From The Bottom of The Bottle

Are We Settling For The White Picket Fence?
By Jennifer M. Sabatino

We were raised to live the American dream. White picket fences. A dog in yard. A nice car in the driveway. The happy couple that spends weekends away with the kids. Anniversary vacations. The missionary position and white wine with dinner...Well what ever happend to being bent over a chair and fucking so hard you're sweating? What happened to wearing leather pants and grinding against each other so scandalously that bouncers throw you out of clubs? What ever happened to getting so drunk together you fight over who gets to puke in the toilet and who pukes in the garbage can? What happened to fighting from your gut and yelling really loud at each other over stupid shit? What ever happened to making up afterward and looking in to each other's eyes the next morning? As we get older, we give up. We settle for security over passion. Is it what we really want?

Michelle was a nieve 18 year old girl when she met Alfred. He was everything she never wanted, but had to have. He drank. He smoked pot. He was a musician. He was thin with amazing brown eyes. He was musician sexy. She was more the tan in a can black mini skirt club type. Neither one of them knew what they were in for. She was an English major. He was a music major. One day she showed him her paintings and before you knew it, he helped her find her passion in life. She found passion in him. They partied like no couple had partied before. They loved each other and fought like hell. Screaming. Yelling...fucking like rabbits. It was a rollercoaster of passion. They would walk in to a bar or a party and everyone knew who they were. Some people thought she was too hot for him. Some people thought he was too smooth for her. Somehow they made it work. He'd cook. She'd clean. They'd feed off of each other creatively.They went to concerts and threw a few of their own. They experimented with anything that came their way. They were sex, drugs, rock n' roll and romance in two beautiful bodies. No matter what went on in their relationship, they always put each other first. They were best friends. They were kinky lovers. They were nasty fighters, but he always told her "I'd run for you" and she always told him "I would for you." They were happy for years, but eventually the rollercoaster ride had to end.

Michelle wanted Alfred to get a "real job". She wanted to get married and settle down. That just wasn't him. He tried. He even asked her to marry him, but it wasn't for either of them. She was young and foolish and raised to do what everybody is "supposed to do". He wanted them to live in a flat in Brooklyn together until they "made it" as artists. When she told him she couldn't do that. He left. Never to be heard from again. Michelle was devastated for years. Nobody could replace him so she dove in to her art. She replaced Alfred with painting. Although the emptiness in her life would never seem to go away, Michelle eventually moved on. She had forgotten the passion that she and Alfred once shared. She met a simpler man.

Michelle met John one day while she was having drinks with her friends. He was a construction worker. She was an artist. He was romantic and kind. He worked very hard to give her the things he felt she needed in life. He told her that her paintings were "pretty" and told her she should get a "real job". So, she did. She didn't think anyone would ever love her again the way that Alfred did. She did love John, but in a different way. They didn't fight. They had discussions. Mostly because she didn't care enough to yell. She'd rather leave than raise her voice. Most of the time she wouldn't even talk about their problems and he was usually drinking beer or watching sports. They had "normal" sex. They went out to dinner. They looked cute together. He put her on a pedestal and she admired his genuine love for her. She knew that John was a man deserving of kindness and loyalty, honesty and security. But deep down, no matter how much she loved John, she would always miss the life she led of passion because perfect wasn't all she thought it was cracked up to be. That's why John had an unhealthy habit of porn and strippers while Michelle ended up keeping two or three various cyber lovers. Although Michelle cherished everything that John had to offer, she would never cheat on him, and she would do anything to protect his beautiful and kind heart, a part of her would always belong to Alfred.

Does this kind of passion happen so rarely? Is Michelle the only one who let go of her hopes for passion and traded them for perfection? Not really. Carly and Ned dated for quite a while in college. He was a frat boy. Drunk and everything. She was a sorority girl. Drunk and everything. They were over-acheivers. They were both insecure because of stupid shit. They rode the rollercoaster until he turned her insecurities in to a reality. When she got off the ride, she knew she didn't want to suffer again. And then, she met Larry. They were the cutest of couples. He played the role of the doting and loving boyfriend. She was the most beautiful girl he could ever have. He was the most sensible guy she would ever have. He was a stock broker. She was a slave to her cubicle. They rarely fight. Often she gets mad at him and takes out her frustrations from work on him, but deep down she has a different kind of frustration. She longs for passion and drowns herself in soap operas because she doesn't have that kind of romance in her life. She lost her passion and settled for perfection.

Nobody can determine who is the right man for either of these girls, but one does wonder if the American dream really is all that it's cracked up to be. We're not all rock stars so the wild ride has to end for most of us, but passion lasts forever. It's a love that once you experience, you can never let go. If you ever find passion, don't let it go. If you do, you might find yourself with a cyber lover, reading romance novels, eating bon bons and buying a dildo.

 

You share your food, your bed, your car, your clothes and even some unmentionable bodily fluids, but where do you draw the line? Should there be a limit to how much and how soon you should be sharing with your romantic partner? Millions of people are doing the  thing. More people are NOT getting married and even more are getting divorced. Could there be a correlation between the two?

