The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Lesbian Is a Synonym for ‘No’ (Or: Guys, Please Leave @LayneMorgan Alone)

Posted on | January 13, 2019 | 2 Comments

 
Layne Morgan is a 25-year-old lesbian — L-E-S-B-I-A-N — from Boston who is now living in L.A. where she is attempting to become a TV writer.

Now, my plan when I woke up today was to write about the notorious terrorist Angela Davis, but my plan got derailed because of some anonymous idiot in Los Angeles who can’t comprehend English. On Twitter last week, Layne Morgan told this story that went semi-viral:

 

You can read the rest of that thread if you wish, but the point is that this idiot was violating every rule in The Basic Book of How to Get Laid, which is one of those many books I’ve never actually bothered to write because I have this thing about getting paid for my writing, and unless a major publisher wants to throw me a $30,000 advance on the basis of a clever blog post or two, why bother? But the point is, I could write such a book, which would include a chapter entitled “Tempus Fugits: Never Waste Your Precious Time Trying to ‘Convert’ a Lesbian.”

Let’s start by giving Mister Idiot proper credit for being bold enough to try the cold pickup, i.e., making a move on a complete stranger in public. Any experienced player will tell you, this is a long-shot gamble that almost never works. As I’ve sometimes remarked, female sexual psychology involves a hard-wired default “no” response. Guys have to learn to cope with rejection — don’t take it personally, don’t get demoralized if a girl brushes you off — because the vast majority of women to whom you are attracted will not reciprocate your interest.

In order for Mister Idiot even to attempt to score with a girl at CVS requires a certain sort of courage, an imperviousness to shame because, viewed objectively, there is a near-zero likelihood of success in such a scenario. Was he autistic? Or had he been reading some kind of PUA (pickup artist) forum to learn this move?

“Whoa, you have pretty eyes!”

Not a bad line, but here’s a clue for you idiots: READ THE SIGNALS.

This is why I suggested the guy might be autistic, because if your opening line is to tell a girl her eyes are pretty, you should be able to judge from her reaction whether she’s into you or not. And I can’t imagine that Layne Morgan’s reaction to this line looked anything like a green light signal. I mean, if a guy opens the conversation with a compliment, he has put the ball in her court and should wait to see if she returns the volley, so to speak. See, this is the difference between flirting and harassment. When you’re flirting, it’s a back-and-forth game with two players, whereas if you go bulldozing in and corner her — making her feel trapped, looking for a way to escape — that’s harassment.

Some guys are autistic, and some guys are sociopaths, and what Layne Morgan was trying to convey in her Twitter thread was: Girls can’t tell whether a guy is just clueless or dangerous — or maybe both.

Go read her thread again and notice: He never once made a joke.

Mister Idiot’s failure to display any sense of humor during their exchange is what makes me think this guy might be somewhere on the autism spectrum, because one of the basic traits of autism is a lack of self-awareness, and any emotionally intelligent guy would have acknowledged the absurdity of his situation. I mean, a guy works up the courage to try the cold pickup and his random target turns out to be a lesbian? What a perfect opportunity to employ self-deprecating humor!

Guys, pay attention: Learn to laugh at the tragic aspect of your plight.

Why? Because chicks dig it, that’s why. Every decent, intelligent and rational woman understands how tough it is for the average guy to muster the courage to make a move, knowing full well he’s going to strike out 99% of the time, because the average guy is merely average, and women are not attracted to average guys. Mister Idiot — the guy who made his move on Layne Morgan — must not be particularly attractive, or otherwise he wouldn’t be hitting on strangers at CVS, right?

One of the things guys need to understand is The One-in-Seven Rule.

About 15% of people — roughly 1-in-7 — are sufficiently attractive that they never have a real problem finding romantic partners. Go back and look at your high school yearbook with this rule in mind, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I mean, how many of the girls you went to school with were really good-looking? And the thing is, all the guys wanted to be with those girls, but only about 15% of the guys had any chance at all with them. The guy who was merely average had no chance whatsoever.

Well, if you’re as clueless as Mister Idiot, you don’t understand this because you lack the basic self-awareness to estimate your own attractiveness. Consider the rather obvious evidence that (a) you’re in your mid-20s and (b) so desperate for female companionship that (c) you’re trying to pick up some random girl you saw at the drugstore.

