Can you learn how to talk to women?
The short answer to that question is “yes”. The long answer is “are you ready?”
That’s all it really comes down: whether you’re prepared to put aside your excuses and get down to the business of building a persona and life that is attractive to the opposite sex.
The first Building a Better Bloke seminar of the year will be held Sunday, March 7, 2010 and places are filling fast. More than 120 guys have attended the seminar now and the feedback has been incredibly positive: take a look here, if you’d like to read some recent comments about what goes down on the day … More
The progression of responsibility
By Craig Lennox
I’ve decided to start a vegetable garden, and I’m not quite sure why.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and my girlfriend returned from a shopping excursion with packets of seeds, a chili plant, potting mix and fertiliser.
We had discussed the idea the night before, at which time I claimed that I didn’t think I could be bothered. However, upon being informed of her purchases that afternoon I put down my weighty Dickens tome and started pushing fistfuls of potting mix into biodegradable seeding tubs … More
Pop the boot to a man’s personality
By Craig Heal
Nowhere is a man’s lifestyle and personality so prominently on display as when you pop his car’s boot.
It’s no secret that most men consider the type of car they drive an extension of their personality, but what would surprise most speed racers is that the real soul of their motorised personality extension isn’t what’s under the hood or the size of their woofers.
It’s what lies hidden in the boot – much like a man’s true character … More
The rat race conundrum
By Mark Darby
I achieved a major coup in my 27th year on this planet: I quit the rat race and the small cubicle that comes along with it.
Call it my ‘Saturn Return’ year, itchy feet or just plain fool-hardiness but I quit my job editing and designing a finance magazine and decided I needed to get out of Sydney. After five years in the harbour city I had about $10,000, a car and no relationship to show for my efforts.
With nothing set-up and all my worldly possessions packed into my Honda Civic, I drove down to Melbourne to crash at a mate’s house and plan my next move. Three months later I was on a plane to L.A.
But I’m getting ahead myself … More
I don’t like kids
By Bob the Backpacker
My sister in law had a baby last year, I did the ‘right’ thing and held him for 15 seconds and then passed him onto the next person.
The next 12 months went past very quickly, with me managing to avoid getting within a metre of the child. Then his first birthday party came around and I did the ‘right’ thing again and held him, for about 30 minutes this time.
The girls were thrilled, mother-in-law was taking photos from the corner, my partner had a smile that wrapped around her face three times and the kid was pretty happy too (but he’s easily satisfied at this point in his life) … More
BABB break time
Hello all. I know we were just getting some momentum, but the Building a Better Bloke blog will be taking a break over Christmas and into January, while I recharge the batteries.
I do however, have much planned for next year and hope you can all be part of it. If you have any posts you’d like published, be sure to send them to me here.
Have a great Christmas and New Years.
Women are not puzzles
By Jonathon
I’ve been noticing something a little disturbing lately and it’s not just within the seduction community.
It’s certainly exaggerated within the seduction community, but most definitely not limited to it.
What I’m referring to is the clinical nature in which men interact with the opposite sex: they see a beautiful woman and want to approach her but there’s this problem that needs to be solved before you can get what you want.
The problem of “HER” … More
The Monday bitch
By Sam de Brito
No bitching from me today.
On Saturday I watched a guy have a heart attack at my local beach, then wait what must have been 15 minutes for an ambulance as the council life guards worked to save his life.
They managed to get a weak pulse, but he died later, either in transit to the hospital or once he was admitted. I think he was late 40’s, looked pretty fit.
Pretty shitty Christmas for his family and friends. Count your blessings peeps ..
Home or Away?
By Craig Lennox
A little while ago I saw the animated film UP.
It is a film for children, with bright, bold colours, amusing characters and a simple and entertaining story. And like many of the kids’ films being produced at the moment it has plenty for the parents, or adults who don’t mind watching kids’ movies.
To briefly summarise; a young boy with dreams of becoming an adventurer and explorer meets a young girl with the same dreams.
They grow up, get married and grow old together, all the while saving for and dreaming of the day they can travel to the South American jungle … More
What’s for dinner?
By Craig “Iron Chef” Heal
To my mind learning to cook is the most important life skill a “better bloke” can learn.
I’m not saying we need to develop the culinary skills of a celebrity chef but all men should attain a level of skill that means we are no longer vectors for salmonella transmission.
I’m talking about men developing the capacity to whip up cheap, quick, nutritious meals for themselves and then having a handful of special meals to knock the socks off potential girlfriends, impress the grandparents or pay back your mates after what happened at the pub during last drinks … More
Meditations on war
By David Delaney
When I was prime soldiering age – late teens, early 20s – I never gave a moment’s thought to being a soldier. Nothing attracted me to the idea of being at war. It never even occurred to me. I had plans, ambitions, things to do. War, to me, was an alien concept. A crime against humanity.
Both my grandfathers died before I was born. Both fought in wars.
Finding out about their lives, I became obsessed with trying to understand what made them go to war. A sense of duty, defending your country and the things you hold dear, I understand those things, but they don’t fully explain to me why my grandfathers were so keen on war. Which, according to my mother, her father most certainly was. I know less about my father’s father, but I believe he was similar … More
Fat, rich westerner
By James Marshall
Ten years ago I made a resolution to go overseas every year.
It wasn’t in response to anything in particular, apart from a love of travelling, but I realised that if I didn’t prioritise the planning process, it would be easily neglected.
