Flat Stomachs, Perky Tits and Young Love ~ Things We Think Will Last Forever

I don’t like to give advice about men. Mostly because I don’t feel qualified.

But today at lunch with my beloved nineteen-year-old daughter/friend I couldn’t help myself. I found myself dispensing sage relationship wisdom like tic tacks to Donald Trump.

If you ask me, my friend is behaving like the perfect girlfriend. She’s just the right amount of friend, lover, chill companion and boundary setter. I would date her if I was a nineteen-year-old boy. Then again I would probably be too busy smoking pot, touching my own dick, and taking a hit from my beer bong because, well, I’m a nineteen-year-old boy.

And therein lies the rub.

SHE wants him to cut it out. To party in moderation. Drink in moderation. Be only moderately corrupted by his ne’er-do-well friends. In other words— Be his best self, not some stupidly stupid facsimile.

She’s been asking (via text of course) for him to straighten up and fly right.

But then again, I seem to be living in an alternate reality. It may as well be a different century where I’m wearing petticoats and a bustle.

Face to face conversation is SO twentieth century!

Still, she was obviously desperate for some feedback so she listened to me.

After years of exhaustive research my advice went something like:

Boundaries are good. Children need them, dogs demand them, and relationships turn rancid without them. Everybody needs a line in the sand like, “You may not date inside this relationship.” Clear, concise, and to the point.

Boys are boys until…well…forever. It’s all at once adorable and a shame. I’ve witnessed the same behavior in a three-year-old and a sixty-year-old. There will always be some small part of a grown-ass man who thinks it’s cool to light stupid stuff on fire, walk around in their underwear, become mesmerized by an on-screen car chase, burp, fart, and scratch their balls while they watch Vin Diesel do pretty much anything.

You should never expect perfection. Not from yourself and not from your man. It is an unattainable goal that will drive you both insane.

I’m sorry but nineteen-year-old boys fuck up. (So do girls, but it’s seldom as epic.)
They don’t know shit about shit and that’s completely age-appropriate. She has to let him tie himself up in knots and just look away while he learns to Houdini himself free. She can say “I told you so”, but I wouldn’t suggest it if her objective is relationship longevity. Just nod and listen while he tells you his tales unless they hurt you or cross an established boundary.

Then dump the chump.

Which leads me to chump dumping. I medaled in this for twenty years.
Once you get your feet under you (sometime around thirty), and you realize your own self-worth—don’t take anyone’s shit (this goes for both men and women). If the other party can’t seem to value you or the relationship, if they are disrespectful or emotionally, psychologically or physically abusive—dump their ass.

My mother used to say “There are plenty of fish in the sea” and that there was “A lid for every pot.”
She may have meant them as culinary references but I took them as relationship metaphors.

My parting advice—Culinary and otherwise.

If it smells bad—it’s bad—throw it out… and …relationships are work. Just not REALLY, REALLY, HARD work.

Carry on,
xox