Ask Steve Santagati

Surviving Solo On New Years

Of all the amazing times you've had in your life, how many of them have been on New Years Eve?  Think about it.  Was it worth the price of getting into a big night club in a room full of sweaty drunk strangers? The cost of the hang over? I'm not saying you can't have a good time on New Years but it's un-likely it will be what you want or expect.  I've celebrated New Years Eve all over the world, in a big way, so please trust me when I say, "YOU'RE NOT MISSING ANYTHING!"  

The ones I've spent with a few close friends, laughing at stupid jokes, reflecting on the past, and planning for the future were by FAR the best ways to celebrate.  Not to mention, in the words of U2; "All is quiet on new years day" which means the day after is a great time to go out and do stuff without being bothered by the folks nursing a hang over. New Years Eve is, after all, just an arbitrary night.  It's just another night of the year, another day on the calendar.

 One year I was in my tiny cottage, on the top of a mountain in Vermont, with three close friends and it was better than any fireworks display in Sydney Australia or stupid ball dropping in Times Square [a terrorist hot spot ].  BTW- what the fk is it with that stupid ball drop? Why do we want to watch that? You can see balls dropping all year if you hang out with 70 year old men. LOL

Moreover, New Years Eve is a pressure cooker, It's worse than Valentine's Day.  The holiday reminds all of us that we're not important, not loved, and not cool if we don't have someplace amazing to go to and brag about for the week following.  Albeit, the bragging is all the same; men; " I totally hooked up with this chick, she was so drunk"  Women; "god, I was so drunk I made out with some loser." and so on and so on.

  I'm well aware of the fact that women love any opportunity to get dressed up, feel pretty, and go dance but you have an entire year to do that when it's not so crowded, gouging-ly over priced,  20 degrees outside, and you can get a taxi.  Good men want you to feel pretty and have a good time but these same great men know the troubles one night can lead to if not properly executed.

My Advice:

Single Men

Go out and find a party or bar or night club and go by yourself of with just ONE other guy.  This is THE easiest night of the year to get laid and pick up a girl for random sex. Use a condom and pace your drinking so you can "get the job done" at 4am.  My suggestion is to start drinking water and take a B12 vitamin around 12:30 am.

Men with Wives and serious girlfriends:

1. Find a small intimate house party with interesting and close friends and celebrate there. Plan on a designated driver or a sleep over / gang bang. [LOL, I'm kidding on the gang bang]

2. Make a special night together in your home. Just because you are staying in doesn't mean you can't be romantic and dress up.

Single Women

Hmmm, you are the suckers of the evening, the targets. You have to put on your game face and be ready for anything.  Stay alert! This is the night men prey on you. We know how easy it is.  There are men that will drug you or wait until you're so drunk you can't stand before they make their move.  The night is inherently disorganized and in the chaos people will do some very stupid things because they think they can get away with it. Guys know you are desperate for that "oh so important kiss a midnight", they know that you feel like a loser because you don't have a date and  they are more than willing to accommodate you with the brief fantasy of being your surrogate lover for the evening. 

1. If you're going to go out to a club or big party, remember there is safety in numbers. Keep a look out for one another.

2. Try to avoid driving home that night because even if you're sober there are far too many drunks on the road who could kill or maim you.

3. DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE. NOT EVEN TWO OR THREE DRINKS. REMEMBER, YOU CAN ONLY HANDLE ONE DRINK PER HOUR. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. 

4. As always, it's your job to look after yourself, don't rely on your friends.

5. Arrange a small party at someone's home with people who are single but NOT a lonely hearts club, that shit is depressing.

6. If you don't have any plans then stay in and go to bed around 11:30, it will all be over soon.

Ladies and Gentlemen, rule the night, don't let it rule you. Do what ever the fk you want to do and don't let anyone define "what a good time truly is". 

Step One On Being Bad

Ok, you asked for it, so here goes You want to know how to successfully be a bad boy or bad girl? You want to see how the "other half" lives? See what you've been missing - all these years - by following the sweet little path mommy and daddy taught you to follow? Fuck that, it's time to "get some" and have a blast doing it. 

You will soon find, if you apply yourself, that being bad has benefits far beyond being "nice", there is no comparison. Being a bad ass will affect all areas of your life, in a good way. You are much more likely to find someone you can fall in love with by being bad, but that is not your goal, it's just icing on the cake.  Moreover, being bad does NOT mean you're sleazy, slutty, sanctimonious, salacious, or stupid. It means you've "figured it out", are using the forces of nature to your advantage, and refuse to be a door mat.

