With Valentine's day coming, you
With Valentine's day coming, you can cook for perfect strangers and have them fall in love with you. Or so says the New York Times. Then again, they're the folks with the Jayson Blair scandal, so you may want to stick to the old standbys of flirting, not being a dumbass, and being a man.
As one guy said - "so, let me get this straight. You're a man. You were designed to kill lions and climb mountains, and you think you'll attract a woman with Spaghetti?"
When I saw Athena the other night, we talked about my prediliction for not buying women dinner until we are "seriously dating." I'm firmly in the don't-buy-things-for-women-I-am-not-fully-attached-to school. I believe it's bribery. If I wanted to bribe someone to spend time with me, I'd hire an escort, and then it wouldn't be a bribe, it'd be business.
UPDATE: The comments are getting interesting. When Jeremy took issue with what I wrote, saying:
Ah, jeez. Dude, you're ALWAYS paying for it, pally. ALWAYS. Whether you're pulling out a chair, being the one to call first or getting married. In some way or other, you're a john. And you're not designed to kill lions. You're designed to hunt in packs and give girls meat. Really. Check it out. Even male chimpanzees give female chimpanzees (our closest relative) gifts of particularly tasty spider dead monkeys in order to mate. The fact is that a date is an audition to be a provider. The fact that women can now provide for themselves is beyond the point, we're evolutionarily primed to be the provider. And sometimes that means cooking.That's a weird framework to me. That's sort of Ayn Rand/Libertarian everything-is-commerce thing. Different than my concept of the world. And note - I've got nothing against cooking, I love to cook, although I don't have time for it as often as I'd like.Check out Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. Chefs get more tail than anyone alive. And it even gets my WIFE in bed with me. And for a longtime married guy, it's quite a feat.
What the article was about, however, was making dinner as a first date, which I find to be an awful lot. How do I know that the person I'm making dinner for is worth spending time with? That's why my first dates are tea/coffee/a drink or two.
I reserve things like paying for things and making meals for women that I've already decided I'm going to take a chance on. It smacks of showing off and trying to "win" someone's affection, which is a weird framework to look at the world. "Hey, I can cook - aren't you impressed with my wonderfulness? Pay attention to me!!" The whole idea of "winning" someone's attention suggests that somehow they have something you want and you have nothing they want. I don't believe that.
I think that people who go out of their way to propitiate women on early dates view women as a "prize" - they aren't a prize. They're just people.
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