Comfort is a two-faced bitch. It lures us away from the jagged rocks of pain to the soft shores of protection. It is a great time-saver and facilitator; it might even be fun for a while.

Comfort is also our undoing, robbing us of our potential. It’s the difference between Bilbo Baggins staying in the Shire as a Hobbit, and fighting a dragon as THE Hobbit.

So, let’s keep this in mind when I offer my thoughts on Grouper, a self-described “social club” offering a new spin on online dating — although they never use the word “date,” and you’re hardly ever online. After using Grouper three times, I’ll say this: it’s one of the most comfortable ways of meeting women that a guy is going to find. Take that for what you will.

Here’s a quick lowdown for the uninitiated: Grouper started here in San Francisco and New York and has since spread to other U.S. cities. A “Grouper” matches one guy with one girl, and although the company takes great pains not to call the event a date, you must each find two single friends of your gender to go. I suspect this formula will gain popularity with younger, techier crowds who don’t want the anxiety of approaching attractive strangers.

It goes something like this:

All the prep work is done for you: there are no online profiles to sift through, no email exchanges and no planning where to go. These factors will be pros or cons depending on your viewpoint, but I mostly consider this an improvement over standard online dating, where scanning profiles and sending emails can be an eye-gougingly dull experience. Yes, at least you exercise choice with OK Cupid, but we’ve covered the downside of that.

The price includes a free first drink, making the cost of this endeavor far cheaper than traditional arranged group dates like Table for Six, or even your average first date. So that’s a plus, too.

You will not know what your Grouper partners look like before you see them, nor will you have any information on them other than a generic-sounding promise that the girls are “super cute.” I suppose that’s more comforting than being promised that they have “great personalities,” but the matching system, based on people’s Facebook profiles, seems as sophisticated as throwing at a dart board.

I’ve been on three Groupers with the same two wingmen, and we each took turns being the guy who signed up. We have plenty in common, but not so much in common that we should get the same type of girls each time — for example, one of us is a hard core Burning Man guy whereas I’m quite the opposite. But diversity was hard to come by.

Leaving physical attractiveness out of it for a minute, all nine of the girls we met were in their mid-20s, white and of mainstream tastes. Virtually all of them lived in or hung out often in the Marina, which is the Never Never Land for ex-frat boys and sorority girls. None of us are compatible with Marina girls beyond a drunken night of hooking up to songs by Ke$ha.

Based on my Grouper outings, here’s a quick cheat sheet for any guys considering your own:

Get fun wingmen you can trust, and have a game plan: I had the first part of this down — my wingmen are great friends — but our first time out we didn’t consider the logistics of having a six-way encounter where we’re all sitting at a table. Unless you want polite chit-chat the whole night, you need to switch seats and isolate at some point. The girls came together and will have pressure to leave together, so your insta-date odds afterward are slim unless you’re really hitting it off.

Give the point man first dibs on a girl: Even though my friends and I have different physical tastes, we agreed each time on who the best looking girl was. So to avoid any conflict or miscommunication, I advise giving first dibs to the guy who organized the event. My secret code for calling dibs was looking at the girl and saying, “How about those Giants?” Smooth, I know.

Don’t be shy about escalating: I find it ironic that while Groupers seem marketed to shy people and uses a “no labels” mantra, you need to exercise some PUA skills to close the deal. Grouper doesn’t give you the girls’ contact info afterward, so you will need to get her number by the end of the encounter, probably in front of everyone.

Now for the recap of my three Groupers:

No. 1: Thumbs up on the bar Grouper chose, and I liked being able to get Scotch as my free drink. As for the girls, it was a three-headed Marina monster. They could talk about sports, visiting Western Europe, and drinking, but that was about it. One of the girls was good looking enough that one of us probably should have gotten her number just for the hell of it, but we didn’t regret it.

No. 2: The best I can say about this one was that the girls were all nice (in fact, all nine of the girls we met were nice; social conventions sort of require it). However, none of them were remotely interesting to us, physically or otherwise, and the bar had a DJ blasting music so loud we could barely talk. After this one I had to talk one of my wingmen into doing a third Grouper, on his condition that I write this review. So I hope you’re happy, buddy.

No. 3: I was the point man for this one, so I was fortunate that one of the girls was cute. Yes, she lived in the Marina, but at least she was apologetic about it. I got her number but she didn’t return my texts afterward (was it my Giants line?); still, even soft rejection felt like an improvement. The bar was solid, and we took an inspired Groupergram — you’re encouraged to take a creative Instagram photo of the six of you. It was my idea to have the five of us simulate surgery with knives on my shirtless wingman while the bar manager watched in horror.

