The Rawness

In the last installment, I discussed how I met a beautiful half-Irish, half-Puerto Rican girl at a nightclub back in 1997.  I pull a bold move and call her over while she’s dancing with another guy, and to my surprise it actually works.

She comes over, and I play it cool.  Long story short, we exchange numbers.

I call her later in the week and we arrange to meet.  I pick her up in Brooklyn, where she rents a room.  In her room she has a cheesy calendar of muscular half-naked, waxed black men of dubious heterosexuality.  Kind of like a bunch of Shemar Moores on steroids.  That already makes a terrible first impression.

The plan is to go back to my place and watch some movies and eat some snacks.  As we get in the car, she’s asking me a bunch of questions.  It’s like 20 questions, she has a ton of them, but none are particularly insightful.

“How tall are you?”  “How much do you weigh?” “Are you mixed with anything?” “Are you part Chinese?” “Are you sure?” “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” “Do you like big girls?” [Wait what?] “Are you really Haitian?”

This last question she keeps coming back to.  In the 80s and a good part of the 90s, many people had very little exposure to Haitians.  And the few Haitians they often did have exposure to were a very specific subset, the poor immigrants and refugees settled in the urban centers or the ones they saw on TV when they were showing clips of starving folk.  So I’d often meet people who claimed I didn’t look Haitian, even though there are tons of people in Haiti who look just like me.  They’d expect me to look like one of the refugees or impoverished people they saw on newsreels or like one of the taxi drivers they encountered in Brooklyn.  It’s similar to how people who’ve never met many Ethiopians expects them all to look like extras from the “We Are the World” music video, when in reality many of them are quite cosmopolitan, healthy and good-looking.  Nowadays with a lot more Haitians everywhere from all walks of life, this doesn’t happen to me anymore, but back then it would be an annoying recurring conversation.  But this girl takes it to a whole other level.

“So you’re half-white?”

“No, full Haitian.”

“Chinese grandparent?”

“No, full Haitian.”

“You sure?”

“What do you mean am I sure? I think I would know.”

“Is your dad Puerto Rican?”

“What part of full Haitian don’t you get?”

“No, I mean was he maybe Haitian nationality but racially Puerto Rican?”

“Listen….Mom? Haitian.  Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Haitian.”

“You seem really touchy about your race.  What’s up with that?”

“I’m not touchy about it.  You’re the one who keeps harping on it.  I’m touchy about answering the same question over and over again.”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

“So what movie did you bring to watch?”

” ‘Money Talks’ with Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen.”

“Oh.  Really?”  That sounds like a really bad movie, I think to myself.  “Do you own anything else?”

“No, this is my favorite movie.  My favorite! It’s so funny.  Sooooooooo funny.  You’ll love it, I promise.  We have to see this one, pleeeeeeaaaasse?”

I think about it and realize that it might actually turn out to work in my favor if it’s a shitty movie.  If the movie is too good, we’ll both get engrossed in it, I’ll actually want to see it through to the end and I won’t focus on the primary mission at hand, which was sex (let’s keep it real here).  No, the more I think about it, a shitty movie is the best thing that could happen.  We’ll get distrated, stop paying attention, end up talking throughout it, making out, etc, etc.  This’ll be a great night.

We get to my apartment and enter my room.  I pop the tape into the VCR.  We sit on the bed to watch the movie.  We get about 5 minutes into the movie.

“HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAA!!!  Oh my God, did you see that?!”  She hasn’t stopped laughing since the credits started rolling.

“Uh, yeah.  I did.”

“Why aren’t you laughing?”

“It was funny, but come on, it wasn’t that funny.”

“Are you for real?”

“Are you? Come on, let’s just get back to the movie.  Stop worrying about me laughing.”

Now I won’t lie, “Money Talks” is not a terrible movie.  It isn’t particularly great either.  It’s adequate, a little bit above sitcom level comedy. Nothing groundbreaking or memorable, not the kind of movie I’d watch a second time, but the kind of movie I could slightly enjoy if I was watching it with someone else.  Anyone else.

