Female/date advice (high content)

[miami32]

I find this incredibly humerous that I'm actually asking for dating/help advice but it can only help so what the hell.

Here is the deal-About a year and a half ago I was about to leave the University of Maryland. My fraternity was paired up with a sorority for greek week. Blah blah blah, I met 3 girls who happened to be best friends and hooked up with two of them. Well I'm an idiot. The one girl I didn't shack up with happens to be the girl of my dreams and I have since never stopped thinking about her. After The other two chicks and I stopped talking,I basicly stopped talking to Merideth. Well right before I moved to Vegas I ran into Merideth at a bar and asked her out. She pretty much told me that I had hooked up with her two best friends and had no shot. She wanted to be friends though. Yeah suuurre. Well Anyways a year and half has gone by. My lease is ending in Vegas and I'm coming back to Maryland for about three or four months before I move to south Jersey. I instant messaged her and said whats up basicly I was coming into town yada yada yada and do you want to get together and she said yes. SWEET! Well I guess time heals all wounds right. Well I know she thinks I'm going to try and get into her pants right away which I'm not. I've got a nice date planned-going to dc, capital grill(Classy place to eat) and then if all goes well I would take her to the roof at the Kennedy center. For anyone in the DC area the rooftop of the kennedy center is like plain and simple the best place to cap a date off. It has the single greatest view of the capital and you can see everytthing. After getting through all this I know one of the first things she is going to ask me is what have I been doing for the past year and half. Well after the fact that I'm amazed she even wants to go out with me, what am I going to tell her, I'm a degenerate gambler and play poker all day online? That this date is being paid for by empire poker rake back? I've never had to deal with this before. When I was in college I just told people I lived off of student loans but now I can't really do that anymore. I have a nice life style from poker/gambling. I'm very much afraid that this will ruin any chance I've got. Screwing this up was one of the single biggest mistakes I've ever made and I pretty much sure I won't get another shot. Any advice? Also do you think such a classy date is to over the top for a first get together?

Thoughts?

[Allinlife]

paragraphs are cool.

despite my lack of expertise in subject of dating, I think deceiving the other would be a bad way to start a what would hopefully end up as a serious relationship.

[DCWGaming]

Are you wanting to get in her pants or start a serious relationship?

If you want to get into her pants, lie.

If you want a relationship, tell her. If she isnt ok with the idea then a relationship wouldnt work out. If she is, then you may have found a keeper.

[Rolen]

Well, telling her the truth about poker will provoke one of two reactions..She'll either think it's cool (whoop de do) or think you're a failure in life and definately won't want to screw you.

The proper +EV play is to lie. Say you do well in stocks or something.

[miami32]

Paragraphs are cool. Sorry about that. Sometimes I ramble and don't shutup.

I do want a serious relationship though. She got to be the single coolest girl I have ever met. Asides from being gorgeous, she now works for comcast sports in a reporting capacity. She loves sports. Def. a keeper.

The thing about telling her though is how do you say that? I feel like most people don't understand poker/gambling and therefor think it's silly. Like the other day I had a convo with someone who told me "isn't poker pretty much a total game of chance?" And this is in las Vegas. I think what I might do is try and bend the truth in the best way I can and if things go well come clean as time goes on.

You aren't a degenerate gambler if you are winning. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I find that honesty is the best policy when looking for a relationship. Reason being the truth will come out anyway, and if the truth is a dealbreaker for her, you would have wasted your time.

[Bodhi]

I agree with the other replies here: Don't lie. If she's cool with you as you really are, then she's a keeper. If she's not, then it really wasn't meant to be.

[ QUOTE ]
I met 3 girls who happened to be best friends and hooked up with two of them. Well I'm an idiot. The one girl I didn't shack up with happens to be the girl of my dreams and I have since never stopped thinking about her.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds like such typical greek [censored]; I'm so glad I never got involved with it.

