Reader BuenaVista apprises,
From the Field:
So, in WashDC there’s a fairly prominent meat market for the middle-aged and well-suited: the place lawyers, senators, TV talking heads, CEOs lobbyists go in their ill-fitting suits to hustle women. It’s called Cafe Milano. The dynamics are like any Beverly Hills cafe of similar stripe, only it’s DC: DC is Hollywood for ugly people. Young women from the age of 20 up through women pushing 50 are in this place. Later in the evening it often gets quite insane when all the working men go home and the place fills up with Middle Eastern men chasing shiksa tail.
This is where I went last night to experiment with the difference between “high energy” and laconic “low energy.” I had a date so I went half an hour early for my experiment.
I was the only guy in the place not wearing a tie or sport coat; I had on a flight jacket, black sweater, jeans, Guccis, no socks.
I’m not funny, when ad hoc, in most instances, unless “irony” counts as funny — and it usually doesn’t. So I resolved to just smile, speak up, raise my eyebrows, and engage — i.e., the opposite of laconic pilot leaning against bar waiting to be chosen. In the first five minutes I looked straight at the Russian girl serving a full bar and quickly entered a five-minute conversation about the merits of American rye, how long she’s been in the country, what she drinks at home, and how funny is this shit with all these fat guys hustling Georgetown girls.
That last part is your best game. Knocking the pretension of other men is a time-honored technique for raising your own value.
I would say I was looking directly at her, only smiling to punctuate, listening, querying, listening, commenting. The bar was busy but she talked to me. I would estimate that she is 25 years younger than I am. She served me and my eventual date well all night and slipped us a couple freebie bottles of sparkling mineral water.
The next person I spoke to was a 45 year-old in a Chanel suit, cheekbones like Charlotte Rampling, a German accent, and a firm bust and small waist that means: Yoga every single day. This was a divorcee of some apparent means. In the past I just leave these women alone and they either open me (life was better when a woman could ask for a light in a bar, at least it was better for introverted me) or I didn’t talk to them. I turned, smiled briefly, complimented her on her suit,
A good neg here would have been “That’s a nice power suit you’re wearing.”
asked her if she had just come from an event of some sort, smiled, queried, commented, smiled, queried. I asked her what she would like to drink and ordered her glass of wine for her from the Russian. She name-dropped her summer place, I’ve been there many times, which school her son attends, blah blah blah. I don’t think I have done something like that more than five times in my life. As *her* date entered and was coming to grab her, I slipped her my card and she gave me a look that, perhaps unrealistically, said, “I just might follow up on this.” I didn’t get her number because I didn’t have time once her lawyer/lobbyist/whatever showed up.
She’s 45 years old. The odds that she’ll follow up by taking the initiative and calling you are far better than if she were her 25 year old self. The fear of the Wall has a way of focusing minds and opening legs.
Question: is “high energy” reducible to: choosing to open, managing the rhythm of the conversation and keeping it moving moving moving with a focus on her her her, not slobbering all over her looks, treating her more like the au pair than the princess the au pair works for. I mean, I can do this. This is little different than opening a potential business contact, male or female, on a long flight someplace.
High energy means you lead the conversation and don’t give her a chance to frame the interaction to her liking. Well, it means that, among other meanings. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you “focus on her her her”. You can be high energy and just shooting the shit about anything.
Or is it really this: halfway through the evening another software ceo, very successful guy, very notorious for his harems and runins with the SEC, was holding court with his usual gaggle of staff and the groupies the ceo always has about. Then he stood up (he’s kind of a short guy with a plain face, but he’s worth $500mm) shouting about some shit I couldn’t understand and his group started roaring. I’m never doing this: I think he’s a buffoon, albeit one with a net worth I’ll likely never approach.
Half Billion CEO dude is already preselected. He DHVs just walking into a roomful of people who are familiar with the local business scene. A guy like him could go high or low energy, it wouldn’t matter. His army of lackeys at the ready to laugh at his dumb jokes is all the game he needs.
Or, if it requires R. Brand levels of realtime wit and invention, forget it. I will never attempt that.
Any comments appreciated.
(See, Ya Really, I do actually go out.)
Low energy isn’t the same as being a wallflower. High energy isn’t the same as being an interrogator. Either method, you’re interacting with the express purpose of pushing it toward a carnal conclusion. The difference is how much dead air or dud utterances you’re willing to risk. Low energy is sexy, but vulnerable to competing distractions. High energy is captivating, but vulnerable to self-sabotage. I’d say if you’re hitting on hired dushkas or wealthy cougars, go lower energy. You might even gain points for establishing a contrast between yourself and the cackling suck-ups slobbering Half Bil’s knob.
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