“The boys are still out here lying to get the sex I see. That is so 1990s!”
She was infuriated that a man she had been seeing was serving up big talk about a blossoming relationship in order to get her in bed.
“Girl, we are both grown. Casual sex is anything but taboo. He must not listen to the radio, watch television, get on the internet or have conversations with anybody from this generation if he thought he had to pull a bait-and-switch to get the booty,” she said. “This is all so irritating.”
Let’s rewind a bit.
Man meets woman. Man wants to have sex with woman. Man courts woman. Courtship goes turns intimate. Man goes ghost.
She didn’t feel one way or the other about him when they met. He pursued her. But he was such a gentleman and they had a great time together. She found herself liking him – and while she hadn’t necessarily given much thought to whether it was short- or long-term, the idea of him being a part of her life was starting to grow on her before he disappeared.
“It had me questioning and doubting myself in ways that I hadn’t done before,” she said.
She found out from a mutual male acquaintance that this is his M.O.
Wine, dine, hit and quit.
“I just don’t understand why he couldn’t tell me that out the gate,” she said.
A male friend of mine – who, of course, wants to remain anonymous – breaks it down.
“The proposition for sex at first sight is a hard sell,” he said. “If I’m keeping it real, most of the women who would be down are women you wouldn’t necessarily want to have sex with. And if by chance you get a yes from an unlikely, yet willing participant, you think to yourself, ‘Who else is she saying yes to?’”
I was confused.
“You are asking for sex at first sight, but not from ‘those type of women?’ Help!” I said. “What does the fact that you are compelled to ask this random person to have sex say about you – regardless of her answer?”
I couldn’t help it.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. This is why that man felt the need to lead your girl down that dead end.”
Touché.
“And don’t act like there isn’t deceit on both ends when it comes down to the dating game,” he said while the ball was in his court. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, ‘I’m not looking for anything serious from the jump.’ And you know what the response is, nine times out of 10? ‘Me neither.’”
According to him, after a “grace period” (which varies depending on the woman), she just decides that enough time has passed and she is in a serious relationship with him – whether he’s a willing party or not.
“Next thing you know, they are stuffing underwear in couch pillows and leaving lipstick on the vanity.”
He had me. Then he lost me.
“Okay, now that sounds like a scene from an urban romantic comedy,” said. I refuse to subscribe to the idea of a woman pushing her panties into a couch outside of a film set.
“Why would she put them there – for another woman to find them? Please … A woman won’t dig in a man’s couch,” I said. “She barely digs in her own couch, unless there’s a vacuum involved or there’s a desperate quest to find a ringing phone, keys or remote control. If she drops something in your couch, she would ask you to get it.”
He was steadfast. “You’d be surprised,” he said.
I still am.
“The point is: Don’t talk about us running game if you aren’t willing to own y’all’s. If you want us to say, ‘My interest in you is purely sexual, are you down?’ Try walking up to a man you’ve been crushing on forever and saying, ‘Normally, I don’t do this, but would you be willing to be my man, meet my family and marry me and be the father of my children … tonight?’”
“Let me know how it turns out.”
