In Which All We Want Is Someone To Be Nice To

Looking For The Nice Guy

by TYLER COATES

I consider myself to be a Feminist in the sense that I've always thought, "Yeah, ladies are just as good as dudes, right? I mean, why not?" I never was one to shout about it, though, mostly because I've never been a very politically correct person. It's pretty hard to be politically correct and hilarious. I'd much rather be funny than someone who pretends to respect everyone.

But seriously, folks: womyn really got it rough these days! And not just in the political, economic, and social departments. Fuck the glass ceiling; I'm talking about how the guys that try to date girls are dumb shits.

Now I feel like I can write about this because, even though I'm not a girl, I do date guys, and right now I am severely anti-men. Sure, that's mostly gay guys, but generally, I don't like men very much. Also, I've been reading Jezebel a lot lately, and all of that feministing has really started to affect me. This Recording favorite Julie Klausner once had an essay in the NYT's Modern Love column. I spent all day thinking about it because I've been there, lady.

Julie describes a brief, unsatisfying fling with "an indie rock dreamboat," which began in the most modern way: emails and text messaging. If you're a gay man living in a city, you've most likely gone through this routine, and I found Julie's descriptions of her first impressions pretty damn accurate:

"He already annoyed me, and we hadn’t even met. I would soon learn a lesson men have known for years: that it’s possible to be attracted to somebody you don’t like."

julie & smiley muffin

I wasn't really aware of that until recently. I'm admittedly new to the gay thing, having spent most of my post-adolescent awkward stage (which, um, just ended about two years ago when I was somewhere between 22 and 23) thinking I liked girls. When I had crushes on girls, I fell hard, spending months pining after them with, obviously, very little success.

I didn't think I'd ever want to date a guy until I found myself in my first relationship. It turned out to be a disaster, but part of me kept that relationship going because I liked the challenge of having to make an effort to get what I wanted. I wanted this guy to like me. And I realized later that when I entered into those courtship rituals with other guys, I was more interested in the ones who didn't like me than those who put a lot of effort into the pursuit.

Back when I was going after girls, I considered myself to be a Nice Guy. You know the type: the nice guy is the dude who is your friend, who is a little too shy to make a move, whom you would never call "a player". Look at Coop from Wet Hot American Summer, for example: Michael Showalter's character is the quintessential nice guy pit against Paul Rudd's bad boy.

The nice guy is the cute, skinny, nerdy guy who listens to The Decemberists instead of Dave Matthews Band, who would rather watch Amelie and cuddle than drink and beer and watch "the game." Of course, the nice guy is full of shit, and this is coming from someone who thought he was that guy.

Sure, I'm no philistine, but that doesn't mean I didn't break my fair share of hearts. Did I end brief, month-long relationships by not calling someone back? A few times, actually. Yeah, I feel bad about it now, and try not to be such a jackass and consider the thoughts of others occasionally. I wasn't doing it before on purpose, or out of some sociopathic game I was playing. No, I was just a dipshit who didn't know how to treat the guys I was courting.

From Leigh Dragoon's Nice Guys 101 Series

There's a great quote that is floating around from an interview with author Amanda Marcotte:

"The Nice Guy syndrome arises from men who are really conflicted about women’s equality. They get angry real fast when, after being 'nice,' they don’t get rewarded, or they are rejected. Guys are oblivious to the fact of their entrenched privilege, the very notion that women are there as available eye candy for them. It is unnerving and uncool."

It's almost as if sometimes men think they should be rewarded with sex simply because they didn't actively (or at least aggressively) pursue it.

But that idea is completely the opposite of what one looks for in the nice guy. The nice guys shouldn't be calculating and manipulative of your feelings just to get you into bed! That's the bad boy, the one you're not supposed to like. So why is it when someone like Julie Klausner falls for the unassuming, sensitive musician, she gets spurned just as if he was that bad boy in disguise? That's because nice guys are the bad boys in disguise.

Now, I'm not saying all guys suck; I'm sure there are a few out there that are genuine and respectful of whomever they pursue. But if you're with someone who calls himself "nice," nip that shit in the bud. And if you're uncertain, here are some helpful tips to see if your potential mate is an actual dickhead nice guy:

1. Does he think he's awkward? If he describes himself as awkward, there's a problem. (To quote Edith Wharton: "[T]he inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self-depreciation.") We're misusing that word most of the time anyway. If everyone's awkward, then no one's awkward, okay? (That's the closest I'll ever come to Ayn Rand Objectivist thought.)

