I Don’t Understand Boys

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Why are boys so confusing? I mean, how complicated can a penis be? Really. Just look at them! They’re like a hanging piece of dopey flesh. Penises have an IQ of 60. They went to community college and work retail. Meanwhile, my vagina graduated Magna Cum Laude from Sarah Lawrence. It majored in “I’m Complicated.” My vagina is so smart, it even confuses me sometimes! I’m like, “Are you okay? Do we need to talk? WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?”

Boys often say that girls are just as confusing, if not more so than boys. And to that, I say “Cry me an overflowing river of dicks.” I roll my eyes every time a guy friend complains to me about girls acting sooooo crazy. “It’s like they want to hang out with me and they’re not afraid to vocalize it. It’s terrifying!” Uh huh, that’s a bonafide horror movie: someone being honest about wanting to hang out with you. My heart is really bleeding for ya, hon!

Besides, everyone knows — everyone meaning gay guys and straight girls — that guys are the crazy ones. I’ve been seeing this dude for about a month now, let’s call him Teal, and he is so hard to read. First of all, he texts me in hieroglyphics. For example: “wut doin gurl?” and “mdef,” which I took to mean as “most definitely” because it was in response to a text I had sent him the first night we met saying “it was nice meeting you. let’s hang soon.” I don’t know if he blindfolds himself every time he uses his phone as some sort of survival exercise, but homeboy texts like my mom. He makes no sense.

Person to person isn’t much better. When Teal shows up for our dates (read: me clutching a bottle of wine in my apartment while he updates me on his art), he fluctuates between acting so interested in me and making intense eye contact to zoning out completely and behaving as if he’s bored. These mood changes can happen in the span of five minutes. One moment, he’s present and being flirty with me and the next he’s like, “I’m going. SEE YA!” No warning either. Just going, going, gone. After every time we hang out, I’m convinced he doesn’t like me so I don’t bother texting him again. But a few days go by and he’s the one texting me to hang out again. I don’t get it. I thought it was mutually understood that we weren’t connecting and he was bored, so why is he making the effort to see me again? What does he want from me? And don’t say “my vagina” because this dude looks like Ryan Gosling frenching James Franco in Ancient Greece. He’s a babe who could sleep with anyone he wants so it can’t just be the potential sex that’s keeping him around.

The funniest thing about all of this is that I don’t even really like him. He’s sort of a dud, personality-wise, and doesn’t seem to have a sense of humor at all. But because I’m bored, horny, and have no other prospects, I’ve become obsessed with the mixed messages he sends me. We’ve hung out a grand total of five times, only one of which ended in casual second base, and every time he leaves, I’m like “He’s so lame! Now I must text him immediately to tell him what a great time I had!” This is what happens when your love life is pathetic though. You latch on to any male attention, regardless of whether or not it’s fulfilling.

I was complaining about Teal to my friend the other day and she was like, “What’s the issue here? Do you want to date this guy? Do you see yourself hanging out with him on rainy days and bringing him soup when he’s sick? The answer to this is, of course, no. But I still can’t help being intrigued by his erratic behavior. I’ve been dating for eight years and some of the men I’ve encountered have truly blown my mind. Not because they were so amazing but because they were such freaks. Hot and cold, emotionally closed off, genuine weirdos. Men pride themselves on not playing games but that hasn’t been the case with me. I’ve had to deal with a ton of emotional yo-yoing and contradictory behavior. At the end of the day, we’re all insane but I guess I just expected boys to be easier to understand, especially since they like to spend most of their time discussing how hard it is for them to understand US. I guess this is just how life works though. We’re always going to be confused by the people we like to see naked. 

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image – Mr. Grau_2010