Khaos Theory

Weekends or long holidays are way too much time to be spent with someone you don’t know very well yet. Unless you are both in the beginning of that magic stage where you are falling in love and the other person can’t do anything wrong in your eyes, the fantasy can’t be maintained for that length of time. Not by you, not by her.

This means that by the end of the weekend, you’re just two people spending time together and if you’re clicking it goes reasonably well, but most probably it won’t. You may think she’s perfect and you’re in love, but after the first day, she’s just seeing you as a regular guy who is invading all her privacy or fogging up the mirror when she’s trying to put her make-up on.

Vacations are hard even on couples that are dating. In fact, they’re relationship killers – Looking back I see that of those long weekends and short trips with girls, most of the time they were the end of the relationship, not the beginning.

I also think long dates are very risky if you tend to fall in love, or take things to extremes. We’ve all read countless articles on the internet about guys who are actually displaying various forms of obsessive-compulsive behavior and have lost all sense of perspective, even though they’re always calling it something else. It’s a common problem with some guys – again, made worse by a weekend length date.

Even if you like her very much and she doesn’t bother you at all, just because she represents all the things you want in a woman, doesn’t mean she views you even remotely in the same way. The weekend may be exactly the time she needs to realize you are not her best lover, Mr. Right, or her all-time-favorite. So by the time you were on your way to the airport and wanted a blowjob, she was way past the point of wanting to keep your fantasy alive. She was just a woman ready to get home, hence her rather disconnected attitude.

My advice would be to proceed slowly – no weekend dates yet. Limit yourself to evenings at first. Then spend all days together but not far from home so both have the option of just driving back any time. Keep increasing the time and distance until you find what is your boundary with her. It may be a long way until you are going out on week-long cruises, but at least you won’t wear off the relationship unnecessarily.

It’s no secret that male and female sexuality differ. Many men feel sex is a recurring physical need – the daily physical release of sexual tension or energy, while many women might view the same act in more experiential terms, adding romance, intimacy, closeness, or sensuality to the mix. We all know how these differences can lead to misunderstandings in marriage or relationships, so this isn’t really news.

But these blanket generalizations only tell part of the story, however, because we are complex beings. Sometimes a woman might fantasize about being taken forcefully (not forcibly) into the stairwell of an office building by a handsome stranger she just passed in the hall. She might imagine being pressed up against the wall and being taken with great passion and physicality. And alternatively, a man might have times when he really does want to be held, nurtured and loved and “make love” rather than just have sex.

But even when we’re alike, we’re different.  The thought of that sexual fantasy might sustain a woman’s passion for weeks as she replays the scenario in her head- even though she has no intention of ever following through or making it a reality. Whereas the same fantasy for a man would usually only be a turn-on if it was in anticipation of the actual event somehow being fulfilled.

Most men feel horny again just a few hours after having sex and have trouble with the repetition of routine it creates. That is alleviated by fantasies, by watching porn, or by just observing, and desiring, other women. This isn’t that uncommon for men, ladies, so don’t get all insulted. Aside from the obvious fact that many men want or need sex almost continuously, the real issue here is that a lot of guys aren’t that “experiential.” This means they’d rather buy a new truck or a flat TV than go to Europe with you. Stated another way, many guys place a higher priority on durable goods than temporary experiences. How many husband/wife or BF/GF conflicts arise over this one difference?

But getting back to experiences vs. things – people that are more experiential will be more likely to incorporate, and want, some sort of emotional or romantic component into their sex life, rather than just approach it as satisfying a physical need. Regardless of gender, these types will be happiest with sexual encounters that enhance intimacy in various ways. I’d speculate that the majority of women fall into this group, as well as some men – they can even be the same men who at other times just want a quick, no-frills release. As I said, we’re complex beings, and neither an individual or an entire gender lives exclusively in one camp or the other.

If a guy is in the group that views sex as a recurring physical need, and not part of a larger act of intimacy, then he will feel this need can be satisfied in many different ways, or with many different people. He will also be willing to pay for this. In this sense, his daily physical sexual needs become commodified. If someone, male or female, views a service or product as a commodity, then it is inevitable that it will be shopped on the basis of price and value. We all do it everyday – at the grocery store, at the gas station, at the mall.