I didn’t want to wake up one day, realise that I was old and had not done the things I wanted to do. Since then I’ve managed to get to all sorts of out-of-the-way places, even if I cheated slightly one year by going to relatively un-exotic New Zealand for a couple of weeks. So far, so good … More
The Monday bitch
Here’s your chance to moan to the rapidly growing audience here at Building a Better Bloke about anything and everything that pissed you off about your weekend or yet another crappy Monday at work.
To get the ball rolling, I’m gonna ask the universe to deliver me from my new neighbour – an aging northern beaches surfer with a $5 million dollar house (we live in a flat next door) and the worst taste in BBQ music I’ve yet to encounter.
Yesterday my girlfriend and I were treated to all 14 tracks of Daryl Braithwaite’s 1988 album Edge with said neighbour singin’ along “to the good bits”.
Just when we thought it was over … he stuck it on again. I’m buying some eggs for next weekend.
Y am I here?
By The Ginger
I have a confession to make. I’m 21 and have been working at the same job since I left school in 2005.
Older readers might shrug at that and say “talk to me in 40 years” and some grandparent types might pat me on the back for not getting fired in that time.
Mention that fact to anybody of my generation, however, and I’ll more than likely cop a blank look, a slight slackening of the jaw and then the verbalisation of this shock: “What’s wrong with you?”
It’s been said that people my age (I loathe the term “Generation Y”) are far happier jumping from job to job, accruing life experience and sampling as much of the world as they can before their body, liver, bank account, or criminal record prevents them.
To be stuck in a single job, in a single location, for nearly four years is not the mark of success it was in my parents’ generation … More
The left-wing moral shortfall
By Thomas the Think Engine
“Imagine visiting a town,” Dr. Jonathon Haidt writes, “where people wear no clothes, never bathe, have sex in public, and eat raw meat by biting off pieces directly from the carcass.”
Dr Haidt’s site is yourmorals.org, where I got my fibre tested. I’m the green bars. You can see that I consider Harm and Fairness to be important moral values. I am less convinced on Loyalty, Authority, and Purity, as moral values.
The main point of the graph is not that my low scores reveal me as base, ill-bred and exquisitely suited to a career in politics.
It’s the difference between the blue lines and the red lines. Blue is the scores of people who identify as ‘liberals’ (in the American sense). I line up closer to the liberals. Red is conservatives. They consider three extra categories to be just as morally important … More
We can be heroes
By Sam de Brito
Ask a young boy who his hero is and you’ll more than likely get a range of answers from sportsmen to Spiderman or whoever the American movie studios are stuffing down our kids’ throats at that moment.
Speak to teenage boys and you’ll probably get the usual suspects of rap and rock stars, maybe the odd porn actor and, of course, more leading-lights from the sporting world.
Now, speak to 20-something blokes and ask them the same question. For many young men, by this stage of life, heroes have become uncool.
A few years in the big bad world has woken them up to the fact they’ll never be Ian Thorpe or Daniel Johns, so their aspirations have been downgraded, from worldwide fame and adulation to, perhaps, a spot on the next series of MasterChef … More
Submissions please
By Sam de Brito
People – you may have noticed the pace of new posts here has dropped off a little in the last few weeks.
I’d love to be able to give you some fresh reading every weekday but that’s not going to happen if it’s only me contributing. If this site is going to work, you’re going to have to pitch in.
I am quite happy to publish work by female authors – as long as it talks to a male audience.
The straw test: How much do you like her?
By Sam de Brito
I was at the pub some years ago and it was mobbed, five deep at the bar.
I bought drinks; a couple of beers for my mate Jack and me and vodkas for the women. I paid for the hooch, got the drinks in the tight-four position and burrowed into the crowd.
Half way back to our spot, I looked at the voddies and thought ‘Hmmm, forgotten the straws.’ That’s when I asked myself: ‘How much do you like this chick? Is it really worth going back for the straw?’
Now, a lot of you might say this has nothing to do with attraction, that it is gentlemanly to fetch a woman a straw. Me, I think it’s gentlemanly to buy drink after drink for a girl and, last time I checked, even toddlers could successfully sip out of just a glass … More
Mr. Peabody explains Middle East history
You’d like to think this was fiction, unfortunately it’s not.
Who is the WOSA?
By Sam de Brito
Men’s toilets have very little going for them.
They smell like gastric juice, have boogies wiped on the tiles at eye level and are home to at least one drunk whispering to his penis at the urinal.
However, having cleaned toilets while in between empires, I can tell you that men’s dunnies are a good deal more hygienic than the average chicks’ brasco which often resembles triage in a M*A*S*H episode.
The only other thing that recommends the male side of the tiles is a certain mystery woman whose fame has been hampered for too long — the Wipe-On Sex Appeal girl … More
The man with no balls
This gentlemen, is what happens to men who abdicate their maleness: Anthony Sherna.
“For almost 20 years he submitted in order to keep the peace. When she demanded he change his surname to prove he loved her, he agreed.
“When she insisted he not see his friends or family, he complied. When she taunted him by resuming an affair with a former boyfriend and suggested he ”grow some balls”, he swallowed the insults.
“When she said he was too smelly to use the toilet at home, he restrained himself until he arrived at work. When she refused to let him sleep in their double bed, he dossed down in the spare room on a camp stretcher.
“He was sole breadwinner but she rationed his cigarettes – just 12 each day – and controlled their money. Each week after withdrawing the housekeeping money he handed over the cash, his ATM card and receipts. “
Dear God. I want to feel sorry for this guy, but in the end, this is just pathetic. Imagine what’s going to happen to him in prison … your thoughts?
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