theworldofdale

Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category

can’t tell me nothing

In Communication, Relationships, Technology on July 21, 2015 at 6:53 pm

I have no idea who reads this blog. I don’t know how many people read it. I know there are analytics and metrics and they are easy to understand, but I just don’t care. I like having people read my writing, but I would still do this if no one read it but me (and my mom, who is contractually obligated to love everything I do). I don’t care how many people follow me on Twitter or Instagram. The threat to cancel subscriptions that would shake the boots of newspaper editorial staffs have lost their power in the age of free information (and free misinformation). I don’t get dollars for followers, so unfollowing, following back, all the status of social media is lost on me.

BUT (I like big buts and I cannot lie – sorry, couldn’t help myself): I am always bemused by the fact that the men I date have one thing in common (and truly only one thing). None of them read (past or present tense) my blog.

It used to bother me – look at this perfectly simple way to internet-stalk/gather counter-intelligence/bask in my brilliance! Men complain they don’t know what women want or what they are thinking, and here I am putting it on this easy-to-read design template. Granted, there are no pictures, but there are at least a couple dick/poop/tampon jokes (that is the grossest collection of slashes ever). And really – if he likes me as much as he says he does, why wouldn’t he support my completely non-profitable venture?

Until a couple nights ago, when I was reminded of the observation that if, for example, you get a rash every time you eat shellfish, maybe it’s not just a bunch of bad shellfish. Maybe it’s you. If you have a lot of friends who take advantage of your time and energy, maybe it’s not that you’ve happened upon horrible friends but because you are attracting them to you. It was time to contemplate why this single similarity tied together the (number redacted because it’s none of your business) men I’ve dated.

My theory about readers developing crushes on my words was confirmed when I wrote a sports blog for cincinnati.com. All of a sudden, emails and Twitter DMs (google it, mom) were pouring in with phone numbers and requests for “just a chat about sports over beers.” If my ego wasn’t already so inflated, I would have been flattered. But I suspected that a crush on my words did not translate to a crush on me. There is a distinct voice to my writing but it’s not necessarily my voice – or at least it’s only a portion of it. This voice is cultivated and uses thesaurus.com regularly and is expressed with an indistinct audience of me (writers write what they want to read) and a nebulous population of at least semi-anonymous readers in mind. My words are an orderly collection of sentiments meant to entertain.

But me? I’m not orderly at all. I’m chaotic and messy and mercurial, not just by diagnosis but by temperament as well. It’s not just my moods that ebb and flow and rise and fall. My house is usually a mess; my playlist goes from Kanye West to Conway Twitty; I’m alternately sentimental and emotion-phobic. In the words of Walt Whitman,”Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself; (I am large, I contain multitudes).” There is a dialectic of complicated simplicity to my nature that results in great frustration but, ironically, comfort, since all of those Jenga pieces still fit back together even after they splay over the game table.

I can’t be sure, but I’d like to think that the men I date like me, the person, and my writing doesn’t have the reckless quality of my human form. There’s something to like – something he has to like – about my agitated life that wouldn’t be sated by a few hundred words every few weeks or months. And even if he was a faithful follower, there would be a discomfiture between the woman he knows and the words he reads… an uncertainty that sometimes confuses even me.

Then again, maybe dating me is more than enough exposure to theworldofdale. In any case, it means I get to write about them and they’ll never know.

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yes. women are funny.

In Communication, Relationships on July 8, 2015 at 9:21 pm

Another white man is talking about the rare and elusive “funny woman” (as the endangered beast is commonly identified). It’s happened before and if you don’t know about the instances to which I’m referring, let me summarize: women aren’t funny. beautiful women really aren’t funny. funny women aren’t beautiful.

I tend to ignore this noise because I only care about if people personally find me funny and if their brand of comedy is Jeff Foxworthy or Dane Cook or whatever that shit is that Chuck Lorre makes, then I’ll go ahead and let them be wrong in their own little world.

