There’s an art to the pick-up.
No so much a learned skill, as an ability to mentally ignore the possibility of negative repercussions should your advances be refused, or worse ridiculed.
Like many things, there are some who develop this particular skill. By ninth grade, certain people have figured out the right combination of words and deeds that ensures them a level of deserved confidence that they can talk a complete stranger into sleeping with them.
It’s part picking the right target, and part having the right introductory line—and being able to follow up the initial intrigue with a conversation that reinforces your humor, or intellect, or sheer pluck.
In my younger youth, we called it fishing, among other things. It seems to be an appropriate metaphor, because it’s precisely like the sport. You have to understand the habits of the fish; does the type you’re after dart into the current and grab something floating by, or seek out the calmer waters and wander through the greenery for a more stable prey.
Some people are much better at it than others.
By college, or your early 20s, you’ve figured out if you have that particular skill. If you do, it tends to come in handy in all sorts of social and business environments.
There’s something useful about knowing that you have enough command of your environment to present yourself in such a way that people find themselves drawn to you. It’s even better if you can get to them give you what you want. Sex, conversation---
maybe even a vote?
I’ve never seen a study on it, but it seems to me that canvassing a community for political votes requires the same set of skills as cruising a bar for a one-night stand.
Your task is to enter an environment filled with people who for the most part, don’t know you, and ask them to give you something that is, or at least should be "special" to them—not “really” knowing what kind of person you are—beyond your pick-up line/stump speech.
I can’t imagine that a shy, or self-conscious person would be very good at it. Politics is an endless cycle of public speaking, begging strangers to give you large sums of money, and whispering the case that you're a better option than every other potential suitor in the room.
Is it the same game?
If it is, it would help me understand why a six-term congressman would be able to ignore the possibility of negative repercussions as he logged on to his internet messenger of choice, and boldly typed the words “are you horny?” to a teenager spending a semester at the Capitol.
He’s been fishing for years. He’s learned his prey for a variety of environments. He's been elected to congress six times, and was considering a run for the Senate. That means he's asked a LOT of people to "give him some," with a great deal of success. And he runs with a pack of people who are used to fishing for their very survival.
The method that seems to have worked for him where it comes to his young male companions is to start reeling them in while they’re young, and finish the deed a few years after their stint as pages is over. This week, the Mark Foley story took what I’d have to call an “expected” turn, as a former page tells the Los Angeles Times that he had sex with the Florida Congressman.
I won’t bother with the “I told you so.”
Now that there’s a full-blown ephebophile scandal in Congress, the question of what “types” of people end up in the House and Senate seems to be at least borderline appropriate. Is there any chance our system has spawned a happy hunting ground for the fishermen?
This week, the Dems get to gloat a bit. I encourage you to avoid that roller-coaster. History teaches us that it will get derailed.
I told you there'd be more to the story, now I'm telling you that there's more to the story. I'll bet Mr. Foley hasn't been fishing alone.
(10 Oct 06)
No so much a learned skill, as an ability to mentally ignore the possibility of negative repercussions should your advances be refused, or worse ridiculed.
Like many things, there are some who develop this particular skill. By ninth grade, certain people have figured out the right combination of words and deeds that ensures them a level of deserved confidence that they can talk a complete stranger into sleeping with them.
It’s part picking the right target, and part having the right introductory line—and being able to follow up the initial intrigue with a conversation that reinforces your humor, or intellect, or sheer pluck.
In my younger youth, we called it fishing, among other things. It seems to be an appropriate metaphor, because it’s precisely like the sport. You have to understand the habits of the fish; does the type you’re after dart into the current and grab something floating by, or seek out the calmer waters and wander through the greenery for a more stable prey.
Some people are much better at it than others.
By college, or your early 20s, you’ve figured out if you have that particular skill. If you do, it tends to come in handy in all sorts of social and business environments.
There’s something useful about knowing that you have enough command of your environment to present yourself in such a way that people find themselves drawn to you. It’s even better if you can get to them give you what you want. Sex, conversation---
maybe even a vote?
I’ve never seen a study on it, but it seems to me that canvassing a community for political votes requires the same set of skills as cruising a bar for a one-night stand.
Your task is to enter an environment filled with people who for the most part, don’t know you, and ask them to give you something that is, or at least should be "special" to them—not “really” knowing what kind of person you are—beyond your pick-up line/stump speech.
I can’t imagine that a shy, or self-conscious person would be very good at it. Politics is an endless cycle of public speaking, begging strangers to give you large sums of money, and whispering the case that you're a better option than every other potential suitor in the room.
Is it the same game?
If it is, it would help me understand why a six-term congressman would be able to ignore the possibility of negative repercussions as he logged on to his internet messenger of choice, and boldly typed the words “are you horny?” to a teenager spending a semester at the Capitol.
He’s been fishing for years. He’s learned his prey for a variety of environments. He's been elected to congress six times, and was considering a run for the Senate. That means he's asked a LOT of people to "give him some," with a great deal of success. And he runs with a pack of people who are used to fishing for their very survival.
The method that seems to have worked for him where it comes to his young male companions is to start reeling them in while they’re young, and finish the deed a few years after their stint as pages is over. This week, the Mark Foley story took what I’d have to call an “expected” turn, as a former page tells the Los Angeles Times that he had sex with the Florida Congressman.
I won’t bother with the “I told you so.”
Now that there’s a full-blown ephebophile scandal in Congress, the question of what “types” of people end up in the House and Senate seems to be at least borderline appropriate. Is there any chance our system has spawned a happy hunting ground for the fishermen?
This week, the Dems get to gloat a bit. I encourage you to avoid that roller-coaster. History teaches us that it will get derailed.
I told you there'd be more to the story, now I'm telling you that there's more to the story. I'll bet Mr. Foley hasn't been fishing alone.
(10 Oct 06)
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