How to Pick Up Chicks
Wow! There she goes, aflame in beauty, grace and style. Everything she touches turns to gold.
Smitten, that’s it. You are gone, don’t fight it. Fall into the golden sea of love, awash with silver waves, glimmering. This is no mirage.
Wait, what next? How do I get her into my life? Tightening, tensing, she is mine, I need her, she is meant for me. Hey, she is moving away, ignoring me, stuck up bitch! My eyes wander looking to fill that void of desire. There are tits and bums everywhere, they are mine but how do I them into my life?
Hmmm…
I will watch them like an animal study and figure out this puzzle. The perfect pick up line or perhaps examine her mannerisms, read her then she is mine. But really the best way, get her when her defenses are down, drunk, no self-esteem, will listen to my bullshit compliments, my feigned interest.
This is sick, this is not me… why am told this is the way I should act to women?
My strategizing started young, I remember as a kid coming across a flaky new-age publication that had an article titled something like “The TEN Steps to Getting Your Soul-Mate”. I grabbed it, thinking I had the key to life. I read it, step 1 – ‘wear white’, step 2 ‘eat blah, blah blah’ etc for nine steps. I was excited I can do this, it is all mine. Then step 10 was basically become rich and famous. Drat, how lame.
The more I want something and the harder I try, the more tricks I use the worse I feel. How did this feeling of magic, love and oneness become perverted to make me isolated, dull, predatory, not myself? Shit, this seems like my life; miserable, always wanting something that will cure my misery, the BMW M5 (F10), the perfect suede shoes, the latest app, more likes, but always back to the intangible, slightly ungraspable feeling of anxiety, of lacking, of not being right. The feeling that will not go away, no matter my strategy.
Go watch some porn? Women getting thrown around, mass produced barbie dolls that are there to be abused. Jack off to those pixels changing color that make up my computer screen? The world becomes dead, me alone. This world is like walking through the valley of death. Everything is fake, no challenges just there to make me feel like I am the “boss”. There is something going wrong. Why cannot I see this person as existing? Full of dreams, hopes, compassion, part of a family, part of a community, perhaps even cares about me?
I notice when I am feeling down, bored, trapped by life I go walking down the street checking asses, that feeling that they are mine to be admired. Some excitement, some control of this whirl-wind that is existence. But it makes me feel disturbed, those butts becoming detached from reality and I need more and more.
I heard also a story of Native American hunters. They did not pursue their catch. Through their relationship with their environment, respecting and understanding their position within that, their catch would come to them.
Wait a minute! Be myself, the person I long to be, relaxed, seeing myself as part of a larger whole, interconnected. This person that I desire is part of me, to be loved, respected, honoured, feared, trusted? When I can do this that person will come to me?
No way, I do not think women will want anything to do with me if I do not play strategies. They are unattainable only interested in “confident” (read dominating, abusive and vain) guys with money, with expensive cars, from good families, exciting types (abusive fucks).
No, no, slow down Hamish.
If I just relax I know this is not true. Trust my heart and just look… feel. There is a immense world of movement, possibility, beauty, happiness, rawness in front of me. It is just so overwhelming… they do not teach you about this in school. Just do the same thing, follow rules, don’t diverge. What about my heart that is jumping out of my chest whenever I see a snowflake! Those tits and bums flying around in my head give me an anesthetic, the legs and lips stuck to my eyeballs that I cannot scrape off, then I do not have to follow the power in my heart. It turns down the volume but I do not want to live a confused, disassociated life.
Looking more closely… if I let go of being the boss, competing with and impressing the guys, fantasizing the last porn scene, killing prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto, conning people into my life… What do I feel? Relief, power flowing from the sky through my body into the ground, solid, alive, happy! The body parts that are women come to life, become figures of wisdom, glowing with love! Hey, my life starts to morph and change. Boring friends doing the same thing, hitting on women, telling me how many they have slept with, seem, well boring. Time to move on. They can call me a fag, not a man, no problem. (though who is unsure of their sexuality, by the way?)
I am no angel — lying to, manipulating, using women, but where can a guy really start changing?
Giving!
The best kind of giving, the kind that requires no money but a lot of heart. The best, most effective anti-depressant ever.
Give kindness to all, to the homeless guy on Spring Garden, the irritated cashier, your family. Give a smile to anyone.
Give support. Speak up when someone says something racist, misogynistic or hateful. If you can’t speak up, be with that pain in your heart ‘til you can find the courage to speak up. Though even when you do speak up the pain remains so perhaps the best thing is to be with the pain in your heart and see what happens.
Give conversation. Just enjoy conversing with anyone without having an objective. What no objective? Danger! Danger! Reach out to people who are shy or excluded.
Give kindness to yourself (whatever the fuck that means, I think it has something to do with yourself a break for perceived deficiencies… still working on this puppy)
Give silliness, channel Basil Fawlty
Give by knowing when you have given enough.
You get the picture, time to let go of our oppressive self-obsession that has entrapped women in our world of pain.
Broaden the focus and allow the light of life in.
Oh yeah and, give respect to women. Know their intelligence, power, all they give to make community. Put them first, give them space to walk, to speak, be the space for them to be without fear.
photo: Vicki Watkins