The "three billion women" argument

One of the more asinine PUA statements is that there are "3 billion women" (google that in addition to "PUA" and be surprised) on this planet and therefore plenty of chances to get laid, and oh-so-many ways to experiment and refine your "game". The sheer stupidity of that number is hard to stomach.

Okay, let's say there are 6 billion people on Earth, 3 billion men and 3 billion women, and let's ignore the slight gender imbalance. We're working with huge numbers, so a few measly hundred million don't matter. So, Joe PUA, how would you go about hitting on all those three billion women? Well, first you would probably realize that you're neither a pedophile nor a gerontophile, in other words, you neither fuck children nor the elderly. Then there is the problem that a good one billion of those women reside in India and China. Too bad, bro!


As you think some more about it, Joe PUA might realize that he would not only want to not fuck some granny, but instead mate with a healthy, attractive young female instead. Also, he doesn't want to leave the country or state he lives in. In fact, he doesn't even want to leave his city. Then it hits him that he's actually constrained by the number of available women in his city. I know, I know, there is now talk of cities turning into megalopoleis, but they're getting nowhere near billions of people.

Let's give Joe PUA some variety to work with, so we'll locate him in a trendy US city like Portland, Oregon. Wikipedia tells me that there are 600,000 people living in it. Joe PUA is white, and he'd much rather fuck a white girl. Not that he's racist. It's just his sexual preference. This narrows his pool of women down from about 300k to 225k since about three quarters of the people in Portland are white. Now the PUA-tards might think that 225,000 women are more than they could ever fuck in a lifetime and can barely sit still in their excitement. But, dear PUA-tards, don't move to Portland yet, because it's getting worse:

"The age distribution was 21.1% under the age of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 34.7% from 25 to 44," and you're probably not looking for anyone beyond the age of 40 anyway. Those statistics are not fine-grained enough. I therefore had a look at the most recent US census information. It wasn't a pretty sight:

Note that these data are for the wider Oregon region. So let's just assume that the percentages, which are shown in the right column more or less reflect the situation in Portland as well.

Joe PUA has no easy access to 19 year-olds, so the age category from 20 to 29 has to suffice. That's a mere 6 per cent of all women. Suddenly, Joe PUA went from 225,000 women to just about 13,000. Bummer, eh, Joe?

Let's continue playing around with the numbers, and take into account that a certain percentage of the women might be married. Let's say it's 30 %, and then some more might be in some kind of relationship, possibly another 30 %. What's left for Joe PUA then? About 5,000 women. Yes, yes, Mystery and Tyler, if you fucked a new woman every weekend, it would still take you about 100 years to get through all of them. However, in reality, all 5,000 single women of your desired age range in your city of 600,000 don't line up in front of your house. You've got to find them somewhere. At this point, your socio-economic status starts playing a big role. Popular fiction in the US is that they've got a "classless society", but if you believe that, then you're probably actively looking into buying a patch of land on the moon, too.

Just thinking of the number of women that would be available in the best possible situation versus the number of people in that city should be quite sobering for any PUA spouting out nonsense of "three billion women". What's even more sobering is that you're not the only one competing for them. Then, since women like to "marry up" you should be of at least the same socio-economic background, but ideally a bit higher. Let's say Joe is more on the average side, which will then cut the number of available women in half again: 2,500! It's starting to get depressing, isn't it, Joe PUA?

So far, we have not even considered physical attractiveness, their interests, or their personality. Let's say you've got some standards, and don't like to bang fatties. She should at the very least be slim. Let's be very generous and say that this excludes 60 % of women. Only a very small minority of women stays in shape, so I'm being very generous here. What's the total now? It's 1,000. Then some women have interests or a world view you can't stand. Let's say it's half, and, again, I'm being very generous here. The number is now 500. Now let's finally talk about personal compatibility. This is very tricky, and you'll probably find that you only ever really "click" with about 20 % of women, and that's a really generous number. What's the final number? It's a shockingly low 100 in a city of 600,000. You could easily fit them into a bus.

