Have you ever blacked out at a party and woken up next to your best friend to find them wearing your clothes and you donning only a pair of boxers?  Did you also realize shortly thereafter that there was a small pile of puke on the floor and a significant amount of urine in your book bag?  If you haven’t already guessed by the sheer specificity of these circumstances, this has happened to me.  For most people, this would raise a very revealing line of questioning, and would probably constitute a serious reevaluation of the friendship in question.  For me, this was merely the first of a laundry list of compromising situations which cemented my undying love and loyalty to Melinda Ann Tucker, who is, without rival, my best friend in the world.

I met Lindy during our freshman year at Ohio State.  We didn’t take to each other immediately, but that was because I still lacked the self-confidence for social outreach, and she was fighting to overcome a slight personal fear of….well, me.  Apparently, I had a tendency to be a bit intimidating when I still had yet to get over “all of my wrestling bullshit,” as a friend of ours so eloquently put it.  Nevertheless, we overcame our subtle differences and bonded over a mutual lack of ambition, spending countless days playing Mario Kart and Wii Bowling, and countless nights drinking to our physical limitations.  We used to have a motto during that first year of college that went “It’s not a good night unless Lindy pukes.”   We had many good nights.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a best friend of the opposite sex, but I highly recommend it.  If for nothing more than to have someone to bounce ideas off of, especially when it comes to relationships. Navigating the female psyche is exponentially easier when you have consistent access to first hand source material. It’s like living in a foreign country with a personal translator who has not only mastered the language, but is an expert on culture and customs as well.  Not to mention, that despite our considerable amount of common interests, I never have to worry about her sleeping with my girlfriend….and even if she did, I doubt that anger would even register within the mushroom cloud of thoughts and emotions I would be likely to feel.

It wasn’t just our love of partying and daily flights from responsibility that served as the mortar for our friendship, but an unspoken bond developed between us; and I don’t mean ‘unspoken bond’ in the cliched sense of the phrase.  I mean that we established such a deep understanding of one another’s thought processes that we could literally communicate without speaking.  Hell, there have been plenty of times where she figures out what I’m thinking before I do.

Now, and for the rest of my life (or at least until she gets married) I have someone who will have my back regardless of whether I’m right or wrong. Although, if I do happen to be wrong,  she’ll pull me aside and privately inform me how out of line I am.  In Lindy Tucker, I have a friend who I can always count on, and although she may express (justified) concern for my mental health, will never (openly) judge me for whatever perversions my mind may conjure.

When the inevitable day comes, and Lindy does walk down the aisle, if I’m not directly across the altar, you can be damn sure that I’ll be right behind her. I don’t even care if I have to wear a dress. If that’s what it takes, I’ll be there.

I sat in my car watching the minutes tick by, singing along to my radio, and pretending that I wasn’t nervous.  It’s difficult to say exactly where my nerves were coming from:  either the natural anxiety that comes from stepping out of your comfort zone or the personal disquiet in knowing that I was about to walk in to a dance studio full of preteen ballerinas.  “Just smile and act confident,” I coached myself as I stepped from the sanctuary of my Grand Prix.  “You confirmed the time of the class four times in the last hour.  You have just as much right to be here as anyone else.”

I walked down the back hall leading to the studio, holding tight to the straps of my book bag just to give my hands something to do.  To my great unease, the office to the studio was overcrowded and the mothers had spilled over into the hallway, so they were able to eye me the whole way.  I just nodded and gave a closed eyed smile, communicating that I was well aware of how out of place I seemed and felt the according sense of discomfort.

I walked into the office, already flushed with the embarrassment of having two dozen eyes fixed on me, most scanning my features with mild curiosity, while the more paranoid among them betrayed the obvious judgment flitting around behind their eyes.

“Oh, you must be Andrew!”  I looked up to see a younger woman with shoulder length black hair extending her hand toward me. I took her hand with a sheepish smile, taken aback by the fact that she knew my name at first glance.  I had only exchanged a handful of emails with someone named Nicole to narrow down the details of class registration.  How could she possibly be able to spot me without talking to me?

“This is the hip-hop instructor, Alicia,” the woman went on, presenting a girl no older than me, who was seized by a look of genuine excitement.  It was as this girl was shaking my already extended hand that the pieces fell together.

“Oh shit,” I thought.  “I’m the only–

“I was so excited when I saw that I would finally have a boy in class this year!” Alicia piped, finishing my thought.  “A lot of our styles are geared towards girls, but I’ll work with you to make them more–”  And instead of finishing the sentence, she puffed out her chest, furrowed her brow, and flexed; which I assumed was a charade for the word ‘masculine.’

“Can’t wait,” I said forcing a smile.

Sure enough, as the class got under way, out of twenty students, I proved to be the only with a y-chromosome.  A little more than a dozen of them were girls ranging from 12 to 18, who took turns staring at me like I was a unicorn.  Three were women somewhere between 30 and 45, eyeing me like I was a guy with mustache at a playground.  Then there was the redhead: petite with tattoos and fierce green eyes that settled on me like a cheetah scouting its prey.

