So, Where’s My Girlfriend?

I was watching the movie, “Up in the Air” tonight and there was one scene in the movie that really struck a chord with me. It’s the part when a heart-broken Natalie tells Ryan and Alex (Alex is a girl) about what she expected from her life by now:

Natalie: When I was sixteen, I thought by twenty three, I would be married, maybe have a kid…Corner office by day, entertaining at night. I was supposed to be driving a Grand Cherokee by now…but sometimes, it feels like no matter how much success I have, it all won’t matter until I find the right guy.

Alex: You really thought this guy was the one.

Natalie: Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. I could have made it work. He just really fit the bill.

Ryan: The bill?

Natalie: My type. You know, white collar. College grad. Loves dogs. Likes funny movies. Six foot one. Brown hair. Kind eyes. Works in finance but is outdoorsy, you know, on the weekends. I always imagined he’d have a single syllable name like Matt or John or…Dave. In a perfect world, he drives a Four Runner and the only thing he loves more than me is his golden lab. Oh…and a nice smile…

Alex: Well, by the time you’re thirty four, all the physical requirements are pretty much out the window. I mean you secretly pray he’ll be taller than you. Not an asshole would be nice. Just someone who enjoys my company. Comes from a good family – you don’t think about that when you’re younger. Wants kids…likes kids…wants kids. Healthy enough to play catch with his future son one day. Please let him earn more than I do. That doesn’t make sense now, but believe me, it will one day. Otherwise it’s just a recipe for disaster. Hopefully some hair on his head..but it’s not exactly a deal breaker anymore. Nice smile…yep, a nice smile just might do it.

Natalie: I don’t mind being married to my career, and I don’t expect it to hold me in bed as I fall asleep. I just don’t want to settle.

Alex: You’re young. Right now you see settling as some sort of failure.

Natalie: It is. By definition.

Alex: Don’t worry, by the time someone is right for you, it won’t feel like settling…and the only person left to judge you will be the twenty four year old girl with a target on your back.

After this scene, I couldn’t believe how bang on they were about my change in perspective as I get older. It’s funny, when you’re 28, you’re at this border where on one side, you see the naive, starry-eyed twenty something year olds like Natalie, still clutching on to her pipe dreams of finding the man she envisioned throughout her life. I still know girls like that…which astounds me. I only ask two questions:

1) Does this mean that I really am growing up?
2) Was I that naive when I was in my early twenties?

On the other side of twenty eight are the people that have lived through the war that is their personal life. The emotionally drained, maimed and injured. On this side, you have a group that’s jaded and has resigned themselves to the fact that they’re willing to settle for someone, anyone… that can love them back…even if they’re shorter than them. At first, I scoff at this mentality, but after a while I do start to see the rationale in it.

You spend the first half of your life thinking you’re right and you spend the second half atoning for your mistakes (because you’re usually not right) When you’re young, you really think the world is your oyster so you take your time picking and choosing just the right oyster with the perfect pearl. You find it hard to stop at one oyster because…who knows what the next oyster might hold? As age creeps up on you however, you realize that you’ve gone through the entire pile so you start to go back to the old oysters you’ve opened to pick the right pearl. Alas, when you turn your head, you realize that all the oysters you’ve opened have already been taken by other people. Now, you’re just happy to grab any oyster that you can snatch.
This is a tragedy of life that needs to be played out by each generation in order for them to warn the next generation; so that it can fall on deaf ears of the young and brash.

For me, I began to think about my life and how far I’ve deviated from what I imagined it to be.
I guess I wasn’t very imaginative when I was young. I opted for combo #1: being married and possibly having two kids.
When I was young, I’d make guesses as to what my career would be but having a wife was never an issue. There she was, my future companion who was always going to be pretty to me.
Whenever I encountered a girl I didn’t like, I received solace from the fact that my future wife was never going to be like her. My future wife wasn’t going to be fat like girl A and way more witty than girl B.

I guess this is what Plato referred to as “The Theory of Forms” – that somewhere in another universe, there’s an ideal version of everything. For example: How would you know if this thing in front of you is a good or bad table? If you can criticize whether something is a good or bad table, then somewhere in the back of your mind, you have to have an idea of what the ideal table should be.

