The Triangle of Horniness

Being things? Possessing certain qualities? Overrated.

Some time ago a triangle was made. By whom? Unimportant. But most anyone, upon first glance, can guess what it’s about. Its authority is purely anecdotal, and I also suspect mostly skewed by the retroactive emotional residue of expired love. Isn’t all wry cynicism born from some original scorn? I guess to some degree, everyone who fumbles you is unfit for such a holy trinity. And to some degree, we may not even live up to it ourselves.

Anyway, what this self-important pyramid dares to assert is that any potential romantic partner may only possess two of these three optimum traits. Either they’re hot and smart but unhinged, smart and “chill” but plain, or hot and emotionally stable but quite dim.

I’ve spent enough time believing, “well, I’m all three” and I don’t doubt that you have also. And you know what? Being this hot, this smart, and this emotionally aware is…a curse. Working on oneself is a virtuous endeavor that experts (?) say will lead to overall contentness and satisfaction in life. Sure, I guess. Doing things for yourself is worthwhile, but also let’s be real, no you are not.

The main reason people self-improve is because our flaws are reflected back to us by the standards of our culture. If you lived alone in a hut in the woods, I really don’t think you’d be that concerned with being better (beyond survival/quality of life) because there’s nobody around to tell you’re not good enough. We put ourselves through it largely because we don’t want to be alone forever, so the jury of society looms. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting company, but that’s why this stupid triangle is here.

This try-hard angle greatly exaggerates its usefulness and relevancy, however. I mean, being things? Possessing certain qualities? Overrated. To what ends? should be the question. How hot do you have to be to gain admiration? How much knowledge—and what kind—do you need to attain your goals? How much control are you willing to relinquish to protect your peace? And will you be satisfied with that?

Formal education is valorized in a culture that sees lesser value in the kinds of life experiences that can’t be bought or capitalized upon. Yet so many times have I thought, “Kevin Parker was right—the less I know the better.” I mean, being smart is cool to the degree that it’s able to shape a path towards contentment in your life. And beyond that, there ought to be a valve in your brain to relieve you of the extraneous pressure of knowing too much. Knowledge has brought me many things in life but contentment was rarely a one. Learn from your experiences, implement that knowledge into your life going forward, adapt. That’s evolution, baby—the very definition of intelligence! Of course, there’s a difference between being smart and being intelligent. Some people think collecting facts and knowledge makes them smart. When it comes down to it, I think people are mostly afraid of seeming dumb.

Anomalies include: the cringe factor of those who know too much and are very please with themselves about it

Beauty is powerful, but only with the wits to know how to use it (I mean, in this context of romantic currency). More so, I think getting right with your relationship with vanity is a key to universal hotness. Hotness of the soul. That’s the kind of fuego that indisputably conquers this silly triangular debate. Being attractive is a nice feeling, but also I’m sure this triangle implies the conventional sort of good-looking. There’s a limit on how useful being conventionally good-looking is. At a certain point, performing femininity becomes a sunk cost fallacy (I mean, if you’re a woman). You just keep doing it because you’ve spent your whole life being told that being hot would mean your life is set even though the returns start to plateau at your coasting hotness. But perhaps being just hot enough (or acting hot—highly underrated) to gain you access to the things you want — including the type of partner you want — is the best use of your time. Yes, I realized what I’ve just described is boosting your own confidence. So… that. So much of attraction relies on perception anyway, a theater of desirability that can be orchestrated to your benefit if you’re into that sort of thing. Seems like a lot of work to me.

Which brings us to the “emotionally stable” sector. This is how I know this triangle was made by a man. Women have been tolerating emotionally unhinged men for centuries to the point that we now reward them for exhibiting the most basic acknowledgment of empathy. I’ll not be patronized for being a member of the “emotionally-intuitive” gender identity while also being gaslit for it making me “emotionally unstable.” If we can get by all this time with men…being as they are… they can very well do without as well. I shall say no more on the matter.

But I am… at peace.

Be hot enough to love your own reflection. Know enough to stay out of trouble. And honor your emotions equally and without judgement. Let them do their thing; if you try to control them all the time that’s when they end up controlling you. Oh and fuck off, triangles.