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And I wonder who’ll stop the rain?
by ezy at 11:51 AM on September 15, 2003
Damn! When it rains it sure does pour huh? This old adage seems to have taken on a life of its own and wants to have some of mine. What the hell am I talking about? Well, here goes.
What is it with women and guys that have significant others? Do our pheromones change or something. I have been hit on more times this last two months, or so, than I can even count. The gym, the grocery store, the liquor store, the freakin’ Home Depot, at a convenience store et. al. This got me to feeling pretty good about myself then I began to give it some serious thought. Before Amy and I were dating things just weren’t so. I could get a date if I wanted one but these wanton come-ons weren’t a part of my life. Well, unless you count the satanic mistress and that ended up being a waste of time. The visual quality, of these women, is also alarming. They have been smoking hot to the last one. A couple I would even deem well out of my league. So, back to my original question, what the hell is different? I’m three to five pounds heavier but nothing else has changed that I can see. Do guys just have a look of desperation or something when we’re single? Do we smell like spoiled milk? Do we look a bit tussled? Do we have drool stains on the front of our shirts and dried snot on our sleeves from wiping. Anyone?
In one instance I was shopping, at the supermarket, getting things to cook for dinner and saw this nice looking woman picking some soup from the shelf a few feet away. She turned, smiled, and I smiled back. Nothing big, just being decent. I went about my shopping and noticed, after a while, that I was seeing quite a bit of her during our shopping experience. I finished up and went to check out. She pulls her cart right up behind me in line. A tabloid caught my eye and made me laugh. She piped in that it was, also, the most ridiculous thing she’d ever seen then struck up a conversation. She asked me the usual questions then got down to it. “I find you very attractive” she said rather matter of fact. I told her thank you and started to gather my bags. “Would you like to go see a movie later tonight?” she then asked. I informed her that I was seriously involved with someone, didn’t think it would be a good idea and then thanked her for the offer. No big deal right? Wrong. When are people this straight forward and actually tell you what they want without you first having to dig for it. I don’t get it. The other times have been offered phone numbers, a couple of lingering looks that went on almost long enough to make them uncomfortable, and one lady at Home Depot who tried to impress me with her knowledge of hand drills while repeatedly flipping her hair. This is very perplexing, to say the very least, to a male who isn’t great looking enough to warrant this type of attention or behavior. Why does this phenomenon seem to happen most frequently when I have someone I am involved with but not during the single times? I really don’t care who comes on to me though. I have found everything I want in Amy and intend to protect that with everything I have. It’s just amusing to me that this doesn’t happen when I am not in a relationship. What’s the deal ladies?
comments (18)
ahh ezy. good to see you back again, mate. unfortunately, i can't proffer any wisdom on this particular subject. and it fucks me up too much to even think about it.
by lajoie at September 15, 2003 12:07 PM
A couple of very general, not necessarily valid theories about taken men:
Aloofness is very appealing. The men that don't look like they are on the hunt are more challenging.
Confidence is very appealing. When you have a significant other, it often changes your walk a bit, changes your attitude a bit. In a way, unfortunately, that makes you much more attractive.
Taken men, when interacting with women, even in such superficial ways as eye contact, have a different flavor. Because you have a girlfriend, you behave more like the Nice Guy at the Coffee Shop Who Will Meaningfully Converse with Us and less like the Rabidly Horny Guy at the Bar Who Wants to Fuck Us Six Ways from Saturday Then Never Look Back.
by Linz at September 15, 2003 12:29 PM
Lajoie, what's up man. Good to be back. This is a disturbing subject huh?
Linz, I learned respect for women at a very young age and have never, well almost never, felt intimidated by them. I always got along with women in high school and this continues to the present. I don't believe I carry myself too differently now than I always do. I am happier inside but have always been good at putting on the facade of happiness even when that wasn't the case. I have seen the guys you describe above. The ones who look ready to lift their legs and piss on the floor or start humping legs never cease to amuse me. That is what throws me a bit. This situation seems to happen to all guys. At least it has happened to all of my friends. Those guys run the spectrum from aloofness to leg humpers but whenever they get a girlfriend they are propositioned more regularly across the board. Maybe it's something only ladies pick up on?
by Ezy at September 15, 2003 1:16 PM
funny...i thought about this yoko ono art piece (cut-piece) when ezy posted this, and now it's in the news today.
(http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030915/ap_en_ce/france_yoko_ono)
in this one, people come up on stage, one by one and are handed scissors to cut off a piece of her clothing as she stands motionless. there are no real rules, only implied. yet most people just snip off a cuff, or a strap. but this one guy went wild in the middle of the piece and cut way more than his share, baring her to near nudity. he got booed. i remember thinking, at the time, that he must be single...and then wondering how exactly i knew this. i think it was his lecherous smirk.
body language is everything.
by lajoie at September 15, 2003 1:20 PM
Yoko Ono. Nudity. Now that is disturbing.
by Ezy at September 15, 2003 1:31 PM
yoko gets a bad rap. humorous yoko tangent -- a while back yoko had a show at the museum of modern art. it was pretty interesting actually, but that's off the subject. one of her exhibits was a telephone. nothing unusual, yet it rang once a day, and any casual visitor could pick it up. it was yoko. she calls just to chit chat with any museum patron lucky enough to be around at the right time. now, a second hand friend picked up the phone (as some people would do, just to see if it worked) and dialed up their cell phone when the guard wasn't looking. the cell phone captured the number of the exhibit phone and so this person started calling the phone, insisting that they were in fact yoko. god knows what they said to all the people that were pranked. i only heard about a few playful conversations. but it could have gotten ugly.
if it was me, i think i would have weilded my yoko power unsparingly. also i would have asked for credit card info.
by lajoie ono at September 15, 2003 4:34 PM
Agree with Linz about the confidence/aloofness/not seeming like you're on the make thing. I've also observed that the more beautiful your SO is, the more you are approached. Maybe a competiveness thing?