But I’ve broken my silence because widespread falsehoods are a pet peeve of mine. A former boss described me as having a justice gene – I can’t just sit by and let things go to shit without trying to do something about it. The good news is that my justice gene is easily sated and a blog post is sufficient to quiet the hungry growl of integrity tying knots in my stomach.

Women are funny. Funny women are beautiful. As a stand-up junkie, I’m well aware of stunning comics like Nikki Glaser, Jen Kirkman, Aisha Tyler, Kelly Oxford… you get the point. These are gorgeous women. If you just saw pictures of them, you’d think, wow, that chick’s hot. They could model. And for the benefit of the Adam Carollas of the world, these are your societal beauty standards examples. There are plenty of other gorgeous stand-up comics, writers, and performers.

Beautiful women are funny. Read an interview with Mila Kunis, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lawrence, Anna Kendrick… these women, known for making us mere mortals wear paper bags over our heads in deference, are hilarious. I would gladly friend-date any of these women and totally forget that they have the freakish beauty normally associated with exotic flowers or a Jaguar C-type.

After much contemplation as to why the concept that women aren’t funny has become so prevalent, I was hit with a eureka moment.

It’s not that women aren’t funny. It’s that men don’t like women to be funny.

The theme of most “women aren’t funny” arguments is that women like different kind of jokes. Softer, gentler jokes, with a story and the humor of a sly pun or unexpected irony. Women, it seemed, just weren’t capable of what’s actually funny. The kind of funny that only men can produce: dirty jokes. In the world of stand-up, it’s called working blue. Andrew Dice Clay (incidentally, one of my mother’s favorite comedians) is the personification of blue jokes. When people say women aren’t funny, they mean they aren’t blue-funny.

Men don’t like it when women are blue-funny. They don’t like it when they are blue at all. Women aren’t supposed to be graphic. They’re supposed to be demure. They are supposed to perform the soft, soothing comedy of food jokes (see DeGeneres, E. & Poundstone, P. – who are excellent and hilarious, by the way) that the audience is comfortable with – because a lot of women don’t like women working blue either.

We are at a point in America where a woman can be required to endure a trans-vaginal ultrasound to undergo a private medical procedure and, at the same time, saying tampon in mixed company will result in a male cringe registering 7.0 on the Richter scale. We are at a point where merely mentioning that I was on the toilet when I hit my head on the sink left the men in the room shuddering at the thought of a female expending waste. My sense of humor is blue with a side of black (there’s some dark, sick jokes that roll around in my dirty little brain). I see firsthand, albeit on a much smaller scale, what Amy Schumer encounters – the discomfort with an attractive woman who swears like a sailor and confesses sins as a raconteur instead of a shamed heathen.

Men have long been unable to bear the burdens women encounter daily. I’ve watched grown men physically fight over one yelling across the street at the other, but when the guys across the street advise me that they like me better when I’m thick, I move on with what is a regular day. Men can rarely withstand the onus of emotions, so they compartmentalize them into the office, the gym, the bottle, the laptop – whatever is convenient and accommodating of their immersion. The way men complain about a kidney stone indicates they have forgotten that there are women doing essentially the same thing EVERY DAY in order to CONTINUE HUMAN EXISTENCE. But by all means, tell me more about your urethra rock.

I’ve sat at many a table filled with women telling side-splitting stories about every filthy topic you can imagine and many you can’t. The games of “Would You Rather?” I played with my grad-school girlfriends would shock & awe Howard Stern. At long last, Bridesmaids and Inside Amy Schumer are among the beacons of hilarity in the testosterone pool of blue-funny. Society is finally coming to terms with the fact that women poop. We are tiptoeing cautiously into the nearly infinite world of ridiculously sublime tales of sexual absurdity.

We have reached the edge of the bonfire where I told the guys who couldn’t handle my whiskey my favorite joke:

Three tampons are walking towards you. Which one talks to you – the one on the right, the one on the left, or the one in the middle?

