Brutal Honesty

          I have found the solution to one of my most socially crippling disabilities;  the inability to effectively hit on women.  I still have a lot to learn, but from now on it will be an actual learning experience rather than a desperate effort to compensate for a handicap.  The solution is surprisingly simple, depressingly obvious, and almost universally discouraged.  For you see, the answer is Brutal Honesty.
          My biggest difficulty was that I didn't want girls to know I was hitting on them.  I wanted them to react as if they knew I was attracted to them, but without actually having to openly communicate as much.  I would try to make conversation and act interested in a girl, but it would be stilted and inauthentic.  I wouldn't ask the questions that I really wanted the answers to, and even if I made my interest explicitly known I would not allow any implicit natural signals of attraction to slip through.
           I confirmed all of this in the course of one such conversation.  I noticed an attractive girl on the train, and I started talking to her.  Although it was obvious to me that there should be some connection between us, she barely responded at all.  In fact, she preferred working on her desperately uninteresting homework rather than further pursuing conversation with me.
          So I sat back for a few minutes and compared this situation with some previous experiences I had had.  I remembered one in particular, where I had been sitting next to a girl on an airplane who had been utterly resistant to conversation until I came out with the line "Do you get hit on a lot, or is that just a really interesting magazine?"  Instantly, her manner toward me changed.  Adapting that line to my current situation, I asked the current girl "What are you looking for when a guy hits on you?"
           Once again, instant response.  She didn't know what she was looking for, but in her response she let me know;  she was looking for a man with the courage and self-assurance to be attracted to her.  Not just attracted, but obviously attracted, in front of God and everybody.  After a little more conversation, I asked her for her number, to which she gave the typical response of girls that I hit on;  she had a boyfriend.
           However, she did not say no.  So I asked again, and again.  She tried to misdirect me or ignore me, but I would not be misdirected or ignored.  I knew I was in control because I knew that she wanted to give me her number.  She got more and more flustered, moving her head in quick jerks and looking down at her homework and generally avoiding eye contact.  Even more telling, she began involuntarily smiling and biting/sucking on her bottom lip, which is probably the most adorable thing a cute girl can do in public.  Eventually, after a succession of noncommittal answers, she made a quip about my persistence and gave me her number.
          There is a reason I call it Brutal Honesty and not just Honesty.  In order to succeed, I had to respond to her as a person, not a persona.  For most people, this is very painful.  She didn't want to know that she wanted to give me her number, and even worse, she didn't want any of the other people on the train to know.  She just wanted to safely and blindly be faithful to her boyfriend, and if that meant hiding from her desires then desire be damned.  My honesty was both painful and euphoric to her.  It is wonderful knowing what you want and being encouraged to take it, but it's also disconcerting when there are so many other voices saying that it is wrong.
           Brutal Honesty is not be limited to flirting, either.  Soon after this incident, I had a job interview that I wanted very much to go well.  While sitting in the waiting room, I wondered what I could say or do to convince the interviewer that I was the best candidate for the job.  Then it occurred to me that if honesty could get me a number, perhaps it could also get me a job.  I committed myself to making it obvious that I wanted this job and knew I deserved it.
          As far as I can tell, the interview went spectacularly well aside from some awkward small-talk.  The main interviewer seemed to respond fairly well, but I really shined when she introduced me to my potential future co-workers (whom I believe will have a big hand in picking candidates).  They laughed and joked and basically acted as if I had already been hired.  I could hardly imagine things having gone better, even though this was only my third real interview ever.
          So if honesty works so well, why doesn't everybody do it?  Well, it's frightening to be Brutally Honest at first, because most of us have learned to treat real honesty as if it were doing actual violence to a person.  The fact that the words Brutal and Honesty can even be associated together is proof of that.  It is an almost impossible barrier to overcome, because nobody wants to be honest if it comes at the price of hurting someone else.  But the real brutality is living life behind a facade to protect the world from your own brilliant power and potential.  Don't worry, the world will survive.  It might even give you its number.