Guide To Marriage And/Or Sex Read online

  Guide To Marriage And/Or Sex

  Dave Barry

  Dave Barry.

  Guide To Marriage And/Or Sex

  Introduction

  Marriage is a wonderful thing. Everybody should get married unless he or she has a good reason not to, such as that he or she is the Pope. I personally have been married two times that I know of, and you don’t hear me complaining.

  What’s the secret of a happy marriage? Call me a romantic if you want, but for me, the answer is the same simple, beautiful idea that has been making relationships work for thousands of years: separate bathrooms. You give two people room to spread out their toiletry articles, and you have the basis of a long-term relationship. But you make them perform their personal hygiene activities in the same small enclosed space, year in and year out, constantly finding the other person’s bodily hairs stuck on their deodorant sticks, and I don’t care how loving they were when they started out. I don’t care if they were Ozzie and Harriet. They’ll be slipping strychnine into each other’s non-dairy creamer.

  Of course even an ideal marriage, even a marriage where the bathrooms are 75 feet apart, is going to have a certain amount of conflict. This is because marriages generally involve males and females, which are not called “opposite sexes” for nothing.

  Why Men and Women Have Trouble getting Along

  At the risk of generalizing, I would say that the basic problem can be summarized as follows:

  WHAT WOMEN WANT: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held.

  WHAT MEN WANT: Tickets for the World Series.

  So we can see that men and women do not have exactly the same objectives in mind. Which is why, as a rule, the only time you see two people of the opposite sex who have achieved true long-term stability in a marriage is when at least one of them is in a coma.

  This is strange, when you think about it. I mean, look around at the other species. Most of them are much stupider than humans are, not counting humans who pay to watch automobile races, yet they have their male-female relationships all worked out. Take squids. Squids may have tiny little brains, but they know exactly how to have relationships. The female squid goes into heat at exactly the right time, and all the male squids come around and wave their tentacles in exactly the most attractive way, and she picks out the one with the biggest suckers, or whatever and they mate. And they know exactly how to mate, the same way that squids have been mating for 46 million years, without any kind of formal instruction whatsoever.

  Wouldn’t that be great? I don’t mean having sex with a squid. I don’t recommend that unless you get truly desperate (see “The Singles Scene,” in Chapter 1). I mean having everything all worked out between the sexes; having a procedure, where everybody knew what to do and what to expect, and nobody ever felt guilty or inadequate.

  Yet here we are, humans, the most sophisticated species on Earth, having evolved over the course of millions of years to the point where many of us have satellite dishes on our lawns, and we have less savvy, in terms of our relationships, than invertebrates.

  People say: “Well, if you want a marriage to succeed, you have to work at it.” And I say: Why? It isn’t fair! The other species don’t have to work at it! They don’t even have to think about it! Can you imagine a female snake agonizing about why a male snake never pays attention to her? Or a male cockroach nervously asking a female, after sex, if it was Good for her? Of course you can’t! Cockroaches can’t talk! But you know what I mean. I mean we have a problem here.

  To date, the efforts to solve this problem have consisted mainly of articles in women’s magazines, the ones that always have the following general lineup of articles:

  21 Fun Drapery Possibilities

  5 Common Mascara Blunders

  10 Quick and Easy Mayonnaise-Based Entrees

  14 Ways to Tell If Your Child Is Shooting Up

  11 Exciting Pudding Concepts

  6 New and Extremely Dense Chocolate Desserts

  147 Weight-Loss Ideas

  Somewhere in there they always have an article with a title like “12 Tips for Getting Some Quantity of Romance Back into Your Marriage,” featuring advice such as: “TIP NUMBER THREE: Try not to blow your nose during sex.”

  These articles are fine, except for one thing: Men don’t read them. Men read the sports section, or action adventure novels where the main characters are males who relate to each other primarily via automatic weapons. True, sometimes there are women in these novels, but only for the purpose of having firm breasts.

  Clearly what is needed is some kind of book that women and men would want to read, a book that could bring the sexes together and help them reach some common ground by means of a straightforward, common-sense discussion of all aspects of finding the right mate, falling in love with this person, getting married, and living happily ever after. This was exactly my goal, when I set out to write this book. Unfortunately, as you’ll see, I failed completely, but what the hell—you already bought the book, so you might as well read it.

  A Thoughtful Word of Advice Before You Get Started

  You cannot have a successful relationship just by reading this book. For a relationship to succeed, both parties must be willing to work. Work, work, work, that’s the key. Endless, constant, extremely difficult, unpaid work. More work than is involved in the construction of major bridges and tunnels. I am getting very tired just thinking about it.

  Also there will be hard times along the way. Awful times. Terrible, horrible times. That is why this book includes helpful advice such as in Chapter 3, where we talk about adding zip to your sex life via Saran Wrap and other common household products, and also how to recognize the warning signs that your spouse is having an affair, and what kind of gun you should buy.

