The #1 rule of fight club is that you don’t talk about fight club, but a little known fact is that actually the #2 rule of fight club is that you don’t ask the person you’re dating if something is wrong.

What was Sam to do….

Many men are raised to believe that having emotions is a “chick thing, man!” but the reality is that many guys grow up with plenty of emotion anyway.  We’re raised one way but our bodies tell us something different.  Sure, I know a bunch of guys that are able to have a disconnect between the physical and emotional relationships they have with women, but I know plenty more that fall in love.  That lose sleep over someone.  That spend the entire day thinking about what their future could be like with that special someone.  And that go crazy wondering if “this distance that Diane is putting between us is the product of being “busy and sick” or if she’s starting to have second thoughts.”

“HOW DO I SEND A TEXT ON THIS?!”

We hurt too, ladies.  We spin our hair in our fingers (well the ones of us that have sweet p-tails, do) just like you do with worry.  And while we say we don’t want to play games, we still abide by a certain set of rules.  In a way, we’re all playing some level of a game whether we like it or not, but just like Chess, some of us really suck at it!

I sunk your Rook!

When Sam was finally letting it all out, what was bothering him, I guess it was my outsiders perspective that allowed me to see the bigger picture and put two-and-two together.  That it had been about two weeks since Sam had decided to move to San Francisco, and that was the same time that Diane started to turn into Kirstie Allie.  (For the younger readers out there, sorry you don’t get the shit out of these references.  They’re pretty good!)  We started to talk about how Diane hated relation ships but that she was clearly feeling safe with the fact that they were separated by golden bridges and mountain ridges with lebowski’s so big you’d have to call Jeff Bridges.  (That didn’t make sense but it felt wonderful to say.)

Sam was folding up the space-time continuum and would become an everyday part of Diane’s life.  ”That’s probably freaking her out a little bit, dude.  Ask her about it.”  That really started the advice-giving and I think it’s the most simple piece of advice to follow and yet the most difficult for many of us to overcome.  Think about the fact that we are scared to ask the people we care about if there’s anything different in the way they care about us.

“But what if I make it worse?”

The number one reason people are scared to come out with the “is anything wrong?” bit is because they think it could drive a person away even further but I disagree with that sentiment.  Any time that I’ve ever truly cared about a person, them asking me if something is wrong one time isn’t going to change my opinion about them.  You wouldn’t drive a person away for asking something like that — but of course there are the people that ask that question every single day and then yes, something is obviously wrong.  But if you’ve been with each other for awhile and one of the parties behavior starts to change you can ask them if something is wrong.  There’s a two-pronged possibility:

- “Nothing is wrong.  I’ve been busy and sick.  Sorry I haven’t been able to talk as much because I’ve misssssed you ”  That’s good.

- “Nothing is wrong.  GOD!”  Something was wrong.  And you didn’t make it any worse, because the fact of the matter is that there is no way in Hell that a three-word question would be the tipping point from a life of 50 years of wedded bliss to a broken heart and an empty tub of ice cream on your bathroom floor.  That’s just not real life.

I told Sam that in my opinion, something was probably up with the fact that she was freaking out about his move to San Francisco and that he was breaking down the barrier between them.  As the poet laureate Gavin Rossdale once said: “The chemicals between us.  There is no lonelier place than lying in this bed.  The chemicals displaced.”  (You figure out the meaning.)

But Sam wanted to bring those chemicals together.  If he was getting negative signals he should ask Diane if something was up, at least once.  Because it wasn’t just killing him that she was all of a sudden starting to act differently towards him, it was also the unknown that starts to make a person unravel.  Sometimes it is absolutely a misunderstanding, but on the other hand, it’s often a sign.

Don’t ignore signs.

(Unless it’s saying 25 MPH and it’s not a school zone, like yo, I can get around this neighborhood at 35!)

(Also don’t ignore Signs.  It’s a really good movie.)

“Yeah, but what does Diane really mean by that smiley face?”

Sure there have been certain times in my life where I’ve been a paranoid annoyance but I also like to think that I have a pretty keen sense of when something is up.  We should all be able to sense when something is wrong.  When Larry David left Seinfeld, you could tell the difference.  When Dan Harmon was fired from Community, you can tell the difference.  People can sense the slightest differences from one thing to another, and you’d know that if you ever filled out a Highlights magazine at the dentist.

November – You’re texting me all the time.  You’re anxious to hear from me.  You reach out when it’s been awhile.

December – I have to be the one to initiate all the conversations.  You don’t ask me questions, you seem less concerned about my life.  You said “Fuck off” and changed your email?

A day?  No worries.  Three days?  That’s curious.  A week?  You should seriously start considering whether or not this person is still interested in you unless they explicitly stated before the relation ship that they were in the CIA.

Sam knew what to do, I just had to be the one to push him off the plank.  He finally asked Diane if something was wrong due to her behavior over the last couple of weeks.  She responded first with the usual:

“No, I’ve just been busy lately like I said and dealing with this illness.”

Okay…. Wait for it.

“I suppose I also just don’t know what you’re expecting when you move here.”

It had seemed apparent to me, an almost complete outsider that has never met Diane, that Diane was fearful of certain expectations from Sam.  The approach of Sam moving to San Francisco obviously has to be taken with careful measures because it’s a major decision.  Not just for their ship but for his life, and possibly for hers.

But he may have never known that if he hadn’t overcome the fear of simply asking “What’s wrong?”

I might be a very difficult hurdle to overcome, to come off looking like an insecure little boy, but I think that there are many contexts in which it comes off more as the secure move of a man.  To say “I am aware of the changes here and I feel like even if you were sick or busy, you would make time for me as you used to do.  So if something has changed for you, please let me know because I’ve still got to take care of myself.”

I think that when you are simply “dating” someone, you have to tread very carefully with feelings.  I have spent too many days and nights in confused anger and depression based on things that happened with people that I wasn’t even on the relation ship with.

Don’t waste tears on a person that wouldn’t spend tears on you.

