Warcorpse here with yet another group of morons and idiots to watch out for as you go about your daily life. These morons are separated into men and women.

Women who think that all other women are their sisters. You’ve heard these dunces before I’m sure. Screaming things like ”We’re all sisters” and “Help your sisters” or something like that. Usually they’re some psycho feminists spraying man hate because because because. Oh fuck it just pick what ever stupid reason they use for that week. Well ladies I have news for you YOUR NOT ALL SISTERS! If you share both or one birth parent then guess what your sisters if you do not then YOUR NOT!!! Your friends and acquaintances. Case Closed. So please stop going around saying all women are sisters on some level.

Women who think that being a woman is some sort of talent. you’ve seen this shit I’m sure. Women who walk around with pins or buttons and go to festivals like Women’s Pride or The Joy of Womanhood. Being a woman doesn’t require any talent it’s just the result of a genetic coin flip. I thought that pride was reserved for something you accomplished like going into space for example. Have you really done nothing in your life that you have to go with what gender you are and take pride in that. Ladies if your like this here’s a suggestion go to your boss and ask him or her something, anything that you do their that no one else does. I’m sure if they want to keep you they’ll think of something.

Now on to the men

Men who think that becoming a man is some sort of long difficult process. IT”S NOT! How a boy becomes a man is not that difficult. At thirteen or so he starts pubuerty that lasts for several long and annoying years finally ending somewhere between sixteen and nineteen roughly. At the end he’s now a fully grown adult male. A MAN But they’ll counter back with well that’s not a REAL man. Oh yes thathoarse shit. Being a good man isn’t all that difficult either. Treat people nicely and with tolerance. Help elderly people if they’re struggling with something. Resist the urge to beat your wife after she overcooks the roast for the seventh damn TIME! and that’s pretty much it.

Men who constantly tell guys like me ”You need to be a leader in your community!” and my personal response to that is WHY! Now if my neighbor’s house is burning down I’ll be the first one over there making sure they’re safe and getting what they need. Be it blankets or just some refreshments or snacks. But if everything is A-OK in the community why in the hell do I have to waste my Saturday planning some stupid Comunity NIght Out or Nieghberhood Picnic. What in the hell do these accomplish outside of just boring people to death and forceing them to converse with people that they couldn’t care less about. Can’t I just sit out on the porch sip a Vodka and Club Soda and relax until a real problem occurs.   

Well that’s enough for now

Warcorpse

I’m striking a blow for closing the gender gap. No, I’m not campaigning for equal pay for equal work, or not having women’s careers suffer because it falls to our gender to push the next generation into the world after it masses at our pelvises for 9 months, or even for research into treatment for post-menopausal libido and getting tight-fisted insurance companies to actually pay for it the way they throw money at erectile dysfunction. Nope. I wish I could be so lofty-minded and reach so far, but I am carrying on my crusade in a different way.

For years I’ve been told that men objectify women simply because men are more visually-oriented. “Men can’t help their inability to look past your breasts, butt, legs, eyes, or lips—it is in their biology. They are just more visually-oriented.” And, I’ve also heard it said that looks aren’t as important to women as they are to men. Men look for women who are arm-candy and women look for men with “personality” and “stability”.

And this is where I make my stand. If guys are going to look at me and evaluate me based on my looks before they ever get to know me, then I say turnabout is fair play. Let’s see just how far personality gets you, jackass.

I’m not suggesting that I’m going to start evaluating every guy I meet based on looks. Not at all. I’m saying I already do that. And if that sounds shallow to you men out there, consider what you look at when you first meet a woman. Is it her character? Is it her sparkling wit? Or is it whether the junk in her trunk offsets the allure of her blouse bunnies?

I tweeze, tone, exfoliate, watch what I eat, aerobicize, groom, choose to wear clothes that fit, close my mouth when I chew my food, and only eat spinach in public with extreme caution. But, culturally-speaking, I’m supposed to get excited about a guy who has made no effort with his health or appearance or manners solely because he’s single and, according to his doting mother, has a great personality? That hardly seems fair. Especially since he’s looking at my breasts trying to figure out exactly what percentage is me and what percentage is gel bra, all while I’m supposed to be admiring his inner beauty.

Yep, men you are on notice. For me, it just isn’t good enough for you to maintain a steady diet of junk-food and pair it with no exercise and rumpled clothes from the bottom of your closet that you’ve owned since college. You aren’t 17 anymore, your mother shouldn’t still be choosing your underwear for you. It isn’t the mid-90s anymore so unless you are a lumberjack there is no reason to wear over-sized, raggedy flannel shirts. Unless you are McSteamy, Santa, Freud, ZZ Top, or Wolverine, forget the facial hair. I don’t care if Justin Timberlake is wearing a beard, on you it isn’t bringing sexy back, its bringing back Neanderthal man. And, unless you are actually on a basketball court, there is no good reason to wear those awful polyester basketball shorts.