Grand total for three outings: None of us is swearing off Grouper forever, but none of us would rely on it for dating. Combined, the three of us spent $60 and over six hours of our time. We had a whopping one phone number (that didn’t lead anywhere) among the three of us. We had perfectly safe, pleasant conversations in safe settings with nine friendly girls who mostly did not attract us (the feeling may very well have been mutual).

But phone numbers are beside the point. This is more about the costs of comfort. There might be little to lose in talking to three pre-selected women, but for many guys I suspect there’s also much less to gain. Personally, I would rather exercise my own judgment in meeting my kind of girls — and the risk of immediate rejection is an asset, not a liability.

I’d still recommend Grouper to a guy who just wants to go out and meet lots of people and maybe hook up with a girl or two. But if you’re looking for girlfriend material, I’d take the bumpier road.

I haven’t done the online dating thing for a while, but one thing that annoyed me was that you couldn’t browse a woman’s profile without her knowing it — which sucks if you want a closer look at her photo before you decide on writing her, or if you need a second look after browsing earlier.

And if you’re really indecisive and need a fourth or fifth look, you might wonder if you’ll find a flirty restraining order sitting in your inbox.

A friend of mine showed me a hack for this problem that you online daters might want. It’s simple: just get a thumbnail zoom for your browser so you don’t have to click on the profile.

Two popular add-ons are the Thumbnail Zoom Plus for Firefox and Hover Zoom for Chrome. As you can see in the photo here from OK Cupid, you can get a much more definitive look at her face this way (trust me, she actually has eyes).

Of course, you’ll still need to click on her profile for all the other information, including secondary photos. But at least this way, you can put the magnifying glass away some of the time and maintain your anonymity while still keeping track of who’s viewing your profile.

Guys often talk about something “working” or “not working” on women. His cocky remark about being too sexy for his sweater. The way he touched her hand at juuuust the right emotional spike in the conversation. His invitation to watch “Parks and Recreation” at his place.

It’s fair enough that we talk this way — we men are results oriented. But there are great pitfalls to keeping this mindset with women, and we’re not just talking about improving your odds of getting a girlfriend or getting laid. We’re talking about keeping a consistent understanding of who the hell you really are.

I’ll get into the deeper stuff in another post. For now, let’s talk about the misconceptions of a man’s technique “working.” It reinforces the illusion that we hold all the cards in seduction — you push the right button, you get the right result. You know why she went down on me, dude? I rocked that NLP shit and used the word “taste” like 50 times!

For guys who have been dissed more times than a telemarketer during dinner, this is a tempting illusion. But when you get out there enough, and you’re honest with yourself, you’ll start to realize that seduction isn’t a video game where you’re in God Mode. It’s more like a nuclear submarine: you both have to turn the key.

If something “worked” on her, it’s because she wanted it to work. This isn’t always a conscious decision by her — one woman may not like jerks, but she only sleeps with them — but it’s important to keep in mind that if she wants you, the means don’t matter much as long as you do SOMETHING confidently.

This interest from a woman isn’t necessarily digital. If I had to break it down, I can think of four progressive categories she’s going to be in. Just tucking this away in the back of your mind might help you to better direct your energy and your monthly texting allowance. Here we go:

Level 1: She’s not interested in you at all (see above example)

This red light isn’t as easy to spot as you might think. I’m told that in Eastern Europe, a guy knows where he stands from the minute he approaches her — either you hit an iceberg and sink, or you enter a friendly port. Not always so out here on the West Coast.

Common signs: You approach her and she’s just not engaging you at all; she’s insulting (not teasing) you; she’s happily in a relationship; she’s very friendly but won’t play along when you flirt with her; she’ll agree to see you for drinks, but is it cool if her friend comes along?; she won’t call or text you back; she’s telling you not to call her; she’s Kate Upton.

Level 2: She’s not really interested in you (like in this scene).

Most of a guy’s wasted time and tricks are with these girls. Oh, if only we can pile a few bricks of charm on our end of the scales, she might tip our way. And maybe we did hook up with her once or twice. But chances are that she was just killing time with you. Bummer.

I’m reminded of the Paris Hilton “pickup” that was described in “The Game.” Not that I think she’s attractive, but she was considered hot, and it’s treated in the book as some powerful demonstration of PUA technique. When in fact, he just rattled out some douchey lines that kept a douchey woman interested long enough to give her number. They never heard back from her.

But we’ve all been that douche, including me. Maybe it started off with sparks in a high-adrenaline environment, like a club or a  vacation, and you hooked up. And it was totally that push-pull maneuver that made it happen. Or maybe you were just the only decent-looking guy at the party, and she had no one to trade up to. Feel free to try with these girls, but treat them like a lottery ticket and don’t invest much time in them.

Common signs: You get her number, but she’s only reachable through text, and she takes days or longer to text you back; she says “maybe” a lot when you invite her out; she always has a friend visiting or some trip that gets in the way of you seeing her; after you hook up for the first time, she becomes much tougher to reach; she’ll go out with you, but it’s the second date and she won’t kiss.

Level 3: She’s genuinely interested in you

This is the sweet spot, my friends. This is where we really want to be, because this is where using technique or fooling her becomes irrelevant. She already likes you. All it takes from here is to Shut Up And Lead.

The story of my friend SW’s courtship comes to mind. The girl he liked wasn’t just busy — she was in med school. It took a little persistence on his part, but she always wanted him to lead her. Everyone wins this way: she feels wanted enough to make time for you, and you feel like you got something worth pursuing.

Common signs: She asks you questions about yourself when you first meet; she responds to your calls/texts quickly or initiates them; she moves closer when you touch her; she teases you in good fun; she might not have a certain night free, but she’ll suggest alternatives and offers her own date ideas; she has sex with you (duh) or is at least intimate with you.

Level 4: She’s really, really interested in you

This might seem like a great place to be, and it can be in the short term. But chances are this is not the woman you really want.

I’ll be blunt here: If you’re not rich/a celebrity/have model looks and a woman is openly hitting on you and providing no challenge at any point in the seduction, she’s probably unattractive (read: slumpbuster), crazy, desperate for a relationship or getting back at someone. You won’t feel satisfied because you didn’t earn her, and she might realize at some point that her interest in you was superficial. Consider these girls for a one-night stand or short fling, preferably away from your zip code, but that’s it.

Common signs: She laughs at everything you say, even the non-jokes; she compliments you over and over again, even when you disqualify yourself; she won’t take her hands off you; you’ve been out with her a couple times and she’s already talking about wanting to get serious; she doesn’t stop you at any point the first time you have sex, or she even initiates the whole thing; she calls or texts you all the time.

If you agree or disagree with any of this, give me a shout.

Some readers have been suggesting I make a return visit to Simple Pickup, those rapscallions with the wacky Youtube videos and balls of steel. Being a man of the people, I had to comply.

In a post I wrote over a year ago, I was impressed with the guys’ humor and ability to inspire, but I questioned whether their over-the-top videos were really instructive of good, natural game. Some of Simple Pickup’s many fans have pointed to their more recent content and said it was indeed more grounded.

Having checked out their site again, that does seem to be true.  They’ve also got a fully realized business going now, and contrary to some of my recent dissing of the pickup community,  I would actually recommend Kong, Jesse and Jason to the 23-year-old me. So, yeah, I think they’re legit instructors.

Their Youtube videos are as funny as ever — I love watching them cockblock each other while keeping a straight face. And their Barney Stinson videos are close enough to being “normal” pickups, though they’re clearly going for entertainment with all of these.

And hey, the boys were on Nightline! Despite the mandatory belittling interview from ABC, I’d say they handle themselves quite well there.

The three amigos are also blogging regularly, and from what I’ve read, the posts include exactly the kind of practical, non-weird advice I would hope to see. They don’t cram techniques down your throat like so many others, though they’re good at pointing out what works for them. The main principles they repeat involve being courageous and a good leader — ideas I’ve certainly endorsed as an instructor.

In fact, in a recent post they closely echo what my buddy Tre Tre wrote about being in the moment, which is way more important than technique. Here it is:

 A guy who she can depend on when it comes to decision making, is a guy she’ll love. But, how do you do this? It’s called LISTENING & EXPERIENCE. As in, the more you get out there and interact with people, try new things, read, and staying active – the more you’ll be able to obtain the necessary information to deal with a whole lot of situations.

They’re also spot on in their three-part series on club game. It was almost as good as a certain other blogger’s series on club game. Cough cough.

The one area where my philosophy seems to differ from Simple Pickup’s is their insistence on “being sexual” early and often. That might work in a club environment, but it’s really only a good idea for certain personalities and certain situations. In San Francisco, I’d say it’s often a bad idea at the beginning because sexual aggressiveness tends to be frowned upon. Damn hipsters.

As for producing “normal” pickup videos that can teach, the guys are indeed doing that, though I can’t access them because I’d have to pay for their “Project Go” membership. Still, it looks like a good deal. (If there are regular videos that I can look at, please let me know and I’ll check them out).

