Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys [Paperback]

Sam Scholfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009

Screw Cupid is the guide for every woman ready to take her dating life into her own hands. Samantha Scholfield has many years of dating experience, and the techniques and strategies she reveals here were developed via extensive trial and error—and by consulting and collaborating with hundreds of women (and many men), and by refining the best of the extensive pickup advice that already circulates among men. The result: perfectly calibrated guidance on how to initiate a conversation—anytime, anywhere—and get right to a date, all without a guy knowing he’s being picked up.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“First-time author Scholfield emboldens women to make the first move on their 'hot guy' prospects and provides conversational and pragmatic road maps [with] enjoyable, practical, light fare. It is refreshing to visit successes and failures with someone who admits she was not a 'genetic lottery' winner.”
—Library Journal

"Finally! Screw Cupid recognizes how valuable it can be for women to make the first move, and teaches them how to do it."
—Dorian Solot, author of I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide

“Screw Cupid chucks the old rules that advise women to wait for men to ask them out. Scholfield is the big sister you’ve always wished you had. She’s honest, encouraging, and gutsy enough to fall on her face (and tell you all about it). Scholfield takes us on a hilarious journey through her own pickup flops and successes, and she’s so endearing and likeable, even those not on the prowl are bound to enjoy the ride.”
—Victoria Vantoch, PhD, gender historian

“Witty, self-aware, and filled with practical tips to meeting guys, Screw Cupid is a revelation for anyone still playing by ‘the rules.’ Armed with dozens of real-life examples, Samantha Scholfield illustrates how you can create opportunity with men while still keeping your ego and humor intact. It’s almost as if she’s done all of the embarrassing, trial-and-error research so you don’t have to. Women should rejoice—you’ve finally found your own answer to The Game.”
—Evan Marc Katz, dating coach and author of Why You're Still Single: Things Your Friends Would Tell You If You Promised Not to Get Mad

“When it comes to dating, nothing can mess with our minds more than the cat and mouse of figuring out who's going to make the first move—but with Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys by Samantha Scholfield, you now have some guidance going forth… Aside from giving women a pep talk towards the possibility of snagging the man of their dreams with a little bit of bravado and elbow grease, Screw Cupid is great because it offers practical tips on places (other than a bar) to find a suitable mate, discusses ways to use this strategy when online dating, and even offers some potential dialogue to educate the reader on what a successful conversation might look like.”
—Nancy Redd, author of Body Drama and AOL Health Insider and Wellness Coach

“In her book, Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking up Hot Guys, Samantha Scholfield bravely shares her dating experience—the highs and lows and, more importantly, the insight garnered over many years of dating rejection and redemption—all to improve the love lives of the female population. In this brilliantly crafted, humorous, but hard-hitting book, she distills techniques and strategies developed via extensive trial and error, refining the best of the extensive pickup advice that's already in circulation... With humor and depth, Samantha Scholfield turns her dating lemons into lemonade for our benefit.”
—Viralfirefly

About the Author

Sam Scholfield is a frequent contributor to Yahoo.com and has offered her expertise through Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, and The Huffington Post. She has degrees from UCLA in English Literature and Bio-Geography (useful only at trivia nights and for blurting random facts at cocktail parties), dabbles in thinking about maybe training for triathlons, and has recently discovered the stress-relieving joys of zombie video games. She lives in San Francisco with her boyfriend and a houseplant named Bob.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: The Experiment (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1615190007
• ISBN-13: 978-1615190003
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #589,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Samantha Scholfield is the internationally published author of the humorous self-help book "Awkward: What to Do When Life Makes You Cringe" (August 2011, The Experiment) and the dating guide "Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys" (September 2009, The Experiment). She is very happy to finally be putting her English degree from UCLA to good use and can often be found writing in the ubiquitous coffee shops of San Francisco.

For more information about Samantha and her work, please visit:

www.samanthascholfield.com
www.awkwardsurvivalguide.com
www.screwcupidthebook.com

She can also be found on Facebook at facebook.com/samanthascholfield.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book on starting conversations with guys (from a guy), January 5, 2010

By 

Mark McDonald (Cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys (Paperback)

Note: I am a single man, and I think the ideas in Screw Cupid are brilliant.

The sexual liberation movement brought sexual equality to women, but it destroyed dating. As every woman became potentially sexually available, neutral conversations between strangers of the opposite sex became next to impossible. Any attempt at polite conversation by a man became suspect. "How are you doing?" is now translated as, "I'm attracted to you" and provokes a wall of resistance by the woman, eager to show the man she won't be such an easy catch. The nice men no longer approach women, worn out by knee-jerk rejection, and the only men left initiating conversation are the jerks that no nice woman would ever want to date. This is the reason single women today complain incessantly, "There aren't any nice guys out there."

