| | The Game, Pt. 2Please read The Game, Pt. 1 before this post; otherwise, it won't make any sense. It still may not make sense after you read Pt. 1, but you still ought to read it first anyway.
I'm going in. Cover me, Rogue Leader! The most basic strategy, then is to have one or more wingmen run intercept for you, and cover for you. In terms of military or team-sport strategy, to "run intercept" means to engage the first wave of the enemy, hopefully keeping them busy so that the next wave can move in and hit their targets. Similarly, to "cover" someone means that if an enemy targets the friendly you're covering, you attack that enemy in order to protect him. The way it works out in The Game is this: the men assemble a group roughly the same size as the group of women they are targeting. For simplicity, let's say it's two on two. The "wingman" will intercept the woman who is not the main target, but surrounding the main target, and engage in conversation. An ideal wingman already has rapport with the intercepted woman, and is able to make conversation long enough for his friend to make his move. When his conversation dries up, he'll probably check up on his friend and make sure he's doing all right and doesn't need back-up. It is readily apparent that even this most basic strategy takes a good amount of logistics, organization, and skill to execute properly. Further, the strategy must be adapted for every situation. For example, it doesn't even begin to take into consideration competition from other clans. Strategies for Women Strategy for women is vastly different. In particular, a woman does not have as much luxury to be able to target a specific guy. Sure, she can try to play "escape pod," and float "aimlessly" by herself towards a given guy and hope she gets picked up. Sometimes she'll drift from conversation to conversation, hoping to move closer and closer to her goal. This is also known as "the honey-bee." Guys may try this too, especially when lacking a good wingman, but it is not a recommended strategy. More often than not, the woman has to settle for trying to look as attractive and approachable as possible to all men and hope that her knight in shining armor seeks her out, slaying any dragons that impede his progress. We have already concluded that congregating with large numbers of her friends is not a viable strategy. What then? In order to be approachable, a woman must make the extra effort to be by herself as much as possible. She must be occupied, though, so that it is not too conspicuous that she is waiting for her knight to approach. Finally, though she ought to be occupied, her activity must be easily interruptible. Juggling torches, for example, is a great solitary activity, but does not improve one's approachability. The Optimal Strategy for Women I have found an optimal strategy that simultaneously increases a woman's spiritual attractiveness and increases her approachability. The strategy is called "book-stalling." At any reasonably-sized church with a large singles population, there is usually a book stall, book store, book table, or library stocked with material suitable for increasing one's godliness. A woman who browses regularly will appear as one seeking to increase in godliness, and thus is attractive for a Christian man. The advantage of "book-stalling" is that it is recognized as a solitary activity, but is something that can be easily be turned into conversation. A man feels comfortable approaching a woman at the book stall, and is able to make such clever openers such as, "What books are you reading these days?", "Are you looking for something in particular?" or "Have you read that Joshua Harris book?" The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it is size-limited. If all the single women were to congregate where the books are, it would become another large group of women, who would then enter into conversation, and then we're right back to where we started. Perhaps the women can draw lots to see who gets to browse the books for a given amount of time, and switch off. Therefore, I think it is contingent upon all churches wishing to meet the needs of their singles to not only bolster the biblical teaching on dating and courtship, but also to increase the size of their book store. Alternately, woman can also hang out near the punch-bowl, the lemonade
cooler, or the cookie table. The disadvantage is that once your drink is
filled or your napkin is full of cookies, it doesn't look good to
loiter around the area. Also, if you frequent the cookie table too
often, you might be thought a glutton (gluttonness?). |
