Man Law #77 – Never Cross The Streams!
Dr. Egon Spengler: There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, “bad”?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.” – Ghostbusters, 1984
If there is one thing we can learn from history, its that men will fight over just about anything – especially women. It’s not hard to understand why this happens.
Fighting over something small starts early...
In fact, I’d place a significant wager, that at any given bar across America, an argument (or fight depending on the neighborhood you’re in) is about to start because one guy talked to the wrong girl at the wrong time.
All could have been “avoided” if these men agreed to the simple principle of “Never Crossing the Streams.”
What do I mean by “Crossing the Streams”, you ask?
I’ll tell you.
You find yourself at a club, bar, house party, and you are having a good time relaxing with your friends. There are women around BUT nothing jumps out at you.
Then she walks in – 5’9 slender, athletic, confi-de Le Blanc (Pronounced: “Con-fay-day-le blahnk“), hips swinging like a pendulum. Immediately, all your buddies stand at attention, puff out their chest, and the conversation goes quiet. No communication is needed because you ALL turn to look at each other and think the same thing. Now to the women reading this, I’m going to tell you a little secret. Contrary to popular belief, the first thought that goes through a guy’s head when he is standing with his buddies and sees an extremely attractive woman, is not the following:
“What an amazingly beautiful woman whose mere presence has just lightened my life and made it that much better. How can I marry this woman who stands before me and cherish her for eternity?”
Instead, its more along the lines of the following:
“I’d f**k her.” and looks to his friends as they all nod their heads in tacit simultaneous agreement.
I’m sure this is an evolutionary thing passed down from our cave man ancestors but our basic impulses are pretty simple. Tarzan want Jane. Real Basic. Real Primal.
You want the women fighting over YOU...Not the other way around.
Tarzan, however, didn’t have a ton of competition. We do. Now here is where its inevitable that you do what 95% of guys do NOT do in this situation – someone needs to call it. If these are your boys or even a group of strangers you just met, you don’t want to let them get between you and your buddies. When you don’t tell your boys to stand down, you run into problems down the road when you find out that all three of you friend requested her on Facebook and each of you is asking her out independently. This is “Crossing the Streams” and you’ll blow yourselves out. From her perspective, she can’t date ALL of you at once. She could do that of course but then you would think less of her. Your boys can be your greatest wingmen as they should always be, but they can also be your greatest cockblock. Like calling SHOTGUN in a car, dibs, or even fives, someone has to call it – whose going to approach her, talk to her and with any luck – seduce her. If your buddy goes for it, crashes and burns, then its fair game. He gave it his best.
This is where you all will have to man up and likely enter a “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” Winston Churchill states that you should never give up except in the case of honor and integrity. This is one of those times. Its inevitable that while she may be the hottest thing in the room at the moment, there will be someone else at the next party you go to AND you will be first in line. If one of your friends is really gunning for her, then be the bigger man and let him have it. Becoming Unbreakable means letting that which does not matter slide. Be his wingman by telling her how awesome your buddy is and wish them the best of luck!
There are plenty of fish in the sea, don’t steal from your friends boat!
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The Unbreakable Man Laws 
This is a great Law and one I adhere to. I often take teh high road if the other person is uber persistent about chatting it up with a girl and I will gladly entertain the friends of teh main target, as I feel I great wingman skills. At times, I’ll even drive the conversation if need be. But, regardless the group or at least one of the guys in the group should aware of her signals and know when to pull a floundering friend out of the deep end if need be.
Wow, it was a long day and I apologize the numerous typos. But, as the spirit of my previous post suggests; it is at times admirable to be a wingman and can often be a more fruitful pursuit than to chase after the most obvious target. Besides, everyone has their own particular tastes.
Ethan: great article.
DJ — right on. Sometimes the more noble and honorable thing to do is be the wingman. This is true on its own merits, but it also has the fringe benefit of increasing YOUR social status, both with your buddies and with the oh-so-perceptive Other Women who see you Putting Others First.
Furthermore, this attitude comes from a mental vantage point of ABUNDANCE, vice SCARCITY. We, as men, often assume that there is a limited supply of gorgeous women out there, and we have to fight over them…. That it’s a buyers market and they are the buyers (looking to “buy” a guy). While the supply of these women IS limited, remember — there are more hot women in the world than any one of us could possibly date. They are actually abundant, not scarce. And when WE make ourselves into men who are leaders, who put others first (e.g. by winging your buddy instead of competing with him), and who display the RARE characteristics that women seek, WE become the scarce commodity because there are fewer men with these characteristics than there are gorgeous women. In other words, we shift the economics of who is more valuable, and who has the more bargaining power in the transaction.
The second-best part of this is — we can do this by transforming our BEHAVIORS and ATTITUDES. This can be difficult, and take time, but at least it it doesn’t involve thousand-dollar outfits or surgery.
What’s the first-best part? Girls WANT us to be confident leaders who put others first. As in all economics, the best deal occurs when BOTH parties get what they want.
Thanks for the feedback, Pete! Always excellent advice on your AskRomeo.com site!
Crossing Streams. This is something I was taught about just this weekend by a very good male friend. We’ve had a thing but it was just a drunken night of fun. We’re friends and we plan to keep it that way. We can go out and be each other’s wingmen without any weirdness.
Last weekend I went and visited him and met him flatmate. They adhere to the crossing streams rule and included past lays. The flatmate questioned me if I had had any sort of relations in the past with my friend. I lied.
Now before I let him bed me, I did the honourable thing and asked my mate if it was okay by him if shagged his flatmate. He didn’t mind, so I went for it. Because he didn’t mind, does that count as crossing the stream?
City Girl,
You did the right thing! And very honourable to ask your mate before shagging his flatmate! The line is COMMONLY crossed between two guys, where “all streams lead to one location.” When this happens, all hell can break loose. Although guys typically don’t get too angry if one guy has gotten further with the girl than the other. For instance, if you had an ongoing and constant sexual fling with your mate and suddenly his flatmate comes around and you want to move from him to the flatmate, thats where things get sticky, so to speak! 🙂
Well my friend’s feelings had to come first, so to speak! 😉