Overweight, bald guy seduces 120 women

You’ll read a lot of stories about love and relationships in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. Can I interest you in the story of an overweight, bald, divorced Seattle guy, with an okay job, who says he’s hooked up with 120 women in the past 18 months?

I was skeptical of that claim too. After talking with Aaron Smith for about an hour yesterday, I’m inclined to believe his story because he’s discovered something about women that most guys don’t know.

Smith describes himself as an ordinary guy who’s not physically fit, isn’t wealthy, and has never been smooth with the ladies.

“I’m the type of guy who you’d love to have watching your house or feeding your pets if you’re gone,” he says. “You’d love me as a next door neighbor. I’ve been called cuddly. I’m every girl’s best friend. I’m the average nice guy, but not the type of guy you’d say, ‘Oh, I want to date him.'”

He was also lonely.

Loneliness was the centerpiece of his life. It was with him everywhere he went. He tried all the dating sites, but had no luck. Then he found himself searching on Craigslist through the “casual encounters” forum.

Craigslist, the online classified site that allows people to sell everything from used furniture and cars to real estate, also offers services that are coyly worded ads for prostitution. Smith says the more legitimate requests men posted started with, “I want” or “I need” or “I’m looking for.”

“That wasn’t working for me or my friends, because nobody cares what I want or what I need. So I changed my point of view on this and started creating a persona that actually had something to offer. Here’s what I’m offering you, the woman. Here’s a type of experience that I wish to offer tonight,” Smith says. “I got better at it as I started to understand a lot of things about women.”

This is a guy who tells me he’d only slept with four women by the age of 35, and now he was with women whenever he wanted, and most of the women were well-educated, attractive with good jobs.

What had this shlumpy guy figured out? Most men treat women in one of two ways. Men either think women are to be put on a pedestal and taken care of, in an idealized Ozzie and Harriet kind of way from the 1950s, or they “treat them a little rough and be the bad boy because women like bad boys,” he says.

Smith discovered a way to get women by becoming the guy who they could share their fantasies with. Whether that’s just sitting on a park bench by the water and having him listen to her, or acting on a deep desire she’s never shared with anyone else.

“If you can tap into a fantasy that a woman has that she isn’t getting, that she probably isn’t voicing, maybe it’s something that’s so private to her that she would never feel comfortable telling it to anyone in her social circles, but it’s there,” says Smith. “In this day and age women have the power to get what they want, and I made that easier for some of them.”

He discovered powerful women, who make decisions all day long, have fantasies that involve not having to be in charge. Women who feel like they have no say in their work, have fantasies that involve being in control. He met adventurous women who liked to try things they didn’t feel comfortable asking for.

“I found that every woman wants something sexually that is very specific,” Smith says. “The more educated and successful she is, the less likely she is to share that secret with anyone. If you can figure out what she wants, then present yourself as being the one man who best understands her needs and can fill them, she’s yours. Even if she’s way out of your league.”

Isn’t that using women? Smith doesn’t think so. He believes women hold all the cards in a relationship.

He also met a lot of married women who were unhappy. He stayed away from them, not wanting to encounter a jealous husband.

Smith’s friends encouraged him to share all the insight he was getting from being with dozens of women. So, he has. Smith has a new book called “Secrets of the Craigslist Conqueror.”

I asked Smith to share a picture of himself, and he didn’t want to do that out of respect for the women he’s hooked up with. He says many of them have become good friends and he wants to protect their privacy. He’s also suspended surfing Craigslist for encounters because he’s developed a serious relationship with one of the women he met.

Looking for something a little classier than Craigslist dating? There’s a new online dating site called Sparkology that is an invitation only site. Only college graduates may join, and the men are held to an even higher standard. Men must be verified graduates of U.S. News & World Report’s top 50 universities, top 15 liberal arts schools or top international schools. University of Washington men, you’re in.

Photo by Michael McWeeney