Legit Pickup

I've watched the first few episodes of the new FX series Legit, starring British comic Jim Jefferies, playing himself.

I hesitate to recommend the series; I'm reasonably confident that the show is the dirtiest thing I've ever seen on basic cable. But I wanted to write a post about episode #3, wherein Jim gives his two American friends advice on how to attract women (clip SFW if I set the brackets correctly):

The episode handles this topic pretty well. It starts by showing Billy and Steve bungling the execution, which I think is fair. The concept of the "neg" leads a lot of people astray.

Billy, who has muscular dystrophy, wants to use these techniques on the internet to develop a "real relationship", a concept that mystifies the more, um, goal-oriented Jim.

What surprised me was that the episode then shows the techniques actually working. Better, in fact, than expected: Steve has to sneak a call to Jim in a panic as a pretty coworker starts to show interest. (I can certainly relate to the sheer terror of finding myself inexplicably out of my depth in social situations involving women.)

But watch at your own risk, but put the women and children to bed first and keep a pillow handy to bury your face in during the cringe-inducing parts.

Game Tip o’ the Day: How to Hold a Glass

Here is an iconic scene from the movie Good Will Hunting:

Watch how Ben Affleck holds his beer at, for instance, 0:48.  Notice how the bottom two fingers (pinky and ring) come off the can?

GWH is too well made a movie for this to be an accident.  Affleck’s character is a working-class schlub in a reasonable-paying but really go-nowhere job.  Something is being communicated here with the pinky lift.  I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be good.

Contrast that with how Don Draper and Roger Sterling hold their glasses in this collage of Mad Men scenes at, for instance, 0:34:

Notice how both of them keep their lower two fingers on the glass and lift their index finger.

Mad Men is also too good a show for this to be an accident.  Jon Hamm’s and John Slattery’s characters are intended to be the princes of Manhattan.  Everything they do is calculated to project wealth, power, status and sex-appeal.  The way they are holding their glasses are cool, even if I don’t understand why.

But I have a theory.  Personally, raising my index finger instead of my pinky is something I have to think about.  It doesn’t come naturally.  Perhaps that’s the point:  the cool way of glass-holding indicates a higher level of self-possession.

Thoughts?

Nod vs. Toss

Via Roissy, a study on head angles:

Our research investigated if looking at the face from different perspectives as a result of the height differential between men and women influenced perceived masculinity or femininity. The research found the way we angle our faces affects our attractiveness to the opposite sex.”

Men, typically taller than women, view a woman’s face from above; and women view men’s faces from below. Through a series of simulations, the research tested whether the angle of view was an important determinant of masculinity/femininity and attractiveness.

The research found that female faces are judged to be more feminine and more attractive when tilted forwards (simulating viewing from above), and less feminine when tilted backwards (simulating viewing from below). Conversely, male faces are judged more masculine when tilted backwards and less masculine when tilted forwards.

Back in the early 80s when I was a freshman in high school, I noticed that some male students, when they greeted people, would give a little toss of their head.  This “reverse nod” (up, then down) was remarkable because it ran counter to my own habit of nodding (down, then up) to people when I greeted them.  I don’t know how it got to be a habit, but it’s probably what I saw the adults around me do, and adults in movies and TV do, rather than something that somebody told me I was supposed to do.

Because the toss was new, and because the upperclassmen did it, I associated it with being “cool”, and tried to emulate it.  I may have had a dim sense of the biomechanics, but I lacked the analytical tools and vocabulary to appreciate what was at stake.  But as much as I practiced the toss in front of a mirror, I almost never remembered to deploy it in an actual social situation, and eventually I gave up.

As I have moved from youth to adulthood, I have observed others using the toss with diminishing frequency, although this could be me just not paying attention anymore.  But it’s easy to see how the study cited above maps onto the implications of the head toss.  The question I have now is, how did everyone else seem to understand the importance of the toss vs. the nod sufficiently to adopt it for themselves?  Why didn’t I get that memo?

Game Tip o’ the Day: Mad Skillz Edition

Napoleon Dynamite: Well, nobody's going to go out with *me*!

Pedro: Have you asked anybody yet?

Napoleon Dynamite: No, but who would? I don't even have any good skills.

Pedro: What do you mean?

Napoleon Dynamite: You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

Too true. But choosing a skill is tricky. You want something that girls find sexually attractive (so don't bother learning to play the oboe) and at which you might develop a competitive advantage with other males (i.e. not football).

Φ's recommendation: figure skating.

