John Rosenman ~ Interview ~ Interesting speculative fiction writer!!

Aloha everyone! Today I have John Rosenman with me, a fellow Muse It Up writer. He's a prolific writer and writes a lot of speculative fiction. It's a form of science fiction, but covers a vast array of subjects. I hadn't heard of it either. :-) But it's been interesting finding out about it.

 

John has a captivating writing style that draws you into the story. He's led an interesting life and answered some great questions on this blog for us. Thanks JOHN! Great to have you here with us. :-)

 

Tell our readers a wee bit about yourself. What are 5 things you wished you’d done, have done or are still to do, on the Bucket List? J   

1.  I wish I’d gone to see my sister in Las Vegas for our ninth wild vacation before she died.(She flew in from CA; I from VA.)  She was single, richer, eight years older, and she always sent me a $1000 check for expenses.  There’s a moral here.  You should almost never pass up opportunities to see someone you love even if you don’t know they may soon die. 

 

2.  I wish I’d gone into the Navy at seventeen despite my father’s objections.  What the hell, my whole life would have been different.  Maybe good, maybe bad.   

3.  When I was 22, I hocked my law books, left law school, hopped a Greyhound bus one way from Ohio to New Orleans, a ride which lasted 38 hours.  In New Orleans I slung hamburgers for a buck an hour and lived in an eight dollar a week room trying to write the great American novel.  I’m still trying to write it. 

 

 

4.  My first published novel The Best Laugh Last is about a white English teacher in a Southern black college, and it cost me two teaching positions.  If I had the choice whether to do it again, I’d do it again. 

5.  I want to finish the Inspector of the Cross series, wherever it takes me, and perhaps the stories/novels involving Sky Masterson. And maybe get back again to writing short stories, which seem to have dried up. Strange that the only series I’ve ever written would be in my seventies. 

6.  (A Bonus): I wish I had reached all those students I never reached.

 

Tell us about the genre you write, why do you love it and how did you get into it?  

My main genre, not the only one, is science fiction or perhaps more accurately speculative fiction because it embraces the universe and all universes, all possibilities and all genres, including the one my interviewer writes.  Man, is it ambitious, the ultimate umbrella genre.  Yes, you can have m/m or intersex SF, too. 

 

I sometimes say speculative fiction makes possible my two major themes or interests, which are the endless, mind-stretching wonders of the universe and the limitless possibilities of transformation—sexual, cosmic, and otherwise. 

 

For sexual transformation, check out my novel Alien Dreams, where Captain Latimore changes into the giant alien Ragar and makes love to the  great winged alien queen for ten thousand subjective years while changing bodies, orifices, and positions with her in the process. Go ahead, find that one in The Joy of Sex. 

 

 

How did I get into speculative fiction?  Check the “About Me” tab on my web site.  (http://www.johnrosenman.com).  I grew up saturated with scary, creepy SF/Horror movies and scary, creepy SF/Horror comics.  Also, a boyfriend of my sister gave me a year’s subscription to Amazing magazine.  When I saw War of the Worlds in 1953, it warped me forever.  Then there was The Thing.  It Came From Outer Space.  Them!  Forbidden Planet.  Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The Day the Earth Stood Still.  And the books . . .  The Martian Chronicles.  The Illustrated Man.  The Shrinking Man.  And so on. 

What’s your most favorite restaurant in the world? Where, why and the best dish/es they make?  

I’m not a gourmet or a sophisticated diner.  I like fast food restaurants.  However, I have celiac disease and have to avoid gluten which is found in wheat, rye, barley and therefore in bread, noodles, fried foods and the like. 

One place I like is Golden Corral because I can roam among all the food islands.  I love soups like clam chowder, broccoli cheese.  Steak.  At KFC I love its grilled chicken.  If it’s done right, it’s heavenly.  I’d like to eat fried chicken but I can’t.  It’s filled with gluten.  I love lobster and Lobster Newberg, but I haven’t had them in years.  I love so many different foods really.
 

Remember those ads for Expedia (if not, just play along) that asked, ‘If you could go anywhere in the world, but have to go right now?’ Where would you have gone and would you have said to YES to right now? What pulls and entices you to that country?  

