[As I tend to write more regularly if I have a theme to blog around, I’m today setting out to help those looking to get an early jump on spring romance, with a series applying cheap psychological tricks to the world of sex and dating. Tactless, perhaps. But, as they say, all’s fair in love and war.]

I’ve been nervous all afternoon. And, after several hours of trying to figure out why, I finally pinpointed the cause: after several weeks off of morning coffee, today I downed two double espressos before noon.

Which makes sense in the context of work by 19th-century researchers William James and Carl Lange. The pair turned emotion theory on its head by suggesting that feelings are largely determined by attribution. Common sense dictates the opposite: feel nervous, and your heart pounds, your mouth goes dry. But James and Lange insisted things work the other way around: we get the palpitations and dry mouth first, then sub-consciously determine nervousness is the emotion that fits.

Over the years, a slew of psychologists have elegantly proved the theory, but my personal favorite – and the one most applicable to our lecherous cause – is Aron & Dutton’s classic High Bridge Study.

In it, an attractive female researcher asked male passersby to fill out a brief research survey about a nearby long, narrow footbridge spanning a deep ravine.

The survey, in fact, was meaningless. But the researcher also gave each male subject her phone number, in case they wanted to ‘follow up with any questions about the survey’. Half of the men got the survey (and phone number) just before the bridge, the other half just on the far side. And the real dependent variable was how many of the men actually called the researcher to ask her out.

The conclusion: about 15% of the pre-bridge interviewees called, while about 50% of the post-bridgers did. In other words, 35% of the men confused enough of their bridge-driven adrenaline with genuine attraction to tactlessly dial the dame.

Which, in short, explains the perennial effectiveness of the ordinarily disdained ‘gym pickup’, where potential dates are likely to confuse post-treadmill windedness with your having taken their breath away.

Of course, even having booked the date in less heart-pounding settings, you can still sneakily help your cause. Taxi rather than subway, as the requisite reckless speeding is sure to have her adrenaline pumping. And head to the scariest movie you can find, where your date won’t be sure herself if she’s grabbing your arm because an axe murderer just popped out from around the corner, or because, well, you’re hot enough to die for.

Up next time: for the love of a giant paper bag.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a night on the town with Rob Barnum, who heads up Cyan + Long Tail’s West Coast office, and who had ostensibly come to New York to get some film-related work done.

Instead, that week our best work took place out of the office, on Friday night, at a succession of West Village bars. There, we spun variations on a yarn about being blimp racers that was so over-the-top I couldn’t believe it consistently and repeatedly worked in picking up women.

Sure, I’d long believed that the secret to the bar scene is quickly and positively differentiating yourself from the slew of generic lotharios working their best “come here often?” lines. But I had never before pushed so deep into the realm of the ridiculous in the process, and never before seen such effortless results.

So, in the middle of last week, I decided I’d take things up yet another few notches. Which led me, at a bar near Gramercy Park, to instigate and referee a rock-paper-scissors tournament between two groups of attractive women.

I tried it again in Boston this past Friday night, with girls so jadedly halter-topped as to preclude nearly any other approach, and was stunned to find the ploy again worked flawlessly.

At a subsequent bar, I inked out a tic-tac-toe game on the back of a napkin, and requested the waitress deliver it to a group of girls at the far end of the bar. I told the waitress to deliver it circuitously, though, and to bring the napkin back and forth, between moves, surreptitiously enough to keep my identity as anonymous challenger secret as long as possible.

Which worked, in short, even better than rock-paper-scissors, and culminated in numbers not only from two of my amused adversaries, but from the intervening waitress as well, who tucked hers in alongside the bill.

Still, I’m not sure if I’ll have the chance to give any of them a call; I’ll be too busy working up my Yahtzee game and Rubik’s Cube skills. If tic-tac-toe works well, then either of those should absolutely kill.

Tallying in a recent revelation, I’m now up to six.

Six girls I’ve dated, that is, who, in the last twelve months, have gotten married or engaged.

Apparently, a few months with me, and you can’t possibly wait to get out of the singles scene for good.

But, on the plus side, as my mother points out, I could likely leverage that into a solid side-business: dating unhappily single New York women, who could then move on and rather instantly get hitched.

More ammunition for my family and friends’ ongoing ribbing:

As she’s been spending more evenings at my apartment in the last couple of weeks than there’s even vague precedent for in my dating past, for Valentine’s Day, I gave The Girl a toothbrush.

Now, seeing it sitting next to mine in the sink-side cup, I alternate between smiling like an idiot and thinking that if I turn into the kind of guy sappy enough to not just grin at a toothbrush but actually blog about it that I’ll basically have to kick my own ass.

As the last few posts have led friends and readers to question whether I’m losing my sanity, or at least my asshole edge, I should add briefly that, despite any of many upsides to this girl and her friends, last night also did leave me feeling even deeper entrenched in a ten-years-younger reenactment of a Sex and the City episode.

Which is, perhaps, unavoidable if the girl you’re dating is paid by an online magazine to write (in great detail) about her dating life, but even moreso if, when you meet her closest friends, you discover that they consist of a confident go-getting Samantha, a shy, conservative Charlotte (who, in at least one photo snapped late in the evening, rather strikingly resembles Kristin Davis), and a cynical gay best-friend Stanford (who, fortunately for the real life version, is far better looking than the television equivalent).

I suppose that, in turn, makes me rather inevitable; every Sex-in-the-City story needs an (interested yet historically completely emotionally unavailable) Mr. Big.