Of course, the three intense, mostly non-physical months that Sam and Diane had spent talking, it would be near-impossible to not have feelings attached.  Whether she likes it or not, even Diane has developed feelings for Sam.  But Sam has to really evaluate whether or not her feelings and his feelings match up because if they don’t and he doesn’t ask some of the important questions that we’ve been conditioned not to ask, he’ll be the only one crying.

Sometimes if you don’t want to know the answer, you probably need to ask the question.

To be continued…

(Remember that I’m looking for more questions RE: the opposite sex so please use the CONTACT button also I’m lonely.)

I was on Reddit recently in the /r/relationships section and came across a despondent young girl that was worried about her friend.  He used to be such a great guy to hang out with, but had fallen apart after his high school sweetheart left him for another guy.  The full (and lengthy) post is here.  The “too long; didn’t read” version is this:

“Longtime friend had a gradual devolution into being a Nice Guy, spurred by a horrible breakup. Refuses all help and surrounds himself with other Nice Guys who only makes things worse. What can I/we do to help or should we just give up?”

The slightly longer version is that “Calvin” is pushing away his best friends all through childhood (Hobbes, Susie, Tofukitties) because of his broken heart and complaining that all girls just want to be his friends and that they are terrible people.  Calvin needs a kick in the pants.  This was my response:

Calvin, Calvin, Calvin, Calvin, Calvin…. my man. My broseph. My buddy. My pal. Wait no– Your buddy and pal, I mean. But speaking as if I was speaking to Calvin…

The good news is that you’re 24. You shouldn’t be exactly the man you will become when you’re still just 24. Nor will you be the man you will become when you’re 30… or 40… or 60… We are ever-changing, or at least we should be, just in the way that you, Calvin, were not the man you used to be before you met the love of your life, who you were while you were with the love of your life, or who you were after she did you so wrong and so dirty. I feel for you, Calvin, I really do.

Relationships aren’t easy. Trusting another woman again, in the way that you entrusted your entire body and soul to one person and believed that one day you would be married and be the first and only people to sleep with one another, and to have that taken away from you — Nobody’s going to say that life is fair. Because it’s not. You had visions for your life, and they were destroyed by the girl you loved more than you’ve ever loved anyone including yourself. And because she never slept with you and only slept with the “rugged Army guy” who may have shot guns at people and been a tough guy, you believe that all women must want this and you’ll never be this, so therefore you will fail at every turn.

But that’s not true. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Some women like tough guys. Some women like smart guys. Some women like book guys. Some women like art guys. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

You’re a certain type of person. You care very deeply for people, you’re kind, you’re genuine, you believe in things to their very core, and you’re not bad looking either. Almost every type of person is a person’s type somewhere so you shouldn’t focus on thinking that no girls will be into you — not every girl is one girl. And you’re so worried about getting into the friend zone with a girl, that you have forgotten that within that actual friend zone is a girl that cares about you so much that she’s asked Reddit for help on how to help you, rather than abandon you. Even if she doesn’t love you in that way, she loves you. Forever Alone? Not when someone, anyone, loves you. Let’s remember that you’re good enough to be loved, and start to work on finding out how you can genuinely return that love of friendship towards Hobbes, Susie, and TofuKitty and remember that with a group of friends like that, you’ll have a support team for the rest of your life.

The only possible way to be forever alone at this point, is if you continue to ask for pity about your own life and put yourself in that position. Look at you right now– You’re not too far gone. Stop what you’re doing. Think. Assess. Evaluate. Think about all that you have and cherish it. Assess all the you want in your life. Evaluate how you’re going to man the fuck up and get it.

You’ve got a great group of friends, people that love you. A buddy that might not be around now, but will stand by your side as your best man if you get your life together.

You want to love a woman as much as you loved your ex, have her love you back just as much. How can you find her? How can you start to show that you believe in yourself, that you love yourself, and that you’ll provide value to her for the rest of her life? Because nobody wants to be with somebody that wouldn’t want to be with themselves.

Evaluate how you’ve treated the people around you that spent months (maybe years) of their own lives trying to pick you up because they loved you. Evaluate why you didn’t return that love and understanding when they started to question your motives and become upset with some of your behavior. Evaluate what you’re going to do to finally make amends with them.

And then put that shit into action because you’re 24. You’re young. You’ve had one serious girlfriend and you’ve proven to be a great friend and great boyfriend in the past, which puts you ahead of the game at 24.

You can either remain where you’re standing and distance yourself further and further from the only people that have ever truly been “home” to you or you can continue changing every day to be the best person you can be.

Start today.

—————————–

The sad truth is that I see a lot of myself in Calvin.  I grew up thinking no girl would ever want to be anything more than a friend.  I got angry and lashed out them when they wouldn’t instead accept me as a boyfriend.  I was ripe for “forever alone” membership.

Then I grew up and realized that the only person that puts themselves in a “friend zone” is the one that is constantly complaining about it’s existence.  There are plenty of ways to start relationships that are romantic and stay that way.

Dudes: If a girl says she just wants to be friends, then be just that.  Be her friend.  Be a hella good friend.  Don’t ever try to make it more than that unless she is starting to make it explicitly clear that just being friends isn’t working for her anymore.  Frankly you’ll show her your value best by being a friend and the worst case scenario is that you have a great friend.  If you say “yeah lets be friends!” and then ask her to kiss you or send you naked pictures the next day, you’re fucking up.

Ladies: There’s a likely possibility that some of your guy friends could be into you or would totally date you.  Just… know that.

As I was saying yesterday about Sam and Diane, think about the ships you embark on and establish early if it’s a relation or a friend kind of ship.  Any confusion on that, and you’ll be sailing in the wrong direction.

This all started recently with a co-worker who was telling me about a girl he was talking to on instant messenger.  We have offices all over the world you see, and certain people have to communicate with other people in the company over instant messenger.  It’s funny how we can meet strangers in this current era of humanity, people we would have otherwise never known existed; sometimes I wish it was still that way.

I’m certain that at this moment my co-worker, “Sam”, wishes the same thing.

I remember him telling me about her (over IM of course) right from the beginning.  ”So there’s this girl “Diane” over in San Francisco and I can’t tell but I think she’s flirting with me.”  (Yeah, I realize what I just did there with their aliases, what of it?)  Of course, when me and Sam talk, it’s always something along the lines of “I think this person is flirting with me!”  When in reality its more like “Kate asked me if she could borrow my pen and when she picked it up she said “Oh cool pen” so you think we’re like going out now?”

Yeah, I don’t think that my friends and I have matured past the fifth grade quite yet.

But in this case, there really was some serious flirting between Sam and Diane.  What I thought was just another “Yeah okay sure you’re gonna hookup with the girl that lives a few hundred miles away by winning her over on work instant messenger” (why do I write “another” as if this happens all the time?) it was in fact instead another case of “Yeah… okay!  You’re gonna hookup with the girl that lives a few hundred miles away by winner her over on work instant messenger!”

Of course I never thought that Romeo and Juliet (wait, mixing up my aliases) Sam and Diane would be able to develop a real relationship when they were separated from Los Angeles to San Francisco, especially doing so while they had to first talk about work, let alone being a Montague and a Capulet.

classic awkward high five

But mostly I can’t believe that two people would ever have romantic thoughts while they talked about the mundane bullshit we do at our company.  (I can’t get into much more detail than that to protect the innocent, but I can tell you that this place doesn’t build flying microwaves that drop hot pockets into your mouth automatically.)

And so Sam and Diane built a ship together and sailed away on it.  There are several different kinds of ships:

- Friend ships

- Relation ships

- Kin ships

- Partner ships

- Ghost ships

Definitely stay away from the last kind of ship, unless you wanna get got, but the other ones are always fun.  Sometimes people will mix friend ships with a singles cruise, which can be fun too, but the most important thing to know is that when you go on a ship with someone that you’re both on the same ship.  Otherwise you’ll risk being stranded in the middle of the ocean, and your best hope is a peaceful drowning.

Early on, they were both getting onto a friend ship and they both liked that because they had a lot in common and talking to one another was so easy and natural.  It got to the point where they were even going to be the kind of long-distance friends that traveled many miles to see one another and Diane came to Los Angeles to visit and they kissed and junk.  (Just like in the romantic movies!)  And then Sam went to San Francisco to see Diane where they could drive across the Golden Gate Bridge in a red convertible with a baby in the backseat, roll down hills, and take Comet for a walk down the big hills.

okay, who invited this guy?

They were also “doing it” on their friend ship, which can have a lot of benefits, but the easiest part about that perhaps was that it wasn’t complicated.  ”I am here. You are there. That’s the way it is!” and Diane had made it clear that she wasn’t a relation ship type of person.  Sam was okay with this.

And then all of a sudden, Sam’s best friend Woody got a job at Google and was moving to San Francisco.  And now Sam saw an opportunity to move out of LA (which he was interested in doing) and going to the Bay Area with his best friend (which he thought would be fun) but also be closer to Diane (which seemed like a good idea at the time.)  But then things started to change between Sam and Diane once she found out that he’d not only be moving to San Francisco, but transferring within the company.  They’d go from long distance lovers to seeing each other a minimum of 40 hours per week plus weekends if it all works out okay.  They’d possibly even hop off of the friend ship and onto the relation ship, a boat that Diane wasn’t very comfortable with.

Diane started to distance herself.  Sam got worried that she had become more aloof and less talkative and cancelled her most recent plans to come to Los Angeles.  The story of Sam and Diane… was starting to go from a fairy tale of “how easy love can be” to the realities of it all: That relation ships are the hardest ships to navigate.

Let’s face it.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.  Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.  Wouldn’t you like to get away?  Sometimes you want to go:

- Where nobody knows your name

- And they’re indifferent as to whether or not you came

- You wanna be where you can see, that nothing in your life will change, you wanna go where nobody knows your name.

(doo doo doo doo do do)

Now what you’ve already read, all 1000 words of it (jesus christ I need to learn brevity), isn’t even getting to the point where I started to give advice or talk it out with Sam.  You see, for a couple of weeks, Sam held all of this inside of him.  The parts where Diane would go an entire day without talking to him for the first time in months.  The parts where he’d wonder why she’s not quite being the same person she once was, causing him to stress out over if he had done something wrong or if the “ship” that he’d held so dearly was sinking and un-salvageable.  The parts where the “Good morning” texts had disappeared.

(Side note on “Good Morning!” texts — In the year 2013, this appears to be the number one symptom or trigger(?) of a broken heart.  I think what many people want, what I’ve always looked for and cherished in my 30 years, is that you’re a person’s first and last thought every day.  Because you’re bookending their dreams, which might as well mean that you’re that person’s dream.  You’re that person’s everyday and everynight.  You now care about that person at least as much as you care about yourself or anyone else, and the balance in the universe is that they feel the same about you.  But then when something goes wrong, the universe is out of balance.  Because they’re not texting you “Good Morning!” anymore, or they’re not responding for three hours after you know they’ve woken up.  You’re not their first thought anymore.  You’re not the last thing they think of as they unknowingly make the shift from awake to asleep.  And that kills you — because you still care about them at least as much as you care about yourself, but more importantly you don’t feel that anyone now cares about you either.  You feel like an empty shell.  All your love is with them.  And all of their love is… with them.  Or even worse, with someone else.  The universe is out of whack.  It kills you.  And it all boils down to…

“Good Morning!”)

But then finally Sam broke down and typed to me over instant messenger that Diane was very distant lately.  That he wasn’t sure if things were going wrong because she was “busy” or “sick” and he didn’t want to come off as being weak and vulnerable if he had flat-out asked her if there was something wrong.

(While I was in the middle of writing this story, I found out that what was once supposed to be a little intro has now become over 2,300 words and I’m not done yet.  Y’all don’t wanna read a wall of text right now, so let me break it out a little bit.  Coming up next:

The #1 rule of fight club is that you don’t talk about fight club, but a little known fact is that actually the #2 rule of fight club is that you don’t ask the person you’re dating if something is wrong.)

Stay tuned!

For the record, I hate that I just said that.  ”Please ask me for advice!” because I’m not the type of person to naturally assume that I’m the next Dear Abby or even Downton Abbey, so let me explain really quick.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been dealing with some of my own relationship issues, but I started to realize that after, oh, thirty years of failure, I had started to learn things.  I was able to apply some of my own real world experiences in relationships and dating and sex to myself and make it all better.  Then I came across a few other people who were having issues and could relay some of my own experiences and through the nature of storytelling and analogies (my two favorite natures!) get through some good talks.

And I’ve also been spending some time on internet websites where people talk about “what’s your beef?” in dating and been able to talk it out with others, both in giving and receiving.

You know I’ve never been shy about revealing my own experiences and shortcomings with women, but just because I’ve failed doesn’t mean I haven’t learned a few things and I think it would be fun to turn a few questions into some anecdotes, analogies, and references to “this is how DJ Tanner once got through this same predicament!”

So use the Contact button on the left side of the page and ask me a question in email.

Or ask me on Twitter.

Or put it in the comments.  I don’t care!  (But yes, I’ll keep it anonymous!)

WordPress.com claims that I have “Over 2,000 blog followers!” but I hardly believe that.  I know who my loyal ten readers are (and I love you) but maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe there’s just enough people out there that I can get five questions and then have some fun with it.  They can be jokey questions too, whatever I can do to have enough for a first time post on this matter.  Thanks for humoring me, sorry for being a pompous ass and thinking that I can help someone but you never know…. I promise to at least make it fun!

*dun dun*

I remember my first cigarette, but more importantly, I remember my first dip of chewing tobacco.  After all, that’s what set this crazy train in motion to begin with.  After spending a good 18 years of my life chiding my own mother for her smoking habits, I suppose it seemed more acceptable to use tobacco as long as I wasn’t smoking it.  (Though that’s not entirely true either; sadly I had spent some of my wasted youth riding skateboards around a community college campus on Saturdays and finishing butts with friends.  It’s amazing what you think is acceptable when you’re 14.  I still wouldn’t kiss me if I were you.)

It was a night like any other, chillin’ out maxin’ with my friends — who were now living in their own places (!!) and we could do whatever we wanted.  Which… still isn’t that much when you think about it.  At least not when your’e 18 and broke and still unable to legally buy alcohol, not that it’s much of an obstacle to overcome though.  I was hanging out with a lot of athletes at the time, of which I am not myself one, but athletes tend to get bored and even the nice ones will dip chewing tobacco because it’s still seen as kind of a masculine way to pass the time.  I’m not one to pass up an opportunity to try something once, but the lesson that you can never quite learn any other way besides the hardy way, is that getting “high” is really hard to stop doing because it feels so damn good.  And trust me: If you’re 18, had never really gotten lightheaded from tobacco, and putting a giant dip in your mouth (that’s a few letters from an entirely different sentence right there), you will get stoned as f— from chewing tobacco.

A large quantity of nicotine (much larger than your average cigarette) goes directly into your bloodstream all at once.  You close your eyes and all of a sudden you can still think about stuff — but your brain is all of a sudden gone.  It has to be.  Your head is far too light to contain any matter anymore.  It’s the most relaxed you’ve ever been, and I can put my hand on the Bible to testify that it never felt that good again but it still kept feeling pretty good.

You don’t all of a sudden become a regular user.  You’re aware of the risks and you’re not “one of those guys” so you manage to avoid regular usage.  Maybe just once every few days.  Then maybe once a day.  You’re in control so you buy a can, but just this once because you’re going over to your buddies house tonight and that’s the end of it.  Before you know it, you’re lying in a pool of your own vomit — which is littered with chewing tobacco of course — in some strangers backyard without a home, money, your wife left you and took the kids, and your stocks are through the floor.

(Though an extreme exaggeration, I would like to say that the first part of that story is also false… it is not.)

About a year after developing an addiction to chewing tobacco, I went over to a friends house.  He was a smoker and had never had “a chaw” while I was a chewer that didn’t care for cigarettes.  Then we decided to try each others habits and sure enough, I quit chewing for smoking and he quit smoking for chewing.  It was like a wife swap except this is probably less hazardous to your health.  And so I smoked, for ten years, and never tried to quit for even a day.

I wouldn’t say that I am typically a weak-willed person.  I had a very strong will… a very strong will to never attempt to quit smoking because I was worried I would fail hard.  Everybody talks about how difficult it is to quit, that most people fail at their attempts, that it’s harder than quitting heroin and alcohol and Jake Gyllenhaal combined.  (I realize that in the movie it’s Gyllenhaal that says it to Heath Ledger, but mixing Ledger with addiction jokes seemed to be in poor taste.  Yet ignoring a great Brokeback Mountain joke would have also been a travesty.)

I have known what it’s like to not smoke for say, a day, or even half-a-day, and could feel how hard it would be to do that… forever.  Nicotine and your lungs seem to become a single entity once you join them together, like latching on your hair braid to another person’s hair braid or one of those flying creatures except it’s way more real than just 3D.  It’s real life.  And when you haven’t latched the two together for awhile, there’s simply nothing else you can think about.

But I finally decided to quit on January 13th, and today marks four months without a single puff on a single cigarette.  Sure, it was a little difficult at first, but honestly the most important piece of advice on quitting that I could ever pass on is that no craving last for more than five minutes.  You do have a lot of cravings at first, like when you wake up in the morning, after you shower, on the way to work, ten minutes after you get to work, just before lunch, lunch, just after lunch, a little bit after just after lunch, with only an hour left to go at work, on the way home from work, when you get home from work, before dinner, dinner, after dinner, just before bed, when you’re in bed, in the middle of the night, etc.  But it’s only a few days until it’s only a fraction of those and you start to really break your habits.  It’s only a few weeks before I forget that I was ever a smoker.  People say “How’s the quitting going?” and my initial reaction is “Oh shit, I used to smoke, huh?”

Ten years of smoking was nearly eradicated from my memory after a few weeks of not smoking.  Yeah, I get cravings every now and then, none of which are very strong except perhaps for the one I have right now due to writing about it and remembering that I used to smoke, but it’s not even close to being enough to want to have a cigarette.

When my friends go out to smoke, I have no qualms about waiting for them.

When someone smokes around me, I have no desire to bum one.

All of my past habits associated with smoking, such as drinking and eating, are much better without a cigarette I have learned.

I didn’t even try to quit for a decade of my life because I figured it would be too difficult to imagine a life without smoking.  Now I can’t even remember what it was like to be a smoker to begin with.  If there’s something (it doesn’t have to be cigarettes) that you have some apprehension about doing, remember that it might not be as hard or as bad as you think, just resist the apprehension to try.

[dub step reeeeemiixxxxx] wub wub wubbbbwubbwubbbbbb

I have had a few interesting conversations lately about happiness, as well as some important internal reflection in regards to the topic at a time when I was starting to feel unhappy.  Let me try and put my thoughts in the correct order now in order to inflict the most happiness onto the brains of you, the reader.  It shall feel good for both of us, on this journey to pursue happiness!

Awhile back I was talking to a person, let’s call this person “girl”, and I told girl that talking to her felt like I had little marbles of happiness stored in my brain for safekeeping that would explode magical fairy dust of happiness all into my brain parts.  This could be one of several things:

- Love

- Chemicals, such as endorphins, being released into my brain

- Aneurysm, or stroke

The likely answer is probably number two, those little guys that show up when you’re “doin’ it” or eating a killer taco that tell you to be happy.  I like to think of a billion endolphins swimming through your frontal lobe and all the other lobes.

But the problem with attributing all of our feelings to chemicals and processes in the body and brain is that it doesn’t produce enough endorphins because we’d much rather believe in something bigger!  We’d much rather believe in magic, and love, and higher powers that are possessed in ourselves, in our souls, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  I want to believe that too.  Controlling our emotions is still a power higher than chemicals, and that’s just as important.

“Girl” and I don’t really talk anymore, so the happiness bubbles aren’t popping anymore.  This leads to the idea that sadness is the absence of happiness, and that’s not really true either is it?

It’s a really interesting question to ask if you are happy with the person you are today.  Well, I wouldn’t say that if I could choose a life that I would have chosen mine.  I might go with “The Gos,” Ryan Gosling, or even Topher Grace, but I’d definitely think I would go another route.  But then again, would I?  I’m not unhappy with the person that I am, and I think that the fact that I have always strived to be something else has molded me into something else already; the characteristics that make up Kenneth, both positive and negative, are all a result of wanting to be something else.  I’m perfectly okay with my positive attributes, and it only takes a little bit of light to fill up a lot of dark space.

But then when “girl” goes away, it feels like she takes the light with her.  That’s not how it is supposed to work; never give your happiness to anyone.  That is your happiness.  The happy is always contained within yourself, never give it to anyone, only let other people touch it, not take it.  Am I happy?  Well, not constantly!  But if you always remember that your happiness is a bag of gold that’s kept in your backpocket, and not gold pen that you can only borrow to sign this birthday card and then you have to give it back, then you can never be unhappy for too long.

Happiness is a motion-activated porch light that others can turn on with their presence.

Happiness is your favorite memory with your dad, or butcher.  In some cases, these are the same person!

Happiness is your favorite fake memory.  I visualize the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl on a regular basis.  I have the fantasy on a regular basis, they don’t win the Super Bowl on a regular basis.  Yet.

Happiness is VectorBelly.

Happiness is the song that makes you believe that anything is possible.  Like “The Promise” by When in Rome or “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” or “I Want It That Way.”

Happiness is the movie with a happy ending, like when you find out that sometimes you actually find a guy in ten days.

But no matter what happiness means to you, always keep in mind where its always resting like a sleeping Andre the Giant (the happiest of giants): Inside of you.  People, places, things, and any kind of noun you can think of that bursts glitter bombs of happy into the recesses of your brain (why do you think they call them RECESS?) are always contained within you, not feelings that others get to keep.  It’s yours.  If you’ve given your happiness to someone else, even if only to borrow, you’ve taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.   

Also yours: Sadness.  And it’s an addiction as well, otherwise nothing would be emo!

I used to have this metaphor for my life, that’s not especially uplifting but it is true that sometimes this is how it feels:

Sometimes I feel like I’m on a rowboat in the middle of a dead calm lake without any paddles, and sandbags keep being dumped into the boat, dropping it further and further into the water.  And the person dumping in the sandbags is me.

Now I don’t know how it’s physically possible to do this (where am I getting the sandbags from?) but sometimes I feel like I tend to add in sadness on purpose just to feel pity for myself.  For every happy place there is a sad dungeon.  (Not one of those dungeons with candy and video games, but a sad one without video games and with beets only.)  And we hold onto this dungeon, and it’s ours, and you can’t have it because it’s personal – stay away from my dungeon!  You don’t get my dungeon!

Why don’t we do that with happiness too?

“I’m chillin’ in my dungeon today because you took away my cotton candy fields.”

Absence of positive isn’t presence of negative.  Absence of positive is an opportunity to go in either direction, all you have to do is not choose to go to the dark side but instead stay with Luke and the Ewoks.  If you’re thinking about throwing another sandbag into the boat, think instead of cuddling a fuzzy little Ewok.  And money can’t buy happiness, but it could possibly allow you to rent a small person and put them in an Ewok outfit and cuddle them for two hours but no kissing.  And that would make you pretty happy for awhile.

Talking to “girl” could feel like glitter bombs danced in my head, but “girl” did not place them there, she only elicited an action or feeling.  Those pockets are always inside of you, it’s just a matter of knowing how to make them jump instead of sandbagging yourself.  Now, show me on the doll where touching makes you happy.  Oh, I think I know

1 – If you were the last person to send out a text, you are not allowed to send the next text.

1a - You may only break this rule if you “saw” or “read something” that would be of significant interest to the person that has not texted you back yet OR If it has now crossed over into the next business day OR If you have “concern” about this person’s well-being and whereabouts.

1b - You sought out that thing reminded you of that person, you’re only concerned that they haven’t responded to you, you won’t wait until the next business day because of the other two exceptions to breaking rule 1.

1c- Twitter and Facebook are an excellent reminder that the person who is not texting you back has full access to a computer or technological device such a phone, which you already knew anyway didn’t you.

2 - If you like a person, don’t let them know it* up until the very last possible moment when they are fed up and just about to give up on you.  A good way to do this is to rigorously be on the other side of Rule 1: Ignoring a text message.  (We all know you got that text message and that you are fully aware of Rule 1.)

*The more witholding you are of affection, the more the other party will desire it. As soon as you give it, they no longer want it.

2a - If you find the person you are dating to be beautiful, the worst thing you can do is tell them that, especially if they really are beautiful**.  Why would a person want to hear a compliment like that?

**A graph displaying “Beauty” to “Tell Them About Their Beauty” looks like an X. The more they are, the less you say so. The less they are (in the classical sense) the more they appreciate it.

2ab - Find a physical characteristic on your dating partner that you know makes them self-conscious, and bring it up.  As much as you want.

2ac - You’re ugly.***

***Look, you’re not really ugly.  But your perception of yourself tends to be more negative than other’s perceptions of you and this lack of self-esteem can cause others to take advantage of you.  Not by complimenting you mind you, but by putting you down while spattering in words of encouragement here and there.  A person that is constantly trying to tell you that you’re actually quite beautiful is obviously lying to you*^ so be suspicious of him*^^.

*^no he’s not

*^^don’t be

3. Looks are really important but do not ever list looks as the most important characteristic you’re looking for in a person, even if it probably is. 

In relation to rule 2a, It’s important to note that the first thing people look for in a person, is looks on a person.  From the time you are born, people are judging you based on your looks.  ”That’s a cute baby” or when the parents aren’t around “That is one. ugly. baby.”

One can not always accurately assess your character, your personality, your traits, your sense of humor, or other things that make up who you are just by looking at you.  But they can always judge your looks by looking at you because they are looking at you and so you are always judged by looks on some level.  It’s important to you when finding a mate, very important.  Do not say that it is important though because then you are shallow.  Here are some handy tips for things you can say are more important than looks:

- Confidence

- Sense of humor

- Intelligence

- Maturity

- Ambition

- Honesty

- Creativity

- Masculinity

- Kindness

Most people will tell you that the most attractive thing is confidence.

3a. A good tip for gaining confidence is to become more attractive.

3b. Most people have some level of shallowness.^*  The author of these rules is shallow, though most would probably rate him at “about a 4″ (see rule 2ac), but the author likes attractive people.  He’s attracted to them.  The more attractive they are, the more attracted he is.  See: How attraction works.  Acceptance of of this fact will help us absolve ourselves of the myth that confidence and sense of humor are greater than looking like Marion Cotillard or Ryan Gosling.

^* that’s meta

3bc. Even if we have our own personal preferences, attraction is what attracts people to people, not how many 1000-page books you’ve read or that you perform at the Laugh Shack on Thursdays open mic night.^^^

^^^Most would classify this as “cynicism from a bitter author” when in reality it is “reality from a bitter author”.  The author enjoys an attractive female and also knows some very attractive people that he would never consider dating because of their terrible personalities.  In rule 3bc, the author displays “honesty”, “creativity”, and “sense of humor” but still lacks “handsomeness” because the author had “a whole pizza last night”.

3d. Those traits, deeper explained:

- Confidence:

Typically confidence comes from a person that knows they “got it goin’ on.”  The difference between “cocky” and “confident” is rather undefined by those that use it as an excuse.

- Sense of humor

Typically, attractive people never developed this.  Jesse Kotsopolis was attractive and his humor was rooted in things he did with kids because “look at how fucking cute it is that this hunk loves kids” and not in actual joke-telling.  Joey Gladstone was unattractive and had to develop a sense of humor to make friends and defend himself against attractive bullies.

- Intelligence

See above: Sense of humor.

- Maturity

See the case of Rebel vs Cause when the person looks like James Dean.

See the case of Dumb v Dumber when the person is Harry and Lloyd.

- Ambition

See above: Maturity.  Men are typically most ambitious when it thinks it will land them a “hot babe”.

- Honesty

Honestly.  This author might be an author for only that reason.

- Creativity

And then develop creativity.  A lot of the world’s greatest visionaries became that way for the opposite sex.  If all of a sudden tomorrow “chicks dig cricket” then it will become the most popular sport in America.

- Masculinity

The author does not know much about this.  Watched a lot of TV as a kid.

- Kindness

There is a distinct difference between being a “nice guy” and being a “good man”:

3da. Don’t be a nice guy, be a good man.  Even if you’re a complete douchebag asshole.

- A nice guy will be kind to you, tell you nice things, tell you what he thinks you want to hear.  (See all of Rule 2 as to why this is a terrible idea.)

- A good man is not precluded from also doing this, but is not intrinsically tied to doing so.  A “good man” might also be a complete asshole to his girlfriend or wife.  A “good man” takes care of certain things in his life and therefore is seen as the protector and patriarch of the family as long as he provides.  This even includes a “good man” that is abusive.  Or it could literally be a “good man” that is kind, humble, generous, and giving, but it is not a requirement of being a “Good man”

- A nice guy is often characterized as being a “pussy” and “finishing last”.  ”Girls want bad boys, but not women” is what some women or girls would say.  Innately, the desire to simply be with someone that will swing a club over someone else’s head if the enemy gets near the cubs is still most important and nice guys aren’t deemed to do this.

- A good man is entrusted to do this.

*^*^*^* Author’s note

These are just some of the unwritten, now written rules that I am laying out today.  The awful truth about why it is better to play games and lie to people while you’re dating them if you want to continue dating them.  Why is it awful?  Well, it sure would be nicer to live in a world where you could just tell a person how you feel and then they reciprocate and then you move on, wouldn’t it.

Here’s how the rule book looked 100 years ago and further back:

Rule 1. Is Mary-Ann ready to bear children?

If yes: See if the Anderson boy is single

If no: Wait until she’s had her first “visit”

It might seem primitive and unromantic to us now, but it sure was a lot easier.

I’m a little perturbed.

I never did hear from Denise again.  I imagine her sitting on a beach somewhere, maybe Cancun, and she’s just happy.  Living the life I had always dreamed for her to live.  I really wish I had though, because Subway pulled the absolute worst move that a food chain can pull when they’re trying to make up for mistakes gone by; a phone call and an appointment for me to pick up a free sub.

“But Kenny, you’re getting a free sub!”

“But reader, I asked for redemption, not an errand that I have to run!”

The “come in and ask for the manager” move is the absolute dregs of customer service in this society we live in.  If it were in the Brat Pack, it would be Judd Nelson.  What if I don’t feel comfortable talking to a manager at the Subway that I complained about trying to get something for free?  What if, and I know this is impossible for you to believe Subway, but what if I don’t even want Subway for the next month or two?  Oh, and by the way, what if they don’t believe me?

Bingo!  Now you know why I couldn’t drop this complaint, a minor setback that would have been better solved by silence than by giving me a chore to do.  You’ll be hard-pressed to get me to go to an appointment at the doctor or the dentist, let alone a fast food chain for a free $5 footlong.  But that’s what they did when I got a call from some guy telling me that I could come in and ask for the manager (whose name I don’t recall because it’s not my job to recall names when you fu*k up my order.  I have cousins whose names I don’t know) and that I would get a free sub of my choosing.

I took them up on their stupid offer anyway.  That was a mistake.

It’s time for another edition of “My complaint to Subway”!  By the way, I love that above the box on their “message customer service” box on the website are these words: This is where you write your message

Thanks.  I would have never figured that one out.  It’s a wonder that I ever managed to interact with society long enough to order a sandwich without shitting my pants and stripping off my clothes.

Here we go:

Dear Subway,
First off, I want to congratulate you. After years of escaping custody or detection it appears you are finally on to me. Yes, it is I, the Sandwich Bandit! Also known as the Sandit! All I have to do is go into any of your 1,000,000 locations across these grand United States and tell your employees that I received a phone call from a manager telling me to come in and get a free sub after they had screwed up, and they would give it to me. Unbelievable! I mean, we aren’t talking about just any free item here, we’re talking about a sandwich. Thanks to this scam, I haven’t had to work for 13 years.
But that’s not why I do it. It’s not about the tens of dollars I save on sandwiches, though it is nice to know what Donald Trump must feel like. No, I do it for the thrill. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to have adrenaline rushing through my veins as they are unwittingly toasting a sub that I will get for free even though I am totally fooling them.
It was all as my dad taught me to do from the time I was a little kid. You see, Curly Sue wasn’t only based on a true story but it was based on me and they changed it from a boy to a girl because Alisan Porter was too cute for words. I didn’t mind though, and I got a free signed six-inch meatball sub from Jim Belushi. He was kind enough to give me a free sub, and so to have you been doing for all of these years.
Huzzah!
But today was perhaps the final day for me. I walked into your Subway on National Blvd and told them what I’ve been telling thousands of artists for years, that I had an issue with my last visit and was told I could get a free sub. As I waited for them to apologize and work it out, you can imagine my surprise when they didn’t comply.
“Look, I would have much preferred just a coupon but I was told to just come in and say what I am saying right now.”
She looked back at me deeply, silent, speechless. I wondered what her life must be like, what her hopes are, what she dreams of, and for that moment we weren’t a customer and a sandwich artist; we were one. We were friends, soulmates, lovers, dreamers, children, animals, we were wind and water and fire and stone. But only for a fleeting moment did we hold this glance of perfect understanding.
And then she told me that she couldn’t help me because she didn’t know what I was talking about, and so I paid regular price for a sub. Regular price?! I guess I’ll have to get a job again. I took out a loan just today to make up for buying a whole sub.

I’ll try again tomorrow and see if perhaps the dream isn’t dead. I just pray that never the day comes when a person makes a minor complaint and you simply send them a coupon, not much different than the millions of coupons you send out in the Daily, rather than make them go talk to a manager to make up for their last unpleasant experience at one of your 1,000,000 Subway restaurants in these grand United States. Please, don’t ever ever ever do that. It would be too sensible. I’ll just be here, finishing my full price sub and waiting for the day when Prince Charming comes along and simply buys my subs for me.

Sincerely,
The Sandit

And now, we wait.

Here is a little bit more to the story, because that wasn’t detailed enough.  I walked up to the Subway nervous because I felt like maybe they wouldn’t believe me because why would they?  But that’s what I was told to do.  I leaned in closely to the sandwich artist and whispered softly, “Yeah, I had a minor issue last time I was here and they told me I could come in and get a free sub?”

Then she sort of stared back at me like, “What the heck are you talking about?”  Then she asked the other girl making a sandwich for someone else and when she stopped making the sandwich for the other customer, I was like “no no no, go back to her sandwich it’s no big deal.”  I was embarrassed that I had to go into a Subway and ask for a free sandwich but THAT’S WHAT I WAS TOLD TO DO.  After minor quibbling, I told her to just make me a sandwich (that sounds so misogynistic even if you’re AT Subway) and if it didn’t get worked out I would just pay for it.  Because here’s the secret that I dare never tell anyone but I’ll reveal it to you just this one time.

I can afford sandwiches.

I don’t go around trying to screw over major corporations by stealing all of their sandwiches.  But as a company providing something to a customer, when you fuck up, make up for it.  Have make-up sex with me, in the metaphorical sense.  Bang me hard with your cold cut combo and tell me it’s free and I’ve been a bad boy.  Don’t give me a chore to do and then when I do it, make me pay for another sub.  Which is exactly what I did because I felt like a FOOL in the first place.  You do this to us because you know that a large percentage of people that complain will never take you up on your offer.  The right thing to do would be to send me a coupon and tell me to go to hell if I don’t like it.  Want to save paper?  Great, you had someone email me in the first place so have her email me a one-time coupon.  It’s so easy to do, even a moron like me that wouldn’t know “Where the message goes durr duh duh duh” would be able to do it and figure it out.

What could have been ended weeks ago rages on.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go tell a wealthy widow that I’ve got a great investment for her and that I love her.

Sincerely,

The Sandit

Thanks to a connection of roughly seven to sixty-five trillion wires stretching under the ground everywhere from Hollywood, California to Van Nuys, California called the “internet”, you can find people that are willing to pretend to be whatever you want them to be for the purposes of gaining their own power and sexual gratification!  Who cares if it’s really “Annie” or “Andy” as long as you’re getting your emotional jollies.  It’s Adam and Eve not adam_antium321 and h0tn_readyg1rl_eve!

Within minutes, or even months, you too will be able to chat with someone that really cares you exist, even if they don’t.  Here is how!

1. Go onto the internet!

The first step in developing any fake online relationship of course involves getting onto the internet, or “world wide web.”  Plug your 56k modem into the nearest phone jack:

2. Find new friends, and tell them about yourself with 3 easy letters

Sign into America Online and go to America On-Line (AOL) Instant Messenger (IM) programmer.  Find a chatroom labeled something like “Cool Teens” or “Young Moms” and introduce yourself.  Say something like “Hey, everybody. I’m gandalf_l0ver112″ and then give out these 3 key bits of information about yourself:

- Age

- Sex (gender)

- Location (where you at?)

Also known as “A/S/L”.  This let’s people know how old you are, what gender you are, and where you are located.  Now they have some sort of idea if you are in their same age range, if you are a boy or a girl, and if you are located near them.  Or in some cases, it might be best if you’re not located near them!  This will really heighten the ability to be a fake online boyfriend and girlfriend, because you couldn’t meetup without a train ticket or car.

3. Make yourself attractive to others

You’re trying to lure yourself a catfish, it doesn’t hurt to be a catfish.  We aren’t trying to mate between species, after all.  Have you ever seen a fish have sex with a duck?  Of course not.  Would you like to?  Of course you would, but you aren’t that lucky.  So tell some lies on the internet.

As the girl from Perverted Justice once said: “Come on in, I’ve made some lemonade.   I just need to throw this into the dryer.”

It may be best to hang back for awhile and see which fake A/S/L best suits your needs.  If you really want a 22-year-old female catfish in the Bay area, then try a chatroom like “SF hotteyz” and relax in the 33-person chatroom with 31 guys and 2 “girls” that are pretty much chatting to each other while 3 guys control the conversation and 28 “people” lurk in the background because they’re even afraid that they’ll be judged anonymously.

Eventually you will decide that you don’t care at all if the person is 22, just as long as they’re under 30 and you won’t mind where they live as long as it’s in the continental United States, so long as they claim to be female.  By day three, you’re only rule is that they claim to be 18 (because Chris Hansen seems like kind of a jerk, which might have entirely to do with the fact that he almost exclusively interviews men who like boys and girls under 15) and that they live on this planet, and now you’re starting to lax on the whole ‘gender’ thing too.  By day 45, you’ve won the Heisman trophy.

In conclusion:

Man and woman or man and man or woman and woman, whatever the parts will fit together if you try enough combinations.  But on the internet, your parts don’t touch and nothing can be given a title if you’re not touching it’s all good you guys.   Anything goes, so get on the web (short-hand for internet terms can help reduce keystrokes) and find yourself a mate.  It’s like my mama always said: The net is like a box of chocolates that did not come with a reference guide to which chocolate contains which flavors, you never know what kind of treat is inside until you bite.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some fishin’ to do.

I just want to point out a quick observance of something we are all probably familiar with but something I also have never put much thought into.  For the purpose of… there is no purpose.  Appreciate it with me because I’m lonely?  Yeah, I guess that’ll do.

I was seven when Kindergarten Cop (1990) was released.  When you think about it, Kindergarten Cop is a great movie because it’s one of those movies that should transcend at least a couple of generations.  I enjoyed it when I was 7 or 8 and saw it.  I feel like it should also appeal to someone that was in high school at the time, or older, but then again this is completely untrue for me to claim because I am totally biased.  I will never be able to see Kindergarten Cop in the way that someone born in 1960 is able to see Kindergarten Cop.  I watch it now and I still love it, so that’s why I feel like it’s something for adults, but a lot of that is based in nostalgia.

Yet I have no idea how an Arnold Schwarzenegger-Penelope Ann Miller vehicle would be anything but a hit.  Not to mention Miko f***ing Hughes, the most child actor of my generation.  And it was Hughes that stole the show by delivering the line of the movie, the quote that should bring down the house whether it’s full of 7-year-old’s like me, or older people like my mommy and daddy.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

I was sitting here today thinking of stand-up comedy and joke-telling and came back to one of the classics: The differences between men and women.  Of course, “Women be shoppin’!” is one of my all-time favorites, with Dave Chappelle delivering the classic line in The Nutty Professor.  It’s simple comedy (terrible comedy when not done ironically, which obviously it was here) that gets to the base of “what’s the joke about the differences between men and women?”

Women like to shop and men don’t!

Not much different than “black people walk like this…. but white people walk like this!”  We laugh at our differences and that’s all observational humor is meant to do, laugh at who we are and what we can relate to, but “Women be shoppin!” was very, very simple.  But you can get even more shallow than that.

I never thought about the joke in Kindergarten Cop as anything more than that, just a joke, and perhaps it could be said that it’s even a “lazy” attempt at humor, but now I see it as more than that.  It’s more like the most perfect joke there is, because it points out the differences between men and women.  No, it points out the difference between men and women.  It’s exactly, to a tee, who a kindergarten student would do for observational humor if he was giving a stand-up routing to his class.  And now I love it more than ever.

Never forget:

Boys have a penis, and girls have a vagina.

Indeed they do, Miko.  Indeed they do.