big bad blog

Hate your body? Depressed at how out of breath you get walking up hills?

Well, never fear, for we have a marvelous new invention called “exercise”.

Garuanteed to get your body in awesome shape, make you stronger, fitter and all round happier.

Except most of us don’t bother.

We’d like to, but the sofa is very comfortable and the tv so very interesting right now and it looks like its going to rain and I’ve got too much to do today and, and, and a ton of other excuses…

So, here is my guide to making that first step to getting off the sofa and out into getting on with getting in shape, a collection of hints and rants on getting good with minimal pain.

(note, most of this will only apply to people starting an exercise routine, some of it won’t apply to people who already so regular exercise)

Continue reading “Kicking your body into shape: getting started”

Ok, see that pretty guy or guy at the other side of the bar you like the look of? They’re just dying for you to make their night by coming over and talking to them, they’re wishing some sweet funny, sexy guy will come sweep them off their feet, so why don’t you go over and be that guy?

What do you mean you don’t know what to say?

ok, first off, the Chat Up Line…

The most important thing about the line you use to introduce yourself with? It doesn’t matter. What matters is *how* you say it and what you say afterwards.

“do you come here often” or “if I told you you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?” work really well if you can say them in a deliberately cheesy way that the other person knows you’re taking the piss out of the idea of chat up lines. follow it up with an over the top sad face and tell them how you’ve spent ages practicing it in front of the mirror.

ok, then, you ask, what do I actually say?

Something situational-”damn, I love this song! you’d better be a <whatever> fan too or I don’t think I can be your friend”

ask a question-”excuse me, me and my mate are having a bit of an arguament and we need a girls opinion, blah blah blah”. personally I love asking if they know any good chat up lines. This one also tends to work better if you’re actually interested in the answer, otherwise it can come across as a little weird.

get noticed by her-last time I was out, I had some random sparkly cocktail sticks in my hair and some girl tried to steal them when I walked past her so I made fun of her for being so mean for a bit and after a couple of minutes got her number. Peacocks have big ass shiny feathers for a reason you know…

be silly-Go up to a girl and ask her to slap you in the face as hard as you can. tell her that its a top secret matter of life and death, but you really need to swap shoes with her. Say anything, it might not work, it might work great, but you’ll never get anywhere unless you try it.

be honest-Very tricky, but makes you look very ballsy. “I know this is a little random, but I had to tell you that you are really cute.” “Hi. I saw you here, and wanted to come say Hi. I’m Sean.” (both stolen from sean newman)

something about her-A tricky one, because you have to pick up on something thats not immediately obvious. she knows she has a nice rack for example, but no one seems to care about how long she spent doing her hair.

some random advice:

If you keep finding yourself stuck for what to say, think up some opening lines when you’re at home and relaxed and keep them on your phone or something. Try and make stuff up on the spot, but don’t be afraid to fall back on something you know works.

please, pleeeeease, please stop offering to buy girls drinks as a chat up line. Its an expensive way to get very little in return (remember, you’re already giving them the gift of your attention, really it should be them buying you drinks)

Don’t think bars and clubs are the only place to chat up women, hot girls still exist duing the daytime. Plus you get major bonus points for having the balls to walk up to them without needing to get drunk first.

Girls are not scary. Almost every guy gets nervous walking up to a girl, even the ones that are good with women. its just something coded into our brains. The trick is momentum-the first girl of the night is nerve wracking, but once you talk to her and you realise you’re still in one piece, the second one doesn’t seem half as bad.

practice! “what if I mess it up?” awesome, then you’ll learn something for next time. Go talk to random strangers who don’t matter to you, so if they think you’re a weirdo, who cares, its just some random person you’ll never see again.

(oh, and this rant is dedicated for the people that took the time to help me learn this stuff, I wouldn’t have got a tenth of how far I’ve come without them)

(once again, dedicated to the people that helped me learn all this stuff, without them taking the time to help me, I wouldn’t know a tenth of this)

ok, so you’ve got used to walking up to random strangers with your new top secret “october man” chat up line, but now what? Yup, it happens to us all, the dreaded awkward silence when you don’t know what to talk about, so heres another rant of stuff I’ve learnt or been taught…

shut up and listen. If you can’t think of anything to say, fortunately other people usually love talking about themselves. Find out what they’re really passionate about or work out what it is about them you find interesting and ask them about that.

talk about stuff you know everyone talks about. for guys football, how drunk I got last night and the size of the barmaids breasts will always get them talking. For girls X-factor/big brother, ranting about men and gossip are fairly reliable.

Current events will always give you something to have a mutual rant about. Coming together to collectively moan about what ever stupid crap management is doing or the fun things that are going on in the city.

Learn how to chain conversations from what the other person just said, eg:
person 1:”mmm, i love fish for dinner”
person 2:”yeah, it tastes better going on fishing holidays and catching it myself though”
person 1:”nah, I prefer sitting on a beach on holiday”
take what the other person said, and think of something that relates to one of the key words. (yeah, I know its a crappy example. quiet you.)

Tell stories. If the other person is talking about holidays, tell them about the fun time you had in spain last summer, if they’re talking about work, tell them about the funny things annoying customers do at your place. Tell them about how drunk you got last week and woke up handcuffed to a zoo animal.

Find things you have in common and talk about them. If you’re both tiddlywinks fans, ask them what they thought about the 2007 world championship controversy (oren was never offside, it was fixed!). People love talking about the things they love (funnily enough) so you both win.

And don’t forget to practice. Like everything you need to try it a million times, watch what happens when you do whatever and tweak and adjust. You can read or complain all you like, but the only way to learn to be sociable is to go out there and talk to people. talk to completely random people if need be. See if you can make the person at the till at sainsburys smile.

speaking of which, if you want a way of working out what you’re supposed to be doing in a conversation, just make it your aim to make the other person smile. Thats it. If you can do that consistantly, they’ll love you.

Ok, got all that? Now for a few more advanced stuff…

Learn how to guide a conversation and learn how to pick up on and guide peoples emotions when you’re talking to them. If you tell someone a story about how no one loves you and all your pets keep dying, they aren’t going to be too cheerful, but if you keep an eye on how they react you can steer the conversation towards whatever emotional state you want (happy carefree stories, deep relationship stuff, whatever you want). For a simpler version, try and talk about positive stuff and avoid depressing or mundane things.

And on the topic of storytelling, I have a moral conundrum for you, courtesy of the legendary toecutter. Ok, so you tell someone a story about how drunk you got last week and how you’re now banned from the nunnery and you’ve got the person you’re talking to laughing their ass off. Now if the story wasn’t true and you’d just made it up, would that be wrong or is the only thing that important is that you cheered someone up and gave them a fun conversation? Just a random something for you to think about…

A fun one is learning how to keep sexual tension going in a conversation (presumably with a girl or guy whose pants you’re trying to get into). Its always a crazy ride when you’re trying to see how far you can push the conversation without being tasteless and for all those nice guys out there, half your problem is that you don’t realise girls love guys that can be openly sexual as long as they do it in a non needy way.

Lastly, just enjoy the ride. You’re there because you enjoy eachothers company, if you can’t think of anything to say, it doesn’t really matter, one of you will think of something in a few seconds and its all good.