The Infinite P*ssy Glitch: "Help! I'm 22 and drowning in beautiful women!"

Lana’s note: I’m trying a new Q&A format!

Hi Lana,

I’ve read few articles of yours and I’m approaching you out of curiosity since I have never consulted anyone in terms of dating.

I’m 22, from lisbon, 188cm (6.2) and not to brag about but pretty attractive.1 I’ve downloaded hinge couple months ago and had dozens of dates — I wish I had more but I simply cannot afford to pay for the drinks every single fridays and saturdays. My dating life got revolutionised to be honest (for the better).

I have no intention to find a girlfriend whatsoever, I like the excitement of first dates, sleeping around and I approach it like a game: the more I play the more nuanced my game gets, the more my senses become subtle towards women in general.

I don’t to spend much energy on texting so I’ve basically created a prompt which I always send: “Alo aloo [their name] so how about I take you to some cool spots in lisbon, get a few drinks for us, have some fun…how does that sound? :)”, and most often than not it’s a date.

I would like for you to analyse this, to psychologise this behaviour, to critique it, to point out the good and the bad for the future, the risks involved. I simply want a perspective from the outside and preferably from a women… I’ve never imagined the circumstances I am facing right now, I got to chose from let’s say 2 to 4 gorgeous 8+/10 girls to have a date on a friday or saturday.

Thank you very much for your time!

Rodrigo

Dear Rodrigo,

Congratulations on having fallen into the fabled Infinite Pussy Glitch!

Let me try to address your question in a somewhat roundabout way.

When I was in my early 20’s, I was a very anxious young woman. I was always worried about doing the “right” thing and sought out a lot of advice from older people and writers online about how to make the most of my 20’s. I had recently graduated from a fancy college and was deeply aware that I held a very good hand in this game of life. I had a lot of anxiety about how to maximize and not waste my opportunities.

For about a decade, from 15 to 25, I read an enormous number of self-help books. I thought I carried the wisdom of hundreds of wise people inside me. Everything had to be Okay and turn out Okay because I had been dealt such a good hand in life and I had read so, so many books about how to think and feel the Right way! I just had to be fearless, take tons of risks, believe in myself! I would travel around the world! Fuck a corporate job - I’d start my own business!

Now. This isn’t you at all. You’re a man, probably nowhere near as anxious. You haven’t mentioned the crushing weight of expecting amazing achievements from yourself.

But you’re 22 and life is going well. You got dealt a good hand.

What you’re asking, really, is: what’s the catch? How do I make the most of this? Am I doing this whole thing right? Is there another shoe that might drop? What does it all mean? Why???2

What I didn’t understand at your age is that you can’t skip ahead to the next, better part. Nor does it help to be worried about how the current phase will eventually end. You can’t read a bunch of advice and books and prevent yourself from making the exact same mistakes for the exact same reasons as the people who give the advice.3

It’s like how merely reading about weight lifting will not make your muscles stronger and there’s no getting around muscles feeling sore in order to build that strength.

It’s possible to try avoiding someone else’s mistake and then just end up making the same mistake in different clothing.4

That’s not to say there aren’t things you can do better now, to be more kind and more careful with people’s hearts.

First of all, be honest. In your dating profile, set your dating goals clearly: short term. If a woman asks you what you’re looking for, be clear that you are having fun, enjoying your life, and not seeking out a long term relationship.

And let me be clear: even when you’re honest, people’s feelings will still get hurt.

Or you might meet someone and like them a lot more than you’re expecting, and then you’ll get hurt. This is just Law. It’s the cost of romantic interaction and it feels bad but it’s part of the process. All you can do is communicate openly and honestly, treat people as humans with agency, and have the kindness to pull back if you sense someone is falling for you, even if you enjoy their company. With great power comes great responsibility to be gentle with people’s hearts — because you want to live life with integrity, but also, word gets around these days and cities are smaller than you think.

My sex positivity is very practical and grounded in seeing other people’s stories. When I was traveling through Japan a few years back, I hung out with an absurdly handsome German man who was traveling the world. He had been in a relationship with his girlfriend from childhood until age 32, then he broke up with her because he had never had the sowing-wild-oats experience. I’ve heard the same story from men who had their wives and girlfriends break up with them in their 30s. If you don’t fully inhabit and enjoy a life phase, it can blow things up later with FOMO.

You say this Hinge rampage has been happening for a few months, which also informs why I’m not saying anything too negative. If you told me you’ve been doing this every weekend for 5 years, 10 years, I would be more concerned. At a certain point, it starts pointing more in the direction of sex addiction - numbing over a deeper pain using other people. But several months of heavy casual dating in your early 20’s is not where I would draw that line.

The main practical thing is harm reduction. Use protection and get tested on a regular cadence. The thing about STIs is that you can have it and not have it show up on a test for weeks or months, so I wouldn’t use number of new partners as a measure. If you’re having a lot of sex, go once a month or every other month.

Though actually, the bigger worry is not STIs, but pregnancy. Most STIs can be treated or managed these days, but if someone gets pregnant, it will be a lot more stressful at the very least and possibly irreversibly alter the shape of your 20s. It is always better to have children on purpose than by accident.

Stay aware of how you’re feeling. Eventually, what you’re doing might feel kind of hollow and empty. That is when you’ll sense that it’s time to move on.

One of the strange things about casual dating is that skills optimized for sleeping with lots of women for short term fun are counterproductive when you’re trying to narrow the field and forge a deeper connection with the right long term partner.

If your goal is to maximize chemistry and momentum across lots of first dates, you learn to keep things light, avoid topics that might create friction, and perform the most popular version of yourself rather than the truest. You learn to find everyone’s quirks charming rather understanding what does and doesn’t work for you in a relationship. You don’t bother screening for long-term compatibility because it simply doesn’t matter.

Over time, this trains you to preserve emotional distance. Seeing people as video game characters with predictable patterns can make dating feel easier and lower-stakes, but it can also ossify into reflexive detachment, or worse, into lazy overgeneralizations about women.

Which is to say: treating dating like a game is a fun and understandable way to move through one season of life. Just don’t get stuck there.

At only a few months in, though, this is still well within the territory of growing up. Enjoy where you are now, and just be careful not to overstay your welcome once your heart is no longer in it.

Until then, be kind, communicate honestly, and enjoy the glitch.

Lana