Heartbreak Heavweight
Hello
Everyone in my office loves your column! We clock out at 3:00pm on Tuesdays and Fridays and put your advice to work in the local mall’s food court. My boss made it mandatory — we have to take a sick day if we insist on staying in our cubes!
Here’s my situation: There’s a woman at my gym that I really want to date. You insist that all single women live solely to be approached by men in your level 19 eBook, The Enemy Within: Activating a Woman’s Dormant Desires with Jimmy Suede, but I’m afraid that I might be invading her personal space by hitting on her while she’s working out.
How can I initiate a conversation with this woman without bothering her?
Toby from Boston
BOOM, Toby!
It’s good to hear that my sage words are appreciated in at least one office. I assumed that my fresh perspective and unconventional, trail-blazing ideas were too progressive for corporate America after being fired by my last boss for breakthrough innovation. Or, as it’s known in the accounting industry, “material fraud.”
But if my seduction strategies are too sensational for the world of white-collar word sanitation and button-down semantics, it’s only because they’re so successful everywhere else. Whether I’m inhaling booze in a nightclub, reciting facts about the Remodernist movement I memorized from the internet in a chic art gallery, or bribing a young kid to tell his mother that I saved him from an unscrupulous carnie at the state fair, I’ve got one thing on my mind — picking up women.
The gym might as well be a college bar on dollar beer night, Toby. In fact, it’s probably better — when was the last time you saw a woman at a bar wearing nothing but a sports bra and spandex shorts? Reaching player status involves convincing yourself that picking up women is a public service. There will always be a reason not to approach a woman — she looks busy; she’s wearing a wedding ring; she’s driving the bus you’re riding and traffic is heavy — but a player doesn’t recognize seduction hurdles.
When you hit on a woman, you’re doing her a favor: You’re indulging her desire for intelligent conversation and jokes about the Bush administration. Persuade yourself that this woman’s life would be set on a new, far more rewarding trajectory if you so much as said hello to her. After all, why would she be in the gym if she wasn’t hungry for attention from men? No one exercises to attain mental and physical harmony, Toby — that’s what prescription drugs are for.
Approach this woman as if you’re already dating her. Take a swig from her water bottle and use her workout towel to wipe the sweat off your arms and back. Keep your wallet and keys in her gym bag while you lift weights, and threaten to pummel any men you catch looking at her inappropriately. When she’s not looking, quickly put together a romantic playlist on her iPod and sing along to the first few songs.
Much like hanging horse thieves and tipping waiters at restaurants, hitting on women is an antiquated formality. In the digital age, both men and women are far too busy to play the needless game of cat-and-mouse that is “getting to know someone before dating them.” Show respect for this woman’s time by acknowledging the fact that she’d be lucky to date you and acting on it. If a woman doesn’t want you to ask her out, Toby, she will make it unambiguously clear — by asking you out first.
There’s no reason to think that women don’t welcome conversation simply because they make it difficult in every imaginable way. If you remember that you are the prize, a woman listening to her iPod and running full-pace on a treadmill in the most secluded section of the gym won’t be a lost cause — she’ll be justification for dropping $500 on sign language classes.
Links:
Online Dating Tips For Men & Women (Computer Love)