Recently, I was sitting at a bar with this girl who I only kind of know. We’d hung out on a couple of occasions prior and I felt like I had some grasp, however puny, on who she was. We started talking about how everyone is a little bit of a starfucker (be it theoretically or figuratively), whether they’d like to admit it or not. It was a funny and candid conversation in which we were both dancing around the most obvious question: have you ever done it with someone famous? Neither one of us specifically addressed the issue, but she did say, with the utmost nonchalance, “Yeah, I skated for a long time and I got sponsored by these companies cause, like, they’ll sponsor any girl who’s a decent skater…” and went on to say something about super-aggressive groupies and tour buses and traveling all over the country with her skateboard, courtesy of said sponsors.
I wasn’t really listening at that point cause I had my dress yanked over my head and was busy dry-humping the floor. She was a sponsored skater who had probably humped countless groupies clear across the US of A? And I hadn’t known anything about it?! My GOD that’s hot!

The thing is, just like my gaydar, Jewdar and butchdar are off the hook (it’s uncanny, actually), so is my capacity to detect when a person is bullshitting. Not lying, per se, but feigning modesty about something that they know is impressive, embellishing a story to make it better or perhaps an unappealing fusion of the two. This girl did none of the above. I can’t pinpoint what it was about how she shared the information that made it work, but whatever is was, she left me panting like a sex-starved cougar while plotting what we’d name the 15 babies I decided we’d make later that evening.

Okay, not really, but you know what I’m talking about. When you learn something sexy about a person in a roundabout way, it makes the information so much sexier. It says so much about a person’s sense of self-worth. They didn’t feel it was imperative to tell you that they make $250,000 a year or that they speak fluent Portuguese or that they’ve spent the past four summers toiling in orphanages in third world countries. And when the information comes out slowly, without arrogance or any frantic need to impress you, it makes their hotness quotient go through the roof.

I have spent years trying to master the art of revealing attractive information about myself in a humble and come-hither fashion. It would probably help if I had attractive information about myself to reveal, but whatever. Let us not argue semantics. I’ve tried all sorts of tactics: getting my friends to tell girls I’m trying to get with shit about me (“See that girl over there? The one with the weave? Yeah, she writes for OurChart. Never heard of it? Well… she had a car once. Not anymore, but still. It’s no big deal, she’s still totally down to earth.”), but obviously that doesn’t work. I’ve tried to play like I’m humble about the fact that I got a B- in the easiest math class at my college (“Whatever, I got a B-. Could have gotten a C, D or F. But nope. B-. Listen, I don’t want you to think I’m bragging, so can we change the subject?). And I’ve tried being straight-up cocky about stuff (“This drunk construction worker grunted at me from a stoop this morning. Like, LOUD. Then she looked me up and down. So, yeah.”

I’m telling you first-hand: none of these tactics work. They have never gotten me laid. I suppose the obvious route to take would be the honest one, but if, perchance, you do have some hot-ass successes under your belt, be careful about how you share it with a potential love interest. I’ve yet to meet a person who’s gone to Harvard who can tell you that they did so without sounding like a pompous asshole. ("Where'd I go to school? Just some joint in Cambridge.") I’ve yet to meet a reality TV show star who can’t stifle their dismay when they aren’t recognized at parties or in restaurants. But this girl. DAMN. I’m gonna go take a cold shower.