date machine : single

Date Machine: How to Pick Up Women

amboabe — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:03:00 GMT

When I was in junior high my best friend would give me the names of the girls at his school that he thought were pretty.

I would go over to his house and call them while he listened, talking with the confidence of not knowing or caring about them. I hit it off with one girl and after our first conversation she asked me to keep calling her. So I did. We talked regularly for a month before an actual date was arranged.

She was going to see Three Men and a Little Lady with some of her friends at a theater across town. I convinced a couple of my friends to come with me. We had to convince my friend M’s brother to take us, which took a lot of whining and begging, that, in turn, made us late for the movie. We snuck into the darkened theater ten minutes after it had started. We couldn’t find the girls and decided to just watch the movie and meet them outside when it was over.

After a dramatic climax on an estate somewhere in the British countryside, we shuffled outside. My friend S had half a pack of Camel Lights and he waited for the chance to go smoke, growing irritated with my insistence on meeting these random girls.

Towards the back of the exiting crowd I saw a group of four girls. One in the middle looked like a fuzzy approximation of the face I had seen in J’s yearbook. I was already nervous, and as I saw them heading our way still oblivious to our presence, my heart started throbbing and my hands tingled with new sweat.

Feeling like there was no way out, I took a few terrified steps into the crowd. As I came nearer C looked up and saw me. Her face went blank and it looked like her mouth fell open just a little bit. I thought that she might turn around and run back into the theater to seek refuge.

“Hey, I’m Mike,” I said as I stepped in front of them. C’s friends started giggling. C looked me in the eye while her legs twisted against themselves.

“Hey,” she said.

I didn’t know what else to say and after a few seconds of terrifying silence passed I asked her to come behind the theater with me and my friends to smoke cigarettes. I knew C liked to smoke, she stole her mother’s menthols.

C’s face transformed from blank to incredulous. Her eyes narrowed and her lips parted in disbelief just before she started laughing in my face.

“No way,” she said. “Why would I want to go smoke cigarettes with you?” she asked. She grabbed one of her friend’s hands and started walking quickly away, saying she was late and had to get home even though it was summer and the middle of the afternoon.

Up until that point I had the self-loathing adolescent’s hunch that everyone found me physically disgusting, and this was the irrefutable confirmation I had been waiting for.

It took a long time to realize that I was only revolting to some people, not all. It’s always a surprise when I find people who are actually attracted to me. Even when I can’t reciprocate the attraction it’s always lovely to be reminded that I am desirable to someone, somewhere. And it’s even more of a surprise when I find myself together with someone I’m attracted to. Throughout the years I’ve found myself stealing glances at the women I’ve been in love with, wondering to myself how I wound up with someone so lovely.

I’m not adept at picking up women, and I don’t really try to. I resent the notion of seduction. I don’t want to convince someone that they should be with me. If they’re not interested from the outset then neither am I. But there are two general practices I’ve used when I’m attracted to someone, which I’ll now share with you, in sequential order.

1. Say Hello
2. Shut up

There are a lot of men who’ve applied endless thought and energy to the arithmetic of seduction. They’ve created a conversational roadmap that any man can use to make himself appear more desirable. The idea of following a conversation by rote or having a specific objective in mind while talking to someone doesn’t really inspire my sense of romance. But saying hello to an attractive stranger does.

It’s obvious, I realize, but how many people ever really act on attraction when they’re out? How many people catch your eye every day, and how many do you try and connect with? I do it once a week, sometimes less, and usually without anything coming from it. It’s easier to sit back and analyze a person, imagine who they are, look at what they’re wearing, build up a nice fantasy, and then let it all evaporate in a poof as they walk out the door a few minutes later.

Deciding you’re interested enough to risk rejection and embarrassment for the sake of saying hello to someone new is always worth it. Even in the crumbling flames of rejection, the knowledge that I tried has always been better company and comfort than inaction. Like everything else, you can worry that there’s a right way and a wrong way to talk to somebody, that there’s a formal set of standards for seductive conversation. But there isn’t. You determine what’s right and wrong, seductive or unappealing with each person you meet, and the standards are in constant flux. But you can’t find out until you say hello.

The next step isn’t as intuitive. I’ve been described as aloof since I was a teenager. I can be quiet and withdrawn, disappearing into a veneer of passive gazing. But I can also go on epic runs of motor-mouthing. It alleviates my anxiety to fill in all the silences with a gush of words. I have to force myself to talk less when I’m with someone new, to be comfortable with the presence of conversational slack.

I like to use conversation and wit to make a show of how much I like someone, and my speech can become slightly manic trying to rid myself of the tantalizing burden of the attraction. Instead, I am more attractive when I shut my mouth and trust in the fact that there is an innate attraction. It doesn’t need a flood of nervous puns and embarrassing stories to make it blossom. So when I’m out with someone I really like for the first time the thought that goes through my head more than any other is, “Shut up, just shut up.”

It’s hard to trust yourself when you’re taking a chance with someone you’re attracted to. You take the spotlight for a few minutes. You become the guy in the coffee shop or the dude in the vegetable aisle trying his luck with a woman. People are watching, people are eavesdropping; you’re on stage and have to perform. When I feel strongly enough about a person, I’ll force myself out in spite of the embarrassment, and then try to keep my mouth shut for as long as I can stand.

Previous Posts:

Date Machine: Women at 30, or the Scent of the Medicine Cabinet

Date Machine: My Friend's Girlfriend is my Girlfriend

Love Machine: Dating Someone with a Handicap

Date Machine: How to Pick Up a Nurse at the HIV Clinic

Date Machine: Full Disclosure

Sex Machine: The Bare Minimum

Date Machine: The Seductive Art of Dancing

Sex Machine: Becoming A Virgin Again

Sex Machine: Come On My Face

Sex Machine: Because I Can

Love Machine: Am I Romantic Enough?

