Father Knows Best: Reason My Dad F*CKING ROCKS #147

As Margaret More Roper once said of her father, Sir Thomas More: "My dad fucking rocks." (Actually, I think the exact quote was, "Excuse me, sir, can I buy my old man's head back? Our fam's in a real pickle." 


And if you don't know why that joke is effing hilarious, you really need to catch up on your 16th century Reformation-era history. But I digress...)  


The point: Like Sir Thom, my father rocks. 


A few examples:

#76: He slow-braises beef short ribs for hours in savory demi-glaze, spoons them over homemade garlic mashed potatoes, freezes them, then sends divine meat-packages into the city so my friends and I can have home-cooked meals even when we can't come home.

#15: He prefers weed to alcohol and, at 56, can still roll the most immaculate joint you've ever seen in under two minutes.

#112: He's 6'2", 240 lbs. and weeps openly every time he sees a father walk his little girl down the aisle at a wedding.

#147: The card I'm about to detail for you in this post.

A quick primer: 

Having successfully survived the part of raising girls which includes living under the same (small) roof with two hormonal teenaged time-bombs, a perimenopausal wife and a deaf female rat-terrier with OCD, Dad's paternal instincts are as immaculately honed as Charlie Sheen's coke insufflation technique. With his nest now empty, he keeps his skills sharp in a variety of ways, including (but not limited to) playing surrogate father to the myriad vagabond bohemians I call friends. 


A few weeks ago, said ring of vagabond bohemians continued its decade-long tradition of inbreeding when one male member and one female member started hooking up on the regular. (This happens frequently. Though I'm assuming it'll be happening less, since we're running out of members who haven't, at minimum, gone down on one another...but again I digress.) The male then did something even he openly admits was stupid and hurtful, wounding the female badly enough that she told him to go fuck himself.  


When Dad called a few days later he asked after his surrogate children. I gently explained the falling out of Male and Female (both of whom he loves and will love no matter what stupid thing they do) and mentioned Female was feeling jaded by the whole encounter. 


Shortly thereafter, Female received a handwritten note from my father in the mail. 


The front of the card has a picture of a dog hanging out a car window with the Madame de Stael quote "The more I see of man, the more I like dogs" underneath. The inside reads thusly:

Dearest Ms. [Female's Name Withheld Because Blogging is Bad for Incestuous Social Circles],

I'm sure you get the sentiment of this card...especially when you are dealing with "young boys"...they oft think like "young children."

Sometimes I wish I could have redone some of the things I did when I thought like a young manboy...and, of course, [insert name of Male who wounded Female here] is incapable of being as perfect as I was in my youth. But that's still no excuse for him being a dumb ass.

It's okay...be mad...be pissed...think revenge...then move on.

You have so much to give...so much personality to be able to handle this...so much that makes you the catch you will be for the right person when you are ready...and so much life to go. Don't fret--know you are loved by family and friends...when you are sad so are we, so move on to a better place...and better guy.

With love,

Papa and Mama Syllabick

PS: "Love" doesn't mean a six pack stomach and rippling tushy muscles...if that were true, then why has Mama stayed with me so long? It's more important to feel love in your heart and mind.

And if that fails, go for the money. 

That, gentlemen, is how you raise daughters.


That, ladies, is a piece of text we should all be reading like scripture. 


And that, everyone, is reason #147 my dad fucking rocks. 

  

#52: What is Love (Baby Don't Hurt We)

This week’s post about the second-first date with former-almost-fiance Alex raised a lot of questions with both you brilliant bloggers and myself. The big ones were: Is the drug high “pitter-patter” of hearts a sign you’ve found THE ONE, or a short-term side effect of infatuation, i.e. limerence? Since you always hear adorable old couples talking about “feeling the same today as the day they met,” does that mean limerence can be sustainable? If one does not feel that pitter-patter, does that mean they aren’t really in love? And where the Hell do you meet an Asian woman with a goatee trying to sell you a turtle (answer: on the streets of Brooklyn, near a farmer’s market by the M train)?   

