Monday, August 18, 2008

Waas sappening?

Hey all, after another exciting wedding at a horse ranch (this time in Colorado) I’m home and more or less over the horrendous bout of bad luck I was dealing with when I last chimed in. I actually got hit by a car the next morning. It ended up being no big deal, but man, what the fuck, right? That’s what they say, god never shuts a window without farting in the room first, right? Is that what they say? Okay, good.
Anyway, over the weekend, I received a pretty good chunk of advice queries. I’m going to try to get to them all in this limited time that my baby is asleep. He woke me up at five thirty today, so I’m so jittery with caffeine and such that typing is proving quite difficult. Anyway, our first letter comes from Canada. Note the wacky spelling of words like ‘neighbor.’ Kooks!

Hey Brendan,
About a month ago, my girlfriend cheated on me. Big time. As in, my neighbour was pretty sure this incident was about to take place with her and another guy, neighbour comes and gets me, and we walk in on them in our friend's house across the street, doin' the nasty on our friend's bed. Dirty motherfuckers. It's been about a month since it happened - I've tried to convince myself that I'm staying with her, after all, we have two kids together (and we've been together nine years). We've done the fuckin' talks and of course I've gone through all the necessary motions of telling her how stupid I feel staying with someone who can't keep her legs together. Long story short, I still feel like I could leave her, based almost solely on the fact that I'm pretty much always going to be pissed that it happened.

So, am I stupid? Should this have been an open-and-shut case of "You cheated, it's over"? Or am I doing the right thing by trying to stick it out with her? It's almost like I'm stringing her along, since I've already told her that I'm going to try to stay and "rebuild" our relationship, when every day I'm actually still thinking about leaving her high and dry.

Thanks man. Larry's rock, by the way.

Sincerely,
Pissed Off In The 'Peg.


Dude, wowzers. That really sucks. This is one of those letters where I was reading and thinking “oh, fuck man, just dump the bitch. Case closed,” until I got to “we have two kids together”. Man, kids fuck up everything, right? Even a good old fashioned case of dumping your slutty girlfriend. Fuck. Well, the kids are there, and the slutty girlfriend’s done been fucked, so like Macgyver or the A-team, we’re gonna have to work with the available materials to get out of this here jam.
Okay, here’s the bottom line: Regardless of if you leave or stay, you absolutely must get past this and have an amicable and mutually respectful relationship with this woman, at least when your kids, or their friends, or their friends parents, or anyone, save maybe your drinking buddies, are around. Go ahead and hate her if you have to, but you don’t want to be one of those dicks that makes your kids into weirdos because they have to deal with all the seething resentment between their folks. That’s where porn stars and dudes like Criss Angel:Mindfreak come from, and nobody wants their kids ending up like that, right?
So, what do you do? Well, I don’t know exactly. Trying to stick it out is extremely commendable. You said you’re always gonna be pissed, that’s understandable. What’s the way you can best minimize this feeling: Leaving her and getting some space, even if it means not seeing your kids as much? Or is that gonna bug you more because essentially you’ll be suffering for her misdeeds? Maybe you need to stay with her so the actual concrete experience of watching your kids grow with two parents can help to negate your bad vibes? Hmm…maybe you should start over, go on a vacation, bone some random tourist, come home feeling guilty, and rebuild from an even playing field. I admit, this last one, while exciting, probably isn’t the best thing to do mental health wise, but hey, whatever works, right? The bottom line is, try everything, because it seems like right now you’re looking at resentment boiling over into a broken relationship and a long life of avoiding porn stores and TLC so you don’t have to see your weirdo kids and their creepy jobs. Don’t do anything too rash, but make sure that you’re actually venting your frustration, be it on some random person in a vacation spot, some sort of new exercise regimen, or whatever and not just bottling up your feelings, that’s gonna backfire at some point. This isn’t gonna be easy, no matter what you do, so good luck.

Okay, next we have the girl who said that now that her and her, ahem, crush have expressed that they like each other, shit’s awkward. What’s the deal? She asks. Here’s the deal. You guys like each other in terms of how you look and the very thin veneer of each other’s social appearance that you know. It’s not like you just go “I like you” and then he goes “Wow, me too” and suddenly you’re Paul Rieser and Helen Hunt. You guys don’t really know each other, right? There you go. I’d suggest doing something like going to a baseball game, where you have a long time to sit around, have a few beers if that’s your thing, and generally talk or not talk and just get used to being around each other. Awkwardness doesn’t just go away. You need to push through it a little. Okay, nice one. Next.

