Women are not possessions, asshole

Here's an easy one. Maybe it's confused you in the past. It shouldn't.

There's a girl that works at a joint my buddy and I frequent... we both know her pretty well and have hung out with her outside her work on and off over the last month or two, just casually. 

She's had a bf for as long as we've known her but a while ago my buddy told me he was interested in her and has been kinda working that angle for a month or two (hah?). 

About a week ago she broke up with her bf and she still seems interested in me but I still avoided making a move, now just out of loyalty to my buddy.

Should I just forget about being anything but friends with her until my buddy figures out where he's at?

Or if I should go ahead, should I talk to my buddy or just let him figure it out on his own?

Or maybe there's a grace period?

I'm lost.

No. You owe your buddy nothing. In fact, I find this kind of Guy Code crap insulting to women. She is allowed to fuck whoever she wants to fuck. She gets to make that decision, not you. If she prefers your buddy, you live with it and find yourself someone else. If she prefers you, he lives with and finds himself someone else. You both take your best shot at flirting, but it's her call.

This Guy Code crap was devised by the majority of guys who suck in an effort to protect whatever halfway-worthwhile girls they can for themselves. It's bad enough watching most of the worthwhile girls get taken out of the game by guys that kick ass; they can't handle having to compete with each other for what's left too much.

No guy that wins at life has ever thought for a second about this kind of thing. He knows every girl is fair game. Hell, he knows his own girlfriend (if he has one) is fair game; if he wants to keep her he has to keep on being too awesome for her to risk losing.

Women are not possessions. She is not an XBox that you and your friends call dibs over.

Girls have a pussy, so they don't need you

This guy has very good instincts:

The third guy (and the one she is most interested in), however, didn't ask for her number. He did another strategy, which I love and might mirror in the future. He had worked side by side with her all day and before leaving:

He gave his card to a friend of Veronica's and scribbled "call me".

The shocking part is, Veronica thought it was the BETTER than asking a girl for her number. I believe her actual adjective to describe it was "cute".

I like it, in that it puts the ball in the girl's court and gives her time to think about it, rather than putting her on the spot. It gives her the opportunity to reject you (by simply not calling) rather than blatantly to your face or lying about being engaged or whatever clever lines they come up with.

No, no, NO! No. Even the guy (Hugh Jackman, I think?) in Kate and Leopold knows this one. The ball belongs in YOUR court, not the girl's. Yielding the ball makes you a yielder. Girls don't get turned on by yielders. It is not that hard to walk up to a girl and say "you seem awesome, I'm awesome too, let's hang out at {club,bar,show,etc.} sometime." (Unless you don't actually do anything social and therefore can't suggest anything specific and fun to do.)

Moving on...

However, I would guess that most girls will say something along the lines of, "Oh, he had to give his card to a friend to give to me? He couldn't just come up and ask me for my number? What a pussy."

He got off pretty damn easy... he not only didn't ask her for HER number, but left his... and didn't even give his card to her directly, but through a mutual FRIEND. My guess is that girls want a guy to have the balls to put his nuts on the train rail.

But I've been known to be wrong from time to time.

No, So@24, you are right on the money this time. Girls very much want a guy that has the nuts to put his balls on the train rail. Or whatever the hell it was you said. A guy that gives his number to a girl's friend IS a pussy and girls know it. (HINT: Girls do not use the adjective "cute" to describe anything relating to a guy they're tempted to have sex with.)

Well, you could always try a gay bar

This So@24 guy continues delivering the laughs:

I tell everyone about my admirer and it gets a chuckle as we throw back our Redbull vodkas. Looking around, I'm definitely aware that I'm getting a lot of looks. Stares. A unique experience. This is what it must be like for girls at straight bars, I'm assuming.

It's funny because it's true. That's exactly what it's like for girls at straight bars.

Maybe straight guys that are struggling with their confidence should spend an evening at a gay bar, just to find out how the other side lives. I don't know.

How do i talked to weminz?

So@24 writes:

A group of friends across from our group of friends are lathering up. And one of the girls is pretty damn cute. Pulling my shades up, I scan the pool area and there is no obvious sign of a boyfriend.

And I think to myself... what could I possibly do in this situation? What is the next logical step to show this girl I have any interest? I turn to Veronica and share my interest in the petite asian in the white sun dress."Go talk to her."

"Like what? What should I say? Tell me some words in the English language that I could string together and not sound like a complete moron? What if a random guy came up to you right this minute and was interested in getting to know you more? What could he say to you right now that would be acceptable?"

"... damn. Good point."

So, like any other normal guy, I just admired from a far. But I think I bring up a good question, what is the next move? We're not at a bar, so I can't even order a couple shots to inject myself with some confidence? Do people ask for numbers anymore? Even if I did "get her number", I wouldn't even know what to say when I finally got the balls to call. It's in the middle of afternoon and she's out with her friends. Most girls, I'm assuming, wouldn't even want to be bothered by some creepy poolside dude.

I'm glad he brought this up because people ask me this kind of question from time to time as well. That was a damn fine response he gave Veronica and it shows he grasps the fundamental problem: most of the time a girl at a pool does not want to be bothered by random guys trying to pick up.

Well, that's fundamental problem number one, anyway.

What So@24 came close to grasping but couldn't quite grasp is, there's nothing right to say in this situation. What you say makes no difference. What matters is how you say it. Come off awkwardly, and whatever you say will sound awkward and she will be annoyed you, a pissant, bothered her with your awkward flirting attempt. Come off confident and witty, and whatever you say will sound manly and fun, and she'll flirt back.
But the kind of guy good enough to walk right up to her and make her smile has no trouble thinking of what to say. He just walks right up to her and says whatever's in his head at that moment. He knows it's the delivery that makes the difference.

