A couple days ago I read a book recommended by Tyler, whose blog is the only blog I read religiously.

Anyway, the book is about mastery, and it really rang true for me. In it the author talks about the different types of people who are NOT masters, and I am pretty clearly one of them. I’m “the hacker”.

What that means is that I get some level of proficiency below mastery, get satisfied with it, and don’t progress. I’m acutely aware of this - I get to the level where other people respect my skill, but never push myself as far as I could go / would like.

This is terrible for a few reasons. First, I’m not reaching my potential, and second I’m clearly way too into what other people think. I hate to admit that because I want to be the kind of person that doesn’t care, but it’s obviously no coincidence that I stop around when I’m accepted as “good”.

It’s obviously not that cut and dry in real life, but as an overarching trend, this fits me pretty well.

I took some notes on the book while I read it (which is always funny to me because I’m not sure I ever actually took notes in any class), and one of the big things I got out of it is that I need to have long term goals. So I whipped out a text editor and came up with some. I tried to really focus on it and be exhaustive.

Here’s my text file. I thought about editing it and cleaning it up for putting out in public, but it’s probably more interesting to read how I actually wrote it. Italics are added to explain my reasoning:

Goals for before I’m 32

That’s five years away, close enough that I can plan it out a bit.

Travel:
Master Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Italian (maybe)

I’ve got a decent start in Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese. TONS more to learn in all of those to be fluent, but I have a grasp of them.

Visit 50% of the countries of the world, understand how the bigger / more important ones work

I’ve learned so many subtle things so far this year, and so far I’ve only been to countries I’ve been to before. I wish I could elaborate, but it’s hard to .The closest I can come is to say that my brain has made all sorts of little connections that weren’t there before. Things that individually don’t mean much, but together help me understand the world as a unit, nature, and human nature.

Travel 6 months a year at least

In retrospect, this a stupid one because it’s a hard rule that in of itself brings no benefit. I guess I leave it because I think that I’ll do it anyway.

Relationships:
Be in a  stable but exciting long term three way relationship.

I could probably write a whole post on why I want this. A lot of it is because I like trying new things, and for some reason I have this idea that a three way relationship could be really stable and happy for everyone. Ideally the girls would like each other slightly more than they liked me to minimize jealousy.

Learn to be less stubborn and more affectionate.

I used to think that girls were too sensitive until EVERY girl I’ve ever dated has made comments along these lines. Stubborn is going to be tough, but I do know that I’m bad at expressing how special my girlfriends are to me.

Learn to appreciate girlfriends more (actually all people).

I’m quick to find faults in people, which is a really bad trait. I need to focus on finding the good in people, and focus on the good traits of my girlfriends. One thing that has helped me is thinking “this person is just trying to find happiness”. When I think of that goal it puts things in perspective sometimes.

Be a better listener (to everyone, not specifically girls).

I tend to focus too much on myself and forget things people tell me.

Invest more in other people’s lives.

People get invested in my life, what’s going on, and what I’m doing. This is partly because I have a really interesting life, but a lot of it is that most people are more giving in this regard than I am. To boil it down, the amount of investment I have in other people’s lives doesn’t mirror my respect or appreciation of them.

Be a better friend.

I think I’m a pretty good friend, but I’m aware of ways I could be a much better friend. I think a lot of the appeal of being my friend is that I do interesting things, am unusual,  and am very trustworthy. However, I don’t always go out of my way to do nice things for my friends like they do for me. That’s something I really appreciate in them, so I should put in a better effort.

Health:
Stick to crossfit religiously, record progress, push myself, learn to love the pain and repetition.

If I find something better, I’ll switch, but I will be constantly improving (not just maintaining) my body. More importantly, I will appreciate the pain and the repetition of working out, rather than looking forward to the end of it.

Learn and practice self sufficiency, growing my own food and foraging.

