As I mentioned earlier, I put up a profile on Match.com along with a video (Amphitryon is nice enough to host it here). I’ve put off the pursuit of love for a number of reasons (for one, I barely have enough free time to get done what I want to do as a single guy), but now I’ve finally decided to give it my all, both trying some internet methods, and, more preferably, more conventional methods. Only problem is that I’m completely clueless. I’m quite shy in person, and it’s usually had to be the woman who approached me. Well, I’m tired of waiting for serendipity, so I’m ready to put my shyness and perhaps my dignity aside to make a serious attempt here. I was just hoping that my readers, whom I assume must be very smart people (who else would read me) might have some tips. How am I going to find an intelligent woman and not some floozy? Work is a bust, because I spend all my time there stuck in a lab among other engineers. So where else do I go? What else do I do? Advice from female readers will be particularly appreciated.
I will be returning to regular humor broadcasting tomorrow, with a huge number of post planned for Wednesday, my blogiversary.
Frank,
All I EVER hear from my gal pals is that they can’t find a good man. They date long lines of losers (bad breath bikers, dope smokers, con men, Scott Peterson) and complain about it bitterly.
None of them are geographically desirable, but I’m going to list a few of them (with false names) so you get the idea:
1) Mary – Graduate of UCSB, Communications. 27 years old. Smart, witty. Lives at home with her parents. Has been socking away her $75,000 salary for years to buy her dream house. She also is studying for a second degree so she can quit her corporate job and teach children with special needs. Drives a Toyota Four Runner, mountain bikes, surfs. Oh, and she’s fking beautiful.
2) Karen – Graduate Cal Luthern, Marketing. 29 years old. Speaks fluent German and French. One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Likes alternative rock concerts and traveling to Europe. Owns a beach condo. Drives a Porsche Boxster.
3) Joan – Masters in Art History, Yale. 30 years old. Works as a college instructor. Beautiful home decorated with antiques and flea-market finds. Collects dragonflies. Petite and pretty. Wonderful sense of humor.
4) Lauren – Masters in Psychology, UCSB. 32 years old. Works as a child social worker. Owns a townhouse. Active in local politics, and environmental concerns. Is a published author. Lives with her black lab and a cat. Has given up on finding a man after the last two broke her heart. Aholes!
All of the guys that these ladies have hooked up with over the years had one thing in common, they were loutish, aggressive, and literally pushed their way into their lives. Then, not a single one of them has been willing to act like a grown up and make a commitment (thank god, ’cause they’re losers!)
What really pisses me off is when I try to fix one of these ladies up with a great guy and he is intimidated. “Oh, I don’t know. She seems kinda out of my league.” ARRRRRRGH! Dumbass! The last guy she dated is freakin’ doorman.
You’ve got to go out and meet people all kinds of people — don’t just try to “pick up” women. I’ve fixed up many friends who are still married (and a few who aren’t). Do some volunter work. Join some local committees. Many of those mature women who volunteer have beautiful daughters and granddaughters they’d love to introduce to a nice young man.
Nice ladies go to nice places. Try a church group, and ignore the real bible-thumpers if that’s not your gig. There are plenty of civic and social clubs out there. They aren’t all crawling with women, but you gotta get around a little bit.
Try ‘common interest’ clubs. Make friends of the club members outside the club. Meet their friends and their sisters…
Network, man, network!
Hey Frank,
If you have trouble talking to people (like I do)… ask questions. It lets them do most of the talking, and shows them that you’re genuinely interested in them. Women LOVE talking about themselves, and if you ask many questions, and retain the information, you’ll score major points because it shows that you listen to them. I always have a hard time figuring out how to meet people, like in a situation… I’ve found that this works most of the time, “Hi, I’m Max.” You don’t really need a fancy entrance, or a freak encounter, like her dropping her papers and you picking them up for her, just go up, and introduce yourself. Another good thing to remember is EYE CONTACT. Look into her eyes. This shows you’re brave, and not afraid to talk to her (even if you are)… if you show fear, this shows a lack of confidence, and women pick up on fear like a shark picks up the scent of blood. Women don’t want to be with a coward. Oh, and remember to SMILE, a smile goes a long way.
