The first thing most women usually do when they come to my house is slip into a bathing suit. I like women and in many situations, I really like them in bathing suits so this phenomenon should be one of the big perks of my life. It’s not (it turns out my wide sells swimsuits). Having perfect strangers in bikinis primping in every bathroom of my house on a sunny Saturday afternoon seems like a rockin’ start to a real-life adult entertainment scene but it’s not like that. It’s much more like the slow torture that accompanies a trip to the mall. Have you ever been forced at gunpoint to shop with your wife? For clothes? Do you recall the awkwardness? Can you remember the cackling sound that seventeen women make when they talk about fabric and shades of violet and geometric patterns and how good they would look if they could just lose those last fifty-six pounds?

If you live in Bikini Bottom, those unbearable conversations happen in your own house and the only chance for survival is to hide away, to invent an outdoor project, to suddenly remember that the funnest thing to do on a weekend is to crawl under the house and set a raccoon trap. You think you want women in see-through tops and bathing suits bottoms the size of a Nacho Cheese Dorrito parading about your home in large numbers, I can tell you in all sincerity, you don’t.

Of course, it doesn’t help that many of the women now in your home looking to break-in to swimwear modeling are relatives or past acquaintances or old friends whose names you can’t recall. It’s a cruel, cruel fate in life to have skillfully avoided a woman for a quarter century only to have her turn up in your bathroom one day wearing a one-piece swimsuit that can’t begin to cover a gal with this many pieces.

For a man in my predicament, the only strategy is averting the eyes, hours upon hours of looking the other way, hardcore denial of every natural male tendency … because what you see you can never unsee, so it is now best to be blind.

It’s not really that hard anymore to keep my eyes on my own paper. Society basically demands it. Men can’t really look at women now, can’t talk to them, can’t compliment them or comment on their lovely outfit or a nice haircut or a groovy business presentation. If a kind word should cross my lips it could be mistaken for a sinister pick-up line or a perverted thought.

The truth be known, I haven’t had a perverted thought in quite some time. I’m actually terrified that if I allow my mind to wander into dangerous territory that I’ll, in essence, be harassing myself and be forced to take legal action against me. When I meet girls for the first time I just fall on my sword from the outset, “Hi, I’m Pat and I’m a pig, these are my male pig friends. I apologize for any thoughts I may have about your attractiveness and the fact that you look good in mauve.”

Still, these gals flock to my house to try on bathing suits. It means that many rooms in my home will be off-limits for many hours at a time. I pay the rent on these rooms.

I always thought it noble to be a renaissance man, someone who might have fairly progressive thoughts and interests beyond gender-specific, culturally-accepted guardrails. I kinda want to swim in the changing social tides, but I want to keep my trunks on, you know what I mean? Now I’m not sure if I have my trunks on or not. For all I know, I could have on a bikini top but I’m not sure because I can’t look at any lifeform in a swimsuit.

It could be worse. My wife could sell men’s shoes. Then the house would be full of foot mirrors and freaky dudes would be walking around asking, “Do my feet look fat in these?”

No matter what water-side outfit you wear, life is no Spongebob adventure and modern society often feels like a swim against the current.