Charisma & The Penguin

When it comes to being suc­cess­ful in life — finan­cially, pro­fes­sion­ally or car­nally — the most impor­tant qual­ity any­one can have is charisma. Stem­ming from a Greek term mean­ing “favored by God,” charisma is that mys­ti­cal com­bi­na­tion of intel­li­gence, charm and wit that allows those who pos­sess it to achieve the unthink­able. Charisma is the one com­mon trait link­ing vir­tu­ally all pres­i­dents, CEOs, movie stars and rock icons through­out his­tory, and charisma is, more often than not, the answer to the ques­tion, “Why is she with that guy?”

In an evo­lu­tion­ary sense, both men and women are drawn to those with charisma because the bless­ing that the uni­verse has bestowed upon them tends to have a trickle-down effect, one that increases the chances of sur­vival and repro­duc­tion for every­one in their imme­di­ate vicinity.

For instance, to make a con­vo­luted anal­ogy, the male lion who is the biggest, fastest, strongest and most cun­ning will be the best provider of deli­cious, freshly-killed gazelles and giraffes, or what­ever the hell lions eat. There­fore, he’ll quickly ascend to a lead­er­ship posi­tion within the pack, where he’ll have his choice of hot female lions look­ing to mate with him so that their off­spring might inherit some of his genes. But what about a weaker male lion in the same pack? He lacks the phys­i­cal prowess to out-muscle the alpha male, and he’s not nearly as gifted a hunter. Thus, his best bet is to align him­self with that alpha male, rather than com­pete with him. This way, he’ll still occa­sion­ally get a chance at fresh gazelle meat and, when the stronger lion is worn out from bang­ing slutty lion chicks and just wants to take a nap under a palm tree, the weaker lion could poten­tially be next in line if one of the female lions comes strolling over after eat­ing too many fer­mented coconuts and really wants to hook up with someone.

Unlike our ani­mal brethren, how­ever, we as humans are not solely dri­ven by the quest for food. Look around you. Chances are, there are hand­ful of perfectly-acceptable restau­rants (and prob­a­bly even a McDonald’s or two) within a stone’s throw of wher­ever you are at this very moment. I think it’s safe to say that the days of a hun­gry tribe of hunters trav­el­ing days across the plains in pur­suit of a herd of buf­falo are pretty much over.

Also over are the days when the most physically-gifted among us — those most adept at stalk­ing and killing that evening’s meal — are auto­mat­i­cally put on a throne and, as a reward, given their choice of nubile young women. Quite frankly, it’s been a long time since any­one got laid solely because they were good with a cross­bow and, as the human race has advanced beyond our hunt­ing and gath­er­ing days, the equa­tion for impress­ing women and lur­ing them into your bed has changed dramatically.

Will the biggest and strongest guys still get laid? Sure. There are a lot of chicks who are drawn to biceps and abs, if only based upon instinct. At our most basic, we are all ani­mals, and above all else, our rep­til­ian brains drive us to sur­vive and repro­duce. For these women, the sight of a guy with bulging mus­cles sparks a mes­sage from the deep­est recesses of her brain that says some­thing like, “Mate with him, he looks like a fierce war­rior who’ll be able to pro­tect you from invad­ing tribes.”

But thou­sands of years ago, a male fit­ting this cri­te­ria — like Ron­nie from Jer­sey Shore, for instance — would’ve led armies and con­quered entire con­ti­nents. Nowa­days, how­ever, he’s merely a retard get­ting berated by his wet blan­ket girl­friend on MTV. Could he beat you up? Prob­a­bly. But in this day and age, does it mat­ter? Not one bit.

Instead, the doors (by which, of course, I mean “vagi­nas”) have opened for any male who can sep­a­rate him­self from the pack. Mus­cles will still get you laid. So will good looks. So will fame. Money helps immensely, but even those with Fer­raris and Man­hat­tan pent­houses need to put forth some effort here and there. Intel­li­gence alone prob­a­bly won’t get you laid (after all, no girl in his­tory has ever cared about the tech­nol­ogy behind the tele­porters in Star Trek: The Next Gen­er­a­tion). But com­bine intel­li­gence with con­ver­sa­tional abil­i­ties and add a dash of humor, and you’ve got charisma… the key to the art of seduc­tion in the 21st century.

