1 – Have good pictures, improve them whenever possible

I cannot stress this topic enough: have good pictures and make damn sure they are recent, interesting, and flattering. At least one of these pictures should be a good facial shot, and at least one of these shots should be a not-too-blatant shot of your body. Both of these are absolutely essential.

Under no circumstances should you ever post “myspace shots” (odd angles, mirror shots in the bathroom, etc), pictures of yourself that are edited in photoshop, or group shots that make your identity difficult to ascertain or imposing. Never take photos wearing sunglasses, hats, or other items that may indicate creepiness or being in a state of balding. Do not try to show of “the guns”, that’s stupid. The best photos are ones that are flattering and attractive without being staged, usually taken in interesting places or scenarios (meaning you are an interesting person), and ones that, while not blatant about it, show yourself in enough contexts to show your general looks, including your body shape. Feel free to throw in any conversation starting photos, pending they are legitimate conversation starters: pictures of yourself in your mother’s basement in a kimono carrying a katana you purchased online is not a conversation starter as much as it is very excellent woman repellent.

This should not need mentioning, but I will do so anyway: no nude photos or “sexy photos” or anything even possibly related to those categories. For one thing, you will not do them right. For another thing, they are usually not attractive to women for a bevy of reasons. Do not bother.

2 – Detail is nice, but mystery is also important

Yes, you absolutely must put information on your profile: generally, the more, the better. However, there is a limit to the amount of information you can put on- and at a certain point, you seem excessively wordy and really really boring.

The best example most people are guilty of is posting excessively long lists of favorite movies, music, or books. While these are, much like pictures, phenomenal conversation starters, these also don’t represent you very well, and should be kept relatively terse in terms of other information about you. In a very similar vein, do not post long blocks of information about your past relationship history, your work history, your scholastic achievements, or the like. Frankly, no-one wants to read that, and such information is best divulged gradually through conversation, not explosively through huge swaths of text online. Feel free to go into detail about yourself from a wide angle: just don’t go too deep.

3 – Avoid negativity

Under no circumstances should you ever be negative in your profile- that includes any sort of deriding comment, bitchy rant, or even a long list of requirements you have for women.

The reason for this is fairly obvious: negativity breeds negativity, and you want the reader of your profile to come off with a good taste, not a bad one. There is absolutely no reason you should complain on a stupid short dating website profile. If you want to learn the effect of this negativity, go find a girl’s profile with a lot of complaining on it- undoubtedly, you’ll find her stuck-up, slightly unsavory, and possibly even outright bitchy. If you have issues with the wrong kind of women (or men) sending messages to you, deal with them quietly and without much fanfare.

Do not lie and fill the profile with excuses as to why you are on a dating site. No-one believes your friend dared you to go on the website. No-one believes you came on the site as a joke or on a lark. Few will believe you if you say you came on to see who you got matched up with for “laughs”. Be outright and cop to your interest in dating: no-one is being fooled.

Furthermore, avoid posting stuff that most would find aversive. As I implied above, no creepy Japanophile crap. Do not run your mouth about your creepy fetishes, interests, or obsessions. Do not mention mental disorders. Mention diseases only if necessary (always mention things like AIDS, herpes, and the like- pretending they are not there does not make them disappear). Do not imply any sort of Oedipal connection to your mother, or otherwise confess any sort of strange obsession or situational issue. Indeed, you should mention if you still live with your parents and do not have a job or otherwise have colloquially “failed to launch”- just keep the information terse, do not try to weave a sorrowful tale of your own ineptitude.

Also, a quick addendum: under no circumstances should you ever say a phrase along the lines of “I just got out of a bad relationship” or “Looking for a real woman” or “I want something real“. These are all subversive ways of indicating a bad relationship history, which is not only negative, but incredibly off-putting. No-one wants to be a rebound or a “repair girl”.

4 – Avoid stating the pointless/obvious/common

As mentioned above, everyone on dating sites likes to excessively list favorite music, movies, and similar “favorites”. Further, dating websites tropes exist- little phrases and concepts that seemingly everyone says that, after being repeated so ridiculously often, mean utterly nothing in the big picture. Discard them.

