The notch was a great metric that kept me motivated in the game longer than my natural disposition. I wanted to hit a high number so that I could feel like a man. I eventually hit a count which made me feel proud, yet I kept going. There were girls I banged just so I could send a “+1″ text to my friends and get validated by their positive response, but eventually that got old.

The flag was a new metric that kept me not only banging but traveling as well. Long after I stopped caring about notching my belt, flagging kept me full-time in the game for an extra three years of my life. But then I got a lot of flags and there weren’t many other countries I wanted to visit. It stopped being enough.

Doing it for the story was a new reason to stay in the game. I know my role as the monkey who must keep dancing. I pursued interactions I normally wouldn’t so that I could write something for you. But there are only so many ways to tell the same story and the validation you gave me was no longer enough to send me out the door to repeat what I’ve already done so many times before.

I noticed a change halfway through my last trip to Europe. I was getting more and more reluctant to go out at night. I had to force myself using all manner of tricks. I ignored the voice inside me that said to stop and went out anyway to rack up more notches, more flags, and more stories. I was a banging machine, totally mindless about why I was doing something that was giving me decreasing pleasure. I like making fun of American women for having the mentality of a hamster, but I was the epitome of a hamster, spinning around, working hard to fuck when it has long stopped moving me forward.

For the first time since 2003, I banged less girls than the year prior (2011 was greater than my 2012). My quantity has peaked. I simply cannot harness that amount of energy I put into getting laid with what I did in 2011, no matter how much alcohol or caffeine I pump into my body, no matter what artificial flag goal I make, no matter how much I abstain from masturbating, and no matter how I try to jack up my testosterone levels through diet or weight lifting. Today when I see a pretty girl with a great ass, I can’t help but be reminded of another girl I fucked who looks similar to her, and how I’m ready to only put in the most minimal of effort to take her to bed—effort that is simply not enough to maintain my previous results.

“No, it’s not over yet, just put in the work! Keep going! Go to the club tonight! Don’t stop!”

Nearly three months ago in Warsaw I went out alone to a Polish club. I psyched myself up to put in 10 honest approaches. I would go back to my roots and just work and bang. I didn’t want to accept that I’ve peaked.

It took everything I had to make it to eight approaches. I only liked one of the girls, and the rest I just went through the motions, as if out of habit. I kissed a random girl that gave me a half boner. I went home and stared at myself in the mirror for a long while. I saw the gray in my beard and hair. I saw the lines developing around my mouth. I saw the tired eyes of a man who has been lucky to see what he has. On that night, for the first time in eleven and a half years, getting laid was no longer the number one priority in my life.

The game is in my blood. Like any addict coming off a drug, there will be relapses, but I know change when I see it.

1. People who leave their cell phone on the table while I’m talking to them. I feel like I have to compete  for their attention with an electronic device. What’s the point of telling something that requires deep thought if our conversation will be interrupted at any moment?

2. Girls who immediately try to change the first song I put on after they enter my apartment. This is one of my major tests to find out if a girl is able to not be selfish for three and a half minutes to enjoy something that her partner prefers. It’s the most reliable sign I have for whether a girl is relationship worthy or not.

3. Guys who don’t ask questions. Either you use conversation as a window to learn more about other people, or as a means to get things out of your head. I’m convinced that self-absorbed men would make far better companions if they simply started a blog.

4. People who tell me I “should” do something for the benefit of society instead of for myself. I don’t have to do anything but pay my taxes and die.

5. Foreign bars that don’t have good vodka. Brown liquors like whiskey are prone to cause bad hangovers when consumed in large quantities, making it more suitable for a weekday libation than weekend fun. Mixing alcohol with sugar also increases the severity of hangovers. If I’m going to party all I need is a decent vodka that is consumable with only ice. Sadly, many European bars don’t have this.

6. Guys who spit horrible game within earshot. I have a low cringe reflex when it comes to hearing bad game. It offends the past 11 years of my life where I practiced my own game to make it something digestible to women of the world. If a man is telling an average girl how beautiful she is, or is actively seeking her approval, I have to physically withdraw myself from the area.

