The Game of Desire Page 3

  “Have you seen someone about your anxiety and depression?”

  “Yes,” she assured me. “I’ve been to therapists, but for the most part, I’m over my anxiety being the focus of my life.”

  I really respected that intention Maya had set and I strongly believed I could help support that effort. I was tempted to extend our conversation a bit longer but alas, my next caller was already waiting. So, I said my goodbyes then drew two circles around her name: the first because she needed to learn from this project and the second because I knew I could learn from being around her.

  A few calls later, I connected with a twenty-three-year-old woman who made an excellent point that I want to expand on: “Is there no middle ground between dating assholes while you focus on other areas of your life and meeting the guy you want to spend your life with?”

  She was speaking to a unique and conflicted time period I call The Practice Years that exists for most of us between ages sixteen and twenty-five. The problem with this phase is that even though people are biologically driven to look for love, society insists that any focus outside of individual achievement is a waste of energy. This propaganda that relationships are distractions as opposed to a healthy addition to self-discovery causes young people to take on a “motel mentality” in the dating department. Motel daters treat people as if they won’t have to deal with the consequences of their actions, they feel no remorse in putting their home training on pause and they have a sense of entitlement that isn’t worth the $69 that they have to offer. Worst of all, motel dating is marketed as cool in popular music, movies and macho talk that young men consume. Therefore, the wisest thing to do during The Practice Years is to be meticulous in finding partners who are keen on building healthy relationships where the goal is to leave with a higher understanding of self, instead of a suitcase of stolen towels and toiletries. There are plenty of ethical practice daters, but the younger you are, the harder they are to find, hence why your Frozen Five can be a heart saver. I would have gladly helped the caller on her pursuit, but go figure, she planned on backpacking for half the summer.

  Immediately after that I connected with a woman named Jenn who gave me a quote that makes me smile to this day: “I had a friend named Alexa who once showed me a note this guy wrote her: Some like Coke, some like Pepsi, but I like Lexy because she’s so sexy. I’ve never felt sexy. I’ve always wondered if things would be different if I had a better name.”

  But my favorite quote of all came from a twenty-five-year-old, braces-wearing, pink-and-blue-haired environmental engineer named Deshawn: “I don’t mind scary movies but if you want me to freak out, let’s small talk. I’d rather be running from Freddy Krueger then be stuck at a dinner party with him.”

  Deshawn was a young black woman working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). According to the National Girls Collaborative Project, minority women make up fewer than one in ten employed scientists and engineers. This is a reality Deshawn said she was aware of from the moment she entered graduate school. So she started finding ways to fit in, and some of those methods had become a big detriment to her social life.

  “I’m terrible at flirting, I’m awkward, guys don’t approach me, and I get friend-zoned a lot. I live back at home with my mom, I go to work, I attend church on Sundays, I tutor kids in the evenings and hang out with friends occasionally on weekends—that’s my life,” said Deshawn as she sat in her car, which I noticed was a cute BMW. “It’s been a while since I’ve really felt desired and if I’m totally honest, that probably has a lot to do with my feelings about my body. In the past three years I’ve gained a lot of weight. I’ve accepted I’m in the plus-size group, but I have no idea how to dress because it’s still so new to me.”

  Deshawn looked down and frowned but I couldn’t help but smile, having found my second participant. Deshawn perfectly exemplified a wonderful woman who felt excluded from the happily-ever-after narrative, and as a result, I could see she had begun excluding herself. That had to change, and I was certain I could help.

  When I asked Deshawn what she would magically change about dating if she could, she said, “I would make it easier for people to meet in person and talk to others in public places.”

  Boom. That was magic I could teach! Without a second thought, I circled her application but then she asked me a question that made me want to star and underline it: “What apparatus do you plan on using to get your intended results for the chosen subjects?”

  I smiled widely. Not one person had asked me that question until that point, but in fairness, no one else was a scientist. Now, although I kind of ragged on traditional education earlier, I’d like to tear a page out of my sixth-grade notebook to address Deshawn’s query.

  * * *

  The Scientific Method for the Game of Desire

  QUESTION

  Can someone learn how to be attractive?

  HYPOTHESIS

  If I expose a group of struggling daters to my five-phase program, then they will become expert seducers and leave my program with the power to attract the love life of their dreams.

  TERMINOLOGY

  Playmate—a person who you want to have fun with through flirting, seducing and rapport-building.

  Low-interest playmate—a person who is missing too many key qualities to be considered a contender for a long-term connection. However, you still enjoy their company and wish to ensure they enjoy yours.

  High-interest playmate—a person that qualifies against your frozen five and is a contender for a long-term connection.

  Frozen five—five standards that a person must meet in order to be considered a high-interest playmate.

  APPARATUS

  Phase One—KNOW

  Have the participants complete a self-summary workbook that will give them the self-insight and language to describe their intimate needs to others.

