I Have No Game.

I was in the car with my roommate the other day and we were talking about what guys normally talk about - booze, video games, and broads.  I was telling him about how I met this very cute French girl through a yoga class and how I had just asked her out, to which he replied, "damn son, you just go for it don't you?"  I guess I do.  Later on in the conversation, we were recounting our sexless college years and why we did not (or could not) live the hedonistic college lifestyle of our peers.  He spent too much time in his dorm room playing online role playing games, while my explanation was, "I just had no game back then." 

His response surprised me and was a little off putting.  He told me, "Dude, you still don't have game.  You just don't give a fuck anymore."

Self-improvement has always been a big deal to me.  I was born with a great many talents and abilities, chief among them is my intelligence as well as my natural ability to make friends and connect with people.  I was not, however, born with any sort of innate ability with women.  Much of this blog has been recounting my adventures in dating as a single guy, and a lot of it has to do with "success stories."  Like any other guy, I get rejected far more than I get accepted - it's the nature of the game.  I also, in my life, started from a point of deep insecurity when it came to women.  It wasn't like starting from zero - for me, it was like starting from negative 100 when it came to my ability to relate romantically with the opposite sex.  I have done just about every "wrong" thing in the book when it comes to women - obsessed about girls who I didn't even talk to, tried to "friend" my way into relationships, took rejections as an indictment not just on my abilities, but my character.

I've done a lot of work since I was in my teens, not just with regards to my love life, but with regards to my life in general.  There was no epiphany moment - just a series of small improvements that led to a life of greater satisfaction and self-esteem.  But when my roommate told me he didn't think I had "game" I took it a little more personally than I thought.  One of the more abiding fears I have is that I am still the same awkward gangly teenager that I was before and that I haven't moved forward at all.  The thought that I was still as "bad" at "the game" as I was in my teens got at a core insecurity of mine.

But then I began to reconsider.  What, exactly, is "game?"  I found this question surprisingly difficult to answer.

In my roommate's conception of "game," it's a man's ability, using some combination of his innate characteristics and some verbal jousting, to get a woman become sexually interested in him at a higher rate than the average guy.  Indeed, there is an entire pick-up industry dedicated to teaching men lines and routines aimed to do exactly this.

And, my roommate is right - I do suck at this stuff.  I'm really bad at verbal jousting and "adversarial" flirtation.  I'm awful at being coy.  Maybe it's because I'm a really bad liar, but it doesn't really come naturally to me.  I'm terrible at saying something while implying something else.  I'm just no good at that wink and a smile stuff, and trust me, I've tried it.  The results have been awful.

But on the other hand, if we judge our "game" based on our results, then the story shifts.  If you want a guy who'll charm the socks off the hottest girl in the room, I might not be that guy.  But I am perfectly comfortable approaching a good looking woman and asking her for her number if I find her interesting.  I'm also, on the whole, happy with the kinds of women I've attracted in my life.  At the end of the day, isn't this the only thing that matters?

I love sports analogies.  I don't think that any professional basketball player will tell you that they emulate their "game" to mirror that of Michael Jordan.  They instead tailor their game to their strengths, through a lot of trial and error and practice.  Steve Kerr, the Chicago Bulls' deadly outside shooter from their championship years, couldn't play like MJ; in fact, he would likely fail and fail hard if he tried.  Instead he perfected his 3 point shot and became a key piece on a championship team.

Continuing at that analogy, I have long given up any notion of becoming a certain kind of "player archetype".  I can't do the bad boy thing - after all, I'm a nerd, and, at my core, I'm a genuinely nice guy (which must be distinguished from the "Nice Guy" archetype that assumes being nice is enough to get into a woman's pants).  I'm also, for better or worse, emotionally attuned.  Trying to be someone I'm not only further disassociates me from who I am. 

But getting out into the world and facing rejection also helped me realize that there were certain things I was good at.  Verbal jousting wasn't my thing, but, given my level of emotional awareness, I could reach deeper and get to know her on a more intimate level in a shorter time period than most people I know.  What also felt more natural to me was my ability to express desire without regret, which, after much rejection and a lot of time spent getting bruised in the dating game, has come to be something I do more naturally now. 

Connection and desire - those are the two things I'm good at, and those are the two things that I rely on as my bread and butter with all the women I'm interested in.  Does it work with all the women I am interested in?  Absolutely not.  And maybe I don't have "game."  But I do okay for myself, and that's what matters.

Scenes from a Wedding

I know I said I'd update all of you on my latest hot lead - the Kenya girl - but before I get to that, I'd like to recount a brief story of a wedding I went to in Chicago.

I'm entering my 30's this year, and, as is often the case, I've found myself going to a steady diet of weddings every spring and summer for the past 3 years.  After returning from Thailand, I barely had time to recover from jet lag before I had to go to my friend Lucky's wedding.  Lucky is actually 7 years or so older than me, but we met years prior in California and became fast friends, bonding on a mutual interest in Chicago sports, Chicago politics, and, well, everything Chicago.

Lucky's story of how he met his now-wife is a story of fearlessness and honesty.  He was stuck in a deteriorating relationship with a woman he had fallen out of love with but was bound to, at least temporarily, by a mutually signed lease.  They were no longer talking and no longer sleeping in the same room.  One night, he went out to Octoberfest and met a girl and went home with her that night.  The next day, he came home and his ex-girlfriend demanded to know where he had been the night before.  Instead of making up a lie, he told her the truth - that he had met and slept over at another woman's house.  His ex-girlfriend kicked him out of their apartment, and he proceeded to march over to the new girls house and explain to her exactly what happened.  She offered him a place to stay and, 3 years later, I'm attending their wedding.  It's the story of how a one night stand turned into something so much more and proof that sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.  But crazy love stories like that are more common than you think when you listen to enough of them.

Anyways, back to my story.  I had initially put down a +1 for Lucky's wedding, but the implosion of my last relationship meant that I was flying solo.  But then I had a thought while I was in Thailand - why not do something crazy and see what happens.  Enter Kelly, the "perfect girl for me".  Well, according to my friends at least.

I had met Kelly years before though mutual friends who were looking to set us up.  She's cute, smart, and spunky; certainly my kind of girl.  One problem: Kelly had a long term boyfriend.  The problem, in my friends' eyes, was that this guy was a total loser.  He let himself go dramatically during their relationship, both physically (he got fat) and emotionally (didn't take care of her emotional needs at all).  She put up with it, as many do, out of love, or, more likely, habit.  Our friends hoped that putting us together might inspire her to realize that there were handsome, motivated single men out there and that she didn't have to settle for second rate.  And indeed, when her and I got together it was clear that there was a social connection there, but I have no interest in meddling in other people's relationships, and it was also very clear that she still loved this guy, despite all his faults, so we both seemed content to be friendly acquaintances. 

Fast forward a couple years and I'm sitting in Thailand without a date to a wedding in Chicago, where Kelly happens to live.  Kelly, by now, has finally broken up with her loser boyfriend, so I figure, what the hey, might as well shoot her an email and see whether she wants to go.  She responds: it's a date.

The wedding itself is gorgeous.  It's being held at the Art Institute of Chicago ballroom, a gorgeous venue complete with balcony and, for this wedding, a swing band to boot.  My date shows up a little late but we get right down too it - like before, the connection between us is immediate and transcendent.  It's always funny the reaction some people have on you.  Sometimes, connecting with someone is like pulling teeth, sometimes, we fit together like two puzzle pieces.

Well, mostly at least.  Of course, there was a catch.  Kelly had indeed broken up with her boyfriend several months ago, but she immediately took on a rebound lover who she was currently involved with.  Not only that, the boyfriend, being spurned, decided to "get his act together" and was working out and promising all the things he refused to provide before - commitment, marriage, emotional support, all that jazz.  Of course, she was torn between the familiarity of an old love, the fact that her rebound guy was actually a pretty nice guy, and now, me.  In other words, she was a hot mess.

Still, a connection was there and I figured that it was time to try something a little new: radical honesty.  Maybe it wasn't going to ever happen between me and Kelly - distance and circumstance seemed to be conspiring against us.  But that shouldn't stop me from expressing desire and attraction, dropping all the pretenses and putting my true intent out there without fear of rejection.  Getting from to the point of just putting out that you like someone is, for some, harder than a lot of people think, mainly because of the fear of rejection.  That's why you have guys who toil in the friend zone and awful stories of men (and some women) trying to "friend" their ways into relationships.  People hide their true intentions because they're afraid.

Of course, being afraid is normal, but letting those fears dictate your actions is where unattractiveness comes from.  So my resolution since the end of my last relationship has been to just be as expressive as possible, and act despite whatever reservations or fears I might have.  I was not sure what Kelly felt, but I knew what I felt - there was this attractive person in front of me who, while being a hot mess, I liked despite of everything.  And so I told her exactly that, without expectation and despite my anxieties.