…

None of them. They’re all stuck up cunts.

same love

In News and Politics, Relationships, Religion on May 23, 2015 at 5:32 pm

If you’ve read more than three posts on this blog, I’d first like to congratulate you on being part of such an exclusive group. Secondly, you may have noticed that a lot of post titles are music-related. It didn’t start out as a conscious decision, and it’s still not a rule so much as a tendency. But this title does refer to a specific song: Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert. It’s essentially a song in support of the GLBTQ community. When I first heard it, it was Mary Lambert’s sweet lilting chorus that hooked me (pun acknowledged, considered, and kept but not necessarily intended).

And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

It’s a melodic expression of an age-old sentiment: the heart wants what the heart wants. Everyone who has known love knows the irrationality of it. I know far too many people (myself included) who spent a stupid amount of time and energy on a relationship weaker than the first little pig’s straw house. The frailty might be obvious and insurmountable – the straw house had no chance against the wolf’s inexplicably strong lungs – or it might never be realized – like water eroding the earth until the Grand Canyon reaches depths that far exceed its relatively mild epithet would imply.

The beautiful thing about love is that, like faith, it regularly overcomes the cyclopean odds against it and endures the wind and fire and hangry wolves determined to destroy it. We have as much control over whether we love the same or opposite sex as we do whether we love some asshole who tries to get you fired (you know who you are).

I recently became a Catholic. The why and how and whatnot are for another day. For the purposes of this post, most people are aware of the Catholic church’s stance on marriage equality (they are not in favor). What you might not know is that this judgment on marriage validity is not limited to the Adam and Steves of the world. There are some very specific reasons why the church’s stance on gay marriage is what it is – and they are mostly related to the inability to produce biological progeny. I won’t go into them here because you can look it up yourself on this thing called Google (or Bing, if you prefer your search results identical but further apart).

What interested me as I learned the premises on which the case for which marriage inequality was based, I realized my own (extremely hypothetical) marriage would not be recognized as valid by the Catholic church – and many priests would refuse to perform my ceremony.

Why? Because I do not want to have biological children. I will not be having biological children. There was a time in my life when I planned on a Brangelina-style brood of biological and adopted children who represented at least 5 continents. Life, being the great teacher it is, gave many practical arguments in favor of keeping the doors of my egg store closed, not the least of which is serious mental illness (in fact, it’s probably the most). The interaction of medication and hormones and the physical, mental, and emotional stress of pregnancy made it an easy decision – for ME. Please note, people prone to hysteria, that I am not making a statement on whether women with mental illness should have biological children. As always, I do not give a shit what other people think or do, in the same way I don’t give a shit what other people think about what I think or do.

Because of the motley logic leading to my unused uterus, the Catholic church would not consider my marriage valid – or “real,” as one would say in non-Catholic terminology. My imaginary husband could divorce me and get what is essentially a “get out of marriage free” card from the church – an annulment would be a no-brainer. The reason you get married is to have children. Yeah, it’s also to unify with another human being who you will love and honor through sickness and health, wealth and poverty, good times and bad, but the baby-making is still required. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Is it difficult to belong to a religion that can (and would) refuse to acknowledge a lifelong commitment I made to a man who probably will fart under the covers and leave the toilet seat up and forget to buy bourbon when we run out? Sure. There are other tenets of the Catholic church with which I don’t agree, but just like any relationship, I make compromises and I know the commitment I made on April 4, 2015 will be tested like any other eternal promise. I grant the church something that it is sometimes slow to grant to others – flexibility. My faith, like love, will face the obstacles life presents, and against all probability it will prevail.

But here’s the catch – I can still get married legally. I am free to receive all the benefits of marriage – not just the dutch ovens and empty bourbon bottles, but insurance, estate protection, hospital visitation – all the fun, sexy stuff that comes with a government-issued document. This is where my religion breaks my heart – crossing the line between church and state to intervene in what is legally none of its business, but moreover, it opposes the highest and most central of Catholic tenets – human equality, dignity, and love. Losing sight of Catholicism’s strongest belief – love – has resulted in the promotion of well… not love. And that, unlike love, can change. If it could, and if it would, it can change.

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Postscript:

As I completed this post, the shuffled playlist on my iPod played “I Will Wait” by Mumford & Sons. Not as prophetic as if “Same Love” had come on, but it still seems appropriate.