  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First you have to meet somebody.

  Chapter 1. How To Find Somebody To Go On Dates With And Eventually Get Married To Who Is Not A Total Jerk

  In getting into the field of marriage, one very important decision you must make is who, exactly, will be your spouse. I am not saying this is the most important decision. It is certainly not as important as selecting the right wedding caterer (see Chapter 6, “How to Have a Perfect Wedding No Matter What”). But you should definitely give it some thought.

  To know where to look for a marriage partner, you need to know what kind of person you want. For example, if you want to meet a person who likes to bowl, you would go to a bowling alley; whereas if you want to meet a person who is rich, sensitive, attractive, and intelligent, you would not. So your first step is to scientifically develop a “psychological profile” of your Ideal Mate.

  How to Develop A Psychological Profile of Your Ideal Mate

  Choose the phrase that you feel best completes the sentences below:

  Wealth

  The person I wish to have for a mate should be able to afford:

  1. Scotland.

  2. Occasional dinners out.

  3. Underwear.

  Sensitivity

  The person I wish to have for a mate should be sensitive enough to:

  1. Instantly be aware of my every mood.

  2. Swerve to avoid driving over pedestrians.

  3. Not deliberately back up and run over pedestrians a second time.

  Personal Appearance

  The person I wish to have for a mate should be attractive enough to:

  1. Be a movie star.

  2. Be a movie star’s accountant.

  3. Be a movie star’s accountant’s intestinal parasite.

  Intelligence

  The person I wish to have for a mate should be smart enough to:


  1. Discuss great works of literature.

  2. Hold great works of literature right side up.

  3. Differentiate between great works of literature and food.

  HOW TO SCORE: Add up the numbers corresponding to your answers, then check the chart below.

  1 through 8 Married to somebody else.

  9 through 15 Engaged to somebody else.

  16 in prison.

  Okay! Now that you have a good idea of what you’re looking for, it’s time to get out and join ...

  The Singles Scene

  The Singles Scene is located in bars that are so dark and loud it’s impossible to see or hear anybody else. You can meet, fall in love, and get engaged without ever getting a clear view of the other person, which can lead to a situation where you arrive at your wedding, with all your friends and relatives, and you discover that you are betrothed to a cigarette machine. (Which actually may not seem like such a total disaster, once you find out what else is available on the Singles Scene.)

  To avoid this kind of embarrassment, you should do what other smart singles do: Before you sit down, go around the room discreetly shining a police flashlight into the other singles’ faces. Once you have selected a likely looking one, you should sit down near this person and get into a spontaneous conversation.

  How to Get into A Spontaneous Conversation

  In the old days, the way people got into conversations was the woman would take a cigarette out of her purse and pretend to look for a match, which was the signal for six or seven available lurking men to lunge toward her, Zippos flaming, sometimes causing severe burns.

  Smoking, however, has pretty much lost its glamor, to the point where trying to get a strange male to light your cigarette in public would be viewed as comparable to trying to get him to pick your nose. Which is a shame, really, because men are deprived of the chance to feel bold and masculine and necessary in the hostile bar environment. It would be nice if we had a modern bar-meeting ritual. Like maybe the woman could come in with a jar of relish, and she could sit there pretending she couldn’t get the lid off, and the man could come along and offer to help, and soon they would be engrossed in a fascinating conversation. (“Are you fond of relish? Huh! I am fond of relish myself!”)

  But for now, we are stuck with the system where one party has to boldly walk right up to the other party and, with no real excuse, attempt to start a conversation. At one time this was strictly the man’s responsibility, but now, what with Women’s Liberation, it is still strictly the man’s responsibility.

  Men, this is nothing to be nervous about. After all, why do you think the woman came to a singles bar, if not to meet a guy like you, only smarter and more attractive? So go to it!

  The trick is to know some good “opening lines” that are guaranteed to get a woman’s attention and make her realize you are a caring and sharing kind of guy who has things on his mind such as international politics and great literature, and who doesn’t just want to grope her body.

  Some Good Opening Lines

  * “How about those problems in the Middle East?”

  *”How about those Brothers Karamazov?”

  * “I don’t just want to grope your body. I mean, not here in the bar.”

  What the Woman Should Do If She Is Not Interested

  She should attempt to fend the male off via one of the following gently tactful yet firm statements:

  * “Haha HA HA HA (cough cough cough) (spit).”

  * “I’m sorry, but I just washed my hair.”

  * “I’m sorry, but unfortunately you hold no more physical attraction for me than those photographs you sometimes see of a cold virus magnified several million times.”

  If subtlety doesn’t work, if the man turns out to be the type who views himself as such an extreme Stud Muffin that he cannot imagine a woman who would not want to conceive a child via him, then the woman should take a more direct approach, such as Mace.