You only need to look at other profiles to see what I’m talking about: get rid of phrases like “fun-loving”, topics like how you’re “just a romantic”, boring repetitive crap like “I’m just a laid back person”, and anything else that you see on other profiles. Don’t insert inane inside jokes, pointless “shout outs” to friends, or other things that will be nothing more than stumbling blocks to the streamlined presentation of you. Trust me, if you don’t delete such useless text, other people will mentally delete it for you.

5 – Don’t be hyper-exclusive

Avoid making excessive lists of demands about your potential date. This is not only negative (see above) but also just really really prohibitive to finding interesting people.

It’s not uncommon to see many profiles laden with what are veritable laundry lists of demands, ranging from “must like [sports team]” to “must be a good cook”. These requirements are basically trash: they are ridiculous requirements that really are not necessary in the search of finding a good mate. Get rid of them. No-one finds it clever that you require liking a band to dating you: rather, it looks arrogant and pigheaded, like a child who refuses to play with other children unless they have the same toys. Open up the “range” of possible dates in virtually every sense- ethnicity, age, locale (within reason), political affiliation, and the like. You’ll be surprised the bevy of amazing people you will find.

6 – Be active and aggressive

This is the defining line between the people who end up making dating sites work for them and others who complain about them not working. Aggressiveness is everything.

Do not be, in the terms of the Japanese, a herbivorous man. Sitting around on a dating site expecting women to come to you is a losing battle: the dating world is still very much a hunter-prey system, with men firmly cemented into the role of the hunter. Because of this, you- yes, you- are expected to initiate contact, continue discussions, and pursue dates. When you want a dating site to work for you, if you pay for it or not, you need to be willing to get on often, message people often, change your profile and pictures often (even if entirely arbitrarily), and  generally consider the entire affair an active process, not a passive one. You are not paying a matchmaker; it is entirely up to you to find your mate- a dating site is merely an advanced tool.

So basically, get your butt out there and work at it. It’s that simple.

Are hoodies fashionable?

Not really. Hoodies are typically incredibly baggy and misshapen, which means that they do not flatter any sort of figure well. Most people associate them with laziness and juvenile outfits, which worsens the entire effect. This isn’t to say you can’t wear them from time to time, just don’t expect them to be considered remarkable in any way.

Buying Used: The Basics

Before I launch into explaining what you should likely buy used, let me explain (in the simplest terms I can muster) what “buying used” really is.

Everything you buy has worth. When I buy a T-shirt for $10, for example, I am spending $10 for the entirety of the shirt itself- the actual materials, the construction, and even things like the brand. However, more importantly, for most items, I’m often paying for the newness of the item itself- that is, I’m paying a premium for the ability to purchase the t-shirt in original packaging or from the original store, with all the original labels intact. I’m paying for the right to be the first (and implicitly, only) owner of the item, and to have it for the longest amount of time it will hold up.

However, there’s a caveat to that purchase: when you buy virtually anything, it instantly depreciates. You read that correctly: your purchase of virtually anything is subject to the invisible force of depreciation, which makes the value of the item you just purchased shoot down by a large percentage. In more familiar terms to most readers, this is precisely why when you purchase a new video game at $60, you often cannot sell it back to the store or to another gamer for more than about $50 or $40: you, for all intents and purposes, paid $20 to be the first owner and to have the first crack at that particular copy of the game.

This is all a bit confusing, so let me simplify things: buying used allows you to avoid this kind of unfair price gouging. The nice thing about buying used is, if done right, it can be an effective tool to save money and still purchase a quality product. If you are buying a product that you know will last a long time and has inherent worth, by purchasing it used, you can often avoid this unfair trend of price inflation and get it for a much more reasonable price. It’s that simple!

So what should I buy used?

Simply put, the best things to buy used are things you know have inherent worth that will last.

