Every week I get really interested in one pop-culture/celebrity news item. This week, it’s Christie Brinkley’s philandering husband. Now, aside from the fact that his 19-year-old lover is a full-on hottie and probably DCB’s ideal girl, I started thinking about how good men are at compartmentalization.

Most women can’t just cheat on their partners and maintain a normal life besides. For a woman, cheating is rarely just about sex and more about love - how many women cheat and then want to stay in their marriage? But for men, the two are completely separate. Men like Bill Clinton can be gettin they freak on with chubby sluts during the day and still go home and act like husbands to their ball-buster wives at night. And it causes men considerably less mental stress to cheat than it does women, which explains how a guy like Brinkley’s husband can be sexing and obsessing about another vagina and his wife can have no idea. For the man, an affair need not be all-consuming; he can push it to a far corner of his brain whenever necessary. The ability to compartmentalize may well be a requisite for truly great men; just look at all the serial philanderers who’ve been able to separate their personal and professional lives to such a degree that their accomplishments outweigh their horrid record on relationships.

If you liken love to a war - a battlefield, even? no? - the example becomes clearer. Just like men are able to put feelings aside to kill others in the name of the cause, they’re able to forget about their lives as husbands in order to get some tail. This is something women will never understand.

This question usually comes after the girl has decided she wants to kiss you. She wants to make sure she is not being played. She wants to make sure she is making the right decision. She wants assurance that you will not pump and dump her.

There really is no wrong way you can answer this question. Yes, no, maybe. She has already made up her mind that you are a player and there is nothing you can do to change that. (The fact that she sticks around can very well mean that your player vibe is drawing her in.) Generally, though, you don’t want girls to think you are a player. Their guard goes up higher and you have to work that much harder.

If you get asked this question often, you have to think about what qualities you are putting out that make girls come to that conclusion. To find this out, simply respond with “Why do you say that?” They will usually list a couple things you do that set off a red flag. All you gotta do now is be more aware, adjusting your game so that eventually you become a sleeper. You want to appear to be such a normal guy when you are really the filthiest man in the club. She won’t know what hit her.

One of the best ways to improve your game is to hone your powers of observation. After reading First Date DC and listening to hundreds, maybe thousands, of conversations about the opposite sex, I’m starting to believe that one of the biggest obstacles is simple self-absorption. People are simply too wrapped up in themselves to pay attention to what’s going on around them, and they’re missing a glance, a movement, or an interaction that could be key to understanding. They’re too much in their own head to make objective judgements.

Being a good observer is almost like being psychic because you can tell what people are thinking and what they’re going to do before they do it. Let me give you an example. Last week on the metro home from meeting the new intern, I was reading a magazine while waiting for the train. There was a man pacing the platform. I looked up from my mag once and noticed this, and then, even without looking up again, I knew he was checking me out. As soon as I got on the train, he sat in the seat next to me even though there were plenty of empties elsewhere. I kept reading but I could tell he was going to talk to me. I played along and shut the magazine and about 1.5 minutes later he struck up a conversation. Luckily, I was prepared.

What you have to do is learn to take it all in. One blogger who’s really good at this is Virgle Kent - his observation is so minute it actually makes me a little uncomfortable. Watch how people interact and always keep the corner of your eye open for what else is going on in the room. If you’re fixating on talking to your friend, you’re missing the hottie checking you out (and missing the chance to act on it). Too busy thinking about how the person you’re talking to is really ugly and you’ll miss an interesting moment a few feet away. This is where learning to shut up and watch is going to give you an unmistakable edge that allows you to not only anticipate the next few seconds, but actually plan for the minutes, hours, etc. ahead.

A few years ago in Baltimore I met an FOB Russian girl who could really dance. I wasn’t interested enough to try but I would have definitely banged it out under the right circumstances. A few months later I run into her at a DC club. This time she is with her new boyfriend, and he was gigantic; at least 100 pounds overweight. Any interest I had in her disappeared instantly.

What does it say about me if a girl that likes me also likes a grotesque specimen of a man? It’s nice that she can see through his physical flaws to search deep for the human being inside, but it still makes me wonder about what she thinks is quality. Dating her would put me on the same level as the monster man, and I feel uneasy about that.

Girls are less shallow in this regard. They don’t seem to care if you’ve been with a fat or ugly girl. Still, if you’re a girl who has dated ugly, please don’t let me know.