 

 

Hmmm.  Probably Italy because when I traveled there with my sister in 1994, I was mesmerized by three cities: Rome, Florence, and Venice.  I loved the museums, the cathedrals, and the sites.  Heck, I wrote one of my best stories, which is about a mediocre art teacher who visits the Sistine Chapel and has a vision that he is the reincarnation of Michelangelo. 

 

It’s the timeless beauty and history of Italy which calls me, the artistic tradition and heritage.  They have cathedrals it took them a thousand years to build while generations of men and generations of governments rose and fell.  Just walk in some of those stupendous cathedrals and look up at the magnificent art and stained glass windows.  Walk in the museums. 

 

In Florence, I saw Michelangelo’s David, as beautiful as it was the day he created it.  As for Venice, what a preposterous city, as fanciful as those in any of my stories.  If you stray off the beaten path, you have to walk on water.  What beautiful blown glass art of brilliant colors, what romantic gondolas, and St. Mark’s Square.  But it would also be sad to return now that my sister’s gone.

 

 

 

What parts of you, are incorporated into your characters?  

Boy, Meg, this is a big question.  In Turtan, the hero of my Inspector of the Cross series, I put a lot of my wish fulfillment, my desire to be heroic and larger than life.  Also in a big way, I projected into him my desire to help people, to serve them.  I am not a Christian, but Turtan is a self-effacing, self-sacrificing savior who despite his flaws and sinful ways has many parallels with Christ.

Another example: Johnny Roth in my YA novel The Merry-Go-Round Man is my alter ego in some ways.  I gave him a similar name and put him in the school I used to attend though I never name it.  Plus, I make him creative.  He’s a painter, whereas I’m a writer.  (Meg: I have read some of this book. It's excellent, very engaging. Great subject matter!)  

 

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Biggest example: David Newman, the rebel English teacher at the Southern black college in my first novel The Best Laugh Last is me.  Or to be grammatically correct, he is I in many ways.  It’s a whistle-blower of a novel.  Though it was reviewed in newspapers, it never caught the attention of the national media. (Meg: And I would love to read this book, but apparently it's so controversial that John wouldn't republish it when it was offered! Just the type of book I want to read! Seriously.)

 

While many or most of my characters don’t contain parts of me, I like to think I have what John Keats called negative capability, which is the ability to identify and sympathize with all kinds of people, including those who are completely different from me.   

 

Favorite male hero/public figure you admire in the world, dead or alive, and why?  

I would have to say my father, for his scrupulous honesty and resolve always to say what he thought, regardless of the cost or consequences.  He was a lawyer, and a fiercely truthful one.  Once he had the nerve to tell a judge he would die for his dishonesty in the courtroom.  And soon after, the man did! 

When I was a small kid, I missed the first two strikes in a baseball game and gave the bat to another boy because I thought I’d just whiff the third pitch. Dad sternly told me never to do that again and always to try and never give up.  He was a good teacher, and I’ve always tried to carry that lesson through life. 
 

Favorite female heroine/public figure you admire in the world, dead or alive, and why?  

First, my mother, who like my father was not a public figure.  Like him, however, she cared deeply about her family and about being honest and true to herself.  Many of my values and beliefs are derived from her. 

I must mention Irene Sendler, the “female Schindler.”  She died in 2008 at the age of 98.  To quote from a source: “When the Germans finally caught her, the Roman Catholic social worker had managed to save 2,500 Jewish babies and toddlers from deportation to the concentration camps. . . . She was beaten, tortured and sentenced to death by the Gestapo  -  who even announced her execution. But Irena survived, her spirit unbroken, her secrets untold.”  She was uncomfortable being called a heroine.  Sendler said, "The term 'heroine' irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1021048/Female-Schindler-Irena-Sendler-saved-2-500-Jewish-children-died-aged-98.html).

 

Irena Sendler

That last trait is shared with my epic hero Turtan.  Please don’t praise him, give a speech or dinner in his honor, or sculpt a statue in his magnificent likeness.  It embarrasses him and will piss him off.  He exists only to serve, only to save.  Anything else is not only irrelevant, it can be harmful bullshit. 