Now, this won’t work 100% of the time… but it’s a numbers game. The more women you approach, the more likely someone is going to say yes. You may get shot down the first time, but that’s okay, don’t be dismayed. Avoid the temptation to “French” (yes, I am using “French” as a verb to mean run away like little girl and cry yourself to sleep, in the hope that Germans won’t get you), and keep trying.
Now kids, let’s review:
1) Ask Questions
2) Eye Contact
3) Smile
4) Don’t “French”
Hope this helps,
Max W.
P.S. OH… uhm… it may be a good idea to scope out the situation first. If the girl you’re checking out is alone, don’t go up to her right away! Make sure she isn’t waiting for a guy who is 7 feet tall and built like a brick shithouse to come out of the bathroom. Observe the situation, make sure it is safe first.
I’ve always found that women are attracted to men who make a noise like a check-book.
If you have sufficient checks, there is no end to the number of women who will find you irresistible.
I met and corresponded with the woman of my dreams on the Internet for several months before meeting her in person. It helped me because I am a bit, uh, “reserved” in person (“shy” sounds kinda weak) and because she got totally into me before realizing how freaking creepy I am, so she was able to overlook that.
I’ve found that the gals are much more attracted to me when I’m relaxed and am able to let the humor flow. Women love a guy who can make ’em laugh.
If you try too hard to be funny though, you may end up rattling off one lame-o clucker after another. So, it’s important to relax and just let the good one’s flow. Usually it takes three or four beers.
Yeah, meeting people online sounds weird, but really, you should look at it like meeting someone any other way. If you hang around in communities you’re interested in, you will meet people who share your interests, and some of them will likely be women. Who share your interests. This is the same online as it is in real life. So, do the sorts of things you’d do if you were looking to make new friends. Find bloggers in your area and see if they hold real life get-togethers. Collect instant messenger screen names as though they were phone numbers. It works. 😀
What Tuning-Spork said. 🙂 Girls love someone who can make them laugh – without pushing it. Max has his list right on too.
I met my fiance online 6 years ago and have loved every minute of it. She’s amazing – but we started out just talking about things that we like that we have in common. Tiff has it right – chat with people online. You already have something in common right there.
Go meet people in real life too. Go to the range – see a girl who looks interesting and is alone/no-ring, why not ask her what she shoots? Find some physical activities that you enjoy and look around.
And don’t necessarily go looking for a ‘girlfriend’ right off the bat. Try looking for a friend who is a girl and see what happens from there. Let it grow naturally.
Orion
Get a friend to dress up like a monkey, and have him ‘attack’ a woman you think you might like. If she’s one of those liberated women and she shoots him dead, you’ll know you have a keeper.
If she’s not a liberated woman, you go to her rescue. She’ll definently hate monkeys from there on.
I’d suggest science fiction conventions. The women tend to be intelligent. They are often used to gun freaks or guys oriented that way. They can civilize guys with obnoxious habits without knocking the life out of them (sorry, Frank, but you do have that potential). And the women are used to asking guys they are interested in. Sounds like it is the kind of thing you should consider.
Look at http://www.locusmag.com to see what’s near you, and when.
Sci-Fi gals sound a lot like the one’s who go to Renaissance Fairs. Frank, you don’t like hippies, so stay away from the medieval whenches (although quite a few of them are quite good with a sword and similar weaponry). Plus, you’ll have to change your t-shirt to “hurl a stone at the moon with your catapult” and that doesn’t seem right.
P.S. I’ve already gotten five e-mail messages from guys who want to meet my female friends or want to introduce them to single men they know!
This has given me a GREAT idea for a new online dating service. You advertise for your single friends and other people’s friends can log on and choose for them.
