scenarios When It's OK to Break Up With Someone Via Text

You have one week to coordinate its retrieval. If it\'s expensive: two weeks.

Then one day she got a text, as though from the grave. It went something like this: Hey! Hope youre doing well. Do you still have my watch? I just realized I never picked it up. The likelihood of the man just realizing he didnt have his watch-a watch which was probably an essential accessory to his hookup ensemble-is slim. Ive hypothesized that he wanted to wait long enough before reaching out that there was absolutely no chance my roommate would think he wanted to take their relationship beyond their hookup.

I would have gotten rid of it after two weeks. When people refer to squatters rights theyre usually talking about adverse possession, which basically means that if youve occupied a patch of land or a residence over a specified length of time that varies by state, it becomes yours. I believe in a similar, modified finders-keepers rule for personal items left behind after a one-night stand. I think that if you leave something cheap or cheap-ish at someones house (a beanie, a part of your Halloween costume, or the miscellaneous stuff that falls out of your pockets when you take your pants off) you have one week to coordinate its retrieval. If you leave something expensive or essential at someones house (a wallet, or an heirloom) you have two weeks. Beyond that, it is theirs to dispose of or to keep forever.

But when youre sure you dont want a hookup to go anywhere, how do you go about recovering the item without making it weird? For starters...

<h1> Recover the Item as Soon As Possible </h1>

If she texts you about the lost item the day after your hookup, dont tell her youll pick it up next time youre in the neighborhood. Ask her to bring it with her to work the following day, or to some similarly neutral meeting place, and then do a quick and impersonal handoff. You can pretend youre spies exchanging documents if you watched a lot of Alias growing up.

<h1> Don't Tell Her She Should Keep It </h1>

If you dont care whether you get the item back or not, dont just tell her she should keep it: Its an old-fashioned reflex, but every time a guy lets me keep something of his, I treat it like a letterman jacket-ish token of his affection, even if he left it at my house by accident. If you dont care enough about the item to pick it up from her, and if you want to shut it down, tell her its cool if she throws it away. Do not suggest that she mail the item to you. Youll find it on your doorstep covered in burning feces a few days later.

If youve already established that it was a one-night stand, she probably just wants to erase you from her memory as quickly as possible, and having your stuff around-and the specter of your return one day-makes that harder to do. In my hookup days, I would always thoroughly clean my apartment right after the guy left <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a26029766/morning-after-sex-guide/" id="1c51d39f-20f9-358e-a49f-52b785d82a26"> in the morning </a> , just to put a finial on the whole experience. If a guy left something at my apartment, I threw it away without guilt. (Unless wearing it gave me a celebrity-on-a-walk-of-shame vibe, in which case I would absorb it into my wardrobe.) Once, in the middle of a long and regrettable streak of dating men with earrings, I lifted my comforter during my morning apartment cleanse to find a little jade earring. I kept it in a dish on my bookshelf for a few days, and then I threw it away. The guy and I ended up dating for a few months, and later he asked me if Id ever found the earring. I lied. Bummer, it belonged to my mother, he said. Honestly, I probably would have thrown it away even if Id known, just because having it around made me nervous.

One time, a man left his watch on my roommates bedside table after a one-night stand. We Googled it the next day to see how much it cost: it wasnt a Rolex, but it was expensive enough that hed reverently arranged it the way watchmakers do, with the caseback balanced gently atop the bracelet. She put it in a Ziploc baggie (to contain its dark powers) and waited for him to text her. Days passed. Weeks passed. Almost two months passed. Since their one-night stand, she and I had moved from that a...

The Subtle Art of Recovering an Item After a One-Night Stand

I thought of the drinking birds again last fall, only this time it wasnt the guy who was the bird. It was me. I was on my third date with someone who I could see was objectively attractive and likable, but for whom I felt nothing. I was kissing him so mechanically that even I was bored, so I wasnt especially surprised when he pulled away and said, I have an early meeting tomorrow. (He was unemployed.)

But that wasnt the end of it. For several months after that, I was a terrible kisser. I would have a great date with someone, but as soon as we were in front of my apartment and he was leaning in, Id go rigid. I would stand there, hands on his shoulders, moving my head with all the ease and finesse of my eighth-grade self. Id been struck down by the kissing yips, and I assumed my romantic career was over.

We talk a lot about bad sex as a deal breaker, but I think bad sex is way more workable than bad kissing

Even if you havent experienced the kissing yips, per se, youve probably had a moment or two of self-doubt in your kissing career-one of my girlfriends recently stumbled into a sexy oasis after a long dry spell, and she described acute terror that shed forgotten how to kiss. We talk a lot about bad sex as a deal breaker, but I think bad sex is way more workable than bad kissing. With bad sex, you can critique specific things your partner is doing without sounding like youre critiquing them as a person. (Less rotary dial, more push-button!)

