How to Lose Friends and Alienate Women

This past weekend, I decided it was important to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Primarily because it was beautiful outside and there was a festival to be had in Old Town. Beer, margaritas, tacos – these are the cornerstones of my happiness.

My friend and I were enjoying a leisurely beer and listening to some odd fusion of Mariachi and Country-Western music when we were approached by a guy asking us a random question about the band.

It was obviously a way to start a conversation, which I was totally open to, until this guy opened his mouth. He had a dead tooth front and center.  It was highlighted nicely by the sun glinting off his tongue ring.

I have a thing about teeth. I don’t care if they are crooked or gapped. I care that they’re alive.

As he was taking my hand and trying to tell me how beautiful he thought I was, all I could think about was that he had a piece of black death. . . in his mouth. Necrotic dental pulp is not my thing.

To make matters worse, he then asked if I wanted to rub his beer gut for good luck.

While I was sober, the heat combined with the beer and a pound of nachos was leading to a sickly combination of discomfort and fatigue. I didn’t have the patience to deal with this bizarre encounter. So I declined an invitation to rub him and/or join him for a drink.

“But it’s Cinco de Mayo,” he exclaimed. “Don’t just go home and sleep. I am opportunity, grab hold of me! No really, grab hold of me.”

As my friend laughed hysterically and I continued to look for an exit strategy, he held his arms wide open waiting for me to do something.

Again, I announced my fatigue, all the while my eyes fixated on the graveyard in his mouth.

“You know, you are just the cockblock to fun,” he said.

Yes, every girl wants to hear that. I guess if the flattery, the humor and the offer to buy me drinks didn’t work, then obviously an insult was in order. What girl doesn’t love being called a cockblock?

Had he been less drunk or a fan of dental hygiene, I might have considered staving off my sleepiness in order to chat and perhaps to get to know him. But once an insult flies, it’s a sign that we’re not going to work out. Thank you for the blog fodder, I must be on my way.

Lesson learned: If a girl is staring blankly at you, you might have something in your teeth.

When I Grow Up

I recently received an email from a San Francisco woman in her late 20’s who was dumped by her boyfriend, also in his late 20’s. Apparently said boyfriend was freaking out about the looming inevitability of turning 30 and was choosing to eschew all forms of responsibility and commitment. She told me his friends were rowing this same same panicky boat and were engaging in some pack behavior of maturity regression.

What can I say? People fear turning 30.

I wish I could say it was just guys who did this sort of thing (because they are awful) but girls do it do (because they are also awful). People do massively stupid things when they’re scared and to many, turning 30 is magical divider between carefree youth and being a grown up. Except it’s not.

Receiving this email coincided with my 32^nd birthday, an occasion on which I woke up possibly still drunk from the night before.

Hurray for maturity.

From what I’ve seen, people handle turning 30 in one of three ways. They either:

1) Ignore it– the adult thing to do

2) Freak out and binge drink –the Amanda way of handling it

3) Decide it’s absolutely time to grow up, and go on a hysterical search for a husband/wife and means of reproduction-–what I like to call, the desperate to not die alone tactic

All of this got me thinking about my own fear of commitment. I once decided not to get a goldfish because of the level of responsibility it required. But then again, I’ve never dumped anyone because they represented being an adult. I think I would have to date an adult for that to happen.

The thing is, I’m actually not bad at responsibility. So why have I been fighting it?

The same reason this girl’s boyfriend was fighting it. It’s scary to admit that you can commit to something, even if it is just a goldfish. It means that sometimes I have to put down the tall boy of Bud Light (don’t judge me), put on my big girl panties and do things like deal with family emergencies, help my friends through hard times and finally go to the grocery store so there is more to eat in my fridge than an apple and ketchup.

Lesson learned: While dating someone who isnt’ ready to be a grown up can be frustrating, you’re better off with someone who’s on the same page, they’re less likely to run away. And also, I might finally be ready for a goldfish.

Boylimic

Several years ago, I dated a rather nice young man—actually, one of the very few nice men I’ve ever dated. Yet sadly, despite all of the chivalrous qualities imbued in this boy, he had one very tragic flaw.

