In: Citizen Cope – Somehow
For lots of white collar folks in the NJ/NY/CT tri-state area their morning starts with an alarm clock, a shower, a cup of coffee or some other beverage, breakfast, morning paper, car/bus/subway ride, etc. For the special few of us who are successfully unemployed, specifically me, the morning can start with waking up slightly hung over about 5 hours after I went to sleep. Which on the morning I have in mind is 3 am. That was followed by about two hours of solid thinking… interspersed with dozing. Yeah, I can spend two hours alone in bed just thinking. Then I did my workout and had lunch.
Things I think about: the women in my life (past and present, and potential), my male friends, my parents, and my own life. What I refer to as thinking is sometimes worrying or fretting but I need to think about that some too. I’m not sure why I didn’t break the women in my life down into female friends and romantic relationships. Maybe I like or admire all of my female friends so much that I would consider a potentially serious relationships as well? I’ll have to think that out some other morning. For now it stands.
I am between jobs, which isn’t necessarily cause for alarm. I work as a consultant, contractor, or freelancer. All the same crap. Company’s or industries set the expression used to describe the temporary position but I found I really don’t like that last one, not enough hard consonants. Free-Lancer just sounds, err, effeminate or weirdly like the title to a bad 80’s sci-fi movie. Con-Trac-Tor sounds hard, kick ass, like I could be a hitman! I like contractor, but I digress. I am between romantic relationships with women. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. Work doesn’t give me a buzz but women do. That’s a funny way to put it, “between women”, like the natural state is to be with someone, not alone. I keep hearing that we should all be happy when hanging out by ourselves. You’ve heard it too, right? Yeah, but hanging solo gets kind of stale after a while. Same for hanging out with my buds, plus there’s a limit on how much physical entertainment I can provide for myself. I’m not looking for my bro’s to supplement that… no, for a fully featured, entertaining, challenging, life quaking, brain in a blender, experience to grow on, I prefer to have a woman in there somewhere.
I like relationships. More accurately I like having someone around to share things with. Having been married for a good part of my adulthood you can probably leap to why I say that. Granted, I may need to pick a different hobby but it’s what I find comforting. The tough part is meeting the right one, not, “the one”, just someone who’s firing on all cylinders, is moderately aggressive, enjoys life, is funny, has their own hobbies, brings something to the table, is attractive, wants to hang out… and is into me; in a nutshell, someone who is moderately appealing and intriguing. I’m not the kind of guy who likes to spend inordinate amounts of time convincing a woman of why she would want to hang out with me, but I would definitely chase someone who intrigues me in order to know them better. Sort of, knowledge for its own sake. But that’s rare. Many women are interesting, and some are crazy, just like men, but being intriguing is like walking a tightrope. You can’t be so off of it that I can’t pin down who you are but I like to see that you’ve got some neat stuff going on in your head and don’t mind losing your balance every now and again just for fun. Being with someone who is really hot is lovely like having your very own Van Gogh hanging in the living room. Hell, you’re happy just to be looking at them! [Wheeeeeeeeeee!] 
But how long would it take before the physical aspect wasn’t enough if that’s all they had going on? 
I stopped writing here to meet a buddy for lunch and came away with the following astounding (NOT!) visual in regards relationship issues: life can be like a snow globe, and we’re all caught on the inside. Age is no protection. So, anyone reading this who thinks their life will miraculously straighten itself out just because they got older might want to reconsider…
When I do go out, specifically to meet women (Note: I’ll touch on the places or events at some other time. Plenty of material in that alone), and I manage to strike up a conversation, mostly I act like I do on any other day. I might be moderately more funny or entertaining due to time limitations, it is a sales job after all, but I don’t want to misrepresent and get stuck having to keep faking it if there’s a next time. So I’m not likely to go way over the top. I am more like an abstract of myself, it’s what I am choosing to show. I even grade my performance. (Off topic: Some women complain that men make the pre-dating tango into a game for it’s own sake with score keeping etc. I say of course, dumbass! Given that the average return rate is only like 10% if I’m not able to keep the game interesting for me then I’m screwed or worse still, home with the Ben and Jerry’s).