Here I was, going through life with my Ideal Wife in my head. With each girl I encountered, I sized them up like the table and compared her to the ideal…of course they were never good enough. You go through life with a picture in your mind that doesn’t exist and hope you run into the impossible until one day, you start to doubt the validity of that picture. You see two ugly people getting married and they’re madly in love with each other. The husband stares at his cross-eyed wife and says through his buck teeth: “You’re perfect for me. You’re the only one I’ll ever want” and they ride off into their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. There you are, sitting by yourself at the buffet table thinking: boy, those two people are happy and here I am feeling like shit.

That’s the trade-off between holding out for your ideal companion versus settling.

So last October, I made a trek to India. I started from the North and traveled all the way to the South in two weeks alone (minus my punjabi driver Manpreet). There was a moment when I spent two days in Udaipur, arguably one of the most beautiful places in the world. As I got to my hotel during low season, there was hardly any tourists in the hotel. I can vividly remember one moment during my stay when I went down for breakfast. The restaurant was empty, minus one server and an old man playing a sitar. There I was, literally the third person in the dining room sitting by myself, eating my scrambled eggs looking out the window at this beautiful city while this old man played the sitar. This old man played a song that was so lonely and longing, it connected with me. I never felt music change my mood so drastically and as his sad song played, I looked across my table at the empty chair facing me and began feeling miserable.

Where did my ideal future wife go?
Did she elect to stay with the youthful side of me?
What do I do now? What do I tell myself?

I start to think back to all the girls I’ve spurned or all the things that somehow went wrong and I wonder if I can take it all back if it means having someone sitting across from me during my breakfast in lovely Udaipur.

Alas, I’m too old and wise to see through the foolishness but inside my heart, I know the truth but sometimes,

I wish I was wrong.

First of all, for those of you out of the loop, this year’s Superbowl is between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints.As guys high five each other, girls are probably saying: “Who cares?”
You know why you should care? Because of this guy:

I finally finished reading the entire Twilight series!

The man you are seeing above these words is none other than Drew Brees. I like Drew Brees for several reasons. The first reason is that I think “Drew Brees” is a cool name. His name sounds like something you’d use to describe the weather in a novel about two people in love:

“Then, he slowly took her hand…his fingers intertwined with hers and they held their hands tight as they walked along the path of fallen leaves on a cold Sunday afternoon in Massachusetts. Although there was a drew brees that came upon them that made her body cold, his touch combined with his gentle smile made her heart warm.”

The second reason why I like Drew Brees is because he’s someone I want to cheer for as a result of the way he was treated. Basically, Drew Brees was dumped by his old team, the San Diego Chargers for a younger, bigger guy – a douchebag named Philip Rivers:

Jersey Shore Season 2

While Rivers is good, I guess he’s not good enough to take the Chargers to the Superbowl. So, as Drew Brees continues to practice for the big game, Rivers, along with the entire Chargers organization sits at home and watches “The Bachelor” like me (Note: there is nothing wrong with watching The Bachelor) All this time, they’re probably thinking: We shouldn’t have given up on that guy.

You see, when someone you loves you…they believe in you. They believe in your hopes, your dreams, your failures and your stupidity. They’ll want to hold your hand whether you’re soaring in heaven or burning in hell with them.
When someone breaks up with you…they pretty much stopped believing in you. They see your stock price dropping and no longer think you’re a going concern so they’re cashing out and selling you down the river.

This type of shit sucks – it happens to everybody. When it happens to me – I take it hard because I’m a zero-sum type of guy: either you’re with me or against me.
I’m the type to hold grudges: if you’re my friend, I’ll do anything for you. If you’re my enemy, I’ll do anything to destroy you. Just ask anyone who plays Settlers of Catan with me: if you ever rob my resources, I’ll target you throughout the game and the game after that and the game after that.

