Don’t engage with sex (money) in mind. Engage for fun. Benefits will follow.
I feel I got some pretty good advice when I was a young chap trying to meet girls at bars and other social spots.
The first bit of advice was to stand out somehow. In one article I read, the author said he would always take a crossword puzzle with him to a bar. He’d get a beer and would start working on his puzzle. Either someone would approach him, or he would have an easy “in” when he wanted to talk to someone.
“What’s a 4-letter word for ‘sound an ass makes’?” long pause “Ends in Y…” long pause “Oh! Bray! God, that’s embarrassing. What are you drinking?”
The fact that he wasn’t walking down the bar, one by one, and hoping his lucky number would come up made him stand out. He was happy doing his own thing.
He also suggested wearing pajama bottoms, or a sports jacket from Goodwill straight out of the 70s. Whatever it is, he said, make yourself different than the guys wearing the round-billed, fraying baseball caps, polo shirts with the collars popped, ragged jeans, and sandals.
Be different.
Another piece of advice was to be desireless. If you’re talking to a girl, and you are even thinking about sex, your chances are over before they started. It’s Buddhist (or Taoist… I always get the two confused…).
When you are with a woman, you hang out. You talk. You listen. You share vulnerable details about yourself to show you trust this person. If sex happens later, that’s really fantastic. However, meeting women should solely be about being yourself and making a connection. Women can smell an agenda like shit on a shoe.
Finally, be ok to walk away. Even if you and this person had a fantastic connection, thank her for a great evening. It’s human nature to chase things that retreat from you.
Walking away means that you are ok with yourself, and you don’t need this person in your life. Walking away isn’t the same as playing hard to get. It’s being confident in yourself as a stand-alone human being.
Women (and men!) want to bag the big game — a lion or a bear. But you come along like a cute little puppy that wants to hump her leg.
Stand out a little to her. Talk to her like a human wants to be talked to. Then tell her it was a great evening. Maybe get her number or maybe just tell her you really hope to see her in the bar again, and be gone.
Retreat, and you will be chased.
I have used these techniques my whole life – and not just for meeting women. They work great at business networking events, at events where powerful or famous people are attending, and pretty much anywhere that you want to become one of the most well-known people in the room.
Write like you are picking up a woman
The same can be said for writing for publications like Medium.
I have been blogging since 1999 (though back then, it wasn’t called blogging). There is/was a website called Diaryland where you could write diary entries for the whole world to see. I eventually got quite a following on there.
I then switched over to LiveJournal where I also got quite a following. I even met some real-life friends on LiveJournal with whom I chat with weekly to this day.
I maintained a steady writing schedule on these two platforms. I treated it like a job: a high-quality post every day, five days a week (Monday – Friday), with two weeks off per year. I had to learn to find a way to make even the most mundane topic, or experience in my life, interesting and fun.
Being different in a world of writers isn’t easy. Sometimes, you have to force yourself to see the world from a different point of view.
Learning to do this was therapeutic on so many levels. It’s easy to slip into the mindset of your life not being interesting at all. Knowing you have to write an engaging story about your day that people will want to read, you are forced to find some angle that turns a mundane day into one people want to hear about. Getting into the habit of seeing the everyday as potential material sure brightens up the world.
As Rainer Maria Rilke said, “if your daily life seems poor, do not blame your life. Blame yourself.”
Here’s an exercise:
Think about the last time you had to run to the store to get a gallon of milk. Pretty fucking boring, right?
Write about it, but make it interesting.
Consider Pixar’s rules of storytelling, especially Rule #12:
Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th — get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
Make that story fun to read. Maybe a detail here and there needs to be exaggerated. Maybe a little hiccup in your journey can be fabricated. Don’t let truth stand in the way of a good story, but don’t make it farcical, either.
Practice enough, you will find people look forward to your mundane stories about getting a haircut or buying milk.
As the old saying goes: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
Eliminate your desire to be successful
People can tell almost instantly if you are writing with the hope of earning a few bucks, and it turns them off completely.
Write for yourself. Write because you have a story to tell. Write because you must. Going back to Rilke, he said:
In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?
Don’t write if you are doing it for any other reason. Many people pay lip service to the “write for yourself” bit while holding on tightly to dollar signs that come into their heads with articles or books they want to sell. Don’t be this person.
Write only when the words flow freely, completely without restriction.
Like I said, I used to maintain a strict writing schedule. Back in my young 20s, it was a fantastic way to “earn my bones.” I went from a shit writer to one people looked forward to reading. I learned what worked, and I learned what didn’t.
Now that I’m older, I only write when I have a story to tell. One that comes at me free of sense and restriction, deriving from the most remote of sources.
For the most part, I don’t sit around trying to think of ideas or article titles. My mind wanders into a subject that’s been playing with my attention for some time and then it hits me — “that would make an awesome article.”
If the article is a massive viral hit, great! If not, also great! I write for myself. I hope you like it. If not, that’s ok too.
The final rule
Write. Publish. And wipe your hands until you have another story to tell.
I have no problem with the writers who have 400 stories on their profiles and preach the good word of publishing every day. Hell, I used to do it myself.
My favorite essayists, authors, and blog writers, though, are the ones who pop up in my media unexpectedly with really good material to read.
There’s a YouTuber named Beau Miles who makes some of the best videos on YouTube. His videos tell stories about his life – sometimes, the story is simply him walking around his neighborhood.
The videos are usually quite long, too. Often they run 30 minutes or longer.
However, they are the most well-produced vlogging videos on YouTube. In the three or four times a year one of his videos lands on my Subscriptions page, I make it a highlight of my day. I’ll pop some popcorn, get comfortable, and watch.
I never know when his next video will land. However, I feel I would get bored if he did a 30-minute video every day.
Write fantastic material, then walk away until you have something else to say. Make your audience excited to see something new.
People think writing for publications like Medium is nearly impossible to break into if you are starting out.
It’s not that hard, my friends, so long as you have love for the craft of writing and storytelling at its core. Do those things first… all else will come.
(Pun intended.)
