Richard Feynman on getting laid: "You Just Ask Them?"

http://www.gorgorat.com/#35

by matth • 16 years ago

212 155 16 years ago

MaysonL• 16 years ago

The section following, on mental arithmetic, is actually even more appropriate for HN.

powauth10• 16 years ago

Just out of curiosity: Is Feynman using 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sex? I'm guessing that, this story being written in the 1940s/50s, pre-sexual revolution, that it is more referring to sleeping with a some low level of intimacy.

joeyo• 16 years ago

Unless I am horribly behind the times, people in the US still use 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sex.

algorias• 16 years ago

The OP's point was that it might have implied less than that at the time.

powauth10• 16 years ago

This post teaches us all a valuable lesson: always frame the question before, not after, asking it. People stop reading after the '?'

cabalamat• 16 years ago

> Is Feynman using 'sleep with' as a euphemism for sex?

Yes.

ubernostrum• 16 years ago

I'm pretty sure he's talking about sex.

aphyr• 16 years ago

No. It's a euphemism for a quantum electrodynamics process, commonly known as pair production. ;)

nice1• 16 years ago

Yes and no - in those days they had no heating in winter, so people would "sleep with" one another just to keep warm. But it was considered rude to just snuggle up without asking. Of course sometimes this lead to considerable levels of intimacy.

timr2• 16 years ago

Classy title. I can't understand why women don't feel comfortable in our industry....

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

Could you explain your comment?

Is there something sexist about getting laid, or using the phrase "getting laid"? Because I know lots of regular women who both use that term and enjoy getting laid.

This is a not a male/female thing; this is a conflict of attitudes about sex.

If someone gets bent out of shape because they hear people talking about getting laid they seriously need to grow up.

Or get laid.

timr2• 16 years ago

"This is a not a male/female thing; this is a conflict of attitudes about sex. If someone gets bent out of shape because they hear people talking about getting laid they seriously need to grow up. Or get laid."

The phrase is equally trashy when used by either gender. It's possible to talk about sex without sounding like a teenage boy.

derefr• 16 years ago

And I can't understand how this advice (at least as phrased in the title) is specific to one gender.

(And if that's not your problem—why should women be more uncomfortable than men around sexual statements in general? That's almost the opposite of feminism.)

araneae4• 16 years ago

Because the title wouldn't have that incredulous tone if the "them" referred to men.

dwwoelfel• 16 years ago

This probably only works if you're Richard Feynman.

kareemm2• 16 years ago

Never know until you try. Fortune favors the bold...

aaronbrethorst4• 16 years ago

Not in the slightest. At the risk of destroying my chances of ever getting into YC (hi JL, PG, RTM et al!) I had astonishingly great luck with asking attractive women if they wanted to make out with me last Spring. Seriously: "hey, let's make out!" or "would it unduly offend you if I asked you to make out with me?"

You're probably better off asking this sort of thing after conversing with them for a bit so you don't come off as a creep. As long as you've established your bona fides you won't, especially if you say it with a smile.

I think I got one rejection, and her response was more of a good natured, laughing 'that sounds fun, but i shouldn't' variety.

zackattack4• 16 years ago

Ironically this probably increases your chances of getting into YC. Showing a history of assertiveness and getting what you want, Sam Altman-style!

jackowayed• 16 years ago

Eh, if anything it'll help you.

It shows that you're not a wimp and that you're willing to experiment, both good things.

And they're all human, you know. They realize that people do sexual things, even successful startup founders. And PG and JL have a baby. I'll let you draw your own conclusions based on that.

enneff• 16 years ago

Indeed. I've had great success with simple, blunt solicitation.

wallflower• 16 years ago

The shock & awe opener

http://www.rsdwiki.com/index.php?title=SHOCK_and_AWE..._The_...

nandemo2• 16 years ago

Seriously, you should leave out the "would it unduly offend you" part. If you don't believe me, try an A/B test and report the results to us.

msie• 16 years ago

Hmmm, good-looking guy doesn't have a problem with the ladies. What a surprise!

ErrantX3• 16 years ago

Bear in mind though your asking them to make out; which is fine, something they probably already planned to do.

(as an aside your first line is bad in terms of a "shock and awe" opener. The second line is better not because of the "unduly offended" (that waters it down) but the "would you")

If you asked them to sleep with you then success rate would shoot down (guaranteed; I tried it for a while just to see)

nzmsv• 16 years ago

I doubt the girls in the bar knew anything about physics, or who he was. If you try asking a stranger in an average bar who Richard Feynman is, I am predicting a bunch of blank stares and trying to guess something along the lines of "actor?"

eli• 16 years ago

I think dwwoelfel meant "famously charismatic" not "well-known physicist"

froo6• 16 years ago

I know a Welsh guy named Ed (very short guy) who never leaves a pub without a girl on his arm.

