What’s a Magic article? I hate these types of questions, really, because sometimes the definitions are pretty clear but I have seen some forum posts that made me want to say some things about complaining. I read Wakefield’s review of Ravnica Green where he did a very standard set review. He got blasted in the forums for not being creative. Maybe those people were right, but when some other guy does the same thing it’s a nice read, you know? I’ve liked Wakefield’s writing since I was seventeen and that’s a long f***ing time, my friend. But only the first year or so did I think I became a better player by reading his articles. This makes me wonder, of course, what do you expect to take away from a Wakefield article? For me it has always been the writing. To me, it’s almost on the level where I think that if I had gotten all the references in his Everquest-or-whatever-writing, I would probably have enjoyed that as well.
My point is that if you’re expecting to become a better Magic player every time you read an article, you’re expecting too much. The most successful period of my Magic career, I didn’t bother to read any Magic sites. It’s the same with most pros, actually. I mean, the writers read too. But the guys that don’t wouldn’t know what starcitygames.com was if it wasn’t for Knut barning them, and they still only read Nick Eisel articles to cut/paste and lol at on irc. No jokes.
What’s a Magic article? Any writing regarding Magic? I have no idea, but I will tell you this: I think the Cunningham/PTR-article the other day was an absolute masterpiece, possibly the best Magic-related text ever written and it contained absolutely no references to any cards. There are a lot of people that need to be blasted if you can’t write non-strategy, right? I mean I don’t want to name names, but you know who I’m talking about.
What’s a Strategy? There will be no strategy in this installment. This is nothing new to the game, so you and your peeps can cry all you want because you will want what’s in here and I don’t care if you lie about it. Before you hit that back button, though, consider this: My girlfriend laughs at my jokes, is a D cup (not overweight), and she sorts my commons.
Which brings me to the topic of Magic and Females.
What’s a geek? Most of you, I guess. Most of my friends are, and most certainly myself. If there’s one thing these guys have in common except for their awful diets, addiction to online games, addiction to cardboard games, addiction to [censored – drugs] etc. it would be their lack of success with women. By geek standards, I am quite a player. I’m not going to get into any specifics about that, but I have most likely hooked up on more occasions than most of you and I think I have enough knowledge to pass on to the geek community.
These nuggets of wisdom will be brought to you over the week according to this schedule:
Monday: Enormous introduction, a look at the basics of geek-female relationships.
Tuesday: Finding a suitable girl, what to look for and what to look out for.
Wednesday: Making the first move, approaching and talking to them. Thursday: Dating, how, when and what’s to consider.
Friday: Relationships, how to make them work and how to break them off when they don’t.
By following the simple guidelines provided in these articles, I believe that any geek can find love. Whether you’re conquering Molten Core, raising T8s or tapping Mountains in your spare time, you could have a faithful girlfriend a week from now. I’m that good.
Not everyone is on the same starting level on these matters, so if you feel that your shortcomings are more related to making the first move or even dating, feel free to skip this part, but be sure to check back later this week. Today we will go over the very foundations of how geeks interact with females, and how you should approach the subject.
Let’s begin here: For a lot of geeks, girls are more of a non-issue. To most of these guys, it’s a facade but if you truly feel that you’d rather not spend time with girls when you could pursuing a career on some Star Trek message board, go nuts. As guys, we all tend to exaggerate how much we want women and almost everyone goes through periods where we have other things on our minds. If you’re trying to date because of social stigma, you are very likely going to fail.
Next there is hygiene. If you are going to get anywhere in this game, you need to be attentive to this. You don’t actually have to have a sixty-minute-a-day bathroom routine in order to not smell the way you do, a quick shower and a new pair of underwear each day doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes. If you go without showering for a day, that’s acceptable. Anything more is not. Girls are slightly more concerned about this bit, but as we will see tomorrow they are not the girls you’ll want to be dating, so don’t worry. Also by not walking around without having showered you will know that you have made the world a slightly better place to live in, and that’s a great feeling.
The big question for most geeks, however, is self-confidence. Maybe your odd interests made you an outcast at school, or maybe you were raised in a drive-thru, you know? Maybe you’ve been doing geek-stuff all your life and just assume that you would bring nothing to the table. The common view on beauty is that there is a scale that ranges from most beautiful to least beautiful and that you are somewhere pretty near the bottom.
The way it actually works is that there are two groups: Beautiful and not. The people in the beautiful group are extremely rare – they are Brad Pitt and Pamela Anderson and such. The rest of us get to live our life ashamed of our awkward looks. What this amounts to is that even though you don’t feel all that attractive, neither does anyone else. We are all on the same level of miserably hating our bodies and it’s your duty to reap the rewards of it.
That said, there is nothing wrong with working on your appearance. If you are overweight, it wouldn’t hurt to lose a little weight. If you dress funny, maybe looking a bit less alienated from the outside world would help you get a little closer to the girl of your dreams. Your physical appearance is not as important as you think it is, but you are most likely out of wiggling room. By starting to make conscious decisions on how you dress instead of just throwing on a pair of baggys and a prerelease tee, you are doing yourself a huge favor at almost no cost.
That’s all we have time for today. As this is the first installment of the series, your homework for tomorrow will be very simple:
In the morning, before sitting down by the computer, have a shower and put some non-geek clothes on. I’m not saying don’t be a geek, just be less geeky. Good luck, and see you tomorrow.
/Thomas