Were used to getting feedback about sex-when someone gives us feedback in bed, we just think its sexy that they know what they want. Kissing is different. Kissing is governed by pasin, not technique, and its much harder to comment on the former. When you acknowledge that you didnt enjoy a kiss, youre usually acknowledging that you dont have chemistry with someone. In hindsight, my kissing yips boiled down to stress-I was anxious and felt totally alienated from the possibility of having chemistry with anyone. One day, after Id calmed down, I kissed someone whom I found both objectively and subjectively attractive and felt cured. But before that, I had plenty of time to obsess about what makes a kiss good or bad.

<h1> I Stopped Being Self Conscious </h1>

As one friend put it, A good kiss happens when neither person is taking it too seriously, particularly in the early stages. Mid-kiss smiling is great. Ideally, youre so consumed by your lust for your partner that youre not worrying about the mechanics. Sure, you should keep some basic kissing guidelines in mind: Your target should under no circumstances feel as though your tongue will cause them to choke, another friend said, and everybodys spit should stay in between the mouths-a terrible kiss requires you to wipe your mouth afterward. But when neither of you is overthinking it, those logistics come more naturally. You dont fret about where youre putting your hands. (I like one in my hair, one at my waist.)

But when neither of you is overthinking it, those logistics come more naturally.

Kissing is like breathing: If you start thinking too hard about it, youre no longer able to do it properly and you start to feel faint. I find it helpful to mentally zero in on the kissees most attractive feature. If Im thinking about his biceps, Im not stressing about whether I should open my eyes to check if his eyes are open, or whether he can tell I have a deviated septum by listening to my labored nose breaths. If you cannot isolate an attractive feature, abort.

Permission is important. For a long time I thought that when a man asked if he could kiss me, he destroyed the spontaneity and thus the romance. But in recent years Ive started to really like being the arbiter of the kissing. Last year Id been at a bar with a Tinder date for about an hour when he asked, Can I kiss you? I said no, because I hadnt had time to vet him yet and Im uncomfortable with PDA. Im so glad he asked, because I would have been really annoyed if hed just swooped right in. As it was, he didnt seem at all offended, and he quickly dissipated any awkwardness by asking me, sweetly, Can I ask you again later if I can kiss you? On paper the exchange looks like a parody of consent culture, but in the moment, seeking consent is never corny. Its just hot.

<h1> I Said, "You're a Great Kisser." </h1>

Unless youre kissing someone with whom you have absolutely no chemistry, someone who is inextricably wound up in their anxieties, or one of those 0.0003 percent of people who really are inherently, clinically bad kissers, affirmation will fix it. Even if they suck (literally), before you write off someone you like as a bad kisser, try a Hail Mary lie. Pause for a breath and say, Wow, youre an amazing kisser. Yes, they might continue doing whatever unsettling thing theyre doing. More likely: Theyll relax, and youll have a really good kiss.

At first it was hard for me to figure out what the man I was kissing reminded me of, but once I pictured it, I couldnt un-picture it: He was like one of those drinking-bird toys that bob their head up and down in perpetuity. I very much liked him and had been very much looking forward to kissing him, and I was so bummed. He was a drinking bird, bobbing against my mouth with dry, mechanical rhythm. I stuck with him for a month or so, hoping that I could change his ways or that he would just, l...

How a Woman Really Wants to Be Kissed

I understand wanting to impress your date by taking her to the New Hot Place, but the New Hot Place almost always has a half-hour wait. For example: After Aziz Ansaris character on Master of None took several Tinder dates to Brooklyn wine bar The Four Horsemen, it became literally impossible to get a seat there. A year ago a guy suggested we go on a date there, and were still waiting. A wait is fine on your second or third date, when youve already gotten over <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a19545021/first-date-tips-for-men/" id="7c30e4c1-d8f1-39a3-ac55-9a9f721ae774"> the so, do you have any hobbies? hump </a> , but there are few worse ways to get to know each other than loitering for thirty minutes, clutching your coats and trying not to block the door, while you watch other couples enjoying their drinks.

<h1> Will you be able to hear each other? </h1>

Another ding against that trendy new bar you keep seeing on Instagram: Trendy means loud. You should shoot for a decibel level just loud enough that she has an excuse to lean in a bit to hear you better (i.e. not an empty bar) but not loud enough that youll never know for sure whether she said Id love to snowshoe or Id love to blow you.

Many a great first date has ended prematurely because someone got hungry. After my first drink, I can no longer even feign polite interest in your story about the woman who sits in the cubicle next to yours. I can only think about food. You shouldnt go all-out by suggesting a restaurant for a first date-unless you specify beforehand that youll be sitting at the bar, restaurants are too high-pressure-but you should make sure the bar you pick serves food. <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/a19536579/best-bar-food/" id="d583d0d3-da7e-3454-aae1-4b936a4798d2"> Bar staples </a> and fries are the bare minimum; upscale light bites are ideal. Think fancy tacos, oysters, and sexy small plates.

<h1> Are there wines and cocktails? </h1>

Im not saying dive bars cant be romantic, but most women dont equate flat PBR with pasin. A lot of women-me, for example-dont really like to drink beer on dates at all, because it gives them earth-shaking hiccups. At the very least, pick a bar that offers a couple wines (and not just an anonymous house wine that is almost certainly Yellowtail).