7. Chicken breast that starts smelling only a day or two after you purchase it. This is common when buying from foreign grocery stores because of their limited use of preservatives. Washing the chicken does very little to reduce the speed of spoilage. I learned that you can still cook stinky chicken and it will taste fine, but it should be thrown out if it starts to become slimy. In America I’ve never had stinky chicken—I can let it sit on the counter for a couple days and it still won’t smell.

8. Having to piss with strong morning wood. I get urine all over the toilet.

9. Girls who reply to a text message the following day. Bitch, I know you’re not that busy and I know you stay up late doing nothing of importance. If you’re going to take a full night to write back, I’m going to take a full eternity to do the same.

10. Mediocre books. They’re not good enough to be excited about reading, but not bad enough that you shouldn’t finish. With so many few books that are great, I’m afraid mediocre books are unavoidable.

11. Condoms. They should only be used in the first night you have sex with someone, but never again. If you like each other to repeat the sex then there is a seed of love that would easily justify a trip to the doctor for STD treatment or an abortion.

12. Belts that don’t fit perfectly. One notch makes the pants too loose and the next make them too tight. I customized my casual belt by creating a notch, but I slimmed down shortly after, making the next official notch more suitable. My ugly customization is on full display to the ladies.

13. Fat arms. The body part that is most visible on humans are the arms. It’s the window to the rest of your body, and one reason why meatheads spend so much time doing bicep curls in the gym. Unfortunately for women, arms are a suitable place to store fat thanks to their physiology, unlike a fat man who can still have reasonably slender arms but a gigantic stomach. Women who have fat arms announce to me—and the world—that they don’t care about their appearance, and if they don’t care about their appearance, how are they going to care about pleasing me?

This post is inspired from a recent entry on G Manifesto’s blog.

1. I was a spoiled momma’s boy. For the seven years before my sister was born, my mom treated me like a petit prince, giving me whatever I wanted and indulging all my tantrums. Even late into adulthood, she would offer to do my dirty laundry or throw money at me when I didn’t ask. I would often leave her house with tupperware containers full of delicious Turkish food. As a child, I ended up developing a strong attachment to her that led to extreme shyness (I’d latch onto her leg whenever in the presence of strangers). For my first day of day care and kindergarten, I cried while everyone else played.

2. I challenged other boys to fights, and lost. I remember losing three fights that I started. One was after I purposefully destroyed another kid’s homework by walking on it. After school he slapped me in front of a large crowd. He was about to pummel me but adults appeared and he got scared. Another time I was talking trash on the basketball court and got beat by an African kid who left me whimpering in the corner while he continued playing ball. The last case I remember was when I challenged a guy while on my bike. He connected a punch to my face that made me fall off.

3. I was one of the only white kids in my neighborhood. Most of my friends were hispanic, black, or from other third world countries. I didn’t have any race identity or consciousness that I was either white or Middle Eastern because I was constantly surrounded by diversity. Not until I got to high school did I become more aware of the boundaries. Even into adulthood, most of my friends remain either minorities or the first-born generation of immigrant parents (e.g., Russian, Indian, Persian).

4. My first job was a janitor at a bagel shop. My daily duties included washing the dishes, mopping the floors, and cleaning the bathroom. After my first day of work, my mom cried because she thought her son was doing menial labor, but I loved it because at 16 I had a car and a lot of disposable cash. I later got a job at Boston Market where I made a bit more. I had early experiences in life where I was rewarded when I worked hard, so whenever I want something, I naturally default to that strategy.

5. I took French for four years. I didn’t take the class seriously in high school so when it got too hard I ass-kissed by helping my teacher set up a language computer lab at the time when the internet was becoming popular (1997). I remember installing some programs that allowed me to remotely prank my classmates. One would display a warning box telling them to step away from the computer because the “radiation protection mechanism” on the monitor had failed. Another program had the Energizer bunny going across all the lab computers in sequential order.

6. I was a late bloomer. I had a bone age about three years young than my actual age, so when I was 16 I looked closer to 12. It’s not until I was a freshman in college did I start to look like a man. I think I’m going through a second puberty as I write this because the amount of hair I have in my ears and on my back is increasing at an alarming rate. Most of the players I know also happen to be late bloomers. Not getting into the game until you’re almost an adult means you will be more logical and analytical about your approach to getting laid. You’re also more likely to learn game skills from print.

