I love personal finance. You won’t find me get more excited about many things in this world beyond talking personal finance with someone, a friend, a relative, or a complete stranger. The problem is, that topic is taboo to a great many people, especially during the first few interactions. In fact, I know a great many people would rather talk about sex than about their own fiscal situation. I *rarely* approach girls discussing my strategy of how I will try to get in their pants, however, I sometimes can’t help myself by bringing up the topic of personal finance. It’s just in my nature.
The topic could be different for each of you. Being passionate about having a mobile lifestyle or launching your new business could reign supreme in your mind and thoughts. The things you are passionate about are what define you as a person. I know when I meet someone new, I am bursting with energy and after I give a girl the opportunity to talk about herself (most of the conversation), I start discussing the things that I am most into. On a day-to-day basis, I will usually share information about the community I belong to online. I will talk about my own site, or the latest from Baker, J. Money and others. This is where I get into trouble.
Maybe out of all the Untemplater pillars, I picked the one least likely to impress a girl at a bar. I mean, who wouldn’t find you interesting if you talked about how you are living overseas for the indefinite future because you have created significant mobile income? What chick wouldn’t flounder if you showed off your passion for creating businesses and showing that you could successfully sustain them? I just don’t get why girls don’t think the Roth IRA, the 401(K), sub savings accounts, and an emergency fund are as cool as sipping coffee on the beach while working on your laptop in some foreign and remote location. Maybe I am just not supposed to understand girls.
With the internet making it so easy to build and join a community of likeminded indviduals, its become seemingly difficult to find things in common on spec with the people we meet in real life. I find myself in an uncommon situation of having little to say sometimes. It sure ain’t easy for me at times, especially if I am brewing to talk about the most recent thing I read online, only to find out that the girl I am going on a second date with has already read the article off of my twitter feed or on facebook. She likely knows my opinion about it, and its totally possible she can give two sh–s about “The Ten Coolest Tax Tips”.
So, you tell me… what do I talk to girls about?
- Personal Finance? (off limits)
- Comic books? (not unless I want to be looked down upon for the next hour – off limits)
- Sex? (depends how many drinks she has had… if its happy hour – off limits)
- Myself and how awesome I am? (that usually gets most guys REAL far, right? – off limits)
The moral of the story is: You have to have balance (or if you choose to be unbalanced, make sure you are focused on something cool as hell that will impress, engage and enthrall members of the opposite sex in conversation). Setting aside time to read something OTHER than your niche blogs can only help you to improve as a person. Sometimes we are so engrained in the things that we enjoy, that we forget that there is a world of possibilities out there with things we are yet to discover.
Who knows if one of those things you have been “too busy” to try isn’t the opportune conversation starter the next time you meet someone new?
Lol with a title like “Why girls don’t talk to me” how could I not read. You are a very entertaining and down to earth writer – I like your style man.
Glad you liked it Jonny. I look forward to going through some of the archives on your site and reading what your journey has been like!
Unfortunately/fortunately, I seem to come home with new web design projects more than I come home with somebody who shares my interests. Balance is definitely the key that I need to be working on at times 😉
“Well, not to hate on this city, but it appears DC folk tend to all be pretty similar.”
Brian, that is likely the problem. You are in the chief breeding ground for vampire squids; those individuals who could not generate a top line without the barrel of a gun if their life depended on it. Did you see the movie Daybreakers? They are authoritarians and you are their livestock. If you are an entrepreneur and fiscally responsible then you have about as much in common with them as a saint and a hitman. No wonder you find conversation difficult!
Hi Brian,
thanks for your post. I stumbled upon Untemplater a couple of weeks ago, since then I’m hooked. This is my first comment here at Untemplater.
Brian, do you feel that you should be entertaining those girls? If so, you should throw that expectation out of the window and spend your valuable time on something more important.
Please, you really shouldn’t think that you need some “balance”. If you decide to do so, you’ll do stuff you are not passionate about and that won’t be much fun to you. Additionally, you’ll become one of the million Vollidioten (yes, German word) who are all balanced and just the same. There is no need to find a balance. Please don’t find a balance! Don’t listen to Alex. I also love talking about PF and when I realize that people around me get annoyed, I change the subject and talk about taxes (yes, seriously) or rubik’s cube algorithms. However, I know that they didn’t like the PF stuff because I didn’t sell it right. Then I open up my old marketing books from my bachelor studies and try to find a way to sell them the story. Maybe I tell them the story how frugal I had to be when I was a pizza delivery boy; or the story how I saw people spending money when I was working as a concierge, or just say something about the dangerous life as a hockey scorekeeper, or just tell them that you got a comment from a geeky European guy …
Whatever it is: Don’t balance. You have the passion, which soooo many people don’t have. So I agree with Cody: keep it up that way and focus more on selling, not teaching.
