Recently, a follower alerted me to a hot new way of meeting people. For about the price of a case of beer you can get a pack of cards with some sort of witty opening line that you can pass out to women in hopes that they will then contact you via a webpage listed on the card. This is to save guys the embarrassment of possibly being shot down in a face-to-face situation and/or the cost of having to buy someone a drink.
(This is where I smack myself on the head and think, “Why didn’t I think of that? I could be rich!”)
Anyway, the articles focus mostly on women using these cards with a high degree of success, but what they’re forgetting is that men will ruin this just like we have ruined all previous new-fangled methods for attracting someone:
Dating Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruined by
Clubbing a woman over the head . . . .Civilization
Newspaper personals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guy who wrote the Pina Colada song
Video dating service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Guy who invented fast forward button
Online personals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Married guys, creepy guys, and liars
Matchmaking Services . . . . . . . . . . . . .Married guys, creepy guys, and liars
Speed Dating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Married guys, creepy guys, and liars
As you can see, there is a trend. But with these cards, it won’t be the married and/or creepy guys ruining it but rather just the natural state of guys. Whereas women tend to be pickier with the focus of a laser beam, men tend to be more like a shotgun blindly aimed in a crowded room and hoping to hit someone. But now we can be more like a nuclear bomb, saturating entire cities with these cards in hopes of meeting 5, 6, or 20 women, depending on how many cards are purchased.
A normal guy would probably order 2500 of these cards. Then he’d order 2500 more for the next weekend. (Married and creepy guys would be getting volume discounts on orders of 10,000 and up).
Women will be dealing with card envy. “Hey I just got carded. Again,” a woman will sigh to her friend. She will toss the card onto a pile in her backseat already overflowing with them. Women’s purses will get larger to accommodate all the cards collected in an evening out.
Then there’s the inevitable card snub. Imagine a subway where some hot guy is walking down the aisle handing out cards left and right. Suddenly he realizes he’s down to just one card, but there are two girls left uncarded. He starts to offer Girl #1 his last card, then his eyes light up, he jerks it away and walks on. Girl #2 is prettier. Or bigger-busted.
Then there’s the follow up on the webpage where the girl tries to contact the guy that gave her a card. If you thought calling technical support for a computer problem was a horror, imagine what happens when she dials the number listed on the webpage:
Girl: Hi, you gave me a card last week.
Guy: Hello, thanks for calling Max. We are experiencing a large volume of calls at this time. (She’s put on hold.) Thank you for your patience. Are you contacting me from Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, or Wichita?
Girl: Hi! It was Dallas. You know, from the restaurant.
Guy: Of course. Chinese, Mexican, seafood, or barbecue?
Girl: It was at The Hungry Jellyfish.
Guy: Bar, patio, lobby, kitchen, parking lot, or restroom?
Girl: Restroom? You went into the--? Oh, never mind. Bar. Short brown hair, black turtleneck.
Guy: Barstool or table?
Girl: Barstool. You liked my glasses.
Guy: Wire rimmed or Buddy-Holly-ish?
Girl: Uh, Buddy Holly. You said you liked my sexy librarian look.
Guy: Vodka, beer, or wine?
Girl: Zima! It was a Zima! I was the only one in America drinking a Zima at the time! Sheesh.
Guy: Ah, of course! I remember now. How are you? So, you wanna go out sometime?
So ladies, as marketing and technology seek to break down the awkward first meeting ritual, remember that it is actually a gatekeeper. Forcing someone to come up and talk to you in real life, or better yet buy you a drink, is nature’s way of filtering out the riff-raff. Yes, you may lose a few good but shy catches, but it’s worth not having to sort through the ones that will only waste your valuable time.
And for you guys out there, if you really want to meet fun, interesting women, follow romance writers on twitter. Uh-oh. I think I just ruined twitter for women.
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