2. Is he a currently attractive former geek? That's a red flag. He's probably not looking to settle down, even if he plays you Sufjan on his guitar. He's most likely looking for help discovering his newfound hotness.

3. Does he perform improv and have a huuuuge crush on Tina Fey? Look out! You might think those loose-fitting khakis paired with Nike sneakers are endearing and the prospect of having a guy watch Mean Girls with you sounds like a dream come true now, but it's only because he thinks she's a hottie on 30 Rock. Would he have dated her in college?

4. Does he still listen to The Shins? All I'm going to say is that the dude from The Shins roughed up his America's Next Top Model girlfriend. I didn't even see that one coming.

5. Does he have a blog? YIKES.

Be wary, ladies, of the seemingly sweet, inexperienced guy who declares his emotions, because beneath that nice guy exterior is a guy who just doesn't know how to be around - or, hell, even respect - women (or other men, for that matter). Klausner wrote about this on her year-end blog post, where she included "Emo guys who have crushes on Pam from The Office" in her list of enemies. She said:

I get it, fellas. She's not intimidating, like one of those women who wears make-up and styles her hair, and has a good job that she enjoys, and confidence, and a...what do you call it...an adult woman's sexuality. There's nothing scary there, because there's no mystery: she's just like you! Mousy and shy. And one day your fantasy will come true. You'll meet a nerdy, cute girl just like that (like you), and NOBODY BUT YOU WILL KNOW SHE'S PRETTY! Shhh! It's a secret! And she'll melt when she sees your record collection, and she'll swoon when you play her the song you wrote, and she'll never want to go out to a party where you'll be forced to talk to people of social status, or comb your hair, or buy grown-up shoes, or demonstrate a hearty handshake, or make eye contact, or basically act like a man.

So what's the moral here? Does a guy have to spout out misogynistic bullshit about women to reveal some kind of deeper evil? Absolutely not! Take this speech from my favorite movie, Broadcast News, for example:

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No, I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing. He will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

Tyler Coates is the contributing editor to This Recording. He tumbls it all right here.

"Little White Lies" - Deer Tick (mp3)

"The Ghost" - Deer Tick (mp3)

"Houston, TX" - Deer Tick (mp3)

In Which She Had Made Up Her Mind

Years Later

by GEORGIA HARDSTARK

I had made up my mind almost a year ago. Although, if I'm going to be honest with myself, I've been suspecting this decision was lurking in the background for at least two years of our five year relationship.

The sad part about the whole thing though, the part that makes me hate myself a little and wonder what the hell is wrong with me, is that I could have stayed in this relationship for the rest of my life and been perfectly fine. He was content with comfort and complacency. Not to say that I didn't make him happy, but even if I hadn't, he would have stuck around. He was just that kind of guy..."loyal" is what some people might call it. What is wrong with me, though, that "perfectly fine" isn't good enough for my life? Where did that ego come from, the one that's sure I somehow deserve more, deserve some euphorically happy existence that I'm not completely certain I've even earned?

His mother had died just two months prior to us meeting, he told me this in the loud bar I after I had approached him based solely on his appearance. We leaned casually against the wall, him sipping a vodka/red bull and myself taking a pull off my beer often, as my mouth was dry from nervousness. I liked him immediately. We talked for three hours, until the bar closed, about movies and life and politics. Looking back, I want to say that we were both psychically aware of how important our meeting was to each other's lives, how important the other would become, but there's no way of really knowing that.

He didn't tell me that he had a daughter until our second date. By that time I already knew I would love him, don't ask me how. He seemed almost like a puppy that had been abandoned, and I wanted nothing more than to take care of him. We were drinking 40's of cheap malt liquor in paper bags (a spirit that's only ironic to younger people of a certain demographic, like ourselves) in a parking garage outside of a college. The point was to get somewhat inebriated before attending the concert in the recreation hall of this upper-class college, and we ended up talking long after the first band had started. He didn't even tell me about his daughter, I had to ask him. He was telling me some pointless story about a guy he ha met during a drug-fueled road trip who had missing teeth and photos of his son thumb-tacked to the wall of his house.

"Wait," I interrupted, "do you have a kid?"

