Dating Hold 'Em

The other night, after a nice dinner at Barca 18, the man and I engaged in one of our favorite pastimes: late night poker. I know where your mind is going... and I'll let you go there, but that's not the point. You see, he had just bought actual poker chips, making our games a little more legitimate.

Anyway, I happen to be a fairly decent player and beat him. At the end of the night, he had no chips, not to mention no... Anyway, but what was key was that I slow-played him. For you non-poker players out there, that means that I kept my bets minimum at the beginning of a great hand- giving him no clue to the 3 jacks I had. I slowly built up the pot, just to take it all. It was fun.

A few days later, at my weekly therapy, I happened to bring up the poker game. Clearly, it was a slow week in my mind, and the only things I wanted to talk about were Brokeback Mountain and Poker. Leave it to a therapist, but she was able to transfer my poker skills to my dating life.

You see, the man liked that I beat him. He liked being slow-played. And in real life, my therapist thought perhaps men like being slow played. Was she on to something? Is all I need to know about dating stem from poker? When I go "All in," am I giving it all up too soon? Does that make me a slut? Are my "tells" too revealing? Is faking orgasms practice for the perfect poker bluff?

Folks, I think I have an idea for my book....