Dating 401: Mending A Broken Heart (Pass The Duct Tape)

Welcome back, students! I’m glad you all look well rested from your time away. Hopefully you haven’t forgotten everything I’ve taught you thus far. If you have, well then have no fear. We do have remedial classes where someone takes my textbooks and beats you over the head with them until you learn by osmosis. Now then…let’s get to a subject that everyone absolutely dreads: Breaking Up.

These days, almost as soon as a relationship is established, it seems like there’s a stamped expiration date somewhere on the package. In most cases, I hear the ticking of the egg timer as soon as people make their relationship “Facebook Official.” And while my social media feed has enough photos of friends with their loved ones and kids, I seem to find myself spending an inordinate amount of time planning outings with the Broken Hearts Club. And everyone has a different way of dealing with their pain. Some are effective, some are ill advised, some are just flat out bad, but honestly to each their own. There’s no correct way to crawl yourself back up to whatever you call normalcy. So let’s take a look at some of our options, shall we? (with my editorial comments, of course.)

The “Eat The Pain Away” Method: Look…I love food. Anyone who has met me even once knows how much I love food. But people tend to spend an awful lot of time and junk food trying to fill a metaphysical hole with tangible physical food. I’m not denouncing that a nice ice cream sundae isn’t going to put you right when you want some comfort, and a blanket and a good book just ain’t cutting it. That doesn’t stop us, of course. We’ll dive head first into a bucket of fried chicken, or a pizza tray of disco fries just so that we can knock our emotional selves into a food coma. I don’t deny its effectiveness. There’s something about being physically sated, that translates into being emotionally fulfilled as well.  But the problem with any temporary crutch is the fact that sooner or later, that feeling goes away…and then the cycle begins anew. Worse yet, these momentary solutions produce diminishing returns. So now, not only are you piecing together the broken bits of your heart, you’re now out of breath from doing it, because you just took the Holy Guacamole Burrito Challenge. (disclaimer: I have no idea if that challenge exists, but if you need reference, just imagine a burrito the size of a sleeping bag.) Like anything else, just use moderation. Food is wonderful, but for a metaphysical gunshot wound, it’s really only a band aid. But, if you’re feeling a little down, and you think a BLT (hold the L & T) will occasionally make you feel better…then what the hell. Do it.

The “Soothe My Soul With Debauchery” Plan: Yes…let’s not take stock of our current well being, and instead let us go and throw ourselves with gusto back into the fray, with the very plan that didn’t work for you the first time. Cheap, meaningless, sneak-away-before-morning sex has its time and place. It’s called college, and/or your early 20’s. See, back then, you were allowed to be a fuck up, because it’s a common assumption that you simply, don’t know any better. There’s a learning curve, and you’re riding it like the Big Kahuna. But at some point, that label “adult” is going to get stamped on you…whether you want it or not. Suddenly acting childish, selfish, and stupid are not qualities to be looked on in amusement, nor do people find it “cute.” So when you go out after a break up and suddenly scream “LET’S GET DRUNK!!” like a frat boy with a desperate need for a self fulfilling prophecy, there’s a very high chance that what broke your heart in the first place is going to happen again. Then again, if all you want is a warm body next to you to forget your current trouble, even if it’s for a night, then by all means do so. Just don’t come complaining to people when you find yourself in another broken relationship, or having the morning after regrets.

“Drugs Are Bad, Mkay?”: Do I really need to tell you why this is a bad idea? Some of the same reasons that eating your problems away, tend to apply here as well: not permanent, metaphysical vs. physical, diminishing returns… The only difference is, THIS SHIT IS BAD FOR YOU. STOP DOING IT! You don’t need it to live. It doesn’t taste good. Oh…also it is KILLING YOU. I’m not talking about weed here, folks. I’m not talking about the nicotine in your cigarettes. I could give a fly’s fuck about caffeine (to which I owe my continued existence).  I’m talking about universally recognized as illegal, and / or what I like to call the “snorting – shove into your veins” variety. Sure. Ok. This stuff is designed to make you forget about your worries. It also makes you forget other things…like where you should go to the bathroom, your own tongue is not food, or that oncoming cars don’t want to play “chicken” with you. Do I really need to keep going? Can we all just agree that this is a bad idea? Great!  NEXT!

Put Down The Emo Songs, Poetry, and Capes: We all need time to grieve when a relationship ends. We do. Take your time. I encourage it. You’re broken and you need to put yourself back together before wanting to be seen out in public again. I get it. And there’s no real set time limit to getting that done. But…having said that, at some point you may want to acknowledge the reality that is at your doorstep. I think a good general rule of thumb is that if your grieving period is longer than your relationship, there’s a very high possibility that you may want to invest in therapy. A 2 week period in which you hook up several times, KINDA talk about dating, then decide to part ways, shouldn’t necessitate a 6 month crying fest, listening to Panic at the Disco, while shoving ice cream into your mouth so that you won’t call them to beg them to take you back.  On the converse side of that is getting out of a long term relationship that has lasted more than a few years. You invested a lot of time into this. You deserve some time off to get yourself right. Having said that, if after several months, you still don’t feel like looking at humanity in the face, and your diet consists of water and half a Triscuit, maybe a little help from your friendly neighborhood shrink is in order.

Look…bottom line: there’s no right way to do this. Some check in their emotional baggage for the long haul, and some people carry a fanny pack and lose it on vacation. But regardless of whether you end up going all “Self Help” with meditation and bettering yourself, or if you end up drinking an entire Balthazar of wine…surround yourself with the people who love you. A good support system is what differentiates a quick healing process from a never ending marathon. Be good to yourself, and realize that if you can’t take care of yourself, then you’re not going to be able to take care of anyone else. Lastly…don’t be afraid to look at your mistakes. Just don’t categorize them as failures. Embrace them. Learn from them…and then don’t fucking do them again!

That’s it. Class dismissed. Regular classes will now resume.  Cheers.

A Valentine Post: Indifference, Romantic, Cynical…Who’s Right?

Once again we come to the day of lovers, of cynics, of romantics, of jaded, and of the “who cares.”  And every year my FB feed, my Twitter feed, Instagram, my texts, my social media…it all blows up with all sorts of words all tending to go in every single direction.  It’s all so jumbled up that it looks like an argument between the cynical and the romantic: the single and the coupled.  I’m not here to tell you which is right, cause honestly, it’ll blow over by Monday and it’ll be like the aftermath of a Hurricane.  We all come out from our bunkers, survey the damage, shrug our shoulders, and soldier on.  But for now, let me look at the different takes on this day and see if I can’t put it all in perspective.

1) Valentine’s Day is the day for lovers:

That’s wonderful.  And if you have someone and you want to spend your day with them, that’s great!  But what about this day in particular makes it any more special than the rest of the year?  Seriously.  Is there an abundance of love that’s in the air?  Are there minute little romance particles that are super charging your libido?  I mean…I can’t personally see these things, maybe you can.  I have no idea.  But to me it seems like the day is an extra holiday to make sure that you can make up for forgetting some of the others!  Her birthday, your anniversary, Arbor Day…whatever.  But you think that you spend a little money, be a little more thoughtful on this “special day” and it wipes your romantic sins clean.  It’s like a Yom Kippur, for romance.

Spend it how you want to, but honestly, one day will not give you back all the days you decided to be a romantic slacker.  It doesn’t make up for the fact that you don’t show each other every day, it doesn’t make up for the fact that you spend most of your time apart, and when you’re together you both don’t make the effort.  This is the day to PUNCTUATE your love.  You show each other in little ways every day, you fight, you argue, you make up, you build something, and this is just a little footnote in your story. This day is to show that you care just as much as any other day, not to make up for forgetting that you do for the rest of the year.

2) Valentine’s Day is a day made up by the corporations:

Yes.  It is.  Get over it.  If there is anything that the corporations can capitalize on, they will…especially love.  But just because they make their living off of it, doesn’t mean that you should stick it to them by “hating” each other, right?  And your love isn’t dependent upon those soulless corporations anyway, right?  It isn’t gauged by their stocks going up and down, it isn’t discussed in their stock holder’s meetings.  Your relationship is yours, so do what you want with it.  But make sure that you’re both on the same page. Because nothing’s worse than getting to this day and then finding out that your girlfriend expected flowers, and you refuse to cause you’re sticking it to The Man.  If it’s just another day, treat it as such, but do it together.  Nothing worse than waking up to a homemade breakfast in bed and a beautiful card, and you’re sitting there wondering how much time you would need to go run out to the nearest Exxon to buy the last remaining POS flowers.  You might even possibly run to the Hallmark store to buy one of their last remaining cards, which is why you end up repaying their thoughtful gift with a card like: THIS gem.

3) Valentiene’s Day is Single Appreciation Day:

Really?  No, but REALLY?  Do you REALLY appreciate being single?  I know that we all like to think so.  That we are soldiers just looking to find out next love, and that we will find them on this…the holiest of days for romance.  But do we?  Because couples are so in love on this day, and flaunt their romantic riches in our faces, we suddenly feel as though we have two options: DATE OR PERISH! So we go out there, telling ourselves that we aren’t “looking” for anyone special and that all we’re doing is just spending a night out with our bro’s, or our sisters.  We’re just out here to have a good time!  WOO!  But let’s face it, there’s a part of us…even if it’s a small part that just wants to make a bad decision just so we can wake up to a warm body in the morning.  Then we do, and all we want to do is gnaw our own arm off to get away from that person because you realize what you did “FOR LOVE.”

Or there’s the other scenario where you do go out on Valentines, meet someone nice, talk to them, exchange information, and they never call you back.  Suddenly you’re eating a Bloomin’ Onion.  Alone.  With a pint of ice cream on standby.  You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and scream “THIS!  THIS IS WHAT SHAME LOOKS LIKE!!”

