First date tips for dudes.

A male reader wrote me to describe a recent date that he went on.  He thought it went great and noted the various IOIs she sent out, but when (four days later) he asked her to go out again, she shut him down with the “we didn’t click” excuse.  I have a feeling he’s not the only dude out there who’s experienced this very scenario, so here are my (expanded-upon) thoughts that I sent him about common first date dealbreakers that men often unknowingly fall prey to – especially when they are trying to apply game and maintain alpha frame.

Before I get into these things, men should keep in mind that while all women are the “same” in that they all have a certain set of emotional needs and desires, not all women are going to respond to the same strength of tactics.  Women who are used to attracting a lot of male attention (whether they’re beautiful or just kind of slutty) need harder game run on them than women who are shy, conservative, and/or don’t go on very many dates.  Bar kittens and unadventurous, dutiful church girls are a chasm apart in terms of what will get a positive response out of them.  Bar kittens usually need to be taken down a peg, whereas church girls need to be reassured that you have honorable intentions (well, unless you assume the role of supplicating beta).  They both want male leadership and confidence, but the way in which those qualities should manifest themselves is going to be different depending on the girl.  Also, a certain amount of what works on any girl is going to depend on the girl herself.  This is where having some social intuition comes in.  Just as there’s no one approach that works on every single girl, not every single church girl is going to respond to exactly the same game, either.

Okay, with that out of the way – here are some basics.  Yes, I know, NAWALT, so there will always be some exceptions to what I’m about to say.  You may have bumped up against one.  But by and large, especially when dealing with “good church girls,” the following hold true.

(1) Always pay. If she was the one who asked you out, offer to pay anyway.  It may sound petty, but not paying on the first date, unless the woman insisted on going dutch beforehand, is a dealbreaker.  (Even then, you should still offer to pay.)  If the woman liked you a lot and you didn’t pay, her friends will still tell her that you’re a loser for not paying, so no matter what, the well will be poisoned against you.  So just suck it up that you’ll have to pay.

Note:  EVEN IF THE WOMAN OFFERS TO PAY, YOU MUST STILL INSIST ON PAYING. In your head you may think, “Oh, she’s being fair and modern,” but ten bucks says that a church girl (and pretty much every other girl with a drop of femininity in her) will secretly be offended that you permitted her to pay and did not put up genuine resistance.  (However, if she keeps fighting you on it, let her.  But then cheekily tease her about being a feminist if she does pay.)

(2) At the end of the night, say you had a good time – IF you genuinely had a good time. Otherwise, just thank her for the chance to meet her, get to know her, and spend some time with her.  I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to tell her that you’ll call or that you should hang out again sometime – it’s too easy for men to say that and then not call or not ask for another date, which exasperates women.**  It’s better not to create expectations that can easily be dashed.  (But if you really do want to see her again, it’s fine to say that you should go out again.  If the girl isn’t interested, she’ll probably give a nebulous response like “Yeah, maybe sometime.”) Also, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask for another date immediately at the end of the first date.  I’ve had this happen before, and it really puts the woman on the spot if she’s not sure if she’s attracted to you.  (**Roissy-style players can use exasperation to their advantage, because if you stiff her on a phone call, she will definitely have you on her Ish List and will be more likely to respond when you do finally call.  But that only works if you generated enough attraction in the first place.)

(3) It’s important to be respectfully playful. Gentle teasing works well on most women. Strength of any teasing/negs must be in proportion to how much romantic male attention the woman is used to getting.  Also, the teasing needs to be OBVIOUS.  Sometimes guys play teasing too deadpan, and the girl can’t tell if he actually means it or not and may feel insulted.  (Of course, sometimes it’s just that the girl has no sense of humor, which is something that’s outside of your control.)  A little bit of playfulness can go a long way in reassuring the woman that you’re safe to be with, have a good sense of humor, and aren’t overly invested in the success of the date.  Too often men fall into the trap of treating a date like a job interview, where she’s the boss they’re trying to impress, and they start trying to be walking encyclopedias about every topic they discuss.  It’s too business-like, doesn’t focus on the woman enough, and can even be alienating if the woman doesn’t have any interest in the topic.  So injecting a little playfulness into the date can alleviate a lot of the seriousness that sometimes occurs when men are trying hard to impress.

(4) Sometimes there just isn’t any chemistry. You can both be nice people but just have nothing to say to each other.  It’s not a failure on either part when that happens.  Don’t feel bad that you couldn’t squeeze blood from a stone.

NCEG follow-up.