He was bulimic.

At least, that was what I suspected because this guy vomited all the time. It was like dating a 5’10” cat that puked all over your house. He claimed he had a strong gag reflex (feel free to make your own comments there) but how could I not conclude he was experiencing some sort of body dysmorphic disorder that caused him to regurgitate only on the occasions when we went out to eat at a restaurant?

What was worse, he didn’t try to hide it. It wasn’t a simple bow away from the table to the men’s room. He would wait till we left the restaurant, any restaurant, and puke in the bushes of the parking lot.

The tipping point was his birthday, when I took him out for a very nice, very expensive steak dinner. And yes, just like a cat that eats your plants, he threw up in the bushes within minutes of us leaving.

If I’m paying for your meal, you keep that shit down.

This pattern of digestion refusal began to make me question what it was that he found so disturbing about himself that he felt the need to lose weight, even though he wasn’t heavy. Did he see me with those same delusional glasses? I’ve never been a big girl, or at least, that’s what I thought. Did he see me as someone who should be joining him bush-side for a romantic moment of communal barfing?

Our relationship was not profound enough for me to take on an additional neurosis of that magnitude.We didn’t work out.

Lesson learned: Seriously, if I’m paying for your dinner, you better digest it.

Like the Wind

There are some women who are natural born athletes. They are the pinnacle of fitness, gliding through a race and leaping over the finish line like a gazelle. Even drenched in sweat, they appear to be exuding sexuality.

I am not one of these women.

As a runner, I lack both speed and grace. My stride is crooked, my pace is slow and I’m pretty sure I look vaguely like I’m having a stroke. This past weekend I ran my tenth 5K, and as I sprinted to the finish line, I was well aware that my hair was standing up in a sweaty halo, my face was bright pink and yes, my nose was running.

This was not the picture of fitness I was hoping to portray.  Any hope of meeting a sporty guy who might possibly want to take me out for a bottle of Gatorade was dashed as I whipped my inhaler out of my pocket.

So I headed to the beer garden to forget just how truly disgusting I felt. And honestly, why run a race if there’s no reward at the end like a frosty cold beverage?

It turns out, I am not a sexy girl.  I don’t always look perfect and yes, I am ridiculously proud of my absurd beer socks, which are not at all sophisticated. (yes, those are my legs pictured, and that is my rockin sweat band).  I am the girl who makes jokes about Alderaan and randomly sings Talking Head songs for no apparent reason. But I guess, I know me, and maybe that’s sexy enough.

Sick

About two weeks ago, I found myself battling a moderately annoying cold. It’s the first time I’ve been sick since last May and my recent boasting to my coworkers about my superior immune system is probably what did it. Honestly though, I had managed to maintain health through winter, an office-wide nasal-dripping plague and my friend’s 3-year-old blowing her nose in my hair. Who wouldn’t feel invincible?

But I finally succumbed to a sore throat, horrific coughing and a voice change that rivaled a pre-pubescent boy. I couldn’t even be blessed with sexy, deep cold voice! I decided to let myself rest and stayed home from work curled up on my couch, with my Hello Kitty thermometer and five boxes of Kleenex.

When it was time to feed my cold I went to the fridge and remembered I was also suffering from a rampant case of “single person’s fridge.” The contents included beer, sriracha, an apple and pickles. I considered, briefly, eating the sriracha by the spoonful and then realized I might just be adding gastric upset to my symptoms, so I ventured out to spread my germs to the good people at the drug store and the Thai restaurant by my house.

And if you’re ever wondering, Thai food is a great expectorant.

This little journey wasn’t particularly interesting, but it reminded me of times when I have been too sick to move and there was no one there to save me from eating hot sauce on pickles. And this is the peril of being single: there’s really no one there for you when you’re sick and alone. As annoying as living with someone can be, it would have been nice to say, “I know I’m sweaty and I look disgusting, but because you care about me when I’m healthy, please go get me some real tissue so I can stop carrying around this roll of toilet paper.”

Or something like that.

