When I was a hall director, we had to go through every room in our building at the end of the year and personally assess it for damages. This included opening the closets, all drawers and doors in the room, lifting mattresses, etc., which meant that we looked into all sorts of spaces that students forgot to look into on their way out of the building, and sometimes found odd (and often disgusting) things. The policy at the school where I worked was that everything left behind was considered abandoned, but sometimes we would call students ("Hey, I found your passport in your desk. Do you want me to mail that to your home address?") and sometimes students would call us, like the time an RA called the office and spoke to my coworker, Leandra, to ask if we had happened to notice a "personal item" in his desk.
"You mean your DVD of 'Big Black Bootie'? Yes, we found that."
I don't remember if we ended up mailing "Big Black Bootie" home to him or not, but I do remember that for about a week there we'd just pass each other in the office and blurt, "Big Black Bootie! 6 hours!" (the only words on the front of the DVD case) and then break down in hysterical giggles.
Most of the stuff we found while searching rooms was pretty harmless ("Six rolls of masking tape! Let's take it to the office!"), occasionally usefull ("Oh, hey, I need a powerstrip!"), and sometimes, like when I found an unopened DVD of "The Lion King", kind of like a nice surprise. Then there were the times that we found things that were just weird, which is how I ended up with a copy of Frank Gray's
Scoremanship: The Sensational New Approach to Success with Women. I don't remember who, specifically, worked with me when we found this, but I do remember sitting in the office for a few minutes and laughing while reading the really awful parts to my coworkers.
And let me tell you, this book is filled with really awful parts.
I must have put
Scoremanship on my "unread books" pile, and then when I moved here it got packed with all of the other books. Somewhere along the way I kind of forgot about it, but when I was pulling books out of the "unread" pile for travel this year (the fact that a book I found over six years ago is still sitting in the unread pile should give you some idea of the size of the pile, which is stored in stacks beneath both my end tables and my coffee table) I found it and thought, "Hey, I remember that book. I wonder if it's still funny?"
It kind of is.
Published in 1969, this gives a window into a very different world, and not just because I'm not really interested in scoring with chicks. Every page drips with sexism, but also with a little bit of hilarity as you try to imagine someone using a line like, "Your lips are so luscious and tantalizing" (suggested on page 118 in the
Words and phrases that emotionally motivate and stimulate section) and having that line actually work. I would ask if Frank Gray, the author, had ever actually had any success with an actual woman using this book, but he does provide six helpful case studies at the end that I'm sure he couldn't possibly have made up. I mean, I'm sure that lots of people have hooked up with a braless divorcee in the office of a furrier that they were watching while the owner was out of town, and scored with a model while on an out of town trip for an unspecified business, and yelled out to some girl on a sidewalk who was charmed into his car and then his hotel room by his smooth patter.
All that's missing is the case study where he was a fireman astronaut secret agent.
Anyway, just in case you're wondering how "you can become irresistible to women by using the tested techniques demonstrated in this detailed handbook", but don't have a copy of your own, I've distilled the finer points out for you, a process that involved reading the book and putting sticky tabs on various pages while my parents watched curiously but didn't ask questions.
1) Never call it "having sex". I'm sure this would also include calling it "hooking up" if that phrase had been invented yet in 1969. Instead, you should call it "having a love affair", because "the term 'love affair' dispels the harsh picture a girl may have about being 'used'." Because, you know, she's going to get used, but you want her to think that there was something special about it, and if you can convince her that it was really romantic, then she won't mind.
Why? Well, because...
2) Women can't think, because they have feelings. The book makes this clear over and over. "A woman will not respond to logic or reason any more than a deisel engine will respond to gas" (page 5, in the
Understanding Her chapter), Gray asserts, in a manner that makes me wonder how many women have been unable to resist their emotional urge to slap the hell out of him. Not only are women incapable of decision and thought because they have too many feelings, but the secret to understanding a woman is knowing that she "longs to feel them surging through her", since they "cause her to take action" and she'd be completely unable to function otherwise.
Of course, the only action they really need to take is to submit to a man. After all, "she wants you to run the show, even if she doesn't want you to know it". Your job as the man is to make her feel things, because that's what she needs, and to keep her from having to decide things, because that's what she doesn't need, unless the things she's deciding include whether now is a good time to let you score, because that's what she does need, but she also needs you to call it a love affair, not scoring. Basically, if you treat all women like
Ron Burgundy treats women, you'll be fine.
Now, at this point, you may be thinking to yourself, "But I know women, lots of women, and I'm pretty sure that they're not like this." I would say you might even be thinking, "But I'm a woman," but we already know from this book that if you're reading this and you are a woman, then you're probably only thinking about your feelings, or you might even have reached the point where "her mind goes blank, and she reacts only with her feelings". You're so filled with feelings that you may not even be able to read this far, right? Maybe you should go sit down and take your bra off, and I'll do the thinking for you, because that's what you feel like you want, anyway.
Back to the point I was making, this book explains that sure, you know lots of women, but you've probably never realized before that...
