Do U Want 2 Gt Apetizrs?
My wife works a lot. This isn't really a complaint as her efforts keep me in silk track-suits and designer diet soda (try the Green Bean Casserole, it's to die for... seriously, it will kill you), the hoi-polloi fuck-the-little-guy lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. This works out well for everyone involved. Except maybe for the Little Guy. You wouldn't believe what midgets charge for sex these days and still he never seems happy.

Between my wife's work hours and my evenings all wrapped up in my ninja classes (this week: killing with ambient sound) we spend very little time together during the week. Sure, the weekends are all Cristal and chronic, regular family good-times, but the state of California says it's no longer OK for me to hire a hooker EVEN IF the only thing I want from her is to watch my kids. I mean, I could probably pay the 17-year-old neighbor girl the same thing I pay the whore, but the neighbor girl I probably WOULD try to sleep with. So figure that logic out. Laws are stupid.

So really what I'm looking at now are weekends with my wife AND the kids. Eventually my boys will grow and they'll be men with degrees and jobs and living arrangements that don't involve me in any way. Those will be the Good Ole Days. For now, my kids simply the three most effective cockblockers in the history of sexual frustration. This isn't their fault as this is actually the job of children. I'm sure I wasn't exactly a dude-magnet for my single mother when I was a kid either. And if I was, then those were probably NOT the dudes she was looking for anyway.

As busy grown-ups with lots to do, alone-time, together-time for Mrs. Pops and I as a couple is at a premium, to say the least. And honestly, she spends most of it sleeping. I don't blame her, but there it is. You were wondering what I needed the Little Guy for anyway, and now you know.

When she is awake, Mrs. Pops and I spend a lot of time reminiscing about the times before we had kids, waking up when we wanted, not stepping on anything sharp, plastic and/or lightsaber-wielding while walking to the bathroom in the dark, staying out to all hours every night of the week, dominating every social situation with a combination of our potent, combined personal charisma and beauty and the giant bag of roofies we bought off eBay.

OK, most of that last part never happened, but goddamn it, we had the OPTION. Because we were new, we were single, we were young, we were unencumbered.

That's why some of you unmarried, child-free people make me so very very sad. It's not jealousy. It's not. Fuck you, shut up. I'm trying to make a point.

I read today about a new phenomenon called couples-surfing. Not as in ocean-waves and hangin' ten, no. This is where people meet at an internet café and spend their entire "date" sitting next to each other on separate computers surfing the internet.

"Realising that communicating via typing was far more comfortable ... we conducted ... our date without speaking. We traded headphones back and forth and typed and ordered beer and wine and more food ... The waitress thought we were crazy," wrote singer Amanda Palmer.

Hi Amanda Palmer! Pops here. Nice to meet you. One thing you should know: the waitress is right. You're fucking crazy.

I know talking to people is hard. I know it. I'm not talking from the position of smug superiority of someone who's out there and has access to some magic secret of awkward-free sociability. I somehow find the time to write six NOT SHORT blogposts a week. Not exactly a jammed social schedule here.

But look, if you're that terrified of talking to someone with whom you've already made a basic personal connection, is it even possible for you to function socially at all? If you're looking for what's comfortable, well, I can tell you that easily: never leaving the house. Stay on your computer. Order food, order clothes, order the occasional non-speaking companion (I have some references on that if you want, see above) who will do what needs doing and then go away.

I have to believe that this has something to do with the self-esteem obsession in America. We're getting the first generation of people growing up with the expectation that they should NEVER EVER EVER have to feel awkward or uncomfortable or exposed in any social situation. This is what happens when you take dodgeball out of the schools, people. You breed these delicate, crystalline pseudo-people so ready to--expecting to--shatter they can't even bear the idea of talking to someone they already like.

And it pisses me off. Why? Because here are single people spending time together being timid social retards, adding each other to their visual, quantifiable and totally controllable "friends lists" when they should be out talking or dancing or eating or seeing movies or sucking face or trying to jam their hands the front of each others' pants. You know, generally making asses of themselves.

They don't know that the Making A Public Ass Of Yourself window does not stay open long. You can do it, go ahead. Some people will roll their eyes or shake their heads if you're being egregiously stupid. Hell, some might even laugh at you if they overhear you floundering at small-talk. Flop sweat is funny, I'm sorry.

But when you're older and married and have kids like I do, sometimes Making A Public Ass Of Yourself can end with another home visit from Child Protective Services. On a weekend. Further cutting in to the free time I have to spend with my wife.

I'm supposed to be jealous of you people and you're just making me sad and you're making my wife sad and--worst of all--you're making my Little Man sad. Well, sadder.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.0



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 11:08 AM