Of course, then I started pondering things like how long it would take people to find me if I were to slip and fall in the shower. My estimate is at least three days if I fell on a Friday. So my hyperactive imagination has given me a mild fear of weekend showering. I’m investing in a bath mat.

Lesson learned: At the first sign of sickness, stock the fridge.

Greener Grass

Recently, I’ve heard about several rather heinous people finding themselves in relationships. One of these people being a Jersey-dwelling “celebrity” that, despite my best efforts, I somehow still know about.

My friends constantly tell me that I “can’t” be jealous of these relationships because A) the guys are probably gross, and B) I could be in a pointless relationship if I chose to be, but I didn’t want to settle.

This response only pisses me off.

It’s true, I don’t want these guys. Some of the women I know who manage to find themselves in relationships are horrible human beings. And any guy who is looking for verbal abuse and being subjected to hours shoe shopping wouldn’t pair well with me anyway. (I shoe shop a lot, I just prefer the company of women for that.)

It’s also true that if I wanted to still be in a relationship with a perpetually-stoned baby hater or an unemployed, blind albino, I would be. I didn’t settle because frankly, I would rather be alone than be in a relationship that’s miserable. These guys were clearly not right for me.

The crux of the matter is that it’s just plain unfair. You can do everything right and think you’re with the right person, but it’s the braindead orange monsters who end up walking down the aisle.

While I am by no means under the delusion that life is fair, it would be nice to see the snarling bitch from my past fall face first into a wedding cake. Maybe, just for once, things could even out.

Lesson learned: Nice guys may finish last, but so do nice girls.

The Fibonacci Sequence (of Love)

A long time ago, there was a young man who posed the question: “If I have two bunnies, and we put them together in a bunny love shack, how many bunnies will they exponentially breed over a year?”

Ok, so that’s not verbatim, but the mathematics behind it is important. I know you don’t spend your days contemplating mathematical equations and red hot rabbit sex, but stay with me.

The word problem of the breeding bunnies was formed by Leonardo of Pisa, otherwise known as Fibonacci. At least, he is the 13th century guy who was given credit for naming the sequence of numbers that would answer the question

To break it down, in the Fibonacci sequence you add two numbers in the sequence and the following number is their sum. Ex: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc. etc.

I’m actually terrible at math, but in this instance, I have developed my own mathematical theory on dating: The Fibonacci Dating Sequence.

Essentially, you are at any given point in your dating life the sum of the previous parts—if you are able to take the lessons learned from those experiences and add them together. (And yes, the 1 is repeated in this sequence. We’re all young and stupid once. We get a free pass.)

For example:

If Amanda gets urinated on, and the experience right before that was the same boy clogging her toilet, the sum of this data = this guy is an incompetent (and incontinent) jackass.

The following date in the sequence—with say, a complete sociopath—combines all of the previous experiences leaving Amanda with the knowledge that she doesn’t like to be peed on and is not a fan of going out with sociopaths who lied about being engaged.

Instead of a dating learning curve, I have a Fibonacci pyramid of dating knowledge that can only culminate in one thing: me meeting someone who likes decent beer, has a functional bladder and has no lusty feelings for fish.

Yeah, there are flaws in my theory. There are people who date the same type of asshole over and over (and over) again. For them, I think there’s a missing sequence that they aren’t adding to their knowledge base. That would make it more like algebra.

X + halitosis = bad date + X

In this situation, bad breath may not seem so bad. But when X=melted all of your spoons to freebase, that would constitute a bad date. But if you forget the value of X and only remember the bad breath you get stuck in a spiral. The bad breath being the deal breaker, the spoon melting could happen again, perhaps with a different iteration such as a pesky little meth habit.

Since I have a deep loathing of algebraic equations, I’ve decided to stick with my original math dating sequence and remember the bad so it doesn’t get repeated.

Lesson learned: The most important part of bad dates is the lesson learned.

Love and Chocolate

Oh, Valentine’s Day. Usually, I’m somewhat saddened by the lack of flowers being delivered to my desk. This year, I’ve decided to look on the bright side. Valentine’s Day is not a day to wallow in the pathetic wasteland that is my love life. It’s an opportunity to steal Valentine’s Day chocolates from my coworkers.