Please note that you will compete with other men for those women you desire, and those more desirable women might have higher standards which you may not be able to meet. But let's assume Joe PUA drops his PUA nonsense and follows a saner approach to dating, and doesn't repel 95 % of the women he talks to within the first five seconds. He then still has the problem that he has to find all those girl, and this is the big problem. Instead he'll encounter many women he'll have absolutely nothing in common with, doesn't find attractive at all, and who might have obnoxious personalities. Sure, for a one-night stand you may be able to ignore personality defects, but for any kind of relationship toxic personalities are to be avoided.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments below!

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Real-Life Example of a PUA who Creeped Out an Entire Campus

In my last post on Wannabe PUAs and Social Exclusion I mentioned how the complete absence of tact can easily make socially inept guys alienate their entire surroundings. In the comments this discussion was enriched by a number of people, such as Johnny who chimed in that when he makes a new friend, he learns through Facebook that they've got a handful of mutual "friends" already, or an anonymous with the observation that he's bumping into the same people in a city as big and vibrant as NYC.

So, there certainly is some awareness that you're not as anonymous in the crowd as you might think. But what happens if you are a PUA who thinks that the world is his oyster and, just like in an arcade-style video game, he can always just insert another credit or hit the reset button? Well, "Sean Larson" is what's going to happen. (Thanks to another anonymous commenter for the tip!)

"Sean Larson" managed what you might consider impossible: He hit on so many girls at Ohio State University (OSU), and in such an indiscriminate manner, that his reputation grew and travelled far and wide. His reputation wasn't a good one, though. Here is a discussion on Reddit with hundreds of comments about a "Guy who harasses girls around campus", which started with this post:

Have any other girls out there ever been stopped by a short Indian guy named Shane or something? This guy has literally tried to stop me a grand total of six times, and every time he tries to ask me if I'm from LA or something cheesy. Does anyone know who this guy is? Does he even go to school here?

As the saying goes, karma is a bitch. I don't even know where to start with that guy. He has certainly proven that it is possible to completely wreck his reputation by utter stupidity. Have a look at the top ranked comment on Reddit:

YES! He's tried approaching me like four times, twice in Thompson. The first time he approached me, he just came straight up to me, kissed me on my hand (he kind of just yanked my hand up, because he took me by surprise), and tried to stroke my hair. I was like WTF?! Second time he tried to approach me in Thompson like we were supposed to be friends or something and I'm like nope Nope NOPE! I had to literally push past him, as I was leaving the downstairs bathroom and he confronted me in the hallway. I was then "Get the fuck away from me. I don't know you." He was still trying to persist and corner me and literally no one, in the crowded library, tried to step in despite me being obviously distressed. Maybe, it's just me, but if I saw someone in the same position I was in, I would've stepped in. 

So, when I've seen him try to do similar things to girls on campus and on High Street. I try to step in every time I see it happen because no one had the courtesy to do that for me. I've been seriously ruminating about trying to file a complaint against him but I don't even know his real name or who to go to, at least on campus. So yeah, that's my story. He's a creep and I seriously get sick to my stomach every time I see him.

Sounds like a charming little fellow to me. Like totally. And when I was reading that I was so "YES! I totally, like, want more of that!!!" Consequently, I dug around some more, and found out that the reputation of "Sean Larson" has been growing rapidly. The discussion on Reddit spawned articles in, for instance, the website of the student paper of OSU:

The 22-year-old man goes by the pseudonym “Sean Larson.” He said he uses the pseudonym to protect him from physical harm and stalking. 

“Campus is very tribal, so it’s like a tribal psychology place,” Larson said in an interview with The Lantern Oct. 26. “If you get found out for doing that kind of stuff (sleeping with many women), you can get extradited from the whole thing.”

Of course, Sean Larson tries the old PUA shtick of claiming that approaching a ton of women also means that he's sleeping with a ton of women. The problem is not that he's such a womanizer that all the other girls are pissed off because they have to wait for their turn until his dick is free for a few minutes so that they can hop on it. No, the issue is that he has approached so many girls on campus, and in such an awkward manner that he gained a reputation not as some kind of uber-manly Casanova, but as a complete creep.

Of course, according to that guy, the problem is that the women are such bitches. Here he is, verbatim:

They’re two-faced. When I’m actually meeting them, they’re all friendly and bubbly and give me their number,” he said. “Behind my back, when they go home, they’re talking s—.

PUAs are well-known for not realizing when they start annoying people, and they can't distinguish mere friendliness due to social norms from sexual interest either. But, hey, I guess if your plan is to just approach a few hundred girls then those subtle differences don't matter.

