After a solid week or two of maneuvering, I’d managed to stack dates four deep by the time this weekend finally sauntered in. This is neither my usual M.O. nor preference — I’m a quality over quantity man any day. And frankly, my favorite quantity is “one”. As the bastard said though, you don’t go to war with the army you want, you go to war with the army you have. And all’s fair, right?
Not only is it not my natural instinct to pursue more than one romantic interest at a time, but it goes against every basic understanding of Murphy’s Law and good sense to do what I did — scheduling four within forty-eight hours.
I have discussed this with friends over the years ad nauseum, and the consensus hasn’t budged — hate the player and/or the game all you want to, but this approach works. By “works” I don’t mean “will get you laid” (although that may be true as well), I mean “will keep you from spending stupid amounts of time unnecessarily alone.”
Your dates will cancel. They will stand you up. Jello-like loose plans to get together Saturday night will never actually solidify into a specific time and place at all. Some clever researcher has probably gathered statistics on this, and while it would satisfy my intellectual curiosity, I can’t help but think it varies widely from person to person. How generally attractive are you to the opposite sex? What kinds of people do you go out with? What venues / situations / etc do you meet them in? And, perhaps most importantly, do you aim high or low (so-to-speak)?
A good friend reminded me that we are all monkeys — highly intelligent monkeys (perhaps some of us), but monkeys. And monkeys just want to have monkey sex. A lot of monkey sex. Genetic imperative and all that. You don’t have to like it or even behave like it, but Darwin doesn’t give a goddamn how it makes you feel. At the end of the day, everyone wants to have the most, best sex with the most, best partners they can.
Friday night I went to a show by myself. Doing this makes me itch with anxiety, but I’ve been practicing my Don’t Give A Shit face, and after a good amount of faking it, I’m beginning to make it. Four women who want to go out with me, and I couldn’t get one of them to agree to Friday. However, I knew the shape and size of my little black book even if no one else there did, and the old mojo was therefore in a happy place. I caught a few smiles and did a little flirting, didn’t catch any traction and didn’t feel like I needed to be disappointed. When the bar flipped the lights on at closing, I was talking to, not one, but two pretty grad students. It was all nowhere fast, but good fun none-the-less.
Saturday had me sweating — by late afternoon I’d not heard from either Woman 1 or Woman 2. I’d already decided not to play favorites — it was going to be first come, first served. As afternoon became evening, I just knew that I was going to get myself busted double-booking. Two points: 1) Woman 1 called and we had a fine time, thanks (more on this later), but Woman 2 was MIA. No harm, no foul. 2) Even had there been a conflict (which I’m arguing isn’t statistically likely), it makes you more desirable to be unavailable. Note: don’t get too cocky and cancel a re-scheduled date.
Sunday was easier. Woman 3 and I are currently platonic (we’ll see about that) and scheduled brunch. Woman 4 wasn’t available until later in the afternoon. Safe enough — I figured the worst case scenario was that I’d end up sleeping with Woman 1 or Woman 2 making it impossible to guarantee keeping my brunch date, and/or awkward to get a private moment to text an apologetic cancellation. Altogether, that’s a pretty fantastic worst-case.
Naturally, I know assuming I can get away with this repeatedly puts me on a collision course with disaster. It worked out beautifully this time, but one cannot roll the dice and avoid snake-eyes indefinitely. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Also: T-minus one hour until coffee with the woman mentioned in the last post. Still not quite sure how to handle this ill-gotten knowledge.