"All My Loving" by wczoraj wieczorem

I know the popular saying contradicts what I’m calling this piece. I’m here to argue otherwise.

Ladies, admit it. There’s something about the bad boy that’s a complete turn on. He brings danger, a sense of adventure, and total drama into your life. Rarely a day goes by where you’ll actually be thinking to yourself, “wow, this day was boring.” It’ll usually be the complete opposite.

But with all this excitement comes a price usually paid for in tears and hurt feelings. For some reason I’ve still yet to figure out, we’re under some kind of crazy misguided notion that we’ll be the ones to change him! We magically delude ourselves into thinking that we’re somehow special enough to be the one who’ll turn him around.

Yeah, right.

I’ve been there and done that. By “done that,” I mean that I was a card-carrying member of the Delusional. I’m also way over it because I’m onto something way better. It’s called NORMAL. (More on this in a bit.) Whenever I think back on this period of my dating life, I recall Fergie’s wise words in her epic song “My Humps”….

You don’t want no drama
No, no drama
NO NO NO NO DRAMA

Fellas, I know what you’re thinking. If you’re the nice guy, you’re probably thinking I’m smoking some goooood [fill in the blank] because you’re always the one holding the short end of the stick. You’re the one who spends hours upon hours comforting girls like the one I used to be when our rebels-without-a-clue stomped on our feelings. You’re thinking we’ll come around one day when we see how nice and sweet you are. You start believing we actually mean it when we say, “God, I just want a nice guy!”

When you hear those words, you’re probably doing the happy dance to end all happy dances. You’re about to make your move… only to have the music come to a screeching halt when we run off with our bad boy the second he shows something that vaguely resembles remorse.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So what’s my point? My point is that I used to be one of those clueless girls. I wanted to save them like they were some kind of wayward puppy. But, you know what I realized? They’re not wayward puppies. And even if they were, puppies have teeth. And they bite. And they’ll eat your shoes after they pee all over them.

I’ve seen the light because I don’t want to babysit anymore. That’s essentially what dating a bad boy is like. I felt like I was babysitting a manic eight-year-old boy and trying to house-train a not-too-bright puppy the entire time:

“No, you can’t do that. Why? Because that’s battery and assault, and you don’t want to go to prison, do you? Good boy. Here’s a treat.”

“No. Don’t drink that entire bottle of wine! No!! Bad!!! BAAAAAAD PUPPY!!!! BAD!!! GO TO YOUR ROOM! I SAID YOUR ROOM!! NOT MY ROOM!!!”

Fast forward to today. My boyfriend is a nice guy. He’s thoughtful, sincere, genuine, and all kinds of awesome. He brings me little treats like ice cream (I think it’s more for him, and he’s just ensuring he has a supply of ice cream at my home. I eat it all when he’s not looking, and then he brings more! Just like magic!! Haa haa haa!). And to this day, he opens my doors. He treats me like a lady, and I think he’s the best thing since humans figured out how to make fire.

You know what? I have to thank the guys I dated in the past because they showed me exactly what it is I don’t want. They showed me how I don’t want to be treated and that I don’t like crying. They taught me an invaluable lesson because now I know what I do want. I appreciate Clyde for the man he is and for everything he does for me. Thanksgiving doesn’t come once a year. It’s an everyday occurrence for me, and I let him know every day that I am thankful for everything he does for me.

Granted, I have no idea what kind of person he was before we met, but that’s irrelevant because that’s not whom I’m with now. People change and people (hopefully) grow. I know he’s not perfect (Heaven knows I’ve got my own issues and am pretty weird, but he’s still here…and he likes it! SCORE!!!!!), but I’m not looking for perfection. I’m looking for someone who’s broken pieces will fit with my broken pieces. Through trial and error, we learn what works for us and what doesn’t. Whatever doesn’t pass muster gets kicked to the curb as fast as my stiletto-heeled feet can make contact.

Whatever is left standing is therefore considered the winner. And guess what? In my case, the nice guy won. Which means he also finished first.

Case closed.

Anybody remember this song? Cracks me up every single time, and that’s precisely my point.

IT. MAKES. ME. LAUGH. It does not make me want to jump your bones. That is, unless you’re someone I’ve been dating for a long time because you know how to make me laugh when you do a monkey dance and I will somehow find that sexy as hell.

Watch the video before reading the rest of this post. Don’t worry. I’ll even wait for you.

So here’s what I don’t understand. Why do guys think it’s sexy to tell a female, “I want to [bleep] you like an animal,” the first time you meet her? It makes me think of the following things:

Who Let The Dogs Out

Barking at me does not make me want to do the horizontal monkey dance with you.

I don’t understand this. Why do guys bark like dogs at us? And not like a cute, little fluffball kind of lap dog, which, by the way, also does not translate into “sexy time.” I’m talking barking like a… like a… pit bull or rottweiler or something. You know. One of those really manly man dogs… or should I say “dawgs”?

