Brass, 30

What do you do for a living?
I'm a professional musician and graphic designer and engineer.

You're a jack of all trades.
Semi, yes. I'm a jack of three trades.

What is the dating scene like here?
I don't know, because I've been married for four years!

What was it about your wife that you liked?
She's a musician as well. She's semi-athletic; she likes to hike with me.

We want specifics here.
Specifics like big boobs and a huge ass?

Yes, that's what I look for in a girl anyway.
[in macho voice] "Yes, that's what I look for a girl: big boobs and a huge ass." Oh wow, you're going to totally put that down, aren't you?

Absolutely. What did you do to impress the ladies when you were single?
You know what's funny? My wife was dating this guy who was super-Italian Italian...

What does that mean?
She's American-Hispanic and is a very independent woman, and he couldn't handle a girl who was independent. He was kind of belittling to her, and she came in one day and was having a bad day and I told her some jokes and made her laugh, and little by little we started talking and whatnot. She ended up breaking up with her boyfriend and we started dating after that.

So he was really macho, this ex of hers.
Yeah, he was a really nice guy to guys! He was cool — I knew the guy really well. But not to girls. To girls, he was kind of a dick.

Do you have any crazy exes?
I did have one. She was really, really crazy, and she dated a guy who had been in prison, and I had a party at my folks' house, and he showed up, and they screwed on my parents' bed, not only while we were dating but when I was out back with my buddies with everyone drinking and having a good time, and everyone knew about it except for me.

What's the most unusual place you've had sex?
On a beach in Puerto Rico in front of some people. They didn't care, so whatever. I wasn't really worried about them!

What's the craziest thing you ever did to get laid?
My friends and I broke into a Mexican restaurant and stole all their neon signs. I can't name the restaurant or where it was, but we stole their neon signs and put them up in our apartment. I totally got laid that night because of it. It was like ten signs too!

Do you believe in love at first sight?
I imagine it does happen. For me, I'm not a cautious person, but it's like trying out a car. You've got to test-drive it a few times to make sure it's the one!

 

Weejee, 37, and Jimmy, 33

What do you do for a living?
W: Advertising for movies.
J: I'm a prop guy for films and TV.

Make a sweeping generalization about the people here tonight.
W: They voted for Obama... if they voted.
J: I don't know... a bunch of good-looking hipsters.

What do you look for in a girl?
W: Moral flexibility. It's tough to achieve, but that's what I'm always looking for.
J: A nerdy self-deprecating kind of deal. A caustic self-awareness.

How do you impress the ladies?
W: A BMW. Yeah.

You drive one?
W: No, I steal them for them. That always impresses!
J: Yeah, he has a really sweet ride. I don't, so I cook for them.
W: He roasts a mean meat. I've suckled the products of his smoker so many times it's not even funny.
J: I have a smoker...
W: He takes his sauces seriously, which is rare.
J: My smoker and my sauces have gotten me laid on numerous occasions. Amazingly.

Do you have any good hook-up stories?
J: I used to live in Portland, Maine. I saw this girl. She took me up to this sculpture studio at the Maine College of Art. We ended up having sex on this big piece of leather. Anyway, she ended up stealing this big piece of leather and making it into a book. A few days after she had stolen it though, these signs went up all over the college that said, "I lost this huge piece of leather, or someone stole it, and it's really important because I need it for my huge senior project, if I don't find it I fail, so if anyone has any information..."

And you, Weejee?
W: I was living in a closet for awhile and my girlfriend actually came out to visit me. The best accommodations I could offer were of course, in my closet with me, and we ended up doing it on what turned out to be my roommate's beanbag chair in my closet. And then they threw away the beanbag, which I thought was unfair because actually we had just gotten out of the shower and it was clean post-shower sex. I didn't think the beanbag needed to be thrown away.

They obviously thought that you were filthy.
W: For which I was somewhat flattered. And I was not a young man at this point, either. I was pushing thirty, having sex on a beanbag in someone else's closet.

Has anyone ever offended you in the bedroom?
W: I remember living in an apartment that was in very close proximity to all my neighbors, and it was just a given that if anyone was having sex, we all heard each other. Everybody dealt with it. There was a girl I had been working on for awhile — it was like a solid month of foreplay leading up to when we actually finally had sex — so it was over fairly fast. A month of foreplay leads to fairly fast first-time sex. You know, that's going to happen.