A commenter on that website described the situation very well:

You know, as women, sometimes you are approached by men and it is a really uncomfortable situation. So you figure, maybe if I’m nice but detached he’ll go away and won’t drag me into an alley and rape me. That’s not being “two-faced”, that is just self-preservation. That guy needs to find his kicks in some other way than harassing women.

I burst into laughter when I noticed that "Sean Larson" just had to chime in with a typical PUA comeback:

Some stupid rumors going on. Girls touch me, I don’t touch them. I’m the victim. The girls are sexual predators.

Of course, since there are so many girls after him, he doesn't have to approach a single one, and the OSU student newspaper just ran an article in which they implored all girls not to harass this poor little guy.

There was a surprising revelation at the end of the article, too:

Columbus Division of Police Officer Joshua Urlaub said Larson could be toeing the line of legal and illegal if he is too persistent in his pursuit of women. 

“It just depends on how far he goes with it,” Urlaub said. “If he’s continuing to harass them, and he won’t take ‘no,’ he’s definitely on the line of a harassment charge.”

Urlaub said anyone who is continually harassed should notify the police immediately.

This wasn't the end of it, though. The story spread to Jezebel, and some site called BroBible, of which I hadn't heard of yet, wrote a long investigative article on him with the lovely title How Ohio State Used Facebook and Reddit to Turn Against Its Campus’ Most Notorious Creeper.

I find it amusing that "Sean Larson" chimes in himself in the comments, thinking that all the negative attention he is getting is actually good for him.

The college kids posting there seem to have a pretty decent view of "game", though. Here's one commenter:

You aren't some sort of sex-wizard, you're just some dumbass who keeps flinging shit at a wall until it finally sticks. And then you brag about how well that shit stuck to the wall.

...and here's another:

What you're about to read is a tale of "pick-up artistry" gone wrong—how one dude in Columbus, Ohio managed to single-handedly piss off an entire college town and face an unprecedented amount of public shaming on Facebook and Reddit.
.... You know that's a bad thing right????

Following some more trails, I then came across an article in Business Insider. That PUA is apparently getting "famous". Their article had the rather unflattering title, Ohio State University Students Have Come Together To Shame A Notoriously Creepy 'Pick-Up Artist.

Compared to that guy some amateur who barely manages to creep out all the women who hang out in his local bar doesn't even register on the radar, though.

What do you think of that guy? Is he a creep or your personal hero? Let me know in the comments below!

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Wannabe PUAs and Social Exclusion

One of the most fascinating aspects of "pick-up artistry" is that it is commonly men who are socially excluded who are drawn to it. Think about it, if you were the popular jock in high school who had cheerleaders falling over themselves to suck your cock, you probably wouldn't google a phrase like "how to get laid". It's fairly safe to assume that the typical guy who falls for the many snake oil salesmen in this corner of the Internet has a deficient social skills already.

This puts him at an enormous disadvantage. Not having undergone a typical socialization process, he is unable to adequately evaluate the teachings of his new "guru". I mean, if you were socially savvy and saw what guys who actually got laid did, and what they looked like, there is no chance in hell you'd believe that PUAs who look like clowns actually get girls. Gullible guys don't know that, so they don't question them. Instead, they lap up their nonsensical advice. Approaching chicks randomly, dozens a day? Sounds good to him. "Plowing" in the face of complete disinterest? Sure, he'll try it.

What prompted me to write this post was in fact a Facebook status update I found in my email inbox some days ago. Here it is:

That guy looked as if he was (easily) in his 40s. Frankly, if your goal is to get rejected instead of finding girls who might be interested in you and trying to get laid, then you don't get the point of hitting on girls. It's about getting laid and, by extension, if you so desire, find a girl for whatever kind of relationship you're interested in. Getting rejected is not the goal. Of course, if you think that getting rejected ten times a day builds some kind of useful skill, then you'll probably disagree with me.

The vicious circle is already obvious: you've got guys who were not fully integrated in society to begin with. They lap up nonsensical PUA teachings, and therefore they adopt behavior that will only alienate the people around them even more. Sure, if you live in Manhattan, you could meet lots and lots of people. You won't really connect with the transient population, though, and once you try to meet people in places where people go to meet other people, you'll realize that you're living in a relatively small world. Even in big cities it won't take too long before you start bumping into the same old faces over and over.

