The Wingwomen

When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.

George Santayana

Any man or woman who frequents the Single Scene, specially the more treacherous Bar Stage, can tell you what a daunting challenge it is. Between the crowds and the self-judgmental nerves you will have right before trying to meet someone, this creates an environment where drinking is such an integral part of the social ritual just to overcome the fact that you place yourself in such a vulnerable situation. For group support and to avoid the creepy/desperate vibe that accompanies all lonely men/women hanging out in a Bar, men and women rely on having a Wingman or a Wingwoman respectively.

wing·man (wiNGˌmən) noun: Wingman; plural noun: wingmen

1. a pilot whose aircraft is positioned behind and outside the leading aircraft in a formation.
2. a person who will offer support and advice to a friend while dealing with potential partners.

We see them all the time, pairs of men and pairs of women hanging out like hunters in clubs, surveying the area for possible encounters. These duos keep each other company, shooting the breeze till an appropriate prospect catches their eye. The Wingman will help the gentleman get close to the lady, either by striking up the initial conversation or by distracting the woman’s friends. The Wingwoman will usually assist the lady in avoiding the attention of undesirable men. That is the social norm, guys with guys and ladies with ladies. Guess some things from Kindergarten never change.

I have actually read several articles telling men that his Wingman should be another man, because that’s how it should be. They actually mention that you, as a man, should avoid being accompanied by a woman when looking for prospective partners, as it will scare off other women. Really? If the intention is to find a lady with whom to enjoy her company, why do we focus on the gender separation? To me, that sounds like the old elementary school dances, boys with boys, and girls with girls, till they get together. Gentlemen, let me make one thing clear, a Wingwoman will trump a Wingman every single time.

• The fact that you are able to hang out with a woman says a lot about you.

This is a subject most men will usually overlook. How do you expect to strike up a conversation with a lady if you can’t even have a woman as a friend? The fact that you are able to hang out with a woman without it being a date says a lot about you as a man. It proves, at least to a certain degree, how you are not some creepy “nice guy” and how you are able to relate to a woman without hitting on her. This alone places you miles ahead most men.

Also, “hanging out” with a woman makes other women not as threatening. You get comfortable around the opposite sex, realizing that they are not these strange and conniving creatures some men try to make them out to be. Spend some time with them, get to know them. You will realize we are not that different if you stop being such an ass with them.

• It’s easier for a woman to approach another woman.

Part of the duties of the Wingman is to get you past the initial challenge of approaching a woman. Think of how easy it is for you, as a man, to talk to any other guy. Unless you are at the urinal, it’s pretty easy. (Note: Don’t try to talk to another guy at the urinal. That’s just creepy.) Same thing with women. (Not sure about women striking conversations in the bathroom. You will have to ask a woman about that.)

• “Men don’t understand women. Women understand women and they hate each other.”

Let me start with the following two clarifications. First, any man who says he understands women is lying. Second, women don’t hate each other. They are just as competitive as men. The funny thing is the more you look at each other, outside the bullshit that society forces on us, men and women aren’t that different. But it’s that social bullshit that confuses men and women alike. Having a woman in this environment helps you get some perspective and decipher some of the social queues that women have. 

• You get a front row seat to the advantages and disadvantages that women deal with.

Another advantage of hanging out with a lady, as her friend, is you will get more than a couple free drinks. Way too many idiots think they can impress women by buying them off with drinks. These same fools will think that if they are cool with you, they will automatically be cool with her, assuming your loyalty is for sale.

Here is where you start learning what women deal with, the good and the bad. More than once you will have to stand up to guys who don’t understand when your Wingwoman says “Not interested.” More than once you will have to be her “boyfriend” as you get a front row seat to every catcall, every cheap line, and every unwarranted advance. If anything, you will learn what NOT to do.

Digital Dignity

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Charles Dickens

Before spending time on the intricate elements of social interaction, I have to discuss one of the most dangerous and delicate elements a Gentleman has to handle, his digital presence. The only thing more dangerous than to think you understand the Digital World is thinking you understand women.

Unlike the real world, where your voice and actions endure in memory alone, where slips in logic are perpetuated only in stories told among friends or enemies, the digital landscape is instantaneous, contagious, and dangerously permanent. That text you sent your ex after a night of drinking your woes, will resurface when discussing a restraining order. That naked picture you took with your college friends will pop up in HR’s background check 5 years down the road. Those hate emails you sent will be used against you in your divorce hearings.

