Inevitably, there are going to be a few guys at every party who make the women feel weird or offended. I'm sure I've been that guy many times. The funny thing is that these days, women come up to me and ask "how do you know that guy?" and it is almost always more than one woman if the guy is weird or offensive enough.
One of my guests the other night racked up three separate complaints: that being about 7% of the women there, that's quite a tally! This called for troubleshooting.
Listening in on this guest's conversations, it became immediately clear what was going on. As it is something that I've seen MANY men do, it certainly warrants mention here. It has to do with teasing and flirting.
This guest was doing and saying things which had the right intention behind them, but which came out wrong. This can happen with a 'fake it till you make it' attitude, or frankly, when a guy hangs out with one of us and sees some of what we're doing, but not all of it. The guy in question has spent some time with us and has probably not quite internalized how we flirt.
For example, I might see a fedora on a woman and say "you look like Michael Jackson in that hat. But don't worry, he's hot - all that plastic surgery has made him look very feminine and refined."
This is a subtle push-pull. I'm teasing her, then complimenting her. Its cute and flirtatious. And in attempting to copy it, there are any number of ways it could be messed up :)
For example:
- you look like Michael Jackson in that hat (without a pull, this statement is just weird)
- you look like Frank Sinatra in that hat (bad metaphor)
- I'd look better in that hat (possible... but only if she's really into him and he's going to give her something of his to wear as a trade-off)
- you look like Michael Jackson in that hat. Have you had plastic surgery? (d'oh)
So what I see MOST often is that men go too far on the pushing (to the point of being insulting) and not far enough on the pulling. I see this with a LOT of guys, and started to wonder the root cause, so let's speculate for a moment here.
When a man is doing too much "push", he's looking for a reaction from a woman. By pushing or even insulting her, he's hoping that she is going to sort of rebound back to him and "push" him back. Its like one of those inflatable plastic clowns with the weighted base that comes back and bops him. All of a sudden, there's a fun back and forth, and she's engaged.
The problem is that if she's not already into him, she's not likely to respond well to that push alone. Its as if there's no weight in the base of the clown.
And to extend the metaphor, a gentle push is all that's needed to get the back-and-forth going. Anything stronger and you risk deflating the clown or pushing it away from you. There was always the one kid with anger management issues who just went at that poor clown with the fury of the Dresden bombing, punching and kicking it well across the room.
So what's the root cause here? In many cases, I believe it to be the following: the man has begun to adopt a more playful frame, but he still over-values the woman, and may even have some repressed anger towards women in general. A guy wouldn't push so hard on something if he wasn't looking for a strong reaction. This is not how a guy acts around his grandparents.
Moreover, a guy's failure to do a "pull" reveals even more insecurity. He's not confident enough in himself or in the frame that she likes him, so to put himself out there with a pull is just too much.
There could be one other root cause: a sense of entitlement. Think back to grade school when you'd have the cool kid who all the girls like to be around. There was always one friend of his who was a total dick. Somehow, the cool kid liked this guy, but no one else did. And the guy felt that because he was in the cool kid's good graces, he had license to act as he pleased.
To bring this back to what my guest was doing... he actually wanted to get to know the women. But his efforts to engage them on this level were confounded by poor execution, and probably a little bit of lingering resentment. And his association with Nick and I - two of the most connected guys at the party - gave him a bit too much confidence for how much value he was actually bringing on his own.
That's a lot to read into one little statement. But hey, women are very intuitive.
If you find yourself getting weird looks and responses from women, and even defensiveness, as you attempt to flirt with them, this could be why. Take a good hard look at what you're saying and why; its not too hard to fix, and you'll have a lot more women enjoying your company!