Trying to pick up a girl that's probably out of your league poolside is something losers do. So@24 gets more points for knowing it. It's not really the right place or time. You're at a damn pool. Relax and enjoy yourself, secure in the knowledge that you kick ass. Maybe you'll see her somewhere else sometime soon and she'll remember you.

Today you discover what women really want!

Another quote from the Starting Over At 24 guy:

I'm not proud of my next move, but I had no where else to turn. I checked to see if she had a MySpace. Thank God for the Hollywood Creative Directory, right? Fuck, I'm creepy.

It is entertaining and refreshing that this guy is AWARE he is a creep, I have to say.

This exchange also made me laugh:

Janice: I hate to be alone, so I always want commitment from the guy I'm dating. But I like to be able to keep my options open

So@24: Let me get this straight. You want your boyfriends to be completely loyal to you, but you want the ability to do whatever you want if something else that intrigues you comes around?

Janice: lol! I know! I know! I'm horrible huh?

So@24: Yes actually! You are a horrible person!

Janice: lol!

This is so funny because it is exactly what girls want.. I believe Janice is the fourth woman I have ever heard of that has openly admitted that, yes, what I want is total sexual loyalty from you and the freedom to fuck somebody else if I get a chance. (Hint if you're wondering how to deal with this: you don't have to give her what she wants. But more importantly, the only reliable way to keep your girlfriend from fucking someone else sooner or later is to be a catch.. Be someone she would rue losing, not because you're crazy but because you're awesome. But be warned, out of the four girls that I have ever seen admit what they really want, three of them were batshit crazy.)

And the post about Janice concludes with this:

This afternoon she asked if I wanted to come over because she was feeling sick. And to bring her Ben & Jerry's.

Right.

What I like about So@24 (that's what he calls himself, so that's what I'll call him) is his refusal to play the lapdog. This chick clearly identified him as a lapdog she could get to wait on her hand and foot and stroke her ego. And he ain't playing along. Good for him.

Finally, someone we can feel hopeful about!

I've been reading this blog lately, having found a link to it on a forum. I'll post a few thoughts and comments here that spring to mind while I read through it, but it is quite fascinating. To wit: this guy got locked down in a way-too-serious relationship at 18, she finally ditched him for an upgrade when he was 24. He sucks at life.... but he KNOWS he sucks at life. Which puts him way, way ahead of most guys in similar situations.

Today's comment is based on this:

I'm in disgust at all the women at the club. These aren't Lynn. I don't want to have to be forced to interact with these people. I want my girlfriend. I wonder what she is doing now and I find myself visualizing her at this very moment begging her new boyfriend to hit up the dance floor with her.

I'm only on like the third post but this theme has already come up several times, that he tortures himself repeatedly thinking about--and here I am being more blunt than he is able to--his girlfriend fucking some other guy. Apparently he's aware she dumped him in favor of someone else. That or he's sharp enough to figure it out on his own. (A girl never dumps a boyfriend until another, more interesting guy is in her field of view.)

What has to happen--and in a mentally healthy guy this should take about three to four weeks--is his mind has to accept the fact she's fucking some other guy and she will never fuck me again. Then you can proceed to the startlingly pleasant realization that you're SINGLE. Score!

A buddy of this guy's dragged him out to a club a couple days after the breakup, which predictably resulted in him finding a corner to stand around and mope in until it was time to leave. But there is this gem:

He tells me again to "keep busy" and "no matter what I do, to not call her". I thank him and he leaves. 

Those are the words of a wise man. I hope this guy was smart enough to take this and any other advice this guy offers.

Fixating on a girl and refusing to leave her alone is what losers do.

Here's some stuff from yet another guy unwilling to face the fact she doesn't want him:

So I was in a club queue with mates and we are talking to two girls also in the queue. We see the girls later on at the bar, we all sit at a table together and im successfully chatting up this hot girl (she even buys me a drink). We then go to the dance together where we dance and i kiss close and number close her.

i send her a text and she replies 2 days later, apologizing for late reply saying she was busy etc.

Any guy healthy in the head (sadly, there aren't that many of us anymore) knows that this should be the end of the post. When a girl gives you her number and then doesn't respond to your call/text within a few hours, it means she does not want to see you again. (In the less than 1% of the time this isn't true, she will make it very obvious and will invite you out. Always.)

But like most losers this guy can't admit to himself she's not into him, so this post goes on for quite some time.

anyways we send a few texts to each other and i ask if she wanna meet for a drink and she agrees. So i say i will ring her tomorrow to arrange something. When i call she doesn't pickup and i don't leave a message. She then texts me apologizing she missed my call etc.

So he tries the same thing again and gets the same result. (Einstein's definition of insanity reference here.) It is now doubly clear she does not want to see him again. Only fixation and obsession would lead a guy to ignore the obvious reality and keep trying. Wouldn't you know...

So anyways a few days pass and i text her asking when she wanna meet up, she replies 3 days later!!! and doesn't answer my question.

A THIRD TIME he tries, and a THIRD TIME he gets exactly the same result.

I'm really confused by the phone games she is playing?

No. You're not. You refuse to admit she isn't interested in you and wants you to leave her alone, which you know perfectly well is the truth.

if she ain't interested in me she could just not reply to me as I'm never gonna see her again.

That's not how girls operate, because usually they're nice and try to be polite. You should not punish her for trying to be as polite and gentle with you as possible. You should have recognized the signals the first time around and left her alone.

