The Problem
The problem, as I see it, is that I’m not confident around women. When I meet someone I’m attracted to, my first instinct is to assume she’s probably not attracted to me. Friends of mine who are good-looking tend to dub this self-defeating behavior as evidence of low self esteem, and try to pick up my spirits with the sorts of irritatingly vacuous maxims you’d normally get as the end-of-show moral on Knight Rider reruns.
“Seize the day, Jay,” they’ll tell me in the slow, meaningful tone we’ve all learned from television is the correct way to state anything of spiritual relevance. This never fails to irritate me, as it assumes the key to my dating problems isn’t that I’m overweight and not terribly handsome, but rather that I’m lazy, like propositions from attractive women bombard me constantly and I pass them up because I’m too busy feeling sorry for myself. Another favorite is “You only live once”—a platitude that has the benefit of looking as deep as the ocean while containing all the moistness of a damp paper towel. Just to clarify for attractive people: me achieving a satisfying relationship isn’t hindered in any way by a mistaken belief that I’m a Highlander. Even if I lived forever, or—as the proverb seems to infer—lived multiple times, it would merely just be more time in which I would be unattractive. All the positive attitude and day-seizing in the world doesn’t change a fairly impressive 27-year track record of almost every woman I’ve met not wanting to have sex with me. When I meet a girl and assume she isn’t hot in the pants for me, this isn’t because I wasn’t aware I only lived once; in Not Good Looking Land, it’s because I have sense recall of the last 50 girls who weren’t hot in the pants for me.
I am told by girl friends who won’t sleep with me that there are plenty of girls out there who aren’t interested in physical beauty and will be willing to love me for my mind. Since I’ve never met any girls like this, I can only assume they a) are ass-ugly and not worth considering, b) get snapped up pretty quickly by ugly guys who can’t believe they’ve met a woman so endearingly insane, or c) are unicorns.
Now, before you accuse me of trolling for pity here, I should mention that I do actually date occasionally. And for anybody actually sympathizing with me right now, allow me to shatter the illusion that I’m not a petty ass by clarifying that I’m just pissed off I’m not thin and pretty enough to nail extremely hot chicks. My looks and weight have filed me into a social category wherein I’m expected to have relationships with girls as equally out of shape and horrifying as myself, and that makes me grumpy. According to my research (spam email), there are hundreds of single dorm girls out there just aching for a hot mouthful of my swollen member.
All of this is no doubt giving you a headache. You’re thinking, “Okay, if you’re so convinced that being thin and good-looking gets you dating prospects, why don’t you quit complaining and lug your fat ass to a gym already? Stop eating cheeseburgers, splurge on some nice clothes, get fuckin’ and stop whining about it.” And I have to admit, it’s a pretty good point. I’ve come to a similar conclusion myself on more than one occasion—usually during a party, after I’ve told funny jokes and listened intently to the ladies, only to watch thin happy single guys walk off with them for a night of enchanted porking. “That doesn’t look so hard,” I’ll think. “I just need to drop a few pounds, buy a goofy-looking shirt and frost my hair like that idiot.”
Introspection sets in. “Why do I automatically assume no women find me attractive?” I reason, and conclude: “Because I don’t think I’m very attractive. I’ve gained weight since university, and every time I look in the mirror I see dough where air used to be.”
Following these epiphanies, I usually draw a conscious line in the sand: I must lose weight so I see myself as attractive, then meet women like gangbusters and have lots of sex. I’ve distilled this line of thought into a simple equation, which looks like this: jogging + salads = pussy.
Veritably thrumming with enthusiasm to alter the course of my life, I’ll go out and buy hundreds of dollars worth of gym memberships, protein powder, Tupperware containers and chicken breasts. I’ll take the plates of hot wing bones off the stationary bike I’d been using as a makeshift holder for hot wing bones, and drag it into the living room. I’ll smoke my last cigarette and throw on a nicotine patch; drink a goodbye beer before turning my back on demon alcohol for good; and as I set my alarm for 4:30 the next morning, look optimistically out the window at the sunset, convinced that tomorrow will be a brand new day. “Who needs drinking?” I’ll think, so proud of myself I would honestly give me a blow job right then and there. “From now on, the only drinking Jay Pinkerton’s doing is from a little something called the CUP OF LIFE.”
I high-five myself and, in preparation for my brand new day tomorrow, go to bed early. Earlyish. Okay, midnight.
Where my Brand New Day Fresh Life Direction Superplan starts to show the wear in its seams is precisely 4:30 the next morning, which I’ve penciled in for forty minutes on the stationary bike (I’m told by people far healthier than I am that this is the best time of the day for pound-shedding exercise). I’ve then penciled in a light breakfast of oatmeal mixed with protein powder, to be washed down with sugarless, creamless, flavorless coffee. I’ve rounded out my pencilings with a note to foist all my high protein Tupperware meals into a gym bag and head off to work, full of vim and vigor and piss and vinegar and whatnot. Ah, fitness. Yes. Smell that fit air. Indulge in the creamy magnificence of living well.
If these little diet kicks of mine have taught me anything, it’s that penciling in forty minutes of cycling for 4:30 AM gives one a strong proactive feeling, like you’re making sense of your life and going places fast. Whereas actually getting up at 4:30 AM for forty minutes of cycling is, let’s face it, so monumentally ill-conceived it’s not even worth bringing up. 4:30 AM invariably has me waking up bleary-eyed and hungover, attempting to focus my eyes on the alarm clock and seeing symbols that represent not numbers but madness. Nobody should ever get up this early, I think, never mind get up this early for something as self-evidently insane as cycling in one spot for forty minutes. I sensibly hit the sleeper alarm, confident my excess pounds can sit tight for one more hour before I exchange them for shredded physique through the unstoppable power of bike-riding.
Lucky for my excess pounds, I instead usually sleep in until 8:00 AM instead. Since I’m running late, I forego the oatmeal and protein breakfast on the grounds that it tastes like shit and tends to be a meal you need a good half-hour prep time to find the courage to put in your mouth. I convince myself to make up for my missed cycling by doing it when I get home.
When I get home, I convince myself to do it the next morning. The next morning, I once again realize how unreasonable I was to ever assume anything would be worth getting up at 4:30 to do. Repeat.
One week later I’ll be carb-depleted, cranky, and have actually gotten on the cycle for a total of maybe twenty minutes. I can’t think. My work is suffering. My writing is non-existent. I’ve turned down several invitations to go out and have fun, since people seem to save those up for the times where you need to eat bird-like portions of non-food out of Tupperware every three hours. A mere seven days after I’ve started my Brand New Day Fresh Life Direction Superplan, it takes only the slightest nudging from a friend before I, in my carb-depleted state, agree unhesitatingly with anything they say.
“What’s the point of getting thin if you’re not happy?” they’ll say, with the inherently unselfish motivation that they want to go out and drink and I’ve said no.
“These are sage points,” I agree, already tasting the beer on my tongue and smelling the crappy deep-fried aroma of the hot wings. The reasons for dieting in the first place—being healthier, happier, finding a satisfying relationship, feeling better about myself—are hazy and difficult to remember. Besides, I’ve been dieting for a whole week, haven’t I? Where’s the hot chicks? Where’s the healthiness? And if I’m so intent on making myself happy, why the hell am I not drinking beer right now? (I’ve distilled this line of thought into a simple equation, which looks like this: jogging + salads = you pussy.)
“Alright, sounds like a plan,” I say, caving in completely.
“There’s a brother,” says my friend. “Remember, you only live once.”