It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that I have low self-esteem.

For the most part, I have a pretty good handle on it. The years have taught me that there is nothing funny or charming about a guy who has a perpetual rain-cloud over his head (in spite of what Winnie the Pooh says.) But every now and then, I feel as if I’m caught in the middle of a epic luchador match between two two titans.

In the red corner is the person I want to be: not overly handsome, but nonetheless comfortable with his appearance; charming and quick-witted, yet subtle; confident and assertive, but modest. In short: The Most Interesting Man In The Room.

In the blue corner is a persona that is the manifestation of “lessons” learned from my past experiences. Every insult I’ve received; every time I’ve made a mistake; every experience I regret; every opportunity missed; every time hurt has been inflicted on me by others (deliberately or not). It all combines to form this Voltron-like monstrosity – kinda like the climax of Akira, only with more self-flagellation.

And as much as I’d like to sit back with a head-sized bucket of popcorn and an “AUSTIN 3:16” poster, whenever these two figures start duking it out I feel like I’m the unfortunate sod stuck in the middle trying to break it all up and failing miserably.

Eventually these two adversaries will tire and return to whatever holes they crawled out of, leaving me feeling not as crappy, but also not as confident either. But whenever my confidence and paranoia well up and start a Royal Rumble in my head, I can’t but feel that even though it match ends in a draw, my confidence is still the loser. I look at the idealized part of my persona and wonder why I can’t be more like him. I know that a good portion of it is because it would require a lot of work – too much work that could be summed up using an 1980’s training montage. And during this vision quest, all the while I’m being assaulted on all sides by invisible adversaries, hidden betrayals, and sudden trap doors. It’s like my journey to improve myself is like the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark – I hack my way through a series of death-traps, only to have the prize I’ve been hunting for plucked out of my hands by a sneering Frenchman who sics a pack of angry natives on me.

It’s times like these when I feel like my paranoia is less an agent provocateur who goads me into quitting by swatting whatever I’ve been setting myself toward out of my hands, and more like an Bond-style supervillain: someone who works subtly in the background, biding his time, until I wind up being the source of my own undoing. And while I know it’s unrealistic to expect others to pull me out of the quagmire, it would be nice if I had my own counter-force of skilled ninjas to invade the supervillain’s lair and blow it up. Or at the very least, I’d love to wake up with the gifts of Perseus so that had the ability to slay the demons ahead of me on my own.

Instead, the best I can hope for at times like these is to come out the other side feeling not as shitty as before – which is better than it could be, I guess.

Last Saturday I took the girlfriend to see the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” – I hadn’t been to a showing in an actual theater in almost a decade.

Needless to say it was an eye opener.

I first saw “Rocky” when I was 16 years old – back then it seemed like a rite of passage for a teenage geek. Nearly everyone in my small clique of friends had already seen it and to hear them talk of it, it was like being initiated into the Knights Templar – a spiritually transforming process that left them enlightened and connected to a deeper community. Or at least that that’s what I kept getting from them telling me how much I’d “love” seeing it. Friend after friend would regale me with stories of bawling insults at the movie screen, throwing toast, and men in fishnet stockings. There was nothing our teenaged heads had for a frame of reference at the time – this was in the days before the internet, so we couldn’t exactly scour Reddit and 4chan for bizarre means of entertaining and titillating our adolescent minds.

So finally, under the pretenses that I was going to be spending the night at a friend’s house, we made the trek to the Clinton Street Theater – who has been showing the movie almost continually since it debuted in 1975. Originally opened in 1915 as one of the first cinemas in the Portland area, it now plays mostly second-run and art-house fare. “Rocky” has always been on the Clinton’s marquee – and on more than a few occasions it was the theater’s bread and butter. There was an enormous crowd at the entrance – or at enormous for the size of the venue (nearly 50 people!) I remember being surrounded by disaffected teens and 20-year olds wearing black pants and t-shirts from goth concerts with a snarky button pinned to them. And a lot of cigarette smoke.

But – as with all good things – there was a catch.

While “Rocky” would offer me the possibility of seeing a cabaret performer’s nipple slip out of her bodice, there would be a human cost for watching the longest running glam rock musical since “The Phantom of the Paradise”. For those who haven’t been to a showing of “Rocky” in a theater, most venues that show it regularly have a ceremonial “de-virginization” where the uninitiated are processed into the cult of the Midnite Movie. Among the many stories that my friends would tell me of their “Rocky” experiences would be the ceremonial humiliation of the “Rocky virgin” – like being auctioned off to the lowest bidder, faking an orgasm in public, and the “dancing tampon”. But the form of abasement that I worried about was an “ass judging contest.” If you were to ask me, I’d say it was because I was insecure about my appearance – combined with the idea that I might have to actually drop trou and bare my posterior to a laughing audience. So while I socialized before the doors opened, my friends would occasionally nudge me and go “ass judging contest” to me to make me blush.

And then the doors opened and we filed into the cinema. I had always seen the old theaters in movies from the 1940’s and 1950’s – and while it wasn’t the Radio City Music Hall, it felt like I was being taken back a few decades. My friends and I took our seats and waited for the show to start. The MC came onto the stage, welcomed us all to another showing, and introduced the pre-show cabaret acts – where a man dressed in Adam Ant’s cast-offs would lip synch to Oingo Boingo’s “Little Girls”. But then came the dreaded baptism into “Rocky” culture – as my friends drug me up on stage with the rest of the “virgins” to lose what little dignity I had left.

A woman (who also played a role in the Rocky Cabaret) came out and started doling out random, but minor, degradations to select groups on stage. Don’t ask me what they were, I was so anxious about the possibility of having to show my buttocks in public, I wasn’t even paying attention to what has happening around me. Finally I was left with three other guys who were also waiting with nervous anticipation to participate in the “Gong Show” style antics that awaited us. Our hostess paced down the line and stopped at me, saying “Don’t worry about the ass judging contest, you already won.”

I can’t describe the mixture of relief and exhilaration I felt at that moment. Not only did I not have to worry about exposing myself, but I had received the first complement about my physical appearance in my teenage years. (Yes, others would soon follow, but I had no way of knowing that.) Having put aside my fears, I knew that whatever task I was going to perform in front of the gallery, I would give it my all.

After a few minutes of deliberation, she finally said, “I want you gentlemen to perform for us, ‘I’m A Little Teapot.'”

My fellow initiates were perplexed – they had either never heard of the rhyme, or for some reason it was beneath them. So I started without them, hoping to spur them into joining me. It became apparent that I was going to be the only person performing this little ditty, however, as my fellow participants started to shy away from me. Now emboldened by not having to bare myself, I said the refrain again – in the style of one of the “Gumby’s” from “Monty Python”. Needless to say, there was raucous applause, I was greatly relieved, and I got a pass to a free movie at the theater that wasn’t “Rocky”. (I never used it, having kept it hung up on my corkboard as a trophy throughout high school.)

Then the lights dimmed, the movie came on, and I fell in love. I loved the music (“Science Fiction Double Feature” is my favorite number from the show), and screaming excoriating remarks at the movie allowed me to fulfill all of my Mystery Science Theater 3000 fantasies. But more than anything that stuck out was the fact I didn’t feel like an outcast.

