by Karo, Aaron
ME: Let’s get out of here.
GORGEOUS JAPANESE CHICK: What do you mean?
ME: We can head back to my hotel.
GJC: Why? I have my own apartment.
ME: So you wanna go back to your place?
GJC: Why would you come with me?
ME: Um, so we can like, you know…
GJC (FINALLY UNDERSTANDING) : Oh…But then I’ll never see you again.
ME (IMPROVISING) : Uh, that’s not true. I just moved here for work.
GJC: Where do you work?
ME: Where do I work? Um, Sanyo.
GJC: Did you just read that off the billboard behind me?
* * *
Identifying one woman and then focusing all my efforts on her is obviously not the most successful strategy. That’s why I’ve always been impressed with my high school buddy Matt, who’s consistently been able to hook up with girls who are—to be honest—much higher rated than he is. I think this is due to several factors: he’s a smart, funny dude, he has no shame, and upon getting to the bar he goes right for the girls without wasting any time hanging out with his buddies. At the end of the day, though, Matt’s secret weapon is that he plays a different kind of numbers game: hitting on as many chicks as humanly possible during the night, in the hope that the law of averages will produce at least one score. Essentially, he engages in a kind of modified speed dating, except he’s the only guy and “dating” is the least of his objectives. I admire his moxie. But I could never duplicate his success. It requires too much effort, too much rejection, and the ability to juggle multiple pseudonyms and fake careers.
Personally, I’ve found that being completely candid works best in the hook-up game. I’ll tell a girl, “Listen, I’m not really from Quebec. In fact, I couldn’t even point it out on a map.” Women seem to appreciate honesty (short of admitting that I’ve been utilizing a series of exceedingly complicated rating systems to codify their hotness). They don’t appreciate rudeness or pick-up lines. But despite knowing all this, I’m sure the next time I spot an LA eight I’ll regress to the tried-and-true “Wanna go upstairs?” And if she responds, “We’re already upstairs,” I’ll know it’s time to stop drinking.
THE TEXT BEST THING
There is no doubt that the proliferation of text messaging has made the world a better place. And by “the world” I mean “my world.” And by “better” I mean “enhanced my ability to hit on chicks without the risk of face-to-face rejection.” In fact, I believe text messaging has already made the booty call completely obsolete, joining the ranks of buying flowers, going out to dinner, writing letters, and engaging in actual conversation as artifacts in the annals of hook-up history.
The first arena in which text messaging aids a bachelor on the prowl is the process of “laying groundwork.” One of the things I’ve learned is that most women don’t actually mind one-night stands; they just don’t want it to feel like one. Laying groundwork simply means initiating contact with a girl via text message approximately one week before contact is likely to take place (for instance, an upcoming party you’re both invited to). This weakens the girl’s defenses by extending flirtation over a longer time period and making it seem like I’m not just hitting on her out of the blue when we see each other. Groundwork is, in essence, the opposite of a booty call. While a booty call is spontaneous—a shot in the dark fueled by alcohol—groundwork is premeditated and therefore twice as devious and effective.
The death of booty calls has also signaled the birth of booty texting—which is really a completely different animal. Instead of calling girls individually, and most of the time accomplishing nothing more than leaving a slurred voicemail at 2 a.m., now I merely send ten girls a mass text message that just says: “Hey.” Most women are aware that if they receive a text message from a guy at 2 a.m. that just says, “Hey,” they can safely interpret that to mean, “Wanna fuck?” Of the ten texts I send out, let’s say I get four responses back, two are promising, and one girl I take home. There’s no way I could achieve that kind of return by actually talking to or calling girls individually. We are truly living in a golden age.
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GLITCH IN THE MATRIX
I will never give up my full keyboard BlackBerry. The worst part about my old phone? Texting someone and the predictive feature not being able to recognize the word “texting.”
* * *
The tricks don’t end there. If I’m texting with a girl, and I somehow cross the line, I can always get out of it. If I write, “u wanna come over?” and she replies, “no way asshole,” all I have to do is write back: “so sorry, my buddy stole my phone. he was messing around, i didn’t write that.” I’m telling you, I do it all the time. Texting with a girl is like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books—if you don’t like where the story is going, you can always back up and opt for a different path.
If you really want to get sophisticated, here’s a method I use to disguise my booty texting. I’ll write a message that doesn’t really make any sense (such as: “can u pick up some eggs and milk?”) and then send it to the girl I’m targeting. She’ll read it and respond: “did u mean to send this to me?” And then I’ll write back: “oh no, wrong person! so…what are u up to tonight?” Bam! I’m in and she doesn’t even know what the fuck just happened!
Another text technique I utilize is called “plausible deniability.” Basically, if I get really drunk and start texting every girl in my phone, but I don’t expect anything to pan out, I’ll delete my own outgoing text log just before blacking out for the night. That way, the next day when a girl is like, “Karo, did you fucking text me at six in the morning?” I can say, “Honestly, I have no idea.”
