Monthly Archives: August 2009

Style Is Your First Impression

Your clothes are talking about you, whether you like it or not.

There is a saying in some psychology circles that you and I are always communicating. You can’t not communicate. If you are talking, you are communicating something,a nd if you are not talking, you are also communicating, just not verbally.

Our clothing always communicates something about us. The way I dress can communicate how I feel about myself, how much time I spent gettign ready, how important looking good is, and how I want to interact with people.

And that’s just for starters.

Clothing is one of the first things we notice about a person, and you and I, very quickly, create an idea of what kind of person someone is, just by the way they dress.

This happens whether we want it to or not, it is one of the realities of the world.

This week I’ll be writing about fashion, style, and how knowing about fahion can help you convey your personality to women. Today, I want you to think about the impression you make with your clothing.

Aspects of fashion that go into this overall impression that fashion gives are:

What clothes you decide to wear
How well your clothes fit
What style you are going for, and how well you are actually pulling it off
How well your style follows the rules of style
When those rules are broken, is it intentional?
How fancy, or how casual, you are dressed

And on and on and on. For today, I’d just like you to think about what kind of impression you think your clothing makes. What does the fashion that you wear say about you. Are you fun? Serious? Casual? Rich? Poor?

Also, think about the impression that you would like to make. What do you want people to think about you when they see you. They are going to think something, so it might as well be whatever you would like them to think.

You cannot hide from fashion, because you are always conveying something with your clothing, even when you aren’t trying to convey anything (because that itself conveys something).

As you walk down the street today, take some time to notice how people dress, and what you can determine about who that person is from that. You may surprise yourself that you find yourself creating very vivid pictures in your mind about who someone is, just from how they dress (and of course, some other things like body language and facial expressions).

After you have spent the day people watching, stand in front of your mirror, and think about the picture you create in your head about a person dressed like you are. This is a fun exercise, and you may be surprised by what you see.

Also, if you have any questions about style, fashion, and how this can work for you or against you in the dating scene, leave a comment to this post and ask it. I will do my best to answer your questions in the posts that will be coming out this week.

= = = = = = = = = =

When you are ready to super charge your fashion, and learn to dress so that women think you are the best dressed guy they’ve seen all day, get Lance Mason’s Dress For Success home study program.

Lance is the founder of PickUp 101, a company dedicated to teaching men how to meet and date more women by bringing out their naturally attractive self. I credit Lance with teaching me more than anyone else about success with women, and now I work with him and coach for PickUp 101.

I watched this program myself, and was surprised how this DVD set goes beyond merely discussing what to wear. This program goes in depth into what exactly your fashion communicates about you. When you understand how fashion communicates with women, you can use this to help you meet and date hotter women, and be the best dressed guy in town.

The 3 DVD set is jam packed with style and fashion tips. Even more than fashion, you will learn the language of fashion that most men have little or no clue is being spoken.

For about the price of a nice dinner for two (including a decent bottle of wine), you get the 3 DVD set, a workbook to go with the DVD programming, and a fancy storage container for the whole set.

Click here to get Dress For Success at the Pickup 101 Website

Every one of Lance’s programs come with a money back guarantee, you literally have nothing to lose by trying out this program. If the program doesn’t work out, you can send it back within 6 weeks for a complete refund.

Check it out here:

Click here to get Dress For Success at the Pickup 101 Website

Be the Geek, Nerd or Dork That Women Love

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Geeky stuff is fun. It really just is a fact of life. Geeky stuff is just cool. It’s fun to play with, mess around with, and be into.

Women are also really fun. I can go on and on about the ways that women are amazing and fun, but I think you already know.

Liking one does not preclude liking the other. Have your cake, and eat it too.

I have heard geeky guys say that beautiful women would not be interested in a nerdy guy like them, but that isn’t necessarily true. You can be a geek, or nerd, or dork, and still meet amazing women, and make them a part of your life.

This is the last of my Dating For Dorks articles for now, and I want to sum it all up and leave you with a final thought on this.

I started this series by admitting that I am a comic book geek. I love them. I travel around the country to go to comic book conventions. I am partial to Star Wars as well. In fact, I am in to pretty much all geeky things. My only real exceptions are that I am not really a Trek fan, and I’ve never played D&D.

