9. Putting your name and opinions out there will prevent you from getting a job.

8. Pursuing a dream is so financially risky that if you fail, you will end up broke and alone.

7. X political party and Y political figure are responsible for your unhappiness.

6. Degrees, accreditations, and certificates are necessary for success.

5. The rate of change of your bank account correlates directly with your rate of success.

4. If you just do your job, everything else will fall into your lap.

3. You can’t attract a quality woman without a good job, a nice place of your own, and a decent car.

2. You are very important and everyone cares about what you say or think.

1. Suffering is a virtue.

To all the ladies of the world, here’s my Christmas Gift to you: A no-bullshit guide to getting what many of you really want this New Year… Mr. Right.

1. Lose weight and get in shape. We want a woman who has enough self-respect that she keeps herself in good shape. If you’re not in good shape, it’s a sign that you’d rather spend your free time sitting on the couch eating ice cream and watching reality TV than doing something meaningful with your life.

2. Smile. This is hugely underrated. The rare woman who walks around with a smile on her face just lifts our spirits, and makes her appear so much more attractive. Are you looking like a bitch without even realizing it?

3. Create. Don’t just be a consumer.  Whether it be a business, a piece of artwork, or a musical composition, start leaving your mark on the world.  Find a passion and get on your path to realizing that passion.  There’s nothing sexier than an attractive woman who’s on her own journey in life.

4. Be a giver, not a taker. Now when I say this, I’m not referring to gifts or anything material. I’m talking about emotional value. You should be a source of positive energy, not a drain of it. Have you ever been around a person who just makes everything around him or her more fun and uplifting? Be that person.

5. Work on your voice. A loud, obnoxious, OMG, kind of voice is a huge turn-off. Cut that Valley Girl shit out. You can train and even change your voice with enough effort. Check out books by Roger Love for some good guides on vocal training.

6. Stop asking your girlfriends for advice. This is fucking huge. Why? Because they’ll give you the absolute worst advice you can get. Most women will not tell even their good friends their true thoughts on why your last relationship ended. For example, “There’s lots of better guys out there” really means “Get your shit together and stop acting like such a neurotic bitch.” On the other hand, “I’m so happy for you” actually means “Thanks for making me feel like no guy wants me, and subconsciously I’m going to do what I can to make you single again like me.”  What?  You know it’s true.

Fuck Verizon.  And all their fucking sales (and outsourced sales forces–yes, you sales assholes and cunts in Worcester, that’s you) and billing support employees and managers.  Especially those in the Lowell MA office.

I’ll keep the details short.

1.  They don’t honor the plan rate you sign up for.

2.  They don’t correct billing mistakes.  Have fun calling them up every month for the contractual term.

3.  Hidden charges for services and features you’ve never ordered (and I’m not even talking about those bullshit taxes).

4.  It’s easier getting a refund from the mob.  Even though the mistakes are entirely theirs.

5.  They don’t make requested changes when they say they do.  Don’t believe ANYTHING they say over the phone.

6.  They sign you up for unwanted and unrequested features when you begin service–that always cost extra money, of course.  They most love their commissions.

7.  They lie to your fucking face with no qualms.

I usually dislike using the blog as a tool for hatred or ranting, but Verizon truly deserves all the shit they can get.

AVOID VERIZON AT ALL COSTS.

FUCK,

VERIZON

NO means NO.

***

Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

The cheese stands alone.

***

Chicken Teriyaki with Rice Pilaf

–Call for Geriatric Discount

***

Marianne?

Swoon

I PLAY A LOT OF SPORTS. THERE ARE A FEW PRIVATELY-OWNED SPORT LEAGUES
for adults in Chicago. They find different venues to host seven-week
seasons followed by two weeks of playoffs for all kinds of sports,
including basketball, floor hockey, softball, tennis, even kickball.
Chicago Sport and Social Club is one such league. The organization
is geared more toward the social aspects of sports, and focuses much
of its time on organizing events such as ski trips and European group
vacations. Players is another league. They tend to have the highest
level of competition but don’t offer refs for all their sports, which
can result in heated arguments during games. Another good league is
Sports Monster, which runs leagues in various cities throughout the
U.S. Sports Monster provides refs for all their sports and thus tends
to attract better athletes, allowing for better competition. I’ve met a
lot of women with similar interests in their leagues, some of which
I’ve dated.

Volleyball is one of the most popular sports, especially for women.
It is non-contact, the ball doesn’t hurt, and it offers many different
skill levels. In the summertime Chicago’s beaches are overrun
with volleyball leagues on weeknights. Although I prefer to play
competitive volleyball, for years I formed one social team every
summer. I had both male and female friends who wanted to meet
someone and get out socially. So I put a team of players together who
I thought would hit it off, either with each other or with players on
other teams.

