blog好き

Aug 18 2003

Categories: life

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Note: This is roughly my fourth year of blogging. I was doing this rantage on the web shtick even before the word “blog” was coined and way before WordPress, Blogger, or PHP stormed onto the scene. This post harkens back to the days when I would discuss music (before my general distaste for the industry), StarCraft, The X-Files, and my favorite topic– women. If you’re looking for anime, XBOX, and Koda Kumi, you’ll be disappointed.

I was talking with a friend about relationship killers a few days ago. I said something to the effect of “if my girlfriend kicked my ass in Guilty Gear, she’s being taken to the curb.” Then I thought about this for a minute and quickly became unsure if I should get rid of her or marry her. It’ll have to deal with circumstances like “Was I using Sol?” “Did she use the letters ‘FRC’ at any point?” “Was she topless when doing so?” “Best of out of 5?” But I disgress– at some point in a majority of relationships, something surfaces and torpedoes the whole thing. She’s too good, and then you find out she’s a complete nut case. Kinda like a submarine patent in that exciting, sexy, and rewarding field of intellectual property, some sort of submarine craziness (for the lack of a better word) is out there in each and every one of us.

Seeing how I’ve dated infinitely more women than men (anything over zero is, well, infinity), I’ll only focus on the women. In women, most weirdness occurs as a grouping. It’s kinda like ordering lunch at Better Bento (ummm… unagi-don) where you get to pick something for the main course like tonkatsu or soba from column A and then pick a side dish miso or onigiri from column B. With women, it’s just more like “still hangs out with old boyfriend” in column A and “owns too many cats” in column B. A major and a minor.

There’s stuff that she can’t change, and I feel like a creep for including this category, but it can really affect a relationship. For example, does she snore? Loudly? More than my dad does? There’s also physical differences– no, I’m not talking sizes (that’s what silicone is for– j/k)– I went out with a 5 feet 11 inched Asian girl awhile ago. No, she doesn’t play in the WNBA, and her last name wasn’t “Ming.” I had a hard time with the height thing. When she wore heels, which she did surprisingly often, she had a nice height advantage over me. I felt like I was in an episode of Seinfeld and obcessing over something as silly as this. Yet, I did. In retrospect, it’s silly, but I hate being led when dancing.

Then there’s her hobbies. She likes The View. That’s fine. She likes saving the whales. That’s fine too. She still likes playing with her My Little Pony Dream House set and makes cute little horesy noises when playing it. That’s a red flag. The more common case (but My Little Pony is a close second) is that no guy wants his girlfriend hanging out with her old boyfriend. That’s just a recipe for disaster, just like combining soy sauce and chocolate. Okay, so guys watching football, make weird grunting noises when doing so, but it’s not the same as My Little Pony. Guys are supposed to act like kids– if you show me a guy who is “grown-up”, he’s most definitely wearing Powerpuff Girls boxers. Or he’s just a player who gets many, many Father’s Day cards.

There are also preferences. She likes cats. That’s okay. No problem. She has 87 cats. That’s a problem. She likes Titanic. That’s expected. She likes a Pauly Shore movie. That’s a problem. She’s a vegetarian. That’s okay. She’s a cannibal. That’s a problem (unless you’re a cannibal too, then you both have problems). Preferences are tricky. Stuff that you don’t mind at first really grates on you after awhile, like maybe how she always cheers for those damn Lakers. Other stuff might actually annoy you at first but you love as time goes on, like if she roots for those sad Clippers. You gotta like a girl who roots for a loser NBA team with the lowest payroll and the smallest on-court size.

Next are “those little things she does” like how she wipes everything you touch with alcohol cleaning pads or how she devotes her Sundays to cutting coupons and making love with her Italian lover named Giorgio. More “realisitically”, she’s waaaay too close to her family (not in that Sister Princess way… I hope), or she never lets you pick the movies so you end up watching Legally Blonde 2 while all your friends watch Bad Boys 2. These generally aren’t fatal flaws, but they strip you of all your manliness (if you have any to begin with). First she’s insisting that her mom moves in with the two of you, next thing you know, you’re driving a minivan with Hello Kitty shades and an overpriced mortgage because you wanted to be in a “good” (i.e. gun-free) school district. Of course, women know men will “forget” about this type of craziness if offered sex. So, guys, stick together. Don’t let friends drive around in Hello Kitty-ized minivans. And if she’s sleeping with someone named Giorgio, let it be known that she can only do that once a month instead of weekly. That’s putting your foot down.

The worst is when she springs a Jerry Springer on you. This isn’t stuff you can immediately weed out, but it’s a killer. It destroys you mentally, leaves you exhausted physically, and scars you for life. As for the women? They usually smile, leave you destroyed, and march on to Macy’s and do some serious shopping on your credit card. One of my old roommates found out that his girlfriend was pregnant. So he does the “right” thing and marries her. After they are married and after she gives birth, she divorces him. Then after the divorce proceedings and he’s stuck with child support payments, she sticks it to his face by telling him that the kid isn’t even his. Ouch. This guy took it well– he smiled everyday that I saw him, and he cheerfully cooked soybeans for dinner everynight. I was cringing with fear that he might snap someday, but at least the rent was cheap.

That, of course, is submarine craziness at the deepest level. We’re all a little crazy, and sometimes relationships are less about finding the perfect someone and more of a “how much crazines can you tolerate”. At some point, though, be prepared for that torp. It just might sink your happy loveboat. Advice: pass on “My Little Horsey” but keep on “she can FRC Dizzy’s ice spike in Guilty Gear while topless”.