Some thoughts on dating

For a person living fraudulently, dating is pretty much all-around horrible. I suspect even for non-frauds, dating is at best a mixed bag. But, unfortunately it's a sometimes-necessary step in the process of having sex. (Sex itself is also a very dubious goal, though, because although you want it, you know that you'll probably spend the next several weeks after checking yourself for early signs of syphilis.) 

If you go to bars a lot, as you should, especially on week nights, then this is the likely place you'll meet your future ex. Bars are a great place to meet people you might end up having sex with because it will probably be so loud that you won't be able to hear whatever asinine thing the person is bound to say that will make them suddenly completely unattractive. Most people, when given the chance to talk, will do this. So drink a lot so that you misunderstand them or just simply start tuning them out. 

After you have awkward drunk sex with this person, you should evaluate the situation in terms of whether or not you ever want to do that again. If the answer is a resounding "NO!", then just leave. Quickly. Do not spend the night. I know this may seem trashy, but believe me, it's much better than lying in a stranger's bed, waiting for the sun to rise.

If you decide, foolishly, that a relationship may be worth pursuing with this person, then you should still leave right after sex. Cuddling with someone you just met isn't cute, it's weird and borderline crazy. Having intense drunken sex is fine, but then cuddling afterwards and falling asleep in each other's arms when you don't even know the person's last (or maybe even first) name is just wrong. Get out and save your dignity so that it can be destroyed later, in a less-weird way.

Work!

Speaking of money, you should, in fact, have a job from which you obtain that money. You might think that unemployment sounds like the perfect method of fraudulent living, but that's only true when it's sporadic and a result of your own indecisiveness as to what the hell you're doing with your life. Actually, it's crucial that you have a job that is completely socially irresponsible and trite and never pays as much as you think it should but actually pays much more than you deserve for what you actually do. If your job is in an industry that actually hurts society in some way, even better (example: advertising).

For our purposes, finding the perfect job means never finding the perfect job, and probably not even knowing what the perfect job is. Your job should be a result of your having skimmed around on Craigslist or Monster and finally applying to the least-worst-sounding thing you can find, or the one you think you can fake best. Five years later, you should be sitting at your desk thinking about what you do and saying, "Wow, I didn't see this coming." And based on the schools you attended and your scholastic record, no one should have seen this coming. Your job should be a total letdown to everyone who ever expected anything of you. Also, 90% of that job should be spent indulging your own hypochondria, depression, and need to check Facebook (which you at some point refused to join and then became more active in than anyone else you know) until you begin to sicken yourself with how meaningless your existence is.

At this point, you should begin staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning every night in defiance of the fact that you have to work. You should torturously drag yourself through the workday not caring about your work. You should quit victoriously, telling yourself you're going to get a job that's important, that you care about, that helps humanity, or that you even sort of like.

Then, three months later, after being a shut in and panicking about money, you should start applying to every horrible-sounding job you can find and accept one that pays slightly less than before, in which you do exactly what you did in your last job because you have no qualifications to do anything else.

How to have the best credit ever

This piece of advice might end up outdated pretty soon since we may all be living on whatever food we can grow in our cigarette butt-strewn back alleys and dirtless balconies due to the Economic Crisis. But, assuming life doesn't take a Mad Max turn, here are some suggestions on how to manage your finances.

So you're spending $100/month on a gym membership you never use. This is a good first step, but there's probably a lot more money in your paycheck that needs to be put to use. First thing you should do is figure out exactly how much money you have to spend. So take your paycheck amount and subtract however many $30 overdraft fees you probably incurred during your last pay cycle. Just never, ever look at your actual bank account balance to do this. That's way too depressing. Instead, just guestimate. And the way you know that guestimation works is because it's a made-up compound word that sounds funny. Think about it. When has anything like that ever led you astray?

Next step is to stock up on the necessities. You're going to need food and vice supplies. If you like to cook, you should go to the store and buy a lot of perishable fruits, vegetables and meat. Throwing them all out in six months when you can't stand the smell anymore will be a great source of catharsis.

Whatever happens, make sure you have enough liquor and cigarettes or whatever it is you use to get through the week before you start thinking about utility bills. The electric and gas companies will let you go for months without paying before they start shutting off your lights. And, worst case scenario is that you're getting drunk and eating take-out in the dark. This is almost preferable to doing it in the light, right?

Use your credit cards when you get in a pinch. And by a "pinch" I mean "whenever you want something." They gave you a limit for a reason. Not reaching it would be failing to reach your true potential.

The absolute best part of living this way is that each and every payday will become a sacred day. A day you've looked forward to desperately since 3 days from the last one. Life gains more worth when you give yourself tiny goals to reach. Surviving until two Fridays from now seems as worthy a goal as any.

Exercise

When you're living fradulently, one of your most pressing personal conflicts should involve the gym. 