We could call it “Friend Fixer-Uppers” or something.
In re-reading what I wrote earlier, I realized that my friends would have NEVER described themselves so accurately. They would have probably wrote a bunch of phony crap that would only attract — you guessed it — a loser.
All I can say, good luck. I’ve pretty much tried every internet dating site, and met a whopping 1 woman.
And when we met, it was at a bookstore. What did she buy? A book by Noam Chomsky…
Which was a bit of a shock. I knew she leaned left, but not the nutso side of it…
(Of course, if you’re not ugly and broke, you’ll perhaps be more desirable than I am…)
Thanks for all the advice so far, everyone. I guess the main thing people agree on is that I’ll actually have to get off my ass and go places.
While Fritz is busy setting people up, does anyone know any intelligent females in the Florida area who would be interested in a smart, attractive, successful man who has his own t-shirt about nuking?
Ok, I agree with everyone here that you’re gonna need to go places. While it’s good to go places you would normally hang out, try some places you hadn’t thought of before.
As for the talking part, ask them the questions. People love to talk about themselves. Just don’t make them too intrusive at the start.
When you get to the first date…chivalry is your best friend. You’ll hear women say, “I can open the door for myself…” They f***ing lie! It is a nice gesture to pull out the chair, open the door, walk on the left side of her on the sidewalk, blah blah blah.
I hate the cliche: Be yourself
but really, you are an extremely humorous person and yes, that is a fine way to a girl’s heart.
As for the check-book quip: to a certain extent. What they want to see is that you can support yourself and don’t need hand-outs from them. You have this part conquered.
Relax, you will be fine.
oh, and like I told you in email, once you have a dog, chicks will be all over you.
Of course, don’t get a dog for that reason or I’ll have to come down to FL and smack you around.
It’s worse than that
No, the next line isn’t “He’s dead, Jim,” but thank you for playing. What’s worrisome here is the potential death…
I married my best friend–just eventually fell in love with him. Stoney just made me laugh so much that I hated to leave and go home. Next thing I knew, his house WAS home. He’s the only person I know who can discuss history and politics and still make me laugh til I snort or spew drink out my nose, and give me goose pimples on top of it all!
So, if you’ve got a female friend that laughs at all your jokes and will unlock your car door before you get around to the drivers side, you might try spending more time with her.
The key to the heart of an “intelligent woman” is friendship and fun and long discussions. Do what Stoney did for me–make some girl realize she has more fun with you than she does with any of her female friends. THEN you start getting romantic.
It worked for me!
Yeah, I didn’t chase her until she caught me. EG
Seriously, I found it easier to find nice girls when I quit looking. As has been stated so many times before, there are hordes of women out there who are stuck with losers. Network, change underwear regularly, and quit worrying. Save money, don’t develop any severe complexes, and she’ll show up. Guaranteed.
The Cul-de-Sac for Sunday, July 6, 2003
Michele at A Small Victory has something that you really, really need to see. Yes, you — and download it, and save it, and pass it to every infidel you know. A flash animation that shows you just exactly why…
Geez, the real problem is Melbourne – not a target-rich enviroment. I’m in Tampa, which is twice as big and just about as bad. My suggestion would be either relocate to Orlando, Miami, etc. OR throw a violent coup of the mayor – chicks dig power-hungry coup throwers!!!!!
“Blegging”
Yes, the title is a word made up by Frank J.. I feel it is appropriate because that’s what I’m doing and that’s who this post is about. I’ve decided that I’m going to link to Frank J. every day…
Medb and Stoney,
That’s hilarious! I did the same thing. Declared, absolutely that I was not interested in any more relationships. Wanted nothing to do with them. A female friend of mine asked if I could design the perfect partner that I WOULD have a relationship with, what would that be?
