NYC Shopping Resources
September 22, 2008
A list of highly recommended boutiques and spots to hit for funky and awesome clothing in NYC:
EvolutionOfStyle.com
Well, this isn’t in NYC, but it is run by my friends Jonathan and Randall and is pretty great.
Lounge: 593 Broadway @ Houston
Lots of wild clothing and shoes. Ask for Luis and tell him Christian/Jonathan sent you. He usually works until 5:00 PM.
Atrium: 644 Broadway @ Bleeker
Similarly wild clothing and shoes.
Ari: 471 West Broadway @ Houston
Very upscale, somewhere between trendy and classy. Not cheap, but beautiful stuff.
EOS: 259 Bleeker @ Cornelia
Inexpensive but awesome watches and sunglasses
Visions of Tibet: 167 Thompson St @ Houston
Lots of inexpensive tibetan/buddhist rings, bracelets, etc.
Bruno Cucinelli: 359 Bleeker @ Charles
Ridiculously expensive, but unparalleled Italian clothing
Scoop: 473 Broadway @ Broome
Cool and trendy, not too overpriced.
Jump: 89 Spring Street @ Broadway
Hip and trendy shoes.
Tokio7: 64 East 7th @ 1st
Consignment shopping at its best.
Odin: 199 Lafayette @ Broome
Trendy and very unique stuff. Great jewelry.
St. Mark’s Street
There are several thrift stores on St. Mark’s with unique stuff.
Paul Smith: 142 Greene Street @ Houston
Very expensive but beautiful and quirky designer.
Paramount Costumes: 52 W 29th and 6th Ave
Great costumes, masks and other fun toys
The Story of Your Life
September 19, 2008
This video is from a speech given on Sept 17, ‘08. It has been broken up into four parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Typical (and terrible) Advice
September 6, 2008
There are SO MANY guys out there who just have no clue about women. Unfortunately, many of them have blogs.
A little backstory: my friend David, who goes by the pseudonym “Asian Rake” (yep, he’s Asian), is getting some major press in Singapore tomorrow. I’ve been helping him redesign his website, and in the process, I took to looking for other Asian dating/pickup bloggers. During my search, I found a website that had some advice on what to do when a woman tries to push a scheduled date back by a few hours and bring her friend along (which is, admittedly, a foul on the play):
Stop being f*cking nice. Stop giving a shit about what the other person has going on because she doesn’t give a shit about you. She doesn’t care that you wasted your entire day sitting around. Or that you went out of your way to make plans. If anything, she’ll just think you’re weak.
Don’t be weak. Take away the girl’s power from the start.
Geez, where to start? Well, I guess this type of advice appeals to guys who have been hurt by women and are angry or resentful. That’s been all of us at some point. There is a question of “technique” - what to do when a woman flakes on you - but there’s also the very important issue of a guy’s emotional health and his ability to deal with uncertainty in his life.
So the first thing we’re told about how to deal with this is as follows:
To really not be needy, date multiple girls, sleep with multiple girls until you do meet someone that proves herself to be special and worthy. She doesn’t deserve your understanging yet, she doesn’t deserve for you to care. It f*cking sucks, I know. This happened to me today. And the only reason why I’m not even more emotionally damanged is because:
A. I have another girl that i’m dating going to the BBQ with me instead.
B. I had sex 4 times with a different girl last wednesday, and got a BJ last night. and
C. I’m using this as a learning experience.
Well, I’m not sure that there’s not some emotional damage somewhere in here. Looks kind of, uh, reactive to me. And if a guy’s strategy for dealing with the flakiness of women relies on having other women in rotation, well, that sounds like circular logic to me. Does it work? Kind of… but its not healthy. It is based on the idea of finding validation from the same source that is taking it away - women. Its an “easy out” (and Lord knows that more than a few women do it with the men in their life). But it comes from the wrong place.
So what should you do instead of complying with a woman’s request to push the date back?
If we could rewind to the original converstaion at noon. I would have told her:
“Your friend sounds really cool, I’d love to double date with her sometime, but we have plans sweetie, I’ll pick you up at three, make sure you’re home.”
And I would have just left it at that. None of this bullshit would have happened if I did. It’s just another reminder to never revert back to AFC, not even for a moment, not even for a small town girl that seems “different.”
Never be understanding, and f*ck being nice.
I’ve dealt with my share of flaky girls, and have certainly been in situations like this. And the correct answer about what to do is “it depends.” If a girl is going to pull something like this, it probably means that she’s just not as excited to see you as she was when she made plans. Forcing the date upon her isn’t going to change that.
So rather than being, you know, a domineering dick… which is something GUARANTEED to get her to cancel (and I know this from experience; this writer’s conjecture just isn’t accurate), you could do some other things. You could agree to it, them pre-emptively flake a few hours later in a very kind way if you’re really interested in “taking the power back.” You could be verrrrry sweet and tell her about all the great things you have planned. Or you could just say “hey tell you what, I’m sure your friend is great, but let’s reschedule some time,” then make your follow-up an invitation her to a party or some other social activity where there’s less one-on-one pressure.
The bigger issue here is that if the girl was actually excited to see a guy, she wouldn’t do something like this. It is *probably* a defense mechanism when a girl feels too much pressure - either about the place you’re going together (I’ve had girls do this when I’ve told them the date was some exclusive party or venue where there would be lots of social pressure) or about you and your expectations. Not every girl can be forced into sex after a few hours spent together. In fact some of them actually like to get to know the guy. Enjoy those girls - they’re the quality ones.
More important than the technique itself is what this advice says about a guy’s emotional health. I don’t mean to single out or pick on this writer; he may be good at picking up girls, which I guess is what he teaches. But I get annoyed when I see this kind of dating/relationship advice. Not only is it bad, its destructive. A lot of the men who are in this space are coming from a position of having been hurt, having been “wussies”, etc. In that headspace, a guy reads something like this and is like “yeah, I just have to put my foot down. F*ck these girls.”
A guy who really likes women - who likes everything about them - is going to have a much different strategy and vibe, and that will be loud and clear to her from the moment he meets her.
