She’s dancing when I walk in. Not to actual music, mind you, but to whatever rhythm is running through her head. Though I can’t hear it, I know the song from the way she bounces her heels from side to side: left, then right, then one-two-three. She’s wearing the purple socks with penguins on them that she says are conducive to slides and swirls on our tile floor.

“Hey!” She spins to face me with finger guns drawn. “How long does it take pasta to boil?”

“That depends,” I grin, leaning against the door frame. “What does the box say?”

“Forget the box,” she shakes her head. “The box is dead to me. What else you got?”

Laughter spills out from that silly little source of light in the center of my chest.

“I’m being serious,” she says, firing the finger guns at me.

“I know you’re being serious. That’s why it’s funny.”

“How was the MRI?” She mumbles just low enough that I can pretend I didn’t hear.

“Do you ever get a feeling that’s so bright and beautiful that it seems like your entire existence was created for the sole purpose of experiencing that moment. Like everything before was just build up and everything after is just time to reflect?”

“Hmm,” she taps the tip of her nose with an index finger. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to compliment my butt?” She shifts her weight to one hip and cocks an eyebrow at me.

“Because that is completely in line with my character,” my smile widens on its own accord. “Seriously though, there’s something about this moment with you in your dumb penguin socks and spaghetti sauce on your face – my heart feels like it might explode, and I’d be just fine with that.”

“Nooo,” she whines while stirring pasta. “I want my moment too. If your heart explodes before I get my moment, I swear to god I’ll eat your face off.”

“Oh yeah? Just going to choke it down raw?”

“I’m not a psychopath, Stewart,” she scoffs. “I’d boil it first. So, how was the MRI?” She turns her head toward me this time.

“It was good,” I stuff my hands in my pockets, but that feels weird, so my left arm grabs my right. That also feels weird, so one hand moves to the back of my head while the other stays stuffed in its pocket. “Just the usual stuff.”

Her stirring slows as she watches me out of the corner of her eye. “Okay.” A silence settles, but I can only handle it for a few seconds.

“I was thinking about taking some time off work.” I move up behind her, placing my hands on her hips. I sway her from side to side, hoping to reignite that invisible beat inside her head. “We could take that trip to New Zealand, get a cabin in the mountains, or just stay here and dance.”

“Oh yeah?” She leans her head back against my collar bone, letting her hair fall across my nose. “When do you want to do that?”

“Next week?” I suggest. “Tomorrow? Today if you’re up for it.”

“Hon,” she shakes her head. “How about six months?”

“Ah, that’s so far away,” I groan and plant a kiss behind her ear. “God knows where we’ll be in six months.”

Her grip on the spatula tightens but she doesn’t reply. Instead, she spins around in my arms so she can meet my eye.

“Hi,” I press my forehead against hers, smiling at the dab of marinara on her cheek.

“Just tell me.” Her eyes grow wider.

“Tell you how hot you are in those socks? Oh my gosh, you’re like a friggin’ Disney princess before the princess part happens.”

“No,” she crosses her arms over her chest, creating a few inches of distance between us. “Just. Tell. Me.”

Listen here, you whimsical fuck.

We had a deal. I let you drive this paper white slice of straight cake for the rest of its life on the sole condition that you lead it to true love.  Yet all I have to show for it are a dozen romantic misfortunes that have ripped my heart a hundred new assholes.  I could have pursued financial success, a master’s degree, perhaps a drug or sex addiction, but no. I’m out here following my heart like a fucking idiot.

You were supposed to be my magnetic north, my unseen engine of serendipity, but you’re not an engine of serendipity, are you? You’re a parasite. A despondency monster.  You live not for love, but for the deep well of anguish that opens up when love collapses.  It’s a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, girl rejects boy, sadness vampire attached to boy’s soul grows stronger. Fuck you.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean that.

I’m just frustrated.

Because there is no road map for finding the love of your life. No consecutive string of short-term goals to mark one’s progress, nor series of incremental promotions to climb like a ladder. All I have is you, my ethereal little love penguin, and your instincts haven’t exactly been on point. I have messed up so many good things with women I didn’t deserve from the start simply because you had a bad feeling about it. You create this gold-plaited versions of a person for me to pursue, and then get disappointed when reality doesn’t rise to match it. Yet, for as much as you make me want to scream, you’re the best part of me. You are my humility, my empathy, my capacity for a complex love that could only originate from eternity, and I need you to get your shit together.

