The Frenemy.

Hello there-

I don’t really wear your clothes. Well, actually, I wear this one sweatshirt of yours sometimes, but I stole it from my roommate who stole it from a friend, and I’m thinking this doesn’t count.

Anyways, I was just writing to tell you something I thought of after visiting your store the other day. That something is this:

 Really, dude? REALLY?!

Your clothes aren’t serious, are they? No. They can’t be serious, and I’m pretty sure the evidence for this lies solely in your store aesthetic. The white walls. The florescent lights. You’ve got to be kidding me with this shit. Are you trying to strong arm Rosa Parks out of this bus..but the Rosa Parks is just my hips, and the bus is the store? You can’t possibly think that selling shiny gold skintight leotards in this kind of environment doesn’t make any normal human being want to jump out of a window directly into a vat of Jenny Craig. Because all of your clothes stick to my body like white on rice, except the rice is the rolls I didn’t know I had until I met you. However, if you’re trying to make me go on a diet you’re failing. The only thing your store lighting makes me want to do is eat avocado since fuck it I have thighs bite me. For your information, every time I go into an H&M dressing room I look great because those clothes aren’t made for a baby who likes Die Antwoord and overdosing on Adderall. Your clothes also don’t seem to be made for girls who smile, since every time I put on one of your leotards and I smile, the leotard explodes into a million pieces of ‘ugh you’re so not cool anymore.’ Your clothes hate smiling. Your clothes also hate urination, because nobody can happily pee wearing a leotard since that is a lot of clothing to strip out of. They also think leggings with short tops is a thing, and that’s wrong. Actually, the only thing yourclothes make me want to do is regress back to the child I was who wanted to dress like a superhero all the time. That is your clothing scheme: lady superhero or 80s workout video girl. I mean, teal is a cool color and all but COME ON.

I guess I’m not being fair: as much as I enjoy scowling at the world and wearing a sparkly high waisted breast reducer, I don’t really like wearing that at all.  I like being happy. Everybody who I have ever seen wearing American Apparel, especially in their advertising campaigns, looks pretty fucking miserable and miserable is the new COOL. I tend to not like clothing that makes me feel angry but slightly privileged as things called TROUSERS often do. Like you just swallowed a chicken bone. Like you just testified in court ala Law and Order: SVU in the episodes where the creepy man made them take pictures accentuating their nipples.

These are seen in most of your advertisements, by the way. Here’s Lydia. Lydia has no breasts, probably because she’s done ballet since she was seven and has only eaten carrot sticks since she was eight. Her eyes scream ‘bad suburban childhood, where her dad took her to the circus on the yearly but never really got her.’ She looks 13, maybe a bit like Dakota Fanning, but sadly she is actually 26. She has nipples that do things and does coke at Los Angeles parties where all the DJs let her get in the booth. She likes cigarettes, art museums, and getting tattoos of cherry blossoms. If I ate a sandwich in front of her, she would be so jealous but probably roll her eyes at me.

The main beef, here, is that you call yourself American. Technically, I’m supposed to be in your demographic because I’m an American. But you are actually a ‘small demographic of American’ Apparel. You get the ones who measure their body fat and are in really cool bands called “Antler Fuse” and probably forgot to vote but have an opinion on politics. Your glasses aren’t real, you read only gawker and Hunter S. Thompson and you have a coffee table made out of Nylon magazines and Diet coke bottles. Either way, you can’t possibly think normal people want to wear your clothes all the time, right? I’m normal and I like skinny jeans, but I also don’t like to pair them with crop tops made of Chloe Sevigny’s skin. I don’t think many people want to wear maroon leggings to like, the supermarket, even if it is paired with a gold bandeau top, a head wrap, and fake glasses. I also don’t care if you can tie this teal spandex dress 400 ways because…

you look kind of stupid. I bet you don’t think you look stupid, I bet you think you look cool. You have a smartphone, so I guess you probably don’t know why you could be stupid. Well. Why don’t you go to a Target or something? Or maybe even a supermarket (that’s a store where they sell food.) You will notice that people will begin to realize your puss face doesn’t make you a sexpot. And nobody wants to tie their dress 400 different ways. Or maybe you will realize that nobody should wear baby blue that often, or high-waisted skirts up to their neck, or generally wear latex. Maybe you will realize that sometimes girls are cuter when they cheer up and laugh and save money and not wear ‘accordion pants.’

Or maybe you’re kidding. I hope you’re kidding.

Going through the archives today, reminiscing for a simpler time when this blog was a little baby. I found two oldie posts I’d like to share with you here:

http://the-frenemy.com/post/830522938/how-to-meet-a-guy-at-a-bar

http://the-frenemy.com/post/1010851336/a-woman-cant-imagine-a-man-reloading-his-double

How about walking down MY memory lane with me? I can’t just sit in my pajamas and nostalgia cry by myself, people!

I was that man (pictured above) when I first started The Frenemy.

Eating can be expensive, especially if (like me) you live in a city and you also want to eat 24/7. As in literally all of the time and right now, even. I ate not more than three hours ago but if you handed me a food thing I would eat all of it. I have no self-restraint, which makes me especially good at eventually being on reality television. However, I am skilled enough at saving money on food that I am aware of a couple of good, wholesome meals to make when you are low on cash and high on hunger. They are as follows:

HOW TO COOK FOOD

The staples: At all times, you should have olive oil, chips, 5 dried spices, one vegetable, one canned bean, eggs, one frozen burger, one frozen entree, pasta, and pasta sauce in your freezer. If you have less than this, you’re a wild and crazy person. If you’re lucky, you also have mildly old milk, a box of cereal, two pieces of bread, one boxed mac and cheese, and a block of 2 dollar cheddar. If you’re INSANE, you have more than one vegetable, cream cheese, and butter. If you have brie and tofu, invite me over and I’ll roll all over your bed wearing a sarong and a crop top until you feed me.

Recipe #1: Your roommates takeout

Hope that your roommate went to some fancy restaurant, or even just a Thai place and brought leftovers back. Stare at them hungrily, possibly drooling like some sort of feral dog. Wonder how they can afford so much dumplings or raviolis. Suspiciously wonder if they are rich. Contemplate killing them and eating their leftover tostadas. Wait until they throw a scrap on the floor for you to gobble up, although make sure when they ask ‘so do you want a bite?’ say very casually ‘sure’ even though your heart is beating out of your chest in joyous anticipation. 

Recipe #2: BREAKFAST ALL DAY EVERY DAY

Eggs are full of protein and they are cheap and delicious. You can also make them when you are hungover and wanting to vomit out all of the brains in your head, and this comes in handy sometimes. All you do is crack an egg in a pain even though the pan isn’t heated enough, so have the egg spread to all parts of the pan and burn on the sides. Eat soft because hard is gross and eggs look great when they ooze out like guts ala the Dexter opening credits. Make some toast with it, but burn it maybe. Slather with butter or cheese and sandwich the fuck out of it. If you have no eggs, eat cereal “gotta have my cereal” -Rebecca Black because if you gave me a choice to have sex with a bowl of Kix/Cookie Crisp/Rice Krispie/Jeremy Renner, I’d probs go with the cereal.

Recipe #3 Cans and Freezer

I make meals from cans sometimes. This is black beans and salsa and chopped onions. Blend it up and it’s like soup! Add spices and it’s like soup! I just like to have vehicles to put sour cream on things, but cans are also good because if you sautee chickpeas with paprika and garlic and tomato, it tastes like something food tastes like. Chef Boyardee is a dog food, so I would never eat him. For the freezer meals, just make some Trader Joe’s “frozen cheapass gourmet” or unfreeze a veggie burger and put some shit like mustard on it. Gyoza is a good frozen food. Frozen food- what 50’s housewives needed instead of smoking while pregnant! 

Recipe #4 Sautee The Stuff

All you need to do is buy one vegetable at the store and soak it in all of the oil and high heat the hell out of it and add some other shit and some salt in it. Then you can tell everybody you made a ‘stir fry’ because you doused that little sucker with hot sauce and you are so amazing at your Asian hobo fusion. Leftover takeout rice with a bit of egg and sliced up vegetables actually makes a pretty legit stir fry. Add nuts and go nuts!

Recipe #5 Boxed Grains

Mac and Cheese being the staple, of course. Add some frozen shit to it like broccoli or some fresh tomato and pretend like you are doing a ‘Mediterranean spin’ on it. Make some pasta with the pasta sauce and add your own flair, like whatever is in your fridge when you are drunk cooking. You never have mozzarella, though, and muenster cheese and marinara is just not the cow that will go out to pasture. Couscous is another good one. If you microwave couscous with a bit of butter, salt, and chives it’s like a real thing. I don’t have time for rice, do you hear me? I don’t have time for rice.

Recipe #6: Sandwiches

Anytime you need to make something, just make a sandwich. All you need is two slices of bread and whatever is in your kitchen. Mustard, carrot, and cheddar sandwiches. BBQ chips, celery, tikki masala sauce, and leftover potato leek soup. Tofurkey, bacon, mayo, and beets. Your refrigerator is your artist’s palette! How neat!

