Freedom

It has been three years since I last played a video game for any length of time. Yes, I include Solitaire in this. I have never played or even seen World of Warcraft.

I built my home computer from the ground up to prove to myself I could do it, but when it is time to upgrade I will save myself the geeky effort and purchase a retail unit.

I have averaged about 2.5 hours of TV watching per week in the past two years, and I went the entire month of August not having watched any TV at all. I watched five minutes of NASCAR out of curiosity. I didn’t get it.

Into the mindless entertainment void I have substituted more hours playing my guitar, reading books, writing (not just the blog. I’m also working on a screenplay. Coming soon to theaters worldwide.), listening to new music, and scoring.

While my retreat from TV has cost me some valuable pop culture knowledge I could have potentially cashed in for connection points with girls I try to seduce, my deeper foray into the indie music scene has put my finger on the pulse of a powerful cultural current that has given me much more to talk about with the type of girls I like than TV ever has.

Discovering new music is more difficult when you are older. As a teenager and college student I was surrounded by people my age tapped into the latest musical fads and concert schedules. New music came to me. Now, I go to the music. I have to put in serious effort to find music I like that is also popular with my target demographic (21-32 year old women), and this means many hours logged onto pitchfork.com and scouring the showtimes at Black Cat and 9:30 club.

There seem to be two orders of magnitude more bands today than there were even ten years ago. A new band pops up daily. Most of them are flashes in the pan with one listenable song that the music critics cream their jeans for using mellifluous nonsense words like “reluctantly noirish” and “emotionally punchy, angular industro-funk-trance”, which makes me wonder how these same critics would have described an up-and-coming Led Zeppelin or Nirvana. Most indie bands have ridiculously long and/or unintelligible names that would make more sense in Esperanto.

The era of the arena band with staying power is long over. The era of the niche “let’s blow our creative load on one album, get laid like gangbusters and make a small fortune off internet viral marketing, then exit the scene” band is in full swing. Making too much money and banging too much pussy off the fruits of your first single release is bad for creative longevity. Led Zeppelin didn’t begin raking it in until their third album.

My favorite song as of this writing is “Atlas” by Battles.

I watch 50% fewer movies in the theater now than I did five years ago. I have missed some good movies, but much crap has also not polluted my sensitive brain.

On balance, I believe I have improved my personal entertainment profile.

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Girls’ Night In

I had the following phone conversation with a girl I was asking out for a third date:

Me: How does Tuesday sound?

Her: Oh no, Thursday is better. Tuesday is no good, that’s girls’ night!

Me: Is this anything like a lesbian orgy?

Her: Ha, no, we get together and do arts and crafts every Tuesday night. We make yarn doilies and have a friendly competition to see who can knit the best. And we drink a few bottles of red wine.

Me: For real?

Her: Yes, it’s fun! It’s not really about the competition, it’s about the bonding.

Me: And the giggling.

Her: Squeals and giggles!

This is a social phenomenon you will never see straight guys doing. I can’t even mentally picture a scenario under which there could be a “boys’ night in” without crossing over to fruitville. There isn’t a guy alive who would postpone a hot date to sit in a semi-circle on pillows in the living room with his buddies one designated night a week to play Uno, do a group pedicure, and bitch about girls. Guys get together to watch the game and sit respectable distances from each other on the couch, but nothing remotely resembling what girls do. The closest I can think of is when fifteen guys in my college dorm all piled into one cramped room to watch a porno and get a mass erection.

Me: So what do you guys talk about?

Her: Family, girl stuff, guys… then we talk about cats.

Girl who talks about cats + one dating checklist bullet point too many = cat lady.

The Girls’ Night In is a peculiar idiosyncracy of the childless late 20- and 30-something yuppie woman who has a library of dating books with titles like “Listen to Your Inner Bitch and Avoid These Men” and a secret stash of glittery tiaras she wears while modeling consignment shop clothes in front of a floor length mirror. Without the constant positive feedback of a supportive environment of close friends and family, women go slowly crazy. Since modern urban living shreds these ancient connections, they get their fix by taking “classes” and inventing ridiculous reasons for getting together with other women over a contrived commonality.

Women need to aimlessly socialize like men need to jerk off. If they don’t, they get their version of blue balls — wild mood swings. The fact that a girl will complain about not meeting any good men and then postpone a date with a guy she really likes to talk excitedly about that guy with her girlfriends at a doily-knitting party on the same night she could be in that guy’s arms making out with him proves that girls are mentally ill and should not be trusted with positions of power.

Conclusion

Different species. Men are more closely related to chimpanzees than they are to women.

