graven

I've been dealing with friends telling me about both negative and positive attention they're getting from their significant others. That's fine. I don't claim to be an expert on relationships, since nine times out of ten, my relationships get retarded because of some mistake or inobservation made by me (is in-observation even a word?). But there is one thing I need to point out.

I'm going to destroy an age old secret that 99% of most men don't even know. Do you really want to know something about men that even men don't know? One that if they DID know about, they would firmly deny or even threaten violence to me (or call me a "fag", nothing new)? Here's the secret:

At some point, early on, men yearn for you. We want you, maybe just for sex, possibly for serious love. We think about you constantly; our hearts ache when your name comes up. When the phone rings, we jump up excitedly and hesitate before picking the phone up---preparing for some "cool" opening line (then being disappointed when it turns out to be grandma). We love you and not being with you is torture. Maybe it's the girl at the local music store, maybe a girl in your class you've been talking to recently, or possibly it's your best friend in the world. We like talking to you, we like hanging out with you, and frankly, we want you in every possible way and it HURTS us that you're not sleeping with us at night.

It's love. You may feel the same way about us, but there's something else. Once we've actually succeeded; once you've said those three words and we're in a relationship and we're happy---something happens. Well, sometimes something happens. When this something DOESN'T happen, then you have that rare successful, pure relationship. Good luck, because I've never seen this. I've never seen a relationship that has never faced some hurdles within the first few months.

So what happens, Ryan? What's the big secret? This: we forget all of this. We forget what it was like longing for you. We forget how tortured we were. Maybe it's because we want to forget or maybe we just do. Maybe it's instinct. Regardless, we stop caring about how much work went into getting into your panties. Because we have you. You want us, so we don't have to impress you anymore. You KNOW what we have to offer. We don't have to flash our cars, money, sense of humor, degree, great job, big penises...we don't have to flash anything to make you think we're "real men". You love us. Maybe we feel like we've trapped you. Like you have no choice but to be with us. But most likely, we get bored with trying to impress you. We don't have to anymore, so why the fuss?

We don't have to compliment you every day. We don't have to cook you dinner. We don't have to do that little thing we do with our tongues that get you turned on. We're domestic. The work is gone. And with that, the mystery. We're not an enigma anymore. You've seen our Batman underoos, you've met our parents, and you know about that one time we made a chocolate pie out of dog poop and offered it to the retarded kid next door. So you may get bored of us. But frankly, we don't care. We're domestic.

Maybe you'll get mad. Maybe you are mad. We're sorry, you don't need to get even. You can do it to us and you probably will, but chances are, you'll find some other way to make us suffer...women don't believe in fighting fire with fire...they fight fire with a BIG, FUCKING BUCKET OF WATER.

But regardless of how you feel, it can't be stopped: the mystery is over. You know us, we know you, everything we did to try and get information about you is over. We know about the birthmark on your back, we know what you look like in t