UrbanUpdate

There’s nothing more special than when you’re about to bone down with a man and he stops. "Wait," he says breathlessly, "I want to play you something." Then he conjures an acoustic guitar out of thin air and plays you a romantic ballad, and afterwards you make sweet sweet love while the guitar watches.

Nahhhhhhhht. If you have gotten laid after playing your guitar at a woman, it was in spite of your guitar playing. @ me, sensitive Twitter bros, I’m not even scared.

It takes dangerously high levels of ego and earnestness to play a song for someone you’d like to sleep with—Zach Braff levels—and it’s very unbecoming. Here’s a great rule for making love and making movies: Never do anything Zach Braff would do. (Actually Going in Style is in my top ten and the Garden State soundtrack is still full of gentle bangers.) If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Zach Braff totally plays acoustic guitar for women. [Ed. note: unconfirmed.] [Writer’s note: But really likely.] [Ed. note: I mean yeah.]

Braff is not alone. It’s recently come to my attention that playing guitar for lovers is a thing men do habitually, like getting wasted and sleep-peeing in random vessels around the house in the middle of the night.

A few months ago I shared some rules for The Pivot, the transition from bar to bedroom. I forgot the most important rule of all: Never play your guitar for someone you’re trying to sleep with. I can think of very few things less seductive than when my boyfriend, circa 2008, played me “Hey There Delilah.” I looked at him in horror throughout, but he didn’t witness my disgust. Why? Because he had closed his damn eyes, so overwhelmed was he by the divine truth of the Plain White T’s. Since then, every time I start seeing someone new I scour YouTube to make sure there are no videos of him singing shirtless to his webcam.

It is unspeakably, loin-witheringly awkward to listen to a man play his guitar badly. I’ve long suspected that men possess a physical mutation that makes them believe, unshakably, that they are amazing at guitar. This is the same mutation that allows men to say, “I don’t want to mansplain, but…” and then keep talking. (One colleague claims he has successfully wooed a woman with his guitar, but this same colleague once blessed me with a lengthy definition of the Electoral College.) Maybe you’re actually a little bit talented, but you have to be so, so good to play for an audience of one. You have to be Father John Misty to play for an audience of one. Are you as good as Father John Misty? Probably not. You playing your guitar is the long opening overture to Gone With the Wind: The music is fine, but I really just want to get to the fiery sex scene. Is there no fiery sex scene in Gone With the Wind? I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never made it past the long opening overture.

And then there’s the earnestness. Let's say that as you subtract people from your audience, your ballad multiplies in earnestness by a degree of two Braffs per person. So if you’re singing “Beast of Burden” to one person, your song is about 4 million Braffs more heartfelt than when Mick Jagger sang it live. You’re out there with your guitar, flaying yourself.

There are exceptions. You may, for example, play your guitar for me if I would otherwise pay money to see you perform—I love saving money. You may also play your guitar for me if your guitar is actually a cello. Cellists are the brooding chess players of the music world, and you could play “Your Body Is a Wonderland” on a cello and I’d still be into it.

For the rest of you: While you’re crooning away, I’m sitting here wondering what mistakes brought me here and whether I look sexy and chill when I nod my head along to the music. [Ed. note: You look like a chicken.] Guitar is sexy, but it’s more the idea of the guitar that is sexy, rather than you actually playing it. Best leave that bad boy mounted on your wall.

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