A little ink more or less

Parts of this have appeared many places over the years, in a variety of forms. Its antecedents were message board posts, emails, blog entries, and conversations stretching back to the 90s. When people started requesting a repost or copy of the original thing, I started jotting new notes on the same old crumpled napkin. When my professional writing activity extended beyond fiction, I rehashed or amplified some of this stuff in various articles on sex and/or relationships. The current version is an amalgamation of all those things.These are just things I know. There are other things I don’t know. Some of it I learned from mistakes I made, some from mistakes I saw, some from mistakes made against me. If you and I don’t want the same thing, it shouldn’t be a shock if my map leads you somewhere you didn’t mean to be.

Substitute pronouns as appropriate.

A:

Pay attention. Not too much.

Learn to cook. Learn to eat. Learn to dance. Learn to live alone. Learn to explain what’s bothering you. Learn the difference between necessary and sufficient, so you don’t get to thinking that just cause you got two pieces of bread you somehow have a sandwich. Learn from your mistakes. Learn not to get too attached to your self-image. Be different, later.

Stay single for at least two years at a time in your life when you aren’t living with your parents.

Pay your own bills even if you have to ask somebody else for the money to do it with.

Figure out what it says about you when a certain kind of person pisses you off. Ten years of churchgoing youth and that’s the best thing I ever learned in a pew.

Avoid living the kind of life that makes a good story later. Narrative is a mean thing.

Act on impulse. Not too much.

Accept that everyone wants attention and that’s okay.

Everyone is motivated by comfort, and not everyone is comforted by happiness or things that bring them happiness.

Stop being grossed out by leftovers and raw food. That kind of irrational queasiness just keeps you dependent on your feeders, and when you think about it, that’s pretty fucked up.

Talk to strangers. Not too much.

##

B:

Sex before marriage isn’t just a good idea, it should be a requirement. So should living together. It’s a lot easier to pack a car than pay a lawyer.

High school and college relationships are like high school and college jobs. Once in a rare while they may be the first chapter of your eventual career, but mostly they’re practice in an environment without consequences. This is a good thing. This is secretly the whole point.

Everyone should learn to be comfortable with sex both in and outside of relationships, which is to say that you should get over your fear of commitment — once you’re old enough for commitment to mean anything, anyway — but you shouldn’t need to be in a relationship to have sex. There’s so many reasons for this that I don’t know where to start, but for one thing it’d make it easier to break the habit of getting into a relationship because you want to get laid, a bad habit a hell of a lot of people not only pick up but find admirable.

Ask for what you want.

Don’t show off.

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C:

1: Don’t date anyone who can’t handle being single.

2: Don’t get in a relationship because you can’t handle being single.

3: Don’t envision a relationship and then go looking for the person who fits into it. Don’t let anyone else fit you into her prefab scheme, either. This is not a casting call or a job interview.

4: Expect change.

5: Don’t plan for change.

6: An argument is just an argument, not a sign that things aren’t working. Resist the urge to make your life seem more dramatic. Resist the call of narrative, man.

7: Ending a relationship is not the end of the world, and doesn’t have to be the end of the friendship. An ended relationship isn’t a failed relationship. Relationships don’t have two settings, “marriage-bound forever and ever” and “shitfest.”

8: Being friends is not a good enough reason to be more than that. Being friends who are attracted to each other is not a good enough reason to be more than that.

9: Any recurring petty arguments which seem like they can be put aside and will be worked out in time are potentially available as argument fodder when everything goes to shit. There’s never any harm done by working these things out as they come up.

10: Don’t bottle anything up, and don’t let her do so, either: on the other hand, don’t constantly act on emotional impulse. Strike a balance between lashing out and stewing. Big old mess otherwise.

11: If you are bothered by something petty, she should still know about it: don’t flatter yourself by thinking you can make it seem like nothing’s wrong. If you’re not that good of a liar, she’ll think you’re upset about something else; and if you are that good at lying to her, you should probably wonder why.

12: Learn how to be angry without being a dick, instead of being a dick and pretending you’re not angry.

13: Never try to make her more like your ex. Don’t react to her, positively or negatively, as if she were your ex. “I’m used to reacting to Y with Z because of my ex” is never a good reason for anything: that’s your own shit that you should have dealt with before getting into another relationship. Your backstory is not her responsibility.

14: Don’t get into a relationship because you like to fix people or want to be fixed. If you’re depressed, don’t start a relationship in order to feel happy. If you’re bored, don’t turn her into your new project.

15: Good sex doesn’t mean you have a good relationship, but bad sex or lack of sex will ruin the relationship.

16: Fair’s got nothing to do with it, never did.

17: Don’t let anyone pull any of that shit on you, either.

##

D:

Your ex doesn’t owe you anything. You can’t split up and then keep acting like you’re entitled to imposing conditions on them. Don’t do that thing, two months after the break-up, where you’re giving her ultimatums and “if you want to be friends with me, you’re going to have to ____”s. You’re not being an ex when you do that and you’re not being a friend. You’re just being a really shitty boyfriend who’s pretending he’s not in a relationship.

Whatever shit people had going on when they were in a relationship, it’s easier for them to work it out once they’re single. That’s just how it goes, pal, the easiest way to get better at relationships is to leave the one you’re in, period. Sure, your ex was commitment-phobic but then married the next guy she dated, big deal. Don’t do that shit where you resent somebody working their things out once they’re not with you anymore. Don’t be the dickhead who thinks he’s got that chick all figured out just because you used to date her.

Your ex is not your territory. No one you’ve slept with is your territory. If you fucked somebody and a friend of yours fucks her later, this doesn’t have anything to do with you. Knock it off.

##

E:

The thing about Valentine’s Day: italicized phrases are the common arguments about how much it sucks, how stupid it is, what-fucking-ever.

“Hallmark holiday” is an empty phrase — if you want to use it, please give up the rest of your one-of-these-days-is-not-like-the-others celebrations, including birthdays, Saturdays, and every other bump on the calendar with commercial motives. The five day workweek was started to make more money too, you want to give that up, you want to sit around on Saturdays bitching about how The Man invented the weekend? What the fuck’s wrong with you? There’s no Platonic holiday that began pure and immaculate to be dredged through the mud later: they’ve always, always, been motivated by fun, profit, and social obligation.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

“I’m single, I don’t have anyone to celebrate it with.”

So it goes. If you’re so bitter about it that you actively resent Valentine’s Day because you don’t have a partner for the three-legged race, then hey, I wouldn’t date you either.

If someone dumped you near enough to the day that you’re still smarting about it, then that sucks. But unless you heal quickly, it’s hard to schedule a break-up that avoids all the holidays. One way or the other, you’ve got a bad day coming.

“But EVERY day should be Valentine’s Day.”

What condescending bullshit. A celebration of a thing doesn’t imply an exclusive hold on that thing any more than the suggestion, “Let’s have eggs for breakfast tomorrow” means “… and ONLY tomorrow and NEVER EVER ELSE.” A spotlight isn’t a cage.

Ideally, you should be happy to be you every day, but that’s no argument against birthday celebrations.

Do you really treat your significant other with such devotion and care that it isn’t possible to up the notch for a day? What’s wrong with the way you’re wired that you really bristle at having a day put aside for that?

“It’s just an excuse to sell overpriced cards, flowers, chocolates, and porn.”

So don’t buy them.

The attitude that there’s only a limited set of appropriate ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day perpetuates the bitterness: you resent not getting it when you’re single and then expect it, feel entitled to it, when you’re in a relationship.

It’s not Christmas’s fault there are dancing Coke cans in the malls at December.

Improve your vocabulary.

“But it’s externally imposed, it’s not a day I chose myself.”

So is “having Saturday off.” So’s your birthday. So what?

No one is so powerless they can’t reclaim a holiday for their own purposes.

“But I hate feeling obligated to do X, Y, or Z.”

Then don’t. What’re you, 12?

Talk to your significant other. Put the effort in to make it clear you’re not looking for an excuse to spend less money, time, or attention on them. One of the reasons people appreciate Valentine’s Day is because it’s a shorthanded way to demonstrate affection and willingness to put effort into a relationship. We feel validated when people are inconvenienced for our momentary happiness. We like demonstration.

But that needn’t lead to a sense of obligation. No one can make you feel obligated — they can only punish you for not living up to that obligation. Both situations can be dealt with, with no more effort than it takes to be such a sour little tool about the whole thing.

In sum:

Celebrate it or don’t, but making an issue out of other people celebrating it is spectacularly petty, and the sort of behavior people should be ashamed of.

If you’re in a relationship that makes you feel like shit on Valentine’s Day, get out of the relationship. It’s not rocket science.