The key to getting to first base: Listen like a guy.

While relieving yourself sexually removes much of the incentive to go on a date in the first place, you have to take the long view when it comes to getting sex. We could give you the number of some easy girls, but that’s not a long term solution. No, you need to learn how to get laid for a lifetime.

The Lost Art of Listening How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships

In a nutshell, you’re trying to line up pussy for the future, like a squirrel gathering nuts for the long cold winter that is marriage. And that means getting a woman to like you. One of the simplest, sure-fire methods is ironically also one of the hardest for men — it’s called listening.

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On its face, listening doesn’t seem that hard to do — it requires almost no physical effort outside of a few facial muscle movements. Still, it’s the one thing at which all men notoriously suck. If there were a listening competition for men, it’d get canceled from a lack of participation. Simply put, men hate listening: To their parents, their friends, the Police, generally to anyone.

Listening involves absorbing and/or retaining two types of information: 1.) Stuff men already know, and 2.) stuff men don’t already know and aren’t the least bit interested in learning. Men generally don’t like to be told things (although they do like to tell other people things). For men the sole purpose of talking is to tell a friend how to make their car better, criticize a sport highlight, or lie about something cool they never actually did. Conversation for men is one-way information dissemination. Occasionally, other men may grunt in response.

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Women, on the other hand, talk for entirely different reasons because if they don’t, they’ll die. That’s probably why they gossip so much. As hard as this is to believe, most women actually care about what’s happening in other people’s lives. Women form emotional bonds with each other by talking, frequently trashing any other girlfriends who aren’t present at the moment.

In a recent study, women were reported rattling off an average of 6,000 words a day, while men only uttered a mere 2,000 (most of them likely swear words). Clearly, men speak only when they have to, when they’re spoken to, or when the house is on fire. Whereas women speak whenever there is a moment of silence, regardless of the score or what inning it is.

So what do women want that’s so goddamn important it can’t wait four more minutes? Your attention. And to prove to themselves that they are as important, or more important, than the game you’re trying so hard to watch during your date. Sure, it’s a blatant, manipulative power-play, but luckily for you, women don’t need you to actually listen as much as they need you to sit there and act like you’re listening. It exactly like the way you don’t need women to actually like sex as much as you need them to pretend they like sex. And with you sitting nearby, women don’t appear as crazy as if they were talking to themselves.

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While “listening,” just don’t make the mistake of responding with more than a grunt. The one thing you mustn’t do is try to solve a woman’s problem. They aren’t looking for a solution to whatever they’re yapping about; they just want to yap. The only thing they want from you is to sit there and witness the conversation. There’s no use helping, women are going to talk no matter what you say or do so don’t try to stop it. They’re like turning off a dieseling car, women just have to sputter out on their own.

Instead, use their desperate need to dialogue to your advantage. Ask them questions. Then sit back with an interested look on your face (you know, kind of a scowl, but not too mad-looking). When they pause, say something empathetic like, “Wow, that’s rough.” Or, if it sounds like she’s trashing a friend, offer “That bitch.” As former Detroit Lions coach, Monte Clark, once said about football, “The key to this whole business is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” (And Monte probably never had any trouble getting chicks.)

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Still, you can’t just pretend to listen for the entire date. Eventually, she will ask you a question and expect you to speak. The best way to avoid saying something stupid to a woman is by saying as little as possible. As we said, women love to yap—and we mean all women — so just get ‘em started by asking one of those “essay” questions we told you about earlier. Then sit back and use your peripheral vision to stare at her boobs the entire time.

Of course, as a crazy fallback Plan-B, you could genuinely listen to your date. Many women are funny, smart and interesting. By listening to what your date has to say, you might find out if you like her and save yourself the expense of a second date — it’s your call.

So while listening is a great way to get a girl to like you, never get so chummy that she thinks of you as a “friend”. You have enough friends. You’re after a girlfriend. And there’s a big difference between the two — for starters, women don’t have sex with friends (unless they were sorority sisters in college and “experimenting”). The key is to make sure she always sees you as a man first, and a friend second. As a guy, your job is to listen like a guy — grudgingly.