The problem with being a geek in high school is how quickly you get ostracized. I eschewed team sports for role playing games, I paid more attention to computers than academia, and most of my friends were in either band or drama (two of the bigger geek magnets high school has to offer). With the exception of a few close chums, most of the people I went to school with had difficulty finding common ground with me. Let’s face it, you get lonely enough just being a teenager without the added stigma of being labeled a freak as well. “Rocky” was one of the few social circles where I no longer felt like I was the weirdo because I didn’t have a professional sports team on my shirt. In fact, I was encouraged to be as different and unique as I wanted to be – something about a movie starring a omnisexual transvestite tends to bring an air of tolerance. Throughout my high school years and well into my 20’s, I would return back to the Clinton for another viewing of “Rocky”. A lot of the time I didn’t even watch the movie, I just hung around outside and socialized with my fellow deviants, basking in the warmth of acceptance. I even joined the cabaret when I was 23 for a year – and I had a ball.

Fast forward to last weekend.

One thing I have been finding more and more after I turned 35 is how the years have been giving me perspective – whether I want it or not. I looked at my fellow theater-goers and I realized that I was at least a decade senior to most of them. Many of them were still in high school and I couldn’t help but look at them with bemused detachment. I saw the conversations they were having and while the words had changed, the meaning was still there – these were people still looking forward to this showing of “Rocky” because it was an excuse to get their freak on. Not in a sexual sense, but rather to connect with people who didn’t use the word “weird” as an insult.

We went in and sat down and I watched the social groups chatting amongst each other. Oingo Boingo had now been replaced by “Gangnam Style” – and most of the geekism were contemporary (there was a man dressed like Matt Smith’s incarnation of Doctor Who). In fact, when the movie played, the script of insults I was used to had now been updated and included more topical references than I was familiar with.

While most people would get mired in depression about being out of date and no longer au curant, I realized that “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was really made for the young. It’s a perfect venue for one to express parts of yourself that you don’t always have opportunity to show around your peers – which is something that a lot of people need in their teens and 20’s. The entire 10 year span from 15 to 25 is one long session of “Who The Fuck Am I?” And though a lot of people are able to muck their way through it having already been accepted by default from family and friends – there are those of us (geeks) that need some outlet, some group or venue, where being obscure and witty is the norm and welcomed.

And I thank the fates in charge that places like that still exist.

I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 35. I blame my father for this.

A little background here: my father is one the most closeted geeks I know of. Part of it I feel is from his upbringing: Dad spent his childhood in the Tri-Cities, Washington – a place so remote and desolate three boroughs had to cling together to avoid being picked apart by coyotes. Before methamphetamines became a national pastime for rural America, the only career choices you really had in the Tri-Cities when my dad was growing up were irrigation farming, military service, nuclear power, or chemical weapons disposal. Not exactly the most enlightened environment for someone with a passion for the performing arts and humanities – in his high school photos, my father is only a buzz-cut away from looking like an Apollo-era NASA engineer.

Dad also was a huge fan of organized sports. If it involved chasing a ball around an enclosed area, he was all over it. Naturally when he had two strapping sons, there was this hope that we would have the same interest in football, baseball, or whatever sport that was being officiated by men with bad toupees and mustard-colored blazers at the time. Unfortunately for him, my brother and I held the opinion that televised sport only signaled the end of our cartoon watching for that day and we were about to be ejected from the living room. For a brief time I recall trying to watch a football game, but after seeing the pre-game presentation featuring Terry Bradshaw bellowing orders to his fellow Steelers like the testosterone fueled hybrid of Hannibal and Patton, I retreated back to the domain of Bugs Bunny.

Needless to say, my brother and I started to show an interest in arts and humanities as we developed as well.

I tried intramural sports a couple times, I really did. First there was soccer: which is the decaf coffee sport to American Football’s espresso. But unfortunately at the time for me I was a defender, and my team played so well I spent the majority of my time standing around. In sixth grade (following the advice of every single person I had encountered up to that age when they saw how tall I was), I got involved in the intramural basketball team. Dad was thrilled, he had coached basketball at the high school he taught at and wanted nothing more than to encourage my interest. Admittedly, I did learn that a good lay-up is worth more than a free throw, and that passing wasn’t as important rebounding. But the main disadvantage to my gangly build was that it took my brain twice as long to send a signal to my limbs, which oftentimes just did as they pleased anyway. Once again, my brief dabbling in the sporting arts had faded.

When high school came around, my disinterest in sports became eye-rolling disdain (being tormented by the meatheaded jock clique tends to do that.) And as what usually happens in your teenage years, the things I held in common with my parents (aside from some of their music) became few and far between. My passion for reading was being supplanted by video games and comic books. Most of my socialization came from Dungeons and Dragons sessions with my friends.

But when I turned 16 there was one last opportunity my dad saw to bond with his eldest son – teaching the boy how to drive. Dad and I piled into the bronze 1981 Pontiac Grand Le Mans that previously belonged to my grandmother (and was the alternate family vehicle for my father) and set off for the local community college on a Saturday afternoon. The wide parking spaces were an ideal training area, at the very least I wouldn’t have to worry about damaging anyone else’s vehicle. Dad pulled the car to a stop and told me to trade places with him. Immediately my heart started pounding: for the last 16 years of my life, motor vehicle operation and maintenance was the bailiwick of adults. I didn’t feel anywhere near grown up (a feeling that wouldn’t die down until I turned 30.)

As soon as I sat down behind the steering wheel, Dad said: “Now, I want you to understand this: you are in a multi-ton vehicle that can go up to about 90 miles per hour. You don’t have to be a physics major to know that can do a lot of damage.”

Now, in retrospect, I realize that my father was really trying to say: “Son, this isn’t a video game where you can start over with a quarter, you have to pay attention and take it seriously or people could get hurt.”

But my self-esteem wasn’t exactly the glistening beacon of confidence that it is right now, so what I heard was:

“You’re gonna kill someone.”

After showing me how to adjust my mirrors and operate the turn signal, Dad told me to start her up.

The engine sparked to life on the first turn of the key, I shifted the car into “drive” and we started inching forward. I didn’t even touch the accelerator – the gentle momentum of the overdrive was all the forward motion my poor, neurotic, teenaged mind could handle at the moment. When I steered, I felt like I was trying to turn a river barge with my bare hands (Pontiac sedans don’t exactly turn on a dime.) Dad remarked, “I didn’t realize this car actually went this slow.” I thought he was exaggerating – for all I knew we were careening with all of the reckless abandon as a cattle stampede toward a steep ravine.

Dad reminded me to occasionally check my speed, and when I did I found the needle on the speedometer flicking off of 0 with regularity. “Why is it doing that?” I asked my father, sure I had done something wrong in spite of the glacial pace we were moving. Dad looked over at the speedo and said, “You’re not driving fast enough for it to register anything.”

For the next 15 minutes we wove in and out of the lanes of parking lot. I eventually did work up the nerve to put my foot down on the accelerator and bring us up to alacritous 5 mph (gasp!) But I was convinced that the mental strain of trying to remember every little thing about driving far outweighed the inconvenience of using public transportation or walking – so I demurred from further offers from my father to learn how to drive.

Looking back, I think I did do my parents a bit of a favor. I never snuck the family car out of the driveway to go to a party; I never took it out “just for an afternoon” only to return home at midnight with an empty gas tank; I never got into a fender bender because I was trying to do everything behind the wheel except drive; and my parents never saw a 300% increase in their premiums because they had a new teenage driver to insure. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw my mother inwardly sigh in relief every time I asked for money to get a bus pass.

But that was one of the last times my father would reach out to me to find some kind of common experience we could both share. It wasn’t a shunning, but more the sad realization that a lot of parents have when they realize their child is becoming an entity all of their own – with their own interests, goals, and passions that don’t center around the family like they did when they were kids.

I did attempt to learn how to drive multiple times in the future, but something always distracted me or put me off. Friends would insist that there was a freedom to driving that you just didn’t have when you were dependent on other people. To them, driving was relaxing – and as soon as they mentioned that, they’d scream at the idiot who just cut them off. When my girlfriend finally sat me down behind the wheel of her pickup truck, I had acquired so many bits and pieces to driving that it no longer intimidated me (I remember thinking on my first less, “If you can handle a police chase in Grand Theft Auto with a 5 star wanted rating, you can handle this.”)

When I passed my driver’s test, I remember thinking that it was something I didn’t think I was capable when I was 16 – but also thankful that my dad wasn’t there to criticize my skill behind the wheel.

So you just turned to your female BFF, confessed an undying love for her, only to have her put her hand on your chest and say, “You’re too nice for me”/”You’re more like a brother to me”/”I just want us to be friends.” And as you perform your own emotional “walk of shame” on the ride home from clothes shopping with her, you keep wondering what’s wrong with you, if you’ll ever find love, and why don’t pretty girls like “nice guys”?

Time to stop sniveling, because I got good news for you.

I’m not gonna make like the Pickup Artist community and tell you the ways to exploit a woman’s self-esteem to get into her panties. (Those guys are about 30 seconds away from a date-rape conviction.) But having been a former “nice guy”, I have some advice to give (note I said former.)

Romance doesn’t happen the way it does in romantic comedies.

I learned not to trust what I saw on television or in a movie the day I sprained my ankle falling out of a tree because I actually thought I had a split second to change my mind after stepping off a branch with both feet (like they do in the cartoons.) The reason why people go to the movies is because they want to see something that rarely, if ever, occurs in real life. A woman turning to her best male friend and realizing that it’s him she’s been needing in a relationship all the time is about as rare as being swept up in a bank heist gone terribly wrong and coming out alive. Even those “inspired by a true story” spiels you see usually only have a grain of truth to them and that’s it. (“Yeah, the Alligator Man married the Bearded Lady in spite of their appearances, but they neglected to point out that she needed a green card and he was looking for a better tax return.”) That’s the allure of movies, they present you with a story that will never happen (or more to the point, never happen to you.)

Expecting a relationship to develop according to the same formula presented to you “by the same people who brought When Harry Met Sally” is like thinking that your mastery of Team Fortress 2 makes you a fully trained sniper. Movies are the presentation of an idealized fantasy (unless it’s trying to shoot for an Oscar, in which case things are a little too realistic.) Plus, movies have to make some kind of logical sense (otherwise the audience won’t buy it) – whereas people in real life, well, don’t. (Read the morning news if you need examples of this.) The chances of you running into someone who looks like Kate Hudson or Natalie Portman and will take you on a whirlwind adventure of self discovery are really fucking slim – as in, “winning the lottery after being struck by lightning” kinda slim. (Conversely, ladies, the chances that the Orlando Bloom/Patrick Dempsey stand-in will rise out of his self-tortured mire and see how much you “complete him” are equally slim.) So, in case I haven’t hammered this point home yet – movies and television are a poor guide for how to interact with people (even though it would be kinda cool if we had more justification to say kick-ass one-liners.)

The Great Thing About Rejection

Okay, let’s get this out of the way first: Yeah, being rejected sucks. And in the moment of rejection, sometimes it feels like you might as well carry a big neon sign that says “loser” (or better yet, wear it around your neck, Flava Flav-style.) And if rejection is the rusty blade that pierces your heart, the “let’s be friends” line is the bit that snaps off still in your chest. But here’s the great thing about being rejected: it gives you the opportunity to exercise some self-improvement by enforcing the boundary the other person has now set for you (telling someone you just want to be friends is effectively setting an emotional barrier).

The next time someone gives you the “friends speech”, take a deep breath and say the following:

“Thank you for being honest about your feelings toward me. I respect that you are not seeking the same kind of relationship that I was hoping to pursue with you. And while I am thankful that you want to still be friends with me, given my deeper feelings for you at the moment, I feel that continuing a friendship will only complicate things for both of us down the road. So, if you are honest in wanting to be friends with me, I want  you to respect that I need to put some distance between us for the time being so I can do some self-evaluation until I am comfortable with the level of interaction you want from me.”

And then you follow through by not talking to that person for at least a week – and only when you’re ready to initiate contact with them. Here’s a pro-tip: if the person who just “friend-zoned” you calls you the next day after you said this and wants to hang out – they’re not your friend (real friends respect your boundaries). Being rejected is a great time to figure out what the hell it is you want in the first place. And distance gives you the chance for some perspective: did you like this person because you were genuinely interested in who/what they were, or because they were attractive? Did they ever make you feel bad for some of the things you liked (even if they didn’t mean to)? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone who watches Bridezillas and takes pointers from it?

Here’s the thing, rejection is like a crazed hedgehog – the tighter you hold onto it, the more it’s gonna hurt. Yeah, so the pretty barista at Starbucks lied to you about having a boyfriend as a means to let you down easy – but after a week, maximum, let it go. Otherwise, what you’re doing is the equivalent of taking a relaxing swim in the septic tank you call your self esteem (more on that later, too.)

Another great thing about rejection is that it oftentimes says more about the person rejecting you that it does about yourself. Back to our barista situation, if she’s willing to lie to you about having a boyfriend, she’s probably also gonna lie about other important things too in order to spare your feelings (like frequently forgetting her medication for violent psychotic outbreaks.) Most of the reasons why someone is turning you down have nothing to do with you and everything to do with that person’s own taste. It’s like offering someone a slice of strawberry cheesecake and finding out that they have a serious strawberry allergy – you’re not a jerk for making the cheesecake anymore than that person is a jerk for going into anaphylactic shock when they eat strawberries.

Point being, the best thing to do when you’re rejected (after allowing yourself a small amount of time to process the hurt you feel) is to simply shrug and say “Well, their loss,” and move on. And if that sounds a little egoistic, it kinda is, but it’s better than thinking you’re the central character of a Russian classic novel who eventually meets a tragic end. Speaking of which…

Low Self-Esteem Gets Annoying After A While

Picture this scenario: You’re sitting on a bench in a park eating a sandwich. It’s a lovely day, the birds are singing, it’s not too hot, not too cold – it’s sandwich weather and you have nothing pressing on your mind. Suddenly, a friend approaches you, snatches the sandwich out of your mouth, tramples on it, then plops down on the seat next to you and proceeds to list off the many ways life sucks for them.