My love of all things geeky has never been a deal breaker with women, but I follow certain guidelines to keep it that way.

I Have a Full, Balanced Life

I love the geek stuff. I have a whole lot more going on in my life than just my love of comics though, and that is important. If I were to never read a comic again, and get rid of my collection, I would have plenty of other things happening in my life. I am an artist, and engineer, writer, web designer, have various groups of friends, can get people together to have fun, and can throw a good party. Just for starters.

If all I had going on in my life was my comics, I would not be very cool. I would have little to share with others, and it might be harder to relate with other people that aren’t comic geeks like me.

This balance of other stuff in my life other than comics is crucial for being a cool guy who happens to love geeky stuff, and not just a geek.

I am Comfortable With My Geekery

I am completely comfortable with this geeky side to my life, and never feel like I have to downplay, defend, or explain my interests. The more comfortable I am with my huge comics collection, the more comfortable women are with me having it.

The first of the two biggest mistakes I could make would be to try to downplay my interest, and try to play it off like I’m not really that into it (even though I am). The second of the two biggest mistakes I could make would be to try to defend my hobbies, and try to explain the reason why I like the stuff I like.

Both of these things happen when someone is insecure about their interests, and fear that others will judge them for their interests. The first step is to not judge yourself, then to not care if others judge you. When you do this, it turns out that folks won’t judge you for this.

I Don’t Feel Like I Need To Share This With Her

I know that no woman I date will ever like comic books or Star Wars as much as I do. I don’t expect her to either. I have found that I have to keep this in perspective.

It seems like it would make sense for us to share the things we love with our women. I am very comfortable having my geeky hobbies be my own thing that I don’t share with women however. I’ve got friends I can get together with and geek out with, and don’t feel compelled to make her love the stuff as much as I do.

I also would never let comics become more important than it should be. I keep my priorities right, and I am pursuing a number of my goals and passions that are important to me. My geeky hobbies are just that, hobbies, and I don’t let myself get so wrapped up in them that I lose track of what I think is really important.

It’s Up To You

If you let your geekiness hold yourself back, then it will. If you don’t let the fact that yo are a nerd impact your ability to be a cool guy, then it won’t. It is up to you to decide what this means to you, and up to you to get what you want in life and not to compromise.

You can be a dork. You can also meet and date beautiful women. You are not Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, you are your own person, and your destiny and identity are in your hands.

I want nothing less than for every nerdy, dorky guy to decide that they aren’t going to let any of their interests and hobbies hold them back, and to make themselves the coolest guys around.

The geek shall inherit the earth, why not take it a step further, and dominate it.

How to Be the Geek of Her Dreams

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I think that every guy who has some dorky habits dreams of finding the perfect woman, beautiful, fun, loving, and loves all of our geeky habits. She reads Spider-Man comics, loves anime, has a Slave Leia outfit, and may or may not speak Klingon (at least a few words).

I actually do have a friend who has found himself the perfect geek woman. One of the stops on their honeymoon was to a comic book convention, he had a Green Lantern ring made of Amethyst and Diamonds for Valentine’s Day, and they can actually use both the sentence, “we talked about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for an hour”, and “we weren’t expecting things to go so well” to describe their first date.

I am very happy for them, and they are very happy together.

It is pretty rare though for a man to find a woman who shares his love for all things geek.

Have you been to a comic book convention? The guy to girl ratio is pretty darn high. It is not a place to go to have good chances of finding love. I hear Star Trek and Sci-Fi conventions are even worse (I’ve never been to one – honest!)

Most of the time, the geeky guy ends up dating a less geeky woman, just as a result of numbers. And that’s great! I’ve never dated a woman that was really into any dorky stuff. One of them said she really liked Star Trek, but she never really acted on it. She may have just been trying to impress me..

So now you’ve got a girlfriend, or a woman you are dating, because you have followed all my other awesome advice on this blog, and you are wondering how you can share your love of all things geek with her.

It makes sense, after all. I love comics. I really really love comics. I think the medium is incredibly fun, amazing, and has incredible potential for storytelling and communication. I also just love geeky comics of Batman kicking butt (or just making drawings on the walls of caves way back in time, as he seems to be doing now).

Of course I would love to share my love of this with a woman. It’s important to me.

