Moral bankruptcy in the Bahamas

Ok, last week I was supposed to go to Hawaii on a double date with an acquaintance who is a billionaire, let's call him "J".

I don't know J THAT well, but we hit it off last year and he wanted to party with me. Frankly I'm not sure how the hell he landed the job he has, but he makes an obscene amount of money from his work: he has his own island, a Gulfstream, and bachelor pads with discreet domestic servants in several places. Anyhow, he also has a big beach estate on the big island where he's building a house. I'm supposed to meet him in NYC to fly down there.

His limo picks me up at my place and as I hop in J says, "Let's go to my place in the Bahamas instead, because the weather in Hawaii sucks." So we fly there instead along with two models from Florida for a "double date." His date is a model he's been with several times, let's call her "E"; my date is her friend "S". J hangs out with models a lot (not prostitutes), and has no GF.

Now this was a TRIP. I learned more than I ever wanted about moral bankruptcy.

For one thing, he mistreats the models, and they seem to like it. He clearly thinks they are stupid (and he appears to have selected for low IQ), and he gets them to do all kinds of outrageous things so he and his friends can laugh at them. Some of the situations are pretty weird, and would make an interesting reality show. For example, he had several video recordings of E and a few other models milking a cow. Another one where they were covered with milk and had cats licking it off. He claims all this predated reality shows and the ideas came from Japan. Whatever. So that's the inflight entertainment. E and her friend S seem to find it quite funny, even though it portrays E as dumber than a post. One of her favorite quotes, "I'm pretty stupid, huh?"

I don't know how to reply to that.

We get to Bahamas and the weather is nice. NYC was frickin' cold, so this is great.

Possibly because I'm not as accustomed to the weird rituals he likes to videotape, or maybe because he didn't have as much time to prepare, the trip is more mellow than the in-flight recordings would indicate.

So are these gals providers? Absolutely, except no cash exchanges hands. There is no question whatsoever in their minds that their primary functions are entertaining eye candy and sex. They are VERY good at the first, and pretty good at the second. They like each other, too, although they always had this coquettish girlishness about professing not to.

Sex and performance art, they'll do, but they won't serve you drinks, clean, or cook. That's beneath them. There are servants for that. But feed us naked without using their hands? Sure! A "Simon Says" drinking game where only they have to do the actions? No problem! Demonstrate the kitchen implements as sex aids? Ok! Sex on demand? Any time, anywhere!

One evening I wake up in the middle of the night and, half awake, I start pawing S. She kind of freaks out, and I felt like a creep. When she fully awakes she says she had a bad dream and she had a bad experience before, and of course I could do whatever I wanted, so she's sorry. Wow, now that's an attitude. It was such a pro-sex attitude that it made me depressed.

The image that will stick in my mind was sitting on the porch with J, drinks in hand, watching these half-drunk girls running naked in the surf as the sun sets. He turns to me and says, "These girls are so stupid, they'll do anything and think it's fun. And they know I'll get another one if I don't like 'em... there's a hundred of them in line. And no matter what I get them to do, they'll tell their friends it was the best time they've ever had. Isn't it great?"

Except it isn't. Particularly since they are high about 80% of the time. I realize I've fallen into a moral cesspool with J, and some part of me liked being in there.

J explains how he started down this path: One day he's jerking off to a porno and he realizes that there are over 100 women a year in Playboy worldwide, and thus at least 500 or 1000 women in the "hot" age range. And even if only 1% of them would have sex with him, that was still 5 to 10. He just had to find out what they wanted, supply it, and he could find them. And lo and behold, there are many more models than he ever thought that just want to be able to brag to their friends about the island, the jet, the games, and the mysterious powerful boyfriend.

And now I know how he got to be a billionaire.

So that was my long weekend without morals. There and back again.

Would I repeat? I would like to say no, but admit I'm not sure. I'm offended at J and even more offended at myself, but hell, what an experience.

