I was asked recently how many people I had had sex with. I counted and said the number, surprised and proud by what I thought was a large number. She responded: “That’s it? I thought it would be more.”

My pride turned to patheticness, which then turned to confusion, which then turned to self-doubt.

It’s not that I look at the number of people you sleep with as the mark of a man, but rather that I enjoy sleeping with people and so having a high number means I have enjoyed many different experiences, which sounds good. What was confusing to me about the reaction was that somebody would assume I had slept with more people than I had.

I always figured that despite the fact that we are people who are constantly transforming, there would be one constant in my life: People would view me as unattractive to others. Even if they found me attractive, they would assume they were the only one. But I looked in the mirror this morning and saw somebody weird. My face has decent looking facial hair that seems hip in the midst of a forest of manly stubble. I’m not gonna go crazy and say that I thought I was attractive, but I definitely understood my appeal to others. Especially in this era of scrawny guys with quirky choices ruling the world.

I got lucky. I was born at the right time.

Hipster bashing is so boring at this point. Not because they don’t deserve to be ridiculed – everybody deserves to be ridiculed, and not because only hipsters bash other hipsters – self-hatred without self-awareness is funny and should be a part of our world, but because we don’t know what a hipster is. We define it as people we are jealous of, and I am jealous of the person people think I am.

So I will now define myself as a hipster. Despite that I don’t know any bands that you haven’t heard of, can’t fix my bike, love sitcoms, and don’t shop for clothing with more than $10 in my pocket – I am a hipster! And by claiming it, I will change the definition. Because, like love, there is no commonly accepted definition, so I can create my own.

If you hate me, you are allowed to hate hipsters. That’s fine, but otherwise, you don’t hate hipsters because this is what hipsters like:

1. Kanye West and Nicki Minaj getting along

2. The fall of the laugh track in the American sitcom

3. Losing their i-pod

4. Being bad at fixing things

5. Math

6. Fantasy sports

7. Mirrors

8. Not washing things as often as they should be washed

9. Having a profound misunderstanding of visual art

10. Games – board or video

See here’s the thing. I love Stumbleupon – it’s great not only in it’s ability to waste your time, but also in it’s ability to tell you who you are and what you like. The last two websites that stumbleupon told me that I’d enjoy were an essay against victim blaming in rape cases, and an empirical (good pun) study of the Death Star. This is why I’m surprised to find myself seeming attractive: People who like nerdy shit and discussing rape intellectually don’t get laid – they get grants.

I could totally use some grants right now.