A full belly AND a room full of women?

As you can tell, I've been out of touch for a while. Let's just say that my life situation didn't exactly inspire me for ideas about how men could be more social, but I'm back and I stumbled upon a really great idea for my men on the prowl!

I was looking for innovative ways for men to meet women and I saw this article on Oregonlive.com. It talks about a new-ish concept in community building called food swapping. A food swap is an event where people bring their home made edibles to trade with neighbors.

Even better, when I looked for any applicability in the Boston area I found that a swap is starting here really soon! The first event is on June 25th in Davis Square. Check out the website at www.bostonfoodswap.com.
As great an opportunity as this is to meet women who love to cook, there is a catch! You do need to be able to bring some swappable creation to participate. If you are a homebrewer or have a killer BBQ sauce recipe, then you are home free. If if you don't really know your way around a kitchen or a homemade hobby, a contribution could be as simple as infusing a bit of vodka with something fun (think fruit, veggies, or spices - Google it for more info).
Catch aside, I can almost guarantee that there will be a lot of nice women there who are looking to get to know people and you and your guy friends can be perfectly positioned to meet them! RSVP NOW!

Chick’s Nest #2 – Is it hot in here or is it just you?

(Disclaimer: Don't EVER repeat the title of this post in mixed company!! Only under the narrowest circumstances can a guy pull this one off so appreciate the joke and use a few more natural opening lines at the event!)

Toward the end of most months, the Diablo Glass School in Roxbury invites the public to observe artists while sipping wine and enjoying light snacks. Their next event is the Saturday over Thanksgiving weekend so, if you're interested, sign up soon.

Your Resident Chick went to a DSG Wine and Cheese a few months back and noticed that it was a prime location for men to meet women. On those Saturday evenings when you plan a happy hour anyway, at the DSG you get to expand your artistic horizons, drink wine, eat cheese and meat, and be in a group of 60 or fewer people made up of, on average, 70 percent women! I asked the event coordinator and he said that the wine and cheese nights were interesting because, although men are primarily students at the school, the attendees are mostly women every month. He couldn't really explain why. I'm not sure that why really matters.

Like my recommendations up to this point, this event affords you the opportunity to not only stack the numerical odds in your favor, but it also gives you built in conversation topics with the women who surround you. When I went, the group sat in the giant kiln room watching a team putting together some sort of pitcher. Their plan was to make an intricately detailed piece right in front of our eyes. The W&C group instantly bonded when, in a blink of an eye, the piece shattered. Everyone spontaneously broke out in to conversation because everyone was invested in its success, disappointed with its failure, and eager to share the shock of the piece's demise. In other parts of the school (there is a small piece area with a little torch and a flats area for stained glass and fused glass demos) W&C attendees got to touch and comment on the pieces and ask questions of the demo artists. It's really difficult not to connect with fellow attendees in this situation. Essentially, the conversation makes itself.

One last point about these events is that the location is ripe for extended connections. Why? Because it's on a sort of dreary side street off of the T. I'm pretty sure that there is a chop shop across the street. Even if I miscategorized it, I can GUARANTEE that most women will not feel totally safe walking through the neighborhood, particularly at night. Why is this good for you? Female attendees who meet normal, non-threatening men at the event will probably appreciate a guy with whom she/they can walk to the T or grab a ride to the evening's later destination. Play the hero and instantly relate with the women you meet.

Happy booze and molten glass!

He who gives shall receive

Sorry guys!! I've been out of commission for a while. To make up for it, I'm going to give you a few great posts at once!

In the past week, the Women's Philanthropy Institute published a study called "Women Give 2010" where they offered data to suggest that women were more charitable than men. Although I will leave the data analysis to the WPI, their conclusion was hardly a surprise because I've noticed a marked imbalance between men and women at charitable events. To get a sense of the type of women who frequent the city's higher profile charity events, check out Boston.com's party photos by Bill Brett. Although the crowds can often be mixed, inevitably, there is an excess of (usually) single women dressed to the nines and looking hot at these events. If I had to theorize about why that would be, I'd guess that men see charity events as a way for groups to siphon money from them and that women see charity events as a appropriate price to pay for the right type of social interaction.

What is the "right type" of social interaction?

Although both types of events are essentially just cocktail parties, the difference between any night at a bar and a night at a charity event is that, at a charity event, a common element unifies everyone in the room. As I said in my introductory post, the trick to being more successful with women is your ability to relate to them while distinguishing yourself from other men. Charity events give you the opportunity to relate to women and start conversations more easily by providing commonality with women in attendance. You can either be that guy she met at the bar or you can be that guy she met last night who also likes aquariums or dogs or (fill in the blank) other cause du jour.