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Post-postscript:

If you’re wondering if I wrote about gay marriage before, I have, although even I don’t remember writing it. The best thing about a horrible memory is re-reading things like it’s the first time… even when you wrote them. I also remembered my previous blog, which if I was the ambitious sort, I would import into this one or however computers and websites work.

infinite shades of grey

In Communication, News and Politics, Relationships on December 7, 2014 at 4:23 pm

I hate writing about racism. I’m white (with just enough Potawatomi to have some melanin but not nearly enough to get followed around department stores), and it feels inherently dishonest to offer an opinion based on my unavoidable ignorance of the experience. It is like my refusal to see a male gynecologist because their female counterparts immediately have a leg up on you, knowledge-wise (no pun or disturbing mental image intended).

But the problem when the only people who talk about racism are the people who experience it, the audience is limited. The very ears who need to hear about racism are less (albeit increasingly) likely to be near the mouths of those who live it every day. I am certain that I know plenty of white people, probably many I call friends, who never talk to any black people. Not necessarily out of racism; it’s just that the circumstances of their lives rarely cross, because this city is so segregated that you can live your life without ever interacting with a person of color.

That whole bunch of unnecessary chatter is the tl:dr of this sentence: I’m going to write words on this page about racism.

The story of most recently Eric Garner and starting with basically the first black people to set their feet on American soil is beyond heartbreaking. It’s pure horror on the level of the Holocaust. The collateral damage- physically, emotionally, economically, mentally, socially – it throbs through the nation with the subtlety of a migraine. My ancestors came to America from Canada and Finland long after slavery and never ventured south of Michigan, so I even have what so many consider a “Get Out of Guilt” card. (“Well, my ancestors didn’t own your ancestors. They were too busy pickling fish.”) But that non-existent card would still stay in my wallet.

I have no words for the injustice, the violations of Constitutional rights, the incompetent legal and governing systems that have spilled out of Missouri, New York, Ohio, and so many other uncomfortably similar situations erupting across the country. I can’t fathom the loss the families feel — loss of a loved one and loss of hope delivered by weak and insulting responses to life lights snuffed out by hasty gunfire.

What happens when you’ve aligned yourself with one side of an issue, it’s decided that there are only two possible sides. Everyone has to fall into one category. There is no gray. If you are with the victims, you are against the police. If you are with the police, you are against the victims (and I refer to Mr. Brown, Mr. Garner, Mr. Rice, and the hundreds or thousands who have experienced anywhere from mild denigration to the ultimate judgment as victims with careful and deliberate consideration, because their power has been eviscerated).

But what if it’s not that simple? What if you think these actions are heinous but you still want the police to be a positive part of the community. What if you wished that the police officers who say quietly that these incidents are not representations of their service would speak louder? What if we didn’t have to cling to one photo of a white cop hugging a black boy as the sole example of peace and love in a country of turmoil? What if everyone could be not on the side of the cops nor the side of the victims but on the side of both: the side of progress and dialogue and real understanding. The side of seeing the best in people, finding commonalities, expecting goodness and empathy and mercy.

There is no despair like the despair of hopelessness. The vacuum that followed the post-9/11 outpouring of love has left us with a black hole of compassion that, to borrow a pundit cliche, is exactly what the terrorists wanted. The nation intended to be a melting pot is separating itself as oil from water. No one, including me, wants to talk about racism and privilege or face our own preconceived notions about who we are, what we believe, and whether we are willing to admit that we are never as open and kind and tolerant as we imagine ourselves to be.

That is the tl:dr version of: we have to talk to each other.

We have to have every version of “the talk” that is uncomfortable and dreadful and stomach knot-creating with everyone who is different, everyone who is similar, everyone who is a complete unknown, because it’s only by getting to know each other that we stir the oil and water. It’s only by listening that we feel another’s pain. It’s only by speaking that others know our story. It’s only through cooperation that we rebuild what we’ve broken. It’s only through love that anything changes.

