Use Your Illusion
All my life I hear: “Agh, women. They are so complicated.” There were times when I actually shared that opinion. Women were complicated, even for me, a woman. Every time any of my girlfriends came to me with relationship problems and started telling me about her ordeal in the form of a: “He’s an idiot right? Why did he do that?”, almost 98 percent of the time I would understand the guy she’s telling me about, better than I understood her.
I was always a tomboy; I never really played with dolls, except ruin a couple of Barbies just to see how’d that feel. I hung out with boys, got in fights with boys, played with tools, repaired bikes, and I grew up being really tight with boys.
There was just something about women that always gave me anxiety. The intricacy of the female mind, the need to travel in packs, analyze things even when we figured out what the case was a month ago, the girly clothes, and dresses, and tons of accessorizing that always seem too pedestrian to me.
There was just something so dependent about them, how they always needed people around them, lots of attention, and large groups; it gave me anxiety. And the feeling was mutual. Women always hated my ease with men. After I had broken up with a guy, I always stayed friends with every single one, some even to this day.
You’ll probably see this as a pick-me manifesto, but it’s just my experience.
Girlfriends that often didn’t get called back the next day after spending a night with a guy, always banged on me: “What the fuck do you do when they always want to hang out with you”. I could never explain it. Not that I even understood it, it was just easy for me.
Just like some people know how to cook, sew, or cut hair, I know how to do boys. But recently, I have to admit — men are getting a bit insane.
For the past six months, my female friends ( see, I have some!) were on my case to write about men. Relationships between men and women. Some girls I have never met email me constantly about the same subject and ask if I could write something about it.
I never really got around to it, but the noise about it became overwhelming. Every single day, all I hear is: “What the hell is wrong with this guy? What the hell is wrong with that guy?”. And this time, the stories women were telling me, made lots of sense.
I came to the heartbreaking conclusion — men became women, and women became men. Men became so unstable, it stopped being funny. They don’t have a clue what they want, they’re insecure, unrealistic, childish, and utterly clueless about adulthood.
My friend Renata had an interesting theory about it. “Guys just seemed to handle all these transitions and recessions in the world really badly. Somehow, it looks like they’re just having trouble coping with it, and women seem to handle it much better.”
Men are becoming more and more insecure, nervous, aggressive, and neurotic, while women seem to understand — we need to roll up our sleeves and try to DEAL with all the hardships these new times are throwing our way.
Women are dealing with it hands-on, while men can’t seem to deal with it, and choose distractions, instead. Is it because their provider self just couldn’t handle not being one at the moment? All I see and hear recently is women all over the place, smart, capable, tough, and successful; dealing with the same shit — men that do not know what the fuck they want.
Wasn’t that what’s been said for women since the beginning of time? “Women do not know what they want?”. Weren’t women always considered complicated, jealous, bitchy, insecure, and crazy?
The following stories are all true. Doesn’t matter whose stories they are, I collected them; some are mine, some aren’t, but I’ll write them in first person for an easier read.
Liquor store blues.
Women seem to handle liquor much better than men. How did that happen? 90 percent of men I know are complete idiots when drunk, and sloppy and aggressive drunks, too. So unsexy. Can’t handle the reality? Hey I get it, times are tough and I’m all for using the virtual crutches in the form of alcohol, drugs, pills, and sedatives for those who need a little help getting by, but dude, the reality is going to be waiting for you in the morning. It ain’t going nowhere. How about fewer crutches and more dealing?
The games that play us.
I remember the times when I’d have amazing conversations with my guy friends. Meaningful, useful, and full of ideas about life and what we can do to make it better. And all my girlfriends were always just talking about men.
And now? All my girlfriends are successful and capable, some make more money than most men, and men are just all over the place. It’s like their brains are developing in opposite directions; towards sandbox, instead adulthood. They all play Angry Birds 24/7, when they’re not doing their friends’ faces in Fat Booth, or playing Texas Hold’em all day long.
Between gaming and getting slammed when they go out, they’re normal for about like 2–3 hours a day, between the shower and the 4th drink; then it’s all downhill.
Yeah, that’s what we all dreamt about when we were little, to carry our man home and dump him in bed. And pull out a vibrator.
Tell me what I want, what I really really want.
It’s interesting how guys think women don’t know what they want. We know exactly what we want, the first second we lay eyes on you. We know if we want to date you, fuck you, befriend you, all of the above, or none of the above. Right that second.
