Last week, my friends and I played a game of personalized Guess Who? in which all the faces were hand-drawn caricatures of our closest friends. We used all kinds of embarrassing stories to guess who, and eventually the question came up, "has your person hooked up with anyone else on the board?" which led to a delightful rehashing of everyone's previous coupling.
To my great surprise, nearly half of the sketched faces fell under this category. Some may consider this an adorable and inevitable coupling of friends ?? la When Harry Met Sally, but I take it to mean that the guys have to start trying harder.
It's easy to lay a friend; you can both laugh about it in the morning and spend the next few years trying to forget it ever happened. The real trick is getting a new girl to come home with you.
Unfortunately, guys, your game is weak. Any lady who has ever been hit on by a college boy knows that his method will fall into one of three categories:
Method One: Boy buys girl a drink at PJ's and tries to make her feel like His Only One by directing all of his attention towards her while the other 43 girls he's hooked up with this semester give her dirty looks. Conversation will either focus on his intrinsic charms and athletic prowess or how much he respects women and just wants someone to love. Sweetheart, we can smell your STDs from a mile away.
Method Two: Boy sees girl at the Den and saunters up to her with a cigarette behind his ear. Thankfully, loud music makes conversation impossible and he can let his hands do the talking. After a few minutes of non-rhythmic, sweaty, drunken grinding, he thinks his sick dance skills have seduced the girl and invites her to have a cigarette outside. Hint: Women know the second location trick. At least pretend you have something other than sex on the mind.
Method Three: Boy sees girl from class studying for a test in MSE and thinks it's his chance. He timidly asks a question about the material they both know he knows the answer to. Once girl has given him the answer, boy smiles and thanks her, lingers too long and then leaves, wondering why she didn't offer to bring him back to her place for more "studying." Try harder, guys. We may be just as desperate as you, but we do have some pride.
I've been hearing these three methods on repeat for the past four years, so it was quite a relief when I found myself being wooed by a beautiful, rugged, out-of-state engineer. We talked about Fight Club and the human condition for an hour before I took him home.
We opened a bottle of wine and wound up in my bed when he went for my shirt. Playing coy, I resisted his attempts to undress me (even though we all know what an orgasmic experience it is to have meaningless sex with someone you won't run into at the MSE on a Sunday afternoon).
He respectfully stopped clawing at my top and instead opted to pull me in close and whisper into my ear: "You know, we are transferring heat in three different ways right now."
Becky chokes a little and tries very hard not to laugh (or cry) as she takes a pause to determine how best to reply ... sh*t! Pause getting too long. Default to: "Oh, really?" I hope he isn't serious.
"Yep. Conductive, convective and radiative."
Oh God.
"Conductive means that every time I touch you, we transfer heat."
Reaching for pants ...
"Convective means that every time I taste you, every time I smell you, you transfer some of your heat to me."
Oh no, he did NOT just ...
"And radiative means that our body heat combines and we transfer heat to each other."
And Becky is fooled again. Maybe I'll pretend to go vomit in the bathroom so he'll leave.
Boys, let me say on behalf of all of the women in the world, please leave your homework out of the bedroom. Please God, leave your homework out of the bedroom.
Then again, maybe this situation proves that I'm being cynical about the Guess Who? game. Maybe in five years I will be attending the weddings of all of my friends who have systematically coupled up over time.
But wouldn't it be far more fun to have a series of fun and meaningless trysts instead? All I'm saying is there would be more sexing if women never had to hear the words "heat transfer" between the sheets. Just a hint, guys.