Trying to be all in the moment and funny has a downside. You run the risk of accidentally offending. I like to think that if you say something that’s a little too edgy and not received well, you haven’t said anything wrong, you’re just talking to the wrong person. That’s all. As long as you’ve thrown up more hits than clunkers you’ve done the best you can.
Here’s how I feel when I’m “in the zone”: I’m a little nervous, or a lot, but I appear relaxed and I never sound rehearsed. Let’s face it there are only so many conversation starters. Manhattan is a piece of cake though, seems like everyone’s from somewhere else so if I’m going in cold (meaning it’s not a meetup where there’s already something in common) I lead with, “So, how long have you been in Manhattan?” Sounds weak, but it’s better than, “What do you think about global warming?” and I don’t particularly like to lead off with “What do you do for a living?” – I don’t really care, unless you’re an astronaut or work with starving kids in the third world. I don’t like to be asked it either. Boring. If the woman is a lifelong NYC inhabitant you can always joke about the tourists or the Faux-Yorkers (here to make a name for themselves, drink and screw all over the place, then go back home to Boise when it all adds up to nothing except fish stories – aka Long Term Tourists). You can also compliment her on something she’s wearing or how she looks. On something she’s wearing… but I don’t do that often. I would say it later in a conversation if I really meant it but as a starter it’s… it doesn’t go anywhere else. “How long have you been in…” works well enough for me and it allows the lady to talk about herself and give some history, which is what I prefer. Like an interview. It also leads to fresh questions.
I have to admit I did recently start a conversation with someone on the grounds that I thought she was very attractive and led off with comments to that effect. Then I got tongue-tied and it ended like a car crash. Some amount of dazed confusion as to how we got there then we both wandered off. Yeah, I was LAME. I admit it. Freely. I’ve only been earnestly seeking out women for something more than friendship for a relatively short while, so there’s always some stupid behavior to tune out. Next time I’ll approach with more confidence and my usual routine. Routine. No really, it’s fresh every time. Honest.
I didn’t say this at the start, but yeah, I go out to be entertained too. I am not in hawk mode and I am not going to look at you like you’re my next meal. I am there to laugh and I can crack my own self up. I don’t need to spend too much time with folks who make me do all the work. My take is I’m not getting paid to perform so she needs to say or do something interesting to keep me there. Unless I have absolutely nothing else to do. Note: I happen to be genuinely interested in what new people say or do so as long as the woman says anything at all that’s cool. It’s not a high bar, just a minimum expectation. Things I do not like to hear: “You’re very funny” then silence. That’s some kind of prompt to keep being funny I think and it’s lamer than LAME.
I’ve met lots of cool people since I started getting more social in NYC at the end of 2008. I’ve met women that I would definitely like to get to know better but I can’t find the right way to pull it off. I met one woman who just flat out intrigued me with her general demeanor, and attractiveness. Then she did something really interesting one evening and… I was kind of puzzled. Let’s just say she’s goofy but in a real cute way. Unfortunately she is unavailable for a variety of non-standard reasons that all make eminent sense but we’ve met up on several occasions anyway. I’m hoping we stay friends ‘cause she’s also really hot. I know, I know. I’m not necessarily contradicting myself, right now I’m enjoying the Van Gogh. Fortunately being a typical NYC shark isn’t one of her problems; unfortunately she has a degree of obliviousness that can lead to chewed up guys lying in her wake by accident. Same result. I’m going to warm these statements up by saying, oblivious probably isn’t fair. She’s got her own life stuff to manage and she’s just very focused in that direction. This statement could apply to any number of people at various times throughout their life.
Did I mention I’m a softy? Not to be confused with chump, dope, sucka’, mark, or anything else. I also like to bake but struggle with pastry. Pie dough is a bitch. On the outside I’m not really hard on people at all so much as I just have my own expectations to be met and that’s not always grasped by the party on the other side.
