Your Standards Are Ruining Your Life

jtrain10 years ago

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column about how you should have more sex with women you find attractive regardless of anyone’s opinion. Some day in the near future (the VERY near future if you masturbated on the toilet this week) you will be married, and all of the girls you passed on due to some vague standard will haunt you until your grave. You will weep for those days, and every day, you’ll idly trace with your finger the exact line on your wrists where a razor would end it all. Just kidding, you’ll be more like, “Aw shucks!” But why even allow for that level of regret in your life? We should die with a celebratory fist rigor-mortised into the air, just absolutely PUMPED to have been here in this mortal coil. That’s really all I was getting at, but the point was made a few times in the comments section that sleeping with what society considers a four will negatively affect your ability to sleep with an eight. I generally don’t respond to comments made in the sections below (also known as the “steerage.” Consider me Billy Zane, up top crushing out lobster and caviar, and you Leonardo DiCaprio, dancing to shitty accordion music when you’re not busy freezing to death). I think this is a common perception, a kind of “dress for the job you want” mentality applied to sex. There is one massive flaw in that logic–the idea is self-defeating.

For argument’s sake, let’s distill my area code method (face, body, personality) down to a single average number (i.e. a 6-8-7 would then become just a 7). Now, let’s pretend as though you have a rule that you only sleep with women you consider to be an eight or higher. This is where I would congratulate you on either your virginity or your vast wealth and fame. If you are, say, James Franco, please stop reading now and continue plugging whatever spectacular woman who wandered into your sex dungeon. (And hey, what’s up, James Franco?) If you’re not, and you tell me you only fuck eights, then you’re either definitely not fucking anyone or your scale is off. You think you’re going to swim into the choppy waters of eights with little to no sexual experience in the pool with lesser numbers? Hell no. That’s like never taking batting practice or never going to the driving range. That’s like claiming you solo without ever learning scales. As the old man says, how do you get to Carnegie Hall, homeboy? Practice, practice, practice. And that’s okay. Own it. We’re all there with you, hitting false notes, breaking strings, and wondering what the hell we’re all doing here.

We’ve got this issue with men of this age inflating their conquests. We all understand the wilds and dangers of the desert, so don’t try and sell me a mirage of an oasis. “I’m definitely going to tune up this chick I met, even though I haven’t kissed a girl yet. Also, my family was trapped underground for the first 18 years of my life (mine collapse) and if I hold eye contact with anyone too long, I lunge at them to bite their face. You think I should go for anal?” Beyond the obvious, potentially dangerous issue of ignoring how the female may feel about this whole thing, there’s this whole problem. Only sleeping with, or only ATTEMPTING to sleep with eights limits your worldview to a particular kind of cursory beauty. A commenter from last week, JohnFratYatesSommers, referenced college being like going to Texas De Brazil and only eating the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. My question would be, why even go to Texas De Brazil if you’re going to have one meat? For every guy sticking to a girl he deems an eight, I’ll show you a guy who’s tired of fucking that eight. To never work outside of a rigorously self-imposed standard in sex is to rob yourself of life’s weirdest and most fulfilling joys. You’re only looking for a perfectly cooked steak when there’s a table of oysters and caviar just waiting to be experienced. What a terrible way to live–to never sample the simple beauty of imperfection. To never hear the joyous squeal of a big girl getting her cookies for the first time in ages. To never see the photography of the six you went home with, and to never hear how she tames her fickle camera. To never lose yourself in the endless curls of a wild-haired hippie-type’s vagina. To never know that the CrossFit girl can lift YOU in the shower. To never hear how the wide-hipped girl lost her father. To forego freckles and curves and secret desires. To never see the insides of their bedrooms, to never grab a beer from their fridge. The great intimacies of life will slide right past you as you chase near perfection. That’s a level of human disconnection no one should strive for. Beautiful women are insane, pretty women are revelations.

And someday, the woman you marry will not be an eight. Honestly. Look around you. You are not sleeping with eights. You never have, and it’s not going to happen all of a sudden. Water finds its level, as they say. But she will be more than a number and that, ultimately, is the idea.

This is a very long way of saying, once again, fuck a lot of women.