I always wondered how he did it so I asked him and he told me his pickup line.

He said:

"I go up to a girl and I start off with saying hi, introducing myself as Ed, I then say to them this line"

"Look, girls are into honesty right? Well the truth is I have a big d!&k and want to put it in you"

He told me that the secret to it is that you have to sell it like it was the most normal thing to say in the world.

As you can imagine, I was completely stunned, but he swore it was the truth.

It's a little more crude than feynman's article, but the principle is similar.

Strange huh?

froo6• 16 years ago

any mods able to delete this?

it somehow duped and I was unable to remove it myself due to noprocrast kicking in.

froo6• 16 years ago

I know a Welsh guy named Ed (very short guy) who never leaves a pub without a girl on his arm.

I always wondered how he did it so I asked him and he told me his pickup line.

He said:

"I go up to a girl and I start off with saying hi, introducing myself as Ed, I then say to them this line"

"Look, girls are into honesty right? Well the truth is I have a big d!&k and want to put it in you"

He told me that the secret to it is that you have to sell it like it was the most normal thing to say in the world.

As you can imagine, I was completely stunned, but he swore it was the truth.

It's a little more crude than feynman's article, but the principle is similar.

jonny_noog3• 16 years ago

What was the quality of the women who responded favorably to this line? :P

I think it's also worthy to note that the origin makes a huge difference. If you e.g. have an underwear model trying that line on a woman, it will no doubt succeed more often than if a stereotypical truck driver delivered it in exactly the same way.

anateus• 16 years ago

Sounds like Feynman getting introduced to what is now called "PUA".

char• 16 years ago

The entire book (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman) is amazing and hilarious. I highly recommend it for the HN crowd.

zackattack4• 16 years ago

Affiliate link for the lazy!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393316041/?tag=httpwwwhiph02-20

jbyers2• 16 years ago

[deleted]

I should have just down-voted the affiliate link and left it at that. Something's changed in the tenor of comments here on HN, and my reaction to it isn't productive. For the foreseeable future, I think I'm going to bite my tongue and read in silence.

ErrantX3• 16 years ago

It's a wonderful anecdote, but where to begin..

I was pretty hopeless at the whole dating game till I read The Game and started to try it out; it was a brilliant read. But the bare truth of it is that it doesn't actually work all that well. Oh yeh sure you can be a PUA and grab some fairly shallow girls - but it's a bit boring to be honest (and your success rate is fairly low - you "win" by asking lots of women). The only thing The Game gives you is confidence; which is 90% of the trick.

Indeed the best advice in this article is twofold.

- Confidence (subtly suggested) is a big factor. She's talking to you - if your not confident she'll only stay out of sympathy

- Dont pay for everything/anything; the best advice you will ever learn. I had plenty of crap dates spending loads of money in the hope of getting laid and it invariably went nowhere (a kiss on the cheek usually, bah). Till one date the girl randomly said "I'm not going to sleep with you tonight, can we just have a nice time" - so with no real investment in the evening we had an awesome fun just spending time together.

Now when I go on a date the first thing I'll say is "so do you want to get the first round or the second?". It's subtle but works brilliantly; usually we share the rounds and have a great time (and maybe sleep together, but I find that a less important conclusion now)

Against all the odds Im a pretty good dater. So when my friends ask for advice or help I usually say:

- go on a date just to have a good time with a girl, not just to sleep with her

- share the costs

- dont be gentlemanly at the end of the night. She's a person too and if she's not interested in getting laid she'll just say no

- be confident. She's on a date with you already!!

jhollandsworth• 16 years ago

When reading any of the PUA stuff, you have to realize that the common threads are simply communicating effectively, having confidence, breaking out of your shell, and simply displaying YOUR personality in a fashion that makes you attractive.

I think the issue with a lot of people blindly following the advice and material is that they understand the science but don't understand the delivery. The things you learn here should help you out in ALL facets of life that involve social interaction. Mold them to fit your needs and you'll be set. Sounds like its worked for you!

kareemm2• 16 years ago

The parent is great advice for dates and for life (is there a distinction, really?)