The best possible example I can give of a good value when buying used is to buy a used car. Most cars are made to last much longer than their owners typically keep them- whereas many Americans will replace their car every 3-5 years, a good quality vehicle will be in fine working condition for much longer. Even in this terrible economy, many Americans will be as ridiculous as to replace their vehicles after one or two years, which essentially floods the market with relatively new, barely used vehicles at prices much lower than they were purchased at.

Purchasing these vehicles is a phenomenal deal. Most people know the unfortunate truth about buying a vehicle new- the second you drive it off the lot, it depreciates excessively, and you lose lots of money merely for the right to have a new car and to enjoy the new car smell thereof. When you purchase these vehicles used, however, you entirely subvert this entire system- you get the exact same vehicle, more or less in the same condition (pending the previous owner wasn’t a slob), and at a price much much cheaper than you would have ever gotten new. You would be surprised at the pricing disparity for vehicles like this- for example, just from a bit of research, I’ve been able to easily find examples of extremely expensive car 2009 models that begin at over 80,000 USD used that- after one year- are now retailing at approximately 40,000 USD. That’s an incredible discount, especially for something still relatively new.

Another example, more pertinent to Well Cultured, is clothing. While it seems hard to believe, some articles of clothing are much more worth their price when used, even though they can be sometimes slightly worn down. In the world of menswear, some of the more expensive staples- shoes, belts, and even some suits- last a long time, and are often extremely expensive to purchase new, but can be found in copious amounts used, typically in great condition, and for up to 50% off the retail price. Naturally, just like in the world of cars, lemons do exist- it’s easy to get burned with subpar or even entirely fake clothing- but you would be surprised how much you can find when shopping used. The best thing about purchasing used is that you can really get some amazingly retro pieces that are legitimately retro: while many brands try to churn out “oldschool” pieces every so often, you can own an article of clothing from the real era and truly rock it, rather than trying to do so with something brand new. New slim ties reminiscent of the 50s are cool- real 50s era slim ties are awesome.

Another less thought of example is, believe it or not, DVDs and CDs. Pending you can view the quality of the DVD/CD before you make the purchase, it’s relatively easy to build up a respectable collection of music and movies by purchasing used in lieu of purchasing new. This, of course, applies to video games as well. DVDs, CDs, and Video Games are all very much subject to the same forces of intense depreciation that other items are, and pending you can buy them used in decent quality, it is often much more economically reasonable to purchase a game used rather than to waste the cash buying something used just for the $10+ privilege to remove it from its original wrapping.

The best thing for all of the above is that you’re not only getting something cheaper, but you have the opportunity to purchase classic items. For example, in the video game and DVD world, nothing quite beats oldschool titles that may no longer be printed- you can get them used. Similarly, some clothing brands and styles have since disappeared, and you can easily find them in used markets, if you search hard enough. Some articles of clothing now prohibitively expensive yet classic, like Schott Perfecto leather motorcycle jackets, can be found in excellent quality used, and often for much cheaper. The great thing about shopping used, then, is much more than simply saving money: it’s about having the opportunity to find truly classic items as well.

What should I not buy used?

This is a pretty simple answer: anything that goes bad quickly, or is under the price in which buying used becomes worth your time. Buying a t-shirt or a cheap pair of underwear, for example, is not recommended, both for hygiene and price purposes. High technology items, particularly things like video game consoles and computers, should likely be avoided, as they are usually only sold used when broken or otherwise malfunctioning.

Additionally, it should be noted that you should never purchase anything used without either having a contract with the person you are purchasing from, or the willingness to lose the money you spend. This is an important caveat to purchasing used: you can get burned, no matter how much work or research you do ahead of time. Be careful.

In closing…

This article isn’t about making you paranoid and making you become a nascent Scrooge- it’s simply about sense.

Here in America, we have a nasty habit of loving to purchase new things, and it’s truly hurting us. Re-think your attachment to “new” items- you’d be surprised at the kinds of deals and values you can find used, pending you’re willing to search and be reasonable. If anything, give it a shot!

A lot of my friends tell me I should wear skinny jeans. I don’t wanna cram into them. What do you think?