I previously shared a reader’s dilemma with a nerdy engineer who asked her via email for hot chocolate “next week.”  Reader emailed back a “yes” qualified by many mentions of friends and doing things as a group.  Commenters duked it out with competing advice.

All of those with any investment in Reader’s boy problems will be happy to know that said email did not destroy NCEG and that he seems to have gotten the message.  Reader wrote me:

I saw the “NCEG” with a few people last night, and he did not appear hurt, but nor did he mention hot chocolate again or really speak to me one-on-one (as he has in the past)!  I feel like he may have still been looking at me admiringly though–I can’t be sure!  And he offered to drive me home, which is in the opposite direction of where he lives.  At first I said no, but then someone else decided to get a ride with him, so I went along. Hm.  I’m hoping the right message has been sent!

“Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no'”?  Is NCEG still smitten and plotting future email invitations for hot chocolate?  You decide.

Ask her out. Then leave.

One of my earliest blog posts was on how to ask a girl out.  In that post I emphasized the importance of being direct and having a plan already in place (to show that you are intentional and have leadership skills).  I still stand by that advice, but after a conversation with a friend over the weekend where we discussed the fine art of asking someone out, I thought that some other aspects needed to be emphasized.

The first point of emphasis is that you need to create rapport with the woman before asking.  I mentioned this in my earlier post, but this is a crucial step.  If the woman does not feel comfortable with you, you will fall flat on your face no matter how well-calculated the rest of your date request is.  Ideally, you’ll have been chatting her up for anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.  She should be giving IOIs such as laughing and smiling, asking you questions, grooming herself (touching face or playing with her hair), turning her body toward you, possibly lightly touching you on the upper arm.  If you’re not getting any of these, the buying temperature is too low and you’ll probably strike out if you ask her for a date, not to mention she’ll either be shocked if you ask or annoyed that you couldn’t tell she wasn’t interested.

The second point of emphasis that I did not mention in my previous post was that after you ask her out, you need to leave.  Don’t keep talking to her.  Once you get her answer, excuse yourself and jet.  Don’t linger for another 10-15 minutes exchanging banal banter or pleasantries.  You will lose most, if not all, of the impact of successfully securing a date.  (And if you keep hanging around after getting rejected, what kind of glutton for punishment are you?)  By leaving after getting  her answer, you give her a chance to let the experience hit her (as well as squeal and run off to tell her friends).  Also, it DHVs you by showing that you’ve got other things on your plate, you don’t need to stick around for her approving assurance, and you don’t bask in self-satisfaction.

The advantages to asking this way are that (1) you get the benefit of immediacy and any advantages that your physical presence confers, and (2) if the girl doesn’t want to go out with you, it allows her to decline in the most graceful way possible.  If you ask her what her weekend plans are, she answers honestly that she’s not doing anything, and THEN you spring “wanna go out?” on her, she’s in a real bind if she doesn’t want to go out with you, and you will probably be forced to endure a poor lie.  Sure, she might be a weasel, but better a weasel who gracefully tells you she’s busy than a weasel who’s been cornered.  (On the topic of busy-ness:  I would say that if a girl says she’s busy and does not counter-offer, that’s as good as a no.  Also, the word “sometime” is not your friend, especially if used in conjunction with the word “maybe.”)

A final note:  A good way to eliminate ambiguity, at least on your end, is to touch the girl gently on the elbow when you ask her out.  No woman will misinterpret the intention behind that kind of touch.

Reader mail: help a sista out!

From a 20something female reader:

I am trying to figure out what to do about a male friend who emailed me today asking me if I’d like to go for hot chocolate with him next week!  (To be clear, I am not interested in him!)

My roommate and I have just had a discussion on whether this is a date, and what I should say in response.  This is especially tricky, because this particular guy is not actually a Christian and set foot in a church for the first time a couple of months ago–where I met him and invited him to our Bible study.  So now I am wondering if I was too friendly…but also don’t want to be rude…

My brother’s advice: This is a date, and since I am not interested, I must clearly reject him.
My roommate’s advice: There’s no way of telling whether it’s a date or if he just wants to be friends, so I should either 1) go for hot chocolate briefly and say I have to go somewhere else soon afterwards
or 2) go, but bring a couple of other people from Bible study along (even though she admitted that another man we both know says girls should never do this!)

