Dating advice for women has been around since Eve handed Adam the apple, and the basic message remains the same: wear a nice fig leaf, appreciate what you have, and blame any missteps on the serpent. Be hot, agreeable and coy, in other words–such was the gist of “Five Ways to Turn Off a Guy”, an on-point list posted–um, briefly–on Aish.com last week (my colleague summarizes and I daresay improves upon it here).
While Aish’s tips were nothing we hadn’t heard before, their concise presentation opened my eyes to a glaring disconnect in the modern how-to-get-the-girl/guy industry. First of all, why after the apple incident is the fairer sex still entrusted with dinner? But more importantly: Why, after all these millennia, are the dude-guides stuck, crazy-glue level, on the notion that the key to nailing a woman is to understand how she thinks?
Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. By all means, fellas, pack a condom for your first date lest a lady be forced to admit she carries her own. But when you listen to us and act sensitive, yes-or-no questions only, please, or you impede the flow of our mystique. You’ll never figure us out, OK? Because if you did you’d lose interest, and we hate when you go home to Rosie almost (wink-wink) as much as you do.
If it’s any consolation, we’ll never understand why even the basketball players among you miss every hamper shot. But my point is that lad mag advice is complicating gender relations unnecessarily. Energy wasted on reading between the lines could be better expended between the sheets. And it’s simpler to wind up there, for once or forever, than peddlers of body sprays and vibrating underwear would have you believe.
Feel Free to Do All the Talking
If you retain only one idea today, let it be this golden rule from which most of the others spring: nothing beats a guy who soliloquizes without stopping for breath. Especially if we’ve just met you, we’ll want to crawl under the cafe table and unzip your pants so we can thank you for your eloquence without requiring you to pause. It’s also easier to find shared interests if one of us need only nod along. Asking us about ourselves–even yes-or-no questions, though we recognize they help you think of what to say next–backs us into a corner. Don’t worry about us–we want to know about you!
Boast to Your Heart’s Content
Dominating the conversation is easier than it sounds: when you’re out of opinions, anecdotes and top-ten lists, talk about how great you are! That’s what we’re there to find out! If your salary is impressive, include that, too! And if it’s not, your proudest personal characteristics, your eighty-inch TV–any of that will do. How well you cook, even if by “cook” you mean barbecue. Feminist cred also works here: if you’re comfortable with women earning more than you or sexually asserting themselves, such views reassure us that you didn’t arrive via time-machine, even if they belie a deeper, more complicated truth.
Tell Us What to Do
Don’t like our outfits? Is there a specific turn-off that every girl you’ve ever met manages to do? You’ll only marry a girl who plays video games and watches sports with you? The more you dictate, the better we can shape ourselves to please you.
Tell Us Everything Your Exes Did Wrong
Gossip issues aside, your past girlfriends are our guide to preferences and pet peeves you’re not transparent about. My MIL was once introduced to a man who let loose on his ex-wife so viciously she thought he must have signed his divorce papers that morning. Turned out he’d been a free bird for fourteen years–and had a belt full of notches, I bet!
Bathroom Humor and Reruns Save the Day
Running low on monologue topics? Two choices: share what a great dump you had this morning after your daily half-marathon run–we’ll all be middle-aged eaters of bran cereal soon enough–or start repeating yourself, which is inevitable by the fourth date anyway. You won’t notice if you can’t recall mentioning it previously, but our reaction to your favorite material improves with familiarity–eye-rolls indicate swooning, I swear.
Cleanliness is Next to Connivingness
Returning for a moment to matters of the bathroom: don’t waste valuable time cleaning any part of yours besides the mirror in which you should be admiring yourself rehearsing your best jokes. Don’t clean anything, in fact. We like dirt. Don’t use soap when you shower–we like sweat. Sweat has pheromones that reel us in. You know what we don’t like? Blatantly false advertising. (Exaggeration is fine.) Pretending you never let the dishes pile up fools no one. When we move in together you’ll forget the vacuum cleaner exists. Worse than futile, though, a spruced-up home says you don’t need us. You’ve wooed us back to your lair, and now you want us to feel extraneous?
*****
Bonus tip: If we don’t succumb to your charms as easily as you’d hoped–because, duh, free milk–text-bomb away!
[overly suave IT guy via uproxx.com]
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