The Rawness

This is hilarious, and the life lesson #1 at the end about the perils of dating passionate people is so true. I learned that lesson from times I dated Eastern European women.

This video has become such a phenomenon that it’s even spawned a new term, The Europe Test.

It reminds me of a story that happened to a friend of mine. He went to a nightclub and met this really hot girl. They seemed to hit it off and he got her email address. He sent her an email and got no response. After a while, he got pissed and rattled off a really angry, spiteful email telling her off for being rude and a tease in pretty harsh language. A week later he got a long, sweet, lengthy email from her. It turned out she was out of town in Europe for the week, so she just got home and just finished reading the first email he sent. Turned out she was a really sweet girl and her response email showed a lot of interest. She obviously wrote this nice response email before she got to his scathingly insulting follow-up email. She never did write again, he never bothered trying to salvage it. The lessons here are obvious, I hope.

Semi-related: VK’s own Europe Test

Commenter Entropy left this comment:

Will anyone of you light a cigarette for a woman without being asked? I think it lowers your value–insofar volunteering to do anything for a pretty woman without being prompted–will lower your value. I will recommend a robust cigarette-centered NEG to go along with your assistance to help her light her cigarette. Baring that, dont help her at all.

This is a very good question. Watch this space, I’ll answer this question later today. In the meantime if you so desire, feel free to leave your responses to this question in the comments if you have any suggestions.

UPDATE:

So here are my thoughts on the matter. Rather than just give a yes or no answer, I’d rather take you through a thought exercise to train you in how to think about the game overall.

I think a lot of guys who are looking into interaction advice get caught up in finding hard and fast absolute rules to use in every situation. A rulebook and set of scripts that can be used across the board in every situation for success. Yes you should always neg. No you should never neg. Always buy a drink. No, never buy a drink. Always wait two days at least before calling. No, wait seven days. No, you should call immediately.

Let’s backtrack a second. The key here is not just to memorize rules or steps to universally use in every situation. The key is to understand what the larger purpose of all the specific advice is, what the ultimate goal is that the advice it trying to steer you toward. Once you understand that, you can alter the rulebook at will depending on the situation, and you can begin to understand why two people can do totally opposite styles yet still get good results.

When it comes to social interactions (all social interactions, not just dating), the ultimate goal of any rule is to convey lots of value as quickly as possible. Value means having something to offer rather than just being a “taker.” Picture when a moderately to shabbily dressed stranger comes up to you in the street in the big city and starts a conversation in a near-apologetic tone. He says “Excuse me, can I have a minute of your time? I just noticed you walking here in your sharp suit and…” Think of the times in the past this has happened to you. What is the first thing you think? “Is this a bum?” “Oh geez, spare me the story and just ask me for the money so I can just say yes or no and move on.” “Are you a salesperson? What are you trying to sell me today?” And so on and so on. Bums, cold callers, pushy salespeople, network marketing recruiters, we immediately see them as “value takers,” so the moment they approach us we resent them and start rehearsing rejections in our head. We feel they are solely there to take value from us for their own benefit without giving enough value back in exchange.

Now picture if someone comes out of a chauffered stretch limo in an impeccable three piece custom suit and said the exact same words “Excuse me, can I have a minute of your time? I just noticed you walking here in your sharp suit and…” How do you feel this time? It’s the exact same words but this time I’m sure it has a different effect. The difference is that the person now has the appearance of being a potential “value giver.” He may be a mogul or someone who can give you a job. He may be someone important about to tell you something to enrich your life. He may be someone who is connected that can help you along at some point in your life. He may be a celebrity. Maybe he’s a salesperson who is actually offering something very useful or a deal too good to pass up. Whatever he is, you are interested enough to know more and to find out for sure if he has any value to pass along to you. Or let’s even use a bum again for an example. Say instead of being the bum with a long sob story, say he sang you an incredible song and did an amazing comedy routine that livened up your day for a few minutes. And then he asked from money. Because he gave you some value first, you don’t mind giving him some in return. The sob story beggar street guy is a value taker. The performing street guy is a value giver. Both ask for money but the value context is totally different, hence the different results.

