This is about a guy who has lots of casual sex, but comes to realize there is more to life and seeks a deeper relationship as he grows into adulthood. The Pinkerton album is based on the Opera Madame Butterfly, and this song relates to the character Pinkerton, who is a sailor who sleeps with a different girl at every port.
The working title for this song was "Tired Of Having Sex."
Rivers Cuomo went through a self-imposed celibacy for two years as he dealt with this idea of being "Tired of Sex." He wrote an essay entitled "A Mad and Serious Master" for a Harvard English class which talked about the perils of being celibate and how marriage (or love in the context of the song) was the answer: "I concluded that modern society was just not conducive to celibate living for a single, successful musician. Marriage, which once had seemed as undesirably permanent as a tattoo, now seemed to be the one, clear hope for my coming out of my longing."
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