This erection sucks for both of us...well mainly just me

Goat-fucking christ I can’t believe I completely forgot about this part of the cycle. I played every single one of my cards wrong and now I’m stuck in the sexual doldrums. Two damn months of getting in touch with my inner virgin, polishing up my mastery of Brazilian porn and reeking of weakness and failure. All I can do is bitterly ponder my many mistakes during my exile on this brutal Elba of hard yellow tissues and obscure Kurosawa.

The longer you are single, the more awesome being single is. You forget how you even established your sexual network of disinterested, boring fuckdolls that under the right conditions are willing to sleep with you. You meet friends, you say the right things, you strike out, you piss someone off...it all happens, sometimes in the same night. The cell phone is referenced thirty times a day; your myspace turns into a South American jungle of covert sexual missions. You go through ridiculous amounts of booze and drugs, you burn bridges. Numbers are deleted, people are un-friended; your petty melodramas churn on, grist for the mill driven by 12 million libidos in the City of Angels.

But sooner or later all of us eventually hook up with the wrong girl. She’s the girl that convinces you to enter the holy institution of exclusive dating...the girlfriend. Who knows why, why we slip up time and time again, why we let it happen. This girl is Kryptonite; she can hold a conversation, looks freakin gorgeous, and when it comes to the bedroom she’s hotter than Kate Moss going down on her previously undiscovered twin sister in a bed made of habaneros on the surface of the sun. All of the sudden priorities change, laundry is done in tandem, Wednesday is no longer spent at Birds 11 o’clock happy hour...goodbye Irish carbombs, hello Project Runway.

But the problem with having a girlfriend (besides accidentally complaining in a lunch meeting that “Keith totally got hosed.”) is that the longer you have a girlfriend, the less awesome having a girlfriend is. Plan on getting shithoused on a random Tuesday and being kicked out of a hipster bar while screaming “Who’s in charge of this feminine hygiene expo!?” Of course not, but it happens...and when it does you can be sure to endure at least six days of bullshit from your significant other. Inevitably no matter how cool your chick is she will decide it’s her duty to punish you for all of your perceived shortcomings that made her attracted to you in the first place. Good Boyfriends don’t vomit at weddings, they don’t come home with black eyes, and they never drink more than 12 drinks on a weeknight; so as a Good Girlfriend they must punish you for your natural behavior. Eventually you can’t stand each other but you keep enduring her merciless company because of all that awesome sex (which is becoming much more infrequent). It’s already gone too far, there’s no salvaging the relationship; this is where you have to sack up and be a man no matter what that pussy angel on your right shoulder says. Fuck being the nice guy or you’ll be catching smirks from the smug 15 year old asshole that clerks the Rite-Aid every time you buy another bottle of lotion; trust me, i know. Looking back at this dark time in my life I’ve found the three critical things I was too nice to do.

I blow at MSPaint and metaphors but you get the picture

Cheat on her:
Hook up with mutual acquaintances at parties, make out with random bar girls and get their numbers. It is important to re-fuck your old cycle of casual hookups while you still have a girlfriend, the only reason they are hooking up with you after all those ignored booty calls is because you’re cheating on your girl with them. It’s an ego driven revenge-fuck, and you’re an idiot if you throw it away. If you wait until the relationship is over they will NEVER sleep with you again, but if you time your breakup shortly after some hookups than you are right back on the vagina train.

Do Not Lose Track of Friends with Benefits:
That’s why social networking sites exist, and why your girlfriend gets mad when she sees your myspace comments. Don’t lose track of them during the honeymoon phase or you’re un-screwed. There are certain sluts who God in his infinite wisdom put on earth simply to help us through these transitional phases (it’s not like they’re curing cancer or anything). You had them in your pocket but somewhere along the line you turned your back on an all-knowing creator and lost track of them. Store their phone numbers on paper just in case, and drop a casual hello every month or so. Store the info next to your coke so if the girlfriend discovers your little secret treasure trove she will just flip out about the blow before carefully examining your paperwork.

Have an Escape Plan:
Did Capone just sit around and wait until frailty and old age took him out of the game? Did he just tread water till the taunting whispers of the Reaper drove him to taste the cold, cruel jello shot of death? Hell no! He ended his sexual relationships with flair and finesse, or so I’m told. Sometimes with a Thomson Center! End the relationship on your own terms. If you are following the first two rules than this should be a snap, simply make up a plan and follow through. Your girlfriend doesn’t need to know that those last six shots of vodka you had were actually water and you in fact DO remember every sweet second of that threesome with her roommate and the random trick down the hall (all nine of them). Whatever you do, don’t fuck up the timing by giving her an excuse for an early out (like finding out about all your cheating). If you overkill the breakup fight enough, you might even get post-breakup sex; I don’t know why that’s true but I swear it is.

I hope my horrible failures with the endgame can eventually lead you to success. I can tell you with certainty that it’s better to be a soulless, unethical, misanthropic shell of a man who’s knee deep in trim than to grasp at the shreds of your quixotic morals and still be seen as the bad guy. I recommend buying a bottle of mezcal at your local liquor store and every time you feel a tinge of post-love remorse swallow it; then take a shot of the mezcal and ask yourself which was easier to get down your throat. In fact, I think I’ll take my own advice and pick up a fifth of that terrible stuff...I need to make a trip to the Rite Aid anyway. I hope that smirky little teenage fuckstick isn’t at the counter on a Saturday night.