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Site by Ian Coburn My "Ask a Guy" Column on Lifetime
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Chivalry Ain't Dead (Click Here for Printer Version) I was clueless about getting laid in college. (I was better in college than I was in high school. I was no longer the sweetest guy and I asked out a lot more women in college than I did in high school, most of whom shot me down. I let that get to me but I shouldn’t have.) I had not yet learned that a guy needed to be the aggressor and make a move. It was too bad because college was a buffet of women and men exploring their likes and dislikes when it came to dating and sex. Actually, students didn’t really date in college, they hooked up. They went out with a group to a bar, drank, and went home with someone. They went out with a group to a party, drank, and went home with someone. Drinking was a big factor in hooking up. A lot of guys asked out women who turned them down, only to meet them at a party sometime down the road and fuck their brains out. I was completely out of that circle. My problem was I was treating women like they were delicate flowers. This naïve behavior came from my mom, who taught me and my sisters that girls did not like sex. I can’t blame her. A single mother raising three children hardly needs the added headache of her teenage children sleeping around, maybe making babies. I was especially naïve during my freshman and sophomore years. I went out with a cute junior with a good body three or four times my first year. Twice she brought me back to her room. We sat and talked both times, she walked me out, I got a goodnight kiss, and then I went back to my dorm. After the second time I was in her room, she stopped returning my calls. She gave up on me making a move. There were two really cute girls I liked in my freshman English class, Dana and Jennifer (the only two real names I’ve used in this book). I was especially interested in Dana, who had very pretty eyes. Both girls seemed to enjoy the stories I wrote for class. Jennifer invited me back to her room after class one day. We sat and talked for ten minutes, then she told me she had to get going. I headed back to my dorm, wondering why Jennifer had invited me back to her room when she had to go somewhere so soon. I had not even tried to kiss her because it didn’t seem like something people did during daylight hours. (Yeah, I was that stupid.) I wanted to ask Dana out badly but I never worked up the nerve. The semester ended and I didn’t even have her number. I told myself it was no big deal, that I’d see her again around campus. Jennifer, too. I never saw Dana or Jennifer again, which bugs me even to this day. Every dorm floor had a mysterious resident, usually a guy. He was rarely on campus and rumors spread about him, like that he was a federal agent living with students to catch them with drugs. There was no way he could be a student; he never went to class, he’d have been academically dismissed long ago. In my junior and senior years, I was that guy. I was performing comedy across the Midwest most of the time. I mailed in important papers and missed midterms. I was rarely on campus, making appearances only occasionally. Somehow, I still managed to graduate with a 3.0 GPA. I had changed a lot since my first two years of school and was more aggressive with women, but I was still treating them too nicely. One of my dorm neighbors in my senior year was a pretty transfer student from a community college. Her name was Linda and she was a sophomore. She was short, slim and petite. She had a welcoming charm that made her quite attractive. I liked Linda, but I decided not to ask her out. Instead I would just go to a party with her one night and see what happened. Now, it was extremely unadvisable to date or hook up with anyone who lived on the same floor. If things didn’t work out—which they wouldn’t—there were lots of opportunities to run into each other, which could result in heated arguments. In Linda’s case it was a moot point. She was not the best student, and she made it clear that she would not be returning to school after the first semester. Given that she wouldn’t be around long and that I was gone most of the time, I figured our chances of running into each other would be slim. My thinking was far from unique. Whenever a hot woman moved onto the floor, it was hoped that she would be a bad student or would be moving soon, so that we guys could hit on her. One night I headed out with Linda, her roommate, and her roommate’s boyfriend. We went to a party, where we ran into five guys who lived on the seventh floor of our dorm. The guys had seen Linda around the dorm and moved in immediately. She hadn’t even had a chance to have a sip of her beer, yet. She made it clear that she was completely disinterested. The guys turned to walk away, except one, who did something very interesting. He stayed behind and asked Linda a few questions. “Who’s your English teacher?” “Ms. Boyd.” “What day do you have class?” “Tuesdays and Thursdays.” “What time?” She sighed, “One to two-thirty. Why?” “Thanks.” He walked away. “I hate it when guys just come up to you like that. I’m not here to meet anyone; I just want to be out.” Two hours later Linda was quite drunk. Her roommate, designated to remain sober that night to look out for the girls’ safety, was also drunk. I took it upon myself to look out for Linda. The guys from the seventh floor returned. The tallest one, about six inches taller than me, approached Linda, “Hey, you’re in my English class.” “I am? You don’t look familiar.” “Ms. Boyd’s class, Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, right?” Oh, come on, please, there was no way that was going to work. “Yeah, I’m in that class!” She put her arm around his shoulders and looked at me, “This guy’s in my English class, Ian. He’s my English buddy.” I was very annoyed. I