“That page gets a lot of hits,” pointed out a man I assumed worked in web.
“Then, you suggest they swap their glasses for contacts—which is archaically stereotypical—and their Star Wars t-shirts for a tailored outfit from Saks for the first date.”
Garth pointed at Sebastian. “May the Fifth Avenue department stores be with you.”
“Lastly, Garth, you’ve prepared talking points for these guys limited to the day’s headlines, exotic travel, and healthy food and habits.”
Garth shrugged. “Women love to talk about wellness and shit.”
“You tell them never to bring up video games, math, or even books or movies unless they’ve familiarized themselves with something Modern Man deems ‘sexy.’ Basically, you tell them how to be someone else.”
“I don’t see the problem,” Garth said, cinching his eyebrows. “They’re geeks.”
Was short and squat Garth with his mid-forties receding hairline and custard on his tie being deliberately obtuse? Or was it that hard for him to grasp that a relationship built on lies was doomed to fail? I set the magazine on the table. “The term geek has been rehabbed. Look at contemporary film and TV—geek is the new chic. Some women want a more sensitive, adept man. Some women find geeks incredibly sexy.”
“Yeah,” Justin agreed. “They’re called geek-ettes.”
I sighed, trying to decide where to start. “There’s a difference between bettering yourself to meet a partner and flat-out deceit. What happens once he’s used up his one outfit? Or when his date wants to cook him the broccoli rabe he claimed to love?”
“He’ll eat the damn broccoli rabe whether he likes it or not,” Sebastian said. “Everyone pretends to be someone else when dating. Have you ever been on Tinder?”
“Aside from making broad, false generalizations, you’re shaming these guys for being themselves,” I said. “And you’re setting them up for failure.”
“Albert here.” A hand shot up in greeting, then gestured down the conference table at a heavy-set, bespectacled man with floppy, brown hair. “If you know of a better way to get Derek in IT a date, we’re all ears.”
Derek—I presumed—threw a balled-up napkin at Albert. “I have a girlfriend, you tool.”
I rubbed my eyebrow, thinking. “Take my cousin Cyndi for instance. She’s blonde with blue eyes, five-foot-eight, and does commercial modeling on the side. Her real job is a data scientist for the FBI, but nights and weekends, she’s hooked on Red Dead Redemption. I’ll bet she’d love to talk tech with you, Derek.”
“She wouldn’t give him the time of day,” Sebastian said.
“And why not?”
“Because she sounds like the perfect woman.”
The comment shouldn’t have stung, but at five-foot-two with reddish hair that needed taming each morning, and coordination that had even failed me at Mario Kart, I was nothing like Cyndi. If Cyndi existed outside my imagination, that was. But was she the kind of girl who made Sebastian forget his morning meetings? And why did it matter to me? It didn’t. It shouldn’t.
“My point is,” I said, powering through my self-doubt, “this ‘how-to’ doesn’t take the woman into account at all. You need to identify interests for finding common ground. A woman—feel free to take notes—is much more likely than a man to fall in love based on proximity and personality rather than looks.”
“That explains why Sebastian’s perpetually single,” Justin said.
“So you think I’m good-looking?” Sebastian asked him.
“I’ve heard that from women.”
“Then at least I’ve got that going for me,” Sebastian said. “You’re just ugly and boring.”
“A great sense of humor trumps all,” I interjected. “With that, a man can win over almost any woman. So once our ‘geek’ has this information, he’ll enter the interaction with a lot more confidence no matter how he looks. Even if he plays Battlefront II.”
Some of the men laughed. “He just has to find his Battlefront princess,” Albert said.
“Exactly. Common interest.” I was still fuzzy on the details, but my research had shown that the recent release in the Star Wars franchise had been boycotted by true gamers. I’d spent part of last week brushing up on my references so I could at least pretend to be in the know. “Then we slap on a headline like, ‘How to Meet Your Princess Leia.’”
“‘How to Get Leia-d,’” Albert suggested.
Justin perked up. “How about ‘Your Guide to Meeting a Geek Goddess’?”
I laughed. “Even better. I’m not here to brainstorm cover lines. I’ll leave that stuff to you.”
“So we have full creative control over headlines?” Sebastian asked.
I smiled. “Of course not. The cover is the face of Modern Man. I’m here to make sure people are not only picking up those issues but becoming repeat customers—and telling their friends about it.”
“You’re implying our current covers don’t do that,” he said.
“Right now, you’re using women to show sex and say sex.”
“Sex sells,” Boris said so seriously, I couldn’t help but sigh.
“There’s nothing sexy about hitting people over the head with it,” I explained. “I want you to show sex and say class. Say smart. Say style. Sell sex, not a back-alley screw.”
Justin widened his eyes. “That paints a picture.”
I shrugged. Men were visual creatures, right? “There’s a female demographic—and male—that craves a men’s magazine but is put off by most of our material. I can make this happen, provided you’re willing to work with me, not against me.”
“I think you’ll be surprised to see how many female readers we have,” Sebastian said.
“I was surprised when I got the numbers,” I said, glancing at the upcoming deck of slides on my computer. I’d decided to play the next part by ear. I wasn’t sure I should get into the exposé yet since it warranted a meeting of its own, and so I wouldn’t potentially embarrass Sebastian within an hour of meeting him. That didn’t worry me anymore. “Females make up a little under sixteen percent of your reader demographic.”
“It’s closer to eighteen,” Sebastian said.
“It was. You’ve lost two percent this year, and we haven’t even seen the results of the exposé yet. That’s cause for concern, especially considering the industry standard is over twenty percent and women typically show higher brand loyalty than men.” From the ensuing silence, I could tell nobody but Vance and I were aware of that. “Do I need to cover male readership too?”
“No,” Sebastian said, shifting in his seat. “We’re up to date.”
I didn’t like calling him out. I understood he fought this because he cared, and he deserved recognition—the magazine’s readership had skyrocketed the year Sebastian had taken over. But it’d gone stagnant the last several quarters. That wasn’t abnormal for a publication that’d grown at an exponential rate like Modern Man, but numbers had started to slide backward. I couldn’t help wondering if something specific was affecting Sebastian’s work performance.
I flipped to the next slide, page one of a ten-page spread with a bolded headline across the top: “The Bad Boys of Publishing.” Sebastian flicked his thumbnail under the plastic lid of his coffee but kept his eyes on the screen behind me. “I know you’ve all seen this,” I said. “Regardless of what’s true or false, it has hurt us.”
Sebastian shifted his gaze to me and stopped fidgeting with his drink. “You don’t think it’s all true?”
For the first time since I’d walked in, his bravado faltered. I hoped the exposé, at least, wasn’t a joke to him. “It’s definitely sensationalized to get eyeballs,” I said, noting the way he nodded, “but there are some valid points at the core of it. Modern Man has been stuck in the same narrative that popularized it years ago and has since been recycling material. Now it needs to mature. The article paints us and some of our peers, including Poised, in a negative light.”