A lot of the women I recruited were very pretty but of no interest to
me. I knew other guys would like them. I never set anyone up—I’m
not a chick for crying out loud. I just put people on the same team and
if something happened, so be it. A few years ago I stopped putting
the social team together because the women were always a hassle.
They weren’t serious about volleyball and it showed. They tended
to be either stupid or inconsiderate, I’m not sure which, perhaps a
combination of the two. They meant well and were nice people, but
they just weren’t used to having to think about others, so having them
on the team just wasn’t working.

The problem was, these women were so pretty they were used to
getting their every whim. Guys put up with their behavior because
they hoped to sleep with them. Women put up with it because these
girls always attracted guys to the group. The last season I formed a
social team was the one that broke the camel’s back. One of the girls
called me a few hours before a game one cloudy night, “Hi Ian. I’m
not going to make it to volleyball tonight.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks for calling. Is everything okay, I hope? Are you
sick or something?”

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just that it’s dreary outside and I don’t like to go
out when it’s dreary. It makes me feel dreary and I don’t like feeling
dreary.”

Was she fuckin’ kidding me? The team’s counting on her to show
and she thought this was a legitimate reason to miss?

“Okay…well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll get a sub.”

“Oh, don’t get a sub. It might clear up and get sunny; then I’ll
come.”

How stupid of me.

“Look, if you want to miss that’s fine, but I have to fill the slot or
we’ll be short. I can’t wait to see if you might show.”

There was no response. She was probably in shock. She did things
like this all the time and no one ever questioned her. Who did I think
I was? How dare I expect some common courtesy!

“Okay, well, don’t get a sub then. I’ll be there.”

Bullshit. She just said that in case it cleared up. I got a sub, counting
on the fact that Flaky Girl wouldn’t show. (She didn’t.) One of the
other women missed the following week’s match. When a player
missed without letting me know, I automatically feared something
tragic had happened. I left her a message to call me and let me know
if she was okay. She did not return my call. The next week she showed
up for the game. “How’d we do last week, Ian?”

“Actually, we didn’t have enough people to play and had to forfeit.
We just hit around with the other team.”

“Oh, bummer.”

“Were you sick or something? You didn’t return my call.”

“No, I wasn’t sick. I was on my way here when I walked by another
team and they asked me if I could play. So I played with them.”

I didn’t know what to say. I should have buried her in the sand
and left her there. One of the other guys on my team overheard and
interjected, “Oh, that’s okay; that was nice of you to sub for them.”

I came down on both of them, “No…no it wasn’t. You’re on a
team who’s counting on you to show up and play. If you can’t make
it, that’s fine, but let me know ahead of time.”

The other guy defended her. Typical. These women walk over a
lot of men because of some very nicely packaged T&A. Men swoon
in their presence. See why I had no interest in them? Imagine what
a nightmare it would be to date one of them. I didn’t swoon over
such women. I met tons of them after comedy shows and quickly
learned that most of them had little to offer. In the end, putting up
with their crap just wasn’t worth the payoff. Such women can wreak
havoc on a guy and set off a domino effect that can screw a lot of
people. I know. My older sister, Mary, is one of these women and I’ve
experienced firsthand what can happen when she digs her claws into
an unsuspecting guy.

Mary is one of the sweetest people on the planet. She has a very
good heart and is always willing to believe the best about people.
Unfortunately, she isn’t honest with herself about who she is and has
low self-esteem, making her horrible dating material. At the same
time, according to other guys (I’m her brother so I don’t see it), she is
very pretty. I’ve seen this deadly combination damage lives repeatedly.
I could recount countless stories such as the following.

In her late twenties Mary got a whim to become a truck driver. She
wanted to drive eighteen wheelers cross-country. While the vocation
was surprising, the call of the open road wasn’t. My father had the
traveling bug; until he married my mother, he had not stayed in the
same place or kept a job for more than a year. I enjoyed the traveling
aspect of comedy; getting paid to see all of the U.S. and Canada was
a great perk of the business. My mom traveled across Europe in her
early twenties.

Mary’s arrival at a trucking school in Iowa created instant chaos.
The other women truckers tended to be big and enjoyed hobbies such
as arm wrestling. Mary was 5’6″, slender and blonde, whose primary
hobby at the time was belly dancing. She brought her belly dancing
outfit with her and practiced outside. The men fell over themselves
wooing Mary. The other women were jealous of the attention she
received. Fights and arguments broke out everywhere. The instructors
were accused of giving Mary better grades than she deserved because
of her looks. One instructor took it upon himself to provide Mary with
previous Iowa State trucking exams, which she studied to prepare for
the licensing exam. It was against Iowa law for instructors to show
previous exams to students.