Brian – Fun post. It’s obvious you love comics, so talk to girls about your love of comics! If they don’t dig that, move on.
In fact, if you find a girl who loves comics, that could be golden b/c I think that would be so rare, you may have to marry her on the spot!
Look at you… got me in my first conversation with a girl getting married to her! There needs to be a meeting place for all the dorks of a specific town. Thats it, a franchised bar, one in every city, where only dorks are allowed. You have to be a card carrying member, so no one else is admitted. Or is that too much like a swingers club without the sex?
No sex till marriage Brian! That’s what the bible says!
I have a great one for you…. you can tell the ladies you are a personal finance motivational speaker. Ask if they have heard of Tony Robbins, and say you are like him.
I agree with you about how it seems harder to find people in real life with the same interests as you when you can find them online! But we’re humans and real life relationships beat online relationships every time.
My strategy is to talk to/meet as many people in real life as I can. I think my odds of finding someone with similar interests as me increases by doing so! (Or I guess you can say it decreases: if there are only 3 people in the world who share your interests and you’ve only met 10 people, that’s 30% VS you’ve met 100 people, that’s 3% 🙁 Or, odds of meeting someone who shares your interests do not carry over each time you meet someone new: just because you previously met someone who doesn’t share your interests doesn’t mean that the next person is more likely to share your interests…these probabilities are starting to get depressing…)
The right girl for you will care about Personal Finance and perhaps even comic books 🙂
I think i just need to stand outside of a comic shop (something virtually non-existent in DC) and hold up a sign saying “Responsible with your credit cards? Want to go out? Call 555-1234”
Good plan of action?
yes! isn’t that how some guy got a job? (they just stood on the street giving out resumes until they landed a job)
Now i just need to pick the right city to do it in.
Best date: guy tells me how to turn my pennies into millions without get rich schemes, but through legitimate budgeting because I like hearing about it, but hate reading about it, then discussing The Watchmen movie vs the graphic novel (not just which was better, but the differentiating points of each), at which point the conversation can happily stray to other areas that I’m far too bashful to type out here before coming around full circle to me being completely overflowing with questions about where this guy came from and what his deal is (I think about myself all day, I certainly don’t want to talk about myself all night!)
Alright, so this response may be a LITTLE catered to your post. But I really think you’re just after the wrong girls. Anyone who doesn’t think Personal Finance is at least a little sexy will probably be broke and do you want to end up supporting someone who doesn’t care to take care of their finances?
Where have you been all my life? Save the budgeting talk for later, but the differentiating points of Watchmen. Well, obviously getting rid of the Tales of the Black Freighter made the movie a bit easier to follow. I remember the first time reading the book and going, “wtf?” Would like to have seen a bit more of Hollis Mason and i really enjoyed the courtship of Janey and Osterman that wasn’t as prevalent in the movie. There was just so much in the book that really could have made the movie about a week long. Oh, and Dreiberg’s impotence was glossed over (never thought i was going to say that word on a blog!) as well as the unforgettable scene of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre getting it on in Antarctica after New York had been basically blown up. Yeah, that really happened.
🙂
The first man who ever treated me like a princess was super enthusiastic about his job as a financial advisor. His enthusiasm for his everyday life and kind words about his colleagues won him points with me. His niche was pretty different from my everyday life (especially my everyday life at the point when I met him) and I am glad he didn’t use his financial expertise to assess my spending patterns.
In my experience, genuine enthusiasm for a niche is a turn-on; unsolicited advice is a turn-off.
It is a fine balance and a tightrope that i try and walk. I talk about the things i do with my money. Maybe someone is curious and asks a question, then all of a sudden they get what could amount to a college lecture (unintentionally). I try not to give unsolicited advice, but an inkling of interest from someone and they may not get a word in for the next 10 minutes.
um…
I don’t know what kind of girls you’ve been talking to, but they sound really boring.
I, for one, would like some advice about how to start a Roth IRA and I own as many graphic novels as regular novels.
But yes, it IS all about balance. 🙂
Well, not to hate on this city, but it appears DC folk tend to all be pretty similar. Or maybe i just haven’t had the right person take me to the right bars to find where all the cool people are at!
Graphic novels on a girl’s shelf would endear me to her for life. Then again, i’d have to physically visit her place to confirm in order for my heart truly to melt. 🙂
Agreed. Listening is the key. Just please, stop wearing those low cut shirts when you go out or to bars. It only serves to derail our attention!
