Sam: Bombing on the basics

You know it always amazes me how many people bomb on the flirting basics. I was at a party on the weekend, packed to the brim with friendly Aussies, Kiwis and the odd noisy South African. Like any party, if you want to, it’s pretty easy to talk to anyone there – you have an immediate connection – the host. Wander over, start chatting and it’s the easiest question in the world ‘how do you know X (the host)’. Provides an immediate point of connection and conversation. Of course because you are all in the same boat, that person will always talk to you opening the path to whatever may happen next.

So as the night wore on and I continued to consume a few too many vodka cocktails I got chatting with this guy. Usually at parties I can’t help myself, and somehow the conversation came around to the girls he fancied at the party. And how he hadn’t talked to them, or rather particularly the one dressed as a rather attractive bunny (yes it was a fancy dress party).

Now unfortunately for him, I was too sozzled at this stage to make an effective wingman. I.e. wander over, chat to the person bunny girl was talking to. He gets to wander over with me, and the natural thing is for him or bunny girl to start chatting. Takes away all the fear of the approach. I got distracted by feeling a bit peckish and wandered off to the kitchen for a sausage roll. Cut scene to two hours later. Bunny girl is in the kitchen talking to another man, bunny fancying guy is out in another room chatting to someone else and still hasn’t talked to her. I am still way too hammered to do anything about it.

But good lord, it does truly amaze me how many people simply totally fail to talk to someone they find attractive. Even when there are copious quantities of inhibition reducing alcohol involved. Even when you are at a party where everyone is a friend of a friend, or at the very least a friend of the host and you must be ok, because well, you are a friend of the host! Even when you are a party where everyone is a friendly chatty antipodean and they will always talk to you. Even at an English party, they will always talk to you.

So if you are at a party, at least get off the starting block, please talk to that person you’ve got you’re eye on. Or if I’m there make sure you give me several pints of water and I promise I won’t wander off for a snack in the kitchen. We’ll I’ll try not to . . .

Danonymous Dan: Into the lionesses’ den

I once had the misfortune to work as a freelancer in an all-female public relations office. Me, the lone rogue male, thrust into their midst like a sacrificial slave. Lunchtime was a daily competition about who could eat the healthiest salad – the shocked, jealous stares engendered by my M&S sandwiches were the highlight of my day.

This agency was ‘trendy’ in the painfully-boring way that PR agencies try to be (one PR agency I worked in had sand on the floor of its meeting room, another forwent chairs for beanbags), with its point of trendiness being Unisex toilets. It was a mere two days before I got told-off for leaving the toilet seat up. Already rather irritated by the job, and knowing it was only a two-week contract, I decided to argue my case. I posited that a group of strong-minded career women should really be able to manage the lowering of a toilet seat. If they weren’t looking before they sat down then it was a problem with their own personal due diligence practices – after all, I didn’t just walk in and start pissing on a lowered seat without looking.

“Look,” said one of the senior account directors, a particularly po-faced harridan – pregnant at the time, although how I have no idea how – “It’s just basic manners.”

I’m pretty sure toilet seat etiquette is not included in any manners books, but it does bring me to the wider point. The reason I mention the toilet seat thing is because it’s symptomatic of ‘a woman’ expecting that ‘a man’ should do something for her simply because she is ‘a woman.’ With the advent of equality over patriarchy is it not time to start looking at the balance of ‘manners’ that govern social interaction of the sexes?

It’s fashionable to think women are happy to go ‘dutch’ on a meal, but as a guy you still worry that raising it as topic will lose points. So what is the real deal these days? What are the new rules? Should a guy automatically let the women go first, and ensure he’s holding the door for her? If it’s cold is the man supposed to give up his coat? No women I know has turned up to a date with a gift of flowers for me, not that I would want flowers, but the same garages men buy flowers from also sell charcoal briquettes and plastic footballs – I’d happily accept either.

I know I am being facetious about this but I guess what I’m driving at is if things are more equal (or to become so) then men should be in line to have a more equal share in the social niceties. Social rules we use find their route in the patriarchal societies of the past. They were designed, unconsciously I assume, to reinforce dominant male, inferior female stereotypes, “You can’t refuse him, its his right, but at least he holds the door and lets you into the bedroom first, what a gentleman.” Do we still need them?

One girl I know who earns well over £50K, but if her boyfriend suggests she dip into her pocket for anything she turns into a bile-spitting harpy, because as a woman she should be ‘looked after’. If we mock her, she looks to her beleaguered boyfriend to defend her tight-fisted behaviour. I know, or have had the displeasure to meet, various such women. I freely admit that part of me quite likes the ritual of it all, acting the gentlemen by going through social motions, but another part of me would like to say fair's fair – let's see consistent equality with the ladies taking the initiative 50% of the time.

Sam: The Silverback Thing

In African packs of gorillas there is one dominant male. He is older, bigger and gets all the young nubile lady gorillas while the youngans wait in the wings. He is the Silverback. The Australian Film Ten Canoes, shows how some aboriginal tribes take the same approach, the old fella gets lots of wives, including the youngest and best looking.

I think the Silverback thing is alive and well in London today. Look at men who hit their mid-life crisis, they buy a Porsche and start trying to date 20 year olds. It is surprising the ones who can be successful.

One of my clients in his 40s intellectually wants a mature worldly woman, yet is consistently attracted to women in their early 20’s. A variety of studies have also shown that women are attracted to older men with power and resources, while men are attracted to women at their fertile peak.

Now this whole Silver back thing has interested me intellectually, but for the first time I have actually experienced it.

I was out dancing for a mates birthday and noticed what seemed to be a 20 year old flirting with me on the dance floor. Later I noticed another very attractive 20ish year old giving me some really blatent green lights inviting me to chat her up.

