How To Score with Chicks

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun....See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Sc. 2

Now when you talk to her, I don't want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie that everyone's really pulling for. I want you to be the guy in the rated R movie who you're not sure if you like.
Swingers

Times change. And with them, what’s considered acceptable behavior.

I’ve reached that unhappy turning point in life where I’ve now spent more of it than not chasing women, and thought I understood the process, even if I haven’t exactly mastered it.

I had come to regard it as not unlike college football recruiting. Like recruiting, the goal is to secure the best blue-chip recruits. Naturally this is challenging as there’s plenty of competition from the Oklahomas, LSUs and USCs of the dating world, so you need to diligently work on your game. It also means that from time to time, say when that year’s crop of recruits isn’t up to par, you may have to settle for All-District talent rather than All-State.

Also like football recruiting, there at least used to be a somewhat recognized process for pursuing women. It’s a courting process-no vulgar, over-the-top overt gestures like giving away Trans-Ams or Escalades, money, or fake promises of starting for the next four years. You would never sign two players at the same position, at least not without first disclosing to each that you’re doing so. Like recruiting, you make an initial approach after having first done some investigation into the recruit’s character, get to know them while expressing admiration, and then ask for an initial “get to know you” meeting. After that, the coaches and recruit can decide whether get serious and spend more time with each other. During that process, both sides open up more and exchange information, meet with friends and parents, and only after the end of a process do they each make a commitment. Flattery, respect, persuasion, deliberation. Or as the Wicked Witch of the West put it, “these things must be done delicately.”

Of course, none of that applies to crazy chicks, which calls for a completely different approach. Each time out, you have to play it by ear and read the signs, like a fisherman reading that morning’s tides. Like stalking the big fish, there you need a guide, plenty of natives to help with the equipment, a huge net and a really big rod and reel.

But as for the rest, apparently now you just send naked crank shots of yourself via cell phone.

That’s right. Apparently this is how Generation Y throws down.

Yeah, now you just call up naked pictures of yourself, dial the girl of your dreams, hit send, and tally-ho. I guess potentially that saves the cost of drinks and dinner and avoids a lot of dreary small talk but Good Lord. I kept telling everyone that no good could come of all this technology, but does anyone ever pay attention to me? No, and see what happens? Now a “booty call” really is a booty call.

Now, I always thought that for about 98% of us losers, the naked male body is pretty much the last thing a woman wanted to see. The “reveal” is like Step 145 in the process, after you’ve either hypnotized, fooled, or confused her enough with Steps 1-144 that she can handle Step 145 without passing out or laughing.

And what woman sees a picture of some random naked guy and thinks, “wow, how sexy, I can’t wait to get with that guy!” Answer: no one I’d get within 20 feet of without a full-body condom. This is sort of like guys who hoot and holler at women-would you really want to be with someone you could pull by yelling “hey baby, nice ass”? I thought not.

I also enjoyed reading that these kids wind up dialing the wrong numbers and sending the pictures to parents by mistake. I send e-mail to the wrong people all the time and dial wrong numbers too. Normally I don’t have to worry that’ll wind up showing The Captain to someone like, oh, my law partners or my Dad. That would be a little hard to live down if you know what I mean.

And how does the single gal account for photoshopping? I mean, how do you know what you’re being sent is the “genuine article”? Seems like this practice is just rife with potential for deception. Caveat emptor.

We have a very schizophrenic culture when it comes to sex. On the one hand, our country has a strong “sexuality is bad/evil/immoral” streak, particularly with young women. Witness Miley Cyrus, who has artistic photos taken by one of the best photographers working today, Annie Leibowitz, which are about a million times less sexual than anything the Jessica/Paris/Lindsay/Britney/Christina monster did at that age, and its like some national scandal. Parents routinely react with shock and outrage at any attempt to have a dispassionate or even clinical discussion of sex in schools, and MSNBC may go out of business if it runs out of stories about arrests of teachers having sex with students. On the other hand, I may have to gouge my eyes out if I have to endure another shock appearance of Lindsay Lohan’s crotch in some magazine. Sex and sexuality is all over cable and network TV, PG-13 movies, and the J/P/L/B/C are among the most celebrated of all personalities in this country. Kids laugh as the President of the United States is asked “boxers or briefs?” Julia Roberts playing a hooker becomes one of the biggest Disney hits of all time. One out of every four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease, which means more than one of every three boys must have one too. Whatever sort of high-minded Puritanical parenting may be going on in the suburbs somehow wears off between the door of the Ford Explorer dropping the kids off for school and the school door.

I also liked reading that the Texas school saw this as sufficiently alarming that it had to search the entire student body looking for photos the girls took and sent to their boyfriends. While they’re at it, next time, can you look for guns and knives? Its admittedly not a good for naked pictures to make the rounds at school, but naked pictures don’t burst into classrooms and kill dozens of students. Another of our cultural disconnects is relative impassiveness at the threat of violence as compared to the threat of premature sex. Case after case of school violence have happened, and the communities mourned after the fact, but where were the preventative measures and the angry mothers before each of these happened? Where it comes to sex, though, the parents are generally on that long before the deed.

I also really like this new trend of girls taking naked pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends, and then reacting with shock, SHOCK, when something goes wrong, particularly after the breakup. Who was that High School Musical idiot, also working for the Walt Disney Corporation, that thought it would be totally cool to send pictures to her boyfriend and was horrified when they wound up somewhere else? I won’t even send a client’s confidential commercial data by e-mail to anymore I’m so concerned about accidental forwarding, but I guess its ok to drop your pants, take a picture, and trust your boyfriend to protect your confidentiality after you’ve told him he’s a creep and you never want to see him again. Oh, and can I have my pictures back? Right.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, how to score with chicks. Buy a cell phone with a camera function, take the picture, hit send, then make sure to tell her you used the “wide angle lens.”