Recently a man I’m dating asked me to please be more careful of what I say and to stop word-vomiting because I sometimes vomit up things that he takes the wrong way and hurt his feelings. People who know me know that they can disregard about 50% of everything I say because it’s not actually meant to be heard by other people. I keep forgetting that other people aren’t like this and need to be warned in advance because they are big fat babies.

I say mean things all the time and I don’t feel badly about it. If I think something is funny, I’m going to say it before I consider who may get offended by it. And that’s a problem. Not just for me, but what happens when you’re acting out a behavior that is second-nature to you, and which is probably annoying or rude or whatever to others? And nobody bothers to call you on it, so you just never conduct a self-examination? And then you just turn into this monster that other people hate but love at the same time? People are rewarding your blunt behavior and it just sort of takes over. You leave a trail of butt-hurt people who cry to others about how “mean” or “inconsiderate” you are. Aren’t we all adults?

I don’t think it’s so wrong to receive honesty from people, especially the ones you date. Even if you don’t like what they tell you, you should be open to the possibility of trying to look at yourself objectively and figure out what the problem might be on your end. It’s also nice to deliver honesty once in awhile. If someone drives you crazy with a particular behavior (especially one that appears to be make-or-break), politely telling them about this problem may well end it, saving you both some major hassle. They might tell you to go to hell, but if it’s a rare wise person, they’ll thank you eventually. Otherwise, if you do nothing to help yourself, you really have no room to carp about others.

You’re at a club and get eyed by an average girl. If you game her you are guaranteed some action for very little work. It’s obvious she wants it. She will show interest and make it easy for you. She won’t try to play jealousy games and won’t expect you to buy her the bar. But she’s average. Should I let her have my primetime weekend night or pass to do cold approaches on the hottest girls here? It’s like investing: one vehicle is an online savings account with a guaranteed 4.5% interest rate that beats inflation and the other is the risky start-up stock that can either bust your wallet or pay off those student loans. Do you go for the guaranteed lay or roll the dice with a girl that is better?

I say do both. You need to fail with the hot club sluts to innovate your game (especially early game), but you also need the freebies to solidify your closing game and give you confidence boosters. As long as you don’t get complacent with freebies that could cause your game to go stale, it’s important to go for both types of girls to make your game well-rounded from start to finish. Strengthen the foundation with the freebies, but grow with brain-dead hotties.

You’re at the club talking to some broad. She seems a little stiff but that’s no problem because you have a sharp sense of humor. Unfortunately, she takes your anal sex joke the wrong way. She asks you to apologize and you refuse. Next thing you know, the bouncer is dragging you out of the club. And you weren’t even hitting on her.

Once a girl points you out to a bouncer, you are out. This happened to a friend of mine two weeks ago after some girl made up a story that involved a roofie. The artificial environment of a club is unique in that the natural distribution of gender power is disrupted. Meathead bouncers will always take a girl’s word over a man’s. Some girls realize this and use it to their advantage, forcing many players to tone their game down. But I don’t want to bastardize my game simply because girls are overly sensitive.

I rather hit the streets.

Street game is one of the purest forms of game because it involves moving targets. You have to hit a girl with the tightest of the tight to get her to stop walking to her predetermined destination. It takes a lot of practice to find what works and what doesn’t, but it’s worth it when you can get closes without having to physically go inside buildings. While street game offers me this challenge, among others benefits, the main reason I do it is simple: I can say whatever the fuck I want. It may be crude or offensive, but I don’t care because my buddy is over there dying of laughter and we’re all having a good time.

Most girls are cool when you bust out with the raw material. They’ll laugh and you will have a little conversation that may or may not lead to more. But girls who take themselves too seriously tend to get really pissed. These are the girls who used to make a scene in a club, snapping their fingers in your face. But now we’re outside. The gender power distribution is back to what it should be. I’m the bear with the big claws so either she laughs at my joke or hops away. I will not hesitate to defend myself against a violent woman. If someone is getting dropped I know it won’t be me.

You may get to the point where the street game before or after visiting the main event is the highlight of your night. The street is not an artificial environment that you have to adjust to. It’s real. You can hit the extremes and test the limits of your game, taking note on emotional reactions of women when you say things they’ve never heard before. You can be more creative. Do that for a while and you feel almost handcuffed once you are in a club, a place that is designed to bitch men into supplicating to women. “Can I buy you a drink?”