Life has a way of sorting people into two categories: Winners and losers. If you’re a heterosexual guy in your mid-20s who isn’t married or otherwise involved in a steady relationship, you are by definition not winning. By the time my oldest sons were 25, they were already married. Trust me on this, guys — if you’re 25 and making enough income to pay the rent and you don’t have a girlfriend eager to move in with you (with hopes of becoming your wife), you are by definition losing.

If a guy is even moderately good-looking and shows any prospect of going somewhere in life, he will have no trouble finding a girlfriend. So the fact you’re 25 and don’t have a girlfriend — in fact, you’re so desperate you’re trying to pick up random chicks at the CVS — means you’ve got serious problems. And the lack of any humor in Mister Idiot’s approach to Layne Morgan is a major clue to what this particular guy’s problem is.

When I was 16 or 17, I was still fool enough to imagine I could win by being sincere and earnest, that I could be the brooding romantic protagonist — Marlon Brando, James Dean, whatever — but all that ever got me was rejection and heartbreak. “Unrequited love” is a fancy poetic synonym for loser and, circa 1976-77, I was perhaps the World Champion of Hopeless Crushes on Girls Way Out of My League.

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other,” as Benjamin Franklin observed, and I learned all my lessons the hard way. Eventually, I figured out how to make my clownish sense of humor work to my advantage, to laugh at my own inherent absurdity. The reason self-deprecating humor works is because (a) 85% of all guys are not very attractive and (b) by laughing at your pathetic predicament, you’re demonstrating self-awareness. If a guy falls below the One-in-Seven threshold, he’s going to have to put in some effort to get a girlfriend, whereas genuinely attractive guys — the top 15% — have had lovestruck girls chasing them since they were in seventh grade.

Go read Jack at Sigma Frame to get some concept of what I’m trying to convey here: For all the talk in the “manosphere” about Alpha males vs. Beta males, the fact is that if you’re the real Alpha, you don’t need any advice on how to get laid. No, the idea is to become the Sigma male — the average guy who wins despite his inherent disadvantages.

Look at yourself, Mister Idiot! Isn’t it obvious you wouldn’t stand a chance with Layne Morgan even if she were heterosexual? You’re merely average, a dime a dozen, which means you’re basically invisible. No attractive woman would ever look twice at you, which is why you’re so desperate that you’re bothering random girls at the CVS.

Because I would never in a million years make that particular move, it’s difficult for me to rewrite this guy’s script. If you were in some kind of social setting — a party, a concert, a sporting event, or any setting that suggested a commonality of interest — you could easily find a way to introduce yourself to a woman without making it unnecessarily obvious you were trying to score. But just to move in on a girl at the drugstore and drop the “pretty eyes” line on her? Dude, that’s a million-to-one shot. You’ve got to be ready to take “no” for an answer, and guess what?

Lesbian is a synonym for “no.”

You’re barking up the wrong tree, homeboy. You rolled the dice and didn’t hit your point. You crapped out. You’re a loser. Go home.

If you’ve read Layne Morgan’s thread, you know that Mister Idiot didn’t play it that way, but instead was so persistent and intrusive that she felt threatened. If that’s your idea of an “Alpha male” approach, you should seek psychiatric care immediately. As I say, this guy’s approach was a million-to-one shot and if you’re going to take that kind of shot — making a move on a complete stranger — you should expect rejection, because female sexual psychology is hardwired for the default “no.”

Even if you were unusually attractive, above the One-in-Seven threshold, the circumstances of an approach like this weigh against your odds of success, because the fact that a woman is good-looking enough to catch your attention and inspire such unusual boldness means . . . what?

Anyone care to guess the answer to this question?

Good-looking women are usually not single.

For the same reason that a genuinely attractive male — i.e., the top 15% — doesn’t have problems finding a girlfriend, neither does the One-in-Seven girl experience much difficulty finding a boyfriend. Therefore, if a girl is good-looking enough to catch your eye, she’s probably already taken. It is thus a classic loser move to zoom in on a pretty girl and act like she’s got nothing better to do than to spend time talking to you. Pretty girls are insulted by this kind of approach. She is offended by the very idea that you might think she would be interested in an average guy: “Can’t you see that I’m too good for a loser like you? Get lost, creep.”