Despite the myth of conventional wisdom, women are into looks. We’re not solely into looks, but we are into them. After all, they don’t put fat guys with lots of back hair on the cover of romance novels. Here’s the difference in how we approach and value attractiveness: men look at women as if we are already furnished, designer decorated houses, but women look at men more like fixer-upper homes, the kind that need a lot of work. Guys look at their brides (who starved themselves for a couple months to fit in that stupid dress) as if they’ll always look that way. Brides look at their grooms and think, “Well, it’s a start. But what is going on with his hair?”

Women are not involved with a guy for too long before we start the improvement process. And it is a process. At restaurants we’ll get you to try our salads. In stores we will see something better than anything in your closet and work our flattery to get you to try it on. When people move in together the socks, underwear, and t-shirts with holes in them start to mysteriously disappear—maybe it was a “laundry mishap”, maybe it was leprechauns, who knows. Without you even having to think about it or make an effort you have healthier cereal in the cupboard and dentist and doctor appointments scheduled for you. We remind you to get haircuts. We tell you when you have spinach in your teeth. We tell you not to wear the wrinkled shirt or that really ugly tie. We go to the gym with you. We gently suggest that you abandon the comb-over because it isn’t fooling anyone.

This is why we get so pissed off when you tell us something makes us look fat. Who wants to take fashion advice from the guy who thinks his dumpy, worn out corduroy shorts are still dope?

I have heard my male friends go on and on about the acceptable amount of cellulite on a woman’s body, the proper length of hair and shade of highlights, and adequate skin care regimens. They have opinions on everything from the kinds of heels we should wear to attract them, to the great importance of a well-maintained landing strip. These dear, dear men of my acquaintance think nothing of women devoting all this time and energy to make themselves attractive to men. And yet, I haven’t heard any of these paragons talk about improving themselves so women will be interested in them. So, in the interest of equality and full-disclosure, here are a couple of my must haves for the male species.
•    Trim your nose hair. If it looks like you have a cheap toupee bunched in each nostril, or even if it looks like a couple spider legs creeping out of your nose, it is time to trim. Use scissors, a trimmer, a weed whacker, garden shears, I don’t care. Just trim it. I find that even the guys who seem to care about their appearances are prone to overlooking this one. How am I supposed to carry on a conversation with you when I’m watching something from your nose reach out to tickle your lip?
•    Health—more than a class you slept through in high school. Sedentary lifestyles and poor diets contribute to obesity and it’s myriad health problems. You don’t have to be an Iron Man competitor or a nutritionist, but it is nice to know a guy gets some exercise on a regular basis and has a basic understanding that what he eats affects his health. I don’t want to wonder if he is actively attempting to get type II diabetes, or have to check to make sure he has his heart medication and portable defibrillator when we go out.
•    Fit isn’t just for condoms. How in or out of style your clothes are isn’t as important as whether or not your clothes fit. That said, it helps if your clothing looks like it belongs in the current decade and is age- and activity-appropriate. If you have gained weight, lost weight, had a growth spurt, or just had a bad experience doing laundry, it is probably time to go shopping. Tugging buttons on a shirt or your pants make you look fatter than you are. Things that are too big and sloppy make you look like a hobo. If your belly sticks out from under your shirt…you really need help.
•    Hygiene, it’s not just for women. We’re not talking about manscaping, back-waxing, or eye-brow tweezing, nope we’re talking about regular showers, deodorant use, tooth brushing and flossing. Am I stating the bleeding obvious? Yes. But I say it anyway because I find plenty of guys neglecting it and that just amazes me. If you feel like doing the rest of that stuff, that’s fine, but make sure you take care of the basics. I don’t care how good your eye-brows look if you smell like you’ve been cleaning a pig-sty during a heat-wave in August. And, I don’t care how dandy your conversational skills are if your breath smells like road kill.
•    Manners. Good manners show respect to those around you. When a guy chews with his mouth open, holds his fork like a bike handle, takes calls from other people while we are out together, ignores the living, breathing person in front of him in favor of texting, or is rude to my friends. We don’t have a future.

Well, there it is, my bare minimum. This is not to say that any guy who trims his nose hair, eats well, exercises, dresses with some degree of skill, doesn’t stink, and chews with his mouth closed automatically gets a second look, but it certainly increases his chances.