Kelly's response was, initially, mostly of surprise.  She told me it's not often that someone just puts something like that out there.  And then the night took a turn for the romantic.  It was as if something opened up.  When I took her hand and brought her out to the dance floor, we talked about how we'd have our wedding right at this spot.  At the end of the night, she asked me to come get drinks with her... and I politely turned her down.  I told her that maybe after she sorted out all the other issues in her life, and if the universe brought us back together, I'd take her up on the offer.  I hailed her a cab, closed the door, and watched it speed away into the Chicago night.

I realized this night that radical honesty is not only attractive, but it's liberating.  It liberates one from fear.  After the words are said and the intent is made clear, then it's just a matter of sorting.  If love is a gift then there is really no such thing as rejection, just regifting.  I probably wont end up with Kelly, but we had a romantic time at a wedding... so I can happily check that one off the bucket list.

The Tale of Two Dates

It's been a while since I posted this blog, but here I am, up with an all too frequent bout of insomnia, so now's a good a time as any to update peoples on my comings and goings, especially in regards to my love life.  I'd like to say that I was out having out tons of romantic adventures during my 3 month hiatus, but I've just been absurdly busy with that other priority we call a "career".  I know, boring, right?  Other than a couple pretty lousy dates that I didn't feel the need to post about, it's been all quiet on that front, at least until recently.

I've actually been seeing two prospects right now, one I'll call the Reporter because, you guessed it, she's a reporter, and the other I'll call the Kenya girl because, well, she's currently off in Kenya until March.  Ick.  There are also a few other prospects on the radar, but they are only theoretical at this point and if they materialize into anything I'll post about them, but until then they exist ethereally in my mind.

I think that the three things that make up a romantic partnership are attraction, chemistry, and compatibility.  These three things are often confounded with one another, but they are actually pretty distinct, in my opinion.  Attraction is how physically attracted you feel about someone.  Another way of putting it is, how fast does this person make your head turn?  Compatibility is the least sexy but probably most important aspect of a relationship - it's the shared interests, values, and life goals that become the glue that hold a romantic partnership together.  Chemistry is the most "black box" variable in this entire equation - it's the combination of sometimes tangible and often intangible qualities of someone's personal style that inspire feeling and emotion within us.  Obviously these things are all correlated - you're more likely to feel physically attracted to someone with who you feel intense chemistry with, and sometimes vice versa.  But it's important not to confound the three concepts.  They are distinct.

Ideally, a relationship will feature all three, but sometimes entire relationships and marriages are based of two or just one of these ingredients.  An arranged marriage may feature only attraction and compatibility but no chemistry.  A companionate marriage may feature only compatibility.  A friends with benefits relationship may be based off of just sex and a brief window of compatible wants.  A one night stand could be just about attraction and nothing more.  If you've ever met someone who married someone else who was far less attractive than them, this is a great example of chemistry and compatibility with less attraction.

In the past few months, I've experienced at least two combinations of these variables - chemistry and compatibility minus attraction, attraction and compatibility minus chemistry.  If I look back far enough in my life, I also experienced a third combo long ago - chemistry and attraction minus compatibility, but that's a story for another blog post. 

So, the first story is the story of the archeologist - chemistry and compatibility without attraction.  She was one of the first girls I went out with when I got back from Thailand, and, yes, I met her through the internet.  She messaged me and seemed interesting enough paper as well as attractive enough by her pictures so I figured, what the heck, it's just a date right?  When we got together, I was stuck instantly by how well we got along - the chemistry between us was great, and we shared a lot of values and the same sense of humor.

But, there was a catch.  While her pictures made it seem like I could be attracted to her, in person she was just... borderline at best.  But the chemistry was so strong that I felt compelled to keep seeing her for at least a little, just to see whether the other two variables outweighed the first one.  On our second date, we made out a bunch and the clothes came off, but it ended there because I really couldn't get around the fact that I just didn't like seeing her naked.  Call me shallow if you will, but that was the rub unfortunately.  She was deeply upset when I had to end it with her because, by her admission, we had just great chemistry, and she was right.  But, to thine own self be true, as they say.

The second story is the story of the surgeon.  I met her through mutual friends - she was pretty, kind, smart, successful, and nerdy.  In other words, exactly the kind of girl I, theoretically want.  And, she liked me, my most important requirement.

However, after a few weeks of dating, it was abundantly clear that "something" was missing, that something was chemistry.  Put simply, I didn't feel it.  The attraction was there, and the compatibility was there, but the chemistry wasn't and the more I went out with her, the more I sort of felt as though it wasn't going to work.  When I kissed her, I felt as though I was doing it because I felt I should, and I simply didn't feel that spark. 

So, a couple tales of "close but no cigar" in the fall.  I'm still happy to have had these experiences, an am holding out for the girl who can hit all three cylinders... which brings me to the Kenya girl.  But, maybe next time.