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How to Talk to a Man Who Is Wearing Headphones

Originally posted in Modern Misogynist

By Daniel Pigg

These days, many straight men walk around playing with a smartphone or tablet device and are often wearing headphones and listening to music at the same time.

Yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t talk to them.

Of course, not all straight men are open to being approached because not all straight men are single and looking.

However, if a straight man wearing headphones is single and hoping to meet a boyfriend (or even a new lover), he will usually be happy to take off his headphones to give you an opportunity to create a spark with him.

Him taking off his headphones doesn’t always mean that he is super interested and wants you to ask for his number or anything serious like that. Sometimes, it’s simply a cause of him being open to what you’ve got to say and to then see where it goes.

What to Do to Get His Attention

1. Stand in front of him (with 1 to 1.5 meters between you).

2. Have a confident, easy-going smile.

3. If he hasn’t already looked up at you, simply get his attention with a wave of your hand. Wave your hand in his direct line of vision so he can see it.

4. When he looks at you, smile, point to his headphones and confidently ask, “Can you take off your headphones for a minute?” as you pretend to be taking headphones off your head, so he fully understands what you mean.

If he doesn’t understand that you want him to briefly take off his headphones, simply gesture that you want to talk to him by pointing back and forth from you to him and say, “I want to talk to you for a minute.”

In most cases, you won’t have to go to that extreme, but some straight guys are shy and will be hesitant about taking their headphones off initially. If he doesn’t want to take off his headphones, it’s probably a good sign that he doesn’t want to talk to you, so just respect that and leave the interaction.

5. If he takes off his headphones to talk to you, do what we call “Acknowledging the Awkwardness” by quickly mentioning something about the potential awkwardness of the moment (see the conversation example below), to demonstrate you understand that approaching a man in this way isn’t the most common of experiences for either party.

For example, in a shopping mall or shopping street:

You: [Smile in a friendly, confident manner] Hey – I know it’s not normal for people to talk to someone with headphones in, but I don't respect boundaries and saw you and thought – wow, he’s hot, I have to come over and say hi. I’m Dan, what’s your name?

Straight Man: I'm not gay.

You: [Add in some humor to get him smiling and create a spark between you] Cool…nice to meet you I'm Not Gay. I don’t normally talk to guys with headphones, but your big green headphones were just calling out to me.

Straight Man: [Trying to hide enormous boner].

You: [If you’re in a shopping mall or city street, let him know that you have something else to do besides talk to him, so he understands that you’re not going to stand there talking to him for 30 minutes] Anyway, I’m just out doing a bit of shopping at the moment. How about you?

If it’s clear that he’s interested in talking to you, keep the conversation going and if he’s not busy at that moment, sit down with him and have a chat for a while before getting his phone number and parting ways.

Common Mistakes That Guys Make When Approaching Men Who Are Wearing Headphones

1. Approaching in a nervous manner

If you want the interaction to go smoothly and not feel awkward for either of you, make sure that you approach and talk to him in a relaxed, confident manner.

Most men are attracted to the strength in men (e.g. confidence, masculinity) and turned off by the weakness (e.g. nervousness, anxiety), so if you are nervous or anxious, he probably won’t be interested in talking to you.

For example: If a guy asks a guy to take off his headphones and the first words out of his mouth are, “Hi, ummm… I was, ummm… wondering, ummm… sorry to interrupt…how, ummm… are you?” you can guess what will happen next.

Headphones back in and he’ll likely turn up the volume to block him out.

2. Giving up too easily

Headphones are a great barrier between a person and the rest of the world.

Some men wear headphones because they don’t want gay guys or anyone else to speak to them, so if you try to talk to a man and he clearly shows that he’s not interested in talking to you, just respect that and walk away.

However, sometimes a straight man will be interested in talking to a gay guy, but he won’t immediately pull out his headphones and show interest. Why?

Some men like to test to see how confident a guy is by ignoring his attempts to converse with him and then seeing what he does next.

Does he become nervous and awkward? Does he walk away in shame, or does he remain calm and continue talking to him in a confident, easy-going manner?

If a guy gives up at the first sign of resistance, a woman like him will lose interest because he lacks the type of confidence that he looks for in a gay guy.

So, if you are going to talk to a man with headphones, just keep in mind that some men will immediately take off their headphones to chat to you, some will make it obvious that they don’t want to be bothered and others might want to talk to you, but first want to see if you will remain confident if he doesn’t immediately begin talking to you.

3. Not leading the conversation

If a shy gay guy stands in front a straight man and is lost for words, he’s most likely going to just put his headphones back in or say, “Nice to meet you. Bye” as he walks away to get away from him.

You have approached him, so you can’t expect him to be the one making all the conversation. You’ve got to lead the way.

Leading a conversation with a man is not about bossing him around, being arrogant or being too assertive as you talk to him. Instead, you simply need to remain confident and keep the conversation going in a relaxed, easy going manner. Most straight men love talking about football or getting their dicks sucked; start there.

4. Sticking to polite or reserved conversation

If a gay guy gets a straight man to take off his headphones to talk to him and then only engages him in a polite, reserved conversation, he’s probably not going to be very enthusiastic about talking to him for long.

So, make sure that you have the confidence to talk to him and be real. Just let your natural personality and sense of humor come through as you talk to him in a confident, easy going manner, rather than trying to be too polite or reserved.

5. Not including any flirting

Flirting is the most discreet way for a gay man and a straight man to communicate sexual interest in each other, without actually having to say, “Hey, I’m interested in you in a sexual way.”

If a gay guy doesn’t include any flirting after getting a straight man to take off his headphones to talk to him, he will most likely begin to wonder why he is talking to him if he isn’t interested in him in that way.

He might then say, “Nice talking to you. Bye”, put his headphones back in and zone him out.

So, if your intention is to get the man’s phone number so you can possibly take him on a date, make sure that you attempt to flirt with him and see if he flirts back. If he flirts back, it usually means that he is interested and is open to getting to know you further.

Approaching Men

As you may have noticed, straight men usually don’t go around actively approaching gay men in public places or even in bars or clubs.

Straight men know that is the gay man’s role to be confident enough to walk over and talk to a straight man he finds attractive, so they have a chance to meet. If he doesn’t do that, a straight man will rarely walk over and talk to him first.

So, don’t ever think that you’re doing a bad thing by approaching and talking to a straight man in a confident, easy going way.

Most single men are open to being approached by a confident gay guy, so that they can have a chance to meet a potential new lover or boyfriend.

The key to talking to a straight man who is wearing headphones (or who has his face buried into his smartphone and checking Facebook) is to be confident, relaxed and easy going as you talk to him.

Of course, not all straight men who wear headphones are open to being approached or hoping to be approached. However, you can only find that out by starting a conversation and seeing what happens.

Who knows, he might just be your perfect guy, so go ahead and talk to him.

#talking #headphones #pick-up artist

I made this because white people are depressingly predictable.

Five Headlines. Five Comics. Headline Punchline. We give five comedians five headlines and they give us the punchline. Returning comedians Jenna Kim Jones, H...

Hey, go watch this! Daily ReHash had me on to tell jokes about the news. It was really fun, so please comment on the video telling them to bring me back BECAUSE I REQUIRE THE VALIDATION OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET. Here are the jokes I wrote that didn't make it on.

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Justin Bieber’s music video for his song “Baby” reached over 1 billion views on youtube this week.

It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, YouTube tries to pull the plug, but it fights back, launching missiles at Russia. I'm sorry, I have to go protect John Connor.

He's so popular now, he's got his own line of condoms: Rubber Baby Bieber Bumpers.

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The book series “Fifty Shades of Grey” finally sold more than 100 million copies worldwide joining the ranks of Harry Potter, Twilight and the Nancy Drew series.

Making Stephanie Meyer responsible for more wet moms than water aerobics.

