Top Seven Guys Not to Date

Let me preface this by saying: I've dated A LOT of guys. Some have been good, some have been great, but some have been unbelievably terrible. This is basically a distillate of my experience. If you learn from me, hopefully you'll avoid some of the triumphantly awful scenarios that I've encountered.

1. Gay Guys

   Look, I know that we don't intentionally date gay guys. Some guys are in the closet and they want a woman on their arm so that they can look straight. It's not our fault. It is, however, our bad if there are obvious signs of gaiety that we choose to ignore. For instance, do you come home and find all your furniture rearranged? Does he love show tunes? Does he want to fix your hair? Does he drink cosmos? Are there Boyd's Bears and lots of wicker baskets? Let's face it ladies, straight guys don't do this stuff. You're lucky if you can get a straight guy's butt off the couch long enough to vacuum, much less get him to rearrange furniture. Straight guys want to MESS up your hair. Straight guys drink keg beer out of soup bowls. And Boyd's Bears, forget it. A straight guy wouldn't even be able to remember that the stuffed thing on the chair was a bear. He'd probably use it as a dog toy. All this aside, straight guys LIKE having sex with you. Even if they're not always great at girly stuff, how much of a boost to the self-esteem is it to be in bed with someone who thinks you're the hottest thing on two legs? A gay guy can't do that for you. And a gay guy shouldn't be expected to do that for you -- by you, himself, or anyone else.

2. College Professors as an Undergraduate

   As an undergraduate I dated five college professors, only one of whom I had taken a class from. College Professors are fucking hot. They're smart. They're doctors for chrissakes. But here's the problem: they don't think you're as smart as they are. Sure, they think you're cute in a precocious way, but you can't ever get into a philosophical debate without them trumping you with that bloody doctorate -- EVEN IF YOU'RE RIGHT. Because you start out unequal, no matter how far you progress in your discipline you'll always be a little lower than them because they did it before you. It's like beating someone to the top of Everest -- once you're first, you're first. They will dump you -- and once they start dating undergrads, they'll keep doing it. You'll have to deal with them selecting girls from a veritable stable of nubile Freshman. The only favor you can do them is making the breakup is onerous as possible. "Maybe that'll learn em," but I doubt it. The best bet here is to make friends, get good recommendations, and slaughter them at a future conference.

3. Bass Players (or Band Guys, Excluding Marching)

   Okay, so I have to admit right out front: band guys are a major weakness for me. I mean, they can play an instrument so that means they've got to have great fingers, right? They do. That's the problem. They've got ten of them -- one for each of the ten girls they're porking at that time. Band guys are notorious sluts. You have to watch them like a ravenous hawk, and -- even then -- a cup of coffee could turn into a menage a trois wherein the girls' names are Mandi and Sandi (this happened). They're constantly on 'the road', they're in bars, they're drinking, they're meeting other girls (some of whom are inevitably cuter than you), and it's impossible to prevent this without being Yoko fucking Ono. I'm sure there is at least one faithful bass player out there, but I have yet to meet him. He's probably gay anyway.

4. Your Immediate Family

   I have no personal experience with this one -- except for when I was twelve I had a rabid crush on my adopted second cousin. Even that flipped me out. Dude, don't date your brother. Life is not a V.C. Andrews novel. There's no backwoods cabin in the world far away enough that society won't have to deal with your idiot, lunatic, flipper kids. Have you never seen "Deliverance?" The concept of 'kissing cousins' is NOT cute. There are 8.5 billion people in the world, find someone to screw who isn't at your family reunion.

5. Gun Nuts

   Unless your idea of fun is having a loaded semi-automatic weapon waved at your head, then don't date a gun nut. Here's an actual transcript:
   
   
   Me: "You just waved a loaded fucking gun at my head! You asshole!"
   
   Him: "C'mon, baby -- the safety's on."
   
   Me: (agog) "What the fuck do you mean 'The safety's on.' Fuck the safety. Like I'm supposed to trust a tiny little fucking button to stop a hollow point from blowing my face off."
   
   Him: "What are you -- the Brady Bill?"
   
   Seriously. The problem with gun nuts is that they're nuts. Guns are weapons. They're largely constructed for the purpose of killing lots of people -- fast. Gun nuts don't see it that way. For gun guys, guns are trophies that must be stroked and displayed at every interval. They use guns to punctuate sentences. It's crazy. And there's no stopping it. You get them to buy trigger locks and a gun safe (by the way, they always put the combination and the keys in the same place), and when the Fourth of July rolls around, and your douche bag boyfriend is out in the yard (wearing only American flag boxer shorts) waving the shotgun around. There's no winning.

6. People Who Live Far Away From You

   Okay, so some long distance relationships work out great. You meet halfway, you get married, you have kids, you get some white pickets ... whatever -- most long distance relationships work out like crap. Distance sucks. It's hard not to be near the person you love. So hard in fact, that sometimes you get drunk and temporarily are with someone you don't love. The problem is that distance fosters insecurity. Women are futuristic thinkers. We constantly wonder if it'll work, and if it does, we wonder what we'll wear to the wedding (at this point white is pretty much out, right?). We also think about what will happen if it doesn't work. How badly is it going to hurt? And, take it from me, it's going to hurt. We know it. We know that it's going to hurt something awful, and because of this, we add an emotional distance to the long distance -- thus doubling the problem.  It's always best to confront issues face to face.  Distance destroys our ability to do that.  We lose body language.  We lose frequent sex.  Did you read that: YOU LOSE FREQUENT SEX.  That should be deterrent enough.

7. Weed Dealers

   Weed dealers are great. They're, like, totally mellow. They're happy. They don't hit anything other than a bong. Dogs love them. Here's the problem: it's all about the weed. Again, this is an actual transcript:
   
   "Honey, could you please put the bills in the mail slot? They have to go out today."
   
   "Sure, just let me take a couple bong hits."
   
   Bong hits before bills. And this is not the only example. It's bong hits before EVERYTHING. If you broke both your legs and were bleeding copiously out of your rectum, your weed dealer boyfriend would smoke up before taking you to the emergency room. If you can handle this -- date a weed dealer. They always have the good shit.
   
   All this advice aside, I know that the heart wants what it wants. Danger isn't going to stop you from making the same mistakes I've made. And, perhaps, mistakes aren't mistakes at all if you make them with the right person. One thing is always true, love changes people -- you learn and you grow from your experience. Dating the wrong people can sometimes lead to loving the right one. Just be careful.  Some people can't be changed.