Luck­ily, even if you haven’t been “favored by God” since birth, charisma is a tal­ent that can be learned and honed with prac­tice and rep­e­ti­tion. Here are some com­mon traits of charis­matic peo­ple, and how you can work them into your repertoire…

1) Pos­i­tiv­ity. Should you find your­self in a con­ver­sa­tion with a female you’re hop­ing to sleep with, don’t ever talk about how much you hate your job. Or your par­ents. Or your ex-girlfriend. In fact, don’t talk about any­thing you even slightly dis­like. Nobody wants to be around some­one who’s mis­er­able. Every­one already has enough mis­ery and stress in their own lives. They don’t want to hear about yours. So put forth the illu­sion that you are the hap­pi­est, most go-luckiest per­son on the planet. This is what oth­ers are drawn to.

2) Warmth. Every­one, espe­cially the aver­age female, already has a lit­tle self-doubting voice in the back of their head that they wish they could silence. Humans are largely dri­ven by a need to over­come their own dark inse­cu­ri­ties. While the the­ory of “neg­ging” (i.e., “I like those shoes… I just saw another girl wear­ing the same pair”) does have its mer­its, some­times peo­ple merely want to be told that what they’re doing in life is good and that they are valu­able in one way or another. Don’t go over­board; no one likes an ass-kisser. But being nice and say­ing “please” and “thank you” to hard-working wait­resses won’t fuck­ing kill you, and say­ing some­thing along the lines of “Nice job deal­ing with that angry cus­tomer… you han­dled that a lot bet­ter than I would’ve” to a co-worker will make them feel good about them­selves. No harm can come of that.

3) Intel­li­gence. There are two kinds of intel­li­gence one can pos­sess. The first kind is the type that allows one to acquire knowl­edge, retain that knowl­edge, form one’s own opin­ions based upon that knowl­edge and be able to explain those opin­ions to inter­ested par­ties. The sec­ond kind of intel­li­gence is the type that enables one to ana­lyze a sit­u­a­tion and know when to shut the fuck up. For instance, do you have an ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of Spider-Man comic books? Well, guess what… most peo­ple don’t give a shit about the ori­gin of Venom, so don’t try to shoe­horn that knowl­edge into every con­ver­sa­tion. Just file it away until the day when it comes in handy. Learn every­thing you can about every­thing you can, then stash it all away in the fil­ing cab­i­nets of your mind. You’ll prob­a­bly never need 99% of the things you know or learn. But maybe some­day, you’ll meet a girl who is impressed that you own a copy of Secret Wars #8 and you’ll be able to say to her, “You should come over to my place some­time to check it out.”

4) Com­pas­sion. You know what girls enjoy doing more than any­thing else? Talk­ing about them­selves. So if you’re con­vers­ing one and she starts to veer into a story about her adorable cats or her father’s drug habit, just sit back and patiently listen. Nod along as needed. Furrow your brow when nec­es­sary. Ask insight­ful ques­tions if the oppor­tu­nity presents itself. When she con­cludes her story, if she’s think­ing to her­self, “Wow, this guy really cares,” you’ve done well, sir.

5) Humor. Every chick says she loves a guy who can make her laugh. In fact, we’re on a streak of 87 con­sec­u­tive Play­boy cen­ter­folds who listed “sense of humor” as a turn on. Of course, the fact that roughly 82 of them later dated hockey play­ers might make one won­der if they’re full of shit. But that’s nei­ther here nor there. Fact of the mat­ter is, every time a girl smiles or laugh, a bit of sero­tonin is released into the blood­stream, and even though she may not real­ize that it’s chemically-induced, she will come to asso­ciate being happy and in a good mood with being around you. So, yes, a sense of humor is help­ful. Unfor­tu­nately, not every­one is nat­u­rally funny. Most peo­ple, in fact, are quite dull. If you are one of these peo­ple, you’re not going to amaze any­one with your quick wit or your clever puns. But there’s noth­ing stop­ping you from learn­ing how to tell a joke. Just one joke will suf­fice. Learn it, mem­o­rize it and, like a jazz sax­o­phon­ist, add a few flour­ishes and make it your own. And when­ever you find your­self in a rough spot in an awk­ward con­ver­sa­tion, whip it out. Maybe your audi­ence will laugh, or maybe they won’t, but even if you can only get them to crack a smile, you’ve done your job. Let the sero­tonin do the rest.

As a gift to you, dear read­ers, I present you with the joke I told roughly 3,800 times dur­ing my twen­ties. It was lit­er­ally the only one I had mem­o­rized well enough to tell. And tell it I did. Over and over again, at bar after bar, every time there was a lull in the con­ver­sa­tion. And now I pass it along to you. Enjoy…

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