My Earliest Research;
Discovering the Fundamentals of Flirting

I was eleven and watching Gone with the Wind. I had braces, freckles, and octagonal glasses. Mesmerized, I watched as Scarlett O’hara clung to her bedpost and got laced into her terrifically tiny corset. Then Atlanta burned, and she survived the civil war and had a fetching green dress made from the living room drapes.

But it is the picnic scene at the Hamilton’s that would etch itself forever into my impressionable boy crazed mind. There Scarlet stood, hooped-out and surrounded by a huge flock of men. And as she basked in the center of all of that fabulous male attention, she looked like the cat that ate the canary!

“Now how on earth did she manage that?” eleven-year-old me marveled. It would take some years before I would fully understand her man-catching secret …

Scarlett Deconstructed

Scarlett O’Hara possessed the mindset of Flock Consciousness. By not focusing exclusively on any one suitor, she lured an entire flock of Lovebirds to her, and wisely kept her options open. Scarlett was flirtatiously multi-tasking!

“Why yes, Mr. Hamilton, I’d love some more lemonade, with lots and lots of chipped ice.” And she needed it, because she was on FIRE. She had every boy at Twelve Oaks eating right out of the palm of her hand.

One year later, braces off and contacts in, I donned a halter-top, a little too much Bonne Belle blush and went to my first high school party. I intuitively practiced what Scarlet had taught me, and allowed a flock of boys to gather around me without making the silly mistake of getting romantic tunnel vision.

This would land me a date with “Pablo” the star quarterback, his scent an intoxicating blend of Ivory soap and cigarettes. And also Ross, a tow-headed junior who walked me home the next day after soccer practice. His dazzling white teeth would leave a small hickey that my mother would notice and ground me for later that weekend.

My romantic career had officially begun!

What’s Good for the Goose Is Good for the Gander!

The worst thing a woman can do when looking the relationship she truly desires is to prematurely take herself off the market simply because “someone likes her” (otherwise known as the One-at-a-Time Man Plan).

This misstep is a genetic holdover from the millions of years that women spent picking berries on the tundra. It makes us want quickly give up the hunt and become instantaneously monogamous to a viable suitor once he's been found.

The problem is that most men like to date women exactly the other way around!

MANFACT: Men, even the men that you think are really nice guys, like architects, believe that it’s not only normal, but actually preferable to have several sexual options (women) waiting for them in the wings. Men don’t think that this approach is wrong, if they haven’t stepped up and made a verbal commitment to any, some, or all of these women. On the contrary, most men subscribe to the Male String Theory of Dating.

Boys were learning much more than teamwork in Little League. They also learned the value of rotating the talent. When boys grow up and become men, they’ll apply this principle to their love lives too. It’s ingenious when you understand how it works.

The Male String Theory of Dating.

Single males have their starting lineup of MVPs*, then the Second String Girls, who like him just a little more than he likes them, and finally his Romantic Replacements, who are kept in a holding pattern and waiting for him on the bench.

His MVP’s are usually women he thinks he’ll have mind-blowing sex with. The rest
are put into romantic rotation.

And believe me, men don’t feel one shred of guilt about it because, after all, they’re not married, so they don’t have to act like they are. Maybe they have a point!

The Male String Theory of Dating hinges upon the: "If you’re dumb enough not to ask me, I’m not going to be stupid enough to tell you" policy.

Sidebar: It’s amazing that women don’t ask the men they’re sleeping with if they’re currently sexually involved with other women, and how many! If you did, you’d be shocked by the answer.

Romantic Rule: It’s not prying or rude to ask the men that your sleeping with about the competition you’re up against, and finding out the real odds of contracting STDs—or actual commitments from them!

Conclusion:
Until he says he’s the one, he isn’t!