She won’t stop cracking up for the whole movie.  I mean cracking up to the point where she’s convulsing with laughter.  She’s not only riveted to every utterance in the movie, she laughs uproariously at the dumbest parts.  Some of the lines she cracks up at the hardest I’m pretty sure aren’t even jokes.  I’m too annoyed with her antics to enjoy the movie, especially as she keeps asking me nonstop “Isn’t this the funniest?”

I realize there is no sex to be had during the watching of this movie.  It’s just not going to happen.  She’s not coming up for air between uproarious belly laughs and interrogations about why I’m not laughing harder, and on top of that I’m losing my motivation to even make any moves on her.  “Haven’t you seen this already?” I ask, hoping she’ll take a hint.

“Oh…heh…HAHAHA…I’ve seen it so many times….HA!…I lost count!”

“And it still cracks you up this much?”  [I'm normally not this snippy on dates, but this whole ordeal wore down my patience pretty quickly]

“Oh ‘Money Talks’ never gets old!”

Apparently not. I resign myself to the fact that I am not going to make any sex happen while this movie is on.  No way, no how.  But the minute it ends, though, it’s on.

So the ordeal is over.  It’s late, I’m going to have to wait until the movie’s over to make this happen.  As the movie wraps up and she wipes the tears of laughter from her eyes, we make small talk.

Then it happens.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“What’s what?”

“That.“  She points.

“You mean….my computer?”

“Yeah!  Can I see it?”

“Um….okay.  You want to look at my computer….now?  As in right now?”

“Yeah, yeah, let me see it.  What do you use it for?”

“You’ve never used one?”

“No.  Not really, my uncle had one and I used one when I was a kid…”

“Oh okay, let me show you.”  I turn on the computer and log onto the Internet.

She gets serious.  “Uh…what are you doing?”

“I’m getting on the Internet.”

“What’s that!?!”

“It’s…it’s like this big network where you can talk to anyone anywhere in the world in real-time, and your only limitation is how fast you can type.”

Her eyes widen.  “Really?” She in sincere awe at the concept.  Even in 1997 the Internet was still a pretty well-known concept so it boggles my mind someone could be totally ignorant of it, but I figure if it’s that impressive to her maybe it could help my cause.  I decide to really impress her by showing her a chatroom.

“Look at this: you can even go into something called a chatroom where a bunch of people talk to each other at once, similar to the old party lines they used to have back in the day.”  I sit her in my desk chair and stand over her shoulder behind her as I log into one.

As the words and messages in the chatroom fill the screen she starts to get visibly nervous.  “What are you doing!!!!!!??!?!” she shrieks.

“What?  What?!”

“Can they see me?!“  She launches herself from the desk chair into my bed and hides behind a comforter while looking at the computer from a distance, anxiously.

I totally lose it at this point. “Are you fucking kidding me?!  You’re joking right?”

“Are you sure they can’t see me?”

To make things worse, my roommate Grip, who hears the commotion, comes upstairs and into my room, just in time to see her cowering in bed behind a comforter, staring nervously at the computer screen.

“What happened?” he asks.

She answers “He turned on that thing and opened up a room.”

He turns to me with a look on his face of part disgust, part disbelief, part amusement and part “I am never going to let you hear the end of this one, motherfucker.”  Out of embarrassment, I make a last ditch effort to show that my date really isn’t as dumb as  she seems (even though she totally is) and I say “She’s just playing.  Isn’t that right? Always joking.”  I take her and and gently attempt to lead her back to to the computer.

She lets out a scream like “AIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!  No!” and starts pulling back, like a tug of war, with me trying to pull her to the computer and her trying to pull away, with Grip just surveying it all, not knowing whether to laugh at me now or mercifully wait until later.

