Ok, I’m exaggerating; she only thought she was an ‘8’ or an ‘8 1/2’. She was still really delusional.

I had been dating Lizzie on and off for about nine months, and since I’ve been too lazy to spend a lot of time or money chasing other women, I was, in effect, being exclusive. But not that it was a formal sort of agreement or statement. If you go through a new woman every month and you start taking chances; STDs, excess crazy behaviors, really expensive tastes that she wants you to satisfy, and so on. I had dated women in the past with most of the above traits, with the exception of STDs. To be honest, with respect to STDs and pregnancy, at times I had been more lucky than wise.

Lesson learned: Don’t take women home for the night when you’ve had too much to drink. Mr. Obvious, right?

Lizzie didn’t have any of the terribly obnoxious features. For the most part she was easy to be around, good enough looking to not be embarrassing, generally polite, and (again) generally grateful for what she got. But I’d noticed that she was recently spending a lot of time around women from her work who seemed to feel very entitled, and I’d seen enough social media to understand some of the misapprehensions that modern women were functioning under.

We were in my car (nothing special – just an everyday Honda) on our way back home from her company’s annual Bar-B-Q picnic. I knew a couple of her co-workers, some of the men from school and some from various activities, and a few of the women who had gone out with us at times in the past. We’d had a pleasant day, and I was looking forward to a pleasurable night with Lizzie.

Alas, that was not to be.

I should have been on guard since I’d seen Lizzie at the picnic hanging with some of her more entitled friends.

They were the ones who had their boyfriends/husbands running around to refresh their drinks or stand in the food lines for them while they were doing the important things, like gossiping and showing off their control over those poor naive bastards.

“You know, Clark, I’ve been thinking,” she said, as if it was a sudden inspiration.

I’m Clark, by the way.

“Honestly, I’m a bit out of your league, you know. All of my girlfriends agree.”

She pulled up her skirt a little and gave a light stoke on her leg.

“I mean, I’ve got great legs.”

Then she put her hand under her tits and lifted.

“And just think about these girls. Way above average. Big, but perky.

“Truthfully, you, on the other hand—I don’t mean to be cruel, but you are just pretty average. Average height, Not like Andrea’s guy, who is 6’ 2”; and no six-pack hiding under that shirt like Marisa’s boyfriend. June says her boyfriend has a huge cock! And your face is decent looking, but you’re no male model. That guy, Patrick, now HE is so good looking!”

I’d been thinking that Lizzie was reaching her expiration date before, but this little ‘talk down’ she was giving me was accelerating the timeline.

“So, where are you trying to get to with this conversation?” I asked, pretty much knowing what was going to come out.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe we should, you know, back off for a while and not be exclusive. Have a chance to explore other people before we make anything permanent.”

I couldn’t let myself laugh out loud, but the whole ‘making something permanent’ had NEVER been on my list of ‘to dos’. At least not with Lizzie.