Have you met miss Jones, someone said as we shook hands

Slick’s flat, Sunday the 22nd of January, 12:42

Good morning world. It’s a surprisingly nice day in North Yorkshire, I’m having a very enjoyable weekend, and in two weeks (if all goes to plan) I will be qualified to teach English to foreigners, thus ensuring myself a steady income while I continue to Peter Pan about form place to place.

Therefore today, this blog will return to classic form, and I’d like to talk to you about the fine Art of Seduction.

Now, I don’t mean by that this will be a sort of “Slick’s guide to picking up women”- god knows, if I could write such a guide successfully, I would probably be out applying it. I’d also probably be a less likeable person. Rather, I’d like to talk a little about seduction in the abstract- seduction, if you will, as an art form.

Now, the most important thing to realise about seduction, done properly, is that it is a dialogue; a negotiation. It is a two-way process, a process in which both parties have a stake- each has something the other wants- generally one another’s bodies. On it’s most basic level, seduction is simply the act of coming to a mutually acceptable compromise, in which each participant tries to get as close to exactly what they want as they can, whilst allowing room for the other parties desires, inhibitions, and expectations.

It is not a hostile take-over, a one way process in which a seducer overcomes the mental/emotional physical defences of a victim in order to get exactly what they want. That would be more accurately described as harassment. The important thing about seduction, done properly, is that each party can walk away at any time. That is why one of the most uncomfortable things in the world is watching someone (let’s be honest, its nearly always a guy) relentlessly hitting on a girl until she is forced to literally push him away, or, even worse, she actually succumbs to his constant badgering and responds. I’ve seen this happen, and it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This is not to say, of course, that there is no such thing as an active “seducer” and a passive “seduced”- it is simply to say the the distinction is not total, and that the seducer, in the process of seduction, finds him (or her) self being seduced. Indeed, the main difference is simply that it is normally the seducer who initiates the seduction. Once that has happened- and assuming the intended seduced isn’t simply disinterested to the point of just walking away- which does happen- er, so I’m told, it becomes an organic process. A dialogue, if you will.

In this paradigm of seduction as a negotiation, we can see that the most important ability one can posses is empathy- or, in some cases, the ability to feign empathy with great success. You need to understand what it is the other person needs and offer it to them, without compromising your own needs. This is why, anecdotally, good salesmen tend to be good with the opposite sex (or the same sex I suppose- i’m forced to assume that seduction in the homosexual community is sufficiently similar for the analogy to hold true). You need to assess what they want, and offer it to them, and, most importantly, convince them of your sincerity- the easiest way to do this is, of course, to be sincere, but I’ve heard from reliable sources who are totally not me, that it is sufficient to simply convey an air of sincerity. Finally, having understood your partners needs and desires, the goal is to introduce your own desires in such a way that it seems they were the other persons all along. As I’ve said however, this is not a one-way process, and while you are acting upon the other person, they are acting upon you- the end result, ideally, being that everyone gets what they really want- or, at least, what they are now convinced they really want. It probably wouldn’t do for us all to get exactly what we want all the time anyway.

The most important moment in this model of seduction is the first moment, the first obvious eye contact, the first smile or intense, smouldering glare. Generally, it is possible to see in that first moment whether or not your intended partner is interested in buying what you are selling. Now, that’s not to say that good eye contact is necessarily any guarantee that something will happen- there a hundred and one things which can go wrong with any negotiation, after all- but I consider any attempt at seduction unlikely to succeed if there is not sufficient spark in that first contact. Indeed, my source who is totally not me tells me that he has never been with a woman with whom he did not feel that thrill, that surge of electricity on first locking eyes with them. I once heard that a man will assess whether or not he would have sex with a woman in the first 5 minutes of knowing her. I respectfully submit that you can make such a decision in the first minute.This is also why I find it distasteful to see a man simply dance up to a woman, grind on her from behind and, in the worst cases, succeed. To me, it seems cheap and empty.

Now, it is possible, I admit, that I am being some sort of seduction snob when I say that a good or valid seduction consists of x but not y. You might respond by saying “Slick surely any course of action embarked upon by one person with the aim of having sexual relations with another is a valid act of seduction, especially if it is a successful one”- and it is here that the art analogy comes into play. Seduction, for me, should be like a great work of art- a communication between artist and canvas. These other tactics occasionally deployed to hook up with the opposite sex are more like shallow modern art, designed solely to achieve a specific reaction. If Romeo’s courtship of Juliet is the Mona Lisa, then grinding on a woman in a dark nightclub until she drunkenly agrees to go home with you is Tracy Emin’s “My Bed”- and you can make of that analogy what you will.

Yours seductively,
Slick

When my wandering meandering’s have finally reached their end

Slick’s Flat, Monday 2nd January, 22:59

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that 2011 was everything you wanted, and that 2012 will be just as good. I certainly feel like it went off to a good start…

As a belated Christmas present to you all, here and now I intend to complete the tale of my wacky misadventures of this past year so that I can resume normal blogging service.

When last we met, I was in Chang Mai in Thailand. Chang Mai is a lovely old walled city, a nice contrast to the madness of Bangkok, but still suitably replete with hostels, bars, restaurants and street markets for the discerning tourist. The Sunday market particularly was very cool, taking up pretty much the whole centre of town. By the time we reached Chang Mai we were all very tired of bustling about from place to place, so we took it slowly- except for a two day jaunt into the jungle. It was a very tough climb, but more than worth it for the views, and we spent the night in a hut in a mountainside village, out where the air was clear. The next day, we went on an elephant trek- which was exciting, if only because the elephants seem determined to topple off any cliffs which presented themselves- and white water rafting, which was crazy fun! We even got out and swam in the current for a while- making sure to stick close to the boat, of course.