But then again, there is reality

I came to a stark conclusion after a few desperate attempts to share with women just why comics are so cool: They don’t care. No matter how much I love comics, that isn’t going to transfer over to her. She’s not ever going to love Star Wars even a tenth as much as I do. It just isn’t going to happen.

An even more important conclusion for me was when I realized that not only was she never going to be really interested in what I like, was when I realized that I was OK with that. I don’t mind that she doesn’t love my geeky stuff. I still enjoy it just as much.

Of course, if she does show an interest, I am prepared to share some stuff with her. I’ll give her a Strangers In Paradise book, Sandman, or Bone, and see how she likes that. If she likes it, I’ll give her more. If she shows any interest in Anime, I’ll watch Totoro with her, or some other Miyazaki film. If she is interested in some Sci-Fi I’ll take her to the latest Star Trek movie, or give her Stranger in a Strange Land to read. I’ll test the waters to see if she groks it. What I won’t do is overwhelm her with the stuff I love, or put any pressure on her to try it out.

Maybe she won’t ever be interested though. That is fine. I actually am not too interested in dating a woman that likes comics or Star Wars. I like having my own hobbies and interests. I’ve found ways to allow that side of me, those geeky hobbies, to flourish, without the need to share them with the women I date.

For one, I do them on my own time. I would never sit around and read a comic when spending time with a woman, or when she comes over to hang out. I enjoy my time with her, and leave the geeky stuff for my own time.

Also, I have found like minded guys who also love the stuff I love. I get to share this with them. I’ve got a decent group of comic geeks that I know in my area. Every now and then we will get together for a day, maybe go on a crawl to a bunch of comic shops, or go see some geeky movie, like we did when Wolverine: Origins came out in the theater. I got to really relish in my geekiness, without the need to share it with any women.

Keep it in perspective

back in college, my girlfriend was talking about some of the guys in her dorm building, and how disgusting she thought it was that they just played video games all the time. They just wasted their time on silly games.

What I didn’t tell her was that I wished I could just play video games all the time.

What women want is a man that has passions and inspiration in his life, and works to do and achieve stuff in line with those passions. It is one of those qualities of a man that is almost universally attractive. It goes back to the saying that the best way to meet women is to have something better to do than to meet women.

This goes back to the second post in this series about dating for dorks, when I wrote about having other things in your life besides your geekeries. If all you do with your time is read comics, or play video games, or perfect your Klingon fighting technique and language pronunciation, then yes, you may have a hard time finding a woman who finds that attractive. When it is just a small part of the overall picture, then you are in good shape.

Sometimes, at the end of the week, I want nothing more than to hop on my Xbox 360 and play Call of Duty with some friends and decompress from a week of working. I don’t do that every night though, nor would I want to. Nor would my women want me to either.

When you’ve got the rest of your life under control, then spending your extra time on your geekery of choice is no big deal. Better yet, you can do what my friend Dave does, and align his passions with his geekeries. Read his web comic, Space-Time Condominium. Dave is a geek at heart, but his passions are in making and drawing comics. He does both, and it shows in what he does and how he behaves. Plus, I mention him because he is an amazing wingman.

Don’t stop loving your geeky stuff, just find the time to love it, and don’t push it on the women in your life. Live and let live.

Coming up in the next post: I have no idea what.

Your Attitude Will Create Her Attitude

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Dating for Dorks continues. See the last couple posts for more on this subject.

Often times, us dorks think that we have to hide our nerdiness from women.

If we could, we would put all our toys, video games, comics, DVDs and D&D books away in some iron clad chamber where they would never be found.

For the non-geeky reading this, I want you to understand what it feels like.

Believe it or not, most people think geeks are lame

The stereotypes of people that like geeky stuff are pretty bad. Imagine comic book guy from the Simpsons, or a D&D nerd, or some weird kid that watches too much anime.

The thing is, geeky fanaticism for comics or star trek is just as geeky as going to a football game, dressing up in your team’s colors, and playing fantasy football. It is the same as a woman getting dressed up with her friends in dresses and heels, going to watch the Sex and the City movie and drink Cosmos.

D&D and Star Trek get looked down on by society far more than football and Sarah Jessica Parker do however. Us dorks have years of social retards and [fairly true] stereotypes that helped shape what people think of our hobbies.

