In May 2023, I was a guest on Steve Paiken’s show The Agenda. He posed this question.
“There will be women watching this right now who will say to themselves, ‘I’m not really comfortable with the idea of a guy I don’t know just sort of getting in my personal space and saying ‘Hi,’ to me in public.’ I know they think they’re being friendly, but we live in a different era nowadays. How do we figure all that out?”
I quickly gathered a response to explain that it was a matter of tact and context. The topic has arisen a few times in my conversations with Julian since we first connected in January 2023.
Three years ago, the two of us, unknown to each other, had just returned to Toronto from living in Miami. At our first coffee, we bonded over our shared experiences and our mutual friends from university. Julian quickly became a staple in my newly formed friend group, but I hadn’t seen him in the last year, as he had moved to Montreal to complete his Master’s in Analytics.
Our holiday plans make it difficult to catch up in person, so we chat on FaceTime. “How did you meet your girlfriend?" I ask about his now ten-month romance.
“I’ll tell you because I know you like this stuff. A month into moving there, I was walking home from school, and I saw her walking toward me. She was on her way to meet some friends for drinks—it was kind of the evening. It was the summer, August first, and she was walking toward me all dressed up. I saw her and stopped her on the street and just said, ‘Hey, I think you look absolutely beautiful, and I want to get to know you,’” says Julian.
“That’s really brave!” I say.
“I had to grow a pair,” replies Julian. “It was not easy.”
“Well, it was worth it,” I say back. “When you lived in Miami, I remember you telling me you met a group of guys that would approach women.”
“They were the guys who introduced me to it. I didn’t even know this was a concept. It’s really old school,” he says. “There are people who use it for good or evil, it’s like anything really. You just have to suss them out.”
I tell Julian about a recent experience at a singles’ event. Someone who approached me kindly but ended up being a flop.
“The context 100 percent matters. If you get approached at night, it’s a bit worse because they might think that the guy is not serious or looking for something quick. But if it’s done during the day, people are usually sober. The time of day matters. Where and when,” says Julian.
He goes on to share that he once asked his girlfriend if she would have had the same reaction if her had spooked her from behind. She said, “Probably not.”
“Little things like that matter,” says Julian. “Usually, within eight seconds, you can get a good read as to whether the person is interested or not. I knew almost immediately that she was.”
"My most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me."
—Winston Churchill