So, the girl says goodbye to you and leaves you for Philip fucking Rivers. You can do either two things:

1) Sit and sulk
2) Get up and keep living

If you’ve gone out with this girl for a long time and you really loved her, it’s okay to sit and sulk for a bit…but after a while, you have to shake yourself out of it. It’s imperative that you don’t get hung up on one person your entire life or else it’s going to ruin your future relationships. You’re going to be “that guy” with excess baggage.
Being in a rut sucks. When you’re in a rut, you listen to the following music while you cry in the washroom:

- “I’ll stand by you” by the Pretenders
- “Broken” by Seether
- “Don’t Cry” by Guns N Roses

This part is crucial as you need to get yourself out of this mental mode. Going back to one of my weird philosophies – I think that when someone doesn’t meet anyone, it’s because they’re telling themselves they’re not ready. The universe reacts to this stuff and acts accordingly. Here’s an example – I have a love seat from Ikea in my room.

This is a loveseat or a oneseat for a morbidly obese person.

Seeing how I’m the only one who lives in my room, I hardly use the love seat. I only use my room to sleep. As a result, my love seat is usually filled with my unfolded laundry. Whenever I get into a rut and not meet anyone new, I always look at my laundry filled love seat and say “I’m telling myself not to meet anyone”. Then I get obsessive compulsive and fold and put away my laundry. Now the love seat is clear – freeing up a space for someone to sit beside me. That’s when I go out and meet someone new. I told you I have weird philosophies.

Going back to the subject -this is the part of your life when you need friends. Similar to Drew Brees, he can’t get to the Superbowl alone – he needs teammates like Reggie Bush to back him up. That’s what friends are for. A great example of a good friend is “Trent” played by Vince Vaughan in the classic movie: “Swingers”:

Nothing better than a friend to give you confidence. This is also where its good to have girl friends to tell you how great you are. If they’re really cool – they might also give you pity sex.

So, the best way to get out of a hole is to keep busy. In sports, when a shooter is in a slump, there’s only one way to get out of it: keep shooting. Don’t lose faith and you’ll find your groove. Eventually, you might be as bad-ass as Tayshaun Prince:

Once you’re back in the groove, the world will love you again. People will high-five you and suddenly, the girl who left you will want you back again. She might call, text or leave a facebook message but guess what: you’re not hearing any of that. You just won the fucking Superbowl.

As I rang in the new year drinking champagne with my family, my hand moved as someone put their glass against mine. I heard a sound.

Clink.

That clinking sound of two glasses coming together brought my mind back two years to the exact moment when I made a resolution in 2008 never to spend new year’s eve alone again.
Ever.
It’s funny – there are moments in your life that you think are different from the everyday ordinary moments. These “Special” moments like:

- that split second you have in front of your birthday cake to wish for something
- that feeling you had when you actually believed for a moment that she meant it when she said “We’ll always be friends even if we’re broken up”
- the wishful thinking you have when someone clinks your glass on New Years

We spend every day of our lives hoping that our wishes come true – that the alarm clock stays at 6:59 am forever or that we actually win the fucking lottery. We wish for these things everyday but in the back of our minds, we know that’s probably not gonna happen. When we hit “special moments’ however we somehow start believing that because doctors cut your mom open and took you out 30+ years ago or a Pope in the Sixteenth century decided to make today the New Year, you’re actually allowed to have your wish come true.

I always felt that I was too smart to believe in that stuff. While other people got their highs off Glass Menageries or Mary Jane, I always felt that Reality was my drug of choice simply because the highs and lows never wore off.
In 2009, I decided to live uncharacteristically so I contemplated asking God for stuff. Generally, I don’t like asking people for stuff because that would mean that I would owe them something. If I asked God for something, he’s probably going to want something back from me. Since he’s the Almighty, I’d imagine that he probably doesn’t want any possessions I have – not my DKNY jeans or my Hugo boss jacket. He’d probably want something intangible, like my thoughts and love. The problem though is that I’ve already allocated these two things for the nameless girl I anticipated on having by my arms one year from now when I clink my champagne glass again.

God wasn’t an option so I turned to his boss – Destiny. In Greek Mythology, even the Gods were below Destiny and had to observe its will. I asked Destiny what plans it had for me in the future and it gave me the asshole answer of
“We’ll see”.

