======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
Welcome to the PGP Mailbag, wherein I will answer questions from you, our readers. Send your questions to dillon@grandex.co or call the Mailbag hotline at (833) 345-5662 to leave a voicemail and be featured on The Mailbag podcast. All topics welcome.
The Mailbag, a podcast based on this series, is launching Wednseday. The questions that make the podcast will be a combination of emails (if you’d like to remain anonymous) and voicemails. The hotline number is above. Please give me plenty to choose from so that we start off strong with interesting topics of discussion.
I will have a revolving co-host, people from inside and outside the Grandex network. More to come as the launch nears. I hope you guys enjoy it.
Sup snacc lookin’ ass,
Do you think a future brother in law should be invited to your bachelor party? It didn’t even cross my mind to invite the BIL to mine, but I’m hearing this is not typically the move. My future BIL is a nice enough guy but we aren’t that tight and I just think that would be a weird thing to do. Thoughts?
Laters
This is always a tough one. Ideally, you do not want the brother of your future bride at your bachelor party. You really don’t even want him knowing what goes on during your bachelor party. It’s not for him, especially if you two aren’t close.
It’s your final celebration of being single. Shit gets weird on these things. Do you want her brother around for the novelty strip club outing? Do you want her brother around when the “should we find some cocaine?” conversation comes up? Do you want her brother around when the topic of past hookups is broached? Do you want him seeing you blacked out?
This is your time to be selfish, man. The wedding and all related activities are about you and your bride-to-be. If I’m you, I do not invite him.
Ca$h Munny Dillionaire:
Ltft whatever. I’ll keep it short and sweet. I’m back on the dating app train and keep seeing Instagram handles in the bios of the ladies. Is this an open invitation to slide into the DM’s or are they just trying to stack up followers? Probably going to get the most insight from the PGP hunnies in the comment section. Be well, slugger.
I think people do this for two reasons: 1) to provide you a direct line of communication via DM, and 2) to showcase more of who they are.
These apps only allow you to upload a handful of pictures. Dropping the handle gives you an entire photo album to peruse, as well as their witty captions, all their girlfriends gassing them up, etc. It’s always a good sign, in my opinion, when they include their handle. It lets you know they want you to see more of them. It’s confident. If she has three heavily edited/filtered pictures in her profile and no Instagram handle in the bio, she’s likely not much of a looker.
That’s how we think. Sorry, ladies.
Aye Dill, Another LTFT coming at ya.
My brother and I are about 3 years apart in age, (myself being younger.) We look and sound pretty similar, but once you get to know us, we’re like water and oil. My whole life, I’ve always wanted to the traditional older brother, younger brother relationship, but he was always off doing his own thing, hanging out with other people, not generally thinking about spending time with me. As time went along, we grew into 2 seperate people, with opposing views on a multitude of fronts.
An example of this would be, my major in school is STEM based, his is in business. I went away to school, he stayed at home (and still lives there currently after graduation.) I stand more liberal with my decisions, he’s more conservative. I’ve dated, he hasn’t started dating yet (story for another time) and so on. Our relationship is fine when I’m home, and we still talk to each other throughout the week, but I’ve always wanted more out of it. I’m in my early 20s, and don’t want to have a sibling relationship with my brother, but a friendship relationship… do you think it is too late, and should stick with I got, or do you think I can salvage it? If so, what can I do?
Side note: (He doesn’t drink, so getting the casual brew with him is out of the question, or else this would be a slightly easier prediciment in terms of bonding.)
Of course it’s not too late. I am the youngest of three siblings — I have two sisters. We get closer every day and have gotten very close throughout the years. We don’t have a ton in common, either. In my early 20s, we weren’t so close. Life’s circumstances can push people apart. It doesn’t matter much that you two don’t share common ground about things. You just need to find a way to talk and hang out more.
Him not drinking is a definite hurdle, though. Alcohol brings everyone together.
Dill Pickle,
FTLT. So this is embarrassing to talk about. I recently turned 30 and I’m still a virgin.
Losing my virginity was something I always intended on doing but it just hasn’t worked out. I got my heartbroken my freshman year of college by the only girl I was ever in love with and it made me really insecure ever since. It’s been difficult to even attempt to date women because I’m very skittish about being rejected.
My virginity was a huge topic of discussion during my college years amongst my friends. I ended up lying to them and told them I had sex with a girl I was only casually hooking up with.
I had given up until last year when I fell for someone and I ended up getting destroyed (again). It was a shock to my system to get my shit together. The problem now is that I’m at an age where 99% of people have had sex and if I tell any girl I’m interested in, it would probably be a dealbreaker.