Yeah…being single is great.  Let’s all spend this day of lovers appreciating the fact that we still have to go out there to the bars and to the clubs, go on endless first dates, and spend our nights in the shower for 40 minutes trying to get the stench of desperation off of us so that it doesn’t make you the weak link in the herd.  Look…you know what?  Being single is great, but only if you can convince yourself that being single is great.  It can’t be you just telling yourself that this is what you really want.  You actually have to kind of enjoy it.  If you’re great with one night stands, not being in a relationship, if you aren’t really looking for love…then guess what?  Being single on Valentines is fantastic!  But if you are really looking to find the one to spend NEXT Valentines with, on THIS Valentines…please, just stay in.  Eat your feelings for a day and then spend the next one kicking your bitter angry ass at the gym.  Cause it just won’t end well.

4) Valentine’s Day is a holiday for women:

You sure about that, guys?  I mean, let’s look at the facts here.  More sexy lingerie is bought for this holiday than for any other.  It’s one of the only days where, if the holiday is important to them, sex is almost guaranteed.  Who doesn’t love chocolate?  (Besides those allergic, those without a sweet tooth, etc..)  It’s not just women who love ’em.  So you have to buy some flowers.  Maybe you have to go buy a card.  So what, you have to go to that nice restaurant that you wanted to eat at anyway?  It’s a holiday for couples, not just for women.  And men get just as much outta the deal as the ladies.  Let’s not pretend like we don’t.

5) It’s just like any other day:

IS IT!?  No, it isn’t. If this were any other day, then your feed wouldn’t be filled with romantic quotes, and loving status messages to significant others.  It wouldn’t be filled with hearts, and pink, and flowers, and poetry.  It’d be filled with stories about work, pictures of babies, pictures of pets, Candy Crush requests, and events that you have no intention of going to.  You wouldn’t feel more or less love than on any other day.  You wouldn’t feel bitter, or romantic, or cynical, or force indifference on yourself.  It wouldn’t even register!  Hell, I wouldn’t be writing this crap!  It isn’t like any other day.  Because honestly, we all WANT it to mean something.  That there’s just one day out of the year where we’re collectively just like “Can’t we just stop talking about the shitty day we had at work and just be together?”  A day when we can just be thankful for things that we have, even if it’s not the things that we necessarily want?  To celebrate love in ANY form, even if it isn’t the way that we necessarily would have liked?

Look…I get it.  Bitter is bitter.  Look at the title of my blog, for fuck’s sake.  But all I’m saying is that if it truly doesn’t matter what kind of day it is today, wouldn’t it be nice if it were a day full of love?  Any kind of love?  Just a thought.  But fuck it, this is the internet. Haters gonna hate.  But lovers gonna love.  Cheers all.  Happy Valentine’s.

The Seven Deadly Sins (Part 7.1): Lust – Oh Come All Ye Horny

There is a reason why I saved this particular Sin for last. Part of it is because it delves into some pretty embarrassing segments of my life, and the other part is that out of all of the seven, this one has more to do with me than any of the others.  This is one of those issues where people will read the post and may possibly say, “I never needed to know that about you.”  And if that’s the case, by all means, you should back away slowly, turn, and shut the door behind you.  But when I started this whole descent into the big 7, I promised myself that I would be honest with myself, and look at myself, for lack of a better term, in my stark naked glory.  If I hide now, I feel like I’m giving up inches from the goal line.  And because this is kinda a big topic for me, I’m splitting the post up.  So…okay…are the kids tucked away?  Are we good to go?  Fantastic.  So here goes…

Lust.  Sex.  Pure carnal passion.  I don’t think there has ever been any force that has driven me so hard in my life as this particular sin.  Ever since I understood the pleasure of even…kissing a girl, I was hooked.  I figured out from an early age that liking each other lead to hugging, hugging led to kissing, kissing led to touching, touching led to naked, and naked led to…well, okay, I didn’t know any of that early on.  I just knew that I wanted it.  I remember that I got my very first Playboy in my early teens, smuggled to me by my father.  This was the 90’s era so we’re talking Jenny McCarthy pre-View and pre-Singled Out, The Swedish Bikini Team (yes, that was an actual thing), and a lot of Baywatch babes…pre-Baywatch.  I was highly attuned to the fact that I loved the female form, and very much aware that my hormones were doing the Lambada like it was Carnival in Rio.  But then…what teen boy wasn’t like that?

Thing is…I became a senior in high school and prospects were bleak that I would understand how to harness this all consuming energy into anything productive.  Towards the end, I realized that I would be one of the people whose virginity would be intact by the time I left.  Which…honestly, was okay.  I was a goober, a nobody, had the self esteem of a slug…and if I had any presence in the school at all, it would have been a vast improvement on the existing predicament.  Forget unfuckable, I was literally untouchable.  It was a good thing, looking back on it, because honestly I don’t think I deserved it.  But try to convince an 18 year old me of that, and he would have shown you the restraining order his left hand had taken out against him.  See, at this point, I should have realized that I was never going to have a normal sex life, and I should have come to terms with that.  Instead, I wore that cloak of desperation around me, which made me invisible (or repulsive) to the women who may have seen me as an object of fancy.  So my lust remained unabated until I was 20 and change, and a woman took pity on my unmarred manhood.  My first time was essentially a “mercy fuck.”  But at the same time, Amber was incredibly patient, attentive, and allowed me to learn at my own pace, never criticizing.  It was more “mercy” than “fuck” to be honest.  And thus ended my 20-some odd year stint as a cherry.

Considering the fact that before she came along, my first and only real relationship where I had even remotely come close (pun intended) to having sex, was with a girl who curled up into a fetal position and cried every time she reached orgasm, and then later tried to lambaste my privates on the end of a pair of scissors if I didn’t get her preggers…  Let’s just say that I didn’t exactly have a lot of hope for my sexual future.  If there is such a thing as sexual imprinting, Lust would have tied a noose around her neck and taken a swan dive off the Brooklyn Bridge.  But let’s face it…young men and their hormones can pretty much justify anything if we really want to…and lord did it want to.  Lust would not be deterred if only I would stop barring her way.  And as soon as that mental blockade shook loose, things became so much clearer.

I understood what it was that I was missing up until that point.  Suddenly, an entire world opened up for me, and it was like a kid who suddenly discovered a brand new jungle gym in his backyard.  I didn’t really have much experience at this point, so I didn’t know what I liked and what I didn’t like…so everything became fair game.  Lust leaped out of me and said “try anything that they’ll let you.”  And lord, did I ever…  Though I won’t lie to you, this new found willingness to dare all got me into trouble quite a few times.  Like a woman that I met at a bar who was probably about 6 or 7 years older than me, who took me home and surprised me by telling me she was an ex-dominatrix.  I learned two things that night: 1) I don’t really enjoy having my junk stepped on by a woman in thigh high boots, and 2) Never use rope that hasn’t been properly treated to tie someone up or it will leave a mark for a few weeks.  Also an addendum: You can’t say a safe word if you’re gagged.  Just food for thought.

My 24th birthday, Amber, some of her friends, and some of mine, took me to the bar that I used to bounce at.  We were already so blitzed during pre-game that I was surprised that I even remember the birthday BJ that I got in the stockroom.  That was, by the way, also the last time that night that I wore my pants.  I didn’t even remember the outcome of that evening until the next morning when I woke up naked on my futon bed with a beer bottle for a pillow, Amber naked next to me, her lady friend naked next to her, and HER lesbian friend passed out face down ass up on the floor.  My buddy Kevin was sleeping in my bathtub with my pillow and a blanket, who only woke up long enough to explain to me in great detail about an epic four-way, that he regrettably could not be a part of due to a bad case of whiskey dick.  And with that slight reminder it all came flooding back in flashes of body parts, and discarded clothing.  It was also the next morning that I found out that they had not only allowed me to party in my boxers for the rest of the night, but allowed me to walk home from the bar like that!  I never did see my favorite pair of khakis again…  (Hashtag Worthit)

Lust went from being my motivational drive, to being an outlet.  Let me explain.  Before I was able to express myself sexually, that lust was simply an energy that went unfulfilled and sat stagnant inside of me, leading to airs of desperation and loneliness.  Because of that, the desperation was what was causing me to move and express myself, which created a barrier 5 feet wide in diameter around my virginity.  By sheer dumb luck, someone was good enough to plug all this excess energy that was circulating inside of me and give it somewhere to go.  Once that energy diffused, I was no longer confined to use lust as a driving force, but rather I was free to wield it the way it was supposed to…as a tool.  This tool is vital in no longer being considered a Nice Guy.  This is what other people call “passion”, “spontaneity”…  It is what all men have in their arsenal when we are no longer confined to having lust be an internal hamster wheel.  The ability to wield Lust in the way that you want is actually what separates the “men” from the “boys.”

My perspective on sex has changed a lot between my 20’s to my 30’s.  It was a lot easier back in the 20’s, because back then, there was no real thought process involved in it.  I had no god damn idea what I was doing, so it’s not as if thinking about it was going to make any changes.  Being dumb and letting the “lesser brain” move me was actually very beneficial for me at that age.  When I went out, I never really took disinterest for a flat out “no.”  Now…before I go any further, let me just write this brief PSA: NO, FUCKING MEANS NO.  If you think that what I wrote above means that it somehow justifies taking advantage of someone, I will filet your worthless man parts, you gutless douche.  We now bring you back to your original programming.  What I mean is that, just because she showed no signs towards me initially, didn’t mean that she couldn’t become interested in me.  I had a certain assertiveness in my sheer stupidity.  As an example…I had a friend of mine who was an exotic dancer, who saw me as exactly that: just a friend.  It’s that terminology that strikes fear into every red blooded male out there.  I saw her (fully clothed) at another friend’s party one night and I asked her if she wanted to go grab some dinner and a cocktail sometime.  She responded “I’m not really trying to see anyone right now.”  I returned with “What a coincidence!  Me neither!  I’m still asking if you want good conversation over some good grub and some booze though.”  And she said yes.  After that, during the course of dinner, I just had fun, not letting Lust take control over the reins, and let her relax and the rest came naturally.  We were in her bedroom about 3 hours later, and everything went well.  …although she did managed to break out a flogger without me looking and hit me so hard I couldn’t sit down the next day.  I literally didn’t see that one coming.  But the lesson still stands: I had confidence back then based on completely NOTHING, and it worked.

