Blog > How to get a girlfriend... or anything!

30 October 2006

Years ago an American taught me the secret of getting a girlfriend.

I was twenty-two at the time, crewing on a yacht that was zig-zagging drunkenly around the Canary Islands before racing across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

(Note: In the interests of accurate reportage this entry contains strong language and scenes of a possibly desturbing nature. If you are easily offended please stop now.)

Our routine on the yacht was excellent. We'd surface late morning, sail until sunset, then rest for a while before hitting the bars, clubs and women therein... at least theoretically. In reality my record with the ladies was pretty patchy, and one evening over a pre-match drink one of the guys took me under his broad American wing.

"I'm worried about you Nick", he boomed, "this whole quiet Englishman abroad schtick is just shit, and you aren't getting any".

Quietly I defended my tactic of smoldering English disinterest... "it's a slow burner" I said.

"It's not slow Nick", he bellowed genially, "It's fucking glacial. But tonight I'm going to sort you out'.

With these words Randy (yes, that was his name) doused every conversation within twenty feet. The bar was full of young, and consequently largely frustrated, men... and this sounded like the motherload! At all at once everyone was drinking. Silence, and Randy leaned forward conspirtorially and dropped the bombshell.

"It's math", he said, and sat back with a smile on his face, looking for all the world as if he'd just solved third-world debt. The sound of young men paying for their drinks and leaving was deafening.

"Whu... uh... fuh... what?" I said, unleashing the full force of my searing wit.

"Math", he said again, grinning as if he'd cured cancer. "And the fact that one night I got knocked back eight times in four minutes".

"That must have made you very proud."

"Sure, enjoy it. But think about this limey-boy. I did hook up with the ninth girl I tried that night... and I'll be hooking up with someone later while your staring into your drink and talking about the weather to the back of some girl's head. I do the math, and I can hook up with someone whenever I want."

This at least seemed true. For a forty-something guy who wore a wig (I'm not making this up), Randy was extraordinarily successful with women. I listened. Who wouldn't?

It turned out that striking out eight times got Randy thinking about the numbers. "It just came to me" he said, holding up his hands. "I figured out that my success rate was one in nine! And all I gotta do to get a dance is ask nine girls. Worst case scenario... the first eight say no."

I told him that this sounded like a pretty appalling 'worst case' to me.

"You might think", he said. "But once I realised the math all I had to do was get asking. The quicker I started the quicker I got a result. And every 'get lost' is a step closer to...". He waggled his eyebrows in a way that was both suggestive and profoundly unnerving.

"I'm not that desperate?" I said, flying in the face of all available evidence.

"No? Shit. You look pretty goddam desperate from where I'm sitting."

"So you're saying all I need to do tonight is ask nine girls to dance and I'll get a hit?", I said, turning the idea over in my head.

"Well maybe not nine", he said, grinning, "I reckon you're more of a one in seventeen".

Nice.

So why am I telling you this? Because the difference between success and failure at anything is mostly about persistance. I'm reminded (as I rewrite this blog entry for the umpteenth time) that my teachers used to grade my work for attainment and effort (persistance). This was fortunate for me because, and this will surprise few of you, I'm not much of an academic. My 'effort' grades were regularly drafted in to shore-up poor attainment scores in my school reports... and yet no one ever properly explained to me that in the long run persistance beats talent every time.

Until Randy.

Posted by Nick Warren at 11:15 PM