When a person is writing a work of fiction there’s pressure to make sure the characters are “believable,” that they sound true to life so readers aren’t jarred out of their happy cocoon thinking, “Nobody really acts like that.” But real life doesn’t have that constraint. Weird stuff happens and there isn’t always a good explanation for it. People think things that don’t have to make sense, they just are. You can think you know what you’re getting in a person and, unlike a good novel that gives you hints and foreshadowing, you can get surprised. Today, in the final installment of this series, we take another look at why we do the stuff we do, our characters–looking for the foreshadowing in real life.

Refresh Yourself–Part 7:

Character Studies, or

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

(Yes, I completely ripped that line off from Billy Corgun. He worked with Courtney Love so he must be used to getting ripped off.)

If it seems like this seven-part diatribe is ever so slightly heavy on the importance of both discerning character and showing it rather than how many hours or days to wait before texting or calling after getting someone’s number, well, it is. There is a simple reason for this chronic refrain, CHARACTER MATTERS.

Comedian Ron White said, “You can’t fix stupid.” And he’s completely right. Stupid is pretty damn permanent. But, I’d like to add that you also can’t fix a lack of character. Character is either there or it isn’t.

By the time we’re grown up and let loose on the unsuspecting dating world, our characters are pretty much set—for better or worse. When life strips away our youth, looks, success, fortune, health, complaisance, badass persona, and all the other crap we spend our lives focusing on, all that remains is our character. If you don’t consider character to begin with, only the attractive frame and bundle of mutual interests or suitable pedigree blinking before you and your strong desire not to be single, then you deserve the box of chocolates you’re linked to—because you never know what you’re gonna get.*

Why, oh, why am I harping on this? I harp because character affects everything we do. Character development says it’s wrong to lie and to cheat, both issues fairly important in relationships. It also indicates what’s ultimately important to us, our core values, which will influence how we spend our money** and how we raise our children. You don’t have to look at too many divorced couples to know how unhappy mismatched values can make people.

But, despite the massive impact character will have on our relationships it is generally not a consideration when people start dating. First, we give people the once over and decide whether or not they satisfy our criteria for what we consider attractive. Next, we discern whether they find us attractive too. If all goes well, we spend time together discovering our mutual interests. Based on how that goes we either become a couple or go our separate ways. Couplehood can then lead to cohabitation and/or marriage. But when do we ask ourselves if this person is a good person?

And that is not always easy to see because people do the right things for a variety of reasons, not all of them very good. But reasons, and not only the end result, also matter. For example, just because someone is volunteering or singing in church doesn’t make them a good person. Volunteer work might give them an edge in getting accepted to a particular school or program. Singing in church could be because they like sound of their own voice and grandstanding in front of a captive audience. Maybe they don’t give a crap about any of it but simply can’t say no when asked to do something. Maybe they just do what is expected like an actor on a stage, quietly resenting it. Different motivations cast the exact same behavior into vastly different lights. When we care for someone we are more apt to see that person’s behavior in a favorable light regardless of the truth.

Culturally, we worship at the shrine of attraction, ranking character way the hell below chemistry and only slightly above our respective tolerance for webbed feet or outie bellybuttons. Maybe we figure that if the other person finds us attractive and interesting they must be a good person, after all, they like us. So, is chemistry important? Absolutely. We want to find out more about people we find attractive, interesting, and compelling. Hopefully, that fascination will lead us to a deeper understanding of the other person and what makes them tick. Ideally, we’ll find out something about what their core values are before we put our hearts on the line.

But it isn’t just our hearts we’re putting on the line. I was thinking about this the other day and it seemed as if it all comes down to this question:  Does this person have my back? Or, even better, Is this someone I can trust with my power of attorney if I’m incapacitated? Because that is what you really need to know—when you are at your most vulnerable, will this person who has captivated you and revved up your libido have your best interests at heart. Sexy? Romantic? Not so much. But pretty damn important if you’re in a coma or under general anesthesia.

Life can be a funny thing, amazingly beautiful one moment and then one mofo of a nightmare the next. God forbid this ever happens to you, but a car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a child with autism, a military deployment, a lay-off, and everything changes. Here’s hoping, that this person who seems to adore you so much when everything is a dream come true will hold your hand and help you if it becomes a nightmare. In the end, that is a tad more important than how many days to wait before contacting someone after you score digits.

*Yes, I know, I ripped off/borrowed that line from Forrest Gump. It is a borrowing kind of day.