Another example, think of a shabby-looking nightclub blasting lame music and letting any low class person in. There’s a guy outside trying to cajole any and all people passing by to enter. Telling you drink specials, promising girls and a good time, following you down the street harassing you to come in. There are a handful of desperate looking badly dressed scrubs on a quick-moving line thirstily ogling every girl who passes. Compare that with the place with a glamorous exterior, a red velvet rope, an insanely difficult door policy, celebs rolling up, a line down the block filled with beautiful classy women and high status and a bouncer who pays you no mind as you pass by or even as you engage him. Which one is more likely to be considered as a “value taking” spot and which one is likely to be considered a “value giving” spot? Which one will enhance your reputation more when you tell other people the next day that you got into it? Which one will likely lower your reputation if you brag you got into it?

So it goes with rules like “negs,” drink buying, cigarette lighting, etc. [This is the most important part of the piece so pay attention:] It’s not the action that matters so much as the context of the action. Is the action taking place in a “value giving” context or a “value taking” context?

In two different contexts, the exact same action can convey two totally different meanings. For example, let’s go back to the example of the two nightclubs. Picture if at the first lame nightclub I described, the desperate door guy promoter stops you and your friends and says “Wow, you guys sure are a sharp group. Come inside, we’ll set you up in VIP.” You’d look at the line of losers, the shabby looking exterior of the club and the eagerness of the promoter and his compliment will come off as a sign of weakness making him look lamer. Now picture you and your friends are passing by the second club and as legions of the beautiful people are clamoring outside to get in, the door person suddenly drops what he’s doing to approach you and say “Wow, you guys sure are a sharp group. Come inside, we’ll set you up in VIP.” Exact same action, a compliment. Exact same words and sentiment. But it has a whole different effect this time because it’s coming from a perceived “value giver” than a “value taker.”

Let’s alter the examples again slightly. Let’s go back to the first shabby club again. Say you pause outside just to survey it and see if you want to go in. It’s as I described before and initially seems unimpressive, and the guy comes up to you. You expect him to beg you to come in but instead he throws you a curveball and says “Nice as you guys look tonight, it’s doubtful you’re getting in. Even if you’re on the guestlist. It’s just been that kind of night. But if you hang around who knows?” This statement might be enough to get you intrigued, even if its for only a split second, in a nightclub you would have never remotely been interested in going to before hearing that statement. Suddenly you wonder if you misjudged the club. Suddenly you are curious about what’s beneath that exterior. You’re intrigued. The club is not eager to take value from you after all. In fact, it may have value to give. This is the same concept behind the neg. But in the case of the second club, the value it has to give is obvious from the start. And the fact that it is not eager to take your value because it has so many options is also obvious. So a similar statement from the door guy at that club is unnecessary to intrigue you. In fact, it may be overkill. The same goes for “negging.” To be a value-giver, you have to be able to pass a two-prong test: (1) how much value you potentially have to offer and (2) how desperately you need value from others,. The better you are at conveying yourself as a value giver, the less value-conveying shortcuts, tricks and rules you need. For illustration of this two-prong test, look at how banks decide who to give loans to. They don’t go by the person who has the least value to offer and blatantly conveys their desperate needs to take value from the bank, even though such a person would probably appreciate the loan the most. No, they choose who to give value to based on who (1) has a lot of value to offer in return (in the form of assets, a steady paycheck, dependable payment history on credit report and savings) and who (2) doesn’t have as desperate a need for the value (also something a credit report tells them). The person who seems to already have the most money and needs the money the least is the person the bank seems most eager to lend to.