“How dare he call me a commodity?” most women think to themselves… Fair enough, you are a unique individual, not a commodity, and you certainly don’t think you are offering a commodity service. But my point is, many of your customers (oops! I’m sorry I meant to say your partners…) think they are buying a commodity service, because that physical sexual need can be satisfied in many places and in many alternative ways. Again, the reason being is that if you’re just going to be horny again later that day or the next day for sure, then price/value, which enables greater frequency, is also an important consideration. That’s not to say that many other men don’t value a high-priced courtesan experience, or spending the weekend with his high-maintenance hot girlfriend, or that the same guy who goes for quantity one day, doesn’t want a higher quality experience the next. Just as in the same way we all can appreciate a fine meal, even though we know we’ll be hungry the next day. But in reality, the daily fare for most of us is rather more generic. And the daily sexual fare for most of us isn’t a high-priced courtesan or seductive lover… it’s one of the many lower cost alternatives, including booty calls, porn, or self-service.

I’d bet that nearly every guy that has seen an escort has, at one time or another, thought he really should have used that money for something else – maybe the car needed new tires or he needed a new suit for work, or the rent is due.  Those needs don’t go away, and they’re still waiting for you when you get home. For the guys who are more motivated by things rather than experiences, spending money in this manner (on experiences) is difficult, especially when you know you’re letting something else slide. Also, and this is the big one, when you know you WILL want sex again later that day and hate yourself for having “blown” the money on what was a fleeting pleasure.

Ladies, you can attack this all you like, but this is a look into the inner dialog most men have with themselves before they call you on a date. The exceptions are the affluent, who have enough money to avoid making these hard choices, or those who place a greater premium on experience, and will gladly pay (in money, or gifts, or picking up the tab) for a satisfying time, regardless of the alternative uses for those funds – these guys don’t really care, as long as they had a unique and satisfying time.

It’s usually an insult to women who are not sex workers to state that many guys will go through this thought process. After all, this issue in its many forms is the most common problem between husbands and wives. Keep in mind too, that it is the guys who CAN’T see the alternative sources in which their money can be spent, or are unable to prioritize their expenditures in a rational manner in order to make the right choices that get into trouble in this activity. These are the guys that are out of control, falling in love with escorts, acting in an addictive manner, or becoming stalkers.

For most of us, life is a daily juggling act between what we want and what we can afford. It’s one of the things that makes satisfying our desires all the sweeter when that actually occurs.  But it also can lead to feelings of guilt or remorse in many people. This doesn’t make guys that feel this way jerks, it just shows they are human.

Certainly, we have our share of top quality young women and ladies who have earned their good reputation, so it’s important to make the distinction between that group and the larger group that seems to be totally lacking in common courtesy or respect for the people whose time they waste.

It may be worse in some areas like Miami and Las Vegas, but it seems we have created a society of women that simply think the world owes them a living, and a very good one at that, because they are attractive. Perhaps this is the inevitable result of an appearance obsessed culture, where good looks give them special treatment and any shortcomings are forgiven if they’re pretty enough. But living in this fantasy land of the superficial prevents them from maturing as people. Whatever the reason, it’s a common complaint amongst the men who wish to be their partners.

I’m afraid we’ve created a monster and it’s reflected in the dating world. This primadonna attitude by the “princesses” in the dating world is what drove many guys out of it in the first place. Sadly, they soon learn that this same entitlement attitude infects the offline society in general world as well.

As an aside, I’ve gotten so turned-off by some of these spoiled girls posting on dating web sites and message boards about  how they “deserve” top-notch treatment for the mediocre experience they provide, that I’ve completely stopped seeing women that show any of this attitude, and I used to see them often – hoping in vain that some sort of sanity will eventually return. But sadly, the internet has just made it easier to reinforce these bad behaviors by providing an endless pool of suckers.

While the Internet  also gives us a forum for variety and pre-qualification, there are enough unsuspecting guys jumping hoops for these women that it appears we haven’t reached the bottom yet. Boorish behavior, after all, isn’t hard to learn, it’s only hard to stop.

