Am I wrong that everyone thinks about their number, whether it's low enough to count, or some tier of "a lot"? It's like a repeatedly executed function. In the mirror at the end of the day is the number. All online disagreements go back to the number.
One day many years from now the number might fade from memory completely, or be dusted off and added to, or maybe people in our history will start to die and the number will go down.* But forever the number waits, truthful and objective, a saved game file in a grinding sidequest of life.
*jk, it never goes down.
17 thoughts on “#779 – your number’s low”
Lizet
I honestly have no idea what this is about. . Could someone explain? I definitely don't look in the mirror and think of 'my number'.. Is it which number of people alive today I am ('maybe people in our history will start to die and the number will go down')?? Then how can Hannah be low. Confused
John
the number of people you've had sex with
ellephant
Oh Dang is Hanna Ace? some flavour thereof? Demi?
The social norm to even HAVE a number drives aspec people to do tihngs that are really unhealthy for them. In my case, I threw myself into a BAD relationship because I was so scared I'd never get feelings again. It felt like I was broken, and my scope of possibility was… not. Felt Bad Man.
I think it'd surprise me to learn she'd been deliberately written aspec, but that's ok.
cwbuecheler
I think it's just that she met Marek right after she got to college and was monogamous with him for several years. So if she was ~19 when she met him, it's very possible she just hadn't slept with many (any?) people before that. A lot of people come out of high school with their number at 0 or 1.
ellephant
no it's fine, stomp on my dreams and my ace headcanons, I've got Plenty to fall back on =C
oingoboingorules
When you're referring to 'number', is it attractiveness level or the number of times they transmit heat on mattresses?
Tangerine
Neither. It's the total number of humans you've experienced sexual congress with.
100 times with a super-hot person is still just 1 on the list.
This means that a person with a lower number can still have had a lot more sex than a person with a higher one. It'd be an interesting metric to add, but ideally we'll all have sex enough times in, say, the first third of our adult lives that we quickly lose track of how many.
Cmasta1992
I stopped caring about my number until it started to become real that my number is going to be fixed while I still have friends whose numbers increase and it's like I lose a point of conversation with them that I used to share in when we were still in college.
I have no desire to go back to those days but it's still sad to see an old part of you die.
Melonby
Ah yes, the existential dread of realising one day you'll be with the last person you'll ever be intimate with. Do you ever really grow out of it? Does it ever stop seeming utterly ridiculous coming from somebody younger than you?
Katherine
I can honestly and happily say I never think about the number. And mine is extraordinarily low.
Mauricio Lemos
Is this a New York thing? I have no idea either what is the number Meredith and some commenters are talking about.
Aila
It's the number of people you've slept with!
cwbuecheler
How many people you've slept with.
It's not exclusively a NYC thing, though I will admit the only conversation I've ever had with a group of people about one's number took place while I was living in Brooklyn. My number was the lowest of the entire group (we each wrote ours down and then shuffled 'em, so I don't know whose was whose, though I could've probably guessed most of them correctly). Whatever! I started late and met my wife soon thereafter.
Some Guy
God bless yall who aren't forever haunted by the number of people you've slept with. As a person whose done stupid things in college based on the number, this hits close to home.
Bleh
guys, it's the number of people you've done it with
anarcissie
Gautama said:
If you had a number it would be zero: all the way down at the bottom.
All the way down.
But have no fear: there is Nothing like it.
Camden Weck
Anyone else see this reference tot he number thing and remember that old animation with the rabbits? "Everyone else has had more sex than me?"