What Pizza Taught Me about Women

When a fresh pan of pizza is presented to me, its skin undulating with subtle bubbles that rise and fall quickly, my first impulse is to snag a slice and gorge myself with savage abandonment. The problem with this reckless act of gluttony is that pizza fresh from the oven possesses a self-defense mechanism to thwart its overzealous predators. This self-defense mechanism comes in the form of tongue burn. Insatiable as it is, fresh pizza does not want to be ravaged with desperate urgency. No. Pizza, like no other delicious food, demands a grace period of reverent appreciation and heart-pounding patience. Eaters who infringe on the respectful ground rules of fresh pizza are punished with a scalding blaze on the roof of their mouths. With the proper mindset, then, it's plain to see why pizza is my favorite food. Pizza shares so many correlations with the sort of beautiful woman who would take a chance on spending some time between the sheets with a guy like me.

And what kind of guy am I? Well, let it be stated that it may prove daunting for me to compare pizza consumption to sexual conquests. The hours I've spent eating pizza far exceed the time I've spent with my favorite appendage tussling inside that warmth-exuding, moist tunnel of delight. Think of a number on par with the population of a Chicago suburb and without a great deal of hyperbole that is the number of pizzas I have consumed. Conversely, when you multiply the number of times I have seen the end of the rainbow by three you arrive at the number of woman who have laid naked panting beside me and proclaimed, “That was a solid C-plus.” * (And don't go multiplying zero by three with sneering doubt because I have indeed witnessed the glorious nexus of a rainbow.) In short, my ratio of pizzas devoured to women seduced is all out of whack. Humble and neurotic confessions such as these hint at the kind of guy I am.

But don't dismiss me as an amateur on a topic of my own design. Every time my sperm has ventured someplace as meaningful as the tip of a condom, I have treated the woman like a steaming pan of pizza that deserves a grace period of reverent appreciation and heart-pounding patience. I have subdued my urges for instant gratification and been rewarded, by pizza and women alike.

In a perfect world—that is, by definition, a heavenly scenario in which I am perceived as perfect by Victoria's Secret models and everything else stays exactly the same—I could gobble pizza the instant it hits the table, launching into a wild spasm of feral indulgence, too classless and indifferent to don a bib to prevent the tomato sauce from splattering on my Beastie Boys t-shirt. I could do all this at a ritzy pizzeria in front of a Victoria's Secret model who manages a fantasy football team and owns a collection of Trailer Park Boys DVDs—and she wouldn't mind in the slightest that her boyfriend acts like a debauched slob at fancy restaurants.

“To hell with 'em,” my Victoria's Secret model girlfriend would say about the critical naysayers in the pizzeria. “The dude I'm with is perfect in every way.”

After pizza, as our idyllic date continues, we walk hand-in-hand a short distance back to the condo I own. My Victoria's Secret girlfriend listens with attentive reverence as I expound on my theory that the ongoing and sordid saga of Brett Favre draws strong parallels to the Batman flick The Dark Knight. My Victoria's Secret girlfriend is enthralled rather than annoyed like most people by a game I invented called “Name That Snarf.” It works this way: The singer belts out lyrics to popular songs in the voice of Snarf from The Thundercats, replacing every word with the skittish sidekick's name. Here is a transcript from the game of “Name That Snarf” that two of us play on the way home.

“♫Snarf Snarf Snarf Snarf Snarf. Snarf. Snarf Snarf Snarf Snarf Snarf ♫.”

That is, of course, the chorus to “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles.

At my condo we get naked and rattle the bedsprings while the Cubs game is on mute, with the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street blasting forth from the stereo. “Gonna get my Rocks Off tonight,” I'd announce, mid-thrust. Right into the “Loving Cup.” Gross...but that about sums it up.

Afterward, I'd demonstrate my prowess in the kitchen by cooking a Tombstone pepperoni pizza. Once it's ready, I'd be free to indulge like a Neanderthal once more, without fear of tongue burn. And here's the best part: just like me, my Victoria's Secret girlfriend dowses her 'za in hot sauce. Now that's my kind of imaginary vixen.

The problem with this elaborate scenario that so pristinely meshes my insatiable love for pizza and women is that it's entirely implausible; in fact, it's delusional. The truth is that I'm nut perfect. Hell, I just misspelled the word “not,” if you don't believe me. Creating a game as dopey as “Name That Snarf” is a foolproof way to demonstrate your imperfections to the world and all of its readers and Victoria's Secret models.

I am more likely to someday behold the end of a rainbow again than make it with a Victoria's Secret model. I am still coping with this sobering notion.

In reality, I am the antithesis of that feral Neanderthal who eats his pizza just as he seduces his women: Swiftly. I have to be the antithesis of that. The bookish and nerdy variety of women that are attracted to me tend to be impressed by good manners. It's okay. To oddities like me, the most arousing word one can hyphenate before the word “Sexy” is “Librarian.” An oddity, in this case, is exemplified by an American male who does not detest reading and everyone and everything associated with it.

Some men are impervious to the tongue burn metaphor as it applies to seducing women. These are the sort of men capable of penetrating the birth canal while I'm still bandying small talk along the lines of, “Interesting. And what does your mom do for a living?” These men, some of whom have muscles that bulge out of flesh-clinging Polo shirts, boast gaudier, more impressive pizzas-eaten to women-seduced ratios. They typically don't care about beholding the origin of a rainbow; for them witnessing a stripper launch ping-pong balls from the holiest of holes sets the gold standard for awesome sightings.

I share the same instincts as machismo-loaded men when it comes to pizza and women. The difference is that I am not built for instant gratification as they are. When I try to express urges for instant gratification, I come across as desperate, and pizza and women alike are wont to burn me for conveying that sort of desperation. I am resigned to the fact that, for me, pizza and women are not meant to be ravished instantaneously. I am comforted by the wisdom that writers are not meant to experience instant gratification. Our game so often entails suffering with patience, style, and resolve.

I will wait for the incendiary passion of a fresh pan of pizza to cool down as I look on with tortuous anticipation, my taste-buds salivating and unquenched, just as I will wait for the love of my life to spread her legs for me. This is my mantra.

It is perhaps a dowdy concept, but I recommend behaving like a gentleman to piping hot pizzas and potential sexual partners. Be patient. Let the anticipation and reverence well up inside of you. But—and I can't stress this enough—never, ever wait so long that the pizza or its counterpart get cold.



*Interestingly enough, you can't spell “C-plus” without “C-minus.”