The day my sister took the state exam she brought her study
guides with her because she didn’t know about the law. The tester
confiscated them and reported the school. Their training program was
temporarily suspended and they had to send their students home. The
funny thing is my sister still got her license that day; even the tester
was affected by her beauty.

None of these things were my sister’s fault and she could hardly
be held accountable. She did, however, notice that she was getting
special treatment and she knew why. She could have stopped it by
making it clear that she was not interested in anyone at the school,
that she was there only to become a trucker. She liked the attention,
though, so she let things continue. She led some of the guys on by
being ambiguous in regard to her feelings about them.

Mary’s first trucking job was in Texas. She was hired as an
assistant to a more experienced driver to haul cattle to various parts
of the state. She lasted a month before she returned to my mom’s
in Chicago. While she was in Texas, she met another trucker, Gary,
on the job. Gary was a nice guy, but not too attractive. He was 5’5″,
nearly 300 lbs, and had horrible acne scars. How do I know? He was
so smitten with my sister, he talked his co-driver into traveling 300
miles out of their way to visit her in Indiana at one of my comedy
shows. I liked Gary. I could see he had a good heart. I could also see
that he was completely enthralled with Mary. He hadn’t seen her in
months and they had never had a date, but that didn’t stop him from
bringing her flowers and other gifts. I warned him.

“Dude, stay away from my sister. I’m telling you right now, she’s
my sister and I love her to death, but she’s trouble for guys. She
doesn’t have her life together or a clue as to who she is, and that
makes her no good for dating. Once she gets that stuff figured out,
she’ll be a catch, but until then she’ll bring you nothing but trouble.”
“Thanks for the warning but I know what I’m doing.”

Yeah, right. Gary was a few days older than me, making him twenty-
two. He had never had a woman like my sister give him the time of
day. He was in way over his head. His partner, thirty-something, saw
it, too, and tried to warn him as well. Gary hounded my sister for the
next six months. He called her six times a day. He sent her flowers.
He mailed her long letters. She showed him little interest but she did
keep in touch. She knew she had a big fish on the line and that he
could come in handy one day. She wasn’t malicious, she just wanted
to leave herself options.

My mom got fed up with my sister living at home. She didn’t have
a job and when I wasn’t on the road, I lived at home, too. (It made
little sense for me to rent my own place when I was gone an average
of two months at a time.) My sister would do stupid things like steal
all of my socks, which led to some terrible fights.

One night I was packing for a long trip. I couldn’t find any of
my socks and I had just bought several new pairs that afternoon. I
confronted Mary. She denied knowing about the socks, so I searched
her belongings, constantly shoving her aside as she intervened. Sure
enough, I found all my new socks. I took the socks and started to
leave when she jumped me. My mom came into the room to see what
all the commotion was. I tossed Mary onto her bed and told my mom
what was going on, while showing her the socks. Just then my sister
kicked me as hard as she could in the back. My mom had it. She
threw Mary out of the house. I still feel guilty about it, even though
it was all Mary’s fault. She’s my sister, though, and I will always feel
bad about that night, that’s simply how things work.

Mary had nowhere to go. Before she left, she called Gary. I don’t
know what she said but he quit his job and moved to Chicago the
next day. Mary and Gary moved into a dive motel. I visited her there
a few times; it was pretty scary. The desk clerk sat behind thick bullet
proof glass. I had to leave an ID with him to go up to her room. It
wasn’t long before Gary had two jobs to Mary’s none. She had him
in the 70s. Oak Park is very serious about its trees. The tree Gary hit
was an old one valued at $500,000!

Gary was fired. The truck company he worked for lost their
insurance and went out of business, displacing a dozen workers. The
Jetta was totaled. Thank God no one was injured outside a few bruises
and scrapes. Mom and I were grateful we were not involved in the
accident and thought the entire ridiculous affair was over. Wow, we
really were naive. Twenty minutes after I got home from the police
station, my mom called. She screamed through tears, “He got her off
the train! He got her off the train!”

Gary had called the police in Battle Creek, Michigan. He told
them he was in a terrible car accident. When the train pulled into
the station, the police scoured each car looking for Mary. They told
her what happened and she got off the train. Luckily Mary made the
mistake of calling Mom. My car was in the shop but I implored her
to let me take her car, pick up Mary, and drive my sister’s sorry ass to
Toronto. She was hesitant, “I don’t know.”

