I go hard on men. I have never told you to leave us alone
I go hard on men. I have not once told you to leave us alone. Read that again if you only came here for the row. We want you to talk to us. Most of you are just terrible at it, and then you decide the lesson is that women are a closed shop. We are not. We are tired. There is a difference, and the difference is why you are still standing by the bar doing a little speech in your head.
This is the useful version. Not the forum version where a man who has not had a girlfriend since sixth form explains female psychology like he invented it. I have read that stuff. Some of it is accidentally right. Most of it is a boy trying to turn a conversation into a system so he does not have to feel stupid. I am going to take the bits that work, run them through the actual room, and tell you why. If you wanted a script, you are in the wrong article. Scripts are how you end up sounding like a man who practised.
Do not treat us mean. Do not arrive desperate either. That is the whole balance, and men ruin it in both directions. Mean is the lad who thinks ignoring a text for three days is a tactic. We can smell a tactic. Desperate is the man who has complimented my eyes, my jacket, and my laugh before I have finished saying hello. He has spent his interest in the first minute. There is nothing left for me to do. I like a bit of work. Not a job. A puzzle. Give me something to work out about you. A job you will not fully explain. A reason you are in this pub that is not me. A no, once, that is not a performance. If I cannot tell whether you like me yet, I will stay in the conversation to find out. If you have already handed me your whole evening, I will be kind and then I will go and find my friend.
We know we are beautiful. Some of us are not, and we know that too, which is a different article. The point stands. Looks are not the interesting part of the opening. I have been told I am fit by men who could not then think of a second sentence. Give the brain something else. Imagination. A picture. A small story with a gap in it. If you can make me see a thing, I will stay to see the rest. That is not romance. That is how attention works.
A man who can leave is a man I can talk to
The forums call the first one outcome independence. They mean stop needing this particular woman to save your night. From this side it reads simpler. A man who can leave is a man I can talk to. If the chat dies, he will go and get a drink and not stand there repairing it with more compliments. I am not a slot machine. I do not owe you a win because you walked over. The men I answer are the ones who look like they would have had a fine evening if I had said no. That is not arrogance. That is manners. Desperation makes me manage your feelings. I did not come out to manage your feelings.
Do not put her on a pedestal
They also say do not pedestal her. Correct, and usually said by men who then do the opposite in a leather jacket. Putting me on a pedestal is not respect. It is you deciding I am a prize and then getting angry when the prize has a mouth. Talk to me like I am a person who might be boring. I might be. Plenty of beautiful women are boring. If you cannot survive that possibility, you are not chatting, you are shopping. The version that works is ordinary curiosity. What are you doing here. Why is your friend doing that face. Do you actually like this song. Small questions. Not an interview. Not where do you see yourself in five years, which is a thing a man asked me once, in a beer garden, and I have not recovered.
Tease the real thing, then stop
Next they tell you to tease. Push and pull, they call it, like I am a door. Teasing works when it is affectionate and specific. It dies when it is a neg. A neg is a man trying to lower my price so he can afford me. I have heard them. You are quite confident for a girl who cannot work the quiz machine. Said with a smile. I smiled back and went to the loo and did not return. A tease that works is you noticing a real thing and being slightly rude about it, then letting me be rude back. My shoes. My terrible round. The fact I have checked my phone twice. If I laugh, you are in. If I do not, you stop. The forums never put the stop in. The stop is the whole skill.
Lead means take the admin
Lead, they say. Book the table. Pick the bar. Do not send me four options and a paragraph about how you do not mind. From this side, leading is not dominance. It is you taking the admin so I do not have to plan a date and also be the date. I have a job. I have a group chat that already needs answers. A man who says Tuesday, this place, eight, I will be at the bar, has done me a favour. A man who says whatever you want, I am easy, has handed me a task. Easy is not attractive. Easy is a man I have to carry. You can still be kind. Kind and decided are allowed in the same body. The ones who think leading means talking over me have misunderstood the room and also the film.
Have a life I can picture
Have a life. This is the one they dress up as status and a watch. I do not need the watch. I have met the watch. I need evidence you are a person on a Tuesday when I am not there. A hobby that is not the gym and not me. A friend you will actually leave to see. A job you can mention without a speech. When a man has nothing on, he texts like a man with nothing on. Long messages. Fast replies. Then a sulk if I am in the studio. The imagination point lives here. If you tell me you are restoring a stupid chair, or you got lost on the way to a sound check, or your sister is a nightmare about a wedding, I have a picture. I can ask about the chair. I cannot ask about a compliment. A compliment is a dead end. A chair has a second sentence.
