Dating and Magic by Sean
FitzGerald
There was once an article by
Darwin Kastle on dating women after the Jon Finkel / Gizmodo girl fiasco. I
realized not only that are there a lot of issues about Magic players dating,
but also that we’re quite passionate about those issues and most of us know
nothing. This led me to believe I should throw my hat in the ring as I have
nowhere near the magic prowess of Osyp or Darwin but I have been quite successful
with the ladies in the past, so this is my chance to shine as a writer. How
succesful with the ladies you ask? Well, let me just put it this way, on Facebook,
I have 13(!) female friends with 6(!!!) more pending!!!!
So, I'm here to turn that
lump of clay Osyp laid down into a finely sculpted masterpiece that will
inspire you to get the ladies the same way cheese inspires you to eat
sandwiches!
Darwin's article first
asked the questions;
- How do I
best interact with women who play Magic?
- How do I balance Magic and dating?
- How do I best approach the subject of being a Magic player with women who don’t
play?
And he thought some of the
best answers were;
Be excellent.
Present yourself well.
Flirt.
Be different.
Have a plan.
Know your competition.
Know her.
Then he told us how he is
single because he left his fiancé for a Pro Tour.
…...(awkward
silence).........
I'm sorry, I don't want to
offend, but I'm not likely to take financial advice from the broke banker
living homeless on the street, I want listen to the dude with tight pants and a
Porsche!
So I'm going to address
these questions and answers here today and hopefully turn you into the type of
stud who will be the envy of all at your local PTQ without even having to win a
game! Let's be honest, winning games is tough.
Section 1. The Questions
-How do I best interact with women who play Magic?
Don't. They play Magic.
This is not a good sign. In fact, this is a warning sign. Seriously. Just don't
talk to them at all. If they try talk to you just smile, raise your hand, call
a judge and walk away. Just walk away.
-How do I balance Magic and dating?
This is a little bit more
difficult but can be handled with relative ease. When you meet a girl for the
first time and you start to get to know each other, she will ask what you do
for a living. So you will tell her what your job is, but then you add “....but
that's just my cover!” In a low grizzly voice. Obviously she will become more
interested and ask you to explain. You tell her;
“I do a lot of “special”
(do the air quotes to signify the ones I've just done here, chicks dig air
quotes.) work for the government. It often requires travel at the weekends,
where I have to disappear for the whole weekend with some colleagues, the less
I tell you the safer you'll be.” Chicks love tough guys looking out for their
safety.
Now you are completely free
to travel to any PTQ or GP at the weekend without any questions from her. When
she asks what you're doing for the weekend just tell her;
“Sorry baby, top secret,
would love to tell you but it's for your own protection I don't.”
Chicks love secrets.
Again, deep husky voice is
a must. Then when you come back from your PTQ and she asks;
“How was your weekend?”
You reply;
“Did you hear about that
massive revolution in Brazil that killed off their government?”
“......No?!”
“...Exactly.”
Now you haven't lied or said
anything wrong, but she will assume you are a badass and treat you accordingly.
(accordingly here is good for you ...because chicks love badasses!)
This has worked for me for
years, if she asks any questions you don't want to answer you just tell her she'll
be safer if she doesn't know. If you forget something or get something wrong
(like her name) you tell her you're just using a cover right now because you're
being watched.
“I'm sorry Jenny, I have to
run, you're going to have to get the bill.”
“My name is Jessica!”
“I know, but they're
watching, and I just want to keep you safe.”
Watch her swoon.
-How do I best approach the subject of being a Magic player with women
who don’t play?
You don't. Ever. (Unless
you hate sex)
With those questions answered
(perfectly) we can now look at the advice that Darwin gave and evaluate it with
our critical eye.
Section 2. Darwin's
Advice
-Be excellent.
Now, after reading this, I
felt a little surprised. “Really? Be excellent? Chicks like excellent?!? Oh my
god, here I was all these years sucking, thinking that's exactly what girls
want, but the whole time I should have just have been excellent the whole time!
