The only relationship advice you will ever need.

November 20th, 2008. I almost killed my girlfriend.

Guys, I am about to give you the most important relationship advice you will ever receive.

 Girls love fixer uppers.

Shortly after I nearly killed my girlfriend (by accident) I was listening to John Legend’s first album today (4.5/5), minding my business, listening to the lyrics, and “Number One” came on.

During the first verse, John (Legend 6:1) tells his lady that she can’t say he doesn’t love her just because he cheats on her.  He suggests that she doesn’t fully appreciate the great lengths he goes to keep it away from her, and cites examples of things she doesn’t appreciate:

1. He keeps it out of town,
2. He erases his cell phone history, and
3. he “keep[s] it strapped up when [he] sleep[s] around.”

Then the chorus tells her that “You’re my number one. You’re my number one.” (later he says, “I said it the last time, but this is the last time.” Which is a great line and melody)

John Legend is suggesting his girl should be happy because, presumably, in his last relationship the fights were like “WHY DON’T YOU ERASE YOUR OUTGOING CALL HISTORY? COULD YOU AT LEAST WEAR A CONDOM WHEN YOU CHEAT ON ME!?!”

Holy s@#t I didn’t even realize that that was an option as far as relationship conversations.

I took a moment to think about nearly every conversation I’ve had or over-heard with girls talking about the guys they were crazy (craziest?) about.  Emphasis on crazy.

The guy is ALWAYS doing something inexcusable.

He’s cheating on her, he hits her, he sleeps with her friend, he only comes over at 2am.  He isn’t taking time away from his WIFE to call her more frequently.

I don’t know why some girls (not you) deal with it, low self esteem I guess, or maybe an abundance of spare time. But they do, they wait it out. 9x out of 10 some girls (not you) sit around trying to figure out how to fix it. They don’t notice the glowing red sign over the door.

(rhymes with fix it)

I’m a nice guy.  I’ve been told this. I’m okay with it.  I don’t cheat. I don’t lie (well, nothing significant) or any of that stuff (knock wood.  Not that wood.) Wait– How brilliant is it that I have equated being faithful to being ‘lucky’?

I’m worried that I am robbing my girl of the fixer-upper experience.

Not to say that I’m flawless.  I got flaws-a-plenty. But the inexcusable ones aren’t there, so instead of bringing me from an F to a C+, her work is to bring me from a B to an A+.   I have TOTALLY screwed myself.

Going from an F to a C+ is easy.  You just show up.  Done. C+.  Getting from a B to an A+ means you might have to do some work you just weren’t prepared to do, work that maybe you can’t do.

So, here’s the trick.  Don’t play your A game, right off the bat.  Start in at a high C+.  Give her something to complain about, and then gradually, as time goes on, revert to your real behavior, which is in the B, B+ range.

Eventually, you can just be yourself, and she gets to feel like you listen to her complaints and changed for her, which means she’ll be more inclined to change for you. Also she gets to take some pride over the fact that you were willing to grow for her, which will add legitimacy to your love, I guess.

Chivalrous? Don’t open doors.
Extremely polite? Burp and curse.
Can you cook? Pizza and pop-tarts.

The timing on when to fade in the good behavior is tricky, but it’s right around the three month mark, when the honeymoon fades and she starts noticing your ‘faults.’   It’ll be a lot of work, a lot of deception but it’ll be a lot less work than actually improving yourself.

Early on in the relationship I made the mistake of cooking breakfast for my girl.  Scrambled eggs with cheese.  I even sprinkle pepper in during the cooking process.  Her response?

“WOW! SCRAMBLED EGGS AND CHEESE!”

This was in April.

Today is November 20th, 2008.

Guess what she had for breakfast today?
Guess what her response –wasn’t-?

I don’t even know if she had a response, I was too busy hiding behind my predictability.

To my credit, I have like 2 or 3 other breakfast moves.
French Toast.
Muffins (not from scratch).
Cereal with Yogurt (I stole this move from her.)

That’s it.

Had I been smart, I would’ve started slow “Oh I don’t make breakfast for girls, that s@#t is a cliché.”  Then one day I would’ve made pop tarts.  Not nutritious, but she would’ve been grateful at the effort, and they would’ve been charming in an “aw shucks” kind of way.

Then one day I would’ve served nearly raw almost scrambled eggs. Then burnt eggs.  Then cold eggs.  Then warm eggs with LOTS of shell.  I could’ve made the “I can’t cook eggs” game last three or four months, EASILY.

Eventually? Female frustration. “Look, I’ll just do it myself.” The inevitable eye-rolling of love. Would she have liked me any less? Not a bit.  And as a perk, rather than cooking breakfast, I would have breakfast cooked for me.  A total win-win.

One month or so later? I would wake up extra early and sneak into the kitchen.  I would make a comic amount of noise in the kitchen.  Pans would clatter.  Silverware would rattle.

“What are you doing?” she would cry from the bedroom.
“Oh nothing, go back to sleep.”

I can’t sleep with all the noise you’re making she would think to herself, and roll back over in bed.

I would make even MORE noise.  I would break a glass.  I would use the blender.  I would try to get the dog to bark.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHY IS BUBBA BARKING!?” (genuine alarm and fear)

“DON’T YOU WORRY ABOUT A THING!” (cheerful as a kid)

On a background burner, a decoy burner, I would burn something. Something rotten. Something from the back forgotten corners of the fridge.

“IS SOMETHING BURN–? DI.DID YOU KILL SOMETHING? OH MY GOD BABY, JUST LET ME DO IT!” she would say, as she dragged herself from the bedroom to the kitchen, only to find…

Magically perfect eggs.

The magically perfect eggs wouldn’t be an exclamation, the would be an event.  A relationship milestone. The magically perfect eggs would be the source of phone conversation.

“I don’t know how… I mean, really Miranda, before … it was AWFUL. They were burned, or cold. One time there was more shell than there was actual egg.  But this morning out of nowhere he just made these magically perfect eggs. I know I just LOVE him. Okay, I gotta go call Andrea and Kristen…”

Sigh.  Hindsight.

Today I tried to make up for it and branch out into new territory and make a smoothie, to go with the eggs.  Frozen fruit + Orange juice, you’d think it couldn’t go wrong right?

So I served the eggs and smoothie.  A few minutes later she calls to me

“Baby what’s this blue stuff?”

We look at the smoothie and sure enough, there are bits of blue scattered throughout.  Now, keep in mind, I’d drank about half a glass of this smoothie myself, earlier, and I’d noticed something sort of hard to chew, but whatever, it can’t all be smooth in the smoothie, right? It’s smooth-ish, I couldn’t possibly have screwed it up.

Upon closer inspection there were definitely pieces of plastic in this smoothie.
We brainstormed for a little bit to figure out where the plastic came from, but couldn’t come to any real conclusion.  We decided it was from the zipper of the bag of frozen fruit.

I figured it out later when I tried to put the orange juice away in the fridge, and couldn’t, really.

My stomach feels fine, thanks for asking.

That was today, November 20th, 2008.

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