“You know Gary’s heading up to get her. He’s probably bugging
everyone he knows right now, looking for a car.”

My mom decided to lend me her car and I zipped the few hours
to Battle Creek to get my sister. (Mary wasn’t good with math. It
didn’t occur to her that she could swap her ticket to Toronto for a
cheaper ticket to get back to Chicago.) I beat Gary to her. She was
very surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Get your bag, get in the car, or the rest of the family will be
coming here for your funeral.”

She could see I meant business. We drove most of the way to Toronto
in silence, although I did assure her that Gary had not been injured
and lectured her about her poor treatment of him. I also explained that
she did not live in a vacuum, that there were serious consequences to
her actions and lies. I drove the twelve hours straight, dropped Mary
off at two in the morning, and returned home, for a total of twenty-
four hours of straight driving. I was supposed to fill in for my dad at
his security job the day after I left to take Mary to Canada. Instead, I
was driving back to Chicago. Dad ended up working a sixteen-hour
shift and was sick for the next week. My mom’s boyfriend had to cut
a trip short, so that he could drive my mom to and from work until I
returned with her car.

The mission was accomplished. We got Mary safely to my
grandma’s. We also had the added bonus of not getting killed by her
boyfriend en route. Yeah for us!

I learned three things from my sister the day I drove her to
Toronto:

• The definition of a trixie.
• Do not fall for a trixie.
• Don’t let a woman lead you on.

My sister is a trixie. A trixie is a woman who meets several criteria:
The most important person in her life is herself, often unbeknownst
to her. She gets caught up in the latest fashion fads. Her appearance
is tremendously important. She pursues money and the good life. Her
biggest goal is to have lots of money without working. She has low
self-esteem. She is manipulative. Notice that trixies don’t always have
lots of money. Notice they don’t always have the most fashionable
clothes. They simply pursue these things, sometimes successfully,
sometimes unsuccessfully.

Mary doesn’t have lots of money, but she does have dozens of
how-to books on meeting rich men and becoming a millionaire. She
can’t afford the latest fashions but she does have the latest magazines
depicting these fashions. She is extremely absorbed with her looks.
She spends hours every day doing her makeup and hair. She won’t go
out if she has a zit, often canceling plans. It is ridiculous.

Notice that my sister was not affected in the least by what happened
the day she left for Grandma’s, as is often the case with trixies. Gary
was affected, the trucking company and its employees were affected,
the family in the other Jetta was affected, my mom was affected, I
was affected, my uncle was affected (he had to get up at two in the
morning to let my sister into his house), my mom’s boyfriend was
affected, and my dad was affected. Fall for a trixie and this is what
the cards hold. She often gets her way without lifting a finger. There
are rarely consequences in her life, so she is very unfamiliar with
them. She simply does not understand the correlation between action
and reaction because she is often protected from the latter by other
people, or they ignore her behavior because of her looks.

Trixies need to understand that they are doomed to a life of grief.
If they meet the rich men of their dreams, the men often could care
less about them. They are trophy wives. Their husbands almost
always cheat on them and pay them little attention. When they lose
their looks, they are often kicked to the curb for a younger trixie.

Typically, only two types of men waste time with trixies: losers and
guys looking only to get laid.

Losers don’t get good-looking women—typically because of low
self-esteem—so when one shows them even the smallest amount of
interest, they fall all over themselves in an effort to keep that attention.
Losers can end up with trixies because the trixies need them to fulfill
a purpose. Such a relationship rarely lasts; once the trixie gets what
she wants, it ends.

Trixies are easy to fuck, then kick to the curb. Their antics are
completely undesirable, so it’s easy for guys to remain emotionally
detached from them. At the same time, they tend to be hot, which
affects men’s hormones. In other words, we want to be with their
bodies, not with them. Once we’ve had the body, we’re done with the
trixie. Yup, trixies make perfect targets for men just looking to scratch
an itch. Interested in a trixie? Stop being interested, forget about her.
Can’t do it? Sigh. There are two ways to hook-up with her.

Be a sap. Bug her endlessly for months. She’ll need something
eventually and break down. It could be something as simple as a ride.
Use the opportunity to make a move for repayment.

Don’t want to take months? Treat her like crap. What? That’s
right, like crap. Trixies are used to being treated like princesses. Treat
them badly and they will feel a need to prove they are worthy of
princess treatment. They’ll argue and moan about the poor treatment
but they’ll keep coming back for more. Push the envelope further and
further. Make her prove her worth. Challenge her and make it sexual.

“I’ve been watching guys buy you drinks all night. I don’t get it;
you’re not that hot. I bet you’re a bad kisser, too.”

“I am not a bad kisser.”

