Boys, Toys, and Music Break-Ups

I’m a firm believer that men never really grow-up: they just get bigger and want more expensive toys. Our fascination with games, be they sports, video, or gambling, never disappears. Our toys get pricier and more elaborate: Computers, Stereo Equipment, Cars, and women. Most of us still don’t know how to dress ourselves, clean-up after ourselves, or feed ourselves.

But we’ve learned enough about how to dress up and play grown-up for job interviews, family functions, and women. Women…I wonder if they really are fooled by men who pretend to be grown-up. Probably not. In fact, I suspect that a number of girls find these characteristics rather charming.

Just look at a man who starts talking about cars. His eye light up, he gets really animated, and he begins reeling off numbers like a kid reciting the stats of his favorite ballplayer.

For a while now, I’ve had this theory that a date that would absolutely KILL would be a “six-year old date.” Here’s what I envision:

You pick up your date, and take her out to go sledding. Then you go back to your place for Hot Chocolate and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the crusts cut off. After that, you do finger painting, watch cartoons and, if all goes well, have nap time.

Think about it: it’s original, memorable, and absolutely adorable. I’m pretty sure I could get Mother Theresa to put out after a date like that.




On to other topics…

I’m auditioning a number of musician’s this week for my band: singers and bass players. Every time I go through this process, I’m amused at how much like being in a relationship it is when you’re in a band. When you’re in a band, it’s like being married to three or four other dudes.

Once I was playing music with a singer, and she skipped a few rehearsals. So I called her up to find out what was going on.

Her: Oh…Hi…Umm…look, we need to talk.
Me: uh…ok?
Her: You know, you’re great. You’re really talented and we had some good times, but I’m just not ready for this kind of thing. It’s not you, it’s me. I have a lot on my mind right now and I can’t commit to this right now. I think we should see other people.

So she hung up and I thought, “What the fuck was that about?” I mean, it wasn’t that big a deal if she wanted to quit. It's not like she was doing that great a job anyway. What was with the drama? Just when I thought the situation couldn’t get any weirder, I ran into her at a dinning hall with a friend of mine who played the drums.

Her: Oh…Ehren…Ummm…How’re you?
Me: Uh…fine? How’s it going?
Her: Oh, good. Really good. You look great…well. I actually have to run, but we should hang out sometime and catch up.

Things were just never the same with that girl again. The two of us had never dated, and I never had any kind of romantic interest in her, but we could never even be in the same room together there-after. Personally, I think things would have been LESS awkward if we had had sex. At least then I would have understood where the weirdness had come from. I just wanted to slap her and say, "Bitch! I never saw you naked! Cut it out!"

Oh well. I guess she wasn’t the one anyway…running off to see another drummer behind my back. That musical slut!

Generational Warfare

I’m usually the last person to rise up and defend my generation. I mean, how can you defend an age bracket that is single-handedly responsible for American Idol, Metro-sexuals, and Body-Piercing as a National Past-time? It’s a generation in need of a role-model and an old-fashioned ass-whooping. My generation needs an Ike Turner!

However, I’ve been seeing more and more negative press about my peers and I feel it’s time to lay my pimp hand down in defense. Basically, we’ve been accused of being a generation of slackers, too attached to mommy and daddy to strike out on our own. And frankly, from the stories, it appears that Mommy and Daddy are starting to resent us for it.

1. Fuck you for resenting your kids and not, gee, I don’t know: TAKING IT UP WITH THEM! You wonder why kids have a problem facing adversity? It’s because you sell-out yuppie parents can't even have an honest conversation with your own kids. Model some good behavior for once in your life!

2. Believe it or not, Mr. and Mrs. Hippie, the world is significantly more fucked up since you guys took power and completely sold our future and the revolution down the river. My parents rented an apartment for $500 a month the first year out of college. I can’t rent a piano crate for that now. Between that, the cost of living and the mountain of student loans we have because you convinced us that we’d be living in poverty with out a college education, we can’t even afford to pay the taxes that support your evil, generational-buddies in power. Isn’t it ironic? For my entire youth, I was told about how poor I’d be if I didn’t go to college. Now I graduate and find myself poor because I listened.