Bad Boys and Girls bylaws:

1. Never kiss and tell. Keep all of you conquests to yourself and learn to hunt solo.

2. Keep silently humble, be willing to look bad before you get good. Being bad is a daily mentality / a work in continuous progress.

3. Take no prisoners, no need to protect your victims from you, they can fend for themselves. Do not feel bad for anyone who loses.  It's not your fault they chose to date like a "civilian".

4. Keep all matters of your life private!

5. Dress to kill! Use your sexuality as a weapon of mass destruction.

6. You must be noncommittal and agree not to get married or be in a serious relationship until you have mastered being bad.

7. You will be ruthless and selfish with your time; only doing what you want, when you want, and with whom you want.

8. Practice Practice Practice. Flirt with the goal of controlling the other person's emotions.

9. Maintain your integrity, be responsible - by practicing safe sex, never rely on anyone for financial support or anything that puts you in a position of weakness.  You're a rock.

10. You must think bad, listen to music that makes you feel naughty, and engage in activities that make you a real man or real woman as part of your life style.  This is crucial to your success. NO "paper Tigers" are allowed when it comes to being bad, the opposite sex will see straight through you. Think it be it.

Step One for Women:

1. Dump any guy who is not treating you like a princess. Just call and say it's over. No discussions.

2. Get your shit together mentally, learn to be cold, and start thinking of men as your toys.

3. Donate clothes [to charity] that are anything less than painfully sexy to the opposite sex.

4, Watch hot how hot female bar tenders, strippers, and Hooters girls carry themselves and make eye contact with men. Pay close attention to how these men become insipid kittens in their hands

5.  Get as many male friends as you can and start paying attention to what they like and how they think and make special notes on any weaknesses you pick up on.

Step One for Men:

1. Lose the Ed Hardy shirt, the cell phone on you pleated khakis, the Axe spray, the over done hair gel, and buy a distress t shirt, great pair of beat up Levis, and a good pair of work boots. Your objective is to dress like you don't give a fuck but still look cool.

2. Hit the gym and start picking up outdoor hobbies that put you in harm's way. This includes any adventure sport or anything where you'll get bruised up and knocked around.  There is not substitute for this. Women can smell a real man a mile away. They're like sharks.

2. a. Learn how to change a tire, gut a fish, cook a great meal, and tell a fuckin joke.

3. Instead of hating the dominant males in your world, befriend them, learn from them, watch what they do and how they do it. Bad Boys are your new best friends. Think of this activity like how they train hunting dogs:

Puppies are put with well trained mature dogs and sent out into the field to hunt. No better way to improve your skills quickly.

4. Read up on what it means to be an alpha male. Learn about eye contact, posture, and your presence in a room.

5. Start by not caring what you say or how it's received by women. Act arrogant and cocky without the need for positive feed back.

Note: * You must stay in top physical shape. You must understand that you will NOT be a "player" or a slut.

Bad Santa-Gati

Before I make the effort, and give you a five part blog series on how to get good at being bad, I need to know, by show of hands, how many of you want to learn how to become a Dating Ninja. This five part Blog series will be but a small taste of what you'll find in my next book Man-i-Cure.

By "being bad" I don't mean running over old ladies or stealing from the poor I'm talking about changing the way you look at yourself and relationships and taking FIVE GIANT STEPS  towards being a completely modern woman or MAN. {note: please make sure you know who you are before you take these steps; are you a real woman? Are you a real man?}

Let me know.

You're an Animal

If you really want to understand Men, Women, yourself, and have happy loving relationships, then read on.  If you're too lazy, just not interested, have given up, bitter, close minded, have your foot stuck in a toaster oven, and are being chased around your home by an angry Ferret, you are excused.  

     After appearing on Dr Phil there were a lot of people who contacted me, everyone had an opinion. Do you realize how many people see you?, how many people you are exposing yourself to?, it's staggering, I don't think about these numbers or I'd need "full body sanitizer". 

