Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (8 page)

1. We think you're clean. We're not going to get all up into somethin' if we don't think you're hygienically sound.

2. We want you to get off! We want to turn you on! We are interested in you outside of our own selfish sexual needs.

Moving on. You know what the next “blowjob” of our generation is? Nudie shots. Like it or not, these things are here to STAY. In fact, they are only evolving, and if you haven't jumped on board now, you'd better download Snapchat before it's too late. Yes, we realize how absurd this reality may seem. Yes, we realize that they can get you in trouble. And yes, we fucking love them. That doesn't mean you can't be smart about it. Not everyone needs to be Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, though you should take a minute to think about where they would be
without
those sex tapes. Be smart about them. In fact, being smart about it makes it even hotter. Whoever the girl was who invented the nudie-shot pose where you hold a cell phone in front of your face and snap a picture, flash on, in front of a mirror . . . she deserves a medal. She started it all. She gave the first Class of 2006 “blowjob.” I'll tell you another thing: she isn't single. She drove some guy nuts with those pictures and is sitting on the front porch of the mansion he bought her, sipping a nice sweet tea. You can, too. Some girls don't send them, because they don't believe their bodies are sexy. This is the worst mistake you can make. If you know a man is attracted to you, make him think that you
know
you are sexy.

Quit judging other chicks, too. It's a competitive world out there. I know guys who do the cheesiest stuff to get laid. They do stuff I'd never do, but there's still no comeback to someone looking at you and pointing at the scoreboard. Consider this: Most guys like me. They just do. I'm typically pretty popular around my fellow man. My personality allows me to hang in the upper echelon of male friendships. I'm often invited to popular social events. I'm nice, never have problems with fellow fellas, and I'm not that exclusive. Asian people find me hilarious, black people find me goofy, German people often say, “You're kinda what we were going for, back then.” As far as I know (or think), when guys think of me, they generally don't say, “Fuck that guy.”

What if I was a girl, though? What if I had the same exact personality, same exact lifestyle, but I was a gal? I'd still be a cute brunette, I'll tell ya that much. Don't worry about that. What I
would
be worried about is how other gals thought of me. Every other gal would have a major, major problem with me. I do so many things in my everyday life as a guy that gals just plain hate about other gals. I'd have no friends. I'd be included in nothing. You know when you hear a bunch of gals just trashing some slut? I'd be that slut. I'd be sleeping around
so
much. I can barely control my sex drive as is; my only blessing is that it's super-hard to get laid when you're a giant dufus. Imagine if I were a gal, and the only thing I needed to do to get laid was be slutty? Dave as a gal equals game over. I'd be showing off my tits way too much. I would own several high-waisted bikini bottoms. I would shave intricate and creative shapes and patterns into my pubic hair. I bet some jock that I sleep with would tell the entire school after he banged me, then whatever theme I had going above my slow cooker (that's what I'd call my vagina if I was a gal) would somehow become incorporated in my high school nickname. Later on in life, I would become the chick who causes wives to elbow their head-cocked husbands in the ribs when they check me out as I roller-skate by on the boardwalk. Heyyy (wink). Nailed it!

Whoa, how did we get this lost? Still, key takeaways: boobs and butts, don't be “that girl,” and for Pete's sake, don't shoot the messenger! Unless you're shooting us a nudie pic.

(Dave)

Mike and I are not the face of single men in America. We might be soon, after publication of this book, since we're both currently single and no woman will ever speak to us again. That doesn't change the past, though; we've both had girlfriends aplenty. We've had long-term and short-term girlfriends. We've had some fun-while-it-lasted girlfriends and some I-must-have-been-on-dirty-Sprite girlfriends. Me specifically? I've had a few really intense long-term girlfriends. I had one in high school, a total babe named Nikki. We lost our virginity to each other when we were fifteen years old. It was classic high school sex, too. House party, keg of beer, full bush, not a rubber within ten square miles. Those were the days. She was a super-religious gal and came from a really devout family. I remember her mother wouldn't let her younger sister (who I imagine also grew up to be a babe) read Harry Potter books, because they were “blasphemy.” Nikki eventually dumped me for the guy she would end up marrying, I think. Maybe there was one guy in between us. Facebook didn't exist then, so I couldn't properly stalk her. Whoever it was, it didn't matter, I was so sad. It was the first time I got dumped, my first overall breakup.

