March 27, 2009

• Relationship Advice and Raggedy-Ass RAGs

  Of all the possible types of advice a person can give to another, the process of giving relationship advice is the most time consuming—which is kind of weird, because most people usually only seek advice when they are on the verge of breaking up with their boyfriends or girlfriends. I mean, unless your friend is an attention whore, he won’t call you for advice after he gets into an argument with his girlfriend over how her recordings of “Millionaire Matchmaker” have taken up all the space in the DVR, because he knows that is way too trivial to bother anyone with. No, he’s going to call you up (and maybe Dr. Phil) after he sees his girlfriend on an episode of “Millionaire Matchmaker” trying to score a date with some pasty-ass pervert and his receding hairline, because that’s some f’d up sh*t. What your friend should be doing is shining the “Bat-Signal” into the sky, but he probably doesn’t have one so he’ll have to make do with talking to you.

  A friend who calls you for advice already knows ahead of time that the only way to resolve his personal drama is to end the relationship. He also knows that’s what you are going to advise him to do. He’s just calling to make sure that’s the best solution, and not just some emotional decision he came up with after watching “Millionaire Matchmaker.”

  I’m all for helping friends who are dealing with relationship drama, but my willingness is not unconditional. Specifically, when it comes to relationship advice, I limit my friends to one opportunity per relationship. That’s right: if you are seeing Person A, you get one chance to ask me for advice, and you won’t get another one until you start seeing Person B. I know that’s stingy but, as I said earlier, people only ask for advice when their relationships are pretty much over. What more advice could I possibly give you after I’ve said, “you need to breakup with him”?

  The answer is “none,” and yet, I still have to deal with sh*t like this:

  

  

   

  

  

  Hanging up on a friend in need may be harsh, but I don’t care. I hate giving relationship advice to someone I had already given advice to on a previous occasion. Actually, I hate giving out relationship advice, period, but I really, really, hate (think hate¹⁰⁰) giving it to someone who is a Raggedy-Ass Relationship Advice Glutton, or Raggedy-Ass RAG.

  A Raggedy-Ass RAG is someone who…who…okay, you know what? I’m going to honest here: I have spent the past three days trying to write a decent description of a Raggedy-Ass RAG, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything that was even remotely close to conveying how incredibly annoying these people are. They are the foulest beasts on the planet, and the only way I can explain them is by sharing with you one of my experiences in dealing with a member of their wretched kind.

  I knew a Raggedy-Ass RAG who had been dating some douche bag she met while playing “Counter-Strike.” That was already a pretty crappy way to start a relationship, but it wasn’t enough of a red flag to make this girl realize he was a loser. She actually didn’t see anything wrong with him until he suddenly stopped answering her calls and canceled all the plans they’d made. His excuse was that he too busy working 20-hour days, seven days a week, to spend time with her—which was total crap because he worked for a company that collected recycled cans from those kiosks you see outside of supermarkets.

  Clearly, this guy was cheating on her, and my Raggedy-Ass RAG friend knew it when she called me to get my opinion on how she should deal with a relationship that had made her increasingly unhappier.

  It doesn’t matter whether your friend is male or female, young or old, gay or straight: all relationship-advice-conversations with a Raggedy-Ass RAG will follow a certain format. And let me tell you something: it is a testament to your patience if are able to survive having this conversation. It trumps standing in the non-appointment line at the DMV, going to a theme park on a weekend—I’m even willing to say it beats waiting for the “Breakfast Jack” you ordered at 10:00 p.m., which takes so long the drive-thru attendant sometimes tells me to park somewhere and wait (what’s up with that?). You must have super-human patience to withstand talking to a Raggedy-Ass RAG in need of relationship advice, or else you will find yourself beaten and broken in ten minutes.

  For the first twenty to thirty minutes, the Raggedy-Ass RAG told me all the minute details of how she met her loser boyfriend—from the day they first noticed each other at the Internet Cafe to the present. This information was neither relevant nor particularly interesting, and I probably would have thrown myself over the balcony had I not been equipped with Balls of Titanium.

  After the Raggedy-Ass RAG had finished with her introductory story, she spent the following two hours telling me every single problem she had with her boyfriend, repeating the ones she found most irritating two or three times. And I, in turn, responded with supportive comments and sympathy. Luckily, this wasn’t a situation where I had to pretend to feel sorry for her because she was complaining about stupid things, e.g. she hated the way he arranged his toiletries. A lot of the stories this girl told me were ones no one would want to experience in any relationship.

  Once I got past the first two and a half hours, I spent the next hour giving her the only piece of advice there was: “you need to dump him.” After listening to her vent about her boyfriend for two and a half hours, do you think there was anything else I could suggest besides that? Hell no.

  Okay, the act of telling this Raggedy-Ass RAG “you need to dump him” only took a few seconds—so why did I say I spent an hour? Because the fun part took that long…and by “fun part,” I mean “annoying part”…and by “annoying part,” I mean “the part of a relationship-advice-conversation that I hate most.” This is the reason why I limit my friends to one chance for advice per relationship—it’s because I cannot stand this thing a Raggedy-Ass RAG will do immediately after being told she should end her relationship. The moment I gave her the advice, this Raggedy-Ass RAG responded with, “but, he’s…” and started telling me all the things she felt made him the best boyfriend in the world. That’s right: after telling me why her boyfriend makes her unbearably miserable, after she had spent hours describing specific instances where her boyfriend had done something that made her resent their relationship, after she had practically written a script for me and my only line was, “you need to dump him,” she was now trying to come up with reasons why my advice was wrong. Dumping him was not an option, not even when I repeated verbatim every complaint she had made about her boyfriend. She insisted she was 100% sure he was really working 20-hours a day, and that whatever unhappiness she was feeling was because of her period.

  I see, so you just took up three and a half hours of my time to figure out that you were only miserable because you, a Raggedy-Ass RAG, were on the rag? Eat a dick!

  A few days later, the Raggedy-Ass RAG called me because she was suspicious that her boyfriend was lying about his work hours, and wanted relationship advice. She went through the typical relationship-advice-conversation format, and told me the exact same stories about her boyfriend; I told her “you need to dump him,” and she told me my advice was wrong. After that, I stopped answering my phone whenever she called.

  Great, now I am irritated after remembering how annoying that girl was. Who else has a story about talking to a Raggedy-Ass RAG? I know all of you have at least one! I want to hear it!

  • 4:50 pm
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