Recipe #6: Free Pizza

You can get free pizza if you just go to casual business meetings, kids parties, work birthday events, and all sorts of other places that serve free pizza. It’s not a big fucking deal. Just get people to give you free pizza. All pizza is created equal, unless if it has toppings and then you have obviously sold your soul to the devil because free pizza with toppings is impossible.

Recipe #7: Dipping shit

Eat a container of hummus with a bag of bagel chips. Eat just the hummus with your fingers. Take fistfuls of guacamole and make an entire meal out of it and look like a fucking zoo chimp. I don’t care! You’re hungry, and nobody’s watching you. Go crazy!

Recipe #8: Liquid Dinner? Never.

Just get drunk on something good and ACCIDENTALLY spend a lot of money on a delicious falafel sandwich, or a delicious Bah Minh sandwich, or delicious red curry, or anything else you wouldn’t buy because it’s 8 dollars and you wake up and say OH DAMN but the burp taste of sweet garlic lingers on your lips and you accept your mistakes and move on.

Or, if you’re like me, you’ll just look at foodgawker and drool because that’s free. Either way, these are my delicious budget meals! Until next paycheck!!!

I remember the first time I saw Seth Cohen.

This was obviously not a significant moment in my life, nor one I actually recall well at all. I am very aware that nobody thinks about The OC anymore, except for maybe Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows and whoever still watches that SNL digital short spoof about it (me). Still, the point is this: Seth Cohen was important to me because he set off a trend, and that trend allowed a solid but still cheesy television show have some sort of impact on People Magazine’s 50 Most Fuckable Ideals issue. That trend was “Ladies? Nerdy guys are the guys you want to have sex with now. Add it to the list! Love, Hollywood.” Which was funny, because half the girls watching the OC were like, “yeah thanks WE KNOW WE DO XOXO.”  But the other half jumped on board and started to get real life nerdy guys, underdogs, and Mighty Ducks laid on the reg. This was around the same time Michael Cera and various Judd Apatow characters were birthed out of their Cabbage Patches, made anew, and later landed on the cover of GQ in expensive suits. Truthfully, I buy GQ now and think ‘huh. Here’s Seth Rogen, wearing 6,000 dollars worth of clothing even though I would imagine flirting with him during his job at Best Buy. Did Hollywood program me to like him or am I using my own free will? TELL ME OVERLORD TOM CRUISE.’ Huh? Geek crushes are now cool, hooray!

It’s easy to see why, at least. When I was younger, things were different. I had to have Hollywood crushes on the way-too-attractive guys, the unrealistic dream boats (dream boats being a Disney Cruise Line) who would never give me the time of day. There was absolutely no way Leo DiCaprio would ever be like ‘oh that tiny girl wearing colorful tights making fun of steampunk? Yeah, I’d like to bone her.’ At that time, nerd guys were Urkel, but now they are kind of foxy in the face and mouth areas. The leading men were becoming the guys who knew Star Wars quotes. They read graphic novels and liked all the zombies and the space things and I was like oh shit these are the guys I kind of like in real life. And by “kind of” I meant “have to” because I wore glasses and therefore could never date jocks.

Still, I was validated in the fact that being attracted to the guy in the ‘mom might have chose it’ striped sweater was cool now. I am attracted to these guys on screen because I find them attainable. You know, if I were alone in a room with Justin Long Enough I’d probably just make video game references and make him do shots so it might be possible to make out with him later. Fine with me. However, there is a pretty big flaw in this ‘boy geeks have sex, too’ system and it’s one that kind of ruins the whole damn thing for me.

Dear Hollywood:

STOP IT WITH THE COOL GIRLS! Why must all the nerds lust after and then obviously get the cool chicks? Why must Ramona Flowers be able to pull off a supercool haircut that would make me look like an LSD cautionary tale? Why must Kristen Stewart and Emma Stone get Jesse Eisenberg when they are able to skillfully roll their eyes and look hot without makeup? Why must the geeky former sidekicks with enlarged hearts of gold lust after the bitchy female lead and then ACTUALLY GET HER?! Stop letting geek guys have the hope they can end up with girls who look good in ‘all lighting’ and not the ‘right lighting.’ END IT. Please stop telling them they can date girls who have more than three purses and don’t bite their nails because NOW THEY CAN. This is your fault! You’ve abandoned the girls these dweebazoids should rightfully should end up with, which are the awkward ones who drop textbooks and win at Jeopardy. Like me! You’ve left these girls by the knotty-haired chip-eating wayside, and I will not soon forgive you for it. The thing is, I don’t want to ‘put up’ with the nice nerd habits you have made the girls they date ‘put up with.’ I want to read geeky Internet forums with them and play Sega Genesis with them and eat Hot Pockets with them. I want to weakly high-five them and find their dropped contacts and get matching Pac-Man tattoos with them. But now because I’m not in Maxim or was voted ‘Most Likely To Look Like Mila Kunis’ eventually I have fallen out of their Topher Graces. No fair! I was the perfect girl for them because I tripped and stuttered and this used to be cute! Who am I supposed to go after now, Orlando Bloom? Who is that again?

Although: another small beef: now you have made me believe nerds and geeks are actually a lot hotter than they usually are. Um. They really aren’t usually that hot. Ah. So maybe I should stop complaining. But please, don’t forget about us uncomfortably awkward girls. We watch way more TV than the cool girls do, so we’re basically your demographic.

Respectfully yours,

A foot in my mouth

P.S. Star Wars nerd jokes are overdone. Try Star Trek next time? Or if you’re sticking with Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones never hurt anybody but the Nazis. Just sayin’. 

Do all of the following:

-go take six rapid shots of whiskey. Hooray! Let the booze soak into your pores and fill your brain with a warm comfort blanket of nonsense. Reach the point where you are just a babbling brook of hungry and drunk. Now, go and try to hold a legitimate and thought-provoking conversation with somebody. Anybody. Your grandmother, your dog, a brick wall with lips. Even just a picture of Zac Efron standing by some sort of waterfall, if you maybe have that hanging above your bed. When talking, give some insight to who you are as a person. Don’t talk about stupid bullshit like how delicious couscous is, even though it’s not a grain and it’s not a pasta and WHAT IS IT. Don’t talk about how you both like Arrested Development because everybody likes that show. Show off your hilarious and amazing personality, a personality which makes good grilled cheese sandwiches and probably likes to smell all of the candles in Target. Tell a lovely anecdote about your childhood! Show off your intelligence! Sweat profusely!

-go into a completely dark room and take something off a shelf. Try to describe this object without putting it in your mouth or sticking it down your shirt. Try to recognize this object on the street the next day, wave it hello and remember it’s first and last name. Maybe you should also go and try to read in the dark. Try to do anything but hit your shins and feel slightly disoriented. 

-blast Usher. Pitbull. If you’re awesome, blast Ludacris. Now go call your mom and have a lengthy but lovely chat.

- wear the least comfortable outfit you have, usually one that requires breast and tights adjustments in increments of 30 seconds. Feel confident while also not picking your wedgie.

-try to really enjoy a conversation in a small room where every surface is sticky and you can’t actually go to a toilet you can sit on. Get toilet paper stuck on your shoe and try to kick it off like you are an insane dog.

-stand in the busiest, loudest part of a crowded street. Grab the first slightly attractive person near you. Anybody who doesn’t make you immediately take a vow of celibacy will do, really. Ask this person if they would like to make out in front of the whole street, all while slightly grinding against each other and possibly licking each others faces. Feel pride in this.

-enjoy sex with somebody you don’t know and then can’t wait to hear from them and learn more about them and not feel shame the next day.

-read any text you have sent at 2am with joy.

-Gather three or four of your girlfriends. Put 150 cockroaches on the floor with razorblades attached to their backs, along with one quarter. Now tell your friends at the count of three you all have to grab ONE item on the floor. Also try not to murder your friends because of this.

-Decide you no longer want to be single and let this come off as the lavender smell of desperation. Act like a wolf on the hunt, prepared to prowl onto somebody’s throat with your voluptuous body and attractive mascara. LOVE IS GOAL!!! Decide this sounds completely reasonable and not crazy. Go home and hate your face profusely if this doesn’t work out. See how this all works out for you the next morning.

-drinking makes you emotional, doesn’t it? Do you want to well up in tears just by reading this sentence? Do you want to hug a pillow that looks like Colin Firth and swim in a warm womb-like sea of dolphins? Great. Try to meet people when you are REALLY EMOTIONAL.

-think of a girl who met her newest relationship ‘at a bar.’ Try not to hysterically laugh.

I hope this explains why I will no longer be hitting on guys at bars. Well, I hope this explains why I have at least decided why this is stupid.

I hate dating advice books. I read “He’s Just Not That Into You” when I was 16 and was told everybody was pretty indifferent about me.That’s all I learned-that people didn’t like me too much, possibly including my parents and grocer.  And then the rest of the advice was find somebody who likes you. That was it, and then they made a movie about it staring Ben Affleck and I’m still single and talking entirely too much about Ben Affleck. The thing is, dating books often try to trick women into being things other than themselves in order to snag a man. They tell you how calling somebody, or sleeping with somebody, or doing anything at SPECIFIC times somehow creates a formula for the perfect relationship, which is insane. Sleeping with a serial killer on the fifth date isn’t going to not make him want to slice your face off, and calling a douchebag only twice a week will still make him break up with you later. The fact is, if you are happy and not miserable and you are yourself, you will get dumped a lot. But eventually you won’t, and you will find somebody you REALLY like, and then you will forget about all the other assholes. That’s about it. But, still, I’ve come up with some titles for some dating books I think might really work. Publishers take note:

Fuck You, You’re Doing it Wrong!!