I'll tell you, the providers have a WAY better chance of keeping their sanity than these models do.

While I was in NYC I checked out the new Mandarin Oriental at the Time Warner building on Columbus Circle. It's a small hotel, about 250 rooms, but pretty high up. The lobby is on the 32nd floor, I believe, and there is a little bar and restaurant with a great view. Very nice.

Asia and France next month.

A trip down memory lane in Mexico

I went to Mexico, Hotelito Desconocido, with my attractive, wish-she-were-a-provider, ex-GF. The lows, the highs, the moans, the cries. Originally was thinking of going with my favorite Seattle provider, but that didn't work out (she is very popular and very busy and never answers email). Unsuprisingly with the ex, it was a trip to heaven and hell. The "trapped in an isolated hut on the water with a sex-starved minx" part was great. The "trapped in an isolated hut on the water with an emotional wreck" part sucked.

One cool thing was being there at a time where you could see the sea turtle hatchings. We weren't at the ideal time, but it was still very cool. And you have your own little rowboat in the lagoon, so you can row out in the middle of the night to watch the stars. Since there is essentially no electricity, the night sky appears very clear.

You can get a wireless (GSM) Internet connection from the lodge. This is good for after you argue with your ex-GF and want to feed her to the turtles. Interestingly the arguments seem to make for more charged sex.

Not sure I would repeat without bringing her a blister pack of Xanax.

L/A/S Ratings

Pretty much every guy rates a woman. A common way on the Internet boards is L/A/S. I don't agree with it, but without diving into the whys, this post outlines how I use it.

LOOKS

Last year I had dinner with the two youngsters who founded HotorNot, which is a site where people rate other peoples' photos. I asked them for the statistical distribution of variance in peoples' rankings. They said there were some people who had amazingly uniform rankings (within the error limits of false/joke ratings), and many people who did not. The former were biased toward the high and low ends of rankings, in other words, they vary the MOST in the middle ratings (e.g. 4 vs. 6). The statistics are computed over several tens of million ratings, although the site attracts a biased sample.

This implies that looks may not be as subjective as you think, at least for the best and worst looking.

This probably would change if we ranked individual body parts.

More commonly hobbyists do not rank on a bell curve. And I suspect that a truly private board would rank differently than a public board, for reasons of politeness. For example, a looks of 7 really means "average", partly because in a public board the provider will see how she is rated and doesn't like to see a 5, and partly because many hobbyists weigh their rankings bimodally (or fail to post ratings for average experiences). Obviously the better you know the hobbyist, the more you can normalize their rating.

When I rate, I rate based on what I've seen among providers, reserving some buffer for the future. So I've never given a 10, but I'll give a 9 to a gal who might be only a 8 among swimsuit models.

ATTITUDE

Agreed this varies. To me this is a combination of professionalism and goals. A professional can maintain an appropriate attitude under extreme circumstances. The question is, what attitude does she attempt to maintain?

SERVICE

I have a different rating for service. I'll grant a 10 when they are perfect TO ME. I'm not into water sports or crocophilia, so they don't increase the service. In fact, they decrease the rating. Yep, I'd drop a gal to at least a 5 if she peed on me!

To me, service is a skill rating.

For myself, I also like to ask about presentability as a 4th criteria. This has to do with public face, e.g. if you took your date to the opera or fine dining, how presentable is she? Would she impress your boss or business associate? Or would she come across like Anna Nicole Smith?

Location, Location, Location

My dating life in the past few years has been concentrated in the Bay Area, New York and Seattle/Vancouver. There is an occasional experiment in SoCal, Texas, Aspen, Vancouver, Boston, London, Singapore, and D.C., and every now and again in some other random city, but lately I've preferred to take a provider or girlfriend on my travels rather than find one at my destination.

This entry is about providers and how they differ by location.