That’s what it feels like to be around someone with low self-esteem after a while.

Now, I don’t exactly have a steadfast self-image, but after working on it for the last few years, I can say that it’s better than it has been in decades. And one of the things I have discovered during this process of change is this: your self-deprecating attitude only seems “cute and humble” for the first few minutes, then people just want to give you a wedgie in order to validate it and shut you up. There is only so long you can try to help someone feel better about themselves before you realize that they’re more comfortable thinking they’re an oozing hemorrhoid on the asshole of humanity than a person worth giving a crap about.

If you look at yourself in the mirror first thing in the morning and think “Wow, I never realized how closely I resemble Sloth from The Goonies,” that is gonna rub off on those around you – even if it’s only subliminally. Whereas, if you carry an air of “life is cool” around you, it tends to make people more willing to interact with you. Or more simply put, people give a damn only about those who give a damn about themselves first.

And since we’re on the subject…

Giving a Damn About Yourself

One of problems with being the “nice guy” is that you spend so much energy trying to be the ideal person for the object of your misguided affection that you forget to leave any energy for yourself. (Let’s be honest, would you really be that interested in watching an entire season of Gray’s Anatomy if it didn’t give you the opportunity to snuggle on the couch with the girl you’re crushing on?) One of the things people find attractive in others are their interests, and if you have spent the last year immersing yourself in someone else’s hobbies and preferences, it starts looking less interesting and more stalkerriffic. What is it that you like to do? Chances are it has nothing to do with watching romantic comedies and shopping for towels. There are loads of topics out there, which one gets you firing on all cylinders?

Now, it’s been my experience that people tend to find subjects that have tangible results more appealing than intangible ones. A collection of comic book art you’ve drawn is far more interesting than your bookshelf of graphic novels. More people would be interested in hearing about the book you’re writing than the Harry Potter slash fiction epic you’ve contributed to. It’s far more exciting to see a video game you’ve designed than the level 80 paladin you have for World of Warcraft. If you can’t figure out what gets your creative juices flowing, try several things out and see what sticks. There are classes, free demos, and articles on the internet regarding a myriad of extracurricular activities. Now is the time to pick up that guitar, or learn Japanese, or how to make curry. (Who knows? You may end up meeting someone who shares your interests.)

The next step in giving a damn about yourself is by presenting the best version of yourself you can muster. This means doing little things that show that you feel good enough about yourself to trim away the excess (both literally and figuratively). It means daily grooming habits – like showering more than once a week. You’d be surprised how positively people respond when you comb your hair and brush your teeth regularly. It also means fine-tuning your wardrobe: you tend to get a better response when your clothes look good on you than you do by wearing that shirt you got 10 years ago at ComiCon with all the holes in it. Also, it means getting off your ass.

Wait, Exercise? Why Can’t People Love Me For Me?

As much as it sucks (and as much as people try to deny this fact), we are a very superficial species. We place far more weight on a person’s physical appearance than we care to admit. A lot of this harkens back to our lizard-brained caveman days where things we found attractive were considered less likely to kill you. But let’s face it: looks count.

Now, while it would be great to have the roguish, panty melting grin of George Clooney (or the steely, coquettish gaze of Olivia Wilde), chances are you are about as average-looking as everyone else. The good news is that you don’t have to have six-pack abs and a wardrobe provided by Armani in order to look your best. But part of looking your best does mean getting your heart rate up. There is an incredible contrast between someone who does aerobic exercise at least 3 hours a week and someone who’s primary form of exercise is getting more Mountain Dew out of the fridge – and it carries off in your body language. If weights and treadmills aren’t your thing, there are loads of geektastic activities out there that don’t involve a gym membership or sporting goods: like martial arts, fencing, and Parkour (freejumpers are geeks that move like they’re in a Super Mario Bros. level.) Do something that gets you off of your ass for at least an hour, twice a week, trust me.

This is also a good time to re-evaluate your wardrobe. Specifically, it’s time to look at the things you wear that don’t give people the best representation of yourself. That ComiCon shirt with the holes in it may be comfy – but let’s face it: the more your clothes look like they’re easily cast-off, the more people will think you’re easy to dismiss. Again, it’s not about looking like a fashion plate – but unless you won the genetic lottery, your “distressed” clothing is going to make you look less like someone who’s young, edgy, or cool and more like a homeless Zach Galifianakis. You should have at least one outfit that makes you feel good about yourself when you wear it – and if you don’t, you need to get it fast. If you don’t have any idea of what looks good on you, look at the kind of clothes you like to see on other people (like your friends and coworkers) and go from there. This is not about finding the best kind of plumage to draw a mate, but finding an outer shell that feels comfortable, flatters the aspects of your body that you like, and shows people the best physical representation of yourself that you can muster. Who do you think people want to talk to? The guy in the well cut jeans and nice-fitting t-shirt (even if it has Spiderman on it), or the man-child in sweatpants and month-old Cheeto stains on his threadbare Star Trek uniform top?

Your body is a temple: it should be well taken care of in order to receive the adulation of the masses, otherwise people will just look at it and make wild speculations as to what its purpose is (like Stonehenge.)

The main reason why I place a lot of emphasis on you giving a damn about yourself is because…

No one owes you shit.

Giving a damn about yourself isn’t a means to an end. It’s not about finding a magic system that will fool other people into liking you. Faking that you’re a decent person may work in the short term, but if you drop it once you find someone – that person is going to wonder what the hell they’re doing in a relationship with you after a while. You have to be able to like yourself in spite of being single – the most stable relationships I’ve seen and been in have been more about people who complement each other instead of completing each other. This is about making yourself a whole human being – which is a long and arduous process – instead of finding someone who can putty in all of your gaps for you.

Let’s not mince words here: there are going to be times when it seems like the world is going out of its way to shit on your chest. One day you’re walking down the street in your finest, feeling good about what you saw in the mirror and then a truckload of rednecks decides to pelt you with beer bottles. You can’t let it get you down. This isn’t about seducing the barista at Starbucks, or the class valedictorian, or George Clooney – this is about being the best version of yourself you can provide even when the bastards try to grind you down. This is about taking care of yourself because you are a person who is worth taking care of.

Also: being nice isn’t a means to an end. That’s the one thing I hate about all of the “no one likes a ‘nice guy'” rants I keep hearing online. Being a decent human being isn’t a fucking Konami code for nookie: if that were true, the Dalai Lama would be a sex symbol. You should be a “nice guy” because you like doing nice things for people. Yeah, there are people out there who see “nice” as a synonym for “sucker” – but like those who confuse “sexual orifice” with “light socket”, they tend to be in the minority. (They also give a sweet fuck-all about your need for space, too.) Being nice also doesn’t mean being a doormat either – the “I wanna do what you wanna do” line kinda sounds like you have no personality (most assholes at least have that). You need to be able to freely express what you like and don’t like – and if the other person suddenly likes you less for it: Drop them and move on – the person you want to spend your life with will love you for the things you like, not in spite of them.