Don't feel bad for me, I deserved to get dumped. I cheated on her all the time. It was high school! Everyone was following their dicks! I deserved to get dumped a thousand times over. That doesn't mean I wasn't devastated. It was actually worse, because I got dumped
and
I deserved it. I don't think I truly got over it until she emailed me years later to let me know she was engaged to be wed and that she told the guy she was engaged to that
he
was her first and only. Whaaaaaaaat? Up until that point, she was always lingering in the back of my head, fucking around and causing a psychological ruckus. When she told me she was a born-again virgin, it was like ripping off the Band-Aid. I just didn't care anymore. Somewhere out there, for the rest of Nikki's life, Dave Stangle would be her little secret. I felt so bad for her husband that I started to feel better about myself. Boom, over it! I would be hesitant to write this all this down and blow her cover, but if Harry Potter is blasphemy, then what is this book? Pure. Evil. I'm in the clear. They won't even sell this book at the Christian stores she shops at, anyway.

I had a pretty serious girlfriend in college, too. Nancy! Sweet, sweet Nancy. Nancy was probably my favorite out of all the girlfriends I've had. We're still very good friends to this day, sweet Nancy and I. We were a great match and had a fantastic relationship. In the end, the timing just wasn't right. I was a young whippersnapper fresh out of college; she was light-years ahead of me on the maturity scale. She wanted to get more out of her weekends than heading to the East Village and blacking out at Whiskey Town every Saturday. And Thursday. And Friday. And some Wednesdays, if the weather was nice. When that breakup happened, it was just no fun at all. I was losing someone who I knew was a great fit, but I also knew it wasn't going to work without one of us sacrificing our priorities before we were ready.

I went on a real tear of ugly chicks after her. I was knocking them down like bowling pins. That's the highest compliment you can pay an ex-girlfriend, it means you're taking the breakup really hard. During those dark days, I realized and started living out a theory that would consume my mid-twenties. If I only made love to women with great bodies and ugly faces, or vice versa, I'd never want to date them seriously! Shallow? Yes. But this selection process was incredibly effective in staving off fruitless relationships after a hard breakup. I was taking it hard. So was every six in midtown Manhattan. Ayo!

The last true breakup I ever had really turned my life upside down. It was my first adult breakup; you know, when things matter. It also taught me all I need to know about breakups for the rest of my life. That is, I never want to fucking do it again. My last girlfriend was Big Sex. Big Sex was a real wildcard. She was very funny and quirky, pretty crazy, and in hindsight an absolutely terrible match for me. It's understandable how I missed that last part, though, once you put your eyes on her. She was tall, slender, blond (classic Dave!), and was really, really good-looking. My dad had a legit crush on her. He got all bashful when she came around and he would make these attempts to flirt with her that were so transparent it was kind of adorable. I'd always squeeze her big ol' butt in front of him, too, just to get him jealous. It was like he was mad at me for dating her, as if I was somehow getting away with something. She had these incredible boobs that I was
convinced
were fake the first several times I came on them. She was something. She was crazy, but my kind of crazy. I like the crazy ones. Can't help it, always have and always will.

For a time, Big Sex just worked for me. She was a smart, driven, successful girl with a nice family. Her craziness was buried deep, deep down inside of her, and for one reason or another, I just found and released it. It was like her body was one of those eighth-grade science fair volcanoes and somehow my penis was made of baking soda. Tupac said it: deadly combinations. It was a deadly combination that worked—for a while, anyway. She was always as drunk as me, always more out of control, always doing something over-the-top. It took me a very, very long time to come to the realization that our entire relationship was built on sex. When I think of her now, the only pleasant thought I have is that she was attractive in ways I had never known before. It was like she was wired specifically for me, like Lisa in
Weird Science
.