I’m really fascinated with the idea of total self sufficiency. I’ve gotten more of an appreciation for nature recently, and I want to learn to grow food like people used to do. I would also like to learn and practice eating food from the woods so that I can always eat no matter what. This may include eating bugs since they are plentiful.

Practice cooking vegan.

I used to be really into cooking (my one scar is from a flan accident), but I stopped when I started eating healthy. I have a bit of a knack for it and I really enjoy it, so I’m going to become an excellent vegan chef.

Learn more about balancing foods for macro/micronutrients (or discover that this isn’t too important)

I know which foods are good and bad, but I haven’t done enough research into the proper proportions of them. I have a hunch that since I eat all whole foods this probably isn’t a big concern, but I should make sure.

(these goals are likely to be adjusted as I learn more about food and nutrition, and as more studies are done)

Personal Traits:
Stop putting my own values on other people / having expectations for anyone.

I could write a whole post (and probably will) about this one too. The gist of it is that I hate it when people put their values on me, so I shouldn’t do it to them. This is a bit of an issue because I think I know everything.

Focus more.

I need to learn to focus more and be distracted less. I do okay with this, but I’m not at the mastery level.

Learn to eliminate possibilities and be happy with it.

I try to learn and be able to do everything. This is pretty cool, but doesn’t leave me with the time/energy/whatever to really drill down and master things.

Keep every area of my life up to my standards.

For example, stop being content having a crappy sense of directions. There are some things I take a lot of pride in and others that I let slide a bit. Everything is a reflection of everything else, so I should raise everything up.

Constantly raise my standards for myself every year.

Kinda speaks for itself… don’t get complacent.

Be more expressive.

I don’t express my feelings very well. This comes through with my rap as well as my posts, actually. If you notice, I put very little emotion into it, which is probably my biggest deficiency as a writer right now.

If you think about it, that’s probably why I have so few female readers. Women like emotion, and I don’t put much out.

Be more empathetic / see other people’s point of view.

I’ve been working on this one, but I have it here to make sure I stay aware of it. I’ve been letting go of being right. Getting the right answer is important, being the one who provided it isn’t. It’s an ego thing. It’s hard, but I am trying to focus on discovering the truth rather than being the truth.

Part of this is listening to other people’s opinions. For example, about 5 people told me about Casa De Luz, but I refused to eat there. Then it became my favorite restaurant. A guy in SF told be about crossfit WAY before I started, but I assumed he didn’t know what he’s talking about.

I need to put more faith in other people.

More discipline.

I’m very disciplined, but I have this idea that there’s a whole class of people that I’ve never met who are way more disciplined than I am. Or, at least, I can see areas of improvement for myself. I’m very good at black and white things (do a language tape every day, don’t eat crap food, etc), but grey areas are hard for me.

Do not be annoyed by anything / appreciate everything

I almost have the first one down. Nothing big will ever bother me. But little things bother me sometimes, like Todd playing music that I don’t like. Instead I need to see that as a challenge of either enjoying terrible music, not paying attention to it, or valuing his enjoyment over my dislike for it.

I would also like to appreciate everything. EVERYTHING in this world is amazing, but sometimes I gloss over that in every day life.

Skills:
Learn to play the piano.

I’m not 100% committed to this one. I didn’t like playing as a kid, but I think I would really enjoy it now. I would like something like this that would give me a good opportunity to practice fundamentals and learn to enjoy the practice.

Become a better writer.

Constant improvement. I think I’m a good writer, but then I read some people who are GREAT writers. I want to be great. My initial thoughts on this are to be more transparent, more expressive, and put more of myself on the line.

Become a better rapper.

I don’t think my rapping has gotten much better in the last year. I don’t have a recording set up anymore, so I’m less motivated.

Learn to dance.

I’ve always wanted to do this. It will be an excellent chance to work on humility, because I am a terrible dancer. I’d like to learn hip hop.

Learn a sport (maybe basketball).

