The Manimal

Somehow I always knew this one would end up as a blog post... So I started dating this guy, the manimal. The manimal was a term he came up with to poke fun at himself for being so hairy. He was hairy from head to toe, but he had the worst back hair I have ever seen on a human being. It was like head hair, but on his back. Remember Austin Powers? Now double it. He called it a full-body sweater. I know that sounds exaggerated, but just suspend your disbelief and go with it. It was true. Sadly, ironically, the poor guy was going bald. That has got to be frustrating when you have full, luscious locks everywhere but where you want them. I empathized with him and imagined it must be like when you gain weight and none of it goes to your boobs...

So anyway, the back hair was not really a problem for me because I like my men manly. We even went swimming in a city pool and I allowed myself to be seen in public with him without his shirt on. And although I'm not sure any of it actually penetrated through that forest and made contact with his skin, I put sunblock on his back. Plus, he had an awesome beard and I figured it was a trade-off for the back.

The problem was that the manimal was a child. A 33-year-old child. And I think he might have been dumb. Either that or all the years of drug/alcohol use had whittled his functioning brain cells down to four.

The first indication that he may not have exactly been on my (or anyone over the age of 10) intellectual playing field was when he started complaining that a salty salad at lunch had hurt the roof of his mouth. As a person who puts salt on everything, including salads, and probably eats three days worth of their recommended daily allowance of sodium in one sitting, and NEVER had it cut up the roof of their mouth, this statement was beyond ridiculous. I told him to think real hard and try to remember if perhaps he had had a toasty baguette or Cap'n Crunch cereal in the past few days...

Then he made some comment about how colds are not airborne. You don't say! So you mean we don't need to cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze after all? Hooray! And all that fear of getting sick on airplanes? No need to worry about your Typhoid Mary neighbor breathing on you anymore. You won't get sick, unless you make out with them, of course. Um... I'm pretty sure there is actually a cold remedy called "Airborne."

Anyway, the manimal was starting to annoy me. He didn't get my jokes, pop-culture or current event references or movie quotes. He wasn't real quick on the uptake. If things I said were over his head, what else wasn't he getting?

I began to worry about how I was going to end things. (I'm a bad breaker-upper, I won't deny it). So when things began to fizzle, I didn't try too hard to rekindle them. Then, apropos of nothing, he said he wasn't ready to be my boyfriend. I smiled on the inside and thought to myself, maybe this problem will just take care of itself. I told him (and meant it) that I didn't want him to be my boyfriend either, but if he wanted to continue our twice-weekly sex sessions, that was cool with me and in the mean time I was going to look for a boyfriend. He asked me if I was using him for sex. I said no. Oddly, I never heard from him again...

Boys are gross

Ok so I know that the kiss of death for blogs is infrequent postings... so, sorry loyal followers. Maybe Jacqui has stories of her exciting dating life in NYC she can regale us with? Also, it's hard to post consistent stories of your dating life that are funny, yet tinged with bitterness when you are getting laid... Also, it's summer. You know how it is.

First, an update: So I Facebook friended that guy I was in love with last year who fled my apartment. He accepted my request and now I can cyber stalk him whenever I want. However, reminding him of my existence did not cause him to fall madly in love with me and come crawling back. Weird. Not at all what I expected...

On to the real post: This is actually more of a rant and I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this phenomenon and offer theories on why it happens. It can be both a red flag and a deal breaker. I call it "Boys are disgusting and they have the squalorific living conditions to prove it."

So, I dated this guy once who was really gross.* The first clue was the first time I went over to his apartment and it was in a state of disarray. But I figured since he was in the process of moving, I would cut him some slack. The second clue was when I told a work friend who I was dating, and before she could censor herself, she involuntarily gasped and blurted out, "He's a slob!" The third clue was when I went to his house and the bathroom smelled like a port-a-potty. The fourth (and what should have been final) clue was the first night I stayed over at his house, his bed was dirty. Like sandy. Like there was beach sand in his bed. Like someone dumped a shoe full of beach sand in his bed. Truth. (I mean, if you know that a girl you are dating is likely to stay the night for the first time, and you are presumably going to be having sex in your bed, which you must be aware is full of sand since you sleep in it, and I think this would be a situation you could spot coming from at least a couple of hours away since you were probably the one who did the inviting her over, CHANGE YOUR FUCKING SHEETS in preparation for your night together.) Also, there was mold in his shower. Oh, and he had mice.**

So he moved into his boss's house because his boss was taking his whole family to Alaska for the winter and wanted someone to house sit. After a few months, this place was so trashed, it would have been unrecognizable to the boss. It's like a college frat house. The floors are sticky and there are flies and an unpleasant smell emanating from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. There are glasses scattered about, half-full of an unidentifiable liquid. This is how you treat a place that's not even yours? And this wasn't a house full of boys living there. There was just one.