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Number One Asset

I once had to get rid of a girl for a shallow reason.  It’s a shame, too.  I didn’t want to… she was cute, considerably younger, sweet… but some things are non-negotiable deal killers.  I was finger banging her during foreplay and, because I like the full experience, I brought my fingers up to my nose for a big sniff.

DAMN!  PEW!

Her vaginal odor instantly ruined the mood.  I don’t know what produced it — natural musky scent, yeast infection, old chicken wings — but a foul genital smell is right up there with brandishing an ice pick for making me walk away from sex and finish up later to pics of Lois from Family Guy.

I butched up and endured for as long as I could, but every time we changed positions and her bush passed through my smell zone I got blasted in the face with toxic fumes.  Doing her doggy style I was forced to press her ass cheeks together to keep the odor trapped.  Afterwards, I was afraid to smell anything on me.  I scrubbed my hands like a surgeon prepping for an operation and hours later the stank was still on my fingers.

I spent the next day smelling my own farts to get rid of the memory.  Then I shaved my pubes because I figured there was no way her sticky pungent juices would ever leave my groin.  It was like radical lice therapy.

I like going down on very attractive girls.  But even a Russian 10 would stop me cold in my tracks if her pussy smelled that strongly.  If I can’t go down on her without suppressing a gag and crying like I was peeling onions with a clothespin on my nose she will never be a long term prospect.  I may as well cut my losses.

I had a nightmare that night about being tortured by Central Asian Islamists who forced my face repeatedly into this girl’s snatch while yelling PUSSY IS GREAT! LICK IT DRY! over and over.  They called it beaverboarding.

Here’s Chateau Tip #14, ladies:  Your vagina is your number one asset.  Treat it as such.

Maybe girls can’t smell their own pussies the way we can’t smell our own bad breath.  In that case, it’s the duty of every man to inform his stinky girl she has issues down there.  If she can’t be bothered to fix a problem with her number one asset then that tells me she does not care for my desires as a man.  If she refuses because of a hippie belief in going au naturel then dump her.  Feminist mother earth hippie chicks with unkempt overgrown bushes will never treat you like the king you are.  Selfishness is a major character flaw in women.

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She Showed Herself Out

The weekend morning after a questionable hook-up I often scramble to find a plausible excuse that will gently cajole the girl out the door without hurting her feelings.

“I’d love to hang with you today but I’ve got to take my car into the shop.  Big job… it’ll probably take a few hours.”  [my Japanese car has now been in the shop over 20 times this year thanks to this ploy]

“Getting brunch with you sounds great, but I promised my Mom I’d visit her today.  I’m guessing it’s too early for you to see my Mom.”

“I’ve got a painting class in… oh shit, I’m late!… 15 minutes!  Sorry to do this to you but my art is important to me.”

I suspect most girls see through this bullshit, especially the girls who are prone to sleep with a guy on the first night.  Their direct first-hand experience with guys trying to get rid of them after sex must be unparalleled.  The problem is that I really don’t want to spend a precious weekend day with a marginal girl strolling Wisteria Lane while bluebirds drape garlands of flowers over us.  But I’m not a heartless bastard (much) either, so I work hard on tossing her out with grace and civility, hopefully keeping the door open for future loving.

I remember what it’s like to kick a girl out badly.  One time, before I had the skills to handle morning after mistakes properly, the girl had looked at me forlornly with big, watery eyes as I walked her toward the door, and meekly asked if I wanted to get breakfast with her.  It was her last ditch effort for some symbolic gesture from me that she meant more than the previous night.

I answered “Um, I ate last night.  The best way for you to get home is to take the metro.”

She gathered her stuff, purse over one arm, jacket over the other, and sullenly walked past me as I stood next to the door.  Later, when I had shaken off the hangover and it had dawned on me that this girl was Swedish and a solid 8, I slapped my hand against my forehead and wondered aloud what the hell I was thinking.  The following day in an act of phone game contrition, I called her number.  It was futile.  Her roommate picked up her phone and said my girl didn’t want to talk to me.  No surprise… recapturing a girl’s interest after you have humiliated her by treating her like a disposable slut is akin to putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

So imagine my relief at sidestepping all the awkwardness when a girl does the dirty work for me, letting me entirely off the hook, by preemptively showing herself the door.

Her:  I’d love to cuddle some more but I’ve got work later and some chores to do today.
Me:  [barely suppressing grin]  Well, if this is what you have to do, then I guess I won’t stop you.  I mean, I’d love for you to hang out today but since you’ve got things to do…
Her:  Well, maybe for a couple hours, if you want.
Me:  Uhh, you know, you go ahead and do your stuff… we’ll catch up when we have more free time and can really enjoy each other’s company.

