Chapter 213: Pipeline Date 1A#1; The Second Half

Friday, May 13, 2005 (Continued)

I went back to the dining room. "Sorry I took a little longer than I expected. I hope you haven't eaten all the desserts already?"

Luckily they hadn't, so we were soon digging into some nice desserts (aren't all desserts nice?).

Toward the end, when my mouth wasn't so busy, I said, "I took longer on the phone than I expected because I had an idea about the carding process that I wanted to check with Julia. We'd intended that I would provide quite a lot of feedback at the end of every pipeline date: what the date as a whole was like, plus what each girl did right or wrong. I'm still going to give my impression of the date overall, but now no personal feedback whatsoever, I'll just name which girls get which cards."

There were several worried and confused looks.

I explained, "It's because I'll be spending so little time with each girl during the pipeline process that it'd be relatively easy for any girl to fake the personality traits I like. If I give feedback, later girls will know more and more about how to act. Not only would that give later groups and advantage over earlier ones, but there's too much chance that the entire purpose of the pipeline would be ruined because I would probably end up choosing a girl who was temporarily acting the way I wanted. I'd much rather get to know each of you as honestly as possible, so I end up in a good relationship at the end."

They easily understood what I meant, so I didn't need to say any more, but I added something anyway, "I'm somewhat disappointed that I have to cancel the individual feedback. I'd like to be able to thank and praise the girls who'd done well, and I'd even like to tell the girls who'd made mistakes what their mistakes were, so they could learn from them. I'd just be giving my opinion, but at least it'd be an unbiased and honest opinion. Knowing guys the way I do, I suspect that girls don't usually get honest feedback from us."

The girls bemoaned that for a while. "Guys have only two ways of relating to a girl. Doing everything they can think of to get into our panties, or with anger when they get told they aren't getting there."

"Or they ignore us," added another girl, "until they strike out with another girl, and then they're suddenly our best friends."

"I agree, guys are pathetic. One-track minds the lot of us. Whereas Girls have two tracks: clothes AND makeup!"

"And keeping guys out of our panties, so THREE tracks!"

"Not all guys," corrected Mia. "Some guy I'd welcome." Mia was looking straight at me, so it wasn't difficult to guess who she had in mind.

#1: <She's changed her bait to a different sexual organ. She's going to run out soon.>

#3: <I wonder whether it'd occur to her to use her brain.>

The other girls were mostly disapproving. By unspoken agreement, there'd been no blatant sexuality all evening, something I agreed with, so Mia's comment stood out. In many other situations it would've been fine, but it was too much of a contrast for this situation. I didn't want to drag the friendly atmosphere down by putting her down too harshly, so I said, "So far I'm enjoying this evening more than I expected. There were large helpings of wonderful food, and it's been enjoyable to talk with girls without having to worry about sexual undertones, let alone overtones. I think that comment of yours went too far, Mia."

"Sorry." Mia's apology had been a glum one. She'd either realized she'd gone too far, or she'd run out of ways to attract a boy, because she looked like she'd given up.

I said, "To change the subject, one of the phone conversations I had just before dessert was with the parents of a girl who's interested in me. Not any of your parents, you'll probably be glad to know, haha."

^-- There were a few chuckles from around the table, after which I said, "It amazes me how much parents vary. Julia has great parents, but the parents on the phone were terrible. I imagine there'd be an interesting range of reactions if the parents of each of you walked in and saw us now. Sixteen girls dressed up very nicely and putting a considerable effort into feeding and entertaining one boy is an unusual situation. Carina, do your parents know the full story about tonight?"

Carina answered, "They know most of it. I told them we're all interested in you, and rather than competing behind each other's backs we decided to be open about it. They're impressed that we're so sensible and able to cooperate together, but Julia made us do it this way. I didn't say anything about there being other groups either."

"So you've been very honest about the small picture, but silent about the big picture. I find that's often the best approach with my parents too. They get confused when they get too much information, haha. What about the parents of the rest of you? How much do they know about tonight, or how would they react if they walked in now?"

There weren't many answers, and most of those were fairly brief. The girls looked hesitant and nervous.

I ventured, "Let me guess: you're nervous that I'm judging you on your answers?"

Nods from around the table.

