the perfect man. total figment.

Hey, I have a  question. Why does it always seem that the men I like and could see myself in a relationship always find the girl they want to be with after they hook up with me? And then the guy that wants to be in a relationship with me is not at all what I'm looking for as far as being in a relationship. Am I doomed to be the one before the one? - Failure to Launch


ian: Well, first of all, FTL, if you were a lawyer I was a judge, I'd be like "Asked and answered, Counselor." Right here. Week after week. Ass play. The occasional dick-smoking. Trust funds. Hanging onto a man is the easiest thing in the goddamn world. Pinch of cayenne on the head of the dick. A hoagie stacked high with roast beast. A pony keg of MGD. Pair of shackles and a cask of Thorazine. Some ketamine, some zip ties, and a sturdy bed frame. He's yours for all time. Shit, you could stack men like fucking cord wood in your crawl space like Gacy.


Where you're running into trouble is that second notion you're eager to gloss over. The "not at all what I'm looking for as far as being in a relationship." That's your goddamn problem right there.


You. You are the problem. You're too. Fucking. Picky.


I know. You're like "All I want is a nice guy who treats me right. Is that too much to ask?" No. No it's not. But that's not what you're asking.


You're SECRETLY asking for a Jon Hamm-looking neurosurgeon astronaut rolling in time-traveling DeLorean and mentoring scores of urban youth in his well-pressed-but-still-casual-looking dress shirt that is the blue of Anderson Cooper's eyes. You're asking for a paragon of American manhood that's got the hands of a cabinetmaker and the heart of Oprah fucking Winfrey. You want his spooge to come in a Mason jar with a inseminating baster tied up in a grosgrain ribbon bow in a manly-yet-appealing shade of burgundy (Uncooked Marrow is what Benjamin Moore® calls it) for impregnating on your timetable - fear not, he'll never touch you unless it's Snuggle Time at the Dickless Ranch you call your separate bedrooms. 


And from one angle, you want him to have a buzz cut that make GI Joe look like wizard hippie, then from another angle, you want him to have those silken Fabio locks from Legends of the Fall cascading over his chiseled shoulders. You want him to burst out of a lake with a knife in his chipped teeth and crochet needles in his dainty hands. You need him to recap the Downton Abbey while your tea is steeping as he's smacking the waitress on the ass. You require him to go bow hunting with Ted Nugent and rescue baby squirrels who have tumbled from their nest and are squeaking for their mamas in way that just about breaks your goddamn heart.


You want him to greet the dawn with a reflective and cathartic spell of journaling about his dad, dry his tears, bang out a couple-few yoga poses, then spend the rest of the day making babies with low-rent skanks he'll never call.


You want him to tear around your lakeside cabin on a shade-grown, fairly traded Jet Ski that runs on pixie turds and has a carbon footprint the size of kangaroo rat. You hope he'll not only hear your thoughts but agree with every fucking one, and murmur encouraging words in your ear about how you are totally right - all those bitches at work are undermining you. We should totally talk it over for the next nine hours or so. 


You want a man who will never touch you, except to knead the tension out of those poor shoulders of yours.


You want him to be hung like a can of tennis balls, but you never wanna see his dick or have to deal with it. You want his manscaping to by just shy of Hitler's mustache one second, then you want a thicket of sasquatch chaos down there the next. 


You want him wearing nerd glasses while he lifts the engine block out of your Camry with his bare fucking hands. You want him to recite sonnets from memory while he beats a cop senseless. You want his progressive politics tempered by his bloodlust. You need him to be as hard as a butcher block as he warms you like a tea cozy. You need an arch fucking criminal who's tender and yielding and supportive as a Muppet hospice worker.


You see? How this is? You gotta recognize that that dude you're pining for? Doesn't exist. CAN'T exist, actually - at least not in this paltry-ass reality.


Men have limitations. Men are not and cannot be the kaleidoscopic narcissus chamber of yearning fulfilled that you seem to need. And I got news for you: chicks aren't either. And unless you can find an angel with a giant waggling strap-on and pan of lasagna, gift certificates to the day spa and a brick of cash, and whose vocabulary consists entirely of praise for you. The odds against finding this creature? Astro-cockknocking-nomical.


People suck. No way around it.


But you take what you can and do what you're able. 


When life you gives you lemons, you make fucking lemonade. You don't make a Buick. Not only because it would be insane, but because it can't be done.