Let’s face it, when it comes to love, dating, and relationships, the playing field is not even.  In fact, it’s not even close.  We’re not talking nepotism, race, or any of that stuff that goes on in the world of politics, work, higher education, and similar bureaucratic arenas.  Dating is a whole different ball game.  In love, the playing field is not only uneven, the entire game is rigged.  From day one, some people, “The Beautiful Ones”, have such a large advantage over the rest that the dating process has become insanely unfair.  But why?  Shouldn’t love and companionship, be about trust, communication, loyalty, and respect?  What does a person’s physical attributes have to do with their ability to be a good partner?

Below are just a few things I’ve come up with to help you improve your love life.  It’s not a fool-proof system but it will help you yield some better results, and at the very least, allow you to get out there and get your feet wet.  Enjoy!  I hope it helps.

In my last article, I told you the blunt, harsh truth behind why women who are still single , but don’t choose to be single, remain so.  According to the prevailing beauty standard, we are not attractive enough–we’re simply average.  But don’t fret.  As I explained before, there is no real correlation between actual beauty and attractiveness.  Thus, being categorized as “average”  doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful, it simply means you don’t meet the apparent criteria many men use to judge which women are worthy of pursuit and which women are not.  Despite scientific claims of an objective beauty standard, no one has a monopoly over beauty.  Beauty comes in all forms, shapes, colors, sizes, and textures.  However, what’s truly beautiful may not always be what’s attractive to or desired by the opposite sex.  Not to worry.  Odds are, if you’re reading this blog, you’re a smart, mature, confident woman and you won’t allow something as superficial as attractiveness, or your lack thereof, get you down. Becoming sad and upset about something that’s not within your control is an exercise in futility.  Who gets picked and who doesn’t is not (entirely) up to you. Live with it and be comfortable with yourself regardless of how other people see you.

I wrote this article to give you tips on how you can still participate in the dating game without being a member of the ultra-exclusive club called “The Beautiful Ones.”  However, as I mentioned in an earlier post about dating advice, there are no guarantees.  Anyone who tries to sell you on the idea that  “dating bliss” is completely within your control and that you can drastically and singlehandedly change your luck in the dating game is a liar and a crook.  Remember, the game is rigged. Your bad luck with men is not all your fault.  Dating is a two person process which involves a man and a woman.  You can’t do it alone.  A man’s effort tends to be directly proportional to his interest in you, and his interest in you tends to be directly proportional to the way you look.  It sucks, but it’s true. As with anything else in life, in dating, you will win some and you will lose some,  but you have to take a chance.  Luckily, there are ways to manipulate the game to skew the odds in your favor.

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Pretty girls may seem to have all the luck, but here’s where “average” women have the greater advantage:  to men, average women are like low hanging fruit—accessible.  A pretty girl is what most men aspire to obtain, but they scare the shit out of average and unattractive men.  One thing you have to know about men is that even though they may come off as tough and hard to the core, they are actually very sensitive  creatures.  The male ego is a very fragile thing and it could take days, even months, to recover from even a small blow.  Being rejected by a woman is one such blow.  This is why, for a man, approaching a woman is a gamble and requires an emotional investment.  Men may like a challenge, but they also go for what they think is safe.  An average woman is safe to approach and a smart man, one who is invested in his reputation and self-image, likes to hedge his bets.

But here’s where things get complicated.  In certain circles,—let’s take the young, black, professional circuit, for example—oftentimes, the women greatly outnumber the men, putting the women, average women especially, at a great disadvantage.  What was once your god-send, your accessibility, is now your curse.  Why approach you if he can approach a pretty girl?  What are the odds that she’ll turn him down?  In a pool full of predominantly average men, her pickings are slim and she’s actually the one who’s anxious to be approached, taking a lot of the pressure off him.  This is why average girls, (forgive me, I truly hate that label, you know what I mean) need to step their game up.  We not only need to step our game up, we need to roll up our sleeves, put in some elbow grease, and get ready to get our hands dirty.

Max out your AAB

Pursuant to conventional wisdom, more ordinary looking women tend to be smarter because they have to work hard to compensate for not having it all in the looks department.  Ironically, this works to our advantage.  Barring fights, hair pulling, and jealousy, coming up, pretty girls have had it easy.   The end result:  pretty girls are not challenged.  They didn’t have to work hard to be accepted by others.  Average women, on the other hand did, and so oftentimes, these women are more intelligent, athletic, funny, and have overall better personalities.  Unfortunately, a great personality doesn’t get you noticed from across the room.

