5 Ways Regular Guys Ruin Their First Impression With Women

There's not a lot that makes me more embarrassed about my gender than guys who talk about having a "system" to pick up women. And no, it's not a rare circumstance. There are books, forums, DVDs, fucking boot camps devoted to full-on psychological manipulation (some of them actually talk about utilizing mild hypnosis). I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of that subject because it's a whole article by itself, but it's important to bring up because those "systems" are used with the specific purpose of obtaining sex, and they're built on a foundation of dishonesty.

There are several reasons you can't pull that bullshit when you're attempting to meet someone new if your goal is starting a relationship. The first is obvious: If you present yourself as something you're not, you can't keep up that act forever. Eventually, you'll have to show your real self, and she's going to think, "Wait, this isn't the person I met." And she'll be right, because she's never experienced that side of you before. In her eyes, you will have changed from one personality to another, and it can doom what you've built in a heartbeat.

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The second is something that should be obvious, but sadly is not. Ready for it? She is *gasp* an individual! Now, don't get all huffy and roll your eyes with a "Yeah, no shit, dumbass," when you hear that. Because if you were ever planning on using a "system," it means you didn't really understand it.

A system, for the most part, requires constants in order to be efficient. And in training yourself to act a certain way to obtain the reaction you want from women, you have to assume that they all respond in a highly predictable manner. As an individual, she's going to act and respond in ways that are unique to her, because she is not a vagina that happens to have the downside of a personality attached to it like a parasite. If you're truly looking for a relationship, you're mature enough to understand this. If you're using a manipulative "system" to get there, you're not.

This is the problem with this whole line of thinking. The guys who adopt it are treating the entire process like a game, like women are competition. They're acting as if she's the end boss of a video game and they have to figure out the exact pattern of attack in order to make her submit in defeat. What those guys don't realize is that in reality she's a potential co-op player whom you need in order to defeat the real boss. And every woman plays differently. You have to find the one who complements your play style or the whole thing ends up being a giant clusterfuck. Basically a World of Warcraft raid.

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But even guys who don't use a system still wind up doing things like ...

What? Relationships are complicated in the Midwest.

If you're one of these people, it should be a massive weight off of your shoulders when I tell you that pick-up lines are not only unnecessary but, as a general rule, should be avoided at all costs. At least outside of a one-night-stand situation. See, they've sort of just devolved into "Hey, would you care to do boner things with me?" without actually using those words. Unless those words are the actual line ... which is quite possible, because pick-up lines are fucking stupid.

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Now, nothing is absolute -- I have heard a few rare women claim that they like pick-up lines and think they're cute. But it's safer to play the odds, and really, if you meet a woman who turns you down because you failed to use a pick-up line, it's probably safe to assume she's not quite the droids you're looking for. Pull out your light saber and chop her arm off.

Metaphorically speaking.

So what do you say? How do you approach a woman you'd like to meet? Honestly and simply put: Don't be a douchebag and don't be something you're not. Just take a deep breath, shake out the cobwebs, and start a conversation the way you would with any other human being. Or come right out and say, "Hi. I apologize if I'm bothering you, but I think you're cute, and I wanted to meet you." Not those exact words, mind you -- meeting someone isn't about memorizing a script, you're not a goddamned salesman. All you're doing in those first few seconds is conveying the idea of "I exist, and I really want you to be aware of that."

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But of course, the reason men feel like they have to do all of this artificial bullshit is ...

It's natural to close yourself off each time it happens, especially if you're getting far more rejection than acceptance. But what happened in my case (and what I've seen happen with a lot of guys I've known) is that I let the fear of rejection dominate me to the point of making me timid. And we're not talking about the "cutesy" type of timid that some girls find adorable. We're talking about being so timid that the guys come across as creepy, repulsive pussies.

Remember, for the most part, women put a pretty high value on confidence in a man. Now that doesn't mean that you want to burst into the room and say, "Congratulations, you won. Get in the truck." It just means not looking like you're about to piss your pants over a simple hello.

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Seriously, imagine what's going through her head when some guy she's never met steps up and starts awkwardly rambling about whatever pops into his head, sweating and fidgeting like he's trying to avoid the police, a slight hint of "I could vomit at any second" on his face. She's either going to have her hand securely wrapped around a can of Mace, or she's just going to blow you off, thinking, "If he can't even get past the introduction, what the hell is he going to be like on an actual date? Or during the first kiss? Or when it's time to tattoo my name on his scrotum?"

Usually after a guy gets rejected so many times, he gets frustrated or outright pissed off. He'll start laying blame, sometimes pointing it toward women in general (when it gets to this point, that's where underlying misogyny starts to take its true form), and sometimes he points it toward other men. "Yeah, I'd get dates, too, if I had a six-pack and huge pecs." They deflect the actual issue as something they can't control, not even realizing that they were most likely rejected because of their attitude or a mismatched sense of humor ... or any one of a hundred different traits that didn't line up right.

The truth is, there are people who look just like you, who have your same income, who are still having sex. If women only talked to guys with rock-hard bodies and six-figure incomes, they'd go a decade between encounters. If they didn't make compromises on a man's looks, condom companies would go out of business and we'd be in a global shrinking population crisis.

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The way around these problems is so simple, but it eludes so many well-meaning men because we get wrapped up in the competitive tone of social interactions, and we make them out to be more complex than they actually are. I'm far from an expert on relationships, having been through a divorce and enough unstable partners to staff a military ground invasion on a mid-sized country. But once I figured it out, it all clicked, and I found the most beautiful, stable relationship of my life. And the trick is this:

Relax. She's a human, just like you. She's had every fake piece of shit in a 50-mile radius hit on her in every conceivable way. Maybe it's time you gave her something different: sincerity and honesty. You'd be surprised how high that ranks on her list.

But so many men never reach that point, because ...

So you pay your tab and go home, sad and alone, and blame an entire gender for making you so miserable, while rubbing one out to a rerun of The Golden Girls. Here's what makes that so crazy ... besides the obvious Golden Girls part.

Bars, clubs, coffee houses -- all those spots that one goes to in order to meet other people -- they are all social places. They are, by design, meeting grounds for people who want to find and connect with other humans. You, having reached your breaking point, have cut out the "social" part of that equation and are now putting as much faith into someone finding you as you would into expecting the Tooth Fairy to show up and pay your electric bill.

What is so easy to forget is that half of the people in those places are there for the exact reason you were. The only difference is that they're making an effort, regardless of the outcome. And if a woman's choices are the guy who had balls enough to walk up to her and talk or the sad sack of meat slumping over his beer at the end of the bar ... well, that's pretty easy competition for the guy who already has her attention.

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It can take a long time to find somebody. And even when you do, they might not be the right person for you. If you find yourself in the "I give up" frame of mind, the only way I've seen people get out of that is to take a break. Find some fun shit to do without the end result being a relationship treasure map. Hell, you might find that this frame of mind makes it easy to talk to people. I did. And that's how I finally got the courage to have sex with all of your moms.

John is a columnist right here at Cracked with a new article every Thursday. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.