And it was at this moment I make an astounding personal breakthrough, one that every man must learn at some point but many never do: sometimes, no matter how hot she is, sometimes the chance of getting sex just isn’t worth it.  Grip leaves my room, thinking of the thousand and one ways he’ll give me grief over this for the coming year.  Meanwhile, I turn off the computer and the two of us settle in on the bed.  She’s got that come hither look, like it’s finally time to make that move.  And I say those magic words.

“Time to go.”  She had a look of disbelief.

She leaves me about 50 messages after that date, each one increasingly angrier and erratic as time keeps passing and I don’t call back.  Sometimes I still wonder where she is.  She was truly one of a kind.

First things first, click here to follow me on Twitter.  When I get enough people signed up I plan to do something fun and interactive with it.  But I won’t discuss it in any further detail until I have enough followers.

One night in 1997 I went out with the fellas to a hip-hop party being DJ-ed by old school legend DJ Red Alert at a spot called Downtime in Manhattan.  Nice spot, the music was great, the place was packed with just-dirty-enough chicks, my game was on fire, it had all the makings of a good night.

For anyone who doesn’t know much about New York, what you need to know is we’re renowned for our pizza, bagels, cheesecake and thirsty, thirsty thirsty ass dudes.  I mean Sahara thirst.  Just got out of jail, locked up in solitary most of the time with no lotion and a mouth too dry to even spit on your hand type of thirst.  As a result cockblocking is out of control here, especially in the dog-eat-dog world of hip-hop parties.  If you immerse yourself in enough of these spots, not only do you have to have your cockblock defenses up all the time, you have to refine your own cockblock game just to remain competitive.  Luckily I had just returned to NYC from living in Buffalo for a few years, one of the few places on the East Coast with thirstier guys than NYC, so I was well ahead of the local game in my defensive and offensive cockblocking skills.  It’s like doing combat in the Marines for a few years then coming back to your small town and joining the local police force.  Buffalo is like CB Special Forces for real.

I’m dancing with some girl and this guy keeps hovering around us.  He’s sticking to the periphery, hoping I don’t notice him.  If I was a rookie I probably wouldn’t have, but as a graduate of Buffalo nightclub game I’m endowed with 360-degree cockblock vision so dude was on my radar right away, but I didn’t pay it much mind at first.  The girl and I are dancing close, facing each other, and the pest keeps trying to stay out of my sight while catching her eye.  He’s winking, licking her lips, doing all this slick shit.  This annoys the hell out of me, especially after three songs or so.  She doesn’t smile back or do much to acknowledge him because she’s busy talking to me.  She’s basically ignoring him.

I finally ask, “Yo, who is that dude?  Do you know him?” 

She responds, “Oh, he’s a guy danced with for a song earlier who won’t leave me alone.  I’ve been blowing him off all night.”

Dag, that’s thirsty.  Worse, a bum like this isn’t just hurting himself, he’s contributing to blowing the girl’s ego out of control, which hurts everyone, most importantly me.  He then positions himself real close to us the side with his back to us like he’s not paying us any mind.  (Remember, he still thinks I’m not on to him)  I notice his hand behind his back facing outward, moving closer to hers.  Now I’m in a pickle: if I call him out over some girl I just met, I get into a dispute over a girl I don’t even care about and just boost her ego even more.  Women love when guys fight over them.  Even though the dispute would really be over his disrespect of me and would have nothing to do with her, that’s not how it would register in her brain.  But at the same time the longer I let him stand there doing slick shit, the worse I look.  The place is too crowded to just move elsewhere easily.  I refuse to leave the girl alone for him to swoop back in just out of principle at this point.  I didn’t care about hooking up with her at this point, I just wanted to make sure he didn’t (because I can be petty sometimes, sue me).  When you are willing to crash and burn in the process of ruining another guy’s chances, this is known as the Kamikaze Cockblock.

