I’d been avoiding Dr. D’Souza because “I was busy and it was expensive.” At least that’s what I told my roommates.
To be honest, the “I’m broke” excuse was no longer valid since I’d gotten a new job teaching public speaking. And the only thing I was busy doing was watching Big Brother three times a week.
I was avoiding therapy because it was hard.
With a lot of cajoling from Lindsay, I finally scheduled another appointment. The session began like any other: she asked how I was, and then barraged me with a bunch of difficult questions I didn’t really want to answer.
“How are things with Ben?” Dr. D’Souza asked pointedly through the computer screen.
Damnit, I knew I shouldn’t have told her about him.
“I mean, it’s going nowhere. He has no plans to come here and I have no plans to go there,” I said.
“Why are you texting him then?” she said.
“I don’t know. It’s fun? Validation? You’re the therapist here,” I said, sassier than I needed to be.
“Do you think you’re a confident person?” she asked.
Straight for the throat. I guess I deserved that for being such a smart aleck.
“Yeah, for the most part,” I said.
“Are you confident in your relationships?”
“With my friends and family, I’d say yes. But romantic relationships? Probably not.”
“Why do you think that is?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Think about it,” she encouraged kindly, even though I was being a jerk.
I sat there silently, running through reasons why I wouldn’t feel confident in relationships. I started having flashbacks to high school and all the times I’d been rejected subsequently. My eyes started to water but before any tears could fall, I wiped them with a leftover Chipotle napkin.
“I guess . . . when I was younger, no one wanted me. I mean, I was never the girl anyone wanted to date. Like, even in college, we’d go out and everyone would get hit on but me.”
“When was the first time you ever felt wanted?”
“I guess when I went to Brazil and fell in love with Gustavo.”
Gustavo was my first love. He had broken my heart a dozen tiny times. I was devastated when it ended.
We hadn’t been together in over twelve years.
It had been a long and tumultuous healing process that involved two years of not speaking and then a few years of tentative friendship before we could become actual friends.
“What happened?”
We’d been over this before, so I kept it short and simple, “He fell in love with someone else.”
“Why?”
I knew she was trying to help me, but I was annoyed. I didn’t see how Gustavo was relevant to any of this. It was a long time ago and I was over it.
“I don’t know. Why do you fall in or out of love with anyone?” I said irritably.
“How was she different from you?”
“She was thin and beautiful,” I snapped.
A silence hung between us.
The gravity of what I’d said and the implications of what it meant about how I felt about myself was too much. I had confessed that I believed that my first love wouldn’t have stopped loving me if I was thinner.
This time I couldn’t contain the tears. They flowed freely down my face until the Chipotle napkin was soaked.
I needed a few moments to recover, the napkin crumpled in my hand. Dr. D’Souza waited patiently; she didn’t offer kind words or try to get me to move on to the next question.
Eventually my sniffling stopped and when I was ready, she asked, “Do you think you’re attractive?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you act like you think you’re attractive?”
“No.”
I wanted to be confident in dating but the truth was that middle school me, the girl who was overweight and unpopular, was still there sometimes. There was a little voice inside of me saying, “He’ll leave you for a thinner, prettier gymnast with a perfect body.” I was worried that I was going to spend my whole life believing that I wasn’t good enough to be with someone.
There was nothing lamer than low self-esteem ruining your life. I needed to do something, but what?
How does someone raise their self-esteem?
We talked about some strategies and by the time we finished the call, I felt shitty.
I perused the self-help section on Amazon and bought a bunch of books that promised to make me into a badass who didn’t give a fuck.
For the next few weeks, I listened to motivational videos on YouTube starring Lisa Nichols, Les Brown, and Marisa Peer. I stuck sticky notes on my wall that said, “I am enough.” I made a list of things I was grateful for every morning.
In some ways, it worked. I was essentially brainwashing myself to have a more positive response to negative thoughts. I was starting to feel good again.
It wasn’t quite sufficient though.
I googled, “How to feel confident while dating.”
An article popped up with the headline “Ten Tips to Be a Self-Assured Dater”
It was written by a pickup artist.
Most of it was crap, but some of it made sense.
A lot of sense, actually.
So much sense that later that night I contacted my friend Eric Felter.
SECRETS FROM A TOP PICKUP ARTIST
The mission: rack up rejections.
How?
By hitting on at least five people who I thought were objectively more attractive than me. The more rejections, the better.
Why?
Eric called it “Rejection Immunization.” He said that the easiest way to feel more confident was to stop giving so many shits.
To be honest, I gave a lot of shits. It was one of my biggest problems. I really cared what other people thought of me. I wanted to be someone who didn’t. Or at least someone who could discern when to care and when to not give a shit.
Eric Felter was six-foot-one with a perfect body and a smile that made people (me) melt. He was also a top-rated pickup artist. Number six in the world to be exact.