Finding no solace in any of these upper powers, I decided to rely on myself and start the long trek to wherever it was I was going. I’ve had bumps along the way – wrong turns, delays and rattlesnake attacks but at the same time I also found people along the same path, helpful strangers and 1000+ facebook friends.

As my youth slowly escapes me, I see people all around me getting married – falling like dominoes one after another which begs me to ask: Who am I supposed to fall on?

When I brush my teeth is the deadliest time of the day as my mind starts thinking crazy. Usually, I’d stick my thoughts on my lot in life to the unconscious side of my brain and settle for having it come out in the form of night terrors drenched in cold sweat. However brushing my teeth brings the devil out in broad daylight and given my new compulsive disorder of brushing my teeth several times a day, my devil is beginning to bring sunblock lotion with him.

A while back, a moment of panic flashed through my eyes as I had a sudden thought that I was behind schedule of where my life should be. Here’s the schedule for life: You’re born, you go to school, you get a job, you marry and you die. The moment of panic came about when I realized that I might have missed two words after the third comma from the previous sentence: you get a job and you die.

I asked God if this was so but again, he wanted my heart and my thoughts. Destiny said “We’ll see” so I had no one to answer this but myself again. I looked backwards and looked forwards, thought about my family and friends and felt that I had this one defining moment dawning upon me.

Before I could find out what it was, I felt my hand move and I heard a sound.

Clink.

It was a New Year all over again.

Seeing how the New Year is only a few days away, I broke a promise to myself and made a little list of resolutions for 2010. One of the things I wrote down was this:

“Minimize Incidences of Exposure to Player Hating”

Don't hate on Diddy's shirt...it used to be cool in the 90's...unlike his dancing - which was never cool.

I don’t know whether it’s due to a full moon or the winding down of the football season, but recently I’ve been running into a lot of cockblockers everywhere I go. So last night, I was convinced that this abnormally high incidence of cockblocking was God giving me a sign- just like St. Gabriel foretold the birth of Jesus, it was my job to warn my fellow human beings about cockblockers.

Today, I want to talk to you about Cockblocking.

First off, for those that don’t know what cockblocking is – it’s pretty much when someone goes out of their way to prevent you or someone you care about from getting the girl (either her phone number or getting her back to your place). I use the word “someone” because cockblockers can be both guys and girls:

Guy cockblocks are usually guys who secretly have a crush on the girl you’re hitting on, but since he was  never man enough to show his true feelings to this girl, he’ll just make it his life duty to make sure she never meets any guys that are better than him in hopes that she’ll give up trying to find mildly decent guys and just settle for him.

Another type of guy cockblocks are guys who just can’t get any girls so they just want to ruin it for the entire team. Here is an example using video games: The Counterstrike Example

I shouldn't have traded in my bullets for that iTunes coupon...

When I was in University, I got addicted to an online shooting game called “Counterstrike” which resulted in me almost failing a few courses. Anyway, the premise of the game is this: either you’re on the terrorist team or the counter-terrorist team. You fight each other and try and kill each other. Simple.

Well, sometimes you’re in a team of really good players. When you’re in a team of really good players, they’ll take all your kills and you basically do nothing but run around shooting at the walls. Sometimes, when I found myself in a team full of all-stars, I just get pissed off and decide to sabotage the team. So what I’ll do is wait until everyone’s in a tunnel and then I’ll throw a flashbang grenade (which screws everyone on the team since it blinds everyone in the tunnel). Take that for stealing my kills.

I do admit what I did in Counterstrike was an act of player hating (literally) but fortunately, my hating stops at the PC and not in the club. I’m just making a point about people being total dicks. Going back to guy cockblockers, so here are some things they do:

Common Cockblock Maneuvers include:
- Putting his arm around the girl
- Creepily hovering in the background as she talks to you
- Reminding her of things she said at the most inopportune time (e.g. “Remember you said that you didn’t give out your phone number?”) as she’s about to give you her phone number

Angelina was a self-described cockblock in "Jersey Shore" which was why everyone hated her guts.

