All About Roommates
September 7, 2010 by scotmckay
Filed under Articles, Guest Authors, Scot McKay
This is one of those topics I can’t believe hasn’t been written about more often. After all, by definition if you’re “single” that means you either live alone or with roommates.
Sure, some of us like having a place to ourselves. If that’s the case, and we have the means to afford such an arrangement, that’s fine. But the reality is that lots of us get roommates, be that for financial reasons or even for social reasons.
Social reasons?
Sure. For starters, you may be of the opinion that it’s nice to have someone around to hang out with when you DON’T have a woman visiting.
And if you’re talking about having MORE THAN ONE roommate, there’s something about a house full of guys that seems to encourage women to “drop in” more frequently.
That can be a good thing.
Back when I lived in Arizona, I lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment for a few months before finally moving into a rented house with three other guys.
My roommates and I had a common interest in fast motorcycles, which the garage was therefore packed with. And let’s just say that there were more women around that house on a regular basis than I was used to back when it was just me in my apartment and my bike parked out in the parking lot with a cover over it.
In fact, I look upon those days in that house as some of the best of my life. There was ALWAYS something going on, and attractive women were usually part of it.
Now, notice that my roommates and I in that particular scenario had a very key COMMON INTEREST.
Note also that we were ALL FRIENDS before deciding to move in together. That’s not to say we never had a few testosterone-fueled differences along the way, but the fact that we pretty much knew what to expect from each other beforehand proved to be major.
On top of all that, we were all relatively equal in terms of social skill, ability to interact with women, etc.
Add all of this up, and we had a situation where it was reasonable to expect that nobody was going to drag down anyone else’s social status or even flat-out embarrass someone. In fact, we basically “winged” for each other all the time…even when women dropped in to visit.
So yeah, choosing a roommate (or roommates) cannot be treated as a “random” decision. The last thing you want when you’re getting better and better with women is to be stuck with a roommate who is utterly dateless…and bitter about it. The dichotomy between your respective levels of success may cause him to try to sabotage your good fortune, possibly by saying embarrassing things when you bring a woman over or even “refusing to yield” when you’re ready for some “alone time”.
I mean, think about it. Life would be a nightmare for your ROOMMATE also, wouldn’t it? You just can’t bet on him being energized and motivated to do better with women having seen your level of success, can you? It might very well be KILLING him, actually, to watch you bring women home.
This isn’t college anymore, gentlemen. It’s not like you have to settle for whichever roommate you get by luck of the draw, like what happened when you arrived for your freshman year.
So choose your roommate carefully. Don’t just post an ad on Craigslist and let the first guy who flashes the cash for half the rent money move in. Make sure you’ve got a guy who’s pretty much on equal footing with you socially…from every angle.
And every bit of what I’ve just said couldn’t be more important if your prospective roommate happens to be your BROTHER. You’ve got to stay in touch with that guy (and hopefully like each other) for a LONG, LONG time. If there’s even a remote hint that there will be significant social differences between you and a brother–or other family member you may be considering rooming with–just say “no”. I’m telling you…a little potential friction now is better than a lifetime of never speaking to each other again. Don’t kid yourself.
But there’s even more to making sure a roommate arrangement works effectively.
It’s crucial that you have decent housekeeping skills and choose a roommate with a similar outlook on life. Women can’t stand it when a guy’s place is a complete mess. When you “get” that, you can’t afford to have Oscar Madison living in the same house. Otherwise, you’ll pay dearly by being the one who cleans up after BOTH of you. Either that, or don’t expect women to come back a second time.
You also have to have a pre-set agreement with your roommate on how to react when one of you invites a woman over. Hopefully, the place is at least big enough so that you each have your own bedroom and therefore don’t have resort to the “sock on the door” signal. Whether you agree to vacate the premises for each other, stay out of sight for each other or say a quick, polite “hello” THEN disappear from sight is to be decided BEFORE “crunch time” is imminent. Believe me, things are more likely to end well if you get that plan in place ahead of time.
It has been implicit up to this point, of course, that your roommate is a guy. I have to say that’s preferable to having a woman who is allegedly “just friends” living with you. After all, it’s going to be a pretty tough sell to most women that absolutely nothing is going on there. In fact, if you DO have a female roommate and the relationship is legitimately platonic, I’d recommend not mentioning your living arrangements to ANY woman you’re dating…and I’d find somewhere else to take her OTHER than your place.
And if your “roommate” happens to be your MOM, that goes double!
But speaking of family, what if you’re a single dad and your “roommates” are actually your CHILDREN? Well, that’s a whole different ballgame. But having been there before myself, I certainly didn’t want to forget about you.