Skinny jeans are for skinny people.

The great misconception most people have about skinny jeans is that they are for people to “cram into”- that’s a ridiculous assumption, especially for men. Jean leg fits are best considered no different than a waist measurement: the best think you can do is find a pair of jeans that fits you closely without constriction, not finding a super-baggy pair or a pair that require spandex.

That being said, comparison shop. Do not buy skinny jeans just because they are skinny: try a bunch of different pairs on and see how they fit your body and your legs. Ideally, jeans should be tight enough to not be significantly baggy, but loose enough to allow comfort sitting, walking, or even running. Avoid “carrot cut” (extremely tapered) jeans like the plague- the difference between the big thighs and the thin ankles is disgusting.

So basically, wear what fits. That may be skinny jeans, super-skinny jeans, straight legged jeans, slim-straight jeans, or whatever. Never “cram” yourself into a pair of pants.

A lot of my friends tell me to eat lots of oatmeal, and that its healthy and helps you weight lift. Is oatmeal good for health? How should I cook it?

Is oatmeal good for a fitness training plan? Absolutely positively yes. But it isn’t some sort of magic potion, and its effects are over-exaggerated in the fitness world nowadays.

Oatmeal is not some sort of magical get-bigger-quicker sort of substance- it’s just oatmeal. The reason most people who do weight lifting and other fitness programs like it is because it’s a phenomenal filler food that’s remarkably healthy. Oatmeal contains only scant amounts of protein and iron, so it’s not entirely a “health food” per se, but it’s the type of thing you can eat and get full on without breaking the bank nutritionally. On top of that, many (including myself) find it makes a great pre-workout snack- it’s stable and thick enough to not interfere with exercising, yet it will still giveyou a nice energy boost. Ultimately, if you weight lift a lot and get hungry a lot, there’s nothing quite as good as oatmeal to fill you up quickly, pending you aren’t specifically looking for the protein.

As for how to cook/eat it, fix it however you like. Don’t listen to the obsessive types who demand you eat raw steel-cut oats without anything in them- that’s both unrealistic and not very tasty. So long as you don’t load it full of sugar or syrup or something, oatmeal is pretty much universally good and filling, and there is no problem with putting a little bit of white or brown sugar in it for flavor. I personally like to put in Splenda artificial sweetener. Though fake sweetener still spikes your insulin and has some of the same effects as sugar, it’s certainly better than the real thing.

In any case, if you’re hungry, feel free to eat oatmeal. You could do MUCH worse.

Do you recommend buying clothes online, when you can’t try them on first? Any overall advice on shopping online, or stores where you should shop at?

I do recommend shopping online, but there are some things that will make your shopping experience easier. I’ll break this up into two topics.

First off, as for fitting and general purchasing, be very careful. As you likely well know, buying things online is one massive crapshoot, and it’s always a gamble. The first thing- above anything else- that I typically recommend is to simply know your sizes. Whenever shopping online, try to keep your measurements handy, or have something (soft measuring tape) to do it when you need to know. Typically, most bigger online stores will have “fit guides” or something of that nature, with approximated measurements available for you to compare yourself against. Even eBay posts tend to have this information.

Still, that doesn’t always help things. One thing I personally like to do is to simply Google it- this especially works with jeans. For example, if I wanted to know the fit of Raf Simons jeans, I’d simply Google “Raf Simons jeans fit“. To compare Levis 514s to 511s or something, “514 vs 511“. Fashion forums all over the internet have threads you can read up on for this sort of information.

Additionally, ALWAYS try to be covered in case what you purchase does not fit. Ensure there is a return policy, ideally one where you don’t have to pay a dime. If there isn’t, make sure you can afford to have something that doesn’t fit- that is, be willing to spend the extra cash to get something tailored or to sell it to someone else.