I wrote her back, saying that I agreed with her brother and referring to her to some previous posts on the topic.  She responded with more details about the situation:

I actually agree with you and think my brother is right (my roommate–yes, female–would debate both of you, though!)  1) I had a little suspicion he was interested in me and 2) He and I are sort of friends, but more just because I was the first person to get to know him at church. He’s a nerdy engineering type who apparently graduated at the top of his class, but socially he acts younger than he is/doesn’t have very good verbal communication skills.  I do like him as a person, but I don’t think we even communicate well enough to be actual friends!  And he’s not asking me to “hang out” as a friend or do any specific activity–he’s asking me to go for hot chocolate?!  It just sounds too date-like.

So yeah, my problem is not really that a friend is asking me to hang out and then acting like it’s a date.  It’s more that someone I’m friendly with/spend a lot of time with in group settings is asking me to do something that sounds like a date (but especially over email, I can’t be 100% sure.  Or so says my roommate. I’m personally about 95% sure!).  And while I want to keep being his “friend” and definitely want him to keep coming out to group social things, I don’t want to encourage any romantic interest if it’s there.

Anyway, I replied to his email with something to the effect of, sure, maybe he and I and some other people from small group could go for hot chocolate sometime.  And I had references to “friends” and “group” in there about three times.  I’m embarrassed now because I feel like I was almost too obvious.  Gahh, I’m not good at this stuff! :(

Maybe your male commenters will have some sage advice.

Hear that, readers?  Someone thinks you have sage advice!

Anyhow, to recap:  Reader is a 20something Christian female who was nice to a socially unattractive non-Christian engineering nerd.  As fate typically has it, said nerd now has a crush on her and asked her out for “next week” via email.  Reader consulted her brother, who gave good advice, and her female roommate, who gave FREAKINGLY AWFUL advice.  Reader did not want to crush NCEG’s ego, so she tried to give hints that she is not interested by agreeing to see him…WITH A GROUP.  SOMETIME.  (Who wants to take bets that NCEG will not get the message?)

As obvious as the situation is, in practice it’s very difficult to hurt someone’s feelings when you don’t want to (i.e., when the person has put you in a difficult position where the only truthful option is to cause pain).  I probably would have reacted similarly to Reader despite knowing that I needed to shoot down NCEG.  Alas, we are trained by society to kill any impulse of bluntness, and it is a hard habit to shake, especially in a church setting, and even more so when dealing with a non-believer.

So, I’m opening the floor to the readership.  (Men, your egos may now swell.)  One, what should Reader have done, if you think she responded wrongly?  Two, what should Reader do from here on out?  Three, I’m not above taking predictions for NCEG’s next move.  Pride points to the winners.

*******

On a side note:  As hopeless as NCEG’s case is, I must give him props for at least taking a step, as beta-ish (OVER EMAIL?**  NEBULOUS TIME FRAME?) as it was.  Your typical Christian guy would probably have waited another six months, hoping that he could friend his way into her heart.

**+1 for not using Facebook.  Email is a bad way to try to get dates, but Facebook is even worse.

Oh, and P.S. to Reader:  YES, IT’S A DATE.  He wants to spend one-on-one time with you drinking a beverage.  Would you prefer a singing telegram deliver the news?  Or are such outings not typically recognized as dates in your neck of the woods?

Boundless still doesn’t get it.

A trip to Boundless is always good for getting me all het up with semi-righteous fury.  Though their advice reeks of sincerity, it tends to coddle women, castigate men, and completely ignore the biological imperatives of both sexes.  I feel like in Boundlessworld, if you just pray and believe enough, people will stop acting like…people.  Christian belief does not rewrite the biological code; it merely submits it to self-restraint.  If Christian beliefs truly overrode biology, then hot Christian men would be marrying fat and merry Christian women by the truckload, and average-looking Christian women would be dying to marry sincere but impoverished and shy Christian men.  I’m pretty sure a planet of such persons does not exist in the Milky Way.

And because Boundless does not address the harsh realities of biology, we end up with sad single Christians such as this young woman, who wrote to Candice Watters:

I am a 25-year-old Christian. I would like to have a family, and I always thought I would have met my future husband by now. Not surprisingly (as our timing is not always God’s), I haven’t. The possibility of meeting a man at all is very scarce. My church, which I love and am invested in, is very small. The young-adult scene is dominated by women, and only two of the six or so men are beyond age 20.

At first, I was praying pretty intensely for a husband, keeping a journal for him (at my friend’s suggestion), and (separately) writing to God about the characteristics I wanted my future husband to have. I did enjoy keeping the journal; I thought of it as a way to share the parts of my life I’d live before meeting him. I was doing this for several months when it hit me that my future husband may not come for another 10 years, and there are a lot of other things I could be doing and praying for in the meantime.