I’ve always assumed that TRUE love (or, for Princess Bride fans, “TWOO wuuv”) is exclusionary, meaning that when you’ve found the real thing, nothing else can encroach (for long) on its glowing, sweet-smelling chunk of emotional real estate. If you’re honestly IN LOVE with THE ONE, nothing--not the advances of a sexy renegade suitor, not the cancerous influence of doubt, not the opinions of outsiders, nada--can pull up in a U-haul and gentrify the ‘hood you, your lover and your  shared passion have created, right?  (Right? Buehler?)  

This thesis was taken directly from The Disney School of Love and Relationships. It has been the compass of my, and many peoples, relationships for years. It’s a black and white doctrine to live by, and therefore appealing, because you can self-righteously use it to solve almost any love equation in .5 seconds when employing it as your North Star. 

Examples:

1. You are a frog. I am a princess. If you are THE ONE, you will turn into a prince when I kiss you. (I will then bear you many non-amphibious children.) If you do not change into a prince, you are not THE ONE. 

1. We are in love. We hit a snag. If you are THE ONE, you will stand outside my window blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” (on cassette) through a boom box or perform some equal demonstration of your love to win me back. If you are not motivated to violate residential sound ordinances in the name of our love, you are not THE ONE.

1. We are in love. The blinding light of our atomic love burns so brightly it makes the glow of those two amateurs from Nicholas Sparks’ "The Notebook” look like a car’s cigarette lighter by comparison. It's so fulfilling that I will never want to have sexual or emotional intercourse with anyone else but you for all eternity, no matter how sexy, interesting or complimentary he/she might be. If I (or you) can even think of probing someone else in body or mind, you are not THE ONE.

 

1. You are THE ONE. We are so stupid, butt-crazy in love that after 80 years, I can look at the hairy, wrinkled prune your once noble nutsack has become (and you at my originally perky pair of funbags, now hanging like flesh-colored windsocks on a quiet morning) and still be so aroused by the pitter-pat of our everlasting attraction that we will ravage each other like opposing viking armies. If I do not look at you and have the urge to bang you like a plywood door in a hurricane, you are not THE ONE and I must move on.

See? Easy, right? I’ll bet at least 90% of you have based a least ONE major relationship decision on this logic in the past.

Except, DUH, love isn’t black and white. It is definitively grey, with an LSD trip’s worth of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet throwing a goddamned rave in the foreground.    

Look, I know--the revelation that love is more like a Timothy Leary hallucination than an Oreo cookie on a plate isn’t groundbreaking. But the science and nature of love fascinates me, and since half of my Hitch List and its purpose is rooted in The Disney School of Love and Relationships, I feel obligated to do the research and adjust my personal thesis accordingly. Otherwise, who knows what stupid bullshit I’ll pull in the future.

Also, as per my original itemized list, I must:

“#14: Do a postmortem on past relationships for evidence of MY insanity [read: ignorance] at work.”

and

“#47: Read at least two books on the world history of marriage,” in order to better understand that thing which I fear so entirely.

So doing some research on the nature of love, limerence, infatuation and long term relationships can only help my cause (and life),  knocking a few items off the list in the process.

Thus, I’m adding a new number onto the active Hitch List, with a little inspiration from 90s-club-and-roller-skating-rink-divo Haddaway:

#52: Answer Haddaway’s iconic question, “What is love?”

I currently have historian Stephanie Coontz’s succinctly-titled book “Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage,” a brilliant analysis of the checkered past of marriage and the history of human relationships, in my hands as a jump-off. I’ve also got about 50 pages of research and criticisms surrounding Dorothy Tennov’s theory of limerence to go through as well. 