"I guess it is a suspiciously artificial question and you're right that I'm judging you on your answers, but despite that, you should ignore your suspicions and answer as if you don't care. I'll explain in a roundabout way, because I get to talk about breasts again. Specifically about Mia's breasts. Mia started by using her breasts as bait to attract me. Then she made her comment about letting me into her panties, offering another of her sexual organs as bait. Doubtless it's because of my incredible genius that I'm already aware that girls have sexual organs. I'm even fortunate enough to have had experiences with several of them. I think I can say without much chance of being wrong, that they're actually quite a lot of fun." I paused for the giggles, then carried on, "If I was desperate to have sex, the way most guys are, sex would be great bait. But I'm not desperate; I can get as much sex as I want - Julia even had to insist that there be no sex on the early pipeline dates because she thought there was too much risk of it - so sex has lost its power as bait for me. Plus I'm assuming that when I finally choose one or two girlfriends at the very end of the pipeline process, their sexual organs and mine will often be getting together for our MUTUAL enjoyment. Sex is what people do to give pleasure. It shouldn't be used to trick the other person.

^-- "What could you use as bait for me? Not sex. Large breasts aren't that big a deal for me, as Julia proves. Good cooking is great, but I live at home and am several years away from worrying about the cooking skills of my girlfriends. Money isn't going to work as bait because I have all I need for now." Actually, I wished I had more.

^-- "The only thing you can use to interest me is your personality. Nothing else has any significant influence. So when I ask you a question - about your parents or anything else - my advice is to answer in a way that best expresses your personality. If I like your personality, and you don't speak up, you risk getting eliminated because I didn't find out enough to realize I would like you. If I don't like your personality, then you're going to get eliminated sooner or later anyway, so you might as well speak up and get it over with."

"Can I speak bluntly, Mark?" asked Jessica.

"What did I just say about expressing your personality?" I smiled broadly to show there was no sting in it.

"Okay. There IS a point in hanging on. It'd be embarrassing to be eliminated early, and the longer we can hang on the better we can get to know you, which might help our chances. I'd also like to last long enough to have sex with you. I've heard how good you are, and I'd like to experience that at least once."

A couple more girls gave clear reiterations of the same sentiment.

"Good points, Jessica. Julia and I haven't been able to think about every nuance of the pipeline system so it's good to get your thoughts. I understand the embarrassment point, but I'm guessing it won't be as bad as you fear. After Tuesday there'll be sixteen eliminated girls to spread the embarrassment across. In another couple of weeks there'll be another sixteen from the next intake, plus something like twelve more from this intake, making forty four. After another two weeks it'll be more like a hundred girls, so embarrassment is only going to be a short-term problem. I suspect that even in the short term, other girls should hesitate to tease you because they might be eliminated in the first round themselves if they join a group. You've also got the retort that at least you had the courage to try, which is more than the hecklers probably have.

^-- "Hanging on so you get to know me better sounds good, but I don't think it'll work in practice. Only four of you are going to survive two dates, and almost certainly none of those four will be girls who were keeping a low profile as a way of hanging on. There's also the issue that if you keep quiet, that'll make me think you're a dull girl, which will count against you in all the future eliminations you'll be facing. Compared to the questionable benefit of learning a little bit more about me, the risk of being eliminated makes it a poor strategy. Hanging on to have sex with me has the same problem, although I thank you for your compliment. Sex with me isn't going to happen until the third date at the soonest, but more likely after 1A and 1B are merged. You'll have to be in the top four out of thirty two to reach that date, or maybe even the top two, so I can't see 'hanging on for sex' getting you that far. Girls who survive that long will have done so by showing me that their personalities suit me."

"Damn!"

"Haha Jessica. Now you're showing your personality, so good for you. Before we get back to my question about your parents, let me say that I do think parents are important. Before I choose my final girlfriends I will meet their parents."

That was greeted by some groans. I asked the groaners to explain why they'd groaned, which led to some funny stories, although I felt sorry for the girls who had to live with restrictive or embarrassing parents.

I was sent to the den, while the girls did eight on/eight off with the cleaning duties.

I spent the last part of the date asking some trickier questions to help me finalize my carding decisions. Questions like, "Whose idea was the structure for tonight's date?" And when the eight girls had changed, I asked the same question again, getting a noticeably different answer. Then, when all sixteen were together later, I asked them to explain the discrepancy. NOT to give me the right answer, but explain why there were two different answers, which was a much harder question.

Another question was, "If I told you that I wanted you to collectively decide who got what color cards, how would you do it? Just the how, not the who, because I don't want to start any trouble between you."

"I suppose we'd vote."

It wasn't hard to point out a couple of fatal flaws in that politically correct idea. "You're meant to be choosing girls based on who I'd like as a girlfriend, but I bet you've all got very different opinions about that, especially because I've been deliberately silent about my preferences. So how could voting about an unknown possibly produce good results? To make it even worse, you're not electing a representative government, but girls you'll be competing further with, so the smart move is to vote for who you think are the worst ones. That's the opposite of what I want to see happen."