 

Have you ever had a character just “do their own thing?” Have you ever had an argument with one of your characters? Or anything else odd happen?

 

Usually I’m in control, and they don’t talk back or barge out of the joint.  But lately a fourteen-year-old girl named Sky Masterson gave me problems.  You see, I’m a Pantser, and when Turtan and I first ran into her in Book II in a deep mine on the planet Lauren, I thought she was going to be just a bit character.  A dirty-faced, malnourished kid.  A great acrobat/juggler, a good fighter, but deficient in language skills and dying of cancer. 

But she was so likeable, and I was so proud of her, and well, she grew on me.  And just as bad, or good, she grew on Turtan, too.  And in Book III in the series she surprised me by almost taking over and sharing the billing with my protagonist.  If there were a movie marquee, she’d be right there beneath him. 

 

Sky loves Her Inspector. And she surprised, bewitched, and completely won me over. Hell, she surprised the Jax, too.  He’s the representative of God, the divine female spirit who reigns throughout the multiverse. I have the Jax appear in every novel of this series, and he tells Turtan that Sky surprised him, too. He never saw this girl coming, and he never dreamed there could be two champions in the universe. All this when Sky is only fifteen years old. 

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The problem is, it seems I devoted too many chapters to Sky’s story in Book III, and they took away from Turtan’s story.  So I decided to delete most of her chapters.  Over twenty-five thousand words, baby.  But Sky’s still in there, and she continues into Book IV.  I mentioned an idea to my editor Chris Speakman about a separate novel focusing on Sky on First Station from age fourteen to eighteen, presenting everything from her POV.  Maybe a YA novel, and Chris is gung-ho about it. (Meg: What do we think readers? Hell yes. We love rogue characters. Please... please...please write it John. I'll sic Lea on you LOL. Chris just isn't scary enough. Sorry Chris! :-) Although she's currently threatening my beloved home state with snow. Little does she know, we welcome on Mauna Kea in the winter on the Big Island. :-))

 

I don’t know.  It’s a great universe, but maybe I’ve got to get out of it.  I do love Sky, though.  Hell, just about everyone does, especially men.  Like Turtan, Sky has transcendent abilities.  But what’s an eighteen-year-old woman doing, giving all her love to a forty-eight-year-old man when he won’t even sleep with her because he considers her to be his daughter even though he desires her.  Men.  They’re so fucked up.  You know they are, Meg.  It’s a doomed relationship, isn’t it?  Well, how would I know?  I’m only the author, and I’m a pantser.  (Meg: Oh for God's sake, just write the bloody thing John! LOL. And so say all of us.)  

You know why this beautiful, exotic, deadly fighter of a warrior won’t settle for any other man, not even for a quick roll in the hay? C’mon, I’ll give you ten seconds to figure it out. Okay, the answer is . . . because Turtan is the best there is and the best there ever will be.  It’s that simple.  Most of us will “settle” or compromise, but not Sky. Never. 

Anyway, Sky took over much of my narrative, and a large chunk of me hopes she doesn’t continue to hijack my keyboard and make me write a book or two focusing on her.  But I wouldn’t bet on it, Meg. You see, I’ve had a real weak spot for women all my life, and Sky knows just how to get to a man. 

 

What’s your passion in life?  

Well, I’ve already mentioned women, and I won’t dwell on it.  It tells you something that I make God feminine in my Inspector of the Cross series.  I like guys, but I don’t want any God with a deeper voice or a scratchier beard than me. 

My family is my passion, too. My wife.  We have shared a path and a journey for a long time.  Our children are my passion, too. 

My writing is my passion. I want to get inside people and make them cry, laugh, feel better, inspired, and never forget what they’ve read.  I want them to remember it long after I’m gone.  Maybe me a little but more important, what I’ve written, my characters and words and stories.  I try to hone and revise my writing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction and make it as fine and polished as I can, as memorable and as perfect as possible.
 

What’s your writer’s routine? Do you write whenever or at certain times? Are you a pantser or plotter? Where do you like to write?