**Considering that money is the #1 thing that couples fight about, this should not be treated lightly. When you’re dating it might seem cute that she’s racking up debt to look gorgeous for you, but that charm wears thin when she’s burning through your savings for Versace’s spring collection and you can’t make your mortgage payment.

And, there it is. The thing we generally think of last is the thing that we should think of first, but we probably won’t. As always, thanks for reading. Tune in again next Monday for a look at my irritation at the gender gap.

Welcome to yet another Monday installment. Today we look into love. I think, after having tried it the other way too many times, that Machiavelli may be on to something–it may be better to be feared than to be loved. People who love you are capable of crossing you up, people who are afraid of you know better than to try to. However, fear isn’t nearly as attractive an emotion to elicit in another person.

Refresh Yourself–Part 6:

Everyone Says I Love You

In the words of Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do with it?” Love, such a strong feeling, and so creepy. It isn’t just a many splendored thing, it is a confusing, painful, misleading thing too. By the time we’re nearing 30 we probably should have learned that love is a scary proposition. Love makes us vulnerable and strong, it gives us expectations and excuses, it intoxicates us with joy and hurts so much we can scarcely draw breath, it sends our paradoxical natures into overdrive. We seem to do our best and our worst for those we love. But despite being such a strong driving force in our lives, love has been subject to all sorts of myths, misconceptions, and unreasonable expectations.

Myth 1:  Falling in love means you are meant to be together. Hell no. It is possible to fall deeply, passionately in love with a complete loser you shouldn’t give the time of day to or take candy from—thus the need to be careful who you date. If you date morons, jerks, and sluts, it increases your chances of falling in love with a moron, a jerk, or a slut. Sadly, it also increases your chances of marrying morons, jerks, and sluts. In the course of somewhere around three decades of life the average person has probably fallen in love at least once. If they are back in the dating pool after this magical experience then it is probably safe to say that love did not spell out destiny in the stars. I’m not saying love can’t great, but it is wise to keep in mind what it is and what it isn’t. Being in love means that you have amorous feelings for the other person and that’s about it. You loving them doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not the person you love is a good person, or if they love you back, or if they will treat you with even a modicum of respect. The realization that you are in love is simply a clarification of your feelings toward the other person—that’s it.

Myth 2:  If a person tells you they love you they must mean it. Women are probably more acquainted with this concept than men because straight boys will say anything to get into a woman’s pants and they learn early on that “I love you” is right up there with “open sesame”. This word of wisdom is for guys who are more familiar with using this tactic than having it used on them. It is a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless that people are capable of saying pretty much anything to get what they want. For example, think of just about every job listing out there—regardless of the position they’re all looking for “self-starters” who work well “independently” but are also great “team players” devoted to helping achieve “personal and company goals” at a “high level” all while maintaining the “highest ethical standards” and can solve third-world debt, but how many of the people who get hired are really all of those things? Perhaps a few paragons are, but the rest of the workforce told the interviewers what they wanted to hear. Dating is nothing so much as an agonizingly prolonged job interview for the position of spouse/life partner. If we are capable of lying through our teeth to rise to the top of middle-management, what are we capable of doing for even the possibility of love and acceptance? Shoot, forget forever, what are we capable of simply to get a date to our reunion? So again, this is another example of needing to be careful with your feelings because people lie.

Myth 3: Falling in love is always about the person. In the course of a day how many times do you think you hear, see, or use the word love? How many times does that actually refer to a person? We are forever falling in love, just not always with people. We might tell a person we love them, when what we really love is that they find us attractive. Some people love that you are not their insensitive ex and that they get to be the bastard for a change. Other people are just in love with the idea of being in love and the person they love could be anyone with a pulse. Gold-diggers can fall madly in love with a person’s bank balance and credit rating. A woman with a biological clock ticking like a bomb can love that a guy represents her chance to start a family before menopause. With all this love flying around it is a good idea to examine what you really love because the other person deserves to be loved for their own sake just as much as you do.

Myth 4: It’s only words. What we say used to mean something, at least that’s what the Frank Capra movies make it look like. People used to say their word was their bond but now we say one thing one moment and something else the next, as if our short attention spans give us the right to be contradictory twits. Yet for as disposable as words have become, there is a strange disconnect with “I love you” that makes it the Bermuda Triangle of sentiment. It is this wonky double standard where we can say “I love you” and think that it shouldn’t mean too much, but heaven help us if someone tells us that they love us because that, my friend, has to be written in stone. Or sometimes, it is the reverse, where the person saying “I love you” really, really means it and is ready to pick out china patterns, but the person hearing it is either so used to hearing it or so skeptical that they don’t invest it with the same importance. Personally, I think the saying should be, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will leave me sobbing in the fetal position on a shrink’s couch.” Too long? While there is no way to guarantee that the person telling you they love you means it, you can set a precedent for yourself and use that phrase only when you mean it.