On a side note, I knew guys who were "hardcore" into pickup in cities with millions of people. One guy had taken off three weeks from work to hit on girls on the street. What he realized was that people have routines, and that it's not so difficult to get recognized. This is not good if you're a "PUA" who dreams of pulling girls off the street into his bedroom. Your street corner is not so different from the bar down the road. Humans are creatures of habit, and most people will just do the same thing over and over.

This now leads to a problem for people who aim to become "the biggest reject" in their city. It's not as if he'll encounter hundreds of new faces every day. There were a few instances were "PUAs" were outed on Facebook for instance. There was this dude David DeAngelo associated himself with, "Dr Paul". That guy managed to build quite a reputation in a city as big as Chicago. His reputation wasn't a good one, though. Take a bad plan and stick to it despite repeated failure, and you'll achieve the unimaginable: creeping out an entire city.

The solution would be very simple. Guys would just have to stop doing completely absurd things like approaching dozens of girls a day, or hitting on any chick in the club. If you're in a small scene then it wouldn't take long until you can't show your face anywhere anymore, but even if you're attending a busy campus university, or if you live in a big city --- if you are really stupid and try to leave a bad impression with a dozen women a day, and if you take her friends into account, easily a number two or three times as large, then you'll eventually succeed turning yourself into a pariah.

Seriously, how many women are there, even in a big city, you would be interested in? Now subtract all those who are unavailable for whatever reason, and you'll realize that it's not millions. If you now further subtract all those who are not interested in you, then you end with with a fairly small number. That number is certainly a lot smaller than the number of girls that joker wants to get rejected by.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

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Friendships in the Real World

A lot of men who end up typing "how to get laid" into a search engine seem to have a pretty strange understanding of how social interactions work, which gets readily exploited by shady PUA marketers. In recent years PUAs have moved from claiming to teach you how to get laid to some kind of all-encompassing lifestyle advice. Now they tell you how to make friends and become popular. Sadly, their approach seems to be about as flawed as their pickup advice was. PUAs tell you to go out and hit on chicks indiscriminately, and unsurprisingly this is also how they tell you to build your social circle. However, you normally don't make friends just by talking to someone. So, let's step back and look at how "friendships" in the real world work.


I think there are just two main factors: Randomness and common interests. The latter is pretty much irrelevant for the majority of people who have no real interest in anything, so I won't focus on it. Instead, the "friends" your average Joe or Jane have come primarily from the first category. This means that they draw almost all their friends from those people they interact most with, be it high school, university, or the workplace. This is pretty much all there is to it. They don't necessarily have much in common with those guys, apart from an accident of fate that put them in the same building. The implications are obvious: If you're an average bore and you want to go out, then you probably pick some of the guys that just so happened to attend the same school, and go out with them.

Some of you may now think, "Wait a minute! There are so many morons in my school, and I was just a fortunate accident that I met Jim in my Calculus for Beginners and Artists class." Sure, but it just so happened that some admissions officer drew a few random numbers, or looked up your dad's net worth, if we're talking about the Ivy League, and sent you an offer to attend their esteemed seat of learning. You would have found a new best friend at any university you had chosen to attend, or any company you joined. Some places are toxic, so you will avoid spending time with your colleagues, but those are statistical outliers.

In fact, whenever you meet a big group at a bar or club, they're mostly from the same school or workplace. It could be that the entire office trotted down to the bar at the corner to start the weekend with a nice pint of beer. Or maybe the younger guys are all new in town and want to get laid, so they team up and go out as a group to ogle chicks so that they've got something to jerk off to before falling asleep. People in general are terribly afraid to be on their own because they have so little to occupy themselves with, and therefore the prospect of getting drunk with people they vaguely know is pretty appealing.

I'm making some huge generalizations here, but for "normal" people this is pretty much how it is. Only a small minority actively seeks out their peer group through common interests. Heck, plenty of people will be afraid to try this or that hobby because they're afraid it'll make them look weird. Allegedly, this is one of the reasons why there are so few women in computer science and engineering. If you're a guy studying such a field, you are quite likely to fall somewhere on the Asperger spectrum, and therefore you may not always take the feedback of your "well-adjusted" peers into account. Or maybe you just gave a fuck what they thought because you realized that there are more interesting things to spent your time with than gossiping about celebrities, some "slut" from 12th grade, or obsessing about what kind of sneakers one was supposed to wear this season.

