Fuck Fish! Fish Are Bad Pets.
Miss your doomed, inattentive exboyfriend? Get a tank of fish instead.
Hi Molly.
I’m dating a guy who is very good looking, 3 years younger, has ambition career wise, wants a family, has a ton of friends, accepts me for me, protects me, loves my family, calls me all the time, thinks I’m the hottest thing and is very mature.
The problem is when we hang out I’m not intrigued by the conversation.
My mind is on the last guy I dated: 44 (10 years older), doesn’t want kids, still has student loans, bald, and not as attractive. But I am still in LOVE! He was so funny, the convo was great, he always wanted to go out and have fun! He treated me well! The sex was amazing! He told me he loved me.
He wanted to be my boyfriend but then I said (stupidly?) “ Well, if we are going to be exclusive I think we should make sure were on the same page. I want kids.” At first he said “I’m not letting you go!”
Then he backed off. No more I love yous, nor insisting we’d be exclusive. I felt/feel hurt. It’s hard to be intimate with my new boyfriend. I can’t stop thinking about the 44 year-old.
What do I do? Do I dump my current boyfriend and wait for a guy I feel a spark with?
Need a Spark
Dear Need a Spark,
Sparks sparks sparks. Everybody loves sparks. Everybody loves their inattentive exboyfriend more than their devoted current boyfriend. Polly says it’s a veritable epidemic. But she says that about everything.
It’s all so boring and aggravating, honestly. I’m having one of those days where I feel like there’s no time for anything. I wake up and I’m already falling behind. I wake up and I think “Now don’t hate on yourself for not getting up early, you’re just tired,” but my brain still says “You lazy motherfucker.”
So I go make some tea. It’s not helping much. Then I go into my kid’s bedroom (Yes I’m married I have kids, I lied before because I’m evil, remember?) and I open the curtains and that’s when I notice that there’s a dead fucking fish stuck to the filter in the fish tank.
Fuck fish forever. Fish are not pets. The worst thing about kids is the fact that they believe it will be cool and fun to bring small doomed animals into your house, just so they can die in surprising new ways every few weeks. Said doomed animals will stay alive just long enough for you to learn all of their FUCKING NAMES. And then, once you care a tiny bit about Bingo and Vincent and Ralph and Dorothy and Ping, they’ll die one by one. You will feel sickened and saddened by these losses in spite of your best intentions not to.
And in the afternoon, your kid will walk in the door and you will say SURPRISE YOUR FRIEND VINCENT IS DEAD. And then you’ll watch your nice little kid cry her eyes out. And you’ll feel shitty about it. Very, very shitty. More shitty than you want to feel, ever.
You’ll probably also do the wrong thing and flush Vincent down the toilet so your kid will be upset about Vincent’s death and upset about Death in General and also upset that you didn’t follow proper corpse removal protocol and now Vincent will be damned to roam the spirit world as a ghost without a home. Vincent will haunt you and your child for not giving him the appropriate last rites that he fucking deserved, that were his fucking right as a sentient fucking being.
These mistakes will be swarming through your head the next time another friend is floating upside down or swimming in doomed upside-down circles or whatever. It will get to the point where you can’t even go in there and glance at the fish tank anymore.
But then one day you will go in and you will look and you will see something Very Bad. A fish, stuck to the filter, withered and dead and sad and upside down, of course of course. You will not pull the fish off the filter, that’s too much to bear. Instead you will call your fucking husband who is out walking the dogs. He will not answer, of course he won’t. You will think, “I cannot personally remove Arlene from this tank, and yet Arlene is imperiling these other doomed friends who live here.”
You will pace and curse. You will call again. You will leave various text messages of decreasing length and increasing urgency on your husband’s phone. You will wonder if your husband is unable to hear or incompetent. You will remember that he is both.
Then, you will get in your car like a crazy person and drive the route your husband walks with the dogs. You will pull up next to him, and beep the horn as you do so. He will think something important has happened, something bigger than Arlene falling ill and dying. Then he will not know who Arlene is when you say the name Arlene. This will add insult to injury. You will yell. You will feel embarrassed that you’re yelling even as you’re yelling.
Your husband will say “Don’t yell at me! I don’t like fish either! I hate fish!”
You will say, “I’m sorry, I know, fuck fish! But I can’t think about this or talk about it again. YOU have to deal with the whole fucking thing, because I can’t take it, I already feel like I have no time today to do fucking anything, and now I’m all fucked up over this fucking fish!”
Your husband will say, “Ok, I guess I’ll come home and deal with it right now.”
You will think about this for a second. Then you will say, “No, that’s ok, finish your walk. You can just…. deal with it when you get home. I’m sorry.”
Your husband will say, “Alright, I’ll do that. Sorry, honey.”
You’ll say, “It’s fine. Whatever. Have a nice walk.”
Then you’ll drive away feeling a tiny bit better, and you won’t think about Arlene again for at least a few hours. You’ll drink your tea and get some shit done instead.
And why will you get some shit done and stop thinking about Arlene? Because you married a guy who is very good looking, has ambition career wise, always wanted a family, has a ton of friends, accepts you for you, protects you, loves your family, thinks you’re the hottest thing, is very mature, and also is unable to hear and incompetent.
Maybe there is no spark with the guy you mentioned. Sparks are admittedly important. Maybe he truly has nothing at all to say. Or maybe you have trouble loosening up around someone who pays close attention to you. Maybe you never have much to say when you’re with someone who really, really likes you. Maybe people who like you a lot make you very, very nervous. Maybe you would rather be ignored.
Maybe you prefer funny old doomed animals to real human beings.
Have a magical day!
Molly
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