The frustrating thing is that it sometimes seems “cool” to be moody and brooding – but at the same time, people can’t stand those who actually exhibit those traits. Furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly popular to mock those who haven’t been blessed with the kind of supportive environment that engenders a healthy self-esteem. But, to co-opt a motto by Dan Savage: it does get better. Any salesman worth his salt will tell you that each “no” gets you just that closer to getting a “yes”. If during your “no times” you are mastering your Indian cooking skills, running a 10k without throwing up, writing that novel you’ve been meaning to finish, and liking what you see in your mirror more and more – where’s the down side?

It was an average Sunday. I had just lost a poker game (apparently I was the only person at the table who was playing Voltron-style Texas hold ’em.) As I walked out of the card room, I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn’t in the Old West – where I would’ve been drug out to the desert, tied dick first to a fire ant hill while a heat-crazed burro took advantage of my exposed orifices (regardless of whether I lost at poker or not). Instead of taking my usual course of action whenever I lose, I put away my favorite arson-starting Zippo and headed off in search of something to eat.

My hunger pangs drew me to the local McDonald’s and I strode inside confident in the decision I was going to make. I feel no guilt or shame about enjoying fast food, in much the same way that I feel no embarrassment about being caught masturbating in public (in other words, none whatsoever.) After convincing a 12-year old boy that not only was there a small woman in the RedBox kiosk, she would also show her tits if he put $20 into the machine, I made my order at the counter and waited until the cookstaff put the precise amount of allowable filth into my food as dictated by the McDonald’s employee handbook.

And then it hit me.

As I previously mentioned, I don’t feel bad about shoving food into my piehole that has the same nutritional content as a spent nuclear fuel rod, but for the last few years a growing sense of annoyance has been building up in me whenever I walk under the famous golden arches. At first I thought it was about the “new” McFish bites, but fast food companies have a long-standing tradition of molesting the corpse of their creativity until they’re convinced that the friction-generated heat caused by their humping is actual bodily warmth. Not even the incompetent staff or creepy, possibly child murdering corporate mascot rankles me that much. But as a kitchen plebe looked at me right in the eye and spat into my burger yet again, I realized my building aggravation with the McDonald’s experience was caused by two primary factors.

1. They’re still trying to convince you that they’re “healthy”.

So some jackass makes a documentary where he consumes nothing more than Extra-Value meals for 30 days straight and it nearly kills him. As if it’s really a big surprise that consuming fistfuls of material that’s only considered fit for human consumption after millions of dollars are spent bribing lobbying the FDA could possibly kill you. I never saw “Super Size Me” for the same reason why I don’t need to see a documentary on why you shouldn’t comb your hair with a handgun.

But McDonald’s panicked and quickly tried to convince everyone that they are a viable option for quick and healthy food – in the same nervous, dismissive manner your ex tells you that their chlamydia is “all in the past.” Face it, you don’t go to McDonald’s to eat healthy, you go there to shove a cheeseburger in your face as fast as you can before the orderlies of the insane asylum realize that you chewed out of your straps again. No one goes to Mickey D’s to get a salad – at least not willingly. Watching a person eating a McDonald’s salad is about as sad as watching a whale intentionally beach itself. Someone going to McDonald’s with the hopes of getting something that will fall under their Weight Watcher’s daily point allowance is about as pathetic as a straight woman hoping to score at a gay bar – either way the most positive way it will end is with a sad handjob in the parking lot.

2. They’re still trying to be “hip” and “relevant.

In the last 10 years, McDonald’s has tried to revamp their image to make themselves contemporary. I’m not the first person to note the Starbucks-like tone McDonald’s decor has taken in recent years. But it’s like McDonald’s is the single mother in her late 40’s that’s constantly borrowing her teenage daughter Starbucks’s clothing and wearing it wrong. The natural textures of Starbucks are complemented by low lighting and ambient jazz. (And with pot now legal in Washington, it’s only matter of time before Starbucks becomes the corporate equivalent of an Amsterdam hash bar.) Whereas McDonald’s still brightly lights its restaurants and continues to saturate everything with contemporary music – making you feel about as embarrassed as watching your parents re-live their Flower Power days all over again. Face it, you’re not going to McDonald’s for its ambiance – you go there because it’s probably the one place you won’t be recognized after you commit a killing spree.

Seeing McDonald’s try to be “contemporary” is like when your parents try using modern slang like it’s always been in their vocabulary. It’s the equivalent of your math teacher wearing his baseball cap backwards in order to make himself look younger. McDonald’s used to have a pretty clear image in your head of a generic fast-food joint. But now it’s like they’re desperately trying to hold onto the last vestiges of youth because they fear that’s the only way they’ll remain relevant.

Unless you’re 6 years old, most people don’t get that excited about going to McDonald’s any more (either that, are you have Alzheimer’s and still think you’re 6 years old.) But the reason why some people still like McDonald’s is the same reason why a soldier stationed in Afghanistan likes a USO tour – it’s a way of remembering back to a time when things were actually happy for you. That’s the attitude McDonald’s needs to cultivate: I like the idea of McD’s saying “you grew up with us, and we’re still here” more than them trying to seduce me into their lobby like a drunken Mrs. Robinson.

“The problem with being a mass murderer isn’t the murder part – it’s the mass.”

So, there’s been yet another round of mass shootings – meaning yet another round of our 24-hour news cycle stroking this issue all over their engorged genitals. I accidentally flipped the TV onto CNN and I saw an on-site reporter sporting a ratings-inspired erection while talking about the terrible tragedy in Connecticut. The adage “No news sells like bad news” has been applied to such extremes in our news media, that every time some disaster strikes in our world, I picture a news editor excusing himself to the bathroom so that he can quickly rub one out before putting on his brave face to see how much coverage he can convert to advertising dollars. Every glistening tear caught in vibrant high definition translates to yet another point in the Nielsen ratings, doesn’t it? Then again, you can hardly blame them – there’s only so much news to squeeze out of a woman getting a tattoo on her anus.

Meanwhile, hundreds of professional blowhards with abbreviations before and after their names are firing up their ghostwriters and calling up their agents for the chance to offer their “expert opinion” and shill their book. Multiple times the question “How could this terrible tragedy occur in our beloved nation?” will be asked by all of the news outlets. And, once again, we will plunge into the debate on gun control vs. mental health care – reaching the inevitable conclusion that the only way to prevent crazy people from accessing a firearm and acting out is by locking up the crazy people before they have the opportunity to own a gun. All the while, the news media ignores a pretty obvious solution staring them right in the face: that over-reporting these kind of tragedies is precisely what inspires them.

We don’t live in the days of Charles Whitman anymore, where it would take weeks – even years – for all of the facets of an event to be investigated and reported fully. Everyone has access to the internet: where previously it would take hours or days to get public reaction to a news event, it now happens in seconds. Is it any wonder that some disturbed soul out there is looking at the body count and seeing it as an X-Box achievement list? People seem to remember the name of the killer than the name of the victims in these cases (unless the perpetrator was a cop, for some reason) – is it any wonder that someone with a lot of self-loathing, unexpressed rage, and unaddressed mental issues sees the mindless killing of innocent people as the only means of getting people to notice the pain that they have to deal with?