 “What? There was a giant box of Godiva on your desk earlier? I have no idea where that went. This chocolate on my face is, uh, Hershey’s. . . from the vending machine.”

Do they really need all that fat and sugar when they get to go out to a calorie-laden meal later? No. I’m saving them from heart disease. They should thank me.

I’ve also found Valentine’s Day to be useful in discounting the calories from my stolen goods because, frankly, if I’m not getting any affection later on, I at least deserve a damn piece of chocolate.

And later, after I have consumed a bottle of very special Barefoot Pinot Grigio by myself, I will take the time to call or text all of my friends to tell them how very special they are to me and how much I really love them . . . and to reiterate that I’m not just saying that because I’m drunk.

Lesson learned: Regardless of the greeting card industrial complex that orchestrated this holiday, it’s always good to celebrate love. Especially your love for wine.

Taking the Plunge

Earlier this week I received an email from Infant Brit. We haven’t been in contact since we broke up three years ago after he decided to give my headboard a golden shower. I guess, in my memory, I’d romanticized our relationship a bit. Other than “the incident,” was he really all that bad?

So I responded that I was doing well and asked how he was. And then he sent me this: “How’s your love life? I thought you’d be married with kids by now.”

Oh, right, we broke up because he has no tact.

Then it came flooding back to me. He was just awful and really disturbingly dirty. Not dirty in a fun way, dirty in the physically disgusting way. For example, one evening he was in my apartment and had to use the facilities. After a fair amount of time he came rushing out asking me what to do.

He had clogged the toilet.

Honestly, I don’t care if he, or any other guy, clogs the toilet. The plunger is right there, take care of it. In fact, I don’t even need to know about it. Alas, Infant Brit was not quite good at taking care of these ordinary things. He claimed that he had no idea how to fix a clogged toilet, and instead, added more toilet paper and overflowed said toilet. Apparently, water pressure and the mechanics of modern plumbing don’t exist in England. Or in his apartment in San Clemente.

Then he proceeded to tell me this was my fault.

How was this my fault? Because it was my toilet, I must have clogged it well before he spent half an hour in there.

I was left to plunge it myself, and then clean up the mess.

Lesson learned: This lesson is for guys, always know how to plunge a toilet. (And never make a girl you’ve just started dating clean up both your urine and your feces, at least not in the same week.)

Playing Dress Up

When I was young, and still had something resembling hope, I used to spend far too much time getting ready to go on a date. First impressions are important, and damn it, I was always going to make a kick ass first impression! There was the hair, the makeup, the nails, the outfit, the accessories, not to mention the planning what I would eat for the entire day to prevent any foul breath later. God forbid I touch anything onion or garlicky!

Depending on where we were going, it could take me anywhere from an hour to three hours to prep for a date. During one such extended preparation, I pondered what my date was doing to get ready to see me. Did he take the same delicate care in picking out his ensemble? Was he thinking about what cologne I might like the best?

No.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that guy didn’t even brush his teeth, let alone shower. And was that “I’m with stupid” T-shirt meant to be ironic?

And that’s when it hit me, I was spending far too much time and effort getting ready when it was going unappreciated. If I like the guy, yes, I will spend that time. Getting ready for a date I want to go on is almost fun. The anticipation of meeting up, looking nice and having a great time makes up for the inevitable curling iron burns and the possible razor nicks all the way down my leg.

But for the met-online, he wants chicken wings, and I’m not even sure he has the IQ of a gerbil dates, is it worth the effort? The last few blind dates I’ve been on, I’ve been so uninspired that I wonder if I should even bother brushing my hair.

Then again, what if Mr. Bad Grammar in an email turns out to be the future Mr. Amanda who will help me fix my vertical blinds, kill my spiders and gasp . . . open that peanut butter jar that I have been trying to get in to for three weeks!

So maybe I should make the effort of, at the very least, brushing my hair and making sure I don’t smell like I’ve been sitting in a cubicle farm for 9 hours.

Or not.

Lesson learned: If he doesn’t bother to shower, neither will I.