That is now what guys do nowadays. Clueless about what they want. They don’t want a commitment, but they get upset when all you want is something casual. “How does that bitch dare not want more from me? What’s wrong with me? Does that mean something is wrong with me? Nothing can be wrong with me, master of the universe, I’ll show her”.
And there he goes, throwing big words at her, just so he can get the satisfaction of seeing her getting attached, catching feelings, and the second she does, it’s all nice to see ya. Until she doesn’t care anymore. In which case, as soon as they smell it, here he is again. Right there in your face.
It’s all about sex baby.
Sex is the funniest part of all. I love it when they think they have to throw big words to ensure having sex. Buddy, times are changed, women want sex, and a good one for that matter. No need for tricks. Also, some will just want to sleep with you and not want anything more. She might only want your dick, and not walk in the park.
As soon as they smell that, they withhold it. Men withholding sex to get their way? They all say they want a woman who will just be ok with being physical and not want a relationship, but as soon as they meet that woman, they are annoyed you don’t want more. Sexual games, withholding it to torture you to catch feelings so they can drop you once you do, coming up!
My heart will go on.
I have girlfriends hooking up with guys that text them hearts and smileys, and when women don’t respond to that, guys get all pissed and text them back —” If I sent you a goddamn virtual heart, how dare you not send me the heart back?!”. Confused about a power play here.
Tie me up.
Women usually always wanted to tie themselves to men. Some kind of leash, anything to ensure the connection to them. Nowadays, men do it. My beautiful friend had this boyfriend and they were actually really good together before he freaked about something he doesn’t even know what he freaked about.
Ok, your decision buddy. Stick with it. Don’t want to be together? Don’t. But he called her constantly after a breakup. When they give you — let's be friends, and then call you fucking constantly… please just decide.
He called all the time, came to her house all the time, fixed her shit, helped with this or that, and put money in her account. Ha? You’ll say, what a nice man now, right? Nah, it’s just a leash. It’s the way to ensure he has a way back in the nook if he wants to.
Why mess with someone’s head like that? There’s a way in life to get what we want without having to hurt people around us. It just takes a little extra planning. Are we on this planet to torture other people?
I’m just a jealous guy.
Who said that thing about women being insecure, again? About how women go berserk when another pretty woman enters the room? Actually, don’t remember the last time I saw any of my girlfriends tripping about any other girls.
Guys on the other hand; anyone that has more muscles, or more money, or more inches (no, not those, you perverts) enters the room, and they go berserk. Then the controlling follows. Boy, try to be the best you can be; that will make you attractive, and your girl won’t look at anyone else. You think you can be an aggressive asshole who drinks your brain out every time you step out of the house, but we should not turn our heads toward that six-pack that just entered the room?
Great balls of fire.
There was this guy that I knew since I was about 15 years old. He always wanted to be with me, always asked about me, for a whole entire decade. Always sent me messages through people, throughout the years. When I moved to the US, he kept going. Constantly. Then he got married. Still asked about me. Then he moved to the US and again asked about me. Married.
Then he gets divorced. Again asks about me. Then finally, I agree to meet him. I think it might have been a boring, cold month. Then, after all that try hard, when we started to see each other, every time we would be together he would mention some women. This one, that one, that one, this one. You want to be with me for more than a fucking decade, it means a lot to you, I get it. But mentioning other women left and right isn’t going to blow the steam off it.
Lotta nerve.
When you’re in a relationship, naturally, we both do the little things that annoy the other side. But why is it that women can change pretty quickly if something they do could jeopardize the relationship? And why do men try to find a million and one loophole in how not to change, yet make you believe they did, while still keeping the relationship?
You clearly tell them you will leave if they keep it up. No change, until the day you pack your shit. And then, boom! They so easily change their annoying habit. It’s only when they know it's done, they do it. The expectation women should just accept all the annoying, disrespectful things they do, like we have to or need to, like we are their mother and not a partner, will never cease to amaze me.
Mistake.
If there’s one thing I resent in my own sex, as in women - is taking shit or settling, out of fear of not finding someone else. That must be the biggest mistake we’ve ever done. Not trusting the process, and thinking we know everyone on the planet. But there are no men — is what’s constantly holding us prisoners of bad relationships, and so many forms of abuse.