Psychologists Are Happy To Explain Why You’re Slowly Dying Alone

Psychologists Awkwardly Talking About Blow Jobs

This One Girl I Know…..

Outdated Advice: Women Still Make Less, Though, So Backwards Thinking Still Applies! Now, Who Wants To Go On A Picnic?

Your Self-Worth In Somebody Else’s Hands

Wear A Teddy, Give A Teddy: How Teddies Make You Not So Sad

It’s Your Body, But It Could Be In Someone’s Mouth If You Stopped Being Such A Fug

Be Yourself, Have Sex By Yourself

From Doormat to A Doormat With Confidence For Two Weeks After Reading This Book

AmBITCHion: Bitches Don’t Get Laid

Bitch: Being A Women With Opinions

“Talking To People” And Other Advice You Won’t Follow

Who Called Grandma?: You’re Beautiful, We Can’t Believe You’re Still Single and Other Bullshit

Feelings and How To Suppress Them

Crazy Girls Are Happy Girls: How Breaking Down All Your Actions And Obsessing Over Them Will Get You Your Dream Chad

Red Dresses and Roses Solve Problems

Prince Charming: Only If You Like Guys Who Tuck Their Shirts Into Their Khakis and “Vacation”

Dating Down: You’re Barely a 6, Who Are YOU Kidding?

PANIC: no, don’t, really, stop. PANIC

Sometimes You Can Be Such A Slut

Everybody’s Tired Of Hearing You Cry

This Douchebag is A Dude, So HE Can Give Advice!

Real Talk: Bad Advice But Given Casually In Order For You To Think We’re Totally On Your Level

Nobody’s Out There For You, I’m So Sorry.

No, Silly! You Can’t Marry your CAT: How to form a civil union with your cat

Online Dating: Because You Can’t Lie To People’s Faces

Mom Was Right: Guys With Beards Aren’t Ready To Commit

Everybody wants to be on television. But we can’t all fucking be on television, because there are ‘standards’ but don’t worry I know all the secrets. To be a star, you have to be:

-a knocked up baby. BABIES HAVING BABIES, it never gets old. Drop the baby. Be confused and tired about how to feed a baby some milk you have.

-an Estevez and go batshit insane, have people think that is funny rather than really just sad.

-a generic blonde girl with teeth made only of pearl buttons and breasts made out of large balloons with Vaseline in them/a lovable nerd guy.

-willing to go on Spike TV and either be a boobs chick wearing a nurses costume or a guy who punches fire in the face while eating a can of beer and masturbating to a cool action movie.

-a person who claims they are ready to find love in the forum of competing with 25 other girls in ball gowns and also you must cry all the time and be really good at dabbing your eyes with tissues. Must be really good at falling in love, liking guys with capped teeth, and being a crazy idiot with nice hair who lived on a farm.

-a brunette with glasses who must be single forever never find love always giving advice die alone hag! Or get your own show!

-a fat dad who goes to CBS and is like ‘look at how good I am at being this fat dad.’

-a crazy person who likes to go on American Idol and argue with judges while wearing Christmas lights and singing some sort of Celine Dion.

-a really tough but attractive cop who likes throwing THE BOOK in the toilet and having sex with women, HATES crime LOVES justice..his way.

-somebody who solves murders in about 54 minutes with a team that includes a smart Asian, a very sexy Hispanic, a white guy who is divorced OR ICE T…also somebody who is brutally murdered.

-a person on American Idol who has been through some sort of hard experience like a fire and can now use the strength from the fire to make a song 30 minutes longer with the trills.

-a freak who eats only the ashes of Egyptian kings, hardwood floors, fan mail, or 850 hamburgers a day. Go to TLC and be like ‘look at what the hell I fucking eat!’

-36 kids or 36 wives. “we’re not MORMON OR EXTREME CHRISTIANS we’re just…okay just kidding that’s exactly what we are though.”

-hoarder of either creepy porcelain dolls, special memory objects like 30000 christmas cards, moldy soup cans, fossilized cats and some living cats

-a sports star and commit a crime or adultery, maybe play some sports once. Be a girl who gets photos of sports stars genitalias.

-a precocious kid, able to stomach fat stupid dad.

-an overweight comedian who screams a lot and has a grating voice but still likes to talk about all the sex they get.

-a person with a weird disease that doesn’t kill you, doesn’t really make you stronger.

-able to stomach interviews with Mario Lopez.

-a mom in need of a makeover/DIVORCE!

-a girl getting married who can brutally fight over a wedding dress by ripping apart the flesh of other brides, be the meanest bride in the entire world, be somebody that nobody can fucking believe is actually getting married to a person not the devil.

-True Life: I’m 16 with this problem that I have and it’s no big, really.

- able to get on SNL by doing really spot on impersonations of Robert DeNiro and some popular members of Congress. Have a character that is like ‘tagline hand wavy weird face joe.’

-somebody who lives next door to a murderer so you can go on the news and be like ‘he ain’t never did nothing to nobody.’

-a former child star who lost weight and now will wear bikini for you.

-a borderline alcoholic woman who lives in a nice city, go on “The Real Housewives” and go shopping in bandage dresses and abandon your children. Secret pill addiction/tax evasion OFF SCREEN.

-a person who can live with the fact that the CW show they have now decided to star in will be on television for 46 years.

-a person who hates your parents so much you are willing to make out with The Situation and try to discover if his face is actually made of Silly Putty.

-person with little to no morals you are willing to go on some sort of NBC game show where you have to stick snowcones up your butt and try to remember when Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s birthday is and then throw yourself in a shark tank ALL IN 30 SECONDS.

-a wacky group of attractive friends who like to sleep with each other and only talk when their is studio laughter in their presence.

-hot or no morals hot or no morals, not hot the butt of jokes, not hot the butt of jokes

Single people and annoying couples REALLY like to talk about soulmates. I actually hate that word because ‘mate’ makes me thinks of humping dogs and that’s gross. I also REALLY don’t like the term ‘other half’ because it leads me to believe that if you meet somebody you want to eat pancakes on Sunday with forever you have to saw off your legs or break yourself. Hmph. Either way, people are always yapping on and on about THE ONE and how this person pees bubbles and is probably Colin Firth or at least buys you dinner sometimes. Well, as consistently annoyed as I am about happy people talking about happy love, I still have my standards for “THE ONE” which at my young age, loosely translates to ‘somebody I am willing to sleep with for maybe two years tops and we have to do coupley things like soberly going to the zoo.’ If I found the person I was going to be with till I crumble and die right now, I would have significantly less things to complain about and I can’t have that. Either way, I still have a pretty long list about the kind of guy I would consider dating at this point. Here that is:

HOW TO DATE ME:

