I Had a Nice Time And Other Lies...: How to find love & sh*t like that (26 page)
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Authors: The Betches
You may think that a guy being extremely wealthy should void this rule, but it’s quite the opposite. Paying for random things shows that you’re not just using him for his money. You genuinely enjoy his company, and the fact that he’s really rich is just a
total necessity
nice perk.
On the flip side, if you’re in college and you have a boyfriend who doesn’t make his own money (which most college-aged guys don’t), you should pay for half most of the time because you’re both poor as fuck and those Barton shots aren’t buying themselves.
“Someone gave me the
Love Languages
book, and that has been the best book I’ve ever read about relationships and has helped me the most.”
—Kristin Cavallari
All this talk about the men always paying for shit does not mean your relationship is not equal. You simply bring a nonmonetary type of giving to the table. People have different ways of expressing how much they care
about others and have different expectations of how someone should show them they love them. Gary Chapman’s
The Five
Love Languages
basically says that there’re five ways that people show that they care about someone they love: Gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and physical touch.
Most betches appreciate gifts but like, we also like to be told how amazing we are. But if a guy is showing you he loves you by buying you that Chanel bag you’ve been eyeing for like, forever, you need to reciprocate with something that you know he loves, which usually isn’t money unless he’s Kanye. Read the handy chart below and then act accordingly.
His “Love Language” (barf) | What You Should Do |
Gifts | Surprise him by buying his favorite cologne (which is a gift for you, too, fucking duh). |
Quality Time | Skip your girls’ dinner to be with him when his dog dies. |
Words of Affirmation | Tell him he looks so fucking hot before you guys leave for a party. |
Acts of Service | Pick up dinner and walk his dog if he’s super busy at work. |
Physical Touch | Play with his hair while you guys watch TV. The occasional not-on-your-period blow job also never hurt anyone. |
You should always be giving 50/50 in a relationship, so if you want the thoughtfulness and gifts, maybe he wants the time. If you’re going to be draining this guy’s bank account, you need to show him you care in other ways that he can’t get from anyone else. If you don’t, then you’re fucking useless—what are you bringing to the table? No one wants to be with someone who spends their money and treats them like shit. Even Britney Spears eventually came around to this fact.
After you’ve been with your boyfriend for a long period of time and like, your lease is up, it’s pretty standard to wonder whether or not you want to move in with him. But it’s tricky. The moment you move in with your boyfriend is the last moment you will ever really be alone. Which as a confident, independent betch naturally sends you into a fear and anxiety spiral.
Does that mean I can’t walk around in my period shorts anymore? Will my armpits always have to be shaved? Will I never be able to fart in the comfort of my own bed? Wait a minute,
will I forever have to pretend I’m taking a shower every time I take a shit? What if I have Chipotle!??!?!
The fucking horror.
We meannnnnn, yes, all of the above are true. The essence of moving in with someone is losing the freedom of doing whatever you want whenever you want. The goal is to find someone who loves you for you and doesn’t resent you for watching
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
marathons all weekend or wearing the same bra for two weeks straight.
When you are contemplating moving in with someone, it reminds you that this is supposed to be forever. The last time you have your own bed. The last time you can reasonably expect him to not see what’s under the bathroom sink. Everything will be “ours.” Your life will be completely exposed to the person whose opinion you care most about. It’s some intimidating shit. But everyone who’s ever been married or cohabitated has done it. So either the vast majority of every person who has ever lived has fucking lost it or they did it when they knew the sacrifices were absolutely worth it.
So you’ve thought about it and decided this guy is worth having to mingle your dirty clothes in one hamper. Here are some guidelines when moving in with your boyfriend:
Rule 1: Do not move into a studio.
In the rare case that you are extremely easygoing and don’t care about someone constantly being in your space 24/7, this may work for you. Consolidate your clothes and rent storage space. For the rest of us normal people, living in one room with another person—even if that other person is Ryan Gosling—sounds
like Hell. When you have a fight, where do you go to calm down? The closet? On a more positive note, if you can survive living in one room with your boyfriend you can probably get through almost anything.