My ex-wife’s childhood friend passed away in the course of me writing this. Mental note: Life, be glad you still have one to whine about.
Out: Alfred Hitchcock – Shadow Of A Doubt (my new DVD player mysteriously picked espanol as the playback language for the movie. Some initial confusion then swearing. I’ve had people make the annoying mistake of thinking I’m hispanic (“No habla!”) but I haven’t seen that kind of bias from a machine before. WTF!?)
Interesting start to your blog/novel, Steve.
I think a lot of guys will be able to relate, and for the ones that can’t, it’ll give them something to think about between sessions of running around town “getting girls”.
Cool idea. I might have to start a novel myself, hehe… “Tune in next week!….”
Hi Bill, Thanks for stopping by!
I had a mutual friend raise that as one of my shortcomings recently. Unasked. His tactical solution was, essentially, faking who I was. See, I gave up trying to be cool and aloof a long time ago because it’s just not me so I was failing at it all the time. Now that I’m older and smarter about getting what I want (could also be read as – more efficient at reading and manipulating people) I could probably play the cool cat to great success but I don’t think it would get me all of what I want, plus I would be out playing the same game again and again, winning more than not, and the game itself would get stale. Also, I’m not so sure I want to be the kind of guy who can’t recall all of the people he’s been with. I see that as an inevitable consequence. At least not now. I could reconsider if I went through a looooong dry spell, I s’pose. First and foremost, Steve is pragmatic!
Who knows, maybe my target audience will turn out to be the guys that get out but can’t close.
Oh, yeah, the other problem is I have too many rules…
Interesting. A lot of guys… A LOT of guys don’t realize that “playing a role” doesn’t work unless you’re actually a good actor.
Guys read on the internet that they should act a certain way, except they aren’t taught HOW to act that certain way, and since they don’t naturally feel it, it comes off even dumber than if they would have just been themselves.
Actually, I would suggest to guys that they poll some of their close girlfriends and ask them what kind of guy they naturally come off as and work from there. If your girls are willing to tell you the truth, you’ll probably get something that with slight tweaking would be a good ’style’ for you instead of trying to do one particular style that guys generally say works, but can’t really coach you into being.
LOVE it! Woot-woot! Very interesting take on this and I actually learned some things from a man’s perspective that I as a woman never even think of! Looking forward to more posts dear! : )
[...] his self-hosted blog at StevenAllyene.com on WordPress.org. He uploaded his first blog post Dating on the north side of 40 following a very long-term relationship which is very funny and heartfelt (I mentioned in our first meeting how much I enjoy Steve’s [...]
Hi Steve,
thanks a lot for this beautifully written insight into the male thought process. I like your concept of “enjoying the Van Gogh”.
When I have a crush on someone who is unavailable, I tend to cross the line from pleasure to pain very quickly. Spending time with the unavailable person is painful because it makes me think of all the things that could have been, so I tend to avoid them.
You seem to handle this in a different way, since you are still able to “enjoy the Van Gogh”. How do you do this? Is it necessary to keep your distance from your own emotions? Do you think men are better at this than women?
Just curious…..
Thanks for stopping in, Jul!
Having been burned a few times recently it’s pretty tough for me to eye the opposite sex without some amount of reservation, if not out right fear. So, right now, I’m not a sparks, head over heels kinda’ guy. I was interested in knowing this woman better but I wouldn’t say I had a crush on her. Also, in my case I didn’t know in advance that she was unavailable. She was kind of, um, “enigmatic”, that way. She’s enigmatic about lots of stuff but I now enjoy watching her struggle to be indirect. It’s a trait we share as I am equally as bad at turning aside direct inquiries when subtlety or polite responses are required. It’s also a flag that screams, “this person is not for you!”. To summarize, I made a point of getting to know her as best I could under the circumstances and she turned into a real woman, not just some projection from my head.
Jul, I’m no kind of Dating Genius but it sounds like you’re setting yourself up. Maybe you should just assume everyone’s unavailable at the start and get to know what they’re really like (that’s a really good remedy for a crush!) and just enjoy their company.