Ideally, you want to buy a gym membership at an inflated price, not because you want to spend more money, but just because talking to the gym membership salesguy is so uncomfortable that you'll pay anything to make it stop. Your gym should be close to work and close to your house. The reason for this is that it will make you feel extra pathetic as you walk right past it most days without going inside.

Since the gym is close to work, you'll think, "Maybe I'll make it there on my way in or on my way home." Keeping this in mind, every day you should bring your gym clothes to work with you. This is what we in the business call, "lying to yourself." 

It's not that you don't want to look better or feel better by going to the gym. In fact, the few times you've gone you've probably noticed a measurable uptick in your general demeanor and state of mind. The problem is, it sucks so bad to go. It's hard. It's really boring. It requires more energy than you could possibly muster in the morning before work or especially after 9 hours sitting at a desk and daydreaming about your bed. 

On the weekends, you'll be tempted to want to go to the gym. Go with this thought. The best thing about it is that it will stop you from doing anything else with your day, because the entire day will be based on the statement "After I get out of the gym..." If you never end up going to the gym, then no real plans can ever be made, and you'll have pretty successfully wasted one of your only two days off from work. 

And then you'll feel like a lazy piece of shit. You can then lay down on your couch with a box of White Cheddar Cheez-Its and a bottle of wine and do some self examination.  Mostly of that thing on your foot that looks like it's changed color.

More public crying

Another great place to cry in public is at work. The best thing about crying at work is that even though you hide yourself while the tears are physically cascading down your soggy cheeks, the aftermath still shows clearly on your face when you go back to your three square feet of "private" space. Everyone knows you've been crying; they just pretend you weren't. Even so, they're talking about you behind your back. Yeah, they are.

Now, the best and most obvious place to hide when you're crying is in the bathroom. Your best bet is the handicapped stall, because that's the farthest from the door and the stall that will be least missed. And you will sit on that toilet and cry your little eyes out, constantly pulling off more and more TP to try to prevent puffiness later (which, as previously discussed, is pointless). Also, you will feel totally unsanitary and assume that you're catching lupus for sitting in a public toilet for so long.

But then someone will come in to use the bathroom for regular purposes. Make sure you freeze and stop sniffling and pull your feet up to crouch on the toilet seat so that no one knows you're there (or at least can't peek under the stall to recognize your shoes). Chances are 1 in 10 that the person will be in and out in twenty seconds, and you can go back to falling apart. In a truly fraudulent world, though, that person will come in and start grooming and brushing their teeth and blow-drying their hair, and you will have gotten yourself stuck in the bathroom crouching on a toilet seat for a good twenty minutes. The best part will be that the person knows someone is there. It's obvious that the stall door is closed; and everyone knows that people don't use the handicapped stall except to do #2. So basically, you now either have to crouch on a toilet seat trying not to move or breathe and pray that no one sees you outside when you eventually leave the bathroom, or else you have to rush out quickly and have this person assume you did #2 without washing your hands afterwards. Either way, you're a winner.

Public crying

I'd like this to be an ongoing topic where we share our stories of where, how and why we've cried in public.

I'll start with one good suggestion: the subway.

Yeah, this is one of the best public places to cry, because everyone near you is watching your public breakdown, which makes you feel like even more of a loser than whatever is causing you to cry. Sometimes the embarassment can help override the sadness you're experiencing, but usually it will just add to it. Now you're crying both because your life is horrible generally, AND specifically at this moment it's hyper-horrible as you are a public spectacle of fraudulence and loserdom. 

Add to this the fact that you have Keane or some other british-accented gloom pop in your iPod and that you're curled up on two seats in a fetal position and you're essentially now "that person". Every subway train has "that person". Now it's you. Congrats. You finally did something.

So This Is the New Year

Well. If you expected a "Happy New Year," you are clearly reading the wrong blog. In fact, if you live fraudulently, the New Year and, especially, New Year's Eve should not in any way be considered holidays. They are days in which you should be sitting at home alone reflecting back on your failures over the past year. If you're out with people, it should only be because you're so deathly afraid of being alone on this day of all days, and only because people will later judge you on the fact that you were alone on New Year's Eve. On the most successful of New Year's Eves, whether you're alone or among hundreds of people, uncontrollable tears should be streaming down your face.

Let's make a list, then. Still, we don't need to be completely cynical: Fraudulent living isn't all about cynicism, despite what you might think. In fact, a lot of fraudulent living involves being unjustifiably optimistic and, believe it or not, a die-hard romantic about life. And that's what makes the crashing that much harder and teeth-breaking in the end. But enough about that. Let's tally our successes over the past year:

Successes:
1) Surviving
2) Not dying (physically)

Now let's tally our failures:

Failures:
1) Not accomplishing a single goal
2) Surviving

Let's be honest; it was a pretty good year.