Myth 5: You can make someone love you. No matter what you do, no matter how perfect you are, no matter how long you are together, no matter how much you love a person, you just can’t make someone love you. If you think this is stating the obvious too much, then watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. Thinking you can earn someone’s love or persuade them to see things your way if you work hard enough, is a recipe for insanity. Not only can we not make people love us, we also can’t make them love us the way we want to be loved. We can do all sort of things to persuade someone that we love them and that we are worthy of their love, but in the end they will feel the way they are going to feel and there is nothing we can do about it. Free will can be a real bitch.

As always, thanks for reading. And in parting, I put it to you, when should a person not say “I love you”? I’m just curious what the consensus is. Oh, and for today’s musical selection we have “Caring is Creepy” by The Shins. Next Monday is the series conclusion, a reflection on character.

Happy freakin’ Monday. What better day of the week to talk about break-ups? I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but it seems as if all at once it was no longer okay to indulge in bad feelings toward an ex after a break-up. Oh, no, we had to all be friends, anger was passe. Well, I would like to bring back some anger and good, old-fashioned anti-social behavior. Justin Timberlake tried to bring back sexy, I’m bringing back angry. If I call it vintage, maybe it will catch on.

Refresh Yourself–Part 5:

You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine

Don’t expect to be friends after a break-up. This might feel wrong when everybody is grown-up and dedicated to feigning maturity, but it isn’t. If you liked each other well enough to start dating, then there is a good chance that one or both of you has some strong feelings invested in the relationship—feelings likely to get hurt when the relationship ends. And, when feelings get hurt the potential for things to get messy goes up exponentially.

In this age of rampant fakeness there is an almost overwhelming push be friends with one’s exes. But why? Do you really care so much about the person you dumped that you want to maintain a friendship? Are you really okie-dokie fine just being pals with the person who broke up with you? Sometimes it seems as if we have become so afraid of having to take a course of action that has adverse consequences that we chose a placating middle-ground, a faux friendship that satisfies no one.

Look, I’m not saying it is impossible to be friends after a break-up, I’m simply saying that you shouldn’t automatically expect that you and your ex will be friends after you split. See, generally, the person doing the breaking up isn’t as interested in being BFFs as they are interested in not having someone alive in the world wishing that they would be attacked by a komodo dragon with a bad spleen. And, generally, the person being kicked to the curb isn’t as interested in being chums as they are in pretending they are unaffected by this latest rejection, or looking for a way to desperately hang onto even a piece of someone who does not want them.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to stay friends, it is probably best to keep your expectations low. At best, going from being a couple to platonic acquaintances represents a period of readjustment. At worst, it lands you on the evening news as a murder/suicide like the late Phil Hartman and his wife. More frequently, we navigate tricky grounds somewhere between these extremes.

If you instigate the break-up and want to stay friends, you have to realize that the other person may not want to be friends or may not be able be friends—now or ever. And you have to accept that. Much as you may think it would be great for everyone to get along as if your whole dating episode together didn’t fizzle out and necessitate a conclusion, the other person may need time, therapy, and several episodes of Oprah to come to the same conclusion. Hard as that may be on you, breaking up means that the other person has regained their autonomy and you no longer have a claim on them or their friendship, just as then no longer have a claim on you.

If you are the one being dumped, then it is time for another bout of brutal honesty, first with yourself and then with your soon-to-be-ex. Honestly assess whether you really can be friends and then, just as honestly, share that with the person who broke your heart or bruised your ego—whatever is more painful for you. Being mature doesn’t mean you have to pretend you are okay watching someone you love date someone else, it means you have the right and responsibility to remove yourself from a situation that will only hurt you.

Thanks for reading and please join us next Monday when we will explore some of the scariest damn words in the English language, “I love you.” Makes me shiver just to type that...

I know I said I was going to post this yesterday, but it was a holiday weekend so I’m posting today. Sorry. Hope that didn’t get anyone’s knickers in a twist. As the fourth post in my series, we are now exploring some of the etiquette involved in a return to the dating world. Funny, for as much as we lie and gloss over, when it comes to saying stupid and insensitive things we are suddenly on the truth bandwagon like it is going out of style. Especially when it comes to talking about our exes. This post addresses the tendency to be an insensitive prick to the new people in our lives.