I listed off a bunch of stuff figuring that no female on Earth could be that way – and met her online within 7 days. LOL
And she DOES always unlock my door before I can get from her side to mine. 🙂
Orion
Frank, you could try the pick up line Kim used on me, “Hey baby, can I remodel your kitchen?”
Frank, you have a VERY sexy voice…..I believe I am even more smitten with you now……
Mini-Tour
Frank has out-done himself in today’s In My World! Go here immediately! Tiger is back from camping! Woo hoo! Pixy Misa has almost as many videos as I do! (but his are dust free!). John had a brush with death…….
Frank,
All I do is write about how to meet and greet women. It’s exhausting.
The key really is figuring out what you plan to do with them once you have them.
Check out my NotDating(tm) posts. I put them in the comment URL.
Boy, there is a lot of bad advice in this thread.
The most important thing to keep in mind: the women you meet, and you, and NOT adversaries! You both want the same thing. You just have to figure out how to give it to them.
First off, Fritz- the reason your awesome friends end up with asshole losers is because they are human and female, and attractive. What this means is that they probably get dozens of “nice guys” oohing and ahing over them everywhere they go- making that behavior BORING. They tend to “tune out” guys who act like willing slaves, guys who beg to be in their humble presence, etc. The only guys they NOTICE AT ALL are therefore the ones who make them feel emotions they are unaccustomed to. Even (or, unfortunately, ESPECIALLY) if those emotions are negative. Being female they are emotion junkies, being attractive they are hobbled by their own neurotic far of being worshipped, desperate for love and a sense of connection with a soul mate but physiologically designed to seek an alpha type (who, accustomed to being sought by beautiful women, will treat them badly). This is obviously situation that sucks for those of us who aren’t natural dumbass jerks (err, natural alpha males) but it is NOT something an intelligent male has to succumb to.
Frank, I’ve been reading your stuff for a long time, and based on that i think i have a pretty good idea of your personality. And from the few pics you have up, you don’t suffer from a lot of the problems that you might expect from a blogger. You should have no problem hooking up any time you want, and from that you should be able to find the one woman that gives YOU what you need (instead of the other way around). You will have to learn some stuff, and you will have to go to the places that women go to, but from there you should be able to laugh your way into just about any woman’s pants. Ultimately it should be YOUR decision who to be with at any given time- and for how long.
Basic advice:
Attractive women HATE boring men.
If you go after women by buying them stuff, opening doors for them, talking about the weather etc, you will definitely bore them.
Even a bona-fide monkey-hating babe will turn and run if she thinks you want to worship her. Don’t. Hell, she is just a human being; if she goes home with you you’ll end up giving her more pleasure than she gives you. She needs you just as much as you need her (or more, since women are so incredibly emotionally focused). Make sure she knows that the fact that she is attractive is good, but not enough, to make you want to give her the pleasure of your company. And make sure she is always on the brink of losing you. “i really don’t think this is gonna work out because” works well. It is a scary thing to hear, even if she doesn’t like you yet- the fact that you aren’t afraid to be without her makes you much more attractive to her.
Every woman has something wrong with her- even the sexiest girl around has something she dislikes about her appearance. The trick is to find it, early on, making sure she knows you see it. If you can’t find something, make something up. “are those fingernails real/fake? -> oh, well they look good anyway” “where did you get that {jewelry, clothing, tattoo}? was it expensive? damn girl what were you thinking? just kidding, it looks great. ” (no matter what her response is 🙂 Do it playfully, not rudely. The adage that you have to be a jerk to get laid unfortunately has a grain of truth; jerks do some of the right things, so they do get laid more than nice guys. Don’t be a jerk, but do learn what it is that they do right and emulate it (without the asshat behavior thrown in).
be DISCRIMINATING. you are, after all, a hell of a nice guy, successful, smart and funny as hell; why settle for just any chick just because she is physically attractive? Make sure she KNOWS you are evaluating her based on much more than just the size of her tits and the cut of her dress.
