Dating Lessons From Casanova

I know that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the knowledge of my existence, I know likewise that I shall exist no more when I shall have ceased to feel.

Giacomo Casanova

You might have noticed that for a Gentleman’s site, I post very little about dating or relationship advice. There are two simple reasons for this. First, Caballero’s main focus is self-betterment as a man. The second, I want to steer as clear away as possible from PUA (Pick Up Artists) strategies and philosophies. That second one does more damage than good to men, something I have mentioned before.

But from the perspective of the first one, I do understand that dating and relationships are an integral part of a man’s self-betterment, so dealing with those topics IS important. For that reason, I will fall back on the dating lessons taught by one of the Big Three Romanceers, Giacomo Casanova. (The other two are Oscar Wilde and Miguel de Cervantes)

But isn’t Casanova just a glorified Pick Up Artists, a depraved hedonist who took advantage of women? Blasphemer! That’s precisely what he wasn’t, as I explained in Casanova’s Condemnation of the Pick Up Artist. Then, if he wasn’t a pick up artist, how did he attain a mythical reputation for being one?

It was neither his sense of humor nor his good looks, which I can guarantee. He was a rather average looking man, and the idea that a good sense of humor will win over any woman is pretty much a lie. Last I checked, women weren’t chasing after clowns and stand-up comics. What he had in his favor was an abashed love for living fully and creating unforgettable experiences in a world trying to repress a person’s soul. How did he do this?

Privacy Is Key

Why were so many women willing to commit indiscretions with a man such a Casanova? Because they knew he would be discreet about it. He had no need to share any of his adventures with anyone, allowing them to feel that their reputation was safe, even as they shared time with him?

Why is this so important to mention as the first topic? Because we live in a world intent in showing off and publicizing every single meal and every gym work out; a world were discretion has become a rare quality indeed. We need to understand the importance of discretion once again.

Let Them Admire You Admiring Them

Dating exists within a world of self-conscious behavior were we constantly walk that grey line between appropriate and inappropriate actions. This has been getting worse every day as men are told that appreciating attractiveness is little more than objectification and expressing desire is admitting having sexual predatory instincts.

During that entire debate, one very crucial aspect is lost; our ability to let the other person know how desirable we find them. Without desire there’s no passion, so letting the other person know how we find them desirable, also lets them know how passionate we can be. And nothing is more alluring as someone blushing from that realization.

Ask Them About Themselves And Listen

I think I have expressed myself enough on the importance of listening to what the other person has to say, here, here, and here. Any more would be beating a dead horse.

Remove Judgement To Encourage Decadence

One of the most important aspects within this kind of rendezvous is how the person must feel at ease enough to be unabashed of their behavior. The only way to do this is by letting themselves act out without fear of being judged. How can they be free with you if you are constantly judging their every action? Create a space of free expression where they can break away of the self-conscious chains that they use every day within their regular lives.

Appeal to all the senses

In a world consumed with visual stimuli, were we filter our experiences through smart phones and computer monitors, shouldn’t we take the time to savor the full extent of what it means to have a human body? Understand how the senses create a full experience. Something as simple as a cup of coffee can become a full experience when you take into account the effect it can have in all your senses; as you become aware of the aroma, taste, and even the sound of its brewing. Extrapolate this awareness to every simple part of your evening.

Be Playful

We tend to take life WAY to serious, as everything has to become a social issue and a politically incorrect offense. We lost our ability to laugh, so anyone who shatters this armor also breaks our uptightness as well. THIS is why so many times you hear the comment about impressing women with humor. It’s not the humor itself, but the ability to let the other person relax.

Be Spontaneous

All too often we end up creating sterile, prefabricated and prerehearsed experiences within our dating life. “If it worked once, why not again?” becomes the usual mentality. The problem with this logic is that these experiences feel prefabricated and prerehearsed, as they ignore the reality that every person is different. Have a frame over which you lead your night, but be willing to scrap the plan without warning. Life’s most memorable experiences are usually the result of accidents.

Surprise Them With A Thoughtful Gift.

Yes, gentlemen. I am going there… I’m not talking about picking up the person with flowers, although I’m also not saying to avoid flowers.

If you are truly interested in a person, give them a token to make your intentions clear. Everything holds a message and a meaning, so this is your opportunity to say a lot without a single word.

On a side not, this token will remind them of the date long after the date has passed.

Single Gentlemen’s Act Of Guerrilla Valentine

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

Phyllis Diller

My post goes out to the young Gents, especially to those single who have no specific person on whom to focus their intent or attentions this coming Saturday, you know, Valentine’s Day. When you have someone special in your life, or at least someone you’re interested in, this day has a specific meaning. But what about those who don’t have anyone at the moment? For you I offer Guerilla Valentine.

Let me make one thing emphatically clear, there is nothing wrong with being single. You don’t need anyone to complete your life, so please avoid “hooking” up with the wrong someone just to avoid spending Valentine’s alone.

During my first year at college, I decided to buy a dozen flowers and hand them out to random ladies in the campus. I will admit that my intention was more along the lines of meeting women than brightening their day. But that year I noticed how the simple surprise of receiving a detail meant so much, especially when the ladies were not expecting anything that day.

The next year, a few of my friends joined me to go out and “Guerrilla Valentine.” We called it like that as it was similar to Guerrilla Warfare, where a small band of soldiers could overcome a larger force thanks to surprise. We did add a couple of simple rules. You would start early in the day, before most Valentine Givers were handing out their gifts, this way the first gift a woman would get was our flower. We would go up to a random woman, hand her a flower, wish her a Happy Valentine’s, and then WALK AWAY. This last step was crucial. This wasn’t about hitting on women, but about spreading as many smiles as possible. That year, three of us gave about 6 dozen flowers.