It’s easier to get a gun nowadays than to see a mental health worker. Which is something that continues to frustrate me, as someone who deals with bipolar depression on a continual basis.

Personal confession here: for the last three-odd years I’ve battled with thoughts about taking my own life – and at times the only thing that gave me any kind of peace about the matter was how easy it would be for me to purchase a handgun and quickly do it. You might say, dear reader, “That’s horrible! There are plenty of things to feel good about, you should see professional help.” That’s the gag, seven years ago, I did precisely that in the aftermath of a prior suicide attempt. My four-day stay in the hospital was one of the more empowering experiences I had ever had in my entire life. I left feeling stronger and more able to face the horrible world around me than ever.

Three months later, I got a $2500 bill for my stay.

Turns out my employer-provided insurance was only going to cover about 70% of any charges that were over $500 – and there were a lot of small, little itemized things that added up to $2500. I tried asking the hospital’s accounting department if they could put me onto some kind of payment plan – but they were far more interested in sending it off to a third-party collection agency, than actually acting like the non-profit healthcare charity organization that they like to tout themselves as. If my grandmother hadn’t loaned me the money to pay it off, I probably would have followed through on another suicide attempt to avoid them garnishing my income and plunging me into poverty.

And that’s why I haven’t reported for mental health evaluation since – for the time I was in college, I had no access to insurance whatsoever. If I have to shell out the down payment for a car when I have coverage, I shudder to think what would happen if I had to pay for my stay out of pocket – probably something in the six-digit range, more likely. My girlfriend has to shell out about $300/month for her anxiety medication – who knows what it would be if she weren’t already paying about $700 for the bare minimum coverage that lets her doctor prescribe it.

Since getting a job, I currently have healthcare coverage – but I’m scared to use it. When I look at paying about $300-500 for a gun, compared to $1500+ that I’d have to pay a healthcare agency for only about 30-90 days of feeling good about myself, the choice seems clear.

Now, I have no intention of purchasing a firearm and ending my life (or the lives of innocents around me). Over the past 5 months, I have undergone a lot of introspection and self-healing – which took an incredible amount of time and energy from me, and meant putting off a lot of personal projects and distancing myself from friends and family while I did so. I should not have to go through that. I shudder to think about what it must me like for someone who is in worse straits than I am. The so-called experts can talk about gun control and access to mental health care, but until it’s cheaper for me to check into a hospital while insured than it is for me to purchase a firearm, I’m afraid suicide still feels like viable option to me.

You’re walking down the street when you see a man with a sign on the corner sitting in a lawn chair. The sign at his feet reads “PREDICT YOUR DEATH – $1”. The man is half-asleep, a hat drawn down on his brow.

“Predict my death?” you sneer inwardly, “Who’s he kiddin’?” But still, it’s only a buck, and you have nothing better to do for the next hour. You pull a single from your wallet and say: “Fine. How do I die?”

The man snatches the single from you quickly and snorts. “How do you die isn’t important, kid,” he folds the bill into the pocket of his shirt. “I could tell you that you die in a car accident tomorrow and you’d spend the whole of tomorrow indoors – so you could avoid being in traffic. And you’d still get crushed under one that fell out of a cargo plane.”

“So, I die in a car accident?” you ask.

He stares at you levelly. “What you’re looking for is some kind of loophole in the system. Something that you can avoid doing or start doing so you’ll never have to worry about dying. If there were any goddamn loopholes in the cycle of life, our species would’ve bred itself to death millennia ago.”

Abashed, you shift nervously.

“It doesn’t matter if you die quickly or slowly. Painfully, or in your sleep. It could be sudden – like being shot; or lingering – like cancer.Will you be lucid and coherent during your demise? Or will you be a mental vegetable? Who cares? The how is just as irrelevant as when.”

“But if you tell me how I die, and it is something avoidable or treatable – like cancer – won’t I be able to prevent it from happening?”

“Would you care to tell me who you know that is currently living forever right now?” He straightens in his chair. “Back to our original analogy: when you die tomorrow, you know what your last thoughts are going to be? The chances you didn’t take, the things you didn’t say, the stuff you put off because you thought you had another year in you at least. Same as everyone else no matter when they die or how: there are people who’ll die decades from now still lamenting all those would’a-could’a-should’a moments in their life. You think you’re any different?”

“If I can prevent how I die for long enough, I’ll have enough time to do everything I’ve always wanted, right?”

“BZZZT! WRONG! There’s always going to be that one more thing you want to do, one more goal, one more desire. It doesn’t matter if it’s winning an Oscar or getting a doughnut at breakfast. There’s never enough time for everything.”

“Fine, then! When do I die?”

“Weren’t you listening to me earlier? When is as equally unimportant as how. You think that by knowing when you’ll die, you’re going to be able to fit everything that you’ve ever wanted to do into a nice neat package no matter what the deadline. But what if I tell you that you’re going die tomorrow? Are you really going to graduate from college, get a Nobel prize, and nail a catalog model in the next 24 hours?”

“Obviously, I’d have to prioritize-“

“Which is what you should be doing anyways. But there’s a difference between asking yourself whether you really want to travel to France and if you have enough time to do so.”

“So what’s the point? Why bother having goals, or passions, or even desires if you’re just going to die with regret?”

“My point is: the only people who don’t have any desires, dreams, goals, or passions are already dead. Some of them don’t even know it yet, either. Having unfinished business is proof you are still alive – it’s the constant reaching for that next thing that pulled us out of the primordial muck and transformed us into the selfish, egotistical, xenophobic plebes that you see every day. If you knew died tomorrow, you would have an acre of regret from all of the things you didn’t do – and if you knew you died ten years from now, the remainder of your life would be spent panicking that you don’t have enough time to do anything new.”

“But if I can’t finish what I want to do, what’s the point of starting it?”

“Which would you rather have people know about your death, that you died climbing a mountain – or were found in your apartment surrounded by 50 cats? It doesn’t matter what you died doing, but at least have it happen while doing something you love. So, anyway…”

“Anyway?”

“You listened to my little spiel. Now it’s on to giving you your prediction.”

“You already told it to me – you said I’m going to die in a car accident tomorrow.”

“No, I was using that as a metaphor to illustrate how stupid asking someone how or when you are going to die is. So, as I was saying-”

“I think I’ve changed my mind, I don’t really want to know when or how I die.”

“We have a problem then.”

“What’s that?”

“The kind of service I provide is, shall we say, ‘non-refundable’.”

“You can keep the dollar, it’s okay-“

“Well then, I’m going to have to offer you my next service.”

The man flips his sign around, on the back it says “I WON’T PREDICT YOUR DEATH – $10.”

“Oh, c’mon…”

“$10 insures that you no longer have to worry about if you have enough time left to finish learning Esperanto, or whether you die choking on the cheeseburger you’re eating. $10 gives you all the time in the world to look for that next thing, because the last thing you did failed to kill you. $10 buys you peace of mind so you don’t spend all of that time you have left wallowing in a pool of regret at all the things you were too scared to do.”

You flip the man $10 dollars and leave angrily.

I will never forget the day I lost my virginity. I helps that it was on a national holiday.

