-When talking amongst ourselves, all guys use the standard “one to ten” scale to rate how attractive a girl is.  That’s because merely describing a girl as “hot” is insufficient.  I mean, there’s a big difference between the hottest girl that went to my high school and the hottest girl from the last season of Entourage.  Sometimes, we further subdivide for greater accuracy, assigning separate ratings for a girl’s body and her face.  The entire exercise is, of course, superficial and borderline offensive.  But for us, it serves as a universal language between guys, helps mask our own insecurities, and, well, anything with rankings or stats kinda reminds us of sports, so that’s a bonus.  Thus my alcohol-fueled attempts at hitting on the hottest women possible are not just a test of my game, but evidence of a larger phenomenon: the numbers game.

-An accent always adds at least a point to a girl’s rating.  I was out to dinner with the boys recently and our waitress had a British accent.  We spent most of the meal giggling like schoolgirls whenever she spoke and then we left about a 40% tip.  Shortly thereafter, I was at a wedding and met a girl with a Southern accent, which is extremely rare to hear in New York or LA.  I think it was the first time in my life a girl offered to text me and I was like, “No, no, please.  Call me.”

-A few weeks ago, I found myself laying in bed on a Saturday, nursing a hangover, and texting with a girl (she had no accent) to try to get her to come out that night.  When the conversation was over, I looked at the clock, saw it was 11:49am, and realized I had set a new personal record: hitting on a chick before noon.

-The International Bureau of Weights and Measures is a real organization, based in Paris, that maintains the official one kilogram brick and the one meter stick.  And I always imagine that in a little room, next to the brick and the stick, sits a ridiculously hot girl named Michelle, and she’s the official perfect ten – the international benchmark for hotness.  The thing is, living in LA has totally fucked with my head because there are more tens here than anywhere else I’ve ever been.  A few months ago, I was at a party in Hollywood – obliterated – and talking to this ten I had no shot with.  I stumbled to the bathroom, and when I returned, resumed the conversation.  After a few minutes, I realized that this was actually a different girl.  LA has got to be the only place on earth where you can be talking to a ten, and then turn around and start talking to another fucking ten!  (And have them both hate you equally.)

-My buddy Jeff has a term for girls he claims are even better than a ten: “uncomfortably hot.”  This is the rare girl that is so attractive, you actually feel awkward and weird around her.  It’s almost like standing next to a celebrity – you wonder if anyone else around you realizes what’s going on, and you want to say something to her but end up just mumbling like a crazy person before trudging away while chiding yourself for being such a fucking moron.

-To me, hitting on chicks and March Madness are similar – on any given day there’s a chance you could take down someone ranked much higher than you.  And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty of being single: you never know what girls the next bar will bring.  Hope springs eternal.  Still, in the numbers game, the odds are often stacked against you.  In college basketball, overcoming those odds is called being Cinderella.  You’ll hear a lot of gushing over Cinderella as the NCAA tournament unfolds over the next month or so but, quite frankly, I’d rate her only about a seven.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Why is it that whenever I convince one of my friends to watch a TV show that I love, the next episode is always the worst one ever?

-I have a feeling that “94% fat free” doesn’t mean anything close to what I think it means.

-It really bothers me when people incorrectly combine two words into one, like Superbowl, Wallstreet, or Whitehouse.  Put a space between the words, buddy, and let those puppies breathe!

-I was at a wedding once where two of my friends – who didn’t know each other beforehand – ended up hooking up.  Later, the girl asked me if it was weird that the guy tried to sleep with her.  Dumbfounded, I replied, “It’d be weird if he didn’t try to sleep with you.”

-If you’re gonna buy me a gift certificate, don’t make it from one of those fancy, high-end stores where I’m gonna feel weird using a fucking gift certificate.

-Why does Coca-Cola make Cherry Coke so scarce?  Whenever there’s an opportunity to purchase Cherry Coke, I don’t hesitate.  Partly because it’s awesome, and partly because I don’t know when I’ll ever get another chance.

-The other day, I threw out a pair of boxers for the first time since 2005.  Well, I guess “threw out” is a bit of a misnomer.  They’re so old that they ripped and literally fell off of me as I was wearing them.  Which wasn’t as sexy as it might seem.

-I love wearing green and getting obscenely drunk on St. Patrick’s Day.  What I don’t like is green beer.  Ridiculous as it seems, I used to think that green beer was actually brewed especially for the holiday.  When I realized it’s just made with food coloring kept in a warm vat in the back, I stopped partaking.  Plus that shit is definitely not even close to 94% fat free.

-And, finally, I’ve always been impressed with my buddy Matt, who’s consistently been able to hook up with girls who are – to be honest – much more attractive than he is.  I think this is due to several factors: he’s a smart, funny dude, he has no shame, and upon getting to the bar he goes right for the girls without wasting any time hanging out with his guy friends.  You know, all positive traits.  At the end of the day, though, Matt’s secret weapon is that he plays a different kind of numbers game: hitting on as many chicks as humanly possible during the night in the hope that the law of averages will produce at least one score.  Essentially, he engages in a kind of modified speed dating, except he’s the only guy and “dating” is the least of his objectives.  I admire his moxie.  But I could never duplicate his success.  It requires too much work, too much rejection, and, regrettably, the ability to stay at least sober enough to tell two tens apart.  Fuck me!

HOME