Hey, you might know me as Steve from Quietly Romantic but in my other life I’m also a private equity accountant. To qualify for this role, I had to:

• Get my bachelor’s degree in accounting
• Get a master’s degree in accounting
• Take several MBA courses
• Learn how to use an abacus

(okay, one of those is a lie)

One piece of advice they hammered into us in business school that—spoiler alert—turned out to be completely false was that you need to bring your business cards with you everywhere you go.

You’re at a networking event? Bring your business cards and hand them out to everyone. Are you in the elevator or on the airplane next to a VIP? I hope you brought your business cards!! Carry them everywhere and hand them out to everyone. Make it rain!

Since I was just getting started in my career and didn’t know any better – that’s exactly what I did. I printed out a stack of business cards and brought them everywhere. I got them laminated. I treated them like they were sacred and protected them like they were my passport.

What stupid advice that turned out to be!! I’m still salty about that years after the fact.

Can you think of another device you can use to record a business contact’s info? What could we use instead of a business card? It might be in your pocket. You might even be reading this blog post on it right now!

In hindsight, that’s dumb advice. That’s the thing about bad advice though – it’s hard to tell which advice is good and which is bad without already knowing what the good advice looks like.

And, unfortunately, the world of dating advice is overflowing with bad advice.

Here’s how I recommend sorting through it:

Continue reading How bad dating advice destroyed my relationships →

Let’s talk about violence against Asian-Americans. Again.

Didn’t we just do this? Yes, we did. Somehow just 2 weeks after my strongly worded open letter, a series of mass shootings perpetrated by a single person broke out at three different spas in Atlanta, Georgia. Eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women.

And what is there to say except…are you fucking kidding me?!

It feels like someone read what I wrote and thought “Hey this Steve guy makes a lot of good points…so I’m going to do the exact opposite of what he wrote!”

FUCKING HELL!!

Alright, alright. Deep breaths Steve. In for 5 seconds. Out for 5 seconds.

And…breathe.

Okeydokey. I can’t believe I’m writing another one of these after I just wrote one a few weeks ago, but here we are. The reluctant sequel to my open letter written for everyone holding animosity against Asian-Americans.

Here we go.

Continue reading How to make #StopAsianHate a reality →

Back when I was first looking for love, I often heard a lot of dating advice that made me feel uncomfortable. I always heard that “nice guys finish last” and that in order to be attractive you needed to act like a jerk or an “alpha”. Supposedly, women secretly love men who mistreat them even if they tell you otherwise. To get her attention, you should “neg” her by giving her an insult disguised as a compliment. And then after the first date you should wait…um, how long was it…three days before you call her? That way she won’t think you’re needy and she’ll start to miss you. Or something like that.

Hearing this really terrified me. I did not want to act that way in order to make myself more attractive. I could never intentionally act in a way to hurt someone else. And I was scared because I was afraid that that was the type of person I would have to become if I wanted to find love.

It’s not true, is it? Do women really prefer to date jerks? Do nice guys finish last?

Continue reading Worried that nice guys finish last? Here’s why they don’t! →

I’m just going to come out and say this straight…2019 has basically been the worst year of my life. Whenever I say something along the lines of “God, this day sucks” or “This is the worst day ever,” it’s usually an exaggeration.

This time I really mean it.

My little sister passed away after battling cancer this year. And that honest-to-goodness sucks. You never figure that you’re going to bury family members who are younger than you. It’s been a rough few months for the rest of my family, and this whole experience has me rethinking several of the things I used to think were true.

Continue reading What I learned from my late sister’s battle with cancer →

I’m in shock right now. My little sister passed away after battling cancer for a year. I’m still trying to make some sense out of this. Because, to be honest, it doesn’t make sense. To say that someone can get cancer and die at 24 years old in a world supposedly governed by a just and loving God doesn’t make sense at all. She was engaged, and she and her fiancé should have had their whole lives ahead of them. It’s not fair for all their plans to be cut short just like that. Between me, my mom, my dad, and her fiancé, I know any one of us would trade places with her in a second. Because it doesn’t make sense for someone her age to die of cancer. Not at 24.

I’m going to be upfront today and let you know that I don’t have any dating advice in this week’s newsletter. I’m writing this article for selfish reasons, and if you want to stop reading here then I won’t be offended. It’s okay.

At my sister’s funeral, I volunteered to give a eulogy. My parents were surprised, since I’m usually a quiet person and super terrified of public speaking, but it was something that I felt I needed to say. I’ve decided to make it an open eulogy and publish it on my blog. This way, everything I said during the funeral can live on long after that fateful day:

Continue reading An open eulogy to my little sister →

I used to be terrible at playing video games. When it came to gaming, I always told myself that I needed to be maxed out and have all the sidequests completed before I could even start to enjoy the game. However, before I knew it I had already reached the ending and I’d barely even begun to enjoy myself.

The same thing happened in the real world. I’d look wistfully at all the cool things my friends were doing on Facebook and envy the flashy status symbols they owned that I didn’t. I felt that once I had all of the same things they had then I’d finally be okay. I would finally be able to have fun and enjoy my life. But no matter how much stuff I accumulated and how much I chased the things that I thought I needed, I never felt like I was getting closer to having the things that I actually did need.