A girl who shows herself out is a keeper.

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Dodged The Same Bullet Twice

Many years ago, a girl I had been dating once offered to marry me, and I once offered to marry a girl I had been dating… within the same relationship.  This is possible because the two events happened a year apart.  She was quite a looker; tall, slender, exotically sculpted face… and an accent that directly aroused me via soundwave.  After a few months of dating, she probed to see if I was ready to marry her (probing is the female equivalent of asking).  But I was a rake and still intrigued by the pursuit of the fresh notch, so I hemmed and hawed and strung her along and generally treated her as an accessory.

Naturally, my complete indifference to her needs made her fall deeper in love with me.  The more she clinged, the more I went to bars without her to try and supplement my relationship with sexual variety.  The harder I pushed, the stronger she pulled.  It did not help that when we went out together other women paid more attention to me.  My girlfriend had become the perfect pickup prop.

Unless you are so deeply in love with your girlfriend that all other attractive women become abstract entities to you, you will find that having her accompany you on nights out is tantamount to psychological torture.  You will get so much more flirting from women than you would have as a single man, and yet you will be able to do nothing about it.  It’s like a thirsty man in the desert with one glass of lukewarm puddlewater to quench himself stumbling across an electrified cooler full of ice cold sodas and beer.

So the struggle in her was apparent.  Her logical brain was telling her to leave me, while her emotions were running red hot to stay.  It went on like this for another year, until the overtightening of reality finally started to strip the threading holding us together.  She attempted escape a couple of times, but the aloofness was strong in me, foiling her intentions.

Lesson One:  If you want to keep a girl around, act like you don’t mind if she’s not around.  It helps to really feel this way.

Then the fates turned.  It is only when a woman makes herself scarce that I want more of her.  As she gradually, painfully extricated herself from the relationship I became drawn to her in a way I hadn’t felt since the first week of new lovers sex.  The gears had shifted and were now grinding in the opposite direction.  I stopped hitting on other women.  I proactively suggested progressively more sophisticated and romantic dates and I began paying her way every time.  Phone calls increased.  Declarations of love poured forth.  I didn’t realize at the time how my actions were poisoning the well.  I just thought “Hey, she once wanted to marry me, so she’ll welcome my professions of love now.”

Lesson Two:  If you want a girl to fall out of love with you, shower her with love.

Unsurprisingly, she grew cold and distant.  The first warning sign was the extra time it took her to return my phone calls.  The last warning sign was her saying “No, I don’t love you.”  When my runaway emotions had crescendoed and I finally told her I wanted to marry her, she tsked and rolled her eyes.

The afternoon before the breakup we had the best sex ever.  She orgasmed freely.  There is something about breakup sex that brings out the animal in women.  Perhaps it is the only time they can completely sever their emotions from sex and just let their vaginas take over with a man they trust.  Or maybe it’s a last hurrah.  I felt used for my body.

So that is how you have two marriage proposals in one relationship that don’t actually lead to marriage.

The breakup was painful but in retrospect it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I went on to many exciting adventures with women that I would have regretted missing out on if I had closed off the option by marrying my honey-voiced siren.

Lesson Three:  When you really love a woman it will be A to B.  Not A to D to B to C.

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This Is Your Life

Common American Man, this is how your life will unfold.  You will start with dreams, big dreams.  You will believe you are ordained for exceptionalism.  You will reluctantly abandon your dreams as the years pass and reality inexorably descends upon you like a choking shroud of grit.  That reality looks like this —

You will get older, uglier, and fatter with each year.  Soon you will notice young women no longer take your flirtations seriously.  Your sloth and social detachment will worsen until people don’t even bother to be polite around you.  You will gradually lower your standards in what you want in a girl until desperation pushes you to marry a dumpy oinker well past her prime.  You will rut with her once a week, then once a month, then holidays only.  You will relieve yourself drearily masturbating in the middle of the night by the cold flickering light of your computer monitor while that bloated seacow who doesn’t give a shit for your desires snores in the bed you can no longer get a good night’s sleep in.  Your one shred of solace will come from knowing your depreciating asset (AKA wife) will have as few options as you do virtually guaranteeing lifelong fidelity.  Eventually you will have a couple of ungrateful snotty kids and your free time and discretionary cash will be completely obliterated.  You will squander whatever morsels of opportunity come your way as you settle into an achingly dull job paying the median wage dutifully punching the clock as a faceless cog in the corporate machine greasing the soul-soaked gears of the global marketplace with your bitter bloody tears.  You will silently mourn your impotent, shriveled manhood as the established order extracts the last penny of tribute from your broken spirit.  You will numb the pain with alcohol, untold hours vegging in front of the TV, and leveling your character in World of Warcraft.  Hours, days, months, years will slip away.  Then, one lonely quiet cloudy day sitting in your well-worn easy chair, you’ll contemplate the arc of your life.  And you’ll feel the gnawing grip of emptiness as the crushing weight of what a barren nothingness your existence proved to be presses down on you.  Barely comprehending, you’ll shudder.  And then, finally, the Grim Reaper will steal your last breath and you will disappear from the world as if you had never been here and when they bury you no one will really notice and no one will really care because in your whole life you never never never, not even once, stepped off the hamster wheel and did anything courageous or interesting or different.