We really need to re-evaluate our behavior, online and via text. The physical world offers a simple filter, the threat of being smacked. Unfortunately, this is not an evident or immediate reaction to offensive posts or texts. Lately the reality of ill thought out messaging has lead several criminal cases of Cyber-bullying, distribution of pornography and child pornography (anyone under 18 years), and even terrorists threats. In all of those cases, the person at fault nether thought that a thoughtless comment or a forwarded image would ruin their lives permanently, but it did.

With that in mind, there are a couple filters that can prepare you to avoid leaving and undesirable digital footprint. What is a digital footprint? EVIDENCE!

1.      What would your mother think?

The older and more independent I grew, the less I would let my mother find out the less “presentable” aspects of my social life, specially my college years.

Between my associates and weekend accomplices we had a cardinal rule: “You can mention the sin but never the sinner.” We had a sacred bond, a brotherhood, sealed with secrets and embarrassing stories of each other. No camera, not text, no traceable GPS, and no evidence of what we did, just blurry memories that got exaggerated with each retelling. Posting or Uploading was an offense as grave as hitting on your Compadre’s sister.

So what was our filter?

What would my (mother / wife / girlfriend / daughter / son / boss / Human Resources Department) think?

What the private (email / post / PM / tweet) if found by the other person’s (mother / father / wife / husband / girlfriend /boyfriend / daughter / son / boss / Human Resources Department) found it?

I don’t care how carefully crafted your security settings are; someone somewhere will hit forward on the wrong post or some IT person will decide it’s a perfect time to change privacy settings on the system. How will that moral high bar react? Will your mother feel ashamed of the morals she taught you? Will your daughter see how you really treat women? Will Human Resources call you to discuss your future permanent vacation? Will you be hunted down by a pissed off husband? Will your wife file for divorce or separation? Think before you post.

2.      The Scorned woman effect.

I want you to sit down and understand this truth, for it is true. NOTHING IS FOREVER. I am not saying that everything goes bad, just that they evolve. Friendships turn to relationships, kids grow up, employment changes by promotions. You also have relationships turning into bad brake-ups and friends offended enough to turn into enemies.

Just how much damaging, post-able information does this person have? Remember that sexy vid you made with your former lover? That was never posted, till now. Remember those emails you sent your compadre, where you expressed your deepest fears and insecurities? Cervantes said it best with “A person dishonored is worse than dead”. If you ever think that someone will not use that information against you, you have never felt betrayal.

I am not saying you should never open up to people. I am just saying that unless you plan to write up your memoires at some point in your future, stuff like that is best said in person or on an actual phone call, so it will only become Hear-Say.

3.      Skeletons in your closet should never learn to dance.

Notice how all sycophants keep journals of their atrocities? Notice how all of these journals tend to end up as evidence against them in a court of law? You would think that they would be smart enough to not keep a record of the things that would come back to bite them in the ass.

Now, think of all the stuff you have stored in your computer, your smart phone, your data cloud. Without even getting into the risk of having a hacker go through them, what would happen if these items fell into the wrong hands, like a pissed off significant other?

4.      Troll Fishing.

Thinking that they are shielded from direct retribution, people tend to show their darker side online. We have seen time and time again the racist remarks just because a Latino sang the national anthem. We have seen the ignorant comments on immigration. I know how the anger, the need to reach across the screen and choke that bigot, the need to go all CAPS LOCK on them.

Truth be told here, do you think they care? Do you think your profound elocution will get them to change their mind? If they did not research the topic before posting, do you think they will now? By replying, what you actually are doing is giving these comments pertinence and a longer lifespan in the ether.

A clarification reply is perfectly acceptable, but other than venting out and getting even more enraged does nothing. They comments speak volumes of them, your reply says little of yourself.

5.      Who gives a ...

Most online comments are simply people looking for attention from strangers they will never meet. They are looking for sympathy, or justification to their own thought process. They are preaching to the choir.

Would you even care if this were in the real world? These are the people you would probably avoid eye contact if they came up to you, or simply tell them to grow up.

The digital age gave us an illusion of anonymity; where we would take risks we would never have in the real world. Truth is, this new virtual landscape is actually more permanent and dangerous, and so at no moment can you carelessly stop being a Gentleman. If you are a Gentleman in the real world, you have to be a Gentleman in the virtual one too.