“Prove it.”

“No! I’m not going to kiss you.”

“Yeah, because you’re a bad kisser.”

“I am not.”

“Then prove it… Okay, you’re not a bad kisser, but your butt
doesn’t look that firm.”

“My butt is firm!”

Smack her on the ass, “Okay, your ass is firm. But I bet it loses its
round shape when your pants come off.”

Get the idea? Push, push, then push some more. Most trixies can
be landed in a night. We’ve all witnessed conversations like this one,
been shocked when the girl lets the guy go further and further, and
then watched as she leaves the bar with him only a few minutes after
they met. How did he do that? Why did she let him practically grope
her in public? She’s a trixie, that’s why it worked. It also helps to be
very attractive, dress fashionably, or have something shiny, in order
to catch a trixie’s eye. Remember, looks are very important to her, she
likes fashion, and she wants to land a guy with lots of money.

I used to have a friend who cracked me up every time we went
out to the bars. He dressed in the latest fashion and owned a cool car.
He’d push a trixie—the dialogue above is clipped from one of his
actual conversations—into leaving the bar to see his car. The guy had
no money, he just looked like he did. His apartment was a dump but
it was of little consequence. He usually fucked the trixie in the car,
then drove away when she got out. I stopped hanging out with him
because he became too big a jerk, and the women I liked to meet were
completely put off by him. He chased one after another away.

Where do trixies come from? All different walks of life. They can
be poor, rich, from the big city, from the country, it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is the way they were raised. Most trixies come to
believe at some point in their lives that the only thing they have of
value are their looks. They are taught that these looks are so good,
they deserve to be treated better than other people. They work to keep
these looks pristine, which is why they become engrossed in makeup
and fashion. A lot of this special attention comes from their fathers.
How do trixies come to the misconception that all they have to offer
are good looks? Many times it starts early in life. Ever see people fall
all over a cute baby with praise?

“You are so cute.”
“You are just the sweetest little thing.”
“You are so pretty. Pretty like a princess.”

Told that repeatedly the first couple years of her life, it’s no
wonder a girl becomes a trixie. Boy babies can be made into male
trixies (more commonly called preppies), in the same way, but it’s
rarer, because boy babies typically receive more balanced praise.

“You are so cute.”
“You are so strong.”
“You are so fast.”
“You are so smart.”

Most girls who are late bloomers don’t become trixies because
they didn’t receive such praise earlier in life. Instead, they received
praise for being smart, having talent, and so forth. They know they
have value beyond their looks.

My older sister was praised continually as a child for her luxurious
hair and her silky skin; by teachers, friends, and family alike. She
works hard to maintain these features for erroneous fear she doesn’t
have any worth without them. Give babies and children balanced
praise to avoid making them trixies or preppies.

One final word on trixies for those who want to pick them up:
Make sure the woman targeted is really a trixie. If she isn’t, insulting
her will not get her to drop her panties; it will, however, get her to
throw one hellacious right cross.

I’ll admit that I’ve never been a fervent supporter of the website TED (ideas are worthless unless acted upon), but my jaw hit the ground on this one. Credit to Dr. Who for forwarding this to me.

-The Boston Bachelor

Comedian Ian Coburn reflects on his college days in this chapter from his book God Is a Woman: Dating Disasters. A highly entertaining read.

Chivalry Ain’t Dead

I WAS CLUELESS ABOUT GETTING LAID IN COLLEGE. (I WAS BETTER IN COLLEGE
than I was in high school. I was no longer the sweetest guy and I
asked out a lot more women in college than I did in high school, most
of whom shot me down. I let that get to me but I shouldn’t have.) I
had not yet learned that a guy needed to be the aggressor and make
a move. It was too bad because college was a buffet of women and
men exploring their likes and dislikes when it came to dating and
sex. Actually, students didn’t really date in college, they hooked up.
They went out with a group to a bar, drank, and went home with
someone. They went out with a group to a party, drank, and went
home with someone. Drinking was a big factor in hooking up. A lot
of guys asked out women who turned them down, only to meet them
at a party sometime down the road and fuck their brains out. I was
completely out of that circle.

My problem was I was treating women like they were delicate
flowers. This naive behavior came from my mom, who taught me
and my sisters that girls did not like sex. I can’t blame her. A single
mother raising three children hardly needs the added headache of
her teenage children sleeping around, maybe making babies. I was
especially nai’ve during my freshman and sophomore years. I went
out with a cute junior with a good body three or four times my first
year. Twice she brought me back to her room. We sat and talked both
times, she walked me out, I got a goodnight kiss, and then I went back
to my dorm. After the second time I was in her room, she stopped
returning my calls. She gave up on me making a move.