I guess the lesson that I took away from my early 20’s is that I had nothing to lose.  I literally started from zero experiences, so nothing could suffer by comparison.  I admitted I knew nothing, and that nothing that I ever watched on porn would prepare me for the real thing.  So I was just down to do whatever, and try whatever.  I’m not so different even now.  But I also realize that my experiences in this field our solely unique.  Not just that but it was kind of like learning the piledriver and wheelbarrow before ever touching on missionary.  I was dropped into the advanced class and told to learn.  The thing was…I was afraid that if I stopped my momentum that it would stop happening to me.  Not that I was against any of it!  But it does make me wonder if I somehow missed out on how normal people do things.  Lust is…an out of control power.  To harness it requires a lot of patience, a lot of self discipline, and enough cold showers to make the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge feel like a tropical shower.  And I didn’t learn how to do any of that until my late 20’s.

(TO BE CONTINUED…DUN DUN DUN!)

Dating 401: Girlfriend, Wife, Boyfriend, Husband, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Alright, you bunch of degenerates, wake up!  I know it’s early, but today we’re going to discuss a topic discussed on yesterday’s broadcast of Aural Stimulation.  For those that didn’t read the damn syllabus, then you’re in luck!  They archive their shows on their site and you can listen to the broadcast online!  IF you still fail to listen to the show, neither I nor my esteemed colleague Melissa will be in during our office hours because I will be teaching her Japanese over a bowl of good ramen.  So with the fact that your final grade WILL be on the line, I direct you to the topic at hand: What is the difference between Girlfriend / Boyfriend Material and Wife / Husband Material?

Look…no matter what, the qualities that you want to have in your partner, whether you intend to put a ring on her, are still going to be the same.  There are established criteria that we look for that designate someone who is a good fit for us, especially when we’re pondering taking the so called “Plunge.”  While those qualities may be as different from person to person as snowflakes, I’m relatively certain that there are particular qualities that will have you running for the nearest Tiffany’s a lot faster.  Having said that…just because your potential wifey has those qualities, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to the chapel.  And just because they don’t have those qualities doesn’t mean that they’re going to end up on Spinster Way, living in the Crazy Cat Lady Hut.  It’s all about context, and what the individual decides is the deal breaker when making that Ever After decision.  So let’s take a look at them and increase the chances of you not becoming a Beyoncé song.

1. Bow-Chicka-Bow-Bow – Well let’s get this over with right off the bat. You have to be sexually compatible. Forgive me for getting vulgar for all those virgin ears out there, but you are going to fuck this person for the rest of your life (supposedly)…the sex has got to be good. Seriously! Are you going to spend 4 months pay check on 3 minute lazy blowjobs and dry handies? If you’re a crazy kinky sex maniac, and they’re a vanilla-villa piece of Wonder Bread, then you’re obviously going to find more than a few sexual hurdles to clear.  Look, I get it.  If you’re marrying someone the emotional trumps the physical a lot of the time.  But guess what?  Theoretically…this is the last person you are ever going to sleep with. Better make it count…or pray for an open marriage…or that the other person dies first.  Because a leopard doesn’t change its spots, folks.  If they are only DTF once a month, once you get married, you better get real comfortable with manual labor, cause you’ll see probably only see that monthly sex once every COUPLE of months.  So know ahead of time what you REALLY want, and for god’s sake be honest about it.  If it’s a deal breaker, then say so before you say those vows!
2. Mind Your P’s and Q’s – Let’s say you finally reach that point in your relationship where you make the insane decision, that it’s time to take your partner home to meet the family.  Here’s the thing…they have to be able to at least PRETEND to be nice to your friends and family. Yeah, your mother talks about her two cats pretty much every 3 minutes. Yes, your dad is talking about propane vs. charcoal grilling. And sure, your little brother screams about video games, and grandma is just a wee bit racist. Doesn’t matter. You have to have those manners intact in front of them with that goofy smile, the patient ear, and nodding head.  The only clue that they can give you that they are overwhelmed in meeting your insane brood is a slight widening of the eyes, which is your preset method of communication which says “HELP ME, YOU SONUVABITCH!!”  In the end though, these are going to be the future in-laws.  And if you are close to your family, there is no way to avoid having your partner getting to know them…maybe even love them.  Cause let’s face it…if they want in into this freak show you call your family, (lord knows why) they have to be able to hang.  Smile, converse, dress appropriately, laugh often, and help to clean up afterwards.  They can wait until they get home to scream at you that you didn’t mention that your grandfather was an old Nazi war pilot, or that you didn’t save them from your mother’s desire to talk about all the recent renovations to the house.  Bottom line: It’s trial by fire, but if you pass the test, it’s a way of saying “Welcome to our bat shit crazy family.”
3. Money Money Money Money – They have to at the very least, understand the concept of a budget.  I’m not saying that they can’t buy the things they want.  Life is sometimes all about the hedonistic pleasures of an exercise in capitalism.  I’m just saying that they need to be able to prioritize the electric bill over a pair of Sam Edelman shoes that are 10% off at Macys.  I’m not saying they’ll do this…but if your kid from your first marriage’s future college fund starts going down, and conversely your significant other’s collection of water pipes seems to grow…maybe there might be a correlation there.  I dunno, I’m not an accountant. But being fiscally responsible just means that you know where your money is going.  If at the end of the month, they can’t figure out why they’re short on rent, but they can tell you down to the cent, how much they’ve spent on decorative commemorative swords from famous movies…then perhaps their focus needs to be redirected.  You’ll always find people who will tell you that “money isn’t important.”  That “love is the only thing that’s important.”  These people have never wanted for anything in their lives, and has had a silver spoon in their mouth, and a gold rectal thermometer in their ass since they were infants.  Because I promise you that nothing will turn a good relationship into a screaming match the likes you haven’t seen since Jerry Springer, like trying to figure out where the money went to pay the heating bill in the dead of a Polar Vortex winter storm.
4. Always A Good Decision – They have to be able to make good overall life choices. Should I go back to school? Yes. Should I go to the gym today? Yes. (Not calling my imaginary wife material fat, I’m just saying she’s making a good decision for herself.)   Should I sleep with my roommate’s meth dealer? No. As a person, your partner at this point in their lives, should at least be able to make their own decision.  Now mind you…I’m only talking about the simple decisions that almost everyone can agree are good or bad decisions.  Those every day questions about morality, or those types of questions where you can’t see the outcome?  Well most of the time, we’ll never know if those decisions were good or bad until we are already neck deep in the consequences.  Those kinds of decisions, yes, your partner should absolutely come ask you.  BUT…they take responsibility for their own decision, or take equal blame for any decision you make as a couple.  They’ll still take what you say into consideration as long as it’s reasonable, it’s just that their final decision on these things won’t have to solely rely on your say so. Cause if you are their Magic 8 Ball and you give the wrong advice…HOO MAN, you better be ready for some bitterness, resentment, and an expensive divorce somewhere down the line.  All I’m saying is that responsibility is shared, but their independent decisions are theirs.  Don’t mix those up, otherwise you end up taking that stress and bringing it into bed…and usually, it won’t lead to the fun type of angry sex.
5. Lean On Me – Along this line…my partner supports ME on things that will potentially make me better. I’m not saying that they should support me moving high into the Himalayas, so I can paint glacial runoff all year round if I have all the artistic talent of Miley Cyrus with a paint brush stuck in her ass and twerking over a canvas. I’m saying that they think of me, know my potential, and then supports me when I want to do something that will maximize the things that I’m good at.  Because to care about someone means that you see all of them.  Their good and their bad.  A good partner is able to be a catalyst for your good, and neutralize the bad.  The thing is though…they need to be there willingly when things get rough. Because it’s easy to stay together when everything is working, it’s quite another to work through things when they aren’t.  Mainly, this characteristic all comes to how far you’re willing to go.  Look…if I’m a hopeless case, and I’m pulling my partner down into the Rabbit Hole Express to a Tea Party with Failure…then know what?  Ditch me.  Better only one person shatter their bones when they hit rock bottom, especially if your partner has all the potential.  Mind you…if I’m so big of a loser that you have to cut me loose to keep from falling with me, then chances are you’re going to have to extricate yourself from a very firm grip.  Which leads me finally to…
6. You Is Kind, You Is Smart, You Is Important – For god sake, marry someone who values themselves. If the person says yes to your proposal, then you can pretty much assume that they already know YOUR value, and since you popped the question, then we can assume that you see theirs.  The thing is though, what makes for an important distinction is how well they see their own value.  My favorite segment from a Katt Williams comedy routine goes “Bitch, it’s called SELF ESTEEM!!!  It’s esteem of the motha fuckin’ self!  How the fuck can I make you feel bad about YOU, simple bitch!?”  Surplus and unneeded amount of expletives aside, the man has a point.  Having self esteem means that you know your own worth, and therefore will not settle for anything less than what you deserve.  This, in turn, also makes me feel better because I know that someone of value sees value in me.  It’s an important distinction because if you don’t see yourself as much, then your partner will constantly be questioning their own value, OR…they’ll believe that they can do better because THEY understand their own value, and they are with someone who believes they have none.  Just know your worth, kids.  Because 9 out of 10, I guarantee that you are worth a whole lot more than what you value yourself for.

