Dating : I’m Up for Casual Sex but Not if It’s Your Goal

Ari* was confident, tanned and out of everyone sitting around the table in the hostel that evening, he was the cutest. When a few of us went outside for a smoke, I was happy he struck up a conversation with me.

I told him I was in Copenhagen just for a few days, and he told me he was there on a business trip from Israel.

He was perfectly nice, polite, friendly.

Yet there was something a little too eager about him. Something that didn’t sit right. At the moment we were chatting, I couldn’t place what it was, but then he told a story that showed his true colors.

A specific goal

He started telling me about a Tinder date he’d gone on a few days prior. “After I met up with her,” he said, “she told me she always waits at least three dates to have sex. But the thing is, when we met, she was leaving the country in two days, so there wasn’t any chance of that. So that was kind of annoying.”

“I don’t see any problem with that. She was honest with you,” I replied.

“Yeah, but she waited until we’d met up already to tell me that.”

“So, you only wanted to meet up with her if you knew you were able to sleep with her?”

“No, I didn’t expect that. I don’t think a guy should expect a woman to sleep with him the first night they hang out.“

He tried to save himself, but it was too late. I realized what made him rub me the wrong way. It’s that he looked at women as a means to an end.

An opportunity for sex

Ari had met up with that woman from Tinder not because he wanted to go on a date and enjoy her company, but because he thought he may be able to sleep with her afterward.

The date was just a vehicle to get him closer to what he wanted: sex.

He expected that if the date had gone well, he would have the opportunity at some point to sleep with her.

So when he realized he wasn’t going to have that opportunity — not that day and not anytime in the future — he felt cheated. He felt if sex were completely off the table, he should have been informed of that beforehand.

And I realized that was what I didn’t like about my interaction with Ari. I realized he was treating me the same way as he was his Tinder date.

He didn’t care about enjoying our conversation for what it was. He didn’t care about getting to know me better or the answers to his questions.

He cared most about what might happen between us later. He cared about scoring.

Toxic masculinity

I don’t blame Ari for this. That’s how men in our culture are brought up. They are taught to base their self-worth on how many women they can get to sleep with them.

They are taught to objectify women, to look at them not as individuals but as conquests. If a woman lets you sleep with her, it means you have accomplished something. It means you must be successful, cool, good-looking. An alpha male.

But this is not just a problem for men. Women do the same thing but in a different way.

A toxic culture in general

When I was living in New York some ten years ago, dating men I met mostly on apps, I too was looking for something beyond our interactions.

I wanted to make out with him later. I wanted him to be my boyfriend. I wanted him to like me enough to take me out again, to pay for my dinner, to make us “official.”

I wanted a cool boyfriend so I could look cooler too.

I wasn’t after sex specifically, but I wanted something more than trying to get to know this person and having fun at the moment.

That is what my culture had taught me. To always be working towards some goal. To always be in pursuit of something, whether it be good grades in school, promotions, or landing sexual prospects.

For most of us, that’s what life is about: wanting things, trying to get those things, failing or succeeding and repeating the cycle, hoping to build up our image in the process.

We always have to have a reason for doing something, an end in mind.

But that’s bullshit.

Living in the moment

What our culture does not teach us is how to be present and look at people as they are in the here and now.

It doesn’t teach us how to appreciate the thrill of getting to know someone new without any goal.

It doesn’t teach us to enjoy the mystery of another individual without any thought of what might happen later that night or a few months down the road.

So I encourage you, male, female, non-binary, whatever, next time you go on a date, let that excitement be the only end you care about. The moment itself, the elevated blood pressure you might feel when speaking to someone attractive. Enjoy that for what it is. Plain and simple.

And if you want casual sex, that’s cool too.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against casual sex. Or even meeting up with someone for sex. But if you meet people and can only think about “getting it in” later, you’ll be missing out on quite a lot.