7. I hated reading. My verbal SAT score was 470 out of 800. I never got higher than a B in English or writing class. After graduating from college I started reading self-improvement books that acted as a gateway drug to normal books, primarily non-fiction. My reading habits recently exploded after buying a Kindle. I’ve read more books in the past year than in my first 22 years of life.

8. My mother’s side of the family has a few depressives and substance abusers. I’ve had addictions to video games, gambling, and game. There have also been some stretches where I’ve had to curtail my drinking. Right now I can’t say I’m truly addicted to anything as even my slavery to pussy has toned down greatly from years past, though I’m sure it’s still way above average.

9. I’m frugal. Lessons I’ve learned since eliminating my credit card debt after college has stuck with me into my 30s. If I come across a windfall of cash, I save 90% of it and spend 10% at my leisure. I think there’s a lot of truth in the Fight Club quote “The things you own end up owning you.” I do a cost-benefit analysis whenever buying material things, even a $20 t-shirt. I’m much more likely to spend money on experiences that’ll give me bangs or good stories.

10. I originally wanted to be a freelance writer. I envisioned myself being a writer for magazines and travel guidebooks, even after I published Bang. I took first steps to get on that path but then realized that my voice would be molded by other people and I’d have to change my writing depending on what the editor needed. By writing a blog and self-publishing my own books, I could release what I thought was best. I’m lucky that my voice (and lack of filter) is something that a lot of guys appreciate, but it has put me in a box.

11. Most of my life is boring. I spend several hours a day in front of my laptop. On most days I have to force myself outside. What you read comes from less than 15% or less of my actual existence. I look to work to ground me and gives me “permission” to have fun. I don’t feel right about going out if I didn’t put in an honest day’s work.

12. On the seventh month after releasing Bang, I sold seven copies and made only $56. I was certain that self-publishing was not the way to make money so I started work as a bartender when I came back from my first trip to South America. I kept promoting Bang while writing on the side until the book went viral in its own right. Three and a half years later, when Day Bang came out, I sold over 2,000 copies of my books in one month. I bought myself a suit, put the rest of the money into my savings account, and took four days off before diving back into writing.

13. I don’t trust many people. Right now there are only three guys in the world that I completely trust and can count on for support. I’m always open to meeting new people, but the level of rapport I have with these three will probably not be matched for the rest of my life. As I age it’s getting harder to make friends because I’m becoming more particular and neurotic, as I believe the case for most people.

14. I don’t care for living a long life. I’ve seen how elderly people live and it’s not pleasant. I exercise somewhat regularly and eat right, but mostly to have a strong body for the present moment to attract women, not for old life.

Years ago when I was operating as DC Bachelor, my full name and even “Roosh” was a secret. If people saw me in the street they’d ask if I was “DCB.” When getting out of DC became my most important goal, I changed the name of the site to Roosh V, a generic title that wouldn’t be dependent on my location.

A lot of newbie creators who put out of their work think getting haters is a sign of accomplishment that suggests their content is of high quality. I, too, thought this. I thought it was fun that all these anonymous morons were foaming at my writing. What I didn’t realize at the time was that these amateurs were the seed for more determined haters that fit more the personality profile of obsessive stalker.

There was a gossip blogger in DC who started writing posts about me around 2006. Let’s just call him Big Gay Rob. He was like the Perez Hilton of the city. He started emailing people for my full name and place of employment. Eventually he got my name. He published it and my heart stopped. Thanks to Google, for all eternity my birth name would be associated with my writings. Not long after, he found out about my previous employer and suggested people call them to say that I’m an awful human being. He went on a tear to reveal the names of the most prominent DC bloggers at that time. There was also another gossip blog allied with him that said I was a rapist who had every STD known to man and simian.

By the time my public information was released, I was a few months away from quitting my job and heading to South America for my first big trip. But what would happen if I wanted to get another job? There would be absolutely no way that a corporation would hire me after doing a simple Google search.