Is there a difference between providers in different locations? Absolutely. It differs by country. It differs by coast. It differs by size of city. It differs on attitude, looks, cost, and talent. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

I like to hobby for the long term. I prefer a regular escort who can spend several days at a time with me. Once they get to know me, this is at a substantial discount to their regular rate. But to get to know them, I have to pay hourly for the first meeting or four, and it can be expensive. And it can be impossible for some agency girls, which is why I prefer independents, or out of town girls managed by an agency who can "freelance".

Without question, the United States is the most expensive place to hobby. Ok, it can be more expensive if you are a Caucasian tourist in Japan. But in general it's most expensive here in the good 'ol U. S. of A. I think of the US premium as a kind of moral hazard pay. It's most illegal here, and therefore most dangerous (for both parties), so it costs the most. (By this rationale it should be hyper expensive in Saudi Arabia...)

I have been quite surprised how cost effective it can be in London, but this may be due to the high influx of eastern and northern european girls that keep the prices down. Europe is so small and it's pretty easy for girls to travel between countries (and therefore moralities) there.

If you head to Malasia or Thailand, you can hobby for nearly free. You can spend a day or weekend with a gal for the cost of her bar fee plus being single (i.e. appearing marriageable). But I haven't really enjoyed this as much as I had thought I would.

The best deal I've ever enjoyed outside of Asia was in Mexico City, where I guested with a VIP. He was able to summon about a dozen beautiful women to entertain four of us for a weekend.

I hear Brazil is great also, but I haven't tried it yet.

But given that the dollar is in free fall against most all currencies at the moment, you might consider staying within the United States. What then?

Within in the US, Seattle has pretty good hourly prices all things considered. SoCal is relatively expensive, although there are Asian communities in LA that keep the prices down (or you can head down to Tijuana and spend the money you save on antiviral drugs.) NYC is more expensive, although you often get a different kind of gal than in LA.

I've found the most educated and physically attractive escorts in New York and London. Usually they come from elsewhere, but ply their trade in the big cities. Many escorts in Boston are educated, but for whatever reason I've had the brightest in New York and sometimes D.C. SoCal has some beautiful escorts, particularly from boutique madams, but some are truly dumb as a post.

Seattle does not have the most attractive escorts. A 9 in Seattle seems to be about a 7.5 in NYC. But Seattle has some of the nicest providers I've met in the US. I like 'em.

Arm Candy

The other night I was talking to a friend about the secondary values of a date. Put another way, why date very attractive women?

There are several rationales:

1) Genetic. Attractive women have desirable genetic qualities to pass on children. Since our sexual drive has evolved from a mandate to reproduce and create successful offspring, this makes us want to date attractive women.

2) Personal. We are greedy and want to feel good about ourselves. We assume that an attractive woman has greater demand for her attention, so the value of her attention is greater. When it is lavished upon us, we feel commensurately better. We are greedy because during evolution the accumulation of resource was a reproductive advantage.

3) Social. Attractive women say something about our position in society, and implicitly give us power in a social setting. Since our socio-political behaviors evolved from a mandate to achieve good social position (and thereby allow us to procreate), we want to date attractive women.

Interestingly, if you talk to men about their opinions on women, or look at an Internet forum where men discuss women, you will find a set of numerical measures that are only somewhat consistent with these rationales.

Almost all measures of a woman will include Looks. Hey, men are like that, ok?

If you are married you will rate the genetic rationale. Families may discuss this across generations: "She makes good children." In modern dating (thanks to contraception), the genetic rationale is not important unless you are looking for a marriage.

The personal rationale is very common. A common rating system is the "LAE" or "LAS" measure. L: looks, A: attitude, E: experience or S: service for an escort. Attitude and experience/service describe how she treats you on the date. This is how good YOU feel about the date.

The social component is when you take her out to meet your friends, or show her off at a public event. When somebody says, "oh, they are a cute couple", or "why the hell does a gal like that date a guy like that?" it's a statement about the social rationale.

The fascinating thing to me is that providers are not rated on the social component.

