The Upper Hand: Creating Guilt and Gratitude; Poker Night

by Wiltonburg on April 18, 2007

Alright, so here’s the idea: I come up with some random fucking advice about handling your girlfriend, you give it the ‘ol college try (obviously using 3 cans of Redbull and a Broccoli and Cheese Hotpocket for brainfood), you gain the upper hand in your relationship, and then life is awesomer for you. It’s basically a foolproof plan, right? Right. Good. What? How did I come up with these ingenious ideas? Did I evolve a super-powerful d-bag lobe in my brain? My answers are “Because I’m all awesome, all the time” and “How the fuck would I know what lobes I have in my brain? Can you see your brain? Neither can I. Shut the fuck up, no more questions.”

POKER NIGHT (Expert Level)

First of all, as this is the first Expert Level technique presented, let’s determine why it must be reserved for the guilt-generating arsenal of only the Expert boyfriend.One word answer: foresight. Most guys don’t even know what foresight is. We don’t plan, we don’t think ahead, we don’t prepare for what is not immediately in front of us. This is why guys who live in states with time-related liquor laws are always getting to the liquor store 37 seconds before they close. We react, we’re impulsive, we’re opportunists. But for this technique, we need to evolve just a little bit.

Maybe the two of you are trying to plan a night to go out to dinner and out of no where you offer to skip your weekly poker night with the boys so that she doesn’t have to miss her friend’s birthday party. Let the conversation go something like this…

GF – Honey, I was thinking that we should go out to dinner some time this week. We’ve both been kinda busy and I miss our special talks over sushi and sake. Are we drifting apart?

You – First of all, I don’t think that we can really be drifting apart, we’ve only been dating for like 2 months.

GF – My emotions don’t adhere to a calendar.

You – What does that even mean?

GF – That’s not the point.

You – Then what is the point?

GF – The point is that I want us to go out to dinner this week.

You – Fine, let’s do it. What night?

GF – Well, I have a papers due on Thursday and Friday, so Wednesday and Thursday are out. And Jenny’s birthday party is on Friday, so that’s out.And on Saturday my sister is visiting. That only leaves Tuesday night, but that’s your poker night. OMG, we can’t do it. We ARE drifting apart, this is terrible, I’m getting so fat, this spring is ruined, I’m just going to go to my room and eat a gallon of ice cream!

You – Slow down baby…maybe I could skip poker night this week.

GF – Skip poker night!?!? But you’ve never missed poker night in 8 months. You said that anyone who misses poker night gets duct-taped to a telephone pole on the highway!

You – Baby, if I need to make that sacrifice so we can spend some special time together, then I’ll do it.

GF – I love you so much right now.

You – I do what I can.

Little does she know that “poker night” is actually just your designated night to go over to Tim’s apartment to play Halo 2 and eat Dominos Cinnastix. Being the Expert Boyfriend that you are, you invented “poker night” the first week of the relationship. You gave no details other than the extreme importance of strict attendance. Now you have “sacrificed” this most holy of holy nights for your girl, and she fucking loves you for it.Make sure she doesn’t forget what you’ve done. During the date, toss out a few “Oh boy, I can’t even imagine how pissed off the dudes are. No one has EVER missed poker night.” If you get any phone calls during dinner, just don’t answer it and tell her that it was from Tim, even if it was actually your Mom. If you really wanna go all out, arrange for one of your buddies to put a big duct-tape X on your door that she’ll see after the date. Congratulations, you are her fucking hero.

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