New Idea For A Bar

I think it would be cool if there was a bar where everyone writes down facts about themselves when they walk in and then someone reads all the slips of paper and matches everyone up with people who have similar interests and then when that gets weird you can just come up with an excuse why you have to leave.

The Gym

Going to a strip club can be torture, sure, but going to the gym is way worse. At least when you’re at a strip club you can convince yourself not to fall in love because you wouldn’t want to date a stripper anyway. But at a gym you’re surrounded for the most part by limber, shapely women who live nearby that you already have something in common with. Asking out a girl at the gym could actually lead to something. Asking a stripper out just gets the bouncer called over and a text message sent to her mother back in Russia.

To make matters worse the gym girls also bend their bodies into all sorts of confusing and desirable positions. And just in case one image and angle of her body isn’t enough the gym has conveniently installed 600 mirrors to thoroughly challenge and overwhelm your self restraint.

There’s nothing worse than getting busted checking out a girl through a complicated sequence of mirror angles. You think you’ve got them down so she can’t see you but guess what your perversion is still detectable through three triangulated mirror angles. Front mirror to side mirror to back mirror—“Yep, I see your eyes sweaty man.”

I always like laying down in the mat area set aside for ab workouts. Because that’s really the only place in polite society where you can spot a woman lying down and walk over, spread out a towel, and lie down next to her. Laying down the towel sends her a subtle but clear message that you’re willing to clean up afterward if things get out of hand. That never works at a mattress store or inside her studio apartment. I’m officially adding “laying down a towel on the floor” to the erotic behavior handbook.

Sometimes I wonder if the social barriers we all erect and maintain cause more trouble than comfort. It would be nice to be in a room full of people and have some sort of box pop up above everyone’s heads that explains what you have in common and the likelihood that a friendship or relationship could develop. Which I suppose is the impetus behind online dating. Everyone gets a profile so they can understand more about the other person going into it. But that system hasn’t established a clear path to more effective pairings. So can’t there be some socially normal middle ground? Not the forced calculations of matchmaking services. Rather, a consensus that everyone lets their guard down more in public settings and becomes less averse to interacting. Not the freaks, mind you. The regular people.

I say that but if someone talks to me at the gym I’m not happy about it. The social barriers are there for a reason—so we can get things done and live our lives in peace. In conclusion, hot girls at the gym should strike up conversations with me so that I can channel my leering tendencies into something more productive like complimenting them on still smelling fairly amazing after an hour long workout.

Thoughts about thinking

I think it’s important to be able to have a conversation about an opinion that you don’t agree with and have the conversation end in something other than a full throated rebuttal of that opinion. It seems like people have certain topics around which they are very attached to their ideas and are firmly devoted to defending them. But that’s no fun and certainly never leads to anyone getting smarter or expanding their mind. If I was suddenly transported to an intellectual battlefield and had to choose between having conversations with the people hunkered down in deep trenches or the people pacing the field, looking for new terrain or advantages or discoveries, it’s not even a contest. At the end of the conversation with the guy in the trench you might know more about what he thinks but what he thinks isn’t going to change. The girl pacing around looking for new things will have more stories and will join you on a ledge, so to speak, where you both look out over a vast unknown and ponder and conjecture and seek new information. I’m not saying it will get you laid but it makes for better stories later.

I’m more focused on being intellectually curious than finding additional support props for my existing beliefs. Because the farther down the “defending my ideas” road you go the more stringent and vitriolic becomes your tone. Plus you’ve got all these other people that align with your beliefs and have formed organizations to advance them. It’s easy to fall in step with that crowd and they give you a sense of power and authority. But I think in reality there’s a lot more hubris to be had in the world than beliefs that will be defensible over any extended period of time.

Also, I recognize that I’m advocating a particular approach to thinking. So you could say that I’m merely advocating one more system of beliefs to compete with the others that I’m critiquing. I mean isn’t there a game or something you could be watching?

Fireworks

I feel like we’ve gone as far as we can go with fireworks technology. The big thing I’ve seen recently is shapes. “Ooh a square!” Glad we packed a cooler for this.

Moving to Florida!

So I’m seven years old living in Ohio and my mom keeps telling me soon I’m going to be a Floridian. All I know about Florida is that they have palm trees and beaches. So I assumed we’d be living right on the beach with palm trees everywhere. Vollyeball, sand dollars, what have you. Only problem with that scenario is we were dirt fucking poor at the time. And guess what--Poor people don’t live on the beach. I lived in Florida for 11 years and probably went to a beach like five times. Here’s a fun lesson for kids: Poor people live inland.

Moral fortitude

If you can listen to your upstairs neighbors have sex and not masturbate, you’re a better man than I.

Old ideas

Sometimes I look at old stuff I've written and think "What? That wasn't very funny. More odd than anything." Case in point:

It’s pretty gay to eat a tuna burger even though it sounds straight.

Girls Night Out

There’s a big difference between Girls Night Out and Guys Night Out. Girls love Girls Night Out. They’re like “Oh my god you guys let’s get dressed up and go out it’s going to be so much fun!” The only time guys have Guys Night Out is if we can’t get any girls to go with us. And then the only objective of Guys Night Out is to end it as quickly as possible by finding some girls.

Romantic idea?

An ex girlfriend once said “You know, if you ever wake up in the middle of the night and want to have sex just wake me up. I won’t mind at all.” I was like “You mean in the middle of the night when I’ve already been asleep for a few hours? Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Hanging out with couples

It’s always a little weird hanging out with married couples or couples that have been together a long time. They have this long, tortured history between them that you don’t know about. And then you somehow accidentally stumble into one of their relationship sore spots without realizing it.

I might mention “I’m the oldest of four children.” To which the wife will respond “Four children? Must be nice. I’d settle for one.” Husband: “One would be nice if we could afford it but we can’t.” Wife: “We can afford it, he just doesn’t want to move to the suburbs and be away from his pot dealer.”

Um, do you guys mind if I get out of here? I'm just going to find the closest bar.