When I was at school boys would occasionally, very occasionally, ask me out. Let’s say there were around 10 times this happened. On 8 out of those 10 occasions, they were joking.

Of course we grown-ups can tut and sigh and shake our heads at the cruelty of children, but what’s much better is to recognise what we can learn from it. And like all the best lessons in life, this one could help you get laid. Get your notebooks out, face front and keep your eyes on the fucking blackboard…

Understanding insecurity gives you a way into someone’s pants, because you can push the buttons that make them feel good.

It’s been years since a boy jokingly asked me out, and life’s a bit different now. I’m no longer fat and fourteen and in love with any boy who was willing to put his hand up my skirt during maths lessons, but I’m still a child really. That fourteen year old is just a bit bigger, and is gobsmacked that she has a job, a flat, and the legal right to drink herself insensible whilst livetweeting the Apprentice.

So despite my external grown-up-ness, the memory of these joke-proposals stays with me, as I imagine it stays with any girl who’s ever been shy, covered in acne, or good at science. Now that we’re grown-ups, no matter how hot we’ve become or how confident we are, there’s always a little something that makes us wonder if you’re joking when you ask.

A casual, throwaway, “Fancy a shag?” opens up the mental fight between confidence: “Say yes, say yes, he’s beautiful.” and the insecurity still nurtured by that 14 year old: “He’s joking. Say no. Then run away and cry behind the gym.”

If you ask this question of a lady and you don’t look serious, my money’s on the fact that you’ll probably get a no.

But God, GOD. In the situations where you really want it, and tell me you really want it, it’ll be the hardest thing I ever do to turn you down. There is nothing in this life more attractive than a man who is panting for you. Dripping for you. So desperate to get within 20 feet of you that he’d happily fuck a letterbox if you shouted words of encouragement.

And so, gents. When you’re looking at a lovely lady, and you think she might be out of your league, remember that one day she was probably fat and fourteen. She still wakes up most mornings and winces at her reflection in a mirror. She might worry that she’s got cellulite, or that her tits are slightly uneven, that her hands look old or her eyebrows unplucked or her feet too big for her awkward, stumbling body.

Approaching women is hard, of course. But if you can be the one who strides over with confidence, and says: “You know what? You’re fucking spectacular” then you win. You win so hard your friends will wonder what your secret is. You’ve just made someone’s day, and you could be the one screwing her twelve shades of happy by the time that day is done.

This. Does. Not. Mean. Anything.

Let’s stop using this phrase, yeah? Because what it implies is that one person is better than another purely on the grounds of sexual attractiveness.

I don’t know about you, but I’d find it difficult to rank the entire human race on an objective measure of sexuality. Sure, there’s a fuzzy and generic scale on which we might say that more people want to fuck Anne Hathaway than Anne Widdicombe, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no one who finds Widdicombe’s rotund Tory cuntitude more shag-worthy than Hathaway’s fey charm.

Have you ever passionately lusted after someone and had your friends tell you you’re mad? Because I have. I love guys who are not conventionally attractive – guys who might be a bit shy about their pot-belly but have hands that I can’t look at without imagining filthy things. Guys who are old enough to be my parents but have disgustingly compelling ‘come to bed’ eyes, and an aura of dominance that Brad Pitt will never achieve. There are guys that I want to fuck because they’re funny, because they’re angry, or because they seem like they’d get hard just waiting for me at the bus stop. Boys who’d prompt my friends to stare and my parents to raise surprised eyebrows.

Guys who might generally think I was ‘out of their league’ are frequently the exact ones that I want to bury my fucking face in. Why? Because if they hold me in such high esteem I imagine that there’d be a spectacular erection and enthusiastic sex if I were to take them somewhere private.

I am in no way out of anyone’s league, and damned if I think anyone’s out of mine. The issue in any situation where you’re propositioning someone is simply whether there is mutual attraction. By all means turn someone down because you don’t fancy them, but don’t assuage your guilt by implying that no one else like you would fuck them either.

Some women are genuinely offended to be propositioned by someone who they don’t find attractive. In these cases ‘out of your league’ serves the dual purpose of being a painfully effective brush-off and also a consoling tool for those who place a pathetic mountain of importance on their own appearance.

If I don’t fancy you I won’t shag you – I’ll turn you down as nicely as possible, and perhaps even point you towards a friend who I think might be turned on by your specific charms. But be assured: if you want to fuck me you’re in my league, it’s just that sometimes I don’t want to play.

And to those who actually use the phrase ‘out of your league’ to refer to potential partners, I’d strongly advise that you piss off far out of my earshot. I am liable to step in in situations where someone’s been brave enough to make an approach and has been shot down with the kind of cold-hearted bitchery that’ll take them years to get over. What’s wrong with saying ‘no’? Why do you have to turn it into a weird competition for attractiveness that will destroy the confidence of someone who may already be lacking it in the first place?

If some misguided league system is your reason for not fucking someone then I’m afraid we’re not just in different leagues, but playing different games altogether.

I don’t believe you’re real

You obviously believe I’m real enough to initiate a conversation with, so what is the point of this question? This is one of the most irritating dating site fails.
I’ve written the profile, I can write replies, but short of running round to your house and headbutting you in the crotch, there’s not much else I can do to prove it.

Wanna chat?

Why yes, yes I do. But in real life, please, not on some idiotic chat programme where we have stilted conversations about what we’re both doing, culminating in me being massively turned off by your excessive use of the term ‘lol.’

I always say in my profile that I hate IM. If you then insist on IMing me I’ll assume not only that you’re typing one-handed, but also that all that ‘one-handed typing’ has made you so blind you can’t read.

I expect you won’t reply…

Why, do I look like an arsehole?

In all seriousness I get a fair few messages, mainly because I mention sex on my profile and men these days have reasonably low standards. But I don’t get so many that it’d be impossible to reply to all of them – I reply to about one in five – the ones that don’t break these rules.

Wow your so hot

If you can’t spot what’s wrong with this then I wouldn’t reply to you either.

Do you have a pic of your body?

Or, to say what you actually mean: “are you fat?”

That’s what you’re asking, so why not come out and say it? Well, because it’s fucking rude, obviously.

I’m not going to tell you whether or not I’m fat, just as I’m not going to suck my stomach in and stand in front of a mirror just so I can send a picture of my body to someone so shallow I’d definitely not fuck him in the first place.

“I didn’t get to shag her.”
“Why did she turn you down?”
“What?”
“Umm, dude, you did at least ask her, didn’t you?”

How the living fuck do you expect to ever get laid if you don’t ask people for a shag? This is a growing problem. I’ve met men – beautiful, confident men – who’ll umm, and err, and wait until both my hands are inside their trousers before they’ll finally admit that yes, they’re probably going to get laid.

I even once had a guy – a supposedly dominant guy, for the love of Christ – who beat me with a wire coathanger until I cried, stripped me naked then fingered me so vigorously I nearly pissed in his hands, and still – still – had to ask my permission before he gave me the fuck I’d been begging for since we first met.

Part of this is the fault of aggressive, rude, “I’m out of your league” women, who leave some men’s confidence so battered after an approach that it’s surprising they can walk upright. I’ll come to this in another post – people who do this deserve far more of my wrath than I’m willing to give right now.

What’s getting me right now is the weird attitude of the guys who avoid asking for sex. They see sex as a gift that women might deign to give them if they’re just impressive enough, just kind enough, just sexy enough. They feel like they have to earn it. They don’t seem to realise that women often want sex too – just for its own sake.

A woman no more ‘lets you’ have sex with her than you ‘let people’ give you birthday presents.