There were two really cute girls I liked in my freshman English
class, Dana and Jennifer (the only two real names I’ve used in this
book). I was especially interested in Dana, who had very pretty eyes.
Both girls seemed to enjoy the stories I wrote for class. Jennifer
invited me back to her room after class one day. We sat and talked for
ten minutes, then she told me she had to get going. I headed back to
my dorm, wondering why Jennifer had invited me back to her room
when she had to go somewhere so soon. I had not even tried to kiss
her because it didn’t seem like something people did during daylight
hours. (Yeah, I was that stupid.)

I wanted to ask Dana out badly but I never worked up the nerve.
The semester ended and I didn’t even have her number. 1 told myself
it was no big deal, that I’d see her again around campus. Jennifer, too.
I never saw Dana or Jennifer again, which bugs me even to this day.

Every dorm floor had a mysterious resident, usually a guy. He
was rarely on campus and rumors spread about him, like that he was
a federal agent living with students to catch them with drugs. There
was no way he could be a student; he never went to class, he’d have
been academically dismissed long ago. In my junior and senior years,
I was that guy. I was performing comedy across the Midwest most of
the time. I mailed in important papers and missed midterms. I was
rarely on campus, making appearances only occasionally. Somehow,
I still managed to graduate with a 3.0 GPA. I had changed a lot since
my first two years of school and was more aggressive with women,
but I was still treating them too nicely.

One of my dorm neighbors in my senior year was a pretty transfer
student from a community college. Her name was Linda and she was
a sophomore. She was short, slim and petite. She had a welcoming
charm that made her quite attractive. I liked Linda, but I decided not
to ask her out. Instead I would just go to a party with her one night
and see what happened.

Now, it was extremely unadvisable to date or hook up with anyone
who lived on the same floor. If things didn’t work out—which they
wouldn’t—there were lots of opportunities to run into each other,
which could result in heated arguments. In Linda’s case it was a moot
point. She was not the best student, and she made it clear that she
would not be returning to school after the first semester. Given that
she wouldn’t be around long and that I was gone most of the time, I
figured our chances of running into each other would be slim. My
thinking was far from unique. Whenever a hot woman moved onto
the floor, it was hoped that she would be a bad student or would be
moving soon, so that we guys could hit on her.

One night I headed out with Linda, her roommate, and her
roommate’s boyfriend. We went to a party, where we ran into five
guys who lived on the seventh floor of our dorm. The guys had seen
Linda around the dorm and moved in immediately. She hadn’t even
had a chance to have a sip of her beer, yet. She made it clear that she
was completely disinterested. The guys turned to walk away, except
one, who did something very interesting. He stayed behind and asked
Linda a few questions.

“Who’s your English teacher?”
“Ms. Boyd.”
“What day do you have class?”
“Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“What time?”
She sighed, “One to two-thirty. Why?”
“Thanks.”
He walked away.
“I hate it when guys just come up to you like that. I’m not here to
meet anyone; I just want to be out.”

Two hours later Linda was quite drunk. Her roommate, designated
to remain sober that night to look out for the girls’ safety, was also
drunk. I took it upon myself to look out for Linda. The guys from the
seventh floor returned. The tallest one, about six inches taller than me,
approached Linda, “Hey, you’re in my English class.”
“I am? You don’t look familiar.”
“Ms. Boyd’s class, Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, right?”
Oh, come on, please, there was no way that was going to work.
“Yeah, I’m in that class!”
She put her arm around his shoulders and looked at me, “This
guy’s in my English class, Ian. He’s my English buddy.”

I was very annoyed. I watched as the guys talked to a now very
willing Linda. They pushed me out of the conversation and tightened
a circle around her. (I had not yet learned how to deal with cock-
blocking.) I pounded back beer after beer in frustration. Later, three
of the guys huddled together and whispered. They then rejoined the
circle, one of them taking the lead, “Hey, I just heard the police are
on their way.”
Linda was concerned, “The police?!”
“Yeah, the police. We better get going; you don’t want to get
arrested, do you, Linda?”
“No, I don’t! I better warn my roommate.”
“Oh, don’t worry; we’ll make sure you get back to the dorm
okay.”
“That’s so sweet.”

She gave the tallest guy a kiss on the cheek. She found her
roommate and said, “Goodbye. These guys are going to make sure I
get home okay.”
“All right, bye.”

They hugged and Linda rejoined the grinning guys to leave. I
followed. One of the guys pushed me back, “Dude, don’t worry, we’ll
make sure she gets home okay.”
“I’m sure you will; I just don’t want to be arrested, either.”
They didn’t know I was a senior.
“We don’t want you coming.”

