There are several advantages to being a content singleton, one of which is not having to deal with first dates and the thorny path known as flirtation. But I finally decided to just learn to flirt, and decided to take some cues from Marie-Claire‘s nine steps to flirting like a pro, provided by a guy named Neil Strauss (he likes to be considered the world’s greatest pick-up artist). I got some amazing results and learned some valuable lessons!
STEP 1: Learn the Art of Eye Contact
Don’t shy away from staring him down, but do it the right way. Ease into it by practicing triangular gazing, where you look at one eye, then the other, then at their mouth. Strauss says practicing this for just a day will get you ready to start learning to interact with guys you’re attracted to.
This was a tough one to start with, because I had to practice it for a day. “Just” a day, but that’s a 24-hour commitment! It was really hard to find a guy who would agree to be tied to a chair so that I could repeatedly practice triangular gazing, so I gave up and just tried it on my cardboard cutout of Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. It turns out I’m not any good at triangular gazing, but I’m an absolute wizard at rhomboid and octagonal gazing!
STEP 2: Practice Small Talk
Before you approach a guy you’re into, make sure you’ve got the basics of small talk down. “Challenge yourself to go out and make small talk with five strangers today,” advises Strauss. “Don’t worry about whether they’re people you want to date. Approach grandfathers, other women, someone who’s not your type, whomever you come across. It’ll help you adjust to stepping out of your comfort zone.”
Setting aside the usual heteronormativity that plagues this article (other women can never be your type!), it was a bit odd approaching grandfathers so I could practice small talk. I kept thinking about how this was flirting practice, so the conversation would inevitably turn to how I love long walks on the beach and good Thai food; all they would do in return is show me pictures of their grandkids and ask if I was free to watch reruns of Perry Mason. Awkward!
STEP 3: Perfect Your Body Language
Want to get under his skin? “Get just a centimeter into a guy’s comfort zone, and look up at him with big eyes,” says Strauss. The no-fail move? “Put your chest out, chin down, eyes high in the socket, head slightly tilted, and your weight on one foot. That’s important. If your feet are planted, they feel the resistance, just as much as they would if you had your arms crossed.” Practice makes perfect–you might look like a cross-eyed chicken at first, but get it down right and it’ll make him crazy.
I don’t have big eyes! And my chest already sticks out even if I’m not pushing it. However, this trick really worked. I met a guy who broke down in tears, saying he had been looking for a woman who looked like a cross-eyed chicken for his entire adult life and he was so relieved to finally find one!
STEP 4: Don’t Think Before You Speak
Don’t think too long before you open your mouth–it’ll come off unnatural and awkward. “People sense it when something sounds too pre-meditated; that makes them uncomfortable,” Strauss says.
I’ll stop doing that if guys will promise to stop using those fun canned pick-up lines, like “Did you hurt your ass when you fell out of heaven?” (Yes, someone actually used that on me.)
STEP 5: Ask for Help
When it comes to conversation starts, asking for his help or opinion is a sure thing, says Strauss. “Maybe it’s some article from a women’s magazine that offers some kind of advice and you want to know if he agrees with it or not. Or maybe it’s: “It’s my cousin’s birthday and I want to buy him a CD—but his taste hasn’t evolved since the 80′s. Any suggestions?” Or maybe your friend just got a three-legged cat and you need a name for it.”
A three-legged cat who needs a name? WTF? More importantly: why the hell do we need to play that I’m-such-a-helpless-woman-who-needs-a-man-to-assist-me-in-matters game? An opinion is one thing, but blatantly asking for help just as a conversation-starter? Annoying. But suggesting that women ask men’s opinions on articles from magazines like Cosmo is actually not such a bad idea, at least for a laugh. (I can just see it now: They think I want candle wax dripped on my WHAT?!)
STEP 6: Set a Time Limit
Within the first 60 seconds of your conversation, Strauss says, immediately mention that you have some kind of time constraint, whether or not you do.
“Whether or not you do”? Pointless lying FTW!
STEP 7: Neg Him
The trick when you’re flirting, Strauss says, is “figuring how to keep a balance between being engaging enough to retain someone’s attention and not seeming overly available.” Tease him a little and call him out by saying something like, “Oh sure you do…”
Neg? Is that a word? But seriously, thank God they instruct women not to seem overly available, because everyone knows that single women always come off as needy, desperate creatures who will clear their schedules at the drop of a hat to spend time with a cute guy.