The basic blueprint

To understand the dynamics of dating in general it is important to have a certain understanding of our biological/evolutionary blueprint. This blueprint has a very simple purpose: to assure the continuation of our species. A simple task and done quite well, but not without some conflicts and misunderstandings that confuse people in modern societies.

Evolutionary theory suggests that a woman places significant emphasis on a man’s ability to provide resources and protection. These resources and protection are important in ensuring the successful raising of the woman’s offspring. The ability to provide resources and protection might also be sought because the underlying traits are likely to be passed on to male offspring. The theory also suggests that people whose physical features suggest they are healthy are seen as more attractive. However, from a reproductive standpoint women are torn between a mate that represents the best genetic health and will contribute survival characteristics to their children, versus the mate that will stick around long enough to help her raise the baby to the point of independence, which in humans is, regrettably, a very long time.

Alpha males, commonly represented by wild “bad boys” are the most capable of risk-taking, vitality and strength – survival characteristics from our genetic past. Seeking adventure and flirting with danger for fun is exactly the thing you’re looking for if your genetic history includes being chased around by large cats and having to kill invaders. So while these personality characteristics are sought out by females as representing genetic health and survival, history has shown they tend to make bad fathers, hence the conflict. They don’t always come home, or have a strong enough couple-bond to either the mother or the baby to raise it. So like all of us, their strength also defines their weakness.

Being a promiscuous rogue may be as successful a reproductive strategy as the strategy of being a reliable provider. According to an article in The Independent, there is a “dark triad” of personality traits associated with naturally occurring ‘bad boys’, consisting of narcissism, thrill-seeking, and deceitfulness. The attraction of beautiful women to the “bad boy” archetype is attributed both to his confidence, intriguing mystery, seeming indifference (suggesting an abundance of sexual options) and unavailability, which challenges women to chase him.

This contrasts with supplicating men who seem needy and desperate to please, suggesting lower value, and so they are less attractive. The more stable male that will stick with the mother and raise the kids may not have the strongest survival characteristics, at least in the world that shaped our genetic heritage.

Evolutionary psychologist Professor Bill von Hippel claims that women are especially attracted to such bad boys when they are ovulating. He showed that women are continuously resolving this conflict on an unconscious level by being attracted to the “bad boy” type of male while ovulating (and most likely to conceive), and the stable type during the rest of her menstrual cycle. The study also found married women were more likely to stray during ovulation and you can guess which type of man they sought.

So it’s not your imagination – women are attracted to bad boys, whether they’re gladiators, fighter pilots, or football players. These guys have been making women squirm in their seats for centuries. And yes, they have been getting the girls because they represent strength, and risk-taking. But when it comes time for marriage and raising a family, most women seek the stable type of male personality.

Of course, the power of sexual attraction is strong and many women make the mistake of marrying (or being impregnated by) the “bad boy,” only to find themselves raising their child alone when the inevitable happens – the bad boy takes off in search of his next adventure. He is not likely to have the ‘stay around-ness’ character that is also needed, and he dashes off.

This isn’t exactly a new situation and nearly every society has invented the institution of marriage to resolve this fundamental problem and ensure its own preservation. After all, what’s the benefit to the social group of rowing your long boat all the way across the sea to rape and plunder if you decide you don’t want to return home after sampling the local beauties? Whether watching his sails disappear over the horizon, or the tail lights of his pick-up truck as he pulls out of your driveway, those are only variations on an age-old theme. Unfortunately, as the institution of marriage is also a very imperfect model, more and more women are forced to raise families on their own.

So don’t blame yourself if you’re a nice guy and seem destined to pay the bills while the stud gets the girls. It’s all in the genes and it’s been that way for thousands of years. Our behaviors are defined much more by 180 thousand years of evolution from the caves to the villages than by 10 thousand years of agricultural life, or just 250 years or so of industrialism. We are off the shelf mammals, with a very thin veneer of civilization on top.

The similarity of roles in modern society

In todays world, the everyday lives of men and women are almost exactly the same: we both get up, deal with the traffic, go to work (deal with some of the exact same work scenarios), drive home and have the same duties to do when we get home and the cycle begins again.