While the threat of guy cockblocks sound menacing, they can’t hold a candle to the most dangerous species on Earth: Girl cockblocks. Girl cockblocks are the worst sub-human species in the club. While guy cockblocks have a selfish motive, (i.e. he wants the girl for himself) girl cockblockers usually operate out of sheer spite and bitterness. Here is the rationale for girl cockblockers:

First of all, girl cockblocks are either:
(1) in a relationship
(2) not in a relationship.

If they’re in a relationship, she’s in a shitty relationship with some guy who’s probably an accountant and there’s nothing but dullness and a Wii awaiting her in her future. The only reason she’s still in the relationship is because “it’s too hard to start all over again” and given the fact that she’s invested a good chunk of her young life in the relationship, she secretly fears that if she enters the market again at her age, she’ll probably lose out to younger, hotter girls. So, when you’re trapped in a shitty relationship, what else can you do?
Spread your misery around and infect your single friends. Cockblock like the Chinese government’s about to outlaw it.

I think a few lyrics from “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones can best describe this girl’s psyche:

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black

"We kick'em to the curb unless they look like...Mick Jagger" Are you sure?

If they’re not in a relationship, the reason why a girl would cockblock her girlfriend is very very simple: she’s just not as attractive compared to her friend – which is why the guys are talking to her friend and not her. Again, to highlight the difference between guys and girls in general:

If one girl is talking to two guys, the guy she’s not interested in will do all the he can to make sure his buddy gets the girl. This is the bro-code.
If one guy is talking to two girls, the girl he’s not interested in will do all that she can to make sure her friend doesn’t get the guy. This is the bitch code.

Common Cockblock Maneuvers Include:
- Telling the girl to go to the bar with her
- Going to the bathroom together
- Pulling her into the dancing circle

Very Important note: I am quite aware of the large amount of creepy guys in the club. Creepy guys hitting on girls is as common as Ed Hardy shirts on douchebags so I’d like to make a very important distinction right now about cockblocking and protecting the girl from creepy guys. Girls have the right to not be harassed by creepy guys – if the girl doesn’t want to talk to him, then it’s okay for her to be rescued by her friend. When I talk about cockblocking however are instances when the girl DOESN’T want to leave the guy. This is when her horse-looking friend is trying to grab her arm to pull her away but she’s clearly pushing her hand away in a non-verbal way of saying “Leave me alone, my horse-looking girlfriend”. It’s very easy to see when a girl is into a guy and when a girl’s just being polite.

"My cousin's the bartender...I know the bouncer...blah blah blah" Your social connections won't compensate for your creepiness.

Advanced Theories in Cockblocking

This section is for the guys: As the “Bro Code” states, while every guy in a bar can be a “bro”, they are not YOUR bro. They are someone else’s bro. As a result, you have no obligation to help out any guy that’s not your bro. This is NOT cockblocking – you are not obligated to help out any guy that’s not your friend if you are both going after the same girl.

Grey Area Cockblockers

Grey area cockblockers are people that have the capacity to cockblock but can be recruited as a friend.
Here’s an example: The girl’s best guy friend.
So you’ve been talking to this girl on the phone for a while now and finally she invites you to go clubbing. Great. When you show up however you see her with a guy. She introduces this guy as “her best guy friend/he’s almost like my brother”.

The million dollar question is: how are you supposed to treat this guy?

Here’s the stuff you don’t know: is he really just a good friend or does he secretly have a crush on her?
If he’s only a friend and he’s a nice guy, then you should be nice to him. If you’re nice to him, then he’ll have a high opinion of you later when she asks him what he thinks about you (you bet your life she’s gonna ask him later).
If he has a secret crush on her, you still have to be nice to him because if you’re not, then he’s gonna give her bad reviews about you. So you’re probably thinking “This sucks. What if he’s a dick to me? I’m not going to roll over for him” Hark, dear friend – this is your saving grace: when it comes to guys they’re really attracted to – girls will go for the guy despite all the warnings from her friends. She doesn’t care – she’ll pay for it later if it goes to shit. What I’m telling you is that even if her guy friend gives you a bad review, she’ll take that into consideration but if she likes you enough, she’ll say something like “maybe that was a one off” and still go out with you.
Hooray for lack of self discipline!