Besides shattering any ambience, a TV-or worse, multiple TVs-makes it really hard to focus on me, your date. Somehow, if theres a TV in a bar, I always end up sitting with my back to it, facing my date while he sneaks peeks at the game over my shoulder while Im talking. Even if there isnt a sport happening, TVs are distracting.

Check ahead to make sure you arent visiting a bar on karaoke night, trivia night, speed dating night, open mic night, or the night you communitys Pagan meet-up group comes together to worship the goddess Lilith over beers.

<h1> Does it accept credit cards? </h1>

In my old neighborhood, when it was up to me to pick the bar before a date, I almost always picked a place called <a href="https://lasuperiornyc.com/" id="8d46f47b-92f3-3cd9-aad3-1f502382e640"> La Superior </a> . It was a perfect date spot: The margs were strong, there were fancy tacos, and the lighting made everyone look tan and healthy. But on dates, the bar had one fatal flaw: It was cash-only, and the nearest ATM was outside. I worried it would be presumptuous to warn my date about this beforehand- <a href="https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a24431890/first-date-first-impressions/" id="36f40d40-f0ea-37ec-ae5a-43703cadc1d3"> as though it was a given that hed pay </a> -and so as each date wound down Id fret about what would happen when the bill came. Inevitably, my date either had no cash or not enough cash (if you wanna be my lover, you gotta spend at least $40 on fancy tacos). I would pretend to look in my wallet, and he would run out to the ATM while I sat there for ten minutes, wondering if he was coming back. It broke the mood every time. Check ahead of time to make sure the bar youre going to isnt cash-only, and if it is, either change locations or bring way more cash than you think youll need.

Again, I can put away a lot of fancy tacos.

Last year a study from online dating site Match found that for 79 percent of women, their top priority on a first date is feeling comfortable. (Other first date insights from  : Never be late, and never check your phone.) For me, second only to feeling comfortable with my date-no  -is my comfort with the date spot itself. Now that there is a wealth of information available online about even the diviest bars, there is no reason to pick a less-than-perfect first date bar. Evaluate your picks ac...

What All the Best First-Date Bars Have in Common

Breaking up is hard to do, but wrapping up a breakup is even harder. One ex-boyfriend, at a loss for how to end our breakup summit, stood up and said, Be well. (And thank you for shopping at CVS, I added in my head.) I once panicked and filled the breakup silence with Are we good? after saying my piece-we were not good. On one hand, what you say now doesnt really matter: Youve already quit, so they cant fire you. On the other hand, its usually in these final moments, when youve already delivered the speech youve been rehearsing in front of the mirror for a few days, that a reckless grenade slips out, causing a mature, adult conversation to spiral into a bilious back-and-forth. Here are six of those grenades, to be avoided at all costs:

Even if she wont be okay-even if a day after your breakup shell get a dramatic haircut that she immediately hates and shell spend the next three to six weeks watching Law &amp; Order, swaddled in her weighted blanket-she probably wants you to think shell be okay. Will you be okay? sounds a little self-aggrandizing. What she hears is, How will you survive without the divine blessing of my presence? Without this chiseled bod and righteous beard? If you want to sound concerned without sounding condescending, say: If you need to talk, Im around.

<h1> Youre going to find someone so much better for you. </h1>

The last thing I want to think about when Im being dumped is the fact that Im about to be single again. Unless you are prepared to offer up the names and contact information of several viable rebounds I might consider, keep the so many fish in the sea wisdom to yourself. Right after youre done talking, Im going to go kvetch about all your flaws to my friends. When they say Ill meet someone better, Ill be touched and soothed. When you say it, Ill burst into tears and then spend the next few hours wondering whether youve already met someone else.

<h1> I hope we can still be friends. </h1>

Every time a man says I hope we can still be friends, a dolphin gets tangled in some fishing line and dies. Its the worst, because theres no closure, one friend said. Besides which, when the dumper tries to initiate a friendship, it sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it too-that he wants to date other people while still enjoying the dumpees good qualities. If youre ever going to be friends, its up the dumped party to initiate it.

Where I hope we can still be friends doesnt quite provide enough closure, good luck is like a closure bomb. Good luck and its many cold variations suggests that you, the dumper, are totally cutting me loose, kicking me out of the sex nest, etc. In theory I want to be cut loose-I want space to move on-but I also want to know that youll be feverishly keeping up with my personal and professional successes for years to come. If you want the dumpee to know you wish them well and will continue to care about them, say: If you feel like it, give me an update on [specific personal or professional thing theyre stressed about.] Im still rooting for you.

Even if youre not actually upset about a breakup, you should mirror the response of the person youre dumping: If theyre devastated, you should try your best to look devastated too. Theres nothing more humiliating that losing it during a breakup while the person doing the dumping stares at you, dry-eyed and stony-faced, and says, Im sorry youre upset.

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6 Things You Should Never Say During a Break-Up

So far, your breakup conversation is going great. Youve managed to avoid clichs like Its not you, its me and I love you, Im just not in love with you. Nobody has cried yet, and youre thinking you just might make it out of here without her bringing up the Xbox she just bought you, which you would very much like to keep. What now?