5 ways to see is time to get married

#5. You Don't Have to Impress Each Other
Photos.com If you try to pet 49 stray cats, and all of them embed
their claws in your forearm, you're going to assume
that the 50th will, too. Even if it's purring and rubbing
all over your ankles, you bury your hands in your
pockets and punt that fucker like the winning field
goal at the Super Bowl.
Since most of us don't find our "true love" on the first
shot, we're cursed to endure attempt after attempt at
connecting with people who we normally wouldn't
allow into the trunk of our car, let alone our personal,
emotional space. After a while, we learn that dating
equals pain ... and I can't speak for women, but guys
tend to emotionally shut down to avoid that pain. They
build a phony version of themselves to send on dates
on their behalf, learning to fake their way through
simple smalltalk in hopes of constructing a panties rug
at the foot of their bed.
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Works every time, baby.
The problem is that if you wall yourself off from every
single person you meet, the chances of skipping right
past the one who is actually compatible with you are
near 100 percent.
Every woman I dated since my divorce several years
ago felt the cold, dead disconnection behind my witty
banter. Everything was just an act. Women were
allowed on the porch, but if they wanted to see the
living room, they had to look through the windows.
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What? Don't judge me, man.
Try This:
There are several ways to do this, but the result has to
be the same: it's you getting to a point where you can
share the worst parts of yourself and not judge the
other person when they do the same . This is why
meeting on the Internet works so well for some people
-- they actually find it easier to be open and honest
with a faceless person. For other people, they try
dating somebody they've already become friends with
-- they were at the party where you accidentally
pooped yourself in high school, there's no need to
pretend you're suave. Or, maybe you just date
somebody long enough that those barriers all fall down
one by one, against your will.
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I'll still never live down the time she saw me without my
shirt on.
In my particular case, three years ago I met a woman
named Shaniqua Childpuncher (who for privacy's sake
we'll call "Emily"), but not in a dating situation. We
were just two people who made dick jokes with each
other online, with no real plans for hooking up or
even flirting for that matter. Since we didn't have any
of that stuff at stake, we didn't have to worry about
censoring ourselves or using the "date voice." We
could be open in the way that friends are when
sharing crude jokes -- baring disfiguring emotional
scars and everything else. No subject is off limits in a
conversation like that; the old addictions, horrifying
relationships, the vices and embarrassing childhood
photos (her pics came complete with boyband posters
on her bedroom walls, mine were from the time I was
in an actual boy band). It progressed from there.
We've lived together for over two years now, and not
once have either of us considered that this might not
be the right thing.
Obviously my exact process doesn't work for
everybody -- I don't doubt that there are dudes who
meet girls at night clubs and/or costume orgies who,
over time, bring down those barriers and actually get
honest with the person they're sexing down, instead
of vice versa. The point is that you have to get past the
stage where the relationship depends entirely on how
well you're hiding your flaws from each other.
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"No, there's nothing wrong with my nose, why do you
ask?"
Of course that involves a certain amount of trust,
which means ...
#4. You Have Learned How to Trust
Photos.com I can't tell you how many friends I've seen fly into
jealous fits because their wife had gone out shopping
45 minutes ago, and it normally only takes her 43
minutes. They just know she's out fucking someone
else. Even after she returns with a car full of groceries
and a timestamped receipt, they can just smell the
extra dicks on her.
I used to be like that. My ex used to work as a
bartender at a shitty pub. Before heading out, she'd
put on makeup ... which she never did when she was
off. I'd look down at her low-cut top, and I was
absolutely certain that before the end of the night,
she'd be nailing some dude right there on top of the
bar. Some nights, I'd make her change outfits.
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"No, you're not going out wearing fruit again. Go
change."
It used to cause major arguments because my reaction
was directly telling her, "I don't trust you." And I
didn't. Even when I knew that the difference between
$20 and $120 in tips was showing a little extra cleavage
and that it was part of the job, in the same way that
this job involves me talking a certain amount about
my dick.
Try This:
You're not born with the ability to trust -- as a
newborn baby, you screamed your head off the
moment Mom left the room, for fear you'd been
abandoned. Trust is learned. I never had a reason to
trust someone in my younger years, so my default
position was to assume the worst. She's working late?