The summer after I turned 18, I had recently graduated and it was just starting to dawn on me that the half-assed, hastily put together, public education system I had just stepped out of had ill prepared me for the “real world.” I was an adult now, by legal standards – a grown up. I was going to need a job and start thinking toward my future. I had spent most of my childhood trying to blot out the assholes around me, I didn’t know what was in store for me by dinner time, let alone next year.

In the months up to my departure from school, I met K and we began dating. To say she was well experienced sexually was understatement – K had lost her virginity at 13 and never looked back. And she was incredibly patient with the fact that I was still a virgin. Because it was the summer, I spent many a day at her house in various states of undress going just far enough without committing to the final act – like a marathon where everyone has to halt suddenly when they reach the finish.

July rolled around and my parents had decided to spend a week with our extended family in eastern Washington. However, Mom and Dad realized that my brother and I were of the age where we had friends of our own to do things with for the holiday week, and wouldn’t burn the house down while they were gone. So the parents left us a phone number where we could call them and bid my brother and I goodbye for a week. Their car had just left the driveway when I was already on the phone making plans with my girlfriend.

On the day of the Fourth, I arrived at K’s house and was immediately greeted by her mother and two sisters – all of whom knew I was probably going to crash for the night, and all of whom didn’t seem to mind about it. It was an attitude so totally dichotomous from my parents’ “keep it in your pants until you give her a ring” morality that it made me pause. While they didn’t point-blank ask me if I was going to fuck their sister/daughter, it was pretty much already assumed that was why I was there.

After a brief dinner, K and I piled into her mother’s car and we drove to a local park where we watched the fireworks display that was set off at a nearby fairgrounds. I remember my head in her lap as I watched the many-colored explosions filling the night sky. Occasionally I’d notice that K wasn’t looking at the marvelous feats of pyrotechnics crackling above us, but at me with a warm smile on her face. Eventually the show ended and we filed back to K’s home.

Her mom bid us goodnight and locked herself up in her bedroom, K escorted me down to her own quarters. As soon as her door was closed, we doffed garments and collapsed on the bed in a confused tangle of limbs – kissing with the kind of intense, bewildered passion that only the teenaged can muster. As with previous outings we had moved beyond the realm of “heavy petting” and into “for God’s sake, just do it already!” Finally, I looked down at K – right in her eyes – and said, “Do you have a condom?”

A mixture of surprise, joy, relief, and confusion played about K’s face: “Are you sure?” she asked me.

I nodded, “Yeah, I think I pretty much am.” I hoped I sounded nonchalant.

“Because I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you-” she continued.

“I want to do this,” I interrupted with real confidence.

“Okay, then,” she smiled. K reached into a wooden box by her headboard and, without looking, produced a prophylactic. She even helped me put it on. I kissed her deeply and as K guided me inside of her, I looked at the time.

It was 11:00 PM.

The next few hours were a blur to me. Even having experienced it first hand, what I remember is a fragmented, abstract recollection of events. The whole experience felt to me like an orgiastic pagan ritual, tinged with the kind of adrenaline rush one gets by hunting a boar with a spear. It was like the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the Perfumed Garden as reenacted by an amateur wrestling league. The rasping distorted guitars of some mid-1990s grunge band serenaded us from K’s clock radio – only to be squelched by her own moaning. Wisps of incense would reel in my nostrils, only to be washed over again with our mingled musk. My muscles began to ache and my breath was starting to burn in my lungs. I finally withdrew and collapsed next to K – pie-eyed exhaustion written across my face.

K was equally stunned. “Wow,” she said barely speechless.

We both lied there, too dazed to say anything. My mind was buzzing in my head, desperately trying to sort out the flood of new sensations I had just been exposed to – it was as if my conscious floated above my corporeal body in some kind of near-death experience. K brought me back down to earth by saying the words I’d never thought I’d hear after my first copulation: “There’s no way you could’ve been a virgin.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’ve heard of guys lying about not being a virgin, but this was the first time I someone had made an accusation of the opposite. “I don’t know how to impress upon you that I am,” I stammered, “C’mon, the first time you invited me to have sex with you, I turned you down.”

K turned to look at me, “You’re not the first guy I’ve deflowered. I was all bracing myself for a 30 second bout followed by a few hours of me showing you how to avoid cumming so quickly. But, I mean…” The recollection of what we had just done rendered K unable to form a complete sentences again. She glanced at the clock.

“HOLY SHIT! IT’S THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING!” she cried out in shock.

“What, is something wrong?” I was worried that I had overstayed my welcome.

“You just fucked me for almost 4 hours straight!” K looked at me, deadly serious.

I didn’t know how to react to that statement, “…Is that a bad thing?”

K kissed me deeply, “The longest I’d been with a guy was maybe an hour tops. And that was once.” She laid her head on my chest, “Still can’t believe you were a virgin.”

“I don’t know what to say. I mean, who would lie about that?” I said.

She laughed and laid there, curled up against me. Finally she looked up at me, “Nobody is going to be up right now, you want to take a shower?”

The feeling of dried sweat had only just began to register with me, “Actually, I think I’m going to stay here and think about what just transpired.”

K smiled, kissed me again, and got up. “Okay, I’ll be back.”

After she closed the door behind her, I laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind still percolating the events that had only just happened. I fell into a bizarre egocentric argument with myself, like a debate in a Greek forum.

“I just had sex.”

“Yeah, but what about-“

“No. Sex occurred. That was sex that we had back there.”

“I can see, but aren’t-“

“The basic fundamentals of everything I had been educated about sex in health class and pornos confirm that I just experienced full-blown intercourse.”

“Yeah, but-“

“My penis entered K’s vagina: that’s sex.”

“But-“

“PENIS + VAGINA = SEX.”

“B-“

“PENIS AND VAGINA.”

It was a reckoning of sorts. My subconscious was having a difficult time handling the fact that I didn’t have the kind of transcendental enlightenment that I was led to believe would happen after casting aside the mantle of virginity. The heavens did not part and a band of angels did not herald my ascendency into manhood. I didn’t spontaneously grow a beard or chest hair, nor did I feel any more proficient at attracting or pleasuring the opposite sex than before. Finally, my hindbrain sighed and gave in with a Woody Allen-esque quip: “The reason why people make such a big deal about sex is because they can’t figure out the rules to baseball.”

*     *     *     *     *

10 years later, K passed away in her sleep. She was 28.

Feeling sorry for myself as usual generated this xkcd-like rant.

I’d like to propose a Venn diagram on a cosmic scale.

For our first element (Element A) we’re going to use the Sun. You see it every day and it’s easy to ignore how incredibly large it is – from our perspective it’s about the size of a quarter. Because we see it daily, it’s pretty easy to take for granted

But here’s an interesting factoid about the Sun: It’s so large that over a million Earths can fit into it. Think about that for a second. Planet Earth, whose curvature you can only see when get to a high enough altitude, would fit a million times over into the shell of the Sun – with enough room to rattle around in.

So: Element A is the exact size of the Sun. It’s labeled “People I Find Attractive.”

But for this Venn diagram to be complete, we need a second element.