The elusive beast that has haunted me for decades is a simple question:  why don’t people knock before trying to enter a public restroom? Knocking is such a simple preventative measure, and I could never wrap my mind around why so many individuals avoid it. You’re advancing on a room where people take off their pants and crap into a bowl, and you’re just going to go for it? The fuck is wrong with you? At first, I believed this behavior to be an outlier: a sliver of the pie chart owned by an overly anxious minority that shirk confrontation whenever possible. Perhaps making their presence known to the faceless creator of chocolate cakes make them feel vulnerable. Or maybe they even fear an extreme reaction, that the occupant will become violent at the idea that they too have to poop.* However, this working theory quickly collapsed.

The more time I spent in public restrooms, the more I realized that forgoing the knock wasn’t a fluke. Each day, I pooped in public, and each day I was greeted by the metallic click of someone going straight for the handle. The anxious minority wasn’t enough, so I factored in the naive: those of us that implicitly trust strangers not to scar them for years to come.** And if you think there aren’t people out there that would happily traumatize you with whatever weird shit they’re into, then you need to focus up, because mankind has an endless variety of kinks. If we consider that anyone could be in a public bathroom, and anyone can be aroused by anything, then the possibilities of what could be behind that door are endless, and your mind should always default to depravity. But, I’m not telling you anything new. Humanity has a severe lack of faith in humanity, to the point that we cross the street when someone is walking toward us, hire third party companies to protect our identity, and carry guns on the off chance someone pulls one on us. How can we be so trusting in one public arena and not at all in every other?

I was then struck by the unfortunate epiphany that, as an individual that knocks first, I am the minority, and possibly the sole exception. Not only do A LOT of people try to enter a public piss closet on first contact, but ALL of the people do. Everyone assumes that everyone else will lock the door behind them, a line of reason that paved the way for epiphany number two: neglecting to knock first isn’t blindly trusting the character of the human behind that door, it’s trusting them not to trust you. We have fallen so far as a society that expecting someone will take advantage of us has become our baseline, and the only solution is to accept that in this world people will always try to barge in on you at your most vulnerable. Not because they thirst for chaos, or because they don’t realize chaos could be around any corner, but because their faith in mankind is so broken that they believe themselves to be untrustworthy, and will expect you to take every available measure against them.

Footnotes:

*I don’t know who needs to hear this, but knocking on a door does not make you visible to the person inside, because – and this is important – there’s a fucking door in the way. Yes, that object that inspired you to knock is the same one defending you from potential retaliation. Not only can they not see you, but you don’t have to say anything in response. Just tap on the door, receive confirmation that it’s occupied, and walk away, leaving no assurance that you were anything more than an auditory hallucination. 

**There are few things that will scar the psyche more than barging in on someone with their pants around their ankles, unless of course you’re doing it on purpose as some sort of power play. Need to gain a psychological advantage over friend/co-worker? Catch them with their pants around their ankles and a train in the outbound tunnel. The perfect crime. 

The unsolicited dick pic (henceforeth referred to as the UDP) is an unmistakable blemish on man’s romantic record…and technically assault. Within the algorithmic system of the dating app era, which emphasizes quantity over quality, the UDP is the ultimate low percentage shot, designed to forgo small talk, self-expression, or meaningful interaction of any kind.  Despite its efficiency, this method represents a corrosion of morality previously thought to be impossible, for we have found a way to be both reckless and cowardly. Cowardly and thoughtful? Quite common. Bold and reckless? Even more so. However, to be both unhinged and spineless is a very sad brand of scum that demands our immediate attention.

As a man who has let his weiner do the walking on more than one occasion, I understand the logic. At its core the UDP is a yes or no question; however, not only is the answer almost always ‘no’, but ‘no’ is actually the best case scenario. Alternatively, the recipient of your UDP could laugh at you, or they could say nothing, and there’s no coming back from nothing. You can’t text them a week later, like “so, do you like to travel?” No. You played your hand, and your cards were spinelessness and stupidity. Finally, and ironically, the worst possible outcome is success, because whatever small percentage of women would say ‘yes’ to a man based solely on his semen dispenser do not represent an emotionally stable part of the population.  The type of people who would react optimistically to a spontaneous meat popsicle are a group that suffer from a litany of personality defects, like schizophrenia, pyromania, and an urge to take their socks off on an airplane, just to name a few. This is a group with higher odds of both psychological and sexual disorders, whom I wouldn’t trust with my address let alone exclusive access to my penis.

