One of the more interesting films I watched recently is After Hours (1985) by Martin Scorsese. This is not a bad film at all, albeit it is quite underappreciated. It has a very similar structure to Stanley Kubrick’s subversive Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and for that reason alone it is probably worth watching for aficionados. In fact, one of my biggest takeaways from watching a lot of films recently is how many ideas directors crib from each other. Anyway, the male protagonist of After Hours has a very eventful night, with many strange encounters, surreal ones even, making you question if some events perhaps only happened in the imagination of some people or whether there is someone behind the scenes pulling the strings, so unlikely are some events. In both movies, the male protagonist is part of something bigger, which he does not quite grasp, or even dares to acknowledge.

The first meaningful encounter the male protagonist has is with a random woman in a diner, played by the very attractive Rosanna Arquette. She engages him into a personal conversation and gives him the number of a friend she is going to be staying at that night — and that is where they are going to meet again a few hours later. There were no mobile phones in 1985 for the mass market, so there were not many other options. The male protagonist is not overly confident, yet seemingly fascinated by this woman. I do not want to spoil too much, but in the end he bails instead of banging her because the overly sexual behavior, including some hints at her dark past, overwhelm him.

While the male protagonist in this movie is not much of a seducer, in the real world even experienced men who should know better fall for such women. There are interesting psychological aspects at play, first and foremost the fact that women who are a bit unhinged do not have much of a filter. They freely speak their mind and they do not needlessly make you jump through hoops, which is quite refreshing. She likes you, so she invites you to come home with her. She also does not need a pretense and may, in fact, even initiate some actions herself, such as tonguing you down in the elevator. In contrast, normal women, including a lot of sluts, insist on certain steps and make you wait for a bit. Even a chick who has banged two dozen guys by the time she is 22 normally does not leave the club with you right away.

The contrast between a regular woman and a crazy one is stark. It can be overwhelming. However, if your primary goal is to have sex, it does not at all bother you that you ended up quickly at her place. She did not tell you, truthfully or otherwise, that she “never does something like that”, or some other nonsense. Instead, the interaction just casually unfolds and you end up banging her effortlessly. Arguably, this is an example of “love bombing”, i.e. a woman showing an excessive amount of affection. Perhaps you could even say that women who have sex with you very quickly psychologically manipulate you. Around you they act as if you have been banging her for weeks already, so you let your guard down.

Evolutionarily speaking, there is surely a good explanation for the behavior of such women. After all, this behavior allows them too extract high-quality sperm with little time investment. Probably in times of peace and abundance, this may even have been a superior evolutionary strategy albeit it is quite maladaptive most of the time. This does not help a guy who has banged ten or twenty women who took some degree of effort. Even they may fall victim to such women and afterwards wonder how his could have happened.