This is a city where women hold all the power in any situation where there is the potential for sex. Even an un-attractive woman knows that IF SHE WANTS TO, she can have her pick of at least a few men. Therefore, guys will try anything and everything to boost their value and increase their chances of a score. There are your typical tactics such as buying drinks for the woman next to you. Then there are the more creative and agonizingly pathetic strategies like telling an aspiring starlet that you are a producer, or worse yet, a casting director. It’s all a hilariously sickening –but ultimately necessary– dance in which the more aggressive players are usually the ones who can sweep that lady from the dance floor and into his bed.

Bill and I had tried it all. We had tried the fly-on-the-wall approach, waiting to get a "look" from a woman across the bar or dance floor. Our smooth talking left a lot to be desired, considering we could never really think of much passed "Hey, how’s it goin’?" And then, there was the utterly pathetic maneuver that every man must try and fail at at least a dozen times: casually dancing over to another woman or group of women and "joining" their circle. Of course then we had to willfully ignore the raised eyebrows and strained looks that they suddenly started giving each other. Above all else, our forays into the singles scene had made us humble.

All primary tactics having failed, it was time for a new approach. Bill and I were at one of our favorite bars in Manhattan Beach, dancing to one of our favorite cover bands. During a fairly brilliant rendition of Smash Mouth’s "All Star," Bill and I started mouthing the words towards each other. After only one chorus, a frightening thought struck me. "Dude, if you keep this up, people are going to think you and Bill are like... TOGETHER." What had started as a mental warning was now turning into a plan. "What if you perpetuate this illusion?" I asked myself. "This is L.A. Nobody’s going to look down on you. In fact, it might be inversely effective. If you pretend you’re gay, maybe chicks will be drawn to that." This was the ultimate "act like you don’t want it" routine.

Had I not already been several sheets to the wind, this plan never would have worked. I began to dance. Not simply bopping up and down... I DANCED. I moved with abandon, grooving in ways that no man as white as myself could ever dream of. When the male drummer did a particularly impressive fill, I made sure to let him know it, cheering and giving him the wink and the gun. I didn’t hold back when I felt like singing a lyric towards Bill. At the bar, I adeptly incorporated a lisp and words like "fabulous" into my speech patterns. But, I didn’t overdo it. My goal was to simply make people wonder, IS HE OR ISN’T HE? I was a regular Anne Heche in khakis and a polo shirt.

By the band’s last set, I was recalling a previous night like this. I had been out on the dance floor, easing my way over to a woman who I thought had been giving me "the look" all night. But, the instant I got within a foot of her personal space, she flipped that hair and executed a masterful turn, adding an extra ten feet and five people between us. I was forced to move away, tail between my legs, acting as though it was all part of the design. That didn’t happen on THIS night. My alcohol-induced efforts were paying off. I had attracted an entire circle of women. I moved to one. My hands went to her waist. Hers went around my neck. We were off and a-grindin’. I moved to another. A foreign but very real sensation came over me: THEY are coming to ME." For the first time ever, I felt like I was the one holding the power.

This idea had been way better than pretending to be some sleazy casting agent. In my everyday life, I’m really not the player type. That’s probably the reason why I always turned into such a bozo whenever I tried to hit on a woman. I was never smooth enough using typical pick-up techniques to be seen as anything but just another lame, pathetic, desperate-to-get-laid guy. But, as a gay man, I had shown that I really wasn’t a threat to them. By pretending to be something false, I was actually seen as the sincere guy that I am.

At closing time, I was finishing my beer and a conversation with one of the women who had joined my "circle." Ashley. Before we left, she gave me her phone number and a kiss goodbye. It turned out that she lived in San Francisco and was just down for the weekend, so nothing actually became of it. All in all, it might have been small potatoes to a more successful player of the singles game, but to me, heck, it was something to write home about... well, maybe just an e-mail.