What's a girl to do? Offer to buy the MAN a drink? When even "Hello" becomes suspect, what are we left with as a conversation opener? This is the social reality we now live in. Rather than fight it, Scholfield embraces the current culture and offers a brilliantly simple and effective method of bypassing the resistance faced by both men and women in initiating conversation, and ultimately relationships, with perfect strangers. Acutely aware that the first words out of someone's mouth produce a reflexive response by the object of interest, she succeeds in eliciting a path of natural conversation, avoiding the the awkward, sexualized, and easily rejected path of the pick-up line approach.

As she explains throughout the book, with numerous examples, the "neutral approach" is the most reliable way to quickly and safely get to know a complete stranger, anywhere at any time. This in itself is worth the cost of the book, but Scholfield goes further and describes how to apply the neutral approach method to groups of same or mixed-sex strangers, or those times when you're out with a male/female friend. She also offers a simple but effective way to end the conversation with a confirmed date, or the knowledge that the hot guy/girl you're talking to simply isn't interested, avoiding the hell of waiting for days for the phone to ring.

This book is ingenious. There are plenty of books available on how to build a successful relationship, once you've found the right person. For most people, though, the hardest part about dating is starting a conversation with someone you are attracted to. Screw Cupid is less about "pick-up lines" than it is about facilitating conversation. The method Scholfield describes is easily learned and can be adapted to just about any personality and any age, applied to any social context where there are people--from bookstores to bars, supermarkets to dance clubs. In fact, it can be used just as successfully by men as by women. I wish everyone would read it; then, we would all have a better chance at meeting one of the "good ones."

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, useful and very entertaining!, August 27, 2009

By 

Mary (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys (Paperback)

I found this book to be an entertaining and extremely practical and useful read. It's obvious that Scholfield uses some of the more amusing conversation starters for comedic value, but the base theory - using a question to start talking to the guy you want to talk to - is brilliant. I approach guys. I've never had a problem with it, and the issues that Scholfield hilariously details in the first part of the book can and do indeed happen. Her advice to remain neutral is insightful, and shows a keen understanding of first impressions, initial contact with a good-looking stranger and dating (and life) in general. On either side - whether it's the guy or the girl doing the approaching - anytime it's obvious that the person approaching wants more than the other person does, it's awkward. If that goes away - which is does when you follow Scholfield's advice and remain neutral - the sky is the limit.

She talks about meeting a lot of guys, but it's with the ultimate intention of finding THAT guy. Her focus is definitely on finding quality, but with the practical standpoint that you need to go through some quantity to find that quality. She has a section on online dating - which is where she met her boyfriend, incidentally - and uses her successful email to him as an example. Through that you can see that she uses the very same techniques that she would have used in person to set up their first date.

She also focuses a lot on the fact that although bars and clubs are the common go-to places to meet guys if you're a 20 to 30-something (and I am), that it's the places where sex isn't so on the brain that work best, like hiking, sailing, running clubs, libraries, concerts, cooking classes, etc. And if you don't already do those things, Scholfield says to join a group and get out there. According to her, if you don't like your current dating life, you should mix it up. Simple, but true.

One of my favorite parts is her focus on refining your "List", which she defines as the list of traits that you "must have" in a potential boyfriend, as well as the "no way" traits that you can't stand and would never consider dating. She suggests going through each item on your "list" and then walks you through a process to figure out if that item really needs to be there. All this is done with the intent of figuring out what type of person you REALLY want to be with. Once you know that, you can put yourself in situations where you're more likely to meet him.

All in all, I loved this book. By the end I wanted to spend an afternoon hanging with Scholfield, I liked her so much from her writing.

-Mary in Denver

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Realistic advice, October 27, 2009

By 

J. Grittner (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Screw Cupid: The Sassy Girl's Guide to Picking Up Hot Guys (Paperback)

This book offers women realistic advice on how to approach men. As a single woman, I was frustrated by either not getting hit on or getting hit on by men I was not attracted to. This book gives great advice about how to take more control of dating and just practice talking to men. I like that the book suggests that you just need to try to start a random conversation vs. coming up with something brilliantly witty to say upfront. I also really liked the last two chapters. One talked about deciding what male traits you really want, so you can focus your energy on guys you would actually want to date. The last chapter talks about taking stock of what you bring to the table, so you have things to talk about as well as improve your life independent of some arm candy. A great book for any woman ready to take control and actively find that great guy she's been looking for.