I said several things to put pressure on them, like threatening to eliminate more than eight if they didn't do a good job, leading one of them to comment, "You're deliberately putting pressure on us."

"Exactly right. The entire purpose of this evening is to help find me a good girlfriend, and that includes the ability to handle pressure." I didn't really need a girlfriend who could handle pressure, but it sounded like a good excuse. I was pressuring them so their natural personalities became clearer, especially their competitiveness and ability to work with others, both traits I'd very much like to know which girls had the most of.

^-- "You're right that I like good food, good conversation and well-dressed, beautiful girls. Mia's right that I like low-cut blouses too. But I need a girlfriend who can do more than those things. I'll give you a hypothetical example. OSU is treating me as a SERIOUSLY important student. Assuming I don't burn out or hit some kind of mental wall first, then when I graduate my Bachelor of Science next year the ceremony at OSU could be a MAJOR event. Let's say I had to go away to do something else while OSU planned my graduation, and that I left my girlfriend - one of you - to represent my interests during that planning. And let's say you saw that I'd strongly dislike what OSU was planning. Your ability to stand up for yourself, to convince others to accept your input, and to handle the pressure of it, would be important. That's why I've got you to do something now that involves the same skills: standing up for yourself, convincing others, and handling pressure."

There were an amusing range of reactions, including disbelief, fright and being impressed.

I pointed out, "Haha. Some of you said, 'But we're too young to boss adults around, ' and others said I should leave Julia in charge, so you amusingly contradicted each other. Julia certainly wouldn't hesitate to leap forward to defend my interests, but maybe she was away with me doing whatever else I was up to.

^-- "Maybe I should've given you a less adult example. Let's say that after I pass my final exams at OSU, the Sorbonne University - which I believe is in Paris - invites me to come over to decide whether I want to study there. They'll pay for the airfares and accommodation for four people for a week, so I delegate the job of choosing who to take to one of you. I believe I've heard somewhere that they sell nice clothes in Paris, so maybe some girls would like to come on a free trip to Paris with me. The girl I put in charge of choosing who comes would be inundated with frantic requests. Dealing with a bunch of adults at OSU would be a walk in the park compared to dealing with a horde of Paris-hungry teenage girls, haha.

^-- "So back to the task I'm testing you with now: designing me a good system for allocating cards. I want to see how you each handle such tasks."

They returned to it with a vengeance, clearly motivated by the thought of a free trip to Paris.

They taught me more about themselves than I'd learned all evening, which was a decent amount. Even their deciding how to decide anything was interesting. There were HEAPS of opportunities for conflict and cooperation.

People are not one-dimensional. That's a statement everyone will readily agree with, but it's still surprising to see how multi-dimensional people are. For example, Carina was one of the most useful girls in the discussion, even though she never suggested a single idea. Her usefulness came from her being helpful to the others in a variety of ways. Some other girls had heaps of ideas, of mixed quality. Another girl took on the role of boss of the discussion. She didn't contribute much to the task directly, but she kept the discussion flowing fairly well so the other girls made progress. She also made sure all the girls got to contribute, and she calmed down the heated moments.

There was no 'best' girl, because it was an apples and oranges situation. Was a helpful girl better than an ideas girl, better than a good coordinator, better than someone who was good at fleshing out details, better than someone who was good at finding valid reasons why an idea wouldn't work, etc.? It's MUCH easier to decide between girls based on their tit sizes, haha.

I told them to stop before they'd reached an answer, as time was moving on. They were so involved in the issue that they wanted to keep going, but I said, "It was just a way of helping me understand each of you. You're repeating the same behaviors now, so there's no point in carrying on. I don't actually need your system, as I'll be making my own carding decisions. Another reason for stopping now is that we've finished all the delicious snack foods several minutes ago, and you've all been too involved in the discussion to replenish the plates. That's a MAJOR problem, haha." That broke them out of the task AND it got me more snacks, so it'd been an excellent thing to say.

I did some other 'tricks' on them. For example, I asked, "Carina, please come and sit on my lap." That was a very surprising thing for me to say as there'd been no physical contact so far, and it caused a variety of reactions among all the girls. I was most looking for any nasty expressions, and I saw several, which was hardly surprising in a competitive situation.

I thanked Carina for all the extra work she'd gone to by having this event in her home, gave her some squeezes and a kiss on the cheek, then sent her back to her normal seat. I closely watched how the other girls behaved toward Carina for the next several minutes, and how she behaved toward them, including the ones that appeared upset.

