The pickins, they are slim, and it's 50 percent our fault

Ok girls, listen up. I have figured out how we are going to get guys to grow up and start acting like responsible adults worthy of dating us. But first, you must read this article from Slate that explains it all quite nicely. If me telling you to read it isn't enough, this is the title: "Sex is cheap: Why young men have the upper hand in bed, even when they're failing in life." Got your attention now? Read it. I'll wait.*

So, for those of you who still didn't read the Slate article despite my first footnote not making any sense, let me sum it up for you. Men like sex more than women like sex. (I'm inclined to disagree, but then when you've been involuntarily celibate for close to a year, your memories of sex are so distant they are probably skewed... so who knows.) In a society where women are plentiful, (and have lots of autonomy and authority) men don't have to be successful or commit because if their girlfriend dumps them, there's always another girl who will have sex with them. In a society (like engineering colleges) where the women are few and are in high demand, they can be choosy so the men compete for them, and so have to be more successful and driven and willing to commit or the women will not have sex with them.

So did most of my ex's friends at the aforementioned engineering college get married to their college girlfriends soon after graduating because they were in love? Of course not! It's because after four years in a girl desert they had no clue that in the real world women actually comprise 50 percent of the general population and thought that if they didn't marry the one they have now, they might not get to have sex ever again. Suckers.

Here's the kicker: While young men's failures in life are not penalizing them in the bedroom, their sexual success is hindering their drive to achieve in life. It's kind of like why buy the cow (stop playing video games/trying to "find" yourself and get a real job already) when they can get the milk (attractive women will still have sex with them despite the video game playing habit/lack of employment) for free.

Here's the take-away: Women, if we want to date men who are successful, driven and don't live in their minivans or parent's basements, WE NEED TO STOP REWARDING THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR. Like Jacqui says, the pickins, they are slim and it's 50 percent our fault.

I've never liked the Lysistrata approach to solving anything, because, well, I like sex, too. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. So from now on, women of the world, let's band together on this. It's called raising the bar. We need to NOT have sex with losers who exhibit ANY of the following red flags:

He lives in a vehicle and thinks it's cool. Living in vehicles is for homeless people.

He lives in the basement of his parents' house/Craigslist stranger's house

He is unemployed**

He calls you "chief"

He smells bad and/or has greasy hair. If these things alone are not enough of a deal breaker, they could also be indications he lives in a vehicle/his parents' basement.

He has four children with three different women, none of whom he was married to. (This is not (only) because children are monsters and what new girlfriend wants to deal with four of them, it's because he exhibits poor decision making skills/a troubling inability to wrap it the the fuck up.)

When you ask him what he does, he says he makes candy. (He does not make candy. In fact, it's his father's company in another state that makes the candy and ships it to him, which he then sells at farmers markets. Except that he doesn't really sell it at farmers markets. It just piles up in his house because he did not submit the proper paperwork on time to legally sell it at farmers markets. He is afraid to tell his dad about this situation so he makes his living waiting tables and selling weed. When his friends come over to smoke the weed, they eat the candy.) The not-having-sex goes double for this person.

He has aspirations of being a ski bum/river raft guide.

He has a fake wall to pretend he isn't living in a studio with a roommate***

He sleeps on a futon/couch/sleeping bag on the floor. Grown-ups sleep in beds. Fact.

This is not an exhaustive list, so feel free to add to it. The most important thing to remember, girls, is that if you have sex with any of these guys, you are fucking everything up for the rest of us. And you won't be doing them any favors either. How are they ever going to learn how to be productive members of society if you are having sex with them? So don't. Thanks in advance.

*Who are these women that say no when an attractive, young stranger approaches them while walking down the street and proposes casual sex?! This is basically my dream come true. And I would probably cry when they said "just kidding!" and I found out we were not, in fact, about to hoof it to their apartment for some afternoon delight, but that I was just a statistic in their stupid little graduate student psychology research project. That is just plain cruel.

**Since this is a recession and I'm not totally heartless, if the guy was recently let go, seems upset and a little worried that he was recently let go and is actively trying to find a new job, you may have sex with him. Especially if he has a job interview this week. But proceed with caution.

***This doesn't apply in Manhattan

Managing Expectations... Jazz Hands

I booked a ticket to NYC this week. It's an exploratory mission to determine whether a permanent return to the East Coast is what I really want. The added bonus is actual sex with my favorite phone sex fella.