• be a living breathing human being. Unless you are a super hot vampire just kidding I was totally kidding why would you think I wasn’t? Shut up.
• don’t be fucking pretentious about your music choices. Yeah, I get that your favorite band is so underground <Harriet Tubman joke>.  Okay yawn whatever you’re cool, just let me dance to my Rihanna and if you roll your eyes I will fork them out and feed them to large squirrels. Also, you could make me a mixed tape every once in a while so I will have cool music on my Ipod now.
• don’t be in a band unless if you don’t care that I don’t want to go to every one of your shows. I cannot deal with people in Vans bopping their stupid turkey necks to some song I’ve heard a million times.
• If I say “We will not go quietly into the night!” you will know I am fucking quoting Bill Pullman’s speech in Independence Day and you will respect it as the most important speech in the world.
• NERD. You nerd!
• neck kisses, no hickeys. What am I, sixteen?
• You will email me youtube videos that aren’t boring and probably include slow loris, funny movie parodies, and shit that doesn’t suck. FRIDAY FUN FUN FUN.
• have a comfortable bed or a DOG.
• if we’re going to watch movies on the couch all night, there better be a six-pack, there better be pizza, and there better be a movie that is something along the lines of: explosions, Gerard Butler hilariously being a terrible actor, Speed, people getting their faces eaten off, a Lifetime Television for Women That Also Brings Women Back A Couple Years, a good movie that I keep saying I want to see because it wins shit but I don’t rent things I just watch Animal Hoarders.
• You do not watch Family Guy more than twice a week. GROW UP KIDDO.
• You are attracted to women who eat like cavemen.
• You are attracted to women who sometimes snort when they are laughing, must talk to all dogs seen on the street, and get overly competitive at Jeopardy.
• Good hands. I liked this guy once in high school who had these great hands and my crazy ass friend was like ‘that means he masturbates a lot’ which I hope wasn’t true because I really like hands.
• You are more decisive than I am, because I am not decisive I don’t even really want to say that I’m not sure.
• You could actively have an entire conversation centered around ‘would you rathers,’ hypothetical scenarios, movie ideas with Jason Statham, and how lame everybody is in the bar you are currently in.
• aware of current events because the Internet has them and you should look it up.
• you do not wear puka shell necklaces or Axe body spray. You probably do not know how to hacky sack.
• Be employed. Eat your vegetables. This isn’t the kiddie table anymore.
• Beard but not the kind that extends past your face. Maybe. I shouldn’t have any standards on facial hair or looks but if you wear glasses I don’t really mind that, either.
• Slightly indifferent towards me. I mean, I’m not actively saying this is a plus but unfortunately nice guys usually make me want to throw cornflakes and other boring food at your button-down shirts and your reasonable knowledge of the stock market. I wish I didn’t like the ‘half sleeved’ assholes who have hoodie collections and a flip cam, but Robin Williams can’t genie grant my bad taste away.
• your favorite book isn’t Goodnight Moon or something else you read when you still shit your pants and that was acceptable. You can like Goosebumps though.
• don’t bring me roses, bring me bagels. Roses are stupid. If you want to get me a fucking plant I will just eventually kill, get me basil and then I could put it in my pasta sauces and this reminds me COOK FOR ME ALL THE FOOD.
• text me a lot but ONLY if it’s about the weird dog you saw taking a crap on the subway, your fascination with Aaron Eckhart’s chin, and other stuff that isn’t I m1zz You Babie.
• Don’t call me “baby” that’s nasty, but still, don’t put me in a corner either.
• buy me shit. What, is chivalry dead? I mean, don’t get a necklace like Billy Zane in Titanic, but probably buy me a flask of whiskey and I don’t know, take me out to a comedy show or something. 
• BE FUNNY. Dude, seriously. You know how people say ‘girls love funny guys?’ It’s because they do. Girls actively have crushes on the fugliest of comedians, and that is because being funny is awesome and will make girls jump on your crotch. Make me laugh, you monster!
• hold your liquor. Drink like a man. HA KIDDING. I mean mostly drink like me and all of my awesome girl friends. As in ‘no whining, no vomit.’
• No fist bumping.
• You have played Zombies Ate My Neighbors or maybe even have a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis. 
• you don’t spend a million hours talking about wanderlust, traveling to escape, philosophy, existentialism, or other shit that bores me and is boring.
• you can like sports as long as you know I like awful TV and only go to sports games for the mustard pretzels.
• nice to babies and you TIP WELL TIP WELL TIP WELL.
• no evil ex-girlfriends. no stupid tattoos. You are awesome, I love you!
• you make me giggle and smile and do stupid shit like want to talk to my friends all the time about how cute and good you are.
• You like me and you call me and you’re not a fucking jerk, you filthy animal.

Right now, I feel like I am sort of in a turtle shell of hangover. I’ve broken the pipes in my house and put my mouth directly on the pipes in order to drink the weight of the world in  the lifegiving water. I’ve taken Advil for the headache that I suspect I must have gotten by banging my head directly against the sharp edge of a samurai sword, as that is the only explanation for this terrifying pain. My throat is the rebel forces against my body, attacking my throat with daggers and harsh, mean words. This was not the case last night, as I felt SO FUCKING GREAT slugging back G&Ts in a pleather skirt (my outfits think it’s always coming up Guns’n’Roses) and acting all sorts of a fool. One moment I was trying to rub myself like a cat against some guy who’s name of course now escapes me, and another minute I wanted to put on my IPod and listen to Adele till the sad left my body. True Story: I have about ten different personalities when I drink, and you never know which one will come out until it’s TOO LATE and the blood terror reigns over you. Here is my guide to these lovely ladies:

The Hungry One: Particularly late at night, I start to chew on the bar napkins as if maybe, just this once, they are actually just thinly sliced parm and I am a genius of discovery. I start to look at all the people in the bar like they are giant food items, but not even delicious food items they’re just the frozen veggie patties in my freezer. I want to slather them with suspiciously old mustard and my roommate’s mayo and eat them while starting at videos of You-tube things. Deeeelish. Truthfully, if I saw a wheel of brie on the floor at any of these bars, I would leap at the wheel like a feral cat and happily munch on it until my pants could no longer hold the beast inside that is me. I would catccch a greeenaddde for ya (sandwich),

Horny: Last night, I had that kind of girlfire in my loins that gets most unattractive frat boys who like Dan Brown laid. As in I had no standards. All I see are walking crotches who might be able to tell me I am pretty in this stupid outfit. Walking crotches. I am not a one-night-stand kind of girl because I don’t like to go out at night freshly shaved unless I know I will definitely be grabbed at. I’m not just going to use my Skintimate Mango Jamboree lotion for any guy I don’t know, but I do like to make out a lot. Well, I actually usually never make out. I just like to stare at people in the hopes they will stick their tongue down my throat, which is actually pretty nasty ass if you think about it. “oh I hope somebody takes the part of their body they put all of their food in and jam it against mine.” Usually, I just stare at people and imagine things like ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Will Ferrell was at this bar? I bet he’s not as funny in real life.’

Stupid: Oh, hey, I know that this bathroom has the same kind of cleaning standards that a dead rat has when it is bloating in a gutter, but I guess I’m too drunk to squat now, I kind of just half squat and lean my hand on the graffitied wall where that kid Jay was like JAY WAS HERE. Also, here is when I stop sitting ‘ladylike’ and stop sitting like ‘any semblance of a human being’ which isn’t fair to that Koko gorilla who could paint and stuff which was cool.

Really Stupid: Hey maybe I should just text every guy that is not interested in me or every guy that maybe talked to me or every guy that breathes. Maybe I should just spell everything wrong and make a total ass out of myself because that would be so fucking hilarious. Good choices here, everybody.

Really Fucking Stupid: Here I am, making out with this dumb ass at a bar. Mama would be so proud of me, here latching onto the face of this guy with a colorful tattoo of something colorful and really fucking stupid.

Huggy: Kind of in the same vein of a koala gripping a tree, I must leap onto the bodies of all my innocent friends because I love them so much and I just want to grip their sweaty bar backs until they have to pry me off or taser me off or seriously, I just refuse to let go. NEVER LET GO Some kind of slurred word is exchanged ‘i loveesue’ sue being you and my friends get the large fly swatter and swat me the fuck off.

Pissed: Fuck you, fuck this, I am one mad ass motherfucker who hates everything and I will punch the wall in my mind, and this mind wall is very soft because I destroy this mind wall with my iron fist and hulk the fuck out of everybody. I will beat up everybody in my mind fight with chairs made of mean insults and I will stand on a mountain of my pain: the one guy who dumped me three months ago, the one friend who ate the sandwich weird, that cool sweatshirt I didn’t end up buying, the world doesn’t have enough fried pickles and that is injustice. I will stew like a crappy carrot in a terrible pot roast, and then I will go to bed and realize how much of a huge bitch I can be.

Sad: I am not usually the crying bitch. I am too strong to be the crying bitch! I will not cry in bar bathrooms, I will not cry in…oh look at this lone tear I am wiping away because I’m so strong! Now I will stare solemnly out the window with my sad brain, my sad brain that has been so lonely because I haven’t dry humped something or whatever. Oh what a hard life we all lead.

Loud. Disappointed. Usually, that’s it.

I watched a lot of Disney Princess movies when I was a kid, and they mostly steered me in the wrong direction. For one thing, breaking into song to express feelings is totally inappropriate unless you are some kid from Glee or you are drunk and angrily singing You Oughta Know at karaoke to your ex. For another thing, my hair will never be that luxurious, I will never fall in love with a prince, and animals will never fucking talk to me. Actually, if they do, I will have to assume that I am like that Son of Sam serial killer who told the cops the dog made him murder people. If you think animals talk to you you are a maniac, but in the Disney Princess realm you are sane and this is very misleading. Why do so many animals talk to these people? Don’t they have siblings or friends to vent to? Either way, I read about a lot of girls who are like ‘oh my god, Disney movies gave me overly high expectations about love’ and I’m like ‘well actually most of them didn’t, because the majority of these girls were crazy ass bitches with pretty good pitch.’ All you should really learn is ‘if I am pretty and can sing and act a fool, maybe I can BE DRAWN INTO A DISNEY FILM.’  I mean, I love these films, but I love them the same way I love all the things I did as a child: I want to drool on them and fall asleep on them and eat mac and cheese to them. They’re not helpful anymore, except in extreme bouts of nostalgia. Don’t believe me? Here are my humble summaries of the ladies, and I hope you take them into consideration the next time you obnoxiously sing Part of Your World at a party and expect people to not be annoyed at you:

Snow White: Oh look, it’s the fucking boring one. Anybody who considers Snow White their favorite character probably eats oatmeal every day for breakfast and considers beige to be their favorite color and likes documentaries of history. YAWN. I actually think about Snow White and I start to fall in a deep sleep of boredom because I am so tired of this shrilly wench who’s only defining characteristic is her bloodless skin. Nobody gives a shit about the ballon-sleeved pale-face and for good reason, because I don’t remember her singing but I remember her whining a lot with her stupid Betty Boop voice. Watching this movie, I basically just have a lot of questions for her, such as: Why you so pale? Are you a fucking goth? Why would you think a long yellow skirt looks flattering on anybody? Why do you have my grandmother’s hairdo? Why do you think it’s okay to live with eight tiny men named after marijuana side effects? That is the main question for me, because those tiny little men mostly sucked and were creepy and Grumpy was a mean tiny chump.Myself, I was always concerned about Dopey. Nobody was like ‘hey Dopey, can we take you to some sort of hospital because clearly you’ve had a lobotomy?’ Instead, she just ate the fucking apple that she got from the haggiest hag and it’s like, nobody should take an apple from somebody who looks like a homeless person on Intervention who loves that good first hit of meth. Idiot!  

