THE 4TH NATURAL LAW: LOVE

You don’t know Jack Crap. That’s why I’m here.

I want you to think of the worst couple you know personally. You know, the couple that constantly fights in public. The couple in which one of the members cuts the other one off from all of their friends and refuses to share them with anyone. The couple in which the guy abuses the girl, talks down to her, or walks all over her, and the girl rolls over and takes it.

Did you think of them? Can you see them in your mind? Of course you can, because you see them WAY more than you ever want to. You have to suffer through their horrible life choices on a regular basis, and you’re always wondering how anyone could be so lame or stupid.

Now I want you to think of the person you’ve had that crush on for-freaking-ever. Why do you like them? Do you even KNOW anymore!? Why can’t you figure out how to quit them!?

This is a disease to which no one is immune. It is a disease of the soul, a handicap of the heart.

4TH NATURAL LAW: OUR LOVE IS BROKEN.

ksc,sncWe all have needs. It always starts innocently enough. Maybe one of us has a strong desire to take care of someone. Maybe one of us wants to date someone with a strong, passionate personality. Maybe one of us wants to feel intimacy at a level they’ve never before been able to achieve. There’s really nothing wrong with wanting these things. It takes all kinds of personalities to make the world go ‘round, and that’s totally beautiful and stuff, but these folks end up finding people with the most extreme examples of these qualities, and that’s when they become enablers, or whipped/battered, or teen-pregnant, respectively.

And the worst part of our brokenness is that there’s nothing you can do to help your friends who are suffering through it. They’ll never listen to you. They LOVE that awful person, and they’ll keep dating that awful person because that person’s behavior so perfectly fills a need, like an overdose of medicine. The only way anyone can hope to break free is from within. They have to realize how unhealthy the relationship is on their own, and that usually only happens after a tragic or traumatizing life event (i.e.: The person cheats; Someone dies).

So, if YOU have a friend who’s always cleaning their abusive or manipulative significant other’s apartment, don’t try to tell them they’re living their life in the worst possible way. Just pray something terrible happens to them. Because you’re a good friend.

Or maybe the rapture will happen and we won't have to deal with it anymore! YAY, RAPTURE!!!

RULE 14: KNOW THYSELF (And Everyone Else)

Tonight’s rule comes from my third favorite character in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (right behind George Carlin and Napoleon): Socrates. Although he was not of noble blood and had no handicap preventing him from working, this humble Grecian spent the majority of his time basically putzing around Athens and talking to people. What made him awesome and not a bum was his innate ability to call B.S. on people. His favorite target was a league of debaters called Sophists who taught people how to win arguments through rhetoric rather than through actually being right. Socrates thought this was dumb. He set out to make every Sophist in Greece look like a total tool by debating with them until they exposed their core beliefs (which were usually pretty Weak Sauce). He was so dang good at this that the Sophists eventually put him on trial for “corrupting young people’s minds”. When found guilty and forced to choose between death and exilation, he chose death.

Why? ‘Cause this cat was REAL.

Which brings me to you. Are you real with yourself? Are you able to really recognize who you are?

Look at this picture:

This is a graphical interpretation of the social hierarchy of the typical modern American high school. The “Light” category represents the prettiest and most popular kids at school. The “Dark” category represents the counterculture, those who have been (or have felt) rejected by the mainstream world and now do their best to avoid looking anything like it. The “Left” and “Right” categories are crude representations of people’s artistic (“right-brained”) or analytical (“left-brained”) tendencies.

Now, try to put yourself on that chart. Where do you fall? Do you consider yourself popular or outcast? Are you moved by the world’s beauty all around you, or are you drawn to the nuts and bolts therein?

Now, ask yourself what your friends would put you.

Most of us find it very hard to put ourselves in boxes, and in truth, we’re such complex creatures that it’s not fair to do so. But now, consider your closest friends. Think of the people you CHOOSE to hang out with the most. If that group of people was ONE person with ONE personality, where would it go on the graph?

Above is a more elaborate version of the chart, intended to expound upon the personality types of different groups. (The theorems behind it all are rudimentary at best, but you get the idea.) The personality of a GROUP of people can be generalized very easy, because as the number of a group of people increase, the more our survival instincts will tell us to act like each other, and the strongest personalities will always lead the way.