After I booked the ticket and informed the boy, whom I haven't seen in a year, I realized I am a liar. I tell him (and others) that it's purely sex that I am after in his case. I'm human, I'm liberated, I'm training for an Iron Man, I'm going on a humanitarian trip to Haiti in April. I am woman hear me roar. I'm FINE with casual. Right? I am a born people pleaser and I can tap dance as fast as needed. Jazz Hands.

I am also acutely aware that he is about as jumpy as they come. Boy's got rabbit in him. I'd like to meet his mother, or the girl that obviously worked him over cause he is the total package of emotional baggage to be sure. I do love a challenge.

I actually don't know what his story is, not really.

We met over a year ago. There was an instant attraction, but he was seeing an old friend of mine so off limits. Things with them ended and we had a secret little fling a few months later. You are free to judge me on this. I probably deserve it. Attraction is however a strange thing. The instant I met him, I took a deep breathe and thought, gulp, be cool, this one could be trouble. It's my theory when you meet someone that stops you in your tracks like that, it must mean you would have healthy babies or something. It can't have anything to do with actual compatibility with a total stranger. I don' t believe in love at first sight. It's just nature's way of saying, oh, y'all would be a good fit to propagate the species. That's my theory, anyhow.

We started an email/text flirtation. He made me laugh and most importantly, he was just the right combo of aloof and charming to make me chase him just a little bit. The emotionally unavailable are my specialty after all. He showered me with attention, I responded. Who doesn't like attention? He pulled back just as I started to get really interested and suddenly I was chasing him. It eventually ended, as it usually does, with me getting sick of it and telling him to go to hell. I really stuck to my guns and didn't hear from him for almost a year. He texted me over Christmas to apologize for his previous behavior. It got me thinking about how much fun it is to have someone to flirt with regularly... yada yada yada I already like him more than I want to admit. Rats. Foiled again.

I'm a big girl now I suppose (bigger at least than the one who fell for ex-boyfriend, yikes, ask me about the housewarming poetry slam sometime) but I can't help but wonder if I perhaps do need to manage my expectations just a little bit. In the words of my co-worker Brian, "Dating is a numbers game, see a lot of people, hedge your bets, don't settle". I fancy Brian a bit of an off beat life guru. (He is also captain of non sequiturs and sweets. He fills the silence with statements like, "Luke Perry is a Dick" and the space in his top drawer with reeses. He can stay.) I am going to try taking his advice. Flings are good for the soul, just as long as the head keeps the heart in check. I doubt Scarlett Johansson is going to regret rolling around in Mexico with Sean Penn on her death bed, no ma'am, I do not think so.

Phone Sex and 2 Goats ~ Jacqui

So I am now 100% sure that there is no such thing as having uncomplicated phone sex with a former fling.

I know, same old sob story right? But seriously hear me out. I am fairly certain I have uncovered a new level of commitment phobia. He may be a new species, I can't be certain, but stay with me.

About a year ago I had FANTASTIC sex with this guy who then promptly freaked out and moved across the country. Those two things are likely unrelated. He freaked and then moved for a job months later. I just like to save space. Yada yada, we reconnected, started texting, then sexting, and so on and so forth as you do. (It's important not to judge me yet. Important to me that is.)

Well after one of our recent rendevous, he said: " I just want to make sure I'm managing your expectations". I think I actually snorted when I laughed. Then I had to put the phone down and roll around on the floor in amusement. I began thinking how my writing would never be clever enough to capture the absurdity of the moment. Suffice it to say, "Pardon?"

I'm having phone sex with my former hook up who now lives 3000 miles away. Oh yeah, I can see where he might worry I was getting the wrong impression. This all screams serious relationship is imminent. In some countries, regular phone sex and two goats equals common law marriage.

After I composed myself, which took some time, I thought, why do some men feel driven to remind us, even in the most casual of circumstances, that we shouldn't expect to be graced with their wonderfulness too long? I suppose when I was 19 I swooned a bit too easily. I will say that. Now that I am, well, not 19, I have things to do, like my taxes (how is it that I OWE the State of CA?) and worry about whether or not it's too late to go to law school. I know what going somewhere looks like, and this ain't it.

The moral of this story is, if you have a decent man in your life, think long, and think hard before you let him go. The dating pool is shallow and filled with man children.

In the words of the most eloquent Tracy Morgan "Everyone needs to calm down, take a deep breath, and prepare their bodies for the Thunderdome. That is the new law".

P.S. What do you think he'd do if I texted him that I was moving back East? Mooohaha, I'm mean.