I’ll be periodically posting highlights from my research--also, if anyone has strong feelings or information about any of this, I’m seeking guest-bloggers, as well as opinions, to feature here, since this topic and conversation is far bigger than myself. Drop me a comment or email at thehitchlist@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure your voice is heard. 

In the meantime, click that Haddaway link if you haven’t already, because it's a real trip down memory lane. 

A Decent Proposal: The Second First Date Experiment

He's upping his game, big time...And I'm now tuned in and watching the game.

By way of an intro: When you leave a lover (or job, or friend, or any kind of relationship) behind, for any reason, you always do it with the assumption that you know them--or enough about them in one area or another--to have made that decision wisely.

Example A:
"I am going to stop banging you because I know from personal, agonizing, chaffing experience that you couldn't find my clitoris even if it lit up and played the Mets game in HiDef."

Example B:
"I am going to end our relationship because you cheated on me with that girl from Applebees...and know that no matter how much you apologize, if you could do it again, you would. Also, I'll never be able to enjoy the boneless wings there again, and I'm really upset about that."

Example C:
"After dating you for half a decade, I know everything there is to know about you. I have a Masters' Degree in Studies of You. During my intense study of You, I've collected enough data to conclude you'll never be able to give the style of romance/attention/perfection I want, because if you could, you would have by now. As a result, I must terminate our mutually loving and respectful relationship because we'll never make each other entirely happy due to this unfortunate incompatibility."


After many years of life experiences, obstacles, disagreements and domestic randomness with our mate, most of us monogamers start to take for granted that we know everything about them. "I know you'll order corned beef and hash with two pieces of American cheese as your hangover breakfast, because you ALWAYS do."

Alex and myself, pre-Hitch List, were no different. And aside from the big, "I gotta go be my own woman" moment of insanity that sparked the move and List movement, a contributing factor to my leaving was knowing that this sweet, sexy, loving guy, despite all the good, just wasn't all that romantic and was a passive partner...which was something that didn't always make me happy and that I didn't want to comprise on.

I've heard of instances when the person you thought you knew blows the cover off your Masters Study in Them thesis paper, presents new evidence which disproves your entire body of research and then wipes their ass with your bibliography page (and I'm talking about good instances of proving you wrong, not the more standard ones where your upstanding husband is discovered having an affair in Argentina with a 20-year-old and has taken to sobbing in public).

SO: Alex blew the cover off my thesis, and I'm totally intruigued by the new research that may unfold.

After some time apart, living seperate lives and doing the individual Hitch List thing, he showed up and gave me one of the most film-worthy monologues since the Jerry Maguire "You Complete Me" speech, something that went sort of like this:

"I'm here because I love and miss you. I understand you have to be independent--I want you to do that, with or without me. However, I think one of the reasons you left is because I never had to win you and I didn't work hard enough to keep you. I never courted you, and you deserved that, and I'm sorry. I know you're dating other people, and that you can't just come home. But I'd like to throw my hat into the ring and at least be in the running for the title of Guy Who Wins You.

I want to start from scratch and take you on a first date, knowing there's no guarantee you'll call me after, knowing you probably won't sleep with me because it's the first date and knowing that it is, regardless of our history, a first date and nothing more. If I start over and win you back over several dates or the next several years, I'll know I finally did it the right way. If someone else makes you happier, at least I know I tried this time. You have no obligation to say yes, but I'm still going to ask: Will you go out with me?"

I tried to play it very, very cool...which sounded something like this:

"Immcherm...uhm..heeeeeeeee..ahem...bzzzzzzzzz."

(Okay, not just like that, but it was inarticulate and embarassing and entirely in character for me. The speech itself was entirely OUT of character for Alex.)

I'm always skeptical about couples who break up and "start over." Won't they just fall into the same pattern of bullshit as always? And can anyone with a history "start over?" America can't very well stroll over to all 1200 remaining Native Americans left and say, "Hey, guys. Wanna start from scratch?"

However, Alex's was and is a VERY DECENT PROPOSAL.

