Chapter 25 The fourth big professor-4

I met a girl when the atomic bomb was being built at Los Alamos, and we kept in touch after I taught at Cornell.Whenever she mentions a guy, I think I'd better go see her when the term is over and turn the tide. But when I did get there, it was too late, and I ended up sitting in a motel in Albuquerque, facing the long summer with nothing to do. The motel is on Route 66 and is called the Kasha Deluxe Motel. The road runs through the city center and there used to be a little nightclub not far from the hotel with regular entertainment.Since I have nothing to do, and because I like to watch and make friends in bars, I often go to this nightclub.

The first time I went there, I bumped into a guy and we started chatting. Suddenly, we noticed a table full of beautiful young girls - TWA stewardesses I think - were having a birthday party.The guy said, "Come on, let's get up the courage to ask them to dance." We asked two of them to dance, and then they invited us to sit with the other girls.After a few drinks, the waiter came over and asked, "Anything else you want?" I wanted to pretend I was drunk, so while wide awake I turned to the girl I was dancing with and asked in a drunken voice, "What would you like?"

"What can I order?" she asked. "Anything you want—anything!" "Okay! Let's order champagne!" she said happily. I said it loudly so everyone in the bar could hear: "OK! A glass of champagne for everyone!" That's when I heard my friend say to a girl "It sucks to rip him off while he's drunk" and I started thinking maybe I'd made a big mistake. Fortunately, the waiter ran to me and bent down, lowered his voice and said, "Sir, a bottle costs 16 yuan." I decided right away that I couldn't give everyone a glass of champagne, so I said even louder, "Okay, that's okay!"

But to my surprise, the waiter came back in full armor after a while—a towel over his arm, a tray full of glasses, a bucket of ice, and a bottle of champagne.He thought I said "price doesn't matter" but what I meant was "no champagne is okay!" The waiter poured champagne for everyone, I paid 16 yuan; and my friend was very angry with the girl because he thought she was blackmailing me.But I thought that was the end of it all—it turned out that the evening was only the beginning of a series of new experiences. I used to go to that nightclub, where the show changes from day to day.The performers are marina runners—their routes include spots like Amarillo and God-knows-what in Texas.The nightclub itself also has a resident singer named Tamara.Every time a new group came to perform, Tamara introduced me to some of the girls in the group.Girls would come and sit with me, and I would buy them drinks and chat with them.Of course I was thinking more than chatting, but nothing happened in the end every time.So I always wondered why Tamara went to such lengths to introduce me to these wonderful girls; and even though everything started out great, I ended up just buying drinks and talking all night.Tamara didn't make an introduction for my friend, but he wasn't much luckier—we were all taken for a ride.

After a few weeks of different shows and different girls, a new band came along.Following the usual practice, Tamara introduced me to one of the girls, and we bought wine for her and chatted with her as usual. She was very kind to me.In the middle she came on stage to perform, and she came back to my table after the performance-I thought it was very good.Everyone else was looking left and right, thinking to themselves, "What on earth is he capable of making this girl keep running to him?" But towards the end of the evening, she said something I had heard so many times: "I'd love to have you come and sit with me, but we have a party tonight, maybe tomorrow night..." I knew exactly what "maybe tomorrow night" meant: no chance.

The next day, I noticed that this girl—her name was Gloria—talked a lot to the show host, both on the show and in the dressing room. Once, when she was in the dressing room and the host happened to walk past my desk, I said, "Your wife is a good woman," offhandedly, and he said, "Yeah, thank you." We chatted for a while .He thought she had told me.When Gloria came back, she also thought he had told me.So they chatted with me for a while and invited me to sit with them after the bar closed. At two o'clock in the morning, I went with them to the hotel where they were staying.Of course, they don't have much of a party.We talked for a long time, looking at their photo album, which contained photos of Gloria and her husband when they first met in Iowa.At that time she was a pretty fat woman who grew up eating corn; then she got thinner and thinner in the later pictures, and now she looks so beautiful!He taught her various arts but could not read himself.It's funny because his job is to emcee and have to read out the names of the shows and the performers when they hold amateur singing competitions in nightclubs; and I never found out how he "reads" those things! (The next night I understood what they were up to) When Gloria led the performers on and off the stage, she glanced at the note he held in his hand and whispered beside him: the name of the next performer and the name of the show what is it.