 

Basically I sit down in my den and bang away at my computer.  No real schedule, especially since I retired three years ago, and in good weather tennis comes first in the morning.  But when I’m inspired and the words are coming and I know where the story’s a-going, I go tap, tap, tap for hour after hour.   And boy is it good.  I have no regular, disciplined routine, though, and I write at scattered times.  

 

I’m basically a pantser, and I wrote a darn good blog on this subject on my web site (www.johnrosenman.com).  Just scroll down a ways.  When I used to go to cons, some writers on panels were meticulous planners, even constructing outlines hundreds of pages long with elaborate character sketches.  Others get by on a shoeshine and a smile.  I like to make it up as I go along. In my just finished novel, Defender of the Flame, the conclusion of what I call “The Turtan Trilogy,” I did have the basic conclusion in mind and even the last couple of sentences written, which is rare for me.  

 

Years ago, with Speaker of the Shakk, published by Mundania Press, I actually wrote out a complete outline and was proud of myself.  But then I changed the novel so much, the outline was little more than a springboard into something else.  Still, it was helpful, and in general I’d recommend that writers use them.  It’s just I like the freedom of marching forth into the wilderness without a map and a compass. 

If you could pick a past life, what time period would appeal to you and why? Would you be male or female? Rich or poor?  

Male, probably neither rich or poor but somewhere in between so I could forge my own future.  Females in general had it rough, limited freedoms even if they were rich or upper class.  And there was always the possibility of complications or dying in childbirth.  Besides, I like being a male.  However, I might be tempted to experience sex and sensibility from a female’s perspective . . . if I could remember what it was like to be a man. 

My favorite past time period: I’d like to come along as a young adult about 1950, the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction before so many of the great stories and novels were written.  Perhaps I could create some of the great stories myself.  It’s not that there aren’t new stories to tell now; it’s just that so many of the classics have already been written.

 

 

CONTACT JOHN ON:

 

E-mail: jroseman@cox.net

 

Web site: http: www.johnrosenman.com,

 

Blog: http://johnrosenman.blogspot.com/

 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/john.rosenman

 

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/JohnBRosenman?ref=hl   

 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Writerman1

 

Google+:  https://plus.google.com/100151780540512089888/posts

 

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/John-B.-Rosenman/e/B001KMN69E

 

Photobucket: http://s631.photobucket.com/user/jrosenman/library/?sort=3&page=1

 

An interview: http://workingwritersandbloggers.com/2009/08/18/interview-john-b-rosenman/

 



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What PICK UP lines work and what don't? Conversations with Spencer!

What PICK UP lines work and what don’t?

Aloha everyone!

Well this week in Conversations with Spencer, we’ll talking about Pick Up lines.  

Do they work?  

Why do men use them?  

What do women this of them?  

Best and worst?  

Do men spend ages thinking up the perfect line? How many women have used them? Why DO we use them?  

Okay, in my personal experience, they don’t work on me. Or I completely miss the cue for them. Or misinterpret them into something quite warped.  

 

I was once at a party and this gorgeous guy Rod leaned into me and said, “What would you say, if I said, I really liked you.”  

I stomped off.

Why?  

I thought he was taking the mickey?! Okay, I might have had a few drinks and wasn’t very lucid. Afterward I thought, You idiot!!! He was interested in you! Duh. (We did actually get together, despite my stomping off and thinking he was pulling my leg.)  

And here’s me making a complete balls up of it again: A guy in a nightclub asks me, “So, what do you think of body builders?”  

“Can’t stand them,” I said. “Ghastly. Ugh, not my thing.” I shuddered.  

As his face fell and turned to abject horror. I took a really good look at him.  

“Oh shit, sorry,” I said. “You’re a body builder, aren’t you.”  

 

I mean, how the hell can any guy have confidence when there’s probably several thousand of me out there who don’t get the cue, say the wrong thing back or muck it up? And why DO men use them anyway?  

I think this subject came up because Spencer said his best pick up line, turned out to be ‘Hi, my name’s Spencer.’ He married that lovely lady.  

And I agreed. Why can’t men just be straight forward? And do they spend hours rehearsing lines in their heads? Do they practice them in the mirror? I have to admit I’ve used pick up lines myself at times.  

My favorite one though from someone was probably this:  

“Where’s your boyfriend?” 