Big Gay Rob made the decision for me: my writing would become my life. Failure was not an option. I had to succeed or be resigned to bartender jobs.

The next couple of years were hard. I hemorrhaged money and was always on a tight budget, having even to resort to stealing drinks in bars. I also encountered difficulties in my travels that I hadn’t expected, but I kept writing and putting out books that I thought other guys would like. Thankfully, they have rewarded me with their purchases. When Big Gay Rob published my name I wanted to crush his skull, but today if I see him I’d shake his hand. There was opportunity in the crisis he created for me that took a few years to germinate.

Sharing personal information is step one in the hater manual. If you are someone who tells the truth, regardless of the subject matter, it will question people’s beliefs and world view. They will hate your guts for it and become motivated to tear you apart. Publishing your name, home address, or private pictures is their first method of attack.

If you’re still standing after getting outed, and show no signs of quitting, step two is to make up lies to tarnish your reputation. The main lie used on me is that I’m a rapist who consciously spreads STDs to women. Game denialists say that I sleep with prostitutes. Recently I read the story of a hater contacting all the female Facebook friends of a certain PUA saying he has STDs, takes advantage of women, and so on.

I was not personally prepared for step three, which is to get the authorities involved. Now I must stress that I’m pissed at myself for letting a hater get leverage on me, but it happened so I had to deal with it.

In my European trip I misunderstood the Schengen tourist visa rules until I had already overstayed. I was aware that I may be hit with a fine or an outright ban for 1-3 years, a penalty I was mentally preparing for. While in the Baltics, towards the end of my trip, a hater from Estonia put up a web site that said I was a horrible sex tourist who was staying in Europe “illegally.” He linked to posts that detailed my travel and game strategy. He went on to spam Reddit, Couchsurfing, Stormfront, and the commenting sections of many Estonian media sites. The ensuing traffic I got from Estonia was ten times what I’d normally get. The problem is that he also put up phone numbers and email addresses to the police in Tartu and Tallinn, the two biggest cities in Estonia.

Within two weeks of arriving in Tartu, a brigade of Estonians went online and announced places where they had seen me (one guy even correctly guessed the apartment company I was staying in). By the fourth week I was recognized every night I went out, more than I ever was in my home base of Washington DC. While I was nervous of police involvement, since getting deported would mean a definite travel ban, the bigger effect was that I couldn’t game in peace. Too many people knew me and were “warning” all the girls that I was a dangerous rapist who spread monkey STDs to pureblood European women. Many girls were curious about me, but their friends would invariably cockblock by saying I was “dangerous.” I remember one girl telling me, “There is no way I’ll let you leave with my friend!” I don’t like playing the race card, but if I was a blonde Swedish guy I wonder if the reaction would have been the same.

One night in the club, towards the end of my stay in Tartu, I noticed two girls looking at me and talking. It was obvious that one of them knew me and was telling the other about who I was. The girl who knew me was massively overweight. I ignored them.

At the bar, another guy recognized me. I bought him a shot because I was in a good mood. Eventually I started talking to a blonde girl. Things were going well until I got a tap on the shoulder from the bouncer. He ordered me to come with him to the front.

There were two policeman in full gear waiting for me. I figured that this was it, I’m getting kicked out of the EU, short of fulfilling my sex mission in the Baltics. The cops asked me for my ID but I said it’s in my room, which was true. I felt heavy vibes as they briefly discussed what to do, but I maintained the best poker face I could.

They asked for my name and I give my full name, not Roosh. They asked me to write it down and I did. One of the officers looked at my name and squinted his eyes, like he was trying to figure things out. They asked me where I was from and my birth date. The guy I bought a shot for came to my defense, saying I’m a “good guy.” The blonde girl also watched with a concerned look on her face. They had a small conference and said that I’m not the guy they are looking for, thanked me for my cooperation, and left.

My guess is that the obese girl called the cops on me and said that my name is “Roosh.” If I gave that name, the game would have been over and there would be no Bang Estonia (currently in development). I went back to the blonde that I was talking to, who was much warmer to me perhaps because of the “danger” factor, but I figured it was best to leave in case the cops figured out that I was the same guy. I went to another bar, where I was recognized again by yet another girl.