3. Do you, as a generation, have any remorse, conscious, or barring that, a soul of any kind beyond your own bloated wants? What the fuck did you think all those reports about inflation and the national debt were about? What exactly did you think those stories about rising oil prices, and falling average wages were for? And remember that President most of you voted for? Little guy, born in Connecticut but pretends to be from Texas? Goes on vacation every 20 minutes and was manning the switch when September 11 rolled around? You know, the one who cut all those programs that help people get on their feet? Yeah, those things actually affect people. So you’re not allowed to bitch about how your kids can’t move out. This is a situation where one, just ONE of your actions is coming back to bite you in the ass. Finally, a small bit of karma is richly coming through. The least you can do is take it with a shred of the dignity that’s been so sorely lacking your generation.

Believe me; kids aren’t staying at home because they like you. We’re staying at home because you traded your kid’s financial independence for that new SUV you drive. We’re staying at home because your decision to pay low taxes back in the 80s meant completely fucking the next four generations of Americans. We’re staying at home because all those decisions you made the day you cut your hair and got a job, the choices you made that were the equivalent of a baby crying “me, me, me!” have crippled your kids. Every time you got your way, you sold a bit more of your children’s future. At this point, we’re looking at a future that resembles South Africa: Street warfare, unimaginably wealthy plantations, staring down shanty-towns. All while a puppet leader struts and dances for show.

Since 1969, you have made the sum total of one selfless act: you killed one of the Bee Gees. Thanks.

We’re hardly a great generation. We’re not too bright, we’re not too ambitious, and we’re way over-medicated. But you show me a bad kid and I’ll show you a bad parent. We learned from the worst, Mom and Dad.

Why I Stopped Dating Hot Girls

I’ve been blessed in my love-life to say that I’ve been with a number of girls who were just flat-out hot. I don’t mean the kind of girl that your buddies say, “yeah, she’s cute.” I mean the kind of girl who enters a room and every single male instant begins eye-raping her.

There’s a certain smug sense of accomplishment to having a girl that is wanted by everyone, especially if you’re not a man of eye-candy status yourself. Ultimately, however, I decided that hot girls were way more trouble than they were worth. Hot girls are nearly all:

1. Self-Centered
2. Boring
3. Not especially bright
4. Lazy in bed
5. Shallow

Personally, I think it comes from the weight that we as a culture place on appearance. Everyone judges people based on appearance. When someone is hot it’s almost as if they don’t have to do anything else. So they become vain, don’t develop really good personal skills, and especially feel like they don’t have to do shit in bed. Hot girls have usually been with dudes who were so happy just to get them that they knocked themselves out trying to be the best lay Ms. Hot-Stuff ever had. As a result, hot girls never had to put in any kind of work. Sorry, Hon! But unlike the rest of the world, you can’t cut it in bed by lying there looking hot. If you don’t work that ass, I’m going to find a homely girl with a great work-ethic.

There are only two exceptions to the Hot Girl Rule: Girls who were late bloomers or Girls that don’t REALIZE they’re hot. They’re tough to track down. I mean, all girls like to bitch about being unattractive, but most of the hot ones know they’re not kidding anyone. They just complain so people won’t think that they’re the egomaniacal compliment-whores they are.

I switched over to cute girls not long ago and let me tell you: I’m hooked. Cute girls are where it’s at. They’re certainly attractive, almost all intelligent or, failing that, at least personable and fun, and to a girl have been dynamite in the sack. A while ago, I wrote a piece on how the girls who are the best in bed don’t have to advertise it. I think that with cute girls, this plays a role.

Some of the freakiest girls I’ve ever been with have been very sweet and innocent looking. Maybe it’s because if a girl acts and looks sweet for too long, her urge to cut loose gradually builds up until POW! Look out first exposed penis.

Man-Stench

Apparently, I’m the only person in the world who dislikes the smell of cologne. I’ve made it through my entire adult life on exactly three bottles of the stuff. When it comes to man-stench, I’m a firm believer that less is more.

Alas, not everyone shares my opinion. If I wear a cologne, I like to have just enough so someone could smell it when cuddling up to me. Apparently, some people believe that the true purpose of cologne is to create a wall of stench so powerful, that anyone in a 15 foot radius blacks out from lack of oxygen. Basically, it’s like bathing in ether.

I have to admit, I don’t really understand man-perfume. I mean, I have a friend who flipped out when he heard that I wasn’t coordinating my scents.

“Listen, you can’t just buy deodorant from the supermarket and use it with different cologne and then a totally different body-wash! What’s WRONG with you?”

Seriously, the guy looked at my like I had just suggested that sex with sheep wasn’t such a bad thing. Body-wash??? Does this man realize that I used to bath and shampoo with dish-soap? In fact, I started shaving my head because I was sick of having to buy shampoo!

