Action: A Book About Sex (9 page)

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Non-bourgeois-friends’ parties.
This interpersonal configuration is a winsome option because you’ve got prior intelligence
as to whom the guest list might roll call. If you don’t, that’s lovely just the same: You already know that your friend is a mensch, so by the laws of the transitive property, they almost definitely mix with others whom you’ll find beguiling, too. Save for public cement walkways, this is my preferred venue when it comes to traversing a landscape rife with french-worthy individuals. I have met scads of hookups on my one friend John’s roof alone—in the summertime, he has a party every week or two on average, and you likely have some analogous person like this in your life: Go see who’s around.

Here’s a list of less-advisable spots where I’ve made introductions to, or been approached by, sensual collaborators. Forging a connection is feasible nearly anywhere on earth—with some caveats in place. Let’s talk context about the following meeting spots:

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Public transportation.
This one is a gamble, and you have to be discerning, because most of the time, people are taking the train to or from work. If you’re into women, be ESPECIALLY conscious of the fact that you are one of forty-two others peering at any attractive female-bodied person in whatever your vicinity is, and it’s best to be among the often slim fraction of those who are decent enough to not do or say anything to express that. If you MUST hit on a fellow passenger, passing notes is less horrible than expecting someone to talk to you, especially when your miniature letter just says “oh my god you are so gorgeous” and you look up and the person won’t meet your eyes because they’re blushing so much, as one memorable guy in a sexy yellow sweater proved to me. Trains are better for furtive glances back and forth across the car that you can then fantasize about for the rest of your life than they are for trying to fulfill those daydreams.

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The company for which you work.
I’ve undeniably had heaps of sex with colleagues and peers outside of my direct professional biznet (what “in-the-know” corporate insiders like me call
“business networks”). So please trust me when I say that getting with coworkers whom you see five days out of the week is pretty dicey—and also one of the sexiest known kinds of entanglements, so long as the two biznetters are smart enough to keep their less-than-professional connection secret, which ramps up the hotness quotient by an enormous margin and has the additional perk of ensuring that you both don’t wind up unemployed.

I had two and a half work side-pieces when I worked in an office of the same size and genial temperament as the Death Star, and it made going to work far more bearable. I wouldn’t recommend this at smaller companies, or if there’s a significant power differential between the two employees who are hard at work. I would never have sex with a subordinate or a boss, because the prospect that there would be some subtext of expectation based on one person’s higher-ranking title is too exploitative to follow through with on good faith. If this person works in an unrelated department or is on the same professional plane, though? Use your judgment—your job is (usually) more important than ones that begin with “hand” or “blow,” but there have been instances where I went right ahead and hooked up in the third-floor conference room that no one uses anyway. Consider discretion an unspoken point on the “skill sets” segment of your resume, and you’ll likely be fine.

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Planet Hollywood in scenic Orlando, Florida.
Other odds were working against me, too—like, his name was Gilbert, but I remained undeterred—at least I heard it right that time.

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The Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey.
Please just trust me on this one, and exponentially more so when it comes to the Ruby Tuesday’s on the premises, in specific. Heed my word and do not fuck at this mall.

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If you are me: the dating internet.
Tinder is convenient if you’re traveling and want to get it on with a stranger, but so, too, are the long-running industry standard for traveling dirtbags, aka—all together on this one, now—bars. If you don’t meet anyone there, you can at least have a vodka and maybe some small
plates (buffalo wings), and Tinder still exists, should you not feel contented making out with buttery hot sauce exclusively.

No matter the course you set, the beginning of that path is easy to follow: Go outside. Smile at someone who looks like your interpretation of the term “super-babe.” If they smile back, all you have to do is refer to our trusty old prompt: “Hey. How’s your day going?” Then see if you just happen to have the best sex of your life (mishearing your partner’s name: optional).

No, I Still Want to Lick a Face from the Web

If you remain unconvinced of the superiority of physical encounters and you’re still looking for a technological helping hand: I often ghostwrite my friends’ profiles and messages back and forth with hot .jpg-havers and have been described identifiably on my city’s Missed Connections page enough that you could probably make an identical composite sketch of my face from the combined information within the listings. (I responded once—enormous error on my part. I thought the dude was cute and the moment we shared on the train borderline romantic, but he texted me asking me for my best “cow jokes” [???] for nearly six months.)

I feel conflicted about abetting the probable shucking-off of kismet/coincidence/mystery by giving you the following information, but look:
I will get you laid on the computer
, Luddite or not—although the fact that I unwittingly just wrote “on the computer” like your granddad, instead of the infinitely less geriatric “the internet” or “online,” should be proof enough of my technological proficiency and tastes. Whatever. Let’s hit the ol’ digital web for some sensual cyber-chat!!!

While the internet has its fungal pockets, so, too, does EVERY OTHER COLLECTION OF PEOPLE GROUPED IN ONE PLACE. There are many lovelinesses who are, at this moment, saying, “OK, Cupid—I guess, dude.” That name has always seemed SO ambivalent, when the precipice of sex = more than just an “okay” state in which to spend time, in my estimation. This is a digression, but how the heck am I supposed to be enthusiastic if
the COMPANY ITSELF is all passively like, “Eh, it’ll kill twenty minutes, this whole multitudinous-possibilities-for-interpersonal-connection thing.”

How can you tell if someone is decent or just
masquerading
as a preschool teacher with nice hands that they don’t intend to employ for the purpose of murking you out? Honor your instincts, even if they seem overactively guarded. It’s
good
that you want to protect yourself. More on this in the part of the book in which I talk about how not following that imperative once led me to an unfortunate encounter in a pool painted to look like outer space—evidence that real-life courtship can be just as fetid as poorly vetted internet dalliances.