I figure if we are going to be hanging out at his house, (he did have a TV, after all) I'm going to need to give it a good once-over so I don't have to feel the need to shower immediately after I leave the place. So I go home and gather up all my cleaning supplies. Then I go to the drug store and buy one of those masks that people use for painting or working with toxic chemicals. Not kidding.

So I get to his house all ready to get down to business and clean the shit out of that place. I ask him where the vacuum is. He says he doesn't know. I'm sorry, what? He had been living there for three months at this point. And he had never seen the need to vacuum? And showing him where it was kept was apparently deemed unimportant in the instructions/grand tour from the homeowners.

Whatever. I move on to the bathroom. After scrubbing for 30 minutes, that bathroom is fucking spotless. I come out, and the boyfriend says, "Hey, did you notice the bathroom kinda smelled like urine?" I'm sorry, what? All this time I had assumed that he had some kind of nasal medical condition that prevented him from noticing that his bathroom smelled like urine, because why would a grown-up knowingly let his bathroom go on smelling like urine if they were aware of it, especially if their own inaccurate aim was probably the cause of said urine smell?

This was simply too much for me. It hurt my brain. I left. But I also left behind the cleaning supplies, as a gesture of goodwill.

So, with the guy I am dating now, I am having flashbacks to that first dirty boyfriend. He's 33 years old and doesn't own a vacuum. And half of his apartment is carpet so it's not like he can sweep. And he's lived there for a year and a half. He says he borrows one when he needs to vacuum, but I can pretty much guarantee that floor has not seen a vacuum in 18 months. Also, (boys take note! write this down!) when your toilet and sink start getting that bright pinkish, orangish mold around the edges, (you know what I'm talking about) it's time to bust out the fucking Soft Scrub.

*Let me just say that I have pretty low standards when it comes to housekeeping. There are often dog fur tumble weeds rolling around the hallways before I will pick up a vacuum. Former roommates can attest to my disregard for neatness. Sometimes my bedroom floor is not visible because of all the clothes in various stages of dirty on the floor. About a week after I moved in with the only boyfriend I have ever lived with, we had dinner with my parents. My dad turned to my boyfriend and said, "So, how do you like living with a slob?" The point is: My standards are so low that to not be able to meet them puts you on a whole 'nother level of disgusting.

**In his defense, everyone had mice. It was a really bad (or good?) year for mice in the ADKs.

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

The 25-year-old Virgin

So I met this guy at a mutual friend, M's, party and he asked for my number. He actually called me the very next week. He was super hot. Looked like Ethan Embry, you know, Mark from Empire Records? He lived in a town an hour away and volunteered to come take me out to dinner. He was really nice and sweet, brought me a present and everything. So four hours and a lot of drinks later he's back at my apartment and I have tricked him into staying the night instead of driving all the way back home. He used my spare toothbrush and everything.

All the signs are pointing in one direction. The universe is aligning and it looks like things are going to go my way for once. When the realization strikes me, I'm practically giddy and I can't wipe the shit-eating grin off my face: I am going to get laid. I'm sure of it. After a six-month-long dry spell, I've convinced myself this is basically going to be the most awesome sex of my life.

So when, after 20 minutes of naked making out this guy isn't inquiring where I keep the condoms or whipping out one of his own, I start wondering... What's a girl to do in this situation? Do I take charge and just proceed to fuck him? That's not really my style. Do I ask if he wants to do it? What if he says no? Awkward. This is so confusing. This has never happened to me before.

I did none of the above. What I did instead was obsess over why he wasn't trying to have sex with me and wonder what I did to turn him off. I decide maybe we are too drunk for this anyway and propose we go to sleep.