The distinction between men and women is lesser than it used to be. In earlier times life was more difficult, clearly more brutal in most social environments. For one thing, the ratio of men to women was much greater than today in many situations, like during colonization and conquests. The men went first to fight and destroy and the families would follow later, balancing the ratio of males x females back to normality. That in itself meant that men had to stake their claims on a woman, home and family and there was much to protect for and against. It was easy for a man to be a hero in his wife and children’s eyes then because he was pretty much facing foes and challenges all the time and for her.

Contemporary living

Modern life has really wrecked havoc on our sexual attraction. Things have just changed too fast in the last hundred years especially. We now live in a world where a more intellectual type of guy is the better provider – not a “nerd” necessarily, but someone who has the ability to succeed in an white collar/business environment.

Physical strength and daring are no longer a requirement for modern living, yet we’re still attracted to them. To compensate for the blandness and safety of modern existence, we create sports and other extreme activities. They serve the same purpose, but they are contrived and manufactured risk, merely re-enactments of the risk-taking inherent in our history. They may sometimes be life-threatening, but they are pursued for the thrill of the experience, not to obtain food from an uncooperative bison or to flee a pursuing bear.

As a result, the modern woman is just as out of her element as the modern man. She still wants to be “claimed”, and secretly gets excited at the proposition of a gallant knight sweeping her off her feet and taking her away as his bride (kicking and screaming optional). While it’s not PC to even discuss this subject anymore, women are as genetically predisposed to be “taken” as men are to win them and sweep them away.

The problem in modern, civilized life is obvious, however, as laws seeking to modify behavior and ensure safety come up against this ancient instinct. Of course, in most of us, this is just takes the form of harmless flirting with a little sexual tension thrown in for good measure. He invites her to watch his football game, she screams and cheers as he makes a good catch, and then gives his big, sweaty body a hug after the game – all very primal, but satisfying very basic needs.

Sadly, these urges are not controlled and a little too close to the surface in some men, and you end up with rapists and stalkers. But let’s face it, until fairly modern times (genetically speaking) most men were rapists and stalkers. So it’s a delicate dance, and civilization is a thin veneer at best since we’re always juggling the disparate urges so deeply ingrained in us all.

Since we live in a world where the biggest risk most of us take is getting to work on the freeway, we have to substitute for the things that are now missing in our bland, modern lives. Women read romance novels and go to “chick flicks,” and guys vicariously live battle and conquest through sports, gambling, and aggressive business competition, as well as take risks through other extreme activities. Both are satisfying basic instincts they don’t even know they have.

Passion is the key element

Going back to the characteristics and ‘action’, which I want to portray as ‘passion’. Say for example the Mafia movies, or gang types. It’s always said that those who love passionately, hate passionately. The one reason that women have put up with the jealous types is because (to them) it shows the guys care, that it matters to them, and makes them feel special to see how much they are affected. Only later do they see it isn’t necessarily about ‘caring’, or ‘loving’ but about hangups – theirs! Those same men, throw the remote down on the couch, don’t grab the beer, but instead, grab their women in their arms right in the middle of her doing the dishes, and dash off to the bedroom, toss her like a sack-o-taters down on the bed, and yank her panties down to enjoy her! Yeah, that unleashed passion – that ‘action’ man is what gets to us all. That kind of man whose actions say you are ‘taken’, and ‘off limits’ because he has staked his claim makes one feel chosen, wanted, and secure.

You don’t need to read romance novels to know that the reason they sell is because of all the passion! If you ask women and they feel comfortable enough to tell you how it really it, they will say things like “Well, he just seemed to ‘know’ how to play it with me, tossed me on the bed and just had his way! Jumped right into a role play and I was taken right in with his passion”.

That, I think is the key. The action, the heroism (perceived), strength and vitality, but foremost is passion.

These are some very common, and predictable, mistakes humans make. Funny is that when you show this list most people will say they are liable of having done one, or two, sometimes three of those mistakes, while in reality most people have done them all one time or another.

