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Dates
Tom Wolfe once implied in an interview that there was much to gauge about America by asking college-aged men how many dates they had to go on before … ya know. If we factor out boastfulness and put pretending he got honest answers to the side, he noticed a trend that developed from the sixties when he began asking. As decades passed, the responses went from five to four, three to two, to one, until, by the time he was researching for his third novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, the most common he received was, “dates?…”
Anybody who knows anything about youth culture knows that dates are done for. For now, anyway.
Now the fact that Wolfe knew to frame the question that way already said something about how a patriotic skeptic understood our culture. Whether or not he put much stock in the idea that there was a burgeoning two Americas, I couldn’t say. But for now, the hookup scene is what’s happening. It’s an ick-fest for the bold; blech-y for the blacked out. It’s gross. Worst of all, it’s consensual.
*****
Bad as things are, it’s not what you think. There have never been more 25-year-old virgins in the history of Earth. It’s especially sad because I doubt there’s ever been a time when fellas have ever felt more shame for being virgins. “Incels” is what they’re called now. The prehistoric dilemma of all single dude-dom is supposedly noteworthy nowadays. It isn’t. The lack of work ethic is. But the lack of clear expectations preclude running on the wheel. For starters, it helps if someone sets up the carrot.
Even when we set aside super spreaders, the problem remains. Boys do not ask girls to accompany them to dinner and motion picture entertainment. If and when … ya know … happens, there isn’t much of period of time before … you get the idea. I can’t even say which is the bigger issue! It’s probably worse the way it all goes down when it goes down. But the rarity of it all isn’t entirely unrelated to Harry opting to become Sally.
From what I can see, the funky way of contemporary coupling goes thusly: young people go to bars or parties. Then they drink too much. In the process, they work up nerve. They pair up and “get outta here.” Happenings happen. A few months go by, parents visit town, and the girl works up another kind of nerve, soberly this time.
“Soooo … am I your girlfriend?”
Guy says, “Uh … yeah.”
It’s not the stuff “happily ever after” is made of.
I’m sure it’s not the whole thing, hopefully just a dismal tide. But this datelessness is worth penciling in, no? I wonder if young people could do each other right by agreeing to more reasonable expectations. I suspect they need to be told in order to have them in the first place. Perhaps sex education has been left to creeps – whether credentialed school board members who direct seventh-grade biology teachers or the pimply seventh graders who’ve been lying about their exploits since before they even earned pimples – for too long.
#savethedate
Published in General
Actually that was just in terms of the movie. In terms of real life, there are a whole bunch of women I would prefer to an Orgasmatron.
What if it came with a sandwich attachment?
I make my own sandwiches.
But you can eat one while in the Orgasmatron!