SJ: Tips from the Wreckage

Happy Valentine’s Day, folks.

I imagine, if you’re a person who can read, there’s a good likelihood you think this is the dumbest holiday ever invented. Sorry, let me amend that – if you’re a person who can read and who doesn’t have a construction paper Valentine’s Day “mailbox” scotch-taped to your school desk right now, I imagine there’s a good likelihood you think this is the dumbest holiday ever invented. If you do have a construction paper mailbox taped to your school desk right now, then I grant you that this is a pretty awesome holiday, so enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s not that I’m down on love or romance, I am actually very up on love and romance. But something about the choreographed effort to dedicate one tiny day a year to the celebration of romantic love has always struck me as both thorny and phony. If you’re single, well... you’re single, and it can be a not-great day. If your coupled-up, then there’s the pressure to do something amazing, or alternately, the mutually arrived at “who cares, we love each other every day, screw this dumb holiday” route, which can leave you wondering… why aren’t we out doing something amazing? Hard to come out on top on this one.

But then, as exactly everyone alive already knows, it’s next to impossible to come out on top in the love game any day of the year. The romance/dating/love arena is a target-rich environment when it comes to failure, and though I somehow managed to get myself married earlier this year (which those who know me must count as a kind of straight-up miracle), in the long slog of life before that, my romantic failures were too numerous to count, and in some cases, too depressing to recount. So, rather than try to extract only one from the wreckage, I’m going to boil down this Valentine’s Day failure installment to a handful of suggestions, let’s say -- a list that if I could, I’d slip into my own construction paper mailbox, in the hopes that in the years between then and now, I might have felt less completely stupid at least somewhat less of the time. Here goes:

1. Do not surprise your sixth grade boyfriend with a picnic under the playground equipment at your grade school, especially if the picnic includes lit votives and plastic champagne coups filled with sparkling apple juice. Your sixth grade boyfriend has not been watching the same movies you have, and this isn’t going to seem romantic to him, it’s going to seem creepy and terrifying. Also, do not later break up with this boyfriend, citing the need to start junior high school with a “clean slate.” You are not going to meet any awesome boys in junior high. You are not, in fact, going to meet any boys more awesome than your sixth grade boyfriend for a long, long time.

2. That boy you do meet in junior high, the one who’s a 9th grader, and a great cross- country runner, and who looks like Eric from The Little Mermaid? He’s a born again Christian and he’s going to give his next girlfriend a framed glossy 8x10 of himself for Christmas. Just don’t bother with him at all. Really, skip it.

3. When you’re in high school, don’t steal your best friend’s boyfriend. Then, a year later, don’t steal that same best friend’s next boyfriend. It makes you a terrible person, and – be real - it’s not going to work out anyway.

4. Don’t, on a dare, get involved with the 21-year-old volunteer fireman/ Seventeen Magazine model who chaperones your high school trip to New York City.

5. Actually, you know what, do get involved with that guy. That wasn’t so bad. If you overlook the fact that he had also dated your best friend, the one whose boyfriends you keep stealing. But at least he wasn’t dating her at the time. Making progress.

6. In college, you’re probably gonna wanna rethink getting involved with your teacher.

7. In grad school, you’re probably gonna wanna rethink getting involved with your teacher.

8. After grad school, you’re probably gonna wanna rethink getting involved with your boss.

9. After that, it’s a good idea to notice patterns and go to therapy.

10. Understand that after you do attend to previous terrible patterns, there’s still plenty of time to develop new terrible patterns.

11. Remember, what starts as someone else’s failure can easily transfer to your own. “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…etc.” Example: that guy who took you on a first date to a cigar bar so he could smoke cigars, and then took you on a second date to the same cigar bar so he could smoke cigars --- don’t go on a third date with that guy, unless you’ve really taken a shine to that particular cigar bar. That guy doesn’t like you. Or want to eat food with you. Or be seen in public with you. You get that, right?

12. Don’t feel like you ever need to relax your definition of “hoarder.” You know what a hoarder is. Back away and out the door – provided you can still find a path to it.

13. At some point, figure out what “discretion” means, shut your mouth, and stop talking about your personal life on the internet.

14. (redacted).

And there you have it.

Happy red-heart holiday, everyone. Let’s have a toast to all the humiliations past and future, and throw back some bubbly with the knowledge that… for the most part, we really have enjoyed the ride.

Cheers.

MD: Beware the boy next door

I like to think that I have been a kind and sensitive lover. That is until I remember how I treated high school girlfriends. In my adolescence, I was guilty of being a teenage girl’s troubling interference: the closeted gay kid who didn’t quite get it. Gay boyfriends can damage high school girls in ways that are less obvious and mean than what douchey straight guys do, but still, we offer the false promise of what a boyfriend can be (that gentle guy who drives you and all your girlfriends to the mall to wander through Esprit and Benetton, and likes to talk for hours on the phone about his feelings and dreams) until he denies you the romance that you crave. If this guy seems too good to be true, then he probably is.

So, to atone for my sins, I’d like to offer some personal tell-tale signs that may help the next generation of impressionable girls to avoid the same frustration that my high school girlfriends suffered.

Firstly, if your taste in music and movies overlap to the extent that a Venn diagram of common interests would show one fully-filled circle, then he may have some ‘splaining to do. Does he own the complete symphonic recording of Les Misérables? Does he have, off the top of his head, a substantial knowledge of Angela Lansbury’s career? If so, you may have a problem. If he doesn’t want to watch Beaches, Dirty Dancing or Steel Magnolias with you, this could be ok. But, if he doesn’t want to watch them with you because he saw them opening night in the theater with his mom, than…yeah…this doesn’t look so great.

Very few straight teenage boys will happily look through your photo albums. Gay Boyfriend will do so uninvited, especially if they might feature snapshots of your brother’s football career at Princeton.

The wonderful thing about Gay Boyfriend is that he will not pressure you into sex. He will give you time to feel comfortable and ready, even if it means waiting until you defend your Master’s thesis. You will most likely be taking the driver’s seat with physical intimacy. If kissing and cuddling is where things plateau, expect to learn about a sudden devotion to God and religion that prevents him from bringing things to the next level. But if you really want to call his bluff, go for his belt buckle and be prepared to see him burst into tears because Our Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins and we repay his ultimate sacrifice with our carnal lust.

The relationship will end one of two ways; either Gay Boyfriend will cite some vague reason for why things aren’t working out and bail, or he will stay in the relationship while blocking any physical advance. The latter tactic is to smoke you out, so that you dump him, making him the victim who asks, “why is it, that girls just don’t seem to like me?”

Gay Boyfriend is damaging to girls who cannot fathom how a sensitive man, who gets on so well with you, recoils at your touch. It will end with this young lady thinking that she is unattractive and unable to win his affections. This is unfair and untrue, but don’t expect a young gay man to correct that before he’s had about ten or fifteen years of therapy to connect those dots.

I’m sure that this current generation of teenagers are way more aware of their own and of their prospective partners’ sexual orientation than we were. Still, it’s good to remember, Straight Ladies, that that well-groomed man with the twin pugs named Lucy and Desi who seems to be too good to be true? Probably is. You know what else is too good to be true? Unicorns. Exactly!