Narrow mindedness

Many people can only think of one way of doing things, or believe there is just one possible right answer to any complex issue in front of them. A person or persons who cannot see beyond their own set of values and/or will not accept them. Is often related to religious matters, where people cannot accept the other religion’s beliefs. A narrow-minded person will even accuse someone of being “stupid” or ((name some other bad trait here, even “narrow-minded” itself!)) the other person who expresses a viewpoint or reason for believing otherwise than the narrow-minded one’s views.

Reactance

Reactance is the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice. It can occur when someone is heavily pressured to accept a certain view or attitude. Reactance can cause the person to adopt or strengthen a view or attitude that is contrary to what was intended and also increases resistance to persuasion. An example of such behavior can be observed when an individual engages in a prohibited activity in order to deliberately flaunt the authority who prohibits it, regardless of the utility or disutility that the activity confers. People using “reverse psychology” are playing on at least an informal awareness of reactance, attempting to influence someone to choose the opposite of what they request.

Reactivity

Reactivity is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals alter their performance or behavior due to the awareness that they are being observed. The change may be positive or negative, and depends on the situation.
This demonstrated a form of reactivity; when individuals know they are being watched, they are motivated to change their behavior, generally to make themselves look better. Reactivity is a serious problem in research, and has to be controlled in blind experiments (“Blind” is when individuals involved in a research study are purposely withheld information so as not to influence the outcomes).

Placebo effect

A placebo is a sham medical intervention. In one common placebo procedure, a patient is given an inert sugar pill, told that it may improve his/her condition, but not told that it is in fact inert. Such an intervention may cause the patient to believe the treatment will change his/her condition; and this belief does indeed sometimes have a therapeutic effect, causing the patient’s condition to improve. This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect.

Halo effect

The halo effect refers to a cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations. A study by Solomon Asch suggests that attractiveness is a central trait, so we presume all the other traits of an attractive person are just as attractive and sought after. The halo effect is involved in Harold Kelley’s implicit personality theory, where the first traits we recognize in other people influence our interpretation and perception of later ones because of our expectations. Attractive people are often judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. Thus, we see that celebrities are used to endorse products that they have no actual expertise in evaluating, and with which they may not even have any prior affiliation. The term is commonly used in human resources recruitment. It refers to the risk of an interviewer noticing a positive trait in an interviewee and as a result, paying less attention to their negative traits (or vice versa).

Gambler’s Fallacy

The gambler’s fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that if deviations from expected behavior are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process then these deviations are likely to be evened out by opposite deviations in the future. For example, if a fair coin is tossed repeatedly and tails comes up a larger number of times than is expected, a gambler may incorrectly believe that this means that heads is more likely in future tosses. Such an expectation could be mistakenly referred to as being due. This is an informal fallacy. It is also known colloquially as the law of averages.

Pareidolia

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, Jesus on a hot pocket, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and ancient India, it is 20th-century sociologist Robert K. Merton who is credited with coining the expression “self-fulfilling prophecy” and formalizing its structure and consequences. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton gives as a feature of the self-fulfilling prophecy: Ie: when a woman falsely believes that her marriage will fail and fears such failure will occur that it actually causes the marriage to fail.

Escalation of commitment

Escalation of commitment is the tendency for people to continue to support previously unsuccessful endeavors. More recently the term sunk cost fallacy has been used to describe the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong. Such investment may include money, time, or — in the case of military strategy — human lives. The phenomenon and the sentiment underlying it are reflected in such proverbial images as Throwing good money after bad and In for a dime, in for a dollar (or In for a penny, in for a pound).

The term is also used to describe poor decision-making in business, government, information systems in general, software project management in particular, politics, and gambling. The term has been used to describe the United States commitment to military conflicts including Vietnam in the 1960s – 1970s and in Iraq in the 2000s, where dollars spent and lives lost justify continued involvement.

Alternatively, irrational escalation (sometimes referred to as irrational escalation of commitment or commitment bias) is a term frequently used in psychology, philosophy, economics, and game theory to refer to a situation in which people can make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken. Examples are frequently seen when parties engage in a bidding war; the bidders can end up paying much more than the object is worth to justify the initial expenses associated with bidding (such as research), as well as part of a competitive instinct.