One more example. Think of movie character archetypes. Say you have a do-gooder people pleaser character. Total nice guy wuss. Say you have the alpha male ladies man. For example, the characters Alan (Jon Cryer) and Charlie (Charlie Sheen) from Two and a Half Men. If Alan were to give flowers to a woman, shed a tear in front of her or declare his undying love for her, it just goes as more evidence of his loser persona. If Charlie were to do the exact same things, he would get credit for showing some vulnerability and it would be seen as endearing. Same act committed by both, but thanks to different value-giving and value-taking contexts conveyed, it leaves different impressions depending on who does it.

When a guy is not very good with women or is a beginner at getting good with women, hard fast rules of thumb and regimrented steps are more necessary, because he’s not used to quickly conveying what value he has value to give or that he’s not desperately in need of value to take. Chances are he’s spent most of his dating life as the equivalent of the beggar or pushy salesman in my first example, or the person who goes into the bank trying to get a loan by talking about how strapped for cash he is an how much he needs the loan. He’s used to always coming in broadcasting his low value and his desire to take value from others. He has no natural instincts at conveying high potential for giving value or low need for taking value. Not with his words, not with his body language, not with his physical appearance, not with his fashion choices. Like the beggar he’s only trained himself to broadcast how little he has and how much value he wants/needs to take. What the woman feels from the typical guy is similar to what most people feel when getting approached on the street with a pitch from blatant value takers like beggars, junk salesmen and telemarketers. The approached person thinks I know you want something, I’m sure you’re offering nothing or something I have no interest in, the sooner I can get you away from me the better.

So back to Entropy’s question. Is it weakness to light a woman’s cigarette unsolicited? Is it necessary to neg her when doing it? The answer is…it depends on how skilled you are at quickly setting a high-value-offering, low value-needing context. Or as I like to call it, your CRED (as in street cred). The higher the value you convey yourself as having to offer and the lower the you convey yourself as desperately needing value, the higher your cred. Some people scream high cred without uttering a word, just by eye contact and/or body language. Or by their entourage. Or their swagger. If you can reach this level, your mere aura does the job of a neg for you. This should be your ultimate goal. The negs, the rules, the scripts, the stories, those are all stepping stones to this final goal, not the goal itself. Once again, cred is how much value you potentially have to offer to others combined with how little you seem to need value from others in return.

If you rush over from across the room with eager body language, your arm outstretched and zero swagger to light the cigarette, you have no cred. Even a playful insult won’t help negate the weakness and desperation you’ve shown. On the other hand if you have the looks, swagger and aura that can demand attention and electrify a room the moment you walk into it, you can walk across a room confidently holding deliberate, smoldering eye contact for no other reason than to light her cigarette and still come off as high cred. No neg needed. The neg would be overkill. Most people fall in between both extremes. Be honest and evaluate where you fall in the spectrum of ability to instantly convey strong cred and that will tell you how much vulnerability, exerted effort or unsolicited niceness it’s safe for you to show up front. If you’re a rookie at conveying strong cred quickly, you need to show as little vulnerability, exerted effort and unsolicited niceness up front as possible and keep it that way until you feel you’ve reached a point in the action where you’ve conveyed strong cred. With time and practice, as you get dirty in the game and get better instincts and skills, you’ll know how to generate instant and insanely strong cred and you’ll get away with showing levels of vulnerability, exerted effort and unsolicited niceness that would kill most other guys if they did it (of course no matter how good you are, there are limits to this). Thanks to my ability to generate high cred, I’ve done stuff successfully that I routinely hear people say you should never do. I’ve called women an hour after getting their numbers. I’ve opened women with over the top compliments. I’ve lit women’s cigarettes unsolicited.