Yeah, I know, that’s tough to balance against what your body may be telling you.
@Jul: Excellent question, as far as men being able to “enjoy the Van Gogh”. Briefly, I would agree with Steve’s assessment: “Having being burned a few times recently it’s pretty tough for me to eye the opposite sex without some amount of reservation”.
Men and women live in different worlds when it comes to “availability”. Since men like attractive-LOOKING women, we’re all drawn to the same ones. It’s a pretty good assumption that if we like her, someone else liked her last week and someone else liked her last month and someone else liked her last year and she may very well be off the market already before the first time we ever laid eyes on her…
On top of that, if you aren’t the right TYPE of guy that she could see herself with in the future, she’s going to feign unavailablity… or, she’s available… just not, for YOU!
So being around attractive-yet-unavailable women is a common fact of life for guys. We get used to it and adapt.
Women, OTOH are used to being wooed. Also, while women are lying and saying they’re “taken”, men are lying and saying they aren’t. So, even if a guy IS “spoken for”, it’s less likely that he’s going to tell a female he’s talking to, so women are far less experienced in this format of “rejection” and it’s tougher for y’all to deal with in those few times that it’s in your face.
“…if you aren’t the right TYPE of guy that she could see herself with in the future, she’s going to feign unavailability”.
What I initially didn’t get was why women approach this as an all or nothing. As in he’s not the right guy for me to date so I don’t need to know him at all but I’m starting to see it better from the other side. I’ve heard a little bit about this from women who’ve dated online and I’ve seen it as an expectation from women who are out there in the real.
Angry Dude
The expectation from women is that if they give a hard no or friend the guy instead they’ll get Angry Dude. Y’all know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Right? Angry Dude is the guy that’s letting the non-brain, doesn’t handle rejection well, end of his body do the thinking all the time, or at least in that moment, is completely unaware he’s doing so and thinks calling a woman a b*tch or sending her a nasty-gram is an appropriate response to not being able to realize his physical happiness through her.
If having to deal with that scary, self-esteem hammering, crap is a possible outcome of, “hey, let’s just be friends.” then it’s no wonder chicks cut and run as quickly as they do.
That’s because in general, when guys go out, we’re going out to meet girlS. Girls, in general, date to meet A guy.
As soon as they detect that the guy they’re talking to isn’t going to be “The One”, they shut off and focus on the next guy that might be “it”.
This is probably the biological reason for the evolution of “game”. The whole point is to trick women into believing you’re whatever she’s looking for so she lives up to her romantic potential.
Just a few episodes of getting a completely different reaction from chicks before and after they see you as a potential boyfriend is enough to make guys understand how important that distinction is.
It also becomes obvious, like when you’re in a place where women go SPECIFICALLY to meet rich guys and you don’t come off as rich. You can feel how they’re ignoring you, because they’re on their golddigging grind. Of course, when they find out that YOUR BOY is rich and you’re there hanging out with HIM, all of a sudden, they want to be your best friends. By that point, it’s too late for them to be treated respectfully, because they’ve already made it known to you that they’re trying to use you.
Basically, women should train themselves to be nice to guys they don’t want to date. They’d get a lot more stuff done for them that way. The problem with that technique is that guys are so unused to women acting decently towards them (at least, in NYC) that if a gal IS friendly, it’s taken as a sign of romantic interest instead of the fact that her way of being or demeanor is just different from what you’re used to. So, for women, being a jerk is a naturally-developed preemptive defensive action, which generally serves them very well.
[...] read Steven Alleyne’s post: “Dating on the north side of 40 following a very long-term relationship”, I’ve been inspired to “start” writing [...]
[...] I’m pretty settled on format at the moment which is a little rambling but fun to write as seen in this [...]
As Steve’s friend who heads out on the town with him seeking out women for something more than friendship, I get tongue-tied and struggle to starting or keeping a conversion going. After the night is over, if we succeeded or not, mostly not, we always had a great time to remember and laugh on the way home.