As that board game in Jumanji said, there was a lesson I needed to learn. But first I had to go back a turn. Check out what I learned about living a good life on the guest post I wrote for Coaching for Geeks here.

In addition, if you’re the kind of person who sings the DK64 rap in the shower (…I’m not the only one who does that, right? Right??) then you should check out their Facebook community as well. They have a close-knit group full of nerds who support each other in all areas of life, from job hunting, to dating, to productivity and getting things done. It’s run by four coaches, and one of them is a geeky dating coach who I really look up to, Rami Fu.

Seriously! This guy is one of my biggest sources of inspiration.

Links again if you’re interested:

• Coaching for Geeks guest post
• Coaching for Geeks Facebook community

Disclaimer: Sex talk ahead. This is something I’ve never discussed before on Quietly Romantic, but I think we’re adult enough that it can be a topic for us to talk about. Also, I want to make it clear that I’m not advocating or encouraging judgment around any type of behavior. Whether you only have sex in exclusive relationships or you’re having casual sex with many partners…it’s all the same to me. The point of this post is not to judge anybody for whatever sexual activities they may (or may not) be partaking in. Rather, I want to shine some light on the taboos in our culture.

Also, I’ve dropped some swears and F-bombs in this post. I usually try to avoid swearing but this is something I have some strong opinions about.

Let’s talk about sex.

Sex seems to be a squeamish subject in our culture and we have some weird societal taboos about discussing it, as if sex is somehow dirty or unclean. Especially in places such as the “bible-belt” of the United States, sex is mostly not talked about at all except to say…don’t do it.

What good does that do??

When it comes to young adults who are inexperienced with anything sexually related, for example. Wouldn’t it be better if they could freely talk about and ask for help around this kind of stuff? Just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to have those “urges” anymore. They’re natural. And if young people can’t talk to anyone about it, then they’re just going to do it anyway—without any knowledge of how to do it safely or what the potential repercussions could be.

That doesn’t make things better. That makes things worse!

I believe sex is something that we should talk more openly about. As a society, it’s something that we should have honest discussions about. Keeping it taboo is not doing us any favors. So, I’ll take the first step and talk about myself and what I’ve learned from my very first sexual experience. Continue reading What I learned from my first sexual experience →

Warning: Political talk below. I had some thoughts about today’s tumultuous US political climate that I feel needed to be said aloud. This will be my first–and probably last–post about politics. If you’re not interested in reading about politics, feel free to skip over this article.

I’m not proud of what I did on my birthday.

One of my friends (who happens to be a male stripper) drove out across the country just so he could celebrate my special day with me. We were eating at McDonald’s and enjoying the best French Fries that fast food has to offer when politics somehow found its way into our conversation. I already knew that politics had a funny way of turning civil discussions into bitter arguments…but there was no way that could happen to me, right?

I was wrong. We learned that he supported Trump while I supported Hillary. It all went downhill after that. I tried to make him see things my way, and he did the same. The more we tried to change each other’s views, the more we just became entrenched in our own beliefs. What was supposed to be a happy day turned into a night of bitter anger.

He came all the way across the country to visit me, too. I wish I could take it all back.

Continue reading How to go high when others go low in today’s political climate →

This is the most selfish thing I’ve written so far.

A few weeks ago, I was driving my car and I realized that the driver seat seemed a little low compared to the rest of the car. Was my seat crooked? No, the seat was fine. Suddenly, I felt a pit in my stomach. I got out of the car and hoped that it wasn’t what I thought that it was.

It was. The tire went flat. Welp.

To make things worse, it was below freezing outside and I had not put on nearly enough layers to keep myself warm. Double welp.

With no other options, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. However, it turned out that the lug nuts were frozen in place and could not be easily removed. That’s how I found myself stuck on the side of the road with a flat in subzero temperatures. Triple welp.

My reaction?

I’m a calm and gentle person by nature and it takes a lot to get me angry. So, when something does get me ticked off then you better believe it’s a big thing.

This ticks me off. Buckle up because it’s about to get real.

Continue reading Why you NEVER take advice from The Red Pill →

(Warning: Vulgar language ahead. Usually I don’t like swearing, but I directly quote pickup-artistry in this post because I want to argue against it)

A few days ago, I was traveling in Seattle, Washington. The traffic there is notorious for being bad, and I had the fun experience of being able to enjoy it firsthand. I was driving along one of the streets downtown and saw was a green traffic light in the intersection in front of me, about 20 or 30 feet away.

“No problem,” I thought as I pressed down on the gas pedal. “I’ll make that with time to spare.”

I didn’t.

As I approached the intersection, the car from the adjacent lane suddenly pulled in front of me—without signaling—and stopped right there. My foot slams on the brake, my Starbucks coffee begins to spill out of its cup, and my car makes a horrible SCREEECH noise as it continues to slide ever so slowly towards the car in front of me. I close my eyes and cover my face with my arms.

A deafening silence pierces the next few seconds. I cautiously lower my arms to see the damage. There was none. My car had come to a stop mere centimeters away from the one in front of me. The driver who cut me off was busy texting away on her phone, completely oblivious to the destruction that she almost caused.

My response:

I’m a calm and gentle person by nature and it takes a lot to get me angry. So, when something does get me ticked off then you better believe it’s a big thing.

This ticks me off. Buckle up because it’s about to get real.

Continue reading The Truth About S— Tests →