Of The Times and Whether Or Not They In A State of Flux Or Static Equilibrium

(1971) (2010)

Seriously, something's happened to us as a culture in the last thirty years.


And I don't just mean us getting along with the blacks.

On Meeting Your Heroes

I think I spent upwards of four hours today trying to track down a specific favorite quote that's been coming up in conversation a lot recently.

The line in question came from my favorite non-fiction writer, Chuck Klosterman, and went something to the effect of this:

"If you want a date with a single woman, you have to seem better than not only every other man she knows, but every man she could potentially meet between now and your date. If you want to date a woman who is already in a relationship, you only have to be better than one."

Now, I don't necessarily ascribe to this theory. Obviously.

However, that doesn't prevent me from admitting that this is absolutely, 100% true and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's true. It's brilliant. It's one of the few a priori statements in the dating world. It is an axiom undeniable in itself but terrifying in its implications. The things someone completely amoral could do with this kind of knowledge are the stuff of brutal Nordic drinking songs.


And after four hours this was the actual quote I found:

"If you are a weird-looking dude (which I am) and you want to date exclusively beautiful women (which I did), the key is to pursue beautiful women who are already in relationships. Let's say you live in Omaha, and you meet a hot single woman who is actively dating lots of different guys. In order to win her affection, you have to be more desirable than every other single guy in Omaha. It's you against everybody. However, let's say you meet a hot woman who is dating Kenneth, a hard-working Nebraskan haberdasher. This situation is way, way easier; now, you merely have to be more desirable than Kenneth. It's you against him. However, what I've slowly come to realize is that I was not convincing these women to like me, which is what I thought at the time; I was merely convincing them that staying faithful to Kenneth (or to any person) was unreasonable. I wasn't seducing them in any real context. I was simply eroding their morality."

Granted, it's funny in a different way, but it's still funny. However it's also long-winded, employs hypothetical leaps and contains a moral denunciation of utilizing the strategy for personal gain.

But the real kick in the teeth is it's not the quote I thought it was.

BONUS BLOG: On Lauren Leto and Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut on a train

“The passenger car glided across the tracks with the whoosh and gentle HUMMMN of a magnetically propelled boa constrictor. If bullet trains could think, this one, like all bullet trains, would be thinking, ‘HECK YEAH, I’M A BULLET TRAIN! YOU SEE THAT? YOU SEE THAT TREE? YEAH, THAT WAS A TREE, MAN! IT WAS JUST A BLURR! WHOOSH!’

“If the tracks could think, they would be wondering why no one ever cared enough to stop for a spell and chat with them anymore.”

This takes some explanation.

So about a month ago my friend Dean introduced me to the concept of this person Lauren Leto.

Ms. Leto is part of the brilliance behind the website–and now book–"Texts From Last Night" (TFLN), which I have failed to get my received texts onto repeatedly. I believe they have some system installed that simply knows I have condensed eighteen back-and-forths into three messages, correcting the grammar as I went.

Ms. Leto also has the above-linked blog and a Twitter feed, the thing Dean was most interested in because when he began following her, she did him the courtesy of following right back. Someone with a modicum of success living where there be sea monsters in the real world, was vaguely interested in seeing Dean post.

Now it's completely understandable that Ms. Leto ended up un-following Dean after a month or two. He contributed nothing of value, which is the point of Twitter but still. Things to do, people to Tweet. Whatever the case right around the time Dean got unfollowed, I began following @laurenleto. Soon after I began following her WordPress blog.

I made it my goal, as a writer, to get some kind of legitimate response from her and one-up Dean, like the time I accidentally made Ingrid Michaelson feel bad over Twitter and she complimented me.

Well, my friends, only a month in and my dreams are achieved. As directed by this post, "Writers On Trains," I appended my bit as a comment and left for the day, hoping to garner some kind of "Oh, that's cute," response.

Today Lauren Leto has given it its own entry, titled it "Genius," (something I will be saving for my first book jacket) and linked it back to Sound A Doggy Makes.

Thank you, Lauren Leto, though no one else would ever, you have made the dreams of this young, suburban, middle class white man's dreams come true.