These are the words every man dreads to hear: "Honey, you need to read this book! It will improve our relationship!"
Next time you're in a bookstore, browse through the books in the self-help/relationship section. You will find that most of them are written for women, by women. And most of these books say the same thing: Men are jerks and women are perfect. In other words:
- When a woman expresses what she wants from her partner, she is being assertive.
- When a man expresses what he wants from his partner, he is being a controlling, self-centered jerk.
- When a woman raises her voice, she is expressing herself.
- When a man raises his voice, he is being verbally abusive.
- When a woman wants to remain single, it's because she feels fulfilled without a man.
- When a man wants to remain single, he's afraid to commit.
- Women need to express their anger.
- Men need anger management.
When a man expresses negative generalities about women, he's called a sexist...or a rap artist. So why the double standard when it comes to women who male bash? Because there's money to be made in male bashing! And there is a self-help industry out there that specializes in the myth that all failed relationships are the fault of the man.
And that's why I have started writing a book about relationships. Maybe you can help me choose the title of my forthcoming book. Here are some ideas:
- How to Threaten Suicide Every Time He Tries to Leave: The Art of Solution-Focused Manipulation
- Women Are from Harvard; Men Are from Reform School
- He Will Leave You Unless You Learn How to Control Him: And Here's How You Do It
- Your Man Hates You for Your Freedom and Other Lessons from 9/11
- The Four Spiritual Laws of How to Control Your Man without Him Realizing It
- He Left You Because You Were Perfect
- How to Be Like His Mother: And How to Accuse Him of Having Unresolved Issues with His Mother When He Complains About It
- Win Back the Man You Love with Anonymous Death Threats
- Women Who Have a Fear of Abandonment and the Men Who Abandon Them Just for the Hell of It
- The New Assertive Women and the Men Who Leave Them for No Apparent Reason
- Putting Yourself First (Unless He Decides to Leave You)
- When Your Husband Disagrees with You, He Is Destroying the Self-Esteem of the Mother of His Children: Make Him Read this Book
I think all these titles has bestseller written all over it. I just wonder which title would be more likely to make Oprah's book club.
(This blog entry originally appeared on my MySpace blog, Jan 26, 2009.)
Do you feel a lack of excitement in your life? Are you bogged down in weltschmerz? Do you ever watch TV shows and say, "Why can't I have a life like that?" Well now you can...if you follow my advice.
You can live your life like a television show...if you really want to. But you must do what they do. I'll get to that, right after this.
First, you must decide what kind of series you'd like your life to be like. A soap opera? A comedy? A drama?
If you want your life to be like a television series, here are some guidelines.
Regardless of what kind of show you want your life to be like, follow these rules:
- Call the phone company and ask if you can change the prefix of your phone number to "555."
- When you give out a phone number, use letters in addition to numbers. "You can reach me at KL5-1234." Watch how people react when you do this.
- When you wrap presents, you must wrap the box top separately from the box itself. That way, people can just open the top and see what's inside. It's a lot quicker than tearing through wrapping paper.
- When you talk to people on the phone, repeat what they say, as if you are only doing that so the viewers will know what the person on the other end of the line is saying. For example, "Oh, hello Agnes. (Pause) No, I didn't know tomorrow was your anniversary. (Pause) How long have you and Henry been married? (Brief pause) Ten years? (Pause) He's taking you where? To Olive Garden? (Pause) Why don't you like the Olive Garden?"
- Practice soliloquy. When you're by yourself, speak your thoughts out loud in a dramatic monologue.
If you want your life to be like a soap opera:
- I don't need to tell you that you can have all kinds of affairs.
- When someone confronts you about something you did that was horrible, stare at them in silence as if the scene were fading into commercial. Respond 60 seconds later.
- Be a complete backstabbing jerk for two years. Then, make an unexplained transformation and become a heroic do-gooder.
- Form an alliance with someone you don't like so that the two of you can seek revenge on a mutual enemy.
- Live in a small town where many multi-million-dollar corporations are headquartered.
Here's what to do if you want to live your life like a sitcom that is filmed before a studio audience:
- When you go out to eat with friends, you must all sit at one side of the table together...as if all of you are facing the studio audience.
- You can't have any conversations outdoors...unless your backyard as artificial turf instead of grass.
- You must divide your time up evenly between home, work, the bar, and your mother's house.
- When you go out to eat, you must always go to the same restaurant.
- You must have a very crazy friend and you have to pretend that you don't realize your friend is crazy.
- You have to have one friend you really don't like, yet for some reason, you remain friends with this person anyway.
If you want your life to be like a dramatic series:
- Drink wine with every meal.
- Make sure your boss is a tyrant.
- Make sure you look perfect when you wake up in the morning.
- Get in everybody's business and make sure they get into yours.
- Don't ever mention the president by name. Just call him "the president."
- When you get the opportunity, say, "You'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and for the rest of your life."
- Make sure your house is spotless.
- When people die of natural causes, don't ever specify what the natural causes are.
- Arrange for a relative you've never spoken about to pay you a surprise visit.
But if you want your life to be like a television series, there are drawbacks. Here are a few:
- If you have a baby, the baby will be six years old next fall. If you send your six-year-old to boarding school, he or she will come back next year as an 18-year-old high school graduate. Then, your child will go to a local college that no one has ever heard about. A year later, your child will be a doctor or a lawyer. That may seem like a good deal, but you'll miss out on all those in-between years. But if your children age appropriately, they'll steal all the spotlight.
- You might have a friend who decides to do his or her own thing and create a spin-off of sorts. Your friend will go away, and the two of you will never speak of each other again. (Did you ever hear the Bunkers mention the Jeffersons after the Jeffersons moved on up to the top, to a deluxe apartment in the sky? And you rarely heard Fraiser talk about his old friends at Cheers.)
- You might get tired of hearing certain phrases over and over. ("Sit on it" and "Kiss my grits" come to mind.)
- You'll have to drink generic beer.
So, you decide. Do you want your life to be like a TV show? What kind of TV show? Oh, let me guess. Your life would be like an HBO original series, right?
(Originally posted on my MySpace blog, Dec. 17, 2008.)
* Okay, okay! There is no Spalding Award. I made it up.
