Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Mike T : Romance :: Jackie Collins : Science

It seems like every day I'm learning new ways in which I'm weird. If asked last week, I would not have said that dating has become passé, but apparently NPR is more clued in to what's happening with young people than I am.

I had assumed that the infrequency of the people around me dating was a product of living in LA, where everyone is crazy career-focused and plastic surgery has made the standard of beauty attainable(-ish) much longer. So it makes sense that in a culture with that mindset, fornication would burgeon. And with the increased costs of entertainments, "why buy the cow when you can get the sex for free?" (Mallrats)

I don't do it a lot, but I think dating can be fun. It gives me a reason to put myself through a 30-point inspection, and unless my judgement proves to be way off, it means a couple of hours in good company.
The idea used to be you are going to date someone that is going to lead to something sexual happening," [sociology professor Kathleen] Bogle says. "In the hookup era, something sexual happens, even though it may be less than sexual intercourse, that may or may not ever lead to dating. (Wilson)
I don't know Bogle's vocabulary, but she might describe me as an "old soul". Someone my age or a little younger might go with "sex camel". I'd probably like to get married some day, but I don't subscribe to the popular notion that there should be a 3 at the front of my age before I do so. When I have the appropriate elements -- that is, a suitable partner and the means to support ourselves -- that will be the correct time. That being my motivation, science bolsters my adherence to the ebbing convention.

I look at courtship as an empirical process. Romantic, I know. But seriously, let's say that over the course of a year I meet Ms. X and Ms. Y. We take the statement "<Insert inamorata> and Mike are a not a perfect match" and seek an indirect proof. Because I like things abecedarian, let's start with Ms. X. We'll say that I meet her early in the year, before the end of the NFL's post-season, but after I've stocked my bookshelf with the Star Wars novels that I received for Christmas. During this time I might learn that she's a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan, additionally that she hates all things science fiction. In this scenario our statement is proven true, which is not what we want, but at least it's information.

Some months later, I meet Ms. Y. Maybe we both reach for the last copy of The Muppet Show - Season Three at Best Buy. We get to talking, exchange numbers, date for a while, and I learn that she also enjoys French Impressionism, and teaches Krav Maga. If these trends continue on a long enough timeline, we can then reasonably conclude that the statement "Ms. Y and Mike are not a perfect match" is false, in turn proving that the statement "Ms. Y and Mike are a perfect match" is probably true, if not absolutely.

Had my fictive counterpart merely hooked up with these girls, he(/I?) would have missed out on a lot of useful information. Ms. X might have seemed cooler on the surface than she turned out to be, which could have led to attempts to reconnect. Or Ms. Y might never have doled out the free Krav Maga lessons, which would be tremendously un-awesome. I will fully concede that hook ups can be fun. But so can pinball, and I don't have to be naked to do that. Also, no girl who I don't particularly like has called me incessantly because I'm good at arcade games.

I'm certain that none of the girls I've dated in the past will be the future Mrs. Mike T. That's information I didn't have when I was 15, so I've narrowed the pool of prospects by that many. Incidentally, another interesting indirect proof to investigate is "Mike's propensity to academize everything is not why he doesn't date more." Let me know what you find out.

Works Cited

Monday, June 8, 2009

I'm not 17 anymore

One day the dichotomy of my lifestyle is going to catch up with me, and it won't be pretty. The delicate balance of being a health and fitness enthusiast and an awesome twenty-something bachelor about town is precarious. I would drop a chemistry-derived simile right here, but laboratory science outside my bailiwick. Just think violent chemical reactions.

I started the weekend at a whiskey bar to celebrate a friend's birthday. I'm a bourbon man, so it was a setting that made me pretty happy. I even made a new friend; a 10-year old named Henry McKenna.  Fast-forward to the end of the night.  It's 2:10, I'm downtown, and I need to drop friends off before I can go home and crash.  When I finally wind up getting into bed, it's just after 3 and what's the last thing I do before my head hits my pillow?  I set my alarm for 7:45.  Barely more than four and a half hours later.

If someone else was telling me this story, I would stop them at this point and say, "Seriously?  What part of that sounded like a good idea?"  But it gets better.

I like to think of myself as being a rational person.  Despite that claim, however, I usually take a class at my gym on Saturday mornings.  And frankly, I think the insanity of it is less my fault and more that of the person who set the scheduled.  But then on top of that, the girl who leads the class is getting married in October, so basically it's Bridal Bootcamp for the next 5 months.

I'm happy to report that I survived, if only by the skin of my teeth.  And I can now say definitively that vigorous exercise on 4 hours of sleep with whatever remains of a couple of glasses of whiskey running through one's veins is not the best idea.  I guess it's my own fault for giving it this much thought, but clearly I'm inching my way to being Roger Murtaugh.  I am 100% not looking forward to getting too old for this... stuff.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Notes on polite society

The cornerstones of polite society are not Styx albums. Many people seem unaware that they are, in fact, metaphors. And that what I said is a pun.

Over the course of the two years that I've lived in my apartment I've learned a couple of things about one of my neighbors. She's single and she really, really likes having sex. This isn't information that I sought, but instead that I surmised after having the data imposed on my naturally analytical mind.

Let me set up the scenario and the evidence. I sleep with my bedroom window cracked, and every once in a while over the course of a night I'll hear... remember those Herbal Essences commercials from a few years ago? It's like that, but times ten. Sooo it's pretty clear that the girl likes having it off. And the sporadicity (I hope that's a word) of these events suggests that the source of her um... elation is neither a long-term boyfriend, nor anything tucked away in her bedside table. There you have it. I'm like Batman.

Where her habit bears on polite society is the hour. I like to sleep at night. As I understand it, it's not an uncommon policy. As I said earlier, I keep my window ajar, but so does my neighbor. I know this because I can hear her as well as if she were in the same room, and this wakes me up. No one should be roused* at 4:30 on a Thursday morning by sex in which they are not directly involved. And even then, there are only a few, very specific circumstances that make it acceptable, either in principle or by law.

I've been left with little recourse to this, as I see it as an act of aggression. By the power vested in me by teh internets and the blogosphere, I am declaring a new rule. If you're doing something between the hours of 10pm and 1am on a school night that keeps you from copulating, you've missed out. Maybe you can try again in the morning, but your opportunity for the night has passed. And for Pete's sake, close your windows. There are some things people just don't want to hear.

In other news, why did Gwyneth Paltrow look like she'd been wading in olive oil back stage on the Tonight Show last night?

*Get it? It's another pun