I didn’t want to write about racism because I didn’t feel like I was qualified, and I’m still less qualified than if not most, at least many. But there are some jobs with no qualifications and no requirements: listening in the midst of chaos; speaking in the midst of silence; stirring the bubbling pot; writing words on the interwebs (the pay is about the same, too).

Like finger mustache tattoos and washed-silk track suits, even the most ludicrous ideas can catch on and ripple across a nation. A few people talking here and a few people talking there, and eventually there’s an immeasurable shift. Then another minuscule step forward. And like all great progress and social change and revolution, the words will gain momentum until we have no choice but to confront the elephant in the room.

Incidentally, the elephant is grey.

she drives me crazy

In Communication, Health and Wellness, Relationships on June 2, 2013 at 12:47 pm

I am pretty open about having bipolar disorder. If someone sees a stigma in it, they would have probably found in me another unforgivable trait like how often I mention poop. Some people ask questions; most don’t. I’m fine with either. But since my diagnosis, I have learned a lot about the disease – just as you would if you found out you had diabetes or cancer or herpes. It’s been especially on my mind in the past year and I’ve felt called to talk about it.

What has spurred this deeper study in the past year was a new psychiatrist. I am no longer seeing the kind of assembly line doctor who made me feel like I was in line at the methadone clinic. We have started tinkering with my medications, finding out that not only could I sometimes feel not shitty, I could even feel good once in a while! This was a major breakthrough in what is essentially a terminal disease. A correlating diagnosis of ADD to add to the OCD and anxiety platter made me the wet dream of pharmaceutical companies everywhere. But the brain is a complicated thing, and it’s very inter-connected. So what makes one neuron manic or depressed can then also make me count my steps and forget most of my life experiences. Anyway, that’s just technical stuff – I’ve also been studying neurology in general so I get really excited about generating new connections between the brain cells I haven’t killed yet.

What spurred me to pick up the laptop and write the first post on Snarkler in over a year was a tweet. Stupid fucking Twitter is going to go and affect my life again. Mandy Stadtmiller, a writer at xoJane, tweeted to Amanda Bynes that she should DM her about writing for the site.

I am a fan of Mandy’s writing, although I don’t always agree with her. She’s smart and she gives good advice. Her writing is open and raw without reservations of vulnerability. When I read her popular article about the hit piece written about her, I was disappointed that she called being labeled bipolar a libelous act. It’s a disease, as indiscriminate with its destruction as any deadly illness and should cause no more shame than a congenital heart defect. Then last night, I saw her reach out to Amanda Bynes.

Wednesday, former Chappelle’s Show writer and current stand-up comic Neal Brennan tweeted this:

You know Amanda Bynes is mentally ill, right? You might as well be mocking someone having a heart attack or a seizure.

I don’t think Mandy is mocking Amanda Bynes. And this post isn’t about Mandy Stadtmiller. It’s about not understanding mental illness as what it is: a disease to be managed, a part of one’s self but not its totality, and impossible to understand with a normal brain. Like white people can never truly know what life is like as a black person, and men can never truly know what life is like as a woman, the sane cannot comprehend the distortion going on between our ears.

The empathy is kind, but trying to relate to the symptoms of true illness only keeps you from learning what you need to know. 30% of people with bipolar attempt suicide. Your rainy day doldrums are not comparable. I don’t mean to diminish the real struggle people have with depression, anxiety, and the stresses of the shit show we call life. But there is an instability at work with bipolar that makes it more of a tornado than a hurricane. It’s unpredictable. Its intensity and direction swing wildly such that you aren’t quite sure where you landed. There is no control. Your mind cannot defeat matter. (Please appreciate that I didn’t go for the very punny reference to gray matter in that allusion.)

These words aren’t meant to invoke sympathy or debate and most certainly are not intended to diminish the struggle of every human life. It’s just to point out that it’s serious shit. Amanda Bynes’ behavior (and Britney Spears’ before her) reminded me of my own psychotic episode. It was about 10 years ago, and fortunately only lasted a week before my very smart mother determined through conversation that I was having delusions and hallucinations. Amanda Bynes doesn’t have my mom. She doesn’t have Britney’s dad. I don’t know who she has. I do know that it should be treated as gravely as a heart attack. This shouldn’t be a story. This should be a mission.