I think it’s important to be involved in sports. I wish I had taken one up a long time ago, like basketball when there were school teams and a hoop in front of our house. Sports are a good way to associate pleasure with the pain of exertion.

Learn the soroban

This is the Japanese abacus. Once you get good at it you can do any calculation super quickly just by PICTURING the abacus.

Business:
Follow through every project to full success / don’t start projects I’m not willing to do that with ***

Enough said. This goes along with spreading myself too thin. I forget why I put stars next to it.

Write a great book on living an awesome life

I’m not ready to do this yet, but I’m probably ready to start. The one area of life that I really need a better handle on before completing this is making money.

Become a brand

This should come as no surprise to anyone reading. I want to make my living just by living my life and being me. This is what I do already, but I will need to do it on a much larger scale.

Learn to delegate better and trust other’s abilities

Every time I hire people I’m thrilled with the quality of their work (in many cases they do my work better than I do), but I still have this nagging resistance because I never think people will care as much as I do and do as good a job.

Be exceptionally valuable to people

There are some people, Tim Ferriss comes to mind, who are universally sought out. This isn’t the reward in of itself, but it is a good indication that he’s reached a point of mastery.

Increase my readership exponentially

The bigger an audience I have the more motivation I have to spend time writing, and the more feedback I can get that will help me (people on my forums have been particularly valuable to me). Like the girlfriend thing, I probably don’t express to you how deeply appreciative I am that you read this.

Complete a full rap CD

If for no other reason than the fact that I like listening to my music more than anyone else’s, even legends like Jay-Z

Anyway… that’s what I have on my plate. There are a few problems that I’ll have to work out… like how am I going to have a relationship or farm if I’m traveling all the time? I plan on writing some articles about some of these goals. If some of them are more interesting than others, let me know and I’ll cover them first.

Boy Meets World was my favorite show ever. I bought a huge clunky VCR from a garage sale, ,and would use it to record every rerun I could find. On Fridays I couldn’t wait to go home and watch the new episodes.

But besides providing a world of entertainment and a huge crush on Topanga, the show also added something to my lifetime list of musts. I had to climb into a girl’s window at night. Hey… that sounds like I’m a rapist. I mean when she’s expecting me.

I was talking to a girl online that I had a crush on, who also had a crush on me. Maybe the only genuine crush I’ve had since becoming a pick up artist.

“I want to see you.”

“I can’t. I’m at my parent’s house and they have an alarm.”

(note - this girl was not underage.)

“That’s okay. I’ll build a rope ladder and climb up.”

It was a joke.

“Really?”

Hmm.

“Yes. I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Okay.”

I went online and found a site that showed how to make rope ladders. Then I drove to Wal Mart and bought two really long ropes.

It took me a lot longer than an hour to get to her house, because making a rope ladder isn’t as easy as it seems. With that firsthand knowledge under my belt I parked a few houses down, opened the trunk, and dragged my balled up rope ladder to her house.

What would the neighbors think if they saw that? What possible reason would I have for having half a kilometer of rope balled up in my arms at midnight in the suburbs?

I crept up her driveway and pushed past the bushes. Her room was in the front, exposed to the street. We whispered to each other and she threw down a kite string.

That was smart. I hadn’t thought of how to get the ladder up to her.

I tied the string to my homemade ladder and she pulled it up to her window. I was expecting her to be really impressed with my ladder and shower praises down upon me. I was really proud of it.

“Ok, I tied it.”

Close enough.

I began climbing up the rope. Since the rungs were just made out of rope, the sides clamped down on my shoes as I tried to climb. The rope swung back and forth as I climbed past the first story window.

That’s why they don’t show this shot on TV. It’s clumsy. You always see the grand entrance from the inside.

I finally made it up to the top. I pulled myself in through the window and scrambled across her desk onto the floor, headfirst like a worm.

Smooth.

Then I saw her “knot”. All she had done was wrap the excess around one of the legs of her desk and was holding onto the other end. I guess they’re too busy selling cookies in girl scouts to teach knot tying.

