This is basically all true autobiographical stuff - but I've changed a few things like names and specific places to protect the innocent. I've also changed a few ages to conform to proper standards.
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Chess is a game invented to help teach principles of structured conflict and specifically warfare in the age of cavalry and castles. It can also teach some principles of sexual power, conflict, and seduction in just everyday human life. One wins at chess by thinking ahead, setting ever more subtle traps and employing ever deeper levels of subterfuge. And actually it is subterfuge in plain sight - as the rules are fixed and the board and moves are plainly visible to all. But "Jedi Mind Tricks" CAN come into play (at least among human competitors.) The Russians call this "maskerova" and employ it as a core principle of both warfare and intelligence activity. Not that this story has anything to do with Russians.
So - what does it mean when the most beautiful and sexiest woman in the office wants you to teach her how to play chess? We were already friends, or at least friendly. Her name was Diane and she lived with her boyfriend. We often went to lunch together and generally with her BFF - Jackie. Jackie had previously been a Playboy Bunny, then had gotten married but that didn't work out for her and she was currently going through a rough divorce. Now she worked for IBM as merely a secretary in one of the St. Louis Marketing offices, like Diane, despite her own obvious great looks AND already having a BA degree in some Humanities. But even Jackie wasn't quite as stunningly beautiful as Diane. Diane was about 5 foot 4 inches tall and weighed about 110 lbs. max. She looked to be about a 36C with a very thin waste and the cutest butt that just had that natural wiggle whenever she walked by in her high heels. She was always dressed very nicely and certainly sexy - in the fashionable styles of 1975.
I also worked for IBM then (obviously) as an order entry clerk. It was a pretty good job for me but I was way down on the office politics and social totem pole. The actual Marketing Reps and their managers were top dogs, the Alpha males with much higher earnings and the aggressive personalities that successful sales people have. Next came our technical support professionals for the Marketing Reps - the Systems Engineers and their managers. Back then both Marketing Reps and Systems Engineers had to have already earned a minimum of a 4 year college degree and both attended the very same intensive one month IBM school for marketing basics before specialization training. Then on that pecking order scale were the admin folks like us order entry, accounts receivables, and the secretaries and our admin managers. I COULD make a career in IBM through admin - becoming a manager had possibilities for a solid middle class life.
I was married then still to my first wife Lynn - but our marriage was on it's last legs and I was increasingly more interested in other women - not that I expected other women to actually be that interested in me.
I was not even an "average" guy. Ever. I have experienced a lot of angst in my life just wanting to somehow LOOK average. I was only not quite 5' 8" tall and also small at about 140 lbs. I was only 27 years old in 1975 but already had receding hair and the beginnings of a bald spot. I also had a less than "strong" chin and always wore glasses. And a pretty bad case of acne all through HS and even into my 20's. And I didn't even have two normal, average, eyes. One had been damaged and scarred in an accident when I was 12 years old. Now it didn't quite track accurately and was always kind of weepy and I was effectively blind in that eye. Many surveys of women on "sexual attractiveness" issues indicate that most women rate a man's eyes as the first thing they really look at when first judging him - by looks. Obviously I lose that in comparison with every other just "average" guy.
But it wasn't ALL just negative "not-average" stuff for me. If anyone ever got past that just looking beginning. Despite my size I was always very athletic and physical. I could always run faster - and further - than most other boys and men. I was in the top 5% for that - and even right then in 1975 I was a "star" on our weekend office touch football games, and even competing against former college level football players who now were Marketing Reps for IBM. And I was also just mean enough with a touch of that "Napoleon Complex" I never backed down from ANYONE, as far as physical confrontations. I was also actually stronger overall than most other average men. I had beat a lot of ther HS boys my age in arm wrestling and informal wrestling - even though they were always taller and weighed more. Maybe I had a slightly more than average levels of testosterone and even adrenaline (when needed) which caused these athletic abilities - as well as the acne and loss of hair.
I was also smarter than average. Despite never being a "nerd" or bookworm, I finished in the top 10% of my HS Senior class of 400 rather easily - and pretty much shocked everyone when I scored in the top 2% nationally on the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying test. I got a nice little certificate and about 2 minutes of local fame for that - but only those top 1% folks actually got any scholarship money. Me and my lower middle class origins would have to handle college on my own. Luckily that accident to my eye happened on public school grounds and we got a little settlement of $10,000 for that which was my college fund and good for just about 2 years at the Univ. of Illinois, where I was accepted.