watched as the guys talked to a now very willing Linda. They pushed me out of the conversation and tightened a circle around her. (I had not yet learned how to deal with cock-blocking.) I pounded back beer after beer in frustration. Later, three of the guys huddled together and whispered. They then rejoined the circle, one of them taking the lead, “Hey, I just heard the police are on their way.” Linda was concerned, “The police?!” “Yeah, the police. We better get going; you don’t want to get arrested, do you, Linda?” “No, I don’t! I better warn my roommate.” “Oh, don’t worry; we’ll make sure you get back to the dorm okay.” “That’s so sweet.” She gave the tallest guy a kiss on the cheek. She found her roommate and said, “Goodbye. These guys are going to make sure I get home okay.” “All right, bye.” They hugged and Linda rejoined the grinning guys to leave. I followed. One of the guys pushed me back, “Dude, don’t worry, we’ll make sure she gets home okay.” “I’m sure you will; I just don’t want to be arrested, either.” They didn’t know I was a senior. “We don’t want you coming.” The tallest guy signaled for him to relax; he must have figured the five of them could deal with me later. We walked across campus back to the dorm. The guys spoke about the various things they planned to do to Linda and of the various positions in which they planned to do them. One of them couldn’t wait and turned to her, “I bet I can guess how much you weigh just by picking you up.” “No you can’t.” “Let me try.” He picked her up and squeezed her tight to his body. He slid his hands down to her ass and let her slide all the way down his body to the ground. He looked at his friends and mouthed without speaking, “Wow.” The other guys weren’t about to be left out of the fun. They each took a few turns copping feels in the guise of guessing her weight by picking her up. I should not have allowed this to continue but there were five of them and only one of me. We resumed our walk to the dorm as I crafted a plan. These guys are drunk, I thought, and drunk guys can’t fight, so I got that going for me. The only problem is I’m drunk, too. I better practice. As we walked back to the dorm, I fell slightly behind the group. I shadow-boxed the air and threw some kicks. I got more and more intense as I realized more and more that the odds were vastly against me in a fight. I became aware that I was uttering things, rather loudly, “You want some of this? I’ll kick your ass . . . you’re going down . . . way down . . . down to downtown.” The guys kept looking back at me and laughing while they pointed. This served only to further infuriate me; they were really risking the taste of my wrath. I kicked and punched harder, occasionally adding in the famous Karate Kid crane technique. By the time we got back to the dorm, I was drenched in sweat. We waited for the elevator, which is where the guys made their error. They should have kept me from getting on with them. Linda and I lived on five; the guys lived on seven. There was no way I was getting off the elevator without her. Also, the guys didn’t know which room was mine. Linda lived in the room closest to the elevator; my room was the very next one. My roommate was in for the night, studying, so I could call to him for help, not to mention anyone else that might be on the floor. The doors opened and I took Linda’s hand, “Come on, Linda, let’s go.” The guys intervened, “Hey, watch out for this guy, Linda. He’s trying to take advantage of you.” “Yeah, you better come with us.” They tried to push me away. I stood my ground. “Ain’t happening, guys.” Linda thought about it and got off the elevator with me. As the doors closed, she spun around and shoved her arm through them, causing them to reopen. She pointed to the tallest guy, “YOU can come with me.” He grinned and got off the elevator, leaving his very disappointed comrades behind. The doors closed and Linda took him to her room. I don’t know if I was more pissed or concerned. Linda opened her door and flipped on the light. She then fell to the hall floor in a drunken stupor, giggling, “I have to pee! I have to pee!” Some of her friends came out of their rooms to see what was going on. They dragged Linda down the hall to the restroom. The tall guy walked into her room and waited. I thought this was a good time to talk to him, so I also went into her room. I had no business doing it; Linda had invited him there and it had nothing to do with me. I walked up to him and suddenly became a member of the Mafia, talking with a thick Brooklyn accent, “Hey, you better be good. She’s a nice girl and I like her a lot. I really care about her. She’s in no condition to have a guy over; she should just be going to bed. You better be good.” “Oh, I’ll be good . . . I’ll be real good.” Uh-oh . . . now he had done it. I imagined myself reaching up to his face and lightly smacking him twice on the cheek, being the mobster I was. The thing about being drunk is that sometimes what a person thinks and what he does become one and the same. As I imagined lightly smacking him on the cheek, I saw my hand reaching out. I smacked him twice on the cheek as I uttered his final warning, “You better be a good. Don’t fuck with me. Capiche?” He just stood there and stared at me. I waited until I was sure he understood I meant business then left. I went into my room and slammed the door behind me. I whipped my keys against one of my posters, tearing a big hole, and yelled, “Women suck!” My roommate lay on his bed, holding his gut and laughing. “What?” He could barely speak, “Don’t . . . don’t fuck with me? Are you kidding me?” “You heard that?” “I . . . I . . . I was walking . . .” “What?!” “Dude, you know I have your back and I would have jumped in there, but that guy was big. I was walking by Linda’s room and saw you in there, so I stopped to see what was going on. You smacked that guy so hard, his head fucking turned both times.” “What?” “It like snapped quickly both times you smacked him.” I couldn’t believe it. The guy wasn’t huge, but he was bigger than me and had a six-inch advantage. I saw him waiting for the elevator in the hall ten minutes later. My handprint was very visible on his cheek. The next day, a very hung over Linda thanked me for getting her home safely. “It’s good to see that chivalry ain’t dead.” Two days later she started to date another guy on the floor. They liked to make out with her door open, so I got to see them going at it quite frequently as I got off the elevator. Ah, what a bonus to my chivalry. I learned five things from Linda and the coeds in my English class:
