In The Trenches

Connecting with new people has a fancy modern name: networking. As far as words go, it's not sexy - too many reminders of Chamber of Commerce mixers and awkward Meetup groups. Blech.

Nevertheless, here we are a few hundred thousand years on, trying to find juuuuust the right one. But  we're not alone. Married friends of singletons are big on changing our single status, even a little bit. Which explains why I received this email, reading in part...

"I’m reaching out to make an introduction.  Not for a date, but for a connection.  You’re both single, well read, well traveled and fun.

Maybe you can get together for drinks and giggles...."

This came from a married (naturally) female friend whom I thought understood that her focus should be on finding me potential lerv interests, not a book-club buddy. 

Spot the subtext in the email with one swift reading, ie:


...Not for a date, but for a connection...

Translation: Either I'm too ugly for her, or she's a beast.


...single, well read, well traveled and fun...

Translation: Hopelessly unavailable, set in our ways or just plain ornery, we are both destined to be a confirmed bachelor or an unavailable spinster.


...drinks and giggles...

Translation: Because the thought of sex between you two is laughable.


Yes, I know, I'm an ungrateful ingrate. We can never have too many friends. Blah, blah.

Still. It's brutal when you gain insight into others' perception of you. 






Bottoms Up, High Opinion Holders.

Expecting the Unexpected

 Eliza Dushku

Meeting and dating someone in quick succession can be one of the funnest things in the universe. If you feel you have something with this new person the exhilaration of discovery is like a drug. Gimme more!

The downside of that is if it doesn't work out, you end up in a relationship with some sketchy dude who sells you low-grade shit at street-plus prices. Wait. That's another kind of drug, although the analogy holds pretty well.

We singles are all looking for that starburst of wonder and goodwill, elusive as it might be. There's no way to pre-figure the feeling, the chemistry follows no particular rules. Encounters with this drug are not restricted to singles either - I can think of at least three married women with whom I've shared that moment of singularity, of knowing. Fortunately, my better nature prevented anything more happening. There are quite a few what-ifs hanging out there in the universe.

Like any drug, mutual discovery is best enjoyed in the right environment. Bathrooms and cars are fun, but more appropriate when you're both on a slightly more solid footing. Passion can overwhelm common sense, so at least in the beginning some dating structure is good.

That's an old-fashioned view, I understand. Trouble is that heightened emotions - all I can think about is HER - leave no room for circumspection. It's all about wondering what she's doing, whether I need a haircut and how her pussy might taste.




Bottoms Up, Newly Acquainted.

Unidentified Flying Objects and Pianofortes

Unfortunately, all the YooEffOh enthusiasts are wrong. No way would aliens smart enough to fly here actually make the trip, and here's why: FM radio. All those thousands of radio stations are blasting a wall of sound into space, a kind of Force Field of FM. NEW 105, ROCK94.4, YOURBESTOFTHEEIGHTIES 101.5 have been sending an electromagnetic shock wave into the rest of the universe for decades.



If we can barely stand it, what do you think the Little Green Women in flying saucers will think?



One horrific consequence of spending a lot of time driving is exposure to the idiocy of FM music stations. Hells Teeth, listening should come with a Government Health Warning, like cigarettes:



Caution: More than three hours per week exposure to FM music stations will cause your brain to mushify and leak out of your ears.



In my considered analysis, a big part of the problem is that the music on FM is all AT ONE VOLUME - LOUD. The reason is that most people are listening, like me, in the car, with all the associated noise competition. Radio stations know this. Then the ads play, and they're at VOLUME 11 so the message gets through. Ah, no. I don't want to lease a new Chevy Malibu at an all-time low price, thank-you. For the fifty-seventh time.



So one naturally hungers for music more in tune with one's soul. Music is meant to speak to the emotions, and emotion implies ups and downs - in strictly musical terms, piano through forte, soft through loud. Classical music (by which I mean everything from Baroque through mid-century Big-Bands) fits the bill. The nuance of volume changes opens a door to somewhere in our heads that standard FM music cannot.



If I were an alien, I'd be repulsed by mono-volume music and intrigued by vari-volume music. Life (and relationships) can't be lived at full-throttle all the time, so finding a tune (or a person) fitting the spectrum of emotions that fit mine is the thing.







Bottoms Up, Turn it up to Eleveners.

The Girlfriend Experience

I want to write something along the lines of:

The Girlfriend Experience is about the closeness of two people meshing at inter-dimensional levels for spiritual reasons.

But that doesn't ring true - the contradictory evidence in my life alone is overwhelming.

Maybe that's because the whole relationship-dating complex tends toward hard-bitten-ness as people age. We begin to appear as - or begin to look for - financial saviours or mental leaning-posts rather than specially connected individuals.

My golden age was from fifteen until twenty-one. Innocent of wordly motives, a girlfriend was just that - about having a girl as a friend. Girls are soft and smell great and feel different and look at shit differently. That's nice. I want one of them close to me, on my side.

Innocence. That's the key word, implying a voyage of discovery with someone. From innocence to knowledge. And then to BDSM, but only after a decent interval.



