Based on years of experience and the fact that I’d like women to continue to speak to me, let me go on the record as saying that, by and large, women are smarter than men. Given this, I should also like to point out the one blind spot women have (at least single women): no skills whatsoever as spotting sleaze.
A woman who can balance the books of a large corporation or manage a retail store can walk into a nightclub and buy the biggest line of horseshit from a guy most of us wouldn’t want near our garbage, then be genuinely astounded when Mr. Dick Ready (“He said that was his name”) turns out to have misrepresented the truth.
Observing the pick-up action in a bar last week, I was struck by how a moderately good-looking guy could walk up to a woman and give her a story that couldn’t possibly be true, and actually get results (ranging from some grind action on the dance floor to the occasional “home run”). Talking to women after another disappointing night out, it’s astounding to hear what passes by the female brain unfiltered. Giving one of these women a hit or two with a reality stick runs something like this:
“Why were you wasting your time on that loser last night?”
“You mean Rick? He’s not a loser. I’ll have you know he’s one of the Trail Blazers.”
“Bullshit!”
“What makes you say that? How do you know?”
“Little clues, like the fact that I’ve never heard of him, he’s white, and he’s 5’9”.
“But that would mean that Rick was, well...lying!”
Ding-ding-ding-ding; we have a winner!
Part of the reason guys see sleaze coming so easily is that we live it ourselves, every day. We know that the guy at the bar who looks vaguely like John Travolta doesn’t really own the club, because last year, when we tried the same line in the same place, we ended up meeting the real owner.
Exotic dancers are the exception to this rule. By the end of her first week on the job, a dancer has heard more lame stories than the average single woman hears in a year. With such a mountain of evidence to weigh, a dancer will make logical connections, like, “You know, there just can’t be enough work in the city of Portland for 457 talent scouts for Penthouse.”
Women, do yourselves a favor: commit the following tips to memory, and add to the list as you become more sensitive to the sleaze factor. A guy is probably a lying sack of shit if...
He is an albino only on a narrow strip of skin on the finger where a wedding ring would be.
He has business cards printed up for 23 different businesses/careers.
He writes your name down immediately on a piece of paper and refers to it during conversations, making sure not to call you by the name of one of the other 55 women he’s met that week.
His pager or cell phone dispenses candy. Next month, we go further into this sordid phenomenon to cover sleaze-proofing, and how guys can use sleazeballs to our advantage.