The following is an e-mail I sent to two of my close friends who both play poker for a living. I decided to post it as a blog because I am long overdue for one, and I also thing that it is a topic that a lot of people can relate to. It may be more of an article than a blog, but I'll keep it here for now.

I spent the past couple days with these two friends partying and meeting girls, sometimes successfully and sometimes not so much. During this time, we had several conversations regarding how any mention of poker is a conversation killer, ESPECIALLY with regard to women. We discussed the possibility of presenting ourselves as investors rather than poker players.

On a different but relevant note, I spent a huge portion of my life being very unsuccessful with women, but I feel like at this point in my life my ability to meet women or people in general is much more of a strength than a weakness.

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I had a problem with mentioning that I play poker for a long time, but in the past couple months I have mentioned to literally probably 100+ people that I have met that I play poker for a living and I would say no more than 1 or 2 have given me negative responses. When we talked I mentioned that I think it has a lot to do with just how you carry yourself, and I still do, but I think that there is more to it.

When we were at Mimi's for breakfast just now Nick mentioned Josh not finishing school, and although Josh is a close friend of mine, I still didn't know if he was in school or planning on finishing. The reason for this is because for people who I am good friends with or people that I actually want to converse with, I would absolutely never mention anything generic about family, school, or work. Think about when you run into someone that you knew from a while back (high school friends, family members you don't talk to, etc.) that you have no interest in talking to, but you have a conversation to be polite. You ask awkward questions like "So... what do you do now? Are you still in school? How are the kids? Where are you working now?" There isn't anything fun about these topics because they are too broad and non-specific to interest anyone. Secondly, if you have not already established a reason for this person to be interested in you then they have no reason to care about generic aspects of your life.

If I meet someone at a bar that I have an interest in getting to know, regardless of if it is a girl I want to bang or a guy that I think could be valuable to know, I will talk about experiences I have had that I think are interesting. I will talk about vacations I have been on, friends that I have, things I have done in the past couple weeks, etc. Whether you intend to or not, these conversations imply things about your lifestyle. The subtext within every sentence describes your lifestyle far more than the diret meaning of the sentence.

"Yeah, I was at a club in Las Vegas over the summer with some friends and we saw Chuck Liddell." I'm obviously not broke because I am traveling. I have friends that are close enough to travel with me. I am somewhat high profile because I am hanging out somewhere that has celebrities. I am sociable because I spend time in clubs. These things are all implied from a minor sentence that is just leading into a different topic.

"My interior designer, Jeff, had a party and I met a guy who designs pools. If you are interested I could give you his number." Beyond that this shows that I have connections and am valuable for networking, it implies that I am sociable and meeting people. Secondly, the fact that I even have an interior designer implies that I have money and care about style.

"Yeah, I've been to that Thai place. I'm not wild about the entrees but their appetizers are really good." This implies that I have not only eaten there before, but I have eaten there enough times to have tried a large portion of the menu. People who go out to eat a lot have money. They might not recognize this consciously, but subtle things like this will be constantly coming out in conversation whether you like it or not. Secondly, the fact that I have tried a large portion of the menu implies that I am adventurous and willing to try new things.

"I had a friend just like that while I was in college." This is a transition that would lead to a story. The sentence itself is pretty useless in this regard, but it gives some subtle yet meaningful insight about me. Again, I have friends. This will come up a LOT because I have a LOT of friends. Secondly, and probably more importantly, it vaguely references that I went to college. This can stem into other conversations like where I went to school and whether or not I graduated. People WILL sometimes ask when you graduated, and it is important that you finish school that you can give them a date instead of having to kill the conversation by telling them you dropped out.

There are infinitely many things for you to talk about, and every single thing you mention will have a subtext that will tell them a bit about your character. Some of these might sound really vain or pretentious (like the Chuck Liddell thing, which actually happened but I probably wouldn't bring it up in a conversation because it wasn't a big deal to me), but these are things that are legitimately going on in my life that get brought up in conversation. I spend the vast majority of the day doing whatever I feel like doing, and for the time being I am putting my time into expanding my social circle and making my house look good. I never go out of my way to mention that I own a house or that I make tons of money playing poker, or even that I play poker at all. However, by the time these things DO get brought up (by someone who picked up on something subtle and decided to press me for more information) I am not worried about mentioning them because the person has already either consciously or subconsciously realized that I am very successful and living a very fun life. Thus, if someone asks me what I do and I tell them "poker" they don't immediately react and say "oh my god, this degenerate is going to destroy his life." They ask me about it because they are genuinely interested in how I can support a lifestyle of fun things with fun people when I am simply pursuing a hobby that I enjoy.

In comparison between saying that I play poker and saying that I am an investor - by the time this gets brought up I think that the person knows more than enough about me that it won't make a difference which one I tell them. Also, I am both so I wouldn't be lying in either case. However, if I tell them I am an investor then they ask me what I do and it comes out that I play poker, it will look like I tried to lie to them and they will doubt other things I have told them. If I tell them I am a professional poker player, and they ask me about it and it comes out that I also invest in websites, stocks, and other random sources of income they will realize that I am a well balanced and very stable individual. I don't bother to make a serious effort to try to hide things from people, because I am confident in what I am doing and perfectly content with my lifestyle. They know this about me long before poker is ever brought into the conversation.

PS: Even if you don't think that people are picking up on any of the subtext in the conversation, which I think would be wrong but understandable, think about the people I am spending my time with. I am constantly around people who are upbeat, outgoing, and successful. Even if they only pick up on the most major aspects of every sentence, they will probably be smart enough to realize that these people who are spending time with me are not the type of people who would waste their time with a shady loser.