Refresh Yourself–Part 4:

Three Is a Crowd

Even though you’ve defined a portion of your life by your involvement with your most recent ex, for the love of god, don’t talk about your ex all the damn time when you start dating again. Yes, your ex left an impression on your life and it would be ridiculous to pretend it didn’t happen, but when you continually tell the next person in your life all the wonders and faults of your ex and every little thing you did together it goes beyond being rude to being just plain unfair. Constantly throwing references to you ex into conversation with a new person can make that person feel as if they are in competition and constant comparison.*

While the new person in you life can handle and, doubtless, expects to have to hear a few references to the loves of your past, a steady diet of these references will weigh anyone down. Like the deep-fried cheese curds at the state fair, a little of the ode to your ex goes a very long way. During the “getting to know you” phase a person expects to exchange some history, but you don’t have to progress too far from that phase before that person will want to know whether you want to create new memories (possibly together) rather than constantly reliving adventures you had with your ex—he or she wants to know whether or not you have a future together as something other than your therapist, or a sounding board as you rehash your past relationships.

And there you are, left with the delicate dilemma of when it is appropriate to mention your ex and why. This is dicey because cutting out all things relating to your ex would mean cutting out a chunk of history that has made you you. And, troubled, foolhardy, and idiotic as it may have been, you have a right to your history, even the incredibly stupid parts. Reassuring though that may be, it doesn’t provide much guidance when referring to things in your past.

It can happen so quickly, some innocuous observation or event triggers a memory about something with you and your ex and by the time you realize what you are doing you have already started telling the story. This is a good time to think really fast. Here’s hoping you are capable.

If you’re talking about an event that involved you and your ex consider whether or not your ex is strictly essential to the story—basically, what is the story’s point. Is the story you want to tell that new special someone more about that incredibly romantic trip you and your ex took to Jamaica back when you thought your love wasn’t an elaborate lie concocted to crush your soul? Or, is it more about how you developed a deep and abiding love of hammocks while in Jamaica?

If the story is about hammocks, then don’t beat your poor new love-interest over the head with yet another reference to your ex and the life you had together. If you need to refer to your ex you can mention being there with a person or a friend. While this runs the risk of dipping into a shaded area of truth, consider whether, for the purpose of telling someone how much you like hammocks, you are interested in being insensitive with a ham-fisted full-disclosure that throws your ex in this poor new person’s face yet again.

Incidentally, it is also an important moving-on step to be able to give up referring to your ex with words like “my boyfriend” or “my girlfriend”. They aren’t yours anymore. It is possible that they never were yours. Changing the way you refer to an ex can be an important element in letting go.

However, if the point of the story is not about hammocks, but to drone on and on about the romantic trip you and your ex took, reliving your last relationship’s glory days and how absolutely great things were, then this is a good time to brush up on the Golden Rule. It may be that you are so used to being the wronged party that you don’t realize just what an incredible prick you are being to the new person in you life and the Golden Rule can provide perspective. For those with only a vague notion of the Golden Rule it is:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You don’t have to be down with religion to see that what this idea proposes is nothing more than good manners and considering the other person’s feelings. In this case, ask yourself how you’d feel hearing your new/potential significant other wax eloquent about intimate or romantic moments with his or her ex—and then shut the hell up about your own. If you really can’t keep from constantly talking about your ex, it’s time to reconsider whether you’re ready to start dating again.

*To be completely honest, the new person actually is in competition and constant comparison with your ex. That’s just the way it is. We analyze and scrutinize the new things in our life in relation to the past, judging the unknown by the known. That said, keep in mind, oh comparison Grand Mucky-Mucks out there, this new person is comparing you too and if you keep up a constant commentary about your former loves you are not likely to stack up very well. Probably somewhere below people who share their very graphic health histories with perfect strangers in public places.

As always, thank you for reading and please join us next Monday for Part 5 where we’ll explore the wonders of breaking up and the modern mania to stay friends.

So she’s decided to get pregnant and be a mom at 66. So what? How many people do I know (children) who’s fuck up parents can’t handle the responsibility so they (children) get raised by their grandparents? A lot. It happens all the time. Youth is not indicative of ability to parent children. She sounds like she’s together, rich, capable, and willing and able to take on the responsibilities. Therefore: So what?

Personally, I’d shoot myself if I found out I was pregnant. It’s a lot of work, takes a lot of energy and is HARD to be a good parent. At my age (40’s) I sometimes feel overwhelmed, burnt out and exhausted, and sometimes wonder if I have the energy to make it through. If I was in my sixties and trying to take on life’s problems, I’d keel. But if she thinks she can handle a teenager at 80, more power to her.