So, if you are concerned about your number of friends, then just be visible to enough people, and make sure it's a setting that allows you to meet the same people over and over and over again. However, instead of taking a course in Modern Set Theory with five other nerds, pick an Intro to Communications course, and attend all their social get-togethers. In general, people need the feeling of belonging to some kind of group, no matter how artificial it is, so if you're feeling alone at university and value quantity of social contacts over quality, then just follow the herd and practice your beer pong skills. On the other hand, if college is behind you, and working 40 hour weeks still doesn't make you value the time you could spend all by yourself, then join your colleagues for a drink. Don't worry, they don't really want to be around you either, but after a few drinks this won't matter so much anymore. Alcohol is often described as a "social lubricant", but, really, any kind of excuse that allows you to get together will do. Alcohol is just cheap, and easy to get, so you getting a bunch of guys together to play FIFA Soccer on the PlayStation while getting wasted is much easier to do than, say, getting enough coke for 12 people.

People generally aren't that smart, and they aren't particularly selective with regards to anything. You're a "friend" once they've seen your face a couple of times and made a bit of smalltalk, and if you think you don't have any chance to get laid, then just being around enough single women --- as long as you're borderline attractive --- will lead to enough opportunities. Sure, it's tough if you have to "cold approach", but if she has seen your face before it's absurdly easy. It just depends on your standards. My "lay count" could be three or four times higher had I gone home with any chick that hit on me at work or university. However, don't discount just being around many people either, since it will put you in a better position to meet at least a few interesting people like, say, some guy you genuinely like because he's got a similar world view and interests, or the very rare girl that is smart and good-looking. So, there is some value in "knowing" a relatively large number of people. It's just a question of whether you want to pay the price.

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The Slut Fallacy

Some days a guy on my forum posted about a recent one-night stand he had. To make it short, he met a girl at a bar and ended up at her place with relatively little effort. His story was quite interesting to read because he didn't view it as a warning signal that the girl let him raw dog her:

I ate her out (risky) and then had unprotected sex with her, she let me do it without a condom. Wow!!!

We thought that this was indeed risky, but when questioned, he offered his assessment of the situation:

Usually I would not even think about unprotected sex but I figured since she was a grad and not some common bar slut I was at less of a risk.

Does something about this strike you as somewhat questionable?


Frankly, I think this is all just wishful thinking. If she acts like a "common bar slut" then it doesn't really matter that she is also a graduate students. Besides, just look at the situation of higher education today, which for many is just an excuse to have one four-year long party. I would not at all make the conclusion that a woman is more responsible because she happened to attend university while going out, drinking and trying to hook up with random guys as opposed to a girl who does that without being enrolled as a student somewhere.

More generally speaking, you can deduce very little about people if you don't know them. If everybody was so fantastic at reading cues, figuring out motives, or deducing one's background, then there wouldn't be so many crooks, liars and scam artists around. Just looking at guys like Tony Robbins or Tim Ferriss should be all the proof you need that people are out there to deceive, and that plenty of people are incredibly gullible. It's your choice to be honest. However, you should not easily make the assumption that anybody else is, and particularly not if you've known her for only half an hour or so.

It doesn't matter if she says, "Don't worry, I'm on the pill!" or, infinitely worse, "I've been with a lot of guys and nobody managed to knock me up yet." (True story, btw. I was so turned off by that that I got up and left.) Or let's say she's got some nasty STD. She also happens to be horny. So, what's more likely, that she asks you what you're waiting for or that she'll tell you about her most recent trip to the STD clinic, and that she was told to refrain from sex for a while?

In general, people are very poor at reading other people. Sure, tell yourself that she's some kind of Virgin Mary, but a much more realistic assessment is that you're probably not the first guy she's ever met. For all you know, she might go out every weekend and try to get laid.

