The 32-year-old TKE

Over the holidays I caught up with a very good, very old friend of mine who, because he chose to remain anonymous, I will call 'Tobey'. During a long airport pow-wow, Tobey expressed the following sentiment:

Everybody around me is getting married and I feel like I might be ready, but I can’t meet quality girls.


You know how they say ‘you have to be cruel to be kind’? Well, like the last post, this one will be devoid of sugar-coating. Tobey has been out of undergrad for a decade, but still acts like he’s in the frat house. He’s wildly disrespectful to others, especially those women crazy enough to date him and he’s teetering on the edge of being the sad older drunk at the dance club. Openly discussing your girlfriend’s genitals in public is not funny. It’s tacky. Extremely so. While some lesser people may laugh, it’s not with you and everyone not laughing is feeling pity for your girl and wondering what devastating self-esteem issues she has that she’s willing to put up with that sh*t. Furthermore, you still party like its 1999. I’m not making a lame, over-used Prince song reference there. I’m serious, you're the exact same guy you were at 20. When it comes to mentally-balanced, adult women, that type of behavior is wildly unattractive.



No, I don’t drink FourLoko or smoke pot. Why? Because I’m 27, not 17, and I have adult responsibilities and goals that supersede a desire to get wasted. In fact, I’m at an age at which I don’t particularly like to get wasted (I realized that little nugget by the time I was 19). I enjoy remembering my evenings and not feeling nauseous and exhausted the next day. Because I’m a grownup, you see. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy bars or drinking. I’m an American, damn it. One night a week I get together with my girlfriends, down a few cocktails, hit on some guys, and stumble home giggly drunk. I enjoy a good time. After all, I’m single and I’m still in my twenties. But before you cry contradiction, remember I said ‘giggly drunk’ not wasted (I am always in control of my faculties). And ‘one night a week’ is the operative phrase here. It’s a graded scale. And the older I get, the less frequent those giggly nights will become until they ultimately fade into monthly girls' nights in at home splitting a bottle of wine and trying not to wake the kids. [The scary thing about this is how, the older I get, the less this picture scares me].

The truth is, if I meet a man over 30 who still smokes pot and gets blackout drunk, neither I nor any of my self-respecting friends are going to take him seriously as husband material. Come on. It's time to grow up, Peter Pan. But if my next boyfriend is in his early-to-mid thirties and plays beer pong at my friends’ annual Labor Day party, who cares? Graded scale. Partying hard every weekend, using drugs, constantly needing to be in an altered state in order to have fun is - even in your in your teens and early twenties - a sad state. But its at least fairly normal among kids. By the time you reach your late twenties and thirties, if you’re still living this way, it’s not fun. It’s the sign of a substance abuse problem, or failing that, a major disparity between your calendar age and your level of maturity. The characters from movies like Old School and Wedding Crashers are meant to be laughed at as comedic anti-heroes or at best, something to live vicariously through, not to actually be emulated. You try to live your life that way and one day you’re gonna wake up and realize you’re this:




[Sans TLC money and reality fame, this uberdouche couldn’t get laid if he stumbled upon a deaf-blind nymphomaniac convention…which I suddenly find myself wishing was a real thing].

Beyond the way-too-heavy partying there's also the matter of the way you speak to people. And before you or any of the other three people reading this bring up some of the…um…shall we say “off-color” jokes I make with regularity on this blog, there are two major distinctions:

1. I never make crude statements at the expense of people with whom I actually have any platonic or romantic relationships.

2. Location, location, location.

I have never detailed intimate sexual experiences with exes in front of friends and certainly not in front of a significant other. Nor would I ever dream of describing intimate details of my S.O. (sexual or otherwise) in front of others. It’s a matter of respect towards the person you are with. And as far as the crude jokes and foul language often displayed here? It’s the internet, yo, not my cousins bar mitzvah. As lame as it might sound to some, I try to curb my foul language in public because it makes me seem uneducated and crass; I never swear or tell inappropriate jokes in front of my mom or my little nephew; I don’t make jokes about Donatella Versace’s presumed vagina badgers while at work; and on the 15th of this month, when I get all dressed up and head to the Renaissance Hotel for the International Wine Tasting, it is highly unlikely that I will refer to anyone there as a ball bag. It’s not a matter of lacking a dirty side or a good sense of humor. It’s a simple matter of tact. The idea that a woman has to be polite and proper and can’t make sexual jokes has always seemed asinine to me.

[June Cleaver was all about the bukkake jokes after the Beav went to bed].

But no one respects or admires the person who references tentacle rape at office parties. Even Lisa Lampanelli would cast a WTF side-eye at that. Do you see the difference?

For many women, as they stand at the precipice of their thirties, their desires in a mate change from things like ‘washboard abs’ and ‘an ability to hold his Jager’ to things like ‘ambition without avarice’ and ‘a desire to have (or not have) children’. What a woman looks for in a man she wants to marry is vastly different from what she looks for in a man she wants to spend the next few months sleeping with.

You say you want to find someone with whom you can settle down and get married, but at the moment, I’m sorry to say, you’re not really showing that you’re marriage material. You seem immature, irresponsible, and profoundly disrespectful to those around you and none of that appeals to “quality” girls. The truth is, I question whether or not you’re ready for that level of commitment. Just because you've reached a certain age, or everyone else around you is settling down, doesn’t mean you should try to conform to that standard before you’re really prepared for it. Until you are truly ready for serious maturation and serious relationships, the caliber of woman that your friends have is likely going to elude you. And marrying a hard-drinkin, hard-partying girl that is impervious to your immensely disrespectful treatment means that this is the best thing you can hope to greet you down the isle:

[Ugh. Looking at this picture = eye rape].

Personally, I think you need to take some time and really sort your life out. Men are reproductively capable into their sixties. You have nothing to lose from taking your time.


POST SCRIPT:
I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that there are plenty of girls out there who have ridiculous fantasies of what married life will be like and are borderline obsessed with settling down. You can easily land one of those but be forewarned there’s a…well…mental imbalance issue here. Let me put it this way, (in keeping with my standard of wild generalizations) I can't help but feel like the kind of adult woman who owns a Taylor Swift C.D. is the same kind of woman who, on a third date, will invite you back to her place…to introduce you to her stuffed animal collection.

[This is what happens when ‘cat ladies’ have allergy problems.]

Do you really want to tether yourself to that crazy pole? You're a good guy, Tobey, you've just got some growing up to do.