Men's Guide to Women

A few weekends ago I found myself playing host to my best friend and some of his clients while they were in town wrapping up a healthy business deal.

We were in and out of several bars that night down on 6^th Street, the last of which looked like a late 80’s metal band bar complete with leather and big hair all over the place with a nice compliment of the suit and martini crowd mixed in that night. The band was incredibly loud, overwhelming your senses just a few steps inside the door making any real conversation pointless.

Two of the clients, Dean and his buddy John, discovered two things they liked about this particular bar, the pool table and an absolutely beautiful woman sitting at a table with her friends on the opposite side of the large oval bar situated right in the middle of the room. Every guy in the place noticed the woman I will call Red Dress. A quick scouting report revealed no sign of a boyfriend or significant other; it just looked like a girl’s night out.

Rule 1: Do a scouting report to assess your target and be observant. Look for rings, (class, engagement, wedding, etc.) tattoos, earrings, purse, keys, photographs, anything that might help  give you something to talk about when you approach her.

Dean took a seat at the bar with John, glancing at her and beginning to set their strategy to talk to her while the rest of us picked out cue sticks. Red Dress caught Dean looking a time or two without any real response one way or the other. For his part, Dean acted like a shy teenage boy, looking away when she looked at him.

Rule 2: Staring to let her know you are interested works. If you happen to lock eyes on each other, do not look away (unless she has a 300lb. boyfriend standing beside her ready to pound you into the ground.) Hold her gaze to express your interest and wave or smile to break the stare if the gaze begins to last freakishly long.

Three women sat at the table, one drinking a margarita, one drinking something big, blue and frozen, and Red Dress, drinking something that looked like a Jack & Coke.

Dean was clearly nervous at the thought of talking to a woman as beautiful as Red Dress, taking some long slow pulls off of his beer trying to find his courage. To encourage Dean I took up a position on the barstool next to him, after all I was the entertainment director and Red Dress certainly qualified as entertainment.

To do my part I ordered up three tequila shots telling Dean that Courage could best be found in the bottom of a shot glass. One round of shots later Dean finally decided to go talk to her, after a slight detour to the bathroom.

Rule 3: Seize the moment. When you see an opportunity, be prepared to act.

Dean came back to his seat after ten minutes in the bathroom trying to get the bartenders attention for another five minutes. Red Dress caught Dean’s glance and she kind of smiled, but, hell, it could have been a burp from where I was sitting. Dean just sat there waiting for the bartender.

Wingman John officially reverted back to his adolescence cupping his hands in front of his chest to show us what part of her anatomy he liked best. Red Dress looked at Dean again and definitely smiled this time, fortunately she did not see John’s assessment of her assets. It was my turn to shoot, we were solids, and I missed.

The bartender finally got to us and after a brief conversation at high volume; Dean discovered Red Dress was drinking top shelf rum and Coke, and ordered two of them, one for delivery. Draining another tequila shot, Dean picked up his newly acquired rum and Coke and began taking the long way around the bar, coming up behind Red Dress.

Rule 4: It is almost never good to sneak up on a woman you do not know from behind as you can scare her, startle her, or engage her defenses before you get one word out.

At the end of the bar Dean tripped and clearly freaked out a little bit, trying to recover by sliding up the bar to order another drink. She did not see it, but the look on his face was priceless.

Rule 5: Do not buy drinks for women you have not met to preface an introduction. You are marketing yourself with a free introductory offer like a cell phone contract or magazine subscription. Quit it. Bring value in who you are, how you carry yourself and what you say and she just might buy you a drink to get you to stay.

Now, I am off the stool, moving closer to Dean. Dean slammed the remainder of his drink when the next one arrived. Wingman John was back on his stool mouthing the words "go for it, dude" overtly pointing at Red Dress like a freshman at a wet t-shirt contest.

The waitress arrived with the drink telling Red Dress it was from Dean. Red Dress looked for Dean, but all she saw across the bar was Wingman John mouthing words and pointing, trying to motivate his friend. Wingman John was hilarious but clearly not helping. Red Dress went back to talking to her friends.