He won the title at a PUA (Pickup Artist) convention, though how exactly he’d won was a mystery to me. Every time I asked him, he skirted the question. I wasn’t sure if he was being intentionally vague or if he didn’t know either.
Hiring a pickup artist was my latest idea in my quest for coitus. After my last therapy session, I wasn’t feeling great about myself.
If anyone could help me feel more confident, it was Eric.
Everything I knew about PUA came from the 2007 MTV show The Pickup Artist. The main takeaway was that by using the right techniques, even nerdy men in furry hats could leave with models. I was hesitant to explore the world of PUA because it felt predatory to me.
Eric insisted this wasn’t the case. He said that PUA was about communication and getting over the fear of rejection. If that was true, then it was worth a try.
Eric agreed to teach me how to confidently walk in a bar and hit on men, even though he was “retired” from the PUA world. He liked the challenge of working with someone who hadn’t had sex in five years.
Plus, we were friends, though I had known him for a whole year before I learned about his past life as a pickup artist.
We met up in the middle of the week at a trendy bar in the Meatpacking District for my first lesson.
He showed up wearing a zip-up hoodie and sneakers. His casual clothes didn’t detract from the fact that he was hot. Like ridiculously hot. He was one of the best-looking men I knew, which I assumed helped him pick up women.
“Of course this is easy for you. You’re super attractive,” I said while changing into the heels I had brought for the evening. I hadn’t worn heels in weeks because I was still trying to get my feet in shape for Barbie’s boutique.
Eric vehemently disagreed that looks were everything. He said he had coached thousands of people.
Millionaires, models, and regular ol’ people like me.
Good to know that even the plebes like me had a chance.
“The honest to God truth is that it doesn’t matter. There’s someone out there for everyone. I’ve worked with attractive people who were insecure, and they struggled far more than clients who might be considered conventionally unattractive,” Eric said.
I liked that answer.
There was someone out there for everyone.
Even a celibate.
“Alright, Dr. Phil,” I said, smirking. “Let’s get to the nitty-gritty. I want some tips and tricks. Like what about peacocking and kino escalation?”* I asked as we walked into a Biergarten with a giant backyard, plenty of picnic tables, and lights strung end to end. They sold boots of beer that had to be purchased with tickets and pretzels the size of a baby’s face. It was a popular spot for young male professionals to grab an after-work drink. Tonight was no exception. The place was packed even though it was a Wednesday. Most of the clientele looked about twenty-four. They were wearing suits, but it was just as easy to imagine them in polos at a frat house.
Eric sighed, “Forget everything you think you know about PUA. This isn’t about manipulating someone into liking you. Granted, some members of the seduction community might believe in that crap, but it isn’t what I’m teaching you.”
“What are you teaching me then?” I asked.
“Communication and connection,” he said. “We try too hard to make our puzzle piece match someone else’s puzzle piece. It’s a crapshoot. While you’re trying to become who they want, they’re busy trying to become who you want. Four dates in, you realize no one is who they were pretending to be. I’m going to teach you how to show up and communicate authentically, exactly as you are.”
The objective for the evening was to reduce my fear of rejection. According to Eric, most people were single because they took rejection personally.
We were going to start with “the open, stay, close” which was just a fancy way of saying that I would initiate conversations by confidently approaching people, finding some common ground to talk about, and if I was interested, giving them my number.
“Okay, what do I do?” I asked.
“Ask these girls where the restroom is,” he said.
Too easy. I did that all the time.
As if reading my mind, he gave me a look that said, “We’re just getting started.”
He was ruthless, forcing me to open conversations in rapid succession.
“Ask these guys where to get your drink tickets.”
“Tell this woman her top is nice.”
“We’re done warming up. Now pick someone you find attractive,” he said.
I spotted a Jason Segel look-alike (good-looking yet approachable) by the ping-pong table and decided to hit on him first. My palms were clammy as I approached him.
“How do you sign up for the table?” I asked, trying to look confident and calm.
Open, complete.
He told me, and I transitioned into asking him how often he played and where he learned, which lead to a conversation about his college dorm, which was, ta-da, in my home state of Ohio.
Stay, complete.
We bonded over our love of the greatest state in the union (people from Northeast Ohio are hyper into Ohio), so that gave us a lot to talk about.
“Why don’t you take my number? That way you can let me know when the table is open,” I said. He smiled devilishly and accepted my offer.
Close, complete.
Oh my God, I had done it.
I had approached a man at a bar and given him my number and it was surprisingly easy. I was a confident, badass mofo. If only Dr. D’Souza could see me now.
I moved toward the bar to find my second target.
“What’s the best drink here?” I asked the man next to me. (Open.)
“I only drink whiskey but whatever you get, ask for the free popcorn.”
We connected over our love of bar popcorn, which led to a conversation about what movie we had seen most recently, which for both of us was the latest Marvel flick. (Stay.)
I closed by asking for his number.
I had him double-check the number in my phone, walked away, and texted him my name a few minutes later so he’d have it. I received a response almost immediately, “Who?”