I’d like to introduce you to VY Canis Majoris: the largest stellar object currently known to man. It’s classified as a red hypergiant and is so large that if placed in the center of our planetary system, it would extend past Jupiter.

The reason why the Sun looks so small in our sky is because it is on average 92 million miles away from us. The diameter of VY Canis Majoris is over six and a half times that distance.

So, Element B is the size of VY Canis Majoris – which we’ll label “People Who Find Me Attractive.”

Now our elements are in place, we have to assess their intersection. Since I’m already using stars for their scale, I might as use their placement as well for this example.

VY Canis Majoris is approximately 6900 light years from the Sun.

You figure the rest out.

In case you just gnawed your way out of the shackles keeping you confined to your grandparents’ storm cellar, marijuana legalization has started to gain a lot of momentum recently. With pot decriminalization bills coming up for vote in Oregon, Washington and Colorado (not to mention seven other state initiatives for medical marijuana), you no longer have to meander through the quad on a college campus to hear the debate on whether we should free the weed or not. No longer is legalizing pot the bailiwick of the White Rastafarian who reeks of patchouli and the pall of several years’ worth of Rainbow Gatherings. Now upright citizens are freely talking about whether legal weed is worth having traffic jams that center around Taco Bells.

As with all things, there is a bad side to pot. And quite frankly if weed legalization wants to gain further traction, the following people need to shut up and go back to watching Robot Chicken…

4. “Why can’t we all just get a bong?”

Among pot smokers, I’ve noticed that this is often just a phase for some of them. After their first puff of weed, suddenly those Che Guevara t-shirts start speaking to them and everything around them is just another way The Man has kept them disenfranchised. The dreamy haze of marijuana has given them an overall sense of peace and ease that it must be shared with everyone! All must know of the Zen-like state of being that comes with having bloodshot eyes and Cheeto-stained fingers. Why if the leaders of the world would just gather at the UN and smoke a huge hookah in the General Assembly, there would be no wars! Things like the Mid-East crisis would be a thing of the past if a blunt was shared amongst the people. Then we could move onto better things, like a couch that cleans itself when you spill nachos on it.

The problem with these folks is that they forget (or haven’t learned) that not everyone turns into a Sid & Marty Krofft character when they’re high on weed. As with all states of being, you can’t just lump someone into the “trustworthy” category just because they’re a Head (ask your folks what that means, kids.) I knew a guy who would spin a new theory on the JFK assassination every time he smoked a bowl,  and another guy literally turned into a cross between the twitchy guy from “Reefer Madness” and Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker. Hang around enough pot smokers and you find that there is a group of which you feel tempted to blatter about the noggin with a frying pan – and those who you should hide the knives from.

3. “Pot is a Universal Medicine.”

Now, I’m not going to toss my hat into the huge debate on whether medical marijuana is a legitimate means of managing pain or helpful with abating any of the other myriad symptoms of chronic illness. I’m going to leave that to other people. I do not doubt the possible efficacy in using pot to subside some of the nastier discomforts of things like cancer and MS. Having said that, there do seem to be a whole bunch of people with their “Green Card” in Oregon that have chronic back and neck pain.

When I was in college one of my classmates was a staunch medical cannabis advocate (and coincidentally had difficulty turning in her work.) While waiting for class to start, she suddenly broke into a furious coughing fit. I asked her what was going on and she said, “It’s probably just bronchitis again. I’ll smoke a bowl when I get home and I’ll be right as rain.” I tried pointing out to her that if she has a bronchial infection, the last thing her poor, inflamed lung passages need is to be bombarded with a substance that would irritate them further, but she said something vague about the THC being a relaxant and dismissed the idea outright.

It’s one thing to use pot to medicate a specific condition (no matter how vague), but getting stoned to treat all maladies that befall you makes about as much sense as praying the gay away. It’s a bit akin to using a Vicodin prescription for a head cold.

2. “Everything’s better on weed.”

As someone who has partaken of weed, I can say that there are more than a few activities that suddenly become mind-blowing when you’re stoned. Not in the inhibition-lowering, “I’ve drunken myself invincible” false sense of self-confidence alcohol provides either. It’s more sensual: curry is like an Alex Grey painting in your mouth; sex is exciting as you thought it would be when you were a teenager; Spongebob Squarepants has a hidden depth to it that you never before realized; and everything becomes inappropriately funny. (A friend of mine said many people turn to pot because they don’t laugh enough in their daily lives.) It’s not that things really get qualitatively better, it’s just that being stoned skews your senses a bit. Much like alcohol’s “beer goggles”, pot puts it’s own “weedy haze” over everything – and the next thing you know, you’re syncing Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon to The Wizard of Oz.

But there are so many people who have to be stoned in order to derive pleasure from any kind of activity in their lives. Here’s a pro-tip, if you revisit something that you’ve done when high and find it’s not fun any more: IT WASN’T FUN TO BEGIN WITH. Movies that are only funny when high, aren’t really funny (the same with certain comedians.) And if you have to be stoned in order to enjoy sex – either seek therapy or take up knitting instead. Guess what? When you’re high, everything suddenly becomes the best thing you’ve ever consumed, witnessed, or jerked off into. Being stoned in order to enjoy something is like being drunk to get through the day – if your life is really that dismal, get professional help.

Or, as Moliere put it in High Times:

Il faut vivre pour fumer pas fumer pour vivre

One should live to toke not toke to live.

1. “It’s been almost an hour since I smoked, dammit.”

I used to live with a woman whose boyfriend was almost obsessive-compulsive about his pot use. He would sit at the computer, bong at the ready, and hit it every 15 minutes. It was like being in a house with a broken, old-school radiator – if you forgot you hid a stash in it during the summer. He also wasn’t the most reliable person in the world – nothing malicious, but he was about as motivated to take the garbage out as most teenagers (and he was in his 30s). He was a college student too, so immediately after returning home from class, he would hit the pipe as if to make up for lost time. While I got along with the lad for the most part, every time I talked with him I could see him internally counting the seconds until his next bong hit. And if his girlfriend’s stash ever ran low, his tone turned into a high-pitched nasal whine that made fingernails on a chalkboard seem like an aria. Needless to say, after his significant other threw him out of the house, suddenly the place got a lot cleaner – and the bong water was changed more regularly.

Now, I’ve had the occasional weekend that resembled the movie Friday – if it starred a geek in his mid-thirties who watches more Doctor Who than is healthy. But in every smoker’s circle, there is that one guy who not only insists on being stoned 24/7, but starts whining when they’re not. I know pot smokers who practically have NASCAR-like endorsements from Zig-Zag and Visine – but the majority of them realize that sobriety is one of life’s little annoyances to deal with when they’re at the grocery store. Point is: most stoners I know don’t whine about the occasions where they are inexplicably sober, they merely shrug and wait until they’re back home from visiting their in-laws. If you find yourself willing to crawl naked across an acre of carpet tacks and cat shit to get a resin hit off an old Coke-can pipe you forgot about under your bed, it’s time for some self-assessment. Most people who have smoked pot are perfectly fine with being sober – but if pot is what makes life bearable, it’s only a matter of time until you find yourself thinking “So, I wonder what’s the deal with this meth thing I’ve been hearing so much about?”