Have dating questions you want to ask Miss Cindy Young? Email her – cindy@ampedasia.com
Another year gone, a new year started, and dozens of resolutions in the back of your mind that you’re going to dump by mid-February. You know it’s true. You probably made the same New Year’s resolutions that you (and everyone else on the planet) made last year and the year before that. It’s almost as if resolutions were simply made to be broken and abandoned.
But you want 2015 to be different. You’re tired of living the same boring, average life. You want change. You want more excitement. You want more money. You want more women. You want to be suave and sophisticated. You want this to be the year that you change everything for good.
This is the year you date your mega hottie.
And you totally can. But you’re not going to get anywhere by making the same resolutions time and time again, promising yourself that this time you’ll lose the weight, this time you’ll do things right. If you truly want to make changes in your life, you’ve got to change your lifestyle and way of thinking. The rest will take care of itself.
If you want to become a better Asian man in 2015, here are our top ten resolutions that we guarantee will change the way you look at life:
1. Stop believing the Anti-Asian racism. Embrace your identity.
This goes out to all the Asian men out there who think that being Asian is the root of their problems with women. Stop it. That’s not the reason why you’re not getting any.
I see the same statements from certain Asian men time and time again (if you’re not this guy, fantastic). White girls just don’t like Asian guys. Asian girls are always after white guys. Everybody is racist. Woe is me.
White guys don’t make things any better—whenever we post a pro-Asian-male article, the comments section is usually littered with white guys making racist comments. It’s maddening. But do you know what’s happening every time you’re sitting there and contemplating racial dynamics, wondering why online dating sucks for Asian men, asking yourself why girls don’t talk to you, complaining about women being shallow? The world keeps moving and girls keep dating. They don’t want a guy who is so timid he won’t ask them out or who is so anxious about their response that he comes off as awkward. So stop giving a shit. You’re hot stuff and you know it. Don’t let the nagging voice in the back of your head become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2. For that matter, stop being negative.
I get it, you’re your own worst critic. I’m guilty of this. I guarantee you are. You kick yourself for not sticking with last year’s resolution to join a gym, you’re mad at yourself for not standing up to that asshole at work, or maybe you’re embarrassed because you’re bad at something all your other friends enjoy. But it’s time to stop beating yourself up. The more you dwell on things you can’t or didn’t do, the worse you’ll make yourself feel. So don’t sweat the small stuff. Maybe you didn’t keep up with your gym membership, but you got the P90X system so you at least got the ball rolling. Instead of focusing on the fact that you dropped that membership, start doing your P90X tapes instead of your nightly Call of Duty ritual, and reward yourself for finishing something that most other people quit after two weeks.
3. Stop thinking about the result. Work on the steps up to the result.
A lot of guys tell themselves they’ll find a new girlfriend for the new year. It’s like American Pie all over again and making a pact with your friends to lose your virginity by prom night—you’re focusing on the destination, not the journey, so you’ll get yourself nowhere. How many of the guys making these resolutions actually start doing something to fix the reason why they’ve been single? They might set up a profile on a dating website, but for the most part this resolution is just an excuse to sit down and complain about women all over again. But why not focus on fixing the actual problem at hand—like fixing your body language, conversation skills, or style—instead of lamenting the fact that you went to bed alone again?
4. Get rid of enemies.
As tempting as it may be, I do NOT recommend hiring a professional assassin for this resolution. I mean you’re either going to have to stand up for yourself or cut this person out of your life. Maybe you’re like John Cho in Harold and Kumar, maybe there’s a douche at work who always dumps extra work on you and you faithfully do it like his little lap dog. Tell him to do his own work and report him to HR. Or maybe you’ve got a friend like Stifler who hangs around like a wart on your ass, making your life miserable even though nobody really likes him. Stop answering this person’s calls, block their number, and remove them from social media sites. In the new year there is no excuse for the new you to allow these miserable people to keep dragging you down just because you don’t want to say anything—speak up!
5. Stop depending on social media.
While you’re busy deleting those douchebags from your Facebook account, you might have to question how much you rely on it in the first place.
Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with people you might otherwise never see, but it’s also easy to become dependent on that as a substitute for actual friends and a real social life.
It might be easy to swipe right on Tinder, but what happens when you get on that date and you’re a nervous mess?
That best friend you met through Mafia Wars four years ago might be really fun to talk to, but he lives six states away and he can’t party with you on the weekends.
Stop using social media as a crutch. Go outside. Take a class at the gym. Join a cooking club. Whatever it is, if you’re questioning why life just isn’t as fun anymore while you’re looking at cat memes, you need to go meet real people. Real interactions help your dating life. Social media does not. It’s perfectly fine to use these tools, but make sure you’re also practicing your real game at bars & clubs.
6. Learn how to say no.
Maybe you’re just a nice guy. Maybe you help your friend at work do his tasks because he throws great parties and you hope you’ll get invited. Maybe you let those annoying frenemies hang around because they have hot sisters you hope to bang. Maybe you drive your hot neighbor everywhere she asks you to because she doesn’t have a car and you hope being nice will get you noticed. Guess what? The guy at work will never invite you, the shitty friend talks shit to your face AND to his sister, and that hot neighbor just friendzoned you. It’s great to be dependable—if your best friend is moving this weekend, help him—but don’t be so freely dependable that you let other people use you. Be selfish. Say no. Your time is valuable, and if s/he isn’t returning that value, say no. Don’t roll over and perform tricks on demand.
7. Take a risk.
I question your sanity if your idea of a risk is car surfing, but by and large risks are awesome and exciting. Move to another state, another country. Take an unplanned vacation. Quit your job. Ask out a random hot girl. Take a road trip without a map. If you’re a plain, average guy who eats his Wheaties for breakfast, goes to work in a cubicle farm, and drives his Honda Civic home every single day with no change in his routine, you’re going to have a boring life.
If you want excitement, you have to MAKE excitement. If you go into 2015 with the same routine and attitudes as 2014, you’re going to repeat history, so you better hope you had an awesome year or you need to start changing things up.
8. Stop procrastinating.
Everyone has something they’ve been dying to do. Maybe you want to go back to school and get another degree. Maybe you want to take up Crossfit. Maybe you’d love to learn archery. Whatever makes you happy, do it. But every year that you sit back and wonder how much more money you’d be making with that degree, how hot you’d look with abs, or how awesome it would be to be able to shoot a bow and arrow like a badass Mongol warrior, that’s another year you’re going to spend broke, fat, and bored. Stop waiting for the “right time”. There’s no such thing. You don’t have to wait for January to start your resolution or August to start applying for college, so stop delaying your self-improvement.
9. Cross something off your bucket list.
This goes hand in hand with #8. Maybe you’d love to go skydiving. Maybe you’ve always wanted to watch a UFC match in person. Maybe you’d love to climb a mountain. But you put these things off. It’s a distant dream you’d like to accomplish someday, but right now you prefer to just focus on your career knowing that eventually you’ll get to it. Eventually. Then one day you wake up at the ripe old age of 70, retired after a long and industrious career, to find out that you never actually lived and now your biological clock isn’t just ticking, it’s a countdown. It might be risky to take a week off of work to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro, but it’s a life experience worth having and at the very least you’ll walk away with an awesome conversation piece.
10. Don’t hesitate.
If procrastination is putting off until tomorrow something that you could get done today, then hesitation is retreating into the corner whenever something unfamiliar, difficult, or frightening comes up. It’s natural to want to back away when you’re faced with something you don’t know, but hesitating can cost you a lot. Hesitating to ask out the girl you’ve been eyeing is going to get her hooked up with someone else. Hesitating to ask your boss for a raise is going to see that dick who dumps his work on you get promoted. If you see something you want, need, or deserve, go after it. Now. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by or fall into someone else’s hands. 2015 is the year to think about Y-O-U.
Have dating questions you want to ask Miss Cindy Young? Email her – cindy@ampedasia.com
Written by Cindy Young