What are you saying dude? I hope she didn’t read that. If she spreads the word it would be disastrous.
Dude, they spread the word once and it didn’t take hold back in the 70s… i think you are all good.
“What do I talk to girls about” is the wrong question:
Get THEM to talk about themselves, and not just superficial interview questions, but what they are passionate, what’s important to them in life and WHY it is important to them.
Then, shut up and listen, only responding to poke deeper into the subject and maybe just repeating shortly at the same time what they said so they get that you where actually paying attention.
Couldn’t be simpler. Womens favourite subject is almost always themselves, get them to talk about their passions and make them realise you actually listen, and you have an express ticket into pantyville, should you want it.
Nice giggity.
…I didn’t realise the irony of my avatar in commenting on this subject until your reply. 😀
Not just women, everyone. It’s like the whole principle behind How to Win Friends and Influence People, show that you care and are generally interested in people and get them to talk about themselves. They’ll freaking love you.
I totally agree Mike. The more diverse your interests, the more you are able to chime in with a quick remark or a furthering question to show that you are interested and that you have a connection with them.
Now Wille, my biggest problem could be if she talks about what she is passionate about, and she discusses blowing her discretionary income on shoes, clothes, etc, to the point where she gets in debt, i will go insane. It definitely is easy to just be quiet and let them continue to talk. It just appears that most of the ones that like to talk are the ones that you wish would just stop as soon as they open their mouths.
Brian:
That wasn’t quite the point.. If they go into those subjects, try to lead them into other subjects, like experiences that stir their passions and emotions.
Shoes are just things, they may evoke some emotions, but what you want to do to make it enjoyable for the both of you is to get to experiences and activities that might stir emotions, that’s where you might find if you have things in common, things you like to do, while at the same time keeping it interesting for the girl.
Also, if a girl is only passionate about shoes, clothes and spending, maybe that should be the end of the conversation for the both of you.
Really, a guy has a right to discriminate as well, though traditionally women do most of it: if a woman will give you a headache the second she opens her mouth, why in the world would you want to waste time on her? Just in the vain hope of getting your wiener vet? There are better things to do with your time. 🙂
The only time I discuss money with girls is when… umm nevermind.
Ya my girlfriend hates my personal finance side. Actually, she loathes it. I bring up money at the oddest times. I’ve learned to just let girls do all the talking while I think about my financial stuff lol.
Uh oh… don’t already give away what my next article will be out (your first sentence)!
I don’t think it’s personal finance as a topic that’s a problem, but since you’re so passionate about it, it can intimidate people who are uneducated in personal finance (me) or worry about where their income goes (uh, me again) and it can feel a little like a lecture, not a conversation. I’m conscious of the same thing when people ask me about their diet (I’m vegan and study nutrition). Have you considered talking about other areas of interest you already have, instead of things you have to study in other blogs? I’ve heard some girls love sports. (do I have to say it?)
Well of course. And i do have other interests to discuss, but i am always brewing and beaming when i talk about PF, as i am sure you are when you talk about nutrition and being a vegan. How i am when i talk about finance is the “best” of my personality. Its giving and helpful, excited and passionate. I want to share it with anyone and everyone. Just happens to be so damn taboo of a topic.
Great post Brian. While I don’t think picking up girls was actually the point of your post (it’s that pf is really important, it just doesn’t sound “sexy”)—you might be really surprised how few people give a rat’s patoot about the “mobile lifestyle” or lifestyle design or whatever you want to call it. Most of my real friends can’t even wrap their heads around what I do, nor do they really care to spend the time to learn. I find that there are only a handful of people that I can talk to in “real life” about the things that interest me online (and they almost all happen to also be bloggers).
Also, I’ve had one hell of a time finding a woman who “gets” and will put up with the entrepreneur lifestyle—it might sound “sexy” at first, but it’s much more demanding and time-consuming than any other career.
Anyway, if what you want is to be able to talk to people about what you’re passionate about, the key is to tell stories. This is true for girls, new business acquaintances, family, friends, people you meet while traveling. People want to hear about how someone was impacted or changed, personally, and they want to learn about your life experience too.
Thanks Cody. That is actually some interesting perspective. I would figure that people would just be engrossed by the stories and the lifestyle you live. Maybe its because i look at you guys living that mobile lifestyle with awe, and have huge respect for the choices you all make.
Sucks that you have had to struggle to find a girl that gets it… but if you keep moving around, well… there are certainly positives to that as well.
*ticks off* Hmm….you’ve talked to me about personal finance, websites, comics, sex, and how awesome you are. But maybe I don’t count because I’m not an available girl. 😉
Yeah, married one’s don’t count.