I know I harp on this every day, guys, but don't expect me to stop anytime soon. It is very likely this girl was turned off by this guy because she could sense his desperation right away. STOP BEING DESPERATE. STOP FIXATING ON ONE GIRL. You're getting it backwards and making your life hurt.

Be awesome. If you're not awesome, put in the goddamn work to GET awesome. Then let the girls come to you.

College is a never-ending sex party. Live it up!

Another forum poster writes:

Alright, so here's my problem.

Dated a girl for two years, from senior year of HS through freshman year of college. We realized being that far apart makes it impossible to have a relationship, so we decided to break up for this year. We still talked about once a week, hung out regularly over winter break, she came up for a visit, whatever. However, I knew we were broken up and looked at the relationship as such. However, about a week and a half ago ago we had the actual discussion that we would be together over the summer. We started talking every couple days, I started getting excited to spend the summer with her, and effectively lowered my guard.

About three days ago though I find out she's just started hanging out with this kid on a regular basis, and could see it possibly going someplace once they get back to school. While no official dates per se, they're definitely in that pre-dating stage. Nothing has gone on that I would be upset about, but I asked her if he asked her on a date for the next night or something if she would say yes, and she said she probably would.

So basically I'm asking, don't I have a right to be upset about this?

No. You do not. Getting upset about this is unhealthy. It means you're obsessing over a girl you know full well is gone and ain't coming back. She was your high school girlfriend. High school relationships end when high school ends.

College is awesome, man! There are girls that want to fuck everywhere. Even if you're only a 3 or 4 guy, there are plenty of 3 or 4 girls out there just waiting for a chance to jump into your bed, if you're going to a college of any size at all. It makes me sad every time I see a 19-20 year old wasting the best sexual years of his life pining away for his high school girlfriend. It is exactly where the path to loserdom begins.

She is fucking other guys. She is at college. Get yourself used to the idea, and then let a nice big grin spread across your face as you move on to the next idea: some other schmuck's high school girlfriend is more than willing to fuck you, if you'll just quit obsessing and be cool.

The summer fuck-buddies thing is awesome, you should go right ahead and do that IF you can leave it at that when you go back to college. There is no downside here as long as you chill out and don't get paranoid-obsessive.

Obsession = bad; lying = bad

You know you're in for it when the first line of a two long paragraph forum post is this:

I'm a sophomore in college and I've liked my best friend here the whole time.

Oh God.

You don't even need to read the rest of the train wreck to know what's coming. This guy's been playing the best friend for a year-plus and waiting for his chance to have sex with the girl. That, in a word, is evil. It's treasonous. To a girl, THIS IS BETRAYAL. And she is right.

But wait, it gets better!

I was in a serious relationship last year, so it didn't really matter then, but this year has been a little annoying with keeping the "oh you're like a sister" facade up.

This guy is a sleazebag of the lowest order for lying to a girl and trying to manipulate her feelings like this. He is scum.

But wait, it gets even better still!

She now has a serious boyfriend who is one of my good friends

I can only hope that both of these people realize what a scumbag their "friend" is, roast him in public and get away from it before he does too much damage.

So I'm thinking about telling her, in the most non-dramatic, disarming way possible.

Meaning, in the way most likely to get her to have sex with me. At least I can rest assured that will never, ever happen (at least not consentually).

Basically it'd be nice to know if she's never had feelings for me and if I'm in that super friend-zone "never going to happen" category, so I can just know it would never work and move on.

Oh. Well, that's easy. I can tell you now: she has never for a solitary second wanted to have sex with you. She doesn't now, and she never will. Now you know and you can move on.

Except you are a scumbag and you are lying through your teeth when you say this.

Readers, this is exactly what a larval obsessed stalker looks like. The kind that actually is a threat to a girl's physical safety. The kind girls wind up getting restraining orders against, about two weeks before the stalker kills them.

Something important about some girls in clubs

There are a certain number of girls in every club that are there for the specific purpose of rejecting men for entertainment. If you go to clubs much you'll learn to identify them quickly and avoid them.

On a similar subject I came across this, written by a woman:

I do not really like clubs anymore because they are filled with annoying drunk men. Men are extremely annoying when they are both drunk and horny.

This part is true and you should bear it in mind if you're going to try to pick up in clubs.

I prefer hanging out with friends to have a good time, and she may have just wanted to have a good time with her friend and not be bothered.

This part is not just false, it's dishonest. If a group of girls wants to hang out and not be bothered, they'll go to a restaurant or something. If they're in a club it's because they want to {ogle,flirt with,laugh at,reject} men. A woman that hangs out in a club and claims she doesn't want to talk to men is lying. It's just that she doesn't want to talk to YOU or any of the rest of the 90 percent of guys in the club that are beneath her.

And a reminder: "I have a boyfriend" is femalespeak for "I'm not interested in you so go away".

True fact: You can't impress girls if you're lazy

This question made me laugh out loud:

I recently went to a nice club with my friends. I noticed there were a lot of guys surrounding a few girls on the dance floor. I want to hit on these girls and obviously do not have the type of game to get the job done. What is my plan?

Thanks.

Your plan is, get better at life.

All or almost all of the guys surrounding the girls on the dance floor are losers. The girls like the attention but have zero interest in fucking any of them. They are not threats to your chance of success with the girls. I can almost guarantee the girls on the dance floor outnumber the guys they would actually want to go home with. And if I'm wrong about that, then you're a Double-A player trying to play in the majors. It isn't going to happen. Play in Double-A. In this analogy that means clubs where most of the girls are in the 6 range, not the 8 range.