What a fool I've been!”
Right, because that's sage
advice. However, Darwin did go on to expand that to get girls he meant that you
should be excellent at Magic. There are two problems with this.
- As we have mentioned above you do not want your prospective female to know
about Magic, so therefore she will never know how excellent you are at it.
- If “being excellent” at Magic got girls, you really think Jon Finkel would have
had the trouble with that girl that started this whole thing?!
Now don't get me wrong, if
you think you can be more excellent than Jon at Magic go for it. I just don't
think it's a place I can get to. (I can barely compete with how he wears hats!)
-Present yourself well
Again, you were probably as
shocked as I was about this one. Darwin was kind enough to expand it with;
“Don’t come to the event
unshowered and wearing a sloppy tee-shirt and jeans.”
If this came as a surprise
to you then I got bad news buddy, this article isn't going to save you, no
article will. You need to find help! ….badly! …...now!
Seriously Darwin?! How much
respect do you have for your peers if you think telling them to shower, dress
well and present themselves well is the one mistake they are making when
talking to girls?!
-Flirt
This one at least I can
agree with, although again, it shouldn't come as a surprise. However, the thing
about flirting is we all do it differently, and some are better than others, i.e.;
me. They key is not to try copy someone else’s style but to be comfortable with
your own. If you're not comfortable with the flirting style you're using you're
probably going to mess up.
My flirting style is being
hot and being awesome. It works quite well. It is however very difficult to
imitate. If you can imitate being as hot as me then I would definitely go with
that one. Being as awesome as me however is super hard to pull off, don't try
it. Just try to be funny with something like
“Two peanuts were walking
down the road. One was a salted.”
Chicks dig humor.
Try to keep your jokes
simple though, as you’ll probably get nervous talking to a girl and mess it up.
-Be different.
You play Magic and you're
probably a nerd. You're different enough, you're not going to have to try any
harder.
-Have a plan.
“No battle plan survives
contact with the enemy” - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
This is not to say you
shouldn't have a plan, I just believe your plan should be a very rough draft
and be open to improvisation. ….like any good game of Magic really.
Wow, I just totally got a
piece of Magic strategy advice in here too, totally for free!
-Know your competition.
If your competition hasn't
read this article, you're fine.
If it has …..ID?
-Know her.
Aaaaaaaaaand we're back to
the super obvious advice! ….Her name is a good place to start, thanks Darwin.
As you can see, Darwin
didn't give the greatest advice for success. If he advises you about Magic, you
would be foolish not to listen. His advice on women however....... let's just
say it's lucky I'm here. You can thank me in your wedding speech.
Section 3. Sean's Advice
Some of these will seem
pretty obvious. Almost as obvious as Darwin's advice. However, the amount of
people I see ignoring these things at every Magic tournament I go to is scary.
-Be hot.
Google me. You'll find
pictures. I'm the hot one. You can see how easily I pull this off and it is by
far the best thing I do to get women, since my personality or Magic skills really
don't measure up to your average Magic player. Every tournament I go to, the
amount of guys I see ignoring this rule is ridiculous. Buy nice clothes, get a
stylist, watch “Queer eye for the straight guy!” (secretly) These things are
not difficult to do.
-Be rich/powerful.
Donal Trump/Nicolas
Sarkozy/Hugh Hefner. What do they have in common? It sure as sugar ain't their
good looks or personalities. What these guys have in common are super-hot wives!
….and money and power.
Not a coincidence!
“.....but I'm rich in
spirit!” ain't getting you didly squat either! So go out there and get that job
or run for office!
-Failing rich or powerful be awesome.
Awesomeness differs for all
of us, but what women like in a man is manners, a good sense of humor, empathy,
the ability to admit you're wrong and a genuine will to help others.
And if you thought that was
all BS then congratulations my friend, you are on the right track.
All the things above are
what women THINK they want. As we established above however, women make no
sense at all, so trying to work out what they actually want beyond ice cream is
ridiculous.
What they actually want is
the bad boy. Be cocky, make jokes about them.
