Blindfolds

Despite my recent return to the land of the single, I'm surprisingly okay with it. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather be in a good relationship built on trust, a mutual hatred of the Twilight saga, and blindfolds and handcuffs than sleeping single night after night. But when I think about it, I'm not sure that the wrongs that I've endured (perceived or actual) outweigh the wrongs that I've inflicted on girlfriends past. 

Maybe "wrongs" is too harsh of a word. Maybe what I mean is: how many girls' hearts have I broken? As surprising as it may sound, the answer is: more than one. I would venture to say that I've broken too many. How many times, rather than showing a girl true sympathy, have I watched the clock, wondering how much time I had to feign sympathy before I could excuse myself and do anything else in the world other than listen to her sobs? How many times have I actually fallen asleep listening to a girl cry?

Maybe I am a jerk, I don't know. But in my defense, if things weren't working out, I let the girl know right away. Sometimes, I admit, it has taken me awhile to come to the realization that I didn't want to continue a relationship, but in those cases, I simply wanted to make sure I was making the right decision before ending things.

I haven't always made the right decisions. There was the volleyball player who warned me that if I made her cry, she would "cut me." She didn't cut me. She's a good person and sometimes I wonder what she's doing now, to paraphrase the Garth Brooks song. But I know what she's doing now, actually. Not because I stalk her (and trust me, if anyone deserves to be stalked, it's her, as odd of a compliment as that is) but because I got to know her enough that I know that she's a good person who helps people. 

Then there's the first girl I met after my divorce. Well, I don't really think about her. Ever. I made her cry, I admit, but in my defense, she turned out to be crazy.  "Crazy" is a strong word, I know, but anyone who admits that she was possessed by an evil spirit and had to have an exorcism performed scares me just a little bit.

Then there was the roaring 90s. But no one remembers those years, or wants to.

For whatever reason, I'm okay with being single. Sort of. It's just that I have these blindfolds and handcuffs that aren't being used, and I feel bad for them.

My Imperfection

As my legions (and I mean legions!!) of devoted blog followers know, I've been doing some serious self-analysis to figure out why my relationships fall apart. Maybe it's not always the girls' fault as I've always believed. Maybe I'm not the perfect guy (even though I am). At first, I thought it was my personality, but I quickly dismissed that because my personality is second to none. There is not a single person in the world with a better personality than mine. Except for Vice President Joe Biden. His ability to spill state secrets is comedic genius. The point is, my personality is pretty much better than anyone else's. I'm also really humble. Even though I'm better than most people at most things, I only need to tell them I'm better than them once or twice. If they're really thick-headed, I may have to remind them repeatedly, I'll admit.

Since my personality can't possibly be the reason that my relationships fall apart, I began to think that maybe it has something to do with my looks.  I looked in the mirror, saw my gorgeous reflection and, though I'm as straight as they come, began to wish there was a way I could make out with myself. 

No, there wasn't anything wrong with my looks. But then it occurred to me: what if there was something wrong with my looks that I just couldn't see? Like hair growing out of my ears? So I looked in a mirror and strained to see the inside of my ears. As it turns out, you need two mirrors to do this. So I found another mirror and, you guessed it, there was no hair growing out of my ears. 

Obviously, I was stumped. I looked at my reflection, again wishing I could make out with myself. I actually licked the mirror, but it wasn't the same. It tasted vaguely of Windex. And that's when I wondered if maybe I had a lazy eye and I couldn't tell by simply looking at my own reflection. So I used my camera phone to take a video of my eyes. No lazy eye problem.

So I sat there and thought, and thought, and thought. Mostly, I thought about Marilyn Monroe, I'm not sure why. But then I started thinking about myself again. With Marilyn Monroe. But she'd be really old by now. So I imagined myself in the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future, going back in time to date Marilyn Monroe. But something went horribly wrong, and I ended up only going back in time twenty seconds and interacting with myself twenty seconds ago, warning myself of what was going to happen in twenty seconds. But after twenty seconds went by, I no longer knew the future, so I just stared at myself. As it turned out, I didn't want to make out with myself after all.

Then I remembered what I'd started thinking about in the first place: trying to figure out why my relationships go bad. I thought about my great personality, my lack of any physical imperfection, and how I dote on any girl I might be dating. And that's when I realized what the problem is: I'm too nice. 

When I'm in a relationship, I'll get my girl flowers for no particular reason, I'll give her unsolicited back rubs, I agree with her points of view (although there have been exceptions), and I insist on doing the dishes...in short, I try to treat my girlfriends like princesses. 

All of that might sound nice, but I don't think girls want to be treated that way. I think they want to be treated badly.  I think most girls want to feel unworthy of their boyfriends and that they need to try to earn any positive emotion they get from their boyfriends.  With this realization in mind, I decided to treat girls badly. I started by calling the receptionist at work a "dame." I said, "Listen, dame, when the next fella calls, you let him know I'm out of the office. You got that, sweetcheeks?"

The receptionist's eyes went wide. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. I went to the bank and called the teller a broad. It was a guy, but I was in no mood to back off of my newly cultivated bad boy image. Now I'm thinking about buying a Harley. I'll wear a white t-shirt under a black leather jacket and act bored by everyone I see. Maybe I'll take up smoking, too. Because girls dig guys who smoke while riding Harleys in their white t-shirts and black leather jackets.

And no more doing the dishes. That's for dames.

Parallels: Dentists and Relationships

I don’t understand why anyone (including me) would really want to be in a relationship.  Maybe it’s the biological imperative to reproduce that draws people together. I don’t know, I’m not a cultural anthropologist (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night).

Wanting to be in a relationship is like wanting to go to the dentist: sure, some good might come of it, but there’s a fair chance there’s going to be pain involved, and you might not escape with all of your teeth. Not only that, but both the person you’re in a relationship with and the dentist expect you to routinely brush your teeth. And they both will tell you what to do: one will tell you to take out the garbage, the other will tell you to floss more. Maybe the answer is to simply avoid relationships and avoid dentists. On the other hand, if you have a toothache, the dentist can help. And if you have heartache, your amor can help, too.

I suppose an argument can be made that dentists and relationships are necessary evils. But both should be well stocked with Novocain.  

Single (Again) With Kids

        How do you know when the "right one" comes along? Is there a secret handshake I'm supposed to recognize? Because I just got out of a relationship with someone who seemed more "right" than I deserved. The perverse thing about the break up was that it wasn't her idea or mine, and I don't think either of us wanted to break up. In fact, we'd had a great day with the kids, but something happened (which I'm not revealing) and in that moment, we both knew that it was over. 

        Here's the thing about this girl: she's so great that even my ex-wife thinks she'd be a great step mom.  Her interaction with my children is something to behold. It is beautiful. She's an amazing girl. Sometimes I'd catch myself looking at her, simply awestruck. My children love her and they love her son. My oldest, Jackson, asked when they were coming over again and I had to break it to him that they probably weren't. That wasn't easy. It wasn't easy because, as a parent, you don't want to bring someone into your children's lives who isn't going to be around forever. I thought this girl was the one.  

        My son asked if they could come over just one more time to play. I told him probably not. He asked, "Well, don't you like her anymore?"

        "I still like her," I replied.

        "Oh, so she doesn't like you?"

        "She still likes me."

        "Well, then, why can't she come over anymore?"

        I didn't know how to argue with his simple logic. The best I could come up with was that sometimes grown ups just have to stop dating. I don't think my answer was acceptable to him. It's hardly acceptable to me.

        Jackson had t-ball practice tonight. I guess the boys don't want me to wallow in self-pity too long because, on the way home, whenever the boys saw a girl driving a car, they'd point her out so I could whistle at her. Well, Jackson was pointing out girls. Ethan was trying to trick me into whistling at other guys. He thought that was pretty funny.

        Maybe the "right one" is out there. Or maybe no matter how "right" someone is, rough spots will need polishing. If so, it's possible that the "right one" just got away. 

        Regardless, I am Single (Again) With Kids.

        

Time

         My whole world could fall apart, but I'd be fine as long as I had my children. Moments with them are some of the most beautiful moments of my life. My oldest son is almost six, and he's playing football. All he ever wants to do with me is practice plays or play catch and he doesn't understand why he has to wait so many years to play for the BSU Broncos.  Watching him play football amazes me because when I see him out there, I see my baby boy, my 9 lb 9 oz baby boy, to whom moments after his birth, I swore my eternal love. And now he's out there giving high fives and tackling other kids (it's flag football, but in reality, it's tackle). He said to me one day that he'd like basketball if basketball was played outside on the grass and you could tackle people. I told him that would make it football. He said, "Yeah, I guess so."

       The amazing thing is that you think there is no way you can love another child as much as your first, but you're proven wrong. My second born, Ethan, is 4 1/2. I'm always catching myself laughing at the things he does, like when he has a secret and you try to get it out of him and he just grins and says, "Not tellin'." Or when he lowers his head and charges at me like a bull...because he wants to give me a hug. Or how he says, "Dad? I really love you."  Sometimes when he's asleep at night, I kiss him on the cheek and tell him I love him. And then he says, "Love you too, Dad."

       And then there's the youngest, 2 1/2 year old Charlie. He likes to jump and run and get dirty. He's a little bit like Max on "Max and Ruby."  Take your eyes off him for a few minutes and there's no telling what kind of mess might be made. He loves his train table and gets mad when anyone messes with it. Not much can distract him from his train table, unless I call to him and say "Hey Charlie, do you want breakfast?" And then I hear him say, "Oh, yes, Dad," and he comes running.  

       I'd die a thousand deaths for my boys. When I have to say goodbye to them and go to work or drop them off at their mom's, it feels a little bit like dying, anyway. I miss them fiercely, always. Time with them, in their youth, is a precious commodity, and it's slipping through my fingers.

Imperfect

       Having kids has given me a perspective that I didn't have before. Although I think my kids are the best kids in the world, they have their moments when they don't act perfectly.  (Don't let this scare you off ladies...even at their worst, they're pretty great. And I give great back massages, in case you were wondering.) But my love for my kids is always perfect. Love, then, sees past the imperfections to the beautiful soul beneath.

       It's easy enough to see past imperfections with your own kids, but when it comes to dating or relationships, it's different. A lot different. I haven't dated the perfect girl, and I doubt she exists. Everyone has their imperfections, their shortcomings. I guess what it comes down to is whether there is enough of what you're looking for in that person that you can look past their imperfections. 

       My favorite writer, Henry David Thoreau, famously said that he knew "of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." And if someone is continually striving to improve themselves, to overcome imperfections, what more can you ask for? Besides a nice back massage? Did I mention that I give good back massages? Of course I did. And I do the dishes, too, in case you were wondering.

       Look, I get lots of emails from followers of this blog asking me out. Sadly, that is a lie. No one's asked me out.  Not once. Never. But I am very happy about that, because my goal is to entertain you and to make you smile and nothing more.  I mean, who wants to find the girl of their dreams and fall in love? Bah! Humbug! I like this empty house, thank you very much. I like talking to myself. I win most of my arguments that way.

       But if the right girl came along, I could look past her imperfections.

Fashion Solutions

       I think clothing should come with expiration dates, just like food does. When I get salad dressing out of the fridge and I notice that it expired last October, I know that I probably should just throw it away. But I have clothing that's been hanging in my closet for years. While some of it may still be in style, some of it probably isn't. And for a single guy trying to get lucky, apparel can make or break you. Because if there's one thing I know, it's that women will only be interested in you if you are fashionably dressed.

       The problem is, I don't have a clue about what's in style.  I bought a shirt at the mall not too long ago. I got it at a clothing store that primarily targets high school-aged kids. Nonetheless, it was a decent enough looking shirt, so I bought it in my size without trying it on. The first time I tried it on after I got home, I thought I had accidentally bought the wrong size. The shirt felt two sizes too small. But no, I checked the tag. It was my size. So I started wondering--are teenagers really puny now? Or are tight, tight shirts in style? I still don't know the answer to that.

       Now, back to my point: Let's say that I'm getting ready to go out on the town, like a jungle cat on the prowl. I look through the closet, reach for a shirt, check the tag, and see that the label says "Best When Worn Before October 1996." To me, the shirt looks fine. But the label is a clear warning that I better not wear this shirt unless I want to remain alone for the foreseeable future. So I get out the tight, tight shirt that I bought at the teenage clothing store and I know that the ladies will LOVE how I look, because this shirt has not expired.

       But you can't just put expiration dates on clothes and be done with it. Clothes also need "Clothing Interaction Labels," similar to drug interaction labels. Just because the particular piece of clothing you are considering wearing isn't out of date, it doesn't mean that you can wear it with just anything. Black socks should come with a Clothing Interaction Label that says "Caution: Do Not Wear With Cargo Shorts. Or Any Shorts At All, You Dumb Ass."

       That's what the clothing industry needs: expiration dates and Clothing Interaction Labels. Then all of us single guys can look good and turn heads and get lucky...wait wait wait. I just realized the problem with my idea. If clothing had expiration dates and Clothing Interaction Labels, then all of us guys would be on a more or less even playing field, fashion-wise. Would that make things easier or more difficult with the ladies? Would I have to develop my personality to keep my edge? Do I even have an edge? Or a personality?

       Maybe messing with the natural order of things just isn't worth the price.

My Dating Standards

            Some may call me picky, but when it comes to dating, I have standards. Allegedly. The following is a true-to-life list of reasons that I’ve either declined to date someone or immediately stopped dating someone:

1.      Her teeth had rotted out. Most of them.

2.      She used the word “seen” in the following manner: “I seen you at the store the other day.” If you have to ask what’s wrong with that sentence, I will not date you, either.

3.      She wore a cell phone holster on her belt.

4.      She smelled like cat urine.

5.      She smelled like a skunk.

6.      She told me she once was possessed by a demon and had to have a priest perform an exorcism.

7.      She had a bad hairstyle that she thought looked good. No reasonable person would have thought her hairstyle looked good.

8.      She was going bald.

9.      She had more facial hair than me.

10.  She had more arm hair than me.

11.  She had more leg hair than me.

12.  She had more back hair than me (ladies, there are remedies for too much body hair).

13.  She had a crush on the Menendez brothers.

14.  She had a crush on Lorena Bobbitt.

15.  Her favorite animal was a unicorn. She was 30 years old.

16.  She looked like a boy.

17.  Neither of her eyes were lazy. At all. In fact, they were much too active.

18.  At dinner, she finished her entrée, then finished mine.

19.  I could hear her breathing from across the room. A crowded room.

20.  She had a boyfriend.

21.  She had a husband.

22.  She had a girlfriend.

23.  She found a can of beer in her purse and wondered aloud how it got there.

24.  She liked to eat pigs’ feet.

25.  She placed a dead rose in the driver’s seat of my car.

26.  She had a belching problem.

27.  She forgot my name.

28.  She asked how much money I made.

29.  She “shotgunned” snot out of her nose. I would have given her a pass on this if she would’ve been jogging or engaging in some sort of strenuous activity. But it happened in a restaurant parking lot after dinner.

30.  A football team was in town for a bowl game. Late at night, downtown, there were some drunk football players staggering along the sidewalk. She told them how much they sucked and tried to start a fight with them.

31.  Her brother had a crush on me.

32.  She listened to Barry Manilow. This might be a forgivable sin, but she made me listen to Barry Manilow, too.

33.  She wanted to be an astronaut, but she was much too dumb for that career choice to be even remotely possible.

Valentine's Day Massacre

               Since Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, I thought I’d tell you about my favorite Valentine’s Day memory. I’m confident that this memory is the reason I tend to refer to Valentine’s Day as Halloween. I don’t call it that because I’m trying to be funny. I think it’s some sort of psychological thing where I say “Halloween” when I mean to say “Valentine’s Day.” For example, I might ask a friend, “What are you doing for Halloween—I mean Valentine’s Day?”

            On this particular Valentine’s Day, I had been dating a girl, whom I’ll call “Ann” to protect her identity from her fellow inmates, for a fairly short amount of time. By the way, don’t confuse her with the other “Ann” I’ve talked about. Ann is just the name I’m going to use for all the girls I’ve dated. All three of them. And for clarification, this Ann isn’t necessarily an inmate in a correctional institution. But she’s not necessarily not an inmate in a correctional institution, either.

            Ann and I hadn’t been dating long, but long enough that we were fairly comfortable with each other. We got along because we made each other laugh and because we had similar neuroses. We laughed at each other’s weaknesses or screw ups and neither of us took it personally when the other laughed. I liked her, but it was probably puppy love, because I was only twenty-six at the time.

Things were going well with Ann, well enough that I thought that she could be The One, and when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I decided to get her a tennis bracelet. I don’t know why I bought her a tennis bracelet and not an ice hockey bracelet, probably because tennis is a girl’s sport and Ann was a girl (she still is a girl...maybe I shouldn’t have used past tense in this case). All I know is that the jewelry store didn’t have any NASCAR bracelets or I would have gotten her one of those, for sure.

 When I arrived at her apartment on Valentine’s Day for our date, I left the bracelet in the car because I wanted to wait until after dinner to give it to her. Ann greeted me at the door and invited me in. Her face looked troubled, as though she had received bad news. Or was about to deliver bad news. Maybe she’s just constipated, I thought.

I went inside and we sat down. I asked her what was wrong, preparing myself to tell her that maybe her constipation woes would benefit from Metamucil. As it turned out, she wasn’t constipated. When I pressed her on this, she was adamant that she was having normal bowel movements, thank you very much.  

What was troubling her was that she wanted to break up.

I was stunned. “Why?” I asked, inquiringly.

“Because you’re so gorgeous that if I look at you too long, I think I might die,” she said.

“Because you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and I don’t feel like I deserve you,” she said.

“Because I have a terminal illness and I don’t want you to waste your time with me when there’s no future for us,” she said.

She didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she said something diplomatic about how she simply didn’t want to be in a relationship, that it wasn’t me, it was her, etc. She then said, “I bought you a present,” and handed me a wrapped box. I opened it. It was a t-shirt. It was nice. “You don’t have to keep it, if you don’t want,” she added.

                                            
            She had been as nice about it as she could, except for breaking the news to me on that particular day. I kept the present. It was small consolation for having my heart ripped out on Valentine’s Day. 

            You can be sure, though, that I didn’t give her the tennis bracelet.

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Ann Ran, Man

A girl I went to college with recently e-mailed me and said that she had found my blog and was surprised that I hadn’t written about our dating adventures. Ask and ye shall receive.

This girl, whom I’ll refer to as “Ann” to protect her identity and reputation in the community, was in several of my college classes. What first drew my attention to her was her striking resemblance to the singer Jewel. She kind of looked like Renee Zellweger, too. I once told her that she looked like Renee Zellweger. This, it turned out, offended her, which surprised me because the reaction that I expected to receive from that compliment was some giggling, blushing, and maybe a prolonged makeout session in the back of our Energy for Society class.

Nope. All I managed to do was offend her. This taught me a valuable lesson, which was that under no circumstance should I ever tell Ann that she looked like Renee Zellweger. I most definitely decided not to tell her that she looked like Jewel. She probably hated Jewel, too.

In addition to hating attractive celebrities, Ann was also athletic and competitive. Everyone who knows me knows that I am not athletic even though I think that I am athletic. This delusion makes me competitive, too. Anyway, Ann knew that I liked to work out, probably because I always bragged to her about how much weight I could bench press (95 lbs for three reps!) and she invited me to go running with her. I’ve gone running with lots of girls, probably millions of girls, and I’ve always had to go kind of slow so that they could keep up. I expected the same thing with Ann.

The nice guy that I am, I let her set the pace. As it turned out, her pace was approximately 48 miles per hour. Maybe not quite that fast, but I am approximating. Needless to say, I struggled to keep up.  I tried to act like her blistering pace didn’t bother me because, I assumed, she would soon get tired and slow down or end the run altogether.

As it turned out, she could keep up that pace for about three to four miles, maybe more. We ran all over downtown Boise. At one point, we were running down Broadway, a major road with a lot of traffic. Showing no kindness or sympathy, Ann began to really outrun me. Soon she was far enough ahead of me that I hoped that people driving by would assume that I wasn’t running with her, because if they thought I was running with her, then they were in all likelihood laughing at me for not being able to keep up with a girl.

Now, some of you chicks out there might think I’m sexist for thinking that I should be a better runner than the average dame, but I’m not sexist at all. The problem is that society is sexist for thinking that I should be able to run as fast as any girl out there and I don’t like to be laughed at because of it. See how I’m the innocent one?

So there I was, running along, watching as Ann continued to increase the distance between us. She was so far ahead that nobody could possibly think we were running together. And that’s when she humiliated me. She turned around and ran backwards, waving at me to catch up to her. I’m sure everyone driving by had a good laugh at me.

Those sexist pigs.

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