In any case you're a Single-A or Double-A player (a 4-6 on the social status scale) and if you don't want your life to be an endless cycle of frustration you need to spend your time around Single-A or Double-A girls (4-6 attractiveness). If those girls don't satisfy you, there is only one thing you can do: GET BETTER AT LIFE.

This will require you to work.

The writer actually seems ahead of most guys in his place: he's aware enough to know he doesn't have the "game" to even talk to hot girls, much less take one home. ("Game" is a confused term guys tend to use; I prefer the clearer term "win at life", meaning have actual social status that women find attractive.) Sadly, most guys that manage to reach this point stop there, unable to take the next logical step, which is setting aside the pursuit of hot girls and improving yourself. Most guys don't do this because it requires a shitload of HARD FUCKING WORK.

Turns out most people would rather sit around feeling sorry for themselves than do a shitload of hard work.

Dear writer (and reader): You lack confidence. And there's nothing wrong with that, since there is no reason why you should have confidence. You are average at best. Your life is uninteresting. You either have an uninteresting job, a low paying job or (worst of all) no job. (I took this quote from a prominent poker forum, so it probably comes from a professional online poker player, a strange breed that has plenty of money but no social skills.) You spend most of your free time in front of your computer or TV, instead of out doing interesting things. Then you go to a club and realize you have nothing worthwhile to say to a woman, and even if you did you wouldn't know how to say it, and even if you knew how you wouldn't be able to because you're nervous.

There is only one way out of this cycle.

Now, those retarded and/or fraudulent PUA (Pick-Up Artist) sites want you to believe you can get good at bagging women without getting good at life, by using a magician's bag full of tricks to pretend to have high social status and trick women. Women will not be fooled.

There is only one way out of your cycle of failure. You actually have to gain real honest-to-god social status. And that is hard.

First and foremost, you have to get more money. You have to get an occupation that's, at minumum, two out of three of interesting, powerful, and high-paying (but preferably all three). Sorry, but there's no avoiding this. Especially to women, your job (I am including owning your own business as a "job" for these purposes) is who you are. It's either the first or second question every woman that starts off with even the slightest interest will ask you. You have to work out a lot and make your body attractive. And you have to be good at conversation. You have to carry yourself like a winner.

Most likely none of these things is true of you right now. It will take years of daily attention, never letting up for a single day, to fix them.

So the question is, are you ready to work for years to make yourself good at life? Or would you rather sit in front of your computer and feel sorry for yourself, and settle for sitting at a table at a club pretending it's cruel fate that's made you unable to connect with attractive women?

News flash, kiddo: If you want to get an attractive woman's attention, you have to be an attractive man.

Sucks, don't it? Fucking hard work. 

What can you do if you're not witty?

I want to talk to you for a minute about wittiness.

First I'll answer the easy questions I know you're going to ask:

How do I get witty? If you're asking this question, you're not witty and never going to be.

Asshole. Yes, thanks for noticing.

But really, there must be SOME way I can at least get a little better at it, right? The best thing to do is read things witty people write. William Goldman comes to mind, and Dave Barry, and pretty much any good cartoonist (Adams, Watterson, and some of your more prominent webcomic authors). There are lots of them out there. Ask someone witty you know to recommend something to you and get cracking. DON'T waste your time watching Tv. TV has ruined conversational skills because conversations on TV in no way reflect what conversations in real life are like.

Why do I have to be witty anyhow? Because women like it.

WHY do they like it? I thought you said women are lying when they say sense of humor is the most important thing. Yes, they are. Social status is the most important thing (really the only important thing). A healthy dose of wittiness is almost essential to achieving high social status. You have to be able to not just defeat challengers to your excellence in conversational sparring, but make them regret challenging you.

So you're saying if I'm not witty, I'm hopeless? Glad you asked. That's what the rest of this entry will be about.

I have a friend, a guy I grew up with, then moved away from, and am going to be moving close to again next summer. Known him since grade school. He is good at life, reasonably successful, financially well off for a guy not yet 30. When it comes to social grace, he has one tragic limiting flaw: he is not witty. He is not funny. In fact he's kind of cautionary tale because he took the advice I gave you a couple paragraphs ago and inhaled everything funny he could find, books, movies. He can quote funny stuff to you all day long, and occasionally even find a good place to drop a funny quote in conversation. But the problem is that's the full extent of his humor, and it's all secondhand. I've known him over 20 years and I don't think he's ever said anything original that was funny. He just isn't witty.

Now for most of his life this was a problem, because he really really WANTED to be witty and kept working at it, to the point where he would annoy the hell out of other people (most definitely myself included). But in his early-mid 20s he finally snapped out of that and realized it sucked having people trying to avoid conversations with him. Can't get laid that way.

So he worked at it and really is a good tale for me to point to when I say, get off your ass and do some goddamn WORK and make yourself better. He is good at life. And he's learned to minimize his biggest weakness (he is not witty) and focus his and others' attention more on his strengths, which are several. He is very articulate and has one of those resonant voices you could hear being The Narrator in a hundred movies. He stands up straight, moves with purpose, looks you in the eye, and never cracks under pressure.

And probably most importantly, he's figured out how to be good at conversation without his wit: he makes comments and asks questions that steer other people toward talking about their very favorite subject in the world: themselves. He stays quiet and they talk at great length about themselves, and when they want him to say something he does, agreeing or disagreeing, doesn't matter much, and gets them to keep on talking about themselves.