We got into her bed and true to the act’s sitcom roots, we made out and engaged in light petting. The only difference was that there was no audience to say “oooh!”, and every slight noise made me wonder if her father, a gun owner, would randomly drop in.

He didn’t, and a few hours later I climbed back down and drove away. It’s always satisfying when you just did something that could land you in trouble and are now in the clear.

I sat in my car and turned the key. That’s when a thought hit me hard, so hard that I remember it today, several years later.

Her parents had no idea that one of the most well known pick up artists in the world were in their daughter’s bed as they slept. They wouldn’t have ever considered the bizarre and remote possibility of it. It couldn’t possibly enter their minds. But it happened.

Later she would become my girlfriend, and they both ended up liking me, ironically.

But that thought led me to another more startling one. What don’t I know? What things that I could never possibly contemplate have occurred? What things will I never know?

To try to justify the amount of time I spend writing here and to help fund future adventures, I’m going to put some ads up here.

My first preference is to have ads from readers, but I guess I’ll get Google ads if I don’t get enough interest.

The ads will be 125×125 and will above the “Recent Comments” and “Recent Posts” sections on the right.

Animated graphics are ok as long as I don’t think they’re annoying.

On normal days with no big links I get between 400 and 500 unique visitors as well as 700+ RSS subscribers.

90% of my readers are male, and a large proportion are 20-35 year olds. Roughly 99% of them are awesome. 100% have great taste in blogs.

Most incoming links besides digg and such are from pick up blogs, so this is a particularly good deal for pickup or self improvement stuff.

The price is $150/mo. The first person to sign up will get a lifetime discount of $50/mo and the second will get $25/mo. I picked $150 because it’s a price that would make ME buy an ad on a similar site.

I’ll put up 3-6 of them and they will show up on every story as well as the front page.

If you’re interested, e-mail me by clicking the contact link at the top right. You can pay via paypal or credit card.

In a plane, one of my favorite places to be, I filled in the form on the tray table.

If I designed customs forms, I would make them with a crease in the middle so that they could easily fit into a pocket. As is it’s a bit of a predicament. I don’t want to just hold on to the thing while I get my bag out of the overhead compartment. I might lose it or crumple it.

I don’t want to fold it either. That might be a sign that I’m a drug dealer, or at least someone with some contempt for authority. Those bored people in the little glass booths have a lot of power. Deny my extra-long-and-thin piece of paper, and I’m in trouble.

First Name. Tynan. Sex. Male. Flight. Let me check my similarly poorly shaped ticket.

Occupation. Writer.

That’s a new one.

First it was student, then professional gambler, then pick up artist, and now it’s writer.

I wrote it automatically without consideration, and until that moment I hadn’t ever considered that I had actually become a writer.

I make money in two ways - Make Her Chase You, my book, and writing for Gadling.com. That’s writing.

And I do a lot of it. On a good week that’s an article for Gadling, a Make Her Chase You newsletter, Two articles for this site, another two for Life Nomadic, and seven little ones for Daily15.

Soon I’ll be making the bulk of my income from Conversion Doubler, at which point I’ll officially be a programmer, marketer, or maybe even an entrepreneur.

But until then, I’m a writer. I get a kick out of that. I realize, of course, that the gamut of writers range from blog/ebook authors all the way up to the literary greats like the writers for Arrested Development, and that I’m at the bottom rung.

What’s funny is that I don’t actually like writing very much. I consider it a necessary and not particularly offensive obstacle in the way of me doing things that I really like doing: telling stories, sharing my opinions, and massaging rows of small plastic squares.

For example, when I write ebooks (I’ve actually made several little ones you probably don’t know about), I never design it until the end. I love designing ebooks, so that’s my carrot at the end of the stick that gets me through the hundred or so pages of typing.

