Schrödinger’s Fuck
How to Embrace the Unknown on Tinder
Inside Shrödinger’s box, everyone is fuckable. Or so I’d like to think. They may or may not also be dead. I don’t know — I studied philosophy, not physics.
But what I do know is that the first rule of getting laid on the internet is “do NOT talk to them too much first.” This is what I’ve been telling my friends recently when describing men it turns out I do not want to have sex with.
A familiar pattern plays out. They’re cute. We match on Tinder. We chat a bit — enough for me to think, “OK, this person doesn’t seem awful.”
This is where we reach a crucial juncture. The quantum mechanical interpretation is that before we keep talking, the man is both worth fucking and not. A superposition of fuckability.
But continued observation destroys the superposition. He must resolve. I must resolve.
Terry seemed fuckable. Then he got too drunk and told me all about his hurt white boy feelings about Black Lives Matter protests.
Jordan and I seemed to have some pleasantly overlapping sexual interests. Until he realized I’m a terrible person for not giving money to homeless people on the street.
Usman was cute and interesting, but talking over noodles, I just couldn’t imagine his nervous hands on my body.
David brought me pizza, then we got into a fight about landlords.
Daniel brought me pizza, then we fucked.
A lot of sex is in your head. Even with another person in the room, naked in front of you, naked underneath you, beside you inside you. You may be having sex with the person, but you are also having sex with the idea of the person. And you have more control over the idea than the person themselves.
What I need to know in order to fuck someone is actually rather limited. Do they have an adequate handle on consent practices? Are they capable of some minimal amount of creative observation and discourse? Do we have irreconcilable sexual interests?
I am not necessarily a proponent of one-night-stands. But I am a proponent of getting laid. And while partnership requires extensive knowledge, getting laid requires less. Maybe… just don’t find out too much first? Let them continue to be the best version of themselves that your mind can come up with. Let the pussy stay alive and purring. If they meet the minimal requirements for consent, conversation, and sexual compatibility, that’s enough.
Inside Shrödinger’s box, the cat is both dead and not — the pussy a superposition of wetness. Curiosity kills the cat. Discovering shortcomings kills the vibe.
If I like having sex with someone, and they with me — and they miraculously manage to not be a total fuckboy — then I’ll learn more about them as time goes on. But it’s easier to accommodate someone’s unpalatable particulars if they’re already associated with an oxytocin spike.
Of course, the question remains… if you want to get laid, why not just have sex with people who you don’t like that much? Open the box, fuck them anyway. It’s a good question — meaning I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s a nice idea in theory, but difficult in practice.
Perhaps the challenge has to do with how I like to have sex. Despite my sexual bluster, I prefer quite tender and caring sex, even with strangers. And while I can generate these emotions for the unknown person still inside Schrödinger’s box, it is more difficult once an adverse observation has been made. In those cases, I open the box to find the cat dead and my desire dissipated.
I suppose Schrödinger was right to abandon quantum physics for the cognitive dissonance of it. Or, at least, who am I to judge his decision?
But as I stumble through my fourth decade, I feel increasingly at ease with the interpretation that everyone is both fuckable and not. And when I’m looking for sex on the internet, I’d rather embrace the unknown.
