5 Rules for Living

1. Never get into a fight with a Brazilian who is at least a foot taller than you. 

Sure you are tough. I'm sure you're really tough. Tough like a fucking horse made of nails. You asshole, you probably get drunk and then secretly talk to your girlfriend about how you could have totally taken that guy. Hey, maybe you could have, maybe among your social circles you are actually the biggest and strongest and if so good for you cause that's hot.

A 7ft tall Brazilian is not to be fucked with though. I don't care if he spits on your girlfriend. No wait, actually I do, you should totally fight him then. But with the knowledge you will lose. Because his knees will come up to your waist, and he'll just kick you over and over again until your pancreas explodes and you fall to the ground spitting blood. I could lie to you and tell you that girls will still love you if you don't get back up, and just lie there submitting. That there's another kind of nobility in admitting you can't win and getting out early. Maybe there are some much smarter more rational more evolved girl creatures out there who would still respect you. I am not one of them. If you start the goddamn fight, you better keep going until you win or you get knocked out and lie there in a pool of your own blood tinged spittle. I will respect you for trying and losing horribly. I will respect you sussing out a situation and retreating before things come to blows. I won't respect you for getting involved and then trying to back out of it once you realize you are bleeding and you might get hurt.

Which is why you shouldn't get in the fight in the first place. Or pick them very very carefully. Because people like me are horrible, but we're watching.

2. Remember the Rule of Numbers before you curse out that car who didn't use it's turn signal. 

The Rule of Numbers is that there are so many people on this planet, a very large portion of them must be pretty similar to you.

Sure, we like to complain that everyone in the world has lead poisoning, and should not be able to have children or a drivers license or vote. And yes, there are some incredibly stupid people out there. You may have met one or two of them. But they do not constitute everyone at the grocery store or everyone at your workplace. You are not smarter than everyone else. You are not in the top fifth percentile of having your shit together mentally.

I've never had a car accident. Do you know how many times I've almost had an accident though? A LOT. So when I was driving down 65th today, and this SUV braked suddenly and then turned without signaling, I had zero right to say "mother fucker" out loud. Maybe it didn't hurt anyone cause no one heard it, but maybe also I was passing through some sort of Curse Sensitive Zone in Time and Space, and my cursing unnecessarily caused an orphanage in India to collapse. WE DO NOT KNOW. What I do know is it's extremely unlikely that poor woman fucks her mother. She might be a totally fine driver every other day. Most people are, which is why we aren't all being killed in car accidents all the time and traffic is basically predictable. The majority of people are decent drivers.

There are also like 17 million cars on the road at any given time. So with that many drivers, it is almost a given that .25 of them are having bad driving days. And are going to make a small mistake, like almost passing the road they meant to turn down and having to make the turn super quickly without using their signal. Like you yourself have done twenty thousand times.

So chill out, relax, stop being so quick to completely condemn a stranger because they do one stupid thing in front of you.

But if they do it twice, kill them.

3. Do not use words that are not verbs as verbs.

For instance, the word Bone.

"But Bridget, doesn't it become a verb as soon as I decide to use it that way, and don't you agree with total creative freedom to shape language, something you are guilty of at least three times a day?"

No. I don't care if I fucking do it too, it's horrible.

Also not a verb: Workout.


4. Keep the age limits on your dating life to within 7 years of your own age. 

I don't know why 7, but it works. In my case, it would mean I shouldn't date anyone younger than 25 or older than 39. That's totally true.

Obviously you all want to argue exceptions, people who have gotten together with a guy 20 years their senior or 10 years younger than them. Whatever, I don't know those people, I don't know what's wrong with them. It's a pretty safe bet for me to say something is, because every couple is basically super fucked up in at least one way. So if I wanted to be a real dick, I could just start listing off what must be wrong with them, and like any good roadside psychic, something I throw out there will be right and correct. I'm not gonna cop out like that though. I just think if you are dating with an extreme age gap, then there is a very big separate issue happening. Rescuing, escaping, ect. Doesn't mean you don't love each other I guess, doesn't mean you can't be happy. But exceptions only work once a situation has actually happened. In the meantime, we need to speak in generalities to help ourselves out. And in general, you are not going to be happy dating someone who doesn't remember the same Saturday morning cartoons as you, or has yet to have a heating bill in their name, or whose daughter was only a year behind you in high school.

Also, the Rule of Numbers does not apply to people below 23. They are all emotional morons. It's like we were all little blind kittens until 24, 25, and then we were finally able to open our eyes to the existence of other people not just as things which feed us but actual empathetic individuals. Which means for you Oh Intrepid Philanderer, first of all, you are just sleeping with them to make yourself feel better, and second, if you really want to keep them around (sucker. SUCKER.), you are going to have to put up with at least three years of frustrating selfish stupidity before anything changes, and even then it's a crap shoot, because lots of people just suck for a long time. Sucker.

I guess this is just a very good rule for filling out an online dating profile.

5. Do not refer to the Energy of the Universe.

When people talk about the Universe's Plan for them, or tapping into the wisdom of the Universe, of becoming one with the flow of the Universe, I want to slap them. The Universe is not some soft happy ample hippie mother's bosom, which will make you tea and listen to you cry about your ex boyfriend. If that were the case, cows would be the dominant species on this planet. But they're not. We are. Because we were the best predators. The Universe prefers predators. In fact, if you wanna think of this whole God thing as the Universe, or the Universe as God or WHATEVER, and you're going with that whole Made Man in His/Her Image ect, then the Universe is the most bloodthirsty horrible leering tooth and claw creature ever and that's what we're modeled after. The Universe eats it's young, and not just cause they are sick, but because it WANTS to. It licks it's lips and tastes murder. So yeah sure, go ahead, call on the Universe for guidance. Just pray the Universe doesn't hear you, or see any sudden movements, because if it notices you it will rend you from head to toe, without even thinking about it. The Universe doesn't think, it just kills and eats. It is a monster hurtling through existence and you should just stay very very still and for heaven sakes don't TRY to get it's attention unless you have a very big gun.