This does not mean I register your imagined superhuman levels of testosterone. I will start thinking you have issues or maybe you got bitten by a rabid dog when you were little.

Come on. It’s like if I were to go up to some random, semi-decent looking guy and start… moo-ing like a cow or screeching like a hawk or some other scary bird of prey. Oh, yeah. Come on, baby, light my fiiiire… you know you want some of this! *mooooo*

Food Fight

Food is good. I love food. All sorts of delicious edible things are used during a romp in the sheets. The only downside is the incredible mess you just made, and I’m willing to bet your sheets will be ruined. Anyway, some examples are:

- whipped cream
- honey
- ice cubes
- chocolate covered strawberries
- champagne

You get the picture. The idea is to use these as props. It’s one thing to have someone think I look good enough to eat. It’s another thing entirely when they’re trying to take a chomp out of me like I’m their personal Bonnie-flavored ice cream sundae. I love Hannibal Lecter. I do not want to be Hannibal Lecter’s dinner. I also don’t want to be your dinner either. Period. End of story.

Case in point, the super weird and gross tongue flapping thing. Ugh! Agh!!

Ladies. Fellas. Please. It is never okay to show me how you can turn your tongue into your own mini wind generating device. That’s just disgusting. Maybe they do this to show their potential bed buddy how dexterous their tongue is. I’ve no idea what they’re thinking because I’m too busy either laughing or running away. Probably both at the same time.

In Conclusion

There’s nothing wrong with being silly and having fun with your partner. I’m all for that, but I think this should be attempted only when you’ve established some kind of relationship with them. I don’t know how successful you’d be if you were to bust any of these moves on your potential prey the first time you cornered them wherever your preferred hunting grounds were.

That is, unless you’re at some kind of freak show. If it is… yeah, I don’t know what to say to you at this point.

Image by Clipart.com

Remember that song from Aaliyah? “Age ain’t nothing but a number”? The opening lyrics to that classic are as follows:

Age ain’t nothing but a number
Throwing down ain’t nothing but a thang
This lovin’ I have for you
It’ll never change

Being honest is a good thing. In fact, being honest is a “must have” when it comes to any relationship. Having said that, I think another “must have” is discretion.

We all know the saying about how curiosity killed the cat. I’m proposing that curiosity can also kill what would’ve been a beautiful relationship. I know the lyrics reference age as the number in question, but it’s not. What is it exactly I’m talking about? Simple.

I’m talking about the number of people you’ve slept with.

There’s no situation I can think of that would ever make it okay to ask your partner. Don’t get me wrong. I think questions like “do you have any STDs,” “are you married,” “do you have any kids,” and “do you like watching CSI NY too” are perfectly legit questions.

Asking someone to tell you the number of partners they’ve had is like opening up the mother of all cans of proverbial worms combined with what Genie looked like when he was all warped after going to the Dark Side in Disney’s “Aladdin.”

It’s not pretty because once you know something, you can’t UN-know it.

Why do people want to know anyway? What exactly is in it for them? What happens if the number actually has a comma in there somewhere? Do you really feel good about the situation or your partner? What if you’re the one with the lurking comma in YOUR number? How is this ever supposed to be a win-win situation?

I know some of you are probably thinking, “I’m strong enough and secure enough with myself to know the truth! Lay it on me!” I don’t doubt that you are, but I’ll share my story with you, so hopefully you know what I mean.

My ex-boyfriend was obsessed with knowing my number. When I tried to tell him that I’m no blushing virgin, but I also don’t have a neon flashing sign above my head that reads “Open 24/7,” he didn’t take it too well. So I tried another tactic. I told him I have more than enough fingers and toes on my body to count them all with. I was hoping that would be good enough.

It wasn’t. After a few weeks of being pestered with this question (he was very persistent and I was getting rather annoyed), I finally caved in. I know. “What the hell was I thinking,” right? It was a mistake on my part to innocently believe giving him the number would squash the issue and we could move on with our relationship. It didn’t. All it did was make the situation go from Annoyingly Bad to Post-Apocalypse.

Needless to say, we broke up. We managed to stick it out for a year after that day, but it was never the same. I never knew when he would bring it up again and we’d start talking about it once more. Walking on eggshells around the person you’re in a relationship with is a crappy feeling.

While the number of people I’ve been with wasn’t a huge factor for why we ended things, it did play a significant role. He couldn’t get over it, and I didn’t like the way he made me feel when he would continue to bring it up. I didn’t like how the knowledge I gave him about me was used as a weapon. I’m also not proud of the fact I would lash out using that same tactic when I felt like I was backed into a corner and under attack.

Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.

So the lesson I learned from this is simple. When I’m with someone, I’m with them. Granted, to some degree if you really want to get technical, I’m with all the people he’s been with before, but if he’s a great man and an excellent lover, I should be thanking them for turning him into the person he is.