Shit Straight Men Say: "Watch me?"

What am I, your mother???

The other day I was sitting there staring blankly at my computer (just for something different) listening to a 21-year-old girl on TikTok tell me the rules she and her partner have in their six-year relationship that keep their love strong.

As she listed the 10 rules for an allegedly flawless relationship, I didn’t bother with the counter-arguments burned into my brain. I remember being 22 and thinking some guy I pretended to really really like Native Locals for, was going to be my boyfriend eventually. I remember being 24 and thinking my actual real boyfriend (not the Local Natives guy) was going to be my future husband. I remember being 27 and thinking love was dead. I remember being 30 and finding a renewed optimism for dating and crushes before it all came plummeting down again in ghosting, orbiting, and situationships that never broke the three-four month mark. I remember being newly 33 and matching with the Local Natives guy, 10 years after our dalliance and staring at my roof thinking, “REALLY GOD? REALLY?”

I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in some sort of sick universal higher power because the next day my Spotify shuffle started playing Local Natives’ ‘Heavy Feet’ and I couldn’t help but laugh.

Back to the rules of the 21-year-old: they consisted of keeping each other’s locations on each other’s phone (“doesn’t work” I thought, because if the whole ‘if he wanted to, he would’ rule also applies to cheating); not watching porn (“seems boring”); not having a best friend of the opposite sex (“too late”); and no strip clubs because he shouldn’t be paying anyone else’s bills apart from his girlfriend’s, apparently (“in this economy?”).

All the best to them, however. Maybe she does have it sorted out at 21. Who am I to judge? At 21 I was busy interpretive dancing to ‘Africa’ by Toto at Wollongong’s Retro night before passing out face down on my goon bag.

In my latest edition of ‘Are straight men OK?’

1. “Date older”, they said…

Let this be a life lesson. I took a risk. I decided it was time to start dating older. This is a conversation with a 40-year-old man.

Watch you play? Am I your fucking mother? Grow up.

2. Questions, I have a few.

My good sir Matt, what is GOING ON HERE? Are you that scared of women just wanting a little equality? Just a tiny taste of getting a similar salary to men, for the same work? Just a sprinkling of wanting to walk home at night without getting assaulted? Is that scary for you Matt?

Don’t get me started on whatever his profile was where he set up photos with good-looking “patients”. Not sure if sad OnlyFans attempt or if the man’s ego is that big he thought it was a top-notch job. Maybe both.

3. Amity, is that you?

I’m just going to pretend it’s an Amity Affliction reference anyway. Having said that, I do like to match with people with similar music taste because I know we’d have one common interest (that common interest being “kinda fucked in the head”), but I’m unsure about this MySpace-style photo editing.

4. Deeply unwell.

When I previously said “fucked in the head” I wasn’t referring to this kind of banter FWIW.

5. This reads like a TikTok tarot girlie written by AI.

I sat on this one for a while, thinking of all the possible reasons people would be in an ethically non-monogamous platonic relationship with their soulmate.

In the end… IDK man, I think you’re maybe in a really good friendship.

6. Fair call.

Can’t argue.

7. This man’s gonna get a shock when he finds out I’ll end the year seeing the trifecta of My Chem, Paramore, and Fall Out Boy live.

Could be worse? Wait until you see my three My Chemical Romance tattoos.

I was reading a (fiction) book the other day about a woman whose marriage dissolved just before her 30th birthday and this last line jumped out at me and slapped me across the face. Which was quite rude, actually, because I was about to fall asleep.

Read us all to filth, good sis.

Until next time, friends. Stay safe, swipe left, listen to Local Natives in a bid to shave 10 years off your life, identify as feminist, don’t ask women if they want to watch you “play” etc.