She’s Just Not That Into You
By: The Introvert
Tags: Sex, Relationships, Women, Love, Dating

“Why don’t we d-d-do it in the rut? “

Let’s face it: most couples don’t belong together. Ask any buck or doe.

If you could save me

From the ranks of the freaks

Who suspect they could never love anyone — Aimee Mann

When it comes to marriage, commitment, and LTRs, we have much to learn from the animal kingdom. Take the all too common white deer, or giant rat, that overpopulates the northeastern regions of north America. For fifty-weeks of the year, the does and bucks have virtually no contact with each other. That’s primarily because it is only for two-weeks each November, when the does are in estrus, that rutting (mating) season begins. What we learn, or relearn, is that there is no compelling reason for them to be together other than a brief rut, because outside that context they have no use for one another — indeed, rub each other the wrong way (not a pun).

In early November, the bucks seek out secluded sylvan bowers for their ruts — essentially a low pawed out concavity in the forest floor that is intended to serve as a prospective love nest (oh, you shouldn’t have gone the trouble, Bob). At least the location is enticing. As part of the appeal, the buck dolls up his rut, marking it with his urine, periodically returning to spruce up, re-mark, and discern if a doe has come and marked the rut with her urine — a show of interest. Competing bucks are known to foul or sabotage rivals’ ruts, rendering them undesirable to the does.

“What’s this rut? Couldn’t we get a room?

Such a show of interest is invariably dissolved or precluded by an overpowering stench of pheromones emanating from does’ genitalia — now swole up like two underinflated stinking footballs —a perfume that can be discerned downwind by bucks sensitive olfactories as far as ten-miles away. The pheromones the does transmit have an arresting affect that transfixes the bucks, delivering them into a mindless horny frenzy that won’t subside until they are satisfied, or become road-kill. It’s no wonder, as they only ‘get some’ during their proscribed two-week lost-weekend.

“Had I the enhanced olfactory senses of the white tailed deer, perhaps I would have smelled trouble coming.

However, in most suburban areas the deer habitate, the number of bucks far exceeds the does. There’s very little action in the rut because a doe wouldn’t have time to stop along the way while she was gang-banged by twenty or thirty ape-shit horny bucks — each taking his annually proscribed five-seconds of glory. A doe will tire of the bucks quickly enough, but not they she. They will continue to pursue en masse as she darts away, many bucks satisfying themselves as the doe is running — hence the vulgate “flying-fuck.”

“The rest of the year the does patter about gingerly with their foals, while the bucks go faffing about, and scarfing down gardens.

Over-greet homlinesse engendreth dispreysinge

I suppose the does must be relieved when it’s all over and they can go back to mindless grazing and browsing. But what must the bucks think, I wonder? That they can, and prefer to, eschew each other’s presence for all but a tiny fraction of the does’ few weeks of estrus is not sui generis in the animal kingdom. Alternatively, there are animals, such as swans, beavers, and penguins, who make lifetime mates, never infidel. Do they seem happier? It’s hard to tell, but I daresay they couldn’t possibly imagine their life without their significant other.

Words from Aimee Mann seem to always come to mind when I think about men and women. She has much to say about the absurdity and desperation of relationships, despite her insistence that those lyrics are not about her experiences.

Melinda Dillon, et al, from ‘Magnolia’

There’s nothing that needs to be added to that advice.