They were a fun and friendly couple and we talked about a lot of interesting things.I mentioned how we had just met and asked them why Tamara kept introducing me to new girls. Gloria replied: "Tamara said before introducing me to you: 'Let me introduce you to the big money here!'" I just realized that the 16 yuan bottle of champagne I ordered and the exaggerated and misleading "It's okay!" turned out to be a very good investment.It seems that I have already gained a reputation as someone who doesn't dress very well, but is always willing to spend a lot of money on girls.

Then I told them how I felt: "I'm kind of a pretty smart guy, but probably limited to physics. There's a lot of smart people in the bar—oil people, mining people, big business people, whatever—not Keep buying those girls drinks, and it's not taking advantage of it!" (By then, I understood that the others were not taking advantage of it either.) "How is it possible," I said, "that a smart guy ran into a bar After that, will you become such a fool?" The host said, "I know exactly why this is happening. I'm here to give you a lesson, and you'll be fine in this type of bar. But to prove that I'm not lying, first, Gloria will find a way to get a man Buy you a champagne cocktail."

I said, "Okay," but I was thinking, "How could they possibly do that?" He continued: "You must do exactly as I tell you. Tomorrow you sit a little farther away from Gloria, and when she gives you the signal, you just walk over." "Yes," Gloria said, "it's easy." The next night, I sat at the bar—a corner with a view of Gloria.Not long after, someone was sitting next to her.After a while, the man looked happy, and Gloria winked at me. I stood up and approached them casually.As they passed, Gloria turned and said in a friendly, loud voice, "Hi, Dick!

When did you come back to town?where have you been " The guy also turned to see who this "Dick" was; I saw something in his eyes that I knew very well, because I was often in the situation he was in now. First look: "Oh, there's a competitor. After I buy her a drink, he'll snatch her away! What's next?" The second glance: "No, this is just a common friend. They seem to have known each other for a long time." I could see it all, it was all written on his face, and I completely understood his mood. Greer said to him, "Jim, this is my old friend Dick Feynman."