Alright, well the bell’s about to go off, so I leave you with these thoughts.  Being a girlfriend / boyfriend, doesn’t mean that you don’t have these characteristics.  It’s just that in the beginning, when you are still really getting to know each other, it’s all about simpler and more general characteristics.  Are they funny?  Are they smart?  Are they cute?  What kind of music do they like, what kind of food?  These general characteristics lay out the groundwork for some of the bigger ones as we outlined above.  As I stated at the beginning…what I find to be important in my forever-mate may not be what you need in yours.  And just because they have all of the above doesn’t mean that you won’t find something else to be a potential deal breaker.  What it comes down to, and is really the only actual criteria that matters when deciding if you are going to wifey up your partner…is that you love them more than anyone else.

Now if you’ll excuse me…I’m gonna go have some ramen.  Dismissed!

Verbal Jujitsu: Fighting Heightism With Sarcasm

The other day, I was checking my WordPress dashboard to see search options that led people to my little corner of digital space.  One of the very first things that appeared for top searches was “short men should die.”  Now…I know I should have let that go, because feeding trolls is like feeding Gremlins after midnight.  You’re really only propagating the species.  Unfortunately, with my curiosity lit, I proceeded to exercise what I can only describe as a practice in self flagellation.  I went on Google and started a search.  Now…in the internet’s defense, some of those posts were in support of my vertically challenged brothers.  Others declared open war on anyone under 6’0″.  Since I also started a Twitter account (a decision I’m waiting to regret), I searched through #shortguys to see what social media had to say on the subject.  It is an absolute travesty of epic proportions.  Seriously…the things that were written, and the people who commented in support are an absolute atrocity!  Not a single one of them…KNOWS HOW TO WRITE!!

I mean, my GOD, people!  We live in an age where you can proofread every word you write before you send it out!  There’s no excuse for such terrible wordplay!  First of all, “manlet” is not a word.  It is not in the hallowed halls of the Oxford English dictionary with words like “YOLO”, “cray”, and “amazeballs.”  Perhaps you meant the word “mantle?”  I could see how that could get confusing since you only misplaced the “t”.  You really need to slow down your typing and realize those red squiggly lines that appear under words mean that you spelled something wrong.  Oh!  I see, you meant that as a derogatory term?  Unfortunately, the suffix “-let” doesn’t really exist, nor would it particularly mean “little”, as you seem to want it to mean.  The word itself sounds like it’s a combination of the word “man” with the word “outlet.”  So…I’m a male outlet?  I’m a plug?  No, I’m afraid that doesn’t make sense.  I’m sorry, but you’re simply going to have to do better.  Deduction -8 points.

Okay…so now I see a Tweet that says “if U R unner 6’0″ do me favor and plz kill self”.  Right then…this sentence is just RIPE with red marks, sweetie.  You really need to learn to form your words, okay?  First of all, if it begins a sentence, you always capitalize the first letter.  I don’t know how you were educated, but I learned that in elementary.  Secondly, the letters “U” and “R” are letters unless you abbreviate it with a period.  And usually if you abbreviate a “U” it stands for “University.”  I have no idea what R would stand for.  Perhaps you meant “you are”?  You really must learn how to utilize your words.  Also, did you mean “your” or “you’re”, because believe me, that will make a difference.  And oh dear…you spelled the word “under” wrong.  Either that or you wanted to combine the letter “R” with the “unner” and you wanted to spell “runner?”  You have a spell check, you really need to use it, okay?  Because killing 6’0″ runners, and killing under 6’0″ people is really going to change the body count.  Also it is “do me A favor.”  Let’s not forget our articles. They are our friends.  Oops, I see another spelling error.  It’s not “plz” but “please.”  I appreciate that you are trying to be polite in telling people to die, but misspelling is just rude!  Now…you say “self” here.  You need to be specific with this.  Is it MYself, YOURself, HIMself…  You see how this can be confusing?  Did you want me to kill you because other people are under 6’0″ tall?  Whatever you meant to say, suicide is NOT the answer.  Just because you are a terrible writer doesn’t mean you have to die, okay?  Maybe you may need to go back to elementary school and pass the 2nd grade like you were supposed to, but it’s not the end of the world.  Don’t die just because we’re under 6’0″, okay?  It gets better, I promise!  But having said that…this is absolutely horrid sentence structure and spelling.  I’m sorry, but deduction -14 points.  Hope you can read my comments under all the red pen marks.

Oh, here’s an entire blog entry!  Lovely!  I see, so this post is supposed to be meant as satire!  Much like Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.”  Wonderful, I can’t wait to read it.  … … …  Hmm….  No.  I’m sorry, but this doesn’t constitute satire at all.  Not even a little bit.  You see here, you are trying to advocate gassing all short men and trying to tie it into the unrealistic beauty expectations for women.  Then, in the next several paragraphs you rant about short men being the most vocal about a woman’s beauty standards, short men lowering your social value by asking you, “a taller woman,” out, all while claiming to be a feminist…without showing a single shred of evidence that this occurs.  Now…I applaud the intellectual practice of writing from another person’s point of view in order to provide satirical perspective, but unfortunately you failed in almost every aspect of what makes a satire…satirical.  First, let us look at the premise of writing from the feminist standpoint.  The fact that you write as a “feminist” and yet write in a manner in which the opinions are so blatantly anti-feminist…are you trying to insult feminism?  Because last time I checked, the entire idea of feminism was to empower women to be independent and be equal in a patriarchal society…and certainly isn’t about the antiquated perspectives of beauty shoved upon them by other women, men, or society in general.  So okay, maybe you are satirizing feminist thinking.

But wait…now you’re writing in a completely superficial tone, claiming height as the standard of attractiveness for men.  In fact you write about this for several paragraphs, completely ignoring your earlier feminist take!  …so now we are insulting superficial people?  Okay, well I have no problem with that.  I don’t like them anymore than you do…  But wait…now you created a hashtag for Twitter telling readers to gas short men.  So people are supposed to use this hashtag in an ironic fashion?  Oh, of course…cause Twitter users are renowned for their ability to read between their allotted lines.  You are saying that short men who are actually held to an equally unrealistic standard of male attractiveness by women, are a problem.  Then if you were satirizing the early perspective, does that make THIS the real point?  Are you actually advocating gassing short people?  You see…you tried to be too ambitious with your insults!  We don’t know who you are insulting any more!  You are just a troll now.  Have a cookie.

Satire is like…literary math.  You can try and solve the problem, but you still have the prove your results.  Just…instead of multiplication tables, pie, and symbols, you use humor, irony, juxtaposition, etc..  Without a solid foundation on what your actual point is, and then proving it through actions and data, all you have is a trolling rant.  You come off as an infant who pounds the keyboards with his palms covered in crayon marks crying at nothing…or everything.  NOBODY KNOWS!  For god sake, writer…explain yourself!  One of my favorite satirists of all time has got to be Mark Twain.  In Huck Finn, there are many juicy tidbits about how Twain saw the nature of American society through the eyes of Jim or Huck, like in this juicy tidbit: “What’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and isn’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” This line worked because he set up the scene and the character, who is consistent throughout the book.  Satire is all about laying that kind of ground work, being consistent, and THEN changing the perspective.  Once you laid the groundwork, those contrary opinions based on different perspectives can seem ironic, and therefore satirical.  “HI!  I’M NOT RACIST BUT I HATE ALL RACES!!  RN’T I IRONIC!?  SATIRE!!”  is in no way shape or form within the subtle realm which you claim to tread.  Go back.  Read some good books under that bridge where you live and stay there.  I’ll make sure to bring you a goat.  What you are doing is running into a crowded movie theater, yelling “Fire”, and then laughing at the people getting trampled to death.  Time for you to do your homework.  Start by reading Huck Finn and…let’s throw in Gulliver’s Travels for good measure.  I expect a 1000 word report about satire citing those two books on my desk by Monday.  This paper you handed in gets -67 points and an auto fail.

To the rest of you desperately poor writers who expound about the evils of short men, and how we have our deaths coming…I would ask that you all learn how to form an insult.  Choose your words carefully!  An insult without a shred of truth in it is like taking a bite of an apple and finding out it was made of wax!  Sure it looks like the real thing, but inevitably you’re the one who looks like an idiot.  And for god’s sake, craft that insult so that it is above reproach!  Prove your argument with facts so that it doesn’t crumble at the slightest breeze!  Don’t come to me with data from a social experiment of 50 people and expect me to take that as indicative of the entire human race either!  Your argument must be well laid out, and have a thesis statement.  Try starting with an outline, that sometime helps.  And for god’s sake, make sure that you’re spelling everything correctly!  Nobody likes a grammatically incorrect troll!  Come on now, internet!  Right now you aren’t just failing my course…you’re epic failing it!

I expect that report on my desk by 9 AM Monday!  Dismissed.

Dating 101: Basics of Conversation – Is This Thing On?

Good morning, everyone.  Please take your seats quickly.  We have a lot to cover.  Today we are going to talk about the Basics of Conversation, and judging by the fact that this class even needs to be held, I’m guessing that the majority of you throw your words around like a monkey with a digestive problem might fling his fecal matter.  Most of the time the words coming out of your mouth will be of equal value to what’s being flung, so let’s take a little time and figure out what we’re doing wrong, shall we?

