For some reason, girls tend to gravitate toward guys who are really screwed up. Artists, musicians, carnival workers—they all get so much sex it’d make you sick.   

So if you’re just a nice, normal guy, you’re probably not having too much luck. Which doesn’t seem fair, really. I mean, you have just as much shame as anyone else, and you must have even more crippling sexual fears than the troubled performance artist who sleeps with women every twenty minutes.

The difference between your problems and those of the performance artist—whose contribution to the art world is covering himself with cow dung and singing Diana Ross covers in half time—is thus not one of degree, but one of visibility. His issues are simply more theatrical, more public, more compelling—some might argue—than yours.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t whip up some crazy habits that girls will (mis)interpret as the crying out of a tortured soul. Because believe me, I know you’re already complex and troubled, far more than you’d like to be, but with my help, you can make yourself seem as complex and troubled as the pussy-rich performance artist. And how girls see you is much more important than how you actually are.

Here are some can’t-miss ways to make yourself seem dark and mysterious:

Develop a serious drug addiction.

This will definitely trick girls into thinking you’re troubled. When they find you passed out beside a dirty syringe in the parking lot behind Linens ‘n Things, they’ll think, “My word, what a poor, haunted creature! So complex, so troubled! I must have him, sexually.” Little do they know, it’s all an act. Which isn’t to say that you won’t actually be killing yourself slowly with this drug, because you most certainly will.

Now when it comes time to kick the addiction, you may run into some problems, I’m not gonna lie. You might find it a little challenging to stop doing crack, or whatever else it is you’re doing. But just remember, you’re not actually addicted to the drug—no, drug addiction is a myth propagated by the US government to keep Zionist organizations from interfering with internecine conflict in burgeoning Latin-American communities—you’re just addicted to all the hot sex the drug is getting you.     

Splotch your clothes with paint.

Because all painters are tortured. Except housepainters, maybe.

This easy cosmetic change will make girls think you’re a haunted genius who works himself into such a frenzy in the artistic moment that he completely abandons all considerations of cleanliness and order. “When he gets that brush going,” they’ll say to themselves, “he must just totally lose himself, immerse himself in the dark chaos that surges within. I want that dark chaos in me, and I want it now!” To them, your calculatedly applied paint splotches will seem like the scars of a wild emotional battle you’ve been fighting all alone ever since you came into this God-forsaken world.

If a girl takes the bait and starts sleeping with you, however, she’s eventually going to want to see your paintings. You can hold her off for a little while by saying things like, “No, baby, they’re too dark, and I don’t want to scare you.” But sooner or later, she’s going to wonder where the hell all your paint splotches are really coming from. And that’s when you should tell her the painful truth—that is, the not-painful fake-truth—that you’ve burned all your paintings. “I find it extremely cathartic,” tell her. She probably won’t buy this, but who cares. You’ve already slept with her.

Laugh and cry at inappropriate times.

This is an easy one.

Just laugh at sad things and bawl at funny things. Women will think your emotional wiring is all messed up. They’ll see you as a broken creature, a poor soul for whom laughter and tears have become perversely commingled ever since you saw dad slap mom while you were watching Blazing Saddles.

She’ll spend a month or two trying to restore your psyche to its original harmony through blistering, inventive lovemaking. When she becomes tired of seeing you sob at dinner parties when someone makes a joke, or when she realizes it’s all a pitiful act, she’ll leave you forever and find her next man to save.

Lash out unexpectedly.

For example, when a girl says something innocuous to you, like, “Hey, what’s up?”—and it could be many months before a girl speaks to you, I know—respond, “Nothing! Nothing is up! Why does everyone always think something is up with me! God, I just want to be normal! I just want to… feel something, anything, again. So to answer your question, you heartless bitch”—and this is when you should really turn on the waterworks—“everything is up. Every goddamn thing in this miserable world!”

She will think she’s stumbled upon a beautiful spirit it is her duty to liberate from his prison of anger and paranoia. You will become her little pet project, her crusade, her cherished secret. And she will have lots of sex with you, too, more to heal you than to get pleasure for herself. Which is good, because she will get very little pleasure from your sex.

Pretend you hear voices that tell you to do bad things.

Adopt this rather extreme measure only if the others prove ineffectual. Because once you exhibit signs of schizophrenia, a girl may choose to forego having sex with you and instead have you committed. And once you’re in an institution, it can be very tricky to get out.

But if you’re convinced nothing else will work, then here’s how you should proceed. Sidle up to a girl on a bus or a subway—somewhere she won’t be able to make a quick instinctive exit before considering how disturbed and fascinating you are—and say something like, “No, Dennis Rodman!”—I usually pretend I hear Dennis Rodman’s voice in my head—“I will not touch that woman’s breast! Dennis, shut up! Shut up, Dennis! I don’t care how many rebounds you got, I’m not gonna do it! I’ll never be like you, Dennis, I’ll never let you win!” At this point you should touch the woman’s breast, to demonstrate that Dennis has indeed taken over.

And after the woman overcomes her initial disgust, which could take as long as three or four minutes, she’ll take pity on you. She’ll see you as a heartbreaking man who’s become a pawn within his own body. She’ll ask if you and Dennis would like to come back to her apartment, where she will offer to have sex with you as a form of therapy, or perhaps exorcism. “Who’s in control now?” she’ll ask you mid-coitus. “I think I am, but Dennis is menacing,” you’ll tell her, very nearly saying the words Dennis the Menace. “Oh no, he’s taking over!” you’ll say as you’re about to climax. “Get out! Get the hell out of my head, Dennis Rodman!” And she’ll be so horrified by seeing you fake-battle with your—truly—imaginary nemesis she won’t even notice that the sex only lasted forty-five seconds.  

And don’t worry, you have no reason to feel guilty for tricking girls into thinking there’s something deeply wrong with you. Because really, you’ve been as messed up as the lady-killer performance artist all along—you just weren’t getting any credit for it.