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A woman had a baby on a New York City crosswalk after failing to hail a taxi to the hospital in time.

Said the woman, “Hey, I'm birthin' here!”. No, no – you're absolutely right not to laugh at that because, in that joke, the woman is a gay male hustler who dies on the way to Miami, so it's really more of a tragedy than anything.

-------------

A 21-year-old man facing charges for having a meth lab in his home was pictured in his mug shot wearing a shirt from the TV show "Breaking Bad."

When asked for comment, his next-door neighbors, a brother and sister wearing matching “Game of Thrones” shirts said, “That's terrible. Uh, gotta go!” and slammed the door.

This is the worst case of fashion irony since JFK wore that "I need congressional approval like I need a hole in the head" hoodie.

--------------

A teenage girl in England is wanted by police for slapping a woman’s face with a fish.

CBS News reported the story as a trend of teenagers attacking senior citizens called “fishin'”; Lifetime reported it as the empowering story of a woman standing up to her abusive fish husband, and Fox reported that President Obama slapped a poor white woman and gave her job to illegal immigrants

Fun fact: the actual video I Googled to fix my toilet is only slightly less gay than the site referenced in this conversation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3RTqOlgP0s

ARTHUR KNOWS EVERYTHING!

6 down, 69 to take the Jeopardy crown from Ken Jennings.

I'm still not the biggest fan of Winter Olympics, but there's no denying that it brings out something beautiful and pure in the human spirit there on the ice. More here, but really, why be greedy?

Currently watching: House of Cards, Veep and True Detective. So, if the MPAA wants to come crying to me that piracy is destroying the movie industry while this weekend's openings consisted of a remake of an 80s film starring Peter Weller, a remake of an 80s film starring Brooke Shields and a remake of an 80s film based on a 70s play while the #1 film remains a 90-minute toy commercial, they can kindly suck a fuck*. Film is a cultural wasteland; long live TV. * I'll return their calls when Richard Kelly puts out another film.

First Draft of "Footprints in the Sand"

"That, my son, is when I carried you. In a backpack. A giant man with the mind of a child carrying you in his loving backpack." "You mean like 'Beyond Thunderdome'?" "Yes, my child." "..." "Uh, Jesus?" "Call me Blaster."

#inspiration footprints MasterBlaster

Is there a 12-step program for people addicted to puns? Like, for an honest-to-goodness compulsion? Someone who just *likes* puns would have tweeted "Capybarack." and that would have been that. I just spent an hour Photoshopping this picture that any 10-year old with an iPad could have done better. And, Heaven help me, I would do it again.

The actual site that inspired this was not called Mudflap Honeys. I checked the URL to make sure it didn't actually exist and found I was inexplicably sad that it didn't.

All this "sand nigger" talk (c.f. Taylor Chapman's Dunkin' Donuts rant) has made me kind of jealous that racists never got around to giving us Asians our own 'n-word'. Hello, racists! We're non-people too!

I suggest "rice niggers". Then I started thinking: why aren't Australian aborigines called "kangaroo niggers"? Really, nigger has a thousand household uses.

Why not "igloo niggers" for the Inuit? Mexicans could be "bean nigg- Oh. I guess that sounds too much like "bee nigger". Technically, since I'm half black and half yellow, *I* would be classified as a "bee nigger".

Of course, once you've opened that door, we can get to the folks who truly deserve the word: white people. We could call Frenchmen called "Brie niggers", Germans are totally "sausage niggers", Canadians would be "maple niggers" only because "universal health care niggers" is really too much of a mouthful to scream from a passing pickup truck window.

TAAAAARD!