All of this can make a guy fairly defensive or cautious with this stuff. I have read threads on comic book discussion forums about guys that were scared to tell their girlfriend that they read comics, and threads asking other people if and how they hide their hobby from people.

The key to making women comfortable

What I have discovered is that women will be just as comfortable with my dorky hobbies as I am. That is really all you need to know.

I’ll expand on this anyway though…

My dorky hobbies are just one part of my life. I have plenty of other stuff going on in my life, as I talked about in my last post. I don’t hide the fact that I have these dorky habits. I tend to keep a couple graphic novels laying around on my coffee table, I’ve got an awesome Batman with a Green Lantern Ring action figure on top of my fridge, a Cobra Commander figure in front of my computer monitor on my desk, and I even still have a copy of Iron Man #128 in my liquor cabinet.

Like I said, I don’t hide it. I don’t, however, flaunt it outrageously. I keep all my comics put away in my closet, along with most of my other stuff. I’ve just got a few of my favorite things out around my apartment, but most of it is put away where it belongs. When a woman walks in to my apartment, she isn’t walking in to Sean’s Amazing Dungeon of Comics and Toys.

Clearly, I’m not hiding all of this stuff from people. I don’t even talk about it unless they ask. If they do, I don’t make a bigger deal of it than it is.

The important thing for her to know isn’t that I am a geek, but that I am secure with myself, and that is why I don’t make a big deal about it. If she asks about it, or it comes up, I mention it, and maybe joke about it a little bit.

Her: “You read comics?”

Me: “Yeah, I love all that geeky shit”

~or~

Her: “How many GI Joe figures do you have?”

Me: “Well, I have to have enough to recreate the assault on Cobra Island [with a smirk]”

The 2 things NOT to do

There are two things I don’t do, and that is to try to downplay it or explain it. Both of these responses display a little bit of insecurity about your habits and hobbies. The insecurity is far less attractive than liking comic books and GI Joe ever could be.

When someone downplays something they will try to excuse it, or make it seem like an accident. They might say something like, “oh, that’s just some old junk”, or I tried it out, but I don’t really like it that much” or something like that. Don’t downplay your habits.

The other response that shows some insecurity is to try to explain it. If a woman asks me about my comic book hobby, and I were to try to explain to her that comics have really matured and that there is a lot of really good stuff out there and it’s not all just kid’s superhero stuff, then I would be trying to make excuses or explain it.

This is just a way of being defensive about something, and defensive behavior is almost always insecure behavior.

If you like something that is pretty dorky, or have a collection of the geekiest thing imaginable, be secure about it, and drop the need to defend, explain, or downplay it.

What if she doesn’t give up on it?

Often times, just being comfortable with your loves and hobbies will be enough for a woman to be comfortable with it.

From time to time, a woman may push the point though, and really dig into you about it. They may challenge you, call the hobby immature, whatever. The trick in these situations is to banter. In particular, the two types of banter I would use would be to self-deprecate and to exaggerate on the point.

When I say self-deprecate, I mean to take what she is saying about you that may be thought of as lame or dorky, and make it worse. Take it to the next level of dorkiness, and describe yourself as that. Exaggeration does pretty much the same thing. Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.

Her: Why do you have that figure? [pointing to Cobra Commander]
Me: Oh, that’s Cobra Commander. He’s there as a reminder that I should be taking over the world.
~or~
Her: Wow, you are a dork!
Me: If you think this is bad, you should see my place when I have the Star Wars bed sheets on.
~or~
Her: You know these kinds of toys are for kids, right?
Me: Well, they were out of the special limited edition variant, so I had to get this one.

All in all, the point of all of this is that you should be secure with yourself, secure about what you like, and not let anybody throw you off of that.

In the next post I will talk about sharing your dorky habits with women, and whether you even should in the first place.

You are not your toys and your comics

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This is the second in a series of posts on Dating for Dorks. I admitted a lot of my geeky indulgences yesterday. I am a dork.

For the few years after I graduated college, I was kind of, well, depressed. I was dealing with the sudden realization that my life would be no more than what I made of it, and that was coupled with the pain of losing the love of my life.

I got into this funk, and a lot of how I spent my time was reading comics and watching anime. Not very cool.

I eventually got out of my funk, but a lot of my geeky habits stayed.

