A Bud for The Ladies

Whether or not he's interested in the sidekick, he has to act like he is and, if she's really unattractive to him, be willing to, as these guys say, "fall on the grenade."

It doesn't take four years in college to learn the wingman trade. Jason Linden has been at GW only two years and defends the practice as necessary -- particularly when a pretty girl is accompanied by a gaggle of other girls.

"It's very hard to spit game to a girl if she's with a group of her friends," he says. "They'll catch on, and you could look like a loser in front of them in addition to the girl who rejected you."

He knows. One night freshman year, he approached a young woman in a club whom he had seen around campus. She was yakking with a group of girlfriends. He didn't realize he needed to win over the group first. "I tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'Come get a drink with me.' " he recalled. "She looked at her friends, asked them quite loudly, 'Who is this guy?' and continued talking."

As questionable as some of their tactics sound, wingmen profess to have a moral code when it comes to their buddies. One rule is, don't say something embarrassing about your friend to the girl he's after, even if it makes you look witty.

Another, and possibly the most significant, is this: Never, as the wingman, hit on the target yourself.

Linden's wingman violated this rule recently. Linden had flirted with a classmate all semester, had even accompanied her to a movie. The more he was with her, the more he liked her -- and the more tongue-tied he became. His wingman knew this.

The night after the movie outing (not a date, he insists), Linden dropped by a friend's apartment and discovered his wingman and the girl "all over each other." He didn't speak to his friend for several days.

These guys appear to have no qualms about what they do. "It's calculated but not cold," Moniello says.

The women they approach know exactly what's going on, Jentz says. "But they like to play dumb about the whole situation. They want to think this is more classy than it seems."

Lauren Faust, who is finishing up at GW this summer, agrees that on one level, women know when they're being scammed. "But in context it's harder to spot. I'm sure I've been wingmanned and not picked up on it. I can be completely self-absorbed."

And the objectification? Are girls okay being seen as mere pawns in this game of chess?