Sex+Design Magazine

By Kelly Kate Warren

Right now, I am all about REFORMED SCUMBAGS and DUDE-BROS.

Reformed scumbags are dudes like the ones I’m friends with and have dated but whom have rejected the scumbag lifestyle for stuff like “having a job” and “not being wasted all the time.” Reformed scumbags still get shitty on the weekends but don’t hate themselves enough to be permanently drunk. Reformed scumbags have had sex with enough people to be bored with casual sex, and have become too lazy to play the field. Instead, they want to do bad things to me, and only me, all the time.

Reformed scumbags have discovered the joy of showering. They have learned that there is food outside the realm of pizza and burritos, and that they can be pretentious about it. They can afford even more expensive bikes than they could before. They have sweet, full-sleeve tattoos instead of lame stick & poke bullshit. They wash their clothes. They own iPhones. They have cool jobs as graphic designers or in the tech industry.

Dude-bros are a completely different animal. Dude-bros are pretty much normal-ass, well, dudes. They have decent paying, 9-5ish jobs that they hate but that allow them the time and money to get shitty on the weekends and go to Coachella. They were either unmemorable or really dorky in high school but rarely angst-ridden or “emo.” They went to decent Universities and got degrees in Business, or something related to computers. They listen to indie rock that they read about in Rolling Stone or on blogs or that they discover on Pandora. They all love Death Cab for Cutie. They also love hip hop, anything from 90s R&B to top 40, and have memorized the lyrics to many songs. Listening to hip hop is as close to a black person as most Dude-bros will ever get, besides that one dude at work who they try really hard to impress.

Dude-bros make fun of hipsters constantly but aspire to have sex with hipster girls. They call all hipster dudes “gay.” They clown on hipster fashion but have adopted Levis, American Apparel, Converse, Vans, and flannel as their own. They secretly wish they were more stylish but find tight pants to be too restrictive and uncomfortable. Dude-bros are very into physical fitness. They belong to gyms and exercise regularly. This helps them to cope with having been gawky, fat, or otherwise awkward in high school. Conversely, they have terrible diets. They have the same appetites and food preferences they’ve had since high school.

Dude-bros like to watch TV and movies about smoking weed. Some of them read, but usually only to impress the opposite sex. They keep up on politics and are generally Democrats. Politics is one of the few things (besides hip hop and exercise) that makes them feel tough and manly. They like to get drunk and argue pointlessly about our country’s presence in the Middle East.

Dude-bros are intimidated and fascinated by girls like me. They are both attracted and repelled by my tattoos and facial piercing, interest in obscure music and  jaded attitude towards men and life in general. They wonder about what weird sexual shit I’m into and what sort of things I will let them do to me if they can get me naked. They assume that I have only dated girly-ass hipster dudes and don’t know what it’s like to date “a real man.” They think that I am probably overly-emotional, depressed and psychotic and are both scared and intrigued by the prospect of me stalking them. They talk down on my lifestyle, clothing, interests, etc to try to remove focus from their own white-bread lifestyle, clothing, interests, etc. Often, they just want to get me naked, because the thought of dating someone who is probably nuts, combined with the ridicule it would provoke from their family and friends, is too much. Alternatively, some of them revel in the thought of their friends’ and family’s reaction to them dating someone like me. Others just hate themselves and think that someone as judgmental and pretentious as myself will help them to hate themselves more. Some of them just hate women and think that someone as insecure and fucked up as myself will have plenty of daddy issues for them to exploit. These are the kind of dudes who also want me to do weird sexual shit that I’m just not into (anything involving knives, pee, fisting… uh…).

Similarly, I’m both intimidated and fascinated by Dude-bros. My usual arsenal of references to pretentious literature and obscure bands doesn’t work on them. In fact, most of the stuff I usually talk to guys about, I can’t bring up with Dude-bros. I can’t talk shit about other hipsters. Or how lame electro has become. Or how shitty so&so’s coke is. I can’t talk about how lame ANYTHING is, because if it’s something they have heard of, it’s definitely lame and thereby not cool to talk about. Dude-bros suck all the irony out of everything. But what draws me to Dude-bros is the prospect of someone liking me NOT because I’m into cool shit and dress super rad and know so&so and can judge the fuck out of everything but because I’m ME. Yeah, ME. That’s some super “let’s take acid at Dolores Park” hippy-trippy bullshit but it’s way more important than myself, or any self-respecting “hipster” chick would ever let on. Because we’ve all been cheated on or dumped for some chick with more tattoos and tighter pants and a bigger record collection. We’ve all picked ourselves apart because we got into that band in ’05 when we should have been into them in ’02. We’ve all hunted down the rattiest vintage T-shirts we could find and read up on the most ridiculously obscure shit possible so that we can be the fucking hip-est of hip. And usually it’s not good enough.Hipster dudes are generally disinterested assholes and we live for the day when we will finally be cool enough to break them. FUCK THAT.

Dude-bros think that I’m cool and weird when I’m not even trying to be cool and weird. They think that the stupid shit that I feed into is just STUPID SHIT. They don’t judge me when I want to (non-ironically) listen to some goddamn Taylor Swift… or some Death Cab for fucking Cutie (I’m talking post “The Photo Album,” ok? “Title and Registration” is a dope fucking song, so fuck you). Dude-bros really don’t care how many 1000 page novels I’ve read or hardcore shows I went to at Gilman, they just think it’s sort of neat that I did. Dude-bros are so badass that they literally don’t give a fuck about any of the silly, ironic, desperate bullshit that permeates hipster culture. And you know what? That’s pretty neat.So if most Dude-bros are focused on how many “cool points” they’ll score by bagging a hipster broad, I’m ok with it because I’m collecting points for bagging a Dude-bro. We’re even.

If there’s a better place to find Reformed Scumbags rubbing shoulders with Dude-bros than OkCupid, I haven’t found it. (Maybe at one of the Pixies reunion shows?) Regardless, I’ve now accumulated a pretty baffling assortment of messages from both groups. I never thought I’d entertain the idea of going out with someone who wears board shorts but then again I never thought I’d end up trying to date dudes I MEET ON THE INTERNET. Life’s funny sometimes.

READ MORE of THE OKCUPID CHRONICLES: An Introduction of Sorts