I want to preface my thoughts and the story that I’m going to tell with this:

I love women. Yes, I said it. Ladies, you are amazing. The way you look, the way you smell, the way you feel. All of it. With that in mind, if you are a woman, and you either follow me here, or if you are a woman and you happened to stumble across this post and my site in general, I’m going to ask you to stop reading now. Look away. Go read something else. Go somewhere else until the next post. I need to talk to the Men for a minute.

Okay Men, now that the ladies have left (and if you didn’t, what I’m about to talk about, if it upsets or offends you, you deserve it) here’s the deal:

I live by a few axioms or adages. Today’s adage is Always Hedge Your Bets. I got this adage from years of trial and error and hard won experience. Ignore it at your own peril. Oh, and if you do ignore it, you get what you deserve.

So here’s the story:

A woman that I had met at my second job reached out to me via text the other day. She introduced herself since I didn’t have her number at the time, and asked me if I remembered her. Of course I did. She’s a good looking woman, so that’s why she ended up with my business card and phone number.

We get to texting back and forth, and initially I kept it to business. Then she asked me if I would like to have coffee with her. Of course I would. But now, now “it’s on” as far as I’m concerned. She didn’t preface coffee with professionalism or anything that would indicate that coffee wasn’t about getting to know you, but was strictly about business, so to me “it’s on.” (As a side note: “it’s on” is another adage that I live by, but that’s for another day.)

As another side note, I believe in the adage, “Go Big or Go Home,” which to me means escalate the interaction until you either get where you want to go, or you get blown out. So that’s what I did, I escalated the texting to flirting and being fairly transparent about where I would have liked to see where all of this was going.

She seemed open to my ideas, my suggestions, my flirting and my banter. Now this texting went on between us for approximately two days. If I had to break it down into hourly time, it was maybe 2 hours total. Anyways, on the second day of heavy flirting, I decided it was time to “go big or go home” yet again, and also to Hedge My Bets.

So I call her up instead of texting her and I suggested that instead of meeting over coffee, that she just come over to my house instead. She accepted and I gave her my address.

Now here’s the thing that I’ve learned about women:

They are notoriously flaky. They truly live in the now, in the moment. They are like crows that see a shiny object, or squirrels gathering nuts. Yes this is AWALT. All Women Are Like That. Even the ones you date steadily for long periods of time, or even the ones that you marry.

Anyways, so I go back to my day, but something felt “off.” Even now as I’m writing this, I’m not sure exactly what it is/was, but it was something that I still can’t put my finger on. Honestly it doesn’t matter.

So I figured that the scenario that I had created with her would have three realistic possibilities:

1. She comes over, we get to know each other better, we have sex.
2. She comes over, we get to know each other better, either she or I decide to not have sex, so we don’t, but I get to enjoy her company either way.
3. She flakes and doesn’t show up.

Can you guess which one happened?

Her: “Fuck I’m so sorry but….(insert reasons here)

Me: “So it’s not gonna happen huh? No worries.”

Color me shocked.

Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt.

Here’s the thing though, I figured that there was a really good possibility that this would happen, because I’ve been there before. This way though, I got to stay home, which is where I wanted to be in the first place. I didn’t have to put gas in the car, go downtown, have wear and tear on the car, deal with traffic, find parking, deal with a noisy coffee shop, only to get the “I can’t make it” text, 15 minutes before we would have actually met. (Yes, she actually texted me 15 minutes before we were supposed to meet.)

So I set up a no lose situation for myself. Either she would come over, or not. Either way I “won.” I got to be at home, which is where I wanted to be, without all the wasted time and hassles.

The funny thing that showed up for me as well when I thought that there was a strong possibility that she would flake, was would she just ghost me? Or would she actually give me a story about why she couldn’t make it. I put the odds on that one at fifty-fifty. To her credit though, she actually gave me a story.

In all honesty, I appreciated and still appreciate that. At least it was something.

So you Men reading this, realize something:

Women hedge their bets all the time. It’s second nature to them. They’re willing to do things with you only if you are their best bet, otherwise all bets are off. So you might as well hedge yours too. Whether that means you have another woman on stand-by, some of your fellow Men, or just a nice night at home where you don’t have to go out for no reason and waste your time.

So Always Hedge Your Bets. It’s a good adage to live by.  Trust me and thank me later.

Stay tuned for more adages that I live by and that have served me well. I’ve got a few more for you in later articles.

And ladies, if you ignored what I said earlier, and here you are? Don’t hate the player, hate the game. You were warned.

 

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