I've learned a lot about women over the years.
It hasn't been easy. I was a bookish nerd in high school, with clunky glasses, a pot belly, a bad haircut, and no sense of fashion or style. Back then women wanted nothing to do with me. They gravitated toward big dumb jocks, especially the ones whose families had money. My family was broke.
On the rare occasions I tried to engage girls in conversation, they treated me with a mixture of scorn and pity. I still didn't date much during college, but I was smart enough to recognize that I needed to improve myself if I ever wanted to lose my virginity.
So that's what I did. I studied hard, earned a degree in economics, and got a good job after graduation. I lost the flab by becoming a runner. I built up muscle lifting weights. I ditched the glasses and got contact lenses. I got a better haircut from a good stylist. I even learned some things about fashion and upgraded my wardrobe.
After a few years, things had changed. I did well at work, and before long I was managing a group of accountants and bookkeepers who did important work for the company. By my late 20s I had a nice car, a cool condo, a good salary, a growing investment account - and a lot of cute women who suddenly wanted to spend time with me.
It wasn't just me that changed: so had the women who'd scorned me. They discovered that the pretty boys they dated in their youth were a bunch of entitled losers. Some of those bozos flunked out of college. Others couldn't hold down a job. Some cheated on their wives and girlfriends. Most of them had flabby bellies and empty heads because they spent their evenings swilling beer and watching mindless crap on TV.
The women who'd been so anxious to spread their legs for those arrogant jerks had learned some hard lessons. By the time they were in their late 20s, they had gone through painful break-ups and divorces. It had taken a few years, but they finally realized that what they actually wanted was a guy like me.
But by then I could be selective. If a woman wanted to spend time with me, she had to earn it. I was no longer interested in fawning over a girl just because she was attractive and willing to spend time with me. I needed women who treated me with respect, and I had no use for one who wouldn't give me sex starting early in the relationship.
I came up with what I called "the three date rule."
It was simple. I'd take a girl out three times. If they went to bed with me after one of the first three dates, great. I'd continue dating them. But if they resisted my advances, I'd give them "the talk." Basically, I told them this:
"Baby, I'm very fond of you. I enjoy spending time with you. But I get the feeling that something is keeping you from being truly intimate with me. I'm not going to try to change your mind. I respect your values. But my feeling is that we've spent enough time together for you to decide if you want to pursue a relationship.
"However you feel, I support it. You should do whatever you want to do. But you need to know how I feel.
"We are two adults, and what I want from you is an adult relationship. If you want to keep seeing me, this relationship needs to become physical. Otherwise, I need to find someone who wants the same things I do.
"It's up to you."
In most cases, this persuaded women to have sex. One woman told me that "the talk" aroused her. She was surprised to meet a man confident enough to tell her she had to go to bed; most guys wheedled and implored and sometimes even begged. That was the kind of treatment women expected, and when I told them I deserved better, it convinced them I must be right. Getting an ultimatum from a dominant male was a turn-on.
When women refused, I felt they were doing me a favor. Some women don't want to have casual sex ever; I was glad to learn this before I wasted too much time or money on them. Some women just don't like sex. That's also something I needed to know early, so I was glad when women like this rejected "the talk."
Maybe one reason things went so wrong with Mary was that I was feeling a little too cocky. My "three date rule" made me think of myself as a guy in complete control of my sex life. I know one thing for sure: the fact that she was so gorgeous certainly contributed to my bad judgment.
The story of our relationship is kind of complicated, and I'm reluctant to talk about the parts that are especially embarrassing. But here goes:
Things got started while I was at the gym.
I like to lift weights three times a week. One day I noticed a spectacular beauty working out with dumbbells. She had a carved, buff physique that was obviously the result of tremendous devotion to diet and exercise. She had the kind of elegant, stylish hair style found on models walking runways. She wore expensive designer athletic gear that conformed to every curve and cleft on her body.
That was Mary. She was dazzling.
I saw her look in my direction. She did that several times. Mary finally walked over and struck up a conversation. I didn't learn why she picked me until she told me much later.
