I am married to someone who is better-looking than me, better-liked than me, better…actually, just an all-around better person than me. How could this happen? I would like to share, for the first time, my secret of seduction.

Trying to woo any woman can feel intimidating, let alone one who is clearly better than you in every possible way. If you’re not sure where to begin, start with this simple technique that I perfected. It may not work – actually it’d be a miracle if it did – but if you do this technique right, it won’t matter because your target will never even know that you’ve been pursuing her in the first place.

Are you ready for it? Here it is:

Maintain deniability.

When you ask someone on a date, you open yourself up to getting shot down. But what if you were able to ask someone out without ever having to admit that you’re on a date? Say goodbye to rejection!

Let me tell you how great I was at maintaining deniability. Our first “date,” I asked Deserae out to dinner, ate an entire meal with her and walked her to her car without her realizing that I had asked her out or that I even knew she existed. Pretty good, huh?

Here’s how I did it. My brother Jesse worked at Steak ‘n Shake throughout high school. On his last day before college, I invited a bunch of people to Steak ‘n Shake to see him off. Since Deserae was in Jesse’s graduating class, she just so happened to merit an invitation. I played it off so perfectly that she may not have even realized I was the one who invited her.

I knew I wouldn’t come across a date opportunity with such amazing deniability again, so I did everything I could to make the most of my Steak ‘n Shake hour. When we got to the restaurant, I took advantage of those few seconds when nobody’s quite sure where to sit to position myself next to Deserae. Then I broke out my secret weapon: The Tip Meter.

If you haven’t been to Steak ‘n Shake in a while, you may not realize that it is the worst place in the world to serve as a waiter. Their menu is pretty much exactly the same as McDonald’s except for one difference – Steak ‘n Shake is cheaper. And that’s before the coupons. If you play their coupon game right, I’m pretty sure they end up paying you to eat there. This means the tip for an average Steak ‘n Shake meal is a nickel.

Armed with this knowledge, along with the knowledge that my brother is extremely easy to fluster, I brought along a tip meter with a moving arrow to show him in real time how his service was affecting his already meager tip. It turned out to be comedy gold.

“I’ll have water.”

“OK, and what do you…?”

“Wait, you didn’t ask if I want lemons,” I said as I nudged the tip arrow down from the happy face toward the indifferent face. Chuckles all around.

“Dustin, come on.”

The arrow started heading toward the sad face. The table cheered its approval.

The bit worked even better than I had planned. Since deniability was my whole goal, I had invited a zillion people to Steak ‘n Shake. (How could it be a date if I invited everybody Jesse had ever known?) Serving 20 people by yourself without getting flustered is hard enough even before they all start critiquing your performance. By the end of the night, Jesse was a mess and I was a hero.

“That was really fun,” Deserae said to no one in particular on the way back to the car.

I smiled.

By the end of the night, Jesse was a mess and I was a hero.

When Deserae got to college, I got my musical chairs routine down to a science. No matter where she sat for anything, no matter how many other people were in the group, I always ended up next to her. The trick to maintaining deniability through this whole charade was making it seem like every time was a happy accident. This took an incredible amount of calculation on my part. So he’s going to sit next to her, and they’re going to sit as far away as possible from him, which means the only two seats left will be…

“Oh hey, you again!”

I was the Mitt Romney of suitors. Stick around long enough, and hope that they’ll eventually decide, “Well, whatever, I guess I have to like you.”

Every night, I just prayed that Donald Trump wouldn’t show up. The Donald Trumps of the world say, “You! I want you.” Then they burp or do something gross, but they always swoop in and get the girl or at least go down in a blaze of glory.

Well you know how you boil a frog by turning up the heat slow enough that the frog doesn’t notice it’s being cooked? I Mitt Romneyd the stove to perfection that whole semester, and by December, Deserae was somehow almost my girlfriend. (I realize that’s a metaphor on top of a metaphor and it doesn’t work even a little bit, but we’re almost done and I don’t care.)

The only thing left to do was seal the deal by asking Deserae to be my girlfriend. While walking her back to her dorm one night, I finally worked up the courage to ask her in a way that would allow me to maintain the maximum amount of deniability.

“So what would you think about you and me, ya know, dating?”

Deserae smiled. “I think that would be amazing.”

I smiled back. “Good!”

We walked for five seconds in silence. Deserae finally turned to me.

“So are you going to ask me?”

“What?”

“Are you going to ask me to be your girlfriend?”

“Oh, uh, do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Yes!”

And that, my friend, is how you cook a frog.

LIFE LESSON #80

There’s got to be a better way to cook a frog.