When I interviewed the dog about this situation, he told me, “It’s weird, but hey, I’m not complaining. Double the bones, man!”
Another woman told us that in her family an older relative would vacation with both his wife and his mistress, together, taking separate rooms but otherwise doing a surprising amount of stuff together.
The mistress thing was very widespread. The most jarring fact I learned was that on Valentine’s Day the flower shops advertise with the slogan “Don’t forget your mistress!”
As I left the final focus group, I ran into that dog on the sidewalk. He said:
I don’t know, man. I get it in a sense. Their expectations of romantic fidelity are more realistic, but the mistress shit?
Seems like men are taking advantage of the women’s goodwill and they are resigned to this demeaning situation.
It’s a bummer, minus that whole double bones thing, ya know?
I admire the French for embracing honesty and their sexual nature, but there must be a middle ground between unrealistic monogamous expectations and full-on second families.
Hey, you don’t happen to have a plastic bag on you, do ya? Why? No reason . . .
CHAPTER 7
SETTLING DOWN
I’ve never been a “relationship guy.” My first serious relationship happened when I was around twenty-three and lasted three years. It began when I was living in New York, but at the three-year mark I had to move to Los Angeles. I was twenty-five. The girl was ready to move with me to L.A., but it just seemed too much for me to live with another person at that age and especially to have her move cross-country. We eventually ended things after a year and change of trying to do the long-distance thing.
I enjoyed being in that relationship, but I was also very happy being mostly single between the ages of twenty-six and thirty-one. Earlier we discussed how having lots of options makes it difficult to settle on the right person. That’s a real problem, but there’s also an upside: With all these options, being single can be a shitload of fun!
I also had a lifestyle that was pretty bad for maintaining a serious relationship anyway. I was constantly shuffling between New York and L.A. for work and was unsure where my future career would take me.
I had a great time in the casual dating scene, but at a certain point I got tired of the work that went into maintaining a fun single life. Like others we interviewed in the book, the single world had worn me out.
At one point I was the hopeful romantic who would stay out till 4:00 A.M. every morning, worried that if I went home, I’d miss that magical, amazing woman who showed up at the bar at 3:35 A.M. After many late nights and brutal mornings, though, I realized that most amazing, magical women don’t walk into a bar at 3:35 A.M. They’re usually in bed by that hour. Usually the men and women who are going out this hard are less the “amazing/magical” sort and more the “nightmare/train wreck” variety.
As I hit thirty, I started to despise the bar scene. I had experienced every single version of those nights. I knew all the possible outcomes, and I knew the probabilities of those outcomes. When you hit that point, you realize how fruitless trying to find love by barhopping can be; you have enough data to know that statistically the smartest thing for you to do when you walk into a bar is go to the bathroom, jerk off, and leave.
I also started losing single friends. One day I stood alone at a barbecue at my house and saw nothing but couples around me. It seemed like I was the only single dude in the mix. Everyone else was splitting their racks of ribs into halves and sharing. Meanwhile, I had to eat a whole rack by myself like some kind of lonely fatso. I felt like it was time for a change. It was time to settle down a bit.
I decided I wanted to at least try having a relationship. It’d been so long. I started thinking about the advantages. I’d have someone whom I really cared about, who also cared about me. No more texting-back-and-forth nonsense. We wouldn’t flake on each other. I’d always have someone to see a movie with, or go to a new restaurant with, or, as I would describe my dream at the time, “stay home, cook food, and do nothing” with.
It was fun being single, but I had reached what I will describe as a “point of exhaustion.” I had experienced this personally, but when I did interviews for the book, I realized it is quite universal.
At a certain point the cost of the work needed to maintain a fun single lifestyle outweighs the benefits. The nights when you have amazing casual sex start getting outweighed by the times you wander home alone wasted and wake up hungover with a half-eaten burrito sitting on your chest.
The endless string of first dates where you just say the same shit over and over again in the same places starts getting tiresome. The casual scene was fun, but in between the fun, a lot of times there was emptiness.