Girlfriend Experience illustration from here [link]

Never Look a Gift Babe in the Brain

Mr Nights' comment yesterday neatly captured one segment of men's response to women.

Never look a gift babe in the brain translated means if she's willing to have sex, the conversation won't matter. So we don't worry about it.

Compartmentalization rules. Women will fall into a few obvious categories, with some variation from man to man. Women will be:

-> for sex and sex-related activities if it's clear that's what they want.

-> for company and conversation if they mesh with our intellectual/physical interests.

-> for fun and amusement if our senses of humour are compatible.

-> for marriage and procreation if our spirits are synchronous.

Overlaps occur; think of them as interconnecting doors between compartments.

In a perfect world one woman would fulfill all of our needs, or, to complete the metaphor, fill all our compartments.

I have a half-formed idea that we can have sex with all of the woman-types, but that might be because I'm tired. We probably even attempt relationships (longer than a few shags) with one-compartment women, with predictable results. These are doomed.

Realistically, a decent level of all four compatibilities should be the minimum for an attempt at something serious. Figuring out that kind of thing takes time...and really, who has the patience for that stuff thesedays?





Bottoms Up, Compartmentalists!

Dames I Adore - Amy Winehouse

It was a mistake, her name, or her parents changed it at some point, but Amy was born Amy Crackwhorehouse. As a case of natal nominative determism predicting adult behaviour, her parents were right to change. The sad part is that she lived up to her pre-natal destiny.

Amy is a beautiful women on the inside, and that's what I love. She can sing, she's capable of affection and knows how to commit in a relationship...particularly if we're talking a relationship with a drug dealer. Discretion is important to me and obviously to Amy as well, given that she can conjur pretty much any kind of illegal dope whenever she needs. And she needs more often than most.

How is it that famous folk can get high in public and never face Roger Law? They have to do something really bad- and do it often Lindsay Lohan - before the Plod even notice. If it were me, I'd be in Q doing ten long before I could say 'medical marijuana'. Yet another reason to dig Miss Winehouse - she's gonna keep me from the iron bar motel.

Amy is a curious mix of old-fashioned and modern girl. She stuck by her husband, Mr Blake Fielder-Civil, while he served some of that aforementioned jail time for trying to pervert the course of justice and grievous bodily harm with intent. Small shit in the scheme of things. But it's boring making visits to English prisons twice a week, so she eventually dumped him in favour of long nights boozing and brawling. That's the New British Woman part of Amy - she doesn't mind a good brawl, and often swings at the people closest to her (who aren't drug dealers.) That would be the paparazzi. Or whomever is in the line ahead of her at the off-licence.

Nothing wrong with a stout woman demonstrating it.

My only quibble with Amy is her personal grooming. She's fond of the Liz Taylor version of Cleopatra's eye make-up, but I have a suspicion she's not terribly regular with her bath. She variously looks like a scabrous dog or a crackwhore on parole officer visit day. Sometimes I wonder if she's lost the soap under a pile of cider bottles or a pile of crack pipes.

All of which invokes my rule of some love remaining at arm's length. Wise men understand that if a woman doesn't appear to wash at least semi-regularly, you don't want any part of you in any part of her. There are some things even soap can't wash away.





Bottoms Up, Crackwhores!



Photo of darling Amy from here [link]

Cut Fruit

Apart from driving my car, yesterday's most dangerous time was the thirty minutes I spent eating a bowl of cut fruit from the supermarket. Once those nice people with the hair-nets break the seal on rind fruits, it's an invitation to ne'er do well bacteria. The California Canteloupe Advisory Board is clear on this; "melons should be washed before being opened or cut to remove any traces of bacteria which may have adhered to the rind."

Cut fruit bowls are expensive. The economical way of obtaining the sweet pleasures of nature is to buy whole fruit and wield the knife yourself. Then place the self-cut fruit in a bowl. This plan never works. Uncut fruit suffers from Whole Fruit Inertia, which is to say that it remains in its current state forever ie: whole, uncut, and motionless in the crisper compartment until it rots.

Deception plays a big role in the cut fruit department. Look at the refrigerator cabinet and the bowls have interesting stuff on top. Strawberry halves, ripe grapes, nice pineapple pieces, mango in season, slices of kiwi-fruit, juicy watermelon - these are the temptations to get you to buy. Once you're through that layer of delight, you realize you've been duped, again. Underneath the flavoursome hotties of the fruit world lies a huge core of blandness. Large unkempt chunks of honeydew and canteloupe are all that's left, but you plow on through that stuff vaguely resentful that even life's simple pleasures are a rip-off.

Today is a new day. Today is the day I'll walk into the supermarket and choose the cut fruit bowl that's laced with delicious fruit pieces all the way through. And those pussies at the Canteloupe Board be damned! If I'm contracting a food-borne illness, let it be in pursuit of my fantasy fruit.




Bottoms Up, Thrillseekers.



Miss Melons from here [link]

Cupcakes

I went on a sixth date last night. I wasn't my sixth date, you understand, which sounds like eating a cupcake without the frosting, but a sixth date it was. In fact the daters were strangers to me, and I didn't even know we were all on the date together until after the first bottle of wine. Which is exactly how these things should go.

Date six is pretty close to the perfect time to introduce the rest of the world to a relationship. At that point there's enough understanding and empathy for the couple to weather the inevitable new stuff that crops up about each other. Questioners and cynics like me are the worst people to have around, because directness has unintended consequences.

Despite that, I'm wondering if it might be the smart way to go about easing a new relationship into the universe - first introduce it to strangers rather than friends or family. Strangers don't know exes, history or quirks, which leaves them only with observation and perspective. What better way to close a few small gaps between newbies than an evening chatting with a dispassionate but well-disposed unknown? Perhaps I can turn this into a business - a kind of third wheel dater to check if you're both ready for the big leagues of Thanksgiving or your mother's birthday party.

I am relieved to say that that the (very cool and entirely charming) couple looked quite on track for a seventh date when I excused myself. In fact, I'd say they looked like they'd both discovered a limitless supply of cupcakes with frosting in (on?) each other.



Bottoms Up, Cupcakes!


Cupcake with cupcakes from here [link]

Simplicity, Clarice.

Simple, complex and chaotic.

But is it accurate?






I hope they don't mind me stealing it. Huuuuuugely appreciatve. [link]

Love is Criminal

This book was my weekend entertainment. It forced me to consider the advantages of being a crook, especially a crook who counterfeits C-notes.

There is a downside to contravening Federal US statutes, which includes being pursued by the Secret Service. Did you know that the Secret Service was originally charged with finding and bringing counterfeiters to justice? Only when Mr Roosevelt succeeded Mr McKinley did the Secret Service begin to protect US Presidents from nutters who would kill them.

The upside of counterfeiting is the women. The story of Art Williams[link] is all about women, how they fell in love with him, how they bore his children, how his mother went insane, and how they all helped him in his criminal life. This isn't some fictional tale detached from reality; the truth is that women found this guy attractive to the point where they'd ditch their families for him, break the law for him, and lie to the Secret Service for him.

I wonder: How bad does a Bad Boy have to be before women say no? Is there any point beyond which every woman holds up her hand and says Whoa buddy, this is going too far? (Sex crimes aside, of course.)

There is no conclusion to be drawn, other than love (or its blue-collar cousin, attraction) can conquer even the penal code. But the pervasive attraction of the Bad Boy leads me to believe there's some evolutionary advantage to taking on authority. Either that or bricks of $100 notes to be used for shopping expeditions are impossible to resist.




The Art of Making Money by Jason Kersten. ISBN 978-1-592-40446-9

Jason Kersten's homepage [link]

Sticky

Wet-spot and post-bonk jokes aside, there's a kind of cosmic glue that holds people together.

You know the kind of glue you buy at the hardware store to repair stuff you've broken at home? The kind that costs a mint and requires two tubes of foul-smelling, vaguely dangerous-looking goo? Well, dating is the process of mixing the two parts of this Love Epoxy together. We squeeze, mix, apply, clamp, wait, and at some point you'll figure out if you're attached to the other person or not.

Unfortunately, even the best glue can come unstuck. Just as when you repair that lamp or piece of crockery, relationships can split along the same axis to which you applied the sticky stuff in the first place. This is not pessimism. It is simply an observation of change within relationships that we're powerless to stop.

The upside is that if one epoxy formula loses its 'stick' there are always other combinations that will work. In fact, I'd say that relationship maintenance - the same as preventive maintenance on your car - is all about exploring other kinds of glue. Experimenting with small amounts of other compounds can be fun, and might lead you to lots of different ways to stay together.

Fitting together's great, but sticking together's good too.



Pic from here.[link]

Ten Dates, Ten Days, Ten Kisses, Whatever

A little history. Years ago I posited the idea that we should delay fist sex (whoops, Freudian slip, FIRST sex, although beginning with that other way would be awesome.....where was I?) to prevent our hormones running away with our lives. As Maryanne says, chemistry is not love.

Pretty boring stuff, but here it is:

Ten Date Rule Part One.

Ten Date Rule Part Two.

At the time, the second installment created a shitstorm in comments (some of which are sadly deleted, narcissism at work) because I referred to oxytocin. I dared to suggest that women are more susceptible to this hormone, and that its power might overwhelm their best interests in the long-term. The gall.

My motivation for all this argy-bargy was to hint that delayed gratification might save lots of heartache.

The idea of ten dates being the magic number is risible, of course. Everyone is different. The point was to open up discussion about some general realities of the way men and women behave around the early stages of getting-to-know-you. The point I'm trying to describe is when a man's ardency (word?) is modified by noticing that the woman is a person too. It might be at the first date, and it might never happen. Only you will be able to tell.

People still laugh at the concept, which is fine. I wish there was a catchier title than 'Ten Date Rule' - something like 'early sex might lead to a sex-only based relationship' or 'when he calls to simply chat without conditions you're good' capture the meaning, but not the spirit.

Happily there are no relationship police, because we're all self-policing. Which really works a treat.



Picture from here.