The Nine Worst Splashes of "Splash"

I wrote a thing for Yahoo TV here. Turns out it was WAY too mean, so I reined in my antipathy for the show and rewrote it. Here's the original version (but go read the Yahoo version first so they'll pay me to keep doing this):

----------

9. Celebrities shouldn't be high-diving for the same reason a 12-yr. old shouldn't down a bottle of tequila and some pills on Cinco de Mayo: it takes years of training no matter what Greg Louganis (or, in the case of tequila, Amanda Bynes) says. The BEST you can hope for is just to be humiliated:

8. You will, no doubt, recognize this most traditional of dives - the 1½ somersault with a sit:

It's a dive known as "betrunkenen Deutsch" or "the drunk German":

7. It takes a lot of cajones to put a 400+ lb. man on a high-diving board. I hear the producers are working on Stephen Hawking for season 2.

6. At least some contestants are making the most of their time. Chuy Bravo is seen here auditioning for the role of Peter Pan; watch your back, Cathy Rigby.

5. You know who needs to be taken down a peg? Noted philanthropist and beloved Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabaar! How about we put him in a sport where the average athlete is A FOOT AND A HALF SHORTER than he is?

4. Oh, did we mention he's 65? Take that, old people!

3. What's the only thing worse than stumbling off a diving board in front of millions of people watching on TV? Try doing it with your mother poolside:

2. If you don't watch pro wrestling, you can be forgiven for not knowing what this next thing is called. It's a crucifix powerbomb: it's something you only do when you're a 300 lb. dude with a beard and you only do it to other 300 lb. dudes (beard optional).

You DO NOT do it to a 115 lb. Miss Alabama and you CERTAINLY don't do it from a height that would make the guy who jumped out of a balloon from low Earth orbit pee in his spacesuit.

1. The next time you forget your neighbor's name on the street or fart in an elevator or your parents chaperone your prom, know that your embarrassment will never ever ever EVER be worse than this.

Ever.

13.1

I'm not a runner, never have been. I'm short, I've got stubby legs and I've got the lung capacity of someone whose chief hobby was once smoking cigarettes and roleplaying as a professional wrestler on the Internet. To be any more sedentary, I would have had to had Carrie Fisher chained to my neck and Harrison Ford mounted on my wall.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be getting up at 3:30 to run a half-marathon. 13.1 miles.

After I had started training, by chance, I asked the moms what she once hoped I would grow up to be. She said a track star which surprised the shit out of me. (Well, insofar as the specifics go; that I was a disappointment didn't surprise me in the least.) She'd always been a runner, but, as previously established, my preference is for activities best performed on a sail barge.

The moms' birthday is tomorrow, so let's call this halfie a birthday present for her.

When I started ten weeks ago, I could barely run two miles on a treadmill*. But, turns out it's not so bad when all you're doing is adding one more mile every week. One by one, it adds up to 13.1 miles.

Turns out it's not so bad when you don't set unreasonable standards for yourself. I'm not going to run a six-minute mile. I'm not going to run a ten-minute mile. But I am going to run 13.1 miles.

Turns out it's not so bad when you have a bunch of other people running with you. I found Alpha Running on LivingSocial and ran every Saturday with a bunch of other people, many of whom were in the same position as me. It's a pretty good feeling to be there with a bunch of other people who also never thought they'd be running 13.1 miles.

Trying to make it in LA is pretty tough some** of the time. It's a town built on rejection. Even if you're doing well, you're still getting turned down 95% of the time. It's nice to be able to succeed on your own terms and it's nice to be able to do it with a bunch of people who are just as clueless (but game) as you are.

Kinda like improv.

So if you're in one of those frequent funks that artists face, feeling worthless, crushed by the world, needing to regain a little agency in your life; might I recommend Alpha Running? A half-marathon seems insane, but really all it is is one long run on Saturday and two 30-minute runs during the week.

Hell, even if you don't wanna do that (or if you live somewhere that's not LA***), put on a pair of shoes and go run two miles tomorrow. Send me a text and I'll keep on you to do 3 miles next week. A month from now, I'll show you the beach route, which is, no shit, one of the best experiences you can have in Los Angeles.