And of course when evaluating whether to use tricks such as playful insults and teasing or waiting a few days to call a number, it’s not just your cred alone in a vacuum you have to evaluate, it’s your cred in relation to the girl’s self-perceived cred. If you convey so much cred in relation to their girl that she feels way outclassed, she’ll doubt your interest is genuine because she’ll start thinking your out of your league. This is a way that the confidence and swagger of high cred can backfire. With this dynamic, insulting her even playfully or waiting too long to call her will confirm to her you’re out of her league and not serious about her, maybe just toying with her out of boredom, and end up messing you up. And remember, it’s her self-perceived cred that’s the issue, not what you perceive it to be. If a girl is a 9 to you and the rest of the world but has low self-esteem and sees herself as a 6, and sees you as having high cred, you can’t neg her because she’ll actually take you seriously. You can’t wait too long not to call her in a gambit to establish lack of neediness because she’ll take it as a high-status guy toying with her and not really being interested. On the flip side, if you are dealing with a 6 who’s self-perceived value is a 9…well, what would you do that for? You know better than that. Kick her to the curb!

So I know it’s not an easy yes or no answer as far as whether to light the chick’s cigarette or not. I know “it depends” often sounds like a cop-out answer, but it really does depend. It depends on both your conveyed cred and her self-perceived cred and how big the gap is between the two.

Lions

Years back, I was barhopping in the Lower East Side of NYC. The night was young, and my boy Grip and I were at the last stop of our crawl when we came across this African guy. I don’t remember how the conversation started because we were all well on our way to getting trashed, but at some point this African starts giving us his philosophy on men and women.

“Men are naturally noble creatures,” he said. “Society has made men like women. It’s made men afraid of their own shadows and afraid of what they really want. We were born to be hunters, it is our instinct, it is who we are! We have a natural desire to both be predators and to be regal.” This was the greatest pro-man pep talk we ever heard. And his deep African voice and accent just made it sound that much more regal and inspiring.

“You are a lion!” he announced, his voice rising majestically. “A hunter, a protector, a king! Do not settle! If you want something, go for it! Fight for it! You deserve the best, if you see a beautiful woman tonight, remember you are a lion and go over to her! Don’t be afraid, you are a hunter, a proud lion, this is your birthright!”

Grip and I started getting pumped. “Fuck yeah!!! We’re getting laid tonight! Lions!” We kept shouting about lions back and forth, ordering shots, hollering at every girl we could see, and at this point our confidence level was peaking.

After the African guy left us, we were still on an outrageous high. The guy was inspirational, like the Tony Robbins of the drunk singles scene. At that point Angelina Jolie could have walked in, and I would have stepped to her like she was just some chick from around the way and demanded some action. It was still only midnight, the crowd was bustling, there were hot girls aplenty, our confidence was soaring…it had all the makings of a classic night.

Fast forward to 3:30 AM. The herd has thinned and the prize specimens have all escaped or been captured by others. Not many choices remain. Grip and I were sloppy drunk, well beyond coherent at this point, and were just trying to prop ourselves up and barely succeeding. We gave up on chicks at this point. We look over at the other end of the bar and see our African friend from earlier talking to this short, stocky pasty-complexioned overweight white girl. No debate on this one, the girl is pretty awful looking. Kind of like a fire hydrant made of marshmallow that someone dressed up and put a wig on.

Out of respect (and shame and embarrassment) for him, we didn’t plan on saying anything to him or blowing up his spot, but as he glanced over at us our expressions must have given away what we were thinking, because he immediately walked over. He leaned in close and said slowly, in a low voice, “Sometimes the lion must eat grass.” Then he walked away.

I’m sure there was a life lesson in there somewhere, but I’m not sure what it was.

Dogs

Another bar, another long bygone year. Being young and naive, I was still at the age when my primary strategy for dealing with really hot women was earnestness. A friend of mind gave me the advice that the hotter as girl is, the more I should treat her like I would treat an ugly woman. And if she’s really hot, I should be borderline rude and arrogant. This seemed counterintuitive, and I was skeptical, but I told myself I’d give it a shot sometime.

So on this night it was my friend Beethoven (short for The Beethoven of Bitches^TM) and me drinking in a Brooklyn Bar. It was a decent crowd with some definite cuties.

