What is it called when you steal someones boyfriend?

If this guy is as cool as you've built him up to be, he probably has something of a conscience.

You've just met the man of your dreams at -- oh, let's say a party: Good-looking, smart as a whip, polite, good job... Hell, just a job is enough for you. You spend the entire evening talking about music, art, and the upcoming Real World season. You sense he's really into you: the way he gazes deeply into your eyes as he opens your beer bottle with his teeth.

The two of you make plans to meet the following weekend and you even give him your phone number‚ you can already picture the two of you having kids. Then a girl walks up and introduces herself as his girlfriend. Now what?

1. Know your enemy
In order to make this guy yours, you have to know whom you're dealing with. This doesn't only mean his girlfriend, but him as well and you can learn all you need to know about him through her. After soaking her in for a few minutes, make a brutally honest list of her good and bad attributes: then match the good ones. If she wears miniskirts and tight sweaters, you start wearing miniskirts and tight sweaters. If she's skinny and you're not, drop the cheeseburgers.

Don't think that by showing him something his girlfriend isn't, he's going to be all into you. It could scare him off by intimidating him or making him feel uncomfortable around you because you're too alien. By emulating her positive traits, you'll help him make the transition of a different girl a lot smoother. Remember, a guy doesn't necessarily want the totally opposite if what his girlfriend is the fact that she's not his girlfriend is usually enough.

2. Lay your trap
So this attached guy you want is showing signs of interest in you now. If this guy is as cool as you've built him up to be, he probably has something of a conscience. That means your number one priority is to relieve him of as much of that guilt as possible. One way of doing this is to pretend you're in a relationship as well‚ just make sure you make it clear to him that it's a totally shitty relationship. Let him know that "your boyfriend" is a total dick: He treats you like crap, doesn't respect you, and he cheats on you.

Let the guy want to be everything your imaginary boyfriend isn't. Guys are dumb that way: They'll get instantly protective about a girl after spending a mere 10 minutes with her - it's the simian nature in man. After making this guy comfortable with the fact that you're open to a potential affair, you're ready to begin the next step.

3. Flirting
This isn't you're regular play-with-your-hair-and-giggle-at-his-dumb-jokes flirting either. This kind of flirting will take all the resources and skills you can muster.

Voice. You're going to want to adjust your speech patterns around his. You're not going to exactly mimicking him, but rather incorporating some of his more subtle vocal characteristics with yours. If he speaks slow and quiet, you do the same thing. If he pauses between sentences, so do you. Again, the idea behind this is to make him as comfortable as possible around you because in a sense, he'll be talking to a female version of himself.

Vision. While you're chatting with him just like the way you were told above, you'll want to look him in eye with clear, open eyes. Look deep into his as if you were looking through his big, dumb head‚ kind of like how you look at those cheap 3-D art posters. It sounds pretty dumb, but it's actually a pretty tricky and effective move. In all actuality, he'll be the one transfixed in your gaze. If you can pull it off, you'll practically be able to see him gravitating towards you.

Touch. So you're working the first two techniques and you two seem to be getting on famously. Everything is working like clockwork, but he still needs a nudge. What you want to do is take it up a notch: use physical contact. The only successful kind is the "accidental" touch. You know, you're both in a crowded room, other people are trying to get by and - oops‚ you just accidentally brushed your arm against his chest. The trick here is that you don't want to make it obvious. In other words, don't smother him with your boobies or use his crotch as leverage when you get up from the couch the two of you are sitting on. If he starts to return your contact, do not allow yourself to get bolder with yours. Let him stew until you see him again.

4. Reap the rewards
By now, this guy wants you and he wants you bad. If you've followed steps 1 through 3 in previous encounters with him, all you have to do now is let him set up another date for the two of you alone. Most likely, he'll arrange for a quiet night at a restaurant followed by an evening of "watching videos" back at his house. Just sit back and enjoy your just desserts.

One final word of advice: If this guy you're having a hot affair with all of a sudden wants to see you exclusively, tell him to go screw himself. After all, who'd want to date a cheater?

Media Platforms Design Team

Have a crush on a guy who's taken? According to a new study, if he's good enough for you in the first place, he won't leave his current girlfriend for you. Research published in the Journal of Research in Personality showed that people who were "poached" from an old relationship tend to be worse at keeping the new one going.

Researchers tracked 138 heterosexual people (the study did not track gay or lesbian relationships) over nine weeks. All the participants were in relationships ranging from zero to 36 months. Both men and women who were "poached" out of another relationship started the study saying they were less satisfied in their new coupling than people who were not poached. They also were less committed, actively sought out alternatives, and cheated on their significant others more. And as the relationships progressed, things only got worse.

A follow-up study sought to figure out why poached people were less committed. Researchers asked 219 more heterosexual participants to fill out a survey about their current relationship, plus their personality and attitudes. What they found did not look good. "Individuals who were successfully mate poached by their current partners tend to be socially passive, not particularly nice to others, careless and irresponsible, and narcissistic," lead researcher Joshua Foster wrote.

All of this makes sense; if you're unable to maintain an intimate, faithful relationship, you're more likely to leave your current partner for someone else. So think of that next time you want to steal someone's boyfriend — if he's willing to leave his girlfriend, he might do the same thing to you later on.

[H/T io9

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As you've probably noticed, the slang synonyms for "term" are listed above. Note that due to the nature of the algorithm, some results returned by your query may only be concepts, ideas or words that are related to "term" (perhaps tenuously). This is simply due to the way the search algorithm works.

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