I'm Having More Fun Than You (18 page)

BAD COHABITATION

Since living with Brian after graduation, I resolved never to live with anyone ever again, at least until I get married. I just can’t stand having another human in my fucking personal space. After Brian and Blake got their own place, I moved from our old apartment, which was just a few blocks from Amanda, to a studio that was across the street from her. I could literally see her bedroom from mine. People asked why Amanda and I didn’t just move in together. Well, for me, the negatives outweighed the positives. The positives were that we’d both save money and she had DVR at the time but I didn’t. The negatives were that I’d have to kill her.

Another drawback I’ve noticed about living with your significant other is that the bedroom always skews girly. Triplet #3 lives with his wife, and their apartment is modern and well decorated. But once you cross the threshold into their bedroom, things get frilly and purple real quick. And I have a feeling it wasn’t Trip 3’s idea to buy forty-six pillows for the bed, including a dozen of those cylindrical ones that serve no purpose at all. Some evil mastermind must have made a fortune off of those.

Even worse was what happened when my friend Marcia first moved in with her boyfriend (now husband). She said their schedules were so hectic that, in order to save time, they showered together. Every single morning. I told her I had an even better solution. It’s called “move out.”

In some respects, having a girlfriend but not living with her is the best of both worlds. On those nights when you’re not together, you can leisurely browse Skinemax before bed instead of snuggling and watching
Will & Grace
reruns. But perhaps the most drastic change in my life resulting from having a girlfriend is that masturbation becomes a special time. It’s usually such a common occurrence. But once I’m in a relationship, it becomes so rare that, if I find myself with seven minutes of alone time in my apartment, I have to savor it. I dim the lights, I burn some candles. All I need is some de-ageifying lotion and I’m good to go.

There was a brief period of time after Brian and I moved out and before I moved across the street from Amanda when I actually moved back home to the suburbs with my parents. I would, however, spend every weekend in the city with Amanda. One Wednesday, I had a meeting in Manhattan, so I told Amanda I’d take her out afterward as a special midweek treat. She got upset. Why? Because I was coming into the city partly for business and not solely because I wanted to see her. In other words, just spending time with her was not sufficient. There had to be pure male sacrifice involved. I now know never to use the word “convenient” when making plans with a woman. Instead I just substitute the phrase “you’re beautiful.” That seems to work.

HEY JEALOUSY

If I’m going to a bar with a bunch of my boys, even if I have a girlfriend, the first question I’ll ask is, “Are there going to be any hot chicks there?” Why do I care if I’m not looking for ass? Well, some people like bars with microbrews and indie music. I like bars with hot chicks everywhere. It’s just for atmosphere. The same sort of sentiment holds when I’m having a friendly conversation with a girl at a bar. Once she says she has a boyfriend—even if I have a girlfriend—I kinda just don’t want to talk to her anymore. No hard feelings; you’re just no longer as interesting as I thought you were.

One time I was at a bar with Amanda and some of my friends. Me, Amanda, and Triplet #1 (who was single at the time) were hanging out when Trip 1 spotted a couple of cute girls sitting by themselves. Trip 1 wanted to talk to them but we couldn’t find any of our other friends and he needed a wingman. So I asked Amanda if I could try hitting on them, just to see if I was rusty or not. She laughed and stood back to observe as I completely crashed and burned. You know how embarrassing it is to get shot down by a chick in front of your girlfriend? Because you know she’s wondering, “How the hell did I fall for that bullshit?”

For the most part, I’m not the jealous type. If I’m dating a girl and she wants to go out with an ex-boyfriend who’s in town, I always give my blessing. I guess I just tend to feel secure in my relationships. The problem is, chicks want their boyfriends to feel a little jealous. But why would I? To me it’s a pleasant treat to have some other dude buy my girlfriend dinner every once in a while.

However, if my girlfriend is going to hang out with her ex-boyfriend, I’d rather not know anything at all about him. Keep me in the dark. Having the details, for some reason, actually does make me start to feel jealous. I remember I was talking to Amanda once and she said, “Did I tell you I ran into my ex-boyfriend Jeremy in the street the other day?” And I was like, “Oh man, I didn’t want to know his name.
Jeremy?
His cock must be huge!”

NOT GOING THE DISTANCE

In the scheme of relationships, long-distance is the worst thing ever. I don’t care what anyone tells you. It never works, it doesn’t make you “stronger,” it’s just a plain old-fashioned clusterfuck. I probably deal with it worse than most people. Amanda and I broke up only a few weeks after trying to do long-distance. Though she later moved to LA, we never got back together. Possibly because I think Santa Monica and West Hollywood are far enough away to still be considered long-distance (it’s eleven miles).

I was once told that long-distance saves you a lot of money, because you’re no longer taking your girlfriend out to dinner and paying for her all the time. Besides being an incredibly tenuous case in favor of long-distance, it’s not even true. Flying to meet your significant other is expensive. Plus, each time you visit each other, every night out is a special occasion and thus costs a pretty penny. Long-distance actually costs
more
than a regular relationship. So don’t spend all that money on plane tickets and shipping gifts when it’s not even gonna last. Instead, invest in someone more geographically desirable. Or a Wii.

Amanda and I tried everything possible to make things work after we both moved away. I even bought us webcams. It was great just to be able to see each other, but the webcam sex was a little disappointing. It was kind of like watching streaming porn that’s constantly buffering and the audio is three seconds behind the video. Eventually, though, we got back into our old habits. Turns out arguing over a grainy, choppy Internet connection is just as effective as arguing in person.