  Have the participants reach out to their exes in order to illuminate any problematic behaviors they may not be aware of. Self-insight is an incomplete system without feedback from others and it’s best to go to a source who knows you but who you truly believe has no stake in deluding you or seeking revenge.

  Phase Two—CHANGE

  Teach the participants, with the help of experts, to maximize and, if necessary, play up their look.

  Teach the group about seduction and anti-seduction so that they will understand what transformations must come next.

  Reveal through one-on-one sessions what each of their self-sabotaging qualities are.

  Phase Three—LEARN

  Teach the group what to look for in their search for a long-term lover and how to find that person, especially using online dating.

  Expose the group to a series of experts who will teach them how to attract, flirt, seduce and protect themselves.

  Phase Four—PRACTICE

  Practice what we’ve learned thus far in group settings, plus conduct four group experiments that could reveal new tools not currently utilized by the general population.

  Have participants go on solo dates with a low-interest playmate to continue practicing old techniques while testing out five unique ones.

  Phase Five—BE

  Participants will choose a high-interest playmate to go on a first date with. They will be coached for the first date but must secure a second on their own without coaching.

  MEASUREMENT OF SUCCESS

  Their success or failure on the second date with a high-interest playmate will partially serve as their results marker but the overall final goal is in how they feel as opposed to who they’re with. Does each woman now feel she has or is highly capable of achieving her dream love life? Dream life?

  * * *

  Day two of interviews, I gave myself a good old-fashioned nine-to-five schedule, but by lunch, the only notable thing I had accomplished was the execution of a lackluster bowl of porridge. The women were great and honest and sweet but not the right fit. The recurring theme was their frustration over being ghosted
as well as a half-complacent, half-nonchalant attitude about dating altogether. And while I admired all the queens who were more focused on their grind or families, for the purpose of this project I wanted people who were starved for romance. When I connected with a thirty-year-old property manager from Texas named Courtney, that is the exact sentiment she shared.

  “I’m frustrated with the whole dating process!” exclaimed Courtney, who wore glasses, a blazer and a no-nonsense expression. “I’m straightforward and I’m beginning to think men don’t appreciate that quality in a woman. Let me make this clear, I’m looking for someone of the opposite sex to build something with and I’m looking for someone who knows what they want too.”

  Courtney was the first person I spoke with who came to the call ready to take notes, clutching an orange marker and a gray notebook. This was a woman who wanted answers. “All right, I get how you feel about dating, but tell me more about you, Courtney. How would you describe yourself?”

  “I’d describe myself as a big woman,” she began. “I’m tall, I’ve got size to me, I’ve got a big presence and I have big plans—I know this about myself. I just want a partner who knows themself too. I’d also describe myself as someone who holds people accountable for what they say. I let people know out the gate, make sure you mean what you say before you go and open your mouth.”

  I liked Courtney. She instantly reminded me of myself, but the version that I was before I realized I couldn’t actually treat people like they were made up of circuit boards. Like her, I too enjoyed expectations, structure and knowing exactly how things worked best. (This part of my personality is what drove me to study the science of sex and love to begin with!) But I had to also learn that no one wants to feel like they are being categorized and generalized instead of personalized—especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

  I also thought Courtney was an interesting candidate because she was walking proof of the massive educational flaw in our society. The skills she had learned in order to thrive as a woman in corporate America were likely the same ones that were sabotaging her love life. When dealing with her tenants she had to be straightforward, stern and inflexible with deadlines, but if one adopts this mind-set when dealing with lovers, it’s deadly.

  “Just know that if you’re looking for someone willing to do what it takes, look no further because I’m hella fed up with the bullshit,” she concluded as her office phone began ringing behind her.

  “Do you need to get that?” I asked.

  “No,” she said casually. “I’m on break and I like to wait until one task is completed before I move on to the next.”

  I put a circle around Courtney’s name and confirmed her as the third participant. She was a prime example of someone who had the right intentions and the right ideas but lacked the finesse to get the results she desired. We all know communication is key in successful relationships, but it’s important to narrow this statement down. One of my favorite principles is: effective communication is kind of about what you say, but mostly it’s about what you want to accomplish.

  For example, if your romantic partner isn’t texting you as much as you’d like, you can:

  tell them that you’re not satisfied with their communication skills and warn them to step it up.

  challenge them to a game—if they think about pizza, they have to text you something that made them smile that day.

  In both circumstances the goal is the same. And while A gets to the point, B creates a whole new experience that both parties can feel good about. Courtney occurred to me as the kind of person who chose A. Every time.

  BUT FOR EVERY YANG, THERE IS A YIN. AND COURTNEY’S YIN WAS A TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD mother named Pricilla who didn’t know how to ask for what she wanted at all.