If you fall into the second and third tiers or you’re in between a “3” and a “7”, you need to do everything within your means to get your score up.  Overweight?  Lose it.  Bad teeth?  Fix ‘em.  Boring wardrobe?  Get a stylish friend and go shopping.  Glasses?  Get contacts.  Control your controllables!  Fix everything within your reach as long as it doesn’t have an adverse affect on your health, self-esteem, or integrity.  I don’t advocate plastic surgery, skin bleaching, or anything of the sort.  I, for example, could grow out my hair and process it of I wanted to.  But I won’t.  I don’t wear my hair natural just for the style of it, I wear it this way because it’s healthier like this, suits me better, and I have a personal issue with relaxers and other hair straightening techniques.  I realize that my choice lowers my score by a few places, but it’s not something I’m willing to trade for a date.  And besides, any man who has a problem with it, is not the man for me, so it works out for everyone.  You need to choose to change what you feel needs changing and choose to keep what you believe strongly in.

Exposure

WTF is your problem?  A man is not going to fall through your roof saying, “I’m looking for a beautiful woman!”  You have to get out there.  Where?  Everywhere!  Make yourself a promise not to turn down any invitations for 3 months.  You never know who you will meet.

Also, whenever you’re looking your best, that’s when you need to decide to run as many of your errands as you can fit in that day.  How are you going to pick up a man if you’re always going around the city with your hair slicked back in a ponytail, sweat pants, and chapstick?  When you are “hot” that’s when you need to be “out.”  My sister is always “on” and she always meets men in random places like the gas station and Wal-Mart.

If you are looking for a man from a particular demographic—i.e., young/old, black/white/latin, professional/working class, modest/wealthy—you need to fish in that pond.  Join organizations that target that particular group.  If you’re looking for a professional man, why are you in the flea market or swap meet on the weekends?  You need to be where they are.  And, you need to be in the place where you are surrounded by things that you like.  If you like books?  You need to go to the bookstore more often than just once in a blue moon, when you want to buy a book.  The internet age has caused us to remain in our homes more often than we would otherwise.  Instead of browsing for books online, go down to the bookstore and browse for them there first.  Take a notepad with you and don’t buy anything.  When you get home, you can order the books on Barnes & Noble.com or you can go to Amazon.  Whatever you do, stay out of your house unless it’s to eat, rest, and shower.  Make it a habit to spend more time outdoors.

When you are outdoors or in social settings, you need to remember that it’s a competition.  It’s not your job to blend in, it’s your job to stand out.  Your jewelry, makeup, clothes should make a statement.  Anytime I go to a black-tie affair, I don’t have to guess what color people will be wearing, I know that it’s most likely going to be black.  In a sea or black ties and black dresses, a red one stands out.  Automatically, everyone’s eyes will be on you.

Single Him Out

When you are in a social setting, and you see a man that you like, but he doesn’t come up to you, you need to make up an excuse to go up to him.  He might not have noticed you.  Or, he may have, but you’re surrounded by your women friends.  Even worse, he may have seen you and not felt the attraction.

It’s very important that you get a man to notice you.  But, noticing you is worth nothing if he doesn’t ask you out.  So what do you do?

Ask him out, perhaps?

No!  Never.  Never, never, never, ask a man out.

It’s a bad idea for so many reasons, but chief among them is the fact a man won’t say no.  But this is good, right?  You don’t want him to say no, right?  The objective is to get him to say “Yes,” right?  Wrong!  The objective is to get him to be genuinely interested in you.

When a woman approaches a man, a man views it as an opportunity for sex.  Remember, a man’s default setting is “Get Sex.”  A man will say and do anything he needs to do to get it.  This includes pretending to show interest in you.  Girls, just because a man agrees to go out with you, doesn’t mean he’s interested in you.  Men are skilled at getting what they want at any and everyone’s expense—especially yours.  And especially by pretending. So, how can you tell if he’s pretending?  You really can’t.  Until someone perfects the art of mind-reading, you’ll be at a loss in this department.  It’s one of those things we’re all going to have to take a chance on.  But, taking a chance, and being stupid are two totally different things.  While a man won’t come right out and tell you that his agenda is simply having sex with you and moving  right along, there are some cues you can use to reduce your chances of being exploited sexually.

One of these methods is letting him ask you out.  Remember when I said asking a woman out is an emotional investment for a man?  Well, it is.  Rarely does a man choose to gamble being rejected if he has absolutely no interest  whatsoever.  There has got to be some attraction there.  Besides, when a man likes a woman, he actually prefers to do the asking.  He wants to feel like the  accomplished something and you totally take that away from him by inverting the roles and you doing the asking.

Now, can a man do the asking, pretend to like you, get sex from you, and then leave you hi and dri?  Of course!   Even if you refrain from asking him out, the potential to get played  is always there.  But, there are other more precise and effective ways of figuring this out and avoiding it.  But, we’ll talk about that later.