Another glance: "I thought about what to do; I want to be nice to this person, so she will like me more." Jim turned to me and said, "Hey, Dick. Would you like a drink?" "Okay!" I said. "What do you want to drink?" "Same as hers." "Bartender, please have another glass of champagne cocktail." It was so easy indeed, it was effortless.After the bar closed at night, I went to the residence of "Master" and Gloria.They were rolling back and forth laughing, happy that things were going well. "Okay," I said, "I'm absolutely sure you two are not talking nonsense. So, what about our class?" "Okay," he said, "the basics are this: the guy wants to be a gentleman. He doesn't want to come across as impolite, rude, or mean. As long as a woman fully understands his motives, she can take him by the hand." nose go." "Therefore," he went on, "don't be a gentleman under any circumstances! Don't be too respectful to them. And, rule number one, don't buy them anything—not even a pack of cigarettes— Until you've asked her if she wants to sleep with you, and you're sure she will, not lying to you." "Uh...you mean...you don't...uh...you ask them that?" "Well," he said, "I know this is your first lesson, and it might be difficult to be so straightforward. Then you can buy her something—just a small thing—and then you ask her. But on the other hand, it just makes things more difficult." Often, as long as someone tells me a direction, I will quickly grasp the knack.The next day, I tried my best to do a completely different mental construction.The mentality I adopt is: those girls in the bar are all worthless, they just want to trick you into buying her a drink, and they won't give you anything in return; I don't want to be a gentleman to these worthless women... …and so on, over and over until it becomes intuitive. That night, I was going to try this method.I stepped into the bar as usual and my friend saw me and immediately said, "Hey, Dick! Wait a minute and I'll show you the girl I found tonight! She's off to change now, she'll be right back." "Yes, yes," I said indifferently, and sat at another table, waiting to watch the show.When the show was about to start, my friend's girl came back and I said to myself, "No matter how pretty she is, she's just trying to get him to buy her a drink, and she's not going to give him anything!" After the first show, my friend said, "Hey, Dick, I want you to meet Annie. Ann, this is my good friend, Dick Feynman." I said, "Hi" and continued watching the show.After a while Anne said to me: "Why don't you come and sit with us?" I thought, "Typical slut! He's buying her drinks and she's inviting other people to sit with me." I said, "I can see that right here." After a while, an officer who was serving at a nearby base came, wearing a nice uniform.In an instant, we found Anne sitting with the officer in the other corner of the bar! Later on, I sat there and Anne danced with the officer.When the officer turned his back to me and she faced me, she smiled at me very nicely and happily.I thought again: "Shameless! She's doing the same trick on the officer again!" I thought of a good idea: I don't want to look at her, but I smile at her when the officer sees me too, so that the officer knows what's going on--her trick will stop working in a moment. After a few minutes, she was no longer with the officer.She and the bartender took back her coat and purse, and said loudly, "I'm going out for a walk, who wants to go out with me?" I said to myself, "Maybe you can say no and say no as hard as you can, but you can't do this forever, or you'll never make progress. At some point, you'll have to let it go." So I said calmly: "I go with you." We went outside, walked about a block, and saw a small restaurant, and she said, "Shall we get some coffee and sandwiches...and eat at my house?" It sounded like a good idea, so we went into the bistro.She ordered three coffees and three sandwiches, and I paid for it. As I left the restaurant I thought, "Something's wrong, I bought too many sandwiches!" On the way back to the hotel she said, "Well, I gotta tell you, I don't have time to eat these sandwiches with you because there's a captain coming over..." I thought, "Look, I've failed so badly. My master told me what to do, and I blew it up. I bought a $1.10 sandwich and it only came to nothing!" For the face of the master. I stopped suddenly and said to her, "You...are worse than a whore!" "What do you mean?" "You coax me into buying these sandwiches, what good am I? Nothing!" "You miser!" she said. "If you really want to, I'll give you back the money for the sandwich!" I thought she was bluffing me, so I said, "Then give me back the money." Startled, she reached into her purse and handed me what little money she had, and I grabbed my coffee and sandwich and walked off. After I finished eating, I went back to the bar to report to the master, and told him I was sorry to come back, but I did my best to try to regain the lost ground. He said calmly, "It's okay, Dick, it's okay. You haven't bought her anything after all, and she's going to sleep with you tonight." "what?" "Yes," he said confidently, "she will sleep with you tonight, I'm sure." "But she's not even here! She's at home with the army..." "that's OK." At two o'clock in the morning, the bar closed, but Annie still didn't show up.I asked my master and my wife if I could go to them, and they said yes. And just as we were walking out of the bar, Annie showed up, running all the way from Route 66, hooked my arm, and said, "Come on, come to my place." The master guessed it right, this is really a magical lesson! After returning to Cornell in the fall, I once danced with a graduate student's sister at a prom.She was visiting from Virginia, and she was a nice person, and I had a crazy idea and said, "Let's go to the bar and have a drink." Along the way, I tried my best to muster up the courage to try to see if the method taught by the master would work on "average" girls.After all, the girls in the bar are just coaxing you to buy her a drink, and you won't feel too sad or upset if you don't respect them-but what about this nice, average Southern girl in front of you? We walked into the bar and before we sat down, I said, "Before I buy you a drink, I want to know one thing: Would you like to sleep with me tonight?" "Yes." Therefore, this technique can also be used on ordinary girls!But no matter how successful it was, I never did it again—I don't like that kind of intrigue. But the most interesting part of the whole experience was discovering how many things in the world work differently from what I was taught growing up!