Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby Page 0,26

things, and a constant frustration of mine is that he makes no romantic gestures at all. I worry that when we get married, over time I will grow bored or no longer be attracted to him because he is so unromantic. Am I just overthinking this?

I wasn’t in an actual romantic relationship until I was 137 years old, but doesn’t the idea of being with someone you met when you were twenty weird y’all out? I was so stupid when I was twenty. On December 31, 1999, I was nineteen years old, and terrified (more than I feel comfortable admitting) that Y2K was going to kill us all before I had been kissed properly. My sister convinced me that rather than propping up our tits and going to a glamorous party, at the end of which someone would feel compelled to passionately kiss us, that we should instead put on our nicest long-sleeved cotton shirts and sensible close-toed shoes to spend New Year’s Eve at church. I conceded that, sure, maybe the safest place to be when the Lord Almighty plunged us all into everlasting darkness was with a tambourine in my hand, surrounded by sinners who cheated God out of their tithes but clearly had a better shot at heaven than the drunks vomiting next to me on the train. I’m not saying that it wasn’t surprisingly fun or that riding a wave of brimstone and gospel music into the apocalypse wasn’t thrilling. I’m just saying that maybe the person hunched over in that pew, her eyes squeezed shut in an effort to seal out the impending rapture, that naive idiot screaming, “WE MADE IT! WE MADE IT!” when the clock struck midnight and literally nothing happened and not even one computer malfunctioned…I’m just saying that maybe the teenager who had unplugged the clocks at home and filled her cabinets with indestructible cans of kidney beans probably would not have made the wisest decision about with whom she should spend the remainder of her days.

“Over time I will grow bored”—yikes!—“or no longer be attracted to him”—yikes!!—“because he is so unromantic”—okay, come on, am I the only one who sees what’s happening here? What the fuck, and also, BITCH, YIKES. Before I got married I made a list of all the reasons I might have to eventually bail on the union, but it was full of stuff like “if her kid pulls a knife on me” and “if she reprograms my radio stations in the car.” You know, hypothetical shit that probably wouldn’t happen, but, if it did, we could probably work it out. I don’t know why you’d attach your credit score to someone you can already imagine being bored and repulsed by, especially when you don’t have to. And I don’t understand why people won’t just say “listen, babe, I am not going to get better once I legally saddle myself to you,” because, for real, he won’t. If he’s not sending flowers now, there’s no way you’re going to get them after his years of listening to the slimy squelch of your DivaCup extraction. He should! But he won’t! I know being in love fills us with a blinding false optimism, but listen to me: he will not change. I didn’t! As a matter of fact, all my bad behavior is heightened, because where is this bitch I’m married to gonna go? She’s stuck with me now.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over two years, but I’ve met his parents only a few times. As he has told me, they have deemed me unworthy due to my age (I’m four years older than he is) and my health (I had a case of sinusitis on one occasion). They do not want me in their house or at any of their social events—even at my boyfriend’s birthday dinner. As a result, things are pretty awkward, even though my boyfriend has confronted them about it. What can I do to get them to accept me?

Acceptance is overrated! So are birthday dinners, good health, and, frankly, having parents. I killed mine while I was still a teen, because I knew that if I didn’t, my adult life would be ceaselessly tormented by the insurmountable demands of my overbearing mom and dad, people who couldn’t be bothered to teach me how to