A few days later I asked our mutual friend what the guy's deal was and why he wasn't more aggressive in the bedroom. She replied with a bombshell so horrifying I refused to believe it.

"I think he might be a virgin."

There was no way this kid was a virgin. He's 25. And he lived with his last girlfriend. For like four years. Impossible. Twenty-five-year-old virgins, especially ones with live-in girlfriends, simply don't exist. They are mythical creatures, like unicorms. To still be a virgin at 25 would mean deciding to actively refuse to have sex and that just does not compute.

So to settle the argument, my friend texted her husband, D, who just happened to be with the guy in Las Vegas at a bachelor party. D must have just shouted across the bar to the guy, asking if he was a virgin, because immediately came the reply: "Not a virgin."

Awesome. So the next time I see him, I figure it's all systems go. And by the way, he happened to be going to Asia for the next three months as part of his graduate program, meaning his next date with me could possibly be the last time in the foreseeable future he's getting any action. It's a sure thing.

So we go out again and same deal: dinner, drinks, my house, naked making out. And the same thing happens. He's not making any move to go further. Let me recap that for you: He's naked in bed with a naked girl who is MORE than willing to have sex with him AND he's leaving in three days for Asia, which means the pressure is on as this is probably his last opportunity for some booty (at least on American soil) for the next three months. And still... nothing. So we spoon and go to sleep.

And by go to sleep I mean lay awake for hours, sexually frustrated, contemplating dying my hair, losing 10 lbs and thinking about what I can sell to get enough money to pay for a boob job because I'm clearly unattractive and unfuckable to the opposite sex. This is confounding.

I replay snippets of conversations in my head. Did I offend him somehow? What did I say? Could I actually be hideous and I'm just unaware of my hideousness? Should I have done more giggling and lip biting? If I had a glaring personality flaw, my friends would tell me, right? What's wrong with me?! I wore a short dress for fucksake! Could he be a Jesus freak?

So the next morning he says, "Oh, by the way, so you and M were talking about me the other day," meaning the text question while he was in Vegas asking if he was a virgin. "What were you guys saying about me?"

Uh oh. Busted. I have to downplay that I kissed and told and that we were talking about him behind his back. Its rude. I start backpedaling. And sweating. And blaming my friend. And talking really quickly: "Oh, that silly M, for some reason she said you were a virgin. But don't worry, I didn't believe her. Isn't she so silly? I don't know why she would think that. I told her you definitely were not a virgin but she insisted on asking D anyway..."

Me: Nervous laugher

Him: Silence

Turns out he was a 25-year-old virgin. Huh. Guess they do exist. And I'm an asshole.

I guess I should have suspected something when D said we shouldn't date because I would eat him alive. At the time I was insulted by that comment, but now I think it was more like a warning I didn't heed.

Anyway, I'm not knocking virgins. I'm not saying don't date them. But if you don't know for sure the guy you are dating is a virgin (and what 25-year-old is going to admit to that shit? When you are in the middle of a bachelor party in Las Vegas and your friend asks if you are a virgin, there is only one correct answer. Although if he had said yes, maybe his friends would have pitched in for a hooker and voila! problem solved...) it wreaks havoc with your self-esteem wondering why they aren't trying to have sex with you. And after you find out they are indeed a virgin, it wreaks havoc with your self-esteem wondering why they aren't trying to have sex with you.

So I guess what I'm saying is: Don't date a virgin. It's a deal breaker.

Is dog-spooning a deal breaker?

Not only does he like spooning, he likes playing dress-up, too.

You may have seen a study from the CDC a few weeks ago called Zoonoses in the Bedroom, that suggested sleeping with your pet could be hazardous to your health. Fifty-six percent of dog owners let their dogs sleep with them, thereby opening themselves up to all kinds of nasty diseases, like bacterial, parasitic and viral zoonoses. And plague. And rabies. In response to this study, the New York Times ran a story called Warm Nights, Cold Noses about people who sleep with their pets. The moral of the story is: don't let your pets lick your open wounds and you won't get a staph infection. Makes sense.

I am one of those people that sleep with their dogs. He's human-sized and we spoon. Don't judge. So when my mother started nagging me the other day about how I shouldn't let the dog in my bed, I assumed she, like many people, had heard about the health concerns that had been in the news lately. Not so.

