Pros:

• People who love each other can get married!
• Won’t be embarrassed to tell your grand kids which side of the issue you were on
• Probably good for the economy
• Gay people get the same rights I have!
• Might make your gay spin instructor cry from happiness
• When this issue is settled the government can probably spend their time on like, fixing the economy

Cons:

• Gays might get gay divorces and our legislators might have to earn their paychecks by making new laws to account for them
• You might have to hear about lifestyles that are different than your own
• You might have to show people your traditional christian marriage is cool by actually being happy and loving rather than just having a title
• Have to buy more wedding presents

I watched this video on Thought Catalog a couple of months ago. Having watched this is the basis of the feelings that inspired this post, so if you only have eight free minutes I hereby release you to watch it and you can forget about this stupid essay. I mean it.

Here’s the deal: last night my boyfriend and I left the bar at like 12:30. As we crossed the street to get in a cab we saw a cute, tan, blonde girl in a white lace peplum dress stumbling down the street, holding the guardrail to support herself. Our initial reaction was to make a joke about her but within seconds we realized she was beyond drunk to the point that crossed over from funny to sorta uncomfortable. She was wearing hot pink cross trainers, obviously not a coherent part of her overall fashion statement, and carrying her robins’ egg blue stiletto pumps.

As our cab pulled up to the intersection she was about to cross we watched her walk a line more jagged than a healthy person’s heart monitor and then drop one of her heels in the street. We took a left and she was gone forever but I couldn’t help my feelings.

Where was she going? Who was she meeting? Was she carrying her heels to meet up with a cool guy and try to convert from pedestrian to sex goddess mode unbeknownst to him? Or was she going to a party where she wanted to maintain physical fabulousity without looking like a gorgeous yet alcohol soaked dead dove?

I turned to my boyfriend and said, “Should we get out of the cab and help her?” He said, “I understand why you feel this way you’re so sensitive but won’t we freak her out if you approach her like that?” And I probably would. She was in a widely populated area of town without at least apparent male pressure or tension. If she’d been with a boy I would have jammed her in a cab faster than you could imagine. But we didn’t. We drove away.

I don’t mean this rhetorically: what could I have done? How could I help someone that doesn’t think they want help, that doesn’t seem to be in (immediate) danger? What should I do next time so I’m not thinking about it hours later?

What if you got all the things you want in life?

Like, what if I woke up tomorrow and I lived in an immaculate beach chic condo overlooking the river downtown and overnight had been gifted with the writing ability of Annie Dillard and a job writing a philosophy column for Cosmo? I earnestly cannot think of anything more I’d want out of life. Aaron Rodgers could come live with me and bring some cute dogs maybe. But that’s everything, really. Would I be that much happier if I got that? It doesn’t seem like it.

I’d have less anxiety about money and where my career is going, sure. If I wrote a philosophy column for Cosmo I would feel more confident that I am contributing to the world somehow. And when I had a bad day being able to drink wine while staring at a beautiful landscape is nothing to sneeze at.

My point is just… I don’t get it. If my life wouldn’t be *that* much better if my wildest dreams came true what’s the point of going after them? Is there anything that could happen to me in life, anything I could achieve, any destination I could travel to that would make me feel like “oh, ok this is what life is about.”

…

I have no existential confidence. I’m not sure why I am on this planet and everything I come up with sounds stupid. I can’t get over how different my life is from someone born in Africa. I realize “born in Africa” and assuming they are poor and unhappy is like, a terrible thing to do but that is my point. I don’t know anything. Why do I get to have everything I want? I’m not doing anything with my life that’s so great to merit it.

…

You know when it’s 4am and Sheryl Crow lyrics sound really deep? That’s happening. I’ve been wondering if all the things I’ve seen were ever real, were ever really happening.

…

I was thinking about my life earlier. I think 22 was my favorite year. I just graduated from college and was living with 3 of my best friends. I was going OUT for the first time in my life and it was so new and amazing. I had my first job and I was an event planner so people tried to impress me all the time by like, driving me around in a limo. All the pictures I have from that summer are just me, blissed out.