I tried to coordinate my scents. I really did. I bought Armani deoderant, bathwash, aftershave, and cologne. But one day in, I snapped and rushed home to shower. I was sick of people smelling me ten minutes before my car pulled up.

Maybe I’m missing the boat on this whole thing, though. It may be that I don’t like the smell because it’s loaded with pheromones. I remember I had a female friend who checked my dust-covered bottle of Armani and said, “Oh my God! This is the greatest cologne EVER. It smells like baby-powder and sex!”

Honestly, I just can’t generate the patience to care about this stuff. I walked into Macy’s last week, with the intent of finding a really great scent. 20 minutes later I threw myself on the mercy of the saleslady. After 15 minutes of testing cologne I couldn’t smell a solitary thing. She could have sold me Sasquatch Urine and I never would have known the difference. It was three days before I could taste food again.

The only reassuring aspect of this whole sad story is that I know it’ll be another four years before I need to go through this again. In the meantime, I’ll be that dude rolling up smelling of Bigfoot musk.

DVD Extras

People, I think that the time has come to draw the line in the sand when it comes to DVD extras. Seriously, how much more of this can we take?

I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I’m not a DVD whore…I mean you’re looking at a guy who bought the special edition of Snatch two weeks after buying the regular edition. I’m sick.

At this point, it’s time we admit to ourselves that unless you’re planning on mailing body parts of yourself to Martin Scorsese or masturbating furiously to photos of Coppola, that no one has any use for the extra shit they cram on a disc. Like Lord of the Rings. The films were 3 hours long BEFORE the extended editions. Not even Quadriplegics can sit through movies that long.

On top of that, you’ve got 8 tracks of commentary in case you were in danger of forgetting the kinds of idiots who get work in Hollywood. Elijah Wood, your claim to fame is staring as the most prominent gay lead before Brokeback Mountain. Climb back in the hole with Mark Hamill. We’ll let you know when the next comic book convention roles around. Until then, we need you like the Middle East needs another cartoon demeaning Mohammed.

Each Lord of The Rings movie contains two entire DVDs of additional, behind the scenes footage. Who the fuck needs to watch 40 hours of behind the scenes footage? Are you going to call Peter Jackson with ideas about how he should have shot the film? Peter, I couldn’t even sit through your entire movie, what makes you think watching you film it is going to improve the experience for me?

Just once, I want them to make a REAL version of a “behind the scenes” documentary:

“Here’s Jason, the lead actor and teen heart-throb, snorting lines of coke and then taking it up the ass before his big scene. Wow, I haven't seen a man get nailed like that since Christ. You’ll notice the camera men eating donuts in the corner: they’re on strike to get their pay moved from $270 dollars an hour to $300. See that girl blowing the sound guy? She’s on screen for 10 seconds as a member of a crowd scene. To get that part she took more cocks inside her than a urinal at Yankee Stadium. What she doesn’t know is that a day after being gang banged by every crew member with a dick, her scene would be cut in editing. Welcome to Show-Biz, bitch!

“Oh, here’s one of my favorite scenes: Don, the director who never went to college, is throwing hot coffee at an intern with three PHD in film. Why don’t you get a degree in not fucking up my Latte, Asshole?”

Why I Hate Jersey: The Thrilling Conclusion

The New Jersey Road system was designed by a man who had never seen roads or cars before. While, this alone would hardly have distinguished him from the vast majority of valid New Jersey Drivers, our man set himself apart by having no concept of basic directions and having never actually visited New Jersey. In order to find your way around the state, you are constantly dealing with road signs that set up only to confuse the way-ward traveler.

Actual example: I was driving with my friend to a concert in New York. He decided that the best way to go would be to drive a little ways down to a park and ride and take the bus. So the two of us puttered down the road trying to ignore the horrible stench of Jersey, when we saw a sign: Park and Ride: 5 miles. We continued driving and saw another sign: Park and Ride: 2 miles. On we went. But there were no more signs. Fifteen minutes later, we turned around and saw the same succession of signs but northing else. Finally, we decided to use the odometer and actually track the number of miles from the last sign. Sure enough, two miles from the last road sign was a turn off. I made my friend stop the car so I could get out. There, 6 inches behind a massive tree was a sign that read, “Park and Ride: Turn Right.” The sign was conveniently placed in such a way that there was no physical way to see it from the road.

