(Posted by Fi)
I can’t stand silence. Silence is either justified by the amount of time it takes to load a new CD, or the break in the argument where you scrabble for a better foothold. I associate long silent pauses with the intake of breath before I’m lectured for leaving a fork in the microwave, spending all my money on clothes or stepping out onto icy lakes. Well, it looked solid enough!
Perhaps I’m part of that generation that needs constant distraction before anything can be done, but I can’t concentrate without music. I spent a week studying for my finals without music and it was the longest, most boring week I have ever spent. Now, I had the honest intention of continuing this article, but I suddenly feel quite silly typing the merits of music and how I can’t live without it when Buni is doing such a good job of it and Quarsan did last week. So instead I shall expand on Melodrama’s piece below.
Perhaps a more important thing to talk about than my fantasies of being swept through a crowded ballroom to the open dance-floor and twirling to the Blue Danube Waltz in a satin gown and gloves with Bruce Campbell is the nature of relationships. What makes two people want to tolerate each other, share themselves intimately, disclose deep, dark, potentially-dangerous-after-the-break-up secrets?
I don’t want to cause a fuss here, but let me make it perfectly clear that men are not complex. They do not have the same intricate inner workings of women and they are not unfathomable pools of emotions swirling effervescently in a bubbling turmoil of feelings and needs. Brian O’Halloran simplified what men want out of relationships quite simply: “insert someplace close and preferably moist; thrust; repeat.” If a man stays silent in a relationship it’s because he has nothing to say, if a woman stays silent it’s because she’s run out of things to complain about and is wondering what’s wrong with the man. They don’t have enough to think about and we have too much.
Men as partners are easy to please, in general of course, take these guidelines and tailor them to suit your man;
1. Provide regular meals, don’t question where they end up, provide air freshener of a scent that you like since he never seems able to smell anything wrong with the bathroom.
2. Keep a running total of every anniversary, birthday, event and Saint’s day that he’s forgotten to celebrate. This is ammunition and works better than hollow-point nine millimetre shells in the war that is argumentation.
3. If he sleeps late, let him. Make your own breakfast and remind him that if he wanted pancakes and maple syrup with bacon and scrambled eggs he has to be up early enough. Be sure to leave enough on the plate when you’re finished to show just how good you make it (even if it’s out of a packet). On the mornings that he does wake up early, tell him you’d like breakfast in bed.
4. Stay silent. Play music if you’re angry about something. Make the music suit your reasons for being angry but complain about nothing until he asks. If he asks, he cares, if he doesn’t then you’re entitled to do just as bad back and when asked why, justify it with rule number 2.
5. If you want kids, leave handy reminders everywhere. Childhood toys to remind him how much fun kids have. Point at kids in buggies and wave at them, then turn with your smile turned all the way past cute to dangerously sweet and say “how adorable!” Asking outright is the polite way to ask for a break-up.
These five rules obviously aren’t set in stone, they’ve been handy guidelines for dealing with men. The basic sleep, eat, sex pattern is 99% universal, albeit not necessarily in that order, more like, eat, sex, eat, sleep, eat, perhaps skipping the second eat every second time. My mother always claimed that the key to a lasting relationship wasn’t patience, but tolerance. Because any annoyance can be countered, but new ones will constantly crop up here and there. If you set a limit to how much you’ll put up with and reach that limit, it’s time to reassess your position in the relationship and what you feel you’re getting out of it. Now, quick guidelines for living with women;
Volume I, chapter 1, paragraph 1;
1. You are never, ever, ever, to think for one second that you are right, be you male or female. Even if she is wrong, you can never make a woman admit that she is wrong, which is why we argue the way we do.
2. If you think that the secret behind women can be named, categorised, analysed and unlocked, then you’re living in a dream world…
If you want to extract a moral from this piece, it’s simply put that the ballroom fantasy must remain rooted in reality to have any sort of meaning. Even were I to be lucky enough to get Bruce Campbell into a dinner jacket and find a ballroom with polished floors and ornate golden chandeliers, reality would step in and make my shoes one size too small. Everything depends on your breaking point. How much can you put up with before things start becoming a problem and how much do the little things matter to you when you’re dancing with the man of your dreams?
troubled diva 