Here’s the second version of grey area  cockblocks – Girl friends.
I had this girl friend once who made it a habit to come and hug me at the worst time: i.e. when I’m talking to a girl. Hugging a guy in front of another girl can be good and bad. It’s good if your friend is good looking. The other girl will say “Wow,this guy knows hot girls! I gots to get with him!”. It’s a bad thing however if your girl friend is Busted Rhymes.
You know who makes really good wingwomen? the girlfriend of your buddy. Girls who are already taken are great in making intros for you to other girls. At first, I thought it was weird to have a girl talk to another girl for me but I’ve discovered that it’s ridiculously effective. You just need to trust it. Just like when I first took swimming courses, I didn’t believe the instructor when she said that i’d float automatically up if i jumped into the water.

What kind of alchemy is this? Floating straight up? How can man defy nature? As well, how can man turn water into wine?

Whatever it was, apparently me and the Pharisees were both proven wrong…all i had to do was trust the system.

There you go…trust the system. Be nice to guy friends and watch out for cockblockers.

Words to live by in the New Year.

Let's see the fist pumping like Champs...

Hopefully, you’re in the loop with whats’ going on right now in TV Land. For those who don’t know, the best show on tv right now is MTV’s “Jersey Shore” – a reality show about 8 Italians guys and girls spending the summer at the Jersey Shore which is the Cancun of America’s armpit,  New Jersey. Pretty much the premise is the same as every other MTV show: stick a bunch of young horny people in a house and watch them hook up.

Well, try and hook up.

See, that’s the interesting part watching this show: despite the ripped bodies, the tattoos and the hot tub, I don’t think any of the guys in the show has hooked up with a girl (aside from one guy who hooked up with his roommate). There’s been plenty of opportunities for them – every night these guys try and bring home a girl but something always happens where the girl ends up leaving: she changes her mind or her friend freaks out. It’s amusing to watch this but at the same time, there’s something about this:

When it comes to hooking up, there are so much more misses than hits.

I think Jersey Shore actually did a good job in showing how realistic and hard it is to actually hook up with someone. I’m talking from experience – for someone to hook up, everything has to go right whereas any little thing that goes wrong will totally kill the deal. Think of it from a girl’s perspective: she’s going home with some guy she just met to his house and she knows he’s expecting to have sex with her. The pressure is bigger than Mariano Rivera can handle.

I think the only time guys hook up is when the girl’s made up her mind to hook up and no matter what happens, she’s getting it. Just like getting a phone number, hooking up at the end is completely up to the girl. Guys can offer the idea and push the issue, but the final sign off is always with the girl. This goes to show just how powerless guys really are in the dating scene.

Contrast this with when the girls from Jersey Shore want to hook up – one girl, Snookie always wants to just cuddle and make out with guys. She always sends the guys home disappointed. This is insight number two: when girls set a limit to how far she’s willing to go with the guy, it’s really hard to have her push her limit. If a girl doesn’t intend on hooking up, she’s not hooking up whereas guys will always say yes to anything a girl suggests if he thinks there’s a possibility of hooking up.

She says: “Wanna go back and watch the sunset?” a guy will think “Great, we’re hooking up”.
She says: “Wanna go home and feed my cat?” a guy will think “Great, we’re hooking up”.

The reason guys will always think the girl wants to hook up is because guys use generic lines themselves to bring the girl home. That’s the way the game is played: sex is always present in any situation but nobody will ever bring it up. There are always other excuses to use than “Wanna come home and have sex with me?” That way, girls can start the sentence “I innocently went to his house to watch Roadhouse at 4 am and one thing led to another…”

This is why the line “Come over and watch movies” is the universal hook up line. Just like “Cold Tea” is the code word for beer in Chinese restaurants after last call, “Coming over to watch a movie” is the code word for both parties to suggest hooking up. This way, if the girl doesn’t want to “Watch a movie” she can politely decline and no one feels rejected.

So, which one of you ladies wants to watch “Jersey Shore”?