Don’t let all this bummer shit think I don’t still love life. I manage and monitor my disease carefully and lead a pretty normal life, or at least a safely interesting life. It’s just… this.

the best policy

In Communication, Relationships on September 13, 2011 at 8:59 pm

You will hurt people.

People will hurt you.

People who you love and care about will hurt you and be hurt by you. It’s inevitable. It is going to happen. (That’s what inevitable means!)

There is something about that certainty that is comforting. It’s after you’ve done your interview and before you find out if you got the job. It’s what is hopefully a brief moment between the proposal and the yes. It’s the time after you’ve released the responsibility and before the consequences arrive. There is a freedom in certainty that allows for flexibility everywhere else.

I’m really honest. I’m not just truthful. I tell truths whether they are required or not. To say I’m blunt is to say that American Beauty is a downer. But there is a method to my madness. At least this madness in particular.

While the hurt is inevitable, it’s not necessarily permanent. I could be wrong, but I kind of think that it’s a lot harder to hurt someone irreparably if I’m always honest with them. Deceit is to trust as poison ivy is to my skin. It hurts really bad at first. Then it gets better. But I still have scars, although some are barely visible. For the record- I probably have more poison ivy scars than emotional, lest you think I merely wax poetic. But I strongly believe that no truth is fatal.

Maybe I’m just lazy, because when you’re always honest, you don’t have to remember what you’ve said. I have no memory anymore, so maybe it’s a protective reflex to keep from getting my ass in more trouble than I usually am. And you’d be surprised how often being honest as kept me from getting into trouble- I mess up, but no one thinks there’s a motive. Because I would have already told you my motive.

I’m not trying to say I’m totally awesome and perfectly honest and never tell a lie, because I am not Jesus or even Felipe Alou. I’m saying, I’m totally okay with you hurting my feelings, as long as it’s true. Because then I can recover.


you get what you get and you don’t get upset

In Communication, News and Politics, Relationships, Technology, Work on July 26, 2011 at 12:15 am

The world doesn’t owe you anything.

You don’t deserve anything.

You might spend your whole life doing the best you can and still get dealt a shit hand.

Life, like love, is complicated and unfair and beautiful and horrific. I think a lot of unhappiness is based not on what occurs, but on your expectations. There are books and studies and theories and greeting cards based on the idea that it’s not what happens to you but how you handle it. Why wait? Why not start with, I’m not going to say lowered expectations, but a lack of entitlement.

Nothing is more 21st century American than feeling owed. People are mad that their iPhone doesn’t get service in such-and-such neighborhood. They can’t stand the injustice of inconvenient parking. White liberals in America love nothing more than feeling discriminated against. They will concoct reasons that their lives are hard. They are vegan. They are atheists. They eschew professional career paths. They live in “up-and-coming” neighborhoods.

I’m cynical, but I’m not pessimistic. In another post, I’ll tell you how my cynicism and optimism coexist peacefully (and optimally). But all you need to know for now is that, yeah, life can totally suck. But the resilience of the human spirit is what makes it all worth it.

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what the world needs now is love

In Communication, News and Politics, Relationships on June 26, 2011 at 9:33 pm

The vote on gay marriage in New York has me thinking how totally fucking ridiculous it is that there there has to be a law specifically stating that gay people can get married. Here’s the gist: PEOPLE WERE STOPPING PEOPLE FROM GETTING MARRIED JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE THE SAME SEX.

It’s embarrassing that people didn’t realize that this was probably all based as much on their Christian values as their laziness to not change the first license forms they made up. So few people are even willing to engage in monogamy, I can’t see the point in stopping the people who really want to do it. These folks are just trying to tell the world they plan to try to avoid fucking other people for at least a few years, and the government cares enough to stop them?

