Dear readers, it has been 281 days since my last blog. If this sounds like a confession, that’s because it is. I confess, to my unfortunate tendency to only write beautiful, witty, cynically morbid things when I’m sexually frustrated or hopelessly in love. Having, until recently, been a long-term relationship, I was neither of those things. I confess also therefore to masochistic habit of only wanting things I cannot have.
As to which of those things is motivating my new desire to write I’ll let, my readers decide, but suffice to say this blog was long over due.
So, now back my usual disillusioned state of being, where love and god are hypothetical constructs and happiness is a complex here goes… take it from someone who knows:
The Science Behind the Perfect One-Night-Stand
(With a little bit of math thrown in the send you on your way to success).
Lets start with things NOT to do (Nobody falls harder than I do… science is easy to absorb after a good laugh anyway, yes I really did do all of these things).
- DO NOT pick up a friend’s date. Even if their date is clearly flirting with you. Even if you ask them, and they say it’s ok. Even if they are ridiculously good looking.
- DO NOT have sex with your best friends sister and/or his girlfriend.
- DO NOT buy a girl a puppy/bike/flowers. Even if she expressed that she would like them. One-night-stands are not meant to be expensive.
- DO NOT have a summer fling with anyone who can afford to fly to your country of residence… ask me about that sometime.
- ABSOLUTELY DO NOT move states and/or countries for a girl. A two year plan is a plan which is two years too long.
- THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE (as stated by Dr. Karl)
DO NOT HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE WITH MORE PROBLEMS THAN YOU.
So why do we break these rules? (Or maybe it’s just me in my moral relativism). Lets start with the concept of propinquity.
The Propinquity Effect "the more we see and interact with a person, the more likely he or she is to become our friend or sexual partner."
Believe or not this can be seen in every large apartment block or densely populated neighborhood. Where significance of friendship demonstrates a positive correlation with proximity of living, working or even parking. This correlation is independent of shared attitudes or similarities. The less time you interact with someone the less likely you are to like or consider them your friend. It’s like a sort of evolutionary mechanism to make sure we don’t live miserable unfulfilled lives, never meeting the perfect lover.
How ever from a social psychology perspective, quite frankly it’s a disaster waiting to happen. If more people were attracted to utter and complete strangers I guarantee the world would have less problems. The old adage of not fucking friends exists for a reason (ok, so I revamped it a little there).
On top of the fact you are more likely to want to engage in a sexual relationship with people you know… You then have the effects of oxytocin, single handedly working to destroy your sexual freedom.
Oxytocin is a hormone that acts as a neuromodulator in the brain. It’s released in large quantities during childbirth and helps facilitate the bond between mother and child, inducing maternal behaviors and reducing neonatal stress levels.
However, oxytocin has a more sinister role in life. Two well-conducted independent studies to date have found that plasma oxytocin levels rise during orgasm.
Which sounds harmless… until you consider the art of the one-night-stand. Which involves NOT becoming attached to the averagely attractive girl you chatted up after 16 tequila shots (it can be done. Trust me). However, it seems entirely plausible that the oxytocin released during sex. No. During GOOD sex, could be generating false “maternal” affection and behaviors in both women and men.
But despite the things working against it, the one-night-stand has some definite advantages.
A meta-analysis of 10 recent studies into the topic, including data from over 16,000 individuals in Britain suggests that statistically both men and women experience a net gain in confidence, sense of wellbeing and contentment after a one-night-stand. It seems only lesbians (trust!) showed a significant level of negative emotions and loss of self-esteem. Why is it we always have to make things more complicated than they are? Where do we go wrong?
Anyway kids, I have an assignment on the sciatic nerve to write.
I don’t have all the answers, but I’ll leave you with the following tips:
- Throw away your mobile.
- Only have sex with strangers.
AND…
- Never, ever learn her name.
Till next time,
this Zee, the lonely lesbian with too many cats…
Signing out.
Ps. Opinions on this angsty poem much appreciated:
The Puzzle Box:
Beautifully intricate, an insolent mystery, untouched by time.
But corroding my consciousness, always,
The curiosity, the wanting, the subtle sedition, the selfish desire;
to solve the unsolvable puzzle.
Till one day my frustrated fingers slip. The puzzle shatters.
And I ask my self:
Is it better to have a beautiful bemusing puzzle or no puzzle at all?