And it will be too late when you realize that the chains clasped to your ankles and wrists were unlocked all along and you were always free to go.

~Fin~ 

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Bumping Into Exes

I broke my previous record for number of consecutive days bumping into a different ex each time.  I’m now at four straight days, although in the interest of accuracy one of those girls was a brief fling, making her ex status questionable.

Unfortunately, this city is not big enough to shelter me anonymously from failed relationships.  Because of the threat of ex sightings, I can now no longer leave the house without looking my absolute best.  I may soon have to hire a permanent escort with a minimum D cup to accompany me on any strolls around town so that I always have the upper hand should an ex happen by.  The lowest possible hand is to be walking alone, unshowered, and sporting three days growth stubble when you bump into the ex sharing massive PDA with her new boyfriend.  And she’s eight months pregnant.  You will cringe at the look of pity in her eyes.

Having hand is important for any ex you meet, but it’s essential when the ex was the dumper rather than the dumpee.  You never want to give an ex like that the satisfaction of thinking she made the right decision by leaving you.  There is no better way to have her doubting the wisdom of dumping you than to parade an even hotter chick in front of her.  It is an especially sweet victory when you are with your new girl and the ex is alone.  You will barely be able to contain your smirk as your ex grits her teeth, nods her head robotically, and flashes a very insincere smile.  Be sure to rub it in by dragging out the conversation as long as possible:

“yeah, great to see you, too.  hey, how’s the atkins diet working out for you so far?”

Her painful, awkward squirming will be worth every delicious second.  Take advantage of these opportunities because the fates align only a few times in your life to execute a flawless upper hand maneuver.  One good ex-girlfriend humiliation is equivalent to a lifetime Prozac prescription.

The emotional anguish of seeing an ex depends a lot on how it ended.

You Dumped Her And Did Not Feel Bad About It

Zero ex issues.  You are completely indifferent to her and will not care how you are perceived by her in the event of a chance meeting.  A totally chill and relaxed conversation ensues.  This, of course, will arouse her enough to rush home and masturbate to fond memories of you.

You Dumped Her And Felt Bad About It

Both of you will feel awkward, thus ensuring the world’s shortest conversation.  If you are with a girl and your ex is alone, you will feel really bad and act to hide your new girlfriend’s presence by physically stepping in between her and your ex.  You will also do the right thing and stop tonguing down your girlfriend long enough to spare your ex’s feelings.

The Breakup Was Mutual

1% of breakups are truly mutual.  The other 99% are painful because no matter what anyone says, one person in the equation didn’t want it to end.  Amicably mutual breakups are great because they are the only instances when the formerly sexual relationship can evolve into a fulfilling asexual friendship.  Under no other circumstances can, or should, you ever be “friends” with an ex.  Acquaintances, sure.  Friends, no.

She Dumped You And You Handled It Like A Man

While seeing your ex will cause a knot to grow in your chest, at least you will shine with the pride of knowing you walked away from the breakup with your balls fully descended.  Consequently, you will be able to manage a non-weird exchange with her.  Use this opportunity to flirt with abandon as a reminder of the long-ago sexy man she opened her heart and her vagina for.  She will win if you act like a desexualized buddy with her, so be the cocky oversexed player that you were before the relationship domesticated you and deny her that win.

She Dumped You And You Handled It Like A Mewling Beta

The worst case scenario.  You still want her, you are ashamed of your pathetic beggar’s response to the breakup, and your wounded pride demands revenge.  With the deck so egregiously stacked against you, there is little chance you will rein in your runaway emotions, constricting airway, and cotton mouth in her presence.  Only those with the most impressive state control can look the basilisk in the eye and walk away unpetrified.  Your best bet is to have fortune favor you so that your ex bumps into you while you are out with a new girl on your arm.  Note of caution:  if your new girl is uglier than your ex, you will feel like an even bigger loser than before.

To recap:

Correct impression to leave with ex

Incorrect impression to leave with ex

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