The Sexes/The Endless Chase
Mysak, Joe
Joe Mysak/The Sexes THE ENDLESS CHASE Scene: Two men in a barroom, one married, the other engaged, discussing current events and displaying the failure of memory brought on by the sickness of...
...Even if your date was a dud, she might have some interesting friends...
...This last is a catch-all, and covers everything from laughs that resemble the braying of a jackass to "She dances as if she is putting out a fire...
...There are some things, after all, that transcend whether or not you can throw a football across her living room, how eminent her Civil War ancestors were, and the excellent Scotch her father serves at home...
...The only correct advice is to take no advice, and press on in full gallop...
...The moral of the story is that lack of field intelligence dooms any campaign...
...Joe Mysak, a contributor since 1978, is assistant managing editor of the daily Bond Buyer...
...T here are some satisfying success stories...
...Loser as surely as if neon lights spelled the words out on his forehead...
...wrong, and finally decide to take her outside and to gaze at her under some unflattering light, to see whether this is, in fact, what you have been seeking...
...Yet those resolutions are rarely kept...
...Ron: There was always that element of mystery, that potential Joe: The heightened sensitivity to the promise of life...
...The awfulness of it sets in, and the spectators go silent...
...Lord knows women, especially the kinds who specialize in writing columns of witchery and self-indulgence about the misery of their lot, believe it...
...the look that says I Don't Want to Be Here...
...Death-defying acts always leave me speechless—but I knew I had a good story...
...George Wither wrote in the "Lover's Resolution" of such unattainable sweets, "If she be not so to me, what care I how fair she be...
...A little more aesthetic is the Dr...
...You never talk...
...You never know when to shut up...
...Poverty and power, as William Safire has written, do not mix...
...Lee Murray Size Test, wherein your date, facing you, should not be seen by someone twelve paces behind you—simple, but oh so cunning...
...My own reputation attained such heights that once in Boston I cleared a barroom, literally blowing four young lasses discussing current events with one J. J. Lamer out of the place—and all without saying a word...
...Rachel Flick, discussing Helen Gurley Brown in these pages in June 1983, remarked of "the deep-running importance—the importance to character—of having been born to money and sophistication...
...Judging from some of the monickers I have observed friends pasting on their daughters, they may all have nearly unpronounceable Gaelic names, but the game will be no different...
...The ultimate is the Streetlight Test, where, having succeeded at landing an actual date, although not with a Fairy Princess, you discover nothing egregiously THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1987 75...
...Joe: Certainly...
...Joe Mysak/The Sexes THE ENDLESS CHASE Scene: Two men in a barroom, one married, the other engaged, discussing current events and displaying the failure of memory brought on by the sickness of Nostalgia...
...To the unsuccessful huntsman, and here I refer to every male except the twenty-four or so in each generation who have women besieging them, there is no one but the Fairy Princess...
...As guides, consider the career of General Grant, or the advice given by Calvin Coolidge: "Press on: Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance...
...Being denied the Golden Girl is no, reason to lower your standards...
...He lays them out as happily as he would a scar...
...But the true huntsman relishes the tale of his greatest failures, those anecdotes that, at least at the time, branded him as Mr...
...After all, without hope, it has been said, the heart would break...
...The Fairy Princess is invariably a "muffin," as opposed to a "spank," as one of my spies informs me the term is nowadays, muffins apparently exuding the style and grace that comes with cash...
...She waits until the entree is delivered, and then mentions "my boyfriend," coolly and cruelly gauging your response...
...No less an authority than George Gilder has proved that the supply of desirable lasses for men in the 20- to 35-year-old range is absurdly, even laughably small...
...My own personal topper was one disaster where the reluctant Colleen jumped out of my still-moving car, rushed to the front door, and slammed it...
...Ron: Remember that feeling you'd get on Friday nights, getting in the car, keys in the ignition .. . Joe: Out on The Hunt...
...J. J. was struck with the majesty of this feat, and I believe he paid for last call...
...Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent...
...It was this way twenty years ago, and 120 years ago, and will be so in twenty years, and in another 120 years...
...Relax...
...Or consider the sterile lunch...
...Put enough of these episodes together, and you, too, will be known as the Prince of Darkness...
...You didn't move fast enough...
...On the basest level, reserved for the real cheapies, is Miles Per Date, or its twin, Tolls Per Date...
...But he was wrong...
...The Hunt, unfortunately, features no hard and fast rules, so that advisers can say: You moved too fast...
...You're not searching for the fairy princess, you know," once counseled the Celtic poet McCorry...
...Get as many At-Bats as possible...
...F ortunately for the continuation of the species, the hammering received by the male ego leads to a certain, shall we say, selectivity...
...As our friend said in the opening, you never know, she might have some interesting friends...
...Who would forget, for example, Getting Stood Up...
...You spring for lunch with the new summer intern...
...We will laugh, ignore the pain, and muse about the old days...
...I will treat these mysteries in the 40th anniversary issue...
...A very close second to this one was the delivery, of what Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon termed the esconda, or sword thrust between the shoulder blades, in this case, a testimony of undying love for another...
...The final fall back position test, the Last Redoubt, so to speak, is what H. L. Mencken described, simply, as "a girl's laugh...
...She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing...
...The character Bernstein in Citizen Kane remembers the girl in the white dress on the ferry, a half century later...
...Et cetera...
...Will it be any different in twenty years...
...Tales of success are terminal...
...I refer, of course, to The Hunt, where a man goes out and bleeds in the agony and occasional glory of The Hunt, while la belle dame sans merci leads him along the merry way...
...They are all "attached," in the parlance of the day—you probably wouldn't want one who wasn't—and the key, obviously, is and always will be timing, the ability to exploit a Window of Opportunity...
...and the implications of the phrase "Nothing's Wrong...
...Despite the reservations about character in fact being what was shown on the beaches at Iwo and on the parapets of the Alamo and on the plain at Balaclava, I am tempted to think she was right...
...You field it cleanly, and do not rub, but the pain is there, and mortifying...
...Jean Shepherd wrote of Daphne Bigelow, who "walked in a kind of soft haze of approaching dawn...
...When you reach the point where you can speak with the authority of success, look forward to lengthy critiques of "Men's Conversation...
...those of failure, of rejection, defeat, and grinding failure, live forever...
...The story is always one of timing and, invariably, of impatience...
...Nor will they be by the time The American Spectator turns forty, which bodes well for "The Great American Saloon Series...
...Gatsby "knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a 'nice' girl could be...
...At first, listeners brush 74 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1987 it off, until a table poll indicates just how rare the occurrence is...
...Row I remember that I'd rather go out with anybody than just stay home...
...Practically every male, however, possesses abominable timing, and the consequence is that barrels of beer, chased with gallons of bourbon, will wash down the gullets of countless sad and bilious huntsmen, hunched over their glasses and recalling with a trace of rue that bright and happy smile, those crystal blue eyes, that saucy personality, the way she wore her cashmere sweaters, turtlenecks, and kilts, and so on...
...But, hey, it's not that great...
...One should formulate certain . . . tests...
Vol. 20 • December 1987 • No. 12