You  can either pay $10 a month to get some uncut videos of the guys in the field, with their analysis. Or for a $20 membership you get the videos, plus access to interact with the guys. I don’t see any one-on-one coaching available, which I still think is best for a beginner, but it’s a very reasonable price, unlike some of the cynical “in-field-footage” DVD scams that some pickup stars have charged in the past at ridiculous prices (I’m looking at you, Neil Strauss).

While there are still many charlatans and opportunists out there, the dating industry seems to have matured to a point where it’s harder to charge an arm and a leg to learn “seduction secrets.” Because in truth, there are no secrets. It’s about who can best inspire confidence. For guys in their 20s and early 30s, Simple Pickup seems like a great resource for guys who want more women and less weirdness. Well done, players.

I’m fortunate to have had good friends who really understand seduction. They save me time with posts like this.

If you haven’t read the second part of Tre Tre’s piece on why pickup techniques are bullshit, read it now. It’s really damned good. There were some valid counterarguments in the comments section, and Tre responds to those, too.

I’ve written about my disdain for technique in the past — my post on the White Stripes and imperfection comes to mind — but not recently. I spent the day at work gathering my own thoughts, and then I remembered an old friend from my Charisma Arts days: Dirk Manley.

Just before he was killed two years ago, Dirk wrote a post on this very subject called, “Why the Community is Wrong.” He said it better than I would have: that the problem isn’t whether the one-size-fits-all, universal techniques sold by seduction gurus work. Of course they can work.

“However,” Dirk said, “I think any company promoting how to make yourself “more attractive” or to “get ANY girl” still suffers from the same problems. The same problems being that women are all the same and react the same to the same things. To me, that is bullshit.”

So your average PUA guru would stop me here and say, “Dude! You’re just not using the material the right way. You need to keep practicing to get it right.”

And for my response, I’ll once again refer you to my friend Dirk:

Likewise, the only way you can get ANY girl you want is by assuming she is a video game, and if you press the right combination of buttons, you’ll get the reaction you want.

Again, bullshit. And when you read those messages like that, you realize why it is bullshit.

The techniques take us not only out of the moment, as Tre has said, but also out of our personalities. They turn women into a focus group where they’re always right and guys are trying to guess what they want. They try to convince us that if a girl rejected us, we fucked up and we need to learn the right maneuver to get her.

And now it’s my turn to say, bullshit.

Being rejected is among the best results that can happen to a guy. It can save him a lot of time and money, allowing him to meet girls who do laugh at his dirty jokes or find vintage Transformers cool (seriously, they exist).

I think about NBA player Rasheed Wallace, and his famous quote, “Ball don’t lie.” The same concept applies to women and rejection: Girl Don’t Lie. She’s either into you or she’s not. There’s not much benefit in depending on game to change her mind.

I also think about the slick, complex, shit-test-conquering field reports I used to read and try to emulate as a beginner, and in retrospect those guys sounded like contestants in the Hunger Games. Seduction might be challenging at times, but usually it should be easy and fun. It has been for me, at least.

Now, as Dirk says, it is possible for a guy to shape-shift his personality and try to find different punch-kick combinations to seduce different types of girls. Some guys get off on that, and they do it well. I am unattracted to most Marina girls, as they are unattracted to me. Yet Community guys in San Francisco chase them the most because Marina girls are considered to have the highest value, and some of those guys succeed. Good on them.

But I don’t want to alter my personality, and neither did most of the guys I coached. So I found that the less material I taught as an instructor — in some cases not teaching anything — the more confident they were and the less they chased girls away. It’s because they were able to let out their true selves, which was way more attractive than following some script.

Dirk’s death was a grim reminder about how short life is, and I learned years ago that I didn’t want to spend it as a homogenized pickup artist. Screw that. With the women I get and the women I lose, I do it on my terms. I hope guys who are new to this understand that they can do the same.

You wanted him, you’ve got him. My good friend Tre Tre shared his considerable knowledge a year ago in Part I about why pickup techniques are overrated. Like any good sequel, Part II took some time, and unlike “Matrix Reloaded,” this one delivers the goods.

I’ve coached students often about the importance of detaching themselves from the outcome, and Tre does a superb job of explaining why that’s so crucial. His recommended exercise is great advice for any guy who’s struggling.

Tre: In my previous post I broke down why all those pickup techniques that focus on the tactics of seducing a woman are a recipe for failure.  Today I’m going to talk about how to do it. It really isn’t much about women at all. The focus is right at the heart of the matter: you.

