My girlfriend and I have been doing a lot of hunting lately. Man-hunting to be specific. I think if we were actual hunters with guns and bullets and camo vests and those obnoxiously bright orange hats, I would hunt a lot like my dad. Meaning, I would spend a lot of time sitting in the woods in my truck with the heat on nursing a six pack, smoking a cigar and hitting my buddy every time a big buck strolled by, grunting, “This one’s yours” because like any good hunter I would know that if you shoot it you’ve got to clean it and haul it back in your car and really – who wants that kind of mess.
But she is a persistent one and she is looking for her next 14 pronger (or 12 pronger or whatever the hell the pointy things on the deer are that make men all giddy and blood thirsty) and I have been the wing-woman by her side.
As these notable exploits have occurred I have thought to write them down, I mean my blog is called the Man Fast, but it seems that the priorities in my life these days have placed man drama so far down on the list that I hardly ever get to it.
And that is something I am NOT complaining about.
It is just that my fast has sort of gone from an intentional one to an unintentional one to one simply born of lack of interest.
A few weeks ago a few of us hit up the Blue Moose on a Thursday night. The suburbs on a weekday seem like an unlikely place for the next big kill but apparently if you throw enough cheap beer into the mix any place can be ripe for the picking. My friend promised a good show and we strolled into the overflowing bar on a sticky humid evening thankful to find a quiet booth in the back. Prime location for reconnaissance, according my girls. Prime location for discreetly hoovering plates of hummus, according to me.
All in all the man scoping was a bust but there was some great girl talk and a fantastic clarification of type. You see there is nothing better the becoming friends with a girl who has completely different tastes in men than you do. It is just one less issue to worry about. By the end of a few rounds we had established that cat-fighting over some stupid guy would never be a problem for us as I found every guy she pointed out to be old, boring or far too straight laced for my tastes. We were finally on our way out and I was excited to be minutes from my pjs when I nonchalantly pointed to a guy I found attractive. Without a word, my girlfriend cut back through the bar and began chatting him up and pointing in my direction. By the time I got there they were nestled back in our booth chatting about god knows what. I sat down and he ordered a round of Coronas and before the scantily clad waitress made it back to our table I was once again reminded that sometimes a book is a lot dumber than its cover.
Boy genius was in medical sales. “I don’t know they’re lasers or some shit.” His hobbies included working out, taking walks and sometimes watching tv. Oh and he thought all women were stupid.
“Now hear me out,” he said. “All women are stupid. They just want a man looks, money and power. And men are stupid because they just want to think that some chick actually wants to sleep with them.”
Ding Ding Ding Kids!! We have a winner. The only thing better than that was when his buddy came over and said, “I just want a chick with an ass big enough that I can bend her over until I am pushin’ pelvis.” I never really understood that one but in all honesty I didn’t strain my brain too hard trying to come up with a visual.
The thing that is really sick about it all is that genius may have had a point. Not a real point but it did make me think.
A week earlier the girls and I had been relaxing at the pool, when my friend the huntress called over a group of guys she knows.
“Just so you know,” she said, “they are all available and up for the taking. You can have first dibs.” While part of me was flattered to have such a considerate girl friend most of me just felt dirty like we were sizing up slabs of meet. And I was. One was too short. One looked far too much like my father’s senior class photo and the one, who incidentally we all found attractive, we all immediately dismissed because he worked factory.
We suck. We are not good people and the excuse that men do it all the time does not make me feel better. Because the thing is, man hunting, is FUN. Shamelessly scrutinizing the opposite sex with no intention of acting on anything is this joyous, perverse game I never knew existed and it is just the makings of bad, bad, bad dating karma.
The hunting finally came to a head last week. We hit up the Bravery concert at Power and Light. My friend doesn’t even like the bravery but we knew it would bring out throngs of boys, throngs of douche bag boys in Ed Hardy t-shirts with fake tans and too much hair gel that make writing a blog called The Man Fast, far too easy.
And they were there, as far as the eye could see, douche bags in every variety. We each bought five dollar bottles of water and walked around checking out the scene from an assortment of angles. There was SO much to take in. Andre the Giant, well that is what I will call him because I have no recollection of his name, strolled up to me in the crowd. He played basketball for Minnesota but that was about where he lost me. It was like trying to make conversation with a seven foot piece of plywood. And as I stood there, staring up into his vacant enormous eyes I began to feel really bad, not just for him but for all men. Because it seems like women my age fall into one of two categories. They are insecure and desperate and willing to take what they can get or they have come to the point where they have their shit together, they are confident in themselves and they aren’t going to settle for just anything. This could be a good thing but because we are women and we are young, sometimes we take it a bit too far. My dad calls it uncompromising. I just call it being a bitch.
I cannot even begin to list all of the things women like us would write off a perfectly nice guy for. Too much hair product. Too much chest hair. Not enough hair. Recently a friend told me she could never date a guy with a first name as a last name – like Michael Scott. I have seriously considered dumping a guy because he whistles.
That night we almost missed out on meeting a perfectly nice guy because he was drinking his rum and coke out of a stirrer straw. “Unacceptable,” my friend said.
We stared at him for a good five minutes. He was eating dinner alone, immersed in his blackberry. She called gay. I called engaged. In the end neither of us were right. He was just new to town.
Leo Something or maybe it was Something Leo, again I am not a very nice person and I really can't recall.
He bought us a couple of drinks and we chatted for a few hours. He was a genuinely nice guy and genuinely interested in everything we said. Amazingly he split his attention between the two of us without seeming slimy or like he was trying for a three-way.
So of course, we both flirted shamelessly. I can only speak for one of us, however, when I say that it was purely for sport.
Each time he left for the bathroom my friend would evaluate the situation. "He is into you. No, I think he likes me." And each time I would tell her I could really care less.
And maybe that is not such a bad thing. Telling your buddy to go for the buck. Enjoying the chase but avoiding the actual hunting. And while it is probably killing my dating karma, maybe it isn't so bad to enjoy the fun. At least for now there is a lot less to clean up.
No comments:
Post a Comment