As for where to shop, you have plenty of options. Most mid-tier brands nowadays have online stores of their own- from J.Crew to Ralph Lauren to Armani Exchange. Most of these places sell their wares for full price, but are good to check regarding sales  from time to time. One new trend that’s developed online is the “fire sale” website like Gilt Groupe or JackThreads, which, at 12:00 every day, makes available an assortment of usually deeply discounted designer products. I tend to much prefer sites that carry a variety of brands- Yoox, Bluefly, Revolve Clothing, and even mall stores like Nordstrom fall into this category. If you want to browse a ton of stores at once, sites like ShopStyle are a good choice, though usually full priced. Amazon.com has some decent offerings as well. Whatever you do, make sure to check coupon sites like RetailMeNot for applicable coupon codes- you can easily save up to 50% or more stacking coupons if you are vigilant enough. If you really want to become an aggressive deal-hunter, make a dump e-mail account and sign up for a ton of website mailing lists- they often announce major sales.

Still, the best advice I can give you is to just browse around. You never know what you’ll find- just keep an eye out on things, stumble around the web, that sort of thing. Hope this helps!

7. Fatty Meats

While most don’t make the distinction, there are different types of meat, and the ones with lots of fat content (especially “premium” meats with lots of marbling) can be incredibly bad for you. The reason for this is pretty self-explanatory: while meats with more fat cook better and tend to be more tender in many ways, they also have a lot more fat per square inch, which is just plain bad for your waistline, no matter how you try to trim them.

Replace it with: Lean meats of any kind- the leaner the better. Ironically, these are usually cheaper.

6. Dressings and Sauces

While it seems common to associate eating a salad with being “on a diet”, salads can often be small calorie and fat bombs, all thanks to the dressing placed on them. This doesn’t apply to just salads, either- many spreads and sauces such as mayonnaise are infamously horrible for you, being packed with sugar, fat, and a variety of other horrible things that will quickly make a salad worse than any hamburger.

Replace with: Vinegar, or a very little bit of olive oil for salads. Mustard is also a great choice for many foods. Spray butter has no calories and only a teeny bit of sodium, which makes it decent in moderation. In the case of ANY spread or topping, less is more.

5. Cola

You’ve doubtless heard this by now: normal sodas, be it Coke or even some arcane cane sugar “Retro” cola, is bad for you. Case closed.

Replace with: Diet soda, or no soda at all. Fake sugar will still spike your insulin, and this can still be bad in some cases, but it is by far the better choice in many respects.

4. Heavy Frozen Dinners

Be it a Hungry Man or a Pot Pie dinner, TV dinners or other “Frozen meals” can be absolutely horrible for you. Most of these pack not only a huge amount of food, but many pack a whole day’s worth of calories and carbs into one big package labeled a single “meal”- meaning you not only eat the stuff, but you eat all of it in one sitting.

Replace with: Healthy frozen entrees (Lean Cuisine, Kashi, etc), or just stuff you cook yourself.

3. Alcohol

Yes, alcohol: the legendary “beer gut” that plagues many men is very often because of beer. No matter how you swing it, the vast majority of alcoholic drinks are bad for you, especially when you drink quite a bit of them in one sitting. To put it in perspective, most of your average fratboy-esque drinkers end up drinking the equivalent of over a loaf of bread in beer in one setting- not exactly good for your health by any means.

Replace with: Light beers. Avoid binge drinking- if you like alcohol, spread it out, and only drink a little at a time. Red wine has demonstrated health benefits, so drinking this in extreme moderation is fine. Consider alcoholic drinks to be like a calorie-laden dessert – only drink it once in a blue moon.

2. White Bread and Pasta

Going right along with the aforementioned beer thing, refined flour-based products- white bread, white pasta, the vast majority of pastries, and the like- are absolutely terrible for you. Losing a lot of their nutritional qualities in the refining process, these items end up being absolutely terrible for you, and often so easily replaced, meaning that you have no excuse to eat them.

Replace with: Whole wheat breads, pastas, and the like. Do NOT go for the blandly labeled “wheat” products, which can often be darker refined flour products- stick with legitimate whole grain whole wheat products.