Hyperbolic discounting

Given two similar rewards humans show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. Humans are said to discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay. In behavioral economics, hyperbolic discounting is a particular mathematical model thought to approximate this discounting process; that is, it models how humans actually make such valuations.

Herd mentality

Herd mentality describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, and/or purchase items. Examples of the herd mentality include the early adopters of high technology products such as cell phones and iPods, as well as stock market trends, fashions in apparel, cars, home décor, etc. Social psychologists study the related topics of group intelligence, crowd wisdom, and decentralized decision making.

People in these herds are broken up into two groups, explains Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher who coined the phrase. One lent itself to the religious points of views- their beliefs and how those dictated their actions- while the other lent itself to influence by the media- based upon what others perceive as ‘right’ (following trends, social norms, etc.). Nietzsche perceived these two forms of subservience to be a weakness among the common man, and that the “Superman” as Nietzsche terms is the one who overcomes the values of the fallible herd.

Sometimes riding around rush hour in the afternoon I look at the driver’s faces… very few are smiling. Quite the opposite. Bad attitudes, driving home in a hurry, kids screaming in the back seat. I don’t want their lives.

Or those that would love to stay longer at the party, that would love to escape for a couple of days, camping or just riding into the sunset…. but they “have” to be at work early in the morning.

Sometimes I want to shake them. Scream through the glass that separates our worlds. I want to rattle the bars that hold them back. But I can’t, and I shouldn’t. It’s not my duty, and it is not my right.

I will not steal from anyone the opportunity to gain his/her own freedom. But oh buy how I wish I met more people like I have been meeting, many from the couch surfing community, that travel and go out and know how the world looks like. How I enjoy talking to those that know there is something more than work and bills and taxes to care for.

So many spend their lives going from work to home to work to home, in an endless cycle, in silent desperation. Ensnarled in obligations with clients and bosses and creditors, while all they would really like to do is… you tell me.

If you meet someone casually, at a bar or club most likely, you should ask certain questions very early in the conversation to figure out if you should eject yourself from the conversation or move ahead. Some specific questions will help you do just that:

Who are you here with?

You ask that in a way that looks like you want to meet her friends. What you actually want to know is what is her relationship with them. If she is there with her sister, that will be a tough job. If she is the designated driver, don’t expect to be able to remove her from the group. Women will generally not loosen up if they have any relatives or co-workers around. In general sisters don’t like to act naughty around sisters, with few exceptions. If she tells you she is there with her friend and waiting for her boyfriend to pick them up for a dinner, you will be happy you have that information before you spend one hour on that project.

You also want to estimate when is it that her friends will want to take her away. If she is there with her friends waiting until a show across the street starts at 10pm, you will probably want to pace yourself to finish your conversation and leave them gracefully at not later than 9:40 or so. Whatever is your calculation, try not to be interrupted while you are building a connection with someone. You interrupt, finish, or delay it at your own pace.

Where do you live?

If you are having a good time with a girl and she has in mind that after the party she will have to drive 50 miles back home and then be ready for work early in the morning, that will be bad news for you. On the other hand, if she lives 100 miles away and is not working the next day, she may be expecting not to go home later in the evening as long as she can find a nice couch to crash on… your bed perhaps?

How did you get here?

If you drove to the party and she rode her bicicle to it, you better have spece on the trunk of the car, or convince her to leave the bike behind. Whatever the solution, it will be more difficult than if she took public transportation that evening. Again, you also want to know if she is the designated driver for someone else.

What is happening tomorrow?

If she responds with generalities on what she likes to do on Sundays that is good. If she tells in detail how she has to wake up at 6 in the morning to run a half marathon… keep that in mind.

Keep your eyes open

Some things you don’t even need to ask. If she is sitting straight wearing her Gucci sunglasses, and the bar is indoors, and her purse is Channel, and her shoes are Aldo, and her watch is this brand and the blouse is that other brand… you know she will be very high maintenance. Knowing to play the game well may get you into her expensive pants, but you will not want to have that big spender around the next day.

Get used to observing the timing of everything.

If you want to bounce to another bar, pace yourself so you finish your drinks at the same time. Order your last drinks about 15 minutes before last call, so you won’t have to wait while the overwhelmed bartender does your drinks, after 20 others.