Generally speaking, I highly recommend AGAINST bringing a woman home when your kids are around, unless you’ve clearly established an exclusive relationship with her and the kids know that. Let’s face it, you just don’t want to be introducing your sons and daughters to a steady stream of “female friends”. They’re more socially observant than you might think…even as young as say, two years old. Parading lots of women through the house will only confuse them. Plus, it might bum them out if they particularly like OR dislike one or more of them.
What’s more, there’s perhaps the most overlooked factor of all relevant to this point: A woman can work REALLY fast at winning your kids over. The next thing you know she’s leveraging your own kids toward getting into an exclusive relationship with you before you’re ready. And that’s not the kind of political wrangling you need in your household, right?
I used to think that finding women who had kids the same age as your own young children was the perfect storm. After all, you could just sell get-togethers as “play dates”, right? But nowadays, I’m even reconsidering the validity of that strategy vis-à-vis what I just told you.
Seriously…there’s a lot more to think about when it comes to roommates than you may have thought, right? Make no mistake about it, choosing a roommate and building a solid plan with the dude when it comes to your M.O. when women come over is mission critical. And getting all of that right isn’t necessarily easy. It’s enough to make you re-think the idea of living alone after all.
But then again, it sure was cool having women around the house all the time back in Arizona…
Be Good,
Scot McKay
Six Lessons From The Field On Approaching Women
February 26, 2010 by scotmckay
Filed under Scot McKay
I still get a huge adrenaline rush every time a guy flies in for a live, on-site weekend of coaching with us here in San Antonio.
At the baseline level, there’s the simple “do or die” factor associated with being the one who’s got to set the example first…paving the way to potential success for the guy who’s trusted me enough to put me to work for him.
Then comes the thrill of watching someone go from good to great at approaching women and creating attraction over the course of a weekend…probably finding out what that feels like for the first time EVER.
But there’s also something else that energizes me. As much as I’m immersed in all things related to male/female attraction on a daily basis, I still learn A TON every single time I’m in-field with a student.
Some times what I learn is ALL NEW. Other times it’s more like I get to witness a striking, real-life example that demonstrates in a particularly powerful way why a certain strategy really works.
Either way, it’s amazing and a lot of fun to experience.
This past weekend was no exception. So if sharing some of what happened is of any benefit to you at all as you interact with women on a day-to-day basis, then so be it.
Here are a half-dozen noteworthy points that came up over the course of the weekend. My guess is that some of what follows you may instinctively suspect is true already, but a dose of honest-to-goodness field-tested feedback can never, ever hurt.
1) What You Need To Know About Meeting Women At The Book Store
You’ve heard that bookstores are great places to meet women, and I agree. There’s one major caveat, however—and one I never knew about until this weekend.
Guess what? The next time you get blown out at Barnes and Noble, it may not have been about you at all. Apparently, every multi-level marketer in the “get rich quick” world spends his or her time prowling bookstores on Saturday afternoon stalking people.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
During debriefings after approaches my friend made, I spoke to at least two women who expressed they were reticent to talk to ANYONE at a bookstore because of that. Interestingly, they both STILL were enchanted by the conversation my friend had with them, so this isn’t exactly a “deal breaker”.
The takeaway here is to pick an aisle other than the one with all the business books, and choose an opener other than, “Hey, it looks like you’d like to make some extra money on the side too, huh?”
All told, that should be relatively simple to avoid.
2) The Stronger And More “Independent” She Is, The More She Wants You To Lead
We noticed a pair of female friends sitting at the bar, one of whom appeared to be particularly strong-willed and confident. You know the type. Lots of grandiose hand gestures and perpetually projecting the kind of body language that screams “Yeah, right”.
After my friend had a conversation with the pair that clearly engaged them effectively, I followed up to ask them how they think it went.
The one with the strong personality, who looked a lot like Pink, blurted out. “Why didn’t he just tell me to give him my number? We want a man who tells us what to do.”
Seizing the opportunity to explore that one, she went on to spout this gem: “The next time a guy takes me out on a date and asks me what I want to do, I’m going to tell him to drop me off at the Walgreen’s [drug store] because I’m out of tampons.”
Isn’t it interesting how we as guys tend to think we ought to yield MORE to strong-willed women rather than LEAD more? You’ve got to give women a man they can respect, and the stronger of a personality she is the more frustrated she probably is by the men she’s been meeting lately. Count on it…and step up to the plate accordingly.
3) If You Say You’re Sorry, She’ll Agree
One of my soapboxes is how women are hard-wired to follow our lead as men. If the point above demonstrates that fact, this one whacks it upside the head with a shovel.
Simply put, if you open a conversation with a woman with something to the effect of, “I’m sorry to bother you, but…” you’ve already stacked the deck against yourself.
4) Why Downplaying Your Interest Is Actually An Insult
We tend to think the best course of action when approaching a woman is to downplay why we’ve shown up in her airspace.
