Lucky Number Seven

“At your wedding, I’ll give my reception toast by asking – Everyone here who has seen our girl naked, raise your glasses. Depending on the number of men that respond, I’ll give your marriage as many months.” This is my best friend’s idea of a joke while I rue the day I got drunk and had this conversation with him because now all I see are big fat digits. That’s right, not people, but numbers. His girls are angry red digits I cannot take seriously and my prospects are muted blue ones that bring the count up slowly. With each new jump, I tick another box. This isn’t how normal, well brought up girls behave, do they?

I don’t mind the concept. What bother me are the repercussions. Tomorrow if I’m in a serious relationship and have to disclose details to the boy, I don’t know how much I’d be able to fib. To begin with, I’m a terrible liar and secondly, well let’s face it; our currents’ exes do bother us. As a rule of thumb (my thumb rules here since I’m the writer), when you ask a guy his tally, he’ll increase it by about 20 percent, while a woman will half hers. So if your girl says she’s been with 3 men, do the math. And if she claims to be a virgin – then either thank your lucky stars cos’ you found a rare gem or worry about what she’s trying to hide. For the record – I have 3 girlfriends who claim the former, but I know every single notch they’ve racked up on bedposts.

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Going back to what I opened with – The prospect of that toast wouldn’t seem so horrifying if only I didn’t have drunken mistakes turned good friends and ill-advised ‘let’s give it a try’ friends that I still hang out with. And while my ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy does raise eyebrows, in the end it’s my choice and even the bad ones have been fun while they lasted! (P.S: I’m not saying I’m still in touch with ex-boyfriends. That’s just stupid!)

But the one thing common to everyone is that we all have that elusive lucky number we would happily go back to anytime. And in an age of cynical love, this is the problem with our lot – we objectify everything. And I do it too. Talking about number crunching – I know people who wear it proudly on their chest and shout it from rooftops any chance they get. Then there are those who make it a hobby. Like this guy on Twitter who spent an year post breakup profiling his numerous dates – ranking them, numbering them and even asking for tips on how to get rid of them next morning. On last count, I could pinpoint atleast 9 different ladies. Now this man has a “lover” – you know the kinds we don’t like to label, but yet delete our old posts and hide our skeletons for. Of course, one can’t find references to those weekend sweeps he chronicled anymore.

I get men’s locker room talk, but what I fail to understand is why it’s such an ego-boost. In my books, one-night stands are often useless (I’m sort of Swiss on them). If the sex was bad, why would you wish to relive or even gloat about it and if it was good, why wouldn’t you want seconds or even thirds? So this compulsive need to assert your manliness via the increasing numbers on the excel sheet that is your sex life rings hollow for me. Till the time it’s an amusing exchange you have with a close pal or two and it becomes an insider joke, it’s cool. Hell, my chuddy buddy and I have even made a drinking game of it – Each time either of us adds a number, the other one drowns shots. Beyond that, it’s just unsavoury. So please boys, don’t brag about yours and definitely don’t weave it into a pick-up line. No one wants to know your business. But in case you’re curious about mine, let’s just say I’m somewhere between 1 and 100. Go figure!

From the October 2011 issue of FHM India.