Beethoven and I were sitting at the bar catching up. A hot hipster blonde and her friend nearby were getting hit on left and right by guys and playfully shooting them down. This was a giant ego boosting night for them; you could tell this was their normal Friday night routine: go out looking hot while teasing some eager, desperate guys they had no plans of hooking up with. There was a group of typical guys standing behind our chairs with their backs to us, and Hipster Blonde and her friend were on the other side of the guys getting their asses kissed making small talk. Hipster Blonde squeezed around the group of guys and interrupted Beethoven and me.

Hipster Blonde said to me “Do you mind if I put my jacket on the back of your chair?” My first instinct was to eagerly say “Sure!” and hit on her.  Then I remembered the advice.

I looked at her expressionlessly. “Let me think about it.” I turned away as if visibly annoyed and in deep thought. She stood there holding her jacket in her outstretched hand, speechless and with an expression of utter disbelief. I turn back at just the exact moment before the silence would have gotten uncomfortable and say playfully with a smirk, “Yeah, I guess you can.”

She playfully replied “Oh really? Are you sure it’s okay? I’d hate to inconvenience you.” I knew she was intrigued She probably couldn’t remember the last time I guy wasn’t eager to give her whatever she wanted. Or acted totally unimpressed by her.

We bantered and traded barbs for a bit, and then just when it was getting good I said “All right, well you should get back to your friends,” and pointed at the crew of eager cornballs she was just speaking to. Her friend was still with them, alone. Before she could respond, I turned back to Beethoven and went back to our conversation.

10 minutes later she came back, this time with her friend. It was obvious the friend was being brought over to get a look at me and give a second opinion. Women love getting the friend’s second opinion and approval.

She interrupts us again. “Hey, I came back to get my jacket.”

Exasperatedly, I say “You again? You’re just full of annoying requests, aren’t you?” I turned to her friend. “Is she always this annoying? How do you put up with it?”

She and her friend gave each other an expression that’s a mix of mock shock and laughter, mouths agape. She smiled and teased, “You’re just mad because I’m prettier than you.”

I gave her a slightly bemused look, scanned her from top to bottom like I was evaluating her, then rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” I rolled my eyes, made them laugh, then turned back to Beethoven and my drink. In my head though I was thinking, I can’t believe the more I act like a dick, the more it works. How much farther am I supposed to go with this?

Hipster Blonde took her jacket, and she and her friend walked to the back of the bar where the couches were, occasionally turning back to look and giggle. I didn’t keep the conversation going because I knew it was a given she’d make an excuse to come back.

I walked to the back of the bar 15 minutes later to go to the bathroom. From my peripheral vision I saw Hipster Blonde and her girlfriend in the corner, tapping each other, whispering and pointing at me. Now I knew I really had her.

Sure enough after I returned to my seat at the bar, she came up behind me the moment I sat down. She asked if I had a light because she wanted to go out and smoke. I said no, but she still didn’t budge. I kept alternating between cockiness and aloofness, and she just seemed to be loving it.

No one was more shocked than me. I still couldn’t believe that this approach was actually working. It just seemed wrong and counterintuitive and the opposite of every piece of dating advice I was ever given in my life. I’m pushing my luck, I told myself. I better switch gears before I blow it. Even though my new approach was working, I told myself it couldn’t keep working and reverted to the typical approach. I decided it was a good time to give her a compliment.

“Hey, remember when you said I was mad because you were prettier than me? Well, I didn’t want to admit it, but you are quite pretty I’ve got to admit.” I gave the compliment with a nice, earnest grin. I figured after all the arrogant cockiness and insults, she deserved and would appreciate some heartfelt sweetness.

Her expression changed abruptly. Smile left, jaw dropped, silence. She suddenly looked disappointed.

She leaned in close and said slowly, in a low voice, “If you’re going to be a dog, be a rottweiller. If you’re going to be a bitch, wear a skirt.” Then she walked away.

Unlike with the night with the African, I understood Hipster Blonde’s life lesson immediately.

Best advice I ever received.

In one of my recent Sweden posts, I described a concept called Simp’s Dilemma a play off the game theory concept Prisoner’s Dilemma. Many people out there still had no idea what a “simp” or a “trick” was though.