"Uhhh, yeah. A daughter. She's 10." That made me only 11 years older than she was. She was conceived when I was still weaning myself off thumb-sucking -- my rapidly protruding front teeth the catalyst that finally pushed me to stop. He was only 19 at the time.

People asked me if I freaked out when he told me, or if I had thought about not dating him because of it, and I always answer the same way; "No, it made sense for some reason." And it did make sense. It was almost like something snapped into place in my head and I realized that having a boyfriend who had a child made perfect sense for me.

"Oh." was how I responded, staring out the car widow for a few moments while my brain fit the puzzle together. When it all fell snugly into place, I shrugged - as if bouncing any problem that I could have found in the situation off my shoulders and into the ether. "Okay," I concluded definitively before taking another swig off my 40 oz., which was laughably large for my small frame.

...

My cat and I moved in to his little house in the San Fernando Valley six months later. The house had belonged to his step mother before she went crazy and died. The small, WWI-era bungalow was still peppered with her furniture, and the walls had ghostly outlines from framed photos that she had hung on the walls before her brain had started to deceive her. The house always had a creepy feel to it, and I hated being there alone.

The backyard didn't help matters much, as it had two outhouse-sized structures that had served as his stepmother's playrooms when she was a child, and now held massive amounts of junk furniture and huge, lurking spiders. Their once girly and cheerful now faded facade did nothing to detract from the nightmarish quality of the twin playhouses. I did my best not to look out the window into the backyard at night, which was difficult because there was a window facing the backyard directly above the kitchen sink. I'd look up from a load of dishes (he never did the dishes, he hated dishes) to see my own ghostly face looking back at me. I always expected some sort of ghoulish creature to pop up from behind my reflection, but it never happened. Eventually I just stopped doing dishes altogether.

We spent two lovely years in that house. I think of it now like a time capsule of our happiness. We passed most of the time by fucking, which was really a strong suit during our entire relationship. We'd eat and then fuck. Get high and then fuck. Watch TV. and then fuck. You get the picture. We'd take a break from all the fucking once every month or so when his daughter would visit from San Francisco. She loved me...I loved her. I was made for this stepmother thing, I told myself. Kids had always liked me; I didn't talk down to them and had a sense of humor they could relate to. I wasn't like any adult she had met, because really, I was still so much a kid myself. It was an odd, quirky, confusing little relationship we had, the three of us, and I treasured it.

"My dad will never get married," she told me from the backseat of my car while I was driving her around town. Her dad was at work so we were spending the day together. He had never married her mother, and I answered "oh really?", but what I really meant was "I'll prove you wrong." Turns out I was the one who was wrong. I still wonder if she wasn't warning me, and I realize that, at ten years old, she understood her father a lot better than I did.

...

His dad died of cancer sometime after the New Year. He had owned a printing shop in the Valley throughout the 80's and the toxic chemicals he had inhaled day after day, year after year, had infiltrated his body and caused him to shit blood, and towards the end, babble incoherently - his brain malfunctioning from the cancer that engulfed almost every inch of his body. It was hard to watch, but I watched, bedside, because I loved his son and therefore loved him too. We drank whiskey in a dimly lit dive bar an hour after he finally died. It was surreal.

We moved to San Francisco that fall. I was 23 years old and ready to get away from my family, ready to be a grown up. I didn't want to keep him from his daughter, and thought she deserved to have her father close by, just as my father had been when I was growing up. I don't know if he would have ever moved there if it hadn't been for my insistence. I don't think he likes it there anymore, now that I'm gone.

THREE YEARS LATER

With a quick twist of the rusted faucet, the whoosh of the water becomes silent, and the bathtub stills. You lean back, resting your head against an expertly placed towel, and close your eyes for a moment. The drip, drip, drip of the faucet helps to relax you. You’ve always liked melodic noises and movement. Watching a window washer squeegee a window, each swipe precisely wiping away a line of water, then the next, then the next. The drip of the faucet has the same affect on you.

It’s your first night in your tiny one bedroom flat. After the two migrant workers left, having carted your belongings from the motel to your third floor walk up, you immediately striped out of your clothes, which were filthy from the newspaper that covered all your fragile belonging.

You try to relax and push out the thought that’s trying to burrow into your mind: “I wonder what filthy person was bathing in this exact tub not two weeks ago...and did I clean it well enough to rid it of any trace of them?” If anyone ever asked you if you were neurotic, you’d lie and say “no”.