> go on a date just to have a good time with a girl, not just to sleep with her - Be present with no expectations except creating a good time for yourself - others will be attracted to this

>share the costs - Sharing is caring - don't pay for something (in this case, her drinks & dinner) unless you want to

> dont be gentlemanly at the end of the night. She's a person too and if she's not interested in getting laid she'll just say no - Assume responsibility for what you want, and assume she'll take responsibility for what she wants

> be confident. She's on a date with you already!! - Act like you've been there before... get out of your head and into the present moment.

jmtame• 16 years ago

there has been a lot of focus on social dynamics and this type of stuff if it interests you, it's called pick up. for the longest time, mystery and neil strauss were the icons. i'm not sure who it is now, or if they have been replaced. i'd say the whole thing has died down since it got into mainstream television. all of those tricks don't work anymore because the girls know all about it.

if you're really looking for a bold opener, google "the apocalypse opener." this will make pitching investors a walk in the park.

vidarh4• 16 years ago

Most girls still haven't heard about it or don't pick up on these things.

I actually spent last Saturday hanging out with a self-described pick up artist that mostly picks girls up during the day, in the street (he insists it's far easier than bars and clubs). The kind of stuff he pulled off right in front of me was mind blowing. At one point he literally had a girl he was talking to biting her lips and looking at him as if she was preparing to jump him then and there, and he got her to give him a neck massage right in the middle of a shop.

A lot of what he was using was routines. He'd tell a girl with a friend that she was so adorable and petite he could just pick her up and steal her away, for example.

Then he'd do it.

Without exception the girls absolutely loved it, and he'd joke with them about how her friend clearly wanted them to hook up since she didn't object when he "stole her away". In most cases their friend more or less turned into a cheerleader for him after that, and he got the girls number without fail in those cases.

Despite that, a lot of "pick up" has in any case transitioned into less stilted / scripted manipulative stuff and into "self help". E.g. companies like RSD that focus on being "natural" and improving yourself much more than routines.

_debug_4• 16 years ago

From: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html?m=3

"The charming side of Richard helped people forgive him for his uncharming characteristics. For example, in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said."

blackguardx• 16 years ago

You cut off the quote. Why?

Here is the rest:

"On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.

_debug_4• 16 years ago

Because I do not want his charm to detract from the rest of it. (charisma > sexism) == wrong. Also, in my opinion, it is actually a bit sad that the lady says, "oh well, it's ok to be treated that way because he's a good teacher". This is exactly the kind of compromise that victims make too often.

Bill Clinton was not even being sexist and he got tasered big time. I'm not sure why Feynman should get a pass.

restruct3• 16 years ago

Are you suggesting that it is all right for a charming man to be sexist, but not an uncharming man?

xsmasher• 16 years ago

There's a book of Feynman's letters out now, and I felt like there was a progression from the early letters -- where a certain amount of sexism was present -- to later ones where he seemed convinced that women were the peers of men in academia.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465023711?ie=UTF8&tag=...

Tichy2• 16 years ago

That was before HIV. Still, the pick up artists seem to give similar advice.

nostrademons2• 16 years ago

It was also before mass production of penicillin. Venereal diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea were a much bigger deal back then.

powauth10• 16 years ago

Agreed.

For the record, it is very hard to contract HIV from vaginal sex. (< 1/10000 per-instance chance)

Tichy2• 16 years ago

Didn't they already have Penicillin during WW2? I think the story must have taken place after WW2? But maybe it wasn't mass produced, military only or something.

araneae4• 16 years ago

This is one of my favorite quotes from him:

"The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry... The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it." – Richard Feynman

http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/310content/nature/feynman.html

foldr4• 16 years ago

Unfortunately, judging from the context, that wasn't even a joke.

jerf• 16 years ago

Are you upset because a man said it? "Math is too male and we need to come up with more female ways of teaching it" is a pretty standard feminist idea. In fact, replace "math" with a wide variety of things.

Recall he's not working under modern PC strictures, not that he necessarily would have subjected himself to them anyhow. He gets to say it directly, not cloak it in endless verbiage.

That said, I actually disagree. Math is what it is and everybody regardless of gender must bend their brain to the subject and not the other way around. I think its fundamental inhumanity is dominant. But you seem to me to be casually implying that his statement is un-PC, and I think it's actually rather shockingly PC, just also very blunt.

mhartl2• 16 years ago

For what it's worth, Richard encouraged his sister Joan to earn a Ph.D. in physics. She worked for years as an astrophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. I had the good fortune of having Joan present at my first scientific talk way back in 1994. I was confused on one point, and she patiently explained to me how a magnetotail extending to infinity could still satisfy div B = 0.

tdfx• 16 years ago

Definitely giving this a go on Friday night.