     One man contacted me, in particular, that should be viewed as a huge spot light on truly understanding the human animal. He's one of several people you should all be paying attention to, Jay D. Glass, a Ph.D. in neurobiology. He's been praised by people like Jane Goodall, Ph.D [the woman who does the "chimp thing" for you lay folks].  Dr Jay was kind enough to send me his book, The Animal With In Us, because of something he heard me say on tv, something I've said many times. You all scream and yell complaining that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I'm making excuses for men acting the way they do.  When I say, "men are genetically wired to cheat", is what I'm referring to. I never said it's an excuse, all I say is that it's a biological force in men.  When it comes to biological forces, women are no different, you have high octane biology that drives your decision process too. I'm requesting you do the research before you open your mouths, not have a "knee jerk" reaction because you don't want to believe it. The facts are the facts.

It bears repeating; The facts are the facts, we - YOU - are animals.  The disconnect happens because we humans, unlike our mono-instinctive animal friends, have self awareness and contemplate consequences to our actions- to name only a few differences.  Societal pressure causes us to question that little voice inside each one of us that tells us the truth about what we want in life, in a lover, in a mate, and whether to kill or be killed.  I haven't read all of Dr. Jay's book yet, but I've read several other books - on a similar topic - and have done some field research myself and I can tell you, ladies, you act like animals and respond accordingly to alpha males. I've used it against / with you in the field with results that would frighten you.  Don't you want to have this knowledge under your skirt?  Don't you want to know? Wouldn't you rather be enlightened than blind sided?

The point is to get in touch with the animal inside, the one that makes you tick, find out what the driving force is behind men, and, like Dr Jay says, "make it your best friend." Television and media often lambaste men for being pigs and dogs and claim we run around the planet led by our dicks. That explanation is crude and received chagrin. Moreover, that explanation is puddle deep and to truly understand us you must go deep. 

 P.S. I'll share more of Dr. Jay's book. I will always credit him and never plagiarize! However, these are findings I've experienced in nature and in my own life.

The foot note is simple: we as human animals have dissonance because on the one hand we have incredible desires and forces raging through our veins and on the other side we have the confining structure of society. 

Societal structure is both useful and harming. It's useful because it keeps us from taking food off "the weak" in a restaurant, dry humping the office secretary, and killing someone who cuts us off on the highway. Societal structure is harmful because it also encourages us to lie to ourselves, to believe in false prophets, and to mask our true identity. Think about it, if your female peers didn't ridicule you for dressing too sexy you would play to win, you would show off your ass, your tits, and take no prisoners when it came to attracting and keeping the best men for yourself.  You wouldn't need stupid match maker web sites or the limited advice of most "self help" books.

You would admit you want a strong man, and alpha man, a man who you can feel safe with.

Men, on the other hand, would stop pretending to be "domesticated" just to get you in bed, they would show their true colors from day one, not hiding behind a suit and tie and clever words. Men would admit they are attracted to lots of different females and would throw you on to the office desk and have their way with you > if it weren't for the god damn "human resource" department. ;-)

The good news is that us human animals have a filter inside that makes us different than wild animals and guides us on how to act civilized.  Key words are "act civilized".   The trick is to make the domestication filter thin enough to unapologetically  achieve our goals with the opposite sex and still be an ethical member of society. Ah, there in lies the dilemma, where is the balance?

Your home work is to do some research on yourself, the human animal, read Dr Jay's book, "The Animal Within Us", read "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and Ann Dryan, look at what Dr. Helen Fischer is professing, and pay attention to Discovery's Planet Earth.  Once you know you, relationships will look completely different, you'll have more understanding and, therefore, more power.  Bad Boy and Girls do Finish First. It's the law of the jungle.

When to Break Up

There are very few of us who have the tenacity to weather bumps in the road these days. When it comes to working on a relationship with another person, most people aren't willing or able to put in the effort, they're lazy or lack the required skills. Then, of course, there are the folks, on the other side of the equation, who put up with too much [or too little, as the case may be] and stay on the "highway to hell" way too long, they should have "tucked and rolled" / jumped from a moving vehicle but, instead, stay on until they realize they're lost. You know I love analogies and metaphors, by now, so let's take a look at relationships as a road.

    Once you hop in a love vehicle with someone, and decide to try and make the "trip" worthwhile, you could be in for the most thrilling ride of your life. However, it can only work if you are both willing to take turns driving. Equally important, while one person is behind the relationship wheel, the other must be a great copilot, being helpful, unselfish, and supportive. There are going to be all sorts of "curves" and scary sections on the road ahead and it takes two committed people to properly navigate the route with the shared goal of arriving safely with the relationship solidly intact. Moreover, the person you're driving with must know what it means to show true love demonstratively. 

There are some clear signs on the road that will tell you if it's time to break up and get out of the car before you both find a deployed air bag is suffocating you.