Sleeping Beauty: Oh great, Prince Phillip. It totally makes sense for you to fall in love with the hot chick who dances around with the owl in the forest. Forget the girls in your court that probably can read, go for the one who has some sort of furry fetish in her nut-sized brain. What the hell is wrong with this girl? How crazy and insane must you be to think it’s totally okay to dance around and make animal friends in a forest to such an extent you have never actually talked to humans? She doesn’t even have a healthy relationship with her tiny little people aunts, who aren’t ‘fairies’ but more ‘why don’t you back the hell of meddlers.’ She lets the little ladies dictate all her movements just because they can fly, which is a real rookie mistake. Were they lesbians? I hope so. Either way, it comes down to this: if somebody said ‘hey Alida, you will die if you touch the spinning wheel needle’ I’d say ‘oh yeah I don’t really have any desire to touch this sharp huge needle anyway.’ And then when the time came for the green lady with a battering ram hat was like ‘touch this’ I’d be like ‘logically, there is no fucking way I will do that.’ And then I wouldn’t. If I were Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, the hot guy would have been like ‘hey’ and I would have been ‘once upon a dream I boned the shit out of you’ and that would have been that. 

Cinderella: I wouldn’t wear a slipper made of glass. That shit would break and I would maybe understand the song ‘walking on broken glass’ more but mostly it would fucking hurt. And you can surely bet if my awesome dad died and I had to work for these three c*nt ass ugly bitches, scraping the floor and having to make RAT friends, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let birds make my bed because the bird flu sucks. I would say ‘hey you guys really, really suck and let me see the will my dad left because I bet I got most of the money.’ And if that wasn’t true and I didn’t get any money, I would punch them all in the head and have some guy from Law and Order arrest them for child slavery. And mostly, I would just slap them a lot. Why did she put up with this? Are we as girls supposed to think if we clean enough tiles and wear enough bandanas we’ll marry some boring rich guy? Because that prince was fucking boring. Prince Charming is a real toolish name, as if it should be prefaced with “This season on the Bachelor…”

Belle: Good reader. French. Awesome. Little bit creeped out that ‘Gaston the asshole who had a ponytail’ didn’t suit her fancy (understandable), but ‘large beast that shut her away with a room full of talking appliances’ totally did. Let’s reiterate that as kind as The Beast eventually turned out to be (which in Disney world, ‘kind’ means ‘learned how to use a spoon’), you can’t just fall in love with a dog because it is nice to you. That is not legal! Also, she was best friends with a teapot, and I’m not going to say that isn’t insane because it totally is, but I still like her.

Tiana: Wanted to be a chef, bitch didn’t put out. Rocked.

Jasmine: Girl owned a tiger and climbed the hell out of walls and jumped shit. I would never mess with a girl that had a tiger, but even if Aladdin was awesome, we have to face the facts that he was a thief. This movie might be the main cause of why most prisoners get weird letters from bored women who want to bone them. Why date a thief who wears a vest and has an intelligent monkey? Why, I guess it’s the monkey. The monkey is cool, I’d could be easily tricked into sleeping with a guy who had a monkey. I can mildly excuse this, especially because her dad was so cute and she cocked her eyebrow a lot which was Disney’s first example of ‘women holding their ground.’ Nice work on the flat abs, Jasmine, do you use the Shake Weight? 

Ariel: Half fish. I like sushi. I kind of wanted to eat half of her raw. Also, I bet her hair was pretty dead from all the ‘blood rain’ Manic Panic dye she not doubt had to use. She would be delicious with wasabi, but I’ll try to look past that because I would definitely eat Eric with chopsticks as well. As I would bang him. As I think he was kind of fucking stupid to not know that the mute girl with legs that lived in his castle was the same girl WHO SAVED HIS LIFE, because I think you would remember that face above all else. He was dumb, she was hot, whatever. 

Pocahontas: Bitch was majorly smoking the ‘well this is a very historically inaccurate story but I guess I’ll talk to a tree a lot’ pipe. As in this pipe had a lot of LSD in it. As in she was 14 when she saved John’s life, but well all know they couldn’t really show that in a non-Lolita Disney movie. She had a raccoon friend, and I’d like to think she had immunity against rabies which is a decent superpower.

Mulan: Fuck you, she rules, that guy she’s marrying is totally gay but who cares. THE BEST.

I always thought that if you walked around a city long enough, you’d probably bump into somebody you’d fall in love with. I thought the whole point of a city, even Sim City, was to scurry around knocking into people you’d want to roll in dirty sheets with and paint with all the colors of the wind. Which really is no fucking colors, because wind is not a color, but let’s not argue with Pocahontas right now I don’t have the time. Either way, meeting people in cities is the obvious reason why city dwellers put up with the roaches, as well as why most bodegas still sell Four Loko. However, I still have never met anybody this way at all, and while I’ve always chalked this up to the fact “I obviously didn’t spend enough time this afternoon putting a burning hot iron on my head to make my hair straight,” today I realized that I will never, ever meet somebody on the streets of any city. Because I’m an idiot. I hope you learn from my mistakes:

Reasons Why I will Never Meet Somebody On The Street:

1. This Fucking Sandwich: Portable food is often the best food in the world. If burritos suddenly ceased to exist, I would find myself running crazy through the streets like Jimmy Stewart’s character in It’s A Wonderful Life, except I wouldn’t be screaming whatever the fuck he screamed, I’d be like ‘oh fuck,no burritos?’ and then slathering sour cream on me out of solidarity. Because a burrito or a sandwich is like finally being able to hold happiness in your palms as if it were Tinkerbell or the mini bottles of rum on airplanes. I love these things. I love mayo, in spite of and especially because it looks gross. Regardless, today I got a veggie Bah Minh sandwich and I sat on a bench and happily chewed it and this hot guy on a bike parked himself next to me and I smiled at him. But then all the pickled carrots poured from my mouth like rain and the crumbs were on my jeans and probably looked like crabs. And I think I ate a bit of the paper wrapping as it was now on my chin. I was as much of a disaster as Nic Cage’s acting career since The Wicker Man, and this cute guy was not impressed.He gave me the same kind of disgusted look you would give a shitty kid throwing a tantrum in the K-Mart, and I just had to pretend that I was not hitting on him but instead looking at the great unknown, contemplating wanderlust like all do in Brooklyn. I still liked that sandwich, so fuck that guy.
2. Bad At Walking: You know when somebody is walking the same side of the street you are on but in the opposite direction, so if you keep walking as is you will crash into each other? And so one of you moves to get out of the way, but you both move the same way, and you giggle and it’s cute? Well, I do that a lot but it’s not cute. Because I suddenly start to mimic your movements not once like normal, but like 8 times because I am an invalid at walking. It begins to seem like I am actually trying to bump into you headfirst as if this were my goal, as if maybe we are on the Matrix. I become the obnoxious chihuahua in Oliver and Company, which isn’t relevant but I just thought about that movie a lot today. I definitely become a bull.It’s like all of a sudden we are in Spain and I am a bull and I am like ‘it’s one or the other, Matador Johnny’ and it pisses you off and sometimes I actually bump into you and you spill your coffee and dagger eye me. I am not good at walking down streets.
3. Ipods: I give way more of a shit about my music than paying attention to the people on the street, especially because I assume I walk way cooler to the beat of music than without it. Listening to Radiohead and ignoring all human contact kind of drifts me off into some A Beautiful Mind  kind of fantasy shit, but I’m happier there just like I’m happier thinking I actually am dating James Franco but he’s always in NYU and can’t call very often. So crazy! It’s like all of a sudden I’m in my own movie, the kind of movie that probably really sucks but I guess I get to make out with some hash brown boring CW star for a minute. Either of the guys from The Vampire Diaries would work. Both of them really look like their agents didn’t work hard enough to get them some top role in a Kate Hudson rom com, but someday they might nab it if they try hard enough. They also look like People magazine would shoot them coming out of the ocean in a wet t-shirt, and that is the only kind of guy I would make out with in a movie starring me. I look like an Afghan Hound when I’m wet, so I’m not looking forward to bikini season.
4. I Choose All The Wrong Men: Like for example, when I was walking back home there was an apartment fire and all the firefighters came and I couldn’t cross the street and I had to wait there. So I watched three firefighters that looked exactly like Jeremy Renner and three others that were also hot block off the street and my jaw dropped and I shit grinned at them and was trying to give them ‘screw me eyes.’  I am of course uncomfortable with the fact that I’d sleep with Jeremy Renner, but he’s like the townie who actually got out of town so I’ll excuse it. Not the point. If MY apartment were on fire, I would hope they would PUT OUT THE FUCKING FIRE and not let the mini-girl with the screw eyes and the crumb-mouth distract them. Which is obviously the reason why they ignored me, as if I were a Celine Dion song on the jukebox and you are not an obnoxious person purchasing songs from a jukebox. Of course, I still resented them for not hitting on me because I’m an asshole, or I’m bored, or I’m like that tiny dog that humps the sofa because it hasn’t been spayed yet.
5. I once got a nosebleed in the middle of the street. Couldn’t have helped.
6. Can’t follow up: Whenever some cute guy kind of smiles at me on the street, I have to grip my purse because obviously if you are looking me in the eye you are trying to take my credit card to buy furniture in Oregon with. If you are looking at me on the street, I can only assume you are going to eat all my skin off like I am a rotisserie chicken. If you smile at me on the street, I will smile at you and then I will trip on a pebble. I will give you the same kind of awkward smile that mirrors the Jeffrey Dahmer, or Brittany Spears as she was stabbing a car with an umbrella. I do not make a good first impression.
7. Can’t Drink On The Street: I mean, come on. I’m not going to hit on you sober. That’d be progress, and the opposite of progress is congress and I happen to be an American who votes. WHATEVER.