By the third year, we were about 5 guys and about 12 dozen flowers. By now we had enough flowers that we started handing them out to guys, teachers, and had enough to hand out during our commute home.

Some men assume that Valentine’s Day is a day to show off your skill with a credit card. And to be honest, some women want that. These are exactly the women you want to avoid. Valentine’s is about giving a small detail, a surprise, an instant of affection, to the person close to you. It’s about giving a person a reason to smile, even if you don’t know the person.

So, Gentlemen, if you have nothing planned this week, go out and surprise the hell out of anyone out there. Make it random and make it special. Give people a reason to smile. I can guarantee that if their morning starts out that well, their mood will last the rest of the day.

Why Waste Opportunities?

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gentlemen, be warned. Saint Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. And as with any other year, you will start seeing the constant posts of people raising the topic of how “I’m not into Valentine’s Day, ’cause I’m romantic every day of the year” or how “Valentine’s a commercial holiday created to sell candy." On the other end of the spectrum then you have the guys stopping to buy supermarket flowers  on their way home from work that afternoon. (This is the one day a year that supermarkets are full during the afternoon commute.) And then there are the single people, for whom Valentines is known as “the day before chocolate is at half price.”

I can’t agree with any of these.

Yes, some people are romantic all year round and don’t need a specific day to remind them. But let’s be honest here. If you need to openly state how you are romantic all year round to avoid being a little more romantic one specific day, my bet is you’re not that romantic the rest of the year either. You, my friend, are an apologist.

Valentine's has been commercialized to no end. But it wasn’t created to sell candy. Valentine day falls on the Greco-Roman celebration of Fertility (you needed to "get spring going") and it was during this time that they celebrated the marriage of Zeus and Hera (Month of Gamaleon). Later, this date was given to all Valentinus of Rome, the valiant saints. Since the 13th century, we already have a direct relation between Romantic prose and Valentine’s Day (it takes a Valiant man to prove his love?). So on your excuse of commercialism, I call Bullshit.

What Valentine’s Day give us is an excuse. It’s an excuse to tell the people you care about how important they are. It’s an excuse to treat a friend to lunch. It’s an excuse to risk telling someone how you feel about them. It’s an excuse to remind your partner about all the reason you are with them.

Yes, it’s just an excuse. I don’t know about the rest of you, but the more I look at it, the less it looks like an excuse and the more it looks like an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to do something special for someone special.

Date A Man Who Dances (Guest Post)

Luke Davis, the Naïve Idealist, graces our site with his thoughts on dating and men who dance.

Date a man who dances because a man who dances is one of the strongest men alive. A man who dances has faced his peers and told them “Begone, give me room to move.” He is no ordinary man, when you date a man who dances that strength lies by your side. Within easy reach is a man who has convictions and isn't afraid to live by them, When you date a man who dances you can trust he is standing behind his conviction that you are a person worth dating and he won’t back down. A man who dances may have strength in his arms but his real strength lies in his mind and his passions and a man who dances has the strength to use them.

When you date a man who dances under his strength he owns a softer side. He understands the language of touch and he is strong enough to listen. A man who dances knows how to hold you. He can feel your every thought. When you date a man who dances he can tell when you are afraid, excited, in love, trusting, happy or sad. If you date a man who can dance when he holds you he also knows how to talk to you when you touch. When a man who dances holds you he can turn you around, turn you up or turn you on. His hold can make a bad day sunny, he can hold you tight so you never want to let go. A man who dances can hold you in such ways that you can close your eyes and let go and know he won’t let you fall.

A man who dances isn't a normal man. When you date a man who dances he will show the very heartbeat of life around you. He will tap it out for you until your feet want to move and your fingers twitch to the beat. A man who dances will show you that every sound has a flow and ebb and his body can float through these waves. A man who dances can take you on a journey through peaks and troughs more gloriously than any speedboat ride and when it stops you’ll be left with an empty spot you didn't know needed filling.

You see when you date a man who dances he knows how to lead. That speedboat ride wasn't chaotic and random. He sees those crests and valleys and he will take you through them with ease. Because a man who dances has the path picked out. When you date a man who dances you won’t stumble because when he’s holding you he already knows you’re on the wrong foot. A man who dances will change the move so your wrong foot is exactly the right foot. A man who dances will give you so many opportunities to ride those crests and be graceful, sexy, seductive and exuberant that you won’t understand how no one else can make you look and feel that way. A man who dances knows how to lead you to those places and he isn't afraid to take you there.

When you date a man who dances he makes you feel that way because he has passion in abundance. A man who dances knows that a passion shared is a passion doubled. He doesn't hide it from the world or let it squalor at the bottom of his heart too afraid to let it shine. A man who dances wants you to be so caught up in his passion that you don’t want to let go, He wants you to hold him while he dances as if nothing else existed and have that very passion reflected back to him. He wants to see his passion shine from your eyes as you ride those crests. He wants to see it turned into seduction, pleasure and desire, to see it beat out through music, rhythm and movement and a man who dances needs someone there to follow him.

You will never feel as alive as you do with a man who dances. A man who dances will show you how to live in a way that is primal. He will take your heart and your mind to a place most have forgotten. When you date a man who dances he will destroy your concepts of what men should be and show you what men really are. When you date a man who dances you must be prepared to never look back at ordinary men because few will ever hold the flame that a man who dances does. Nor will ordinary men be able to take you to the places a man who dances can. Dating a man who dances is a one way trip to a world of beauty which few can return untouched and none forget. He will set a standard you didn't know could be reached and the ordinary will never be as satisfying again.