(This guide is for men, by the way, as I'm not qualified to teach women how to seduce men [although pointing at their genitals while smiling is a really good conversation starter].)

So, fellas! You wanna get lucky? You want your genitals to party with other nicer and altogether different genitals? You wanna get the bitches? Here's all you need to know!

Instead, maybe play around with some thoughtful nicknames that are more specific to her, a nickname that can only belong to her because it is born of your unique relationship and your intimate understanding of each other. Or if nicknames aren't really your thing, it is highly likely that she will also be fine with you referring to her by her name. "Barbara" if her name is Barbara, or "Sue" if she's the type of girl whose parents named her Sue.

But don't get hung up on nicknames, because the key here is respect, and there are a lot of other subtle ways to make your woman think you respect her. When she gets home from work, chances are she'll want to tell you about her day. The trick here is to -- and this is going to sound crazy in how simple it is -- listen to her, much in the same way you listen to your male friends or the characters you most relate to on your television. Listen and then respond thoughtfully; if you see a solution to one of her problems, offer it, but if it's clear that she'd rather just vent for the sake of venting, give her a comfortable and supportive place in which to do that. Remember what she says, too, and the specific dynamics between her and her co-workers, as this will help trick her into thinking you've been paying attention. It sounds too good to be true, but if you make sure you listen to, understand, and respect your woman for just a few several years, you will have her convinced that you actually respect her. It's that easy. Once you've fooled her into thinking you respect her as a person, step two is to just continue to do that for the rest of your lives together and then strap in, because the next station stop is East Fuckhampton, Boobsylvania, where you will be getting down with your loved one every single night, except the nights where you just sort of get tangled together and watch Netflix because one of you is feeling farty and because Orange Is the New Black is ohmygod SO GOOD.

NYTimes
"We can have sex tomorrow; I have to find out how Tasty adjusts to life on the outside."

But that's advice for someone who is already in a committed relationship. And that's not you, right, my man? You're a smooth sex maven from way back, and you're just looking to get your freak on with some random chicks from a bar, right? Well READ ON, fellow gunslinger!

Wait, no, I worded that wrong. What I mean is that chicks don't dig just nice guys.

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"I have a wide range of characteristics: Nice. Kind. Smiling. Blue shirt. Human hands."

I've heard a lot of people complain about niceness. It's not a new refrain: "Every girl says she's 'just looking for a nice guy,' yet I'm a nice guy, no one ever dates me, and girls keep going out with assholes!" I hear that all the time, usually from guys. Or not "usually." Exclusively. In fact, in my 20-something years as a semi-professional expert in the study of Balls-Out Fucksmanship (I studied at Cornell, where I graduated Summa Cum you see where this joke is going), I have never once heard a woman say she was "just looking for a nice guy." I've heard it from lonely guys, jaded guys, hacky stand-up comedians, and sitcoms, but never from a woman (and I've talked to upwards of eight women).

What I do hear from women is very much the same as what I hear from guys -- they want someone who is nice, sure, but also interesting and exciting and confident. Talented in some way, or funny. Dynamic and comfortable in his own skin and respectful and attentive and useful. The first step to getting your tongue all up in a woman's mouth begins with making sure you didn't put words in there first.

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"Instead of telling you what you want, I'm going to ask you what you want, and then I'm going to give it to you. And then, I'm going to give it to you."

So, how do you get one of those dopey broads to fall for the old "I'm dynamic and interesting" trick? Simple: learn, do, and get good at stuff. If time is money, then skills and life experiences are the sweeping dividends you yield after you invest your time wisely. In a group, the person who can play an instrument really well or speak six languages or start a fire in the wilderness out of nothing at all is the impressive person, but they got that way after years of being the person who practiced and studied. They made investments.

We love impressive people. We love the guy who can just shred on a guitar while doing magic tricks, but we forget that to be that guy, he had to first be the kid who was shitty at guitar for a very long time, and who worked on his sleight of hand in front of a mirror instead of playing video games. Invest your time in a subject. Learn about something you love and be able to talk about it, because if you love something, you have passion for it, and people respond to passion. Nothing makes a person more attractive than being in their element. Talent, knowledge, and passion are sexy things. Invest yourself in a hobby. Be the kid who doesn't make a lot of friends doing gymnastics, because when that kid grows up he'll be able to do back flips off walls, and girls fucking love that.