Because the signs are set up expressly to fuck with out-of-staters for the amusement of the locals, the only way to get somewhere in Jersey is to have been there before. Getting directions is like asking for the location of a mystical relic: drive east for 8 miles as the crow flies, then turn south at the large tree that points one finger towards the setting sun. Cross the river that flows around the boulder shaped like a man peeing and turn due north. Only then will you reach the greatest treasure our state has to offer: The mall.

I know. At this point many of my readers are probably thinking that I’m exaggerating. There’s no way it could really be THAT bad. Well I just happen to have another story.

I was driving down to Philadelphia last weekend and I took 95 south. All was well until I stopped to ask a toll-booth attendant for directions. Here’s what he said:

Take 95 South over the bridge and then take 95 North straight into Philly.

That’s right, 95 North and 95 South don’t run next to each other. The two are miles apart AND RUN PERPENDICULAR. 95 North actually runs from east to west, and then drifts south before looping up to run north again miles away from 95 South. I’ve included a picture from Mapquest in case you don’t believe me.

I’m fairly certain there’s something in the water that’s fucking with the residents. It’s like they’re all missing a chromosome. This mutation causes the following side effects:

• Women all think that fashion is a competitive sport, decided by who has the largest hair and finger-nails.
• All residents profess to have “Jersey Pride” but if out of staters ask where they’re from they say, “Near the City.”
• For some reason, they think that hailing from the state that produced Bon Jovi is something to brag about.

Listen to me: Bon Jovi is to rock what Vanilla Ice is to Gangsta Rap.

I’ve developed a new phrase that I really hope will catch on. When ever something is scummy, disgusting, or bad I say, “That’s Jersey.” Spread the hate, people. And Jersey, when you have something to contribute to society besides “Living on a Prayer” feel free to raise your hand. Until then, sit in the corner with Tennessee and think about what you’ve done.

Why I Hate Jersey, Part 1

With stress and wanderlust mounting, I decided to hit the road last weekend, leaving my poor blog unattended. Maybe in the future I’ll set up guest authors when I’m out of town. That way, people can get a window into the minds of the crazy friends I keep referring to.

Q: Why are New Yorkers so pessimistic?
A: Because the light at the end of the tunnel is always Jersey.

My journey led me south, through New Jersey. I’m aware that I have a large contingent of readers in California, Virginia, and (for some reason) Canada. For those of you who have never had prolonged exposure to Jersey, allow me to fill you in a few well known facts about this armpit of the United States:

• New Jersey became a state in 1787. It was the first and only state made up entirely of landfills.
• New Jersey’s only two contributions to society are cheap gas and cigarettes. Only fitting of a state whose water, soil and air are technically classified as “Biological hazards.”
• Every “Welcome to New Jersey” sign contains the small print: Surgeon General’s Warning: Pregnant women should stand clear as prolonged expose may cause birth-defects.
• New Jersey alternates between slums and mansions. There is no middle-class. As a result, most of the state now resembles nothing so much as South Africa: Palatal Mansions, guarded by mercenaries with submachine guns overlooking shanty-towns where armed locals, covered in flies and disease, fight over the carcasses of rats and dogs.
• New Jersey drivers abide by rules known only to themselves. To say that their goal is to break every existing traffic law each time they get behind the wheel would be implying some sort of logic. The rules aren’t as easy to grasp as “red means go” or “’Do Not Enter’ means hit the gas.” The second you pass over the boarder, you instantly enter a reality where the rules of the road no longer apply. Red means up; stop means west; merge means engage in cannibalism.

Having observed New Jersey drivers for a good length of time, I’ve put together a few guidelines that would explain their behavior:

Rule 1: Arriving at your destination a fraction of a second earlier is worth risking your life along with the lives of everyone else on the road. It’s as if every single New Jersey driver is perpetually 20 minutes late for the most important event of his or her life.

Rule 2: The only thing more important than arriving at your destination a half second earlier than normal is impeding the progress of everyone else on the road. As such, turn signals should be used only to confuse your enemies. Your enemies are, of course, anyone you happen to be sharing the roads with.

Rule 3: Under no circumstances allow your vehicle to conform to emission laws.

Rule 4: In order to qualify for a New Jersey License, you must have no regard for the lives of your family, friends, strangers or yourself. Common courtesy, indeed, fundamental decency should be spit upon at every possible instance. So what if someone has been waiting in a line for gas? Fuck him! Cut him off and then give him the finger. You decided to make a left on red, across six lanes of traffic and killed a pregnant woman pushing her paraplegic grandmother? Fuck them! Get out of your car, rape grandma and then piss on the corpse.