I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me, I feel like I’m a freak. I have lots of female friends, I don’t have issues with developing friendships with women. I’ve been told repetitively by women that I’m good looking, intelligent and funny…it’s just difficult for me to have self-confidence, especially when I’m so far behind the curve.
I don’t know what I should do at this point.
Dating means putting yourself out there, man, and being vulnerable to getting crushed is an unfortunate, but necessary, part of finding someone. It sucks but we all go through it at some point. Everyone out there who is single has a 100% relationship failure rate. Think about that shit. Each one fails until it doesn’t. You’re far from alone and you’re definitely not a freak because of it.
It’s also not weird or sad that you’re a virgin still. I mean it’s a little pitiful and I feel bad for you, but it’s not a character flaw, nor is it something that should hinder your ability to attract someone. We actually had The Bachelor’s Brittany Taylor on Touching Base today and asked her if she’d date a virgin. She said yes without hesitation. This is, I’m assuming, the prevailing sentiment among women. Some might even think it’s pretty cool.
Don’t bring up your virginity until sex is imminent, and by that point you’re already in so it won’t affect shit.
What’s up Dorn,
I’m going into my senior year of college and I’m having some serious scaries about post grad life after graduation. Could you or the comment section give some advice on how to be a real adult in the working world? There’s a possibility I might also live in a totally new city and need to meet a whole new group of friends. Any ideas about good ways to do this? Thanks!
I feel bad for people who say college was the best time of their lives. How shitty that your best days are behind you, when you were broke and going to class and taking tests and going to keg parties and living in shitty apartments. Depressing.
The postgrad life is about freedom. Live where you want, find a job that suits you, and earn your own money. Money is great to have, if you didn’t know. Earning a living grants you so many freedoms you never had before. You’ll see..
Don’t forget: Call the Mailbag hotline at (833) 345-5662 to leave a voicemail and be featured on The Mailbag podcast.
The more questions I receive, the better this series is going to be, so send me your Mailbag questions to dillon@grandex.co and please put “Mailbag” in the subject line.
Respond
Dillon Cheverere
Dillon Cheverere is the Vice President of Media for Grandex, Inc. Email: dillon@grandex.co
@dcheverere
@dcheverere
RogerJDorn
1. Don’t invite your brother in law unless you’ve done drugs together before.
2. Most apps let you directly connect your instagram now anyway. Just a showcase of more photos in my mind. I wouldn’t slide into the DM’s unless her profile says to do that.
3. Make time and put in effort for your family. Always. Nothing is more important.
4. While I feel for you and the situation you feel you’re in, I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself over it. Nothing is wrong with you. As you said, you’re recognized for many qualities so you’ve got plenty going for you. When the sex happens, it happens. Until then, keep being a decent human being.
5. Welcome to living the PGP life instead of just reading about. Buckle up kiddo. But really, it’s not all bad. There’s plenty of reasons to enjoy the post grad life. Just make sure you make time to find those things.
Damn did that R&R do you some good, clear mind and positive vibes from Employed and Depressed, love it
Name change is in order for him? I mean, he’s unemployed and happy afterall.
If you don’t match with the girl then try to slide in her DM’s you’re a creep. Let it go man
Oh no I have severely fucked up.
Virginity guy: I think that your problem lies deeper down. There’s a pattern from your post where you get “heartbroken” or “destroyed” by women, even though you’ve never slept with them. I know that it’s somewhat common today to say that you can be intimate with people and love them, etc. without ever having sex, but I don’t think that’s true. I don’t believe that you can absolutely, truly love a person until you’ve had sex with them. Everything else is lust.
Therefore, what you say leads me to believe that you put these women up on a pedestal and get disappointed when they don’t return your feelings back to you. We don’t know the intricacies of your relationships with them, but something doesn’t sound right. Going further based off your comments about what your female friends say about you, it seems like you’re falling into the friend zone, saving yourself for that one girl, only to be upset when she doesn’t feel the same way about you. I think that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how relationships work and it’s affecting your intimate interactions with women.
Therefore, your virginity aside, I think that you need to do some introspection and really understand your feelings and behavior. If you want to lose your virginity to get it out of the way, fine. Find a one night stand or get a hooker (unpopular opinion that I’ve previously mentioned here, but I stand by it). But that’ll only put the band aid on the wound. To be intimately successful, you need to gain confidence in yourself and understand how relationships work.
Wholeheartedly disagree that you can’t love someone until you have sex with them. And please don’t lose your virginity to a hooker. I think America’s response to Colton on the The Bachelorette this season shows that there are plenty of great girls out there who would date a virgin & not let that be an issue.
10/10 Colton is lying about being a virgin.