Of course, I had terrible anxiety at the time that got worse ages 23-25 hitting it’s worst at age 25 until I did a bunch of things that helped me. The biggest thing was realizing that I am normal, everyone goes through the struggles I do. A big part of my anxiety was feeling like I was the only person who couldn’t figure out my shit. I went on medication and went to therapy too. Now at 27 I feel like I am at my healthiest, emotionally, of my entire life. I’ve read that about your 30s, that they are better than your 20s because you aren’t crippled by anxiety.

Anyways, I was telling my friend the other day that my life basically isn’t even worth living if I can’t go out dancing at least once a week. I’ve got it down to a science so it only costs me $8-18 to go out, depending on cab time so there really is no reason not to do this every saturday. I have anxiety about when this is going to stop. Like, people don’t continue to go to bro bars downtown and dance in their 40s. Occasionally, maybe, but not on a regular basis. The mortality of my dancefloor days is stressing me out hard.

…

My favorite day with my best friend recently was when she slept over and we both woke up at 4am and were giggling so hard and loud for like 1.5 hours before passing out again. My best friend sleeping over also seems to have a mortality rate. :(

…

I wish someone would just tell me what I am supposed to do. I have a lack of mentors in my life because I feel strongly about paving my own way. Like, most people have advised me not to write about my life on the internet or topublish this penis story. I don’t really care about stuff like that. This eliminates a lot of the people I could ask advice about stuff. I have like, zero ability to perceive if people are trying to screw me over when they want to pay me to write stuff. To be honest, I’d do it for free so my perception is skewed and I am a dumb Minnesotan that is trying to be nice.

…

My favorite poem ever is a very short Raymond Carver one. He says that all he wanted was to feel loved while he was alive. I feel loved, definitely. But my analytic brain says, “am I loved ENOUGH?”

Maybe that’s my whole problem. I’m always wondering what “enough” is.

John Caputo says the whole field of ethics in philosophy exists because we’re wondering what enough is. We’d like to nail down exactly what we need to be good people, do that and then retire our minds and energy for the day. I agree with him, but it sounds like heaven to be able to be secure in the knowledge that you are a good person and you have, without a doubt, done your part.

Don’t make fun of overweight people. I mean obviously, right? Except for some reason thin or even just ‘normal’ people have a terrible habit of saying totally insensitive things about people with weight problems, to the point that they often say them completley ignorant of the fact that someone in their immediate audience may be either empirically overweight or struggling with body image issues. Just don’t.

Don’t make fun of skinny people. This is the one where people are going to be all “check your privilege” but the same exact logic applies. People regularly point out that I’m not eating an acceptable amount of food, that I eat extremely unhealthy things when I do eat, that I must have an eating disorder, the latter of which they find extremely hilarious to my utter astonishment. Just because by some random dice roll of the cultural lottery I ended up on the socially accepted side of body types doesn’t mean I’m immune to feeling bad about your comments, or that it’s any more appropriate to make them.

Don’t talk about how vaginas are disgusting. Literally everyone does this except sex positive people, including gay guys, most dudes and even women. I don’t have the time or sociological research to explain to you why this is the case, but it is, and it’s extremely harmful to the promotion of gender and sexual equality. You don’t have to want to stick any part of you inside of a vagina or even want to ever encounter one in any form, but that doesn’t mean they are objectively disgusting or inferior to their male counterparts. Perhaps if we stopped thinking about women’s abject sexuality as offensive and shocking, we could stop saying things like this that lead to nothing but embarrassment, shame and regression.

Don’t assume people who are into kinky sex only want it because they have emotional baggage or psychological problems. I’m not even elaborating on this; if you are conscious on the internet in 2013 and still think this is the case then GTFO.

Don’t assume your gay friend wants to date your other gay friend. You wouldn’t dream of assuming every straight male friend you have would be interested in hooking up with every straight female friend you have or vice versa. Turns out people who like the same sex also have standards, a ‘type,’ preferences, etc. just like you. It’s small-minded and belittling to assume gay people solely want to meet other gay people in the way that, like, a positive magnet is indiscriminately attracted to a negative magnet.