The guy who says his long distance girlfriend is hanging out with some dude all the time, but he’s ‘just a friend’. Should you be suspicious? Fuck yeah. Dude, that guy is definitely at least thinking about boning your girl. He’s a guy. When’s the last time you hung out with a girl every day and didn’t think about boning her (moms don’t count here, guys)? So, regardless of your girl’s level of denial (and all women deny this, even though I know for a FACT that they secretly know it’s true [‘oh, timmy doesn’t want to fuck me! You’re so paranoid!’ Yes he does, and you know it!!!! What’s with the denial anyway? Is it specifically to piss me off or to somehow fish for strange compliments or what? This is just one of those things that all male-female relationships go through, and it’s maddening]) you’ve got every right to be suspicious. What do you do about it? Nothing at all. Listen, I said it before and I’ll say it again, all women are attracted to one and ONLY ONE trait in men, and that’s confidence. What’s more pathetic than falling victim to this stupid game? You’ll end up looking like a jealous dick and you’ll make the other guy, who need not be jealous, as he’s the dude worming in, look vastly more confident and cool than you. So just chill, act like it’s not the most IRRITATING LOAD OF SHIT that anyone’s ever tried to pull over on you and let it be. Soon enough you’ll either pass this test, or get dumped or cheated on, and there’s absolutely no way you’re in charge of what happens, but you can either look like a fool, or look cool and confident in the meantime.

Next one: Where do you go to meet someone cool in a small town when you’re seventeen? Away to college. Good luck.

Okay, so that’s that for now. Advice doled out, everyone’s currently in a better spot than they were last Thursday night when key-gate threatened to become the biggest story of this Olympic season. I gotta get dressed. My mom’s in town.

10 comments:

Candice said...

did you ever know that you're my hero?

Matt Ramone said...

What's the best wine to pair with fish?

bk said...

Title from Born in East LA?

If so, that's a funny scene.

If not, then that's a hell of a coincidence.

jp said...

if you could have one former world leader's decapitated head tattooed on your chest who would it be? Please avoid answers like Hitler and Stalin, though the inspiration for this question had the latter inked amongst a flurry of bullets and barbed wire.

Anonymous said...

Is self deprecating humor confident or not? On one hand, it shows that you are confident enough to make fun of yourself. On the other hand, it shows that you don't see yourself as that great.

Anonymous said...

Hi, Brendan

I'm a musician and i have been playing music avidly for about 5 years now, but i have never played my own music. (quick clarification i have never been able to write a song [and if i have managed to do so it sounds like a simple plan rip-off; saddening i know])

The band I was in, played ska, punk, and whatever else we wanted to play, and it was fun for the time it lasted. Our singer started to drift to the dark side. He joined a fucking metal/emo-core/cute is what we aim for ménage à trois of sonic ear rape.

So, suffice to say that slowly over a year or so the group died a quiet death.

In this time I began to try and start writing because for far too long I was playing some one else's creation and not mine. And that bothered me, because i wanted to get things off of my mind and let people into my world.

What I want to know is why can't I write decent song. Its very open ended, but its gotten to the point where I'm so frustrated that i have decided to stop trying.

What can i do to get into a groove musically speaking? What works for you or what has worked in the past?

Or will i be forever plagued with this hunger and frustration??


spiros.

Suzanne said...

As a girl, I gotta say that the whole male friend thing, yeah, we know they want to fuck us, but seriously, the appeal of a friend like that is completely denying them for all time, AND the fact that it pisses you off.

Actually sleeping with them puts things from the "yay, I can fuck with two guys heads at the same time with just one action" category, into the "Oh fuck, now I have to decide which one of these guys I really want because I can't have both without stupid drama"

I've never actually wanted to sleep with the guy friend that wanted to sleep with me, and it always irritated me when my boyfriend would say things like "It's not that I don't trust you, honey, I don't trust him"..

Yeah, so you're saying that I can't actually keep my legs shut if I want to? Have you ever previously met a woman?

Anonymous said...

hey bren. i really hate to be one of those sappy larry arms fan that ruins your absolutely not-music-or-politics writing space, but i had a question for you that i feel a lot of us might be pondering in the back of our heads (nope, probably just me). is "the march of the elephants" a bk euphemism for the glorious republican party? i've had countless drunken debates over this, and am really hoping to clear this one up, right or not, for my own sanity. thanks!

Anonymous said...

commenting to say Suzanne sounds insane

Suzanne said...

I'm not insane, I'm female, and I'm just more honest than most.