Once in a while I get the idea that I’ll write a real novel. It’s something to do, and I want to do everything, so I imagine that I will actually finish one someday (PS - congrats to my friend Tiffany for actually DOING it!).

I started one about an awkward high schooler (hmm… where did THAT inspiration come from), and then another about a kid whose father is killed, which leads him to discover that he was a government agent and then he has to go avenge him or something. I loved the idea of him finding out this huge thing so much that I never got past that point.

Now I’m thinking about some ideas for writing a “how to live an awesome life” book. That’s what I need… another project…

Our dorm building had a square footprint. In the very middle were three elevators serving the dorm rooms which were all positioned along the edges of the building. In between the elevators and the rooms was a square hallway that ran in a loop.

This was to be our arena for Golf Darts, a sport we invented to aid our more scholarly pursuit - procrastination.

On one door we set up a target. The goal was to go around the hallway, arrive back at the target and hit it.

Darts were thrown at walls. Hitting the same wall twice in a row incurred a two stroke penalty. So did hitting the water (the floor).

The game was fun, but the most fun part may have been the danger we brought to the floor. As we went around the hallway people would exit their dorms only to be greeted by darts whizzing past their faces.

Most of them would be intrigued by the spectacle and would follow the ever growing pack of spectators following us around the circuit.

The one problem was the doors. At the end of each side of the square hallway was a door, which became a popular target. After playing for an hour or two they had become littered with holes concentrated in one area. It looked really bad.

Terry pounded a long shot into a wall. He missed the door, but also avoided the dreaded carpet by half a foot. He continued down the hall and I wound up to throw.

Just as I was about to release the dart, the door to the stairwell in front of me opened up. It was our RA.

She looked at me, and then at the crowd behind me.

“Tynan… what are you doing?”

“Oh… just hanging out.”

She gave me a suspicious look. My poker face wasn’t all that convincing.

“…. and playing golf darts.”

She turned around and saw Terry’s dart stuck in the wall. I looked behind me because no one else seemed to be chiming in. They were gone, hiding in dorm rooms. I wanted to escape too, but it was too late.

She took the dart, shook her head, and started to leave when something else caught her eye.

The door full of dart holes.

“Oh no. This is too much. I try to be cool with you guys and cut you some slack, but you have destroyed the door. I have to write you up. I have no choice.”

She left.

We didn’t want to face the wrath of the building manager again. He had recently forced us to take down a porch light we installed in the hallway as well as a large brass knocker on our door. To try to remedy the situation I set up a meeting with him, which ended with him standing over his desk, face beet red, yelling at me.

And that wasn’t our only encounter. He had also confiscated my lock picking gun earlier, and refused to return it.

So we did what any unreasonable group of college kids would do. We chipped off a corner of the door and headed to home depot.

We used the corner of the door to match the color of the paint. We bought rollers, tape, putty and a putty knife.

The work took longer than we expected, but maybe that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise since none of us had ever repaired a door. By the end the two doors we painted actually looked better than they did before we destroyed them.

Our RA was equally impressed.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe what a good job you guys did. I went into the RA office and tore up the report I wrote about you.”

Mission accomplished.

Wow. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I got a ton of awesome feedback from you guys. Some people literally wrote a page or two.

So first of all… thanks a ton. I read every single reply (over one hundred total) and got a ton of good info.

I’ll share some of the insights provided.

First of all… I am not very popular with the ladies. Only TEN percent of the readers who responded were girls. I would have guessed somewhere between 30-40%, so I was way off.

(interestingly, the only people who told me they like the old design better were girls…)

Pretty much everyone who responded has been reading for months or years and reads every post. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that dedicated readers are more likely to fill out a survey, though.

I guess my career as a pollster may not be about to take off.

There were two big things people criticized:

I preach about consistency, but haven’t been super consistent.

A lot of people specifically brought up Best in the Land, and a few people even said it was their favorite site of mine.

But… as people pointed out, it has fallen by the wayside and I haven’t been updating it.