I’m going to borrow heavily from a great book called “The Inner Game of Tennis.“  In fact, click on this link and buy it now.  Seriously.

Gallwey is a tennis coach. Over the years he noticed that giving people technical instruction on the mechanics of their swing was not getting them anywhere.  In fact, it was making things worse. The players were given knowledge about their swing, and they would attempt to play the game thinking about what they’ve been told they need to do.

Instead of looking up and feeling the game, they were stuck in their heads, getting worse and more frustrated with every stroke. They were ignorant and terrible before, but with their “knowledge” they were still terrible and now hopeless and broken.

He breaks the human psyche down to two Selves, which he calls “Self 1″ and “Self 2.” Self 2 is the natural-learning self.  That self learned how to talk. It learned how to walk. It learned how to punch your baby brother in the head with a roundhouse when he steps on your Lego castle you spent all morning building while watching Bugs Bunny.

Self 2 is pretty awesome. Your brain and your body connection are connected with broadband at that age because you haven’t learned how to be self-conscious yet.  You didn’t get a set of technical instructions on how to talk, you just started doing it.  Granted, you sounded like a bumbling fool in the beginning compared with an orator like Martin Luther King or Howard Stern, but no one around cared because you were learning.

Enter your inner critic, Self 1. At some point in your life, Self 1 is the voice that starts to tell you how to do things.  Some of this is conditioned; now that you can talk and communicate, you’re told how to act, think and do things. Self 1 just speaks to you when you’re in situations. He’s there to tell you how things should be done.

Guess what? Self 1 is a judgmental asshole. If one of your friends talked to you the way that Self 1 talks to you, he’d be left in the desert on a long drive out of town.

But we listen to Self 1. He helps to justify and reinforce our bad behaviors, blame others for our shortcomings and suppress the Self 2 that is natural, quiet and waiting to be awakened.

Go read “The Inner Game of Tennis” for more, but I’m going to quote from a chapter called “Inner Game Off the Court” and talk about how you can go out and interact in life with Self 2 leading the way:

“Perhaps the most indispensable tool for human beings in modern times is the ability to remain calm in the midst of rapid and unsettling changes. The people who will best survive the present age are the ones Kipling described as ‘those who can keep their heads while all about are losing theirs.’ Inner stability is achieved not by burying one’s head in the sand at the sight of danger, but by acquiring the ability to see the true nature of what is happening and to respond appropriately. Then Self 1′s reaction to the situation is not able to disrupt your inner balance or clarity.

Instability, in contrast, is a condition of being in which we are more easily thrown off balance when Self 1 gets upset by an event or circumstance.  Self 1 tends to distort its perception of the event, prompting us to take misguided actions, which in turn leads to circumstances that further undermine our inner balance–the basic Self 1 vicious cycle.

The cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment. Self 1 gets so dependent upon things, situations, people and concepts within its experience that when change occurs or seems about to occur, it feels threatened. Freedom from stress does not necessarily involve giving up anything, but rather being able to let go of anything, when necessary, and know that one will still be all right. It comes from being more independent–not necessarily more solitary, but more reliant on one’s own inner resources for stability.”

Right now, it is highly likely that if you are reading this, you probably have a voice inside of you that says you talk to women badly and that you need to be good. So, your Self 1 has told you a million ways in which you are bad: awkward, uncool, not good looking enough to get out there and talk to someone you’re attracted to. You have this Self 2 inside of you that is creative, learns, adapts and has the ability to connect with other people. That Self doesn’t think you do things badly and that you need to do good things now. That Self just naturally learns and experiences the moment.

Guess what?  Most women have a Self 1, too. That self gets to hide behind an awesome rack, $200 haircut, eyeliner and high heels. When two very judgmental Self 1s collide, they amplify the discomfort and the lady gets uncomfortable and pulls the ripcord.  You’re left with Self 1 laying on the “I told you so’s” with his hands on the sweat gland and heartbeat controls. He physically makes you feel bad for “being bad” at talking to chicks.

Dick.

So, you have to learn to become calm. To become calm, you have to learn to quiet Self 1. You do that by (gulp) trusting in Self 2.  We ALL have Self 2, which wants to be liberated.  Self 2 “wants to enjoy, to learn, to understand, to appreciate, go for it, rest, be healthy, survive, be free to be what it is, express itself and make its unique contribution.

Self 2, more important, doesn’t need to be validated by anyone, let alone a woman you have a brief encounter with.

But Self 1 doesn’t give up easily. For the purposes of this blog entry, let’s just keep it simple, but there are volumes that can be written about why and the craftiness with which Self 1 tries to trick you into losing faith in yourself again.

