Guide to Bachelorhood: Tip #6

Tip #6: Talk Too Much

So you’re sitting there at a party, doing your thing, drinking a little bit and talking to all kinds of different people: tall, short, skinny, fat, white, black, Asian, Johns, Sheilas, Bobs, Tracys, accountants, engineers, the unemployed, the mentally handicapped, and most regrettably, cute girls. We’ve all done this. But then you get a moment of clarity and you realize you’ve been talking to the same girl for like 30 minutes. She is fully interested. If you leave now, she is going to follow you, Facebook friend you and give you her number. Women are like the smoke coming from a bon fire; You want to be close to the fire, but as soon as you’re within range, the smoke just attaches to you and no matter where you move, you continuously receive billowing hits to the face. You’re trapped, son. This is unfortunate and often comes with a particular smell (smoke smell: bad, women smell: great). You have given this woman false hope, thinking she met an interesting counter part, and might have a potential boyfriend. 

Uh oh... I'd better stick around a little longer.

Stand strong my friend; we both know you are actually not that interesting. When you meet someone at a party, you always want to impress. Maybe not to pick anyone up, but just to not come off as dull. Everyone does it, at least on some level. So while you are talking to someone and hearing all of their amazing stories thinking they have some endless supply of interesting stories… take a step back, realize that they are 25 and all four of the stories you just heard are absolutely as awesome and interesting as this person is to this point in their lives. It’s probably 80% of anything interesting that this person has to say. This is their curriculum vitae for their lives. It starts with your greatest accomplishments, but if you go any deeper, the bottom is full of loose ends that are reworded to sound more impressive than they really are. So while you are thinking you have barely scratched the surface of this person, you’re really already to the point where you have to start scraping the sides of the carton with the spoon to go any further.

So I submit to you this: Keep talking. If she’s interested on any level, she will listen for five minutes and smile big from minutes 10 to 20. From 20-30 she will gaze upon your face and lips with a look of deep intrigue. But you and I both know you’re not 45 minutes interesting. If you’re 45 minutes interesting, then you’re embellishing in an effort to get some action or a girlfriend. But if you’re not trying, then extend that conversation to 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Bam. By then, she will reach her moment of clarity. You will see it. Her face will convey that her false impression of you has been destroyed. Like the face of a toddler whose favorite doll was just tossed in the trash after irreparable damage occurred to it. In a toddler’s case, it’s usually some sort of heavy physical damage paired with a large amount of fecal matter. In the life of this girl, you are now the physical trauma and fecal matter on her favorite doll. She won’t want to “scratch the surface” anymore because she knows if she does, fables of fantasy football heroics and enthralling stories of shopping for ninja star coasters online emerge from your inebriated mouth.

Leaving the conversation with her interested is the worst thing you can do. You do that and she will, without fail, track you down and get that first date. Women are masters at this. At that point, you’re screwed. The first date comes with an abundant supply of topics in and of itself to distract from the fact that you’re not actually interesting (“Isn’t this food delicious?” “Is that your car?” “How was your week?”). Then date two, date three and soon enough, you’re hanging pictures of the two of you in your collective apartment as she has now moved in and you now get hit constantly with billowing hits of beautiful girl smell. If you had just invested an extra 15 to 30 minutes to unveil your true self, this scent of a woman could have been avoided… Hooah!