“I don’t have one.” 

He does a double take.  

“Why did you give me that look?” 

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?”  

Thank you Zane, one of the great loves of my life. J 

So, Spencer, over to you. Tell us why men go to such hoop jumping for the pick up line? That if you’re unlucky to use on me, you’ve got a good chance of being rejected on. 

Meg: Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? (would that work?) 

MEG: I might think it was cute and give someone a chance. IF they interested me. 

 

I have to start out with a disclaimer that I am from a time when the relationship between young men and young women-actually let me classify it properly-between boys and girls was much different than it is now. I was in those clumsy tween years in the early 1960's when girls weren't supposed to call boys (on the phone, anyone remember phones?), when activities were segregated, and sex role stereotypes in full force. Back then the "cool" guys had lines. I'm sure they rehearsed them but a cool guy would never admit it. I think that's where the idea that a woman is going to fall for a line gets started in a guys head. He hears about how it worked for another guy. He doesn't hear about the flame out failure. 

Why aren't guys straight forward? Do you remember in the movie "Tootsie" how Jessica Lange's character was waxing philosophical to "Tootsie" about wanting a guy to be direct. Then when Dustin Hoffman does that she throws a drink in his face. 

 

If you step back just a bit, the 'line' is a low risk way for a guy to begin a conversation. 'How about those....'(fill in the name of your favorite sports team) didn't work. What would draw a girl’s attention? The perfect line. If she rejects the line, she’s not really rejecting you. Guys have fragile egos. The 'line' protects the ego. Someone has to speak first. "You had me at Hello" didn't happen until the 80's. 

I have a couple of millennial boys, 23 and 20. They never talk about girls to me (like why would they?) but observing how they act around girls tells me that the beginnings of relationships are much different now, much more relaxed. Both my boys have been what we would call "chick magnets", they are good looking, confident and pleasant to be around. They didn't get any of that from me. I was a mess at their age. I freely admit to being captivated by female allure since a very young age, so I was a self conscious babbling wreck around a pretty girl. 

In my 30's after my first marriage ended I was much more socially adept. Some great sage told me that the best way to meet women was to learn to dance. I always loved swing music so I learned how to dance. The sage was right. "Would you like to dance?" was about as cool as I could manage but it worked very well for meeting women. My guess is, it would still be good advice today, especially for baby-boomers who by death or divorce find themselves back in the dating scene. 

 

MEG: 

I have to agree, that someone asking me to dance, will often get my interest. However, there’s a bit of a caveat to that. I don’t like being approached by a guy that I haven’t shown one wit of interest in so far. I.e. I haven’t looked at him, stared at him, looked away, smiled, held eye contact of any kind. I am often floored as to why anyone would approach me when I haven’t given the slightest indication that I’m interested. Trust me, most women in a ‘on the prowl’ situation have scanned everyone in the room for a potential mate. J

So if I haven’t made eye contact with you, or noticed you—you’re not even in the running! I actually find that insulting. Why would you approach me when I haven’t shown any interest in you? Is it arrogance? I’m so wonderful, how could you resist me? Or what? I find that strange.  

A guy is much more likely to have a chance with a woman he’s already made SOME sort of connection point with. A smile, a look, SOMETHING.  

In saying that, at a ‘dance,’ I will accept a dance invitation from just about anyone. I love to dance. If I went to a salsa club, I’d dance with anyone that asked me.  

My guess is that if a 'line' ever worked for a guy it was because the woman was interested in him to begin with and brushed it aside with a smile. It turns out that was the case with my most successful line. Study after study shows women to be more facile with words. Why do we guys have to speak first? 

MEG: Well, that’s an interesting point in itself. I think because we’re still heavily conditioned to think that men should make the first move. Again, when I think about it, I’m not sure why? You know we women aren’t that keen on being rejected either.  

Okay, example. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a young friend of mine and he said he was a great kisser. Several women had told him this. I teased him and questioned him. Okay, I flirted with him! Even though I’m twice his age. He mentioned that he’d always found me attractive and I took it as a nice compliment, but probably wouldn’t have made a move on him. Why? Because I’m older. I’m not sure why that should be an element. I’ve nearly always gone out with younger guys.  