Here’s an exercise to experience Self 2: This is similar to “Fight Club,” when Tyler Durden told his followers to get in a fight and lose.  You need to learn to detach from the outcome. When you detach, you’ll learn to trust yourself and then you will learn to be calm in the moment.

Your goal is to talk to 15 women, in a row, and you can’t get their phone number, kissed, blown, or peed on (if you are into that….I don’t judge).  If some lady gets so hot and heavy and you simply can’t control yourself and you get a phone number, you have to start over. Fifteen straight interactions with no end that results in you getting something positive from her other than a great interaction on your path to living as Self 2.

In the beginning, Self 1 is going to be SCREAMING IN YOUR EAR THAT YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG AND THAT YOU SHOULD GO BACK TO THE 4TH GRADE AND START OVER. With each subsequent, courageous reaction, you’ll learn to trust at little more.

Don’t worry about being charming, funny, sexy, seductive, “alpha,” how you’re standing, if you’re displaying dominant body language, etc.  Once the voice comes up, just acknowledge it and refuse to judge. Just hang in there and talk to your lady.  Experience being in the moment.  Be very careful: you might just go out and start enjoying yourself.

Amid all my grandstanding in my two-part post on false dating narratives (Part I is here and Part II is here), I left out some facts that are worth mentioning. So here they are:

1. As Inigo Montoya might say, I don’t think the word “hookup” means what people think it means. The massive college student survey taken by Paula England found that only 40 percent of hookups involved sexual intercourse. Fifteen percent involved hand stimulation, and another 32 percent only involved kissing and non-genital touching.

According to those definitions, I hooked up in college more than I realized! Which is to say, with one girl.

2. It’s taken for granted that men want casual sex more than women, but Terri Conley’s data does much to question that. The dividing line came down to this common-sense question: how likely is the woman to have an orgasm?

People have repeatedly cited the 1989 study in which 70 percent of men agreed to a female stranger’s offer for sex, where 0 percent of the women accepted the same offer from a man. But Conley’s studies found some variables that were being ignored:

Gender differences in acceptance of heterosexual casual-sex proposals evaporated when participants considered sexual offers from very attractive or very unattractive famous individuals. Likewise, women and men were equally likely to accept offers of casual sex from close friends whom they perceived to have high sexual capabilities (i.e., whom they thought would “be a great lover” and would provide them with “a positive sexual experience”).

Across multiple studies, perceived sexual capabilities of sexual proposers most strongly predicted acceptance of casual-sex offers among both women and men. … women accepted fewer casual-sex offers from men than vice versa because male proposers were perceived to have relatively poorer sexual capabilities.”

I’ve seen this play out in real life, and it makes a lot of sense: why would a woman sleep with a stranger when he’s guaranteed to climax and she probably won’t? Yet for whatever reason, the lasting narrative in our culture is one of sexually reluctant women who just want sex when it can lead to love.

Men get used for sex all the time — sometimes even when we don’t want to be. The truth about that is only starting to get noticed.

This is the follow-up to Part I of my post.

Let’s address the third and oldest narrative being pushed on us by the dating-trend-du-jour articles and books out there: that men want casual sex, women want serious relationships, and that men are coercing women to get the former out of them.

This is a narrative perpetuated by many sources: popular culture, news media, academics and even the seduction community I was once involved with (more on that later). It’s the opposite of the slutty-woman double standard, and no less harmful.

Shitting on men’s sexuality and their alleged player nature is an easy way to get noticed these days:

• The book “Hooking Up” casts female college students as so desperate for relationships in a sea of commitment-averse guys that they’re willing to submit to one-night stands in the hope that it leads to more.
• The New York Times’ recent article on the supposed end of courtship cites only anecdotes where the guy — never the woman — is either too horny, too careless or too broke to pursue a relationship.
• I’ve already written about one writer’s confused attack on men’s supposed Peter Pan complex.
• In the Atlantic’s much-discussed “All the Single Ladies,” our loveless heroine reduces men to “deadbeats or playboys” and claims that in her experience, “In many cases, the more successful a man is (or thinks he is), the less interested he is in commitment.” Even though she leads off the piece by explaining how she walked away from a seemingly great boyfriend.

There are more examples — worse ones, too — but you get my drift. Men want casual sex before love (if they want love at all), and women want love before sex. Right?

If only it were so simple. The onslaught of beer commercials, sitcoms and Maxim-like magazines make us seem as complex as a checkers board when we’re really a lot more like chess. Someone needs to write “The Masculine Mystique” to get the point across, apparently.