If your cretin-meter isn’t chirping at you and you’re just concerned as to the
quality
of a potential internet-based lay, check for any overtly ablaze disaster flares, judgment-wise: Does their default photo find them “jokily” reenacting a meme with a disoriented-looking elderly woman (their grandmother?) near a pile of brownish dirty laundry? Are they strangely cryptic, or straightforwardly obfuscating, as to their age? Do they write
anything at all
about the preferred weight of their match-to-be? Given their lack of consideration in any of those capacities, I would also wager that you wouldn’t extract much enjoyment from any sexual encounter you shared with that person.

It’s pretty easy to avoid inspiring a similar snap judgment in those perusing your profile photos. As we know, the elements of just about every site or app intended to put another warm body in the space occupied by your phone are usually thus: at least one photo and a truncated description of yourself, both of which communicate that you fuck like you’re tryna earn a degree for it. Here’s how to achieve that:

• Include your face and the upper half of your body.

• Wear something that makes you feel like a sexual comet.

• That’s pretty much it! (I find that the less background and more PERSON in the picture, the more attention-locking it is.)

Visual motifs to avoid:

• If you are genuinely interested in internet liaisons, why would you decide that a picture of your pet hanging out by itself makes a great default? It’s cool if there’s a fur-face IN the picture (although you might alienate those with allergies… but who wants to have that conversation re: casual sex anyway?). Reconsider offering up your pet when asked to provide documentation of your sweet face, because no one wants to have sex with your cat (I truly hope).

• Bottles of alcohol, especially in “club”-lookin’ environs. It’s cool—I love getting plastered, too. But making this the MAIN ELEMENT that you highlight in a photo—that you are not only of legal drinking age, but that you intend to show it off!!!—comes off like you might not have that much of a personality otherwise, or might not have the presence of mind to remember that you do.

• Pick a profile photo that is free of not only elderly family members and domesticated animals, but of other people in general, so that a person doesn’t message you under the misunderstanding that you are your photo-mate; geriatric or not. Even if you think it’s fairly obvioso to tell just who is whom, it’s also considerate not to put your close ones’ pictures online for scoring-based purposes. Crop if you have to.

• Do not post pictures where there is any kind of visible mess or clutter in the background. I get that not everybody has a design-magazine-level home (unlike me, a person whose bedroom definitely doesn’t have one of those weird fake “office” ceilings, a three-layer wallpaper palimpsest, and a cat door). That’s okay, as long as you keep it off the internet: Detectable untidiness in profile photos distracts from your dreamy face and tempers it with messiness. You are too good-looking for that, I think.

• Any materials that find you itching to prove that you are a Good Person
^™
, such as the likenesses of the patients you treat in illness-stricken foreign nations. No one needs to see your self-righteousness
quite that clearly, dude. Ew. I was trying to bone, not spend a half hour talking about how you “really felt like a part of
their
community” and then having to ask you to leave.

• Babies. It’s great if parents want to use the internet to enjoy themselves! But to draw the link between sex and children so overtly feels like a bit much. So, too, does the judgment of a parent showcasing their child as part of their hunt for sexual escapades.

• Guns. No guns, please. I cannot believe I even have to write this. Actually, you know what? Go ahead. If you are a person of the opinion that firearms are not only a worthy but essential element to your profile picture, please go right ahead and keep the gun in the picture, so that the rest of us can stay the heck away from you, ya lunatic.

How to write and respond to messages: Everyone hates a form letter. Isn’t it even
more
enraging when some creditor, insurance company, or whatever entity is mailing you what used to be a tree but is now garbage tries to make their effort look “homemade” or personalized by using a font that’s supposed to resemble handwriting or pretending they know your life based on where you live? YOU’RE A
BANK
, asshole. You are not my friend, Capital One, so do not address me as such in your spamvelopes.

Getting a copied-and-pasted missive on a dating site is similarly insulting and tone-deaf, as far as I’ve heard. This makes good sense to me, especially if it’s just some variation on “sup,” the most irritating and expectant manner of “hitting on” someone in recorded history. The writers of “sup” are leeches! They are placing the onus wholly on the other person to come up with some witty retort, and those recipients don’t even know that they have a reason to bother yet! Actually, they have the opposite, since “what’s up” is an instant boner-killer.

Some people use a more expansive template, but when the reader can tell it’s a dating Mad Lib all the same, the sender
often may as well not have bothered. What you might do instead of copying the suave and flirtatious moves of institutions shilling credit cards: Comment on the aspect of a person’s profile that genuinely attracted you to begin with, like a certain interest or mutual trait, compliment the person’s appearance without going full-skeeve-overboard in the ass-cheexz direction, and ask them a question about something in their profile that they seem to have spent thought and time devising. Hollering at someone on the internet is easy: Keep it short, spell correctly, and don’t be a bank.

If the person messages back and seems cool, your online interactions should end with one more communiqué, and that’s it! The longer you go back and forth without putting voices, faces, and inflections to your conversation, the greater the opportunity to conjure false or misleading versions of yourselves. Ask them out! Propose an activity that you think they’d like based on what they’ve chosen to say about themselves in their profile—much like “sup,” open-ended requests to hang, as in interrogating them about what they’d like to do, make them do your work for you. Conversely, asking to spend time with them decisively demonstrates that you know what you’re doing, and that they’d probably like to do whatever that is with you. Suggest something specific, and then say that you’re down to try out some other pursuit if what you’ve floated isn’t of interest.