Okay, so fast forward through part of a movie, watched on the bed and he had to go home. As we’re leaving the bedroom, he turns, takes my face in his hands, and kisses me passionately. And yes, he’s right, he’s a GREAT kisser. I would go so far as to say, one of the best on record so far. Holy shit!! He blew my head off. And a good kisser can take me all sorts of places.  

 

So, did I do a “Mrs. Robinson” on him, or did he seduce me?  

We couldn’t decide in the end. LOL. 

I think he seduced me. But would I have made the move first? Probably not. And that is some ingrained part of me that says, ‘a guy has to make the first move.’ And yet, I haven’t always been like that. I once left a napkin in a pizza place for the manager that said, ‘You’re spunky.’ LOL. Can’t you tell I’m from the 80’s. He asked me out the next time I went in. But why the reticence now?  

And again, I wouldn’t make any sort of overture to a guy unless I was getting SOME signal of interest from him. Of course, we know that I also miss signals of interest from him! LOL. And I get things muddled up.  

I was once in Rarotonga and got chatted up by the bar manager there. Well, I thought I was being chatted up and that he wanted to meet me for a drink later in town. When I said, ‘Where, should I meet you?”  

He said, ‘Whatever bar.”  

And I thought, Oh, you jerk. Like I’m going to tromp all over Raro looking for you. You blow!!! You can’t even tell me the name of the bar! 

Exit, me in a huff, as usual. LOL. 

Okay, so here’s the punch line. When he found me at the resort the next day, he asked why I hadn’t turned up. It um…turned out, that the bar he wanted me to meet him in was called the…’Whatever Bar.’  

Yeah...  

 

LOL. Strike another one up to me for sheer dumbness. So, reading this and other things where I’ve realized afterward that someone WAS interested in me, I’m not sure any of us are good at this chat up line. Either a) delivering it successfully or b) accepting it successfully.  

Are we just so self conscious or nervous that we don’t take things in. Or what?  

I am long out of the dating scene and hope I never have to go back to it but my wife and I were at a Christmas party talking to another couple—a young guy I work with and his wife-a second wife. Somehow we got onto the topic of pick up lines. He told us when he met her, he reached back to the collar of her blouse and looked at the tag and said, "Just as I thought...made in heaven." She married him. Long live the line. 

 

So I guess it really comes down a guy wanting to show interest and trying to project that he's cool. I think any guys reading this would like to know what does work, if lines don't. 

I think women's pick up lines are much better then men's. What's your favorite?

MEG:  

Okay, things I’ve used. I’ve ‘lost’ my keys and had the guy help me ‘find’ them. That one works well in all sorts of situations. Because you can chat as you flit around trying to find the keys and judge how flirty the situation is. Then you can ask them out for a drink or something.  

 

What else?  

Actually, sometimes I don’t use a line. Sometimes I ‘smolder’ at them and they just kiss me. So that seems to work well. LOL. The ‘smolder’ is long held sultry eye contact, the smile, no talking. It’s really hard to resist kissing someone if you’re interested with a ‘smolder.’ 

 

What else? God, this is hard, isn’t it. These days I think I try and be a grown up. Which means, I tend to be somewhere I can talk to someone and get to know them, without having to ‘cold call’ approach them, or them me.  

I don’t think I could stand going to a pub or club now and trying to attract someone’s attention. And I think meeting someone new over the internet is excellent for dating. So that does take a lot of the initial ‘chat up’ line or ‘pick up’ line stuff out of the equation.  

I’m thinking back to past lovers and how it all got going.  

Aaron – met him on the internet, he commented on me flying a bi-plane. That worked, I love flying. Actually, a man who’s actually interested in ME as a person is a HUGE ‘pick up line.’ There’s some really self absorbed men out there.  

Kimo – I met him at a retreat, and was introduced to him on the first day. We stood and ‘smoldered’ or stared at each other. Contact! 

Neil taxi driver – I got a ride home in his cab and was moaning that men aren’t romantic anymore. He said he’d show me romantic. I agreed and he took me out on a Saturday night to a quiet bay, a bottle of wine, glasses and slipped Glenn Miller into the cassette deck (yes, we’re talking ancient history here.) That REALLY worked for me. I love wartime music. And hell, it was romantic.  

