It’s a rare man who volunteers to meet a girl’s parents early in a relationship. Every time I’ve asked to do that, the girl was pleased; it meant I was taking our relationship seriously. Your mental attitude makes a difference when you meet someone. Most of my friends were scared shitless the first time they met their girlfriend’s parents. My friends always made the mistake of waiting until they were totally in love. They had too much to lose if the parents didn’t like them.
If I thought a girl could be the right one for me, I always tried to meet her parents when I just liked her. If they didn’t like me, it wasn’t as big of a deal. I looked for things like, ‘Was the mom overweight?’ ‘Was the dad a dick?’ ‘How well did the parents get along?’ and ‘Did the girl and her dad have issues?’
Genetics matter—if the mom’s overweight, there’s a much higher probability that your girlfriend will eventually be overweight too. If the father is a complete dick or her mom’s a bitch, future family get togethers are going to be ugly. The environment that your girlfriend grew up in is important—if her parents get along well, the odds are good that she’ll know how to get along with a guy. If her parents don’t get along, the odds are that she won’t.
One of a girl’s most important relationships is the one she has with her father. That relationship will color every other male relationship she ever has. If she has major daddy issues, you won’t be able to avoid the aftermath.
I was always too busy checking out the parents to worry about what they thought of me. I often got the feedback that I made my girlfriend’s parents a little nervous. It beat the alternative—being nervous around them. If someone has to do any judging, it might as well be you.
You and the girl may be putting your best foot forward, but your friends and family members won’t be. If you find her friends and family members annoying, it’s a really bad sign. If your friends and family members don’t like her, again that’s a really bad sign. They have the ability to stay objective—they’re not sleeping with her. Our friends and family members usually have our best interests at heart. If they really don’t like the girl, they’ll usually have good reasons.
Relationships take a lot of work. It helps to start off with as many advantages as possible. If her friends and family like you and your friends and family like her, your relationship is off to a great start. If there’s no group love, it doesn’t mean you have to call it off, but it should give you something to think about.
Chapter 16: How I learned to avoid vampires
A vampire is a beautiful woman who has an insatiable need for male attention. She can be recognized by the small harem of male worshippers she keeps around her. She usually has a boyfriend, but no one man can ever satisfy her need for positive male attention—hence the harem. The vampire doesn’t like competing for masculine attention. If she has female friends, those friends are always much, much less attractive than she is.
The vampire’s preferred prey is a nerd who’s too inexperienced with women to know that he’ll never have anything real with her. If she sees any sign of the nerd finally losing interest, she’ll throw him a small emotional tidbit to keep him in his cage. On extremely rare occasions she might even sleep with him; when she does, it isn’t to build a relationship but to keep him semi-content in his chains. She is unbelievably good at keeping sex just out of reach of the nerd even after she’s slept with him.
I met my first vampire when I was a sophomore in college, and I learned how to get her to date me by accident. I was taking a History of WWII class. There was only one girl in the entire class and she always came to class late.
The first time she entered the classroom, our male instructor stopped in mid-sentence and stared at her. We all did. She had long silky black hair, olive complexion, and curves in places where most other women don’t even have places. She wore a tight tank top and short shorts that left little to imagination.
Every single guy in the room was praying, “Please, please sit next to me.”
A couple of the guys in the room knew her and waved her over to them. We all watched her bounce to her seat.
She was at least ten minutes late for every class. Every time she walked in, all the guys except me stopped and watched her until she sat down. By then, I’d dated a number of women who were just as good-looking, and I’ve always been a contrarian; I’m naturally inclined to do the opposite of everyone else. The third time she was late, I didn’t look up when she came into the room. I made it a point to ignore her from then on. A couple weeks after I stopped paying attention to her, she began to sit next to me.
It was so obvious that she wanted me to hit on her. I didn’t. It amused me to frustrate her.
About a month into the class, I was in a student lounge completely wrapped up in a good book when I looked up. She was sitting at the same table I was. I saw from her face that I’d probably been accidentally ignoring her for awhile. I couldn’t help it; I laughed at how uncomfortable she looked and then asked, “Aren’t you in my History of WWII class?”
She said, “Yes.”
I introduced myself and then said, “I don’t know if you can tell, but most of the guys in our class find you unbelievably attractive.”
I watched her as she began to smile and then stop when she figured out what I’d said wasn’t necessarily a compliment. I left immediately afterwards.
Even back then, I knew the best way to attract a girl who seeks attention is to withhold it, and that one of the best ways to stand out from the pack to a woman who gets compliments all the time is to give her a backhanded one.
She kept on sitting next to me in class. For the most part I ignored her. Every other class or so, I’d say hi. Near the end of the semester after a class, I asked her out on a date. I wasn’t surprised when she accepted. I found out on the date that she was seventeen and that she had skipped two years of school. She was extremely bright but also extremely young and inexperienced.
I felt like I was on a date with a ten-year-old—she was that immature. I always considered myself narcissistic. She was so much better at it than me, I felt like a tiny dim candle sitting next to the sun. She spent our entire date talking about herself. The only thing I could interject was, ‘Uh huh’ from time to time.
At the end of our date, I walked her to her door. I stepped in close; she lifted her face up toward mine, closed her eyes, and slightly opened her mouth. The girl had the body of a beautiful woman and emotional maturity of a ten-year-old. I couldn’t kiss her; I would have felt like a pedophile. I grabbed her right hand in a firm grip and shook her hand twice and said, “Thanks for an interesting night.” The shock in her now wide-open eyes was hilarious. It almost made up for the rest of the date. I told myself in the future to try to avoid that degree of narcissism. I didn’t know it at the time but I’d just had a date with a baby vampire.
She was smart and beautiful. With time and experience, I’m sure she became a much better vampire.
One of the greatest discoveries of modern medicine is the science of vaccinations. If a human being is exposed to a weakened or dead virus, we’re made immune to the stronger virus. I had no idea at the time, but my date with the baby vampire helped immunize me against the adult variety.
The next vampire I met was when I was in graduate school. A friend of a friend was one of her victims and was totally in love with her. If the guy had been one of my friends, I wouldn’t have made a play for her.
This vampire had skills. She had the hot librarian look down. She was intelligent, funny, and could talk gear and science like the best of guys. It was almost impossible for a nerd NOT to fall in love in her. I was totally intrigued by her because she didn’t make sense. Normal women use their body language to tell you if they want you or not. When you give a normal girl a friendly hug, you can tell by what she does with her center of balance if she views you as a potential lover or not. If she leans away, she’s repulsed by you. If her center of balance doesn’t shift, she thinks you’re just a friend. If she leans into you, she’s open to something physical.