The Epic Battle for Attention

There’s a girl I met about a year ago who could be most men’s fantasy: comparable to opening the pages of Maxim or clicking on the “Recommended” tab on YouPorn (guilty). I had met her a few times prior to her acknowledging my presence, as she is a cocktail waitress and meets men almost as a job description. But on the particular occasion where we began our friendship, it took a few choice words to gain her interest in an unassuming young man who until then was then just a face in the crowd. She had it all: the figure, the charm, with an accent to boot. One of her favorite songs happened to be the Peggy Lee classic “Hey Big Spender,” and trust that she had many. Men would offer her the world for a wink and a smile, and they would come by the dozens. This is the kind of woman I would never approach as I’m sure she’d be out for the money and fame. What attracted me to her was not her looks and her charm, but more her fun-loving demeanor and a high recommendation from a good friend who had broken that boundary. The truth is I wanted nothing from her in the classic male sense (i.e. bending her over the kitchen counter or pulling up her skirt in the back seat of an SUV-at the time I had too much of that and not enough substance in my life). It took me telling her this very plainly for her to give me the time of day. We are very close friends now and have been since that day.

There’s no secret that attention is a very basic human desire, but I wondered why it was that approaching someone in a classic or chivalrous manner got you nowhere these days. I began to read medical journals and analyze the people around me. This opened doors to some very uncomfortable truths about how people try and attract attention, especially when they had to compete for it with those around them.

I read somewhere that when men and women were primitive and were developing their sexual prowess, they took quite different approaches on how to attract the opposite gender. Primitive males were physically dominant and overpowering, and would command this attraction through being the strongest of their species. The females recognized this, and would come up with ways to draw attention to themselves in hopes to earn a male who could protect and provide for them. Often, they would tease and be bashful, stealing the men’s possessions and shamelessly “flirting.” The females who were the best at drawing this attention would win over the strongest of their male counterparts, achieving a victory of sorts.

Fast-forward to 2009. “Strength and protection“ are euphemisms for “money” or “ stature.” Many do not have these luxuries, especially in today’s fiscal state. So we turn to whatever attention-getting techniques we know in hopes that we will be loved or get laid. It just so happens that a lot of us have it all wrong. The girls are competing with each other using tactics that are not only cat-like and hurtful, but ultimately masochistic. And us men? We are still trying to flash our money, stature, and good looks around as an advertisement, buying bottles with sparklers and hoping someone will notice.

Alright ladies I’ll get to you first. Lying, cheating, out-drinking each other and setting each other up for failure is getting you nowhere. We see it all. Stop setting up your best friends, quit making up stories about your past, your future, your families, or your charity work just to get us to take notice and/or care. Many of us are only looking for one thing at first, with a hope in the back of our mind that we will be surprised by an honest intellectual rather than someone who just wants to get fucked in a bathroom by a Ford model, club promoter, or financial analyst. And furthermore, if you are going to continue this crazy behavior, do not complain about why you can’t find a nice guy. The answer is right there below your skirt and in your glass.

And to my gentlemen counterparts, let’s all find some class. “Class,” the way James Dean, Sinatra, or Kennedy had it, has all but vanished, and we now feel that spreading our peacock feathers is the best way to find what we’re looking for. All we get are groupies and girls that can’t hold their liquor when we start projecting our wealth, looks, or success using a drunken slurred public service announcement. Give a little at a time, and stop putting so much energy on sleeping with women. Start putting that energy into making women want to sleep with you.

Think about the earlier story. Had it not been for all of these men chasing her, or had it not been for all of the girls I’ve experienced, perhaps the cocktail waitress would’ve given me the time of day much sooner. Perhaps I would’ve seen her for who she is rather than classify her as a cocktail waitress hungry for attention.

But then again, maybe it’s because of all of this that we are close today.