Rod – he was the ‘What would you say if I said, I really liked you,’ person. I stomped off. He slept with my friend instead and I stomped off again. He finally, poor man, managed to have another go later at getting me to believe him. LOL.  

Tim – the smolder 

Zane – the smolder.  

Peter – I met him through a group of friends and we got talking throughout the day.  

Nige – the smolder.  

Another Nigel – the smolder.  

Jeez, I’ve used that one a bit, haven’t I? LOL.  

I’ve just realized I don’t really have a ‘pick up’ line. I watch them. I flirt. I make eye contact and look away. I smile. I bite my lip. I smile with my eyes. I smolder… 

And if they’re interested, they come over and talk to me.  

LOL. So my question is: Cast your mind back. Do you pick up clues like the stare, the look away, the blush, the smolder, the eye contact? Why would you approach anyone that was showing no visual signs of knowing you even exist on this planet? I’m always a bit stunned by guys who approach me and I’ve shown no connection with them at all? Why would a man put himself in that position of rejection?  

Spencer: 

I guess the smolder works for you. 

 

Going back to ancient history (the 80's) I missed a lot of signs. I never saw a couple of the classics in-person that I had read about in some men's magazine or maybe it was Cosmopolitan (that I read at the doctors office): when a woman i s interested in a man she unconsciously runs a hand through her hair over her ear. Apparently this gesture releases pheromones. Another one I never saw was a woman making eye contact and as soon as you make eye contact with her she looks away and blushes.

 

What I noticed most was if a woman was comfortable in your presence she would stand closer than usual social distance. If she was really interested she would reach out and touch your arm when making a point, but quickly pull it away. 

My wife says that women have a great sixth sense, they know when a guy is going to get lucky. I guess I relied on that more than anything. 

I love the great lines women use. My top three. At number 3: At the bar. I had made some casual eye contact with a woman while my buddy and I were scanning the territory. A little later she and another woman approached us and she said, "Are you guys gay or something?" I said no. She said, "Then why haven't you asked us to dance?" I laughed, but imagine the opposite, "Are you ladies a couple of lesbians?" 

On two number 2. I was at a conference and met a woman who was very friendly. We spent some time talking but there wasn't much opportunity to do anything else. I was a speaker at the conference and also an officer in the national association. I had way too many official duties.  At the end of the conference as everyone is leaving, she stepped up to me and whispered in my ear, "The next time I see you I'm going to get your clothes off of you." I wish I could have had a picture of my face. Unfortunately I was in a very bad relationship at the time and didn't think a fling would do me any good. I never saw her again. 

Number one actually happened to a friend of mine, way back in college when I found meeting women impossible. A group of us gathered on Friday evenings to play basketball, then go drinking. On the ride home Eddy was unusually animated telling us about the hot girl he met who asked him over for dinner. The last thing she said to him on the phone was, "Rest up."  

 

I have used all three of those vignettes in my stories. My MO is often a slightly clueless guy who falls into the clutches of a sexually aggressive woman.  I've done several stories about the older woman, younger man- which has always been one of my fantasies. I really could have benefited from meeting an older, experienced woman when I was a young man, so I guess I'm acting out my fantasies in my stories. I hope some of our female readers will share stories of the lines they used to seduce guys. I'm always on the hunt for good material.  

 

You're story about the Whatever bar is funny - fodder for a romance story. Save that in the file. 

MEG:  

LOL. Thanks Spencer. So again, have we reached any conclusions? The Pick Up line possibly doesn’t work very well. Try to ACTUALLY make SOME kind of contact before you just throw some random line at someone. Because honestly, once you’ve got the eye contact going on, Going up and saying, “Hi, my name is Bob,” will be just as effective as anything else.  

And we’re out of space and people’s attention spans for the day. LOL. But next week we think we’re going to look at the older women/younger man scenario. I have real life experience with it and Spencer has real fantasy experience with it. So this should be interesting. Thanks as always to all the readers who come and read our Conversations with Spencer each week. Much appreciated!!! J  

Aloha Meg and Spencer!

FAIL!!!