Hit it, or else

Todd Stewart is 35. He's got a 19-year-old girlfriend -- and you know how 19-year-olds are, nudge, nudge.

Well, 19-year-old Brittany Phillips wanted some action, Todd wasn't in the mood, so . . . she beat him up. Brittany was charged with simple battery.

Dan Riehl: "You'd have to kill me before I agreed to have sex with that." Uh . . . I'd hit it, but then again, I've always had a strong instinct for self-preservation. Which is why I don't have a 19-year-old girlfriend. I couldn't keep up with one. It's hard enough keeping up with my 44-year-old wife (who would kill me if I had a 19-year-old girlfriend).

UPDATE: Dan thinks I'm insane. And he's right. But there is an important principle involved in setting the "I'd hit it" threshold rather low: It's the only way to prevent pretty girls from becoming tyrannical. Let's face it, only about 10 percent of women are really hot, and they know it. So if you aren't capable of contentment with a not-so-hot chick, you've essentially made yourself a hostage of beauty, and next thing you know, you're getting jerked around by some chick who treats you like her personal plaything, because . . . well, that's what you are.

Excuse me for lacking the masochistic streak necessary to enjoy that game. There is a counterintuitive Zen thing involved here. People are always impressed when they meet my wife: "Man, how did you rate her?" It involves a certain nonchalance about beauty. I pursued my wife with tremendous ardour, but the alternative to success was not solitude. There are 3 billion women in the world.

As much as I admire beauty (hello, Christina Hendricks) I'm not going to be tyrannized by beauty. And cutting yourself off from the Brittany Phillipses of the world -- passing up the chance to "make a 10 the hard way" by nailing two 3s and a 4 -- is like delivering yourself in shackles.

Besides, Brittany's got nice blue eyes: