I cannot be reverse psychologied!

The Jewish doctor has reemerged. I think my feelings on the matter can be summed up by this text conversation with a friend:

Me: The crazy divorced Jewish doctor messaged me… think I should go on a date with him just for funsies?
Friend: Free dinner? Hell yeah!
Me: Plus there will probably be some good stories about his hot mess of a life…
Friend: And maybe you’ll get a blog post out of it.
Me: Also very true. And I think I have bronchitis. Well that’s unrelated but it sucks.

In other news, happy New Year! I hope you all had wild times, behaved poorly, and made bad decisions. I, on the other hand, inadvertently used the celebratory occasion as an opportunity to learn something new. You see, I always thought that when it comes to snagging a girl, guys don’t really strategize quite the way girls do. I mean, the dating books are mostly written for girls about guys, right? Wrong, apparently.

My friend and I usually do New Years together, and as we were trying to throw some plans together the week before, we met some gentlemen at our favorite Sunday Funday bar. They invited us to their party, and explained that the proceeds from the party would be donated to charity. After a bit of deliberation, we decided to give it a try. It was in our neighborhood, we could go to a bar if it sucked and we might as well do our part to help charity. Plus, these guys seemed like fun, so they were bound to throw a good party.

It was in fact a fun party. My friend and I found ourselves meeting new people, laughing and having an all-around good time. The guy who invited us to the party was being pretty flirtatious, but sadly he’s not my type. But I flirted back a bit and enjoyed myself, thinking it was all in good fun. And that’s when something odd started happening…

As it got later in the night, and my friend and I started talking about leaving, the guy who invited us made it clear he wanted me to stay. Though I wasn’t attracted to him, I was lonely, sleepy and just intoxicated enough to think maybe it might be a good idea. So instead of the flat out “no thanks” my sober mind was begging me to say, I began hemming and hawing a bit. As I said “Weeeeell, I dunnooooo,” he cut me off to say, “Well, I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want, so just go home” and walked away.

But not fifteen minutes later, he was at it again. “You could stay here, you know.” My friend, clearly a fan of this cause, had just left the two of us alone in a room and shut the door behind her. “I know, it’s just… I don’t know.” I had made up my mind. Halfway. Before I could finish the sentence, he interjected. “How about this? You go home and go to bed and we’ll go for a drink this week. Will you give me a kiss goodnight?” Before I could protest or even turn my cheek, he leaned down and kissed me. I always get a kick out of that, when guys ask if they can kiss you but don’t wait for an answer. Do they think the violation of personal space is gentlemanly as long as they raise their inflection at the end of their command?

After the kiss, I left the room to find my friend. I spotted her by the alcohol, pouring herself another drink. As I took a step in her direction, the guy came up from behind me. “You taste amazing, by the way.” And then he continued to walk past me.

I basically had to pick my jaw up off the floor. I mean, I know I was channeling my inner 12-year-old and wearing strawberry-flavored Lip Smackers that night and probably did taste pretty delicious as a result, but who the fuck says something like that? And what was with the whole walking away thing? Clearly this guy had read about reverse psychology and how to employ it in order to score a girl. The only way he could’ve been any more obvious was if he said “Hey, I want you to stay here and fuck me. But I’m going to pretend I don’t care if you do, and to do so I will walk away, making myself that much more appealing to you.” Except his little tactic didn’t work on me. It just pissed me off.

A few minutes later, I was texting a friend. I was in the middle of writing, “He’s trying to reverse psychology me into staying, but really it’s just pissing me off. I want to go home,” when he appeared in front of me again. “So are we going to get a drink this week?” Not wanting to be rude, I said “I dunno, maybe,” and continued texting. “Well you’re texting, so I’ll just talk to you later.” And then what did he do? Surprise surprise, he walked away.

I don’t think it was so much the reverse psychology tactic that angered me so much as the fact that he thought it would work. I think I actually have more respect for the guy who once said to me “You’re going home? You should stay. We could have sex. It’d be fun,” than I do for him. At least that guy had no illusions that he was being tricky.

My friend ended up staying at the party and spending the night with the guy’s roommate after I went home. The next day, I got a Facebook message from the guy. It said:

“So why’d you take off last night when your friend stayed? I found her in my roommate’s bed this morning and laughed. If you want to get that drink this week and can manage to sound less than disgusted about it, let me know.”

And then came my favorite part: the P.S. at the bottom of the screen. “P.S. That dress you were wearing could cure cancer.”

I think sometimes the only thing a guy needs to do to refine his game is forget about it altogether. Some guys need to learn to put down the self-help books, stop watching shows like the Pickup Artist and just be charming. Take it from me—there’s nothing that charms me more than a guy who is comfortable in his own skin and doesn’t need to resort to methods like reverse psychology to try to catch me!