The tallest guy signaled for him to relax; he must have figured the
five of them could deal with me later. We walked across campus back
to the dorm. The guys spoke about the various things they planned to
do to Linda and of the various positions in which they planned to do
them. One of them couldn’t wait and turned to her, “I bet I can guess
how much you weigh just by picking you up.”
“No you can’t.”
“Let me try.”

He picked her up and squeezed her tight to his body. He slid his
hands down to her ass and let her slide all the way down his body to
the ground. He looked at his friends and mouthed without speaking,
“Wow.” The other guys weren’t about to be left out of the fun. They
each took a few turns copping feels in the guise of guessing her
weight by picking her up. I should not have allowed this to continue
but there were five of them and only one of me. We resumed our walk
to the dorm as I crafted a plan.

These guys are drunk, I thought, and drunk guys can’t fight, so I
got that going for me. The only problem is I’m drunk, too. I better
practice. As we walked back to the dorm, I fell slightly behind the
group. I shadow-boxed the air and threw some kicks. I got more and
more intense as I realized more and more that the odds were vastly
against me in a fight. I became aware that I was uttering things, rather
loudly, “You want some of this? I’ll kick your ass…you’re going
down.. .way down.. .down to downtown.”

The guys kept looking back at me and laughing while they pointed.
This served only to further infuriate me; they were really risking the
taste of my wrath. I kicked and punched harder, occasionally adding
in the famous Karate Kid crane technique. By the time we got back to
the dorm, I was drenched in sweat. We waited for the elevator, which
is where the guys made their error. They should have kept me from
getting on with them.

Linda and I lived on five; the guys lived on seven. There was no
way I was getting off the elevator without her. Also, the guys didn’t
know which room was mine. Linda lived in the room closest to the
elevator; my room was the very next one. My roommate was in for
the night, studying, so I could call to him for help, not to mention
anyone else that might be on the floor. The doors opened and I took
Linda’s hand, “Come on, Linda, let’s go.”

The guys intervened, “Hey, watch out for this guy, Linda. He’s
trying to take advantage of you.”
“Yeah, you better come with us.”
They tried to push me away. I stood my ground. “Ain’t happening,
guys.”

Linda thought about it and got off the elevator with me. As the
doors closed, she spun around and shoved her arm through them,
causing them to reopen. She pointed to the tallest guy, “YOU can
come with me.”

He grinned and got off the elevator, leaving his very disappointed
comrades behind. The doors closed and Linda took him to her room. I
don’t know if I was more pissed or concerned. Linda opened her door
and flipped on the light. She then fell to the hall floor in a drunken
stupor, giggling, “I have to pee! I have to pee!”

Some of her friends came out of their rooms to see what was going
on. They dragged Linda down the hall to the restroom. The tall guy
walked into her room and waited. I thought this was a good time to
talk to him, so I also went into her room. I had no business doing it;
Linda had invited him there and it had nothing to do with me. I walked
up to him and suddenly became a member of the Mafia, talking with a
thick Brooklyn accent, “Hey, you better be good. She’s a nice girl and
I like her a lot. I really care about her. She’s in no condition to have a
guy over; she should just be going to bed. You better be good.”
“Oh, I’ll be good…I’ll be real good.”

Uh-oh…now he had done it. I imagined myself reaching up to his
face and lightly smacking him twice on the cheek, being the mobster
I was. The thing about being drunk is that sometimes what a person
thinks and what he does become one and the same. As I imagined
lightly smacking him on the cheek, I saw my hand reaching out. I
smacked him twice on the cheek as I uttered his final warning, “You
better be a good. Don’t fuck with me. Capiche?”

He just stood there and stared at me. I waited until I was sure
he understood I meant business then left. I went into my room and
slammed the door behind me. I whipped my keys against one of my
posters, tearing a big hole, and yelled, “Women suck!”

My roommate lay on his bed, holding his gut and laughing.
“What?”
He could barely speak, “Don’t…don’t fuck with me? Are you
kidding me?”
“You heard that?”
“I…I…I was walking…”
“What?!”
“Dude, you know I have your back and I would have jumped in
there, but that guy was big. I was walking by Linda’s room and saw
you in there, so I stopped to see what was going on. You smacked that
guy so hard, his head fucking turned both times.”
“What?”
“It like snapped quickly both times you smacked him.”

I couldn’t believe it. The guy wasn’t huge, but he was bigger than
me and had a six-inch advantage. I saw him waiting for the elevator
in the hall ten minutes later. My handprint was very visible on his
cheek. The next day, a very hung over Linda thanked me for getting
her home safely.
“It’s good to see that chivalry ain’t dead.”

