This is The Sporting Life’s first Good Weekend column during which we’ll talk about the weekend we - or one of our readers - had. Today we’ll talk about my own good weekend. Want to share your good weekend with us next Monday? Drop us a line at goodweekend at thesportinglife dot net.

I’m in training for a marathon so I’m trying to be good. I ran 7 miles on Saturday and settled in, thinking we’d spend the evening quietly with friends. However, at the last minute I figured I needed to let loose a little so I invited some family friends over — Paul and his wife Petra — and we grilled steaks. I’ve been in a steak frites mode recently so I peeled, cut, and soaked some spuds and them tossed them in oil and baked them for about 40 minutes. The steaks were a few sirloins I had in the freezer. Thawed them out and put them on, rubbing them with garlic salt after I flipped them.
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Scarier than finding out you were a completely predictable stereotype, would be to find out you were one of the five completely predictable stereotypes “women are looking to date”, but shouldn’t.

The five clichés, lifted from a women’s magazine in a daring daylight raid, are Mr. Nice Romantic Guy, Mr. Big Shot, Mr. Sexy Older Guy, Mr. Man’s Man and Mr. Fun Social Guy – coincidentally, probably the guys that other guys tend to hate the most (even, surprisingly, Mr. Man’s Man, for which their example is Russell Crowe, who everyone hates).

Refreshingly, the article also points out that these guys are assholes – in fact, going so far as to describe Johnny Depp, James Bond, Sean Connery, Russell Crowe and Vince Vaughan as naive and fickle, promiscuous, really old, simple, and insecure and attention-seeking, respectively.

So this is your warning – don’t attempt to be the kind of guy you think girls are going to want to date, because someone’s telling them not to do it, if that makes sense.

The other message here for guys is that, similarly, you should all really avoid 5′10″ swimwear model Rhodes scholar millionaire brewing heiresses. Seriously. I’ll take on this assignment instead, go through the torture of awesome dating and amazing sex, and will report back to you in 30 years time with the news that they’re all horrible people. So just keep hitting on the ungainly girl who sells you coffee on the way to work. That’s your safest bet - she’s got her heart set on you, as well.

5 Guys Every Gal Should Date Before Settling Down [iVillage via Ask Men]

There are times in one’s life when you’ll need to know how to skydive into a falling aeroplane. We can’t predict exactly when or why, but here’s all the training you’ll need.

At least now we can stop shouting ‘BULLSHIT!’ at the opening scene of Goldeneye…

Man Jump From Plane [YouTube via Neat-o-Rama]