  Meeting People through Personal Ads

  These are those little paid advertisements that people take out in magazines or newspapers. A lot of people laugh at these ads, but in fact this is the way top stars such as johnny Carson and Joan Collins get most of their spouses.

  If you want your ad to be effective, however, it must have certain characteristics:

  1. It should say you are profoundly attractive. Nobody in the personal ads, nobody, is ever “average-looking.” If, for example, you had Elephant Man’s Disease, you would describe yourself as “rugged.”

  2. It should be extremely specific. For example, if you’re a man, you don’t just say you’re looking for “a nice woman.” You say you’re looking for

  “a 5’8” 23-year-old blonde Capricorn woman of Croatian ancestry weighing

  109 pounds and having a degree in cultural anthropology from Duke University.” This lets everybody know you are in a position to pick and choose, and not some semi-desperate schlump who has to advertise for dates.

  3. It should say you like “candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach.” All personal classified ads contain this phrase, not because anybody really wants to take long walks on the beach, but because people want to prove they’re Romantic and Sensitive. The beaches of America are teeming with couples who met because of personal ads, staggering along, sweating, and picking sea-urchin spines out of their feet, each person afraid to reveal to the other that he or she would rather be watching a rental movie.

  Meeting People Through Clubs and Organizations

  Often it seems that the happiest marriages are the ones where the man and the woman share an interest in a hobby, like bass fishing. Because of this shared interest, such couples can pass countless intimate hours together, talking bait, plus they can use their vacation time to go on long fishing trips to secluded wilderness areas where they will find time to just be alone together, hour after hour, day after day, on some scum-encrusted, mosquito-infested lake, totally alone, until finally one of them disembowels the other with a scaling knife.

  To get into a relationship like this, you need to develop an interest, preferably one that does not involve sharp implements, and go hang out with other people who have the same interest. Let’s say, for example, that you have an interest in cats. Now I, personally, cannot imagine having any interest in cats other than to find out what happens when you submerge them for various lengths of time in roofing cement, but I am sure there are lots of formal pro-cat organizations in your area, which you could locate by asking a police officer. Go to their meetings and survey the crowd until you find a likely prospect to strike up a conversation with (“Hi! I see we share an interest in cats! Perhaps we should get married!”).

  If this doesn’t work, you might try stamp collectors, or one of your major churches.

  Meeting People at the Office

  If you get an office job, you’ll be involved in a serious relationship within a matter of days. This is the good news. The bad news is, this relationship will probably involve a person who is technically already married to somebody else. This is because, to a married person, the office is a highly romantic environment, where everybody wears nice clothes and discusses important issues such as the Three-Month Sales Forecast, in stark contrast to the home environment, where people tend to wear bathrobes with jelly stains on them and get into vicious day-long arguments over who put the ice tray back in the refrigerator with a dead roach in it (see Chapter 8, “How to Argue Like a Veteran Married Couple”). So the office becomes essentially a large, carpeted pit of illicit passion, where at least two-thirds of the activity is related to motel arrangements.

  Whatever method you use to meet somebody, your next step is to go on a number (174) of dates so you can get to know what this person is really like.

  Tips for Gals: 13 Common First-Date Warning Signs That a Guy Might Be a jerk

  1. He brings his mom.

  2. He smells bad.

  3. He smells a little too good.

  4. He proudly carries the American
Express Platinum Card.

  5. He periodically blows his nose elaborately into a handkerchief, then folds it up carefully and puts it back into his pocket as though it was some kind of valuable artifact.

  6. He wants to take you to a hockey game.

  7. He wants to know if you know how to clean fish.

  8. He always calls the waitress “Sweets.”

  9. He manages to let you know how much money he makes by some contrivance such as pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket and saying: “I’ll be darned! Here’s my W-2 form!”

  10. He wears wing-tip shoes when he doesn’t have to.

  11. He has pictures of his car.

  12. He has a personalized license plate on his car.

  13. He has motivational cassette tapes in his car.

  Dating

  “Dating” simply means “going out with a potential mate and doing a lot of fun things that the two of you will never do again if you actually get married.” Dating is a very important part of the mate-selection process throughout all of nature. Some sectors of nature, such as insects, date for only a few seconds; birds, on the other hand, perform an elaborate Dating Dance. In fact, dancing is all that birds can do, because in order to make it possible for them to fly, they cannot have sexual organs, which is why we have to import flocks of new birds from Canada every year.

  Human beings dated as far back as ancient times, as is shown by the biblical quotation: “And Balzubio DID taketh Parasheeba to a restaurant, and they DID eateth potato skins.” The next recorded date was between Romeo and Juliet, a young Italian couple who went out despite their parents’ objections, and just about everybody involved ended up either stabbed or poisoned.