OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL:How To (Intentionally) Avoid Sex in a Land of the Oversexed and Undersatisfied

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- So I'm standing outside of one of my favorite watering holes last night, smoking a cigarette in single-digit weather.

It was a friend of mine's last bar shift at this particular establishment, her last hurrah before getting the fuck outta Dodge for a much-needed change of scenery. Several of her friends had gathered to pull a drunken "all-nighter" at the bar, to commemorate her special evening, to keep her company and provide mischievous entertainment, and to, well, make sure she tipped out for the night a wealthier woman.

My intention was to just hang out and to have a good time with a few friends. I don't go to bars for any other reason - not to seek female bedwarmers, not to check out the usual meat market, not to find true love in some drunken haze.

As I'm standing out in front of this bar, out on the steps in the freezing cold, chatting away with one of the cooks, an attractive younger woman walks up and asks for a light. The cook goes back inside, leaving me alone, on the steps, with an intoxicated marketing major.

Per the typical Local U. male undergrad standard, the woman would probably qualify as fucking hot.

Artificially tanned, well-built brunette - the kind of girl who has probably spent more of her collegiate career in the gym doing cardio than actually learning anything.

If I were a typical Local U. undergrad, I might've been interested. But I haven't been an undergrad in six years. Hell, I haven't been any type of college student in more than three.

I figured out said woman was hitting on me pretty quick into our brief conversation. The signals were pretty straight forward, almost exaggerated for comical purposes - the leaning against the wall, the downright silly As Seen on the WB eye contact and lip chewing, the rubbing my bare arms to "get rid of the goosebumps." Her speech, slurred by obviously too much alcohol (and the white powder on her nostrils explained her linguistic speed), was loaded with less-than-subtle innuendo and rather blunt flirting.

Examples of her side of the conversation somehow managed to stick in my mind, despite my own intoxication...

You know, I've always wanted to fuck a guy in the library...

...You're sweet. Can I take you home?

Sometimes a girl just needs an older guy...

Aww. It's Valentine's Day weekend. You need a sweetie...

I'll bet you read lots of girls bedtime stories...

Wow.

Original.

* * * *

I think she thought I was smiling and looking away rather impishly because I was somehow planning how to get this fucking hot girl home for a night of drunken, pointless, sneak-out-before-dawn sex.

Actually, I think I remember laughing to myself about how I'd wished I'd told her I was a mechanic, just to hear her inanely chatter on about lube jobs, tune-ups, and body work.

The whole "conversation" lasted maybe ten minutes, the time it took me to smoke my first Marlboro and to get two-thirds of the way through the second. Aside from answering her questions, I didn't get in more than maybe 20 words.

I made a polite exit while she answered her cellphone.

* * * *

Back inside, I returned to my seat at the bar.

One friend of mine, who I'll call Lao Tse, stirred his umpteenth cocktail slowly.

He seemed annoyed that the bar was packed, filled with what seemed to be the most preppy of the preppy J. Crew U. crowd.

"I guess its good _____ gets a busy last shift," Lao Tse said. "But I really wish there weren't so many fucking annoying people."

I looked around the bar. The place was packed with groups of girls, whole tables' full of single fucking hot girls like my intoxicated marketing major.

Yup.

The weekend before fucking Valentine's Day in Oxford Fucking Ohio.

* * * *

I don't do drunk girls. I don't do stupid women. And I don't tend to go for the same fucking hot girl personality types that many male bar patrons typically seek out around these here parts.

If one were to hunt through the Zenfo Pro archives, one will find numerous references to these concepts in numerous blog posts. Offline, I've had numerous conversations about these concepts with close friends for more than a decade. These personal rules of sexual engagement have been carefully crafted over years' worth of bad relationships and one-night mistakes, through way too many trials and excessive numbers of errors.

So it shouldn't shock anyone who reads this, anyone who's known me for some time, that the revelation I had last night, while doing shots of Johnny Walker, has been a long time in the making.

I'm finally comfortable admitting that I've become a Woman Snob.

And I'm damned proud of it, too.

Wow, I thought, sitting there at the bar, just admitting that makes me feel so much more at peace with the world.

Or maybe it was that Long Island Iced Tea I put down before the Johnny Walker.

It's amazing the types of revelations one can have while completely blitzed, sitting on a bar stool and staring into a room full of female bar patrons that one wouldn't even consider going home with unless they could prove they weren't just another fucking hot girl.

I felt like naked ol' Archimedes, ready to streak across the countryside, screaming Eureka! at the heavens.

* * * *

Another friend, this one I'll call Zhuang Tse, had told me a story about a woman earlier in the evening, a tale about woman he'd finally decided to cut out of his social life. The woman in question, over the course of their friendship, had been willing to basically use him to get whatever she wanted without giving anything of any substance in return.

