Review: He knows what's he talking about
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 28, 2014
People display confirmation bias when they gather, remember, or interpret information in a biased way that confirms their beliefs. For example, the owner of a Mini Cooper might dramatically overestimate the percentage of cars on the road that are Mini Coopers because she is much more likely to notice every other Mini Cooper on the road than the average car owner.This effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues. When I read this book ten days ago, I felt that Lothario showed a very high level of confirmation bias. How could I not? The author interpreted a woman interrupting her conversation with him to go to the bathroom as a s*** test. If a woman initiated sexual banter during her online interaction with him, s*** test alarms went off in his head.Despite chuckling to myself while reading the book from cover-to-cover, I agreed with what a few other reviewers openly stated - that Lothario seems overly paranoid about women s*** testing men.But that was ten days ago.This past Friday, after two weeks of exchanging emails with a woman on okcupid (let's call her Ashley), I asked her out on a date. Her response was: "I don't feel comfortable meeting you in person just yet. Is it cool if we chat online for another week?"Her email reminded me of the chapter in this book about how women s*** test men on the internet. During the past two weeks, she and I emailed each other at least once every day. Our emails are usually at least as long as this review. I know quite a bit about her job, family, and her last relationship. I've seen photos of her friends, sisters, and even her ex-boyfriend!Why would she bare her soul to me if she didn't feel comfortable about meeting me in person?I was angry enough to tell her to never talk to me again. But then I went back and re-read chapter 7 of this book.After waiting for a few hours, I responded to Ashley's email with one word: "cool" and didn't email her at all the entire weekend. When she emailed me yesterday evening (Monday), asking me how my weekend was, I responded back with "Awesome! Yours?"Well, so much for her not feeling comfortable meeting up with me. A few hours ago, she emailed me her phone number and asked me if I had plans this weekend:))Maybe Lothario isn't unreasonably paranoid about women s*** testing men. On his blog, he mentions that he has seduced well over a hundred women even since his marriage ended. Maybe, he just happens to have seen women pull out the nastiest and sneakiest s*** tests and as a result, doesn't expect life to be a garden of roses.