If you're not witty, that is pretty much the best you can do. You're still going to get run over by major winners at life like myself, so you do what he does: befriend them or avoid them. Often the best battle is the one you wisely choose not to fight. Don't verbally throw down with someone who is smarter and sharper than you. Concede his superiority and move on. He's only going home with between one and three girls. You can have your pick of the rest.

It's important so I'll say it again: Not everyone can be witty. In fact "witty" is a relative term; when people use it they usually mean "wittier than most people". If you're reading this, you probably aren't witty either and aren't going to be. Do what my friend did, be honest with yourself, identify what you're good at, and plan your life to maximize those things.

If you're wondering if she's into you, she's not.

Here's tonight's dose of wishful thinking:

Wierd situation for me. There is a chick in another team at work who is a couple of years older than me (23 & 25 respectively). We have some dialogue i.e. facebook and email at work going, which is good. She recently broke up with her bf as of maybe 6 weeks ago.

Anyway, she is *smoking* hot. This is good. However, loads of people at work think this also although they rarely talk etc. She thinks I'm funny and all the rest of it. I'd really like to get together on the weekend for lunch or something or just hanging out in town.

I cannot think of a good way in. Any ideas? Kinda don't want to look like a mongoloid or read too much into things as they are.

It's remarkable and amusing how similar these posts are, and you can find them all over the internet. Here we have a laundry list of loser indicators. Contact primarily through the internet, check. Pretending you have a chance with a girl two or three social points above you, check. Strategy of trying to be a friend and then trying to make it sexual later, check.

And look at the doublethink here: he's simultaneously aware and unaware that since she became single, he's one of dozens of guys she knows lining up to bang her. He knows of no reason why he would be at the top of the list, yet wants to believe it anyway. The chances that he ends up extremely frustrated at her sudden coolness toward him are about 94%.

Repeat after me. Don't fixate. Don't fixate. DON'T. FUCKING. FIXATE. This is one girl. There are dozens or hundreds more right there in your own workplace, and a whole world of them outside its doors. Get out there and hang out with people, be chill and good at life, and they will come to you. Which is as it should be.

If you're staring at the contents of your fridge wondering whether you're hungry, you're not. And if you're wondering whether she's into you, she's not.

One more important lesson here: a woman never breaks up with her boyfriend until she has someone specific in mind she's planning to latch onto. So our writer here and his legion of coworkers lining up outside this woman's door are wasting their time in the first place. That they fail to see this is a symptom of fixation and an indicator of a problem with self-awareness in general.

Improve at conversation by having actual conversations

Here are a couple things somebody wrote about online dating. (References available upon request, by the way; I take this stuff from various internet forums. I'm not sure if the original posters of this stuff really want it attributed, so I'm not attributing it. Also most of what I've commented on the past few days was written three years ago.)

A simple 1-3 line message which contains some specific question/comment about something in their profile works fine. It must be funny. All messages with girls should be funny. Yeah, pressure. I have taken an hour+ just to respond to a girl online before. Why the fk not? Get it right.

Why the fuck not? Because if it takes you an hour to think of something acceptably witty to say, YOU AREN'T WITTY. Then when you're face to face with the girl you'll both be disappointed: you'll find out her pictures were taken 35 pounds ago, and she'll find out you're not witty and in fact are a poor conversationalist.

That's not to say that an exercise like this is completely meritless; it's practice, anyway. But the brutal truth of it is that by the time you're in your mid-20s, if you're not witty you're never going to be. Best to accept that and focus on what strengths you have.

This also explains much about what's wrong with internet dating/meeting in general (and yes, I most definitely include Facebook in this): you get too much time to think about how to word things, and you have a backspace key. This is not just irrelevant but harmful to improving your conversation skills. You should stay the hell away from it. Now internet dating sites (as different from Facebook) should also be avoided because it is populated almost exclusively by people with something seriously wrong with them. As such, they are useful only if there's something seriously wrong with you and you're too damn lazy to fix it.

I have more to say about wittiness, but I'm going to give it its own post.

All messages OTHER THAN THE FIRST ONE should contain some reference to sex or a joke about sex. You are not looking for a friend, you're looking for a date. You will not scare off a girl if you let her know that, as long as its not the first message.

This is spot-on correct and very important. Not just in online dating sites (please don't use online dating sites) but in conversation too. If you want to have sex with someone, MAKE IT KNOWN. Girls like sex. Really, they do. You're saving yourself a lot of time and the woman a lot of aggravation by tossing a little playful flirting into the conversation very early on. To not do this is to pretend you're just friendly and not sexually interested, and it's dishonest. BE HONEST.

The writer is wrong when he says you won't scare her off. You will "scare off" a lot of women that way, but "scare off" is the wrong term for it. It's you're expressing sexual interest, she isn't interested so she shuts you down (online, usually by ceasing to respond to your messages). Once you get good at life, you'll be able to chill out enough to still get on friendly terms with girls that aren't sexually interested in you, which will open social doors.

This doesn't mean complement her.. I almost never flat out complement a girl I just started talking to, they get that crap all the time.

He means "compliment". "Never compliment" is a pretty stupid strategy. Complimenting is OK, just use it sparingly, and be careful with it; it's easy to be over-effusive (and tip her off that you know she's out of your league) or under-sincere (and come off as a jackass). But this writer is correct that every reasonably attractive woman on an online dating site gets 30 or 40 compliments a day, and on their face they mean nothing to her.

Knowing when and how to compliment is an important part of good conversation skills, and most people are bad at it.

The problem with good advice is the people who need it most don't want it

Now this gentleman has come to the right place, I daresay.

