Dude, Your Girl Is Effed

Searching through online dating sites, one of the things that always struck me was how many men are looking for women with no baggage. Like, they can forgive other things: their height, weight, whether or not they like ferrets, who they vote for in elections, or if she even votes at all… but, not baggage. These are grown men, mind. These are not twenty-somethings looking for other twenty-somethings to start a life with and hoping to find some sweet young thing. No, these are grown-ass, divorced, overweight, balding, living with their parents, smoking weed they bought off their kid’s teenage friend – men. Dating sites suck. I mean, they just do. And something that every one of those men needs to realize is that each of us is effed.

I’m not writing this to bash men or even these men who think they can find women who have made it through life unscarred. No, I’m writing this in hopes to ask for acceptance for all of us. The idea that any person could make it to adulthood with no baggage is naive at best, and expecting someone to not tell you they have baggage is narcissistic at worst. We’re all born into families that are going to make mistakes. Massive mistakes. We’re born into a world that is crumbling around us. We’re alive during a time when the wealthiest people in the world literally hold enough resources to feed every single other living human being – and choose not to.

Of course we’re all fucked.

I’m not saying we can’t work on ourselves and find ways to cope with this life we’ve inherited, but first we have to forgive the fact that we all have a lot of shit piled onto us that we have no control over. And by forgive I mean try not to pile more onto ourselves or each other. We need to stop “shoulding” all over ourselves. Think about it – when was the last time you made it through a day without thinking, “God, I should have done this instead” and then beating yourself up until you fell into an exhausted sleep?

Bullshit. You did what you did, and it’s done. And for whatever reason, be it God or fate or the universe or no reason at all, that’s just what happened. It’s okay to move forward. It’s okay to say, “Wow, today really sucked massive hairy balls,” and then let it go.

We’re all effed.

Dude, your girlfriend is effed. And if we’re being honest, so are you.

But until we take a breath, and start dealing with our shit, and accepting that being effed is part of being alive, we’re going to keep hurting. Don’t choose to hurt – life is way too short for that. You might be effed, but so is everyone else. And the best you can hope for is to find a way to accept that so you can live out the rest of your days without feeling quite so bad.