Don’t talk about gay men like they are girls. I shouldn’t have to tell you this but not every gay man is stereotypically effeminate. Um duh. This piece of advice should serve to both warn you from assuming someone in the room isn’t gay because they aren’t hairless and wearing pink, but also from saying yucky things to your gay friends like, “OMG you must be so obsessed with fashion, pick out my outfit and dress me like a Barbie doll!”

Don’t dismiss bisexuality. I think I’ve probably complained about this enough but for those of you who missed the expository essay here’s the cliff’s notes: don’t every assume and definitely don’t ever say that a) bisexuality doesn’t exist; b) bisexual females are just super horny or sexually expressive girls and/or girls who want attention from guys at parties; and c) bisexual guys are just gay guys who aren’t ready to admit it. And for the love of god, inbox me if you somehow can’t wrap your head around why this is the case.

Don’t disparage the intelligence or abject moral value of people who don’t share your worldviews. This quote from Siddhartha is one of my favorites of all time. It is totally okay to respectfully critique someone’s views and lots of the most controversial topics of our time probably even call for it. But as someone who comes from a place where, for example, my parents are ardent evangelicals, comments like, “All Christians are fucking RETARDS and should be eradicated from this earth,” really hurts my feelings. Because at the end of the day, my parents are doing the best they can and are very kind, loving, supportive people, even if they’ve got some of the Big Issues wrong.

Don’t be insensitive about money. I will admit that I have been guilty of this because it’s so easy to do by accident if money isn’t something you have to worry about. When I was making literally twice what I’m making now right out of school, I’d never experienced money woes so I didn’t realize that speaking (what I thought at the time was) objectively about my salary and expenditures would be hurtful or offensive to anyone. Cut to me losing my job and everything anyone did or discussed that cost more money than what I could scrape together to pay the copay on my birth control pills got under my skin—vacations, new clothes, even groceries. Close friends will be happy for your successes no matter what, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a helpless, involuntary sting of jealousy or anxiety when a person has to silently endure tales of your spoils while worrying how they’re going to politely decline happy hour because they are overdrafted ‘til a week from Tuesday.

Don’t talk about how [people a certain age, older than you] are bad, wrong, behind, or incomplete if they haven’t accomplished or earned [certain thing] in the presence of people who are [certain age or older]. This relates to the former point but to me there’s no worse look than saying things like it’s objectively correct to be in your dream job by 23 and married by 25 and own a house by 27 and having kids by 30. If that’s the case I’m a complete royal fuckup and you can bet I’m already feeling enough external judgment that I don’t need your reminder.

I operate under the assumption that men get more out of relationships than women do.

There are probably three things you get out of interactions with others that you need in order to be happy: someone to do dumb shit like go to a movie with (i.e., a warm body), someone who will listen to you complain about your life and sex.

For women, their friends provide them with both of the first two things and sex is readily available whenever they want it. For most men, their relationships with other men give them a lot of fun times, but not necessarily an emotional connection. This is seen as something that’s not that important to men, sure, but it doesn’t mean they will be happy if it’s completely non-existent. Also, they have a harder time finding sex whenever they want it.

So, contrary to this is the fact that women generally want to be in relationships more than men, which is a red herring drawing attention away from the reality above. Perhaps there a fourth bullet to the list above that is “people in your life know you are in a relationship/are not a life failure.” That would even the score, but it wouldn’t be the off shot in women’s favor that men seem to currently think it is.

A rule I’ve developed in dating is that I have to always be answering the question “what’s in it for me?” Guys are taught to answer this question with every breath they take, they don’t have to have a conscious reminder like I do. I’ve met too many guys with really shitty dating attitudes about how girls want SO much from them. They want to tie them down and trick them into getting in a relationship and take all their money.

Is that really the worst thing in the world? That a woman asserts herself and doesn’t put herself in a situation where she is having sex with you and getting emotionally attached while you’re only mildly invested? The money thing is also fucked because if you want someone with all the womanly qualities that make her different from your drinking buddies, she probably doesn’t also have the alpha male qualities that make you successful in business. Patriarchy sucks for everyone, right?