This should be fun.

I’m sure the actual ordeal of dying is more often than not a horrific experience on both a physical and psychological level, but I’m talking in terms of objective pros and cons: cost/benefit.  I feel like people too often focus solely on the negatives when faced with the concept of life coming to an end: not getting to see your family again, not experiencing joy or love, being incapable of orgasms, or never getting to see the Browns win a Super Bowl.  I realize that some of those examples are more universally identifiable than others, but you get the point.  No one ever remembers that their are always two sides to that coin.  You may never feel loved again, but going along with that logic, neither will you feel lonely. You might never feel the touch of a loved one, but neither will you feel a broken bone or the torture of sitting down when there’s a zit right at the top of your tailbone:  not high enough on your back to avoid contact but not low enough to be safe within padding of your butt cheeks.

I should probably point out something that you may have already noticed:  my argument assumes that when we die, we’re absorbed into nothingness and everything we held dear is lost in the vast expanse of space and time.  I recognize that most of the major religions recognize some form of afterlife in which all the pain, sadness, and butt zits are swept into non-existence, leaving only peace, love, and unblemished complexions to reign through eternity.  I’m not trying to discount those ideas in anyway, and my previous assumption of death being equal to oblivion is not a reflection of my own system of beliefs, because honestly I don’t know what I believe; and I don’t know what I believe because there’s no way for anyone to answer the question of afterlife with absolute certainty.  Accordingly, I think that the inability to know for sure is exactly what scares people about dying.  They’re not afraid because they think their soul will be eternally raped by giant cheese graters, tormented in a lake of fire, or water-boarded by terrorist demons.  People are afraid because they just don’t know.

When you really sit down, accept the inevitability of your own death, and think about it’s immediate effects, you may realize that fear of one’s own death is actually a rather conceited instinct.  No matter what the outcome is for the individual, the people you leave behind are the ones who are most affected by the emotional aftermath.  They’re the ones that have to deal with the fact that someone in whom they have invested immeasurable amounts of their time and love has just been torn from them, leaving a scar that will never fully heal.  Nevertheless, personal anxieties about death occupy a large portion of our inner thoughts.  What will happen to me?  Where will I go? Will I even be me anymore?  Will I remember my life on Earth?

Who cares?  You’ll be dead, you selfish fuck.

I was recently introduced to this landmark achievement in the effort to streamline social networking.  This free and simple application champions the approach of quantity over quality in mankind’s relentless search for adequate sexual partnering, by encouraging its users to judge potential companions based on physical appearance.  I should probably note that the app does not outwardly advertise itself in this manner, nor does it encourage its users to use it that way.  However, if you’ve ever used it for more than ten seconds, you know what I mean when I say that superficiality is the name of the game.  All you do is indicate your gender preference and age range, and the application will provide you with photographs of people in your immediate area, who you either approve or disapprove with a swipe of your thumb.  If someone reciprocates your meaningless gesture, it will notify you of the match and give you the option to open up a private chat.  It’s pretty much the exact same social exercise that a (not necessarily) single man or woman engages in at a bar or night club, but without the need for interpersonal skills of any kind.

When this app was first explained to me, I immediately adopted an air of moral superiority.  Then I tried it, only to find that I’m significantly more shallow than I had previously chosen to believe, mainly because the app allows you to reject someone without actually rejecting them, freeing the user (me) of all guilt and responsibility.  Not that I was naive enough to think that I’m not shallow, because I am. Everyone is to some degree, but the severity of it boils down to how many repulsive personality traits you can ignore simply because someone is hot; and adversely, whether or not appealing personality traits can redeem an individual’s lack of aesthetic beauty.  Personally, I cannot stand ignorance or conceit no matter how hot a girl is, but a strong sense of humor can make someone exponentially more attractive.  Nevertheless, personal attraction begins at the physical level, as people tend to focus on individuals who are as, if not more attractive, than they perceive themselves to be.

If you’re intrigued by their looks, but not entirely sold, you can peek under the surface for a few more pictures and a short blurb that each person chooses to serve as representation of their entire personality.  I know it’s not the most effective way to express one’s self, but if you know how take the pictures and words at rhetoric instead of at face value, it can tell you much more about the person than they would have preferred to let on.  For example, I noticed one very popular pose that requires two girls (I assume for structural support).  They each put an arm around the other’s lower back, which connects them like a hinge as they’re bodies swing outward with one knee bent and their free hands placed firmly on the opposite hip.  These girls are traditionally donning tight skirts, heels, and these manufactured Stepford smiles that in no way suggest an original thought has ever entered their head.  It’s solely for the sake of these individuals that I wish the app would notify you when you’ve been rejected, and I wish I could tell them why.  Not because I take pleasure in tearing people down, or am secretly vengeful for some personal rejection I received from the Barbies in high school*, but because simply being hot gets you no respect, only a shallow form of admiration.  Even prostitutes get that.

*I reserve the right to retract this particular statement upon further, hypothetical examination of my subconscious.