House of G Gives Advice. To Boys.

Are New York men a different breed than the California variety? Can I get through this post without sounding like Carrie Bradshaw?

I am new to the Tri-State area. I am a transplant from my home state of California. There are differences. But there's an indefatigable maxim pertinent to any state and social setting: when guys get drunk they hit on girls. There is a corollary: when girls get drunk they hit on boys.

In this post I will focus on the former dictum in an attempt to help my genuinely clueless and mostly well-intentioned brethren not screw up the first five minutes of talking to a group of ladies, or one in particular. You can screw up on the first date, or beyond, but if it's the first date you'd like to clinch, please stay with me. I may or may not be relying on a recent outing with lady friends. Like, last night.

How Not To Hit On A Collective Of Ladies (or one in particular)

a) Do not brag about how much you make per day without any prompting [and within two minutes of introducing yourself]. P.S. Revealing your per diem salary rate is weird and unimpressive. Talking about your involvement in initiatives to end genocide in Darfur, for example, means you can extricate yourself from your own ego bubble and personal shit. This is impressive.

b) Do not immediately reveal that you are looking for a wife and to "spread my seed", and that you want to take said wife and products of the aforementioned seed back to Toronto. Toronto is cold. And, not every woman is instantly game to jump on the matrimonial bandwagon. With a stranger in a crooked tie.

c) Do not offer that you hope to have a fortune of $20,000,000 when you retire at 65 to live the life you believe you are entitled to in your golden years, but that "it's really not that much", because "bonuses these days suck". You know what sucks? The patronizing look you gave us when we said that money isn't everything.

d) Do not confess that you are driven to achieve great wealth because of childhood issues that have driven you to fiercely compete with your brother, as your fun-guy-party-mask slips and reveals a vulnerable adolescent clad in Brooks Brothers. One more thing: Cain & Abel stories are so out of context at a beer garden -- especially as you keep talking and we drain our mugs dry. And remember, we only met five minutes ago.

e) Do not express surprise when we demand compensation for a mini therapy session or another pitcher of beer due to your hijacking of the "conversation". Attendance at a beer garden usually involves good brews, merriment, glass mugs that are hard to lift, and maybe even french fries. It doesn't, and shouldn't, involve vomiting deeply personal issues to a group of strangers. Even if they are wearing lip gloss, and might have some empathy....which is quick to evolve into...pity.

f) Do not express even more massive surprise that any of the ladies you are attempting to charm hold MBAs, and then try to recover by asking "but tell me, what do women REALLY want?"

Dear resident of Toronto, with your pretty BlackBerry, and your new-lucrative-according-to-you job at a financial services company in Manhattan:

Desperation, in any form, is never, not ever, really, never, ever appealing. Not even when it's cloaked in a really nice black suit with an awesome tie, or slightly numbed by pitchers of beer. It takes some serious pelotas to just appear in front of a group of ladies, sit right down, and introduce yourself. As a residually shy person, I give you props.

You may be obsessed with making money, and really, to each his own. We all have our obsessions and gaffes and quirks, but my advice - if you want any hope of locating a wife and unfurling your seed - is that it's best to keep the dark stuff, the skeletons, the vulnerabilities, in your back pocket during those initial delicate moments of social interaction with the lip gloss crowd -- rather than splay them out on your Italian wool sleeves, leaving your target audience covered in a thick scum of *too much information*.

My advice: keep it light. Make us laugh. Maybe offer us another pitcher of beer. Don't draw an immediate spotlight to your intentions [we can already guess]. We don't like to pull a verbal smack down on a stranger during a ladies' night out. But, we will.

Best,
The Ladies with the pitcher of Hefeweizen