If he doesn’t notice you, or notices you and becomes intimidated because of your friends, or notices you and isn’t attracted, you need to cleverly go up to him and get his attention.  This way, you’ve freed yourself from the friend-scare and you’re up close and personal with him.  A good trick is to ‘mistake” him for someone else.  (If you’re good, you’ll make eye contact across the room, squint your eyes as if you recognize him and make a bee-line over to where he’s standing).  When you get over to him, you tap him on the shoulder (and if you’re comfortable in the ribs) and say something like, “Hey, I remember you, you’re Marcus, Nicole’s friend, the one from the pool party a couple of weeks ago.”  If you’re really smooth, you can throw in something like, “You work for that real big accounting firm downtown.”  Now he thinks you think he’s some smart, well-established guy.  This is good.  He’ll be flattered.  They like that.  Of course, he won’t be Marcus, but now, he’s has no other choice but to introduce himself to you and say something like, “No, I’m Craig and I work for Microsoft (or something like that).”  Now you have his name, and it’s your turn to give him yours.  “Ohmygoodness, my bad, [extend your hand to shake] I’m Elise.  I’m sorry.  You look just like that dude.”  At this point, you’re having a conversation.  He’s either going to say something to keep the conversation going so you don’t look like a complete idiot, or, you’ll be clever enough to follow up your “mistake” with some good conversation, like, “do you come to these things a lot?  Etc.”  You get it?

If you’re a bad actress, do not try this.  He will know that you’re picking him up regardless, but the trick is to not seem obvious.  If the conversation progresses and he asks you for your number, mission accomplished.  If he doesn’t, then babe, he wasn’t interested and you can’t do anything about it.  It happens.  At least you tried.

Impress him

Don’t buy into the bullshit notion that men go out on dates with women and they have no way of knowing where things will go.  Trust me, they know.  A man knows if he has major or minor plans for a woman.  He decided that the first time he saw you.  If you’re a pretty woman, assuming you’re not a certified nut, odds are, he’s thinking he needs to do as much as possible to impress you, get through the first few dates, and get you to be in a relationship with him.  If you are not a pretty woman, he’s trying to economize and figure out how many dates he has to take you on (translation: how much money he has to spend) before he can get your panties.  The sooner the better.  If you are an average woman, he’s not really projecting anything long term or anything past a few dates.  You’re lucky if he even calls you back for a second date.  Since you cant rely on your looks alone, you’re going to have to turn on the charm.

Everyone has an exploitable weakness.  It’s your job to figure his out and use the knowledge to your advantage.  Let me help you.  I’ve already given you the profile of an average woman, let me give you the profile of the average man.

In highschool, the place where most of us defined our identities, there were primarily 3 types of guys:

(1) the thugs,

(2) the athletes, and

(3) the nerds.

There was a fourth, unofficial category I like to call “the others.”  The others were the gays, weirdos, and anyone who didn’t fit into the first three categories.

The thugs are either all in jail, dead, or laid up with some present-day tier4 woman using up all her government assistance money.  A small portion of the athletes, went to the pros and got all “Hollywood” on everybody.  These men are tier1 men.  They have fame and money and only date tier1 women.  They also abuse and cheat on these women.  (Consider yourselves lucky for being awkward, having acne, and dodging this bullet!)  The remainder of the athletes, the vast majority, many of whom were as smart as a football jock strap, are either working blue-collar or service jobs or they suffered the fate of the thugs.  The others are…well, who care where they are now?  You don’t want these guys anyhow, so let’s move on to the nerds.

The nerds were the decent guys who got good to decent grades, didn’t dress very well, didn’t date many girls, sat the bench if they were on a sports team, they were in the band, ROTC, didn’t get into trouble, didn’t skip class, and was class clown every now and again.  They can read, spell, don’t do drugs, went to college, and make up the majority of the professional male dating pool.    Now, they have cars, good jobs, dress pretty good, and for once, quality women find them desirable.  They have a lot to lose.  Since they are decent, responsible adults, they can’t go kicking people’s ass and punching strangers in nightclubs.  They don’t want to go to jail.  What would their moms think?  Like many smart, “average” women, they are the late bloomers.  When it comes to coolness, they’re in arrears.  Sex, they’re still making up for lost time (the athletes got all the sex).  Self-esteem, they’ve got some but it’s still really fragile.  This is very valuable information for you.  Now that the tables have turned and they are highly sought after, they are relishing in their new roles—players.  But, deep down inside, they still feel like the cornballs they were in high school and they’re pretty self-conscious about this.  Use it!

Men like compliments.  They like to be admired, respected, and appreciated.  If you’re an average woman, your dates are numbered, you really don’t have time on your side.  The best strategy is to create an environment that’s comfortable and stress-free.  A place where he feels all of the above, admired, respected, appreciated, and most of all, not a cornball.  You have to make him think you think he’s the smartest, coolest, most respectable person you know.  Once you lay that foundation, he’ll likely want to be around you often because who wouldn’t want to be around someone who’s always excited to see them?