Thanks for the dropping in, Lar!
I figure my night’s already a partial success if I’ve had one or two good laughs. Other than that it helps to have a sharp wit or have knowledge of something most people would be interested in, e.g. – have you seen Watchmen, Coraline, do you have a neat hobby like stamp collecting? – I kid.
Else, you could just talk to women like the freakin’ captain of industry that you are – like you have something to say and they need to listen. The right attitude can get you places! 
Otherwise, like Thin Lizzy says in The Boys Are Back In Town, “If she don’t wanna know, forget her”. Shrug.
Damn, I must admit that as a 39yr old, I have probably mastered the art of playin the role BUT honestly I never thought of it that way. I like to just hang out and laugh. I have been in groups where everyone appreciates the the humor but have had that hawk menatlity in regards to one. I have purposely gotten all the friends to let their gaurd down just so that i could pick off the one i wanted. I guess im a predator in that regards. lol Now you have me self analyzing in regards to how I go about my business. Great post.
Thanks, Frank.
I’m not sure if that makes you a predator or not. Did you persuade someone to do something they would not have done normally? Did you use deception to accomplish your goals? I’m thinking if you acted like your regular out for a good time self and that made someone else more receptive over time than that’s not predation. They actively decided they liked what you were presenting and were open to more of what you had to offer. You were just goal oriented! Shrug.
Now you can tell us all about how this kept you up all night thinking about it. THAT would be deception!
didnt mean predator in the “im going to overpower you and impose my will” sense but more like a hunter. Spot the weak one in the crowd, if thats who i wanted to begin with then i set my sights and skills on her, otherwise if she is with the one thats in demand… Thats the first one whose gaurd i crack and that in turn makes for a friendlier environment while waiting on the one. Some guys use their verbal skills exclusively, i incorporate my environment and any human props available.
Frank, instead of writing a book you could start a TV show called, “On The Hunt with Frank”. You could have the camera pan the room/bar/whatever then freeze the frame and do on screen chalk talk. 5 minute spot at max.
The Game is entirely predatory. It’s one of the things that assures that the playing field will never be even between men and women. Guys have to become good hunters while girls just have to try to become good judges as far as when they should lay back and spread their legs or bend over. The skillz and attitudes that guys are forced to master to become proficient in getting girls makes those of us who do it vastly superior and a different kind of being altogether. Eyes on the prize. Everything we do is geared towards only one outcome, getting her to do what we envisioned her doing when we checked out her face, lips or body that first time.
It’s definiltely “will imposition”, but it’s not prosecutable. It’s bringing all of your skillz to bear on achieving what you want. It’s going beyond what chicks BELIEVE you’re going to do to get in their panties. It’s living in an area outside of their consciousness while relating to them on terms they can comprehend and digest. Nobody gives a damn how their day was, but you ask anyway. Nobody cares how nice the weather is today, but you stop her on the street to say that anyway.
It’s absolutely will imposition, because we’re not stepping to chicks and telling them they look good and we want to do this and that to them. We’re deciding what we want and then tactically getting them to give it up. But that’s the game. The “Best Guys” get the best girls. Period. If you’re not the best in something, you have to develop techniques to out-best the best.
I used to hang out with guys that were “broke than a mug”, like BROOOOOOKE, like can’t afford a bag of potato chips broke, and through gift of gab or dressing style or being a great dancer or keeping their Caesar hooked up, they had girls left and right. If you have girls, you have money… THEIR money. Whether that comes from a cashier’s job or food stamps doesn’t matter.
The guys with the best game were able to make lives for themselves out of thin air… out of nothing at all. Meanwhile, you had guys bussin’ they azz to be executives and make money that can’t pull a girl to save their lives, like LITERALLY, they wouldn’t be able to get laid if their actual life depended on it and they spend their days wishing they were the broke dude with the fat-assed chick on his arm.
[...] They’re all in their mid to late 20’s. That’s significant. Then I gave him my particulars and told him I was inclined to date, not exclusively but inclined, women closer to or at my age in [...]