Suddenly, you're not "the nice one," you're "the nice, ambitious one with a number of impressive skills, passions, and stories that make him interesting; a dynamic person who brings a lot to the table, including his ability to do back flips off that table." Be that guy, because that guy gets to go to the ice cream shop for a treat, only guess what, bro, the only treats they serve here are ice scream sexwiches and, double guess what, they're free and they're all yours. Go ahead and take your treat!

Hell yeah!

It's fun to think about sex as the reward you get, as something you earn, but it's also misguided and dangerous and not that fun at all when you think about it. In my house, we got rewarded with going out to dinner at Friendly's if we got good grades at the end of the semester. If I aced spelling (as I often did [adding 'ass' into words like 'fasster' came much later]) and my parents didn't take me to Friendly's, I would be furious, and my rage would be totally justified, because Good Grades = Friendly's was the deal we made. I got an A; I earned chicken fingers followed by ice cream that looked like a man with a big pointy hat whose brains I could devour.

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The brains would make me smarter, which would yield better grades and then more delicious brains. The Daniel O'Brien Self-Sustaining Cycle of Perfection.

Here's an important thing: You will never be owed sex. At any time. From anyone. There aren't enough favors or good deeds you can do, and there will never be a large enough donation you could make in the Morality Bank to guarantee future sex. Do good things or be nice to a woman because they're the things you want to and should do, but remember that one of the most important aspects of gettin' all up in them guts is not believing that said guts are yours for the up-gettin'-in by right.

Sex isn't a light at the end of a tunnel, it's not a thing that you work or fight for and earn, it's a thing -- like see-saw or tennis or one of those two-person carts that they used in coal mines -- that two people can do together if they both feel like it and if doing so would be enjoyable for both parties. Sex is supposed to be fun. It can also be funny, if you do it right (and, boner-bonus, if you do it wrong!). Here is my favorite three-panel comic of all time:

It's from a larger comic by Bertrand Todesco, and while the whole thing is great, those three panels do a better and more succinct job of covering one of the most important aspects of a great sex/love life than all of the books on "game" and "outdoor fucking" combined: Sex is a fun thing people do together.

When you turn sex into a thing that you and you alone can earn, you make it a solitary activity, which, by sex's very nature, it can't be. You're also dehumanizing your sex partner, turning a person into a trophy or an ice cream face. If you want to have sex with a trophy, that's fine, that's just -- I'm not going to write a guide for how to do that, it should be self-explanatory. Don't make sex for you the goal; make good sex the goal, and make it a goal that two people are working together to achieve.

Still with me, Future Mr. Sex-All-the-Time-Haver? Good, because there's one more step to making sure you always get laid!

Women aren't motorcycles (except, again, in RoboCop 4). They are just as complicated and interesting as you are. Don't believe me? Track down a guide on how to seduce men and read a few chapters. You'll either be offended or end up shaking your head over and over again, saying, "That wouldn't work on me. That wouldn't work on me. I'd hate it if someone tried that on me." That's because no guide can apply to you because no guide can apply to all men. If a woman wanted to know the best way to seduce me, I would only suggest she buy a book if the book How to Have Sex With Daniel O'Brien exists, and, to my knowledge, it does not.

(And if it does, I have several questions.)

Plus, at the end of the day, you don't want to have sex with a woman who can be seduced via a series of steps that you found in a book somewhere; you want someone better than that. You want a woman who is more interesting than the make-believe template woman that the book's author invented to convince lonely guys that there's a way to hack women.

If you made it this far and you followed all four of my very important rules, you are no doubt swimming in pussy right now or, alternately, in an ocean of self-awareness and new perspectives. Either way!

Daniel O'Brien is Cracked's head writer and creative director of video. He is the author of How to Fight Presidents, which is available for pre-order right here. You can see him do standup at the Westside Comedy Theater on October 1 or at M Bar on October 3. He lives in Santa Monica with his dog and hopes you're having a good day.