I’ll be the first to admit that the episode was exciting, but the benefits of anonymity cannot be overstated. I slipped out of Tartu and went to Tallinn for a week where I went unnoticed despite a last ditch effort by the haters.

A couple months ago some guy wrote about how he saw fake “Wanted” posters in his neighborhood. There was a picture of a black guy and under that his full name and number with a message saying he was a liar and cheater who hurts women. It became clear to me where the future of hate is going. The haters, which in our case are feminists, liberals, and beta males, will try to use government institutions to get you to stop doing whatever they don’t want you to do. But since their accusations are usually based on lies or half-truths, I liken it to amateur terrorism. It’s only the recent case where they were correct in that I was overstaying that they could have caused a big problem for me.

Big Gay Rob had won. He gave me a couple grey hairs. He also made me more committed to my writing. He helped me think of the big picture in how I could make a living from my work. My Estonian haters have also won. They made my time in Estonia more stressful than it should’ve been. They probably cost me a notch or two. They also made me realize that if I want to write a guide about a country, I can’t announce going there. They taught me how to do my work in complete peace and anonymity, which I was successfully able to do the past three months in Ukraine.

For every attack there is a countermeasure that makes you less prone to further attacks. I’m sure one day the haters will cook something else up for me, and when it happens I’ll be ready for them.

Since my mid 20s I’ve struggled with armpit odor. I’ve tried several solutions:

• Trimming my armpit hair. I’ve read that the odor comes from bacteria on the hair, but taking it off only marginally helped.
• Aluminum based deodorants. I sweat so profusely that the aluminum barely puts a dent on the river-like flow.
• Deodorant stones. Two applications a day definitely helped, but the odor stubbornly remained.
• Direct application of 70-90% isopropyl alcohol. I got this idea from working in a laboratory where we used alcohol as a sterilizer. If I washed my armpits twice a day and sprayed afterwards, the smell was greatly reduced, but it was too labor intensive.

I normally shower at night so thankfully I don’t put out an odor during my night-time approach sessions, but by the following afternoon I reek. Sometimes I’m lucky to have 6-8 solid hours of smelling okay until the odor returns.

One day I was searching through natural remedies for a sinus infection on a site called Earth Clinic. I browsed around the ailments page and noticed body odor. Their top solution was baking soda. I figured it’d be worth a try.

I went to the grocery store (I was in Copenhagen at the time), and paid $1.50 for a small container. That night I showered, dipped two wet fingers in the baking soda, and rubbed it into my pits. I figured that it would take a few days to see a noticeable effect, like was the case with the deodorant stone.

The next afternoon I stuck my nose under each arm and couldn’t pick out a smell. Later that night, a full 24 hours after initial application (at a time when I would be a biohazard), there was absolutely no smell. For the two months I’ve been putting baking soda in my pits I’ve forgotten how it’s like to have odor. I repeat, I am no longer odorous.

For a minute I wondered if my armpit odor was a key to my sexual success. Was my odor releasing arousing pheromones in the environment? Would I get laid less if I smelled nice? This has not turned out to be the case. I’m ready to conclude that body odor is not an attractant, and if it’s something that chips at your confidence like it did to mine, you’d be best served getting rid of it.

For many years I stuck with commercial chemicals that didn’t work and merely masked the odor, so I’m amazed that such a common household product has the potential to wipe out the world’s body odor problem (other guys on my forum also can’t believe it works). I’m so excited at this development that I’ve become a baking soda evangelist. I’ll tell anyone who wants to listen how to be odor-free and proud.

When e-readers started coming out a couple years ago, I thought of them as unnecessary and expensive. Last time I checked the reading process worked pretty damn well on paper, with enough trees remaining on Earth to keep that going for a few more generations. I questioned why we’re taking a simple and pure act of reading a book and turning it into a complicated beast with technology that doesn’t add any value to the process. I also did the math and calculated that reading books on the Kindle would be more expensive than reading used books. So if it didn’t add any value to the reading experience, and cost more money, why would it take off as a product?