I used to be obsessed with taking personality tests online. Usually, it was the Meyers-Briggs kind that allowed me to feign self-awareness and also discover I had more in common with Oprah than previously thought. According to personality tests, I am an introvert because I like to sit on my couch all fucking day but also an extrovert because I was exceptionally loud about this fact. I have learned some things about me, I guess.

Either way, I had no qualms about taking a similar-minded quiz from the creators of OkCupid, a free dating website that has taught people how many fish in the sea use their Macbooks to take pictures of themselves.  

Living under the guise of being a ‘dating persona’ test, I assumed this would just be another quiz that tried to get real talk with me, like Alida, how in the world could you base a relationship off of the cursory, ‘90s pop related things you often base them on? I assumed it would then try to guilt me into having more romantic sex, be more out there, and look for another lonely heart who liked puppies and whiskey as much as I did (the improbable bad boy good heart complex). Instead, it made me have an emotional crisis.

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I have had my fair share of ‘dating conversations’ to those friends of mine who are lucky enough to get fondled by real people not in their imagination. I suspect I get into these conversations because people, I suppose, get excited about dating and like to vomit out rainbows at the faces of others like Nicholas Sparks laser beams. I don’t like that I often want to choke you to death with a teddy bear, but I do. And it’s not just because I’m single, it’s also because dating is like children: you only ever think yours are cute. I also suspect they ask me because everybody wants to hear what the mean crazy person has to say on things, kind of like purposely walking by the old yelly homeless lady in the park to see what she screams at you. I’m kidding. Everybody knows single people are the best at dating talk, because they are so filled with rage at all the stupids they have made a little Jenga tower of sense in their lonely, isolated sad time. They give good advice! Anyway, I’m sort of sick of these convos. I just want my friends to just be focusing on things I understand, like reality show recaps and how to avoid folding clothes ever. (read: if you talk about relationships more than 50% of the time with your friends STOP) If you are in my annoyed-but-sympathetic boat, I’ve come up with a clever speech. You can print it out, flip it reverse it, and deliver whenever you want to get past the dating talk and straight to the friend fun. Because if I couldn’t have somebody to buy a bottle of Arbor Mist, add vodka to it, and try to steal a street cat, I wouldn’t have friends at all: 

Oh wow! That is so (terrible/awesome/adorable)! I can’t believe that they (murdered an entire family of Smurfs with a tiny blue axe/punched Carson Daly in the face and was like ‘why did you steal our youths’/made a tiny little sailor outfit for a tiny little bunny and then took the bunny and her children on the road for a very unlikely adventure). I know you are a smart girl even though you once pissed behind a Range Rover while walking home from a bar, but you need to be reasonable and sane about this. I want you to take your phone and throw it in the East River like a dead mafia person. I want you to leave the crazy with your last relationship. I want you to stand up on that ledge and shout “I am the queen of the world” and let your mouth say it and not your vagina. I want you to look real hard into the eyes of your vagina right now and say (just because I had sex with this guy and he tasted like jelly from the jelly doughnut doesn’t mean I get nuts about it/what flavor is the jelly in a jelly doughnut/could a man have sex with a jelly doughnut/don’t get dickmatized. Ignore the power of the dick). Because, listen lady, you can be (excited about a guy/angry at a guy/girls and their feelings, am I right gentleman? Comedy clubs!) but you still need to put yourself first. Tyra wants you to be yourself. Oprah wants you to be yourself. Joy Behar doesn’t even give a shit. You are the best! And having sex feelings can either make somebody awesome, like the way Bruno Mars wants to eat a grenade for you, or terrible. Like the way Bruno Mars wants to eat a fucking grenade for ya . You also have to remember a lot of guys want to date you for the Applebee’s two for 20 dollar appetizer and meal combo. And then he wants to stick his carrot stick in your cheesy spinach and artichoke dip. I didn’t mean sex. If I had meant sex, I would have used ‘tortilla chip’ because we all know why.

I love you. I want you to be happy. This is exactly why I don’t want you to listen to Dane Cook anymore, or (worry/be overly excited about this). Maybe what he did means he loves you, maybe it means he’s still in love with his ex-girlfriend, or maybe it means we should do a shot of tequila singing “Reflection” as performed by Christina Aguilera. I don’t know! I have none of the answers. Except this one: maybe he’s a vampire. I can’t wait till Twilight is no longer topical. I can’t wait till people finally stop trying to sing like Regina Spektor. Did you know I spent a good portion of my day trying to scratch my back with the end table, wondering if there is a little girl ghost in my house, and of course there’s all the flannel pants? Anyway, I’m trying to pull the conversation back to me now. Because this is a nothing. If I’m being honest with you I will say that this might go well but in the long run it won’t go well because everybody is just a large dump truck filled with organs and dry hump hormones and we all suck. I’ve also seen his Facebook interests and System of a Down? Really? I’ll marry the first guy who lists Angels in the Outfield as his favorite. Wanna split the nachos? Anyway, you should know I will be there for you for this one, the next one, and all the others. Now shut the fuck up and buy me a drink. 

Directions:

Get invited to a party by a friend who likes a guy that is going to be there. Secretly think this guy sucks because he takes beat poets too seriously. Also realize the only reason people go to parties is because somebody they wanna mack might be there. Decide that that one guy you know from somewhere is the reason, you, too, will go to a party and stand around an awkwardly Ikea-ed apartment clutching a Heineken. Tell your friend you will be ready in an hour. Decide to watch one sitcom before you get ready. Make it The Nanny. Suddenly become insane enough to believe that you are capable of getting ready to go out in 30 minutes. Make yourself a bowl of tomato soup (the soup that is only good as a vessel for shit to put on top of it) and a pre-game cocktail of Sprite and generic booze. Email. 42 minutes later, realize you will not be ready because you are still in pajamas and are not capable of doing anything when you say you will. Call friend, say you ‘got an unexpected call from your mother’ and buy yourself another hour. Shower, make another drink, walk around in no pants as you check on how many new people posted terrible albums on Facebook. Stare at these albums and bad tattoos. Finally put on makeup. One eye looks great, one eye looks like terror slug from Mars. Burn your forehead on straightener and it leaves Dark Mark. Put on 36 outfits before you realize you only have 3 outfits in your closet. Leave, forget something, really leave.

Arrive at party. Awkwardly greet the hostess and perk up when she points towards the drinks. Pray for snacks and scan for attractive people. See three, each with a bitchy girlfriend wearing a miniskirt. Strong Diet Coke and Rum. Pray for the blessed snacks. If there is guacamole, plan to dive into it and make it some sort of hot tub. If there are pigs in a blanket, promise to sell your first born to the God of party. There are never snacks, you fucking idiot. Chew on your hand instead and vow when you are ‘rich’ (a thousandaire) you will make it rain mini quiches at all parties you throw. Silently judge the way this person decorates their apartment. There are two options: There is a Grandma’s Boy DVD, the tiny piece, the Hawaiian Punch in the fridge, and dirty dishes. Or there is a bookshelf, matching placemats with a French stamp theme, an Audrey Hepburn framed poster, and expensive tomato sauce and capers. If you had the choice, you would decorate all apartments with live sharks. Realize you are the sad girl who stands in corners at party if only they knew your vivid imagination. Make small talk with the annoying girl you met once who always speaks enthusiastically and wears unnecessary ruffles. Or the attractive girl who has no personality, the guy with the good job you wish you could be attracted to and votes the same way you do. Finally, talk to somebody who watches the same reality show you do. Mention the weather until your head will explode of boredom and you excuse yourself to text things to the fun friend. Go the the bathroom and check their medicine cabinet to find medications or something funny like Vagisil. Scream at your hair and leave. Find somebody in the kitchen is doing shots. You realize your friend is macking hard on the guy she likes and now you are stuck. So you take the shots. Accidentally, you are drunk on Bacardi white rum, which is shameful and disgusting. Begin to hit on that one guy you sort of know who is about as attractive to you as any metaphor that explains a last resort. Admire his plaid shirt. Talk to him about how you hate Sandals commercials and gladiator sandals and like the movie Gladiator. You both love dogs?! Maybe you love him. Awkwardly dance to Ke$ha but it is not sexy. Take another shot. Steal a bite of somebody else’s pizza. Who orders pepperoni? Veggie pizza or death! Try to make out with that guy you decided you liked by putting up chin up at him, creating awkward silences, and smiling awkwardly. Maybe this means you will make out in the corner by the Vertigo poster for ten minutes or maybe it means you won’t. He’s not going to call, so who really gives a fuck? Talk about Quentin Tarantino movies as you feel your soul leave your body. Finally leave when your friend high-pitch squeals ‘come ON let’s gooooooo’ or somebody breaks a lamp. You are drunk and burping. Realize you hate all people and should never leave your couch.