NOW, think of the girls you’re always trying to date. Put them somewhere on the chart. Are they anywhere near you and your friends? If you’re honest with yourself, the answer is probably NO, because you want to date someone better or more interesting than you. Well, guess what? We all do. We just can’t. The sooner you accept that fact, the better off you’ll be.

If you answered YES, but you still can’t get a girlfriend, than one of two things is happening:
1) You’re wrong because you’re stupid.
2) You’re missing something important about yourself, since after all, no one can analyze theirselves unbiasedly. Maybe you’re not that popular or good-looking. Maybe you talk too much. Maybe you have anger issues that scare people away. Maybe you bring people down because you dwell on your life problems rather than allowing yourself to grow from them. MAYBE you’re wasting your life away pursuing certain kinds of women for all the wrong reasons, namely, to become something contrary to your core self.

So really, this is kind of like a meta-rule that encompasses a lot of the other rules.

What I want you to do now is go to your closest, truest, and most loving friends and ask them about yourself. Ask them what they like and don’t like about you. Ask them what kind of friendship they need from you. Tell them to be brutal, and don’t let your feelings get hurt. You need to get to know yourself and accept where you fit within the social structure. If you fight it, you’ll never find contentment.

Rule 13: Avoid the Succubus

I prepared this one a while ago, then removed it until I could find a way to make it less depressing.

I could not.

Rule 13: AVOID THE SUCCUBUS.



Ancient myths tell of a woman named Lilith, Adam’s first wife before Eve. Everything was going just swimmingly for these two, until Lilith refused to be subservient to Adam. For this, she was cast out of Eden. She then had sex with the archangel Samael and became the world’s first succubus, a female demon-creature that lives off the life-breath of the men she has sex with.



Some of you readers might consider a myth like this to be misogynistic. “Why should a woman be considered evil just because she wants a little control?” you ask aloud, startling all the people that are sitting around you at Starbucks.

Because she’s doing it wrong! Women and men already have an equal balance of control over each other! Men control women EXtrinsically (“Make me a sandwich.”), and women control men INtrinsically (“Nothing’s wrong. I’m FINE!”). Lilith openly refused to submit to Adam, unlike a normal woman, who convinces a guy to do all the things she wants him to do by throwing him a bone every now and then. She wanted to dominate him inside and out, and that’s a no-no.



This character has remained archetypal in all cultures since the beginning of written word, the most modern permutation being the femme fatale (French for “deadly woman” (with probably an “au-hau-HAU!” added for good measure)). The scene is a all too familiar: A private detective in a cheap suit is working late behind the desk in his dimly-lit office overlooking a run-down city street, when in walks a gorgeous woman whose face is half-obscured by shadows and a giant hat. She asks the man to save her from a dangerous enemy with little-to-nothing to offer him in return. Like a total sap, he agrees to help her, ultimately risking his own life to stop these bad guys on the off-chance that the woman will be so grateful to him that she’ll let him touch her boobs, but GUESS WHAT HAPPENS as soon as the last criminal is shot dead or locked up? SHE RUNS OFF (most likely with someone in a rock band or biker gang) with barely a thank-you, and the man’s gloomy life returns to the status-quo.



Why has the concept of a woman completely dominating a man for personal gain using only her beauty and charm held so steadfast through the centuries? Probably because real-life examples keep popping up, like Jezebel, Cleopatra, and your 9th-Grade English teacher, to name just a few. There are succubi all around us, just waiting to pull us in, use us up, and throw us away like tissues. They can control us, and they know it.



This may just seem like an extension of the Pretty Girl of Rule 10, but I consider these to be two completely different beings. Unlike the Pretty Girl, who is ONLY pretty, the Succubus has a much deeper and multi-faceted personality. They'll seem different from all the other girls (in that they'll have both good looks and personality AND they'll be interested in you). You’ll get to know them on a personal level, and you’ll fall completely in love with them. Then one day, if you’re lucky, a piece of her disguise will chip off, and you’ll slowly peel the rest of it away to reveal who she really is: a user. Your attention is her sustenance; she really couldn’t care less about you.



Please don’t hate these women; it’s the only way they know how to live. And please don’t hate yourself for falling for one of them; there’s no way you could’ve known. The worst part about succubi is that by the time you realize who they are, it’s too late. You've wasted a chunk of your life chasing after her affection with no reward to speak of. As you look back, you’ll realize all the promises and confessions and compromises were made by you. She had the control all along. All you can do now is make yourself walk away and never look back.