Let’s talk about words for a second.  The spoken and written word can be a powerful tool when utilized in the right context and the right application…like the Bible, or Harry Potter.  The Constitution of the United States, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech…  You get my point.  Words can be used for dynamic and powerful things when done correctly.  …fast forward to today.  The average email you receive from your potential partner reads like an eye chart and has as much charm and wit as a drunken hobo exposing himself.  The average conversation is about as engaging as…well as the late George Carlin would say: “watching flies fuck!”  We have relegated our poor words into nothing more than packing material that is suffocating real and meaningful dialogue.

Words have become extraneous and have had all the passion and fire sucked out of them.  Words used to be so strong that it actually LED to action, so much so that one would scarcely be had without the other.  Nowadays words and actions aren’t even in the same continent at the same time anymore, let alone the same person.  The two have about as much to do with each other now as peanut butter and sturgeon.  Maybe it’s because of the digital age where we are not held accountable for anything that we write or say.  We’re so safely ensconced behind our keyboards that there’s no one there to bind us to our words.  We’ve become so thoroughly disillusioned by forum flamers and internet trolls that we just don’t believe in saying anything of import.  Because of that we think so little of ourselves that our very words are leading us to our own inaction. And THAT, my dear students, is about as impotent as frat house whiskey dick.

The point?  Choose your words carefully.  There’s no reason why, especially when writing, that you can’t put a little more thought into what is actually appearing on the screen.  I don’t know if it’s the Twitter mentality, but you seem to place this mental word limit on how much you can say.  That isn’t a bad thing!  Often times, the most powerful phrases are short, to the point ones.  A lesson that I’m sure you obviously wish I would learn from.  But don’t let the quality of what you have to say be limited by the number of words you’re ALLOWED to say.  Don’t compromise your message by being lazy.  Write “you” instead of “u”, and “why” instead of “y.”  Think of it as digital penmanship.  You can write the most flowery prose in the world, but if you write it like shit…which do you think it will smell more like?

And by the way, when you write it…MEAN IT!  Following through with what you write or say is your social currency and reputation.  If you can’t stand behind what you say, or do what you promise to do, then you’re just a politician who didn’t follow through on his campaign promises.  And we all know what we think of those people.  Saying what we mean, and doing what we say instills trust.  Men…I’ll tell you right now, that if you instill passion back into your words and make a woman believe them…then you can go ahead and graduate from these courses, because you already have all the tools you need.

NOW…having said all that.  Let’s talk about what we’re actually doing when we are having a conversation and the problems that arise.  For example: You’re sitting with your date inside of a decent sit down restaurant.  You sit across from each other and smile, and you start to talk to each other.  Men…you REALLY like this woman (or man…this example is universal).  So as you’re waiting for the food, you sense a little lull in the conversation.  Uh oh.  In the back of your mind you hear your inner monologue screaming “We’re losing her attention, dipshit!!  QUICK, SAY SOMETHING!!”  Next thing you know, you’re on dessert, it’s been two hours, your mouth is about as dry as the Sahara, and you’re telling them a story about Bootsy, the cat you had until 8th grade.  You feel like you just ran a marathon, and she looks like she had a nine inch spike rammed through her skull…or at least that’s what she’ll be wishing.

Earlier on, I mentioned that words have become nothing more than “packing material.”  There’s a reason for that.  On average, one of the main complaints that I hear about men from women is our tendency to fill up “dead air” with meaningless words.  The definition of “dead air” tends to vary for men, between a long 5 minute silence and the time it takes for a hummingbird to flap its wings.  We have this terrible insecurity within ourselves that if we can’t keep our partner’s attention ALL the time, that somehow it means that the attraction is completely gone.  Suddenly, the woman finds that they are having their love interest perform 2 hours of stand-up from which they can not escape.  Hell…if it were interesting, I’d be okay with it!  But when they start running out of material within the first 30 minutes, we suddenly find ourselves dangerously encroaching on TMI territory.

“Well I was born on a sunny day out in the country.  Doc Jones said I was just about the smallest little baby he’d ever delivered!  I was 3 weeks premature, you see.  My mom was a waitress in the only diner in town, and my dad owned the hardware store!  I used to go down there every Saturday to help out my Pa, but all I did was sit by the paint shaker and eat paint chips!”  …I don’t know why my hypothetical guy is a brain dead hick…but you get my point.  And this guy will continue to tell his fucking story for 3 hours!  You hope he’ll skip past elementary school, but oh no!  He had “interesting” stories from even back then!  By the time your date is over, he hasn’t asked your name, and you call tell me what his great grandmother’s favorite color sex toy was!  Either that or you’re so drunk from drinking paint remover all night that you can’t remember anything past “So, let me tell you about the time…”

If you are one of these people who blather on, please forgive me if I applaud when your date smacks you across the head.  Guys…try to understand this on the first try. ASK. HER. QUESTIONS.  Write it on your hand if you need a reminder.  If there is a lull in the conversation, the best thing in the world is to give your love interest the ball.  If you don’t know how to do this, just go down the 5 W’s!

• Who? – What’s her name?  What does she do?
• What? – What are her likes?  What are her dislikes?  What are her hobbies?  Her hopes?  Her dreams?
• Where? – Did she go to college?  Where does she live now?  Where is her family from?
• When? – What year did she graduate?  When did she know she wanted to become (occupation)?
• Why? – Why did she choose this profession?  Why does she play the flugelhorn?
• How? – How did she start online dating?  How did her parents meet?

Now…these are just random questions that I came up with, just now, off the top of my head.  These questions alone will probably kill at least 30 minutes even if she’s not the chattiest person in the world.  Now here’s the kicker, guys.  When you ask a woman a question…more often than not, that question will come RIGHT BACK AT YOU!!  Because this is how a conversation is formed!!  You know what?  Do this.  Before you leave for your date, think about what you want to talk to her about yourself, and then ask HER that question!  Chances are you’ll still be able to talk about it, just NOT FIRST.  And since you’re able to think about what you want to be asked, guess what?  You can also concise your own damn answer so you don’t spend 45 minutes talking about how awkward prom was when everyone found out your date was your cousin!

Because you see, THAT is what a conversation is!  A series of questions, answers, and concise stories that are exchanged.  That means that you trade off.  It goes back and forth!  That means if she went on a 15 minute diatribe about her college years, you have 15 minutes.  But wait!  That is the NORMAL way.  Do yours in 10 minutes, and then bring it back to her.  That’s the Badass Method.  The less you tell initially, the more she’ll want to know about you later.  A little mystery, gentlemen.  That is all a woman asks.  Besides, sometimes certain conversations should stay a mystery because it hovers dangerously close to the TMI Zone!  Also…while we’re on the subject…

Your date is not your fucking therapy session!!!  I don’t care if you’re dating your therapist!!  There are some things you just don’t god damn talk about when you are out on a date!  Even more so if you’re on your first one!  Here are some classic examples:

• The Ex – No one wants to hear you talk about her.  Not even your friends.  No one wants to hear how she stomped on your heart, that she cheated on you and you’re still angry about it, and ESPECIALLY that you still might have feelings for her.  Get over it.  Or at least get over it before you start going out with someone else.  Chances are, if your date never asks, she doesn’t want to know.  If she DOES ask, then yeah, she kinda walked into that one.  Ladies…don’t open Pandora’s Box.  I promise you, there is nothing good that will remain inside even once you let all the Evils out.  Save it for therapy, boys.
• Your Demons – Chances are, if you have such definitive demons that you just HAVE to tell someone who you’re romantically interested in, it’s going to manifest in other ways through the night.  Like binge drinking double vodkas until you just tell the bartender to leave the fucking bottle, or other equally self destructive behavior.  Get an exorcist, get your shit straight.  Your date doesn’t need to hear about them.  Once you’re in love, maybe she can help and support you, but for now…pay that $90 / Hr.
• Sex / Fetish – Never EVER on the first date, ya creepers!!  Seriously!  Unless she brings up the topic first, or you are absolutely sure that she wants to talk about it…keep that shit to yourself.  A general rule is that you must have sex with that person before you talk about sex with that person.  Why?  Cause you don’t want them to think that that’s all that they’re there for!!  They’re already nervous that that’s all that they are!!  You don’t need to compound that shit by talking about it!  Oh and do yourself a favor and keep that cross-dressing and leather / latex fetish on the down low until you really trust each other, yeah?
• Your Bad Day – Everyone has ’em.  It’s not her fucking problem, it’s yours.  When you get home, deal with it.  When you use her to deal with your bad day, she just feels like she’s a part of it.  Make her feel like she’s the solution, not just adding to the fire.  Oh, but also make sure you don’t pressure her into thinking she’s also the ONLY solution.  If you’re married, that might bring you closer…if you’re on your second date…that’s just creepy and a lot of pressure to put on someone.
• Bitterness / Lies / Cynicism- “Hi!  I’m Optimism!  I’m really quite cheerful and bright!  I look forward to getting to know you and possibly falling in love!  Sir?  What are you doing with that knife?  Sir-   AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!”   Yeah, do yourself a favor and preserve what little hope there is in dating, okay?  Look, I get it…we’ve all been through the wringer.  Sometimes you feel like you have wrung yourself dry on the towel rack of life, and you’re just so fucking tired of it all.  Guess what?  She isn’t.  Get your head in the god damn game.  Man up.  Show her that that part of you has some god damn fire.  We’re men, dammit.  We get kicked, we get punched, we fall face down on the pavement…then we dust off and get right back to doing what we do.  It’s one of our redeeming characteristics.  USE IT.

Alright, time’s up.  Pencils down.  Just keep this in mind for next time: Communication is all about what we want to convey.  It’s not always about what we say but also in how we say it.  By asking questions we’re letting our partner know that we are interested in what they have to offer, who they are as a person, how they will be with you.  If you just want someone to hear all the mindless boring shit, your cat is at home.  Even then, a cat has the tendency to walk away and sleep when it gets tired of you.  Just remember to talk TO a person…not AT them.

