A Harry Potter Podcast Host Trying To Pick Up A Chick On Twitter/Facebook Is The Most Pathetic Pickup Attempt Ever
NY Mag – Grace Spelman was minding her own business on Twitter when a man whom she’d Facebook-friended at age 14 during her Harry Potter fandom days decided that, after seven years, he wanted to interact with her. Ben Schoen had hosted a popular podcast called “MuggleCast,” and is listed as a co-founder of the wildly popular Harry Potter fandom site MuggleNet. Spelman said she believes he saw her on the Daily Dot’s list of funny women tweeters, and realized they were friends on Facebook.
A little over a week ago, he followed her and sent her a tweet initiating contact, which she politely favorited but did not respond to. He kept tweeting at her, and she didn’t answer. But instead of taking the hint that she didn’t want to talk to him, things escalated really, really quickly.
In addition to being a celebrity in the world of Harry Potter fandom, Schoen is — perhaps a bit ironically — the co-founder of Feminspire, “an online publication featuring a global collection of female voices.”
In 2015, it’s really not that hard to pick up a random chick on social media. You find some reason to hit them up, engage in pleasant enough banter, and more often than not she’ll be ready to reciprocate because realistically what does she have to lose in that situation versus trolling for randoms on Tinder. But a lot of guys still get slipped up in the process be they Muggle or not so let’s take a look at Benny Boy’s failed attempt here and see if we can learn together. Here’s the guy’s first attempt to pick up the girl, Grace, sent via Facebook:
Innocuous enough though obviously he’s laying the flowery compliments on thick in as nerdy a way as you’d expect some Harry Potter lover to do. I’m not going to say he’s got any sort of game here — you don’t hit a girl with that many corny messages in a row ever, though I thought him calling out the creepiness of his emoji was a nice and disarming self-aware touch — but she’s saying she has a boyfriend, you take the L, maybe consult your book of spells for a love potion, and you live to fight another day. Unfortunately, she defriended him and he took his assault of love to Twitter instead:
Writing for Buzzfeed isn’t necessarily the most glamorous job in the world unless you’re REALLY big on quizzes about Left Shark and Fat Jew’ing people but it’s a company people know of with an actual audience so whatever, more power to Grace on the job. But I never get the tactic of being mad at a chick just because she’s not interested in you. Yeah dude it’s super cool that you have a podcast about fictional wizardry and I’m sure you have many great professional connections with boiling cauldrons in their offices but what are you hoping to accomplish here? It’s not like she’s going to go “Wait, a man clearly trying to have sex with me conveniently also has great job prospects to offer me if I suck his dick metaphorically or literally? Sign me up!” You just look pathetic at this point. Trying to win over a chick who already rejected you is a losing proposition regardless but the best way to do it is to just blow off the rejection, keep getting better at life, and let her stew over it from afar or not. Game 101.
Surprisingly, things only get more pathetic from here with an email longer than most of us have probably ever written in our lives:
Three things: 1) It’s not “ghosting” when you’ve never even met the girl. Ghosting refers to dating on someone and then disappearing. 2) There are few times writing an insanely long email is a good idea. Setting up a bachelor party is one, trying to save a relationship is another, committing suicide maybe (BCC blast that though, no one needs to get the reply-alls) is a third. Sending one to some chick who doesn’t know you because she hurt your widdle fee fees by not wanting to suck your pudgy pale horcrux is not one of them. 3) This dude RUNS A FEMINIST SITE. I’ve blogged my stance before about how all the guys way too into that stuff are just mushy unfuckable nobodies but, if that’s the life you’re choosing, you can’t be this much of an obvious creep. Same deal as those hockey Twitter dudes who love railing against Barstool as much as they love scamming on angry chicks in NHL sweaters. It’s sad if you’re using respect for women’s rights as a backdoor way into trying to fuck them but it’s a million times sadder if you get caught and try to dig your way out.
So we’ve established this guy is soft, unfuckable, and every bit as socially retarded as a man who does a podcast about the whimsical world of a children’s book would be expected. But is he also needlessly entitled and somehow thinks he’s a victim here? Why yes he is!
And he had a similarly hot take for the Daily Dot when they also reached out to the guy about the controversy of this going viral:
At this point it’s pretty obvious that this Ben Schoen dude needs to either have his testicles removed or be fed Tropical Fantasy to kill his sperm like that urban legend about bodegas in poor neighborhoods but overall, I hope how embarrassing to read this journey is serves as a reminder to all of us guys out there. It’s a big wide world and an even bigger Internet full of women of varying degrees of attractiveness who are bored enough to entertain your bullshit. If a chick isn’t into what you’re putting out there, someone else will, no need to get all butthurt about it both for the sake of not being a shithead and to save yourself a public embarrassment like this. Shooters shoot, they don’t angrily throw the ball at the backboard every time it doesn’t go in the hoop.
(Magical wizard boy photo by Shutterstock)