Several studies have shown that couples cohabitate (that's the big word for live together) in order to experience a but end up doing more damage than good to their own relationships. 50% of Americans have cohabitated at one point or another, while those who have cohabitated prior to marriage are twice as likely to get divorced. The reasoning?

Apparantly, without a legal commitment, couples are less likely to make an effort in their own relationships. There is less to divide if you break up as compared to getting divorced. This also leads to a lack of emotional commitment. Couples who simply cohabitate do not feel a moral obligation that couples who are married do. The moral fiber of cohabitant relationships is much weaker than that of married couples.

Statistically, people who are married live longer. People who cohabitate are more likely to be depressed, suffer from alcoholism (ok, if you're reading the BAR ho chronicles you're probably an alcoholic already so disregard that lil so why do people live together in the first place if it sucks anyway? Well, it doesn't. You get to take the car for a test drive before you buy it, but as my grandmother always said Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?? Most couples who cohabitate might end up having kids, but don't end up getting married. Those that do, are less likely to last in their marriage for more than ten years. That throws out the whole death do us part idea and sets you up for another roommate with benefits.

Other than facts and figures, listen to your elders when making such a decision. Many people who have had long and successful marriages in to their days of becoming rotting flesh will agree that living together when you get married is part of what builds your relationship. Its a part of the relationship that makes you more tolerant of the way your pig of a man eats a turkey leg (to the bone and sucks on the meat and you know what I mean) or your nasty woman's hair sprouting from her knee caps (and other unmentionable places that you thought girls just didn't have hair morons we wax!but even then it grows back!) The little things that annoy you aren't so much of a reason to leave when you're married, but when you're not married, they are. Giving up someone you love because they squeeze the toothepaste in the middle, go a day or two without shaving or eat like a starved grizzly bear are really stupid reasons to give up someone you truly love. So before you consider cohabitation, consider how much you want your relationship to last.

Resources:

1.) Cohabitation (good for him, not for her)

(c)1995-98, 1999 By Roland H. Johnson III, The Asphalt Philosopher

Any or all of The Asphalt Philosopher may be freely duplicated electronically and transmitted across networks and the Internet if the copyright notice and this permission notice appear on all copies

2.) http://marriage.about.com/library/weely/aa052798.htm

3.)http://www.probe.org/docs/e-cohabit.html

4.) http://www.citizenonline.net/citizen/archive/article95975C50E6B841E19F4A341A98ED83CC.asp

Reasons why women really are evil....

25. They DO steal your money
24. They talk behind your friends' backs
23. They talk behind your back.
22. You can't talk behind their back.
21. They KNOW what you're doing.
20. They make you geuss what you did wrong as a
preliminary form of punishment for the crime
19. They punish you ten thousand times more than
they originally planned after you admit to
something totally different.
18. Once a month, they have an excuse to treat
you like shit.
17. You can't punch a woman for running her
mouth.
16. You can't put ear plugs in either.
15. They will try to change you and tell you
that it's for your own good.
14. If you don't turn in to the man she wants
you to be, she'll find the one who already
is, but she has to remind you of your
inferiority first.
13. They tell everyone what their pet name for
your penis is.
12. They lie about how much things cost so they
can get more of your hard earned money
11. Then they go to the dollar store and put
the change away for a rainy day.
10. They will break in to your e-mail account,
your car, your house, your office and go
to any length just to make sure that you
mean it when you say "I love you"
9. When you say "I love you" to a woman, you
have made a verbal and legally binding
agreement to purchase a wedding ring within
24 months of making such a statement
8. "I love you" also means "I own you"
7. Once you have sex with a woman, there's
always the 80/20 chance that she'll call
too much rather than never again (the odds
are usually NOT in your favor)
6. When a man stalks a woman, it's consider
psychotic. When a woman stalks a man, it's
considered "romantic".
5. When a man tells a woman her outfit is ugly,
he's being emotionally damaging. When a
woman tells a man his outfit is ugly, it's
being helpful.
4. EVERY woman lowers the actual number of men
she slept with in comparison to the number
that spews out of her mouth.
3. Her best friend DOES know everything, yours
just knows about what she looks like naked.
2. Penis size DOES matter.
1. She'll always tell you that everything
is fine just the way it is, while smiling
and meaning to say that she can't wait
until you leave so she can spend the money
she stole from your wallet on a dildo since
your dick is too small, especially in
comparison to the last guy she was with
who she never told you about because she
knew that sexually, intellectually,
financially, romantically...you would never
measure up.
WOMEN REALLY ARE EVIL!

10. You wear face cream with retinol.

He wears whatever from his bed room floor.

9. You doing bills.

Hes doing keg stands.

8. You drive a sedan.

He drives a new car.

7. He has to interpret MTV to you.

6. He's gone to work thinking he was still drunk.

You leave work to get drunk.

5. He buys clothes with labels.

You buy knock-offs on e-bay and save the labels for special occasions.

4. You want to go to Europe for your yearly vacation.

He wants to go to Cancun for spring break.

3. He drinks beer at a bar with his buddies on weeknights.

You're at happy hour on Friday.

2. Your friends are getting married.

His friends are hooking up.

1. He wants to have sex before AND after drinking.