By Brianne Sloan

I think people are getting the wrong idea about me—as much as men make me want to gouge my own eyes out with a pair of child’s plastic scissors, I don’t hate them. I don’t hate men at all, in fact their wildly pathetic, juvenile antics rather amuse me honestly. Over the years, I’ve developed a truly soft spot in my heart for all the sadly pitiful losers who stick me with the check and even for the ones who think it’s okay to take me to dinner at the strip club where their ex wife works!

I’m no gold digger, I’m no man eater and I’m sorry if I give off this impression—men have nothing I want. Really. I’m not after your money or your connections or even your soul. Come on. I cried at Toy Story Three, my bathroom is decorated with rubber duckies. I have one of those princess curtains over my bed. I sign my name with a heart, I do charity events. I write children’s stories, I wear sock monkey footsie pajamas. I was a freaking Girl Scout.

Yeah. Some femme fatale. Heartless vixen.

Gentlemen, I’m harmless. So why am I putting myself through this madness, subjecting myself to this endless trauma when I don’t have a blessed thing to gain? Simple. For you. I’m enduring these dating fiascos for you.

IT’S ALL FOR YOU, BOYS!

I’m not out to humiliate you, I’m not out to hate you; I just want to help. Think of me as your teacher, learn from my misadventures! I’ll be your guide! Think of me as your jaded heroine, your damsel in distress! I’ll be brazen with you, I won’t sugarcoat anything, I’ll show you the way! But I can’t do it alone! You have to ask yourself why each guy I write about is such an idiot, figure out on your own why each situation is so agonizing for me! Take notes. Predict outcomes. Try to recognize traits you have in common with whatever random ass hat I’m out with! If you work with me, this could be *HUGE*! Let’s raise the bar, completely redesign dating as we know it! I am not your enemy, I am on your side. From now on, it’s you and me, kid! I’m hereby your own personal Jiminy Cricket! And look here, you impudent young pup! It wouldn’t hurt you to take orders from your conscience!

*TOGETHER* WE CAN REVOLUTIONIZE THE DATING WORLD! OKAY, TROOPS! BE LIKE VIKINGS.
First things first, you are going to have to accept how much of this is *YOUR* fault. Acceptance is key; you must grow from acceptance. *I* am your Jaded Heroine, but you miserable losers are the ones who jaded me. You’re in denial, that’s all. These botched dates are absolutely, without a doubt, to the fullest extent, completely without exclusion, utterly and totally your fault. No exceptions. Take a good long glimpse in the mirror and confront the real problems—be not afraid, grasshopper. I’m right here with you.

Look at yourself—you’re a mess. Your butt crack is always showing and you were walking on sunshine for three days because you figured out how to make that dumb armpit noise—you were thirty three. You adjust your unmentionables in retirement homes and you fart in the house of God. You go through withdrawals when you can’t find the remote, you find it too complicated to rinse your toothpaste spit out of the sink. You’ve gotten erections in car dealerships; hell, you’ve gotten them looking at power tools at Home Depot.

You forgot your mother’s birthday even though she still does your laundry and realizing these limitations, I’ve been patient with you. Even when you gave me a bunch of IOUs for Christmas, then took out a bank loan to buy a digital dart board and a Nintendo Wii. I’ll do my best to explain dating in terms most men could understand, the way Stephen Hawking did when he wrote A Brief History of Time, but in my defense, Stephen Hawking was dealing with things like black holes and wormholes and time travel and the ultimate origin of the entire universe . . . *Stephen Hawking* was only trying to explain rocket science; he had it easy. *I’M* dealing with a subject that’s infinitely more complex.

DATING—it’s absolute chaos. There’s no logic in dating, utter confusion and muddled disorder appear to be its natural state. I myself do not believe this barbaric approach to courtship was divinely inspired, as evidence suggests the custom was instituted by ancient cave dwellers. The practice has continued well into the twenty first century and though the means of finding senseless Neanderthals to engage in the outdated ritual have multiplied and skyrocketed, dating itself does not seem to have evolved at the same rate as the species to carry out this antiquated tradition; conventional dating behaviors and errors have remained extremely primitive. We are talking about the most dangerous, chanciest, most haphazard, hit-or-miss way to try and meet the one person who’s going to matter to you more than anybody ever . . . and I’m trying to explain it to someone who was in the hospital for three days after trying to light a fart on fire? YOU have to start putting some effort in. I’m not asking for much.

Sometimes I think you’re not even trying. Man went to the moon, he invented the wheel; you still jump up and down on the bed in a football helmet, pretending to be Neil Armstrong; you call your bathrobe your “galaxy suit” and you have trouble even drawing a wheel. The Spanish discovered and colonized Florida, thus establishing the oldest continually inhabited city in what is now the most powerful nation in the world; you can’t point to Spain on a map, but the other day you were chasing my collie around the hallway, waving a red bath towel and yelling “Toro!”, with a sprig of parsley in your mouth. Man built pyramids and skyscrapers, built the Eiffel Tower and moved the London Bridge to Arizona, accomplished many other demanding physical feats; you go to the gym and make obnoxious Arnold Schwarzenegger sounds and pained groans—you’re lifting fifteen pounds. You’re not even sweating.

Are you following this? I’m going as slow as I can and I believe that if we work together, we can radically transform the dating scene! Our mission is clear, look at everything this will affect: divorce statistics, alimony payments, all those poor little leaguers who can never have both parents at a game without it turning into an embarrassing argument! And oh! All those heartbroken teenage girls who have to run into bathrooms crying at their senior proms? All those spurned women who have been forced (through *NO* fault of their own) to angrily post nudee pics of their cheating exes in gay ads on Craigslist? We can significantly hinder these occurrences by simply reducing the frequency of bad dates!

Dating affects everything. This is bigger than us. You cannot be selfish here, this is too much! Stick with your favorite damsel in distress and think of yourself as a pioneer—soon you will learn the ground-breaking ways of dating outside the box!

You’re limited, I know, I know: You have a voice activated GPS in your car. You still can’t find anything.

I want to help.
Signed,
Your Jaded Heroine

• Categories: Saturday's Memoirs: Adventures in Bad Online Dates
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