Long ago, providers could be courtesans, with a socially acceptable position in society. This differed from a street hooker, with whom transactions were brief. The salient difference was that a courtesan was shown off in society. The relationship was not hourly, transactional, or only behind closed doors.

In American society, prostitutes are rarely courtesans or mistresses. They are transactional, hourly, and kept in private. Girlfriends may be shown off to society, due to their social acceptability.

One of the things I freely admit that I do, is that I blur this line between girlfriend and provider. I will take a provider out in public, to events, and show her off. The social rationale is as important to me as the personal (and more important than the genetic), and sometimes I am willing to pay for the convenience of a relationship with fewer obligations.

To me, arm candy is important. And girlfriends or escorts have to be physically and socially presentable.

I know friends who don't care about that. They enjoy girlfriends or escorts who look like post-op Pamela Andersen, a hyperinflated stripper look, a surgical Barbie, a Stan Lee heroine. That look doesn't go with the company I keep.

Taking Stock

This blog has certainly been dominated by posts about girlfriends and escorts. In the words of one email I received on it:

You are just justifing (sic) your sick addiction to whores!

Well, thank you for writing.

Um, I don't think I'm addicted: I've gone a whole week without a skanky whore! :-) (of course, the first sign of addiction is denial, which neatly defuses any counterclaim against the accusation of addiction.)

But the part about justification may be true. I'd like to think it's something else (there's the denial again!)

I deal with so many interesting and diverse topics when I work. I have a great job. So I don't have to harp on a hobby topic, since I can do it as part of my work. I'm not in the situation of a closet baseball fan who posts a blog because all he does at work is optimize the assembly line for car manufacture. Or the person who posts a fan site because they can't discuss that at work. No, all the hobbies I enjoy I can talk about at work, so the only thing I can "vent" in a private forum are those that are socially stigmatized. And I really only have a couple of those:

1) Politically incorrect social opinions about my industry, which I will reserve until I write my blistering canto, the modern "Divine Comedy" of the business world. ;-)

2) Politically incorrect opinions about relationships, the core of which revolves around why anybody should feel stigmatized by finding sex and paying for it.

Well, at least that's my opinion.

I also thought it would be a good time to add more about myself, since I have gone a while without posting more background.

I have an advanced technical degree, but I started as a liberal arts major in the midwest before I regained some sense. Now those who have read the beginning of my blog might wonder why I went to a midwestern school if I were Asian. But I always loved a challenge!

I have started a dozen companies, my first when I was a teenager at home. I have been an entrepreneur since, although I have many politically incorrect thoughts on company formation. Some venture capitalists like to compare starting a company to having sex. Well, it takes more people and time than sex. But it's still quite a rush!

And financially I have done well for myself, well enough to have given away 90% of my assets and still have a comfortable living in several cities.

Although I started without any money, in fact scraping a living off government-subsidized bread and cheese from the food banks at one point, I still think I haven't changed all that much. I was watching the new Peter Pan movie with a former girlfriend earlier, and during the part where they talk about how everybody has to grow up, she turned to me and said, "Oh my God, you're Peter Pan! You haven't grown up, and you don't have to."

I thought that was a pretty cool thing to say. Growing old, well, I can't do anything about that. But I won't grow up.

The biggest change money has wrought in my life? I know a lot more lawyers. In fact, I pay more money to lawyers every year than to any other service provider. I see them as a kind of tax on any activity. Physicists talk about how friction is the universal force in their world, what will eventually cause the heat death of the universe as we dissolve into entropy. Well, lawyers serve exactly that role in the real world of human transactions, and I assert they will assuredly cause the heat death of the human universe some day. To this I add my obligatory disclosure: some of my best friends are lawyers.

Oh, and I continue to jettison real estate ownership, although I am seeking an apartment now. I had two residences (and a rental unit I discussed below), but taking care of it on my travel schedule really meant that I was paying a bunch of house staff to live in my homes. As far as the "Three's Company" scenario I mentioned in one of my first posts, it has degenerated since the gals adopted more consistently available (and age appropriate) boyfriends. The apartment was sold.