In no way should you take “be stress-free” to mean accept abuse.  Under no circumstances are you to do that.  But, if he does something wrong and you consider it a small infraction, don’t nag and don’t argue (actually, you should be handling men this way regardless of what you look like).  Just disappear.  If he’s supposed to arrive for a date at 7 and he doesn’t call or is more than 30 minutes late, leave the house.  When he gets to your house at 7:30 and he calls, answer the phone.  He’ll say, “hey, I’m outside.”  And you’ll say, “oh, I’m not home.  When you didn’t show up, I made other plans and I’m out with friends now.”  If he starts to become irate, simply say, “okay, I gotta go now, bye.”  After that, he will either make it a point to be on time, or he’ll stop calling altogether.  If he chooses the latter, good riddance to him.  Just because you’re average doesn’t mean you should be mistreated or disrespected, but you may have to address it more diplomatically.

Also, careful not to always seem too seem too excited to see him.  The drawback to low hanging fruit is the fact that it can be too accessible.  You have to stay a little out of his reach.  Men like a challenge.  You still have to make him work for you.  Dates need to be scheduled before-hand, not the day of.  (If he tries it, you simply say you have plans.)  Sometimes, you need to be unavailable.  You should not accept late phone calls, important news via text msg, or a bad attitude.  The truth is, there are not enough above average women to go around for every average man.  Eventually, he’s going to have to settle (I know right, settle, the nerve of him) for an average woman someday.  If he has any sense or integrity, he needs to treat you right.  For you, the only thing being average means is you might have to work a little harder to get your foot in the door and get him to see you regularly.  After you’ve established that, you should expect and only tolerate the kind of treatment fit for a queen.

Hold Out

I must stress this so you will find me saying this over and over again:  men have a default setting of “SEX.”  Their objective is to conquer as many women as possible, they don’t care what a woman looks like (unless of course she looks like Shrek).   The sooner you have sex with a man, the sooner they disappear.  That goes for good guys, bad guys, cute guys, ugly guys, stupid guys, smart guys, militant guys, whoever.  They’re still guys.  Their looks, ability, or political orientation doesn’t mean a thing.  The only thing that separates guys who use women for sex and guys who don’t is a conscience and integrity and according to a guy friend I trust, “A man doesn’t grow a conscience until he gets on the other side of 40.”  That being said, you must guard your cookies with your life.  This is especially true if you’re average.

A woman doesn’t get the full perks of a relationship until a guy decides that being in a relationship with her is better than being anywhere else or doing anything else.  You can have vibe, get along, have  fun, agree on a lot of things, and be compatible in every other way.  But, a man doesn’t truly see you in his future plans unless he has incorporated you into his life.

He can tell you this or even tell you he loves you until he’s blue in the face.  It doesn’t mean anything unless it’s backed up with action or some overt gesture.  Although it’s not a full-proof method of knowing, a good indication that he’s incorporated you into his life is if he’s introduced you to people in his life who’s opinion he values.  That’s his mama, siblings, his boys, his boss coworkers, or anyone he wants to have a good image of him.

You can wait!  Do not have sex with him until you’ve been introduced as someone who matters to him to people who matter to him.  And don’t be scared that he’ll get the sex somewhere else.  He’s already getting in somewhere.  Trust me!  If he starts pressuring you and asking you when you’re going to have sex. or when you’re going to be ready, or why haven’t you two had sex yet, simply say, “I’m ready, I’ve been ready.  I’m waiting until you’re ready.”  That’s going to blow him away because he’s thinking, “Hey, I’m ready, I’ve been ready, I’m always ready!”  But in your mind, of course, physically, everyone is ready to have sex.

For you, it’s not just about having sex, it’s about taking the relationship to the next level and if he hasn’t introduced you, he’s not ready.  Don’t tell him he’s not ready because he hasn’t introduced you because the first thing he’ll do is call up his buddy and set up a meeting for you all.  This defeats the purpose of the whole thing.  Meeting his people is a test.  If he sets it up because it’s his plan is only to get sex, soon after, his attitude will change and you’ll begin to see less and les of him.  His introducing you to the people in his life is supposed to occur naturally and without any pressure or solicitation from you.  When he says, “What do you mean I’m not ready?”  Simply say, “You know what I mean,” and leave it at that.  Hopefully and eventually, he’ll come around.  If not, then it’s up to you to leave or figure out other ways of finding this out.

So, there it is.  Those are the big ones:  maxing your AAB, increasing your exposure, singling him out, making an impression, and holding out for sex.  After you’ve done this successfully, and gotten your foot in the door, dating while average (DWA) is no different from dating when you’re anything but.  We’ll talk more about that later:  getting into and maintaining a relationship.