Question on the path to life improvement number 1:

  Almost exclusively pictures of me that were available on Facebook were with the now ex-girlfriend. All of these pictures were deleted over the various stages of upsetness following the break-up.

  I now have no pictures of me around. I also don't have anyone in the way of friends that I 'party' with right now, and my friends back at 'home' aren't of the picture-taking, or event where pictures are even appropriate, variety.

  Any suggestions for me to somehow get started on this? I want to hit the ground running with social activities and potentially dating sites when I move ~2 hours away in a few weeks.

As  a matter of fact, I have exactly the answer you need. The answer is: get the fuck off Facebook.

I know, I know, you have to have some Facebook presence because telling people "I'm not on Facebook" is like telling them "I don't believe in microwaves, I think they probably give people brain cancer" or "I'm not sure about cars yet so I still travel by horse". (Unless you're Mash. But sadly, you're not.) So get someone (you do know someone, right?) to snap eight pictures, upload them, then get the fuck off Facebook and do something.

She won't let me touch her, but she digs me!

This is a followup from the same well-meaning but clueless dude that wrote what I quoted in this post.

The next night she responds to my original message. Briefly apologizes, sends me her number, and we get together that night and spend a few hours getting yogurt and talking about Epicureanism at her place. Right before it ends I beat her a bit too harshly in a game of chess.

  Next day, see her in class. The class is in discussion and I feel they're all missing the point. I finally get to explain myself without being talked over, introduce a better interpretation, and my ideas don't get discussed. Pretty annoyed from that, I get Tanya to go to a trail with me instead of going to another class. We have a blast. Things end well, turns out she's going away this weekend, and I'm excited to see her again soon.

No kiss yet but I think she digs me.

Sure, she digs you. As a friend. Just keep it that way and everything will be cool.

I want you to look in the mirror and ponder something. You're at her place--big win! And at her place you eat yogurt, talk about epicureanism, and play fucking chess. Chess! Ask yourself something for me. You're at the house of a girl you want to have sex with, just you and her, and you're playing fucking chess. How in the hell did that seem like a good plan to you?

One of two things happened here: either (a) the girl steered things toward epicureanism and chess because she's continuing to keep him strictly at Friend Level; or (b) the guy steered things toward chess because he's trying hard to be her friend and seem unthreatening.

Either way, this one's hopeless unless (long shot alert!) she's sizing him up for long-term relationship potential (which I assume he would be great with if it turned out that way).

Anyway, this guy went on to talk about how he got her to skip class to go to a trail (walking, I guess?) with him and that's exciting and he thinks he's in for sure. He concludes with--I am not making this up--"No kiss yet but I think she digs me."

No, really. He was at her place for an evening and they went walking together and know each other pretty well at this point, but no kiss has happened. But I'm sure she wants him, really!

I can't help but conclude his unwillingness to be honest with himself or anyone else about his desire for sex is sabotaging him. Don't fall under the spell of unclear thought and unwillingness to be honest about what you want.

When technically sound advice is nevertheless useless

This is a response somebody wrote to the quote in my last post:

I would avoid online dating for obvious reasons. Just go out you'll meet people quickly and then there is a multiplier effect as you meet their friends and then the friends of the friends. Before you realize it you know more people than you can allot time for.

This is bad advice, not on its own merits, but because it would be useful only to the kind of person who would never ask that question in the first place. The writer (who apparently is wealthy and has no traditional job) goes on to describe how he went to a club, got friendly with the staff and from there made friends with everyone that matters, all in a few days. Which is definitely the thing to do if you have high social skills. But then you wouldn't be asking questions like "how do I meet people?" It's like someone asking for help learning how to swim, and you start describing proper breaststroke form to them. The first thing they need to be able to do is just tread water.

The right answer for someone asking "how do I meet people?" is play sports, join a gym or join an organization. (Protip: animal rescue-type organizations feature an unusually high number of young women.) Do that, and go out in your free time, don't just sit on your ass at home. When are people going to realize their TV does absolutely nothing for them?

Get off your ass!

Today's topic: Where can I meet girls and how do I not come across as totally awkward to them?

Alright guys. I just moved to a new city in the US and know absolutely no one here. I miss college where it was so easy to meet people and get with girls. I'm a year out of college, 23. I make good money and am successful in my career, but my social skills need some work. How should I approach this? Should I just go to bars or do online dating? Any tips? I feel completely inept at this facet of life. Please help.

Glad you asked! The answer is: Your life is boring. Get the hell off the computer and start doing interesting things. Join a gym, join a sports team or a soup kitchen or some damn thing, anything is better than sitting around on the computer and watching TV and playing video games.

If you want to have a social life, BE SOCIAL. Do social things. If that's not immediately an option, do something new or stimulating. Run, bike, hike, head out by yourself or with a male friend or two to a new restaurant you haven't sampled. Anything but sit around at home. Guys who aren't used to being social ask the kind of questions in the quote above all the time, and I guess they don't understand being social at a conceptual level. GET OFF YOUR ASS.

The fact this guy is even pondering online dating as an option shows he spends way too much time on his ass.

You won't stop being awkward till you get out more, son

Here we are again discussing some stuff somebody posted on a message board. I would hate for you to be deceived by the lies and chicanery of the alpha class that seeks to enslave you.

I met this girl for the first time last Tuesday for coffee, we had met through friends so this is the first time that I had actually met her IRL and aside from a few conversations on MSN hadn't had a super long convo with her.

I am skeptical of the "met through friends" claim. It sounds like he looked this girl up on Facebook. Please, don't do that. If you're looking girls up on Facebook you are not getting out enough. Get out more.