Confidence on high shine, Dean walked over to her table just as blessed silence overtook the room with the band going on break. Much better.

Rule 6: It can take a lot of confidence to approach a table full of women. Confidence in check, engage them immediately with a neutral question or helpful piece of information that gets you closer to your desired result.

Rule 6a: If you want to date a “10” you should at least have the courage to go talk to a “10” when the opportunity presents itself, otherwise stick with your “5’s” and stop your b*tching.

About five feet from her table another guy, I will call him Mr. Blocker, slid right up to the women’s table, cutting Dean off. Dean’s drink has not been on the table ten seconds.

Dean was in no mans land two steps behind Mr. Blocker. By this point, Mr. Blocker already had the attention of all three women. Their body language suggested they did not know Mr. Blocker but he clearly had them all engaged in conversation. From where Dean was standing, he could not get their attention with a big red nose and clown shoes.

Dean took a step like he was going to try to talk to Red Dress anyway, but as he did, a guy walking to the bar bumped into Dean, spilling his rum and Coke. Dean turned his attention away from the table to sort out the situation with this guy who is apologizing and pointing to the bar offering to buy him a new drink.

Rule 7: Know when to cut bait. There are more women out there. Approximately 5000 young women turn 18 every day in this country.

Oddly, this guy had no problem getting the bartenders attention and Dean has a new drink in seconds, meanwhile the drink Dean had delivered sat as of yet untouched on the table.

Dean wrapped it up with the guy that bought him the drink and turned around just in time to see Red Dress and friends walk off with Mr. Blocker. Dean looked anything but entertained. As I walked up, about to say something to Dean, Mr. Blocker stops just ahead of us, turns back to the table, grabs Dean’s untouched drink, slams it, nods and winks at Dean, and returns to the group of ladies.

Dean, stunned, offhandedly thanked the guy that bought him the new drink.

“That sucked.  Did you see that guy?” Dean said. “At least I got a new drink out of the deal. Damn, she looked good.”

Dean was still upset as he finished telling the story to the other guys at the pool table even though they were all laughing. Polishing off his drink, Dean suggested we all get a late dinner somewhere and the second the band fired back up, we all agreed.

Rule 9: Never act as if the woman you are after is the only beautiful woman on the planet as it can come across as a sign of desperation and will make her feel just as comfortable with you as she would feel wearing sandpaper panties. You both rub her the wrong way.

Dean did not see this, but as we were heading for the door I saw Red Dress sitting at a bigger table with her friends, Mr. Blocker, and one other guy. I did a double take laughing out loud when I saw the other guy at the table. It was the guy that just bought Dean the new drink. He was Mr. Blocker’s wingman.

“That guy (Mr. Blocker) was amazing. In two minutes he blocked me, drank my drink and walked off with (Red Dress) and her friends all without a wingman, while John over there was helping me out by swinging his arms around like he was waving in airplanes at the other end of the bar. I know I sucked, but what was up with that?” Dean said laughing, looking at John.

“He was a little quicker and he had a great wingman.” I said.

“You were standing right beside me, there was no wingman.” Dean said.

“That’s what makes him great.” I said. “No offense Dean, but I don’t think you recognize a great wingman if he walked up and bought you a drink.”

At that we were all laughing, again.

Rule 10: Never underestimate the value of a good wingman.

Bonus Rule: Try to avoid spending several hours talking to one woman you just met at a club, bar, or party. Spend five or ten minutes piquing her interest and break it off asking for an email address or phone number. Rinse and repeat this cycle a couple of time in a given night and contact them over the next several days. Except on rare occasions, if you spend all of your time with one woman you are at risk of getting blown off at the end of the night with nothing to show for your efforts.

Image provided by http://www.hannahsart.com 

After watching American Idol for the first couple of nights (yes, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery,) I now understand why people are looking for a faster way to date, and why online dating is exploding.

My epiphany came while watching the masses sing badly. A few of these vocal giants had the audacity to get angry when that simple fact that they cannot sing was pointed out to them.

