How to be Sexy

Pretty Lady has decided to give the boys a break. She was considering writing a treatise on "How to Screw Up," complete with lurid examples from her colorful past, but she has it on reliable information that this sort of thing is making the gentlemen's heads hurt. (Sorry, dear Mr. Nelson. You KNOW I consider all my champions to be superior examples of their gender, by definition.)

Instead, she has decided to offer some overwhelmingly upbeat advice which, she hopes, will additionally be simple and easy to follow. This advice applies equally to humans of all genders, anthropological classifications and orientations; in fact, many of the more obstreperous fellows around here would do well to take a few lessons from the Dandy. ;-)

Simply: Be Dave Matthews.

Not literally. More simply: Know thyself; and OWN it.

Pretty Lady is using Dave Matthews as an example, not only because his sardonic, quizzical smirk causes her higher intellect to momentarily cease functioning, but because his career is a perfect example of how to become wildly successful by accident. Dave himself has confessed that he doesn't understand how a band which specializes in fifteen-minute saxophone improvisations came to be packing stadiums in the late 1990s. Not only that, but Dave is a poster child for the Sensitive Individual who is Nevertheless, Mind-Bogglingly Charismatic.

Who was it that said that a gentleman must repress his feelings in order to be attractive to the opposite gender? This person has obviously never listened to Dave, abjectly growling out the lines:

Oh, have you no pity?
This thing I do
I do not deny it
All through this smile
Crooked as danger...
I would leave you now
If I had the strength to
I would leave you up
To your own devices
Will you not talk?
Can you take pity?
I don't ask much
But won't you speak
Please?

I must admit, the gravelly alto helps quite a bit. But the thing that makes it sexy is the way he is, figuratively, standing in the spotlight and confessing, "here I am, being hideously pathetic now. Got a problem with that?"

One knows that a man like that will move along through it presently. He will not wallow for decades, leaning on his closest companions and slowly draining them dry. Even in the depths of hopeless misery, he is both occupying the emotion and witnessing it. In a larger sense, then, he takes conscious and complete responsibility for himself, exactly as he is.

Hmph. Wandered off into esoteric rhetoric, there. I do apologize.

So, think of it like this; your task is to become so much yourself--quirky, odd, or pathetic as this may be--that you unwittingly assemble a cult following of hard-core fans. Do not think of how to please the masses. The masses have notoriously terrible taste. Notice the dumbest things about yourself, and cultivate them; nay, flaunt them. Occupy your territory.

Once you have this down, it is important to become comfortable enough within your unique star quality to be able to open up, and perceive the star quality within others. Surely everyone here is familiar with the comments of that lady who was fortunate enough to lunch with Messrs. Gladstone and Disraeli on consecutive days; when asked about her experience, she declared, "When I was with Mr. Gladstone, I was convinced that he was the most fascinating person in the world. With Mr. Disraeli, I was convinced that I was the most fascinating person in the world." The Disraeli technique is known as 'charm,' and this is what truly makes the world go round.

Related posts:
How to Ask a Lady Out
How to Ask a Gentleman Out
How to Pick a Lady Up