Carny

I’ve always been fascinated by ancillary skills – those you acquire unintentionally as part of some other, unrelated pursuit. Running CrossFit NYC, for example, I’ve developed a startlingly accurate ability to guess people’s weight just by looking at them.

At the gym, this comes in handy in a slew of ways. In the outside world, not so much, unless you’re looking for a job in a ‘guess your weight’ booth.

Over drinks, however, it does make a fairly good parlor game. But in that context, after you nail the guess for a guy or two, a girl will inevitably jump in, too.

Obviously, guessing a woman’s weight is fraught with peril. Because, does she want you to guess what she actually weighs? Or what she wants the group to think she weighs? Or what she weighed in college and still thinks of as her ‘actual weight’ even if she’s ‘temporarily’ padded up a bit?

Basically, you can’t win. So, each time, I size the girl up, and guess 108 pounds. And I stick to that guess. Even if – perhaps especially if – she’s nearing two bills. As they say, with great power comes great responsibility.

*[Related pro tip for single dudes: if a girl asks you how many people you’ve slept with, the answer is six. Always six.]*