[Originally posted on 7.18.15 but re-wrote and re-edited] The following is a true story. I was starting something with an L.A. woman (actually a fellow journalist of a vaguely similar ranking) in, I think, the early aughts. Okay, maybe the late ’90s. I was mildly intrigued as far as it went (i.e., not head over heels), but then she eventually conveyed what the situation was.

She was “seeing” two guys at the time. Meaning that she was boning them concurrently without either of them knowing about the other, or so I understood. It took a while for the truth to come out, but she gradually informed me that I was basically being auditioned as a back-up in case one of them didn’t pan out. She was serious. There were two pitchers on the mound (alternating innings?) and I was being told that if I wanted to I could start warming up in the bullpen just in case.

I told her I didn’t care for this arrangement, and her response was to basically say “whoa, really?…you’re throwing away an opportunity here.” Yeah, I was. My thinking was that I might step into a situation if a woman is seeing another guy — maybe, depending — but not two. Okay, I’ll be even more honest. If she had told me I could start “pitching” along with the other two and then come what may, I might’ve taken the deal.

I don’t think she was uninterested in me as much as more interested in where things might go with the first two guys. I know she was at least interested enough in me to say “go warm up in the bullpen and we’ll see.”

Okay, a lot of people juggle relationships. Younger people, I mean. I guess to be extra fair about it the woman from the late ’90s was just being upfront whereas no guy in this history of civilization has ever admitted to seeing two or three girls simultaneously. Guys tend to be covert about that stuff.

Comment from Seb Booth: “Between men and women of equivalent attraction levels, it is far easier for women to just get laid on average. Plus ugly and fat women can still get laid easier than ugly and fat dudes on the same level (unless they’re loaded).”