I learned that obsessing over these hobbies of mine would not really be the best of ways to meet women. I got this idea from the fact that my female friends would roll their eyes whenever I brought up comics, cartoons, or Gundam.

My love of comics is a part of who I am, and I am happy about that. I love comic books, and believe in it as a medium for entertainment, storytelling, and art. But that’s not all I am.

If you took away my comics, kept me from buying more, and stopped me from ever seeing my comic geek buddies, I would still be a full person, with plenty of varying hobbies and interests. While I do love comics, I do not let that define me.

I think that where some guys go wrong is that they let their geeky habit define them to the point that they seem obsessed with it. If your geeky hobby were completely taken away from you, would you be left with other things in your life to define you?

If you would still have a fun, fulfilling life, then no problem. You’re not a hard case. If, without these things, you have trouble figuring out what you’re all about, then I suggest taking a look at that. That is a sign that maybe you could fill up your life with more stuff other than your geeky hobbies.

I don’t want anyone to change who they are, particularly not so that they can meet women. What I do want is for us to grow, and become fuller people with richer lives.

I’m saying all of this based on an assumption. I’m gonna assume that you, being dorky like you are, aren’t interested in dating a woman who is as much of a geek as you. If you are looking for that, then go out and find it. Figure out where women that like what you like are, and go meet them.

If you have trouble talking about something that excites you in your life without talking about Blackest Night, or how the new Trek movie was a travesty to the former glorious Star Trek legacy, then I think you will have trouble talking to a woman who isn’t interested in these things.

Any man that wants to meet and date women that are not interested in the same geeky stuff may have some trouble relating to a non-geeky girl.

(On a side note, women have their own geeky stuff, it’s just called Sex In The City instead of Star Wars)

The first thing that you’ve gotta do when you’re a geek is to move beyond your geeky habits, and add more to your life so that your geekeries are just one part of an overall full life.

Coming up next: How, and when, to share your love for all things geek with women.

Does this sound like you?

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You’ve read The Lord Of The Rings more than once. You may even make it an annual tradition.

You have stacks of comic books laying around your apartment that you haven’t read or put away in your boxes yet. In fact, you are a top 20 poster (by number of posts) on an internet comic book discussion forum.

You have made a joke about someone wearing a red shirt, and how they probably won’t survive long.

You can name all 13 original members of the G.I. Joe team (without reference), and you know who the “14th” original Joe was, and who he was a reference to.

You have used “frakking” as a swear word.

THACO. You know it.

Of course you have seen Cowboy Bebop, in the original Japanese with subtitles, of course. None of that dub crap.

You have lost an entire night’s sleep due to Starcraft.

Transformers? Best toy ever.

You’ve thought about what you would do if the Zombie Apocalypse happens. You’ve got Mad Max contingencies too.

You have a batman action figure on top of your refrigerator.

You have painted Warhammer miniatures before. In fact, it is possible you painted an entire goblin warhammer army. Possibly.

Just being a few feet away from Leonard Nimoy was very exciting. Heck, even Brent Spiner was pretty cool.

You number of times you have seen the Star Wars movies is a 3 digit number. In fact, you camped out overnight to see Episode 1 at midnight the day it came out. Oh, and you own a few Star Wars t-shirts.

You have flown across the country to go to a comic book convention, and San Diego Comic-Con was a blast this year!

Who is this loser?

I am describing someone I know very well.

In fact, I’m describing me. Everything above describes me. No exaggeration.

I am, for all intents and purposes, a dork. My specialty within the geeky genres is comic books and Star Wars. I have about 3,000 comics in my closet, carefully stored away in plastic bags and boxes. My most prized book is my copy of Showcase 22, the first appearance of Green Lantern from 1959.

There was a time when I had read pretty much every Star Wars novel that had been released, and I once played Star Wars trivial pursuit, and you know how if you get the answer correct you get to keep going? Well, I won on my first turn.

If you want to discuss the merits vs. the weaknesses of Superman, you should sit down and get comfortable. This might take a while, and I may ask you to read Action Comics 775 to prove my point.

Who needs women when you have Trek?

Dorks are stereotyped as being pretty bad with women. It doesn’t matter what kind of dork you are: Comic geek, D&D nerd, Trekker, Star Wars dork, Otaku, or gamer, the stereotype is there, and often times fairly true.