A relationship built purely on sex can only last so long. People say that as though it means it will 100 percent be short. They don't mention that it's a sliding scale. The more solid a sexual foundation it's built on, the longer it lasts. I dated Big Sex for two years before things started to chip away. Drama followed us everywhere. Maybe I was tit-blind, maybe I was in denial. At the height of our relationship, I would be late to work and early to home, all on the account of getting naked. We used to meet at my old midtown apartment at lunch for sandwiches and coitus. Do you know how great your afternoons are, coming off a turkey BLT and a mutually timed 'gasm that makes your neighbor's Pomeranian bark hysterically? BS and I were addicted to one another. Sex can be like a drug. It can take over your priorities, your motivations. It can turn you into a junkie. We were junkies. We were backroom, crack-house, belt-around-the-arm sex junkies. I can't wait for her spiteful rebuttal column to come out in
Redbook
after this book's publication. It'll be all like “Uh it wasn't that great.” Hey, it was for
me
!

Eventually Big Sex and I got ourselves a nice apartment in a nice little neighborhood and had some big sex in it. A year later, it came time to renew our lease. Things were a little rocky with BS at the time. I was feeling a lot of pressure to grow up, put a ring on it, take the next step. I wasn't remotely ready for any of that shit, especially with someone so emotionally turbulent. I was committed to her, though. I thought re-upping our lease for another year might show her that. Nope. Did I mention we had a dog? Frank the Bulldog! Raising a bulldog with someone else is one off from having a full-blown human child.

BS dumped me the day before our new lease started. This was the last time I got dumped and the first time I perfected just how to come out of it. I couldn't do the depression thing again; I couldn't do “back to the drawing board.” This chapter isn't about the drawing board. It's about handling a breakup like a fucking boss. It's about moving on, like the true sicko you are. You wondering why Mike hasn't chimed in yet? This little factoid might explain it. Consider Mike and me about even on the number of girlfriends scale. Serious, short-lived, long distance, whatever. For every Nikki, Sweet Nancy, and Big Sex, Mike has a roster of his own. What makes me the “expert” over Mike is that every single girlfriend I've ever had has dumped me. I've never been the dumper. I always get dumped! I have a 100 percent dump rate. Isn't that fucked-up?
Now
you can feel bad for me.

How do you break the news to your buddies? What about your parents? Where do you sleep in the short term? How do you fill this new void in your life? Your penis: where do you put it?

After getting dumped more times than I can count, I'd like to think I know a little something-something about navigating my way through the Hurricane Sandy of emotions coming your way, flooding your shore house, and getting Chris Christie in your face with a megaphone. Here's my play, take it or leave it.

Step 1: Issue a Press Release

The world has to know. Address the rumors. Set the story straight. Don't be embarrassed; don't hide it, own it. If you're timid about it, you'll come off as weak. Even if there is a chance you and your ex might eventually get back together—it isn't now, otherwise you wouldn't have gotten dumped in the first place. If he/she dumps you just to get you to react, don't take them back. People who resort to that can't properly communicate and are also douche bags. You're single now. Own it. Your friends will all react, one way or another. Women want their friends to feel sorry for them when they get dumped. The best feeling a man can get is his friends being
excited
for him. When Big Sex gave me the boot back in the day, the rumors didn't take long to start swirling. We were living together at the time, so this was juicy to the outside world. I'm not a huge fan of always resorting to a sports analogy, but the following email got everyone on the same page pretty quickly:

Dave Stangle ([email protected])

5/4/12

My Friends,

It has come to my attention that I should address some of the off the field issues concerning my playing career as well as my rumored free agency.

I have been with the Big Club for 2+ years now, some would say through the twilight of my career. I came up as a rookie in 2010 with nothing but my boyish charm and grim determination to win. Already considered a solid clubhouse presence, my first game back-to-back inside the park home runs made a splash with the Big Club immediately. I was on her radar rather quickly, and the rest was history. Since those days, I've built a home in the ballpark, taken on a budding protégé in AAA bulldog phenom Frankenstein, and run out every ground ball—no matter how silly or pedantic.