The Exlympics

You know, a lot of people like to bitch about their exes. Hey, it’s the national past-time of single! Everyone does it; however, have you noticed how some people do it competitively?

“You think you got stuck with a loser? Let me tell you about MY ex!”

You know, it’s really not the kind of thing that reflects well on you. Even if you did nothing wrong in the old relationship, you were still attracted and stuck things out with Mr. or Ms. Horrible.

All that aside, in the honor of the Olympics, I’m proud to announce my Bronze, Silver and Gold Medals for Worst Ex Story Ever. The following stories are all hand to God true, because there’s no WAY I could make this stuff up. Only the names have been changed to protect the victims.

Bronze: My friend was in a relationship with a guy who totaled his car in an accident. She let him use her car, because that’s just the kind of girl she is. She became puzzled, however, when she received a parking ticket from New York City, when she hadn’t been to New York in weeks. So she did some digging and found that her car had been illegally parked outside the apartment of her man’s ex-girlfriend.

Let’s recap what went wrong here, shall we?

1. Was born
2. Got drunk and wrecked his car
3. Somehow convinced amazing current girlfriend to lend him her car
4. Decided to use lent car to cheat on current girlfriend
5. Was dumb enough to not park legally when cheating
6. Was too dumb to pay off the ticket before a second notice was sent

Silver: I was listening to my friend talk about her new boyfriend and frankly, sort of tuning everything out when I heard something.

“Whoa. Whoa! What did you just say?”

She then proceeded to recount her largest complaint about her CURRENT (that’s the key word here—she was STILL DATING HIM) boyfriend. Our boy lived in the dorms and, as college boys are apt to do, was not exactly King of Hygiene. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, our boy was hanging out with John Wilkes Booth, Stalin and Hitler. Not only was he not showering, He was less than prompt emptying a piss-pot.

I’ll repeat that.

HE WAS LESS THAN PROMPT EMPTYING THE PISS-POT.

How lazy and dirty do you have to be to own and use a chamber pot? Seriously. Even in the south they use an outhouse. If you’re 19 and haven’t mastered the high-level skill of potty-training, how did you manage to get into a college?

I know what you’re thinking. “How in the world is that story only number two on the list? What did the hell did Mr. Gold Metal do??? Rape a goat???” Oh my friends, I wish it were only that horrible, but the truth is much, much worse.

Gold: In order to fully appreciate the inappropriateness of this story, I have to set the mood for you:

My friend and her new man of two weeks decided to go camping one night. The moon was bright, but not too bright to drown out the millions of softly glinting stars. Crickets chirped in the bushes, as a breeze whispered through the trees. The two lovers sat in front of a slow fire, their bodies melted against each other and lips explored soft skin. My friend heaved a contented sigh, as women do when feeling generally satisfied with the course of the world, cuddled closer to her beaux and listened to his heart beat for a while. Then she asked, “Honey, where do you see yourself in three years?”

Long silence.

Our man, pressed against a loving woman, surrounded by the beauty of nature, miles away from anyone considers his answer carefully. Our girl is waiting in anticipation. What romantic answer is he considering, “Marriage, kissing you, desperately in love with you”? What will he say?

He clears his throat and my friend leans even closer, trembling just a bit in anticipation.

“Prison…I’m pretty sure I’m going to murder my brother.”

Damn, how do some guys get so smooth?

NASCAR: Why Don't You Just Stay Home And Molest Your Sister Instead?

Every morning I wake up, switch on Sports Center and try to convince myself that I have a good reason to get up. This battle usually takes about 30 minutes.

Sports Center and I usually get along pretty well: I love baseball; I tolerate football and basketball, and have no interest in golf or hockey. I subliminally soak up the sports news of the day and all is well.

Recently, however, Sport Center has been testing the limits of my patience. And not just because of Ron Artest, either. Every morning, for the last two weeks they’ve been flogging the Daytona 500 with segments like “The Legacy of Dale Earnhardt” and “The Safety of NASCAR.”

Listen to me: NASCAR is not a sport. It's not even a game or entertainment. It’s the lowest rung of Natural Selection. Death is the only possible out come when you put drunken hicks into cars and have them make left turns for four hours. I’ve had rashes that were more fun to watch.