Despite every common-sense argument against making a move in such a circumstance, however, Mister Idiot opens up with a compliment — “Whoa, pretty eyes” — and makes the nature of his interest clear: “Are you single?” And when she plainly tells him she’s gay, he nevertheless persists: “Do you want to go grab a beer?”

Like I said, seek psychiatric help immediately, because you’ve got to be completely crazy to waste your precious time chasing a no-chance prospect like that. Tempus fugits, homeboy. If you want to roll the dice on such a long-shot gamble, you’ve got to be ready to take “no” for an answer and move on, as if nothing happened. Play it off as a joke, like you’ve got a dozen girlfriends waiting for your call and just wanted to bump your total up to 13. “Never let ’em see you sweat.”

Either this guy was autistic or he had an IQ below room temperature, because if you’re trying for a cold pickup and she says “lesbian,” that’s about as no as no could ever get. How do you play it off?

  1. Surprised — “Wow, really? I never would have guessed.”
  2. Embarrassed for her sake — “Oh, wow, that’s too bad. I mean, I should have known. It’s so totally obvious. I feel stupid.”

She would prefer the surprised response, of course. Gay people generally prefer to think that their homosexuality is not apparent, so that even the most obvious bull dyke doesn’t want the stranger to make assumptions. Like, she could be an all-conference shortstop for a Division I varsity softball team with an undercut hairstyle and a pierced septum, but common courtesy requires you to pretend you don’t know she’s gay.

This is why the embarrassed-for-her-sake response could be more fun. Like, you tried to put the move on her thinking she might be heterosexual, but now that she’s told you she’s gay, you’re kicking yourself for not seeing what should have been obvious at first glance. You didn’t mean to accidentally force her into this embarrassing acknowledgement of her shameful perversion, which any decent person would have been kind enough to ignore. “Please pardon my faux pas, ma’am — I’m just a clumsy and desperate heterosexual.”

But whatever you say, laugh about it. If you play a million-to-one gamble and lose, you shouldn’t act like you expected to win. The joke’s on you, and you’re gracious enough to laugh at your own absurdity.

To blunder onward, trying to close the deal after she’s made it clear she’s not interested — are you autistic or a sociopath or just plain stupid?

One of the keys to success, playing from a Sigma Frame perspective, is to think in terms of the process of elimination. There are 3.5 billion women on this planet, and all you have to do is find one. By trial and error, you can learn to distinguish between the few who might possibly say “yes” and the vast majority who are a definite “no.” Once you accept the implications of the One-in-Seven Rule and recognize that you aren’t part of the lucky 15% who can win no matter how they play the game, you’ll increase your likelihood of winning simply because you understand how much the odds are stacked against you. And it’s important for young men to recognize this reality at a young age, or otherwise they might become the kind of loser who’s 25 years old with no girlfriend, and no idea of how to get one other than approaching strangers at the CVS.

It’s very sad watching Darwinian evolution in action. This dude trying to score with Layne Morgan is like the Pleistocene mammoth stumbling into the La Brea Tar Pits — doomed to extinction. But nobody’s paying me to write The Basic Book of How to Get Laid and I’ve already wasted 2,000 words trying to explain what’s wrong with this guy’s strategy, so let me conclude with a warning for every male in the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area: Leave Layne Morgan alone!

You’re welcome, ma’am. The patriarchy is here to help.



 

Comments

2 Responses to “Lesbian Is a Synonym for ‘No’ (Or: Guys, Please Leave @LayneMorgan Alone)”

  1. How to play off the “I’m a lesbian” line | ? Frame
    January 16th, 2019 @ 5:15 pm

    […] guys looking to develop their Frame need to check out this article from The Other McCain: Lesbian Is a Synonym for ‘No’ (Or: Guys, Please Leave @LayneMorgan Alone) (January 13, […]

  2. Saturday Links | 357 Magnum
    January 19th, 2019 @ 6:36 pm

    […] from The Other McCain – Lesbian Is a Synonym for ‘No’ (Or: Guys, Please Leave @LayneMorgan Alone). Actually she has a point – which is missed by the comments on that […]