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THIS HAPPENED TO LISA
Promiscuity and Me: A Tragedy in Three Acts
Chasing tail and spitting game with a dork
Mating mystifies me, both as a spectator and a competitor.
That countless men and women throughout millennia have managed not only to perpetuate the population, but to inflate it to self-destructive proportions makes about as much sense to me as a vegan hot dog.
If survival of species had ever depended upon my ability to convince a partner to procreate with me, 10,000 monkeys would have written this piece.
Of course, others have their own spin on this most primal human quest. In his post titled ‘About Me — Patrick Metzger,’ the author, and one of my Medium idols, declares:
I regret not being more promiscuous when I was young.
Well, boo hoo, brother. When I was young, I didn’t even know being promiscuous was a thing, so being more promiscuous wasn’t any more an option for me than being more near sighted.
Nor did I possess what typically catches a lady’s eye: good looks, charm, high earning potential. Well, any potential for that matter. So trying to peddle more of what no one was buying anyway was unlikely to cure my chronic celibacy.
Mom dutifully assured me I had a sense of humor, and that women will settle for a man who can make them laugh. But I quickly learned few and far between were the women who would settle for my encyclopedic obsession with the Marx Brothers.
The hard truth is I didn’t have any game, just an unruly primitive urge perfumed with an eye watering stench of desperation.
It started for me in sixth grade, long before social media and dating apps, when I went to a birthday party for a classmate like every other I had ever attended.
Until the boys and girls gathered in a circle in the garage to play spin the bottle.
I’d never heard of the game, but watched with thrill and horror as the bottle spun in a blur of stroke inducing anxiety. Afterwards, I was too traumatized to recall whether it landed on me or not, but I do remember being disappointed I didn’t get to kiss or get kissed by the girl…
