When I was at school boys would occasionally, very occasionally, ask me out. Let’s say there were around 10 times this happened. On 8 out of those 10 occasions, they were joking.

Of course we grown-ups can tut and sigh and shake our heads at the cruelty of children, but what’s much better is to recognise what we can learn from it. And like all the best lessons in life, this one could help you get laid. Get your notebooks out, face front and keep your eyes on the fucking blackboard…

Understanding insecurity gives you a way into someone’s pants, because you can push the buttons that make them feel good.

It’s been years since a boy jokingly asked me out, and life’s a bit different now. I’m no longer fat and fourteen and in love with any boy who was willing to put his hand up my skirt during maths lessons, but I’m still a child really. That fourteen year old is just a bit bigger, and is gobsmacked that she has a job, a flat, and the legal right to drink herself insensible whilst livetweeting the Apprentice.

So despite my external grown-up-ness, the memory of these joke-proposals stays with me, as I imagine it stays with any girl who’s ever been shy, covered in acne, or good at science. Now that we’re grown-ups, no matter how hot we’ve become or how confident we are, there’s always a little something that makes us wonder if you’re joking when you ask.

A casual, throwaway, “Fancy a shag?” opens up the mental fight between confidence: “Say yes, say yes, he’s beautiful.” and the insecurity still nurtured by that 14 year old: “He’s joking. Say no. Then run away and cry behind the gym.”

If you ask this question of a lady and you don’t look serious, my money’s on the fact that you’ll probably get a no.

But God, GOD. In the situations where you really want it, and tell me you really want it, it’ll be the hardest thing I ever do to turn you down. There is nothing in this life more attractive than a man who is panting for you. Dripping for you. So desperate to get within 20 feet of you that he’d happily fuck a letterbox if you shouted words of encouragement.

And so, gents. When you’re looking at a lovely lady, and you think she might be out of your league, remember that one day she was probably fat and fourteen. She still wakes up most mornings and winces at her reflection in a mirror. She might worry that she’s got cellulite, or that her tits are slightly uneven, that her hands look old or her eyebrows unplucked or her feet too big for her awkward, stumbling body.

Approaching women is hard, of course. But if you can be the one who strides over with confidence, and says: “You know what? You’re fucking spectacular” then you win. You win so hard your friends will wonder what your secret is. You’ve just made someone’s day, and you could be the one screwing her twelve shades of happy by the time that day is done.

Writing about sex involves very careful word selection. I probably use some words that kill your mood sometimes, and likewise there are some words that make me dry up and cringe into a ball of hateful misery. Here are some of them, feel free to add to the list.

Cum

You might think it is a sexualised form of a common word: I think it’s a spelling error. You say ‘tomato’, I say ‘I will probably be less attracted to you if you spell things wrong’.

Pussy

Good lord no. For so many many reasons, of which here are a few:

• ‘Pussies’ belong to porn stars and gangster hos, so experience implies that a pussy is something for a guy to fuck, not something for a girl to get genuine eye-rolling, bedsheet-tearing pleasure from.
• Say it out loud: “wet pussy”. Eugh. “wet pussy” It doesn’t sound like a part of a person, but something you might step in.
• Mrs Fucking Slocombe

Any word for ‘tits’ that ends in -ies

I have never had ‘titties’ or ‘boobies’. I have tits. These words are only acceptable during comedy, or if you are a member of the Bloodhound Gang.

Medical terms

When I leave the doctor’s surgery my vagina becomes a cunt. My breasts become tits. Likewise although my doctor has a penis, you have a cock. Dick. Prick. By using medical terms I start expecting a medical examination, so if you call it a ‘penis’ I’m less likely to suck it than to give it an ultrasound.

Cutesy names for your cock

You don’t fuck someone raw with ‘Barry Junior’. And I don’t want to swallow ‘Mr Winkie’. Come on, lads – it’s ‘it’, not ‘he’.

I have no idea why any guy ever does this, unless he has been with a girl who is a bit afraid of his looming, punishing hardon. Men: your cock is the most powerful, brilliant thing about you; don’t turn it into a fucking Disney character.

I don’t believe you’re real

You obviously believe I’m real enough to initiate a conversation with, so what is the point of this question? This is one of the most irritating dating site fails.
I’ve written the profile, I can write replies, but short of running round to your house and headbutting you in the crotch, there’s not much else I can do to prove it.

Wanna chat?

Why yes, yes I do. But in real life, please, not on some idiotic chat programme where we have stilted conversations about what we’re both doing, culminating in me being massively turned off by your excessive use of the term ‘lol.’

I always say in my profile that I hate IM. If you then insist on IMing me I’ll assume not only that you’re typing one-handed, but also that all that ‘one-handed typing’ has made you so blind you can’t read.

I expect you won’t reply…

Why, do I look like an arsehole?

In all seriousness I get a fair few messages, mainly because I mention sex on my profile and men these days have reasonably low standards. But I don’t get so many that it’d be impossible to reply to all of them – I reply to about one in five – the ones that don’t break these rules.

Wow your so hot

If you can’t spot what’s wrong with this then I wouldn’t reply to you either.

Do you have a pic of your body?

Or, to say what you actually mean: “are you fat?”

That’s what you’re asking, so why not come out and say it? Well, because it’s fucking rude, obviously.

I’m not going to tell you whether or not I’m fat, just as I’m not going to suck my stomach in and stand in front of a mirror just so I can send a picture of my body to someone so shallow I’d definitely not fuck him in the first place.

“I didn’t get to shag her.”
“Why did she turn you down?”
“What?”
“Umm, dude, you did at least ask her, didn’t you?”

How the living fuck do you expect to ever get laid if you don’t ask people for a shag? This is a growing problem. I’ve met men – beautiful, confident men – who’ll umm, and err, and wait until both my hands are inside their trousers before they’ll finally admit that yes, they’re probably going to get laid.

I even once had a guy – a supposedly dominant guy, for the love of Christ – who beat me with a wire coathanger until I cried, stripped me naked then fingered me so vigorously I nearly pissed in his hands, and still – still – had to ask my permission before he gave me the fuck I’d been begging for since we first met.

Part of this is the fault of aggressive, rude, “I’m out of your league” women, who leave some men’s confidence so battered after an approach that it’s surprising they can walk upright. I’ll come to this in another post – people who do this deserve far more of my wrath than I’m willing to give right now.

What’s getting me right now is the weird attitude of the guys who avoid asking for sex. They see sex as a gift that women might deign to give them if they’re just impressive enough, just kind enough, just sexy enough. They feel like they have to earn it. They don’t seem to realise that women often want sex too – just for its own sake.

A woman no more ‘lets you’ have sex with her than you ‘let people’ give you birthday presents.