How would you know there isn’t someone better, more suited for you? There are 6.92 billion people on the planet at this moment. You don’t think there’s one that could be right for you? Or at least better than the last one that treated you badly? If I leave him, I will be alone forever — I cringe when I hear that one. You’re wrong. Remember that first boyfriend you had and you were madly in love and then you broke up? Remember how you stayed in your room for days on end, thinking there was never going to be anyone else, and then it was? A much better one. And a better one after that? Someone ALWAYS comes along.
A moment.
We always think that the one we’re into at this moment must be the best thing since sliced bread. But it’s like that at that moment. Moments change, and people change. You can‘t know at that moment, what lies ahead for you. Denying yourself that chance to see what might be ahead of you, is the biggest disservice we do to ourselves.
There is no better life ahead if we don’t give ourselves that chance, and stepping into the unknown is what we MUST do. It feels unsafe until it's the best thing we did. Life is not a stock market where you take odds and can predict what will happen. Both love and life are about diving into the unknown.
Someone told me once — “It’s when we let fear cloud our judgment that the flame of possibility begins to dim and eventually diminish”. Don’t let fear kill all the possibilities you might have in life. They will come by, ONLY if you let them. No one will parachute through your window, while you keep refusing to open up. We have to let it.
We didn’t dig into this subject to make you more depressed about guys. It's to show you how, regardless of how ridiculous they might be nowadays, good men are always around, and those bad ones, make finding really good ones that much more precious. Just open your eyes, and listen to this last story.
Lucy in the sky.
I worked with a girl once in New York, called Lucy. She wasn’t amazingly pretty, more like cute, and had a really good body. Everyone at work was really beautiful, but there was just something about this girl. I could never quite pin down why she was different or special, she just oozed coolness. She always traveled in pack with her best friend Nancy, one of the prettiest girls I saw in my life.
Nancy had those four big things that seal the deal — big hair, big boobs, big lips, and a big ass. The guys were crazy about her. Not easy to constantly stand next to someone like her. Inevitably, you get compared. Lucy and Nancy worked together in the bar, next to each other, that was their thing. Always together.
Lucy had a daughter from a previous relationship, and a bit of a hard life; single mother, with the pinch of classic — the father fucked off, she raised the kid herself. She studied and worked really hard to provide for her daughter and herself, and you could see she wasn’t having a breezy life.
We didn’t talk much, but when we did, I could see she was a fighter, and what always stayed with me — she never ever complained about anything. She sometimes talked about guys and how assholish they are when they find out she has a daughter. As result, she had trouble connecting with men.
A couple of months later, she and Nancy moved to Miami. They worked at a bar in Miami, side by side, like always. One day, a guy comes in and sits at their bar. Interestingly, he takes an interest in Lucy, and not Nancy. Trust me when I tell you, not many guys would do that. He starts talking to her. He has a glass of wine at the bar. They had a really good talk.
He comes again tomorrow. They talk again, a glass of wine again. They hit it off. He starts coming a lot for the couple of days he was in town for. He leaves town. She thinks she surely won’t see him again. That’s it! He returns to Miami after a while and comes back to Lucy’s bar.
They talk again. He has a glass of wine again. They start talking outside of the bar. They start seeing each other outside of the bar. They start dating. They get engaged, and they got married. He takes in her daughter. Adopts her. They have two more daughters.
I opened some magazine one day, and I see the title — Matt Damon and his new girlfriend/wife/baby mama Luciana B, somewhere at some event.
My Lucy. The guy she met in the bar, the one that looked at her, the one that liked her, and not automatically went for the beautiful BFF, as I read afterward; in her own words — “He was the only guy I met that didn’t run away the second I told him I have a daughter from a previous marriage.”
The moral?
Still don’t see it? You can not predict life. You can not predict who’s out there. What’s out there might even be Matt Damon, the guy who didn’t even tell Minnie Driver he was breaking up with her, instead, she read in the papers he’s with Winona Ryder now.
Knowing that, you would never think he would be the one to be this stand-up guy. Men are mostly terrible, but sometimes they just aren’t. And when they aren’t it’s goddamn poetry.
What should you do?
I’m not the one to tell you what to do or to leave the relationship you’re not happy about. After all, we’re all different, but what I know for a fact is — bad men don’t deserve as much time and energy as we spend on them. There are so many more important things in life we should bang our heads about until we find better men. For example; why the fuck’s Nathan not returning on Misfits and when’ll Eric finally bang Sookie.
That’s what you do.
