Man the Fuck Up

I know we all like to think that our relationships, lives, and general grievances are much worse than anyone else's in the entire universe. Somehow, when it is our lives, we seem, as humans, to be so self-indulgent that we play the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack to ourselves, and whether we admit it or not, feel terribly bad for ourselves. Break ups drain us of our energy, creativity, and sense of self, and I'm here to say man the fuck up. The usual break up period is pretty standard. Denial, fake acceptance, fake gracious acceptance, crying at inanimate objects, buying out of character clothes, dying your hair, and all the other great tools we as women have come up with in the millions of years that we have dealt with the (what we think is) unique situation of getting our hearts broken. Being a month into this process, I have been observing myself and forcing myself to be acutely aware of how cliche I have the ability to be. I'm sorry self, but waking up and looking at yourself and seeing someone else is truly absurd. After a break up, it seems that even things that have always been ours, become that of our former boyfriend or girlfriend. Mid tears, I realized how ridiculous it was to look at myself in the mirror and notice my "sheet face" and cry over someone else. I have, for my entire life slept on my face and woken up with intense pillow marks as a result of unattractive, open-mouthed sleeping habits and low blood pressure. Ladies, do not give someone your heart, and your face. It's just ridiculous. Then there are the things your ex loved about you, that you now hate. If you are looking at your own fantastic rack, and feeling sad about how much someone else loved it--take a step back and remember that it's your fucking rack! Enjoy it! Jiggle it around! Go in your new break up outfit to a belly dancing class for all I care, but Jesus Christ, at least own your own body because it it yours. Body image-wise, this can go one of two ways. Eating will either make you too nauseous due to your internal emotional distress, or it will replace sex. i know neither is healthy, but I highly recommend the first one. You got dumped, wouldn't you rather be seen looking questionably thin than questionably pregnant with someone's baby that just dumped you? I personally take the jail time approach. Although it is endlessly entertaining to watch myself cry in the mirror and tell my dog how ugly I am, I choose to use my emotional turmoil to work out. At least you can feel some sort of solace in the revenge of looking hot and being distracted by fad diets and ballet-football type work out classes. This is part of the process of feeling "different." Now, when you feel like such shit that you can't stand it, it is natural to do things differently. Do not fool yourself. Taking up awkward pilates/racketball classes will not make you "different" or change the fact that you are temporarily insane. It will not make you undumped, or convince your ex boyfriend that you are any less lame than you were perceived to be pre-dumpage. Here is the bottom line. Grab life by the balls and remember who the fuck you are. You reeled in whoever dumped you with a sense of cockiness that you have since lost. Lastly, I can not stress this enough...do NOT get bangs. No, they won't look good. No, not even the trendy sweepy ones. You are not Jessica Biel, you can not make mistakes like this and still be fuckable. Seriously. Take the time to deal, vent, mourn, and all those other healthy words people use to make you feel better when your heart and confidence have been sucked dry by someone else. No one wants to be around a whiney sad panda. However, no one can take away your cockiness. I know this is unconventional, but I really think this is what women need. Do not hand that over to someone else along with your dignity, and sometimes your tits. You're going to need all that shit for whatever there is around the corner.

Dear entirely too good looking people of the world, enough.