Rule 2: Decorate with him in mind.
Every guy thinks he has “style.” Unfortunately their style is less “comfortably chic” and more “on sale at Target.” As long as you let him install his video game console on the big TV, you’re allowed to decorate the apartment to your standards. You can make it girly as long as you don’t cramp his “style.” Which means you can use your pretty throw pillows, as long as your couch isn’t hot pink.
Rule 3: Don’t beg for a ring.
Just because you live together doesn’t mean you are automatically engaged. A guy moves in with a girl to see if it’s the right fit. So should you. If you’re a mature betch, you will have marriage conversations when you both are ready, not every time
My Best Friend’s Wedding
is on TNT. In most cases, moving in is a big enough step for a guy that he needs a little time to process it before getting ready for the next stage. For women, we like to think ahead and think about the future so we get excited about getting engaged, especially when one of our friends does. Don’t Emotionally Masturbate your way to the next stage and forget to enjoy the low-pressure “living together” phase. Listen to that poster on your loser coworker’s wall and Keep Calm and Carry On, taking every day as it comes. Once you both have had extensive, naturally timed talks about getting married
and are obviously on the same page, then the betchiest way to hint at getting engaged without ruining the surprise is to take a screenshot of the exact ring you want with specs and save it on his bathroom iPad. He’ll thank you later.
Rule 4: Be coy about your bathroom habits.
This is a big one for women. Boys say that girls don’t shit or fart, but you don’t want to live with a little boy. Your boyfriend, a mature bro, might also say it as a joke, but he obviously knows that betches go to the bathroom. It’s a fact of life. Just be coy about it. Go when he’s distracted, turn on music or something, leave some spray or candles in the bathroom. Do not, under any circumstances, leave the door wide open. So, if you’re good about it and he still says
ew
or
gross
and is serious, remind him your ass doesn’t exist for the sole purpose of allowing him to keep alive the hope to one day stick his dick in it. And honestly, no guy will ever be like,
Well we moved in together, but I just couldn’t handle her gas.
So keep eating that quinoa, betch, it’s good for you.
The moral of the moving-in story is that you never know how much you hate someone until you live with them. You get to see how they handle life from day to day. You begin to learn and gauge what you’re willing to put up with and do to make your relationship work. It’s really about meshing and putting in equal amounts of effort, and is the start of you two making decisions as a couple. So if his open-door dumps and coaster-less parties are bothering you two months in, this isn’t looking good for your future.
If you ever have to give an ultimatum, it means that you and your boyfriend are not on the same page, which means you are probably on the verge of a breakup. Let’s say you’re with a bro for six years or so, and you’re ready to get married, and when you bring it up you learn that he simply isn’t. What do you do?
Will he ever be ready? Did you waste six fucking years on this commitmophobe? Am I really going to be thirty-one and single again? SERENITY NOW!!!
The truth is, if you give this guy an ultimatum, as in “marry me or it’s over,” the only way to a future of marital bliss is through breaking up. Because basically, you just threatened him, and if he proposes you’ll always know he’s just doing it because he’s scared of you, not because he wants to wife you up. He will resent you for it. But if you break up, there’s a chance he’ll realize that he needs you in his life and will come running with a (big) ring. In this scenario, the proposal will be his choice, and it won’t result in bitterness. However, if you break up and he doesn’t come after you, it’s going to be fucking depressing, but you’ll have to remember that this bro didn’t want to marry you anyway so the more time you stayed together the more and more hard boiled your eggs would have become.
To avoid giving ultimatums, you should discuss with your boyfriend how you both feel about marriage beforehand. Like,
years
beforehand. When you want to get married. How many kids you want to have. Blah blah. Get all the boring shit out of the way in the beginning, so you aren’t totally shocked when it matters the most.
