15 & 16 – Know Your Audience

15) If you don’t want us to stare at your breasts, stop wearing shirts three sizes too small or having your twins pop up half-way out of your top or dress... on second thought, don’t stop doing that; we won’t stare anymore, I promise.

16) There are only seven colors—blue, red, brown, green, purple, orange, and yellow (in order of importance). Describing something as canary, burgundy, fuchsia (I had to have a woman spell it), or chestnut is the equivalent of a dork describing to you what the Romulans did to the Klingons (I had to have a dork spell it) on planet K-9 in episode 14 of Star Trek, season 2. We don’t grimace, though, because while

you babble about colors that don’t exist, it provides us with the perfect opportunity to stare mindlessly at your breasts.

There’s an old, very important adage in standup comedy—“Know your audience.” This astute advice is true for all areas of life. Ever been to a 10:30PM showing of a horror flick and right before the movie starts, some stupid couple walks in with their two-year-old kid? Clearly, they have failed to recognize their audience. A horror show is completely inappropriate for a toddler and nobody else at the theater wants one crying throughout the film, making it impossible for them to focus on the movie. Failing to “know your audience” is a big problem in the dating and relationship arena. Guys take a lot of heat for not knowing their audience but truthfully, women fail to be aware of their audience on an even larger scale.
A few years ago, I was on a date with a pretty blonde (we’ll call her Shelly). We went to a bar to watch a team of her volleyball students play a match on an indoor sand pit. As luck had it, the bar was showing some annual, big World Wide Wrestling event. We could not find a table anywhere, as the bar was packed with skinny geeks like a can of sardines. (Who knew skinny geeks followed wrestling? I thought they spent all their time at home, trying to build beautiful robotic women.) Of course, Shelly caught the leer of every guy in the joint. The geekiest geek in the room sat at a table by himself. Upon seeing a slender blonde standing around with nowhere to sit, he managed to squeak out (literally) an invite for Shelly to grab a seat at his table. We thanked him and sat down. After he worked up enough courage, he started to ask Shelly questions. “Do you like wrestling?”

