Congratulations Dumpsack McGee!

When you walk into a bar all the ladies lower their drinking glasses and those who wear eye-glasses slide said eye-glasses down their noses so they can look over them and say:

“Daaaaamn.”

They say this while nodding emphatically and fondling themselves ever so slightly.  It’s kind of uncomfortable to see, but it indicates a pretty positive response to your strategy of “dressing like a normal human being,” which really makes you stand out in clubs.

Each night, a new woman falls into your arms almost effortlessly.  You seduce her by being polite, purchasing her a drink, and engaging her in actual human conversation.  It’s a bold new strategy called “acting like a fucking person” that pick up artists have begun to catch on to.  The next day, you take each woman out to dinner, thank them politely for the evening, and help them catch a cab.  Then the young woman rides off to wherever she’s going.

It’s not the worst thing in the world.  Far from it.  You have sex with women, boost their self-esteem, and get to try out a bunch of different brunch spots around town.  But you’ve begun to tire of the grind.  So today you’re going to switch things up.  You’re going to try a whole new pick-up strategy, aimed at securing a long term sexual and emotional partner.

You’re going to attend a book club meeting.

The book in question will be Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale.  The discussion will largely focus on a debate as to whether or not the book lionizes or circumspectly acknowledges the problematic nature of second wave feminism.  It’ll get political, but overall it’ll be a rich, engaging discussion of one of the more oft oversimplified works of the modern canon.

At the end of the night, you’ll walk up to one of the most scintillatingly attractive and articulate women in the discussion and introduce yourself.

“Hello,” you’ll say, extending your hand.  “My name is Dumpsack McGee.”

She’ll demurely respond that she’s Sarah.

“Would you like to get coffee with me some time, Sarah?”

Your cadence will grow sing-songy, making this woman into Sometime Sarah in your head, an effect that will be augmented by her head’s ever so slight shake, signifying a negative response.

Sarah will inform you that she has a partner, who she lives with.  She will, however, tell you she’s quite flattered, and that she’d love to get a drink with you some time with some of her friends, maybe at a night club.

You’ll be so completely crushed that you’ll flee back to your car, weeping openly.  You’ll sit there, crying into your steering wheel until you hear Sarah tapping on the glass.  After almost twenty minutes of tearful discussion, Sarah will agree to come back home with you and have pity sex.

“My girlfriend won’t think of it as cheating,” she’ll say as she pats you on the leg. In your mind, you’ll make a tremendously misguided cha-ching gesture, in celebration of the threesome you believe you’ll eventually have with this woman, a threesome that we can tell you, with relative certainty, will never occur.

Congratulations Dumpsack McGee!