While in the midst of my revelation, while staring into the mirror behind the bar, I noticed for the first time that my intoxicated marketing major was sitting at a table behind me.

The fucking hot girl had gotten over my abandonment. I watched, in drunken amazement, as she snuggled close to another guy, a guy who looked like just another typical male undergrad, fresh from a weeks' worth of classes as the Local U.

Well, somebody was getting laid, I guess. And somebody else was getting what they wanted out of another guy.

Not only is it amazing the types of revelations one can have while intoxicated, but it's also amazing the profound parables a 21st century Zhuang Tse can tell without even knowing it.

I don't think I've ever been so excited to watch somebody else stagger out of a bar with some fucking hot girl instead of me.

Let that guy develop his own rules of sexual engagement, figure out for himself that dumb women are just about as worthless as lead shoes in quicksand, that drunk women are just as likely to puke on or piss in the bed as be memorable, that all of those pointless one-night things tend to lead to more questions than boastful exclamations.

Somebody else can catch the Clap for a change. I gave that up when I was an undergrad myself.

* * * *

I looked over at Mr. Zhuang and Mr. Lao. They were both chatting away with our female bartender friend, cracking jokes and bemoaning the fact that she still had a few hours left until she could count out her drawer, could call it a night here in Oxford Fucking Ohio for the last time.

The woman behind the bar looked at me and smiled, her silver necklace swimming across her Hustler tank top as she laughed, her cheeks glowing and bright and...

For fuck's sake, dude, you're not checking ______ out, are you?

Whoa dude. You really are fucking drunk. Better slow the fuck down, chief.

Remember that time back in college, that time when you accidentally hit on that riot grrl deejay friend of yours by mistake? Remember how you woke up in her apartment, only to find out that she and a few other female friends decided to get their revenge by letting your drunk ass strip naked and pass out drunk in a pink Hello Kitty bathrobe? Dude, ya gotta focus and remember how ugly you look in an avocado mud mask...

Women can be merciless when their guy friends get a little, er, confused.

I laughed out loud at the memory, hoping to God that ______ didn't notice, that my twin philosopher drinking buddies hadn't noticed, either.

Life's not too shabby, dude. Just think... if you hadn't had a revelation tonight, you might've ended up like that fucking preppy dude who left with the fucking hot chick.

Drunk girls. Dumb...drunk...girls.

There's nothing empowering, nothing invigorating, nothing that screams out for the lust of life in the temporary embrace of skanky women.

And man, you're just smart enough to realize that Empowered, independent, confident women just ooze with the lust of life, nothing more invigorating than waking up next to someone you can talk to, someone you can learn from and can share in the exploration of the universe.

Err...

Dude, you're really, really drunk.

* * * *

After last call, after wishing one of the few Fucking Hot Women (yes, there are WOMEN here) in Oxford Fucking Ohio a good night and reminders to call when she gets a chance, Mr. Zhuang, Mr. Lao, and I made our way to Zhuang Tse's condo.

We kept drinking and philosophizing until the wee hours of the morning as we watched reruns of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, ate pizza, and drank tequila.

I made my way home just before sunrise. My apartment was cold but welcoming, quiet and, most importantly, fucking hot girl - free.

* * * *

I stretched out on my bed, enjoying the peace offered by its emptiness, its lack of baggage and drama. I thought about the various women who've spent the night here with me, the ones since I adopted my steadfast rules.

I've had some of the best sex in the history of this goddamned town with some of the most intelligent women I've ever known. Call me a bastard if you must, but I'm damned proud of that.

I've had debates about evolutionary theory naked. I've listened as a nude pixie compared the stories I tell to Frank Miller and Mike Mignola graphic novels. I've argued against the historical importance of the Beatles, read Walt Whitman aloud, and gotten lessons in the influence of French designers on American women's fashion.

Once, I had an Italian woman wrestle me to this very bed because I refused to accept her theory that Americans were more responsible for the plight of Sub-Saharan Africa than the continent's former European would-be conquerors. I've lost shirts to women who claimed they couldn't kiss me hard enough, simply because I told them that watching them think was sexy.

Sure, there have been a few mistakes. But, well, thanks to having even the simplest of standards, those mistakes are getting fewer and farther between as time progresses.

Dude, you really are a hot fucking guy sometimes. Downright sexy. Way too sexy to waste any time with fucking hot girls, the young, horny, drunk, and stupid.

Okay, so sue me.

I realize that's a rather arrogant statement coming from me, something that - trust me - feels much more unbelievable writing out than could ever feel reading.

What can I say? I really am a Woman Snob.

# # #