Both times I pinched myself, checked to see if there was hollyoaks look alike standing next to me, as these were the type of girls who wouldn’t have even given me a second glance in my early 20s. If I didn't study flirting body language as a living I would have dismissed it out of hand.

There is a real temptation to snipe at the sad old man and the silly young girl. But now, (highly suspiciously when hitting Silverback age) I’m starting to wonder if it really is a bit of a natural biological phenomena and secretly wished I used some grey hair dye in my 20s.

Are Silverbacks really attractive? And are there any other Silverbacks out there who have noticed the same thing?

Sam: Feminist or Gentleman?

The contradictions of the modern world throw us some interesting dilemmas, not the least of the question for men of whether to be a Feminist or a Gentleman.

I have a client who was brought up by a feminist mother. He was taught it is right to treat women equally, that women can look after themselves, that they should be respected, that men and women should carry the same load.

His partner is a powerful career woman. She works in a big company. She is very successful in her field and heads a large team.

Yet his partner loves to be treated like a lady. She loves having doors opened, him taking the seat out, him taking her hand as they walk across the road. It makes her feel loved and it makes her feel feminine.

My client and I had a long conversation about this very issue – because he finds it hard, and he finds it confusing. He was told to treat women equally, he was told that power should be shared, that being a gentleman was pretty much equivalent to being a male chauvinist pig – implying that it was the man in control, and reinforcing traditional and staid stereotypes. His values push him one way, while he feels that his partner pushes him in the opposite direction.

To him it seemed hypocritical, that a woman wanted to be treated equally, to have all the power of a man, but yet retain the old trappings of being a feminine woman. Can you have equal rights while still pining for traditional roles? In fact while pretty much demanding adherence traditional roles?

I reminded him of how some of the most successful religions of the world have embraced the new while retaining the old – Christianity kept many if not most pagan festivals and just stuck a new coat of paint over them – and maybe to be really successful it helps for feminism to do the same?

It took a while for him to get his head around the seeming hypocrisy of the situation, but now he is happier for it. And really who of us are really consistent to our beliefs all the time? I know that I believe it is crucial we reduce carbon pollution, but still get a huge buzz out of hitting the accelerator hard on the open road. Perhaps a bit of hypocrisy is human – now his partner feels more feminine and loved, he feels more like a man, and they both still share the cooking.

Dave: Role Play

We all consider that there are significant differences between the sexes. Indeed, we often each insist the other is crazy. And of course that’s not the case. Us fellows are quite sane. Albeit in a combative, world-annihilation, shag our own sister after enough pints kind of way. But who doesn’t get that? Fucking loonies. Now, of course we are dissimilar. Our entire make-up is distinctly different – we tend only to go for the brylcream and lynx at most. Bio-chemically, physical attributes (which seem to be evening themselves out more and more as society strives toward a more economically viable medium), and often emotionally – you know how guys simply cannot deal with the sniffles – we vary greatly from one another.

It’s there for all to see without having to resort to feeble methods of personal identity: the adoption of cultural roots from regions of the world alien to us. Flocking to a specific pocket amid the cosmopolitan texture of a civilization like inconvenient fluff statically fixed between the more independently prominent strivers for unity.

But in terms of partnerships are the gender variances truly relevant? Or do we fall into specific roles? The Yin and Yang of a perfect union. Isn’t it the same for all alliances, regardless of the intended product? Music, comedy, procreation, even religion (imagine the self-righteous sods trying to sell the word of God without the poor Devil acting as His alter-ego. Never would have worked. God would have just come across a vindictive wanker). All the successful unions consist of a dominant personality and a submissive one. However they are interpreted: straight guy and funny guy, good cop and bad cop, Pinky and the Brain, the roles are distinctive. And when the balance is right the relationship works.

It even manifests itself physically. The stereotypical gay relationships in the cases of both genders – butch and effeminate. Man and woman, as we are propagated to believe. And for same sex couples of less clichéd appearance, undoubtedly one member of the partnership adopts certain attributes less inclined within the nature of the other – work ethic, aspiration, sartorial or domiciliary pride…

But as time passes does the relationship take on its own identity? Governing the roles of its inhabitants. Moulding each character to maintain the equilibrium of the sphere. Shifting the dominant figure back and forth depending upon emotional well being or to facilitate unambiguous responsibilities.

Man becomes woman, who becomes man. The metaphysical aspect will always sound on the tossy side unfortunately. But it occurs all too often. The late worker adopts the characteristics attributed to the 1940s husband. And the home-worker is the ‘wife’. Especially poignant in emotive instances: any low or depressed period misshaping the Yang and the Yin will seize control. Should the man suffer a crisis, the roles become reversed. The whole dynamic spiralling out of control until you have a scenario where she’s standing over him impatiently scratching her labia through well-worn navy blue suit trousers while he cowers below remonstrating on loveless relationships and complaining of cramps.

It’s all been documented. Pigmallion. Higgins and Dolittle. In the end their established roles or identities begin to falter and shift. Even Pinky’s simplicity can outshine Brain’s sizeable intellect (though it’s obviously a metaphor for man’s foolish assumption that his head should necessarily know better than his penis).

So in the complete package, personal identity is lost. Or possibly found. Perhaps this is what’s meant by the philosophical principle of the human ‘soul’ having been split in two upon reaching the earth, resulting in our principal constraint to seek out the other half to which we belong and reform in a union of majestic serenity? Or may be we’re too lazy, too trusting and too expectant. So once we’ve ensnared somebody for the main purpose of gratifying us when we feel restless, we gradually palm off the stalwart strengths of initial attraction. Slowly succumbing to Delilah’s grooming shears without realising it until eventually she looms above you sporting a mighty beard constructed from your shaven locks and an entire roll of sellotape.