We Need To Stop Dating Losers
By Thoughtis
You heard me. I don’t want no scrubs! I’m officially tired of the whole “I have no career aspirations but my penis is seriously beautiful!” schtick. When I dated in high school and college, it seemed like my only criteria for the perfect mate was: 1. Mexican 2. Make me laugh 3. Have a nice butt. And oftentimes, I settled for someone who fit only one of them. But no more! As I get older, I find myself being attracted to people with goals and convictions and other grown up things. What a concept!
When you’re in school, everyone is pretty much on the same playing field. “Oh, you work at Starbucks? That’s cool ’cause I’m a waiter at California Pizza Kitchen! You have no money and just want to lay in bed all day boning? Awesome, me too! I’m broke as a joke.” But this starts to change when you leave the comforts of school and enter something that resembles the real world. It’s not like you suddenly get gifted with loads of cash when you graduate. On the contrary, you’ll probably be more broke than ever before, but you watch your standards raise a little bit. Suddenly dating a starving artist seems totally unappealing. You know that they don’t have any money, so if you want to leave their Bushwick loft, you’ll have to pay for everything. And, yeah, they can paint a pretty picture but when’s the last time they’ve held a job? Unless they’re considering work as a porn star, giving you multiple orgasms a day doesn’t pay the bills.
In college you could date a stoner who smoked weed every day and liked to talk about UFO’s and still be like, “OMG, look who hit the boyfriend jackpot. Jealous, ladies?” But now that kind of behavior isn’t going to cut it. You don’t want to date a Patrick Bateman-esque investment banker (because ew) but you do want to be with a person who’s going somewhere other than the dollar store. It doesn’t even matter if they’re making a lot of money. (After all, who is these days?) It’s just important that they have drive and passion. “Drive” and “passion” are two things that could one day translate to a successful career and financial stability.
It’s weird to see your standards raise because it feels like it happens almost involuntarily. Like 21-year-old me would’ve totally slept with a “freelancer” named Teal who had a bunk bed but 25-year-old me says, “I’M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Even if my penis is DTF, my brain is like, “No, Ryan. Go to the library or something. This dude has crabs.”
It sounds dickish to say but working as a barista at the age of 27 with no immediate plans to change your occupation does not turn me on anymore. Having to pay for everything while knowing I’ll be getting repaid with a glorious BJ is not enough these days. I want someone who’s no longer blacking out or getting stoned 24/7. It’s not chic. Make some professional and emotional progress in your life and then we’ll talk. My penis/mouth/butthole is no longer accepting scrubs.