So it goes.

Is abuse a reason to crack down on prostitution?

There is a news article that cited several men who mistreated women (in this case it doesn't matter if they are professional or civilian). It used this as a reason to crack down on prostitution.

I think it's common to think of men as abusive jerks. It's because there are some men who are, and they tend to stick out. In the case of providers, the media seems to like the image of a downtrodden abused woman, but it's a common (and historical) theme in literature for ordinary relationships also.

Arguably, raising the social consicence on spousal abuse has created laws to protect women, and that has been helpful. But it wasn't a reason to ban or scrutinize marriage! Yes, this form of abuse happens among providers, but is it because of:

1. the vocation,
2. the fact that it is socially unacceptable and therefore hidden and dangerous, or
3. something else?

#2 was the reason that Prohibition made alcohol a more dangerous drug. It is one of the reasons pro legalization advocates give for legalizing drugs -- to regulate it and take the most dangerous drugs off the streets (this is not a position I take, by the way, although I find it better applied to prostitution and other coercive crimes.)

Let's think of #3 another way:

If I had a girlfriend who mistreated me, would I be correct in calling women jerks? It happens to a lot of friends of mine. They feel trampled by a woman and then mopes around with their buddies calling all women "bitches". Natural.

But what if I had a series of twenty girlfriends, all of whom mistreated me. Then are women jerks? Or could it be that I'm selecting women poorly, or there is something at issue with ME?

In high school my sister seemed to attract abusive boyfriends. I couldn't figure it out. She was pretty, popular, and smart. What was with all the losers? She broke out of the habit, but she admits it was a habit: she was attracted to and attracted these kinds of men. She didn't put all the blame on them: she had a choice, and she took responsibility to stop seeing them. But what if what she was doing was illegal and socially unacceptable? Then perhaps she could not ask for help, or avoid the situation as easily.

Risk Management

In the sense that providers exchange money for companionship, it is a profession with wide definition. Statistically you have many different risk profiles.

A streetwalker is exposed to clients whose only qualifying criterion are that they are amulatory or have a car. Because this is very inclusive, and the street may be a risky environment, this provider has a higher than average chance of a bad experience.

I presume a provider at an agency that advertises in the Yellow Pages may meet many customers from out of town. The qualification is merely that they can read and use a phone. I would guess that many agencies qualify customers based on the hotel. It is quite possible that the worst-case experience is thereby not as bad due to hotel security and the guest identity registration at the hotel.

Other agencies and independents have a wide range of screening procedures. Top agencies would not advertise and would rely on word of mouth referrals. The Internet has enabled ad hoc communities to exchange such referrals, allowing independents to enjoy the benefits of exclusive agency referral from the comfort of their own workstations.

Put another way, when we ask "does it attract abuse?" you may be asking a question that we could apply to the entire human population. There are people in the population who enjoy harming others or dominating them. Organized religion has killed more people than any other ethic. Yet I hope such individuals remain statistical outlyers and never become the norm. Does that make humanity "abusive"? One can argue it does, since it is a responsibility of society to maintain community standards. Yet that's a slippery slope that leads to community-maintained ethics, which may lead to laws banning paid companionship entirely. Or restricting individual freedom. Or discouraging individual responsibility and liability for actions.

Oh, but wait, maybe that already happened!

Now is this a reason to crack down on prostitution? I don't think so. I do think it is important to apply common laws to reduce abuse. And to educate people so they don't continue to attract abusers. Creating a socially-hidden bunker mentality for non-coercive prostitution is not the way to do that.

Selling yourself part I, money versus services

I have seen many people discuss how prostitutes sell their body, and what a pity that is, or what a shame it is. The difference between pity and shame seems to do with personal accountability. It is a pity if the person in question had no chance and choice, because they were abused or were forced into it. It is a shame if the person did it of their own free will, since it is "obviously" an immoral choice.