This being my third post in my series of seven, it seemed like it was time to throw out a few quasi-legal disclaimer statements in case someone is feeling twitchy or offended.
•    First, any similarities in the examples and illustrations I use to my friends’ relationships or mine are a coincidence. Much as our experiences feel unique to us, getting screwed over is fairly universal. And boys, with exceptions for height, weight, and ability to tan, ya’ll are relatively interchangeable, so on the off chance you are reading this, it isn’t all about you.
•    Secondly, my statements are simply my opinions. While I base my opinions on my experiences and observations, I would certainly be the last to claim that there is empirical, verifiable, peer-reviewed evidence for my claims. One would assume this would be implicit in the fact that this is a blog rather than The Economist but then you know what they say about assumptions…
•    My final disclaimer is that even though I’m clearly cynical, bitter, warped, and damaged, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. It means I’m biased, not incorrect.

So, with all that mumbo jumbo out of the way, let us proceed to the topic of the day. In honor of Monday we are going to explore the topic of cheating. Cheating is one of those damaging experiences that has affected most of us directly or indirectly. Not only does it involve a break-up, it involves even more heightened side-taking, blame-laying, disrespect, and out-and-out betrayal.

Refresh Yourself–Part 3:

Cheater Recovery Sucks

Those who have been cheated on have a special cross to bear because they are extra damaged. Mazel tov. Not only do they have the pain of having had a relationship end, they have a whole slew of doubts and insecurities integral to betrayed trust. Not that your trust can’t be betrayed if your ex wasn’t whoring around, but whoring around definitely takes a toll on trust.

And if you made the mistake of marrying the cheater who crapped all over you, it is that much worse because you know that when they stood before you in the presence of God, your families and friends, and the state that sanctioned your ill-fated union, and pledged their life exclusively to you, they lied. You took them for better or worse and they took you for Plan B. Or they changed their mind. Either way, it sucks.

Cheaters seem to fall into two general categories, those who cheat because of a situation and those who cheat because of a compulsion. Situational cheaters might be a neglected spouse who is starved for attention and, while wanting their spouse’s attention, will settle for someone else to keep the loneliness at bay. Habitual cheaters are an altogether different breed of pond scum. They continually, repeatedly, habitually cheat. It’s an established pattern or behavior, not unlike an alcoholic or a drug addict. Cheating helps them feel powerful, or superior, or exciting, or desirable.

Whatever the reason for the cheating, it is going to leave the faithful one with a lot of questions and issues. Among the questions likely to cross one’s mind is what did I do wrong? Maybe nothing. Could I have seen this coming? Possibly. Will this happen again? Maybe. It may take time to figure this out and make peace with it so you can move on. And you may not like what you discover.

If you are involved with one cheater, that is sad. If you have a history of being involved with cheaters, then you might want to consider why you find skanks or bad-boys so attractive that they are your relationship mainstays. Are you attracted to the excitement? Do you have a Messiah-complex and think you’re saving them? Or maybe it is a martyr complex? Does it feel flattering to have them pursue you? Did they get involved with you before they split with someone else?

A person who will cheat with you, will probably cheat on you. Being cheated on by a person who cheated on someone else with you…well, can you really say you didn’t see it coming? Call it karmic retribution, divine judgment, or the logical consequences of an established pattern of behavior, but it was probably bound to happen. Learn from it, become a better person, and move on.

Much as it might seem like a good idea to cultivate your messiah-complex by attracting cheaters and trying to save them from themselves, it really isn’t. First, not only are you not God*, but you are not-so-tacitly saying you are better than the other person (i.e. “you poor cheating slut, let me save you from yourself”). It may turn out that you don’t want to save the cheaters you’re involved with so much as have someone you can consistently look down on. Secondly, habitual cheaters are cheating for a reason that likely has nothing to do with you. Messiah or not, you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

For those who find man-whores and skanks thrilling…well, there comes a time when you have to decide just how important that kind of excitement and drama are to you. Sure they chase you down, charm and seduce you, and, for a brief glittering time, make you feel special, desirable, exciting. And then they’re gone, chasing down another conquest, more excitement and more drama. But consider the long-term effects of this excitement. If you continue your affection for cheaters there’s a strong chance you’ll be exposed to STDs. Damaging as that can be for men, for women venereal disease is also associated with infertility. Women, STDs can lead to miscarriages, scarred fallopian tubes, and cervical cancer. The man-whore you date at 23 could cost you your chance of being a mother at 33. Men, in addition to screaming when you pee, do you want to wonder if the baby in your arms is really yours?

