Why are we here? – An existential question

Welcome to A Chick's Eye View – a new blog dedicated to bringing the insight of a woman to the men in Boston's dating world. Before I share my thoughts on men dating, I should probably start with an introduction. If at any point in your blog reading experience you ask yourself, "Who is the chick and why is she telling me about dating?" this post will serve as a reminder.

The idea for this blog came from a few of my interactions with single men. Here are two examples:

• When reading a forum post at Pickup Podcast (what you will soon find is a source of solid dating advice for men, fully sanctioned by your Resident Chick), I clicked on a post by a curious guy titled something along the lines of "How to apply cologne." His question explained his confusion about the application of cologne and ended with a request for workable cologne guidelines. Based on my own experiences and the numerous conversions I had with girlfriends about the topic (to be discussed in a later post – subscribe to my feed for an alert when I post it!) the answer seemed fairly obvious so I was shocked a guy had even asked the question. With this one bulletin board post, it dawned on me that men don't really have a good source of insight in to the collective thoughts of women.
  
• In a number of different social situations (subscribe to the feed for more details in the coming weeks), I have seen some gross inequities in the numbers of men and women at events. Having thought many times in my life, "In an attempt to be social, I think I'll go (insert activity here) tonight," and having had that conversation with my female friends, I have a sense of what women think when they approach dating. I thought that, if I could offer dating men the inside scoop on where Boston's women will be, these events would be more fun for all and we would all have better opportunities to meet people we find exhilarating!
  

I'm sure your next question is, "What qualifies this Chick as an expert on dating?" Frankly, nothing qualifies me as an expert and don't hold myself out to be one. I happen to have a unique perspective on the dating world so I am offering both my observations formed from my perspective, as well as the informally polled opinions of other single women. Basically, for those times when you, as a dating man, ask yourself what dating women are thinking about a particular topic, come to www.achickseyeview.com and I'll tell you!

My unique perspective on men is based on what I call my experience as "the Jane Goodall of male behavior." I apologize for the primate reference and don't claim that all men are wild animals but, Ms. Goodall is by far the best example of an observer immersed in the social atmosphere of beings that are, at the same time, both very different and surprisingly similar than herself. My Goodall-esque expedition started in my heavily male college. I went to a school that had 5 men for every woman. Seeing how I got a degree that is more popular with men than woman, many of my professional experiences were housed in offices where I was the only woman in a room (department, company, etc) full of men. I noticed that my coworkers talked to each other differently when I was the only woman in the room than they did when they were in a social situation with women. Basically, I have seen you (collectively) in your natural habitat. Also, in my early 30s, I have had a long enough dating history that I've been in the trenches and observed the nuances of the mating game for over a decade post-college (the college dating world won't be discussed in depth here). Basically, I want you to be the beneficiaries of my experience.

I'd like to end with a few notes about what you will or will not get from this blog. First, I plan to answer the when, where, and why of dating but not the how. Again, I'm not a dating expert and I think that the guys at www.pickuppodcast.com (same guys at www.theartofcharm.com) are really excellent dating coaches who do a much better job than I could. However, great national dating coaches don't necessarily provide a detailed account of where and when to use the skills you learn from them based on your locale. I'll throw in some general observations for good measure and, between the internet's wealth of dating coaches and the local hints here at CEV, you'll be meeting great women in no time!