The only plausible advice I can give is to not assume anything about a girl. Just think of yourself first, and forget about how sure you are that she doesn't have an STD or won't get pregnant. This won't help you at all if she hunts you down nine months later. "You Honor, I swear, she said she wouldn't get pregnant!", or if you have to pay a visit to your local STD clinic. "Doctor, I swear, nobody would have suspected that she has anything. She looked so sweet and innocent." (Those may be the worst, actually.) In the end you should be aware that you are making a choice. If you think sex without a condom is so much better than with that if outweighs all risks, then go ahead. However, you should be aware of what you might be getting into.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

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Wreck-It Ralph and Randomness in Dating

I recently watched Wreck-It Ralph. That movie is an attempt by Disney to cash in on the recent craze about all things "retro", and of course it has to conform to mainstream media gender stereotypes. There was one rather surprising scene in it that highlights realities in dating, which I will expand upon further down.

Let me briefly introduce the main characters:

• Wreck-It Ralph: A humanoid version of the gorilla in the original Donkey Kong video game. Fat, slow, and dimwitted.
• Fix-It Felix: A rough analogue to Mario in Donkey Kong. He's very short, thin, and has a slavish sense of duty.
• Vanellope von Schweetz: Female support cast: creative, witty, and resourceful.
• Tamora Jean Calhoun: The lead character in the Call of Duty parody Hero's Duty. She's the typical "strong female character". Of course, without her, the male leads would achieve nothing. I mean, just look at this:

If this isn't a complete reversal of gender roles, then I wouldn't know what is.


The most interesting part of the movie, for me, was the following scene, which depicts a facet of female behavior that doesn't seem to be widely acknowledged.  Here's the clip:

To summarize, the doofus hero Fix-It Felix says to the tough yet hyperfeminine Tamora that she is "one dynamite gal". This reminds her of her adonis-like ex-husband who used to say those very words to her. She then gets pissed and tells Fix-It Felix to get out of the space ship. Expressed more abstractly, the pattern is as follows:

1. Guy says something random
2. ???
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3. Girl does something completely unexpected

The missing step in 2) isn't just a reference to an Internet meme based on South Park. Instead, it refers to the underlying logical structure. View 3) as the conclusion and 1) as the premise. However, to a sane person, there must be something missing because otherwise you can't really explain the reaction. Let's now talk about the missing part. First, you have to keep in mind that the view girls have of guys is often nothing more than an amalgamation of previous relationships and idealized notions taken from movies, magazines or, in rare cases, books. This is highly irrational, but what's more irrational is that those phantasies then guide their behavior. It can be good or bad for you, which I'll illustrate via a couple of examples.

Here's a relatively common one: The girl asks you about your zodiac sign. You only want to get laid so this sign of stupidity doesn't make you walk off right away, and you say it's X. It's just so happens that it's your lucky day and X is also the zodiac sign of the guy with the biggest cock she's ever had in her. Suddenly she thinks of that and she likes you a little bit better. For her, the following logical inference might be entirely plausible, even if you spelled it out for her:

1. That guy's zodiac sign was X and he had a huge cock.
2. Your zodiac sign is X.
-----------------
3. You've got to have a huge cock.

However, it could have gone a lot worse. You may not just have the wrong zodiac sign. Imagine you happened to have the same first name as the most recent guy who pumped and dumped her. She will invariably be reminded of that and may associate all her negative emotions with you. I once had a woman ask me, coyly, whether I intend to just fuck and leave her. I laughed and asked what she meant, and then she said I had a name quite similar to some guy she recently met and that some of my antics reminded her of yet another guy. Please note that I had spent at most 15 minutes with her at that point. Really, the stupidity of some people is without bounds. (In her case, the problem, though, was that she was the kind of girl no sane guy would consider for anything serious.)

Being compared to some random guy who fucked her years ago, good or bad, is bad enough. Even worse is when women dream up an image of how men are supposed to be. This is more of an issue with younger, inexperienced women. I'll tell you another of my war stories: I met that 17 or 18 year old girl in London. She lived further off, and one fine day her parents weren't home, so she asked me to drop by. She met me at the station, and on the way back to her place she said that the fridge was empty and wondered whether I'd like to grab a bite to eat somewhere. She seemed oblivious to the fact that it's possible to buy food at the supermarket and prepare it herself, so we went to some pub instead.