The last month has been a blur, and you’re completely surprised by your lack of emotions regarding the whole damn thing. Despite the fact that you’ve changed your life so much in the past thirty days - that’s its completely indistinguishable from the one you were living a mere month ago - yet you haven’t cried once, is shocking to you. It makes you think of the time he asked you, when you were first dating, whether or not you cried a lot. You had told him “no”, and you can’t remember if you had believed it yourself. Later, he would tease you after you had cheered up following one of your regular crying jags by mockingly saying “No, I don’t cry very often”. You would playfully slap him and say “Yeah, sorry 'bout that one...what I meant was 'yes, I do cry a lot'.” He would be surprised and probably sad to hear that you hadn’t yet cried.

Although you had been thinking about the possible break-up, which seemed inevitable yet still somewhat avoidable, for over a year, you still couldn’t believe it when you had actually done it. It was on the day of your five year anniversary, which you think has something to do with that neuroticism of yours, and not wanting to say something like “four and a half years” or “three years and eight months” when anyone asked how long you had been together.

It was on the drive home from Lake Tahoe, where you had spent your anniversary. It was a boring two nights (barely talking and definitely not fucking) and you had been picking fights with him throughout the entire drive home. You pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11 because you were crying so badly you couldn’t see the road. You had never yelled at each other before...never. Yes, there had been arguments, but there was never anger there. When he exasperatingly asked you “Do you want to break up with me??!” you had fired back “Yes!” before you even knew what was coming out of your mouth. It was silent after that. The only sound made during the drive back was him quietly crying. You felt like the worst person in the world, but you didn’t take it back.

Although part of the break up had to do with you wanting to return to Los Angeles, due to outside issues you had to stay in San Francisco for a month following the break-up. You didn’t hate each other, you were both just really sad, and so you didn’t move out of the house for your remaining month in San Francisco. After a lot of crying, you convinced him that both of you could pretend like nothing had changed for the next month, and that you’d act like boyfriend and girlfriend. He never really believed it, neither of you did, but you acted your parts because the alternative was too painful.

He helped you pack your belongings into the rented minivan on the day you moved, which shows how much he cared about you. He helped you pack up the life that you had shared together, even though it was one he didn’t want to end. He still helped. After everything was packed, you put your arms around each other and lay down on the bed for the last time. You were eager to leave, but it was because you didn’t have what it takes to deal with it. You cleared your mind though, and grasped the situation, because you knew there wouldn’t be one like it with him ever again.

When you said goodbye for the last time, and he watched you drive away, all you had wanted to do was fast forward. You knew that in a year, you would be healed. That you would be sure you had made the right decision and that your life wouldn’t be lived in a waiting room anymore. But instead you experienced every minute of that six hour drive. Even if you had cd’s to listen to that didn’t remind you of him and cause you to start bawling, you wouldn’t have been able to listen to them, as Elvis - your cross-eyed Siamese cat - cried loudly throughout the entire drive, and even more-so when the radio was on. So you drove in silence and talked to Elvis, and gave yourself half-assed pep talks when you felt your eyes going blurry from tears. You practiced saying “I live in Los Angeles”, but it sounded insincere.

...

The ringing of your cell phone, perched on the towel you’ve placed on the toilet beside the tub, jolts you back to reality. It’s Alie, and before she even gets the destination of where she’s inviting you to out of her mouth, you’re already accepting. You have tons of unpacking to do, Elvis is freaked out at the new place and needs your company, you have a million resumes to send out...but you don’t want to be alone, so you accept. That’s pretty much what you’re life has been like since you got back to Los Angeles. You had a brief fling with a guy that, under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have given the time of day to, but he was a nice distraction, nonetheless.

You submerge yourself under the water one last time. Your eyes are closed and the only thing you hear is the sound that the chain attached to the drain-stopper makes as it taps against the porcelain tub. Ping. Ping. Ping. You count them, and wish they each were a month passing you by.

Ping.

May is gone, and your social anxiety (an anxiety that can only be honed after multiple years as one half of a reclusive couple) starts to fade.

Ping.

June has passed, along with your birthday and the sadness of having no one to wake up next to that morning, wishing you a happy one.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

July, August, September...you’ve made close friends again, and never spend Saturday night alone at home, wondering why the hell you left behind a constant companion for this uncertainty.

