How Not To Woo Men, Apparently

Having spent the day at home yesterday trying to finish assignments and getting myself into a temper, I turned the laptop off and settled in to watch some truly shiteous telly before bed. Cue UTV's How to Get More Sex. Fine prescriptive viewing for an inexplicably single lady!

Alas, no.

I mentioned recently my theory that people do not like funny women (just as they do not like very clever ones) and last night's programme appears to support my complaint. I know the programme was dire, I know the "experiments" were clumsy and are far from scientifically valid, etc. Nonetheless, the results sounded depressingly familiar. The experiment was thus: Two actors were sent speed-dating, two weeks in a row. On week one they were advised to be average, attentive but not funny. The man scored just one tick out out of 20 potential dates, whereas the woman scored 10. Second time around they were told to be funny, as witty and humorous as possible. His chances increased five fold, hers halved.

The conclusion drawn was that being funny is seen as a socially dominant trait and whereas women find that very attractive in a man (I agree), men tend to find it threatening in a woman and thus unattractive (told you so). The actor's assessment of it was interesting - once she stayed quiet and let people talk about themselves they were much more receptive to her. The psychologist surmised that the sense of humour most valued in a woman is an ability to laugh at her partner's jokes, rather than a propensity for cracking them herself. The vox pops were unanimous, both men and women professed to prefer funny people. Put to the test though it doesn't seem to ring true. How depressing.

So it's back to batting eyelashes and smiling shyly for me.

Post Scriptum:
The programme's experiments also indicated that chat up lines don't work at all. Take note please, gentlemen.

The Curious Incident of the Things that went Bump in the Night

I'm a day late recounting this minor tale, but to be honest I forgot all about it until I was walking in the back gate to the apartment block this evening and I saw the bloody smears. As we know, I'd been out on the piss a little more than is decent of late so on Wednesday night I crashed and burned (inevitable, really). I headed to bed at about 9.30, finished my book (Anne Enright's The Gathering, one of the finest I've read in a while) and promptly fell fast asleep. I'm a heavy sleeper, didn't hear my housemates come home later, didn't hear the missed call I picked up the following morning. I was, however, rudely awoken at 5am by a panicked shout, the sound of the back gate smashing on its rusty hinges and what sounded like 3 drunken epileptic raccoons ricocheting off the cars and bins in the basement. I'm on the first floor with a window open over the car park, so I was well placed to hear it. The interesting part was when the gate clanged again, and there was the sound of more frantic scurrying. Then one of 'em started roaring in an awful Cork whine "They've called the Guards! Fuck, man, they've called the Guards! What're we going to do? Eh? They've called the Guards!" (repeat ad nauseum for ten minutes or so). Eventually either the racket died down or I fell back asleep, I'm not sure which (I have the enviable ability of being able to fall asleep any time, any where). I'd forgotten all about it until, as I said, I was walking in the back gate to the apartment block this evening and I saw the bloody smears all over the bars of the gate, around the lock. Some more then on the door into the apartment block, and on the wall in the lift corridor.

I'd love to know what they were up to.