I had a similarly chilling grocery store experience. I'm doing the full family trip and so is a mother with child in tow. We go to all the same aisles to choose all the same stuff. Out of nowhere she whirls around and starts berating me, as she thought I was stalking her. Bah!
And you don't have a league. Everyone is fair game. (Just look at Amy.) This I learned when me and my hooligan pals stormed the Waldorf-Astoria bar only to find all the Miss Canada contestents there.
by anna at September 15, 2003 5:25 PM
Everyone... FYI... mg got hitched! Congrats, you crazy kids!
by Eviltom at September 15, 2003 7:32 PM
ok. so i'm a relative newby. green. wet behind the ears on the body of bad sam, so i went hunting. after eviltom's bomb (see above) i went checking back through all recent mg posts that may have made mention of a girl. any girl really. just one he'd be marrying. i didn't find one. so what the hell is going on around here?
by lajoie at September 15, 2003 9:06 PM
and another thing. anna, you can't get away with alluding to the miss maple leaf story and not spill beans.
ok maybe you can. but i'd like it if you didn't.
by lajoie at September 15, 2003 9:08 PM
Yeah, MG couldn't have possibly gotten hitched... or could he?? Maybe he found a truly hot librarian type in his 9 a.m. lecture, and one morning she took off her glasses and undid her hair bun (shaking it out over her shoulders, of course), and off they were to Atlantic City, or whatever the East Coast equivalent of Las Vegas is. Where do East Coasters go when they get smashed and decide to get hitched, anyways?
Ezy I agree with Linz and Anna, I think your relationship is giving you some sort of extra glow on top of your usual genial demeanor. Like those Viagra commercials... "did you lose some weight?" Maybe this is a glow even players (and to be fair, skank-ass 'hos) have access to.
I heard there was once a Yoko Ono exhibit where visitors could climb a nine-foot tall ladder and pick up a magnifying glass at the top of the ladder to read a tiny word printed on the ceiling. The word was "Yes". I thought that was really cute and sweet. Made up for the whole breaking-up-the-Beatles thing :P
by jean at September 16, 2003 4:35 AM
Well, they were staying there and their chaperones were asleep on the job. We had no place to stay and Chinatown vandals had stripped our cars bare. What to do? Get drunk on vastly overpriced drinks.Warily approach the Canadian gals only to discover that they were not only accessible but friendly as well...
No, MG has never alluded to any gal in recent memory, at least that I've noticed. If it's true, congrats!
by anna at September 16, 2003 6:48 AM
MG has had the same girlfriend on & off for a long time, but it's been on for quite a while... I believe it. If it's true, congratulations boy!!! = ) Look forward to meeting her someday when this whole get-together happens.
by Linz at September 16, 2003 7:56 AM
yes jean, i heard about that yoko piece. i like that one too. in the recent retrospective, they had the ladder from it. but you couldn't climb it and there was nothing written above. yoko took it in the can for the whole beatles thing when really, the break up would have happened anyway. paul is just too much of a prick.
i thought perhaps my sleuthy backreading was not deep enough...come to find out, mg's just hording girls. well shit, on behalf of all the people that don't really know you, mg, congratulations! may your new wife be fecund and your old wives keep quiet.
by lajoie at September 16, 2003 9:54 AM
Could this be the someone he took with him to Florida but never would come clean about? Well, MG, if this bit of news is true then I wish you all the best my man. Love one another and be happy bro.
Anna, I don't disagree with you too often but I believe there is, totally, a league system when it comes to the opposite sex. If you think about it, how often do you see couples together where one is extremely more attractive than the other. The couples I see walking around are, usually, pretty well matched in the looks department. When we run across that one couple that doesn't match up what do we do? We say "I wonder why the hell she/he is with him/her." I've found that most people try to go out with others they think they have a chance with and avoid those who they deem out of their grasp. I'm not saying dating out of your league isn't possible or doesn't happen; hell, I've dated a few women who were models and never understood how I did it. Maybe this practice is self imposed but I believe it is a reality. Good score on the Miss Canada contestants, eh.
Jean, I'm not sure what the deal is. I would like to see a study done. I think it would be interesting to find out what the hell is going on here. Maybe you and Linz are right. Maybe there is a glow that I don't notice or an inaccessablility that involuntarily kicks in when you're content and happy with your girl/guy. I've never noticed this happen with women though. Hmmmm. Atlantic City to answer your East Coast where to make mistakes that will haunt you question.
by Ezy at September 16, 2003 9:55 AM
Good point about mismatched couples. If the guy's the dog you tend to figure it's about money while if it's the girl, well, I dunno. I know a good-looking, thin guy who's married to a total heffer who brings nothing to the table socially. Beats me.
by anna at September 16, 2003 6:28 PM
each time i see a good looking girl with a dumpy guy, i think it's about money or unforeseen talent. yet each time i see a good looking guy with a frumpy girl i think to myself "god bless that bastard. he must be a really good person". and i don't think about money. even though i know better.
that's fucked up.
by lajoie at September 16, 2003 7:50 PM
That is fucked up but it's the truth. The double standard is alive and well in America.
I know I have dated a few women that my friends threatened to have me committed for. Those usually happened in a setting where I got the time to get to know them over a period of time and decided that looks weren't as important as the way they made me laugh or feel. They didn't work out, as I am not with them today, but I wonder if it was me unwilling to ignore the looks and comments from others or something else entirely that doomed them. This will require a little more thought.
by Ezy at September 17, 2003 12:40 PM