At 9:30 I asked, "Carina, would you prefer this date to be over and us all to be gone before your parents come home, or doesn't it matter?"

"It doesn't matter. We've done all the cleaning up already, and I'm not worried about them meeting you. They're very curious to meet you, so I wouldn't be surprised if they arrived home early hoping to catch you before you left."

I liked her answer, especially that she wasn't embarrassed about my meeting her parents. Carina was already easily in the top half of my list, mostly because of her helpfulness. I'd decided that she wasn't helpful because this date was at her house; but that this date was at her house because she was helpful.

"There goes my idea that we all take our clothes off and have a wild orgy for the last twenty nine minutes. I guess sitting around and talking is nearly as good, haha."

I was obviously teasing, so I got some lighthearted responses.

While being careful not to look at any particular girl with more attention than any other, I announced, "I've finished deciding who gets what cards." No lighthearted reactions to that. "You all tried hard to make this a good date so I suspect the eliminated girls won't be pleased. I honestly don't know how displeased though, because this is my first pipeline date, so I'd like to delay giving the results until Carina's parents are in the house. Not in the room, but elsewhere in the house would be good so their presence would help keep a lid on any adverse reactions. I know I sound egotistical, but you understand my worry, don't you?"

They did. There were a couple attempts to cajole individual answers from me, but they were easily refused. I was interested to note that most girls were pessimistic, some didn't reveal their expectation, and only one girl smiled happily. Amusingly the sole optimistic girl was Natalie, who was on my red-card list. Her red-carding and being wrong both had the same cause: her arrogance.

To reinforce that the card decisions were finalized - they weren't of course; I just wanted to see how the girls behaved when they thought there was nothing at stake - I said, "I won't give you individual feedback, but I will comment on the date as a whole. As I mentioned before, I think it was an EXCELLENT idea. It was exactly the sort of date I need for a group's first pipeline date. It made it much easier for me to get to know you and to make my decisions than I expected..." I spent a couple of minutes honestly congratulating them, and dishonestly driving home the idea that the date was over.

Then I asked, "I was surprised that when I told you I'd made my decisions, that three-quarters of you looked like you were sure you'd lost. I'm only eliminating eight girls, so why were so many of you pessimistic?"

We talked about that for a while, and the answer that evolved was, "You're too unusual. We don't know what you want, but we're pretty sure we don't live up to your standards."

The next question I asked was, "This date was so well done, I'm curious what this group's second date will be. Have you had any ideas about that?"

"No. Half of us won't be in it, and we were focused on this one."

"Pity, I was looking forward to anticipating the next date. Seeing as we have time to kill until Carina's parents come home, why don't you start discussing what to do on it, as if each of you were one of the surviving eight."

It was hard for them to get started. Natalie - the soon-to-be surprised optimistic girl - was eager, and a few of the other girls joined in, but most of the girls weren't interested and only put in partial efforts, or merely pretended to get involved. A few made no effort whatsoever.

I had a few girls in the middle of my list, thus on both sides of and close to the elimination line. They weren't separated by much, so it was possible that a staunch effort by someone just below the line, or a pathetic effort by someone just above it, might've caused a change to the results. But all those girls responded unenthusiastically, so nothing was achieved. The overall effort was so low that I canceled my request.

I changed the topic to which of the girls currently had boyfriends, and how they reconciled that with being in the pipeline.

There was some hesitation and uncertainty, clearly indicating that some girls didn't want to admit they were cheating on their boyfriends. Another girl said, "It depends on what you count as a boyfriend. I've been out with Cody a couple of times, but mainly just to have someone to go out with. I wouldn't call him a real boyfriend."

Many of the girls claimed to be in the same situation. Either a lot of them were using it as an easy excuse, or a large proportion of girls use boys for their own purposes, which would be fair.

When it came to reconciling having a boyfriend (real or not) with being in the pipeline, it was usually a case of "What they don't know won't hurt them." Julia's only displaying the girls' initials on the website gave enough anonymity in most cases, especially as many of the boys wouldn't know when the dates were taking place.

Kaiya had an amusing answer, "I told my boyfriend I was joining a pipeline group, and he was plenty pissed by it. I remember the words I told him exactly enough: 'If Christina Aguilera knocked on your door, you wouldn't remember my name. Mark's the same for me, so I'm taking my shot at him. You've got two choices: I take my shot and you break up with me, or I take my shot and you don't break up with me. Those are your ONLY two choices. I'll ask you for your decision AFTER my pipeline dates are over. Don't bother me until then.'