Picking the right event

If you are among the 30 or so percent of men that the WPI claim are not currently giving, you may wonder about how to pick a charity to support that will yield the best results. Considering that your goal is to create some sort of commonality with the women at the charity events, pick something you ACTUALLY care about!! This goes back to my post on self-assessment – talking naturally about something that actually interests you is a LOT easier than trying to impress a girl using whatever bullshit you think she wants to hear! Do you have a dog that you love? Go to a party to support the adoption of shelter dogs. Do you love the Red Sox? During the season, there are always Red Sox Foundation events around town. More of a tech nerd? How about Museum of Science events?

If you can't manage to find ANY cause that speaks to directly, there are a lot of organizations that take a more general approach to causes and will naturally have a large percentage of women. The first that comes to mind is the Junior League of Boston. This is a women's organization that provides volunteer support to other organizations in the community. They often have social events that include a lot of members where the public can go. Because the membership generally includes a LOT of single women, these events are a great way to meet attractive, successful, together women.

So do a quick self assessment and decide what kind of guy you are and what kind of women you want to find. Look in the Globe, Events.org, Going.com (this link is a GREAT ONE!), Yelp.com or any other event listing source. When all else fails, Google it! Whatever you do, run – don't walk, to make yourself one of the men for every one of the many women who are attending these events and hoping to meet a great guy like you!

 

 

 

Your secret weapon in the chick quest

Now that I’ve started to post about the places you can find women, I want to talk about what I believe to be your #1 most helpful dating resource – your female friends. Although I have done you the courtesy of posting a woman’s thoughts about dating in the blogosphere, many of your female friends will have great ideas for you about how to meet women to date. Their advice is also more likely to be tailored to your own personality and needs. In fact, I would adamantly recommend that if you are a man looking to meet a woman, you should hang out with your platonic female friends as often as possible. Why?

First, they are women! They go places that women go and, if they take you with them, you will be around women too. If you are tired of going out with your guy friends and finding yourself knee deep in sausage, you need to follow the women. Again, I started this blog because I remembered being in so many places that clearly drew so many women that I thought men should know about them. If you go to these places, you will increase your chances of meeting women.

A helpful note about women – we generally know what types of events are better suited for our own enjoyment. We even have particular events where we want to bond with the girls and not have to deal with guys. Your female friends are not going to drag you to these events (think Sex and the City night with the girls). If you are invited somewhere by a woman, she is likely doing it because she thinks the experience has something to offer you. GO!

Second, women relate better to women. If you are nervous about starting conversations, they can do a lot of the heavy lifting. If you and your guy friends have the social skills to approach women at events, congratulations! You are above the curve. However, if you don’t have guy friends who are great with women and you are with a more mixed group, your women friends don’t need extraordinary social skills to approach other women. One person (the women will be super skilled at it) talks to another about a neutral topic and first person introduces new acquaintance to their social group. Your most savvy female friends will even know to relate what they are talking about to you and the other people in your group. No pressure, no problem! Speaking of a lack of pressure, your chick friends can do the job of a wingman without providing you with any sexual competition (unless your chick friends are lesbians).

Third, the fact that women actually like you gives you immediate credibility with other women. Bonus if you can score an ex-girlfriend “wing woman.” Being with other women with whom you are clearly not attached says to a new woman that this guy isn’t so creepy or socially inept that women can’t stand to be around him. If you are with someone you used to date, it says that even a failed relationship wasn’t so filled with drama that the two can’t be friends. Non-creepy, socially able, and low-drama are all VERY good qualities in men and you can communicate those qualities to new women simply by hanging out with the right people.

Lastly, just as you want to be useful to your women friends, they want to be helpful for you. Finding guy friends cool women is to women what helping women with car repairs and bug-killing is to men. Beyond the need to be helpful, most women also REALLY love to bring people together. I will bet that if you know any nice women (why would you hang out with people who aren’t nice), and you ask nicely, they will make it their personal goal to introduce you to women. She has a project and you have sexual options – it’s a win-win!

A word of caution about the dating advice you get from well-meaning women friends – sometimes women can fall in to the trap of regurgitating bad Cosmo-grade advice to guy friends. If Oprah spews garbage long enough, eventually people will start believing it! If you want some good advice about some of the typical bad advice that women give to men, check out this (verified helpful) blog post by Liz Leia, a dating coach for men. I just want you to be aware of the difference between the questionable advice that women give and women’s innate ability to know where women go!!

So, immediately after reading this post I want you to contact the coolest women you know. Recruit your friends’ girlfriends, your sister’s friends, and even friendly co-workers. If you don’t have any female friends, try to find friends of friends. If you can’t look at your Facebook page and find ANY women within 2 or 3 degrees of separation, you have effectively had a car crash in front of a hospital emergency room – you’ve got a problem on your hands, but at least you’re in the right place! Keep reading my blog (shameless plug!) and, if you really need some ideas, e-mail me!!

A comic interpretation of my last post

If you didn't believe me when I said that acting like Don Draper (but not too much) would help you get women, check out this clip. Hopefully this will be all the inspiration you need to head to Noir tonight!

It's a Mad, Mad world

*Drum roll please*

The first CEV chick’s nest!!

A few Sundays ago I went to the Mad Men Premier at Noir in the Charles Hotel and would like to formally recommend their weekly Mad Men parties to my readers. Although Noir is actually a bar, this recommendation clearly skirts my bar=bad policy. This is a better choice than most bars because the Mad Men nights are always on Sundays which generally means less booze, the hour or two before the show was quiet and perfect for flirting, and the ratio of women to men was spectacular.

As people began to pile in to the bar one thing became shockingly clear – women like Mad Men as much as they like retro fashion. My estimated ratio was 5 or 6 women for every man at the bar. Those odds are very heavily in your favor! On the other hand, there were enough men there that your presence would not make the needle skip on the record. As if the ratio wasn’t enough to convince you, the evenings are “costume encouraged” so the women who attended looked incredible. The women were wearing sleek dresses, high heels, and red lipstick reminiscent of the ‘60s so everyone looked more attractive than the people you would find in a random jeans and t-shirt bar.

Talking during the show (from 10-11pm) is strictly forbidden but between 8-10pm the atmosphere is ripe for meeting people. You can talk to women about how they look like a particular character, this week’s story line, or even that you forgot how great candy cigarettes were! Because there is commonality among all of the bar-goers, finding something to say to strike up a conversation is easier. If you are reading this and asking yourself what in hell I’m talking about, catch up with the show on Netflix or Amazon video.

Although women like the fashion, Mad Men’s constant look at work life in the 60’s is, by definition, a study of men. There are very few cheesy jokes and you’ll find little in terms of loud action (although there was a pretty awesome moment in the Independence Day episode from season 3), but this will speak to any man who has ever had a difficult boss, a backstabbing co-worker, personal troubles, or a challenging client. If you heard about it and thought that it wouldn’t speak to you, change your tune – it will!

Another major benefit of Mad Men nights is that you can wear costumes. 60’s costumes are pretty easy for guys – a conservative suit and combing the spikes down with a sharp side part is pretty much all you need to play the part. Although that takes a little extra effort on your part, the payoff will come when you give the women at the bar a reason to talk to you. During the premier, a handful of guys were dressed in their 60’s wear and women were complimenting them all night. I’m pretty sure that the ones who went the extra mile (e.g. the smoking jacket and candy cigarette) could have easily picked up the majority of single women there. I was certainly impressed and I heard rumblings of others who were wowed! The best part is that you can use your costume to inspire a new, more confident you. This brings me to my next point…

What Don Draper Can Teach You About Dating

OK, DO NOT under any circumstances act like Don Draper indiscriminately. The 60’s are over and modern women would probably not hesitate to knee you for much of what he does. However, one thing that Don Draper can teach you is the concept of “faking it until you make it.” As a lowly rural kid turned soldier, he wanted a better life so he willed circumstances changed and turned himself in to a high powered Madison Avenue ad man. He also created his whole career by studying how people work and identifying the patterns. In S1E8, “The Hobo Code,” his hobo house guest teaches Don about the Hobo codes where one will communicate with others about the residents of the house by assessing the general patterns of the family. This was established as the basis for his career and the vehicle that freed him from his lowly life.
Use those two tips, feigning confidence and observing female behavior, to improve your skills with women. As you learn the art of faking confidence, you have to be able to establish the difference between confidence and lying. I plan to do a detailed post in the future about why men should attempt to be as honest as possible to women. As a preview, I’ve encouraged my readers to listen to the Pickup Podcast before but part of the reason why I have been so drawn to their advice is the fact that they advocate for owning what you want and need and promote being honest about it. So observe what Don does to draw women in and ignore what he does once he has roped them in. Your love life will thank you!

Review of Neil Strauss' "The Game"

One of the best books I've read about men and women is The Game by Neil Strauss. Although it almost reads like a modern day, in-civilization version of The Lord of the Flies (William Golding's Lord of the Flies (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)), it actually serves as a first hand (bird's eye if you will) account of the "pickup" or "seduction" community.

My readers should certainly NOT try the stunts in this book at home. Although living in a mansion and dating different women every night sounds fun in theory, keep reading - these guys weren't happy doing it. On the other hand, if you can weed out the extreme behavior in it and take away a moderated approach to gaining confidence and taking a strategic approach to your love life, you may actually take away something good from another's suffering.

Check out a list of reader reviews here.

RW, Resident Chick