A Life Less Ordinary

1/16/06

I have often asserted, as do most straight men at some point or another, that I do not understand the fairer sex. The longer I live the more I begin to suspect that perhaps I am a liar. And the worst kind of liar; the one lying to himself. I'm slowly coming to the dawning realization that, much to my horror, I do understand women. The problem is that what I thought was a confusion over females has been a misdiagnosed case of not wanting to face the fact that I am well aware of what women actually do want, and it just so happens that most of them would rather run naked through the streets of Saudi Arabia than become romantically entangled with yours truly.

Before I go any further I would like to address those of you out there currently rolling your eyes and thinking, "Oh, great; another douche-bag wallowing in self-pity and expecting someone to reassure him that he's more sexually attractive than, say, a small reptile." To you, I say, shut up. There is nothing so singularly frustrating, (save forced celibacy,) as my description of my rather spotty record with the female sex being misinterpreted as self-pity. I don't feel sorry for myself. I've had my fair share of relationships and a smattering of one-night-stands, to be sure, but my success rate overall is just not so swift. I don't think illustrating the fact that, historically speaking, my number of rejections vs. even the most modest acceptance, (that of a free meal for them and no further contact...ever, for me,) is about 30 to 1. To put that into perspective for you, that means I have had about the same chance of a woman accepting a date with me as I do of rolling double sixes twice before rolling a 7 in a game of Craps. (Actual odds 35-1.) Curiously, you get the same sort of feeling whenever you fail to do either, (Wow...okay, that was painful,) and the same confused elation whenever it does happen, (Wow...that was strange and unexpectedly wonderful.)

At any rate, my "I don't understand women" argument has clearly just been a case of not wanting to face the facts that are in front of me in favor of a less likely, but more personally appealing conclusion; like the alcoholic who blames his inability to hold a job on bad luck instead of the quart of bourbon he consumes before lunch, or President Bush blaming the terrorist attacks on the fact that they "hate our freedom." Comforting, perhaps, but not the main reasons in either event.

Now we come to the interesting crux of the problem; the fact that I assumed my poor track record with women had more to do with a fundamental misunderstanding of what women want rather than the fact that I simply do not lend myself to the quintessential romantic male interest actually perpetuated and exacerbated the problem. If, as I thought, that the problem wasn't me but perhaps some greater, uncontrollable truth about females to which I was not privy, than clearly there were women who were interested in me and I just wasn't picking up on their signals. If I wasn't picking up on their signals than I was just pissing away countless opportunities by not "going for it," as it were. "Going for it," for our purposes here usually entailed me making some woman uncomfortable by a rather awkward and fumbling pass at them, or making them uncomfortable by asking them out and them turning me down. What I had was a veritable downward shit-spiral of misread signals which led to more rejections which led to more attempts which led to...you get the pattern here, don't you? Just a gushing torrent of pride-swallowing rapids inevitably rushing toward an underground cavern of loneliness and depression.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, my real problem was that since it's been about a year since any moderately successful engagement of a romantic nature, I was assuming all manner of women were interested and I just wasn't getting it. But what I now know is that none of them were actually interested, I was getting the signals right, these women weren't interested, and I was just creating positive signs out of figments of my warped little horny imagination.

While all of these realizations certainly do nothing to bolster ones confidence or chances of success, they certainly do increase the odds that I won't look like a wanker by convincing myself that the attractive blond I've been talking to is thinking anything other than, "Oh, what a nice, if only truly plutonic male I'm speaking with." Clearly the answer here is to simply stop trying. Or get more hookers. Probably some sort of happy medium including both. Oh, and more drinking. Now if you'll excuse me I have to put my new plan into action.