My daughters started practicing figure skating in earnest about three years ago, and eventually I started coming along for the ride. (We found it cost-effective to buy a "family pass" to the rink, and I'm the kind of person who is determined to get his money's worth. )  I never personally took any lessons, but I studied people who looked like they knew what they were doing, and I eventually became reasonably competent.  Not great, but good enough to have a stranger compliment me and invite me to the rink’s pickup hockey game.

But here’s the thing:  lots of people go ice skating occasionally, and it’s an activity that girls will often do by themselves or in groups of other girls.  So it’s an environment that allows someone who works at it to look really good by comparison in front of women who may not be attached.  And . . . these girls will notice you.  It’s a physical activity, and high-speed backwards crossovers look much harder than they actually are.  You will feel the attention to your status display.

Of course, this isn’t a substitute for game.  You will still need to make an approach and show yourself not to be a complete dork.  But you will do so already having made a favorable impression.

Recommendations:

• Buy your own skates.  Rental skates aren’t broken into the shape of your foot and will give you sloppy performance.  A quality pair can be had for under $200.
• Learn in hockey skates.  Yes, hockey skates are designed for speed rather than agility, and without a toe pick most of the advanced figure skating moves like jumps and spins will be impossible.  But these limitations are more than compensated for by greater comfort.  Figure skates have pointed toes for better control, but it hurts to have your toes shoved into that point.  Hockey skates, in contrast, have big round toes.  I suffered figure skates for years before I tried hockey skates on whim.  I never went back.
• Don’t actually play hockey.  First, the guys that already play hockey are bigger and meaner than you are.  Second, the only girls who watch hockey are already in a relationship with a hockey player or somebody who drags them to games.  So they’re not your intended audience.

Game Tip o’ the Day: Get a Friend to Film You

I have a “smile” that I deploy whenever I pass an attractive female in a hallway and she inadvertently makes eye contact.  I call it “tight and noncommittal”.  The intent of The Smile is say, “No, I’m not interested in hitting on you, so if you say hello I promise I won’t follow you home.”  I’ve used it for years.

As I walked through the weight room on my way to the lockers at the gym last week, I had occasion to use The Smile.  And for whatever reason, I happened to catch myself in the mirror while it was still on my face.

Damn . . . I need a New Smile for these situations!  Because the one I’m using could be charitably described as a grimace.  This may have something to do with the reaction its been getting.

The first eye-opening moment of self-realization that I can recall came in college.  My parents and I were visiting a faculty member at the college I attended.  The faculty member was Asian Indian and had several attractive daughters, the oldest with which I fell into conversation.  Now, recently, Sheila described me (in the nicest way!) as a “Christian Dork”, but in college, a more apt characterization would probably have been “College Republican Dork,” which is an order of magnitude worse.  So, here I was, presented with a chance to talk to a pretty girl, and what did I choose to talk about?

Politics!  And not even international politics either, but petty domestic policy issues with absolutely zero resonance for a young woman who had only been in America for a few years.  Although she listened to me with bemused indulgence, the conversation was wrong on so many levels, all of which add up to not getting a second conversation.

But see, the only reason I know this is that one of the younger daughters caught a bit of this conversation on a camcorder.  This was back in the early eighties when they were still a novelty, and we all gathered around the television to watch ourselves after dinner.  I shook my head in disbelief as I thought, badly played.

I’ve had similar moments when I’ve listened to recordings of my voice.  I, for one, am so unaware of what I sound like while I speak that I don’t even recognize my own voice in recordings.  But once, my answering machine accidently recorded a telephone conversation with a friend, to which I subsequently listened.  And I realized that (1) I talk too fast, (2) I use the word “actually” as an all purpose transition (which is funny because my youngest daughter has now picked up the habit), and (3) I make a “tsk” sound every time I am about to speak.

The point of my relating these experiences is to illustrate that it is very difficult for us to be fully aware of how we present ourselves to other people.  We may think that our speech, carriage and gestures ought to be effective, but until we actually see ourselves from the outside we don’t really know.

I would recommend the following:

1. 1.  Make a friend.

2. 2.  Get your friend to film you interacting with third parties, preferably with parties with whom you want your conversation to be “results oriented.”

3. 3.  Watch the video.  Take note of your body language and vocal intonation.  Solicit feedback from people who’s opinion you respect.  And, if this is your thing, have someone point out to you the other person’s non-verbal signals that you might be missing.

4. 4. Rinse and repeat.

Smilewise, I'm working on flirty-with-a-hint-of-smirk. I'm not sure it's working out . . . .