1. Anything with Sugar or HFCS

Let me be very clear: the debate over Sugar vs. HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) is largely moot, because you should ideally be consuming very little of the foods they are in regardless of which one is present. Neither is necessarily healthier than the other, and the products they appear in- sweets, sodas, yogurt, bread, etc- are to be avoided.

Replace with: Ideally, nothing. Cutting down on your overall sweets intake is an ideal choice for your health. As for breads, avoid over-sweetened breads (like “cinnamon swirl” type stuff) and focus more on whole wheat options. As for yogurt, try to transition to Greek yogurt, which is leagues healthier and sometimes much tastier.

I just recently started dating this girl, but it seems kinda odd: I’m a really stable and normal guy with a house, but her past boyfriends have all been loser druggies who she clubbed with. Is this a trap?

Yes.

On one hand, some girls learn, much as guys do. A lot of girls- and I truly mean a lot- begin their dating careers going after the “bad boys” or those who seem vaguely interesting, essentially dating whatever seems fun at the time. This begins generally in high school, and for many girls, it ends in high school as well- they learn what to avoid and move on. Of course, guys exhibit similar behavior- it’s a kind of growing-up trend everyone goes through.

The problem are what I will really somewhat cruelly call the “fixer-uppers”- that is, something of a mixture of the online “The Lowered Standards” and “The ‘Broken’”. These girls try to have their cake and eat it too- while they are young and have energy, they date the guys who they find interesting but would never marry- the proverbial rock stars and starving artists. However, at a certain point (most people like to say 30, but I like to argue it happens as early as 22-23, once a girl is out of college and on her own), these girls suddenly realize that they want stability and everything those other guys weren’t- so they find the nearest “safe bet” and attach to him quickly. Put another way, the girl becomes intensely aware that she has a biological clock, and she begins making sacrifices of what she wants for future security.

Naturally, everyone has a dating history, and some of them are bad- but as you can probably imagine, I tend to not like these girls very much, and I advise many friends to avoid them. Girls of this caliber can be very dangerous- trying to force marriage through pregnancy and having STDs (both I have seen occur as a third party). In addition, I just have something against them from an ethical standpoint- I think it’s really cruel that many women go after nice guys after they have their “fun” in youth, essentially expecting that they are absolved from everything they do until they arbitrarily decide that it’s time to get “serious” and suddenly everything suddenly becomes important. If her reason for dating you is more like a battle plan (“you have a future”) than an emotional reason (“I like you”), stay the hell away. If she seems to be acting way out of character (such as withholding even basic affection from you), be cautious. If she ever gives you the “you can’t judge me” speech (which is the whole “You can’t judge me, I learn from my experiences, the fact that I have [Insert: 3 kids, Herpes, a history of living with 30 past boyfriends, etc] doesn’t matter, everyone makes mistakes, I’m a unique person, you’re lucky to have me…” spiel) then you likely know that you probably want to stay away.

Now that I’ve probably scared your pants off, allow me to go ahead and say that the fact that girls like this exist does not necessarily mean that your girlfriend is one of them. Be open with her about it and ask her why she made such a big change. Some girls legitimately make mistakes. Still, don’t be a sheep.

Settle a debate for me: how do you properly button a vest? How about a peacoat?

Here are the basic rules to follow.

First off, a vest should be buttoned all the way, with the exception of the very bottom button. The history of this is rather antiquated and possibly pointless, but nowadays it serves a much more utilitarian purpose: vests are usually tailored in such a way where bottoming the lowest button would mess up the tailoring, essentially making it something of an accent moreso than an actual button to be used. Vests should never never never be unbuttoned unless you are taking them off: do not walk around with them hanging off your shoulders like some actor in a White House thriller pretending to be a fat analyst or something.

The same applies to single breasted suits as well. If you have a two button jacket, button only the top. If you have a three button jacket, button only the top two. Like the aforementioned, buttoning the bottom can make the tailoring look awkward.

As for anything double-breasted, it should always be buttoned. Do not, under any circumstances, walk around with your peacoat open- that’s not the style, it looks awkward and indicates someone without knowledge of how to wear the garment.