I like all this geeky stuff, but I don’t let it get in the way of meeting and dating women.

I have never hid any of my geekeries from women (except Warhammer), in fact the huge pile of longboxes that hold all my comics has been pretty hard to ignore. This has never made a woman decide to leave my bedroom though.

I got the full 3 day pass to Wondercon this year, San Francisco’s biggest comic book convention, but I also met a woman out at the bar after the convention with all my geeky comic nerd friends, took her home that night, and dated her for a while. Yes, she knew I was going to the convention all weekend.

This week’s theme is dating for dorks.

I have read about folks that have dated a woman for years without telling her that he collects comics, out of a fear of how she will react.

Some dorks will not let their freak flag fly, or just resign themselves to believing that no woman could love them because of their nerdy indulgances.

You don’t have to give up on your beloved comics, or movies, or games. You can date fantastic women too. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

All week I’m gonna have posts about how to have your cake, and eat it too.

Because after all, there will be cake.

And this cake is not a lie.

My Decisions Kick Your Goal’s Ass

I used this method to quite smoking

Last New Year’s Eve I was thinking about what I want to change in the new year, as usual. One thing I wanted to change was smoking. I wanted to stop smoking.

I wasn’t a heavy smoker, mainly a social smoker, but in the last couple months of 2008, I found myself smoking more and more, to the point where I was smoking pretty much every day.

So I decided not to smoke any cigarettes in 2009.

It is five months later, and I haven’t had a cigarette since New Year’s Eve.

Decisions are different than goals

There is something very different about making a decision than setting a goal.

You decide to go grocery shopping, you don’t make it a goal.
You decide to go to work each day, it isn’t a goal.
You decide to buy a new pair of running shoes, you don’t set a goal to do it.

The difference is that decisions get done. Goals? Maybe.

When I decide to do something, I do it, and this is fundamentally different to me than setting a goal. When I stopped smoking, I got a lot of cravings for cigarettes. The first month or so, I reaaally wanted one. I knew, however, that I had decided I wasn’t going to have one.

It didn’t matter that I wanted the cigarette, because I had decided I wasn’t going to have one, so I didn’t. After all, why would I do something I decided not to do?

Give it the Decision Test.

If you are setting a goal, you are probably setting action items to go with it.

A goal without actions to achieve the goal is going to be hard to achieve.

(It is better to figure out what kind of results you want, and then figuring out what actions are necessary to make that result happen, but I digress)

Once you have these action steps, no matter what it is, put it to the decision test. Just decide to do it. See how that feels. Once you have decided to do it, it is a part of your life. You’re going to do it, because you decided to.

You can’t fail now!

If there is something you want to accomplish, see if you can just decide to do it. If you can’t decide to do it right now, then maybe it isn’t the right time yet to make this decision. Scale it back, wait a while, and make a smaller decision.

Art of Rapport students get results

Following nervousness will make you a better man

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Nervousness is an outdated survival mechanism that is no longer relevant.

Now, before I go on, I want to be clear that I am talking about nervousness with women. And let’s face it. Many men get nervous around women, especially very attractive women.

I asked out my high school girlfriend after I ran into her at the beach one summer between my junior and senior year. I was hanging out with my sister, and my sister had to heavily encourage me to get over my nervousness and ask her for her phone number and out on a date.

I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest because my heart was beating so hard.

I thought the nervousness would kill the first time I approached a woman I didn’t know (the dreaded cold approach).

This was my first semester after transferring to UC Berkeley for Engineering School, and there was one girl in one or two of my classes that was drop dead gorgeous. I spent five minutes walking a ways behind her as I worked up the courage to approach her, fumble over my opening lines, and introduce myself.

Oh, the nervousness hurt. But in both of these cases, it was the right thing to do. Absolutely the right thing to do.

I dated that girl I walked up to on the beach for 5 years, and I fell crazy in love with her. The girl at I followed through campus, building up my courage to talk to ended up being very friendly, and though I fumbled over everything I did when I met her, I learned that I wouldn’t die if I approached a gorgeous woman.

Why was I even nervous? Neither of these situations ended poorly, and really, neither of them could have gone really poorly. The worst that could have happened would be that the girl tell me she wasn’t interested. No real harm there.

So why was I so nervous?