We ended up talking for about two hours, which I found pretty remarkable since I hate coffee shops and generally get bored with long winded talks.

He omits the details of what they talked about, and those details are important. Was there any charge to the conversation, or was it just Getting To Know You Hour? Was there flirtatious banter or just "yeah, I'm into this band and that TV show"? All the time guys have mundane two-hour conversations with a girl they're into, then bitch about getting Friend Zoned. Like they can't understand how that happened.

Really she should be both aware of and receptive to your sexual interest before we get to the coffee shop. Actually you shouldn't be in a coffee shop at all. That's where a girl goes with her female friend from college to relax and catch up. You should be taking her to a party, a show, a damn hockey game, something fun. But that's just the problem: they don't do anything fun. So they end up in coffee shops wondering why they're being thought of as "just a good friend". 

I'm basically looking for advise for a second date as she has explicitly stated that she would like to go out a second time to "get to know me better". 

Which means either that he's already Friend Zoned with no chance of escape, or she's sizing him up as committed-relationship material. Which is worse is an exercise I leave to the reader.

As far as I can tell this is a green light ans she likes me so far. 

It's sad he actually believes this. She has no sexual interest in him at all, and he'll likely be back on the internet in two weeks writing things like "she won't return my texts or facebook messages, what's going on???" Which of course will happen after, on the third or fourth "date", he starts making sexual advances and she suddenly cuts him off.

Guys bitch that girls are dishonest with them, that girls string along their sexual interest to use them to fulfill emotional wants. In reality it's the guys that are dishonest, pretending to be interested only in friendship because they think that's their best shot at getting in the girl's pants. Attractive girls meet guys that pull this exact routine ten times a year. They're very experienced at dealing with it and they deal with it just as they should: cutting the guy off before the dramabomb explodes. It's not personal, it's just self-protection.

I was thinking along the lines of mini-golf maybe and then grab something to eat, or vise versa.

Of course you are. Because that once again is something a girl might do with female friends, and you're trying to pass yourself off as a friend hoping to get her to have sex with you later. And you'll explode in frustration when you make your move and she vanishes like a fart in the wind.

Gentlemen, the moral of the story is quit being dishonest about what you want. Be interesting and you'll catch girls' interest. Be boring and you won't. If you're boring, do the damn work to become interesting. It's not that hard.

The let's-be-friends!-OK-now-we're-friends-let's-have-sex routine girls call "playing games" and they say that with disgust. Go right now to any random internet dating site. Start reading through girls' profiles. Half of them or more will say something very close to "done with playing games" or "looking for a guy that doesn't play games". "Playing games" is femalespeak for he pretended to just be interested in friendship then suddenly started making sexual advances. Girls get that all the time and they hate it. So quit doing that to them. Improve yourself, run in social circles where girls on your level (if your social status is a 6, girls who physically are a 5 are on your level) and be honest about what you want. You'll be surprised to discover that many girls out there are just as interested in sex as you are...... at least the girls just below your social status level are. If you're a 6 guy trying to attract 8 girls, you've locked yourself in a failure cycle because you are beneath them.

Today's Moral: Be Honest With Yourself

Would you like to hear a story? Well, if not, get the hell off this site, because here comes a story.

So on Thursday, she introduces herself to me. We have been in a few philosophy classes together but haven't talked. She's a cute philosophy major and as I find out from a fantastic description of trail running, likes to "challenge her mind and body." This is about where I'm getting hooked.

We have a class together in an hour that she doesn't know if she'll continue taking. We decide to get some tea, talk about some things, and so on. In this time it becomes obvious that I'm a space - maybe caring or clever, perhaps even insightful - but definitely not one who lives like most. There's a lot of laughing. She, for one, is funny.

So we show up a bit late to class and after I ask if she'd like to go on an adventure this weekend. Yes! And now, the kicker, my phone is currently broken and must be replaced so I explain this and get her last name to send her a message on facebook and we decide to coordinate there for the time being. I send her a message late that night, she adds me as a friend the next morning, but doesn't respond to the message.

So what's going on?

Dating/relationship/girls-themed internet boards produce exactly this kind of story, with exactly this kind of dumbass concluding question, all the time. Every third post is one of these. The truth is, the guy that wrote this is reasonably bright, and so we can be sure he knows exactly what's going on. He just lacks the spine to face it and say it to himself (or type the words and read them off his screen).

SPOILERS AHEAD: What's going on is she's not into you. She never was. She liked shooting the breeze with you when there wasn't anything immediately interesting to do, and she may well even have begun by now to value you as a friend. But never, not once, was she even the tiniest bit interested in having sex with you.

This happens to guys all the time because, again, they are sissies and they're unwilling to admit to themselves that I'm not good enough for her. They know this on a deep-down level--and it always, always shows through well enough for women to see--but won't admit it, and so won't try to improve themselves. They'll just harass women of higher status than themselves, be repeatedly rejected, and end up married to someone on their own level (about a 4 or 5) and addicted to internet porn until their wife gets caught fucking some random coworker.

Here, watch what happens next:

My current plan is to (playfully) give her some **** about it next time I see her and try to figure it out from there. Seems like a bad idea to try to get in touch with her by any means before Tuesday, our next class together if she stays.

Of course that's his plan. He can't acknowledge he's not good enough for her and let it go. So he'll ask her about it, and she'll make up a lame and open-ended excuse like "oh, I was just too tired/busy, maybe some other time" that's intentionally lame and open-ended because she wants him to get the hint that she's not interested without actually saying it. Because attractive women learn by their mid-teens that coming right out and saying "I'm not interested" is near-guaranteed to make the interested guy flip the fuck out. Women lie and are indirect for their own protection.