Pass your papers to the front.  My TA will collect them.  Dismissed.  –  From Professor Badass

The Seven Deadly Sins (Part 6): Pride – …Little Prejudice, But Leave Out the Bronte

I started working on these Seven Deadly Sins posts last year and someone pointed out that I had never finished the last two sins.  This was an oversight on my part so I thought I’d fix that.  Giddyup, Dante!  Onward to #6!

Out of all of the classic Sins, I feel like this is the one that I could really do with more of, I think.  As usual, I don’t really interpret it the way that a Catholic might, but rather in the reimagined modern version.  By that, I mean that in the current incarnation, having or taking pride in something is not something that is really considered sinful anymore.  Oh sure, if you were to take a narrow view of Pride, what it comes down to is believing one to be God’s equivalent, or holding yourself loftier than all others.  It didn’t matter if your superior ability came through hard work or through innate traits.  Neither one was allowed to boast or brag over their fellow man, and certainly not over the Big Man upstairs.  Humility above all, and therefore you shall not give into that thing called hubris.  Pride was the first and supposedly worst out of all of the 7, and is the basis for the 1st Commandment.  It is also the basis for the lesser known 11th Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Be a Douche), and the even more obscure 14th Commandment.  (Thou Shalt Not Think You Are Better Than Me…Yes, You.  Dude, I Am Looking Right At You).  Moses would have brought that down from the mountain as well, but the stone tablets, much like Twitter, had a word limit.

But as time changes, so does our understanding of the word “pride.”  From an agnostic’s point of view, it may not necessarily be a sin to think you’re God, or think that you’re God’s gift…but let’s face it, you would probably be considered bat-shit crazy, or you’d be the biggest asshole since Hitler…or both.  You see, in the modern context, pride is kind of an integral part of adapting any kind of self confidence.  Within the social world we live in, where human interaction is the key to our continued survival, a little pride is what is going to separate the boy who can’t look a woman in the eye when they say “Hello”, and the man who smiles openly and invites the whole world in.  If we can’t at least be a little bit proud of who we are, then we’ll always be looking at ourselves like we’re beneath people who we should be looking upon as equals.  That’s a difficult thing for the other people to accept, just as it’s hard for the unconfident person to live with.

That being said, there’s no way that we can’t have Pride in our lives.  For a long time, I didn’t think this “sin” had anything to do with me.  But one day I realized…if I didn’t have any Pride, why did it make me so angry when someone insulted me?  People called me weak, timid, short, dumb, childish, uncoordinated, untalented…  If I didn’t have any Pride, then what was the use in fighting against it?  How would I deny it?  In fact, it wasn’t until I was praised for something for the first time that I really realized that I had any pride at all.  I was always taught that being too proud was a bad thing, but like some of the unconfident people out there, I made the mistake that thinking having ANY pride and having TOO much of it were the same thing.  It never occurred to me as a teenager that feeling proud of myself would link to self confidence.  See…if I read it on the page now, it’s obvious.  But that’s the beauty of hindsight, isn’t it?  The answer is so very clear to us, but at the time, we didn’t even think of this stuff.  So I went through most of my high school life with my head in the sand, if for no other reason, because I didn’t realize there was such a thing as a happy medium between having too much and having none.

And that, in essence, is where the old school Sin and the new school “Pride” is different.  In fact, let’s even separate the two terms.  There is the classic Pride, and the modern Proud.  The sinful Pride is that thing that we all learned in high school about “hubris.”  I’m pretty sure I learned this through the story of Oedipus Rex and Antigone.  By the old pre-Christ era standard, it wasn’t the having of pride…but it was having excessive amounts of it, which was the source of the issue.  Even in ancient Greece, we had the understanding that a little bit of pride was a good thing, but every Greek myth had that turning point in the story where the protagonist boasted just a little bit too much, and the Gods on Olympus had to knock ’em down a peg.  In fact, that’s pretty much how most of the Greek fables go: Man is good at something, man becomes proud, man boasts he is greater than the Gods, man is turned into turnip and forced to watch as one of the Gods forces himself on his wife in some bizarre animal form.  The moral of the stories was always that being proud is okay, but know the extent of your abilities because there is always someone who is above you.  To put it even simpler…don’t be a dick.  So the classical definition of Pride is actually closer to Hubris, rather than the modern day revamping of Pride.

Pride is one of those sins that the Nice Guy could actually benefit from.  Just like in my own personal example, there seems to be a rash of low self esteem that springs up among the NG’s that no particular ointment is fixing.  And as you’ve probably noticed in a lot of the posts that I produce, the key to getting out from being an NG is to just be confident.  And that’s where the modern Proud comes in.  Establishing something that is uniquely your own and that you do better than the average person is actually a benchmark of a healthy adult life, regardless of gender.  It shows that you invested the time to do something…to become something.  It’s a lot like applying for a job and employers looking for a college degree.  Even though the field that you studied may not be the field that applies to the job, you can still get a job simply on the merit that you graduated.  Why?  Because it shows that you made the effort, that you are committed, and that you have skill…if at nothing else, then at the ability to learn.  And it works very similarly when getting into a relationship.  You should be proud of your accomplishments, and that will in turn give you confidence, which in turn will allow you to be yourself.

You need to be able to take pride in what you can do so that your partner doesn’t end up asking “why?”  As in, “why am I with this person?” or “why is he always so negative?”  Your partner isn’t there to instill you with pride, you have to do that for yourself.  Being proud because of someone else isn’t the same as being proud OF yourself.  The difference is the same as how you’re perceived by others and how you perceive yourself.  You’re only in control of one of those things.  Inevitably, the people who rely on others to fill them with pride will come to a point at which that just isn’t enough.  No matter what the other person does, it just isn’t enough to fill up what you should have been filling yourself.  Something like that can even lead to resentment if we aren’t careful!  And nobody wants to date someone without that bare essential aspect of themselves.  Anyone who has ever dated someone without self-esteem will know that being with them 24/7 is often times a constant battle between prudence and the urge to ram the business end of a hammer between their eyes.

Bottom line…I’m proud of the life I’ve lead up until now, and I’m sure that whatever I do from this moment on will still instill me with pride.  But I have a good series of checks and balances that is built into my personality which will keep me from ever experiencing true hubris.  I’ve been humbled almost every step of the way in my life, to the point that getting proud of even a miniscule thing was like climbing Everest.  I didn’t meet expectations, I didn’t achieve standards, I didn’t have what it took…but eventually there was one thing that changed it all around that made it so much easier.  All of those things were things that were applied to me by other people.  Once I realized that the only person I had to answer to for anything, was myself, that’s when things got better.  Just remember that with Pride, you shouldn’t have too much, but not having any is just as detrimental.  Realize that it is better to have some than not to have any.  The key is to ride that middle of being Proud without having Pride…or go ahead be cocky and just wait for the Gods to ravish your mom.

Onwards, faithful steed!  To LUST!

The Approach: Buckle Your Seatbelts. This May Get Bumpy.

I tend to surf the web a lot in my spare time.  I’m usually not looking for anything in particular, but I end up looking up whatever thought seems to latch itself onto my brain and won’t shake loose after six or seven attempts.  No, folks, they aren’t porn sites.  That’s a different post, and honestly surfing the web for porn is like falling out of a boat and hitting water.  The odds are pretty good, know what I mean?  I’m talking about those burning questions like “Is a camel’s hump edible?” (it is, but it’s mostly fat) or “How can I make a taser?”  (disposable camera with a flash…no really.)  Anyway…as I leave these sites, I’ll occasionally get a pop up window which I immediately close.  As I was leaving one of those sites, I got a pop up asking me if I wanted to learn how to “master the art of being able to sleep with any woman I wanted.”  Now I’ve heard about these sites.  And when I was 19, maybe even when I was 25, I would have fallen for this…but I’m not really the demographic anymore.  I’m more of the “Is your job mundane?” and “Isn’t it about time you got your prostate checked?” demographic now.  But if I’m bored, I have this itch of curiosity that just needs to be scratched, so I’ll click it.

On average, these pop ups will lead you to some two bit internet hustler trying to scam lonely fappers into buying into their “tried and true” method of getting a woman to ride you like a Six Flags roller coaster.  They’ll promise that this is all based on sociological and psychological studies backed by Doctor “Printed-My-Diploma-At-Home”, and tons of testimonials that are so formulaic they look like they were rummaged from discarded computer servers from failed marketing companies.  But I sit through their promotional video…because, why the fuck not, and also…might as well look for some blog fodder.  So I watch this trite trailer for their site, narrated by someone who sounds like a cross between an evangelist and a cartoon character, selling me on their story where they try to establish a connection with the viewer.  The most common ploy being used, of course, is the “I used to be just like you” speech.  Anyone who has stayed up past their bed time, or stumbled home drunk off their ass at 4 AM when the TV stations run out of programming, know about the late night infomercials.  Whether they be selling Viagra, get rich scams, or a terrible workout machine (banned from normal air time for safety issues)…they all begin with their pitch: I used to be just like you.  Because nothing endears you to their character, nothing bonds you more than a shared past.

Then the video will use made up terminology, usually mixing pop culture references with an official sounding solution and voila, you have your hook.  “You know that book Twilight, all those girls went apeshit for?  Well there’s a reason for that.  There are inherent triggers in the Vampire / Werewolf dynamic. By using that AND using a method that we created (in other words: made up) called the Twilight Solution, those girls who used to ignore you will be begging to get into your sheets!”  And before you go blaming all the guys who buy these programs, I’d like to point out that we all see through it because we KNOW better.  But we aren’t their target audience.  No matter how much I try to sell you this crap, I guarantee you that not a single one of you will buy the program off of anything I say.  Why?  Cause I don’t believe it, and think the whole thing is a scam to make you spend money, and then the rest of the money will be spent buying douchey clothing and entry fees to shitty clubs and bars.  But that’s not to say, someone with a high intellect, average physique, and little social experience wouldn’t fall for it at the drop of a hat.  That’s their demographic…people who believe that they deserve a better life but don’t have the slightest inkling on how to achieve it.