People get married for all sorts of reason, some of them more logical than others, but almost all of them are legal. You can marry for money, or health insurance. You can marry for prestige. You can marry for companionship. You can marry for a big ol’ fancy wedding. You can marry for security, and you can marry for control. You can even marry for love, should you be so crazy. But you can’t marry for any of those reasons if you’re gay?

It’s not that you’re banning gay marriage. It’s that you’re banning  gay people from getting married. Whatever your problem with homosexuality is, it’s not going to go away with any amount of legislation. Love will always find a way, and it could care less about what your rules have to say about it. The bans on gay marriage have done nothing but waste a bunch of time that could have been spent creating jobs or limiting pollution or just minding your own fucking business.

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don’t hand me no lines

In Communication, Entertainment and Nightlife, Home, Relationships on May 17, 2011 at 9:59 pm

Did you know that some people marry people they aren’t in love with? Did you also know that I’m overcoming the visceral reaction to rearrange that sentence so that’s is too awkward to read but does not end in a preposition? Let’s move on. Damn it!

I’m in my early 30s, which is when folks begin to nest. They start settling. There isn’t so much a biological clock as there is a dearth of single, childless friends to carouse with on weekends. You look around and start realizing that the make-out party is becoming less party and more make-out and you’re running out of suitable partners.

While I don’t think everyone is going to meet their soulmate, I take the oath of marriage pretty seriously. I take it so seriously that I haven’t taken it. People stay in relationships with someone they don’t love, sometimes even going so far as to marry them. They might divorce, or they might stay unhappy forever. There might be affairs. There might be children.

Men always think I like them more than I do. They think each crush is love. They think they hold my heart in their hands and it’s up to them to care for it. You don’t do me favors by faking feelings. You don’t do me favors by being half-invested. You don’t do me favors by putting off breaking up.

Often, people are afraid to end things because they don’t want the other person to get hurt. Honey, the hurting is inevitable. And in the meantime, you’re stealing from them. You’re stealing time and energy and love that they could be sharing with someone who reciprocates. You’re stealing their ability to trust again, and their self-confidence.

I never get worked up when someone doesn’t like me “like I like them.” First, I hardly know you yet. Second, there’s been unrequited love in both directions in my past. Sure, it sucks – both ways (that’s what she said). But I haven’t had much stolen and I haven’t stolen much.

Which is pretty good for 32.

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women aren’t better than men

In News and Politics, Relationships, Science on May 2, 2011 at 11:56 pm

I’m sorry. It’s true. While there are ways in which women should be nurtured and cared for, they aren’t better people. So when I heard that the woman who had been killed in the bin Laden raid had been used as a human shield, I still couldn’t feel sorry for her. For one thing, this raid proved that bin Laden was a coward. He was hiding and when shit got real, he would still rather sacrifice another human’s life instead of his own, including a nearby woman.

But I’m glad those soldiers still killed her. Listen, it pains me to know that I’m not repulsed by their deaths. I am opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. But when you pick on my friends and family (or my country), I get defensive and I would personally totally fuck you up. Because my friends and family (and country) aren’t perfect, but they’re mine and they are still pretty awesome and no worse than your folks. It didn’t bother me that there was collateral damage, including a woman. Being a woman doesn’t make you innocent. When you’re fucking with bin Laden, you can’t think your shit is safe. You know there’s a good chance you’re going to die for this man. What I’m saying is that it’s a calculated risk.

Women and children first. I don’t get it. Trust me, I’d love to because I’m a woman and therefore my ass sits on the boat’s first seat. But men are important and valid and while I still expect him to take care of me, I wouldn’t be Rose making Jack stay in the water while I stretched out on a raft. (That’s a Titanic reference for anyone under the age of 26). Let’s really embrace feminism and say that a woman’s life isn’t worth less or more than a man’s. If killing that woman meant killing bin Laden, it’s okay by me. I shudder inside at knowing I’m capable of that sort of vengeance, but I’m not going to deny it, either. But I know that people are going to have to say that it’s worse to kill a woman. It’s not. It’s not worse to kill a child, or to kill an old person. It’s a human life of value. I know it’s a radical idea, but when it comes right down to it, there’s no difference between me and Donald Trump. Shudder.