Two days later she started to date another guy on the floor. They
liked to make out with her door open, so I got to see them going at
it quite frequently as I got off the elevator. Ah, what a bonus to my
chivalry.

I learned five things from Linda and the coeds in my English
class:
• Make a move.
• Opportunity may only knock once; be ready.
• Women aren’t always honest with themselves about what they
want.
• Women don’t want to be accountable.
• The nice guy doesn’t get the girl.

When going on dates with girls in college, I waited for a sign from
them to make a move that they had already given me: They invited
me back to their rooms. When a woman invites a man back to her
place or accepts his invite to his, that’s her move. They are not likely
to do anything else. It is up to the man to take things from there. A
woman’s willingness to be alone with a man in his place or hers is
not an indication of a desire to have sex. It is, however, often an
indication of a desire to take things further. What move should a guy
make to find out how much further? A good one is to try to remove
some of her clothes. She’ll stop the guy if he goes further than she
wants.

That’s what I should have done with the coeds back in their
rooms; kissed for a while and then tried to remove their tops. If that
worked and I wanted to go further, I should have then tried to remove
their bras or pants. Once the process of removing clothes begins, an
interested woman will often make her own moves, but usually not
until the guy has initiated the process.

Somebody once said, “Tomorrow is another day,” and it became
a famous quote. Bullshit. Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow
is today’s backup plan. I should have asked out Dana and Jennifer
when I was in English class with them, but I waited for tomorrow.
Tomorrow never came. Why didn’t I ask out Dana and Jennifer?
Remember that all-important rejection I mentioned? I hadn’t had
enough rejection at the time and was afraid of getting some. I hadn’t
yet lejarned that rejection is part of the dating process and that I would
survive unscarred if I got some.

Linda was not honest with herself about what she wanted. She
said she went to the party just to be out, that she didn’t want to meet
a guy. Later, she invited one back to her room, after letting a group
of guys grope her and press their bodies against hers. Lots of women
aren’t honest with themselves. I have tons of women friends who
utter the most ridiculous untruths.

“I don’t like guys who showboat.”
That friend dates only guys who showboat.
“I hate lines.”
That friend gets picked up every time we go out by the lamest
lines I’ve ever heard. Both women deny these facts when I point them
out. Why? Remember? Yeah, because women want to be right.
If women aren’t honest with themselves about what they really
want, how can men know what women want from what they say?
Oftentimes we can’t, which is why we must pay attention to their
actions. If their actions match what they say, they are being honest; if
there’s no match, go along with the actions. Their actions speak the
truth.

Women like to avoid accountability. Linda didn’t want to meet
guys, the alcohol made her do it. She therefore was not accountable.
(She actually claimed this and most of our floor agreed with her,
much to my surprise.) Women want to avoid accountability so much
they’ve coined a now popular phrase, which allows them to avoid
accountability under the guise of change: “It’s a woman’s prerogative
to change her mind.”

Desire to avoid accountability is one reason why some women
will knowingly date a jerk. When things don’t work out, they simply
blame the jerk. Everyone knows he’s a jerk, so no one holds the
woman accountable.

There is a real danger with women taking this attitude toward
accountability. They put themselves in harm’s way. Linda could have
really been hurt the night of the party, had I not been present. She was
easily on her way to being date-raped or worse. Certainly, Linda’s
drinking did not give the seventh floor guys the right to hurt her, but,
being drunk did not give her the right to hurt herself, either, which is
what she almost did.

Drunk drivers used to be able to hold alcohol accountable for
their accidents years ago. They went right on drinking and having
more accidents, even though they chose to drink and drive. A woman
drinking herself into a stupor, then going somewhere alone with
strangers is extremely dangerous. This woman does not have a right
to be hurt by those strangers, but she needs to realize that she is
behaving very much like a drunk driver. Both have greatly reduced
their odds of arriving home safely. Don’t avoid accountability, ladies,
by drinking until inhibitions are gone. It’s unsafe and a turnoff. The
only guys who want to be with a drunken woman are desperate losers
who have no intentions of dating her. Accountability is part of life.
Accept it and be safe.

The nice guy does not get the girl. I took care of Linda, I got
her home safely, I had no intention of taking advantage of her in her
drunken state, and I always treated her nicely. I didn’t get her; another
guy on the floor, who hooked up with her one night at a party when
she was drunk, did. Being the nice guy doesn’t get the girl. Being a
jerk is not something of which I’m capable. There is a happy medium
between the two. The day Linda started to date the other guy on my
floor was the day I realized it…and the day I set out to be that in-
between guy.

–Ian Coburn