There has been much written about our society's discomfort with sexually liberated, promiscuous women, while the same behavior is greeted with back-slapping camaraderie among men. Sure it is, just watch television, the great definer of our social thinking, or the movies, the great mirror of our morality.

Let's look at this closer, shall we?

In an earlier post I defined a prostitute as follows:

A woman who will perform some subset of what an ideal girlfriend will do in return for money, with "no strings attached."

As I pointed out, the defining word is "money". Most evolutionary anthropologists argue that natural evolution has driven the social instincts of women to look for male-provided services such as protection and food in return for sex. Indeed women are still more likely to fall in love after they have been fed by a man, and in this age of liberation, they still value being cared for and scorn weakness in their men.

If you subscribe to this thinking, you would interpret modern womens' desire for flowers, dinners, and jewelry as a modernized form of this social contract.

So how is this different from prostitution? Some point out that divorce judgements are far more expensive than patronizing pros, although this discounts the value of commitment. Yet if we confine our discussion to dating, what is the difference there?

If the goal of dating is to have a friend, I have argued below that there is less difference than most people would like to believe.

If the goal of dating is to have children, ok, there is a difference there. Having children is an important social contract. You have to raise children in society, like it or not (a reason why some people elect not to have children), so having a socially acceptable relationship is important (an important reason why gay marriages are seeking social legitimacy. More power to them!)

Is there such a difference between contracting for sex for money versus the security of a commitment?

One difference is a place where many do not look. The reciprocal contract.

Prostitution is generally very transactional. The expectation is that money is exchanged for a sexual act. Marriage is not so strictly defined. It is quite possible, and perhaps even common, that commitment and money is exchanged and tracked in a marriage, but it is rare with sexual acts. They are certainly decoupled, so you can't have some kind of sex debit account. Yet it is part of the contract. Even in the Catholic Church, an organization in the business of setting moral standards, a sexless, childless marriage is grounds for annulment (Canon 1096, sec. 1; Canon 1101, sec. 2), a contract they feel is a contract with man and God. And some marriage counselors advise people to think of a marriage as something that has a debit account, a love obligation account that you have to consider keeping current (e.g. Marriage Builders)

So in a sense, prostitution, by virtue of being explicitly transactional, is also a stronger commitment. Hmm.

But faithful adherence to a social contract is not what invokes moral high ground. Obviously since less than half of prostitution contracts are broken, and more than half of marriage contracts are.

Of course not all relationships are like this. But there is more of it than we'd like to think. Society enjoys papering over the transactional nature of human relationships with all kinds of complex morality. Yet at the core of it all, we are simple creatures.

Part 2 will look at selling your body vs. selling your brain.

Pros vs. Civilians

At times I envy the married man. There is a form of loneliness that no married man seems to recall, even if their relationship with their spouse borders on hatred. But shed no tears for me, for the flexibility of a single life has considerable benefits also. So in the contemplation of the new year, here is an analysis.

I have had a very busy end of year. Basically I've spent quality time over the last few months with a couple of providers from Seattle and Southern California (SoCal), a former provider who wants to be a girlfriend, a former ATF who just likes to have fun (but is getting older than my sweet spot), a former girlfriend, and some buddies I've known for at least twenty years (all married).

Around November I scheduled a several days trip with a Pacific Northwest (PNW) provider. Then I spent five days in NYC with a former NYC provider who currently lives in Norway. Then I spent Thanksgiving in Florida where I met a former regular provider of mine randomly at a bar, and with whom I spent a few days in the Bahamas (I posted about this here). In December I returned to Seattle to catch "Battlestar Galactica" on television (depressing) and then spent five days at a resort hotel on Vancouver Island with a former girlfriend. I made it back to civilization in time to catch the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy day, and then went to LA where I split time with a SoCal provider and some old friends.