“Do these jeans make my
butt look fat?”
“No”
“Awwww thanks hun!”
“Don't blame the jeans,
your butt makes your butt look fat.”
Then laugh at them, women
dig guys who are emotionally secure and never cry!
Don't be afraid to tell her
how hot you think her friends are. This will push her to look hotter. Chicks
love competition, you will be the drive that pushes her. Every morning when she
gets up she will look in the mirror and think “Am I good enough?”
As long as the answer is
no, she will keep trying harder.
She will thank you for all
this later.
In arguments, never back
down. In the face of irrefutable proof just look at her and ask;
“Who are you going to
believe? Me, or your eyes?!”
This will establish
confidence in yourself and what girl doesn't love confidence?
If all above fails, hang out
with Brian Kibler and live off his scraps!
I hope this article helped
all you love sick bros out there because I love you all and just want you to be
happy.
Any questions or issues
you're having, don't be afraid to send a question my way.
Love
Sean
Email this page
I'm pretty sure this was written in an attempt at humor, but it really ends up being quite crass. Lame, out-dated jokes that "joke" about how ALL TEH WIMENZ want exactly the same thing, or who all act the same way.
Pretty disappointed in Blackborder for publishing this article.
All I heard was "RUFUS!!!" when I read "be excellent"...
When did women become Rubik's Cubes... use common sense when putting your self out there: take showers, use D.O., lose the JNCO's/zipper pants/oversized shirts/etc. and groom yourself(!), be funny or pathetically nerdy (the more natural the better) but not creepy and socially awkward. If they play Magic do not always talk about Magic.
Be confident... if they can't handle you then it's not your fault (if you met the earlier "common sense" criteria) because you're a beast. With that in mind, do NOT, be arrogant.
Yeah, I guess this was supposed to be funny, but I thought the same thing. I'm not sure why blackborder would publish this article. There are already so many articles out there about balancing playing Magic and a love-life, I don't think another one was necessary, especially a bad one. I kept waiting for the article to get good, but it never happened. Come on, Blackborder...
I really enjoyed this article, but I'm biased because you could put the words "Dating Article" on a turd sandwich and I would still like it. To be truthful, this article is just a poor rehash of Style's, David D's, and Mystery's works of the past decade. However, I do think magic players should be exposed to this material as much as possible, as we most of us lack certain "people skills", and it is hard for an anosmic mouse to find cheese of a regular basis. The one thing this article nailed right on the head, was that living the dream of having a girlfriend that is into games is not all it is cracked up to be.
To the first Anonymous reply: You should rethink how you look at dating. As I can tell from your post you are either a woman and are disgusted by the article, or just don't know how to interact with women. I would suggest that you to do Google searches on the names I listed in the first paragraph and do some reading.
How do you not think this is hilarious? This is one of the most caliber pieces of writing to go up on the website recently. I'm 90% sure Mr. Fitzgerald is trolling, unless he's read the complete Tucker Max collection and adopted that lifestyle, in which case he can pretend to have been trolling anyway while secretly going HAM with the ladies.
Seems to me this article is a stereotype-filled celebration of the worst parts of men and women. That's assuming the author is being serious. The methods do tend to prove true, but typically, only on the most shallow of bar hopping skanks. And the kind of women that fall for these methods, you don't want. If the article was an attempt at humor it's definitely more acceptable. However, at that point it becomes a slew of all too often heard knock knock jokes that you politely laugh at because even though they were funny the first time, they don't hold as much hilarity once they've been used to the point that your friends can finish them for you. Yes, women fall for ass holes. Yes, playing off of women's insecurities is a great way to keep an idiot in your bed even if you don't want her in your actual life. I failed to find anything in the article that struck me as being profound in any way. If it was humorous, it was boring. If it was serious, shame on Blackboarder for publishing something so idiotic and tasteless.
To anon #3:
Tell that to my wife, who is just as big of a geek as I am. I didn't have to resort to tricks to get the relationship started, nor did I have to lower myself to use The Game to guide my actions. Treating the opposite sex with respect and genuine interest works! Who knew!!!
