Sunday, November 14, 2010

Cooling Down to Heat It Up


Fall has descended upon my fine city. And that means the rapid approachment (don’t question my grammar) of the Holidays and much chillier temperatures. This is my favorite time of year in Manhattan. I have a buddy who just moved to New York who told me that he keeps hearing 2 things from people who lived here for a while.

The first is that the next 2 months in Manhattan are magical. I have to agree.

And the second thing he keeps hearing is that once colder weather comes, single people start hunkering down into winter relationships the same way bears look for caves.

I have to say, I’ve seen this happen as well. Though I’m still not quite sure how it happens because we males are pretty much clueless when it comes to anything except fantasy football.

But it is much easier to fall (pun intended) into a relationship at this point in the year then say, oh… the summer.

During the summer there is a lot of interaction with considerably less clothes. Like at the beach.

It is there that us men make our most courageous attempts to talk to members of the fairer sex. The beach is a funny place to hit on people, because you are essentially wearing what you want those people to see you in if you are successful wooing them.

When you are in a bathing suit you really can’t hide anything. There can be no cognitive dissonance on the girl’s part of; “Maybe he looks good under that shirt?”

There is no shirt. There is only you my friend. And you look infinitely more awkward talking to a girl in your underwear than you do in clothes.

Does any man anywhere know how to talk to women? I certainly don’t, that is why for the larger part of my life I either acted like an idiot in front of females (not a good tactic) or just looked on longingly from across the room (also not a good tactic).

But as I get older, watching guys talk to girls is perhaps the most painful/entertaining thing in the world. We really have no idea what we’re doing out there. It’s a battlefield and we are over matched. It is like Saving Private Ryan with perfume and Cosmos.

Last summer at the beach I watched a guy run into a girl he knew and say;

Oh how come you didn’t tell me you were coming out here this weekend?

Well Topless Guy, I believe it probably had something to do with the fact that she did not want you to know that she was going to be there.

And here’s another knowledge fiesta for your synapses. If you are standing there in your bare chested glory, and the hot girl in the bathing suit who did not tell you she was coming out to the beach is sitting in a beach chair and does not stand up to put her arms around you, thereby forcing you to bend down awkwardly to give her a kiss on the cheek to greet her… you don’t have a chance.

Men don’t really have strategies for talking to women. We might say we do, we might think we do, but we really don’t. In kindergarten you would hit a girl you like and then run away from her as fast as you can. High School brought the slander and slouch, when you would make fun of the girl you like and then eliminate all manner of posture and turn away to appear like you didn’t care about the girl’s opinion.

College brought the drink and shoot. With the addition of alcohol the strategy was basically just consume until you have become brave enough to accost any and all women within spitting distance.

And that’s about all we got.

I have a good female friend who was recently on the receiving end of a brilliant strategy. A gentleman who had been sitting next to her handed her his iPhone and said:

Do you want to play this game?

So he tried sharing his toys, that IS nice, but ya know… you are an adult. Try using something other than video games as your opening statement.

Now I am no Don Juan, heck I’m not even like… a Bob Juan, but I gotta believe I would never use video games as part of my dating repertoire.
           
And let me be clear, up until recently I was very uncomfortable around women. In fact the first time I tried to ask someone out I was in my sophomore year of college. I found myself sitting in front of a Phoenix Suns dancer in my public speaking class. I had high blood pressure for the duration of the semester as I tried to come up with conversation topics so I could turn around and engage her with something slightly more interesting than my impression of Donkey from Shrek.

We eventually went on a date. And now we’ve been married for 6 years.

No just kidding, after that date I never her saw her again. I am apparently very good on dates.

I recently heard a story about a girl who was dancing at a bar and making out with a guy she had just met. They seemed to be getting along very well. She was really digging him until he dropped this little nugget on her;

You’re cute, but you’re a little chubby. You should try eating more salads.

Wow.

Never mind the fact that this poor girl wasn’t even chubby to being with. At what point does telling a woman she’s chubby seem like a good idea? The only living creatures I have ever told were fat are dogs.

Like my friend Sophie's dogs:


THEY could use a salad.

But even if you women decide to date us men (and really I’m still trying to figure out a value add we have for you aside from bug killing, which as you know, I really don’t do) we don’t even know how to talk about you.

Recently I have heard more guys refer to their “Lady Friend.”

This gives me the willies. I don’t like the sound of it. It sounds like you have some kind of woman of the night who comes to your chambers with wine in a calfskin thermos.

Yes Lady Friend, please avail yourself of some of my fine champagne and drape yourself upon my velvet chaise to the sounds of my harpsichord.

This is why I pretty much no longer talk to women. I communicate exclusively through acts of chivalry, small gifts, and wiggling my ears.

And that is tough to do with a winter hat on. But if you do see it, trust me, it’s magical.

15 comments:

Christopher said...

i go with the tactic of awkwardly saying the most random thing i can come up with while i have an unsure smile on my face, works wonders, one out of hundred times anyway

Flitterbee said...

Does the Donkey from Shrek impression involve wiggling ears? I sincerely hope so.

The Girl said...

Oh Buddy. So large. So very very very large.

librarygirl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
librarygirl said...

I love how your blog makes my Monday so much less shit than it would normally. So far today I have overslept, sat through a proctorial that I did not prepare for because words stopped making sense when I was trying to read the long and mundane article that had been set, and given myself stomach ache through overenthusiastic eating of a somewhat belated breakfast. But then I read that post, and I realised that actually, life isn't so bad - at least I don't have an iPhone to offer to prospective suitors, allowing to bypass such embarrassment.

By the way, I think the Donkey impression's a winner. My ex-boyfriend could do a killer impression of Spongebob, and it made me love him even more.

Carolyn Baccaro said...

I heard if you go up to a group of girls and start talking to the least attractive one it works 9% of the time.

PS you wooed me at Weiner Mania. ME LOVE RICH!

Unknown said...

haha this post is hilarious. And I have to say it's quite true. However, don't feel bad, it's tough for us girls to talk up guys sometimes too. And most girls try to be all subtle and drop "signals" which most guys are completely oblivious to, and which we think are extremely obvious and I'm pretty sure the effectiveness of that strategy is about on par to some that you mentioned ;)

Krysten @ Why Girls Are Weird said...

And this is why I'm happy I'm married. I don't have to deal with this anymore!

Sophie said...

Buddy and Winston have hit the bigtime! But seriously, who doesn't love a fat dog?

Pat said...

I love a guy who could wiggle his, er, EARS!

Neurotic Workaholic said...

I like it when guys don't use any lines or anything like that; it's better when they just act naturally and talk to me like a regular person. If the attraction is there, then flirting isn't even necessary. So I bet you could just be yourself and make the girls laugh like you do in this blog, and you'd succeed. :)
But flirting is hard for girls too. The few times I tried the guys would always get this weird look on their faces and then they'd back away slowly.

Caroline B said...

It's been a long time since I was chatted up (sigh.....) but making me laugh would always be the way to go, so maybe the Donkey impression isn't such a bad idea!

whalechaser said...

wiggling your ears would surely work for me! ;-)
But seriously, just be yourself, ask about her, show a little interest and relax, it is after all ONLY a conversation.

Laura said...

http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/

do it to it

the ginabean said...

Those are fat dogs.

And there's something so endearing about fat dogs unto me.