It turned out that Mary considered herself a psychic, and she believed that someone from the spirit world pointed her in my direction. She thought this meant we were destined to be together. I think that tells you all you need to know about what kind of woman Mary was.
I don't remember exactly what she said that first time. I think it was something like "Do you just use weight machines, or do you also like free weights?" It was one of those meaningless comments that was only important because it meant that Mary wanted to chat me up.
As everyone knows, women don't usually ask guys out. What they do instead is let guys know they want to be asked. Fine. Whatever. I invited Mary to have coffee after our workout, and she quickly accepted.
"Why is such a gorgeous woman looking for company?" I wondered as I got into my street clothes. If I'd been smart, I would have realized it was because she'd done things that caused her previous relationships to fall apart. But I wasn't being smart. All I was thinking was what she'd look like naked, and whether we'd need to have "the talk."
The first sign of trouble came on that very first date.
"What's your birthday?" she asked. When I told her, she asked for the year, too. "I want to draw up an astrological chart for you."
Uh-oh. I don't have a lot of patience for astrology, and I couldn't imagine being comfortable for long in the company of a woman who thought it was sensible. My feeling is that when it comes to dumb superstitions, astrology ranks somewhere between the Ouija board and Tarot cards.
It turned out that Mary believed in all three of those things - and more - and I regularly had to resist the urge to scoff at her beliefs. It was just the first sign that we wouldn't be compatible in the long term, but I told myself that didn't mean we couldn't enjoy ourselves for a while.
Look, I was anxious to get Mary out of her clothes. I'm a guy. It's what we do.
I'll just get straight to the central issue. We went out several times, and Mary resisted physical intimacy. She wouldn't even kiss me! Three dates came and went, and she managed to make me believe she'd ultimately decide to have sex if I was just persistent enough. I realize now I should have been more skeptical.
I gave Mary leeway because I was willing to do anything to get my hands on her incredible body. My three date rule never applied because Mary was did a wonderful job flaunting her body in a way calculated to make me think we'd be intimate - eventually.
I'm going to skip a lot of sordid details. All you need to know is I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took for me to realize that Mary was just using me to take her to fancy restaurants and elegant clubs. That's it. All she wanted was a guy with enough money to buy her stuff. My needs were of no interest to her.
One of the things that tipped me off was her large collection of expensive designer clothes and accessories. Purses. Shoes. Sunglasses. Apparel of all kinds. Mary worked as a stylist, and I know some of them earn good salaries, but it wasn't possible for her to afford all that stuff on her own. How does a stylist buy purses that cost $5,000?
I gradually realized that she must have found a series of guys willing to pay for whatever she wanted because they thought that someday she'd let them have that spectacular body. She apparently took each guy for everything she could, then moved on to the next sucker.
She was grooming me to be her next sugar daddy. And I gave her exactly what she wanted.
As all this was happening, I gradually figured out that Mary was an exhibitionist. It was amazing how much cleavage she would display in public. The thing that finally made me recognise her exhibitionism happened when I took her canoeing.
Because I knew she liked fitness, I invited her on a date paddling around on a lake just east of town. It was fun; we both enjoyed having such a pleasant way of getting an aerobic workout, and I liked that it didn't involve buying overpriced menu items.
But the thing I liked best was the tiny bikini Mary wore. Oh. My. God. It was as close to naked as she could be without violating the law. I had a lot of fun sitting behind her in the canoe and inspecting every inch of her body as she paddled through the water. Flexing back muscles never looked sexier.
This is taking too long, so I'll get to the point. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was going on, but when I did I felt humiliated. Emasculated. Mary saw me as someone who'd spend a lot of money on her and expect nothing in return.
And the worst thing was I'd given her exactly what she wanted! I'd been so anxious to take her to bed that I behaved like the stupid, desperate nerd I'd been when I was a teenager. I'd been smart enough to create the "three dates rule" to protect myself from users, but I'd been so spellbound by Mary's sultry appeal that I forgot my own rule.
