I have decided there is something in a woman’s DNA that causes in her, an inexplicable and uncontrollable urge to play mind games with unsuspecting members of the opposite sex. Something in her genetic makeup causes this behavior, I’m sure of it.
Last weekend I attended a large social event of hundreds of people. Due to the nature of the event, I observed that there were several women present whom I had at one point or another been on dates with. For whatever reason, none of those dates had materialized to anything more than an evening or two. Some of the girls I had decided weren’t right for me. Others could only be captivated by my charm for so long before they lost interest in my exceptionally clever banter. Fortunately they were all very casual dates, so for the most part, there was no hatred or malice in any of the encounters.
Being women however, all of them took this opportunity to play some type of mind game with my head. One feigned interest before scurrying off prematurely. Another turned inexplicably cold. And then, there was “career girl,” who did what career girl does best.
I had been interested in career girl from the first time I made her acquaintance. She had the intelligence and the class that I find so very attractive in a woman, and which is a real rarity in today’s world of grammatically incorrect text messaging. I would soon discover however, that these qualities did not make her immune to the aforementioned proclivity for mind games.
After a somewhat flirtatious string of interactions I asked her to accompany me for an evening as my date. She complied and I took her to a ballgame, where I feel at home and do all my best dating. Looking back, I remember feeling compelled to NOT wear my genuine authentic team baseball jersey (one of two) because I knew she would be coming from work, and I didn’t want her to feel overdressed. In hindsight, I probably should have taken that as an omen.
Turns out, career girl was reeeeeeaaaaaaaally into her career. I sat there and listened to her tell stories of rubbing shoulders with big executives, politicians, and senators. She casually worked-in that she took a pay-cut to acquire her latest job with a 6-figure income. She used fancy career-oriented phrases like “earning potential.”
…I bought her a hotdog with my meager comic strip money. Most intimidating date ever. That feeling was compounded as we walked back to my car which is literally held together by Shoe-goo and duct tape. No, that’s not an exaggeration even in the slightest. Sadly, my car is really held together by Shoe-goo and duct tape.
Have I painted the picture well enough for you? Let me reiterate: Ridiculously successful girl with ridiculously successful income. Me; the struggling self-employed Jack-of-all-trades. Car glued and taped together. We good? Ok. Moving on.
The date actually went well enough. She was gracious and kind, and held her end of the conversation. My [our] team won, so I was in an exceptionally good mood. But later when I asked her out again she was out of town and made no effort to suggest that she would be available upon her return. She didn’t return phone calls or text messages, so naturally I assumed she didn’t find my witty remarks appealing enough to compensate for my pocketbook (or complete lack thereof), so I left it at that and chose not to pursue any longer.
Now. You would think that a successful confident woman would have no need to play mind games. Well, you’d be wrong. Because it’s in their DNA, and they can’t help but engage in mind games. It’s like a disease. An addiction. Like gambling, alcohol, or my Aunt Kaye’s mint brownies. Those things are like crack.
Months after I stopped talking to her, we both attended a function through one of the local churches in the area. I noticed her there, but didn’t intend to make any effort to talk to her. I figured I had already embarrassed myself adequately by asking for a second date, and I didn’t want her to assume I was still pursuing her when in fact I wasn’t.
Here’s where things got interesting. I was visiting with a few friends when she walked by slowly almost as if trying to get my attention. I pretended not to see her. This girl had turned me down, surely she didn’t really want me to talk with her. But then she walked by again, this time even slower, in the opposite direction. I could feel her eyes watching me as she walked right past me. And then a third time.
Six times. I watched her out of the corner of my eye and kept count. Six times she walked slowly past with her gaze locked on me, hoping that I would break my conversation and notice her. It was so delightfully awkward and seemingly out of character for this woman that I actually started becoming embarrassed for HER. Finally when it appeared to her that my vision really was that bad, she turned, faced me and gave an awkward little wave. So finally I “noticed” her and we had a nice little visit.
What did it all mean? Maybe I’d been wrong! Maybe I had completely misread career girl! Maybe I needed to ask her out again after all!
And so I tried contacting her not long afterwards to see if she would be interested in getting lunch.
I was completely ignored.
Again, let me reiterate: Completely ignored.
Fool. I had been suckered into a mind game of epic proportions despite all my efforts to resist. She had succeeded yet again, and my attention was her prize.
And so I’ve come to the conclusion that all women are subject to these uncontrollable whims of mind games. To them it comes as naturally as breathing. Meanwhile all of us men can only sit and wonder what the heck is going on, as we glue and tape our cars together.
I still run into career girl every so often, although I’m pleased to say I haven’t embarrassed myself by asking her out again. Each time she plays the same little game, doing her best to be noticed before finally walking towards me and engaging in conversation. And each time I watch out of morbid fascination as I try unsuccessfully to analyze the psychology of it all.
Mind games. Now there’s a competitive sport.
As long as you’re worried about grammatical correctness, “women” shouldn’t be spelled “woman” in the third paragraph.
As far as the mind games go… yeah I don’t get it either. I think it’s because they culturally don’t take the initiative, but they usually make themselves available before we do. So I think even before they decide if they are even interested they want to get our attention as a way of keeping their pool open. Kind of like when we get two or three numbers in a week even though we can only use one or two for the weekend.
That or they just like the attention in a leechy ego-boost kind of way.
That or they’re all just really evil and insane.
In high school we had to read Zorba the Greek. I remember a line in it (really the only part of the book I remember as I sped read it the day before ) about how all women, pretty, old, ugly, etc want men to desire them, interest or not. My 17 year old self recognized the truth in the statement. I keep meaning to go back and read the book for the quote. Because of it I would like to think I try to stop that womanly need to want the attention of any male in a 10 foot radius, even if I really don’t want the attention. Seriously genetically ingrained we can’t help it. It’s not a mind game, it’s a part of evolution, it’s involuntary. If it helps… At that moment they really may believe they want your attention.