A geek with a hat

@donalddesantis is wrong about girls

Swizec Teller published on in Insanity.

A couple hours ago @donalddesantis posted an awesome post about What being hopelessly single taught him about pitching tech Celebs on Geekwire. It’s really useful if you need that kick in the arse to just go meet people. Seriously, what are you doing standing around at a tech/entrepreneur conference not having epic chats with cool people? Don’t be silly.

Jude Law as Dan(Closer)

Image via Wikipedia

He ties the advice with his experience of picking up cute women in public situations. The basic premise is just do it. But I think he’s wrong about girls.

The rest of this post is completely my personal experience as a geek and a nerd who finds public situations to be draining and just plain difficult, but does it anyway. Your mileage may vary.

Donald  says his revelation came when he suddenly realized that his “game” of standing around at bars, waiting for women to start talking to him wasn’t working at all. Here’s the thing though, if you go to a bar and just sort of stand around … girls will come talk to you. In fact this will happen more than once a night.

Especially if you look like you’re having fun on your own and are totally content with yourself. I think it irks them that there is this guy who isn’t paying attention to their “come talk to me” vibes. So they come talk to you instead.

Further on Donald lists three traits guys think they need to get girls:

Be a great dancer (tech corollary: slick demo/pitch)

Surround yourself with a coterie of other attractive women (tech corollary: a coterie of other investors or “cool kids”)

Have charm like Hugh Grant, with a face like Jude Law (tech corollary: Have charm like Hugh Grant, with a face like Jude Law)

Honestly, you don’t need to know how to dance. If you just go out there and dance like nobody’s watching. Girls will come dance with you. Tried and proven. You don’t even have to know what you’re doing, you just have to be comfortable with yourself.

Surrounding yourself with girls, unfortunately, does not work at all. I’m often out with a group of female friends and, without fault, on those nights not a single girl comes talk to me. They usually just assume I’m taken or otherwise reserved for the night.

Don’t do that.

Being charming like Hugh Grant or sexy like Jude Law definitely helps with being a heart-throb, but girls look for average (evolution etc.). You know how hotties look intimidating to you and like you could never get them since they’re way out of your league? Yeah, that’s how girls feel about Jude Law.

Not a good strategy at all. Just be charming enough not to step on too many toes and remember to smile. It works wonders … especially once you cross a line or ten. Smiling and being nice about it smooths everything over.

Donald also says that getting girls’ numbers is apparently Hard Business ™:

I didn’t get the first phone number I asked for, nor the second. In fact, the first number probably came somewhere between tries five and ten. But with each rejection, beliefs #1 and #2 became less false. I also become much more comfortable at getting a conversation rolling. Mastery through repetition.

I don’t know about you, but I have so far gotten every single phone number I actually asked for. Turns out people find it really really difficult to turn down polite requests. If you ask for something nicely, you will get it almost without fault.

Just be nice, don’t look creepy and never ask for a number right off the cuff. Chances are the girl won’t think twice about giving it to you. Why would she? Here’s a nice guy making a polite request, she has no reason to turn you down. Especially if you promise to call her about something friendly … had a cool conversation about something she’s good at? Get her number in case you ever need an expert on hand.

Works every time.

But it’s very very important that you actually ask. Being a geek and a nerd I usually forget this part. Hell, I’ve had people chasing after me because I will just wander off in the middle of a cool conversation without asking for a phone number. It’s unfortunate when that happens with a hottie (and it does happen, except they don’t chase after you but stand there baffled and confused).

Mostly the whole thing is really easy. Relax, talk like you’re talking to a long lost friend, give them a way to help you, be nice and avoid being generic like it’s the plague.

PS: before you think I’m super successful with the ladies, I’m not, I usually end up friendzoning them because I forget that they might like me. There were even occasions where I had a girl in my room and the thought she might like me never even crossed my mind.

PPS: the standing around minding your own business play works so well girls will sometimes ask you for your number.

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  • Aa

    YMM obviously V a lot. Like about everything you’ve mentioned could turn different with somebody else.

  • http://www.mozganostroj.com sparkica

    That are some of the best pieces of advice I’ve read on dating and socializing :) As you said… being confident and knowing how to have fun on your own usually does the trick :)

  • Mike

    “you just have to be comfortable with yourself”Yeah, that’s kind of the problem right there for many of us (including me). 

    “I’m often out with a group of female friends”

    Off the cuff remark in your post makes A LOT of difference. You sir, are ok with girls. Other may not be, but you have gone too far to realize this, as is apparent by the off-the-cuff-ness of this remark.

    “I don’t know about you, but I have so far gotten every single phone number I actually asked for.”

    Indeed you don’t, but you just quoted a guy who only got one after 5 or 10. So we have so far anecdotal evidence that the average is 3 to 5.5 asks.

    “PPS: the standing around minding your own business play works so well girls will sometimes ask you for your number.”

    Where the * do you live man, that does not work, because I’ve been standing around like that for 10 years.

    Seriously, this article sucks because it comes over as arrogant. You just need to stand around and they give you their numbers, you and your posse of female friends, you who get’s women in your room without trying. You obviously think that’s normal, well it’s not. Sorry, it really is not.

  • http://swizec.com Swizec

    Sorry, I probably should have mentioned my hat. Girls usually come over to talk about that because it’s something interesting and because I stand out in a crowd.

    Also, how many girls have you actually asked for a phone number? Without immediately and loudly implying that you need to to ask them out? People give out their contact info as easily as they tell you their favourite colour … hell, nowadays you could just ask for their Facebook and that would probably be even easier.