Mz• 16 years ago

I think it works because it takes money out of the equation.

There's a line in a song: "I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends, that is as long as I'm buying". If the man is spending money to get her attention, how can he not feel like "she wouldn't be here if I didn't have money" and how can she not feel on some level like a commodity being purchased? Your real friends are the ones who enjoy your company without you spending money to garner their attention. It seems to me your real lovers will be much the same in that regard.

mhd• 16 years ago

You know, some people consider quoting Styx songs a criminal offense.

Domo arigato.

winter_blue2• 16 years ago

This seems to have happened in the late 1930s or the early 1940s (he says "while I was working on the bomb".)

From what I've heard, the US was very conservative at that time; girls & women in general did not have sex before marriage. And additionally was contraception widely available at that time?

The sexual revolution happened in the 60s and 70s. So, this does not make any sense.

Can someone enlighten me?

winter_blue2• 16 years ago

This story by Freedman totally goes against what I've thought US/Western attitudes towards sex were in the 40s. (I thought the US was an uber-conservative sex-only-after-marriage & sex-only-for-producing children society.)

Does anyone have any links/references to articles/papers/studies that show that the US was already laissez-faire about sex as early as the late-30s/early-40s?

powauth10• 16 years ago

*Feynman :p

sex-only-for-producing children is a bit of a stretch. The link to Ebert's blog post above describes pre-1960s society pretty well; couples were sexual, but if they weren't married (or at least engaged), they probably weren't having sex.

gamache• 16 years ago

Don't ever assume that the US -- or any other country -- actually practices what it preaches, especially when said country spends a lot of time preaching.

The two Kinsey Reports (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948, and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, 1953) are the groundbreaking sexual studies of their time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports

enjo• 16 years ago

That's just good old day syndrome. I've had some very interesting talks with older folks about this very subject. They all agree that the prevalence of sex in the culture is certainly a bit more front and center today. However, men have always been men and women have always been women.

Teen birth rates where at their highest in 40's, 50's and 60's after all. Contraception certainly has played a role in reducing that, but it does demonstrate that conservative America has always been a myth propagated by a certain sect of older conservatives.

powauth10• 16 years ago

Interesting. My talks (at least with older people who went to college) have given me quite a different perspective - where people would typically marry very young (often out of college), and no one would even think of having sex without at least being engaged.

I don't doubt the truth of this story (though there is certainly hyperbole); rather I find it hard to believe that 'sleep with' in this context actually means 'sex'. The main flags are A) Feynman is discussing with other people about it (afaik not acceptable socially then) and B) a sexual one-night stand would be even less so.

Finally I wager that the teen birth rate drop is solely due to an increase in education and contraption (and even legalized abortions). Obviously, there were some teenagers having sex in the 1940s (with a much higher liklihood of becoming pregnant right now), but, due to the risks and less acceptance than now, the rate was lower.

bps4484• 16 years ago

anecdotally, I once asked my grandfather if people didn't really have sex that much back then, or if they just didn't talk about it, and he was quick to say that people just didn't talk about it, but maybe he was biased and just getting laid a lot :)

kingkongreveng_• 16 years ago

> Teen birth rates where at their highest in 40's, 50's and 60's after all

They were married 19 year olds, dummy.

philwelch2• 16 years ago

The Manhattan Project was 1942-1945, well into the war, when condoms were fairly widely available. They only became more available after that, of course.

powauth10• 16 years ago

He was married during that entire time (until 1945). This also doesn't take place until after he was at Cornell. Probably around 1946 or 1947.

froo6• 16 years ago

Interesting and entertaining article.

I imagine if the master of ceremonies gave the a physicist the same advice today (say, Brian Cox for example) I picture the guy walking around with a pimp hat etc.

WilliamLP• 16 years ago

I think it's important not to understate the fact that a young Feynman was just inherently really sexy. (Talking as a straight man.)

vaksel• 16 years ago

"I bought her $1.10 worth of sandwiches,"

how old is this story?

chaosmachine• 16 years ago

"When I was first at Cornell I corresponded with a girl I had met in New Mexico while I was working on the bomb."

Considering the first sentence in the story, I'd say 65 years.

_delirium• 16 years ago

which would put it at around $12 of sandwiches in today's money, according to miscellaneous online inflation calculators

karlzt2• 16 years ago

Feynman had good karma enough to die twice of cancer

karlzt2• 16 years ago

It isn't fair to not have the option to delete my comment

sown2• 16 years ago

I could never do it.