I was going to post something like this tomorrow after the race proper. But I've got a $9 bottomless mimosa waiting for me afterwards, so, like I used to say: "Makingsa lee ka bok bagthra, beeska chata wnow kong bantha poodoo.†"

* I also discovered running on the road is WAY harder than a treadmill because the road doesn't whip itself along underneath you.

** all

*** I'm told, for some reason, those places still exist

† "You may have been a good smuggler, but now you're bantha fodder."

14 Reasons to Start Watching Dr. Who

I get it, I get it - this frigging limey show is FIFTY years old! You can't look at two unwatched episodes of "Robot Chicken" on the DVR without feeling overwhelmed. It's cool. Trust me. Here's all you need to know to start watching the show on Saturday:

1) This is the Doctor. He is a madman with a box.

2) The thing behind him is the box. It's called a TARDIS. It can go anywhere and any time. It tends to land places where there are problems that can be solved in 45-50 minutes.

3) This is his companion, Oswin. The Doctor keeps companions around because snappy dialogue isn't nearly as snappy when it's delivered to a volleyball.

The companions are a diverse group, but tend to be pretty,

spunky,

and, occasionally, series regulars on "The Office"*.

4) Matt Smith plays the 11th Doctor. Don't worry about it - each new Doctor is essentially a reboot. There are references and recurring creatures (Daleks, Cybermen, an oversexed John Barrowman), but not knowing what "pon farr" is didn't stop you from enjoying the Hulk** blowing up Thor's starship in the new "Star Trek", right?

5) This is the 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant. He's my favorite and, if you have a friend trying to convince you to watch the show, most likely, they'll start you with the episode "Blink", which is one of Tennant's episodes.

6) Christopher Eccleston was the 9th Doctor, the first of the "New Who" that revived the series in 2005. He also plays Destro in the G.I. Joe movie. That's not relevant, I just like pictures of Destro.

7) It's a family show in the way Pixar movies are family movies. If the Pixar movies were directed by Guillermo del Toro. It'll tickle your brain in those places of childlike wonder, then wander over the lizard part of your brain and pump it full of enough nightmare fuel to keep you awake until they give "Cars" an Oscar.

Which, by the way, is not at all a bad thing for kids. Fairy tales used to be stories designed to ease children into the real world. Coddle your kids too much, and they come out like this:

8) Words words words. If you like banter, this is the show for you. The Doctor will inundate you with the technobabble that you've come to expect from modern sci-fi, but it's not above sending up that same trope with phrases like, "wibbly wobbly, timey wimey ... stuff."

9) Swashbuckling! There's a lot of murder and explosions in today's gritty action shows. Whatever happened to derring-do? The Doctor is basically Indiana Jones, only instead of a bullwhip, he has a Sonic Screwdriver. And a bow tie instad of a fedora***. Also a time/dimension/space-hopping police box.

10) "I don't get it. He's the same guy? But played by different people? I could never buy into such a ridiculous premise."

11) There's an episode called "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship".

12) There's an episode called "Let's Kill Hitler".

****

13) THERE'S AN EPISODE CALLED "DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP".

14) The thing that really makes the show special is not that it's the best show on television, but that it's the ONLY show like it on television. It's not afraid to be silly one moment and deeply moving the next. It's got lessons, but it's not preachy. Most of all, it's FUN to watch with other people. So do that Saturday; find some friends and do it. You can thank me Sunday*****.

* It's fun to imagine the quasi-omnipotent Donna changing her name and moving to Scranton to grief a small-time paper company. There's nothing in the canon to suggest that this isn't actually the case.

** The first Hulk. Well, technically, the second if you include Lou Ferrigno's TV movies. WHICH I DO.

*** You could argue that Smith's signature hat, the fez, is a better comparison here. You would be wrong.

**** SCIENCE FACT: Think of the biggest number you can. Go on. Okay, now multiply that by two. Add a few more zeroes to it. Got it? Add that to the number of atoms in the universe and that's still not as many as there are Doctor Who gifs on Tumblr.

***** When you're watching "Game of Thrones". This is a good weekend to be a nerd.

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