When going on dates with girls in college, I waited for a sign from them to make a move that they had already given me: They invited me back to their rooms. When a woman invites a man back to her place or accepts his invite to his, that’s her move. They are not likely to do anything else. It is up to the man to take things from there. A woman’s willingness to be alone with a man in his place or hers is not an indication of a desire to have sex. It is, however, often an indication of a desire to take things further. What move should a guy make to find out how much further? A good one is to try to remove some of her clothes. She’ll stop the guy if he goes further than she wants. That’s what I should have done with the coeds back in their rooms; kissed for a while and then tried to remove their tops. If that worked and I wanted to go further, I should have then tried to remove their bras or pants. Once the process of removing clothes begins, an interested woman will often make her own moves, but usually not until the guy has initiated the process. Somebody once said, “Tomorrow is another day,” and it became a famous quote. Bullshit. Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow is today’s backup plan. I should have asked out Dana and Jennifer when I was in English class with them, but I waited for tomorrow. Tomorrow never came. Why didn’t I ask out Dana and Jennifer? Remember that all-important rejection I mentioned? I hadn’t had enough rejection at the time and was afraid of getting some. I hadn’t yet learned that rejection is part of the dating process and that I would survive unscarred if I got some. Linda was not honest with herself about what she wanted. She said she went to the party just to be out, that she didn’t want to meet a guy. Later, she invited one back to her room, after letting a group of guys grope her and press their bodies against hers. Lots of women aren’t honest with themselves. I have tons of women friends who utter the most ridiculous untruths. “I don’t like guys who showboat.” That friend dates only guys who showboat. “I hate lines.” That friend gets picked up every time we go out by the lamest lines I’ve ever heard. Both women deny these facts when I point them out. Why? Remember? Yeah, because women want to be right. If women aren’t honest with themselves about what they really want, how can men know what women want from what they say? Oftentimes we can’t, which is why we must pay attention to their actions. If their actions match what they say, they are being honest; if there’s no match, go along with the actions. Their actions speak the truth. Women like to avoid accountability. Linda didn’t want to meet guys, the alcohol made her do it. She therefore was not accountable. (She actually claimed this and most of our floor agreed with her, much to my surprise.) Women want to avoid accountability so much they’ve coined a now popular phrase, which allows them to avoid accountability under the guise of change: “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.” Desire to avoid accountability is one reason why some women will knowingly date a jerk. When things don’t work out, they simply blame the jerk. Everyone knows he’s a jerk, so no one holds the woman accountable. There is a real danger with women taking this attitude toward accountability. They put themselves in harm’s way. Linda could have really been hurt the night of the party, had I not been present. She was easily on her way to being date-raped or worse. Certainly, Linda’s drinking did not give the seventh floor guys the right to hurt her, but, being drunk did not give her the right to hurt herself, either, which is what she almost did. Drunk drivers used to be able to hold alcohol accountable for their accidents years ago. They went right on drinking and having more accidents, even though they chose to drink and drive. A woman drinking herself into a stupor, then going somewhere alone with strangers is extremely dangerous. This woman does not have a right to be hurt by those strangers, but she needs to realize that she is behaving very much like a drunk driver. Both have greatly reduced their odds of arriving home safely. Don’t avoid accountability, ladies, by drinking until inhibitions are gone. It’s unsafe and a turnoff. The only guys who want to be with a drunken woman are desperate losers who have no intentions of dating her. Accountability is part of life. Accept it and be safe. The nice guy does not get the girl. I took care of Linda, I got her home safely, I had no intention of taking advantage of her in her drunken state, and I always treated her nicely. I didn’t get her; another guy on the floor, who hooked up with her one night at a party when she was drunk, did. Being the nice guy doesn’t get the girl. Being a jerk is not something of which I’m capable. There is a happy medium between the two. The day Linda started to date the other guy on my floor was the day I realized it . . . and the day I set out to be that in-between guy.
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Copyright by Ian Coburn 07 Available wherever books are sold MY FREE EBOOK! The New Way to Date: 5 Simple Steps you Must Follow for Dating Bliss
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