#FF, The Order of Gentleman is more real than what you think.

 When I began writing my original draft for Caballero Chronicles, my main reference to being a proper Gentleman was my own upbringing and my own personal experiences, both in succeeding and failing into becoming a better man. I surrounded myself with like-minded individuals, a group we would jokingly refer to as the Caballero Club.

As Caballero Chronicles evolved into Being Caballero, and my exposure grew, I found like-minded individuals from all over. Suddenly I realized that there IS an unspoken brotherhood, an unofficial Order of Gentlemen. So I want to thank all those with whom I share the mission of expanding the ideals of a Gentlemen. 

To the following I raise my glass:

• Be a Better Man blogcast
• Bring Chivalry Back
• Superior Gentleman
• New Chivalry Movement
• Gentleman’s Handbook
• Coach Byron Van Pelt

Casanova's condemnation of the Pick-Up Artist.

A while back I wrote an article for GMP about how men had to change their attitude when dealing with women. I mention how men have to stop treating women like a challenge to be won with scams and lies. And I left it at that. I understood I had stated my mind on the subject and moved on to other aspects of what being a Gentleman.

Till a fellow blogger, @MarieFranklin00, brought to my attention the PUA (Pick-Up Artist) Community and BootCamp training centers.  At first I thought it was a joke, sort of the “Colbert Report” of Romancing. Maybe it was a comedy skit for some late night show or a joke ad brought to us by a Deodorant company. But the more I looked into it, the more I realized just how real this thing is. 

"Over the past ten years, we have systematically developed the most effective methods in the world for attracting and dating beautiful women. As our thousands of students worldwide have learned for themselves, our system is real, and it gets results."

These workshops teach men how to be more confident and assertive when dealing with women, how to read a person’s body language, and understanding the importance of how you project yourself to others. These are all very valuable skills every man should develop. Unfortunately, the way these lessons are taught is by degrading and devaluing women. Saying that these workshops teach men to be more confident and outgoing when dealing with women is like describing the Spanish Inquisition as a “marketing strategy used by the Church to get more members”. They both might work, but not for the right reason. The main concept drilled into the mind of these guys is that women deserved to be “screwed over”.  Ladies are viewed as manipulative gold diggers, so coning them is not only ok, but actually some sort of masculine righteous vengeance. They consider themselves the equivalent of amodern day Casanova.

Guys (cannot call them Gentlemen, or even men), read your history before you hurt yourselves.

Giacomo Casanova, like Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron, loved women, maybe a little too much. All three might have been womanizers and hedonists, but they actually respected women. What made them attractive to women was how they men actually paid attention to the desires of the ladies, liberating them from the chains of a repressive, uptight, misogynist social structure. 

Casanova’s relationships with the ladies went beyond just sex. He would create a fantasy where these women could escape their dreary life. He offered women what every woman who respects herself must demand: all that he had, all that he was, and a world larger and greater than what is regularly given to these women. Casanova himself wrote that the best way to romance a woman is to offer her DIGNITY. He openly disdained alcohol and violence as a means of seduction since mutual consent was crucial. For him attentiveness and small favors opened the path to a woman's heart, but it was a man’s skill with words that would conquer her. "Without speech, the pleasure of love is diminished by at least two-thirds". Interestingly enough, Casanova was a rather plain man in appearance.

He always avoided the easy conquests or the overly complicated situations. He would never go after a novice or inexperienced women, since he considered this as taking advantage of them. Casanova valued a woman’s intelligence over her physical appearance. "After all, a beautiful woman without a mind of her own leaves her lover with no resource after he had physically enjoyed her charms." I am not saying that he promoted women being educated, something that was not permitted in his times.

What I am trying to say here, guys, if you are going to romance women, do it the right way and for the right reason. What PUA’s are teaching you is to dehumanize women just to make yourself feel better about hurting them. We have seen this kind of dehumanizing as a tool to mistreat or to even attack marginalized groups. That’s what the racist does, that’s what the religious fanatic does, and that’s what you are doing. Some countries have actually listed these PUA manuals and blogs as nothing more than Rape Guides and Hate Speech. And you’re paying money to be trained to become the ultimate asshole by these guys?