I'm Having More Fun Than You (2 page)

My single female friends always want me to set them up but it’s so annoying. My friend Jen recently asked me to set her up with a buddy of mine she thought was cute. I said, “Sure. I’ll just shoot him an email, I’ll talk you up, and then I’ll have him friend you on Facebook.” Jen responded, “Oh, I don’t have Facebook.” And I said, “Well, I’m not setting you up then.” When she asked why, I asked how the hell my guy friend was supposed to stalk her first if she doesn’t have Facebook. Before my buddy would agree to ask her out, he needed to see several pictures of her from multiple angles and at least one photo album from Halloween to see how slutty she dressed. That’s the basic starter package.

Then I tried to set up my friend Deb. I was on the phone with her as she was looking at pictures of her prospective suitor when she asked, “Does your friend have blue-green eyes?” I was stunned for a moment then exclaimed, “I don’t fucking know what color eyes my friends have! I don’t know what color eyes my mom has! I don’t know what color eyes
I
have!” When the line went silent, I said, “OK, I mean, do you have a thing for a specific eye color? I guess that’s reasonable.” Deb responded, “No, but my psychic said that I would meet a guy with blue-green eyes.” Seriously? Did your psychic also predict that I would call you a fucking moron?

Most guys know at least one girl that they only keep in touch with because she has a lot of hot friends. There’s nothing more disappointing than when I call up my go-to gold mine and her friends can’t hang out, but she can. But what frustrates me most is when a girl tells me that her cute friends are single but “not looking.” Single but not looking? What the fuck is that? “Well, you know,” she says, “if the right guy came along…” Every chick’s “not looking” until the “right guy” comes along! So basically what you’re saying is
I’m
not the right guy. Fair enough.

When one of my guy friends gets set up with a chick who is supposedly very attractive and went to Penn or is from Long Island, and he calls me to ask if I know her, I’m always really chagrined if I don’t. If a dude is looking to me for confirmation and I can’t provide it, I’m the one who looks bad. Guys are supposed to have radar lock on every hot girl with a given background or within a twenty-mile radius. I’ll never admit I don’t know her, so I’m just vague and evasive. I’ll make shit up like, “Uh, yeah, she sounds familiar. I think my friend banged her once.” Then of course he asks me how long ago my friend banged her.

REAL WOMEN THROW CURVES

As someone who is naturally prone to observation, I find the study of women to be a particularly frustrating endeavor. The more I know about them, the less I understand. Nothing defines the difference between men and women more than our relationships with members of the same sex. A woman moved in across the hall from a girl friend of mine and she confessed to me, “I hate my new neighbor; she’s so thin and cute.” Imagine if a guy moved in next door to me, and I was like, “I totally hate my new neighbor; his hair is so straight and perfect!”

Why do women get upset when you’re hooking up and don’t notice their “new pretty bra and underwear”? Yes, I know we’ve been dating for several months, but I still couldn’t pick your thongs out of a lingerie lineup. I’ve been trained since puberty to consider bras and panties mere speed bumps on the road to glory. They are to be smote as quickly as possible without regard to make or model.

I once met a girl at a party who clearly had fake breasts. Later, my friend told me that she was a virgin. This annoyed me. Virgins shouldn’t have fake breasts. In fact, if you have implants before intercourse, I think you should get an asterisk on your V-card.

I also don’t trust a woman with the number 2000 in her email address. If she chose it after the millennium, it demonstrates a lack of creativity. If she chose it before the millennium, well, she really wasn’t looking too far ahead. Chicks should also never, ever use text or IM abbreviations in real life. Newsflash: LOL and OMG are not real words. Say them out loud again and I’ll TTYL.

WHAT A GUY WANTS

Guys typically have unreasonable expectations. It’s not unusual, when asked if a girl is attractive, for a guy to tell his friend, “She’s cute, but if she lost, say, thirty-five pounds, she’d be slammin’.” In our heads, we actually believe that this is both a reasonable request and an easily attainable goal. On the other hand, guys will steadfastly refuse to change anything—our weight, our hair, or our underwear—to satisfy a chick’s slightest preference. Our appearance is nonnegotiable, no matter what the consequences.

We can also be unapologetic dicks. I was in a bar once when I saw a girl I knew back in the day but hadn’t seen in a while. I said to a mutual friend, “Hey, is that Leslie? She looks amazing.” And my buddy said, “Yeah, she was actually sick for a while. She had really bad mono; like she almost died.” I said, “Damn, that’s the best thing that ever happened to her!”

I love how some women actually think they look cuter in glasses. Um, no. The whole time, all I’m doing is imagining what it would be like to fuck you without your glasses. Some girls wear glasses even if they don’t need them. What, do I have a librarian fetish? And to the chicks who
do
need a prescription: quit being so goddamn lazy. If I can have lasers burn fucking holes in my eyes, you can throw in some contacts in the morning.