I let my hand brush against his.  He obviously thought it was hers and he took it (I have small hands for the record (not that that implies anything of course (no, really, it doesn’t))).  Then this bitch-ass actually starts writing letters in my hand.  This is the kind of desperation move thirsty guys do that just blows my mind, because not only is it horrendous but even if on the off chance it works, how can you respect yourself after?  Even if you win you’re a loser.  At life.  So I tell her, “This nigga’s seriously writing letters in my palm right now.  He thinks it’s you.  Watch this.”  And I start writing back, but looking straight ahead with a poker face.  She starts cracking up, which just makes him think she’s loving what he’d doing to “her.”  I see him start smiling too.  She and I are just cracking on the guy for about five minutes like our own personal in-joke.

When I think I’ve let the guy dig a big enough hole for himself, I squeeze his hand firmly.  He looks back, surprised.  I slowly wink at him with a totally creepy deadpan expression, still holding his hand.  The dude’s jaw drops and the girl bursts out laughing right there.  The guy just bolts. 

Fun fact: the average NY guy has become ten times as thirsty in the 10 years since this story took place. Especially in hip-hop clubs.  A desert nomad couldn’t top the stories of NYC thirst I’ve heard in recent years.  It really is no wonder a girl can be a strong 6 at best here and still walk around like she just finished booking the cover of Vogue and Maxim on the same day. 

Later on I’m at the bar, its near the end of the night and I’m pretty drunk.  On the dance floor is a couple dancing, and I notice the girl seems to be looking at me.  She’s really attractive, with a slightly exotic look I’d discover later was a Puerto-Rican/Irish mix.  I don’t pay it much mind, but each time I glance it that direction I can swear she’s looking at me.  Her expression is blank, not flirty.  She’s pretty far away, and the club is pretty crowded so she really could be looking at someone else or just staring in my general direction.  It’s so far away I can’t even be sure she can see me clearly.

I think, “What do I have to lose?  Let’s see what happens.”  I put on my best Blue Steel face, lean back against the bar, cock my head back, raise my hand to my hip and do that “come hither” thing with my fingers at her.  She just keeps staring in my direction blankly.  Did that even register?  Can she even see me from that far? I try it again, extra cocky this time.  Nothing.  She’s still dancing with the guy.

Oh well, it was worth a shot.  I turn to the bartender and order a beer.  Takes less than a minute.  I turn back around and inches from my face is the same girl.

Her, half-defiantly, “You called me over?”

Holy shit, that actually worked?!?!  I can’t believe it myself, but no way am I letting her know that.  Even though in the years following I will disavow cockblocking in general as a dating concept, at the moment I’m particularly proud of this one.  I play it off like this is my everday norm.

Me: “You know I did.”

Her: “Do I know you?”

Me: “You will.”

Little do I know I have just met the hands-down dumbest girl I will ever date.

Will be continued…

Lions

Years back, I was hitting the bar scene in the Lower East Side of NYC. The night was still young, and my boy Grip and I were in the last stop of our pub crawl, feeling just buzzed enough, and then 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 guy 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 continued, 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. Don’t let society emasculate you!”

Grip and I started getting pumped. “Fuck yeah!!! We’re getting laid tonight! Lions!” We kept going back and forth like this, 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 self-esteem 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 is 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 and well beyond coherent at this point and were just trying to having a casual conversation with each other and barely succeeding. We gave up on chicks at this point. We look over at the other end of the bar and see our new African friend from earlier talking to this short, stocky pasty-complexioned overweight 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 flattery, eagerness and niceness. 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 cocky 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!” Then I remembered the advice about treating a hot girl like an ugly girl and acting arrogant.

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 demanding? 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. They were loving the cockiness. I’ve got them now. 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 charmed them both a little bit more, 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 wanted to convey to her that I had zero neediness and unlike most guys was not desperate.

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. All I had to do is wait for to come to me. It was a guarantee.

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. She didn’t budge. I just kept hitting her with cockiness, aloofness and little playful teasing insults, and she just seemed to be loving it.

No one was more shocked than me. I just 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.

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?

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