Ask the waiter to order your car from valet just before you ask for the check. That will be just enough time to have your car as soon as you walk out of the door.

Don’t arrive too early, and definitely don’t stay close to the end of any party. If I get the impression that a party will end up within the next hour I start making my moves to leave. You don’t want to be there when the bright lights turn on and the romantic mood gets interrupted. Bounce out before the party is over.

Know what time the liquor stores close in the city you are in.

Always be aware of the time, even while it looks like you don’t care at all. You don’t want to be caught glancing at your watch or cell phone. It makes people uncomfortable.

Don’t let your conversations turn into job interviews. Don’t ask questions about family, her neighborhood, her school, family, career, or the weather. Those subjects are boring and will show that you are not creative and interesting.

Every time that she asks you something about family, your neighborhood, your school, family, career, or the weather, use it as a point to build rapport. Do it not by answering the question, but by leading the response into what you really want to talk about, something that will create emotional connection.

- Do you work around here? – She asks

- Yes, have been working here for a year, and I really like the area. It is beautiful and peaceful. I love riding my motorcycle after work through some country roads west of town. Have you been there? Yes, it is gorgeous country side and the feeling of freedom and peace on those roads is magic…

It doesn’t matter what people ask, you can drive the conversation in any direction you want. And they will be happy you did! Oh, my… finally a guy that knows better than answering about his computer job at Acme… She is not actually thinking it, but she is feeling it.

Most of the time when I meet with a woman I already know what she does for a living. So I got used to not asking that at all. But even if you don’t know… why do you care? If you just talk to her for that evening hoping for a one night stand, it won’t make a difference to you if she is assistant prosecutor or clerk at Target. If you start a relationship, then you will certainly figure out what she does by the next day or so. Don’t need to sacrifice your attraction on the first night by asking job interview questions.

However, she will probably ask about your career. So know very well what to do:

Don’t answer. At the most glance over the response but drive the conversation right into what you want to talk about. In most cases I give answers as vague as “I am a businessman.” and let the mystery sink in. Sometimes I just say “I am self-unemployed”, if the circumstance is more humorous. But that is it. Explaining how you make ends meet is a bad move, and asking about her ways is even worse.

Another reason to not ask any Job Interview question is that the person will feel like you are qualifying her. That is really bad and breaks rapport. It sounds like you are sizing her up to see if she is wife material or not. During attraction, which is the first part of every conversation, don’t let anyone qualify you, and qualify everyone but don’t let them notice it.

This is the lamest, dumbest, most overused opener in the world.

Beautiful women hear this several times per evening, and if she says “yes” that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean she likes you, it doesn’t mean she will talk to you any longer than the drink lasts. All it means is that she feels comfortable drinking your money. She may even feel entitled to it. Most freeloaders do.

Nothing sucks more than this, so say anything else. Ask her if she would buy you a drink. Ask her if you can buy her a Congressman. Feel free to buy the second round, of course.

Buying drinks, or paying for dinner, is something I do for people I am already friends with. I have no problem paying for drinks and dinner for a good friend that I already have rapport with, man or woman. However, if the drinks (or dinner, or whatever) are the ticket to keep her in your presence, you are playing a losing hand.

If a woman approaches you with an empty glass, don’t fall for that! Actually get used to look at her in the eyes. Don’t glance at her glass, and don’t glance at her boobs either!

However, I may say jokingly “Can I buy you a drink”, when we are already talking, if she knows that the drinks are for free, or if it is a B.Y.O.B. party.

Challenges

Go to a strip club, where it is customary for the client to buy extremely overpriced drinks for the girls. It is actually a rule of the house in most places. Then see how far you can go talking to her without buying any drinks. Make it a special exercise, or challenge, just for fun.

Just as an exercise go to a very busy bar and use all your talents to make people pay your drinks. This is actually easy to do when you are visiting other countries, I found out. Interesting foreigners usually get plenty of free beer.  :-)

Special tip

If you are going to a bar with a girl that is gaming with you, give her your drinking money before you walk into the bar and tell her to pay for the drinks, in cash, one by one. The hotter she is, and the more people see that she is buying all the drinks, the better it gets…