My parents taught me some very valuable lessons growing up. Brush your teeth twice a day Always say please, thank you, yes sir, or yes ma’am Hold the door open for women and strangers Don’t buy it if you can’t afford it Remember other people’s birthdays and call them on the holidays Unfortunately, the “right” thing to do isn’t always the most practical when it comes to game.

I had been seeing this girl for a few short months. By most standards, we were somewhere between Fuck Buddies and Friends with Benefits. We would hang out a few times a week solely for the great sex. One of us might spend the night, but we always went our separate ways in the morning. Aside from a few outings with mutual friends and the occasional meal together, we never communicated aside from a few texts a week. Of course, it started to become blatantly obvious to me that our arrangement was now far more serious in her mind. She’d mentioned her own birthday a couple of times in passing only because both of ours were a few weeks apart (I’d also asked). It never occurred to me that she might want to hang out, even though she’d promised me a threesome as a present by the end of the month. Unfortunately, I’d completely forgotten about it until about three or four days after the fact. When I mentioned this to The Rookie (who was still fucking that feminist) he said, “Yeah man, my girl said she was pretty upset about it.”

Whoops. After I first realized it, I texted her. Me: “And… I am a jerk, I totally forgot when your birthday is/was.” Her: “You ARE a jerk! It was last weekend.” Me: “I had this feeling I was forgetting something important. You can hold that one over my head. Good news is I wasn’t there to rub in the fact that you are in your THIRTIES now.” Me: “Also, I’ll be in your hood tonight if you wanna hang out.” A few hours later… Her; “I probably shouldn’t hang out tonight. I just got off work and I am beat. Where are you at you lush?” Me: “[Random Bar]“ Her: “Fancy.” Me: “It’s pouring out, you can’t leave me stranded.” Her: “Hahaha… the rain will stop. You were 5 minutes too late. I would have at least swung by and lent you my umbrella… I am home now and getting a snack, then doing some sexy pre-bedtime studying. Haha. Where are you parked?” Me: *Silence* Her: “Great. And how come I feel guilty (?!?!?) you are such a punk. Haha.”

Notice I never apologized. This is key. By using a similar recovery strategy and assuming your game is solid enough… (Translation: The girl genuinely likes you) …You can not only turn the situation around on a girl you’ve been seeing casually but actually get her to want you even more. She won’t even have to verbally emphasize her forgiveness, in fact she’ll thank you by bending over and begging you to make it up to her. Later that week, I showed up with a $3.99 generic bouquet of flowers from Safeway just before she spent $150 on my “birthday dinner.” It’s funny how these things work out. Forget her birthday.