As I said, I can tell that this article is an attempt at humor, but the MtG community doesn't need to perpetuate the anti-social nerdism stereotypes that so many geek communities get labeled with. This article didn't deserve to get published because:
a) It really wasn't funny.
b) If someone isn't smart enough to figure out the sarcasm contained within, it's going to do more harm than good
c) It's petty misogynism to assume that ALL WOMEN want the same thing and act the same way towards men of any stripe.
I expect better out of BB.
This was funny, people need to relax.
funny article, these other guys just have no sense of humor. Good job man, I too have a wife and she found this article funny as well.
I have to say, this article just isn't that funny. After some of the nice, heartfelt articles about love and Magic on this site, I was really surprised to see a satire of the topic.
Maybe this just isn't my kind of humor.
Like Hosaboy and one anon, I found this article absolutely hilarious. Of course it's not serious. I mean, he wrote the line "my flirting style is being hot and awesome". Come *on* guys! This is not debatable!
Which makes me wonder why so many people thought it was serious, or thought it was in bad taste/unfunny? I have two guesses: one: there are actually a lot of people (guys and girls, but I guess on this site, mostly guys) who really genuinely and desperately want to find a partner, so the topic for them is just sad; and two: they've met/known people who would seriously think like this, or think magic players think like this, and see that as threatening.
In either case - well, what can I say? That sucks. But I think Sean and BB would be on your side here. Do we, as a community, really find this such a sensitive topic that every single article has to be 'nice' and 'heartfelt'?
In any case, I very much hope BB keeps publishing seanfitz's articles.
To the people who didn't enjoy this article, I'm sorry it didn't strike home. It was DEFINITELY ment to be a humour piece and in no way to be taken seriously. I think anyone of magic playing caliber high enough to be reading online articles would be intelligent enough to see the sarcasm in it. Also it wasn't a dig at actual magic players as I love you all and think your awesome, you don't need dating advice, if chicks don't dig you then they're missing out. .....or you're a d***!
I intend to keep writing articles and keep trying to be funny. I hope the next few are more to your liking.
To the people who liked it, you're awesome. Love you.
Now I'm off to continue being hilarious and a massive hit with the ladies!
To Anon#2, I too thought of Bill and Ted when I read "Be Excellent"...{air guitar}
To everyone else who read this and didn't really (air quotes cause chicks dig them) get it (end air quotes), relax. Its just an article that you really didn't have to read but did anyway. No need to go on a rant about this and that and how it didn't really pertain to anything Magic the Gathering or BB in any way. I read it, chuckled, went meh, then moved on to write this to let everyone know to calm down. Its just an article, Wusssaah.
The humor of this article reminds me of the style of Dinosaur Comics. And I love Dinosaur Comics. Something about the frequency of the word "awesome", relentless self confidence, and purported success with the ladies. Good show.
Whatever else we might think of the article, it's clear that it's a massive satire, and that the author doesn't actually believe any of it, literally. (Even before he commented to clarify -- and, well, I know what that's like. Good to hear from him.) I'm just kind of bugged that we're still talking about the imaginary gender barrier in the game, after all this time.
The key to getting women to accept Magic is social acceptance. If you can make her see or think that other people think Magic is fine, then it will be fine. Social proofing works for more than just Magic also... the main problem is getting past the stigma. If you are an incredible unshakable rock of confidence, then women will actually accept just about anything. (not all of them mind you)
Hands down the best article on the page.
I have been following Seans advices and since managed to assemble a solid 4 (!!!!) female friends on facebook and at least 3 of them are not my mother. I'm very positive I will reach 6 by the end of the month, possibly even go the distance eventually and get to a whopping 10. A dream coming true!
Hell, I even shower now in the week before tournaments!
Dating is a way of practicing your social manner.Talking to a female shouldn't be hard. Since they make up about half the population, you should be conversant. Here are some situations, as well as ways to talk to women confidently and charm. If you need to pay for your first date, get an installment loan.