Meeting Women: aka, The Hunt
I was talking to a girlfriend on the phone tonight about love, sex, dating and friendship. I told her that I’m a single guy now and even though I’m not dating anyone or have any intention on starting, the time alone has forced me to observe how this whole dating thing works. This observation has actually taken me back to that time where I didn’t date for two years. Between the ages of 17 and 19, I didn’t go on a single date, have sex, talk to a women that wasn’t a friend or family member and pretty much did my own thing. I went to the gym every day, worked hard, traveled more and I was perfectly fine with it. Laura just kind of happened in an unexpected way but I was very cautious about our relationship from the beginning.
What inspired this two years of swearing off women? Was I painfully hurt by my first girlfriend to the point of not dating ever again? Actually, not. Sure, the first relationship ended poorly but it wasn’t anything that would have inspired a women free lifestyle. In fact, it was when I observed the mating habits of people, it was obvious that I wasn’t going to stoop so low in order to meet a woman.
Before going any further, read my post, My Thoughts on The Dating Game. It will explain a bit of background and will save me some time here.
I like to meet people. Every job I’ve ever loved is customer facing or a role where I get to shake hands, travel and learn about people. It’s exciting! I genuinely love talking to women. They try to analyze me and I do it right back. They open up and tell sad and happy stories and I get to relate and offer advice. It’s a mutual bond that I have with women and my best friends have always been girls. At the same time, I’m not a soft, sensitive guy that doesn’t stand up for himself. In any relationship, it’s completely fair on both sides so my kindness has sometimes been confused with weakness but that’s not the case.
On the other hand, guys are fun to hang out with. They do guy things. They’re loud, fun and I can observe the synergy between 3 guys as they meet up, turn on a sporting event and grab a beer. I see the testosterone levels rise and fall as each guy has their turn to flex their muscles with stories, jokes and sometimes literally flexing their muscles. It’s interesting but not for me. I can hang though. In a group of guys, I know what is going on in the football game and enjoy drinking beer. I can give a firm handshake, bear hug and talk about how hot that girl was who just walked by. When I’m alone, I don’t think, do or act like that at all. My put on my glasses, write a short story, study a new scientific study in popular science and listening to ambient electronic music at level 2 (not 10). I’m not an intellect and I’m not an artist. Just a guy who has learned to appreciate things on a different level.
The dating game is a hunt and I don’t think either side enjoys it. I was chatting with my old friend who happens to be a girl about my break up and she mentioned going through a similar thing. We both recognized that guys hunt women. They actually go on a hunt, travel in packs, find the women who shows her assets just the right way and then they aggressively go in for the kill with the intention of dragging her back to their den for reproduction or just social dominance since reproduction isn’t that way anymore, I’m going to assume that social dominance and control over another is why men do it.
Women, in general like being hunted but so many women don’t know any other way. If you like a guy but he gives you no signs, how will you know? Exactly and both sexes are terrified of rejection. So women leave it up to the male to make the first move even if that move involves flexing his arm muscles followed by a club to the head so he can drag her away. I see this very often and I feel uncomfortable with it. You guys have no problem messaging a girl on Facebook or Twitter or on Craigslist saying straight up, “hey looks like you’re single, do you need a man to keep you warm?”
I have no clue if this ever works but it’s interesting that so many women actually respond to those pick up lines almost as if it’s the most breathtaking thing they’ve ever heard. I will not resort to such madness to meet a women.
What’s my game plan for meeting women? Well, to be clear I’m not ready yet. I’m in no hurry to find a girlfriend but this is what’s interesting. When I say that to guys, the most common guy to guy response to that is, “good just go out and fuck. have fun and enjoy yourself. you don’t need a girl in your life right now. you’re young and can get as much hot ass as you want!”
Wait, what? That’s the interesting thing here. You’re either in a long-term committed relationship (which is all I’ve ever had) or you’re out having one-night stands. That can’t be right at all. I recently read a survey that said 75% of city dwellers wished they had a fuck buddy for those times when you just need someone to “hang out with”. Yeah, that sounds about right but that’s not what I’m about. This is all so confusing.
Are there women out there that you can just hang out with as friends, invite over to your place for popcorn and a movie, hang out every other day and just be friends without there needing to be an awkward sexual tension between you? Is it possible to just go out and meet women the old fashioned way but not be that guy. Here’s the scenario I see daily. Three girls at a bar / club and guy after guy walks up to them asking to buy one of them a drink.
If I’m attracted to one of those girls, I won’t walk up to them and the reason is, they’re obviously three great friends out having fun and enjoying themselves. Even if I’m successfully able to chat with the girl I’m interested in, now I’ve stolen her away from her friends and that’s just rude. If a girl goes to a club and has a hat that says, “i’d like to meet a new guy friend” then I’m all over it. That’s never going to happen, of course.
So how does this all play out? Well, this is why I was single for 2 years. I didn’t want to be a wolf and hunt for women and I didn’t want to be rude and walk up to girls randomly and interrupt their meal or drinks with friends. I didn’t want to interrupt a girl reading a book in a bookstore and waste her time with some line that sounds pretty stupid later. These tactics just sound very dumb and rude. I wouldn’t mind if a girl talked to me but that would never happen either and I have no idea what her intentions are and saying something awkward like, “I don’t want to date you” is going to be…awkward.
At the end of the day, what matters is that I’m happy with myself. Before I had a girlfriend, I was an only child for years and entertained myself for hours with no friends. My family moved so much that I never had a best friend growing up for more than a year before we moved again. I still, to this day, don’t know anyone to be the best man at my wedding. Needless to say, I’ve done everything alone except for things I did with my Dad. So when it comes to entertaining myself and being content and happy, I can do that easily. I’d like to have a friend that’s a girl that I can hang out with that I don’t have to feel bad about not making a move and that I can just be comfortable with. Trust me, it’s a very steep request of mine.
I had that with Laura. We were best friends before being a couple. We remain friends today and she’s the only person, outside of a few long distance girls I knew in high school, that I can still talk to. I want to meet a friend like Laura that isn’t a girlfriend and that isn’t someone I “hunted” to meet.
In closing, I’ll be single for a long time. Women that I find interesting are usually casually hooking up with people and if I am interested in a girl who has 150 mutual Facebook friends, no thanks because I can make my own assumptions. I’ve been told many times that no one in tech has exclusive relationships and this is why I’m not making long term friends with anyone in “tech” in San Francisco. I’m not going to go out and hunt anyone and I won’t become a typical guy who hangs out with the guys and pinches asses. That’s just not me and if that fact means I’ll never have a girlfriend ever again, fine because I honestly don’t believe that the best way to find your life partner is to grab her ass and buy her a cocktail. If I’m wrong, then it’s the single life for me.