STEP 8: Lower Your Expectations
Flirt for the sake of flirting. “If you meet a really high-quality guy and you’re really attached to the idea of him being your boyfriend, that pressure—that neediness—is something he’ll sense,” Strauss warns.
So don’t try to date anyone other than scuzzy jerks, you pathetic woman. Leave the high-quality guys to the women who really deserve them. Hint: you are not one of those women.
STEP 9: Make It Fun—For You
Make it about you, not about him. “If it seems like you’re trying too hard, whatever you’re doing will come across as desperate,” Strauss says. His advice? “Think: “I’m fun. I’m cool. I radiate charisma, I am free to do whatever the hell I want.” The most important thing to remember while you’re doing all this flirting is to make it fun for yourself—because then it will be fun for the other person.”
How am I supposed to be free to do whatever the hell I want when I’m instructed to meticulously follow these flirting lessons? It really doesn’t seem like any of this is fun when it’s dissected and turned into something this scientific and reliant on “expert” opinions. Doesn’t that just negate the whole point of flirting and dating? It’s supposed to be an individual, personal experience, not something that fits into cookie cutter shapes. But hey, all women are basically the same, and we want the same thing from guys and from life. So we should be grateful to Marie-Claire and Neil Strauss for showing us the path to eternal flirting happiness!
Now I’m off to practice my octagonal gaze at a singles bar, and I promise to ask every single man there what my friend should name her new three-legged cat. Wish me luck!
LMAO! I never thought I’d feel anything in response to Neil Strauss’s shitty mind game tactics but incendiary rage, so thanks for the amusing take-down!
The only impression this sort of skeezy PUA act has on me is this: I have in front of me an unscrupulous, horny sheep. How do I extricate myself from this situation without causing grievous bodily harm to said sheep? Maybe Strauss will address this in his next book, Forfeit The Game: How To Gracefully Run Like Hell From Morons Employing My Dating Tactics.
The three-legged cat is priceless.
I can’t even envision WTF the position described in tip #3 looks like! How am I supposed to do that?? I laughed so hard I snorted when I read that part.
I just hate pick-up artists and all their systematized steps. They treat women (or in this case, men) like robots that have programmed responses that you can hit or something by doing these magical and unnatural false steps. So absurd!
“so I gave up and just tried it on my cardboard cutout of Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings”
BRILLIANT. Also, they leave out the part about how if you don’t look away from people, it’s really unnerving for them.
I also really like the idea of talking to strangers in NYC. Maybe you need to take a field trip to another part of the country for this one to actually work.
“Maybe it’s some article from a women’s magazine that offers some kind of advice…” like this one? I will say though that Cosmo offers great laughs for me and the current man while we are waiting in line at the grocery store.
On time constraints: “I have to go in 5 minutes before I am so overwhelmed by trying to hold in my laughter and I pass out.”
@Maggie: The three-legged cat bit really made this article worth reading. Seriously, who comes up with that kind of shit? Is finding a name for a three-legged cat really such a common topic of discussion?
@Nanella: Horny sheep! Love it!
s.o.a.l.g–You love names! There’s got to be a list of the top 100 names for three-legged cats somewhere!
Also: this Strauss character’s drivel is making me ever more glad that I am not on the dating scene. Which is bad, because once upon a time, I enjoyed the flutter of the ol’ meet-n-greet (if not the greet-and-meat).
Erm… why is a male pick-up artist giving women advice on picking up men? Aren’t the fellas the ones supposed to be picking us up?
Or maybe that’s the beauty of it… teach women everywhere to hit on men, so men don’t ever have to learn social skills to communicate their true thoughts and feelings to a woman. Stoicism FTW! Well played, sir. Well played.
@PhD: Can we add a “three-legged cats” tag? I think it would be applicable to multiple posts/situations.
@ceejee: Yes, and a male pick-up artist who clearly has such RESPECT for women. ::eyeroll::
LOL!!! this is amazing.
I really like the upturned eyes thing, man, I’m 6’2″! Who am I gonna look up at?!?! I only know one guy taller than me and on that is exactally my height, but then I wear heels cuz I’m an ass like that.
also you name a 3 legged cat “Frank”, what else?
also once at a bonfire a friend’s boyfriend and father of one of her kids told another friend’s husband that he used to be a POA.
1.these two guys are not friends, why would you say that and not think he’s gonna tell his wife who with tell “Former POA’s” girlfriend?
b.unfortunately this “Former POA” has hit on me several times, it’s akward and sad, I doubt he was a POA
Shit, all this time I’ve been trying to get men by being intersting and genuine!! *huffs and stomps*
Oh, wait.