Even though
He’s Just Not That Into You
is a dumb fucking movie that at first teaches valuable dating lessons, but in the end regresses into a romantic comedy to which pathetic girls can Emotionally Masturbate with a tub of frozen yogurt, it has one redeeming story line: Jen An giving Ben Affleck an ultimatum, to which he says no, so she leaves him. After some time Ben comes after her with a stupid laundry khaki pants (ew) proposal that we would never really go for. Anyway, the point is that he would have never done it if she had stayed with him, and she would never have been that happy if he’d reluctantly agreed to marry her in the first place.
And despite that they both agreed to never get married when they just started dating (yes we’re still going on about this movie), we all know Jen An was lying to herself and just thought,
Whatevs, he’ll prob change, I’ll “just go with it.”
(Yes that is also the title of another romantic comedy Jen An happens to be in and irrelevant to this point. Hollywood, stop pigeonholing Jennifer!) The reason, though, why her ultimatum resolved positively is because it’s a dumb fucking movie.
Don’t expect a guy to change. If, a year into the relationship, he tells you he doesn’t want to get married or says that he doesn’t believe in monogamy, run as fast as you can. Yeah it’s
possible
he doesn’t realize he wants to marry you yet and will realize it after five more years together. But it’s more probable that time will go on and he’ll be comfortable with the fact that you stayed despite his feelings. If you want to get married, your boyfriend should at least have it on his radar for the future. If not, say
bye bitch,
and move on.
Does the Guy Just Know? by Head Pro
Imagine, if you will, a recently engaged couple. The bride-to-be beams brightly as friends and loved ones clamor for her hand, as though they are the concert crowd and she is Justin Bieber. Meanwhile the groom smiles sheepishly, trying to avoid showing too much emotion while his buddies offer him “wink-wink-nudge-nudge” congratulations, which are frankly pointless in 2016 because by now the couple has had sex more times than they can count.
Then, it happens. One of the girls breaks out of her betrothal fever dream to approach the groom. After some surreptitiously judg-y praise for his choice of ring, you see the look on his face emerge. His bashful smile evolves to a grimace, as if someone had begun to slowly drag his ball bag across a cheese grater. You know that she has just asked the question men everywhere dread: “How did you know she was the one?”
Guys hate this question, because the truth is that, yes, guys do “just know.” But most guys hate admitting it, because paradoxically it makes us look like we’re hiding something. People want to believe that everything in life (things they want but don’t have, specifically) are the result of some “secret” they haven’t yet stumbled upon. A fulfilling career. A hot, sexy body. A functional golf swing. And, yes, a blissful relationship.
That’s why people probe for more information when guys say, “I dunno, I just did.” “Well, how long have you been
together?” they ask. “Where did you meet? Where was your first date?
When
did you know?” Something, anything to get him to spill the beans as to how this couple is so happy and the asker is still a lonely loser.
The truth is that there is no secret, no “engagement chicken” you could cook, no cool trick you could do with your tongue that will compel a man to spend the GDP of a small nation on a compressed piece of carbon. We just know. Obviously, compatibility and general happiness play a part. So do the little things: How well do you rebound from fights? Are you fine hanging out doing nothing, in silence? Are you still happy to see her long after the hormonal puppy love has died down? Age and maturity matter, too. A guy can be over the moon for you at twenty-two, but if he’s just not ready to get married, he’s never popping that question. Change twenty-two to thirty-two for some guys, and the answer remains the same. Everyone’s different.
Basically, it’ll happen when it happens. Just don’t ask him how he knew if you won’t be satisfied with “idk” as an answer.
The best part of the whole getting married thing is definitely getting engaged. A) You get a new amazing, shiny ring to wear with every single outfit. B) You have an excuse to throw several parties. C) You don’t have to worry about not getting married
someday. D) Soon you’re going to have like, a backup bank account. Ugh so fun.