The truth is, though, the cracks in my relationship with Amanda began to show way before we ever tried long-distance. For instance, she could never hear me on my cell phone. I don’t know what it was; my reception was fine with everyone but her. We just got so frustrated every time we spoke that a fight would break out. But I refused to try to fix it because I really liked my phone. “Blame T-Mobile, not me!” I’d say. Then of course there was the time Amanda asked me if I loved Derek Jeter more than her. I probably should not have responded, “Well, I’ve known him longer.”

THE BREAK-UP

One thing I have never done is cheat on a girlfriend. I never cheat. Probably because I’m too lazy. You have to come up with an alibi, you gotta sneak around, it just seems so tiring. Plus, I’d probably do something really dumb like go to the other chick’s house and then update my Facebook status to say where I am. And let’s face it, cheating is really just a cowardly way to end a relationship when you’re too much of a pussy to simply break up with the person. Some guys just want to get caught. Like my buddy who cheated on his girlfriend—while on vacation with her. Subtlety is not his strong suit.

After trying to cope with double long-distance, Amanda and I realized the end had come. Our break-up was sad, but very much amicable and mutual. (I think; with the webcam it was hard to tell if she was crying or choking on a pretzel.) With Claire, things didn’t end as smoothly, mostly because it was a more unilateral decision. I wanted to break up with her as delicately as possible, so I decided the best way to do it would be over the phone. My thinking was that she would be less upset if she didn’t have to see me in person. Big mistake. I think she was madder at me for doing it over the phone than for breaking up with her. So we met in person later that day and I did it again. This time it took. Lesson learned.

The first order of business after a break-up is telling your friends and family what happened. This is terribly painful. Not so much because it’s the end of a beautiful relationship, but because it’s so annoying to have to tell the same story repeatedly. I remember when my cousin told me she had just broken up with a guy she’d been dating for several years. I was the first person she told, and as she began to get upset, all I could think about was how many times she would have to tell the same story to different people. I could just imagine the coming weeks and how she would have to repeat herself over and over again—the same boring, drawn-out explanation of what happened for every person who asked. The horror.

Men and women of course react completely differently when you tell them you’ve just broken up. Girls are like, “Tell. Me. Everything.” Guys are like, “Just gimme the gist. And make it quick; the game’s on.” Women empathize. They want to know if you’re OK and how you’re feeling at that very moment. They ask, “Is there anything I can do to help?” Men exult. They congratulate you and welcome you back to the workforce. First order of business: get you laid.

The ability to efficiently disseminate word of your newfound availability already exists to some extent on Facebook. In fact, the first administrative task many newly single people do is remove the In a Relationship tag from their profile (or sign up for an account to begin with). Women will also go online to get post-break-up intelligence, including analyzing the status updates of their exes for deeper meaning (“Oh my God, his Facebook status says ‘just chilling.’ How could he just be chilling!?”) and searching for patterns in their wall posts (“Who’s this girl who posted on his wall like four times in one day? I’ve never seen her before; fucking slut!”). The great irony is that these days we’re so connected it’s easier to end an offline relationship than it is to end an online one. We can break up but we can’t log off.

THE AFTERMATH

Break-ups are tough. Well, at least for the girl. When it comes to relationships, guys are like a light switch; they can immediately shut their feelings off. Girls are more like a dimmer; their feelings slowly fade out. Every guy has gotten a voicemail from a recent ex-girlfriend that goes something like: “Hey Trevor, it’s me. Allison. You know, me. Can I still say ‘me’? Oh, I don’t know; it’s awkward. Anyway, I was just calling because I was driving and I saw this vintage T-shirt store and it reminded me of you. And then, guess what happened. A bee got in the car! Remember that? Good times.”

It’s tough talking to my ex-girlfriends right after we break up, even if everything is cordial, because I have to be really careful to avoid saying shit that I would normally say to a regular friend. For instance, an ex will ask me what I did Saturday night and I’ll be like, “Not much. Went out and got pretty drunk. I met this chick and totally nailed—uh, nailed her shelves to the wall. Yeah, you know how tricky IKEA can be…”

Tactfulness is a two-way street, though. It’s respectful to make the other party aware of what’s going on, if only to give them the courtesy of not being the last to know. A while after we broke up, Amanda got wasted, then texted me to ask if I looked at other girls when we dated, since her current boyfriend apparently had a wandering eye. Which would have been fine had her drunken text message not been the first time she ever even mentioned she had a new boyfriend.

Following a break-up, the first thing a guy has to realize is that, no matter what the circumstances, she
will
move on eventually. A few weeks after breaking up, if you ask a guy if he thinks his ex-girlfriend is hooking up with anyone else, he’ll always say, “No way.” Ironically, this is the exact same sentiment that grips a guy in the early stages of preapproved booty calls. We simply cannot fathom the possibility that a girl has other romantic interests besides us. A guy could be invited to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding, watch her exchange vows with her fiancé, and turn to his buddy and say, “Dude, she’s totally still into me.”

It doesn’t get stranger than hanging out with an ex, especially if you haven’t seen her in a while. I had dinner with Claire recently at a restaurant in Beverly Hills whose outdoor tables bordered the sidewalk. There were fucking street vendors walking back and forth trying to get me to buy flowers for her. One guy actually said, “Come on, man! If you have a beautiful girlfriend, you gotta buy her flowers!” I gave him ten bucks just to leave us alone. When I got home, all of my buddies asked how dinner went. My female friends asked how Claire looked. My male friends asked if I banged her. Some things never change.