*thinks about the lovely boys I know*
Nevermind, I’m cool.
I’m going to leave an unpopular comment and say that I actually think that, in a broad sense (not necessarily the specifics he gives), a lot of Strauss’s nine steps are good advice. I read the main message to be that if you’re confident about yourself, can make conversation on the fly without overthinking what you’re going to say, and worry only about whether you like the guy rather than whether he likes you, then you’ll meet more people and have more fun than if you just had boring, “what’s your name / what do you do” kinds of conversations and/or were too nervous to talk to strangers in the first place. Tips 1, 2, 4, 5, and 9 all seemed geared toward achieving the goal of making you more comfortable with people in general. Tip 8 is basically just saying, “if you meet a great guy, don’t be clingy,” which is smart– a woman would be put off by a guy who was planning their future on the first date, too, so it’s not sexist advice.
I wouldn’t say that I do all of the things on his list, or that I do them consciously, but I’ve noticed that doing stuff like randomly talking to people at the checkout at the grocery store (because maybe I’ve been chained to my computer with no human contact all day) has made me more confident and I’ve had a lot of success meeting interesting people. So, while you won’t see me doing some robotic routine to try to catch a guy, I don’t see a problem with any of these tips.
Cardboard cutout of Aragorn? I want to flirt with you.
“I’m fun. I’m cool. I radiate charisma” Sounds like the lyrics to the theme song for an early 90s teen sitcom which was not as good as Blossom. Hardly a ‘mantra’ for a grown woman.
@mysterygirl!: If Strauss’ tips were about being confident for the sake of being confident, then I would not have an issue. But it’s basically a random guy telling women how to ACT confident (not necessarily BE confident) for the sake of attracting men. Therein lies my problem.
@bella: lovely is right.
there are men – excuse me, people – out there who are deeper than this, yes? yes.
@mystery: i do like talking to strangers. i think mostly just for the human contact, friendliness, feeling like i live in a community, makes me happy kind of thing.
Um, I’m 6’3, if I stuck my chest out with my chin down and looked out the top of my eyes I probably wouldn’t be able to see the guy. I’d rather have my chin up and look down at him, scoffingly. Maybe with a little sneer.
[...] Nine Simple Ways to Scare Your Date by Sarah.of.a.lesser.god: There are several advantages to being a content singleton, one of which is not having to deal with first dates and the thorny path known as flirtation. But I finally decided to just learn to flirt, and decided to take some cues from Marie-Claire’s nine steps to flirting like a pro, provided by a guy named Neil Strauss (he likes to be considered the world’s greatest pick-up artist). I got some amazing results and learned some valuable lessons! [...]
Mireille – hello from another freaky tall babe (6’2″)
@Mireille, I was thinking the same thing. The only way I could look up at most guys is if I got down on my knees – and that would definitely be sending the wrong message!
Also, WTF re #9? “Make it about you, not about him. ‘If it seems like you’re trying too hard, whatever you’re doing will come across as desperate…’”
Make it about you even though it’s really all about getting him. Oh, the dissonance of it all!
To the tall ladies here: Please please please enjoy your height, as it makes me insanely jealous to be able to sneer down at someone from a queenly height!! I am the shortest of my generation, so I always got sneered down upon, and always cheer when my tall friends wear heels. Height/gender expectations/flirting rules??
Fuck ‘em all and be yourself!
The triangle thing is scary!! It always makes people feel as though they have something on their face! These ‘rules’ seem pretty idiotic, and probably only work on guys who have made “The Game” their bible.
Great post. And I would totally call a three-legged cat Tripod. Or maybe Triffid. I think Tripod if it had short hair, and Triffid if it had long hair. Triffid just sounds fluffier.
This sort of thing is extremely creepy, and although on its face it is almost grossly heteronormative, the real psychosexual release happens (at least for male POAs, but probably for women who follow this advice, too) in an all-one-gender setting, when you gossip with dudes or ladies about that hot girl/guy you picked up.
Fraught as that is, it’s not wicked like the predatory nature and disingenuousness of the whole exercise, though. When we teach women that they must dissemble in order to achieve whatever goal (sex, a boyfriend, which of course are the two most important things ever) we are teaching women that they are somehow undeserving. Mystery wants you to feign confidence while undermining that same confidence by providing these “tips” in the first place. As usual, women are less than and undeserving etc. etc.
IBTP.
@AuntieEm: POA? I am guessing that is not a Pony of the Americas. (Although somehow that mental image really works for me. “I used to be a small, rugged horse… but I got better!”)