     Those of us who are average go-getters get the shit end of the stick while you seem to always land the perfect job, cop perfect style, and vacation to Vegas seemingly every other week to unwind from your very well paying job, that allows you to also unwind every night at happy hours equivalent to most of our rent checks. I understand that some of you are truly nice and hardworking people, which only makes it worse. You are throwing off the balance of the universe! It is unfair that you're allowed to possess all good physical and emotional qualities when the rest of us have to hide tragic character flaws beneath a less than stellar exterior. We use angles and instagram to help us look tolerable as you post unfiltered pictures of you without any makeup looking better than we do with 12 filters in the middle of the summer.
     Movies like "She's All That" are totally off the mark in evening the score too. You're telling me that a girl that hot would go unnoticed by her peers because she was artsy with glasses?! Someone that good looking could be in an a cappella group called "I Just Took a Shit" who only sang in varying fart noises and some doof would find that "cute." If you're good looking enough, your interests will be found to be interesting. Period. Example: If Ryan Gosling had a real hankering for following Nickelback on tour, but also agreed to date me, I think we all know who the biggest fan of that self-loathing white boy band would be. Call me materialistic. No, really...do it.
     Weird hobbies, character flaws, and the crazy factor are strictly based on a ratio of hottness scale. I am not just attacking guys here, either. We women are just as bad. Our sad story of being drawn to the "bad boy" is bullshit. No one is drawn to being treated like shit. They are drawn to someone physically, and have a higher threshold for bullshit due to the pretty package that the bullshit comes in. There is a reason that your devastatingly hot ex has always and will always treat girls like shit...because he can. Unfortunately, we as women do not have the willpower to excommunicate these women breakers in the name of our sistas. We think too much with our vaginas and not enough with our loyalty..and by we, I mean an overwhelming amount of people in my life, but not necessarily yours.
     With two brothers and various male friends, I've had the pleasure of observing lots of different relationships, and enjoying the different gender dynamics. The "I only go for bad boys" girls, are undoubtedly dragging along someone far superior to the narcissist she wishes would text her, because she needs the confidence boost. That's not to say she doesn't like him to some extent. God forbid someone with actual interest approaches him, then she will be suddenly protective of her lapdog, and fiercely competitive for his attention. The same goes for men. Once the girl quits vying for their attention, the lap dog is suddenly quite a threat, and she is hotter than ever. However, I digress. Average people of the world, try those sweepy bangs that will probably look weird on your misshapen forehead, get the neon jeans, put a fedora on and stand your ground. Your day will come, but theirs will probably come first.

Jealousy is a Tweaked Emotion

     It's undeniable that man or woman, we all have our insecurities when it comes to comparing ourselves to a current lover's ex relationships, but there seems to be a distinct difference in how men versus women deal with it. For example, I live in a town which is borderline incestual on the social spectrum. Those who leave, come back, or somehow find each other in another state, drawn together by a common lameness of self proclaimed arrogance, only bred in people that grew up in close proximity to the beach in New Jersey. Don't get me wrong, I too am one of those cocky bastards who prides myself on where I'm from, and threatens to move to California to find myself, like every other NJer in their 20's.

     Being in this cesspool of past relationships, it's common to see exes and lovers' exes when out on the town. We act mature and accepting of the social melting pot, but secretly wish that there existed an ex island where those from the past could be shipped to once the relationship ends. Being a woman, I know that we are shit brain crazy. Those of you that are "I'm just one of the guys" girls who hide the crazy are just lying to yourselves, and everyone else. Getting along with men is ok in my book, but the "I just don't click with other girls" girls are unacceptable. If you can not get along with other women, the dick in your mouth is getting in the way of some valuable relationships. I find it best to own it. Otherwise, you will just feel down on yourself when you're balls deep in stalking your boyfriend's high school girlfriend on Facebook, and that shame will follow you to the social situations I am about to describe.

     Is it necessary to know their check-in points and inside Facebook jokes to properly prepare for an awkward run in? No...but it's an occupational hazard. This is why you have girl friends, ladies. It is a safe place to unload your crazy and spare your lover that part of your personality. A crazy cocoon, if you will. Now, upon running into the ex gf, a woman might react differently than a man. As secure as you may be in your relationship, seeing his ex WILL make your skeleton want to jump out of your body and flee the scene. Why? Sex. He used to have sex with her, and sex is different for women than it is for men. Whether it be emotional, or a power play, we are fiercely competitive about sex. Women on both sides of this equation are challenged with pseudo-lesbianic thoughts upon this encounter. Those in the relationship, and those viewing the new relationship will similarly find themselves not just comparing themselves physically to the other woman, but creating wild fallacies to make themselves ok with it. If the woman is attractive, I find picturing her with abnormal aereolas and a saggy lady pouch helps boost the ol' confidence. Kankles? Why not. Is that a 5 o'clock shadow? Yup.

     Penis envy is a concept that I find to be a thing of the past. Once a man gives you an orgasm, he has crowned himself the best fucker that's ever fucked, whether it was real or not. So, when a man sees an ex boyfriend, or an ex sees the new man, both of their thoughts are "I made her squeal, I am the man. That dude is a tool." End thought. They aren't looking at each other's crotches wondering whose dick is bigger. They are not judging each other's eye brow shape or footwear. They have moved forward to either "I'm fucking her tonight" or "I totally fucked that dude's girlfriend." Ladies, for once, I think we should take a lesson from the testosterone carriers...unless the testosterone gets to a dangerously high level, amplified by booze. At this point, men will feel sexually competitive. (See? we are more alike than we thought!) This can go one of two very bad ways. For the more outwardly douchey, there may be a confrontation with the other male. This will never be directly related to you, because that would make them look insecure, so they proceed to find something illogical to hold against each other as to keep their manhood. "What'd you say?" "What are you looking at?" and so on with lame dude-isms. The other way is far worse. The testosterone will then be turned on you, and your past sexcapades will be held against you. "Are you looking at him?" "I can't believe you dated him." etc, and other offputting comments to make you feel utterly undesirable. If you find yourself in this situation, RUN. There is no winning that fight, and your dude is obviously a bitchy douche bag.

      Remember to keep the mindset that no matter what, you won the break up. This will avoid bad feelings, awkward run ins, and thinking of your boyfriend fucking an imaginarily ugly vagina, which probably is a perfectly fine vagina, but you're being a petty jerk.

The birds, the bees, and how my best friend shattered my innocence

     I was the child with semi-permanent hearing loss, and an addiction to Barney far past an acceptable age, so it's no surprise that my childhood was filled with shocking revelations. My best friend Carolyn was a little more "street smart," which was a word we agreed on because her family was from Brooklyn, so she must be. My parents on the other hand, were in a comfortably platonic marriage and had no roots in on the hard streets of the big apple. Now, let's be clear. I of course had heard of the word "sex," but compared it to the questionably straight reenactments of TGIF's Step-by-Step that my cousins and I would play while our parents had Sunday dinner. This included suggestive grunting and rolling around on the floor pretending to make out. Any dummy knew that Frank and Carol's date nights ended with s-e-x, it was just the specifics that I was fuzzy on.

     So, when Carolyn explained the whole touching of parts to me, I, as I had with the Easter Bunny and Santa, insisted that she was mistaken. My parents would never do that. They are PRIVATE parts. Street smart, my ass. Still, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to confront my mother while she was washing dishes the next day. Then came the lengthiest conversation that ever took place about the birds and the bees. I was warned that boys would tell lies about their balls turning blue if I didn't have sex with them (true-ish), and was only something you did when you were married to make babies, it did not make people like you (also true-ish), and no, it did not feel good (unfortunately, sometimes true-ish). Functional private touching made sense to me, so I left the conversation feeling very informed. At least they had a reason to be doing it, and I liked babies as much as the next guy, so I accepted this to be true and carried on with my 7 year old life.

     Carolyn and I decided to start working sex into our conversations as to make us seem more mature. Seeing as we only hung out with our siblings, the first casual slip was in front of my older brother. We had also learned recently what being gay was. Upon discussing theoretical gay people we proclaimed that they, of course, could never have sex. Can open. Worms everywhere. WHY would anyone put a private part in a poop chute? Don't these people know that sex doesn't even feel good? It's for making babies, and you can't make babies out of butts! Maybe they said their balls or their ass would turn blue, which was clearly for sluts who wanted to be popular. This concept of butt sex angered and disturbed me, and that feeling continued into my adulthood, but that is for another day...

Welp

This is the beginning of...something. Whether it be an outlet for words, or the new Gawker for those of you still employed and looking to kill time in that 3 o'clock hour, I welcome you to my brain. Reeling with firm handshakes and rejection, my absence of a full-time job has allowed me the great pleasure of entertaining those of you trolling the internet for something stimulating to read. I can not promise that, but I can promise entertaining.