Wow, ok, so this post is not very helpful or comforting at all...



:D

Rule 12: Save Your Money

Here comes a sad one. Don't worry, I'll make it short.

Rule 12: Save Your Money.

You spend money on women. You need to stop it.

At first glance, this may seem like just as unchivalric a thing a guy could do short of calling a girl fat, because even if you WANT to, you never should. (It's poor taste.) BUT HEAR ME OUT!

I'm not talking to your average guy here. I'm talking to that kid who's cripplingly awkward around EVERY GIRL HE KNOWS. What does this guy ALWAYS do with the girl he likes? He finds something she likes and goes out and buys it for her. If it's a cheap enough thing, he'll buy it for her several times. He can probably barely even SPEAK to this girl, so of course, he thinks that gifts will express to her what his words never could, and she'll see what a beautiful soul he has and fall madly in love with him.

O, for a thousand tongues to sing of how wrong you are.

THIS DOES NOT WORK, DUDE. It will NEVER work. In fact, every gift you buy her will only irritate her that much more. You're going off of a VERY limited knowledge base of what this girl is like and what her interests really are. So take a step back, regroup, re-read all of these rules, collect your nerve, and LEARN TO TALK TO HER LIKE A MAN.

For all you normal guys out there, this rule still very much applies to you. DO NOT buy anything for a girl you like until she agrees to go on a date with you. Honestly, you're going to keep blowing money on her if you don't even know whether or not she likes you!? That's ridiculous! Wait until she says "Yes," then REWARD her for making good choices with a free meal.

And girls, don't be douchettes about this either. Don't let a man keep buying you things if you don't like him. You're accepting gifts for existing, and that makes you worse than a whore. At least whores WORK for a living.

Which brings me to the one exception to this rule. The only time a single guy may give the single girl he likes a gift is on her birthday. (This is also the only time it's ok for anyone to get gifts for just existing. I feel this should go without saying, but I said it anyway.) HOWEVER, that gift BETTER be $15 or less. Maybe $20 if it's a really cool gift. And NO JEWELRY. That's just weird.

(If you live in rich society, this rule may not apply. Spending money may be the only way ya'll know how to communicate.)

Rule 11: BE ALOOF.

I just downed a fried egg cheeseburger. I'm feeling especially manly right now.

Rule 11: BE ALOOF.

"Aloof" is seriously one of my favorite words. Not only is it hilarious to say out loud (especially in various accents), it is almost guaranteed to get you the girl.

Some fancy-pants phrase-coiner (probably Shakespeare) once said that "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." For those who don't believe in any language other than Amer'can, this loosely translates to: "How can I miss you if you don't go away?"

Here's the thing: human beings like attention. Some even constantly NEED attention (i.e.: babies). There's a good chance that most people would rather have attention than food, because attention is just a few levels away from LOOOVE. This is why kids who get picked on at school will keep trying to hang out with those that pick on him: negative attention is better than no attention at all.

So it makes perfect sense that when one of us peoples does not receive attention when we feel we completely deserve it, we will slowly start to freak out. We will even change the circumstances within our environment more and more until that attention is bestowed upon us.

THEREFORE, if you (a guy) are interested in a female (a girl) and want her to be interested in you back, you need to NOT talk to her.

That's right, punk. See, YOUR tendency will be to try to spend every waking moment with this girl, because hey, you really like her. I understand where you're coming from, but this plan will totally backfire on you. You will smother her. Instead, take this approach: Introduce yourself, be charming and friendly, then make yourself SPARSE. You want to be like a magical creature that randomly graces her with your presence. But less gay-sounding.

This is especially the case once you get her to go on a date with you. I have it on good authority from one of my favorite lady-friends that The Three Day Rule for calling women is absolutely true: "A woman's interest for a guy lasts exactly 72 hours. She'll be dying for you to call her right up until that point, but after that, she'll be completely over you."

I know this seems like a form of abuse or neglect, but as previously mentioned in the 3rd Natural Law, and as will be mentioned in a future case study, most women like to be mistreated. And besides, we ALL want that which we can't have.

This scenario gets more precarious the hotter the girl is. She's more likely to get more infuriated when you don't give her enough attention, but she's also more likely to move on quicker. As in all things, it's important to find a balance. I trust you'll be able to figure this out for yourselves.