Says you!
W: Well, the build-up in your mind, you know? Anyway, she actually uttered the words at a fairly high volume, "Wait, that was it?" And there was no doubt in my mind that at least two neighbors heard sex sounds really briefly followed by the phrase, "That was it?"

What's the craziest thing either of you have done to get laid?
W: I hired someone.

Like a prostitute?
W: Like an employee. I felt it was a really good step down that road. Now, she turned out to be a qualified employee, which was a bonus, but I took a gamble in a work setting by hiring her.
J: I guess it would be getting really really really really drunk and thinking, "Oh, if I'm really drunk, then they're drunk by proxy, and will sleep with me. They'll also be really really drunk."
W: By osmosis, right! If I stand next to them really hammered and horny, they will somehow become hammered and horny enough to sleep with me.
J: There have been multiple occasions of getting really drunk and ending up masturbating at the end of the night, alone.

What's the one thing you wish you could change about the opposite sex?
W: It really bugs me that they have an emotional range of about 355 degrees more than I do. I feel like we're playing on an uneven field or that it's an entirely different game. I don't begrudge the other sex that, but it's like they're playing a game with a million rules and I'm playing a game with just one rule, and they keep calling me for fouls.
J: That's a really good answer.

Do you believe in love at first sight?
W: I really like Dutch girls. They don't even have to be from Dutch-land. There's just something about women of Holland-ish descent — they could turn out to be assholes that I don't get along with, but there's this instant, like, "I really need to go talk to that person right now and I don't even know why." They've got the little button-noses and rosey cheeks. I don't know what the fuck it is, but there's clearly something genetic in my weird Scotch-Irish heritage — clearly my ancestors at some point maybe were conquered by some Dutch women and a natural affinity has passed down over the years, so I have an instant response to that type or whatever. I can't say it's "love" at first sight, but there's a specific instant chemical reaction for that type.

And you, sir?
J: Sometimes women aren't as openly pervy as guys. From the outset, a lot of women are like, "Ugh, that's gross!" But if some sort of weird pervy thing comes out from the outset —
W: On a first date: "I masturbate to lemur porn." You're going to respond to that on a certain basic biological level. Like, "Really? Do you?"
J: Yeah. And you think, "Wow, could I be into that? Oh yeah, as it turns out I can."

 

Brennan, 41

How long have you been married?
Almost nine years.

Is there anything you miss about dating?
No.

Really? Nothing? What about the newness of the experience, the excitement?
It only gets better the more deeply you know someone. I mean when you're randomly dating, you don't really know the person, but I always find that attraction grows the more you learn about someone.

When you were dating were there any dealbreakers?
Oh, I once had a boyfriend who thought it would be funny to imitate everything I said. I was like, "Goodbye, you need to leave now, I'm never going to see you again," and he was like, "Goodbye, you need to leave now, I'm never going to see you again."

Were you dating a six-year old?
He was sixteen.

What do you look for in a guy?
An original mind. A sense of humor. Compassion. Integrity.

If they have all those other things, how good-looking do they have to be, on a scale of one to ten?
A seven.

Are you friends with most of your exes?
Yes. Sometimes querulous friends, but friends nonetheless. [Laughs] You find that they change outside of your influence, you know? They change in ways you wouldn't expect. Different things resonate years later.

Is there anything you specifically do to impress the gentlemen?
I'm just brashly honest. I don't know, I feel like if they can volley that...

Do you believe in love at first sight?
Definitely. I didn't believe in it until I experienced it.

You experienced it with your husband?
Yeah. I fantasized about calling him and singing him a song on his answering machine. I did end up calling him, but his then girlfriend answered! I asked for him, but I don't think she was too happy about it.

Did she just hang up on you?
She said, "Wendell doesn't live here anymore."

Look who got the last laugh, though! What's the most daring or interesting place you've had sex?
A pile of rocks. Yeah, I'll go with that. It seemed comfortable at the time.

Where was this?
Claremont. A friend of mine had a quarry in the backyard.

Interviews and photography by Amanda Cotylo. Want to talk to strangers in your town? Email .