You’re a man, society told you you have to provide for your family since you were like, born. I’m a woman and my mom tried really hard to get me to be a youth pastor where you make like 20k a year. Please do not pretend that we have equal footing in this game and that it’s a huge character flaw for this to be one of many things I like about you.

Can you please also know how to do stuff. Truth Time: I don’t know how to do anything. The only time my dad ever made me mow the lawn I cried because I couldn’t figure it out. By now I can only assume your falling out of your chair to ask me on a date, right? My point is that there are things in life I am terrible at: figuring out mechanical things, negotiating with my cable company, driving. But, I have a whole other skill set that you probably lack: using a coaster, cooking meals without using a microwave, being nice to people, making babies. You got boy skills? I got some girl game. Let’s do this.

Those are the things I feel stupid about asking for. These are the things I feel stupid about bragging about:

Every married guy I know has like, zero sex. Some of them cheat. It’s so disgusting. Why didn’t you marry someone you can have a conversation about sex with if you’re unhappy with your sex life? Look at your choices. Anyways, I am someone you can have a conversation about sex with. I might even do you on the reg.

I’ll probably care about you more. It’s society’s fault but pointing the finger isn’t going to make it less true. I’m going to go ahead and say the general effort level of our relationship is going to be something like 65/35 with me in the lead. Enjoy chillin on that throne babe. You can thank commercials and Nicholas Sparks novels for that one.

There’s the David Copperfield shit too, but you’re already allowed to talk about that whenever you want. I like guys with brown eyes. Wow, cool, interesting.

I wish I didn’t feel like I was setting feminism back 30 years by talking about this stuff. I don’t think all men are one way or all women are another way. I know the way I am and I wish that it had as much currency as the things I’m looking for, but because the things I’m looking for are “masculine” and the things I have to offer are “feminine” it seems like the scales are off.

Do you know what laid back means? It means you don’t care enough to have a real opinion. You could be happy with any number of outcomes. How can you get a boner for someone who doesn’t care! Apathy is probably the least sexy adjective I can think of. It’s less sexy than “ugly” or “smelly.”

It’s just unreal to me that the first thing out of most men’s mouths when I ask them to describe themselves is “laid back.” Really? The first thing you’d want someone to know about you is that you don’t care about most things? Why don’t I just date my body pillow?

I like guys that aren’t laid back. Some people describe them as “crabby.” I say “passionate.” People who aren’t laid back have annoying habits that get under my skin like not eating leftovers, being overly clean or not liking dogs (too slobbery/hairy). These are not good qualities, but they are what separates dating a living breathing man from dating a corpse.

As a general rule in life I try to always have something I am currently embarrassed or nervous about. It’s always the case that if I’m not feeling those emotions, I’m not challenging myself enough. How do you feel embarrassed or nervous in front of a laid back person? The expression goes “iron sharpens iron,” not “goose down feather bed sharpens iron.”

If you are less laid back than someone you will always be their buzzkill. They don’t know what it’s like to worry about stuff. They don’t understand why you can’t just relax and chill. They don’t understand you.

I am the first person to say you shouldn’t try to date yourself. A lot of my attraction to men, even as a gender, comes from the yin and yang of being so different. It’s great to be with someone that balances your flaws with their strengths and to be able to do the same for them. It is a very cool thing. But there are constants that we should all strive for: ethical, self-improving, resilient, happy and yes, we should all strive to be people who care about things.

Two years ago I hooked up with a guy at a party who treated me badly afterwards. It was annoying, that had never happened to me before and it was just really weird and unnecessary. It also happened that in the morning when I was trying to leave we could not find the family heirloom necklace I was wearing the night before in his room. I felt really bad about losing it, but I wanted to get out of there so I just left. I ended up finding him on Facebook later that week and I asked him if he’d found it. The next time I looked in my inbox I realized he blocked me on Facebook.

That was such a ridiculous thing to do. I could obviously tell that he’d done it and it wasn’t as if he had to accomplish anything. Based on his behavior I was already never talking to him again but it felt like he was concerned I was “clingy” or something. Gross.