Lo and behold, I found a site with the perfect definition.

Here are some examples of “simp behavior”. If you or your friends are exhibiting 2 or more of these symptoms – immediately stop dating and email me for immediate help.

You bought her a Tiffany’s bracelet for Christmas, and she got you socks (because the Prada purse she bought herself the week before set her back) – but you see nothing wrong.

All your male friends avoid you like the plague – because all you talk about is what you bought “baby girl” last week.

Your going into debt trying to support the lifestyle your “girl” is into.

Your always eating p*ssy (performing cunnilingus), but you get a funny look every time “reciprocation” is mentioned.

You are giving her elaborate dates (para-sailing, trips to Brazil, Helicopter rides) – and she always gives you a nice hug as a thank you.

You get off the phone with “I love you” and she responds “yeah – you’re cool too”.

Unfortunately, simping has hit an all-time high as more and more respected members of the black community have endorsed such behavior. There’s even a catchphrase for it now that states “It ain’t tricking if you got it,” meaning that tricking or being a simp is okay if you have the money to blow. This makes no sense because you have to have it in the first place in order to simp. You can’t be a trick if you don’t have it already.

When I was growing up, simping and tricking was spoken out against by rappers in our community. But now we’ve gone from this:

To this:

It’s still tricking if you got it. Don’t be fooled. What we are experiencing in men behavior in the dating world is a bona fide race to the bottom. We can do better fellas. Just like a man will take easy sex but rarely respect it, women will take the freebies, but won’t respect this type of game.

But what do expect from a community of fellas raised by women?

UPDATE:

Nothing, however, beats this as the classic anti-simp anthem.

Bobby Rio from the blog The Seduction Bible asked me to do a guest post about building comfort with women. Here it is.

Enjoy.

I rarely write about a book before reading it, but the premise of this one seemed so interesting I couldn’t resist. I bought the book Radical Honesty, The New Revised Edition: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth by Brad Blanton because the premise of it seemed so challenging: brutal honesty all of the time.

In this Esquire article, a magazine writer meets Blanton and plans to practice radical honesty himself. Here’s how he describes the movement:

The movement was founded by a sixty-six-year-old Virginia-based psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. He says everybody would be happier if we just stopped lying. Tell the truth, all the time. This would be radical enough — a world without fibs — but Blanton goes further. He says we should toss out the filters between our brains and our mouths. If you think it, say it. Confess to your boss your secret plans to start your own company. If you’re having fantasies about your wife’s sister, Blanton says to tell your wife and tell her sister. It’s the only path to authentic relationships. It’s the only way to smash through modernity’s soul-deadening alienation. Oversharing? No such thing.

When the journalist meets Blanton, he encounters a man who totally practices what he preaches:

My interview with Blanton is unlike any other I’ve had in fifteen years as a journalist. Usually, there’s a fair amount of ass kissing and diplomacy. You approach the controversial stuff on tippy toes (the way Barbara Walters once asked Richard Gere about that terrible, terrible rumor). With Blanton, I can say anything that pops into my mind. In fact, it would be rude not to say it. I’d be insulting his life’s work. It’s my first taste of Radical Honesty, and it’s liberating, exhilarating.

When Blanton rambles on about President Bush, I say, “You know, I stopped listening about a minute ago.”

“Thanks for telling me,” he says.

I tell him, “You look older than you do in the author photo for your book,” and when he veers too far into therapyspeak, I say, “That just sounds like gobbledygook.”

“Thanks,” he replies.” Or, “That’s fine.”…

“I’m glad you picked your nose just now,” I say. “Because it was funny and disgusting, and it’ll make a good detail for the article.”

“That’s fine. I’ll pick my ass in a minute.” Then he unleashes his deep Texan laugh: heh, heh, heh. (He also burps and farts throughout our conversation; he believes the one-cheek sneak is “a little deceitful.”)

