The 12 Phases of Relationship Lies

The first date: You can tell him about your suspicions about your roommate’s alcoholism. Better to say this before you knock back your fourth or fifth cocktail. Of course you have a high tolerance — you’ve been living with a drunk for the last two years! Why else would your apartment look so messy? It’s not you! It’s the intoxicated train wreck in the back bedroom! God. Don’t you wish someone could just take you away from all that?

The third date: You can admit you lied on your profile and no, you never read Infinite Jest— but you did read half of that lobster essay and that was really, really life-changing. What’s that? Oh, yeah. You still eat lobster. It’s delicious. Please.

[from my pseudonymous column at The Gloss]

The 15 Worst Ways to Dump Or Be Dumped

Breaking up is hard to do, so don’t make it worse for both parties involved. In case you’re confused, consult my handy list of the 15 ways to not to break up with your girlfriend.

1. Don’t break up with her using “your art.” Don’t write a song for your girlfriend and tell her you’ve moved on in the chorus. What if that song gets stuck in her head? Put your guitar away and break up with her the old fashioned way: unaccompanied.

2. Don’t break up with her via a text message. This is only appropriate if you’re in junior high—the technologically au courant way of note-passing—and even then, no twelve year old should be given an iPhone. They should be forced to run around a playground until they all give each other the cooties and it cancels out of societal taboo, like HPV or feminism.

[from my pseudonymous column at The Gloss]

Love and Guilt

I’m an atheist Jew and my boyfriend is an atheist Christian. So, what’s the problem?

“So he’s not Jewish?”

“No, he’s not. And you know I don’t really care about that”

No response.

“Mom?”

“Well, your father and I would prefer a Jew.”

[from my pseudonymous column at The Gloss]

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Stop Snoring:

My boyfriend snores, and other things I complain about to my mother.

He has dreamy eyes, a fascinating career and a witty sense of humor. He brings you soup when you’re run down and chills you out when you’re strung out. He rubs your back when you’re tired, knows his way around the kitchen, and has brilliant taste in music. He’s good in bed and when you ask him to, even makes it. You’re in love with him, sure, but not everything about him is perfect.

That would be too easy.

So I took the liberty of going through all of those little problems that drive you wild, and I think I have some solutions that might keep your near-perfect relationship, if not your near-ridiculous expectations, in check.

[my column over at The Gloss]

Everything is your fault.

What Happens When You Take Stress Out On Your Partner?

Stress can do crazy things to relationships. They can even make you pick a fight with your boyfriend for snoring (which, I theorized at the time, was a conclusive sign that he didn’t care about me or my current anxiety and was therefore a terrible boyfriend and didn’t love me enough. Like I said, crazy things).

[from my pseudonymous column at The Gloss]

First Degree Burns

I run into old flames and former lovers everywhere. This city is too small, I keep getting burned.

Quasi

It is unhealthy to spend so many days together and so many out of sight, like some quasi-intellectual spin on tantra.

They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?

An incredible thing happened when I announced I loved, I absolutely adored, being single.

My comment has been met—nearly universally—with raised eyebrows and a, “really?”

Really.

I really like being selfish. I like getting a full night’s sleep, or a short night’s sleep because I stayed up all night watching shitty television and writing Subway Philosophy. I like eating cold cereal in bed. I like waking up with morning breath. I like making whatever plans I goddamn feel like at any time of the day or night. I like flirting. I like going on first dates with comely men and second dates with obnoxious men and splitting the check and having a story to amuse my coworkers with in the morning. I like kissing my high school crush upstate and my magazine crush when I’m back in the city. I like walking into a room and not having to introduce someone and engage them. I like walking furious down the streets, music loud in my ears, an angry stride that takes me right past the slow-walkers and the cell-talkers like a real Manhattan marathon. I like taking up the sheets and blankets and pillows and entire length of my bed.

I like it, if you can believe it. And I’m goddamn good at it.

I’m not sure if this ever comes across. Do I sound like a man eater or a saboteur? Maybe I am. I’ve been psychoanalyzed before.

I think, maybe, this is healthy. I think it’s good.

But my friends don’t. The ones who are coupled are offended. The ones who are looking for a date are perplexed. The men think I’m emotionally offensive. The women find me catastrophic competition. Why be on the market if I’m not looking to be taken off?

Well, I love the market.

—And that’s another thing. I love going food shopping for one.