So…I finish the trailer, having gotten absolutely no information except for the fact that the narrator used to be a dorky loser pushover, and developing the system turned him into some kind of pimp Casanova.  No fucking clue at this point how he got from point A to point B, except for the vague allusions to this mysterious method, and I’m not shelling out a dime just so I can find out their would be “secrets.”  I love you readers, but writing blogs is great cause it’s free, and I intend to keep it that way.  So I go back to the internet and find the information the hard way: forums.  Now…getting information from forums is a lot like mining a mountain without knowing what’s inside it.  Sometimes you’ll pull coal, sometimes you’ll pull diamonds, and sometimes you’ll pull the cursed bones of the Native American tribe that used to live on that land.  So I sifted through the trolls and flamers, and I finally found information about what was actually inside some of these Pick Up Artist (PUA) sites.

To spare you the details, let me summarize it for you.  A lot of it focuses on your “approach” and “initiation.”  It’s all about how your body language, what you say, how you say it, how you’re dressed or groomed, will affect that initial impression.  It categorizes certain actions as wrong and certain actions as right…definitively.  Now, if you’re like me, anything or anybody who categorizes such a subjective thing as attraction into such well defined parameters, should be setting off alarm bells loud enough to wake the dead.  There are actually two major problems that I can find right away with any system that tells you exactly what to do.  The first one lies in the type of people who would need such help that they would go to one of these sites.  These are people who had to look up “how to interact with girls” at age 18 or above.  Some could be well into their 30’s, or god forbid, 40’s.  These people fundamentally lack the confidence to go out to bars, clubs, and then initiate the approach to women.  The kind of people that they cater to, tend to fear the outside world.  They fear WOMEN.  What they are looking for is an easy answer, and they seek it out so desperately, and right there with waiting arms are these PUA’s with their bullshit philosophy.

They will open their arms and welcome you into the fold (for a nominal fee), and then tell you to change all your superficial features and behavior to become a very specific type of person.  They will tell you to do things like “peacock”, which is literally wearing clothes that attract someone’s eyes (even if you attract it only to offend them with the absolute gaudiness of it), or intentionally behaving in a way that has the same effect. These people lack the fundamental confidence to deal with this kind of situation, let alone change such a huge aspect of themselves.  So what will inevitably happen is that these victims of such scams will cherry pick only the advice that they believe they can do, and when it doesn’t work for them, they will come back and demand a reason why it didn’t work.  And really all the PUA will have to say: You didn’t follow the method EXACTLY.  I don’t care how many scenarios you run, or how many improv sessions you have prepared.  At the core, if you are not the person that you say you are, you will not be able to capture anyone’s heart.  (Unless you are a murdering psychopath at your core…in which case there is no one out there for you.  Please turn yourself over to authorities.)

To go with the idea of scenarios…a PUA’s perspective is that all women can be somehow categorized into archetypes.  This allows them to formulate a plan of attack, and using their ability to read people, they can improvise their approach to any woman.  Okay…forgetting for a moment that most people who have to learn how to socially interact from internet forums have about as much ability to read people as Helen Keller…women are not archetypes.  They are people.  And I hope that by now, we all can realize that the word individual means exactly that…that each person is singular.  Just because a guy can snipe down every woman at the club with a 0.4 blood alcohol level and severe daddy issues doesn’t make him a playa prophet.  It means that in an environment where standards are low, judgment is impaired, and vision is suspect at BEST, a man with a modicum of self grooming and self awareness can take an inebriated girl home for a night of meaningless whiskey dick.  It shows not just a disrespect towards women, but almost contempt.  They think they deserved companionship…and for what?  A misguided idea that they were a decent human being (which they clearly weren’t)?

This environment, this lifestyle is not usually indicative of what the majority of these people who go onto these PUA sites are looking for.  At the MOST what they are looking for is the ability to go in and make a connection through proper interaction.  To be seen for who they are, which I THINK was the core idea of what the PUA’s were going for, before the idea got clouded by bottle service, douchey clothes, and hair gel.  Look, let me give you socially inept folks a little advice, free of charge.  The one thing that the PUA’s got right is that how you look DOES matter.  It’s not that the women are superficial, but it shows a bare minimum of respect for yourself and for the person whose interest you may have piqued.  Groom yourself, smell nice…but don’t think for a moment that you have to dress like everyone else, or that you have to go completely outlandish.  You aren’t at the circus.  Save the gold lame chaps for the bedroom, okay champ?  If you can’t make the approach, then start with what’s within, not what’s wrong with the other person or with what you’re wearing.  I promise you that if you polish yourself and become the genuinely GOOD person that you’re supposed to be, the confidence will follow.  Have a sense of self-worth, and know what it is.  Never settle because it does yourself and the other person a disservice.  And above all…don’t make your life revolve around something you don’t have control over.  You want people to flock to you?  Live a life that is worth getting excited over.  Have stories to tell, and experiences that no one else has!  Basically, live your life like the Dos Equis guy.  If your life is interesting, then you generate interest by others.  You can make others approach YOU, or if you are sincerely interested in someone else, at the least your experiences will allow you to be comfortable approaching…in any situation.  But it has to start with you.  It’s not as simple as changing clothes, or memorizing terrible lines.  You have to change your way of thinking and the way your live.  But at the end of the day, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.  And look at that…you didn’t have to spend a dime for that advice.  Peace. – AB

Dating 301: If At First You Don’t Succeed…Try Again, But Not As Hard

Good morning, class.  So for those of you who don’t know, I have been on a break from you yahoos for a good long while.  Mostly because your behavior drove me to start drinking again, and the school caught wind of it.  They weren’t upset about the drinking part, they were more upset about the fact that I didn’t share.  Anyway, I’m back after my sabbatical with a renewed vigor to whip you numbskulls into more productive daters.  Please keep in mind however, that I gave up coconut drinks in the tropics to come back and straighten you out, so at the first sight of a sleeping student in my class, and I will go back to my beachside hammocks and Polynesian women bringing me fruity rum in coconuts with pink umbrellas sticking out of them.  Now…open to Chapter 7, let’s get started.

Today, we’re going to discuss the Art of Trying.  The actual name of the chapter is “You’re Trying Too Hard, Dumbass”, but the editors thought that was too belligerent.  Me personally, I think it gets the point across much better.  Guys…what is with the trying so hard?  For the love of God, someone tell me?  You do have to realize at this point that excessive effort makes you seem desperate, yes?  Okay, look.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put any effort into a relationship or getting into one, okay?  Your job as any good Alpha is to strut a little bit, but if you start polishing your feathers too much, your potential mates are going to notice very quickly when the veneer peels off.  Effort is something that lies on a steep curve, and if you start at the top from the very beginning, then all you have left is a rapid and rather bone-shattering plummet.  You just have to ease into it.  After all, a woman likes it when you take your time.

Here’s a general rule, guys: Women notice shit.  Yep.  I know, I know…it’s a shocker.  But sarcasm aside, women are especially sensitive when you aren’t being yourself.  And men naturally have this ability as well, but we choose not to access it all the time, particularly when it comes to our own actions.  We have the tendency to not look at ourselves too closely in the mirror.  Why?  Maybe we don’t like what we see, or maybe it’s simply that we’re afraid of what we might.  So we hide it, the way that people use make up to hide physical imperfections that they are self-conscious of, but instead with effort and false bravado.  Thing is, no matter how good of an actor you are, there is something exuded by someone who is not being genuine that pervades the air.  That Eau de Desperation, that cloud of funk that seems to lie about your person.  The more observant, and certainly the more wary person will notice these traits immediately, maybe even on a subconscious instinctive level.  This will result in their rejection.  And in these times, usually a guy takes one of two steps.  Either they back off and regroup (which is the better choice), or they continue to try even harder.  And at some point you’re going to reach a zenith on that.  You literally are not physically capable of going any further on the effort scale.  You bought them a house after you proposed to them in a hot air balloon flash mob, and bought them an engagement ring that makes the Hope diamond look like a Ring Pop.

And while I’m sure that’s all well, good, and lovely…all that really shows is that the guy has a very low estimation of themselves.  I’m going to let you in on a little secret, men.  If you are, at your very core, a good, strong, wonderful, funny, loving individual…then there is no effort.  Your base line is more than adequate to get a woman of your dreams.  Do you know when you start putting in more effort that you need?  When you don’t value yourselves or your own wants and needs.  When you assign yourself a value lower than the person that you are interested in.  It’s an automatic white flag before you even begun anything.  It’s astounding to me how many guys out there don’t know their own self worth and automatically designate themselves such low self worth, and put their partner on a pedestal.  And here’s the kicker…the partner doesn’t want somebody who is always looking down at themselves!  Sometimes, you want to give someone the opportunity to make the effort for YOU.  Not all the time, but if you spend your entire relationship just trying to make the other person happy at the expense of your own…well then, Lincoln needs to rise from the grave and emancipate your stupid ass.