And don’t talk to me about the “skill of these great athletes.” I doubt half these drivers can read the advertisements on the sides of their cars. Skill my ass! I drove a truck professionally for a year. When they have to make a left turn across six lanes of traffic, in driving snow, in a busted-ass Ford Ranger without spilling their frosties, I’ll be impressed. As for the athletic part, they are to athletes what Dungeons and Dragons players are to Viking Warriors.

Someone tell me again about what hero Dale Earnhardt was. Ok, here’s the deal: to be a hero you have to do something brave, selfless, and at great personal risk. Dying in a blaze of failure and grease-fire is none of those things. He’s a hero in the same way John Beluschi was a hero. Oh wait, that’s not fair. John Beluschi had talent. Being a dumb redneck and crashing your car doesn’t make you a hero. That’s why everyone in Tennessee doesn’t own a purple heart.

For some strange reason, huge percentages of the south seem enthralled by this pseudo-sport. Hey, I don’t really care if they want to waste their lives. The more time they spend obsessing about NASCAR, the less time they have to don bed sheets, burn crosses and sodomize their siblings.

Generally, NASCAR takes the same general spot of my consciousness as girls shitting: I know it’s done, but I’d rather not have to think about it. And you know what? So far it’s worked pretty well. Then Sports Center starts in on this bullshit and I have to decide which is more entertaining first thing in the morning: Rednecks and they’re cars or the Jesus Channel with the lady with pink hair.

After about a week, I’m about ready to start mailing my money to Pat Robertson.

International F*ck Men and Buy a Vibrator Day

I’ve got it all figured out: In 1701 the yet unborn and un-conceived fetuses of John Wilkes Booth, Hitler, and Star Jones met with Satan to devise a Holiday so evil, so putrid, so absolutely pitiless and devoid of compassion that when the Marquis de Sade first heard about it, he said, “That’s fucked up.”

Women, as a gender, like to assign importance to special dates: first time they met their man, the first time they kissed him, the first time they agreed to gang-bang 12 of the guy’s best friends behind a Denny's on a Wednesday night: it’s just something they do. Men are somehow expected to recall these events with perfect clarity and without prompting 364 days later. Ladies, here’s what you don’t understand: I can’t even remember the date of New Year’s. I’d forget about my birthday if people didn’t remind me. There is no way I’m going to recall every date that you randomly assign importantance to.

Fuck Valentine’s Day! Anyone who's ever tried to buy a gift for a girl that he’s dating knows that shy of hooking up a car battery directly to one’s prostate, there is no greater hell than shopping for a female. Valentine’s is just another opportunity to fail miserably at finding a gift that, based on truly bizarre, random tidbits known only to those who have a uterus, sums up the entire relationship a man has with a woman. Bitch, you're lucky I even remember your name, let alone what kind of chocolate you mentioned you like in passing two years ago! When guys exchange gifts it’s fun. I never had a dude ask, “What exactly is this cigar supposed to say about your feelings for me???” It says you’re a flaming, phallus-shaped, $10 trick. Now shut the fuck up before I slap you!

If nothing else, at least Valentine’s Day is an equal opportunity misery generating machine. While it rains a world of hurt upon guys in relationships, it pours flaming agony on every single woman. It’s as if Hallmark has somehow managed to sanction an international “Congratulations, your biological clock is one year closer to needing a new battery” holiday. And if you’re a single girl on Valentine’s Day, you’re going to need those batteries for a device a whole lot more important than your biological clock.

I actually used to be into Valentine’s Day. Actually, Valentine’s Day plays a large role in my generally negative outlook on life. For the span of four years, I used to write a poem for every girl I knew. I don’t mean I would write one poem, copy it 40 times and then hand it out. I mean I wrote an individual, personalized poem for every woman. I would say that in the span of 4 Valentine’s Days I wrote, conservatively, 120 poems. Would you like to know how many women that got me? Go on, guess.

ZERO.

That’s right, girls who did nothing but bitch about how guys never did anything romantic for women anymore ALL had better things to do than hang out with someone who had busted his ass in the name of selfless chivalry. It’s not like I was asking for sex. But if just one of them had taken it on themselves to give me head, they might not have killed the idea of romance for me. Oh well. If you’re female and you don’t get a hand-written poem from me, you can thank 120 single woman who were too good to take one for the team.

In retrospect, I realize my fatal error: I bought into this bullshit holiday and acknowledged its existence. The truth is that this is a holiday that is nothing but and empty, never-ending cycle of hostility, loneliness and inadequacy.

Needless to say, no one sends me Valentine’s Day cards anymore.