As awful as it sounds, the guy calling himself Mystery knows exactly what he’s talking about when it comes to picking up attractive women. It may, in fact, be one of the strongest indictments of the sickness of our culture that in order to date desirable women, you often must first make yourself interesting by destroying them psychologically.
I discovered the concept of what Mystery calls “the neg” inadvertantly. I was in a tiny bar in Tokyo talking to someone, and another girl kept interrupting me from behind. I was rather short in telling her to take a hike without bothering to turn around, which caused her to become even more intent on attracting my attention. I was quite surprised when I finally did turn around to get rid of this annoying little pest and discovered I was blowing off an international model. Of course, the fact that I was an arrogant jerk in those days probably didn’t hurt either.
The reason, I think, that nice guys lose almost every single time is that they’re just not interesting. Seriously, The Perfect Aryan Male is possibly the world’s nicest guy and about as major a catch as it gets, and he practically needs a construction crane to pick up a woman that isn’t already throwing herself at him. Do you have any idea how many times a beautiful girl has heard someone tell her that she’s really pretty? Figure ten times a day from the age of two – that’s almost 60,000 boring repetitions. No wonder she’s ready to throw herself at the first person who doesn’t immediately begin fawning all over her. Nobody is really comfortable with respect that they haven’t earned, even if they come to expect it over time.
Vox’s Rules for Guys
1. Know your league. You can reasonably date one up or one down.
2. Girls like: Power, Fame, Money, Looks, in that order.
3. You can’t be a nice guy and expect to get a phone number.
4. You can’t be a jerk and expect to keep a girlfriend.
5. No one can see character in the first two weeks, let alone the first two hours.
6. If you’re out to pick up chix, take a pretty girl with you.
7. Don’t even think about using a line. Even the guys nearby are cringing.
8. Vague civility bordering on disinterest is like catnip for most women, but you can’t fake it.
9. Never lie. Men and women alike find brutal honesty laced with irony to be interesting. Answering the question “what do you do?” with “I design computer games” sends the subtextual message “I’m a dork and you will hate yourself for continuing this conversation.” Answering it with “Well, today I was trying to decide which sound was more appropriate for an axe striking human flesh before blowing off the rest of the day by killing hundreds of innocent aliens with a shotgun” will either get you a date or a look of complete horror. Either result is amusing. And if you get the latter, don’t forget to punctuate the encounter with a burst of laughter that’s just slightly too loud.
The ironic thing is that I never had the chance to use any of my finely tuned pickup skillz with Space Bunny. She happened to find the mohawk interesting – it was freshly shaven – and asked if she could touch it. I turned around, saw this slender, gorgeous blonde, and figured, yeah, sure. The next thing I know, I’m calling the Old Fox asking him to hook me up with his international diamond connections.