    Also also, apparently my “game” wouldn’t work in the US. Those girls are somewhat uppity and much harder to reach as it turns out (in my experience as well, but I haven’t been to the US much)

  • http://swizec.com Swizec

    The underlying point of being confident and not looking needy stands. Girls respond well to that, just by treating them like they’re human already puts you miles ahead of everyone else.

  • http://swizec.com Swizec

    And if it doesn’t … who cares! You’re having fun on your own remember :)

  • Mke

    Again, I’m not seeing it. You present anecdotal evidence as fact. But it’s just your experience, mine… it’s very different. In Europe no less, so go figure.

  • http://swizec.com Swizec

    Well we all have our own anecdotal evidence and we all tend to think of it as fact … mostly because it is actually fact. It happened, there isn’t much more I can say.

  • Steffanio

    Of course you agree with that, you’re a woman and standing around waiting to be approached, “having fun” and “being yourself” is standard female strategy – one that fails miserably for most men. You project your own life’s experience on men without any empathy or observation thus you think “being yourself” is actually sound advice. Please consider that most men haven’t got even one tenth of dating prospects or people making a pass at them that you have.

    Swizec:
    In regard to the post itself, I must say that I disagree with large parts of it. The most obvious point of contention is statement that girls will talk to guys who are just standing around (and having fun), and that this happens every night, possibly several times.
    I’ve been clubbing for 9 years now and I have been approached by women about 3 times total in 9 years. I am sure you can see how there is a large gaping difference between once in three years and one to multiple times a night. Same goes for all my male friends. If any of them were to claim they got approached by women more often than once every few months, they’d be lying. The only reasonable explanation here is that you must be much more attractive and charismatic than any of the men I know (which is also indicated by the large amount of female friends), hence rendering your own advice unusable for the great unwashed masses of nerds, who most likely won’t get approached.
    You are wrong about having a bunch of girls around being detrimental to success. Of course, being surrounded by a bunch of girls is bad when your strategy is to wait for approaches. Girls are going to assume you are with one of the girls in the peer group – she won’t risk getting rejected. But if you are the one doing the approaching (i.e. the strategy of most men – not always by choice) having the target girl see you talking to a bunch of your female friends before she gets approached works wonders. It tells her that you are clearly an interesting guy and not some creep – why else would those other girls be friends with you.
    Last thing – having a hat is great if your strategy is to have women approach. It gives them an easy conversational opener – without conversational opener ready they usually won’t approach. I am still looking for  a piece of clothing like that. A hat wouldn’t work good for me, I think (and I can’t find a hat big enough in stores) and I’m fresh out of ideas. It’s awesome to have something like that work for you. Another of my weaknesses is I can’t smile.

  • http://www.mozganostroj.com sparkica

    Huh, well… I understand your point of view, but your assumption that I’m without empathy for men is … kinda wrong :) Your words were almost a compliment :D See, I was never one of the girls guys approach. Not that I’m fugly, but I don’t stand out (visually) either. After a lot of thinking I was able to eliminate certain thought-patterns and learn how to enjoy myself (being myself, having fun). If I’m not Angelina Jolie so fu*cking what. I can make people laugh or cry or whatever :) Since I learned this lesson I met tons of people.About clubbing and approaching… I see it this way – there are always  three options: either to a) sulk because I’m not Miss World and nobody notices/approaches me (boohoohoo), b) be myself and try to have fun OR c) change the venue (I’m not that into clubbing anyway). If you (geek) want to meet girls/women to date or hang out with maybe clubs are not THE place to meet them :)  What I’m trying to say is: If I sense your insecurity, I won’t approach you, because I’m having fun being me. I don’t feel sorry for you – you have your own three options. One more thing: no hat/clothing/whatever will save you if you’re not sure who you are and who you wanna be…  and for f*ck’s sake learn how to (fake) a smile ;) You just have to stretch  and bend you lips, you know? ;)

  • Steffanio

    Another heaping spoonful of typical female gibberish about “having fun, being yourself” and “you have to know who you are and who you wanna be” (as if this statement carries any meaning in vitro). You simply restated the opinions expressed in the original post, to which you have already agreed in your first reply and which I have already criticized for being unrealistic and, to my knowledge, not true for majority of men. I have already explained that this view of yours is typical female perspective, which most women can’t shake off due to lack of empathy. You’ve went on to prove me right by replying and stating exact same views over again.You even suggested that you empathise with men simply by virtue of not being attractive and thus you don’t get approached by men as much as more attractive women. I guess I’ll have to state this explicitly: even the ugly fatty at the club gets five times more action than your average man. Your strategy of just “having fun, being yourself” works for you because you are a woman. Because that’s how the world works. And I ain’t hatin’ on that, I am irritated that people like you are trying to sell this bullshit that things are the same for everybody when it’s clear to anyone with observations skills that the dating life of average male and the dating life of average or even below average female are very very different. If people would acknowledge that life would be better.
    And finally, changing the venue does nothing. I would meet a different kind of women, but they still wouldn’t approach (even less likely than when drunk in poorly lit nightclub) – which was the point of my first reply… that Swizec’s experience of getting approached practically every night is his and his alone. My point still stands – none of the men I know get approached more than once or twice per year. And your “be positive” advice only carries so far – if you do meet people, you are more likely to succeed, but it does nothing for the meeting part.
    I don’t wanna read another paraphrase of original post.

  • http://swizec.com Swizec

    I think we are facing a simple miscommunication here.

    I think when sparkica and I talk about “being approached” we possibly don’t mean it in the strictest sense like you seem to be. Not every time a girl comes up to me to start a chat is she trying to get in my pants, I’m sure it’s not even remotely on their mind when they first start talking to me.

    They just see something that piques their interest (the hat usually) and start a conversation. Even random people in the street do that sometimes.

    It’s just a part of sticking out in a crowd.