Take a cab home, eat a sandwich, go to bed with your makeup on, swear to never go to another party again the next day when you are hungover.

I’m drinking wine and watching Showgirls right now. All sorts of mistakes I make, including this one:

Starting late next week, I’ve got a new project. I’ve been single forever, as judged by the permanent sauce stains on my sweatshirt and all the unshaved legs. But now I’m ready to take matters in my own hands! After all, I’m a single girl living in a city, I’m slightly cynical, have girl friends who I eat with, and am ambitious but humorous! I’m your basic Gary Marshall starlet, right? No? Well, I’ll tell you what: For two weeks, I am going to live like I am in a romantic comedy. Everybody in romantic comedies falls in love in a snap, and it’s about time I stopped making fun of them and tried it out. 

I’ll take on a project a day. Day #1 for example, I’m going to drop all my papers on the street. I am going to go around dropping my papers on the street, and I assume this means Joseph Gordon- Levitt will pick them up and love me forever. Day #2? I’ll tell a guy a really big lie about myself. Or spill a drink on him. Or contact my high school boyfriend. Or go out in a face mask. Or try to lose a guy in ten days (ten minutes). Either way, I’m going to write about it. Or start picking out wedding dresses or something. (I’ll continue writing other stuff, too, don’t worry.) So if you want to, send me ideas of what cliches I should tackle. If you want to more, send Jesse Eisenberg my way and ask him to pick up the papers of a short girl with glasses on the street.

Either way, this isn’t going to go well. But that’s exactly the kind of attitude one should have who falls in love, right? RIGHT?! 

I’m used to having bad hair days. These come about once a month, around the same time a slight bit of humidity slugs it’s way into the air and the sky looks like dirty Cool Whip. Hailing from the heavens is that infuriating light rain that coats you like those weird fans that spray water on you in long Disneyworld lines. I have to go somewhere and look cute, so I spend hours straightening and hairspraying, an effort which the weather promptly beats with a baseball bat like Joe Pesci. I spend the rest of the day avoiding mirrors and feeling like the elephant man.

I’m also used to having the occasional bad body day. Having just awoken from a bagel breakfast followed by some sort of pasta mountain or Cheeto coma, I stand sideways in the mirror and think ‘oh wow I guess Victoria’s Secret model is out of the question.’ Which is fine with me because in those commercials the British lady narrator sounds like a GPS system (Annual BRAH sale) and the boobs look like fist-sized cheeseballs. Still, I feel bad for about a day (all while still eating handfuls of M&Ms). I decide to go on some sort of healthy eating crusade to lose the ever important ‘three pounds,’ which is basically three long pees and less salt for a week. Truth is, when I am not on this crusade, I actually eat pretty okay. I know what a lot of vegetables taste like and I really can eat my way through a house made out of beets and raw spinach and vegan soups. When I am trying to diet, though, I only eat low-fat substitues for sour cream, plates of fettucine Lean Cuisines, and reduced-fat chocolate doughnuts. It’s no good, although low-fat cream cheese is totally delish. Basically, I’m used to sometimes looking into the mirror and criticizing my thighs looking like drumsticks or having the slightest hint of a muffin top in pants that are so tight they have moved the location of my intestines. Then I remember how gross it would be if my shoulders could slice through deli meat or my side looked like a ribby lawn chair, so I eat a BLT.

Both of these bads I kind of understand, because sometimes you CAN eat too much and sometimes the weather can make your hair rebel against attractive. However, tonight I did one of those stupid things, equivalent to disliking The Jersey Shore but watching it every week: I went in front of the mirror and hated on my face.  I imagine this is exactly the kind of thing that Heidi Montag does in her spare time and so I am obviously shamed. Heidi Montag was a cyborg sent to destroy women, right?

Anyway. Coming out of the shower, I was kind of in a bad mood and did that sort of masochistic rookie mistake where I put on all the lights in the bathroom, get an inch away from the mirror and stare. I am not there for love, I do not come in peace. At first I was only enraged with my dry skin, which is like the calm before the storm. I put some lotion on it, noticed a blemish, and decided to play with it until I guess I picked it so much it exposed the bone on my jaw. I don’t know what it is about ‘picking my face,’ but it is the MISTAKE I ALWAYS MAKE. It is the fucking Groundhog day of my life, the ‘forget the pain of childbirth’ of face care. Here is this small thing on my chin, I have to squeeze it until blood pours out of it like a volcano. Then I notice another and lather, rinse repeat. I emerge with a bloody face. Now, I have to examine myself more miserably and decide oh woe is me I am such a beast like in that movie beastly but that asshole kind of just looks like a skinhead. Then I decide something insane about me like my left eyebrow is fuller than my right, my hairline is weird, or my nose is 35 degrees crooked. I scan my face for face hair and freak out. I criticize myself like middle-aged women criticize their daughter’s friends or Britney Spears. I decide I am unattractive. I feel bad. 

This is a totally normal thing for girls. Once I told my friend ‘oh dude, I just stared in a mirror for thirty minutes making myself feel like shit’ she was like oh man, my lower lip is so weird. I’m like bitch please you crazy? But that’s what we do. It’s okay to sit and stare and make a list of the things we hate about our face. FUCKING LAME.

The truth is, I have learned a long time ago I’m not this gorgeous angel from the heavens that looks good in red lipstick or looks good in pictures of me laughing. Most people aren’t. At this point, cute is kind of a four-letter word because I get called cute a lot. So do teddy bears, toddlers, and people you’re not sure you want to sleep with. If I had pillowy lips, I would just shove pizza into them. If I had memorable green eyes, I would just make them watch Bravo all day. If I had a model face, that’s what I would hate on. If I had invented Facebook, I would have invented Facebook! I’m fine. I’m hot in certain lighting. Well, I’m hot in certain weather. Suck on it. 

The problem is, even if you choose to break your nose or get Botox or just walk around hating the way you look forever, it’s still your fucking face! You are not Nic Cage or John Travolta, and you are mostly stuck with it forever. You shouldn’t bother hating things you can’t change. So you should start liking it. The same way you did when you were drunk, went to the bathroom, and gave yourself kissy lips and fake posed in the mirror like a pinup girl. Yay beer! I think you should like your face. Swear to yourself that if you had a really good makeup artist and a Photoshopper you would look like Mila Kunis or some shit. Stop bitching (Born This Way except it would be weird if I still had the same face I did as a baby). Welcome to your face!

And on a side note, seriously. Stop picking your face.

When people ask me whether or not I find the glass half-empty or half-full, I say ‘well that’s a stupid question, it has drink in it. Drink is good. I’m happy it has drink here.’ Then I think about it a little more because I’m probably tipsy and say ‘I guess it could use more ice.’ Truthfully, I’d rather have one of those awesome what would you do? questions instead of the ‘party psychologist’s unoriginal pop quiz.’ Those somehow have me asking myself if I would cut off Kristen Stewart’s foot and eat it in stew for a million dollars, and I’d like to think there is some crazy millionaire out there who forces strangers into highly ridiculous situations for money (SAW with prizes). Anyway, this classic glass question is usually only asked by toolbags who are really excited to see Limitless, but somehow people think it manages to say so much about you. Side note: I never think that my drink is cold enough. I would make vodka ice cubes if I could, because it would be awesome and it would also make me a wizard.

Obviously, people really ask that question to find out if you’re an optimist or a pessimist. They’re not doing it out of concern, really, they’re just doing it to find out exactly what kind of batshit you are. If you’re an optimist, they know they’ll have to listen to you incessantly yap about picket fences and tooth-flossing and The Bachelor forever until they can pretend to be Prince Charming enough to sleep with you. If you’re a pessimist, they know they’ll have to listen to you talk about government theories and beat poetry and firecats until they can wear you down enough to sleep with them while pulling your hair. Truthfully, I’m not a fan of either, but pessimism kind of pisses me off more. Well, being on a long plane ride with an optimist makes me want to jump out of said plane, but I’m talking big picture dislike here. This is due to the fact that I get called a pessimist or cynical or angry too frequently because I like Larry David and I don’t like long hugs. I guess I’d be called an optimist if I wore more pink, but I’d rather die from a long battle with a small but feisty mountain lion than do that. Oh, I’m so mean! I must hate all! I must believe the worst in everyone! Well, listen, buddy. I tend to scowl, but I’m not a pessimist.