I’m hardwired to get nervous around beautiful women. We all are to some degree. What’s going on in these situations is that we are doing something a little bolder than we are used to doing.

We get nervous when we do something outside of our comfort zone. All sorts of things push people outside of our comfort zones:

Public speaking
Parachuting out of airplanes
Job interviews
Asking for a raise at work
…and talking to beautiful women

Often times, there is some sort of risk involved when something makes us nervous. When jumping out of an airplane, there is a risk of the parachute not working. When going for a job interview you might not get the job. You might antagonize your boss when you ask for a raise.

There isn’t much risk in meeting a woman though. Even the risks that people often think exist don’t really exist. “What if everybody sees me get shot down?” In reality, most of the guys will be respecting the man that takes that risk to approach the woman, something they didn’t have the guts to do.

“What if she shoots me down?” Well, you won’t have any less than you have now.

With women, often times nervousness points out the right thing to do.

If approaching a woman makes you nervous, then you should probably approach her.
If talking to a woman makes you nervous, then you should probably be talking to her
If asking a woman out on a date makes you nervous, then you should ask her out.
If kissing a woman makes you nervous, then it is probably the right time to kiss her.

If you do these things that make you nervous when you are around women, it will expand your comfort zone, and increase your comfort with meeting women, dating women, and moving your relationships with women forward.

If you want to get better at meeting women, better at flirting with them, better at dating the women that makes your hair on your arms stand up, there will some things that you will have to do that will make you nervous.

You will have to do things that make you nervous. You will have to do things that you don’t want to do because it makes you nervous when you think about it. When you do it anyway, you will grow, and become a more confident, self-assured man.

Recognize nervousness for what it is, the path to greatness.

Should you buy her a drink? When to, and when not to buy a woman a drink at a bar

5 Replies

Buying a woman a drink can be a nice part of the dating ritual as the two of you get to know each other and discover more and more that you like each other.

It can also be a way to lose money trying to be nice for a woman who is using you to get something (wow, that sounded harsh). Or it can be a way to bribe a woman into spending time talking to you.

No man likes to be used for his money and taken for a ride, which is what it can feel like when a man buys a woman a drink, then she takes off after 5 minutes of talking, or worse, leaves right after you hand her the drink you just bought her.

There are women that will go out just to have guys buy drinks for them. They like to find a guy who will buy them drinks, and in some cases, that is even their M.O. when they go out.

And I think that’s fine. More power to them. If a woman wants to put her womanly charms to work, then she should go for it. This blog is, after all, all about putting our masculine charms to work for us. I may have plenty of double standards, but not about this.

Women have every right to get drinks bought for them by men that want to buy them drinks.

I’m just not going to be one of those men.

I will buy a drink for a woman when things are moving along, and we are getting to know each other more and more. I believe that this is part of being a gentleman, and just as I would open the door for her and make sure she is safe, I would buy her a drink.

Knowing the difference between these two situations is important. I’ve screwed this up plenty of times, and learned from it. This post is about what I have figured out.

Also, as a special bonus, I’m gonna give you the best choice when a woman asks you to pick a drink for her. If you have asked a woman what she’s drinking and she says, “just pick something for me”, you’re gonna want to read this part. That’s at the end, so make sure you read all the way through.

As a second special bonus, I am going to give you the best answer when a woman offers to buy you a drink.

Don’t be an infomercial salesman

Don’t exchange a drink for a woman’s time.

If I ever catch any of you approaching a woman and asking to buy her a drink right off the bat, I am gonna slap you.

Lead with personality, not bribes. I have a whole category on this blog about leading with personality.

So how is this a bribe? When a man offers to buy a drink for a woman right away, there is another request going on, and that request is that she talk to him for a while, so he can ~~work his game~~ get to know her.

In terms of first impressions, however, you can do better. It is much stronger to make women want to spend time with you because of your personality, energy, and humor than it is to have her talk to you because something is in it for her.

For some reason, I think of infomercials where if you order now, you will get a free set of steak knives! Talk to me for the next 10 minutes and you will get this free cosmo for no added charge!

Girls just want to have fun (and drink for free)

It’s been done before, and it will happen again. A man will approach a group of women, and one of them will ask him to buy them drinks.

Ouch.

Deep down, you know that this is a sort of a test. She’s either trying to use you, or poking at you to see if you will lose you cool and give in to what she wants.