Which brings up the issue of children—BABIES CANNOT CHOOSE THEIR DAMN PARENTS. You owe it to your children, current and/or future, who are saddled with you forever through genetic chance, to be the best parent you can be—responsible parents chose responsible partners. If you can’t break your skank/man-whore addiction for yourself, then do it for the kids you may one day have. Once children are in the picture, your heart isn’t the only one that will get broken.

*I freely acknowledge that this viewpoint comes from a Judeo-Christian background and that a more pantheistic view would suggest that God or creative force is within all of us. If that is so, then playing God to another God is equally condescending and an all-around dick move.
Thanks for reading and join us again next Monday (I still don’t like Mondays) when we explore the fact that three is a crowd. And no, despite how that might sound, we are not discussing threesomes.

If you don’t know President Obama visited Notre Dame recently to get a honorary degree. While most people were happy to see the new president there was a large group of people that really weren’t mostly because of Obama’sviews on abortion. Now at least all the footage I seen was a bunch of men protesting for pro-life. And my my thought is where is their place in the abortion vs anti-abortion argument.

To the guys of America If you pee standing up you have no place in the argument. Why it’s not our fight! Now I’ll prove it

Men are needed for conception that’s really it! Men DO NOT carry the baby for 9 months Men DO NOT go through labor or the risks involved in giving birth. Men Don’t nurse, get stretch marks, go through all the changes that the body goes through. Men don’t have to adjust diet quit smoking or drinking. I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.

Now if you’re a man and you get a woman pregnant there is NOTHING you can legally do to force her to give birth to that baby on the other hand there is nothing that you can do to force her to abort the baby. So the decision is entirely up to the woman anyway. Plus if Guys really don’t want to be a dad they can just LEAVE! Sorry if I opened an old wound for anyone but that’s the way it is.

So this pretty much proves that while men can have an opinion on abortion me personally I’m for it. If you don’t have a brain you’re not alive. I can dig up a corpse that’s been one year dead and get it’s heart beating again does that mean it’s alive HELL NO! However in the argument weather or not abortion should be legal or illegal or under what circumstances should it be given is really not for men to decided. We just don’t have enough footing in the world of pregnancy to form a argument.

Comments and opinions are more than Welcome

Warcorpse

Yep, and if you believe that, you probably still leave milk and cookies out for Santa Clause every year too. Whoever the fuck came out with this saying must have been a fucking masochist because all telling the truth does is gets you in MORE trouble.

“Why yes Officer, I was aware that I was speeding through that school zone. I was paying more attention to where the fuck that joint I dropped went than I was to the speed limit.” and the fucker will have you out of the car, face down on the pavement shining his jack boots up on the back of your skull. You react with complete astonishment and go, “Oh My God, the accelerator stuck and I couldn’t get the thing into neutral before it took off like it had been fired out of a Howitzer.” He gives you that look like he knows you’re full of shit and says that he’ll cut you a break and only write the ticket for doing 75 in a 35 zone. “Consider yourself lucky, because in this state anything thirty miles over the posted limit is an arrest able offense and those always come with a heaping helping of nightstick and Taser surprise.

Cops just love to tell the stories that the offender comes out with while they are throwing down a shitload of Budweiser and Jim Beam after work. Who really wants to hear about the guy that confessed to running a stop sign and speeding through the neighborhood when the one about the guy that was getting road head and swerved out in front the cruiser is much more colorful?

They say that honesty is what makes a relationship work also. I have to tell you that is complete bullshit. Only a woman would say for you to be honest, because then she will have shit to bring up in every fight you ever have from here to eternity. Fidelity makes a relationship work. Honesty goes right the fuck out the window when your woman asks, “Does this make me look fat?” If you say anything but, “I don’t think the weatherman said anything about rain at all today, Honey.” You are about to get your fucking ears torn apart from the inside out. LIE now. Lie your fucking ass off. Tell her how she could wear a fucking potato sack and look like the sexiest woman on the planet. You will either do this without hesitation or be doomed to a life of pure unadulterated Hell from which the only redemption is to buy her a Sports Car. Even then she’ll ask you why you took a chance that her big, giant, behemoth, ass would fit in such a teeny, tiny little eighty thousand dollar car.

Men and women lie about different things to each other. Men go out to the strip club so they can treat the hotties there like a piece of meat and then come home and tell their lady, “No really, I was out having a couple of cold ones with the Boys.” He really was out with the boys, but they were in different parts of the club with different women taking their money, so technically that really wasn’t as much of a lie as it was an omission of unneeded information.

When women lie it is something more along the lines of “It’s your Baby!”