What I would like to know is:  WHO IS THE FRIEND WHO THOUGHT KEEPING A JOURNAL FOR HER HUSBAND WAS A BRILLIANT IDEA?  Has any man ever expressed sadness and regret that he was not privy to his wife’s most intimate thoughts prior to their meeting?  How many men have any desire to read a journalful of their wife’s every thought about, well, anything?  (Cue NAMALT chorus.)  Here is a classic case of female projection.  Like, to the nth power.  Not that Mrs. Watters addresses this aspect.  Instead, she very gently suggests to the reader that keeping a journal to her husband will send her off into a fantasy world that will prevent her from meeting actual men.  (But, wait…isn’t that what Twilight is for?)

Then there was this poor Christian beta who wrote to John Thomas:

I’ve done my best to play by the rules in terms of intentionality and avoiding passivity. My question is what to do when the woman doesn’t do likewise.

I was pursuing a young woman from my fellowship group earlier this year. I was very up-front and intentional with her from the start, making sure she never had to “guess” or “assume” what my feelings were. It was crystal clear that I was asking her on a date and not merely to hang out as friends. She agreed to the date, and it went well. Conversation was never lacking, and we got along great.

As time went on, things continued in — what I thought — was a positive direction. Our conversations were meaningful; her body language was affirming, and she even left encouraging messages on my Facebook wall (for what that’s worth).

After all this, I’ve recently discovered through a friend that this woman is not romantically interested in me and, in fact, does not even enjoy my company. This came as a surprise to me, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. But after talking to her about it, it turns out that this is true.

I am certainly not angry that the girl isn’t interested in me, because I understand that not everybody is God’s match for me. But I do find myself a little frustrated that it went on so long without any negative indications of her interest. I was very straightforward, honest and intentional with her. I don’t know why she couldn’t have done the same.

What should I do in the future to make sure we’re both on the same page and avoid this from happening again? Or is it just one of the unavoidable risks of being a man?

Now, on the one hand, I do feel for this guy, because finding out that the girl you are dating doesn’t even like being around you is cold.  But on the other hand, what does “her body language was affirming” even mean?!?!  That doesn’t sound like flirty touching or kissing.  This dude sounds like he was completely de facto LJBFed by a girl who wanted the ego massage of his attention.  And this guy isn’t even angry at her over her behavior?  MESSAGE TO DUDE:  THAT IS WHY SHE DIDN’T LIKE YOU AND WILL NEVER LIKE YOU.

Not surprisingly, Boundless can’t come up with a good answer for why this girl strung this guy along while not actually liking him.  John Thomas responds:

I can’t explain why she acted the way she acted. I am just as surprised as you are at the outcome. There isn’t anything you could have done to change the decisions she made. For all we know, in His sovereignty, God could have protected you from something He saw, but you didn’t. Maybe time will shed more light on it, but whatever the case, you can absolutely trust His good for you and for her.

So women just remain an ephemeral mystery to all of Christendom.  It might have been God.  You just can’t know.

But not men.  No, men and their wicked motives are transparent in Boundlessworld.  Carolyn McCulley recently got yet more cyberspace to remind men that they need to work harder to live up to women’s standards.  In “Gentlemen in a Digital Age,” she invokes Jane Austen as the height of a more civilized time and casts contemporary men in the role of sneaky Petes who are out to scam women on the internet.  She advises:

Be willing to become known. Yeah, it’s risky. Yeah, it can come off weird. But it doesn’t have to. You can be charming, low-key and reassuring in offering this information. Tell her why you are making the connection (“I have heard a lot about you from our mutual friends, and then I saw your profile on Facebook”). Tell her why you want to be in contact (“You sound like a lot of fun, so I’d like to get to know you a little better”). Offer information that will make you legitimate in a cesspool of spambots and viruses (“I’m sure you’d like to check me out, and that’s cool. Here’s the contact info of some people we know in common/my pastor/my family, etc. Or if you prefer I first talk to someone you know, I’d be glad to do that. Whatever makes you comfortable”).

My knee-jerk reaction to this advice was CREEPY CHRISTIAN ROBOT BEHAVIOR THAT WILL SCARE OFF WOMEN.  It’s all too much, too soon, tries way too hard, and takes ANY mystery out of the equation.  It also completely ignores the reality that women judge strangers by their looks.  If you’re not reasonably attractive, and you send a message like McCulley’s to a single Christian woman, she will not want to get to know you better, or think YOU sound like a lot of fun, or have much belief that any action you take will make her feel comfortable.

