The subtle art of "manning-it-up" Part II

In case you missed part I, this is a four-part series on how to avoid mistakes when trying to "man-it-up". I would suggest reading part I before proceeding! ~A

Mistake #2: Telling way too much information about yourself.

This is easy to do. Why? Because we all like to talk about ourselves. But how many times do we really, I mean really, enjoy hearing every last detail about someone else's moderately-to-non-interesting story? For example, say you (the female) just started playing badminton and casually say you need someone to practice with. What's the better response from a guy overhearing this?

A) "You play badminton? Where do you play badminton? I used to play tennis, but I hurt my elbow when I was rocking a Coca-Cola machine trying to get a free drink at the tennis courts. You see, I'd just dropped my wallet in the toilet and the machine wouldn't take my wet dollars. My grandmother was sure ticked when she came to pick me up!" (For purposes of this post we've got to assume that this is true, but it's worthwhile to note that if you've already got her laughing, and this line is not in fact true and you are kidding, then it just might work - sense of humor is one of the better qualities to have, and it shows that you aren't "scared to death" of her.)

Or

B) "You play badminton? How long have you been doing that? I'm pretty competitive, but I might slow down for ya."

Hopefully you picked option "B". Option A, unless you're kidding and she's in the mood for kidding, is far too much information. Bad information. Option B has plenty of invitation for her to come back and ask for more detail on your competitive badminton career, or even say "you're on!" And that's what you want - to spark some interest in her about you.

Guru - how do you handle a guy making mistake #2?

Correct again Guyru! If you are kidding, then Option A MIGHT work. Otherwise, Option B is the correct answer. This gives us the opportunity to "take the bait" so to speak, and offer a competitive game of badminton. If however, we are not interested, or perhaps too stupid to catch on, then we will just laugh it off, answer your question about how long we've been playing, and give you no other "signals" to pursue us.