My second trip to South America lasted 13 months, and during that time I traveled with a duffel bag of about 40 books (many were Spanish and Portuguese learning materials). While it was a pain to carry around, I was able to keep up my reading while on the road. I didn’t want to deal with the duffel bag system for my current European fuck tour, so when the Kindle reduced in price to $139, I decided to try it out. The duffel bag was replaced with this:

I’m one of those “I like the feel of paper” guys. Nothing can take away from the sight of real ink printed on real paper. That took about one week to get over. Due to the dim background, reading on the Kindle is actually easier on the eyes than reading on white paper, and not at all like reading on a regular computer screen. I noticed that not only was I reading faster but my sessions were longer. Since I’ve written five installments of book reviews here on the blog, I can actually calculate my reading speed in four separate periods.

August 2007 – March 2009: 1.1 books/month
March 2009 – May 2010 (Duffel bag period): 1.3 books/month
May 2010 – December 2010: 1.1 books/month
December 2010 – February 2011 (Kindle period): 5 books/month

From August ’07 to December ’10, my reading pace was 1.2 books per month. After getting a Kindle, that jumped over four times to 5 books/month. I know that the Kindle sample size is small, but even if it settles to a mere 2.4 books a month that is double my normal pace.

The kicker is that the latest batch included a couple of paperbacks. I’d go slow on those, then knock out a Kindle book in under five days, something I rarely do to dead-tree versions. I found myself planted in front of it for marathon sessions, with a result that I stopped watching movies (goodbye Netflix Instant subscription). What the Kindle did for me was make reading a book more enjoyable than on paper.

There are a few drawbacks, though, which are worth noting:

1. Reading PDFs can be a pain because either the typeface is too big or too small (it’s only bearable if you rotate the type orientation by 90 degrees). Instead of dealing with that I let Amazon’s email service convert the book to the .azw format, but some formatting is lost.

2. You can’t easily flip back to an earlier section. To do so you have to bookmark your current page, find the earlier page, then go back to your bookmarks screen and click around to your current place in the book. While the Kindle remembers where you last left off after turning off the device or going to the home screen, it offers no easy solution to quickly refer to other passages.

3. Books heavy in images aren’t suited for the Kindle. I tried to read Jay Z’s Decoded but the formatting was so bad I eventually requested a refund. Charts and tables usually show up fine, but it all depends on how much care the publisher put into their Kindle format.

4. No epub format support (sometimes you’ll find a depository of free older books that are in the epub format). In that case I use the bulky program Calibre to convert to mobi format, which is readable by the Kindle.

5. You accumulate books there’s no hope for you to read and feel overwhelmed with so many choices. This isn’t entirely a bad problem, but with a Kindle I really feel like I’ll never be able to “catch up.”

Recently I read a review where a user said it “re-kindled” their love of reading. As corny as that sounds, that is what the Kindle does. Whatever pace you read at now, you’ll read more with a Kindle. Don’t buy the device to save money because you’ll be spending more on books than you ever have.

Here’s a little in-home demonstration:

With my own positive experience using it, I’m hitching my wagon to the Kindle. Call me a fanboy but I believe e-reader devices are the future of books. While no one is predicting a 100% market penetration with e-readers (people still do buy CDs after all), it will shrink the paper book market. Book stores and publishers must adapt to this change to stay relevant, yet I’m skeptical they’ll let go of their existing model (I still see Kindle versions that are more expensive than the paperback edition). Guys like Joe Konrath show that the publishing houses are especially in for a world of hurt.

Here are recent Kindle sales of my books:

They went from nothing to nearly 200 copies after just eight months (it’s on pace to pass that for March). To put things in perspective, it took me 26 months after publishing Bang to sell over 200 copies/month for both ebook and paperback. Even though only a tiny minority of book readers own a Kindle, they read so many books that just a minor uptick in Kindle sales will move a large volume of copies. So while the Kindle sales rank for Bang has remained steady (around 9,000), each month I’m selling more because of all those new Kindles. Therefore in a year or two that modest rank of 9,000 can translate to something like 20-30 book sales a day. You won’t need to be famous or published to earn a fair income that enables you to write more books.

