I Like It Deep

by Gregg Casazza

As seen in our fifth print issue "Summer Heat", available now!

Besides me, the only man in the world to have had even one single interesting thought, men are, as a whole, rather unremarkable. This fact does not impede them from socially manspreading, taking up space in such an intense and insane way that I couldn’t help but wonder… If men say they are so deep, why haven’t they drowned?

Perhaps you are currently thinking “not all men!” and to that I say of course you are right, and we have already covered this— all men except for me. There is something within the hardwiring of so many men that allows them to think that the things they have to say are somehow the most important and unique thing ever to be said. We really should feel lucky to be in their presence, to experience their hot take on why “the Office is good actually.” In a culture that lambastes the “not like other girls” girl, there sure does seem to be a lot of “not like other boys.”

Boys who think they are edgy for liking “light BDSM” like slight choking or pinning. “Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction?” they ask hardly waiting for you to answer. After all, as the cultural mavens they are, questions are less so for learning about another person, but instead, a chance to talk more about themselves. (i.e “I actually have a poster from the original Cannes Film Festival Poster. It’s such an underrated film, Tarantino is the most prolific auteur of our generation.”)

Other times this pretention manifests in music taste, which you will be made to listen to through a cracked-screen iPhone speaker. It should be made a federal offense to force someone to listen to more than 15 seconds of any song in this way, and I should be given an honorary Oscar for the performance of enjoyment that I mirror back each time this happens (and I do it all without Tarantino’s expert direction as well, how’s that for prolific?). I have, on more than one occasion, been made to read Notes app poetry written in ABAB, and one man even read it aloud to me. Was I supposed to snap? Should I have shed a single tear and then held him close to my chest? “You are so special!”

"… If men say they are so deep, why haven’t they drowned? "

I’m like one of those gorgeous truffle pigs, and can usually sniff this kind of man out within the first few minutes of knowing them. When the conversation is so completely dominated by a man, it is a safe bet that no orgasm will be had. This sucks, as not only will the date be bad but, the sex will doubtless be bad as well. Like the man who told me he had a voyeurism kink. Having a reading comprehension level of at least an 8th grader, I replied that I would be willing to try that if I got to pick the guy. He looked at me dumbfounded, explaining that he wanted to have public sex, which, for those of you following at home, is not the same thing.

“I’m really into kinky sex,” he told me again at the end of our date. Cool, I thought, let’s see what this means for him. Apparently, kinky sex just means trying to dry finger blast me and trying to put a condom on while still soft. But why did I still go back with him, I can hear you asking. First of all, let me just say that’s not very Hot Girl of you, and B.) well yeah, I don’t really have a good answer.

At the end of the day, many of us still allow men to railroad these conversations and believe that they are great Casanovas, who have changed our lives. They feed off of this validation, this is why months later you may see them view your story after they said they didn’t want anything serious, or send you a text out of the blue. They do this not because they actually want to hear from you, but because they need to have their ego stroked and reminded that they are in fact the center of someone’s universe.

So again, what should I, the World’s Most (and only) Interesting Man do? While a man waxes rhapsodic on a date, I take inventory of the restaurant. How many tables are there? What was our waiter’s name? Is it pronounced tapas or tapus? Then when he stops to drink some water or heaven forbid take a breathe, I ask calmly, “Want to ask me anything about me or my life?”

After I have thrown what is effectively a Mario Kart Blue shell, I have control of the rest of the night. When they say they had a good time, I always reply with a, “how could you have thought that went well?” In the year of our Lorde 2021, we cannot earnestly be asked to fake it anymore. And yes that goes for sex as well, you are allowed to make a man feel bad who doesn’t make you feel good. I’m pretty sure I read that on a popsicle stick somewhere, or at least it should’ve been.

And one last pro-tip, if he asks if you want to see a photo of a mixed-media art project he worked on about Global Warming, the answer is always no.

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