No topic is off-limits. “I’ve slept with more than five hundred women and about a half dozen men,” he tells me. “I’ve had a whole bunch of threesomes” — one of which involved a hermaphrodite prostitute equipped with dual organs.

What about animals?

Blanton thinks for a minute. “I let my dog lick my dick once.”

As I mentioned before, I haven’t read the book yet, but the premise really does interest me. I know that I’m just not the personality type that could totally follow the practices of the movement 100%, but I’d love to incorporate radical honesty into my life as much as I could.

What do you think life would be like if we embraced Radical Honesty all of the time? Hard to say, but here’s an example of what first dates might turn into:

Improvement over the current model or no?

Recommended Reading:

This is a follow-up analysis post to this post, which VK, Des and Roissy did a ridiculously good job taking apart in the comments section. Maybe this one was too easy (or the commenters are just too damn good). Anyways, let me see if there’s anything left for me to add. To save you the trouble of going back to the old post, I’ll reproduce the passage here:

Every now and then I come across something that I wish I wrote. This piece from Craiglist’s “Best Of” section is a perfect example. It’s called “Myths and Truths,” and I’ve reproduced it in full below. I’m sure a few people will call it jaded and cynical, and it probably is, but that in no way negates how astute and accurate it is:

Myths and Truths

——————————————————————————–

Date: 2006-04-18, 11:09PM PDT

Some rants and accumulated experience about women. Men in happy marriages or stable relationships don’t need to read this; neither do men who get laid every week (or even every month). The “truth” I’m putting out here is for all of those men who, like me, worship women and can’t figure out why they keep getting screwed over and dumped. The myths are things that I used to believe before I wised up.

MYTH: Women want love and affection. Women want to be treated well. If you treat a woman well, she’ll treat you well.

I had a post recently called The Power of Vagueness, which you can find here. In the first post, I focused mostly on vagueness when it came to the political arena and only touched on it slightly in the dating arena. This time around I’m going to go more into the topic of vagueness in dating.

In the mail, I got my issue of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Special. (I have an SI subscription.) Most of the girls in it bore me because they seem interchangeable, but this one exotic-looking black girl in it named Quiana Grant caught my eye, and I actually read her interview. One part of it really jumped out at me:

I feel a secret connection with …

Chris Webber because he is mysterious to me. I love the fact that you never hear anything about him anywhere. Even when he was dating Tyra Banks, you didn’t hear anything about him. It’s the unknown. I remember living in D.C., and the Kings came to play the Wizards, and all the ladies were in the hairdresser getting their hair done and I’m like, “What’s going on?” and they told me, “Chris Webber’s coming to town, girl!” That was kind of funny, but he’s actually, um, yeah, he’s pretty great. I was supposed to go to a game when he was playing for Philly, but then he got traded and I thought, nevermind I just wanted to see him.

I love that quote, because it perfectly illustrates what I described in the last vagueness quote. Chris Webber is a good-looking, charismatic, athletic and talented athlete, but he’s intensely private. When he does make a major statement to the public, it carries that much more weight and becomes an event because he so rarely does it. In fact, for a while it even intensified scrutiny of him because the scarcity of information about him make information about him become even more valuable.

But what I really love is how you can tell Quiana Grant has used the half-blank canvas Webber has created and filled in all the blanks herself. She’s taken every dream guy trait she has and has probably assigned them to Webber.

Of course the blank canvas alone isn’t enough. You have to have something on the canvas to attract attention in the first place. If you’re too vague or nondescript you’ll just be ignored. But Webber has the fame, athleticism and good looks that get him in the door. After that, he just has to keep his mouth shut and not fuck it up.

