Ars Amatoria

A few months ago, I received an email from an editor in a prominent men's magazine, asking me to put together an article for publication. I was offered a great degree of latitude, but it had to fit neatly under the title, 'How to Get the Girl'. What follows is a draft I sent to him for consideration. I initially contemplated using the main characters from Super Bad and 500 Days of Summer as demonstrations, but they seemed too obvious as examples of the kind of male entitlement I'm sure the magazine's readers are accustomed to. In any case, it all came to nought. I got into yet another argument with a prospective publisher and called the editor a tosser for still pursuing 'girls' in his fifties. I also told him his magazine was shit and there was no such thing as the lower abs.

Trying to get the girl proving difficult? The course of love never runs easy. We turn to four legendary characters and imagine how they would deal with this situation we guys always find ourselves in. 

John 'Scottie' Ferguson (from Vertigo) - down to earth detective

Bounce back

She may have been the unexpected love that you thought yourself too old to find. She may have fallen tragically from the top of a tall building. You may feel wracked with guilt because your phobia paralysed you from saving her. But don't let that stand in your way. The adequate replacement is just a few short steps away.

• Wander around town until you find a woman greatly resembling your late beloved. 
• Obsess upon her and follow her home. 
• Knock upon her door, and try to negotiate your entrance over the threshold. 
• When inside, lay the grief on heavy, and explain to her that she bears the image of your recently lost love. 
• Wear her defences down with persistence until you have negotiated dinner with her. 
• Date her, never relenting your obsession with your recently deceased lover. 
• Once your emotional claws are in, dress and groom her to your old flame's image. 
• Ignore her meek protests. 
• Once her will is broken and she conforms to all your weird requests, live contentedly. 

If you want to add a little more spice, get triggered by a piece of jewellery, and assume there are wicked machinations at work. Take your new love to a remote village, under the pretence of a surprise trip. Drag her up to the height at which you lost your old love, and, in the final step of her transformation, let her plunge to her death like the other one did. 

Heathcliff (from Wuthering Heights) - romantic, enterprising spirit

Be a man with a plan

Oh, they're feisty ones, aren't they? Such free-spirited women could never be possessed, and their entitled background has inculcated them with lavish expectations. "A poor lad, like me, doesn't stand a chance," you tell yourself. Not true. While the road is long and treacherous, with enough determination, you can claim the prize of her heart. Start by getting adopted off the street by a man of means. Win the affections of his daughter, who is well above your status, and use your wolf-man charms to channel her inner wild child. Run freely along the countryside, cultivating a deep bond between you. If/when social class impedes your game, storm off in anger, like a real man, and work furiously to climb the social ladder. This means you gotta work, bro. Pick up some tailored suits to let the world know the man of power and importance you are. Declare your cool with some aviator shades and the bottom button on your jacket left open. Once a man of real coin, return to your beloved and wage class warfare on her husband and family, until she dies of emotional distress. Once free of the obfuscating effects of affection, drive forward with grief and perpetual rage. Wear down her relatives with brute force, cunning financial manoeuvres, coercive marriage, and callous manipulation, until they are all either servile or dead. Seize their land from their cold, dead hands. This whole process may seem inefficient, but in the end it will give you uncontested access to her grave, where you can have yourself buried and spent eternity with her, haunting the moors. 

W.B. Yeats - Irish poet

Slow and steady wins the race

You are a man of letters. Bookish, soft-spoken, and effete. The ladies flirtatiously tell you to remove your spectacles, before hurriedly asking you to put them back on, to cover the squinted dots you call eyes. It stings all the more when she is only one you covet, and she has spurned you more than once. It feels so hopeless when your hands have done little more than "finger upon a fiddle-stick" by yourself. Don't lose hope. When all else fails, persistence prevails. Some women just can't see a real man, a quality man. Soul, sensitivity, erudition, status, evocation, and intellect — a deep diviner of sensuality, mysticism, culture, and art. Stand tall on your pedestal of learning and creativity. Gruff bros may come and go, and she may fall for the base seduction of a uniform or nationalism or Catholicism, but, in the end, the man of quality is the one who remains standing. It may take years of rejection, humiliation, aghast jealousy, and crying, but the poetry, resentful badmouthing of her husband, disrespecting of her recently found beliefs, and killer lines, such as, "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul," will finally pay off in sex credit. The whole enterprise may fall asunder during the unspeakably awkward consummation. She may have no qualms about telling you about her prayers to have you cured of your bodily desire for her. She may, with transparent, ulterior motives, suggest there are advantages for artists who abstain from sex. But, brother, you will always have a secret smile reserved for the sweet knowledge that you once, with "arms… like the twisted thorn," scratched her off your 'to-do' list.  

Jim Preston (from Passengers)  - The future of humanity

Turn that shit into gold

You wake up and find yourself in a predicament. No, not that your suit jacket has three button holes, or that you've skipped leg day. Worse. You're on a travelling on a hibernation ship, and you've awoken ninety years too early. By the time the ship reaches the colony, you will most likely be dead. Unable to get back into stasis, you've limited options. Fortunately, this doesn't have to wreck your game. While trying to fend off the thoughts of suicide, cruise around the stasis pods. Find a hottie, and wake her prematurely too. Pro-tip: get some info on her from the ship's mainframe and use it to your advantage. Date her and then seduce her. With no competitors, the only things that can stop you are Crocs or socks and sandals. If she ever finds out that you are responsible for what happened to her, emotionally manipulate her with your near death, and then grant her a way back into stasis. She won't take it. A word of warning: stay clear of feminist favourites like Jennifer Lawrence, unless you want a veritable ton of media about you being a poster boy for a patriarchy which violates a woman's bodily autonomy. If that does happen, be sure to follow our solid tips on exercise, diet, clothing, and grooming, to look your best in bright lighting of the public eye.