Fortunately, there is some emerging data to back this up:

• The University of Michigan’s Terri Conley deals a karate chop to the men-are-dogs theory in a 2011 study. Among her team’s findings: when you seek the median rather than the average number of desired sexual partners over a 30-day period, men and women want the same number: one. Also, while men usually claim more sexual partners than women, that gap disappears when both sexes think they’re taking a polygraph test.
• Sociologist Paula England led a wide survey of college campuses, where it’s supposedly Sodom and Gomorrah these days, and found not only that “hookup culture” is a media-created myth, but also that college men and women both want a mix of hookups and relationships. For instance, where 66 percent of the women said they hoped their most recent hookup would lead to something more, 58 percent of the guys said the same.
• And despite at least one book’s scare tactics on sex-crazed teenage boys, the stats show that fewer teenagers are having sex and getting pregnant than their parents.

Also, not that all young women are in the mold of Karen “F-list” Owen, but there is data to show that women can be as active in enjoying sex and delaying commitment as men are. Academics Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura Hamilton found this to be true.

One young woman on the How About We blog said it well: “The hookup culture isn’t some sphere that we got trapped in because twenty-something guys and technology made it so. We, too, are opting for more freedom, more variety of experience, more sex in our twenties. It’s our hookup culture, too.”

If anything, we need more young guys gaining sexual experience so they can be prepared for relationships sooner. England’s college survey supports the theory that most of the sex is being had by about 20 percent of the students. About 25 percent of college students don’t hook up at all, and another 30 percent will hook up three times or less before they graduate. We can only speculate on how much of that abstinence is voluntary, but I’ll guess that much of it isn’t.

This brings us to my own experience. I have coached well over 100 guys on how to talk to women, and helped many more informally. Most of them had backgrounds similar to mine: they stayed inexperienced with women into their 20s or beyond, which left them frustrated and unprepared for a real relationship.

They, like me, were exposed to the same kind of rock-star playboy hype that was rampant in “The Game” and on the websites of countless PUA gurus. They, like me, wanted a taste of this lifestyle because it seemed infinitely more fun than masturbating to porn. Some never stopped to think whether they were even cut out for a life of sleeping with different women left and right. The hype suggested that this was simply what an “alpha male” did.

I like to think that I was above such exploitation as a coach and I’ve actively distanced myself from it, but as Rob Overman and I once discussed, I’m sure the hype got us some clientele too.

Once they were down the rabbit hole with me, though, I found most of the guys to be much like I once was: they wanted the variety because they’d never had it, but ultimately they wanted more than just casual flings.

It didn’t work out for all of them. But I’m proud to say that many of the guys I kept up with enjoyed both ends of the spectrum, from wild sexual breakthroughs to hard-earned courtships. To point out the complexity of men wanting some mix of sexual variety and commitment might not fit a convenient, Twitter-friendly headline, but it does get us much closer to the truth.

We seem to love us an apocalypse — even a fake one. There’s a good reason why the Mayans got way more publicity in 2012 than, say, the Aztecs. So it is with sex and relationships in America.

My Twitter feed has been chock full of authors predicting the end times, whether it’s the end of monogamy, the end of courtship or the end of sex. Even, gasp, the end of men! (Will that make me a zombie? Cuz that would be cool.)

Technology, online dating and men’s wandering penises are especially getting blamed for our descent from the heaven of wedded monogamy into an infernal fire of hookup culture where we’ll ostensibly all be getting laid in dumpsters like alley cats. All that’s missing is some Carmina Burana playing in the background.

I’m disappointed that such high-minded publications as the Atlantic and New York Times are pushing this kind of Chicken Little hyperbole, and I’ll get into the details shortly. But times are changing, and these dating-trend-du-jour articles do at least start a conversation about where we’re at. Let’s look at some of the narratives:

Narrative No. 1: Internet dating is threatening monogamy

I’ll give the Atlantic credit for at least trying to cover up the stink from Dan Slater’s half-baked fart about online dating. They’ve since posted some very sensible follow-ups from other writers on this relevant, complex issue. I’ve enjoyed reading them.

I’m no cheerleader for online dating, and I’ve documented its limitations. I disliked the assembly-line effect it had on my own dating life and I’ve since abandoned it for my old-fashioned pickup roots. But the suggestion that monogamous relationships are threatened because meeting people online is so exciting? Let’s back away from that dating-industry hogwash.

It always helps in times of crisis to look at the facts. There is zero hard evidence to show that existing relationships are falling apart more in the online dating era. In fact, Census data show that our country’s divorce rate has steadily decreased before and since online dating.