You're still curious about how this guy should have played this, once he was there? Well, the girl's already expressed willingness to be friends; he should forget about bedding her and be her friend. Once she senses he's okay with being strictly friends and won't try to get in her pants the first time she gets mildly drunk, she'll invite him to an outing--where he'll meet other girls.

But if he were smart enough to know all that, he might have had a chance with Philosophy Girl in the first place.

....oh. While we're here, one more thing at the end of this dude's story:

And yes, something very similar to this happened with the last one, as you may have read a while ago. Maybe this one has a boyfriend too.

Yet another guy that (possibly willfully) doesn't understand the boyfriend concept. A girl has a boyfriend only if the guy she's talking to doesn't represent a potential upgrade. (And if she thinks you're not a potential upgrade over sleeping alone, she'll tell you she has a boyfriend even if she in fact has not had sex in six months.)



The first response to the long story in my previous post was this:

wow so you sent her a message on thursday and she totally blew you off? You're done with her. I would have saved myself a lot of pain and effort if I lived by the "one strike you're out" rule about girls flaking on me prior to figuring it out for myself the hard way.

"You're done with her" is right so far as anything romantic goes. Which only makes sense since she's already made it clear she's done with you. He's wrong about cutting her off from your life altogether, though, and he might know that. That's advice I might give a spineless guy, because being through with a girl that blows you off is a part of the spine-growing process. But it's much better to maintain this girl's friendship. Everyone in your life that likes you is one more link to other people (and that's especially important when you're on the hunt for sex partners.)

Disconcerting thought of the day

Fairly frequently when anyone non-male or non-white gets fired, a discrimination complaint and/or lawsuit follows. Sadly discrimination still exists in some places. Even more sadly, most of the time the fired person was fired for incompetence and/or obstructiveness. I've been there and done that.

Most of the time the company's insurance company will settle for between $10,000 and $25,000, even if everyone involved is sure the company will win the lawsuit. Why? Because even if you win you're still on the hook for litigation costs, which can quickly run over $25,000. Basically you only actually contest the charge in court if you're doing it out of principle, or if the plaintiff is making outlandish (and therefore potentially damaging if given even a hint of substantiation) claims.

That brings us to the fun thought that crossed my mind: You know who else's services can be contracted for $25,000 or so, instead of a lawyer's?

Hint: You'll never have to worry about that person bringing any more complaints ever again. Not after the boating accident.

I'm not saying that the fact I thought of this is proof I'm going to hell, but it's definitely on the exhibit list.

I'm in love.

Attractive woman probably in her mid-late 20s comes to the counter to check into Mash's World Famous Inn (No Fools Suffered). I do all the check-in stuff and hand her her keys.

"Room 101," I said.

She suddenly looked put off. "Room 101?"

"Room 101."

"What's in room 101?"

[Dramatic pause while I assume the most serious expression I can muster]

"You know what is in Room 101, Kellie."

"Everyone knows what is in Room 101."

"The thing that is in Room 101 is--"

"The worst thing in the world," we finish together. She laughs. We high-five. She leaves. I never fully understood until today why I got into this business.

The bad news is, she's here with her husband. I hope he understands it's nothing personal that I have to have him whacked. Just wrong place, wrong time, that's all.

I Got Myself Into a Stupid Confrontation: Now What Do I Do?

I was pulling into a restaurant today when some kid started to walk out in front of me. So I stopped and waved him on.

He stopped and waved me on.

I shook my head--he was looking straight at me--and waved again with eyebrows waived. Let's go.

He would not go. He mimicked my gesture perfectly, like a six year old playing the mimicking game.

Well. No one out-jackasses Mash.

After about five more seconds of this, I put my window down and yelled, "Move, jackass!" He showed me his Mister Digit hand puppet, yelled "fuck you!" and, after a moment's hesitation (during which I put my hand on the door handle to get out of the car) he finally did cross the damn parking lot. And yes, had he continued to refuse to move, I was prepared to get out of my car and have a personal chat with the gentleman about the issue. Not that I was concerned that was going to happen; 95 percent of the time, they back down.

There's an important lesson here: if you want to be good at life, for crap's sake, WIN. Looking back, my best play would have been to simply go the first time the dude waved me on; I was in a car and he was not, after all. It was dumb of me to insist on something so stupid. But once a confrontation's started, never, ever back down. Never lose a confrontation unless it's by physically getting your ass kicked. Otherwise you won't respect yourself, and if you don't respect yourself, nobody else is ever going to respect you.

So, in the unlikely event you forgot: No one out-jackasses Mash, once jackassishness has been called into question.

Working the Register for $8.00 an Hour Does Suck

Today I bought some fresh salsa at a local grocer. I stood in line about five minutes while, as per federal law, the woman in line directly in front of me (and I don't mean to be a sexist, but this person is always a woman) made a lengthy ordeal out of paying for her damned vegetables and bread. No matter, I'm never in a hurry; this situation is exactly why God gave us the iPhone.

When finally it was my turn, the girl at the counter zapped the salsa, looked up at me and said, with all the animated excitement of a person attending her mother's funeral, "Do you have a bonus card?"

"Hello to you too!" spoke Mash, pleasantly, trying as always to make the other person's day a tiny bit more bearable.

You know that sound young women make to express that nothing in the world has ever been more annoying than what you just said? It's kind of a very short sigh blended with a grunt. You know the sound I'm talking about, you've heard it a hundred times before.

And as I left the store with my salsa, I reminded myself that some people just can't be helped.