It amazes me how often guys don’t get this. They just talk and talk and campaign with women until they just tell too much about themselves and talk themselves right into the doghouse. Several reasons why this is bad:

1. Unless you are particularly gifted in smooth conversation, you are just increasing the chances you are going to fuck up a good first impression with each sentence you say.
2. It puts the girl on a pedestal if you are trying too hard to impress her, thereby lowering your own value in comparison. When you are talking about how smart you are, how much money you make, how cool you are, all the things that make you great, all you are doing is subconsciously convincing the girl of how great she is because you just met her and are trying to hard to gain her approval. Think about it, you don’t try to convince an ugly person of how good you look, you don’t try to convince a dumb person of how smart you are, and you don’t try to convince an uncool person of how cool you are. You expect them to get it automatically. So if you are trying too hard to convince someone you are cool, the implication is that you consider them to be even cooler. If you are trying too hard to convince someone you are good-looking, you are implying that you already consider them better-looking than you. If you are trying too hard to impress someone with how smart you are, you are implying that you consider them smart enough to judge your intelligence. Good masters don’t openly try to impress students, students openly try to impress masters. When you are too blatant in seeking approval, you broadcast to the people you’re seeking approval from that you consider them your masters. You are now in a “one-down” position from them. They may like you, but they won’t respect you as much as you want.
3. You deprive the woman of her fantasy. If for some reason you conveyed a positive first impression and got her intrigued, it’s because something about you reminded her of one of her fantasies. And each time you open your mouth to talk yourself up or impress her, you just kept painting a picture different from the one she wanted to paint. You promised her the fulfillment of a fantasy with your first impression and now you’re taking it away from her. And of course she’ll resent that, even if it’s on a subconscious level.

See, most guys have women they have no interest in that are incredibly fixated on them. They consider them pests. They make no effort to impress them, yet they stick around. Then they meet women that impress them terribly and they start campaigning hard. They call and text them too much. They watch their phones in hopes they’ll ring. They meet the girl and find her to be interested at first and get confused at why they seem to lose interest with each following interaction. What guys don’t realize is that the aloof, slightly disinterested attitude they affected with the former type of woman is the one they need to affect with the women they really like. If more men could treat the women they really like the same as they treat the ones they want to get rid of, they’d have a much better dating life. (And probably, if they pestered and tried to impress the ones they wanted to get rid of the way they do the ones they obsess over, they’d do a better job of getting rid of them.)

There’s a saying in the pimp community that touches on this concept: “The player with the right clothes can get chose with his mouth closed.” Basically, if you work on your image, whether it’s your clothing, your muscles, your body language and posture, and/or your grooming, all you have to do is work on not saying anything stupid (harder for some guys than you’d think) and being enticingly vague (but not boring) and the woman’s imagination will do all the impressing for you. As long as you don’t do anything blatantly contrary to this image, you’ll be fine.

Addendum: Something else that Chris Webber understands about vagueness: not just being vague about himself but vague about his conquests also. You never see Chris Webber brag about women he’s banging. Never. Sexual bragging is an amateurish thing the average slob does and betrays not only short term thinking but also very poor social intelligence (poor social intelligence is a huge turn-off to women).

Reputation management since time immemorial has always been of paramount importance to a woman. The sluttier a woman’s reputation is, the more her social stock drops. This is why real players rarely brag about conquests for the sake of bragging. They only bring up conquests to prove a larger point. If you get the rep of being that guy who can’t keep his mouth about conquests, women know their reputations won’t be safe with you, and no matter how much they may want you they’ll feel the risk to their reputation isn’t worth it.

Compare this to Wilmer Valderrama, who pulled a truly unmackish move in bragging on the Howard Stern show about sexual conquests. He claimed to have taken Mandy Moore’s virginity, and also:

The 26-year-old claimed Lindsay Lohan was one of the best girls he’s ever slept with, Ashlee Simpson was loud in bed and he rated Jennifer Love Hewitt an “eight” out of ten when it came to sex.

He probably thought it was cool at the time, but he must have realized his mistake because he quickly backpedaled in the press afterwards. Now what are the chances that future up and coming or established starlets are going to risk their reputations for a chance to sleep with Wilmer Valderrama. He’s proven himself to be lacking discretion and social intelligence. He should have learned the lesson of vagueness from Chris Webber.