Auntie SparkNotes: Should I Go For Easy A, or Hard-to-Get B?

Hi Auntie,

I read the article “Auntie SparkNotes: Who’s Wrong? Me, or Him?” and I am coming from the other side. There are two girls at school that I like, but the last time I dated a girl she had sex with two other guys while we were still together. So I don’t know if I should reach out to them. One is the hottest girl in school (we call her B) and I have liked her for four years now, but she had a boyfriend for two years or so. Then there is the other girl (I’ll call her A for simplicity’s sake). A friend told me that A was easy and that I wouldn’t be able to touch B. He also said that B would play the hard-to-get card. Can I get a little advice, I would appreciate it.

Okay, Sparkler. For starters, here’s a little something to chew on: Other girls are neither responsible nor accountable for the bad deeds done to you by exes past. So, your former girlfriend’s infidelities? They were reprehensible, obviously, but they’re also irrelevant, in that they have absolutely no bearing on how faithful any other girl will be if and when you’re together. In fact, your fear of being cheated on tells you nothing except that (duh) you are afraid of being cheated on, which is something you’ll need to be cognizant of lest you end up punishing some blameless future GF for your own emotional baggage.

That was a little advice.

But now, here comes a lot of advice.

For one, dude, figure out what you want. If you want to have a relationship, that’s fine. If you just want a warm place to park your wiener, that is also fine. You’re a young, red-blooded human being, and there’s no law that says you have to be emotionally involved and/or committed to enjoy the *cough* physical benefits *cough* of a dalliance with a person of your preferred sex. But if your current dating standards are best summed up as “will let me touch her boobs without screaming,” you should know that this is what you want, for the sake of moving forward with a little direction and clarity… and, y’know, not wasting everyone’s time by pursuing girls who are looking for actual intimacy.

And for two, whatever you want, please do yourself (and everyone else) the favor of not picking your prospective dates based on some arbitrary assessment of which one seems “easier.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to pursue a girl because she seems more genuine, more down-to-earth, or less likely to play obnoxious manipulative games to make you prove your worth (i.e. “the hard-to-get card”)—and of course you’ll generally do better with a girl who shows signs of returning your interest, as opposed to a girl who looks at you like you’re something she just found on the bottom of her shoe. But at the same time, you’ve got to recognize the distinct difference between an attainable crush and an easy mark. No lady worth her salt will appreciate being approached by you because you think she’s the human equivalent of low-hanging fruit—and if that’s your only reason for pursuing her, you’ll just end up dissatisfied and plagued by the sense that you settled for something. So don’t do it.

With that said, I’m not going to tell you which girl to go after—partly because that’s your call to make, and partly because you seem like you’re still caught up in the not-particularly-awesome phase of thinking about girls like they’re trophies rather than people, in which case I’m not sure I really want to encourage you. And if you’re as hung up on having been betrayed by your ex as you seem to be, you might be better off not dating anyone until you’ve dealt with that. But as long as you’re thoughtful about what you want and considerate of other people’s feelings, whatever you decide to do, you should at least do no harm. Good luck.

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