Ok, well, at the very least, since she's a neat freak, I thought her reasons might sound something like this: he will ruin your comforter, he's dirty, he has fleas, he smells, he rolls in poop, he sheds and other reasons generally related to hygiene or cleanliness. Nope.

What she actually said was "Someday you will have a companion (her word, 'companion,' not mine) and he might not like a dog sleeping on the bed."

Ok, I appreciate her use of the gender-neutral "companion," but let me get this straight: my dog has to sleep on the floor from now on in preparation for my hypothetical, dog-hating, future boyfriend? I'm supposed to change my life and make concessions in anticipation of a person who doesn't even exist yet? Is a dog in the bed a deal breaker?

Sorry, mom. The dog does exist. And he's warm. And furry. And likes to spoon. Well, I don't know for sure if he likes it, but he doesn't really have a choice because he's a dog. Plus, he's always happy to see me when I get home, unlike partners of the human variety.

And besides, I don't really see how a dog in my bed is currently an obstacle to my dating life. For that to be the case, it would mean I would have to get the dates to actually enter my bedroom. Which would mean making it past the front door. Which would mean me not fucking up that whole dating thing. Which has proven itself to be an impossible feat.

I haven't yet found an effective way to lure men into my bedroom, but I don't really think it's the dog that's keeping them out. The dog doesn't have anything to worry about yet. He can rest easy because no one is even close to kicking him out of his furry little corner of the bed. And until then, I'll take my chances with the plague.

Top 10 Deal Breakers for eHarmony users

How fitting that the NYT should post this health blog (the real question is what is this doing on a health blog in the New York Times and not in some pop psychology segment on E!) about relationship deal breakers not only just a few days after I started my own blog about deal breakers, but also just a few weeks after I quit the online dating service eHarmony, or as I like to call it, eDesperate.

The focus of this blog is on a portion of eHarmony called "Must Haves" and "Can't Stands." I never liked this particular feature of the site because I thought it was too reductive and judgmental and antagonistic, so I tended to ignore this part when communicating with potential mates. According to an analysis of eHarmony users, out of 50 options, the top four "Must Haves" were the same for men and women: 1. sense of humor, 2. chemistry, 3. affectionate, 4. communicator. But from there, differences emerge.

Included on the women's side, but absent from the men's are being financially responsible and being committed to marriage, home and family. Included on the men's side and absent from the women's side were being passionate and having patience. Translation: women want a man with money (financially responsible) who will provide for a family (committed to marriage and children) and men want a woman who likes sex (passion) and will put up with their bullshit (patience).

Now on to the deal breakers. Both sexes hate lying, cheating and being rude. And really, who doesn't? What's interesting is that for men, the fourth thing they can't stand is poor hygiene. It trumps being angry, mean spirited, using illegal drugs and infidelity. My question is: Who the heck are these people dating? This isn't junior high where the school nurse has to come talk to the smelly kid about his BO. Most adults I know can somehow manage to bathe, brush their teeth, use deodorant and put on clean clothes on a somewhat regular, if not daily, basis.

I don't think this one is referring to general cleanliness or even embarrassing housekeeping things some of us let slide, like the pile of dog fur that has accumulated on my bed. Translation: Men like woman who will shave their legs, wear make-up, dress up and do their nails and hair. By calling these things, collectively, "hygiene" eHarmony lets them off the hook for being shallow or sexist.

Also, coming in at number eight, men can't stand someone who is excessively overweight, thereby contributing to the unrealistic expectation that American women be slim and chipping away at my body image and self-worth. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I, too, put on my list that I could not stand someone who is excessively overweight. But I felt bad about it. And judgmental. And I only added it because if someone is overweight, they will have trouble keeping up when we climb 14-ers and do 100-mile bike rides. And that just gets annoying.

Rounding out the top-10 list, at numbers nine and 10, both sexes can't stand someone who is lazy, defined as "someone who likes to spend excessive time sleeping, resting or being a couch potato," which is interesting to me since I got matched with A LOT of guys who said they liked to "sleep in," "hang out" and "clean out their cars" on the weekends. Real go-getters they were.

So anyway, the results just tell us what eDesperate users must have/can't stand in a mate. But they also reveal that the people on this site, in general, still abide by some traditional gender roles and stereotypes...