[miami32]

As for the greek comment I will reply. Being greek isn't for everyone but it was great for me. I met my best friend and he inturn introduced me to one of his close friends who has pretty much been a poker mentor to me. He is flat out the best player I've ever met.

As for hooking up with Merideth's two best friends I'm a male whore. I did stuff like the before greek life and if I can't work something out with her then...yeah I'll do it again. I mean greek life is a community. I met people and made connections for the rest of my life. It was the best college experience I could have hoped for.

[miami32]

Also, I don't think it's fair that you judge all fraternities. My fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon is much more then just a bunch of guy who party and drink. They helped turn me into a better person. From upping my gpa through study groups and helping me get involved on campus.

Most people only hear about bad things that happen i.e. rapes and so on. No one ever hears about stuff like the greek community on Penn states campus who donates over a million dollars to different charities and so on. Greek life does alot more good then you would think.

[VoraciousReader]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you wanting to get in her pants or start a serious relationship?

If you want to get into her pants, lie.

If you want a relationship, tell her. If she isnt ok with the idea then a relationship wouldnt work out. If she is, then you may have found a keeper.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are going to get a lot of advice like this. And it sounds good but...

it's not going to get you many second dates. I am not an advocate of deceiving my fellow women, but 95 times out of 100 you're going to say "pro poker player" and she's going to hear "degenerate gambler", "unemployed", "delusions of grandeur", or "still lives in parents' basement."

Heck, I love poker and have a lot of respect for people that are good enough to earn a living at it (I am NOT, nor will I ever be, one of those people). However, in my opinion, most people who think they are good enough to earn a living at it, aren't. Clearly you are.

If someone said that to me on a first date, I would be skeptical. And I would be more receptive than most. How much of your first evening together do you want to spend having the "Yes I actually make money and am not constantly in danger of going broke and no it's not all luck and yes I have been doing this long enough to know that it is a sustainable source of income here let me explain about EV" conversation?

Personally, I would say something along the lines of "Oh, I have a boring internet job, but it pays well and lets me work from home."

This has the dual benefits of 1)being true (most people would find multitabling poker on the internet for 40 hours per week very boring) and 2)not getting you permanently consigned to the "not very close friend" category.

Because of #1, you shouldn't lose huge amounts of points for being a lying creep when on date 7 or 8 you admit that yes, the nice lifestyle you enjoy is actually supported by online poker. Plus, by that time she should be able to see that you are not chronically short of money. Ideally, she will also like you well enough that she'll be willing to be open-minded if she has reservations.

There is more risk for you this way: if by the 7th or 8th date you like her much more than you do now, and she can't deal with the situation, you're going to get hurt. That is another factor to consider. Also there is always the possibility that she would think being a pro poker player is the coolest thing ever and you've lost an opportunity to score major points. You know her, I don't...that has to be your call.

Think about a first date. Generally as a guy you choose to go somewhere a little nicer, put a little more thought into making the evening special, dress a little better, maybe get a haircut, definitely wash your car, and usually open doors. She does the feminine equivalents: extra time on the hair, the outfit, special perfume, moisturizes everything, cleans the living room, etc. She's going to eat the dinner even if she doesn't like it, unlock the car door for you after you've held the passenger for her, and so forth. It's best-foot-forward time. Not a good time to have to justify what you do for a living. (Besides, you should be doing more listening to her than talking about yourself, anyway.)

Just my two cents.

[Edit: Reading the rest of this thread, I just want to say that the "hooked up with two friends" thing isn't just exclusive to greeks. Almost everyone that I've ever known that has gone to college has encountered this phenomenon (at least the ones that weren't in committed relationships for most of it). You end up grouping yourselves with people of like interests and intelligence, men and women. Life happens and suddenly you're sitting around with your 2 closest friends and you realize you've all kissed/whatevered Tony...and Andy...and Michael... In fact, if you stay close after college, it's not uncommon to attend a wedding and realize that the entire wedding party has hooked up with each other at one time or another.]