Ultimately, what guys absolutely do
not
want is drama. For instance, I kinda wanna bang the chick who cuts my hair. But I’m forced to balance that notion with the possible fallout. Afterward, would I ever be able to get my hair cut there again? Does she seem like the clingy type? Those scissors
do
look sharp. The last thing I want to do is risk upsetting her and leave our next appointment with a mohawk or, worse, one less ear than I came in with.

IT AIN’T EASY DATING ME

I would be lying if I said that the lack of success I’ve had with romantic relationships was due solely to the irrational behavior of the women I’ve dated. I’m acutely self-aware and can admit that getting along with me is no piece of cake. I can be neurotic and downright strange. For instance, I sometimes Google misspelled words to find web sites with poor proofreaders. When using a new bathroom, I often search for the little indent where the doorknob keeps hitting the same spot on the wall. I’m not really a lover or a fighter. I fret, worry, observe, write, and repeat. In essence, when it comes to relationships, it’s not that I’m high maintenance, per se; it’s more like there’s no instruction manual and they stopped making the parts.

Another wonderful trait I have is noticing little things about people—a certain word they use, an idiosyncrasy or flaw they possess—and then calling it to their attention, thus making them incredibly self-conscious. Then I profusely apologize for doing it. Finally, after the issue has long since been forgotten, I get drunk and bring it up again, thus aggravating old wounds. After apologizing yet again, I usually make another comment about the person’s clothes, career, or hygiene, and the pattern continues.

My cell phone number happens to be comprised of multiple variations of the numbers six and nine. When I give my number to chicks, they look at me like I’m a dirty bastard. Some guys get a bad reputation from sleeping around. I got mine from T-Mobile.

The people tanning at the pool in my apartment complex in LA always look like they’re in such anguish. Is that supposed to be relaxing? Perhaps I’m just jealous because I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I am the palest motherfucker in the state of California. The problem is, being in the sun doesn’t help because I just go from white to burnt without any browning in between. I seem to carry the recessive gene for tanning but the dominant gene for beer belly.

ACT YOUR AGE

During my five-year college reunion in 2006, I snuck into my old fraternity house, which at the time was being used as some sort of community service dorm. As I wandered about taking pictures, a student approached and asked politely, “Excuse me, who are you?” Instinctively, I turned around and yelled menacingly, “Who the fuck are
you
?” The girl scurried off, but the incident made me wonder if or when I’m ever going to act my age. Consider this: I’m thirty years old, with three books under my belt, regular car insurance payments, and pillowcases that match my comforter. Yet at the same time, I can’t drink one beer without drinking twenty, I can’t converse with a girl without trying to fuck her, and I can’t even step foot in a fraternity house without immediately regressing into an asshole. Am I young at heart or just immature?

The last time I was in Miami, I crashed with my college friends, Jon and Jana, who are now married. We went out and got stupid drunk. I then proceeded to vomit all over their guest bedroom and, when that room proved no longer inhabitable, passed out in the living room on their white leather couch, staining a pillow with the stamp from the bar on my hand. But the worst part was that Jon and Jana didn’t really get mad at me. They understood I didn’t do it on purpose and I did my best to clean everything up. That really bothered me. The fact that they weren’t upset made me feel like their rascally little kid who is always caught up in some hijinks. They
should
be pissed at me. Hell, I’m
older
than they are!

I recently found out that my buddy Jesse has a female roommate. And like most guys, my first question was, “So, do you tap that? Is there some sort of schedule? How does it work?” Of course, they don’t hook up. But then I met her for the first time a few days later, and not only is she cute, she’s got Civil War cannons. Now, I’m not positive about many things in life. But I am absolutely sure that I’m not mature enough to have a female roommate. Because I would harass the shit out of her. I would come home drunk, bang on her bedroom door, accuse her of leaving her dishes in the sink, offer to let it slide if she blew me, and then wonder aloud what possible downside there could be to roommates with benefits. Then I’d realize she wasn’t even in her room and, when confronted by her once she actually did get home, have to admit that I urinated on her door because I thought it was the bathroom. And that would be the first night.

I believe that the real differentiating factor in life—between overgrown adolescents and actual responsible adults—is that adults eat dinner at a real table. They don’t sit hunched over their coffee table shoveling heartburn-inducing food into their mouths as fast as possible like most recent college grads and the rest of the animal kingdom. How do the apes at the zoo eat bananas? Hunched over. The amoebas that emerged from primordial ooze? You couldn’t tell without a microscope, but they were absorbing nutrients hunched over too. For the first time in my life, my current apartment actually has a dinner table where I can sit and eat. Though it’s difficult, I resist the temptation to plop down and eat off the coffee table instead. I interpret this as a sign, albeit subtle, that I’m at least moving in the right direction.