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FURTHER ENRICHMENT
The ellipsis is an invaluable tool for kicking game via text message. Those three simple dots can say so much. “i thought you wanted to hang out” comes off cold and angry. But “i thought you wanted to hang out…” implies there’s room for you to make it up to me (with head).
My latest weapon is two dots. Chicks don’t know what the hell to make of it. A girl will text me and I’ll write back: “that’s what you think..” It’s not quite a period, not quite an ellipsis, but it sure as hell keeps ’em on their toes.
* * *
As with any powerful tool, text messaging has its shortfalls. For instance, there’s the dreaded scenario when a girl texts me: “i’m with my bf” and I have no idea if she means “best friend” or “boyfriend.” And when a random text pops up on my phone from a number I don’t recognize, I immediately Google the area code to determine where in the country the texter resides. This knowledge allows me to not simply delete the message, but instead delete the message while exclaiming, “Who the fuck is texting me from [insert city]?”
In my last book, Ruminations on Twentysomething Life, I wrote that if a guy leaves a voicemail for a chick, and she emails him back, that’s a pretty bad sign. But if a guy leaves a voicemail for a chick and she texts him back, that’s even worse. Because that means she had her phone in her hand, and instead of hitting one button to call you back, she hit fifty buttons to text you instead. That’s how much she didn’t want to talk to you.
Texting is a valuable part of the single guy’s arsenal, but sometimes we forget to text in moderation. Recently I found myself lying in bed on a Saturday, nursing a hangover, and texting with a girl to try to get her to come out that night. When the conversation was over, I looked at the clock, saw it was 11:49 a.m., and realized I had set a new personal record: hitting on a chick before noon.
E-GAME
Technology has enabled today’s bachelor to minimize the number of physical touchpoints involved between meeting a girl and getting her in the sack. We may be introduced on Facebook and then transfer the conversation to email, before finally making plans via text. Or we may discover each other on Twitter and begin emailing, before meeting up via BlackBerry Messenger. Whatever the scenario, electronic game (or “e-game”) is ra
pidly becoming the most important skill single dudes can possess.
The granddaddy of modern technology—email—is still the cornerstone of all e-game. The first email method I use is called the “solo BCC.” Essentially, I write what looks like a mass email (for instance, a query if anyone is looking for a roommate), but then only BCC one person—the girl I’m targeting. If I craft the message properly, I can get her to respond—thereby initiating the conversation—without seeming like I was purposely hitting on her.
Once email rapport has begun, I’m careful never to send two messages in a row without her replying first—that reeks of desperation. If the dialogue doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, or if it’s getting late, I always make sure she sends the final email. That way she’s left wondering what happened until I pick up the exchange the following day. She might even send two emails in a row, thus giving me even more of an upper hand.
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ETIQUETTE
If you’re going to attempt to kick e-game, make sure you have your email set up to include the previous message in your reply. Quite possibly my biggest pet peeve is when girls write me a clean email without the entire thread below. Listen, lady, I’m hitting on several chicks at once here; refreshing my memory about what the hell we were talking about is common courtesy.
In addition, sending me a drunk email is always welcome. But please do not accidentally hit caps lock and then write me a rambling missive in which all the letters that are supposed to be lowercase are capitalized, and vice versa. It looks like a little electronic ransom note.
* * *
One of the pitfalls of emailing (and texting) is that it is difficult to discern nuance in the other person’s messages. Sometimes I’ll be emailing with a girl and the conversation is flirtatious yet also a little adversarial, and so I start to think that there’s a lot of sexual tension between the two of us and that, quite possibly, the next time we see each other, all that tension is going to bubble over and we’re just gonna fuck like animals. But it usually turns out that it was all in my head and she was being kind of snippy not to be flirty, but because she actually genuinely dislikes me.
Email has also gotten me into trouble. Like many guys, I have a lot of nicknames for women in my cell phone—either girls whose names I don’t know, or those whom I felt I would remember better if they were given a descriptive moniker. Some of the nicknames are benign. Others are, you might say, unflattering (e.g., Sergeant Sloppy Tits). Then, several years ago, I got my first BlackBerry. I began emailing away, but soon realized that the girls I was hitting on were either not responding or getting really pissed off. And that’s when I realized that when I set up the BlackBerry, it had automatically integrated my cell phone address book with my email address book. So I had been emailing all these girls and their nicknames were showing up. Fuck me.
* * *
GLOSSARY
WIDECLOPS
Nickname I coined for a girl whose eyes are too far apart. A telltale sign you’ve spotted a wideclops is that she’s looking right at you but you can only see one of her eyes at a time. This specimen is ornery in nature and generally not pleased when you enter her name in your address book as simply “Wideclops” and then accidentally email it to her.