  “I tend to be very quiet and shy,” said Pricilla with the soft tone to prove it. “I don’t like being the center of attention. I find dating stressful because the process of getting to know people is hard for me. It just takes me a while to come out of my shell.”

  “What attracted you to this experience?” I asked.

  “My ten-year-old son,” she began. “One day he says to me, I don’t want a stepdad. I asked him why and he said that he’s getting older and realized it would probably never happen since I don’t date anyone long enough. I was really shocked but also sad that I hadn’t been providing healthy relationships for him to model.”

  Pricilla dropped her head and her long black hair dramatically fell over her eyes. She was classically beautiful, but more specifically she was the new classic. She had her full lips, a full-figured body, full brows and Kim Kardashian-esque makeup—she even had the slight nasal voice to match. If you bumped into her on the street, you’d think she was stuck up, but upon further inspection she seemed beaten down.

  Pricilla, who was the oldest of eight siblings, revealed she had a mother who had done just that. “My mother never had a kind word to say. She wasn’t really cut out for the role so when she had my sisters, they turned to me as the mother figure. When I really think about it, I was already a mom at my son’s age. I’ve always had to be very empathetic and nurturing. Maybe that’s why I’m always trying to fix broken men.”

  She sounded disappointed in herself and my heart went out to her and the many women I knew just like her. A lot of women—mothers in particular—give without assessing what they have to gain. But in order to curb this bad habit, you must believe that you are precious with something precious to offer. So, I turned that question on Pricilla by asking about her favorite quality.

  “My selflessness. I enjoy helping others and making them happy,” she replied.

  Bingo, I thought. This was the issue Pricilla needed help with. If your favorite thing about yourself is that you’re more concerned with the needs of others than your own, what kind of people do you think you’ll attract? The answer is, a mix of good-intentioned people grateful to be with a giver, and narcissists who will take until there is nothing left to give. And it didn’t sound like Pricilla had any system in place to sort through the two.

  This reminded me of a lesson on attraction that I learned as a kid from my dad. Brian Boodram grew up in a small developing country off the coast of South America called Guyana. When my dad was growing up, Guyana was rich in crime and poverty—things he did not miss. But what he did miss was the terrain—80 percent of Guyana is covered by tropical jungle, which made the rain forest his second home, something he was determined to take with him when he moved to Canada. Fast-forward, I essentially grew up with a Disney-movie backyard full of birds, fruits and flowers. My dad loved his self-made jungle, but he quickly learned that what attracted the birds he loved was also of interest to the rodents we all hated. There was nothing he could do to stop them from approaching but he learned how to keep them from returning: he began putting pepper seeds in the feeder and topsoil, since birds and plants don’t mind pepper but rats sure do.

  Pricilla seemed to be a garden of all fruits, but no pepper.

  I GOT THROUGH THE REST OF MY CALLS AND CLOSED THE DOOR TO MY OFFICE feeling satisfied. Pricilla and Courtney were not only two women that this project could help, they were also two women who I knew could help each other.

  Day three of my search seemed like it would be a total bust. Aside from a few quotables that emphasized how dire the current dating conditions were, like, “Guys DM me and text me and stuff. I’m assuming that’s kind of like dating?” along with “Dating is insanely weird. I either get an inappropriate response like a dick pic or no response at all,” none of the applicants were really standing out.

  By the time my last call had rolled around I was wiped and elated to find she was a no-show. I went out on my balcony to offset my cabin fever but moments later, I heard the Skype ring-tone beckoning me back to my desk. Reluctantly, I got my butt up and connected with Stephanie, a twenty-eight-year-old Ivy League graduate that worked for the court system. And we all know the cliché way that this story ends, right? She was fucking great
.

  Stephanie revealed very quickly that she was a late bloomer who didn’t date or have sex until age twenty-five. When I asked her why she waited she attributed it to an equal mix between her “religious upbringing and crippling insecurities.”

  “I struggled growing up in my Korean-American community because being open and expressive is just not celebrated,” explained Stephanie. “I’ve often wondered what it would be like if I grew up in a Brazilian family. I wondered if I would be less self-conscious or less, I dunno . . . I’m super-open-minded and I’m open to all walks of life; to me, the weirder the better! But my Korean-American community is super-Christian and not into interracial dating. My parents refused to meet my last boyfriend because he wasn’t the right type.”

  “What is your type?” I asked.

  “Typically, I’ve been attracted to alpha guys who end up being macho assholes. I’ve come to recognize that when I date, I’m more concerned with keeping something alive instead of seeing if I’m getting any enjoyment out of it. I feel like I did a lot of dating for dating’s sake, which again made it really hard to admit when something wasn’t serving me or going anywhere.”

  Stephanie, on the other hand, was a woman who was going places. She had a good job, an impressive academic background, her own car, her own apartment, a beautiful voice, a sweet personality and an open mind. Stephanie was basically the kind of woman this project was made for. During my brainstorming session I described the ideal candidate as: