For the first time in my
adult life, most of my female friends, including myself, are currently single.
Many, once in long term relationships, have called it quits while others have
been steadily playing the dating game for years. Despite how we all ended up
here, one thing seems to remain the same; no one is particularly having a good
time. It’s like we are all living in a romantic comedy, but Ryan Gosling is not
playing the male lead, it’s (several years) too long, and no one is laughing.
When I get together with my
girlfriends, the stories we share make me lose faith in love and gain faith in
Xanax. A close friend of mine just ended it with a guy who would cry during sex
but wouldn’t shed a tear for anything else (including the death of his
childhood dog), and I recently went out with one who told me if it was ever
going to work out in the long run, I had to have threesomes. That’s right
ladies and gentleman; if I wanted any sort of commitment, I had to eat vagina
for breakfast.
What ever happened to boy
meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy, boy actually calls girl, they date,
they laugh, they get it on, and they live happily ever after (at least for a
little while)?
It seems dating has basically
become one giant game of Monopoly. It always sounds like a good idea and is
supposed to be a fun way to kill some time, but half way through you wonder why
you wanted to play in the first place; meanwhile someone is probably cheating
or completely controlling the board, and all you are trying to do is stay afloat
until your next turn. It leaves you exhausted, possibly broke, and someone usually
ends up pissed off and disheveled.
Everything has become way
more complicated than it should be; wait three days to call. Don’t text first
or back too soon to avoid seeming too eager. Show enough interest in someone so
they don’t get discouraged and look elsewhere, but don’t develop any actual
feelings or risk being shunned like a red headed step child. And even when you
meet someone you find interesting, you should probably keep your options open
in case something better comes along, but don’t get offended if someone doesn’t
think the sun shines out of solely your ass and is doing the same.
It’s a power struggle, and it
seems the only way to succeed is to be the one who cares less because you can’t
get hurt if you never get invested. Was it Confucius who said, “(S)he who
becomes the object of desire in any relationship is the one who gives the least
amount of fucks?”
Insert eye roll emoji here.*
Can we all just get over
ourselves for a few minutes? It shouldn’t be this serious. If you like someone,
tell them. If you are thinking about them, text/call them. If you aren’t, quick
being a dick. Think they are sexy? Kiss their face. If you wouldn’t bang
them with someone else’s genitals, tell them (in a nicer way, ya savage). Stop
constantly trying to prove you don’t give a shit if you actually do, and stop
wasting other people’s valuable time if you don’t.