The cynical promoters of local ski areas must have known this and seduced us with brochures showing beautiful girls cavorting in charming ski lodges wearing fetching ski pants and cuddly sweaters. These girls were irresistible. My argument was as solid as the ice that covered our front stoop, and as universally ignored. No good, went the counter-argument. Girls, especially pretty girls, can smell a lodge rat in a room full of apres-ski revelers and will avoid him as they would avoid any other kind of rat.
Girls are only interested in real skiers.
If you want girls, learn to ski. And so it was that on a bleak and long-ago January day I set about equipping myself for conquest in the dusty cellar of a fraternity house.