I just can't.

I'm too much of a coward. I think I might die if I asked.

pstuart• 16 years ago

That's the best part--you don't die. You might even live a little.

sown2• 16 years ago

On an intellectual level I totally agree with you; you're right.

RevRal2• 16 years ago

a failure of a hacker who doesn't have the energy to do much of anything anymore

:( Sorry, brother.

I don't know how bad it is, but I've been in similar situations. I do know it takes a lot of energy to get going again, and that a minuscule amount of energy, every day, accumulates into progress. I wouldn't concern myself with the girls, yet.

davidmurphy• 16 years ago

Or you might die a little death! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort

vidarh4• 16 years ago

I used to think that too. Get a coach. Seriously. Whether just a friend, or someone who is paid. Doesn't need to be about "pickup" at all - just someone to push you into going up to random strangers and strike up a conversation until you're so desensitized to it you just get used to talking to anyone and saying anything you like.

You're likely to find that having a friend physically force you to take the first step will make it immensely easier, and after a while you'll hesitate less and less.

Takes practice, like anything else, especially if you've allowed yourself to build up "barriers" against it in you mind.

mhartl2• 16 years ago

It sounds bizarre, but by far the best thing I ever did in this direction was to start wearing Vibram Five Fingers in public. They look like crazy monkey shoes, and initially I was mortified at drawing such attention to myself, but within a few months I had completely adjusted. Moreover, they are an incredible ice-breaker: I've had more conversations with strangers in the last 1.5 years than in the previous rest of my life combined.

mwexler2• 16 years ago

Out of 101 comments, no one mentions that this site is hosting an illegal copy of an artist's work? I mean, sure, the whole book is great... but shouldn't we be having a bit of respect for someone's intellectual property and not linking to it?

If Gorgorat.com has permission to print the book, or it's now in public domain, then I'm the first to say link to that pup... but I didn't see anything on the site to say this.

I'm a bit surprised that folks who make their living creating intellectual property are so blase about this. There were more comments about the inappropriate affiliate link than the fact that the book is still in press and under copyright.

Let's not devolve into "information wants to be free" and "the world is open source", but stick to the fact that the book is not free and open source in the US legal system at this point, AFAIK. Would we be linking to a hosted full copy of PG's excellent book Hackers etc. (http://www.paulgraham.com/hackpaint.html) to highlight one of his points? Probably not.

aerique• 16 years ago

The author's been dead for a while.

travisp2• 16 years ago

Ralph Leighton is not dead, and the copyright is Feynman and Leighton.

Feynman also has two children. Surely he is allowed to have his children benefit from his work after his death.

grosales• 16 years ago

I'd have to agree with you on this. I read this book last year (got one of my coworkers to read it too) and I was so surprised at how awesome it was that I got "What Do You Care What Other People Think ?" and "Tuva or Bust". Both are really good books because you get to learn more about Richard Feynman and the way he thought about different things ("Surely" is a unique gem though). This particular chapter prompted my attention and by trying to find references online, I ended up at gorgora.com. I didn't want to reference a place I was not sure of so I did not. In hindsight, I should have written a blog post about it. Fortunately, according to whois the site will soon be down (unless my intuition is wrong about what "pending renewal or deletion" means).

grinich• 16 years ago

Hackers and Painters is actually available on Scribd in its entirety.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47180/Paul-Graham-Hackers-And-Pain...

mwexler2• 16 years ago

Whoops. That was a bad example, wasn't it? Ah well, the rest of the comment (hopefully) is still valid.

Semiapies• 16 years ago

Because the dominant view here is that only one's own intellectual property exists.

EDIT: and companies/organizations one likes. Everyone else's is fair game.

vorador2• 16 years ago

Actually, I've been captivated by this book and I'm planning to buy it, thanks to this pirated version.

mhb• 16 years ago

I robbed a bank last week and I liked the money so much I decided to get a job.

Dove• 16 years ago

I wanted to respond with a rant about how terribly degrading and insulting it is to women to classify them all as bitches, to presume a few dollars worth of drinks, in a just world, entitles one to intercourse.

And then I realized the women involved are the sort who would gladly manipulate a guy's emotions and waste his time for a few dollars in drinks.

And I realized that justice was probably being served without my intervention.

yesbabyyes• 16 years ago

This is exactly what the fictional John Forbes Nash, Jr did in "A Beautiful Mind". Does anybody here know whether he really did, or if they got it from somewhere else (Feynman, perhaps)?

Richard Feynman on getting laid: "You Just Ask Them?"

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