A Square or an Asshole

The Dish is discussing what's called "The Neg,"a technique whereby men strategically criticize women they're attempting to pickup."

Any discussion of picking up women by men tends to either come across as square or being an asshole. So I'm aware of the risk going in. The writer argues:

The difference is that while compliments or put downs can be either truthful or disingenuous, only put downs lower the self-esteem of the target. In most contexts, it seems obvious that it is wrong to gratuitously put people down for selfish ends. Why is dating different? That some men cannot understand this really boggles my mind, and makes me suspect that they aren't even thinking of women as being people (interestingly, some of these men seem to think of women as less than human, and others as superhuman). Every man can imagine how he would feel if a woman approached him at a bar, assessed his dress or some physical feature, and breezily made some cutting public remark: "You dress like a guy who has a small dick." Yet numerous correspondents seem utterly unable to imagine that women might also feel badly if criticized this way.

What a lame-o. I don't know about "the neg" or picking up women in bars or any of all this nonsense. I got bored reading the full discussion. But let me say this - teasing people is fun and the mating ritual is fun. Not everything has to be square and I hate this dichotomy of you have be either an asshole player or a nice guy. Both sound super lame to me. I can't stand listening to the self-pitying "nice guys" complain about assholes getting chicks and idolizing girls, putting them up on this pedestal. I know some girls like it, but those girls are lame. The only thing worse are the shameless dudes who read books on how to pick up women and devote seemingly every waking moment to the pursuit. A normal dude is neither one of these and figures out the balance that works for him.