The reason I stopped was because no one really commented there and readership wasn’t very high. My writing commitments are pretty high now (especially considering I do all this for fun and not for profit), so I dropped it to spend time elsewhere.

That may change in the future.

I’m also aware that I haven’t been perfect about updating this twice a week. There are some somewhat valid reasons for that, but now I am writing several articles in advance (on all sites) to safeguard against anything coming up in the future.

If I fall off with consistency in the future, send me an e-mail and bug me and I’ll write one when I get the e-mail, guaranteed.

I’m too preachy sometimes

This is one I wrestle with a bit. I agree with everyone who said this, including those who said that I act like think I’m better than everyone else. What’s particularly interesting is that four or five people used the word “preachy”.

Some of my friends told me that I don’t come off this way in real life, even though I’m at least as opinionated, stubborn, and evangelical about the stuff I do.

One of my big goals in life is to be the same person to everyone. Some people are huge jerks online, but really nice in real life. Others are the other way around. I want to be the same in every setting with any person from friend to stranger, celebrity to janitor.

But I’m not. I think in real life I’m a lot warmer, friendlier, and a bit more empathetic (although no one has ever called me that…).

When I take the attitude of “hey look at this great thing I’m doing”, it’s not to separate me from other people, but rather to show other people something great that they could try too. Maybe that doesn’t always come through.

At the same time, I’m arrogant by nature (how many times does it say Tynan on this page?). I don’t think I have the most potential or that I’m the best at any single skill. I know people who are better than me at pretty much everything I do, including things I pride myself on being good at.

But I DO think that I make better decisions than pretty much everyone else, and that snobbery will probably continue to come through to some extent.

That’s probably enough on that topic. Since people took a lot of time to help me with my survey I’m trying to address the good and the bad of each one and share my thought processes.

Bottom line - I’m going to be aware of this and proofread posts while thinking “is this who I really am in real life?”

Stories vs. Self Improvement

Number one - I’m done saying “personal development”. How is that phrase any better than “self improvement”. What’s development? It’s not necessarily good by definition. Developing a crack habit is development. So F the stigma of new age seminars, I’m going back to “self improvement”.

Or maybe I’ll make up my own word like “lifestyle design” and write a book about it.

Anyway… people definitely weighed in on this issue. I just went through all of the comments again and tallied the amount of people who had strong opinions one way or another.

13 people want me to focus on self improvement stuff

12 people want me to focus on stories

This ties in with other people saying that I should focus on one thing. Good point, because right now it’s a bit like reading two blogs stuck in one (don’t worry, I’m not making any more blogs).

A particularly illustrative comment:

“I’m not even really sure what your blog is centered around, except you :)”

At the end of the day it is just a blog about me and my life, half written to entertain others and half to keep a personal record of what I’m doing and thinking.

More Pictures

Everyone wants more pictures, videos, podcasts, and personal home visits where I dramatically reenact their favorite stories.

I’ll see what I can do. I like pictures too, and videos are a good idea.

Maybe I’ll just walk around outside with my phone in front of me videoing myself.

Archives

The archives are a problem. Nothing is ordered by category and things are hard to find. I will fix that.

PUA Stuff

A bunch of people ask why I never post pickup stuff. This is probably because a good number of pickup sites link to me, so that’s where some of you come from (and why you’re all dudes).

There are a few reasons I don’t post field reports and such.

1. I’m not really in the field anymore. Other than for karaoke, I just don’t go to clubs. Girls are pretty much the last thing on my mind these days. Umm… except for the 10% who read my site…

2. I want communication with girls I’m with to be direct, not for her to read about it online. I’ve been tempted before to write about interesting relationship things, but each time I felt like it could be seen (and maybe even WAS subconsciously) as an “easy way out” for communicating.

I don’t know if I’ve explained that well

If you are here because you’re interested in pickup stuff, I have a whole book / audio / online course at www.makeherchaseyou.com.