Ping.

In October, you take your first trip back to San Francisco, so that he won’t be alone on his birthday. He gets drunk and yells at you...embarrasses you in front of your friends. You remember that he used to do that a lot. From your bed on the couch that night, in the apartment you once shared, you survey what used to be your home. You feel suffocated and out of place. You take the Greyhound home a day early, and spend Halloween with your friends.

Ping.

November passes quickly so that you don’t have to wallow in the misery of finding out he’s dating someone else. All the flings that you’ve had in the past six months sort themselves out, and whatever emotional attachments you thought you’d made, fade comfortably into the background.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

At each passing month, you think about where you were that time the previous year, and marvel at how much you’ve grown as a person and how much courage it took to wade through that emotional muck, never really knowing what would be on the other side. Even though you had doubted it, things really did get better within a year.

That’s all still to come, though. You pull the stopper from the drain and watch transfixed as every last drop of bathwater swirls down with an unpleasant slurp.

Georgia Hardstark is the contributing editor to This Recording. She blogs here, and tumbls here. The paintings are by Amy Bennett.

"Mystery" - BLK JKS (mp3)

"Lakeside" - BLK JKS (mp3)

"Summertime" - BLK JKS (mp3)

In Which This Is One Way To Stay Alone

How To Be Single

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Gems culled from the comments on this Jezebel post:

Don't show me your hair plug scars on a first date.

Don't tell me how many girls you fucked on your job as night manager at a hotel.

Do not ask my friend who has an artificial eye, and it's somewhat obvious, "What the hell is wrong with your eye?"

Do not say, "I kind of hate feminists."

A moonlit walk on the promenade is not the time to share your thoughts on the Holocaust being a hoax. In fact, there is no time for that ever ever ever.

Don't tell me you shave your chest and legs because "I'm a serious cyclist" and then have me feel your stubble.

Do not tell me, within five minutes of meeting me at a party, that you get 4 times as large when aroused.

Don't say, "I know women like it when men are forward. I want to take you home and fuck you." when I'm obviously not interested.

Do not tell me that you share a bed with your ex-girlfriend, whom you live with, and that your current girlfriend doesn't know.

Do not come up to me in a bookstore and tell me I have beautiful feet and you would like to photograph them.

Do not start reading the newspaper during the first date.

When hitting on someone of a different race, it's really fucking inappropriate to insist that sleeping together is really our duty, because the mixed babies would be so beautiful.

Do not ask me to tell you about my "hot lesbian encounters" when you find out I went to a women's college.

Do not say "Can I kiss you?" at all. It's creepy and it should be pretty obvious if it's okay. If you try and it's not okay I will dodge, no harm done.

Do not tell me what works on Katie. As in, "I don't know why you're not coming, it takes like two minutes with Katie."

When curious about my ethicity, do not phrase the question as "So what are you?"

Don't sit at a table full of hot women and after 5 shots of Patrón announce that you like single mothers because they're "grateful"

Do not assume because I smile and am nice to you in the workplace that I would be amenable to you accosting me in the hallway and trying to make-out. I WILL kick you in the shins AND tell our boss.

Don't tell me you never see your wife anymore.

Don't try to get me to have sex with you because you're a 22 year old virgin. Or at least, don't give me that reason.

Don't ask if my friend is hot every time I mention a friend.

At a work conference, don't show up at my hotel room door in the middle of the night with a Coleman lunch cooler full of Bud Light and ask if I want to "talk."

And absolutely under no circumstances, when I say you look familiar, do you reply you must have met me when you liked black girls.

Do not wait a full 24 hours to tell me the condom broke. Tick tock, buddy!

Don't tell me you fantasized about killing your brother as a child

Do not invite me up for a drink (while I'm waiting for a cab) and, after I tell you we aren't going to have sex, say "Oh, that isn't really how I do things."

Don't talk to me for forty minutes and then ask if my friend is single.

Do not tell me how much you miss your ex-girlfriend, but you're ready to move on with whomever because you want to be married within a year.

Don't ask me if it's a weave (it isn't). Don't insist I'm lying and ask to inspect my scalp as proof. When you discover it's really my hair, don't tell me I must be mixed to "be so dark with such good hair." In fact, don't ever use the term "good hair."

