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Somebody stopped me in Sherman the other day. (No, not THAT day. The OTHER one.) He asked me the following question. Is it better to ask out a girl while lying on her bed without any clothing, or while lying on her bed without any clothing while covered in rose petals? Somebody actually asked me this question, to which I responded with the obvious answer, which is that if you ask out a girl using either of those two methods, youll definitely end up on a lovely date, though it will probably be with a large hairy-backed man in a prison bathroom.

This question, though, asked by a clearly confused man, underscores one serious problem that Brandeis suffers from. Every day, I look around and I see adult ducks and baby ducks, adult squirrels and baby squirrels. This, obviously, can only be a result of duck and squirrel reproduction, meaning there is success in mating strategies amongst the Brandeis animal kingdom. And yet, there are over three thousand human students here, and there are no baby students. Not one. Apparently, as illustrated by the rose petal questioner, we are having a serious problem attracting members of the opposite species.

Now, I know what youre thinking. Youre thinking, Are you an idiot? Ducks and squirrels cant lie on their girlfriends beds covered in rose petals! but thats the whole point. Ducks and squirrels know what theyre doing when it comes to reproduction, which is why they are never seen in such compromising positions. Believe meif they tried that strategy, there would be no baby ducks and squirrels.

Therefore, I have concluded, logically, that in order to replenish the Brandeis student population, we need a serious mating-strategy overhaul. For some day, the students here are going to get old, and with no second generation to carry the torch, our university will wither into nothingness. The strategy I am going to outline, unlike everything in this article up to now, is effective and based on psychological realities, with a smattering of real, actual events. In other words, from here on out, I am NOT making anything up.

The method is a three-step method called The Tao of Steve, taught to me by my friend Matthew. The three steps are:
1) Be desireless.
2) Be excellent.
3) Retreat.

Today, we will be focusing on the first stepdesirelessness. The reason desirelessness attracts women is that, unlike the male brain which is normal, the female brain is inside-out. The inside-out brain results in rather strange thinking patterns that can be paradigmatically illustrated through the rose petal example.
Say a male is covered in rose petals on a girls bed. The resulting thinking pattern will be thus: He seems to be interested in me. Therefore, I will have him arrested. This makes perfect sense, you see, because their brains are inside out. (This, I believe, is why they take so long to get dressed. They keep putting their clothes on backwards for hours. Its terrible.)

To counteract this glitch in the evolution of the female human brain, desirelessness is needed. Once a female perceives that a certain male does not care what she thinks of him, she will say to herself, He doesnt even seem to care about me. Therefore, I must carry his children.

In order to achieve desirelessness, one has to, like the female, turn his brain inside-out. This is done through a process called rejection training. Rejection training consists of going to a bar and using cheesy snotty one-liners on as many random women as you can find with the aim of getting rejected at least ten times. The objective is to get so desensitized that you no longer care about getting rejected, or anything else a female might say to you. The more humiliating the rejection, the better. Also, it doesnt hurt to get punched in the kidney a few times and knock a few adrenal glands loose, or get attacked by a jealous and drunk boyfriend with a steel-coated two-by-four.

And so it was, that last Thanksgiving break I myself went on rejection training with Matthew. Packed with enough pathetic one-liners to get me at least twelve ruptured spleens from repeated pummelings by various envious men, I stepped inside, determined to have the night of my life. Things started out slow, because the first girl I went up to didnt even reject me. I went up to her on one of those high stools just like in the movies and said to her, Hi. Im here to get rejected at least ten times. Sowhat is your hip circumference, in order that I be able to calculate exactly how many of my children you can carry?

She said the following seven words, and I remember them very clearly to this day: Thirty inches. Now buy me a drink.

But that didnt stop me. I quickly ran away to the other side of the bar, and saw a perfect target. Three tall slender females, sitting around a small circular table on those high stools. I took an available stool, pulled it up, and sat down right between them. We had the following dialogue, word for word as I remember it:

ME: So, where are you all from?
GIRL ONE: (Confused and bewildered look on face, sensing desire, puts right hand in purse in obvious attempt to grab cell phone and call police.) Were from LA
ME: So what are you doing here then?
GIRL TWO: (Suspicious squint, clenched fists.) We all go to University of Miami. Were in law school.
ME: Ah. Well thendoes the LAW prevent YOU from going out with a guy like ME?
GIRL THREE: Yeah. And the penalty is death.
ME: YES! Thats three! Seven to go!

The remainder of the night went rather smoothly, and from there, the rest is history. After that experience, I cared so little about rejection that I was slathered in ten times more desirelessness than Sherman is smothered in kosher. I ask you all to take a glance at my picture. It might occur to you that I look like a crazed baboon about to die from massive insulin shock. And yet, I am taken, spoken for, and she is NO diabetic baboon, which, by the way, would be a great name for a sugar-free Hindu-themed Indian restaurant.

There is, however, one downside to this whole thing. My brain, sadly, is still inside-out.