We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

I tell anyone who is ever interested that my ideal long-term romantic relationship is one in which my partner and I have separate apartments in the same building. Or in buildings across the street from each other. Or in buildings on opposite sides of town. Or in buildings on opposite sides of the state. Or in buildings in different states altogether. I have very little interest in joint cohabitation. Seriously, almost none, save for the fact that if a person had a big television and was willing to pay for premium cable and give me 70/30 ownership of the remote, then I would maybe consider it. I mean, come on. Hers and hers houses?! Such a jam. Up until now, Mavis and I have spent two years in different states and that has been a dream—95 percent of the time I can watch Love & Hip Hop without pausing every five seconds to explain the difference between Yung Joc and Lil Scrappy, I can use a spoon to cut pizza, I can sleep like a fucking starfish spread across the bed: it’s glorious. I can keep my shit together for 5 percent. I can keep the laundry folded, the dishes put away, the lumps fluffed out of the duvet, and the bathtub spotless for 5 percent of the time. 5 percent Sam buys fresh-cut tulips and displays them in stone vases; 5 percent Sam throws out the expired yogurts and keeps chilled rosé in the fridge; 5 percent Sam is the kind of person you want to live with.

But 95 percent Sam is gonna be a problem. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do about all my gross habits. My cans of Mexicorn, my seventeen Q-tips after every shower, my irregular mopping, my dresser covered with pill bottles, my cat food everywhere, my cat hair everywhere, my pile of indiscernible black laundry, my dirty Birkenstocks scattered in corners far and wide, my dinner in bed (these people sit down to breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the table and I will literally die if they expect me to do that, by the way, who the fuck eats actual lunch). How can I really hide who I am from these people who only know a sanitized version of me if they are everywhere I am, all the time? I’m gonna have to start a swear jar at work in the few months before I pack my valuable belongings into one and a half trash bags and move them to a house with children running around it. No bullshit, I gotta figure out a way to stop saying “bitch” so much before one of these shorties rolls up on me while I’m cussing Helen out for being such a vile little piece of garbage and runs away screaming to tattle on me. Every morning when that naughty, uh, scamp bites me awake at five o’clock I’m really going to have to grit my teeth and say, “Good morning, cat!” instead of “I’M EUTHANIZING YOUR BITCH-ASS TODAY, YOU FUCKING BITCH” like I normally would.

I don’t know, man. I’m just dubious of spending the majority of my awake minutes with someone I show my privates to who also needs to know how much money I am making and is keeping a mental checklist of all the times I forget to drag the recycling to the curb. And also being in a town without real bagels. People are boring and terrible. I am boring and terrible. My funny runs out, my cute runs out, my smart sometimes hiccups, my sexy wakes up with uncontrollable diarrhea. I have an attitude. And a sharp edge! I’m impatient. I like the whole bed. I hate anyone touching and moving my haphazardly arranged possessions all the time. Plus, I’m a downright horrible sharer, and I can’t guarantee that I won’t write my name on something in the refrigerator I don’t want her to eat. These quirks, if I’m being generous, have had thirty-six years to consolidate into one giant mass of “mine.” How do you get over that? Am I going to need hypnosis?!

There’s so much single-person stuff I still need time to do! And, I know, you’re all “Fuck other people?” but I’m over here like “Nah, my dude. I mean eat lunch meats rolled up in a tortilla because I don’t have any real bread while watching Jackie Brown on my laptop” or “Try on all of the lipsticks in my apartment while taking a series of poorly lit selfies I’m never going to show anyone…again.” I do so much shit I don’t want anyone else to see, or know about, that I never want to have to explain to another human being. And I want to keep doing them. I enjoy listening to the Young Turks really loud in the bathroom while I take a long shower, then spending a considerable amount of time moisturizing my various parts. This is not a bad thing, it’s not even a particularly creepy thing, but it is the kind of thing that might be weird when other people are living in your house. Waiting for that bathtub. Wondering what’s taking you so long and who your imaginary talking friends are.

I want to still have time to sit staring at the wall for hours with both my headphones and the television on, daydreaming about what I would wear to the Golden Globes, as if I’d ever have a reason to go to the Golden fucking Globes. I want to watch porn by myself, and movies by myself, and Black-ish by myself. Basically anything I ever want to see is best enjoyed alone, under a blanket, with a hot-water bottle propped against my back and no other noise whatsoever. I like to dance to MIA while I cook, if you understand “cook” to mean “make food that I sample so frequently during its preparation that the end result is already leftovers.” I can’t do that horrifying shit if I live with some foxy lady and her kids! I mean really, do you think she’s going to be supine across my freshly changed bed linens looking hot and awesome and still want to rip me out of my chonies after watching me cry for hours at videos of people surprising each other? The answer is no. No, she will not.

But I still want to do it. So does that mean this next phase is doomed? Because I can keep my apartment clean and safe and inviting for a night, for a weekend, for maybe even a week, but that day-to-day shit ain’t happening. I am obviously destined to die alone, in giant panties that come up to my chin, with half a gallon of pasta sauce I haven’t even added oregano to partially digested in my stomach, mouth frozen in a silent “Fuck.”





Thirteen Questions to Ask Before Getting Married


Mavis and I are getting married next month and she just sent me this article from the New York Times like “LOL ISN’T THIS HILARIOUS?” but joke’s on that hoe, I’ma answer this shit without telling her and put it in the fucking book. I see you, bitch.





1. Did your family throw plates, calmly discuss issues, or silently shut down when disagreements arose?


The man whose ashes I ate punched me in the face once for incorrectly washing a cast iron pan, so I guess that qualifies as “throwing plates”? But here is the thing—in my haphazard and inconsistent childhood, I was never living with any person long enough to ever establish any sort of real patterns. In the Cooper-Irby household there was no such thing as, say, Meat Loaf Mondays. Or Christmas Eve at Grandma’s. (And thank God for that because my skinny, mean grandma would’ve set a plate of sardines and grits out for Santa and embarrassed my ass because homeboy was looking for cookies.) I come from a fractured group of individuals who don’t even all have the same last name, let alone any traditions, but, once, my dad hit my mother in the head with a frying pan during an argument, so I guess that’s how we get down. Maybe you should pick fights in a room with a lot of soft stuff in it. HOLD UP, I THINK I FINALLY RECOGNIZE A PATTERN.





2. Will we have children, and if we do, will you change diapers?


HELLO, PATRIARCHY. I’m not having any babies. I want to give a smug answer about how much money and free time I have because I still don’t got kids (so much, so so much, and if you don’t get that reference go do your googles), but let’s talk about my real fears when it comes to my parenting a child.





2a. I pretty much stopped learning things after high school.

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