Sadly, the time had come for Rebel and Schlafmaus to return to England. In a state of nervous excitement about the prospect of travelling alone, I waved them good bye as they got an a bus and sighed wistfully to myself. Then I turned around, sat down next to the nearest group of english speaking tourists and said “Hi, I’m Slick”. “Hello Slick” they said “would you like to play ring of fire with us?”

Cut to me waking up the next day, fully clothed in my room with mysterious cuts and bruises on my arms, no memory beyond leaving the hostel to go to a bar, and no shoes. My companions of the night before informed me that they’d sent me home in a tuk tuk after I started… shall we say “feeling under the weather”, and that one of them had rescued my passport for me when I nearly dropped it! Whew, lucky escape there (hint; foreshadowing). And it turned out my shoes were in the bar from the night before, so all’s well that ends well I suppose.

I spent a few days with my new friends, still taking it easy, before deciding that it was time to move on. I was done with Thailand- it was time to go to Laos.

The trip to Laos would take 3 days and two nights, the first day of which was on a bus and the second two on a slow boat. On the way I befriended a fellow traveller- let’s call her Sunflower. She was a genuine California hippy, an atheist feminist who lived in what she described as a “cooperative” in LA and studied film. The boat down the Mekong was very pleasant, and we stopped overnight in a nice, albeit quiet, town in the middle of nowhere in Laos. The next day we arrived in the World Heritage City of Luangprabang.

Luangprabang. is a very scenic place (which was kind of the theme for my first few days in Laos) surrounded by all manner of temples and waterfalls. We went to one in particular with an attached bear sanctuary, and I climbed into the waterfall itself over some of the least slippy wet rock i’ve ever encountered. it was eerie how much grip there was one those things…

After a pleasant couple of days strolling around, visiting markets etc, Sunflower and I decided to make a move to Vangvieng, the infamous backpacker city of Laos. After a vigorous argument with the hostelier about whether he had quoted us “fifty” or “fifteen” thousand kip per night (an argument which we won by simply handing over the correct money and leaving despite his protests) we got on a bus which would take us there in 4 or 5 hours.

And then, disaster struck. The worst disaster a traveller can face: I lost my passport! To this day i have no idea what happened to it. I’m sure it was in my pocket when we left the hostel, but somewhere along the way, perhaps because we were in a hurry, it must have slipped out- or it fell out on the bus and got lost under a seat. Regardless, we arrived- after changing buses when the first one broke down- in Vangvieng short one UK passport. I am kicking myself to this day.

Still, I tried not to let it get me down, and jumped right into the swing of things by going tubing- which, for those of you who don’t know, is the practice of floating down a slow moving river and getting extremely drunk. In the event, I actually decided to skip the ring and just swim. I took it very easy though, and only visited the first three or so bars, where I met a barmaid from, of all places, Melbourne. She was pleasantly surprised by the passion and intensity of my… regard for Melbourne. Like a sensible chap, I gave up on the river when I started feeling tipsy and went back to the town for a night on the tiles instead.

Vangvieng is really insane. it is essentially just two streets full of bars and drunken European tourists, near a river with more bars. All of the restaurants play family guy or friends on loop- a practice, I must say, I would like to see adopted more widely- and you can walk into a bar and order a pizza made with an opium base, or a joint with your pint. Sadly, my stay in this hedonists paradise was curtailed, as i had to go the very next day to the capital, Vientiane, in order to beg to be allowed out of the country. Fun fact: there is no British Embassy in Laos.

The bus to the capital got in a few hours later than advertised, thus ruining any chance of my getting to the Australian Embassy (who I’d been assured would help me out) before it closed. I found a room, and then a I wandered the streets feeling, it shames me to admit, pretty sorry for myself. Sunflower and I had parted ways in Vangvieng and I was alone, without a passport, in a city which apparently had a midnight curfew. So I sat down in a street-side restaurant for some noodles, and idly started chatting to some nearby fellow travellers- a couple of very cool guys, as it turned out, who took me out drinking and cheered me up no end. I ended the evening in a very local nightclub drinking overpriced beer Lao and chatting to the local people. There was a river boat festival and fair in town which would keep me occupied over the weekend.

When I finally did reach the Australian embassy on Monday (which, i should point out, was way out of the city centre), they gave me a list of tasks which would make Hercules wince. I had to go to the Immigration department, then to the Ministry of Foreign affairs, then to the Thai Consulate, and I’d better get cracking because the consulate shuts at midday. In the end, it took me the best part of three days to get it all figured out, but finally, clutching an elaborate pile of documents in my hand and hoping, I made it to the border with Thailand.

“Oh, I see that you have the same problem as I do” came a voice from behind me. I turned around and introduced myself to a girl who was indeed also clutching a bundle of documents like my own. “I’m Irma, from Finland. I also lost my passport.” I grinned in a manner which those who know me well might describe as wolfish “Irma, it seems to me as if fate has brought us together”

And after that, it was fairly easy. The bus into Bangkok was delayed by a good 6 hours by floods, naturally, so it would be another day before I could get to the Embassy, but in the end I just sat in a waiting room for a few hours, handed over £100 and they gave me an emergency temporary passport, good for one journey home via Australia. I was a little irked to find that the Finnish embassy gave Irma a passport with no such restrictions, but I suppose we Brits do love our bureaucracy. two days later, I flew home (ish) to Melbourne.

Well, it’s been a crazy ride down memory lane- thank you all for sticking with me. I hope it was anything like as entertaining to read about as it was to experience. it was a wonderful trip, and I fully intend to return to Asia in the near-ish future. Just as soon as I get my hands on a new passport….

Slick