In order to physically get with a person, it helps to meet in person, OK? This is not rocket sex science, it is a fact. So if you have met someone you like, do this one simple trick: Try texting them and asking them to hang out with you at a specific place on a specific day at a specific time. Come on guys, you got this. Or don’t you?
Lots of people are terrible, hamfisted texters in the game of love—we can’t place all the blame on men’s shoulders. But if most single women are still leaving it to men to ask them out, and it seems universally agreed upon that men are uniquely terrible at using text to advance game—there is a Straight White Boys Texting for chronicling this but, notably, no Straight White Girls Texting—then perhaps we should not be surprised that the bar is so low that single women have simply resigned themselves to dealing with a morale-squandering level of communication skills from dudes.
In an interview with comedian Aziz Ansari about his new book, Modern Romance, that bemoans the modern dating culture of too many choices combined with too high standards, Ansari tells the NY Post that he stumbled across a Holy Grail sort of truth about dating after conducting hundreds of interviews and sitting in on numerous focus groups with NYU sociologist and co-author Eric Klinenberg:
In one discussion with a group of women about texts they receive from guys, Ansari recounts, “They said most of the texts are, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ‘What are you up to?’ ‘Are you doing anything tonight?’ ”
“I realized that inviting someone to a specific thing at a specific time — that made women’s vaginas explode in our interviews.”
Or at least instantly self-lubricate, otherwise known as “splash.”
Not to so sound old-fashioned or anything, but duh? We’re talking about the lowest common denominator of logic: If you want to get laid, or greatly increase your chances of getting laid, you would do well to suggest a time and a place for meeting someone to have sex or conversation or a wrestling match or a staring contest, whatever it is you do to woo. It conveys real-life, in-person, actual interest. You’ll need that to consummate the attraction, even if it’s only the consummating you’re interested in.
I’m not sure why this is such challenge, or why it’s viewed as counter in any way to the modern Great Millennial Chill Zone we are always hearing about—that frosty tundra of perfectly good vibes that may or may not ever lead to anything. When you read yet another thing about how Millennials are keeping it so low-key as to not exist, please remember: These are still people we’re talking about. They have not lifehacked their way out of the desire to mate. People still want to get with each other. You still need to be moderately charming—moderately!—to make this go.
But even if all you want to do is chill no-strings, you can’t leave it up to an entirely fatalistic system of running into each other forever to ensure this happens. In 1998’s You’ve Got Mail, Meg Ryan’s quaint little bookstore was ACROSS THE STREET from the Fox Books evil chain run by Tom Hanks and they still had to meet first in a chat room, and guess what? They still had to make a plan to meet in person to find out exactly to what extent they hate-loved each other. And that’s a Nora Ephron movie, so you know it’s just like your life could maybe be if you had more money.
My incredibly simple point is that everyone in the history of ever who got together eventually had to make a plan at some point to keep that going. So: Make a plan. Make a plan. Make a plan. Cool chill buds make planz.
But now let’s talk about what is happening in text messages all over the world instead of plans. In an excerpt at The Guardian, Ansari writes:
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