Research: Start at http://www.fastseduction.com. Some of the stuff there seems gay, but read it all before you decide. Learn at least the IC pattern and one other (that shit is GOLD). Learn 4 or 5 and hit a girl with 2 or 3 in a row at a daquiri bar, then one on the way home… woot. Don’t buy anything; everything you need to know is available free online.
Click the “david deangelis” link. Get his stuff from kazaa, or buy it (only after downloading it and seeing that it helps you :). read it all, take notes. sign up for his (free) newsletter. best investment ever :). his stuff is a lot more practical than ross jeffries etc but works best when combined. c&f rules (and is fun for everyone involved, women especially).
Please don’t let the jerks win. They don’t deserve it. Learn how to act around attractive women and less of them will waste people like Fritz’s friends time.
Hmmmm. I actually went to college in Melbourne Florida. If you want to meet women there, the best advice I have is to buy a convertible. (Probably not the sort of woman you want to meet, but…). I had a dog there, and all I met because of that was old people.
Anyway, if you’re going to go the online route, you might try Lavalife. While it’s a bit weird (it’s Canadian, and they use different terminology for a lot of things) and a bit primative, it has a lot more women than most other personal sites, and because it uses credits, as opposed to both people having to buy a $20+ month membership, it has more active users than almost any other site. Most sites have a lot of free members, but you can’t really contact those free members. On lavalife, it just costs 5 credits (which is at most a $1.25) to email someone and then they can email you back as much as they want.
hey Frank–
there is no equation for success in this realm, the woman you find you want to spend time with may blindside you without notice. I met my wife on my first, and only :), blind date that I was doing as a favor to a friend of mine and his wife. I actually tried to sabotage the date before it happened, exit strategies were discussed and approved by my friends. Needless to say, I aborted those plans the first time she spoke to me, I’ve never looked back. Your style is who you are, sounds stupid and trite, but do you really want to trick a woman into spending time with you? …er… bad question, just be yourself and don’t size up every woman you meet, just talk to them, chemistry will take care of the rest.
sleepdeficit is either a genius, or a f%$@&*^ng genius.
But seriously; women want the same things men do only their more sneaky about it.
Ohhhhh I have tales of Eden and Horror I could share……
but I wont.
Frank,
My wife and I discovered a great way to meet people. (Proving God’s sense of humor, we didn’t discover it until AFTER we were married. “Hey, this would be good to know… FIVE YEARS AGO!”) We love dogs. We saw an ad in a local paper for people to do volunteer work as puppy raisers for a seeing eye dog foundation. We went out to an orientation (having solemnly sworn that we weren’t bringing any puppies home with us) just to see what was involved. The puppy we brought home was named Heidi, and a better dog has never drawn breath.
The most important part of our job was to socialize the dog. Because she was a service dog in training, we could take her virtually anywhere. Restaurants, shopping, hospitals, work, school, you name it, we went.
I am shy by nature. When I was single, this tended to result in romantic opportunities turing into friendships. It just took me too long to work up the nerve, and by then I didn’t want to put a friendship at risk if the answer was no. Having the dog there provides an opportunity to talk to new people and a safe topic for conversation. (Striking up a conversation is, in my opinion, the biggest hurdle that must be overcome when trying to meet someone new.) It is very rare to get an unwelcoming reaction.
Meeting people like this also tends to create a very good first impression. The other person gets their first glimpse of you when you are doing something positive.
There are some pretty significant downsides to this equation, though. The worst part, of course, is giving the puppy back. It is a very long drive home that day. Of course, if you can raise a dog from a puppy and it doesn’t make you cry to give it up, you probably shouldn’t do this. Every puppy we’ve raised has taken a little piece of our hearts with it when it left. Fortunately, it does grow back.
Less heart-wrenching but still significant is the chewing. And the housebreaking. We received some excellent help from the professional trainers that supervised the program, so it rarely took more than a weekend to housebreak a puppy. (The downside to professional trainers is that you can no longer avoid responsibilty for the quirks and foibles of your dog.)