The thing is, I’m a realist. If somebody asks me about my glass, I will simply comment on its contents because that’s what happened and is happening. Pessimists are know-it-alls, and the ‘know’ is really ‘doom.’ They are like the terrible and mean atheists who don’t understand why you want a Christmas tree or the extreme Christians who don’t let their kids celebrate Halloween. THEY SEE THE FUN IN NOTHING. They give people like me who hate watching teenager couples and hate kids who scream for Bieber a bad name. I am a bit cynical, and I am realistic that a lot of people break up and 50 percent of marriages end in divorce (but ‘protect the sanctity of that institution’ BARF). The thing is, Pessimists always complain. They are whiners. They have never had a turkey sandwich they enjoy, and they never get happier than ‘slightly annoyed.’ They will grow to be old people who say ‘back in MY day’ and they like to say things “suck.” They are the ones who complain about their exes, and how their EXES made love stupid and terrible and unreal to them and to all. If you suggest you might find love to a pessimist, they will call you an idiot because Katie McCheater was a bitch to them. They like to call themselves bitter, as if that somehow makes them more right or more aware of the world than others. They allow bad things that happened to them make them the kind of angry bastards that say ‘who fucking cares’ a lot. Then they expect you to band together with them when they say ‘I hate people so much’ because you are darkly humorous or hate rom coms.

I hate people is one of those phrases I said when I was 19 and wore more winged eyeliner than Amy Winehouse and was dating a guy with one of those eyebrow rings that is a spike. I hate people is one of those phrases you say when you want to kind of let people know you can’t make fun of me i’m soooo tough plz don’t make fun of me. 

I happen to ONLY hate people when I am on a subway and people try to enter the car before I leave the car. I happen to only hate people when some terrible unthinkable thing happens to somebody. But I don’t actually hate people. People are fine. They are shitty, they are awful, and they are selfish, but we all need to have a couple around us sometimes. I’m not a pessimist. I’m angry at annoying pop celebrities but sometimes I like Kim Kardashian’s high-waisted pants. I have strong distaste in couples that are in love after three weeks but don’t give up hope on the entire emotion. Hope isn’t a bad word. You can still wear leather and curse when you say the word hope, and narrowing your eyes towards relationships or love doesn’t make you cooler. And it’ll only prove your point in the long run, which is what you’re secretly hoping won’t happen in the end. Nobody wants to be in some sort of relationship with a person who needs to talk about the worst of everything all the time, so yes, you’ll probably be single for a bit. This also means you’ll never go to Olive Garden, the perfect dating spot ahhhhhhhhhh.

I am neither an optimist or a pessimist. I don’t want to blow up scenarios that haven’t yet happened, and I don’t want scenarios to blow up in my face because I’m a nasty bitch. Both are awful ways of dealing with shit, and you’re likely disappointed either way. So stop complaining. Stop getting overly excited. Believe in nice things sometimes. Because your glass is really just full of lemonade, and if you continue talking about it it’s just going to get warm.

I’ve been pretty single for a long time now. I say pretty single because in the years of my unattached-ness, I haven’t been a complete and total ‘Lifetime movies and molten chocolate cake’ case of the sads. There’s always been the occasional sex dude, followed by that terrifying imagination period where you’ve made out six times and you know his birthday and any minute will be the minute he tells me he is not into titles. Then I have to destroy all of him and boom! Facebook single forever it is. Either way, lately I’ve been in a ‘huh, I guess I would consider dating somebody right now’ kind of mood. I equate this to craving an awkward sushi date and couch-making out and driving myself crazy over an idiot in a plaid shirt. Problem is, I don’t really have the means to meeting somebody. The bar thing is boring because I just like to look at people like they are in my own human zoo. Most other nights are spent with TBS and oh shit is she gonna talk about her snacks again? My snacks. I think my shot at love is going to consist of sending letters to guys in prison/getting set up by other people’s grandmothers, but we’ll see. Anyway, having already talked about my objection to the phrase ‘find love when you least expect it,’ I’d like to further my point by saying I believe it IS possible…so long as you the movies for inspiration.

How to know when you will fall in love:

• if you are a CIA operative on the run or are prone to being attractive to said CIA operatives. Judging by that new Matt Damon yawn fest where he’s all like ‘look! I’m running around in a fedora,’ fighting other people with guns for/against the government is still a pretty good way to meet men. Here’s where I remind you Bradley Cooper was in Alias! However, you must own an obvious black wig and a gun to put in garter. Red dress and Russian accent doesn’t really hurt, until it KILLS. (boom)
• Zombie apocalypse or Alien Takeover. I bet you somebody’s going to make out or dry hump in Battle: LA. That’s because there’s nothing like ‘oh hey you might fucking DIE in ten minutes’ that will make you love quickly. Oh, wait. I mean everybody looks hot covered in dirt and wearing a sweaty cleavage and heaving breasts and impending doom. I mean if Megan Fox finds it easy to find love and by love I mean maybe meet a guy who thinks she’s the world’s first stripper millionaire, so can we! I mean aliens aren’t that fuckable, except to that guy in Avatar. Humans just seem more pleasing. I mean if the world is ending I will have other things on my mind.
• If you bump into people. Just go around and fucking bump into people! Chances are, one of them will be a Hollywood leading man who will pick up all your dropped papers, because the smartest thing to do in the world is walk around with a pile of paperwork without a bag. You idiot you deserve all of the pain, but at least he will ask you for coffee and get into wacky scenarios with you.
• a crazy murderer is after you. The worst thing about horror movies is how they give me entirely unreasonable fears forever. For example, instead of being worried at things like city subway pissers or purse grabbings, I’m afraid of that guy who maybe wants to chop up all my sexy teenager friends in the suburbs on Halloween. Anyway, if that is the case and he is out there, you’ll at least find love. He’ll die brutally but it’s better to have loved and lost, you greedy bitch.
• WAR. JERRY BRUCKHEIMER.
• You are an attractive woman who has suddenly given up on love. You are Kate Hudson, you have a job like ‘newspaper reporter’ or ‘job that doesn’t exist like breakup negotiator.’ You are the kind of girl who ‘gives up on love’ means ‘been single for 6 months.’ You do not know the real meat of giving up, like drinking whiskey for six days straight and using your lighter to set fire to old pieces of paper you’ve ripped up. But that’s not really giving up, either. Giving up is for morons. You’re just slightly bitter but never hopeless? Too bad! You’re not ever going to fucking date JAMES MARSDEN!
• you never wear a shower cap.
• you are currently engaged to or happily dating a douchebag. He wears sweater vests and probably works in banking, also a Protestant. However, he chews gum obnoxiously and calls you babe. He also makes champagne toasts. Good thing your BEST FRIEND/GUY YOU JUST MET is like, a really attractive down-to-earth guy.
• probably live in Boston. Boston’s the hot new city for love, according to Ben Affleck and DANGER.
• lady cop going SUPER UNDERCOVER IN TOO DEEEEEEEP
• writing a blog about something regarding romance and 30-100 days to prove something.
• you are dying.
• you are going on vacation but look really good in a sarong and don’t like napping and only drinking pina coladas and guacamole.
• you’re a Roman woman being strong while strong men go to strong battle.
• you’re in high school taking a stance against more popular girls than you.
• SECRET PRINCESS.
• you are in direct competition in your equally high-powered jobs with somebody very attractive with a strong chin. You are also a high-powered woman with so much busy!
• high school best guy friend is attractive and always in your life.
• if you’re not you, just the you in a SUPERDESPERATE RUSH.

Last night, I realized that I have a real bitch face when I go out to bars. It’s the kind of face that is a cross between “Regina George” and “I’m gonna stab you in the neck because I’ve DONE TIME, mo fuckah.” Nobody messes with me because I might stab you or drink you under the table or I look like I read/wear a chastity belt of nails and human flesh. ALL NEGATIVES IN BARLAND. At this point, Saturday nights are used for deciding what kind of brunch I want to have in the morning. I spend a lot of time battling the Braveheart war of whether I want sweet or savory Sunday eatings and because I’m wearing Spanxx, I feel super slim and feel like I can have both. I would anyway. They are ALSO used for taking a long time to do my makeup, remembering why I don’t drink whiskey anymore, and being extra disdainful to anybody who grinds in public. I hate grinding music. It’s all about Pitbull verses and a club being ‘on fire.’ Ugh. I’m being pessimistic again because clearly I’m not watching enough rom coms! That is why I am curled up in my bed watching Runaway Bride. I’m concerned that this was made but not surprised the song “You Can’t Hurry Love” is in it. Although truth is, even shitty rom coms never start at a ‘let’s wear button-downs and winged tip collars’ bar. Nobody falls in love at a bar, it’s too sticky.

Totally unrelated point is this: It’s Sunday and I’m going to spend all day in my pjs and maybe do some ‘work’ (Hulu). Everything I eat will be out of a bowl. I’m also going to get a lil gross and remind you that The Frenemy is going to be a book. I don’t feel bad about bringing it up because it’s slated to come out after the Mayan Calendar has decided we are all end of the world dead so it’s basically not real. 2012 for the win!  Point is even more this: I need your help for it. I need you to send me your best how I lost my virginity stories. I lost mine on a futon with no bedframe and I hope yours isn’t much better but also hilarious. 

Help a sister out and send your lost virginity stories to Iamthefrenemy@gmail.comor in my ask box. Just sign it with an initial and an age, and if it gets used I won’t give your blog name or full name or any bullshit like that. You’ll remain as anon as your shame.  As all of our shames. Either way, happy weekend! March is still cold!

Oh good, a Brett Ratner film is on TBS. THIS SHOULD BE GOOD