Sex Machine: Picking Up Women in Gay Bars

Sex Machine: Diary of a Sperm Donor

Date Machine: Long Distance Lovers

Sex Machine: A Revised History of Whores

Date Machine: Moving to New York in Pictures

Date Machine: Old Love Letters, or Things That Got Thrown Away in the Move

Sex Machine: Talking About Sex With Your Parents

Love Machine: Willing to Relocate

Date Machine: Wishing

airheadgenius — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:09:00 GMT

I used to have Dan Wilson playing What a year for a New Year, but it came on automatically every time this page was loaded. I love the song, but if I hear it one more time before next new year I am going to have an attack. Hence its removal.

New Year's Eve and New Years Day are emotional times aren't they?
I vowed last year never to be home for this holiday again, but then my dad got sick and it seemed like the right thing to do.
So inevitably it's been a mixed bag.

Sometimes it's hard to see the wood for the trees. When you're single, singleness can become all consuming and the label that's applied to you. Although perhaps it's just me that thinks that. I've run into a bunch of old friends and not one of them has asked if I am married. Maybe they just assume so because I have kids? In any case, I feel particularly un-partnered at New Year.

The New Year's Eve that really sticks in my mind is the millennium. Ringing in 2000 on the banks of the river Thames with literally millions of people was quite something. But most years, it's just like any other party. Funny how it's the one day that gets blown out of all proportion.

All day, I've been sad that I don't have any big plans for tonight. I've been let down by both of my siblings and, since I am staying in a small rural town, there isn't anything to latch on to at last minute.

I try to be positive, but my nature tends towards the "half empty" scenario. Especially when I am at home. When I am here, my focus is on what's missing not on what I've got and consequently I've been thinking about what didn't happen this year.

On Christmas Eve, I talked at length to an old friend from high school. He'd recently got divorced and has yet to have kids even though he wants them. We were talking about the perils of Internet dating in ones 40s and he said "you are so lucky to already have children".

Yes, I am.

In 2008, my children turned 5 and 7. One learned to swim, the other learned to swim better. Training wheels came off. Baby teeth fell out. They grew taller and stronger. They said "I love you" a million times. It was a good year.

Tonight, I will ring in the New Year with my sons. I've got alcohol for me and sparkling apple cider for them. We've got Jools Holland's Hootenanny on the telly and sparklers to wave in the back garden.

Have a Happy New Year. Resolutions are often more like wishes, so I hope a few come true.

Here are some I made earlier:
Longest confession of all time
How kissable are you?
Happy Boxing Day
Merry Miserable Fabulous F*cking Christmas
Persistent, interested or just plain annoying?
Do blondes have more fun?

Date Night: Do you have First Date Sex?

airheadgenius — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:38:00 GMT

Ah well, my last post fell a bit flat, but I am not one to dwell. And I've just been inspired by a Nerve Confession. Particularly the last sentence...

See, I'm suffering from those high standards too and have never found myself in a situation where i'd fuck someone just for the sake of getting laid. At the very least there has to be a physical attraction. And so, on to my tale about a man who wasn't too thrilled with my who-to-have-sex-with decision making...

I once went on a date with a guy that proved not to be very mature. He asked me for a second date which I politely declined. He was pissed. He blogged about it. But that's not my point.

There was a moment in the evening when his mood changed. He offered to escort me home and I said "no thanks, I am going to jump in a cab".
The penny didn't drop for a while, but then it occurred to me that chumpy thought he was on a promise!
He had found himself out on a date with a woman that blogged about sex and so SURELY sex was on the menu.

Hell no!
I mean, hell not necessarily.

Yes, I like to have sex.
Every day if I can. Although that would only ever happen if I was in a relationship.
Obviously. (Well, it's at least obvious to anyone familiar with the responsibilities of raising children)

But apparently that's not obvious to everyone.

There's that expression used around gay men "backs against the wall" as if a gay man will fuck anything that moves, as long as it's male. It pisses me off to no end. Not least because that statement usually comes out of the mouths of fiercely unattractive straight men who couldn't actually get fucked by a discerning gay man even if it was their wildest (repressed) fantasy.

So, potential daters, if indeed you are here and reading,

Yes, I like to have sex,
but I won't (necessarily) have sex with you!

I am as discerning about whom I sleep with as I have ever been and, trust me, that means discerning.
And maybe I've set myself up for these kind of emails what with Cunning Linguists and Horatio the Fruit Seller (tee hee)
Or maybe I've just given myself yet another means to weed out the men from the boys.

Anyways, indulge me dear readers - what are your first date sexpectations? (The best comment wins a prize)

The obligatory back catalogue:
Small Juicy Ones
The Perfect Blowjob
What is a boyfriend
Friends with Benefits
Real Women
Another quick pull out
Lesbian Lovers Come Out
Digits
Asymmetrical Knobbage
Cunning Linguist
Cunnilingus
Fabulous at 40
Winehouse Reveals
The Chick Facial File
Mirrors
Confession plus Daily Knob!
Abusive?
Celebrity Confessions: Boy George
Dick Trilogy Part 3
MORE dicks in my inbox
Dicks in your inbox
Read my Sodding Profile!
Nerve Confessions: Herpes
The Queen Confesses
The Arse Man Cometh
The Ass Play Chronicles
The Sandwich Blowjob Porn Connection
Bangin Ass
Deformed Dicks
Did I really dream that?
Why I don't date Celebrities
Fashionably late or just a slacker

And since it's a DAILY knob, I am posting another photo of the delicious Nicholas Gonzalez