McCulley’s final paragraph is a passive-aggressive kick in the teeth to men, too:

The fine folks of Jane Austen’s world might strike us today as being a bit rigid in their manners. But they demanded character and accountability even among the limited relationships of a small town. How much wiser would we be to honor the same practices in a world without boundaries.

Translation:  You should emulate Mr. Darcy, you spineless, greedy perv.

 

Marrying someone you can’t live without.

There is a line of romantic advice that goes something like, “Don’t marry the one you can live with, marry the one you can’t live without.”

It’s a statement that’s meant to be profound in its simplicity, but the more I hear it and read it and think about it, the more I think it’s a huge load of poo.  It reeks of soulmate-ism and conjures pictures of a bedraggled, dehydrated man crawling wearily through the desert until he finds a miraculous pool of refreshing water, upon which all of his problems disappear.

What if you got married, and the next day your spouse died?  Are you going to keel over and expire because your sole tether to the mortal realm had passed on?  But those are the kinds of logical results you get when you subscribe to overemotionality.  More importantly, how, exactly, had this person managed to live prior to discovering your precious existence?  That is truly one of the great mysteries of the universe.

This statement would hold more water if it said marry the one you don’t want to live without.**  That’s what marriage really is, isn’t it?  Voluntarily choosing someone over all others every day until one of you croaks.  That’s the real love right there, not lofty paeans to volatile passion.

**The implication is that the feelings are mutual.  Otherwise, a restraining order is in your future.

Take the 12/12 Challenge!

After feeling that last weekend was devoid of any excitement whatsoever**, an idea came upon me:  Starting February 15, I should commit to going on 12 dates in the following 12 weeks.

Now, I do not know twelve unmarried, not-dating-anyone men (between the ages of, say, 26-44), so I am going to have to do some combination of (a) asking people I know to find someone to go out with me for at least 15 minutes, (b) approaching stranger-men myself and either outright asking them for dates or finagling a way to get them to ask me, and/or (c) joining an internet man menu man catalog dating site.  This is a daunting task, but I am up to the challenge.

The question is…are YOU?

I figure I must not be the only single person on this blog who is looking to break out of the rut.  If you want to join me in the 12/12 Challenge, let me know in the comments.  At the very least, the Challenge will give you an opener to use.

THE RULES:

1. Twelve dates must take place between February 15, 2011 and May 9, 2011.
2. Each date must last at least 15 minutes, i.e., NO LEMON LAWING PERMITTED.
3. You are not limited to one date per week, e.g., if you complete twelve dates in one day, that still counts.  However, you may not go on two (or more) dates with the same person in one day.
4. You can go on more than one date with the same person, i.e., going on two dates with Person A equals two dates for the purposes of the 12/12 Challenge.
5. If you go on more than one date with the same person, the dates must be different activities, e.g., no buying the same person coffee on five different occasions.
6. Double-dating is permitted; group dating (large group with no distinct pairings) is not.
7. No going on a date with a “bro” of the opposite sex, unless the explicit goal is to break out of bro-dom.
8. You must make it clear to the other person that you are going on a date and not just “hanging out.”
9. If someone flakes on you, it doesn’t count as a date.  You must schedule and complete another date.

If you complete the 12/12 Challenge, I will award you a personalized prize probably a drawing by me.  Just leave a comment on May 10 listing each date you went on (calendar date, first name/initial of person you went with, and what the activity was).

MAZEL TOV!

**Minus watching the U.S. Figure Skating National Championships.***

***Okay, it wasn’t the most exciting Nationals of all time.  But high-level athletic competition is inherently compelling.

You can only have two.

The Christian dating version of this:

is this:

Anthem for the gameosphere (NSFW).

Also works for Christian honeymoons!

A truth universally acknowledged.

After a certain age, when you break up with a man, he will be married to someone else within a year.

The latest example of this phenomenon?  Nathan Zacharias of Boundless, who writes that a year ago on January 8, he was depressed and distraught after a difficult break-up.  One year later, he is on his honeymoon with his “beautiful” (read “SHE’S AN 8!“) bride.

Ten bucks says his ex-girlfriend is breathing fire and drowning her sorrows in Haagen-Dazs and “You go girl!” sessions with girlfriends.  Note also that the first three comments on the post are from admiring female readers saying how “inspiring” and “encouraging” they find Zacharias’s story.  (Read:  the power of preselection!)

The lesson?  Girls, if you want to get married, find an emotionally wrecked Christian man coming off a bad break-up, smile at him, and you, too, can be married within a year!