Cockblockers

Things you learn when hosting a blow-out:

1) Your front yard, porch and drive are now officially a zone known as the ashtray. why you smokers don't recognize your butts as garbage is beyond me. Provisions were made, people.

2) When playing Yenta, once the two people actually are introduced, best not to stagger up to them and slur, "aww, you MET!" This is how natural situations instantly become awkward and even alienating.

3) Beer DOES facillitate the tanning process. We proved this in college.

4) Singing Carpenters' hits at 4 am to try and encourage a mass Exodus does NOT, in fact, work. Actually, the guests become rather excited, not so much as when Snoop Dog howled, but still. Mariah Carey doesn't clear the place out, either. We were at a loss what to try next. John Mayer?

5) Red wine can defy laws of physics when spilled, and actually travels AROUND corners to stain walls.

6) ANYTHING in your fridge is fair game to these people.

7) Your dog is amazingly well-behaved.

8) If everyone jumps up and down on the dance floor, it does start to feel like a severely restricted trampoline. Visions of fallen fraternity balconies, and even a tragic 80s Who concert will suddenly erupt from your limbic system. More frightening is the thought of explaining the broken joists to your landlord.

9) Getting cockblocked by your neighbor friend is a reality you have to accept as constant. Just because he was on a hit tv show for a decade does not mean he is capable of getting laid on his own. Or will give up on YOU. At least he's consistent. Let's recap our favorite examples:
- a year and a half ago at a favorite neighborhood restaurant/bar, sunny afternoon, all was quite good... You make some reference to The Myth of Romantic French Men, who are really too critical to be romatic at all (an opinion that will change, in time). Anyway, the table of cute guys overhear, and the hot Greek-American actor summons you over. Conversation is funny, lighthearted and flirtatious. A week later you make the mistake of asking your friend if he has seen that guy around the block. HE says, "No, but you know, I meant to tell you - after you left I was kind of talking to that guy, and he was calling his dealer to line up some coke for the evening. And I had said something about you and he said, "Yeah I've got ten more just like her around." So that hurt my ego for a couple of days, though the more significant damage was done to my confidence in my instincts, which is a fragile area to begin with. The guy seemed really nice. Then it dawns on me: it was all a ruse.

- Same area. Some handsome sweet-faced guy, who is always with his dog, keeps checking me out. This goes on nearly a year. Never approaches. Finally we are introduced by a mutual acquaintance. I say something about him in my friend's presence, who then too rapidly informs me that the guy is a Scientologist. Wholly untrue, as it turns out. What is true is that the guy has a voice like a Muppet.

- I won't bother you with the banal Machiavellian tactic he used Saturday night, but I will tell you that I smelled him coming like the first crack of the expired milk carton. Something was rotten in Denmark.

The saddest part of this is that the first examples inspired me to start writing a Will Ferrell/Owen Wilson vehicle entitled, "Cockblockers." But then this happened:

"Par blocks all bidders: Studio snags comedy starring Scott, Grace

By CHRIS GARDNER

Paramount Pictures has snapped up "Cockblockers," plunking down $1.2 million against $1.8 million amid competition for the comedy pitch.

Seann William Scott and Topher Grace will star in the project, which drew strong interest from Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema and Sony."

And I was worried they wouldn't accept the title for a mainstream movie. The decline of Western Civiliztion is upon us. Gotta love it.