Norman Says You Should Never Ask a Girl How To Get Girls. I'm Not So Sure.

Never ask a girl about how to get girls. If you're trying to catch a fish, you don't ask the fish. You ask a fisherman. – Norman

The odd thing about fish is that they don’t want to be caught. If you asked a tuna for a synonym for a successful catch, he’d say “Murder, and please find my will and testament under the conch shell.” If you want to be a great angler, you must convince fish that you aren’t, in fact, an angler, but a worm. The pick-up artistry space might tell you women are a lot like fish. We, too, don’t want to be caught. We, too, need to be outsmarted into providing vaguely consensual sex, but I prefer dating to be a collaborative, mutually beneficial experience. I want an authentic idea of who you are so that I can make an educated choice about you. I don’t want to be tricked into removing my knickers. I want to be respected and given cupcakes.

Norman has made another problematic assumption: That all fishermen are good at catching fish and all men are good at catching women. Norman is the type who gets fishing tips from The Good Men Project, where he’s advised to “focus on emotions, not logic,” and exude “big dick energy.” I’m the sort of fish The Good Men Project is teaching you to catch, so I can assure you I don’t bite onto big dick energy unless I have my piranha grilles in.

Modern women are becoming weirdly talented at avoiding Big Dick Energy Guy. We’ve planted red flags all over Neil Strauss’ Game, especially the part where he says the strong live off the weak and the clever live off the strong. I don’t want to be prey. I want to be a partner. I don't want to be thrown into a bucket against my will while I gasp for air.

Negging a woman into fucking you is like serving plastic food at a restaurant. No matter how delicious it looks, nobody’s coming back for a second meal. They might even refuse to pay the bill.

A tuna’s advice for catching fish might be useful if it had a death wish and its words didn’t come out as, “blub blub blub.” Unlike a bluefin, though, I have the gift of language, so I can say intelligent things about my taste in men. I have a pretty good idea of what I look for.

Norman didn’t factor that into his equation because he believes women are inherently inferior. We’re too stupid to know what we want in a man, but his friend, Frank, does because he has a penis.

Strauss is in the business of helping men to lie their way into various beds. He is not in the business of keeping the girl—and that’s something I have a vested interest in encouraging. The more decent men populate the planet, the happier I’ll be.

I’m not a fish. My girlfriends aren’t fishes. The women on Fetlife are concerningly absent of gills. None of us eats flies for breakfast.

We eat Normans for breakfast… with fava beans and a nice chianti.