* * *
Some girls use instant messaging as their preferred mode of online communication. I rarely use IM because I can’t stand to sit there waiting for a response, and most people type (or think) too slow. Plus, I’ve always hated those cliché sitcom moments when a character is about to drop a bombshell, but just before he does, the other character drops a bigger bombshell of her own and then says, “So, what were you going to say?” Cue awkward, contrived pause and canned laughter. That very situation happens almost every day on instant messenger. Sometimes I’ll type a message and am about to hit Send when the other person writes something crazy that makes my unsent response obsolete. I then carefully delete what I was about to send and slowly back away from the computer.
While it’s not my favorite technology, I am adept enough at instant messaging that others have outsourced their needs to me. Shermdog, who is most comfortable chatting up women in person, once got an IM from a chick he barely knew. Seeing the conversation going nowhere fast, he asked me to stand behind him and tell him what to type. A few hours later, he was nailing her. Seriously, I’m like an electronic Cyrano.
FRIEND REQUESTS WITH BENEFITS
I’m not one to exaggerate, but Facebook is the greatest thing to happen to single guys in the history of mankind. In just a few short years, we have been given a tool that not only displays pictures of a girl, but also pictures of her friends, her relationship status, job and education info, and months’ worth of wall posts from which invaluable data can been gleaned. We can ascertain what amounts to a full work-up on a chick before ever even meeting her. It’s just like the individual Citysearch reviews I imagined—only better.
But as with any breakthrough in the game, there are hazards. The first thing to be wary of is the photos. These are obviously the reason men come to social networking sites to begin with, and it’s also where guys and girls engage in information warfare. Women know what they’re doing—they’re standing sideways in every single picture, looking over their shoulder with shadows covering everything else. Hence it’s called Facebook instead of Bodybook. Girls cleverly obscure themselves from the neck down because they know that the only thing guys need is one arm. I just need an unobstructed view of you from shoulder to elbow and I will extrapolate your entire body type in my mind—accurate or not. But women should be careful not to look too good in their profile pictures. You think I can’t spot a glamour shot—otherwise known as the greatest posed picture of you ever taken? Sorry, but I’m moving on to the more extemporaneous album labeled “Wasted at Mardi Gras” instead. Ultimately, the key to a great Facebook profile is to look good without really trying—and without making me sift through five hundred pictures of your fucking sister’s baby first.
* * *
GLOSSARY
KAROSPACING
Technique adopted by some of my buddies who troll through the thousands of fans on my Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Ruminations.com profiles looking for hot chicks to message. Surprisingly, it sometimes works; I’ve inadvertently created a secondary ass market for my friends.
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An additional complication is the fact that most Facebook pictures have more than one person in them. How disappointing is it when you’re stalking someone online and you finally find a picture that she’s tagged in, but when you roll over the photo it turns out she’s not the cute one? Very, very disappointing. Therefore, I think we should establish some rules. Ladies: posting a picture of yourself and a celebrity doesn’t make you any more attractive. Guys: posting a picture of yourself and the one hot chick you happen to know from work doesn’t make you less of a dork. Ladies: don’t caption a photo of you and your girl friends as “my beautiful babies” when they’re all busted. Guys: don’t make your profile private; what are you, a chick? Ladies: don’t list your age as 99 years old; now everyone just assumes you’re older than thirty-five—be proud to be an Internet-savvy cougar!
Relationship status is another potential trap. Sometimes, women will put In a Relationship on their Facebook profile even though they’re single, just so creepy guys won’t hit on them. However, when you don’t link to your boyfriend’s name, or have even one picture of him in any of your photo albums, we’re totally on to you. And please don’t list your relationship status as Swinger, It’s Complicated, or Married (to your best friend); just save us all the trouble and go with Single.
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FURTHER ENRICHMENT
A less well-known place to ogle pictures of chicks online is law firm web sites. Most firms have high-quality, searchable headshots of all their nubile female associates. And usually next to the picture will be contact information and an option that says: “Download vCard.” If only it were that easy.
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br /> While technology has helped me take my game to a whole new level, and allowed single people of both sexes to communicate with and stalk each other more freely than ever before, some of the problems that have always plagued us remain. For instance, when cell phones first became popular, I’d get a million accidental calls because my first name starts with two As and is often listed first in friends’ address books. Now, I get a million invitations to completely irrelevant events on Facebook—again because my first name is listed at the top and people are just clicking away indiscriminately. When I was a senior in college, my cell phone address book ran out of memory and every time I wanted to make room for a new number, I had to pick the contact I liked the least and delete him or her—kind of like cell phone Survivor. Then, last year, my Facebook account reached the 5,000-friend limit and now I can’t add anyone else. It’s the same issue all over again. Only now I have no idea how I’m gonna choose whom to defriend. Oh, who are we kidding? You know exactly how I’m gonna choose.