Amazingly, on something tangible like the sound of ones own voice, seemingly normal people begged, argued, cussed, broke out a hand gesture or two, and in one fine example, bent over putting their butt in the camera telling Simon to kiss their backside, threatening to moon the audience, imagine how reasonable and lucent these people are with the intangibles, such as their own emotions and feelings for themselves and others.

It is somewhat sobering to think that somebody somewhere is dating, has dated, or is/was married to some of these people.

When dating, your perspective is limited by only seeing one or two people at a time. So a string of hags, hounds, and horror stories can just seem like bad luck, but watching American Idol you get some much needed perspective of the bigger picture on just how strange and delusional some humans can be.

American Idol proves that one problem with dating today is that we spend way too much time with the rejects and the emotionally challenged and not nearly enough time with the small percentage of people that have the right stuff. Efficiency is key to dating because millions of people are just, well, emotional ignoramuses.

In any American city, American Idol draws 15-25,000 potential candidates or “dates” for their show, but only 1/10^th of 1%, or roughly 20 people, will actually “go to Hollywood.”

If a person is not sharp enough to realize something tangible, oh like the fact your average bowl of Rice Krispies sings better than they do, how could that person possibly be considered competent enough to successfully gauge intangibles like their own feelings, let alone pick a partner to last a lifetime?

With so many potentially emotionally incompetent boobs walking around putting the normal citizen at risk, I am surprised there has not been a call for government dating legislation.

Fortunately, we are nearly as picky in selecting our dates as we are in selecting our American Idols. Most people will date far less than 100 people in a lifetime, let alone the 100,000 plus that will try out for a given season of American Idol.

Taking a few pointers from American Idol, here are 10 things you can do to bump the speed and quality of your dating game.

1. Take a tip from Simon; be able to be honest and tell the person you are dating that they are not right for you so you are not wasting weeks and months with a person that does not make long term sense.
2. Have a game plan or preset criteria of what you are looking for so you know it when you find it.
3. Get some help wading through the masses. Tell your friends what you are looking for in a woman and see if they can turn up any potential females for you.
4. Listen to the feedback from others. Follow your gut, but keep your ears open to what your friends are saying. They may offer a different perspective that may shed some clarity on the long term viability of your new relationship, or at least keep you on your toes.
5. Don’t let one mistake throw you off your game. If you screw up and end up with a girlfriend from Hell, throw her back and keep looking. The next woman does not want to carry your dating baggage, so you might as well drop that where you stand as well.
6. Be able to quickly assess the room. When you arrive somewhere with the intention of meeting women, look around. If there are no potential candidates in the room, evaluate if you want to stay or continue the hunt somewhere else.
7. Challenge the people you go out with. How do you find out if a person is truly the next big singing sensation? You put them through their paces, trying to find their limits. I am not a big fan of tests, but finding out how people act when they are outside their comfort zone can sometimes be very enlightening.
8. On American Idol, they are all competing for 24 spots; introduce some of your own scarcity by not chasing after every woman who winks at you. Be a little selective. A woman is less inclined to be interested if she thinks she can have you at any time. The reverse is also true, she will tend to show more interest if she thinks an opportunity with you is something she won’t get again.
9. Target the masses. When looking for women go to the places where they are in mass or come up with compelling reasons to invite them to where you are going to be. One gentleman I know has regular high end shoe and designer clothing sample sales at his home to attract the type of women he is after to his turf.
10. Once you figure out which people and situations encourage you to be a better man and which ones don’t, deal with them accordingly.

So, single or married, watch American Idol for the entertainment value, but think about what it must be like to date this or that person. As a single person, you can see first hand how many low and no talent sharks, snakes, slime-balls, sluts, and sleaze bags you might have to date in the Sea of Stupidity to single out your “special someone.”

If you are unhappy in your relationship, buck up, it is not that bad, even industry professionals occasionally let a talentless freak through the gates from time to time, you just do not have the luxury of a weekly mass vote by your friends to correct your mistake and send them home.

“Sing like no one can hear you, dance like no one is watching and love like you have never been hurt.”

Picture courtesy of http://www.gambling911.com

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