Theatre – Part 1

            “Have a good night!”

            She’s blonde – which is a good start after years of chasing brunettes, avoiding redheads and ignoring blondes.  She’s 18, maybe, hair stylishly cut, hanging down over one eye (almost) and her smile seems genuine.  The magenta full-zip hoodie is an eyesore despite the fact that it cradles a pair of truly magnificent breasts.  She’s standing behind the counter of a shoe store in a downtown mall.  I know she’s wearing a shapeless khaki skirt and that it ends just above the knee. I caught a glimpse of it on my swing through the store.  I know she’s only wearing it because she’s at work. Girls like that don’t wear anything sensible.  They walk around half-naked at home.  They lie back on the bed, twirl a lock of hair with one finger, chew a wad of gum and spew endless gibberish wrapped around a million “likes” and “you knows” into a portable phone. 

At least, that’s the fantasy.

            The store’s pretty well empty and the blonde has spent the last five minutes chatting brainlessly about boys with an uglier coworker – and I get the distinct sense that the pretty blonde pities the homely one.  I also get the feeling the homely one is a lot smarter than she lets on.  She’s only putting on this Barbie doll, stunted-IQ, I-love-skinny-jeans routine to fit in.  It’s clear she idolized the well-endowed one.  I almost feel sorry for her. 

            I should say, though, that I’d rather be with the blonde than the homely one.  That’s just where I’m at right now.  I’d like something fast, cheap and meaningless…oh, and very bad for you.  Like Burger King.  Yes.  This blonde is the Burger King of women. 

            Okay, this has gone on far too long.  You’d better say something.

            “Yes, thanks,” I fire back, not unpleasantly.  “You too, now.”

            It always amazes me how quickly the mind works and how badly time keeps up. 

            She smiles again.  Such a lovely smile.  But I know she’s just being polite because she has to be.  That’s her job.  She’s really wondering why I walked out of her store without buying anything.  She’s further mystified because everything is at least 70% off thanks to the recession.

            So, really, all that didn’t mean a whole hell of a lot.

            “She had great tits,” we’re in the mall now and my friend has issued his evaluation.

Great. Tits.

            I used to hate that word.  I would cringe every time I heard it.  Now, though, at least this time, I feel nothing.  I really don’t care.  And anyway, he’s right.  She did have great ones.  It’s a free country, he’s entitled to his opinion and it was a compliment after all. 

            Something tells me the maybe-18-year-old would have smiled her exquisite smile at that comment. 

At least, that’s the fantasy.

            A little perspective on this latest rant: I’ve been out of university for almost three years now.  You have to consider that the best years, at least when it comes to being surrounded by gorgeous, impressionable, horny, reckless girls (and they’re girls, not women) are the first two years of the degree.  After that, the days melt into one blurry, unrecognizable filmstrip and you have that awful feeling that you’re on a runaway rollercoaster and there’s no way to get off. 

The same sirens that lured you to disaster on the rocks with long eyelashes, low cut shirts, hipster jeans, and raunchy thongs just a few months ago become bitter relics of youth gone by.  They haven’t changed…but you have.  You’re so consumed by the work that you begin to despise them – not because of anything they did (or didn’t do) to you but because you can’t dive headlong into their guilty pleasures without some sort of career limiting consequence.

            Now, I didn’t get too much action during my first two carefree university years.  In fact, my last two years were much more bountiful.  It was never reckless, though. 

It was great but always sane, reasonable, safe and in a relationship.  I guess “cultured” is the word. 

            You know, I can’t help but feel like I lost out – even seven years later.  I graduated in the top ten per cent of my class and I landed a great job in my field even before I was awarded my degree.  My academic career certainly wasn’t stellar – but it was strong.  Despite all that, my biggest regret is this: I didn’t have enough meaningless sex with random girls.

            I know what you’re thinking.  My God, what’s wrong with this guy?  I don’t know.  I wish I could help you out with that.  All I know is that while my peers were fucking anything with a heartbeat, I was busy looking for a relationship.

           

“You need to sleep with a whole mess of different women at the same time,” he says.

            It’s still 2008 – just before the New Year.  We’re no longer in the mall but in an Irish Pub in the heart of Little Italy – which is a vaguely insulting and glaring geographical contradiction.  After all, the Italians are still smarting from the 1-0 defeat at the hands of the Irish during World Cup 1994.  That was a national disaster.  This is a cultural invasion.

Anyway, I’m there with one of my best friends (he’s gay) and his sister (who is a female version of me – at least when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex).

            “What?” 

I heard him the first time but he doesn’t need to know that.

            “You need to fuck a ton of women,” he’s yelling over the bar band’s rendition of “Brown Eyed Girl.”

            “I can’t do that.”

            “Why not?”  I’m not sure if I hear pity or disgust in his voice.  “What’s wrong with you?”

            “Lay off, will you?”  Thanks, gay friend’s sister.

“Nothing’s wrong with me, asshole,” I moan, insulted by his suggestion that I’m less than fully functional.  “I just can’t do that.  It’s not me.  One woman takes all my attention – you know that.”

            “I don’t mean two or three girls at the same time,” he laughs as if to suggest I can’t handle that.  He’s probably right. 

“I mean one on Monday, another on Tuesday, a third on Wednesday, another but not necessarily a new one on Thursday, one more on Friday and…”

            “And?”

            “And well, I guess you’d be pretty tired after five days of that, so, you know, do one more on Saturday then take Sunday off.”

            His tone of voice suggests we’re discussing the weather. 

            “Yeah,” I nod sheepishly, reach for my beer, remember that it’s warm and then dismiss both ideas – the beer and me as a raging sex-o-holic. 

             However, at that moment, I cross that avenue and briefly contemplate going down that road.  And that explains why, roughly eight weeks later, I’m plodding through this downtown mall and nearly every girl unfortunate enough to enter my field of vision gets to star in her own little mental screenplay.

           

             “If you’re looking for a relationship, forget it,” my buddy says.  I realize time hasn’t stopped for my reverie.  I’ve been thinking about the two-month-old Irish pub promiscuity dialogue and carrying on a conversation about the current focus of my misplaced attention at the same time.

            “No,” I mumble.  “No, I don’t need another one of those.”

            “You’re looking for a good time then?”

            “Yeah.”

            And that makes me feel cheap and run-of-the-mill.  For years, my insistence on being a gentleman, a listener, a conversationalist and a romantic doomed me to a life of near-celibacy.  I didn’t behave that way as some ploy – thinking that if I put on the act then some ravishing beauty would fall madly in love with me.  I behaved the way I did because that’s exactly who I am.  After a while, women found that attractive.  They have some kind of radar for sensibility and they love me for it.  To be honest, the whole thing is very confusing…but it’s me and it works so whatever.  Anyway, the suggestion that I abandon that way of life is both shocking and hurtful.

            “You’ll get that.”

            I envy his confidence in my situation.  I know he has his own problems and he’s less than confident when it comes to them.  With mine, though, he doesn’t seem to have a shred of doubt.  I’ll get what I’m looking for.

            What I’m looking for, at least right now, are actors in that little mental screenplay I just told you about.  The script is written.  I’ve got the characters figured out – well, more or less.  I know they’ll say and do some things that you’ll take issue with.  In writing these parts for them, I don’t mean to judge them – or make some sweeping and damning commentary on “woman as bitch.”

            But this is theatre, a little mental screenplay, remember?  These girls are just playing parts in a movie I’m putting together in my mind’s eye.  They don’t choose the parts.  I do.  They just play them.

            The cast…next.