Wombatgram #17 - Field Guide to the Egotist

In the heat of dating, ego is easily mislabelled. I've seen it called confidence, or arrogance or even a mask for shyness.

The egotistical man is relatively simple to spot.

Of course, I'm assuming you think it's undesirable...and I might be wrong.





Bottoms Up, Super Id.

Bed-In

Inspired by John and Yoko, I plan to conduct a Bed-In sometime soon. Maybe this weekend.

What's a Bed-In, I hear you ask?[link]

Well, Grasshoppah, a Bed-In is a protest conducted entirely from one's bed. It's a kind of supine sit-in, designed to create maximum media coverage without lifting a finger.

Lennon and Ono's protest concerned world peace. It's natural for anyone to think that keeping horizontal and ordering room-service could momentously change the momentum of human history. Natural for self-absorbed dicks like John Lennon, anyway.

But I like his thinking. Why create sweaty Million Man Marches or immense stinking charity concerts when all one need do to attract media attention is to check into a hotel and jump into the fart-sack?

Two things missing from this weekend's Wombat Bed-In. Actually, three.

1. A cause.

2. My own Celebrity.

3. A woman with whom to share the Bed-In (mandatory.)

If I could find a famous woman with a cause looking for publicity, I would have the answer, and quite possibly a tax deduction.





Bottoms Up, Bedriders!

Pic of Dumb and Dumber from here [link]

Dater, Know Thyself

Expectation is destructive in dating for two reasons:

1. It tends to crowd us into a corner, looking for certain outcomes.

2. It focuses attention in the wrong place viz: on the other person.

Knowing yourself isn't easy. We are bombarded by fear-mongers (aka advertisers, tv, magazines etc) whose job it is to make us feel inadequate. Buy their product though, and your life will blossom.

Written like that, the idea is preposterous, and yet it must work, otherwise you wouldn't covet that Beemer. Or that Burberry coat. Or that girl who drinks DiSaronno.

Knowing yourself isn't about acquiescing to your ego either. I might harbour desires towards Giada De Laurentiis, but that's pure ego. A of all, she's a superstar and I'm a peon; B of all, the chances of us actually being compatible in real life are vanishingly small. It's my ego talking, telling me that I have a shot at the impossible.

Trouble is that our egos like long-shots. Disregarding odds, statistics, probabilities, facts and truths is what our egos do, with self-evident results. We focus on the lottery winner, rather than the hundreds of millions of losers. We say to ourselves "What if it works?" when starting a high-risk business. Or we ogle impossible partners (like Giada) and wonder why no-one else measures up. That's why I say unrealistic expectation is destructive, and its main driving force is ego.

Dragging ourselves back to ourselves is an exercise in killing our ego for a while, and getting real, man, as hippies used to say.






Photo from here [link]

Does she like me? Will my ego be bruised?

I need to specify more clearly what I'm trying to tease out with this green light business. Saving men from making embarrassing moves motivates me, because the Good Lord knows I have made many doomed approaches to women. Every rejection saps a little bit of energy, if only temporarily. So in the interests of helping my fellow man, I seek only to improve his odds of at least a civil response from a woman.

Green Light Theory (let's give this sucker a big Capitalized proper name to make it sound super important) is based in a simple idea. Here it is. Are you ready? Right. Here we go. Ahem.

Women get to say yes or no.

Cool isn't it? With that in mind...

...valid tools exist that a man can use to figure out whether any particular woman is more likely to say yes than no, thereby putting the odds in his favour.

That's all I'm talking about. By any means possible, it's way better taking a little time (and some understanding of human nature) to paint a mental picture of how she's situated with respect to you. Observe and listen to her. What's she telling you?

*

Green lights Part One, Green lights Part Two, Green Lights Part Four, Green Lights Part Five.

Kiss and Tell

I often wish I had a Secret Squirrel video camera, a fabbo gadget worthy of James Bond. I would use it to record conversations with men when they're talking about sex, and show the results to women.

Huge generalization, but there would be basically three kinds of conversations:

Did you boff that girl, what's her name, Laura, last night?

Nah. But I'll be upending her real soon, I know it.

Cool.

~~~~~~~~~~

Or, alternatively:

So did you boff that girl, what's her name, Laura, last night?

Yep.

How was it?

Let me tell you my friend, I am the studdliest of studs.

Is she any good in the cot?

Yep.

~~~~~~~~~~

And finally:

Did you boff that girl, what's her name, Laura, last night?

Nope. She basically told me to get lost.

Shit.

Yep.

~~~~~~~~~~

I can tell you that talking in depth about sex isn't something most guys I know are good at. When we're shooting the breeze, the concern is more about being seen to be potent - the strength or flavour of the encounter (or any other nuance for that matter) is less important than the fact that we're getting some.

Opening up with details leaves us vulnerable to criticism of our technique and possible derision. It's the ego talking, but we tend to think of ourselves as Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont; sexually expert, devastatingly knowledgeable, and utterly irresistable. Plus an expert in Latin.

It's a terrible conceit, and obviously fallacious. But admitting to a buddy that you fumbled her bra clasp, couldn't find her clitoris, almost shoved it up her arse, and couldn't figure out if she came would be way too embarrassing.

Instead we say next to nothing. Life is simpler that way.

Playboy Club

It's a myth that celebrities are interesting. My definition of torture would be to share laundry day with Jennifer Aniston, or Thanksgiving with Michael Moore. I'd have to bring my own doggy bag to that gig, given Mr Moore's evident appetite.

Everyday people have the best stories, because they're not imbued with ego. Tonight, for example, I was chatting to a woman with whom I have been acquainted for a while. For no apparent reason, she decided to tell me her life story, almost the least of which was that she had been a Playboy Bunny.

I'm not certain if 'Bunny' should be capitalized. On reflection, it should.

Gloria Steinem famously went undercover as a Bunny, where she discovered that cocktailing is hard work with false ears or without. My friend Lisa remembered her time there as a great way to learn the bar trade while making gigunda tips. She laughed recalling her big, black Bunny Mother who turned her modest bosom into something more, and taught her how to carry trays of drinks while tottering on five inch heels.

Which reinforces how Steinem's self-serving tale is nothing compared to real life. The celebrity culture has a way of making a point about our lives through the lives of the famous. But to my mind there is often no point to be made. Life is its own reward.