I was initially anti-hooker for the virgin but now that I’ve thought about it, it wouldn’t be an awful idea…I don’t know the guy but part of his anxiety is probably just not even knowing what to do in an intimate situation (it was for me before I lost my virginity). If he got an escort, at least he can learn physical mechanics and not feel intimated going forward.
That being said Bill Nye is right, it won’t fix the situation because it’s clear he has deep-rooted insecurity issues and that’s the primary issue. But I think it would help way more than it would hurt.
I don’t watch The Bachelorette so I have no idea what happened there, but my point for him was to lose virginity to gain confidence. Of course there’s a ton of women that’ll date a guy if he’s a virgin, that’s an indisputable fact. But everyone telling him this (and I’m sure that everyone he knows probably is telling him) is falling on deaf ears because he’s more insecure than a pimply-faced teenager and probably will be until he either fundamentally alters his views on relationships or finally loses his virginity to someone. Or, ideally, both.
You’re making the pussy into this great big Greek goddess named ‘Pussalia’ and what you’re doing is that you’re psyching yourself into to thinking that it’s some impossible feat.
to the person who is nervous about joining the postgrad world: Dillmatic is right, it’s not so bad once you operate in a realistic sense. Keep in mind that society and the economy at large is a giant game that only benefits a small group of assholes who don’t need any more money than they currently have in order to live the life they currently live yet they continue to stockpile a fiat valued currency for no particular reason, think of it as gambling at a Casino which is what the stock market is…the cost of freedom is (X) and after that point, you begin to see diminishing returns due to other variables not originally accounted for…what I’m saying is don’t chase the money after a certain point. instead, get to a place where you can enjoy the fruits of your labor (before you get replaced by software/robotics) and spend time with people you actually give a shit about because much of the working world is dealing with spending time with people you don’t. Just think, you just paid all this money for a ticket to the freak show, luckily you just piad for a front row seat so get settled and have some popcorn because this shit is about to get insane lol
My wife has only sisters, no brothers. My BIL was at my b-party, he’s the only guy who “gets it” and I can commiserate with when wife and her family get a little crazy. Unless future BIL is a total dick or loser, you want him on your team, and a b-party invite gets that ball rolling.
Your case is that you invited the husband of one of your fiancees sisters, which is the equivalent of getting along with the boyfriends of your significant others’ friends. That’s not the same as inviting your fiancees actual brother to go to a strip club or talk about how his sister stacks up in bed versus previous hookups.
Sure, but point is “BIL” refers to both, there is nuance there.
Psycho move: my FIL came to the B-party too. He blew the most $$ by far at the strip club.
your marriage sounds fun. that sounds facetious, but I genuinely like your comments on your wife and in-laws and hope to have the same feelings about mine
My wife is awesome. My inlaws are…quirky.
Seriously confused on people down voting me on that…
to the final guy about to graduate, have a plan for a job and living sitch. first things first. then, make sure you have good friends to keep in touch with or can put yourself out there in the new city. from there, start to read a little about personal finance (my rec. is Ramit Sethi) and have a plan to stay in shape diet/exercise-wise. finally, make sure you are still having fun out there in your free time. have a couple of solid hobbies. maybe even get a dog?
Dave Ramsey / The Dave Ramsey Show is also a good financial advice resource.
Maybe the dynamic is different with guys, but I was a bridesmaid for and was invited to my brother’s fiancee’s bachelorette party and had an absolute blast. My now-SIL has two brothers, and my brother had both of them as groomsmen and they came on his bachelor party to Austin. Everyone seemed to have a great time and nothing was weird afterward! Maybe I’m in the minority here, but if your future BIL isn’t a complete beast isn’t it a nice move to extend the invitation and let him know you consider him a part of your circle now?
It’s called a “wolf pack”.
Dear Virgin, being somewhat ashamed or feeling like a freak because you haven’t done the deed is some tyranny of the majority level type of ridiculousness. “Most people are not virgins at 30” So what? Own it. The problem you have is not being a virgin, the problem you have is you don’t embrace it. You see it as something freakish liability and it’s not. When you meet a girl you’re into, tell her “You know what? Just never got there, waiting for the right person.” And if she’s kind, sexy, sensual, compassionate and adventurous- she will look at it as an opportunity not a liability. Please go rock on with your bad virgin self.
@college senior- I’ve found that postgrad life is way more rewarding than college life, but is also much more responsibility. The strange thing is, the responsibility makes this lifestyle feel more rewarding, like the feeling you get after you go for a run. Plus about half way through senior year most people start getting bored and are ready to move on with their lives, and if you’re not, a 5th year is always an option. And to be honest, the party never really stops unless you want it to.
But if the BIL is in the wedding party doesn’t he kinda have to be at the bachelor party? And isn’t it pretty customary or at least not unheard of to have the wife’s brother be a groomsman??