Don't ever bring me to your parents' house on the first date, where your mom will tell me that I'm going to be a great girlfriend, and then make me trudge the snow in non-snow appropriate shoes through an apple orchard to meet your father.

Do not tell me after spending the night making out that I was drunk enough that you could have raped me.

Don't tell me I could make a lot of money stripping and then rock back on your heels and smile proudly at me like you just gave me a huge compliment.

Don't tell me you usually don't date girls like me but "what the hell"

Do not invite me back to your apartment and then try to slow dance with me to Lady In Red

Don't tell me over beers that you're looking for a "cuddle buddy". Especially don't then tell me it's not about sex, you really just like to cuddle.

If we are at a party don't say, "You look really good, if I didn't just break up with you I'd hit on you."

Don't call your ex-girlfriend to tell her that you've "got a stone fox now" and "you're over her for real this time", then hang up, start crying, collect yourself, and spend the rest of the evening rhapsodizing about how wonderful she was. I can't imagine why she would dump a gem like you.

Don't ask to take a picture of me so you can put it in your blog. The answer is no.

After telling me you're a plastic surgeon, refrain from telling me my button nose is cute but I "should really lengthen it to sex up my face." and offer your services.

It won't work for you to say to me and another friend of mine, who is pretty but overweight, "I wish I could put your head on her body."

"You really look Jewish," is not a good pick up line regardless of whether I am or am not.

Don't inform me, while we are naked in your bed, that your usual "moves" won't work because I'm bigger than the other girls you've fucked.

Don't practically beg me to go to a wedding with you three months down the road on our first date. Desperate and creepy.

When I'm holding my newborn baby, don't talk about how much you love the taste of breast milk--especially when you're married to my good friend.

Don't ever say, "GIRL DRAMA!" when I'm telling you about a problem I'm having with a female friend.

Don't tell me, a tall blonde woman of northern European descent, that you are really, really into Asian woman and are on lots of websites catering to such.

Don't say, "everyone always thinks I'm gay".

Don't complain at length that your dog shits all over your house because you can't figure out how to train it, and then ask me back to your place.

Don't troll Craigslist looking for someone to have a threesome with, find someone, and give her MY NAME AND NUMBER without even telling me! I got a call last week from some woman who said my bf told her we were looking to have a threesome. I was like WTF?

Don't say "You look like a model from the side, but from the front you have birthing hips."

Don't attempt to have sex with me while pretending I'm someone else. Yes, I can tell.

Please, please do not tell the girl working at the bagel shop (me), "I hope you fuck better than you make that sandwich." Secondly, it's not a sandwich, its a bagel. Fuck.

Don't wake me up in the youth hostel to let me know I can circumsize you with my Swiss Army knife if I'd screw you afterwards.

Don't offer to share a cab home and then say there is something important for me to see in your apartment and then have it turn out that it's actually your friend's apartment and you just live in a weird, closet-type area and then try to read me a bunch of bad, depressing poetry when I'm trying to leave while telling me that you "wrote it about me and didn't even know it" and then leave a bird skeleton in a tin box outside my apartment several days later with a note: thinking of you.

Don't tell me you love me, commit to a monogamous relationship, have a discussion about not using condoms, pay for birth control pills, and then let me find out that during the ENTIRE duration of our relationship you've been fucking random men, women and trannies from craigslist (literally anyone who would have sex with you) and then coming home and having unprotected sex with me.

Don't suggest the possibility of us giving each other enemas someday soon.

Do not tell my friends when you meet them how you are going to get me pregnant. When we have sex do not tell me you are trying to get me pregnant and it's okay because your mom will raise it

Don't tell me that your baby momma is only giving you drama because she's having "dick withdrawals", 'cuz chances are, you're still fucking her.

When in the middle of a fun, flirty conversation, don't lean in and say, "it's ok, I like small tits!"

Don't show up to our first date an hour late because you had to take a shower before you came here because you were helping a friend move, then wait a minute before admitting it was actually your ex-wife. Then wait ANOTHER minute and admit she's not actually your ex-wife yet.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here.

"Smiling At Strangers On Trains" - Frank Turner (mp3)

"The Outdoor Type" - Frank Turner (mp3)

"The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" - Frank Turner (mp3) highly recommended

"Imperfect Tense" - Frank Turner (mp3)