I've granted other people first dates...so it seems wrong to discriminate against Alex just because I think I know him.

So, in the name of my thesis only, I will grant the first date....A TRUE FIRST DATE WITH ALL THE REGULAR RULES IN PLACE...

....for research purposes, of course.

Chronic Monogamy, or, "Hi, I'm Super Lame"

I've been getting a lot of questions (some emailed and some not so nice) about WHY I made a Hitch List, why I've put what are several "well, DUH" items on the list, why I left someone I loved to do it.

First off, I’m somewhat dismayed by the standard “if you could even picture kissing another human, you didn’t love him” default many people revert to. Love, as my longtime gay wingman pointed out recently, is not black and white, nor is it concrete, especially in the cases of people who have been together for half a decade or more. (PS: Limerence, the 1-2 year chemical love high kicked into action by the brain, feels concrete. But it’s not. I still see lots of people mistaking the two daily.) My 90-year-old grandmother confirmed this after I confessed I’d been taking abuse from snark-sharks who said that I couldn’t have been in love if I left, and that I had been taking the snark to heart. Grandma, who is very wise and very Catholic, said simply that “realistic love” is transient, and the people who can’t recognize that are the ones who become rigid and unlovable. She then berated me for caring what other people think. (Point taken, Grandma.)

Obviously something as personal as the reasons behind leaving and hitch listing will be different for everyone. I certainly don't expect anyone who's from a more traditional, white-picket-fence-mindset to even remotely understand the selfish, all-about-me nature of listing.

But for clarification’s sake, I can say FOR ME it is a much needed codependency treatment, one that will ideally cure me of a potentially fatal (socially and romantically) illness: Super Lameness, clinically known (in the clinic that is our halfway-house of an apartment) as Chronic Monogamy Syndrome.

Like generations of men, women and sitcom characters before me, I like the single life. It's sexy. It’s fun. You don't have to answer to anyone. You can pick up and go study the art of prayer flag making in Tibet. You can go on Puckish adventures into the outer-boroughs for anything you want--underground dances parties, thin-sliced pizza, bohemian guitar circles, green tea, make-out sessions with random lead singers of bands you accidentally picked up after even more random concerts (I'm looking at you, Red...). Anything's possible when you don’t have someone else to consider. Nights can end at 6am with your partner in crime at your side, both of you smelling like gin and lime and high off the heady violation of every cardinal rule of proper behavior. Or you can just sit alone contentedly blogging without being called antisocial. (Though I recommend debauchery. It all goes in a memoir someday, and if your memoir's too boring too read you’re wasting the precious gifts of life and genitals.)

But like everyone who’s ridden singledom already knows, eventually loneliness sets in...followed by self-doubt, social paranoia, the fear that if you die no one will come looking for you until the dog eats your face, and that gnawing, irrational need to be spooned by a warm body which holds you tightly. That warm body completely validates you: you’re pretty enough, smart enough, interesting enough, worthy enough for companionship, and you’ve got proof!

For Chronic Monogamers, this can become the relentless, insecure driving force behind jumps from long-term relationship to long-term relationship.

This is super lame.

Example: I have a background in wanting to be partnered so badly that I fall in love too easily, forgiving glaring personality flaws (long histories of womanizing, lack of direction in life, non-reciprocating oral sexers) en route to the next level of companionship. That eventually resulted in a failed engagement to a douche who was clearly a douche, and the purchase of 25 stone wedding centerpieces which are still sitting, like a bizarre graveyard, in my parent’s basement.

Far worse is that I blow off friends as soon as the signing bonus on new relationship goes through. I’m nesting. I’m sexing. I’m entwined with my lover, happily absorbing their nuances like a sponge, purring and lolling about in togetherness like an overweight cat in a featherbed. I become defined by the relationship, which leads to monophobia outside of the relationship.