To the conveyers of gratuitous trouser snakes, I have only one question: what the fuck? Do you care nothing for the mental well-being of our women? Which part of your testosterone-addled brain is telling you that anyone, let alone the object of your affection, wants your naked peen to appear out of the ether? It’s a workday, Brian. Cold calling some poor woman with a snap of your stupid penis is not going to improve her afternoon. In fact, it may scar her for the foreseeable future if not eternity. In addition, the demand for D’s is leagues below it’s female counterpart. The market is saturated with weiners, making it more likely that yours isn’t the only penis they’ve seen that week, and far from the most impressive. The UDP is a high risk-low reward strategy, as likely to give you AIDS as get you laid, and it is — and I can’t emphasize this enough — assault. It may be the lowest form of assault, but it qualifies, and while it may not yet be illegal in your state, I assure you that that legislation is on it’s way.

This is not to say that dick pics are never acceptable. They are, but only under one circumstance: upon request. The UDP is an extreme example of our generation’s tendency to only be bold from behind a keyboard, which is actually the opposite of being bold. Boldness requires vulnerability. Asking someone out is bold because you’re risking the end of a friendship and/or outright humiliation. Are you about to make things awkward forever? Maybe. Only one way to find out. People who are comfortable in social situations didn’t come upon that skill set by chance. It’s a talent acquired through trial and error. The only way to stop these budding romantic opportunities from being awkward is to short circuit your emotional reflex. Steep yourself in so many awkward situations that they cease to be awkward. It’s a similar process by which your body forms scar tissue. You do something risky, get cut, and form a defensive layer that protects you from getting cut again. Sure, a scar can be seen as a warning to never do that thing again, but I prefer to see it as proof that you DID something dangerous and came out the other side intact. So, be a man and show her your penis in person.*

FOOTNOTES:

*Just kidding. It’s still assault.

If serial killers have taught me anything, it’s that pretending to be something you’re not is a great way to get people to like you. In their case it’s to lull victims into a sense of security before ritual slaughter, but for the rest of us, it’s how we land a job, secure a second date, or generally trick society into accepting us. It’s unfortunate that masking our stranger selves is necessary, because the weird is the best part of a person, and yet we’ve been hard-wired to suppress it by a wide assortment of “adults.” Andrew, get your finger out of your nose. Andrew, leave that goose alone. Andrew, don’t tie your shirt into a bra and lick your areola in study hall.

Whoever had the bright idea to ‘be yourself’ clearly wasn’t predisposed to sarcasm. Smartass kids find out the hard way that their attempts at charm are seldom received well. It’s an epiphany that arrives when some girl you like shouts ‘asshole’ in your face, or asks the all-too-rhetorical ‘What is your problem?’ with a little hot sauce on the last two syllables. Me, personally…I’m short-tempered, I hate small talk, and show affection like a fourth grader. Oh, and I am oppressively horny. Nice. But horny. These are not qualities that will win one friends and accolades. These are traits that should be snuffed out through therapy and drug use…maybe some yoga. I don’t know.

I’m not saying there aren’t individuals who do well with that advice, but those are the unicorns:  the naturally charismatic few with a lighthearted sense of humor and contagious self-confidence. If that’s you, then hell yeah. Do it live. Be yourself in a bowl and make us eat it. You don’t need the advice, though. You’re out there being you to universal applause. Most of us seesaw between crushing loneliness and an urgent desire to be alone. Some of us love people but are cursed with personalities so abrasive that attempts at meaningful connection fail in a fashion so spectacular it discourages us from trying again. Some of us hate people and need six shots of espresso just to get through the day, a principle upon which the entire service industry is built. Accordingly, when you hear someone say they have ‘good people skills,’ they’re really saying that they’re good at holding a smile despite the urge to light someone on fire.

In the end, being yourself is a bad idea for the simple fact that it’s fucking exhausting. It means telling everyone exactly how you feel all day every day and then accepting the consequences. It means calling all people out on everything with which you disagree. Mankind does not come equipped with the time or energy to handle that level of confrontation. If you were to add up all the times you wanted to say something and didn’t, I’d bet my balls that the scales tip heavily toward cowardice, and I feel confident in that because I’m right there with you. Being genuine is a full time job for which the only salary is self-respect, which is admirable, but not often rewarded. So, to whichever guidance counselor advised teenage Andy to be himself, I politely invite you to suck it. What you should have said was “Try to be normal, let your weird out in increments, and speaking your mind is a great way to get punched.”