I’m not saying not to try, ok?  Please get that through your skulls.  Last thing I want people telling me is that I told you that making your partner happy is a waste of time.  In this modern day age of dating, there seems to be this trend that whoever cares the most in the relationship, or whoever tries too much, loses.  Modern day romance has become a practice in apathy.  There’s a lot of blogs, essays, and entries out there in the digital ether about this subject.  That the concept of a relationship is rapidly dying due to these games we play.  We can’t be bothered with the commitment of it, because god forbid, we make the wrong decision.  The thing about it is…I seem to recall an era where fucking up wasn’t just a rite of passage, it was your birthright.  It was how you knew when you did something wrong and you did something right.  What I suppose is my question is: what the fuck are we so afraid of?  That we fail?  Ladies and gentlemen, we are standing on a foundation of dead ends, fuck ups, and epic fails.  History and our social evolution depends on it.  You’re supposed to not get it right all the time.  Because somewhere in the back of your brain, you just can’t seem to cut yourself loose from an idea, and nothing short of a failed attempt will convince you that it is a bad one.  So you try it, flame out spectacularly, and then you try something else.  That’s how we grow.  It’s how it’s always been done.  We still do it this way, even though society is trying to equalize everything, and make everything more homogenous.  But that’s the beauty of the world.  You can take away our whiffle bats, our Yard Darts, ban Dodgeball and Capture the Flag…we will still always find a way to learn in the most painful, idiotic, and most memorable ways possible.  That’s just how we do.

The difference between trying too hard and trying is who you are trying FOR.  When a guy tries too hard, inevitably it’s because he’s trying for someone else.  That effort is not done for his own sake but for someone else’s…which ends up accomplishing two things.  The first thing is that it usually applies a lot of pressure on your partner, based on how hard you try.  It’s too much like an ultimatum thinly veiled in the pretense of effort.  AND the other side to that is that you devalue yourself by acquiescing to all their needs without considering your own.  It becomes a lose/lose situation.  On the other hand, when we try hard for ourselves, we almost always increase our own value, and make ourselves worthy of being tried for.  When we try for ourselves, we acknowledging the benefit to us, as well as removing the pressure to your partner.  “I’m doing this because I want to,” is a line that is most famous for this sentiment.  But the key here is that you need to really mean it, which most of the time, people don’t.  Most of the time, this phrase translates to: “I have something I want from you, but I’m not going to tell you and hope you reciprocate in the way that I want.”  This can be summarized even further to three simple words: “I’m a pussy.”

Alright, students.  That’s the bell, but please take this away with you as you leave.  There is nothing wrong with trying hard, but do it for the right reasons.  In the end, no one can live your life except for yourself, so it’s up to you to try for yourself.  There’s nothing wrong with doing things for other people, to try for someone else, but make sure you’re honest with your intent.  Make it something that you want to do, and mean it.  And if you do decide to make the attempt for your own sake…don’t be afraid to fail.  Fuck it up, and do it magnificently.  Learn, grow, and become stronger than you were.  That in turn will make every effort worthwhile.  Now get to your next class!

The Price of Happiness: An Ongoing Tale

I began this blog like 3 or 4 years ago in an attempt to write the trials and tribulations of what it’s like to be me in the dating world.  Initially, I started writing it as a way for me to look back on the mistakes I made along the way, or even to laugh at my own personal anecdotes.  And as I posted more and more of my personal style of writing, more and more people started to subscribe and really read what I wrote.  Some even took a few grains of wisdom from my convoluted ramblings, and that made me happy.  Now, in the present, this blog has taken a couple of turns and has become a “slice of life” kind of blog, instead of my humorous attempts at finding love.  Part of the reason for that is that I just gave up on “dating.”  I was never really good at going out, meeting someone, and then somehow creating some excuse to ask them out on a date, and quite truthfully, my forays into online dating became more of an elaborate sociological comedy routine than fun.  The other part was that I found myself dwelling too much on something that was just not a good aspect of my life.  And as I went back and read the things that happened to me over the years, I just realized that the name of the blog is aptly named…I’m just not very good at finding someone.

And…that’s okay.  Because I discovered that my happiness really wasn’t that contingent whether or not I got a date.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that this search for the big love of my life was actually the source of most of my anxiety.  I’m the kind of guy that feels like a failure when they don’t get it right on the first try.  So with something like dating, which is almost entirely impossible to get right without making a few hundred mistakes, it isn’t exactly the best kind of thing to base my happiness on.  I found that I got depressed easily when things didn’t go “right”, which is just about the most arbitrary term out there.  I didn’t like that so much of my life was spent hanging on something that I had no control over.  So I decided to just stop, take a step back, and take stock of the things in my life.  Instead, I started to focus on the people that I DID have in my life, and how they fit into it.  Slowly but surely, I stopped feeling so alone, especially when I realized that I was never alone to begin with.  And that brings me back to the point of this entry: What does it mean to be happy?  …which I suppose is just about as general and “slice of life” as you can really get for an entry.  It’s kind of like trying to figure out the Colonel’s secret recipe and starting with salt.

Belle and I have this conversation quite often, and it got me to thinking about the nature of happiness and how best to achieve it.  The first thing I came up with is that people tend to confuse “satisfaction” and “happiness.”  Believe it or not, it’s an important distinction to make.  Satisfaction is an aspect, but not the thing itself.  That’s why the majority of people who feel happy tend to also feel satisfied, but satisfied people aren’t necessarily always happy.  Put into context: I got my BA in English back in 2005 (cue Avenue Q).  After graduation, I immediately went to massage school and got my certification in massage therapy.  I would create individual sessions for people, lessen their muscle aches, help them relax, and make some of their pain go away.  I was physically exhausted at the end of the day, and honestly, it didn’t feel like my brain was doing much thinking…but I enjoyed it.  It was nice being able to help people feel better, and so I felt very satisfied in how I was doing my job.  But combined with my own fatigue at the end of the day, and the fact that the money really wasn’t all that good…I didn’t feel all that happy.  I was doing so much for other people, but I really didn’t do anything for myself.

So…after doing that for 2 years, I quit and became Al Bundy (a womens’ shoes salesman) where I worked for a good 2 years before being promoted to their Logistic Manager.  Again, these jobs didn’t pay all that well, and felt like the pay scale was not equivalent to the work that I seemed to be doing.  Both of these jobs made me neither satisfied or happy, however I was with my ex fiancée at the time, and I was even able to perform in a musical or two, so my personal life was now on an uphill swing.  But then my company went through restructuring and they eliminated my position.  So I took my severance package and I was dismissed since the closest reassignment was 30 miles away.  On top of that, my fiancée broke it off with me less than a month later, and I was forced to move back in with my mother.  At this point I was neither satisfied or happy…actually, I was downright miserable.

Okay…so in the above examples you’ll notice that I felt the most satisfied when I had a definitive occupation, and had a fulfilling goal.  To add onto my previous definition, satisfaction occurs (at least for me) when something goes according to a positive expectation. But on average, satisfaction tends to be in something that you don’t necessarily choose for yourself.  It wasn’t by choice, but rather it was the anticipation matching my expectation.  Put simply…it’s a small sliver of happiness.  A bite size morsel.  Will these little bits of satisfaction add up to help you be happy?  Absolutely.  Will it fill you up?  Not necessarily.  On the opposite side there’s my personal life where everything that occurs is a product of my choices.  When my personal life goes well, it means it was due to the correct course of actions that I chose to take.  These were my big bites, my banquets.  No matter what else was going on in my life, these were the things that filled me up.  So with this I realized that whether good or bad, one aspect of being happy is making a choice and seeing the result of that choice to the end.  The outcome may be positive, which will most definitely swing your meter to the Happy side quickly.  If the outcome is negative or satisfactory…well then how you perceive it will determine whether you feel badly or satisfied, but probably not happy.

I know that that makes me sound like a control freak, but honestly when it comes to being happy, the only thing you can really control is the making of the choice.  Everything else is just a series of unpredictable variables and a slew of unforeseeable outcomes.  I’m not even saying that you can CHOOSE to be happy.  What you have to do is to make a decision to make a choice that could potentially lead to happiness.  It’s all a crap shoot in the end.  And that leads me to my second point.

Take little victories.  The big happy moments in our lives are always like winning the lottery.  It takes a lot of luck, a lot of patience, and just the right conditions.  You might not even know if you are truly happy until 5 years down the road, and by that time it’s already too late to turn around and go back.  It is worth the risk…but how do you hold out until you get there?  Small joys, little bits of happiness.  While satisfying moments will keep you going, it’s the little victories that will tide you over for longer.  To go back to my food analogy…it’s like going to your local convenience store and getting a chicken caesar wrap.  It will tide you over, it tastes pretty good, and it’s convenient.  You might eat one a few times a week without getting too sick of it.  But that’s really all it will do for you.  It occupies space but it’s not very emotionally fulfilling.  Whereas happiness…well the little joys are all about the occasional bites that you only need a little of, and it will keep you happy for a long time.  My favorite example is when I went to Chef Anita Lo’s Annisa in New York City.  On her menu is a soup dumpling on a small bed of fresh slice jicama with a piece of seared foie gras on the top of the dumpling.  You get one on a wide porcelain spoon, and you eat it in one bite.  Let me tell you…every time I have that dish, I have to stop and take a minute.  The feeling when you get a perfect bite is euphoric, heady, and if you’re lucky…it’s lingering.  Sure I could have an entire plate of those things, but that would defeat its purpose.  They make you happy because you get a little bit, and it is gratifying as the taste remains on your tongue.

And that’s what those little bits of happiness are…  It’s a small morsel that carries into every part of you.  It’s the kiss, and then the light taste of wax from their lipstick.  It’s the feeling of cold water on a hot day.  These aren’t just satisfying moments…they can be happy ones, if we’d allow them to be.  It’s all in how we measure out our joys.  If we keep waiting for the big pay off that may never come, we’ll never be full.  We all have to live in the moment, after all.  Stacks upon stacks of satisfying moments may not lead to happiness, but dole out enough of those little goodies that make our heart smile…you’ll be well on your way to being well and truly happy.  …or if not, you’ll be able to last until you are.