This is all incredibly humiliating to have to admit, because it reveals just how insecure and cringe-inducingly awkward I am at my lowest. But I do know through countless conversations and shameless evesdropping that I’m not an isolated case. I’ve seen it: normally rational, fun, strong people fading into their chains of band-aid relationships, losing touch with themselves as they go. We’ve all watched enough disturbingly codependent relationships sink into the tar pits because at least one person can't admit to this, and it’s ugly enough to make me want to suck it up and deal with it now.

So, I left. Not because my lover was a douche (this one was and is a decided catch, loved and approved of by everyone from Grandma to our social circle’s bitchy-I-hate-everyone-Godfather-of-the-Gays) but because I might be...or might become one down the road if I didn’t take some time to sort out all the glaring flaws I’d never addressed because I haven’t been alone since I was 19.

By making a list, forcing myself to go independent, learning to have fun without a partner or date in tow and reconnecting with all the friends I abandoned when nesting (or failed to meet by not going out), I just might become the kind of person I want to marry.

I may end up something besides super lame.

And I think that's just swell.

I DO(n't know)

Six months ago, I was the cover of the "liberal-arts-educated-chick-from-the-burbs" textbook: 25 (not 26), gainfully employed and living a blissful routine of guaranteed sex and companionship with my attractive, supportive and employed boyfriend of five years. (And our dog. White with black spots.) I cooked, he cleaned. Sunday nights we watched reality TV in our underwear. On special occasions, he could have it anally.

Then, as the 6 year mark approached, I began doing what generations of women have made a fine art: dropping hints about marriage.

But I am not an artist. "Hints" devolved into billboards with the words “ARE YOU EVER GOING TO FUCKING MARRY ME, DUDE?” scrawled in 50-foot Helvetica font on the sides of buildings. (That's an exaggeration. But I did get wasted off Stoli and bitch in a cab from the Upper East Side aaaallllllll the way to Astoria--in front of my boyfriend, our friends and a Pakistani cabbie--about how he hadn't proposed. NOTE: This is one of the three instances in which a man is actually allowed to murder a woman in the back of a cab. We'll talk about the other two another time.)

It became an obsession. Would he? When? Where? How would he do it? What if he picked out an ugly-as-sin ring? I’d say yes, but was it appropriate to melt it down...? GOD, what if it was pear-cut?

Then, the bomb dropped: Alex, as we’ll call him, WAS going to propose. According to the mole who leaked the news, soon.

I freaked the fuck out.

Not in a jumping up and down with your sorority sisters kind of way. More a I-packed-my-shit-up-emptied-my-bank-account-and-subletted-a-room-from-a-gay-man-in-Brooklyn kind of freak out.

Well, not “kind of.” That’s actually what I did. Literally.

"This girl’s a fucking nutjob.” “Bipolar." "That dude’s better off.” Yes, I can hear your interior monologue from Brooklyn (the acoustics off the bridge are ah-mazing). I get it. Respectable, sympathetic girls don't do things like that to hot, supportive, amazing guys who love their crazy asses.

But staring down the barrel of marriage, it clicked: I’ve never been on my own. I always came home to parents or the live-in boyfriend, never walked into a party or social event without the bullet-proof vest of my partner layered over my party-gear and never learned to be the confident, self-reliant, worldly woman with cool stories to tell.

Worse, I’d become the sort of grating, obnoxious, smothering girlfriend who guys and girls alike wish to kill with their bare hands...one that turns into the sort of grating, obnoxious, smothering wife some guys DO kill with their bare hands. Lump in the fact I suddenly questioned whether this guy was THE ONE, since I’d never really taken the time to talk to anyone else, and the whole humiliating hot-mess puzzle should assemble itself pretty easily. (Alex had his own issues to deal with as well.)

Which brings us to THE LIST:

Ammendment: The Hitch List fully recognizes that marriage does not equate death. If you're with the right person, most of your life adventures should continue, only with double the cost of airfare. But if you've a history of codependency (check) and/or limited experience with personal independence (double check), Hitch Listing might be one way to reboot....and make sure you're not a clingy nightmare when you find your soul mate.