I'm at a crossroads. I have been searching for either my next steady provider or next steady girlfriend, and it's been tough going. I have been hobbying and dating for a decade, and frankly I feel that the experiences are changing. Girlfriends are quicker to demand committment, and I'm starting to want to date providers in a civilian manner. I'm not sure why, but it's happening.

So I spent some time thinking about my recent experiences, and what I liked the most. Being the fiercely quantitative person that I am, I built a weighted analytical model. Now let me have a little missive about numbers. Many people like to rate things. It's a natural tendency. Although arguably it's better to stack rank things (for example, x is better than y) rather than rate using absolute numbers. So I will disclaim numerical ratings.

The PNW provider tied for highest score in this model, but had poor availability. She's damned difficult to schedule, harder than the gal who lives in Norway! It's really a shame since it's nearly a deal breaker. I've considered several times just walking away, but other attributes, that she's just a great gal, keep drawing me back.

The ex-girlfriend ties for first place even though she is most expensive and least reliable. Sometimes reality isn't as good as fantasy, I guess. Or maybe she isn't as practiced at it. Of course, it's also possible I have a skewed view of the terms "girlfriend" and "fun"; if dodging kitchen implements thrown at your head qualifies for a fun girlfriend, she'd be at the top of the scale.

My ex-ATF regular is next. She is the only girl in this comparision older than I am, and it's showing. But she is a classic courtesan in the skills department. Graduate school degree, well read, entrepreneurial and free-spirited, and uninhibited. She makes me feel young with her infectious enthusiasm for all things.

In a somewhat distant third rank is the ex-NYC provider in Norway who wants to be a girlfriend. We met three times several years ago when she was a provider through an "international agency" in Manhattan. She returned to Norway to attend school, and we've corresponded quite a bit over instant messenger. We had lunch in Norway about a year ago. She has always been hinting that I should invite her for a travel vacation and that the experience would be extraordinary. So she came to NYC over a winter break they have over there, and it was fun. She is young and remarkably uninhibited, and dresses provocatively outdoors and seems to hate clothes indoors. She clearly saw our five days as an opportunity to impress. To give you an idea of her lifestyle, last summer she spent some time travelling all over Europe with an even cuter girlfriend, having menage-a-trois with race car drivers. Now she wants to settle down to more boring stability. Gee, thanks for thinking of me. ;-) But she has potential, maybe the most potential of all.

I'll be in Mexico later this month with the ex-girlfriend.

I have to cut down a few options, since I also DO work sometimes. Not sure what to do. But it reminds me of a conversation many years ago with a tax advisor. I was stunned by the amount of tax I was paying (after all, I used to be poor). He told me to keep perspective, saying, "It's not a bad problem to have."

New Years

I am in NYC, contemplating the scene below in Columbus Circle. It's amazing how quickly they can clean up the messes that people leave behind.

2004 is upon us.

2003 was a strange year in the world, but for me personally the economy rebounded in a big way.

My spending on girlfriends, whether rented or owned (see earlier posts), has been pretty consistent over the last several years, but 2003 was a good year, even though I was without a regular girlfriend of either type for a while. The lack of the steep discounting I usually enjoy from a regular was more than offset by the number of "free" travel trips (the cost of transportation, room and board), although I spend significantly to show a good time.

2003 was also a year of renewed acquaintances. I met several girlfriends and former providers I had not for some years, which has led me to make a comparison. I'll summarize this in a separate post.

I expect despite improved economic conditions, I will spend about the same on women in 2004 as 2003. I will have more free time, so perhaps I'm kidding myself thinking I will dedicate that time to self-improvement, and I will instead throw myself into the sybaritic joys of female flesh. I hope I will find a regular woman, although it's proving to be very difficult this time around.

Resolutions? Usually I don't make them because it is hard to improve on perfection. ;-) One resolution would be to quit the hobby. But to do that I'd have to cut off a part of my body that still has life. So, naw, maybe next year.