“No.”
“Oh... why not?”
“It just doesn’t interest me at all.”
“Oh.”
The geek then spent the next forty minutes explaining to Shelly who all the wrestlers were, recited their bios, and regurgitated a bunch of descriptive wrestling injuries (at which point she nearly regurgitated her lunch). What was his problem? He was nervous, which caused him to fallback on a topic he knew very well in order to engage in conversation. Unfortunately, in so doing, he completely ignored his audience: Shelly told him she had no interest in wrestling. He never should have brought it up again, let alone gone into a forty-minute rant about the topic!
Believe it or not, women do the exact same thing when it comes to guys: You often forget your audience. Why isn’t it as apparent? Look above—“We don’t grimace, though, because while you babble about colors that don’t exist, it provides us with the perfect opportunity to stare mindlessly at your breasts.”
When we men forget our audience, we suffer immediately. We don’t get a date, get the woman’s number, a goodnight kiss, get a second date, or get laid. You women have a much lower threshold for listening to things you don’t care about and won’t tolerate it. You’ll shoo men away or head to the restroom with your friends, choosing to reconvene in a completely different area of the bar when you return. Even if you are dating or married to someone, you are far less tolerant of his opinion than he is of yours. Disagree? Who has the final say over wallpaper or paint color? Furniture? Ever throw out some of his old clothes in disgust? Has he ever dared to toss any of your outfits that he doesn’t like?
When you women forget your audience, you don’t suffer immediately, so your oversight is not immediately apparent. Unfortunately, this sets you up for greater pain and suffering, often delivered as a blindsiding blow. Why do we tolerate it when you forget we’re your audience? It’s not just the hope of seeing you naked (which admittedly plays a big role); it’s the realization that you are often too busy imagining who you want us to be instead of being sensitive to who we actually are. It’s a trait of women that boyfriends and husbands learn to accept.
When you start to pay attention to your audience, you will quickly become much more apt at distinguishing the bad apples from the good. For example, have you ever met a guy and he asks you some questions about yourself? You tell him what your hobbies are and he starts taking on the same hobbies? I had a friend do this very thing with a woman he met at his gym. She told him which yoga, pilates, and spinning classes she took. She also shared with him the times and days she swam laps. He joined all the same classes and started swimming laps at the same times. They started to date and once they were an item, he immediately dropped all those activities. She went around complaining, “He changed.” (Sound familiar?)  
Remember your audience and think about my friend as a guy. A guy in a pilates class? Spinning and yoga? Highly suspicious. What’s even more suspect—by far—is the fact that he didn’t join one of these classes until after he learned she was in them. He also didn’t join just one; he joined them all. When a guy does this kind of thing, you have to ask yourself “why?” He wants to see you and size you up, so he knows when it’s best to make his move. He wants to keep other guys at the gym from making a move on you (referred to among men as “cock blocking”). By failing to recognize her audience, the girl at the gym began to fall for my friend. She thought it was endearing that he joined the same classes. She thought they had a lot in common. Of course, after a few months of dating, he ended it and she was left very hurt. 
If your audience is going to a show he doesn’t want to see, such as joining a pilates class or hanging out with you at a gay bar you like to frequent, he is feigning interest. He is a bad apple with some serious lack-of-confidence issues. He’s also suffocating. If your audience passes on pilates or the gay bar, but wants to meet up with you afterward for a drink, he is a good apple. He is interested but not a faker. He is confident. He’s not worried about having to cock block. You’ll realize that a good audience member doesn’t become interested in your particular show until after you start to date. This is because as he dates you, he becomes interested in knowing more about you and wants to share more with you. So, he will hit a pilates class once in a while or swim with you. (The gay bar-thing will probably never happen.) 
Be warned: recognizing your audience will shock you. You will do a 180 when it comes to reading men. You’ll quickly learn that the ones you thought were good apples are bad, and the ones you thought were creeps are actually good apples. Back when I prowled for women, I would occasionally meet one who didn’t share a single interest with me; but, for whatever reason, I wanted her badly. I literally would say something like, “I have to tell you, I really don’t care what you’re talking about; I just really want to do this—” then I would kiss her. I might even say, “I just really want you, like I can’t believe how badly I want you. It’s weird because usually I’m not drawn to a woman unless we have a lot in common.”
I once subbed for a volleyball team and became immediately drawn to the referee. She was in her mid-thirties and I was in my late twenties. We shared some interests but mostly I just wanted her... extremely wanted her. I felt like I was going to explode. I told her on more than one occasion that we had to have sex because there was just too much sexual tension between us. We fooled around a few times but she always put an end to it when I started to pull off her clothes. This went on for two years before neither one of us could stand it any longer. We were kissing in a parking lot one day when she said, “We should go back to your place and do this right.”
I was shocked... and still somewhat skeptical. We went back to my place and till this day, it is some of the best sex I’ve ever had. It was very heated and went on for hours, simply because of all the tension we had built up over the two years.
No doubt, many of you reading this would label me as a creep or jerk. Once you recognize your audience, though, you’ll realize that when I told a woman I just wanted to have sex with her, I was being straightforward and respectful. If she wasn’t interested—or she was disgusted—we simply parted ways; no one was hurt because no one had been misled. If a guy says he just wants to have sex, you might be offended, but that will quickly fade. (Figure one beer should take care of it.) It’s the guy who feigns interest, becomes a friend to lower your defenses and to time everything just right, or upon meeting you seems to be overwhelmingly interested in girly things—like the color canary or all the furniture you bought at Ikea or the knickknacks you got at Pier One, who is really the creep. He’s the one setting you up for a world of hurt because he is only interested in seeing you naked, too. Unlike me, though, he doesn’t have the confidence to realize it’s okay if he doesn’t sleep with every woman he wants and he doesn’t respect you enough to be honest. To him, you are just a pretty face with nice legs, breasts and a butt, not a person with feelings; thus, it is okay if he lies, manipulates, and maneuvers to nail you and then casts you aside. To me, you are a person who has feelings and it is not acceptable for me to prey upon those feelings or mislead you in any manner. In short, when it comes to me, whether we have sex or not is our decision. In his case, whether you have sex or not is only his decision.
I realize to most of you it appears as the exact opposite but you could not be further from the truth. Think about the times you’ve been hurt; the times your relationships have failed. Did you ever feel misled? Betrayed? Bewildered? Now think about if the guy did a 180 once you started to date. Did he turn out not to be who you thought he was or who he pretended to be? Would you have seen this more clearly ahead of time had you considered your audience?
If you’re looking for a good, long-term relationship, you must remember your audience. In so doing, you will weed out both the creeps (the ones who feign interest) and the guys who are honest about just wanting sex (good guys but not on the same page as you). You are left with the guys who have sincere interest in some of the things you like, too. These are the guys you want to date when you find yourself interested in them. They are easy to spot because they are engaged in the conversation—they have input and maintain a dialogue. The fakers of interest only listen and ask an occasional (usually lame) question because they can’t engage in dialogue—they don’t have any actual knowledge or opinion on the topic. (Also, you’ll catch them staring at you or your breasts far more often than a guy with sincere interest. People work hard to maintain eye contact when they are pretending to listen; those actually listening tend to gesture, look away, and gaze up in pondering thought when you say something that makes them think.) It all starts with remembering your audience.