Things To Do Before You Marry, or The Hitch List:

(last updated on September 18, 2009)

1. Learn to comfortably fly solo.

2. Conquer lingering, irrational childhood fears (dark, fucking scary spiders, etc.).

3. Go on week long "Help Me" Detox--no asking for help from anyone, for anything. (This pertains to help carrying laundry from the laundromat, reaching items at the grocery store, holding subway doors, killing fucking scary spiders, etc., as well as to the obvious areas of financial, emotional and social assistance.)

4. Get lost in a major city alone. Find your way home.

5. Do something that scares the shit out of you.

6. Do something that scares the shit out of someone else.

7. Sleep in the WHOLE bed.

8. Go on an epic road trip. Must visit minimum of three places you've never heard of before Google mapping.

9. Start selfish, indulgent lifelong habit.

10. Get involved in doing ongoing good deeds for others.

11. Have wild night at the strip club.

12. Break one personal beauty law (i.e. no short hair, no red lipstick, no Lindsay Lohan leggings, etc).

13. Break up with the television, phone, Facebook and g-chat and live like an urban Emerson...temporarily, at least.

14. Do post-mortem on past relationships for evidence of YOUR insanity at work (no blaming the ex).

15. Go on a date with someone who is not your "type."

16. Tattoo.

17. Restock your entire underwear drawer with new inventory.

18. Revisit an old fling.

19. Wingman your BFF a piece of ass.  

20. Have your BFF wingman you a piece of ass.  

21. Go on a 100% lesbian date.

22. Skydive.

23. Get in a fight.

24. Learn a new language. Must be able to order food, ask for directions, give a compliment and give instructions on how to make you orgasm in chosen language within 6 weeks of starting.

25. Learn from the "other woman."

26. Relocate somewhere you've never lived and don't know anyone.

27. Create "Ethnic Sexcapades" Bingo Card (Italian, Irish, Puerto Rican, African American, Japanese, etc.). Compete with friends for first "Bingo." (Winner gets bragging rights and a free trip to the STD clinic.)

28. Take a midnight train going anywhere.

29. Be with someone older.

30. Be with someone younger.

31. Break a Guinness World Record.

32. Party with someone famous.

33. Smash out with someone famous (see 32 for assistance).

34. Play a player.

35. Threesum?

36. Visit the birthplace of your personal hero.

37. Read/view/listen to at least three of the books/films/albums an ex recommended but you never touched (who knows, they may have been right aboutsomething).

38. Spend a day in someone elses' shoes...literally, swap locations, jobs, friends and lifestyles for a day. See what you learn.

39. Build something from scratch utilizing three tools you have no idea how to use.

40. Try something you would "never" do in bed.

41. Be the star of your own nude photo shoot and learn to love your naked self. (Pictures for your eyes only.)

42. Start mixed martial arts and/or self defense classes.

43. Go on a vision quest with an experienced guide.

44. Travel somewhere exclusively for a famous local food item (must cross state lines). Philly cheese steaks, media noches in Cuba, Pad Thai in Thailand, etc.

45. Get arrested.

46. Experience a complete relationship in one weekend (meet, flirt, fall in lust, spend too much time together and breakup all over the course of a single weekend. Hard to do in small towns, but it happens all the time in NYC).

47. Read at least two books on the world history of marriage (better the devil that you know).

48. Experience parenthood temporarily with the assistance of friends/siblings/relatives who have small children.

49. Have a raucous ladies'/guys' night in a famous non-native party city.

50. Write your own eulogy.

51. Curb cursing habit.

52. Answer Haddaway's age-old question: "What is love?"

53. Advocate and march for equal marriage rights. (Just because I'm not ready to marry doesn't mean EVERYONE else on the planet shouldn't be allowed to.)