3) All women fall into easily defined categories. They are
Single girls from sixteen to eighteen, which "are to be avoided on the grounds of moral responsibility";
Single girls from eighteen to twenty-five, which are "a good pond for the married man to fish in" (don't worry that being married will keep you from scoring a love affair; being married is what's known as "playing with a handicap" in the Scoreman game);
Single women twenty-five and upward, who have either "had a lot of men or very few - there is no happy medium";
The engaged girl or the girl who is going steady, who "may be in doubt about her feelings" and therefor ripe for you to help her into a love affair;
The married woman;
The divorced woman, who "can be difficult" and "may resent all men because of her bad experience" or, I'm guessing, because of her experience with men like Frank Gray, the author;
The beautiful woman;
The swinger; and
The mod chick, also known as "the instant score".
Types like
The widow,
The lesbian, and
Girls who are intelligent apparently do not exist in Frank Gray's world.
Once you've understood the various types of chicks, you'll need to understand the most important lesson:
4) "No" doesn't mean "no". Perhaps this book should have been subtitled "The exciting world of date rape", because that's definitely where this point, reiterated over and over, seems to be going. "When a girl says 'no' she means 'maybe' and when she says 'maybe' she means 'yes'," according to Frank Gray. If a girl does tell you "no" and seems to mean it, "You can usually stop her with the simple question, 'Why?'", because "girls seldom are supplied with an answer to this question" and she'll be so confused by the fact that you asked it and the struggle to sort through her feelings enough to find a logical answer that you can just go back to what you were doing and she won't even notice. In fact, "you must never take 'no' for an answer; we know she doesn't actually mean it."
Frank Gray left out the part where later, you go to prison.
Just remember, though, that even though all girls want it, they all fall into specific categories, and their overwhelming feelings leave them powerless to resist, you shouldn't decide this based on what they're wearing. "A girl may be an atomic broad with ninety percent fallout, but still not be a player," (Really? Did people actually talk like this in 1969?) means that she might wear "tight, sexy clothes and low-cut necklines" but somehow still not be interested in having a love affair with a stud like you.
Anyway, now that you understand girls, you need to work on yourself a little (even though you're already halfway to perfect by virtue of not being a girl) so that you can attract the right kind of girl. What Gray says, in no uncertain terms, is that...
5) Guys need an image, and it needs to be one that thinks for the girl. This even works for nerds: "Many a man has talked his way into bed by impressing a girl with his intellect," especially since girls are so filled with feelings that they will hear what they want to hear, no matter what you say. "If you sketch the romantic picture, her excited mind will fill in the details." Just in case, though, you should keep yourself in shape, clean, and well dressed. And if a girl ever does question the decisions you make for her, you should be ready to distract her with complicated questions: Let her know that you'll be cooking dinner for her at your place, then ask "What would you rather have - spaghetti, or lasagna?" Just by picking a food, she will have accidentally agreed to come to your place for dinner. (See page 57 for more examples of
The Distraction Techinique.)
And it's not just you and your image that might need fine tuning. You should also spruce up your apartment. "A luxurious sofa, soft cushions, books, add to the general romantic atmosphere, as do conversation pieces and, of course, liquor." Wait, I should decorate my apartment with liquor? Like just the bottles, or should I soak the luxurious sofa in vodka? "Always have a variety of wines and liquor on hand", but be careful: "A girl can become angry and hard to deal with under the effects of liquor, or she may completely fall apart and there is no conquest involved." Having been to a number of weddings with open bars, I kind of have to agree with that last point.
Getting back to my apartment, though, what kind of books? Current novels, of course, and "some books dealing with sex". That way, if she seems nervous, you can page through one of the sex books together and, again, her feelings will overwhelm her tiny female brain. I wish to God I was kidding. Just in case a book is too long, has too many pages, or not enough pictures, you can use "the better men's magazines, such as
Playboy and
Esquire" for the same purpose.
Now that we understand chicks, we've remade ourselves and our apartments to be irresistable to chicks, and we've practiced our lines and compliments, let's get right to kissing:
6) There are two kinds of kisses: icebreaker kisses and the
message kiss. The message being, "Hey, let's have sex now." To be sure the message is properly conveyed, "Your lips have to be working, moving, talking" and you have to make sure you've properly timed the message kiss. Never hurry, because it shows a lack of confidence, but don't wait too long, because it may give her time to think about whether or not she actually wants to do this.
You should also be sure to grab her breasts. "Some girls will stop you when you start toward their breasts", but that's not because you didn't ask or you're violating their boundaries. No, it's because "many girls are unhappy about the size of their breasts".
Yeah, a straight guy totally wrote this book.
So you've gone ahead and scored. Now, how do you get out of this so you can move on to the next victim?
7) Girls will totally understand if you just stop calling. Don't stop right away. Instead, "you should let time lapse between dates and make the intervals successively longer". You might think you're just stringing her along, prolonging her agony, and giving her false hope each time you do call back and agree to go out again, but really "she will be sensitive enough to realize what is happening, and you will be able to leave her with a glowing impression of how lucky you were to have found each other."
I'm pretty sure that's the glow of female rage, Frank Gray, and that the impression will be delivered somewhere between your legs by a boot.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go class up my apartment with some copies of
Playboy.
