Let's Pretend We're Married

Throughout my life, I have found that all of the traditional milestones and phases of my development that were advertised as momentous and awesome occasions have been nothing short of whopping festivals of disappointment. Graduation pictures of family members crowded around you in the gown symbolic for the death of your freedom and your inauguration into suffering (bills, work, bills, work) make it appear like the event is some sort of dignified celebration of your accomplishments. In reality, it turns out that those pictures capture nothing more more than the five minutes spent outside of an auditorium, crammed with thousands of people who are forced to sit through the self-indulgent speeches of figures they have never met or even heard of. You bear all of this to hear a stranger mispronounce your name in a conveyor belt of awkward handshakes and "turn and smile"s while you hypnotize yourself with repeated prayers that your heels won't get caught in the large cracks in the floor of the makeshift stage. People will actually sit through hours of this kind of torture willingly, yet I can't get my students to stay awake for ninety minutes while I tell them about the most influential works of the entire human experience. People are terrible.

Back to the topic, most "life occasions" fell flat for me. College was not a party. It was a four year long study session, a prolonged stay in a forum for criticism, and an expensive one at that. It wasn't parties, orgies and a reliving of the sixties. High school was not all cheerleading and prom dates and driving tests. It was being a ridiculed minority and a part time retail whore.

So, you can imagine that the next milestone that will be coming up (since I am somewhere in the land of 20s) is marriage. I know I am not the norm. Weddings were always awkward occasions. In fact, they reminded me of Bar Mitzvahs more than anything. A rehearsed show for people who are there for the food, stimulants and perhaps to find a way to move forward to whatever sexual base they haven't achieved. Of course, you go to honor the relationship of your closest kin, but let's be honest, wedding attendees fall into the following categories.

- I am here because so-and-so are my closest friend/friends and it is my duty to be at these occasions. This probably the most genuine you can get. (5% of guests)

-I am here because so-and-so was at my wedding and I don't want to be ousted from the family for resisting my mandatory time with them. I must show up, buy a gift that they deem appropriate and by no means say anything that I am thinking throughout the course of the night. Also, I must hog the camera to keep myself from getting bored. Getting wasted wouldn't hurt either. (60% of guests)

-I am here because I want to believe that an actual lasting marriage is possible and I have unfounded hope for these two. I will probably eat more than I should and feel too enormous to actually dance. I will be the idiot crying even though I barely know the couple. (10% of guests)

- I am here because I love to watch a wreck. I know that these people are doing this for many reasons (save the relationship, scared of being alone, someone is preggers, someone cheated, someone is a control freak, etc), none of them being actual compatibility and love. I will drink and have the best damned time ever at this ceremony of poor judgment. (25% of guests)


Because of the disease that I contracted at the age of 7 years old (Bitteritis), my Barbies didn't have weddings. They owned ice cream stores and had sex in the back room. They never wore wedding dresses. They wore kick ass mini skirts and high heels. They may have been pregnant, but for the most part they adopted ponies. So, from an early age, I knew I wanted love, but not so much the marriage part (and ponies). Some people, mostly girls, believe that marriage is a milestone they must pass in their lifetime. They even have specs on when it should occur and how. I think that's a little much to ask from something based on finding one person you can stand long enough to be around for the rest of your existence. One would figure the odds of that are very slim and confining the end of this search to take place in your late 20s seems ludicrous to me. It took me 15 years to find a friend that I call "best". It's taken me 23 years to find a guy I actually liked and trusted. Maybe I have a learning disability based on the early onset of Bitteritis that makes it hard for me to understand this whole deal. Now, don't get me wrong, I have known a (singular) couple that I believe belong together and, at their wedding, I will be part of that 5% that doesn't believe the whole thing is a giant waste of money whose sole purpose is to make breaking up incredibly complicated and soul-murdering. But, for the bulk of this post, I believe that marriage expectations are ridiculous and part of that is due to "girl training".

And after way too much exposition and flat attempts at humor, I reveal the nugget of this social conditioning.

Things like this real life advertisment kill me.




It happened to pop up as an ad on the side of a blog site. It's part of a website where teens and kiddies can make their own avatar and dress them up and make them have lives that don't resemble life in the least (where is my purple unicorn and unlimited cotton candy tree?). Girls and teen-minded ladies, I present the "Romantic Proposal Game". There was never a better title in all of living history.

You can look at the description of this gender-conditioning fantasy right here.

If I created this game, it would involve levels you have to pass to achieve desired proposal:

- Sexual Fulfillment Level
* Holding out as long as possible to make him/her "want it more" mini game
* Doing things you never thought you'd do to keep his/her attention properly titled "Is your dignity bigger than your insecurity?" mini game
* Hiding your dissatisfaction/lack of fulfillment

If you are not successful in the mini games in the level, you will have to engage in battle.

Battles

-Battles consist of who did more hurt to the other and who can dole it out quicker
-In a successful battle, both parties see that they are too exhausted to fight and start over at the Sexual Fulfillment Level
-Guilt points are accumulated in battles that you lose which can limit your progression to the next level. At times, if your partner has enough guilt points, you can skip right to the end of the game to "Romantic Proposal"


-Getting Comfortable Level
*Main puzzle requires you to resist settling and to constantly reignite a burnt out match

If you can survive the "Getting Comfortable" level with enough energy/life to propose without any guilt points or last resort thoughts, then you can achieve the Romantic Proposal and you may be eligible for the "Lasting Marriage" Challenge.

If at any time you skip straight to the Romantic Proposal without mastering the "Getting Comfortable" level, your chances of getting past the "Lasting Marriage" challenge are minuscule.


Spreading Bitteritis To Those You Love
Date a Unicorn
Don't Date a T-Rex

"If you have half a brain...." *

_____In the midst of reading Vonnegut the other day, I came across a line in Slaughterhouse Five remarking that cliche romantic situations are actually anything but. There has got to be some level of hell reserved for people like me who take one of the world's greatest expressions against human evil and use it as a tangent for a blog that reveals trivial absurdities in this world like magnetic dog poop and composite turkey. Sins against true genius aside, let's talk about the reality of our little romantic fantasies. With experience we come to learn valuable lessons like chocolate syrup burns your throat, whipped cream leaves sticky residue and causes queasy feelings upon digestion of mass quantities and flavored sex aids usually lead to unwanted teeth marks. Below I have laid out, shone a bright light upon and then destroyed the biggest lies in the big dream of romantic love (making).

Rain (standing in, kissing in, running through, smell of, curling up with book in)

_____Nothing says hot, passionate sex like goose flesh, running noses, sticky skin and heavy chafing soaked jeans. Standing in the rain, running through the rain, doing most things in the rain is usually a highly dangerous thing. Aside from the onset of things like pneumonia and the freezing hack you get deep in your chest, rain and getting caught in it is a miserable experience. Do you know how long it takes to dry soaked sneakers? Even when you think they are dried, you put on your socks and go out only to realize that in a matter of steps, you are standing in a hot wet shoe. That's the worst too because the wet socks are warm because of your body heat and taking them off is comparable to that slightly creepy sensation you encounter when you sit down in a plastic chair that has been previously warmed.

_____When a storm rolls in, most people want to sleep because their sinuses have swelled so extensively their skull feels like it's about to snap from the pressure. People will say they love the smell of rain. I think that inhaling the dirty and toxic rain water during a sinus swell borders on pure genius. And while I am on the thread of inhaling things that are highly dangerous, let's talk about gasoline, Sharpie markers, and that New Car smell. There is nothing awesome about inhaling fumes that have been proven to wipe out brain cells faster than viewing an hour of America's Next Top Model.

The Love of/on the Road

_____One of my favorite myths of the foolish romantic is the joy of the open road. Driving blows, people. If it's not the jerking stop and go of a city street, packed with impatient people like myself waiting eagerly for that flash of green only to get a taste of 30mph before having to stop again and wait to be able to do more than sit there with your right foot on the brake, it's hours of gray, rolling, six lane monotony. "I just want to get in my car and drive for hours". Sorry honey, but unless you have the greatest book on tape known to man or a never ending supply of mentally stimulating music (and I know you don't), driving for hours is the most intellectually arid practice invented. What does your brain do when it is not occupied? It meanders, bringing up thoughts that, most likely, require action. Too bad you are stuck like a bee in a jar, a jar hurling through the air at 80. Plus, being hypnotized by the passing of yellow streaks and phone poles increases your likelihood of passing out if you aren't like me and calculating precisely how the asshole in front of you will manage to stop short and you will be sent sailing through your windshield.

_____"But Anne", you say, "What about road head? Aww yea." Aww No. Since the invention of bucket seats, this practice is not only difficult to perform, but it is highly uncomfortable, a choking hazard if you have to stop short, and yet another reason why people behind you are calculating precisely how they will sail through their windshield when you stop short because your girlfriend has got herself caught on the emergency brake.

Shower Love

_____In my experience, men are the ones who harbor this notion. The shower is cramped and slippery. It is also limited in its capabilities to supply endless amounts of hot water. Unless you are financially gifted, there is no where to sit, hold on to, prop yourself up, or to use for resistance. This means you have to be especially flexible as a female and if you are anything like me, you are moderately flexible and will bend over, stretched to the limit and in great pain, to give the illusion that you can indeed do all the things Barbie and Carmen Electra can do. So, while you are in this awkward position in the romantic destination of a 3 by 5 shower, the water drips down your neck and up your cheeks and inevitably into your nose, causing you to choke and sneeze and sputter like an old jalopy. Let's not even talk about the fact that it's either your head, your ankles or his ass that is in constant danger of the faucet. It's quite clear that shower sex was dreamed up by a homeless person.

Staying in Bed All Day

_____Admittedly, I have often thought and even convinced myself over the years that this was indeed an awesome practice that was at the peak of romantic action. Of course staying in bed all day would appeal to me, the laziest woman alive. Sadly, one day after looking over at my significant other covered in a thin sheen of grease and emitting the potent fragrance of morning, now turned late afternoon, breath mingled with leftover sex residue I knew that this was not the fabled fairy tale I had heard about. After clawing my way out of the bed-ditch our bodies had formed through massive spring abuse and hours of just laying there, I decided that a shower (no sex) would be a saving grace. Unfortunately, after a certain amount of hours, no matter how much you exfoliate or how hot you turn the water up to, you can't get rid of that half drunken all day in bed stupor. A lull like that mixed with the frustration and grime that comes from doing nothing all day inevitably leads to fights or that "Ok, I've had enough of you. Time for you to go home" feeling. I may even go as far as to say the stay in bed day is a surefire way to destroy an otherwise perfect union.

The Beach

_____The waves crashing, Sandy and Danny Zuko making out in sand, chasing each other down a beautiful open shoreline; we all know this image. The part they don't show is Sandy digging wet sand out from her asscrack and parts nearby. After they get up from their rolling around in the surf, they are both covered in clumpy mounds of sand that house millions of sand fleas. When Danny is done helping remove the sand castle from Sandy's hair he turns around, careful not to step on either a hypodermic needle, a used condom, someone's old tampon, a man of war or a half decomposed roll of toilet paper. They run back to their car while they dodge pointy coral, hidden rocks and the homeless man peeing in the bushes. Now Danny's Greased Lightning is nothing short of a child's sandbox and the saltwater leftover on both of them leaves a faint musk of rotting fish that the breeze from the top down action can't cover up. As Sandy's hair blows in the breeze, it is twirled around itself forming dread locks from the leftover ocean that has now turned her hair to straw. The straw texture is especially sexy, the way is smacks her in the face and leaves marks as they change direction. Not even some paint on leather pants and a flying car can bring back the sexy for them after a night of beach lovin'.

So, if you like pina coladas (which are usually made with cheap rum), getting caught in the rain and all the rest of this culture's idealistic romantic love scenarios, you have clearly never experienced any of them without the aid of drugs, alcohol or a very strong dose of delusion.

* Rupert Holmes "Pina Colada"

Dear Java,

Coffee, there is something I need to tell you. I don't just taste you, letting you wash over my tongue, I consume you letting you heat me from the inside. You know I enhance your natural flavors, or hide them with sugars and creams, because I love you. I know I shouldn't try to change you, but I don't just taste you, I feel you. Your naturally acrid taste and sinister looks lure me back every time. What girl doesn't like a bad boy? I have tried others, but decaf is plain and boring. I like the emotional roller coaster. Doesn't everybody? You know you strip my stomach of its lining and the lows you give me make me quiver and shake.

Everyone loves you. I mean, my own best friend bought me a new mug to put you in. My own best friend! How could you? I even carried a new “maker” into the office yesterday like a newborn because the old one was bastardizing your efforts. When I am unmotivated, you are my muse. You turn a listless life into one of panic and efficiency. You have single handedly saved the world and are responsible for its progress. How can a girl resist such power? Locke sang because of your drug. Swift crafted his greatest stabs at the cruelty of the human machine because you sped up and dragged out his formerly muted anguish. How can you turn cold so quickly? Why do you sour after an hour? Why do I keep coming back for more? I don't know how to quit you.