For Example:

1. If he / she is selfish, rarely asking how you are, careless with your feeling or un-appreciative of all you do

2. If promises are made, however small, and are not followed through on and this "lack of follow through" happens repeatedly.

3. When you get more "excuses" about why he/ she couldn't do something and criticism than actual love.

4. When you hear the words "I love you" - and their ilk - but for some reason you don't really feel it, trust your instinct on this one but don't let insecurity steal the day.

5. Look out for "hypocrisy". Meaning, they fault you for doing or saying something and then they turn around and do the same thing to you, the thing that they themselves were complaining about.

6. Pay attention to your partner and see if they are making one sided or unreasonable requests of you.

7. If they choose to care more about the feelings of their friends than they do about you, or choose to spend quality time with strangers rather than you.

8. If they have a drinking or drug problem they can't master.

There are many "billboards" on the road of love but the  list above should be programmed into your emotional GPS. The fact is, it really sucks when you're in love with someone and you find yourself doing all the work, you see the potential for an amazing relationship but, for what ever reason, your partner is not pulling their weight. It's sad but it may be time to tell them to "pull over" so you can get out.

It does take two, after all. No one can "drive the distance" alone, it's too far, and too empty a journey to go it solo.

For me, because I've been in so many relationships - not all of them deep love but most were far from superficial - it's even more difficult, because I SEE EVERYTHING  and rarely miss  "signs" of disaster along the way.  Less you forget, I do this relationship thing for a living which makes it excruciatingly painful.  I see things the other person often doesn't and want to save them from making mistakes and losing me.  I know what's best because "I've been down the road before", many times, i've learned how to have healthy relationships by making lots of mistakes. Moreover, if I try to help my loved one but find the person that I'm with doesn't enjoy a "back seat driver" I must acquiesce and allow them to crash and burn regardless of how painful it is for me to watch them ruin the journey.  You don't get a second chance.

You will find very few "true loves" in your life and, when you do meet that person who is different from all the rest, be ready to work hard on making it strong. But also be ready to break up if the person just isn't ready to come to task.  They may not be smart enough or mature enough, they may not have the same vision you have, or they may just be blinded by self absorption. 

If you do break up you may cry and will be riddled with questions, did I do enough?, should I have waited?, could I have been more patient?, and so on. You should never look for closure from the person you're breaking up with, the chances of you finding it is -most often- a fruitless endeavor. 

It's ok to love someone with all your heart and soul but you have to love yourself and not give away precious gifts to the lowest bidder. Take the time to truly evaluate your situation and make a sober decision on whether or not you should keep driving or break up.

18 holes are never enough...Tiger

 Tiger made the mistake of getting married, but that is all he did wrong. Simple.  However, the outrageously blind investment made by his wife is what we need to elucidate.  She's the gold digger and Tiger is the provider of the gold. That is the arrangement. When there is so much money, fame, and privilege at stake love is like tenth, or lower, on the list of reasons why a woman marries a guy like Tiger.  Moreover, if she really used violence when discovering his infidelity, she should be prosecuted for it! How dare she use violence period. How arrogant was she to think she could have a life style that is beyond the scope of what us "normal folks" experience and not allow her provider to have affairs on the side. We're not talking you and me here people, their life style is difficult for us to grasp. So keep in mind our rules of infidelity and theirs are completely different.  The money and opportunities a guy like Tiger Woods provides a woman is way beyond the scope of a normal guy, way beyond the parameters of rich men, and, therefore, there are a completely different set of rules / concessions that need to be made for this relationship. It would seem, quite obvious to me, that she went after a life style when she met Tiger, she liked the fame, the money, and the privilege that a guy like Tiger provides.  Imagine how much easier her life is than yours? Do you have any idea how much money, celebrity benefits, and choices she has? A relationship has to have balance, there was no way this relationship could have ever had balance, she could never bring to the table what Tiger was bringing. Therefore, Her choices are simple: 1. don't marry him [buzz] too late for that 2. Realize you're marrying him and that the money and privileges are a big part of that choice. 3. Shut up if he's going to sleep with women on the road [while he's buying you private jet time] and have a mature conversation about being discrete if he decides to sleep around. 4. Next time, marry an average guy who's income matches your own. If he cheats feel free to beat him with a golf club.

I'm sick and tired of people feeling badly for gold diggers and the life style they cunningly enjoy. She is the one that should be the focus of the media, not Tiger.