“They say write what you know,” explains Paul Janka, the author of a 20-page instructional treatise How to Get Laid in New York. They also say don’t hate the player, hate the game. In this case, it’s easy to actively dislike both.

Janka, 32, thinks of himself as a sexual sociologist; his number of conquests reached three digits several years ago, a milestone he wishes he had commemorated “by having a T-shirt made.” He’s not a professional athlete or a frontman in a rock band. He has no money, lives in a studio with no bathroom (he shares one down the hall) or kitchen, and works as an SAT tutor. Not exactly aphrodisiacs. So how did he manage to “pull” (his classy term) more than 100 women in three years? “Pussy is really the second-most-abundant commodity on earth, after water.” Bold words from a guy with a minifridge.

But Janka does have a system. He tracks his conquests in an Excel spreadsheet and studies his “hit rate” (the number of women he’s taken out divided by the number of women he’s slept with). He’s discovered that of the 30 he took to dinner, he had sex with only two, but that he managed to sleep with 25 of the 40 he took to a lounge for drinks. “Dinner is the death knell for getting laid,” he explains. “All it gets you is a fat bill, some yawns and a peck on the cheek.”

He argues that eating is the opposite of sexy: It’s stinky, causes bloating and “makes a woman physically self-conscious.” In addition, “an hour (or more) of talking and eating across from a girl is too much time before closing—your bullshit starts to smell.” Or worse (per Janka), she starts to think of you as boyfriend material—in which case she won’t “give it up because she doesn’t want to ruin it.”

Steve Santagati, author of The MANual, argues that a truly masterful dater shouldn’t be deterred by dinner: “I could take a girl to see monkeys throw shit at each other in the Bronx Zoo and still go home with her,” he explains. “It’s not about whether I take her to dinner or drinks, it’s about what I do when I get there. Besides,” he argues, “I’ve never been a guy who ascribes to getting a girl drunk or buzzed to get her in the sack; my ego won’t allow it. Seduction is the only way I play.”

But for those less skilled, drinks without dinner do pave the way to easier sex. “Janka isn’t that far off the mark,” says Adam, 38, a media entrepreneur. “An empty stomach and alcohol will immediately increase your odds by 50 percent. It’s the legal roofie. It’s obvious he’s not after a relationship, or else he’d challenge himself by at least ordering some appetizers. Pretty pathetic.”

Janka does understand the limitations of his system: “All the things that make you a good ‘player’ work against you once you’re in a relationship—it’s a cautionary tale, in a way, for all those aspiring lotharios.”

E-mail her at jallison@timeoutny.com.