Not a problem (yet) for you, Frank, but it can be very difficult to participate in this program when you have small children. A puppy is a lot like having a two-year-old in the house. We have two little girls (4 and 2) that love dogs, but can’t resist sharing their food with our pure-blooded Gomerhound, Blaze. (Being fed scraps from the table is a “No”.) They also lack the fine motor skills needed to be sufficiently gentle with a young puppy’s ears and other parts. Their toys would also make excellent chew toys, until the puppy got to the rich chewy center of the magic marker. We’re on hiatus until our youngest gets to be four or five. One two-year-old in the house is enough.
If you’ve got the time and are willing to put in the required effort, it is one of the most rewarding things you can ever do. It’s volunteer work, but I’ve gotten some Christmas cards that I wouldn’t trade for a stack of cash. (And about 40 invitations to lunch/dinner/coffee/etc. that I’ve had to turn down.)
Rick
P.S. Thanks for the laughs!
sleepdefecit: Are you serious?
So many things wrong in what you wrote.
The games and fakery advocated by sleepdeficit seem unethical to me, and if that’s what it takes, the soul-staining isn’t worth it. He says “don’t let the jerks win”, but the message sounds like “if you can’t beat them, join them”.
I’m not saying it won’t work; I have practically no expertise in this. It’s just an ethical thing.
I took a long look through the fastseduction site, and while some of it is clearly manipulative, to be honest there’s a lot of clever funny stuff there. I made notes. Take a look at Eric S. Raymond’s advice, Sex Tips For Geeks: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/sextips/
Eric runs the blog Armed ‘n’ Dangerous, which is permalinked from Steven Den Beste’s site. If that’s not a guarantee of credibility and integrity, nothing is.
Michael: ESR’s essay is very good. I hadn’t read it before, but he is a smart guy.
It’s not about manipulation. It is about learning to say and do the things that women subliminally want you to say and do. The things that some guys, with higher emotional iq’s than me, know how to say and do, intuitively. It is about making women feel good. It is about finding out what works and doing it, instead of fumbling around in the dark looking for something, anything, that will get a girl (who is probably not as smart, or as funny, or as successful etc., as you are) to look at you twice, instead of going after some guy with a motorcycle.
Ask yourself which is more manipulatory: to buy a woman presents, hoping that she will like you because you gave her a gift- or to say something to her that makes her heart beat faster, causing her to WANT to be with you because she likes the way she feels when she is with you? More manipulatory to pretend to like her psychotically jealous backstabbing friends, hoping she will like you because of it, or tease her for hanging out with such damaged people?
The best thing about this stuff is that you can actually be HONEST, and be liked for that. It is incredibly liberating.
And once you get past the initial hesitation- once you create the attraction, anchor it to yourself and learn how to make her feel GOOD, you can “just be yourself” and still be seen as “the guy who makes me feel like no one else ever has in my life”. Even though you are obsessed with monkeys, ninjas and the size of dick rumsfield’s dog.
And you won’t have to move, go to church, get a convertible/motorcycle/dog, etc, unless you WANT to.
Sign up for a class in something that interests you (and could possibly interest a woman). Lots of singles take classes.
Better yet, offer to teach a course on gun safety for novices – you will be the one in charge, and the women in class will come to you to ask questions. You will be in your element…
hi there …….if your any where close to bakersfield calif ….i would luv to have a shot.(smile) i have messenger services in aol i am swtnspicy5153 on yahoo i am swtlilgrma2 and in msn its butterflybig50 …would love to know some more there handsome…..belinda
im 24/m not ugly at all just diffent then most people in my area i am a artist im on probation so iu don”t have a car and i don”t drink im very into nature and i have blue eyes 510 155 dreds berd dress very hippish and extreamly tatooed im lookin 4 nice sister im lonely email me if interested im in pa any age don”t matter send me a pic if u want
I just can’t shut my pie hole.