Yeah, working some dude's dick ! Going out to eat with
friends? More like going out to eat with multiple dicks
slapping her boobs! The other person's actual track
record had nothing to do with it.
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"I have to go. No, I'm not fucking dudes in front of the
kids."
It wasn't until I met Emily that I really felt secure, and
it goes back to that openness that I talked about
earlier. When someone bares as much dirty laundry as
we both have, you don't really feel that they have any
room to hide anything. If she's shared this much of
herself with me, she couldn't hide something even if
she wanted to. So if she told me that she was going to
take a few days to go to an undisclosed location for an
unexplained reason, I'd be totally fine with it. She's
earned the trust, and this time I'm man enough to
give it.
And don't storm into the comments telling a story
about how this one time your mistrust paid off ("She
told me she had to be on the road 10 months out of
the year as a door-to-door cock inspector, but I
suspected she was really having an affair and I WAS
RIGHT!"). I'm saying that if the mistrust is there, the
relationship is fucked either way. Either they're not
trustworthy, or you're not secure enough to let your
guard down even if they are.
#3. You Become Friends (at Some Point)
Photos.com When I was younger, I used to think it was impossible
to be friends with someone you're dating. The
friendship would kill the romance, right? Since
friendship is about doing boring shit together, and
romance is about fucking on the hood of a Trans-Am
while Def Leppard is playing on the radio?
But in my later years I've realized that every
successful relationship has this point at their core: If
you take out the romantic connection, those two
people would still hang out like nothing had changed.
Well, besides all the dirty, filthy fucking.
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"Just checking you for body lice, buddy."
I was never friends in past relationships because I put
the "butterflies in my stomach" feeling first, and the
possibility of touching boobs second. I don't really
remember a third priority on that list. When I hung
around women, I'd say what I thought they wanted me
to say. If they weren't into my hobbies, I'd never
mention them. I modified my warped sense of humor
around them to be whatever watered down version I
thought they'd find acceptable. At every level,
everything about our connection was contrived.
Try This:
You can't make a relationship work unless you actually
enjoy each other's non-sex company . If that sounds like
rock-stupid obvious advice, then you don't realize
what a massive number of married couples didn't
follow it before shopping for rings.
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"I hate you so much it actually gives me an erection."
And please, please note that when I talk about
enjoying the girl's company, I am not referring to that
breathless worship where you think she's a magical
goddess, where you feel the gut butterflies every time
she walks past and you go aaaawwwww every time
she farts. Pop songs have taught you this is what it's
all about ( "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" ? Fuck
you, Sting, your songs are full of bad relationship
advice). If you're still in "Every Little Thing She Does
is Magic" mode, you don't even fucking know this
person. You're still treating them the way you would
treat a celebrity, projecting onto the real person a
fantasy that lives in your head. Anyone who says
they're still feeling the butterflies after fifty years of
marriage needs to see a cardiologist because there's
some serious medical shit that needs fixed right
goddamn now.
I don't want to make it sound like you have to be
friends first and then start boning from there -- this
leads to a lot of awful friendships where the girl thinks
she has a good male buddy and the guy thinks he's
inching her closer to his boner. That friendship is
never genuine because they both have very different
ideas about what's going on.
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And neither of those ideas end with an orgasm that isn't
self-inflicted.
But it works for some people and it did work for me. I
was friends with Emily first and not only did I
regularly unleash every retarded joke about balls that
popped into my head, but our entire friendship was
based around it. For instance, one of my most
passionate creative pursuits in life is playing sports
video games and thinking up profane names for the
players. She joined me in spending hours in front of
the character editor in NBA 2K , creating Point Guard
"Hunchfuck Clusterbutt" and Center "Browncock
Shitdents," laughing until we couldn't breathe. She
made me sit down and watch the entire run of
Battlestar Galactica (and I'm a guy who previously
went most of a decade without watching TV ). We liked
hanging out, is what I'm saying.
And that thing people get in their heads, that
friendship and relationships are opposite things, it's
hard to explain but it's a different flavor of friendship,
one where sex can break out at any time. Maybe we
need a new word for it (and something less clinical
sounding than "compatibility"). But no matter what
you call it, that connection is the core of the
relationship. Not the sex, not romance. And it's not
just the ability to tolerate each other in between the
fun stuff.