I think most guys know at this point that she is not asking for a drink because she really likes you. She isn’t gonna hang out with you for the rest of the night and spend a lot of time getting to know you.

I have felt that bad little feeling in my gut when a woman asks me to buy her a drink right after I meet her. I feel like I would lose some of my dignity if I did buy her a drink, but there is this fear that the woman won’t like me if I don’t buy her the drink.

It’s a lose-lose situation, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

So what do you do? The thing to do is to banter. If you can poke her right back, that is the best sort of response to this sort of thing.

A couple quick banter lines that can turn this around:

Oh, I could never let business come in between our friendship like that.
You know, they say Hitler bought girls drinks at bars before he started World War 2.
Sure, I’ll buy you one of every drink they have, but only if you promise to be a good girl and finish them all.

Or the ever popular (and stolen from my friend Joe):

You’re a drink.

By bantering, you keep the interaction moving in a fun way, but without giving in to her (unrealistic) request.

There are going to be women out there that are interested in men buying them drinks, for whatever reason. It’s fine that they do that, but you have to remember that it is fine that you aren’t the guy to give that to them.

As the romance builds, a little drink goes a long way

So when can you buy a woman a drink without it being a bribe for her to spend time with you or you caving in to her demands?

If you and a woman have talked for a while, you are getting positive responses, and the conversation has moved away from just surface level stuff and is moving further along, a woman asking you to buy her a drink is probably inviting you to spend more time with her.

She isn’t trying to use you or take you for a ride now. At this point the conversation probably feels like it is the two of you together on a date than it is two people at a bar that don’t know each other.

If a woman asks me to buy her a drink at this point, what I really hear is, “would you like to spend more time with me?”

She is not asking in any sort of judgmental way, or not to size me up, but in a way that conveys that she wants to spend more time with me.

Keep in mind that if you are at a bar, then the thing to do is have a drink. That is the primary activity that binds everyone together at the bar. If the two of you have finished your drinks, the obvious thing to do is get another.

A drink isn’t that expensive. It is probably $5 to $10, depending where you are. At this point in the relationship, the drink is a token. It is a step in the mating dance, the step when you show a little investment in what is developing between the two of you.

How much do you make her feel she is worth?

To get some perspective, imagine this from a woman’s point of view. You have met a man, you have shown that you are interested in him, and he seems to be interested in you in return. You would like to spend more time with him, and continue to get to know him…

… but he doesn’t even buy you a drink. He won’t even spend a few bucks on a drink for you. His $5 is more important to him than you are.

You aren’t even worth $5 to this man. How do you feel about this man now? Is he rude? Is he inconsiderate? Is he a cheapskate? Will he take care of you?

If you can tell that this woman is interested in you, treat her well. Show her that you are willing to invest a little back into this developing relationship.

Even better, lead the interaction, and offer to get her a drink if you are ready to get one for yourself.

If you are done with your drink, and you are ready for another, ask her what you can get for her when you go to the bar. If your interaction is moving along as far as it should be after this much time, that is a very appropriate thing to do.

“You choose a drink for me”

I’ve run into this, you are spending time with a woman, and it is time to get drinks for the two of you. You ask what she is drinking, and she says, “pick something for me,” or “I’ll have what you’re having.”

Not a lot of women like what I like to drink (Bourbon and Scotch). Buying her what I would like for myself probably won’t work.

What do you get her? Something fancy like a cosmo might be a little try hard or cliché. Wine is usually out of place at a bar, especially if you or she’s been drinking other stuff. Not all women like beer.

When I get this response, I feel like I am being tested. Am I going to be able to make the right decision? Do I know enough about women to know what they like?

Here’s the answer: get two Coronas.

Most people like a Corona. It is a lighter beer, and easy to drink. It comes with that lime stuck in the top, which is cool.

Also, there is a bit of a counter challenge in that. Can she hang with out and is she cool enough to drink beer with you?

What to do if she offers to buy you a drink

It is a wonderful thing when a woman buys you a drink.

Women, if you want to impress a man and make him like you a little more, buy him a beer.

If she offers to buy you a drink, say yes, thank her, and enjoy that drink, player.

Figuring Out Life and Love

With the Handsome and Charming Sean Deacon