As for which version to buy, I have the wifi-only version (unless you don’t have wifi at home I see no point in paying extra for the 3G version). Even when I return to the States I can’t imagine putting away my Kindle and going back to paper. If I had a choice of paying a couple dollars extra to read it on the Kindle than to have the paperback, I’d go with the Kindle version, which I can easily slip into my jacket pocket to read anywhere. As you can see, I’ve become quite a Kindle groupie, and believe that within ten years they’ll be more people reading on them than on paper.

• Do you have a score to settle?
• Is there a girl you want to creep out?
• Is there a friend you want to play a joke on?
• Is there a family member you want to scare?
• Do you want to deliver an anonymous message to your mortal enemy?

Well I have some good news: I am offering to anonymously mail the following postcard on behalf of one lucky reader to anyone in the world…

Icelandic flag

The winner can tell me the words to write on the postcard or give me a general idea of what he’s trying to accomplish. Yes, an author of books (me) will write your postcard. I’m also able to write in foreign languages (specifically Spanish and Portuguese). My handwriting is legible and rather handsome, so rest assured your message will be deciphered.

Your postcard will be mailed with an Icelandic stamp from Reykjavik, capital city of a tiny little country that is barely noticeable on a world map. Your target will have no idea that it was you who is responsible for the postcard, unless you want them to be. If you’re an international player, feel free to use this as an opportunity to confirm an alibi that you went to Iceland to hike on glaciers instead of the Soviet Union to visit your mistress. The only guideline is no death threats or anything else that may get me in trouble with Icelandic authorities.

The Contest:

The person with the correct answer to the following question gains control of the anonymous postcard.

How many days in Iceland did it take for me to get my Icelandic flag? I arrived on January 12, so if you think I got the flag on January 31, that would be day 19.

Tiebreaker Question: How many minutes did it take from meeting the girl to demolishing her vagina? It was a one-night stand.

Put your answers in the comments field below.

Hints:

1. Look at a calendar for days that a one-night stand would typically occur.
2. Put some thought into the tiebreaker question, since it will likely come down to that.

Rules:

1. Leave your email address in your response so that I can contact you if you win.
2. Only one guess per email and IP address.
3. I will accept answers until Monday at 9pm (eastern standard time). Check back at this post after that time to see the winner.

We Have A Winner!

I got the flag on day 10. Three guys got it right:

• Spank (201 minutes)
• Docsedated (240 minutes)
• Anonymous #50 (55 minutes)

The estimated time it took me from meet to bang was approximately 45-60 minutes. For the sake of the contest I decided the correct time was 60 minutes. Anonymous wins!

Last year you could have set a clock to my 13 posts per month output (156 posts for the year). I’d like to maintain that for this year, but I’m more willing to slow it down a bit if it means putting out more long-form projects.

Here are my ten favorite blog posts of 2010, with director commentary for each…

10. The Most Epic Email I Have Ever Received In My Life. I debated putting this email up because I knew that it would encourage my stalker even more (it did), but I just couldn’t resist sitting on something so incredibly hate-filled and awesome. If I ever write an autobiography, I’m going to open it with this email. I’d give it a title along the lines of “Game Works On Every Woman.”

9. The Totem Pole Of Race Attractiveness. After some eye-opening experiences in Brazil, I felt like it was my duty to inform you how you may want to account for your race when selecting which country to visit. Unfortunately not all men are seen as equal in the eyes of women, and being aware of that can maximize your poon pullability. That said, I’ve never selected a country based on how I think I’ll be received, and don’t think you should either unless you only have two weeks of vacation time a year.

8. 30 Types Of Pussy. I was originally going to post the pussy picture and write about my favorite pussy type, but I thought that would be lazy. Then I thought, How about if you write a description of each of the thirty pussies?! This post took the most amount of creative energy of anything else I’ve ever done, and I must’ve looked at the pussy image for over three hours, staring at the individual pussy types while patiently waiting until something popped in my brain. It was a frustrating experience, but I’m very satisfied with the result.