If you go there and sign up for the newsletter you’ll get my weekly article about pickup, written the same way I write these articles.

In conclusion

How do you like these bold things? I like them and will start using them more.

There was a ton of other stuff I thought was useful and will implement… these are just some of the bigger things that many people commented on.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“Please don’t worry about subscribers too much…pretty soon you’ll start doing bullet lists and annoying titles and it’ll be like every other blog.”

Not to worry. I’ll throw the occasional one in for the digg crowd (like the 8 things you don’t have to do), but I’ll stick with what I do best.

“Be more insane in your real life.”

Is that serious? Man… I do the best I can.

“I have this site bookmarked on every computer I use so I don’t miss anything. Your writing has improved so much since the beginning. I’ve told a lot of people about the site so I hope they are all reading too.”

Love you, mom! Just kidding… she hates my site because of these two posts. She actually refused to send my front page newspaper article to my grandmother (who scrapbooks everything) because it had the address to my site at the bottom!

I’m really glad this person said my writing has improved, though, because I wonder if maybe it’s gotten worse.

“Tell us what the bloody hell Conversion Doubler is in English. I was expecting to understand by now.”

Haha… if you don’t know than it’s probably not something that will be very interesting to you.

“Give me money, for free.”

Ok. Send me your paypal info and tell me what you wrote in the other box.

More than fifty years ago, my mother’s father went to a dance. Back then that was how you met people.

The room was divided into two sides. The guys were standing near one wall, and the girls were at the other. In the middle were a few couples dancing, but more prominent was the wide open space that separated the two groups.

No man’s land.

In my mind I imagine that it was brightly lit, lights illuminating the gym floor. I picture people hiding in the shadows on either side, huddled in groups.

That’s probably not what it was really like, but that’s what it felt like when my grandfather decided to make the trek over to the other side. He had a crush on a girl named Elaine and wanted to ask her to dance.

But she didn’t want to dance with him. She wasn’t particularly interested in him, but she was compassionate. She knew how embarrassing it was to walk to the side, and how much more it would be to walk back across alone.

“Sure.”

After they danced, my grandfather told her something that he had probably rehearsed in his mirror a thousand times.

“You know, we used to live in the same tenement building. Do you remember?”

She didn’t.

“I have a picture of us both sitting on the steps. Would you like to see it some time?”

She agreed. She visited his house, saw the picture, and he asked her on a date, which she accepted.

The timing was good for him. As a an accountant he had finally made enough money to save up for a car, which he would be getting before their date.

He drove his new car to pick her up, and parked a block away.

As they walked down the street he pointed out the new car.

“Wow. Look at that beautiful car.”

It wasn’t beautiful. In fact, it was an unusual pea green color. She wasn’t impressed.

“It’s nice, John.”

He moved closer to the car, examining it carefully.

“Let’s sit inside it. It looks so nice.”

She thought he was weird and wasn’t especially comfortable sitting in someone else’s car. He laughed and told her that he had just bought it.

As they drove home he made a crucial mistake that no man should ever make.

“Would you like to drive it?”

She didn’t have much experience driving, but after a bit of cajoling she took the wheel.

Then she backed it into a wall.

They got out and examined the damage to his brand new car.

“That’s okay. It’s no big deal.”

He didn’t say another word about it, and acted as if it hadn’t even happened. She was impressed, and they continued dating and ended up getting married.

It’s about that time of the year for me to ask for your feedback to make BTYB even more better than it already is.

What’s very curious to me is that my readership grows VERY slowly. Given how awesome these posts are, I would expect it to grow by 100% every hour or so.

Anyway, if you could take a couple minutes and fill out my survey, I’d really appreciate it. Please be totally honest - it’s 100% anonymous and I’d much rather have good criticism than an ego boost.

(If you’re in an RSS reader and this embedded survey doesn’t work, go to: http://makeherchaseyou.questionform.com/public/btyb)