The marriage rate is also down, but the factors at play — female empowerment, male underachievement, a bad economy, common sense — are almost too many to count.

Focusing on our football-loving, intimacy-avoiding Jacob character, Slater’s article ignores the legions of singles who seek love online in spite of what a joyless, time-consuming exercise it is. I know people who have left or want to leave San Francisco, specifically because after much online effort they’re dissatisfied with the dating pool here and think they’d have better chances at commitment elsewhere.

But I have also found successful anecdotes from online dating. I’ve been to weddings and witnessed serious relationships that were made possible by it. Former students of mine have told me of their fiancees or girlfriends.

We’re irrational like that — there are good biological and financial reasons to avoid monogamous cohabitation, but we seek it out anyway because it’s the best flawed system our society has. Despite its paradox of choice and many fruitless first dates, online dating won’t change that.

Narrative No. 2: Dating and courtship are dying at the hands of technology and hookup culture

Some more anecdote-driven, dartboard sociology was authored by the New York Times last week when it suggested the end of courtship among young singles. This is not to be confused with a New York Observer article from 2011 that declared technology was eliminating young people’s desire to hook up. Make up your mind, New York!

There’s another contradiction with the Times article: technology is supposedly eliminating the official date, but what about the rise of online dating? The word is right in there! Yes, there are fewer steak dinners right away, but in this economy that’s an antiquated expectation. (And drinks aren’t exactly cheap, either.) In fact, we’re dating more than ever. Maybe too much, even.

There’s plenty of data to show that these supposedly hookup-crazed 20-somethings are not getting laid so much (oral sex, but not intercourse), and when they are it’s usually with a committed partner. You’d think the Times would have referred to some of that.

I’m not sure what golden age of courtship we’re supposed to be getting back to here. Is it “Downton Abbey”-era arranged marriages? Is it the “Mad Men” repressed housewife years? The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s, when people thought condoms were yucky?

Who knows. Yes, courtship is changing as it always will change — men and women aren’t segregated in work and play the way they used to be, so of course they’re more casual around each other. But I don’t think we need to call the coroner yet. We might, however, considering calling the personal trainer. Which is essentially what I’ve been as a coach.

I’ll paraphrase what I said on Twitter earlier this week: tech doesn’t kill courtship. Courtship dies when people expect tech to do all the work. This is a problem with some people, especially in big cities like mine, but one that can be addressed by working out those neglected social-skills muscles and showing a little offline vulnerability.

Narrative No. 3: Men want lots of sex partners and are preying on women for casual sex

This last one hits the closest to home for me because of the work I’ve done, and I’m going to save it for my next post. Stay tuned.

I’ve been busy wearing out my voice during the Giants’ World Series run (woo hoo!), but I’m going to interrupt that for a minute to share a video relating to body language that both educates and inspires.

My friend sent me a recent TED talk featuring social psychologist Amy Cuddy. A quick synopsis is that it makes a scientific case for faking it until you make it with your body language — the importance of which extends to  our social lives, careers and simply how we define ourselves as people.

Cuddy’s research found that by simply striking a “power pose” for two minutes, a person could raise his testosterone and lower his cortisol to levels maintained by confident, “alpha” people.  Striking a low-power pose, meanwhile, had the opposite effect and made them less likely to take risks.

The seduction community spends a lot of time on alpha postures, and I’ve seen it taken to comedic levels by amateur pickup artists. But the underlying message is correct. It’s why my mother used to correct my slouching in public, and why I corrected my students’ posture: people judge us almost instantly, and it has far more to do with our body language than the content of our words.

As Anna Draper’s niece told Don in Mad Men, “Nobody knows what’s wrong with them. And everyone else can see it right away.”

There’s also an emotional component to Cuddy’s research, because she herself had to learn how to “fake it” after being discouraged from college when she was in a severe car accident. You’ll see that in the video too.

I like her tweaking the expression to “fake it till you become it,” because it’s a more accurate description of a person’s growth. Rather than consider your “true” self a shrinking violet, why not stick your arms out wide and show the world how you were really a winner all along?

The Japanese expression says it best: “A man is whatever room he is in.” I distinctly remember the room I was in 10 years ago, back when I was first figuring out women (a little). It was an indie-rock dance club, and I was tearing up the floor with three female friends, oblivious to my usual insecurities and having a blast.

During a break in the action, I sat by myself with one of the very power poses shown during this TED talk. A bright-eyed blonde approached me, and I have no doubt that my body language helped trigger that. She ended up being my girlfriend for a year.

Now, if only the Giants can work on their power poses against the Tigers. They’re gonna need the extra testosterone.