When I was in college I knew a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life. One of them was a guy who I will call Rob because that was his name.
Rob was a really nice guy. He was extremely charming and easy to hang out with. He was also "tall dark and handsome" and he easily pulled girls anytime that he wanted to in his 20's. He did so with ease and a certain level of arrogance as he moved from one girl to the next to the next to the next with each of them being aware of his past track record and being dumb enough to think that it was somehow going to be different for them.
Rob used to joke about how he was going to "use them up and then toss them out" when he was talking to the boys and some of us, the ones who didn't have such luck with the ladies, actually admired him for his ability to pull this off over and over and over again.
But just as is the case with just about anything else, Rob couldn't keep this up forever, even though he definitely tried to.
Like a lot of people with a lot of things, Rob thought that the party was never going to end and honestly, the way things had been working out for him there was no real reason why he should feel that it would. Even after college and he got a job he was always jumping from one girl to the next because he was still good looking and charming, but then age started to catch up with him.
The last time I saw him he was still attempting to keep up this way of living, but his charm had kind of turned into cringe and he no longer had "it." When he would go out to bars he was kind of creepy rather than alluring and one time he took me to a bar when I was visiting in Colorado and he was still trying to hang out at college bars even though he was in his late 30's or early 40's at the time.
If you went to college you know the type and you probably remember your reaction to them. I would see them in the bars I would go to when I was in college and while I didn't want to age-shame anyone there was always a feeling of "what the heck are you doing in here man?" when I would see them. They would buy drinks, just like Rob was doing once he had transformed into that person, and the younger girls would allow him to do it and all the while I think they were actually making fun of him when he wasn't looking. He still felt like the big dog but in reality he was now out of his element and people were just taking advantage of him.
Because he was always at the bars hoping to score like he did in his 20's he also started to put on weight, and time took its toll on the top of his head as well as he started to get male-pattern baldness as well.
One thing I found the most cringe about him was when he would try to adopt modern day lingo and also try to keep up with the latest youthful fashion trends that I think just kind of made him look even more creepy. He paid to have his Tinder overhauled and he didn't talk much about the meetups but did brag about how he had paid to have his Tinder profile make him look significantly different than he actually looks.
I would ask him whether or not the girls get pissed off when he turns up and doesn't really resemble the person in the pictures and he said "most of the time yes, but sometimes it works out."
Rob was unwilling to let his player side go to the wayside and now he is in his late 40's and he is perpetually single and even though he does his best to try to hide it, I think that deep down he is very depressed.
Being a player is fun for a while but unless you are a celebrity or super-rich, I think that at some point that if you don't jump at the chance for a relationship, that you are going to find yourself alone. Some people don't mind this, but I think that Rob definitely does mind and he isn't very happy because of it. He jokes about how he "got so much p**sy in the 90's that he doesn't need it anymore" but I think that inside he actually realizes that he seriously screwed up a lot of chances by being greedy.
I feel bad for Rob because I don't think he is ever going to change and feels as though he is somehow going to be Quagmire from Family Guy. In the meantime I keep asking him how he is doing because I don't want him to get rejected hard one night in the club and then go and off himself.
Too much of anything makes you an addict, is something I heard in a song in the 90s and I think that this is exactly what happened to Rob. I feel bad for him for sure but I suppose if I was going to put a silver lining on this cloud he really did have a good run for about 12 years or so. I hope he can find what he is looking for eventually though.