Too cute by half

Apparently, if Ben Popper's article in the Observer is to be believed, the hotties on dating sites are not the ones who are the most sought after...

It's the ones who are cute, but certain guys find unattractive.

It makes sense. From personal experience, I rarely try to chat up the most gorgeous girl at a party. Not that I haven't gone out with some extremely beautiful women, but as a guy on the prowl, I know how important it is to punch your weight. I therefore usually wind up talking to the "undervalued" females (as Popper puts it). These are people I know are cute and attractive, but I also recognize are not univerally seen as such.

Which, ironically enough, makes me think that this provides schlubs on the prowl with an opening: Maybe you should talk to the most beautiful girl in the bar if all her less-than-stunning friends are being monopolized.

Spat solved!

From our good friends at Your Tango -- this is pretty hilarious:

Summer blues

I should probably say a few words about the new Zooey Deschanel picture, (500) Days of Summer which I saw last week -- if only because a lot of my hipster pals have been praising it to the skies, and because I think it deals with some worthy-of-discussion issues.

As for the movie itself: Meh.

My friends were saying that it was as good as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- which is definitely not the case.

It's not exactly boring. It's not exactly unbelievable. It's not exactly predictable... But it's sort of all those things when put together.

The plot is nothing more than a romance and a disenchantment between Deschanel (the Summer of the title) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who you know from Third Rock from the Sun.) It's told in Quentin Tarantino-esque jumps in time from the blooming of the affair to the unsavory aftermath. It has the occasional moment of recognizable poignancy, as well as some good jokes and scenes (my favorite was a musical song-and-dance number after the affair is consummated). But overall, I was a little bored. And the movie's wisdom seemed a little obvious.

The one thing that the movie had going for it was that it did explore the male phenomenon of building up a woman in his mind who does not in fact exist.

Gordon-Levitt convinces himself of his girlfriend's perfection in a way that I think most schlubs will find very familiar.

I can't tell you how many times I've thought that one of the floozies that I was dating was the beginning and end of womanhood -- a beacon of beauty, intelligence, grace, humor... yada-yada-yada.

One of the reasons that this happens is because, like most Americans, I am a ravenous consumer of movies and books, and most pop entertainments make their heroine out to be all these things. (Which, of course, is a damn lie.) And suckers like me will continue to swallow it for as long as we continue going to movies.

So it's nice that, in this case, the woman who is built up as the monument of this picture isn't as wonderful as she appears. (It's also nice that it's a movie about male heartbreak -- which seems to get short shrift over female heartbreak in movies today.)

Sometimes the girl of your dreams -- who you pined over, daydreamed about, made a million wishes to possess -- is a shallow shmuck. And you were a shmuck to be so gaga over her.

For the record: Get over it.

Das Boot (camp)

I probably should have blogged about this weeks ago, but I wanted to tell my readers about a strange phenomenon I got caught up in called "Dating Boot Camp."

It all started when a friend of mine who works on the web site Thrillist asked me if I wanted to go to some crash course on dating (for women). The crash course was essentially the brainchild of two extremely sweet dating experts, Matt Titus and Tamsen Fadal. My friend from Thrillist suggested we go and eavesdrop on the four or five male experts Matt and Tamsen had corralled who offer their insights into the male mind. (Called aptly enough, the "man panel.")

"You can go and do the schlub take on it," she said.

"Why not?" I said. Hey, any promotion is good promotion.

However, when I showed up boot camp, I was told that nobody had been informed that I was supposed to be on the man panel. When my friend showed up she said, "Oh, I thought you should write about it. Not be on the panel." (I.e., I should do an article for the Post about it.)

"Oh," I said. "Well, no big deal."

But by that point I had already been introduced to Matt and Tamsen and they were excited to have me on.

"You did From Schlub to Stud, right?" Matt asked.

"Yeah..."

"I read that book," he said, "we did a little segment on it on the radio. You should definitely be on the panel."

So for the past few weeks I have been the resident expert on men and the male mind. And for my fellow schlubs out there, I can report truthfully: There are a lot of women out there who want to meet you. (I'm sure Matt and Tamsen would be extremely disappointed, however, if any of the 200 or so women -- by my rough estimate -- who were there went out with a schlub. M&T's advice was to be selective.) And there were a few women there who just seemed like they were there to be entertained, like "Singlegirl" Simone Grant of the blog, Sex Lies & Dating in the City, or her adorable friend, The Lost Plum (another blogger, who was kind enough to link to FSTS).

And I have to admit, it was sort of fun.

I got questions that extended from the extremely raunchy ("What do you say when your boyfriend wants to know how many men you've slept with?") to the fairly innocent ("I'm interested in politics -- should I talk about politics on a date?")

My answers were, I think, pretty sensible. ("Lowball" and "No.")

Yet another savvy businessman ...

Last night, my friend Noah took me to another bar which rivals Crocodile Lounge in terms of inventiveness for luring tightwads out of their lair:

1, 2, 3, burger, shot, beer in Hell's Kitchen on 10th avenue.

The concept of 1, 2, 3 is that the burger is one dollar, shots are two dollars and beers are three bucks. (The burgers are little sliders -- and you have to buy a minimum of three.) We spent a good two-plus hours there, had at least 10 beers between us, another half dozen or so shots and a lot of food -- our total for the two of us was less than $50. (Slightly more with tip.)

No matter how you look at that, that's a good deal by New York standards.

I will admit that the burgers were a little greasy. The service a little slow. The beer a little watery. The music featured Kelly Clarkson. And I couldn't taste that much alcohol in the shots. (So, no, I wasn't as blown away by it as I was by Croc.) But you certainly don't feel ripped off at the end of the day. And despite its problems, it was still an excellent time. Even if it was greasy, the food wasn't at all terrible (our waitress talked us into something called peanut butter wings which I was expecting to hate but wound up liking). The waitresses were extremely cute. And the place was hopping. If Noah was more willing to serve in wingman capacity, there were quite a few good looking women there who I might have approached.

Over all, really smart idea. Very good time. Check it out.