But least one time this past weekend my friend had to work to recover from exactly that kind of opener.
All he had said was that he was getting bored, so he decided to start a conversation.
Let’s just say that women don’t want to be the solution to your boredom. They actually WANT you to be interested in them. They WANT to know they captured your attention for real.
Imagine that…for many women it’s not only okay to express to them in some subtle way that you were attracted, it’s PREFERABLE.
Obviously, however, keep it simple. Don’t pre-approve them as the new mistress of your universe. That’s worse than being bored…that’s just boring.
5) A “Hybrid” Of Direct And Indirect Game Is Virtually Unstoppable
How about this? Instead of debating whether or not “direct” or “indirect” game is the best way to go, consider using what I can only call a “hybrid” of the two.
We got more than our fair share of the usual feedback from women that they inherently KNOW what is going on when a guy approaches them. Beating around the bush only betrays a low level of confidence.
But then again, saying something like, “I saw you from across the room and had to meet you” does indeed come off as a bit too strong for some women.
I’ve personally had great success with the latter type of approach, but yes…you really do have to gauge what the woman’s personality type is going to be like before starting the conversation in order decide whether or not you can pull that off.
And that, of course, isn’t always the easiest thing to do.
The disarmingly simple truth is this. If you open with a confident line that conveys the right amount of energy, all the while not hiding AT ALL the fact that you were intrigued enough to come introduce yourself, things are WAY more likely to end well for you.
This concept has proven itself over and over again.
An example from this past weekend would be when we approached two women at a booth in a restaurant and casually mentioned to them that we were the self-appointed managers in charge of making sure everyone was having a good time. When they laughed and began telling us how everything was, we told them that was great, but really we had just wanted to meet them.
The combination of playful banter and unabashed confidence won them over with breathtaking speed. Emily and I turned away and started dancing together, leaving my friend to bask in the glory of this one. Nice job.
6) Stop Fearing Whether She Is Married Or Not
You know how the classic excuse goes. We talk ourselves out of approaching a woman because, “What if she’s married or has a boyfriend?”
Here it is: IT DOESN’T MATTER. At least not as far as getting “rejected” is concerned.
Why not? Because if you approach a woman the right way, it’s JUST A CONVERSATION…at least at first.
As it turns out, at least 50% of the women my friend approached all weekend were NOT single. And yet, every single one of those women still engaged in conversation. EVERY ONE of them.
But here’s the crazy part. At least a few of them smiled, nodded, leaned in and played with their hair. Whatever attraction “looks” like, they exhibited it.
If you really have to find something to worry about in order to stay warm at night, concern yourself with what you’re going to do when you’ve flat-out enchanted a woman enough that she really, seriously WOULD go out with you…and THEN you find out she’s married.
That’s far more likely to be a well-founded concern than getting shut out from the get go. I’m telling you, there are A LOT of frustrated wives out there, gentlemen.
All told, we had visited Barnes and Noble, a killer outfitter store, Target, a restaurant noted for employing particularly sexy waitresses and even the grocery store during the daytime.
At night, we warmed up by singing karaoke in front of the gnarliest audience in town…just to feel the love. Then we progressed from a well-lit and very social bar to an equally friendly Irish pub.
After successfully meeting and enthralling two or three women at a time at those types of places it was time for the ultimate test.
We invited one of Emily’s attractive single friends along and we went to the two most notorious upscale hangouts for single people in town. You know them well: The AMOG-infested shark tanks with a granite bar, Chimay on tap and Italian sports cars littering the parking lot.
Same results. And you can add a seventh bullet point to the list above. Self-absorbed d-bag rich guys are a turn off—even to the women who showed up because they thought they might like to get asked out by one.
My friend from out of town RULED. He and Emily’s friend even ended up getting along VERY nicely. Go figure.
After pulling an all-nighter culminating in the standard “Breakfast Debriefing” over Chorizo and Egg tacos at Chacho’s around 4.30 am or so, it was time to hit the airport.
The last thing I said to him as we were pulling into San Antonio International was this. “OK, man. You’re on a run of having successfully talked to fifteen women or groups of women IN A ROW—I counted. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have your confidence HARD WIRED by now. But just in case, here’s the first thing to do once you get out on your own this morning. Talk to at least one woman here in this airport, and another when you change planes at DFW.”
I looked over and he was sound asleep…exhausted.
I laughed, and continued out loud, “Alright, you talked me into it. You get a ‘Mulligan’ here. But at DFW for sure.”
He caught his plane on time…and all was good in the universe. As I drove away, I was reminded of why I’ve got the greatest job in the world…again.
When I got home I cracked a Shiner Bock and watched the 7am SportsCenter. I couldn’t sleep.
Be Good,
Scot McKay