Eventually it was time to pay, and I pulled out my wallet. The food wasn't particularly expensive, even on a student budget, so I asked her whether I should pay for her. She declined, so I said, "Sure." and put some money on the table, and so did she. My share was slightly larger. The waiter came, I tipped him. I got 2 pounds in return, flipped one coin over to her, and kept the other for myself. So far this was completely unremarkable, and something I would normally have forgotten. However, without knowing it, I saw myself at the receiving end of a shitstorm, and this little girl tried to educate me on how this interaction should have gone, and how a "real gentleman" should have behaved.

This was the script she had expected:
- I should either have paid for all of it myself without saying anything (This doesn't agree with my perception of social customs since it wasn't me who suggested eating there) or I should have engaged in the following ritual:
a) Asking whether I should pay for her
b) Let her decline
c) Insist on paying anyway, "because that's what men do"

Do you know what the "absolute worst thing" was? That I tipped the waiter with her money. Apparently the very least a gentleman could do is covering her share of the tip. (This reminded me ever so slightly of one time when I was brunching with a friend and two girl from school. They ordered one item after another, and at the end they wanted the four of us to all "share the bill equally".) Eventually it emerged that she had seen a scene like that in some TV show or movie, and her fantasy was that some "real gentleman" would treat her "like a lady" and "like on TV".

You think this is crazy? Wait, because I've got another one for you, this time not featuring a teenager but a woman in her late 20s. I was the same age in both scenarios. Well, what had happened in that case was that she reacted offended when I wanted to pay my share of the bill. The dynamics were quite different because she had a pretty decent job and I was basically constantly broke.  She said that my actions were "demeaning", and that it said a lot about me that I wanted to pay for my part even though I had no money. It seemed no matter what I do, I'll always be a sexist pig.

Please don't view this post as an incoherent rant, though. The point of those examples is simply that you have no idea about her history with guys or her values, and the often irrational conclusions about life and men she has drawn for herself. It's impossible to plan for those contingencies. Some girls are a bit more rational than others, but if you spend enough time with a girl, you are almost guaranteed to end up in a situation where you'll ask herself what the fuck just happened. Instead of planning for all kinds of contingencies, just present a side of yourself you're comfortable with. However, if you meet enough women you're almost guaranteed to end up in a situation that may remind you of "Fix-It Felix".

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

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Reader Comment: How an Engineer became Sexy

I'm not having much spare time these days, but today I managed to go through some of my notes. There was one comment, made almost a month ago, that stuck out. I thought it deserved greater visibility so I'm posting it on the front page. Take some time to let it sink in since there are a lot of unpopular truths in it, and many of you can probably relate to it in one way or another.

But without further ado, here's "anonymous" on how he managed to become a sexy engineer:

I'm 30 and like most average guys I didn't really have a lot of luck when it came to women between 18-26. However, the average woman in my peer group has plenty of men chasing her till she get's to 30. There are many women who knew at the time that I wanted a relationship with them, however I was always passed over "for better men" I'm sure every guy has a story to tell.

Eventually things improve for men with age as a result of genuine achievement such as getting status,handling real responsibility, and genuine competence. Also the "sex haze" tend to calm down a little after 28 and you can evaluate things more clearly. 

Now, the problem appears to be as Alek Novy has pointed out in his articles, men are apparently not allowed to be selfish. So, now that I have better options, I get called an "asshole" for politely declining a "wanting to catch up over coffee" with some of the women who are now 30 and looking for a "serious relationships" only. I get called an "asshole" for dating women who are 25. You see the issue goes far deeper than dating, it is more to do with "male sacrifice/disposability"

When women have power, they should use it for themselves. When men have power they should use it for the benefit of everyone. Men are not allowed to be selfish. 

I'm constantly struck by the ARROGANCE of some women, even some of female my friends who at 30 go up men they've been rejecting for the last 5 years and say "I'm looking for something serious" , "We should get together some time" "How come we didn't date? were have a lot in common"

In the dating world, apparently every woman over 30 thinks an Engineer is "amazing, smart, even sexy" when at 25 if the words "Engineer" came out of your mouth you would be treated as if you had leprosy. 

Men get pissed off because an average woman has had PLENTY of chances at meeting men by the time she is 30- PLENTY unless she lived as a nun, however when men get to 29 you become "a player" if you DARE to be selective or have a criteria. 

Got a story to tell? Please let me know in the comment below! 

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