I told him we had just met at the bar.
“Wrong number,” the message wrote back.
He’d given me a fake number!
I was enraged and told Eric I was going to confront him, but Eric just looked bemused.
“Congrats, my dear, your first rejection of the night! Only four more to go.”
“But, c’mon, who does that? I mean seriously, why didn’t he just say he had a girlfriend or something?”
“Remember, it’s not personal.”
It sure felt personal.
If I had been alone, I probably would have called it a night right then and there. I probably would have sulked the whole train ride home, changed into my jammies, and said “fuck it” to dating ever again. Since Eric was doing me a favor by not charging me for the lesson, I didn’t want to let him down by giving up that quickly.
I approached someone else and didn’t get past the open. He had no interest in talking to me, and after a few tries, I had even less interest in talking to him. Rejection number two or, as Eric called it, “Nexting,” which meant disengaging with someone who seemed uninterested.
I moved on. Eric had changed my mind about this being predatory. I showed up to every conversation authentically myself. If there was nothing to talk about and no common ground, then I had to move on. In his words, it wasn’t about trying to force a connection with everyone. It was a numbers game, where the more people I talked to, the more likely I was to connect with some of them.
“Learn something about the man behind you in the leather jacket,” Eric instructed.
This was the first one I didn’t want to do. The man in the leather jacket was an eleven out of ten, probably a model or an actor. I bet he only dated beautiful, tall women with flowing hair and flat stomachs.
I didn’t think I could handle three rejections in a row even if that was supposed to be the point.
Seeing my hesitation, Eric said, “The outcome doesn’t matter. Remember, it’s about reducing your fear of rejection.”
“Dude, that guy is out of my league. Don’t make me do it,” I said.
“No, he isn’t. Now go talk to him. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“He’ll be like ‘Why are you talking to me?’ Or glare at me like I don’t exist, and my face will get so hot that I’ll combust into flames becoming the first person ever to literally die of embarrassment.” I said, throwing my hands up.
He gave me a look that implied, “Are you done yet?”
“Fine,” I grumbled.
I turned toward the man, walking fearlessly, before making a sharp left turn and heading toward the bathroom.
I needed a few seconds to rev myself up. I texted Eric from the stall, “Whoops, had to pee!” I checked my Facebook, responded to some emails, and dilly-dallied as long as I could.
I looked at myself in the mirror. “You got this.” I reapplied my lipstick, paced the floor a few times, put a piece of gum in my mouth, paced some more, and left to find Eric waiting for me outside.
“You’re sexy and fearless. Now go talk to the guy in the leather,” he said.
“Yeah! I’m sexy and fearless,” I repeated. “I am sexy and fearless,” I whispered to myself a few times as I meandered toward him, taking a loop before winding up behind him and his friend.
I stood there, lurking like a total Gollum, knowing I had to say something before he turned around. I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Uh . . . Excuse me. Um. Do you know how to get drink tickets here?”
This was already going less smoothly than my other opens.
He turned around.
“It’s over there,” he s
aid with a thick accent, pointing toward the ticket counter.
I recognized that accent.
I’d heard that accent many times.
“Are you Brazilian?” I asked in perfect Portuguese.
His face broke into a deep grin. “You speak Portuguese?”
Before long we were laughing and flirting.
I looked over at Eric, and he gave me a thumbs-up and then a sign to indicate that it was time to move on.
I made an excuse to leave, knowing that I had to close. Luckily, he took the lead for me.
“I’m having a cookout tomorrow, you should come,” he said.
Be cool. Be cool.
“Yeah, that’s sounds fun,” I said, putting my number in his phone.
He leaned down to kiss me on my cheek, Brazilian-style.
When I was out of his line of vision, I squealed to Eric, “He took my number!”
“Of course he did. You’re delightful,” Eric said.
I was feeling good about myself.
If Leather Jacket took my number, I had a chance with anyone.
Now that I had a few wins under my belt, I was unstoppable, I was just a few “opens and closes” away from meeting the love of my life and having the greatest sex ever, which I told Eric, half-jokingly.
“Do you honestly think you’re going to find the love of your life at the bar like this?” Eric asked.
“Maybe,” I said.
He looked skeptical.
“You’re probably not going to meet your lifelong partner at a hookup bar on a Wednesday night in the Meatpacking District. What you are going to do is learn how to reduce your fear of talking to someone, and then use those skills when you find someone who makes sense with you. At yoga. Or the library.”
“Why do I always gotta be in the library category? Why don’t I ever get put in the ‘club’ category?” I complained.
“Do you go to clubs?”
“No, but I could.”
Eric laughed, “Take it as a compliment. Librarians are sexy. You got this whole ‘girl next door’ vibe going on and you’re also funny. It’s cool.”
Before I could assess whether or not Eric was hitting on me, he gave me my next assignment.
The Coitus Chronicles Page 8