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Actually, that's not completely accurate. 95% of the time, my friends and I all parked our bikes in front of Taco Bell or Dairy Queen and "bench raced" while waiting for girls to show up.
We thought we were SO cool.
But looking back, my educated guess is that lots of other guys our age in town thought we were a bunch of douches.
And if I'm brutally honest with myself, I'd also bet that still other guys around our age who were busy building businesses, furthering their educations and/or doing something legitimately important for the good of mankind thought we were a bunch of dorks.
For some reason, however, we seemed to be oblivious to those other perspectives.
That reason would be we were all of the same exact mindset, and we were all together in it...enthusiastically supportive of one another.
In that insulated little world of ours, we considered ourselves perfectly "normal" and didn't give it much of a second thought.
Not that anyone else's opinion mattered, as long as we were minding our own business and not hurting anyone else. Still, it's pretty remarkable how we were completely oblivious to the fact that there was any other option than to see us as we saw ourselves.
So why would I bring this up? Why would I open myself up for the four dozen or so e-mails from you guys I'm inevitably going to receive reaffirming what a douchey dork I must have been back then?
Well, as it turns out, there's method to my madness...so for now I'll risk having to put my fire suit on.
You see, I've come to three-part conclusion:
1) We as guys tend to hang out with other dudes who define "cool" the same way we do.
2) We tend to not realize and/or care how "outsiders" view our social circle from afar.
3) How we define "cool" also ends up defining our dating pool.
That third one's particularly fascinating, isn't it?
Let's just put it this way. What you're into and who you're hanging out with is going to have an undeniable and perhaps even predictable effect on what kind of women you'll be able to go out with (or not).
In our case, being a part of the whole sportbike sub-culture wasn't such a bad gig as far as that was concerned. We tended to attract a following of young, spunky, energetic cuties who liked to hang on and go fast.
That ended well for most of us, more so for those who took regular showers and visited a dentist sometimes.
But let's say you're more interested in sci-fi conventions, Dungeons And Dragons and video games. If that's the case, you're probably going to hang out with friends who are also into those things.
The plain truth is that there aren't a whole lot of women who get excited about guys who are into that stuff, regardless of how passionate you are about it. And you'd better be okay with dating the few who are.
It's a common, natural fact that guys who are into, say, salsa dancing or adventure trekking are going to have MORE women who agree they're cool, and those women just MIGHT be a lot sexier to a larger cross-section of the male population.
There are as many ways to look at this whole phenomenon as there are different types of social circles and sub-cultures. But whether we like it or not, each such social group has a somewhat predictable effect on others.
You want examples, and I've got 'em.
One time I happened to be hanging out with several really pretty but very down-to-earth girls.
They were the type who were raised in middle class families with daddies who loved them, went to church on Sunday and in general weren't very "high maintenance".
We happened to pass by a gathering of rather ostentatious looking guys posing next to their exotic cars...you know, R8s, Ferraris, Lambos and the like.
To make a long story short, the girls all agreed that they were not impressed in the slightest by guys like that. One even sort of rolled her eyes.
But I'm sure there are other women who would be all over those guys like brown on Louis Vuitton.
So here's hoping that none of those particular guys are into girls like the ones I was with.
A while back I had the "opportunity" to be on jury duty. I ended up being 72nd in a massive pool of seventy-five people. This meant I was in for one LONG and freaking BORING day of mostly standing around.
Just ahead of me was a guy who looked like a younger Zach Galifianakis. Out of sheer boredom I engaged this guy in conversation.
Almost immediately he launched into his obsession with comic books, enough so that he had converted to Norse Mythology as his core belief system. I promise I am not making this up.
About twenty spots ahead of us in line was a slender Latina with a sunny disposition and a keen fashion sense. Zach, Jr. made it perfectly clear that he wouldn't mind going out with her.
Who knows? Maybe she would have, had he the guts to ask her out.
But there's no doubt that the probability of that would have been MUCH greater had he paid more attention to his personal style. Never mind that I just haven't met so many women lately who were so into comic book culture. Or Norse Mythology as a world view.
And hey...how come this guy wasn't more interested in his own "type" of girl, anyway?
Unfortunately, you see, it's quite often that I hear from guys with unrealistic expectations with regard to dating the kind of women who are straight-up unlikely to be all that impressed with who they are and what they're about.
That brings up the most interesting question of all: Do we as guys really, fully comprehend how our interests and our social decisions affect our dating pool?
I mean REALLY. Do we KNOW when we're going down a social path that's going to alienate the kind of women we're most attracted to, if not flat-out shrink our dating pool dramatically?
Or is it that we have the lights on, but arrogantly soldier on thinking we'll somehow be the exception to how social groups typically shake out?
There's Marianne and there's Ginger. Usually, they'll each end up with the kind of guy you'd imagine them with.
But if your social values don't line up with hers you've still stacked the deck against yourself--no matter how much of a badass you are.
Ultimately, if the kind of woman you fantasize about the most almost always thinks you and your group of friends are either douchey or dorky, then you've got an existential problem. That's all I'm really saying.
Add it all up and something has to give, either you'll modify your social presence to better suit the kind of women you're most attracted to, or you'll learn to be content with the women you attract.
What are Your thoughts and ideas?
Use the Comments box below and "Have Your Say"... even if you disagree with me... I really appreciate it when people reply with thoughtful and helpful comments... it makes my day.