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Back when I had feelings, my self-esteem was a toilet. It caused me actual physical pain to know that someone didn’t like me. I mean, it still does, but I’m better insulated by drugs these days. A handy trick is to think long and hard about what the person who hates you would realistically add to your life if they were to actually be a part of it. Most people really do have absolutely nothing to offer you. Pull out the abacus and make a pros and cons list if you have to—I’ll wait. If you require a push to get started, here’s an example from a recent entry in my diary about some asshole I don’t
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“Settling” is a coarse way of saying “adjusting my expectations,” and I think that gets a bad rap. Dude, I would rather settle than be “chronically unfulfilled due to my outsize desires.” I don’t mean that you should marry someone you hate just because they won’t go away, but I do think it’s worth examining what you actually want while being honest about what is important to you. Then it won’t feel like such a compromise, you know? On top of that, it’s totally unfair to make a flesh-and-bone person compete against an imaginary ideal that was imprinted on you when you were too young to
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You know what feels like a lot of pressure to me? Being the sole object of one person’s affections. Stay with me—I’m not about to surprise you by pretending to understand what being polyamorous actually means. I’m saying that I spent many, many agonizing years desperate for someone to pay attention to me, and now that there’s a spotlight on everything I do, it’s like, “Hey, babe, should we get you a girlfriend?” I’m not as interesting as I thought I was. I mean, is anyone? It’s one thing to be cool and glamorous on date night once a week, but when you have to see a person Monday and Tuesday
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Control is a wild concept. I think the one thing I’ve learned from my many exes—most of whom I do not follow on social media, because it’s fine if they have a better life than mine, but I don’t need to fucking see it—is that you just can’t have it. Short of imprisoning someone, it’s just not possible. There is no such thing as total control. And if you’re a reasonable person, you probably don’t even really want it. It’s a lot of work being in charge of a whole other person and their Facebook likes.
Sadly, life is not a movie. Life is an impossibly long and unyielding march to the grave, peppered along the way with myriad disappointments and misfortunes. Living is a mistake and everyone is trash, which is why shower sex usually winds up with one or more of the naked parties shivering alone at the back of the shower, trying not to slip on a viscous glob of body wash, while the other gasps and sputters as shampoo burns her sensitive eyes. Your wife sounds pretty sensible. Just leave her alone already.
I don’t even have time to get into all the shit you need to be doing for your dumb blood. And your organs, which you shouldn’t even have to worry about since you can’t see them. At least I might catch a glimpse of my back in a multi-mirrored room, but tell me, pretty please, when I might ever get a look at my pancreas? Folic acid! Potassium! Calcium! Turmeric! Zinc! B12! Sodium! Magnesium! There are not enough hours in the day for all the motherfucking beans you need to be eating. The bananas, the kale, the eggs, the blueberries, the walnuts, the oats, the salmon, the broccoli, the oranges,
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Not long after that, I had another roommate situation fall through, as they inevitably do. You know what’s always seemed fucked up to me? People who move through the world as if shit doesn’t keep them up at night. I wish I could feel the freedom, even for a minute, of someone who bails on shared bills and fucks another person out of a place to live. The other night, I was lying in bed wide awake at two in the morning with an anxious knot in my stomach thinking about this group
I’ve complained about pelvic pain to get a pap smear and claimed “inexplicable tiredness” to get bloodwork done. Now the scam is that having insurance buys you a little time so that you don’t have to pay as much as you would have without it. I remember once getting a yeast infection, and this witch told me to wrap a piece of uncut garlic in cheesecloth and carefully insert it into my vagina for a couple days. And a few months ago, when the CVS pharmacist told me the actual cost less the handful of change my HMO was going to chip in for my raging candidiasis,
