indicator of interest. If she asks you what your name is, that’s an IOI. If she asks you if you’re single, that’s an IOI. If you take her hands and squeeze them, and she squeezes back, that’s an IOI. And as soon as I get three IOIs, I phase-shift. I don’t even think about it. It’s like a computer program.”
“But how do you kiss her?” Sweater asked.
“I just say, ‘Would you like to kiss me?’”
“And then what happens?”
“One of three things,” Mystery said. “If she says, ‘Yes,’ which is very rare, you kiss her. If she says, ‘Maybe,’ or hesitates, then you say, ‘Let’s find out,’ and kiss her. And if she says, ‘No,’ you say, ‘I didn’t say you could. It just looked like you had something on your mind.’”
“You see,” he grinned triumphantly. “You have nothing to lose. Every contingency is planned for. It’s foolproof. That is the Mystery kiss-close.”
I furiously scribbled every word of the kiss-close in my notebook. No one had ever told me how to kiss a girl before. It was just one of those things men were supposed to know on their own, like shaving and car repair.
Sitting in the limo with a notebook on my lap, listening to Mystery talk, I asked myself why I was really there. Taking a course in picking up women wasn’t the kind of thing normal people did. Even more disturbing, I wondered why it was so important to me, why I’d become so quickly obsessed with the online community and its leading pseudonyms.
Perhaps it was because attracting the opposite sex was the only area of my life in which I felt like a complete failure. Every time I walked down the street or into a bar, I saw my own failure staring me back in the face with red lipstick and black mascara. The combination of desire and paralysis was deadly.
After the workshop that night, I opened my file cabinet and dug through my papers. There was something I wanted to find, something I hadn’t looked at in years. After a half hour, I found it: a folder labeled “High School Writing.” I pulled out a piece of lined notebook paper covered from top to bottom with my chicken scratching. It was the only poem I’ve ever attempted in my life. It was written in eleventh grade, and I never showed it to anyone. However, it was the answer to my question.
SEXUAL FRUSTRATION
BY NEIL STRAUSS
The only reason you go out,
The only objective in mind,
A glimpse of a familiar pair
Of legs on a busy street or
A squeeze from a female who
You can only call your friend.
A scoreless night fosters hostility.
A scoreless weekend breeds animosity.
Through red eyes all the world is seen,
Angry at friends and family for no
Reason that they can perceive.
Only you know why you are so mad.
There is the ‘just friends’ one who you’ve
Known for so long, who respects you
So much that you can’t do what you want.
And she no longer bothers to put on her
False personality and flirt because she thinks
You like her for who she is when what you
Liked about her was her flirtatiousness.
When your own hand becomes your best lover,
When your life-giving fertilizer is wasted
In a Kleenex and flushed down the toilet
You wonder when you are going to stop
Thinking about what could have happened
That night when you almost got somewhere.
There is the coy one who smiles
And looks like she wants to meet you,
But you can’t work up the nerve to talk.
So instead she will become one of your nighttime
Fantasies, where you could have but didn’t.
Your hand will be substituted for hers.
When you neglect work and meaningful activities,
When you neglect the ones who really love you,
For a shot at a target that you rarely hit.
Does everyone get lucky with women but you,
Or do females just not want it as bad as you do?
In the decade since I’d written that poem, nothing had changed. I still couldn’t write poetry. And, more important, I still felt the same way. Perhaps signing up for Mystery’s workshop had been an intelligent decision.
“But how do you kiss her?” Sweater asked.
“I just say, ‘Would you like to kiss me?’”
“And then what happens?”
“One of three things,” Mystery said. “If she says, ‘Yes,’ which is very rare, you kiss her. If she says, ‘Maybe,’ or hesitates, then you say, ‘Let’s find out,’ and kiss her. And if she says, ‘No,’ you say, ‘I didn’t say you could. It just looked like you had something on your mind.’”
“You see,” he grinned triumphantly. “You have nothing to lose. Every contingency is planned for. It’s foolproof. That is the Mystery kiss-close.”
I furiously scribbled every word of the kiss-close in my notebook. No one had ever told me how to kiss a girl before. It was just one of those things men were supposed to know on their own, like shaving and car repair.
Sitting in the limo with a notebook on my lap, listening to Mystery talk, I asked myself why I was really there. Taking a course in picking up women wasn’t the kind of thing normal people did. Even more disturbing, I wondered why it was so important to me, why I’d become so quickly obsessed with the online community and its leading pseudonyms.
Perhaps it was because attracting the opposite sex was the only area of my life in which I felt like a complete failure. Every time I walked down the street or into a bar, I saw my own failure staring me back in the face with red lipstick and black mascara. The combination of desire and paralysis was deadly.
After the workshop that night, I opened my file cabinet and dug through my papers. There was something I wanted to find, something I hadn’t looked at in years. After a half hour, I found it: a folder labeled “High School Writing.” I pulled out a piece of lined notebook paper covered from top to bottom with my chicken scratching. It was the only poem I’ve ever attempted in my life. It was written in eleventh grade, and I never showed it to anyone. However, it was the answer to my question.
SEXUAL FRUSTRATION
BY NEIL STRAUSS
The only reason you go out,
The only objective in mind,
A glimpse of a familiar pair
Of legs on a busy street or
A squeeze from a female who
You can only call your friend.
A scoreless night fosters hostility.
A scoreless weekend breeds animosity.
Through red eyes all the world is seen,
Angry at friends and family for no
Reason that they can perceive.
Only you know why you are so mad.
There is the ‘just friends’ one who you’ve
Known for so long, who respects you
So much that you can’t do what you want.
And she no longer bothers to put on her
False personality and flirt because she thinks
You like her for who she is when what you
Liked about her was her flirtatiousness.
When your own hand becomes your best lover,
When your life-giving fertilizer is wasted
In a Kleenex and flushed down the toilet
You wonder when you are going to stop
Thinking about what could have happened
That night when you almost got somewhere.
There is the coy one who smiles
And looks like she wants to meet you,
But you can’t work up the nerve to talk.
So instead she will become one of your nighttime
Fantasies, where you could have but didn’t.
Your hand will be substituted for hers.
When you neglect work and meaningful activities,
When you neglect the ones who really love you,
For a shot at a target that you rarely hit.
Does everyone get lucky with women but you,
Or do females just not want it as bad as you do?
In the decade since I’d written that poem, nothing had changed. I still couldn’t write poetry. And, more important, I still felt the same way. Perhaps signing up for Mystery’s workshop had been an intelligent decision.
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