ickis.com / Julene Horowitz

I think I’m over trying to scope out boys in coffee shops. I start out wondering what they read (if at all) but quickly move on to shallower topics… like their ability to grow chest hair. My eyes wander from baby faced 20-something’s to guys clearly unaware of how far their silver fox status will take them if they quit being so self-conscious about it. I crack jokes about varying creepy preferences of mine, but lately I’m paying more attention to what kinds of guys it is that I’m looking at.

Turns out, I have less of a set “type” than I thought. I don’t bother checking out dudes with shaved heads, throat tattoos or lobes big enough for me to put four fingers through. (My inner comparison of that last bit to fisting doesn’t escape me.) Looking around, there’s fewer would’s in here than I would have been able to spot a few years ago. Has my taste changed that much or are people getting uglier? I want to believe I am becoming more refined in my choice in men, but the second option is equally as likely.

I watch women a lot too, though I’m pickier and harsher in my judgments of them as they walk by. There’s fat-faced high school girls abound in here, and the low-budget edgy dye jobs are a red flag that I don’t need to go there. (I learned this lesson the hard way about five years ago. Remind me and I’ll tell you guys about it later.)

A girl just walked in the front door–she bears slight resemblance to a coke-y Lohan. I’m feeling it until the guy two steps behind her makes jealous eye contact, so I go back to pretending to read something really interesting on my laptop’s screen. My sexual preference has always been fairly fluid, but I suspect I’m years past wanting to actively sleep with women… thinking about, however, it is a different story.

That’s precisely one ‘would’ in four hours of people watching, by the way. I know it’s not that I’m not interested in looking, but everything I’ve been looking at hasn’t been all that interesting. Well, maybe interesting to the kinds of girls I mentioned in my last paragraph but not to me.

Trust me, I’ve been evaluating my options. The rockabillies are too chubby, the punk rock boys too thin. The older dudes are in no way comparable to foxes, the younger dudes could use a bath and a box of Nicorette. All those formerly delicious bros are packing beer guts and hipster boys have no visible package in their skinny jeans.

Picky, picky, picky. It’s not like this was intentional, but I suspect my sex drive is on sabbatical for a while. I’m not bothered by the idea at all, but it’d be nice to see someone worth making eyes at on occasion.

Then again, between work, websites and my anal-retentive work out schedule I don’t have much time to ‘entertain’. Unless by ‘entertain’ we mean spending hours writing by myself in coffee shops where I stare at (ugly) boys.

For the record, I will probably never stop having enough time for that.

It’s funny to me that the types of guys most people would expect me to be into–tattooed, pierced or otherwise “alternative” (as much as I hate the term)–aren’t really my speed. I love them clean cut, presentable… simply put, give me a yuppie white boy any day and I’ll be pleased. While I wouldn’t say I have a particular age-group preference, I do admit having a severe weakness for babyface.

Once upon a time, I had a babyfaced boyfriend named Tim. Our relationship quickly fizzled into some weird sexually tense friendship, which has now faded in a half-hearted interest in each other’s exploits. I ran into Tim recently, out with his younger brother at a restaurant I frequent. Tim has always looked roughly 16 – he’s about 10 years older than that. He’s one of those guys I hear from on nights that will involve booze and (in his mind) a hopeful trip back to his place. I try not to revisit my roster too often, and since someone hadn’t been taking the hint lately I decided to see if I could agitate him enough not to call me.

Let me preface this by saying his now-slightly-older yet still delightfully younger brother is beginning looking like a well-oiled machine. I admit to blatantly trolling Tiny while talking to them at their table. I guess Tim took it personally that he busted me checking out his kid brother’s bulge, as I was informed we are “not on speaking terms”. Seriously, he was wearing a pair of jeans that allowed for a perfect outline of his goodies to be viewed by me without much effort. This is not my fault. (I was also really stoned at the time, which makes it harder to curb my naturally creepy tendencies.) It’s not like I actively pursued bringing home (NotSo)TinyTim, guys!

I’m betting at least another few months pass before I hear from Tim, though.