Of all the times to be happily married!

I just discovered the secret to dating, and damn if I can’t take advantage of it.

Yes, I have learned the key to meeting women, but the Missus will do me grievous bodily harm if I try to take advantage of this knowledge.

Which isn’t to say I want to! I’m quite happy with my current matrimonial state, thank you very much.

But boy is it galling to know this now and not, say, when I was in my late teen / early twenties, miserably lonely, and terrified of (meeting) women.

Now I could turn this into a best-selling self-help book for lonely hearts, but that sounds like a lot of work and frankly, I have enough unfinished writing projects on my plate right now.

So instead, I’ll just tell you for free. If this technique leads to a happily ever after for you, all I ask is you drop me a note thanking me for my advice and maybe put me in your will?

If getting a lawyer involved is too much trouble, I also take cash.

What exactly is this ground-breaking miracle approach to attracting women?

(Sorry, don’t know if this works on men, but if I had to guess, given men are all heartless jerks, probably not.)

Four words:

Wheels on your dog.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better…stronger…faster.

Unfortunately, I paid a steep price for this knowledge, a discovery precipitated by very personal, very bad news.

My dog can’t walk any more unassisted.

The vet says he’s not in any pain but hobbling along on three legs wasn’t working out too well so we got my ol’ buddy a set of wheels.

To make them cooler, I tried to paint flames on the sides of the frame. But that didn’t work out: my cowardly dog is deathly afraid of fire.

The jerk.

Let me tell you, dorky looking or not, every time I take my dog and his training wheels for a walk, I get stopped at least once by a passing, cooing over how cute he is and asking what’s wrong with him.

Sometimes it’s even, get this, a group of women!

And then I get the watery, sympathetic eyes look.

If ever there was a moment to get all weepy and in-touch-with-your-emotional-side and confess how hard it’s been to deal with your best friend’s failing health and if only you had someone to commiserate with over a coffee at the nearby Starbucks (there’s always one nearby) say this Friday at 7, this is it.

What can I say? He can’t help himself – this bewheeled pooch is a chick magnet.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that getting a puppy whose breed is predisposed to joint issues in their old age and then waiting for nature to take its course is a winning dating strategy.

Unless you like playing the long game.

But I’m also not telling you to slap a pair of wheels on a healthy dog and then drag him or her around the neighborhood looking for phone numbers. Because if a serious relationship develops from that, well, she’s gonna find out about the fake wheels at some point or you’re going have to start bribing your vet.

Which I guess means you do have to play the long game.

Well crap. I guess my dating secret isn’t all that practical after all, and certainly isn’t going to move a lot of paper in book form.

At least I’m already in a happy, healthy relationship. I guess that’s the silver lining?

Look, I’m not some creepy guy trying to take advantage of his dog’s failing health to meet women.

And I’m not some creepy guy trying to live vicariously through you as you do the above.

No. I’m a good guy. Really, I am.

You see, I’m just trying to be relevant and provide useful advice to folks. It just turns out I’m terrible at it.

So just forget about this post. The sooner, the better.

Unless…

Unless you do already have a dog.

A dog that needs wheels.

That you haven’t been walking regularly.

If that’s the case and you’re looking for love, well…now you know what to do.

I take tips, mentions in wills, and five-star reviews on Amazon.

 

Confidence Man, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ladies

As hard as you might find this to believe, I wasn’t always the vibrant, powerful natural leader and chick-magnet you’ve come to know and, in the case of all you ladies, love.

I used to be shy and very awkward.

Around women.

It started when I was about ten, and came to an end, I think I can safely say, when I was thirty. Maybe thirty-five.

Every once in a while, I will be struck by the introspection bug and look back at my life, and I’m always astonished by how far I’ve come in the social aptitude department, given my disadvantaged beginnings.

The short version is, now that I’m married and have no need to do so, I can be very suave with the ladies. *

The long version is, well, the same as the short version but with sad, sad childhood stories attached to it.

If I had to guess, the root of my problems was self-confidence. Specifically, a complete and total lack thereof.

What contributed to this?

Hmm.

In a word: women.

Or, during my formative years: girls.

Shocking claim, eh? Can I back up such an inflammatory, sexist accusation with evidence?

Empirical, no.

Anecdotal, yes.

There was the neighborhood girl, Margo, who teased me mercilessly when I was six or seven. She also used to chase me up and down the street, her cootie-infested finger in front of her like a lance, trying to infect me.

This did not help quell my burgeoning irrational terror of the fairer (ha!) sex.

There was the time I finally, by surrounding myself with objects of comfort and triumph, worked up the nerve to call a girl and ask her out. After a brief, muffled consultation on the other end of the line, she informed me she wasn’t allowed to go out with boys. And then switched shifts at our summer job to avoid further contact with me.

Being told by a girl I liked at another summer job that I looked like a priest.

(This was before the sex abuse scandal – I can only imagine with a shudder what that statement would have done to my then-tender psyche in the post bastard priest era.)

Now, keep in mind, I didn’t start acting all creepy and stalker-y until after these incidents, so the only reasonable interpretation of these behaviors was that I was a complete and total loser who should hide his true feelings until after extensive covert observation and research had established that the object of my affection actually knew I existed, and might, maybe, if drunk enough, admit to thinking I was an OK guy that she’d be willing to set up with an acquaintance of hers.

Naturally, being under-aged and a goody two-shoes, I didn’t have access to alcohol.

It was a long, lonely tenure in high school.

Though during this period, I developed an uncanny expertise with binocular and telescope use, long-distance photography (please don’t operate under the illusion that long hours alone in a dark room will make you more socially apt – it doesn’t), parabolic antenna deployment, wire taping, and, oddly enough, hot-wiring cars.

I suspect attending an all-male high school may have also made a contribution to my inability to interact with women, but if so, I doubt it was a significant contribution.

So what changed?

Short version: no women.

The longer version: I ended up in leadership roles in different organizations that allowed me to build confidence and social savvy, and all without the underlying, debilitating purpose of trying to be noticed by, not to mention impress, the ladies.

I was in those roles to get other things done.

Once I stopped worrying about the ladies and what they thought of me, I relaxed. I stopped second-guessing myself. I didn’t worry how people would perceive me and started being myself.

I suppose the fact that I was married at this point may have contributed to this lack of concern about how females perceived me.

Maybe.

How did I manage to find someone to date me, let alone marry me, in my pre-“Hey good lookin’, we’ll be back to pick you up later!” stage?

A fair question.

No, I did not order my bride from an impoverished nation full of women who spoke only broken English and were eager for American citizenship despite the horrible matrimonial cost.

I imagine that route would have been easier.

I think I have to attribute my matrimonial bliss to my wife, who in addition to being wise and beautiful, is also incredibly patient and a firm believer in communication.

And maybe has a kink for guys who can really handle a telephoto lens.

Or perhaps it was the months spent on recon, discovering how to manipulate her into hating the friends who stood against me while learning her every like and dislike, and then molding myself into her ideal mate.

On the gripping hand, it might be because love conquers all, even debilitating shyness and uber-creepy stalking.

I think that last one is funny, but since the missus sometimes reads this blog, I’ll attribute all my romantic success to that.

* It is possible, though I deem it unlikely given my enhanced abilities to read them, that ‘the ladies’ might find this assertion laughable. Any giggling you might hear can only be coming from jilted lovers and other assorted foes bobbing up and down like so much flotsam in the wake of my new-found powers of social assimilation.

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