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Game, pick-up lines, charm. These are some of the terms that we women use to refer to a man's strategy to pick up women. As men get older, their methods of picking up women do too. Unfortunately, some men haven't figured that out yet.

While celebrating getting older recently, I met many men whose game had grown quite stale. We went out to a fun little spot on Battleground Avenue, where the people are usually 25 and up, because we were in search of some intelligent conversation. What we got was chessy one-liners and even a few, "so, come here oftens?"
I was thinking that maybe it's just the club scene that brings out the expired charm. I would even venture to say the low lighting, endless alcohol and smoky air are to blame for the lack of decent communication. Then I remembered how a friend of mine who met a guy at the same spot a few weeks before told me how he attempted to impress her by driving up to a house that looked like a Beverly Hills mansion or a feature on MTV Cribs and hinting that he was going to purchase the digs. He even hinted that he would move her in. Did I mention that the thirty-something is currently sharing a sparsely decorated house with a relative?

Is it possible that bad game has taken over the Gate City? And, if men are continuing to approach women with pathetic come-ons, does this mean that women are still falling for it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Imagine it's 1991. You turn on the TV to see that guy opening the door with a suitcase. He says "I've been gone a long time and you're still going strong." Or something like that. Is he mad that the woman he told to leave is still there? No! He's happy his Renuzit brand air freshener is still off-gassing flower-scented chemicals!

This is the first thing I thought of when a friend e-mailed me telling me that since his girlfriend left after a long visit (at least I think that's the scenario -- this friend is sorta hard to keep up with), his apartment has started to smell like a locker room.

As it happens, I also just came back from a long trip, but my b.f. managed to keep things from reverting too far to the state of nature. I think it's because he kept using my shampoo.

Of course girls smell better than boys. That's an incontrovertible natural law. But is there something else that a girl's presence brings to a home in the strictly olfactory dimension?

My theory is that we are all cleaner and tidier when there is a chance we'll be observed -- boys and girls. What's yours?

Writing for this blog has been really good for me. The idea that I'm going to write honestly about whatever interaction I have with men has done a pretty good job of keeping me from doing some dumb things.

But since I haven't been writing as much, I seem to have gone right back to doing the same things that I totally know better than to do. Here's a summary.

Last weekend, I was at an event where I met a guy who spoke French as a first language. I got a little excited to be able to practice speaking French, something I haven't really done since college. I got carried away and gave him my phone number so we could hang out and chat some more.

I know better.

He has called me about four times a day for going on a week now.

On Thursday, I was heading into Rioja for the first time when some guys asked me something about my car. I have a pretty attention-getting car and I've become accustomed to, well, getting attention for it so I answered their questions, accepted their compliments and headed on inside to wait for my (girl) friend.

I ended up with several minutes on my hands before my friend arrived and while I was waiting, those two guys came inside and offered me a taste of their wine. By offer, I mean the manager poured it in front of me before I could tell what was happening. It's a small place and we were just about the only people there so I would have felt super rude saying "No thanks, I don't want to taste your wine because I don't want to give you the wrong idea.

But almost the worst part of this was these guys are much much older than I am. If they even thought they had a chance, I think they must have guessed my age at like, at least 10 years older than I really am. Since I'm not 14, that's not flattering!! I've been a little freaked out about it ever since. So if you see me wearing knee socks and pigtails, you know that I'm having some "I'm not 30 yet" fugue brought on by the trauma of being hit on by someone on the other side of retirement savings.

My friend arrived in just the nick of time, saving me from saying to these guys "I don't want to talk to you." Which I wouldn't have actually said anyway, I would have just smiled and been friendly to them and been uncomfortable and embarrassed.

The moral of the story is I shouldn't have given the Francophone my number and I should have been direct and firm with the wine-offering old dudes. And I think I did the wrong (my usual) thing because I wasn't thinking of writing a blog post about it. So Unbuttoned makes my life better, just like Socrates said it would. Sort of.

According to the current forecast, it's supposed to rain this weekend. And while we're in a drought, that doesn't make me hate cloudy, rainy days any less.

Sometimes it's just comfortable to be in a drought.

Now before I get angry comments about how thankful I should be for rain, you should know I'm no longer talking about the weather. I'm talking about my lack of dating for the past couple of months. I've been ignoring offers to go out in favor of hanging out with my friends or just hanging out with myself in front of the TV. It's comfortable. I'm comfortable. And I don't have to dress up or look pretty.

But I know better than to allow myself to get too comfortable in a drought. I know that I'm inventing flaws in potential dates just because being single is sometimes the easiest option. I know that dating my television set or clinging to my friends is a bad idea. But I can't seem to get motivated to put myself out there right now and I don't know what the deal is.

Any advice on how to give myself a kick in the pants? In all likelihood, I won't take it. I'll just wait for some guy to come along and wow me out of my sweatpants (and into something more appropriate for a date, I mean). But maybe there's another, more realistic, solution out there.

Nails perfectly manicured with two coats of clear polish painted on each to obtain that high gloss look. Hair was perfect, thanks to the Paul Mitchell gel giving each curl a defined bounce. Sounds like I was ready for the perfect date, right? Wrong. I'm actually describing my date.

I know I recently gushed about a long distance romance and seemed quite optimistic, but that optimism has morphed into boredom, so yeah, I'm dating again.

That said, no matter who I date, I have always tried to stay away from high maintenance men. I don't need a man who spends more time than me in the mirror. In my opinion, men aren't supposed to be so caught up in hair and nails and though I like a man who is put together, style shouldn't take so much effort.

So why did I end up at dinner with a man whose nails looked better than mine?

I'm won't bore you with details as to how we met, but I will say I didn't see the shiny nails when my friends introduced us. Yes, he was very handsome, but looking at him a second time, I found myself staring at his lips, in awe of what appeared to be shiny lip balm. I tried not to hold it against him, but the perfect nails and glossy lips taunted me for the duration of the date.

It didn't matter much, he seemed to be perfectly fine holding a full conversation by himself anyway. He gave me life story, and he even managed to discuss his future goals during what seemed to be the longest two hours of my life.

Now, the boring long distance thing isn't looking so bad, in fact, I may go home and call him tonight as I sit in front of the television giving myself a much-needed manicure.

I run a lot of my life online. I pay bills, correspond with friends, shop and get a ton of information for my job on the Internet.

But I still judge my friends who claim to have made friends or met potential dates online. There's just something icky to me about thinking you have a personal connection with someone who you have never met, well, in person. And maybe I'm hypocritical, but I think there's a huge, wide chasm of difference between meeting a stranger online and using the Internet to keep in touch with friends you already have.

But an article in Wired this month says meeting online is kind of like meeting in church -- another place I am never looking for a hook-up, by the way.

I'm long over worrying about giving companies my credit card number over the Internet. Does my attitude about finding love online mean I belong on an ice floe somewhere?

The sweater he left behind because he knows you like to wear it. The movie ticket stub from your first date. Or perhaps more expensive items, like the diamond earrings he gave you for your anniversary. What do we do with all that stuff that accumulates in a relationship when a relationship ends? (Guys, this goes both ways. Do you part with iPod she gave you for Christmas because it has so many painful memories attached? I wouldn't!)

The NY Times wrote a story about a Web site that will let you auction off your valuables that are just too painful to keep so long as you tell the story behind them. (The site was down when I tried to look at it. They must have gotten overloaded after the Times story ran.)

What have you done with your mementos of relationships long gone? Burned them? Thrown them off a bridge? Or kept them, knowing that one day they'd remind you of the good times, not just the bad?