Do not open on looks
Do not open on looks. They are right about this and wrong about why. They think it keeps your value high. I think it keeps my brain awake. I know what I look like in this dress. A man telling me is not news. News is you saw the book in my bag and you have actually read it, and you disagree with the ending. News is you clocked that I am avoiding my friend and you did not make it a thing. The men who do well with me are not the best looking. They are the ones who put a thought in my head that was not already there. Unlock that and I will do half the work. I will wonder what else you have noticed. Wonder is the whole game. You cannot buy wonder with a jaw.
Text like you have a sink full of plates
Text less than you want to. Not the three day rule. That rule was invented by a man who was frightened, and it feels like it. Text like a person who has a sink full of plates. One good message. A question I can answer without writing you an essay. Then go away. If I like you, the gap is where I think about you. If you fill the gap, I am only thinking about how to reply. The forum lads call this scarcity. I call it not being in my pocket before you have been in the room. Voice notes are allowed if you are funny. Voice notes are a crime if you are narrating your day to a woman you met on Thursday.
Be direct about the drink
Be direct about wanting to see her. The indirect man is a plague. The long chat about nothing. The haha. The we should get a drink sometime, no day, no place. From this side that reads as a man who wants the option of me and none of the risk. Ask. Tuesday. This bar. If I say no, you have your answer and you have not spent three weeks on a maybe. Direct is not crude. Crude is a dick pic and a paragraph. Direct is I am going to be in Hackney, do you want a drink. I can say no to that in one line. I respect the man who lets me.
Touch is not a level
Touch is the one they get disgusting about. Escalate, they say, like I am a level. From here it is simpler and stricter. You can touch an arm if the chat is already warm and you are not grabbing. You can sit closer if I have not leaned away. You cannot kiss me because the forum said twenty minutes. I have left bars over less. The signal is not a code. It is me staying. It is me turning toward you. It is me not picking up the phone. If you need a system, you are not watching. Watching is the attractive bit. A man who notices I am cold and gives me his jacket without a speech has done more than a man with a routine.
Polite is not a down payment
Do not perform the nice guy after. This is the bitter chapter of their internet, and they are half right. Being polite is not a down payment on sex. I am not an invoice. If we had a good chat and I go home, you had a good chat. The men who turn nasty at the door tell on themselves. They were never chatting. They were waiting to collect. I can feel that wait. It sits in the compliments. It sits in the way he watches my mouth. The version that works is you enjoyed the hour even if the hour is the end of it. Some of them become a second drink. Almost none of them become a second drink for a man who has already counted.
Take the no and go
Last one, and the forums hate it. Take the no without a post-mortem. Do not ask what you did wrong in the doorway. Do not send a paragraph at midnight. A no that is clean makes you safer to the next woman, and it makes you more attractive to this one if she was on the fence. Chasing a soft no is how you become the story she tells her friend in the taxi. I have been that friend. I have done the voice. The man who says all good, have a nice night, and means it, gets talked about differently. Sometimes she texts him the next day. Often she does not. Both are fine. You came over. That was the hard part. The rest is not a tribunal.
I’ve met a guy this year that undid me. He’s not overly attractive, in fact, he’s quite chunky. And a lot older than me. It will never go further than it has because we are not compatible relationship wise. But his “game” is remarkable.
He has a nice guy aura, yet he can tell me to shut up or be quiet when I’m annoying him. He can be hilarious with his one liners, but also drops a really bad dad joke and does so because he’s aware it’s bad. He makes the joke funny because his reaction is as bad as mine.
And here’s the important bit. We’ve got close and dirty a few times, and he’s brilliant at what he does. But even though he’s seen me naked and crying, he still respects my space. He’s not pawing me, he’s never grabbed my boob unless I’m already about to drop an O-bomb, and he’s not desperate to be touching me or to be near me. He’s always out of reach until you reach for him.
When you add all that up, he’s most of what I’ve taught you in above. Some of it doesn’t apply to him, because it’s not in his character. But his game is solid. He has our psychology down and knows exactly what I’m thinking before I’ve even looked at him. It’s a shame we are from two very different worlds and twenty years removed from each other, because if I had met the 30 year old him, things would be very different.
I was even border line obsessed at one point. He will make a 40 – 50 year old very happy one day, and I hope he does, and she enjoys it. My point is, don’t go for looks and don’t always go for the first ten minutes. If she gives you a no, walk away. That’s your deal breaker.
None of this is a trick. I am not handing you a key. I am telling you the room is not locked. We want the conversation. We want a man who is not mean and not on his knees. We want a brain involved, because the face already did its job in the mirror before we left the flat. If you can give me a small mystery and a clear ask, and you can hear a no, you are already ahead of most of the men who have read more than you and done less.
I will still write the other articles. The bad dates. The scooters. The men who came too soon and fell asleep. That is the job. It is not an instruction to stay at home. Come over. Say something that is not about my eyes. Mean it if you stay. Mean it if you go. I will be by the bar, probably already judging you, and hoping you are better than the last one.