Cut to last week when this guy started messaging me on Facebook again. He wanted to know how I was. Okay? We were never friends and our one interaction had ended on a really bad note. I asked him why he was talking to me based on this fact and he had “wanted to inform me that he never found my necklace, as he had tried to tell me originally but the message wouldn’t go through.” I hate it when people use technology as an excuse. Don’t ask me to suspend reality to believe that technology works differently for you than it does for everyone else on the planet. Then he started asking if I wanted to hook up again.

I don’t even care that he has a pretty serious girlfriend (via Facebook) the whole situation was just so… pathetic. At the same time, a small part of me wanted to take him up on it. I was excited that he had changed his mind from thinking I was like, annoying to wanted to be with me.

It made me feel empathy for a group of people I generally have zero empathy for: girls in shitty relationships.

When I realized I was having this feeling of wanting to be flirtatious back to him, I understood what that whole desire is about. The rational part of my brain was telling me that I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I did anything besides ignore him but another part of me wanted to “win” his affection back. There’s a measure of success in being popular or being in a relationship because if you were a complete failure, no one would want to be around you. It’s not logical or rational, but everyone wants to be liked.

I had a crappy first date once. It wasn’t even the crappiest of first dates. It was annoying and short. The guy seemed weird from the get go and was weirdly picking my brain about whether he should go meet up with his friends for the rest of the night. I told him he should and he responded by telling me he couldn’t because he didn’t understand how taxis work, or something. It doesn’t matter. We mutually just were not very interested.

However, being young and immature it wasn’t good enough for me to have a mutually not very fun experience. I texted him after the date and asked what had happened, since he’d been pretty aggressive prior to that. He responded that, on second thought, he didn’t find me that attractive.

Is that a jerk thing to say? I feel like yes, but I also appreciate that it’s difficult to be honest, so I appreciate it on some level.

It’s been a few years, but I still think about this date sometimes. I remember right after this happened everytime something was off with a new guy, I’d wonder it he also was not attracted to me. How could someone be attracted to you and then lose it so suddenly? Did my hair go flat?

How do you recover from such a devastating ego blow?

He could have told me I seem fake or that I seem robotic and it wouldn’t have bothered me one iota. I have a lot of confidence in those areas and I would know his claims aren’t true and he must be reaching or covering something else up. But when it’s an insecurity you genuinely wonder about… it’s hard to pick yourself back up.

Do you ever really get over it? Or does it just lie in wait for your mind to have a quiet moment that it can creep into and ruin?

I guess the bigger question is, what do you do when you have an insecurity. Another insecurity I have is that I don’t have a lot of common sense. This insecurity is going away because as I get older, I am learning more things and this comes up less frequently. But, how would you actually go about getting more common sense? Or, becoming more attractive? I was on a date, I was obviously doing the best that I could.

I think the only thing you can do about insecurity is to make yourself happy, which is hard to do with something like attraction. But if you are happy with the way you look, someone else’s criticism isn’t going to phase you. For instance, sometimes men tell me they wish I wouldn’t wear so much makeup. That doesn’t make me insecure, I understand I wear a lot of makeup. I like it and it’s my choice. It should also be my choice how I feel about all the other aspects of myself as well.

I am having a jenga day.

A jenga day is where you look at your own life and realize how fragile it is.

When something bad happens to you it’s pretty easy to put a positive spin on it. Then the bottom falls out. Maybe you can continue to think that everything happens for a reason. Then it falls out again.

Why do people say everything happens for a reason? Well, it certainly seems like it’s true. In hindsight it’s easy to see that you only got opportunity X because you lost opportunity Y first.

I really believe in positivity so I’d be a big believer in this theory, but only if everyone lived the same life I did. Things make sense in my life. I have a loving family and though I have a lot of challenges, I have efficacy and the goods far outweigh the bads. This isn’t true for everyone, which is why everything doesn’t happen for a reason.

What was the reason the Boston bombing happened? That the Tsarnaeva brothers killed that cop?

I’ve heard it said that god allows evil in this world so that we can appreciate the good. If there’s no night, how can you judge what is day? This is the whitest bullshit I have ever heard. It basically means “sure, tons of people are born to shitty lives where they only ever suffer a lot, but gee it really makes me appreciate how good this latte is! #blessed”

No one is born for the sole reason of being a story for you to hear.

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