7. The Brazilian Movie Actress. I wanted to take a seemingly simple situation—”Guy meets girl in airport”— and turn it into a story, showing how complex an innocent meeting can be, especially when it’s happening between people of different backgrounds. This experience affected me, not necessarily because of the girl, but because it made me realize how difficult it is to meet someone you’re truly compatible with. Let’s say tomorrow you see a beautiful girl you like with the odds stacked wholly against you—what are you going to do about it? Make your attempt and hope for the best.

6. What’s Wrong With America. I had a lot of conversations with my Danish roommate about America, and wanted to piece them together so I’d have a place to send people when they ask me a question like, “Don’t you have pride for your country?” Obviously I’ve long since given up the idea of settling down in America. Now the problem is more about deciding where to expatiate.

5. The Future Of Game. Here I just wanted to share some game trends I think will firmly take hold. It is gloomy—I admit—and hopefully I’m wrong, but I still believe everything I wrote will indeed happen. As many guys have noted, it’s already happening.

4. The Medellin Diaries. When I went to Colombia, I started a daily journal to give me the option of developing another memoir. After a couple months I realized that my previous trip, which I wrote about in A Dead Bat In Paraguay, was special and unique. The newer trip would have resulted in a lesser book, so I stopped updating the journal and focused on doing Bang Colombia instead. A year later I opened up the journal and read through it for nostalgia’s sake, laughing at all the entries with Karl the Swede. I picked those out, added some more detail, and then called it The Medellin Diaries. It’s not so much a story but a little slice of two gringos living in Medellin.

3. The Bright Side Of Traveling. I originally planned one April Fools joke, but after spending some time in colonial Brazilian towns, I got the idea for a story about having sex with a sheep. I can’t say it was well-received, but it was one of my favorite posts of the year. I really tried to put myself in the story to make the sheep encounter as realistic as possible. I feel that I’ve captured the true essence of interspecies sex.

2. Just Keep Going. I received the most positive feedback on this post than any other, and lots of guys tell me they go back to search for it when they hit a tough patch. I wrote it as I was settling in Rio, when I had to start all over yet again after spending a good amount of time in Colombia. I remember last New Years Eve when I went out alone to the beach of Copacabana with no friends and no girls, with not even a decent prospect I could look forward to. I approached that night in my all-white outfit, got nothing, and then forced myself to go out the night after, when I met a girl that helped turn the tide. I wrote this post as a way to remind myself that no matter how tough things get… just keep going.

1. The United States Of Broken Women. The idea for this post came about at the end of summer, when all the foreign girls left the city and all that was left were scraps. They were turning me off from women completely, so I wanted to share how I felt about them, especially before I left the country (I leave for Iceland in eight days). It took me about a month to finish it.

You can see my other posts for the year at the archives page.

I want to leave you with something motivational for the new year. It’s an excerpt from the NLP book Frogs Into Princes, which I first read almost ten years ago.

Carlos Castenada is a whacko with an Indian friend. There’s a section in book two or three in which Don Juan gives a piece of advice to Carlos. We would not give this piece of advice to any of you, but we will repeat it for whatever it’s worth.

You see, what Juan wanted to do to Carlos—which we wouldn’t of course, want to do to you—was to find some way of motivating him to be congruent and expressive in his behavior at all times, as creative as he could be as a human being. He wanted to mobilize his resources so that each act that Carlos performed would be a full representation of all the potential that was available to him—all the personal power that he had that was available to him at any moment in time.

Specifically what Juan told Carlos was “At any moment that you find yourself hesitating, or if at any moment you find yourself putting off until tomorrow trying some new piece of behavior that you could do today, or doing something you’ve done before, then all you need to do is glance over your left shoulder and there will be a fleeting shadow. That shadow represents your death, and at any moment it might step forward, place its hand on your shoulder and take you. So that the act that you are presently engaged in might be your very last act and therefore fully representative of you as your last act on this planet.”

One of the ways you can use this constructively is to understand that it is indulgent to hesitate. When you hesitate, you are acting as though you are immortal. And you, ladies and gentlemen, are not. You don’t even know the place and the hour of your death.

And so one thing you can do… to remind yourself not to bother to hesitate… is to just suddenly glance over your left shoulder and remember that death is standing there, and make death your advisor. He or she will always tell you to do something representative of your full potential as a person. You can afford no less.

Happy New Year.