There I was, struggling to think of a topic around which to construct a Friday top ten list, when an e-mail graced my inbox: the latest Aquarius Records new arrivals list! Usually they pen a new one every two weeks, but lately they’ve been sending out an in-between edition highlighting stuff that’s on sale, bands who will be appearing in the neighborhood (or at the store), or just reminding people how much amazing music they sell. This week’s edition highlights some of the employees’ favorite records involving “found sounds” or “field recordings.” I think I’ve got everything I need of this list, but it gave me the idea to create a top ten in which I could share my own list of favorites. So here goes nothing…
Oh, wait. I already did this list! For fuck’s sake. As soon as I realized I’d need to put The Conet Project as #1, I thought to myself — wait a minute, I could have sworn I wrote about that album before. Lo and behold, back in March of 2009 I produced a list called “The Top Ten ‘Outsider’ Records I’m Enjoying Right Now”. You should check that out. You’ll see some familiar entries from the Aquarius list on there.
Damn, now I need to think about something else to feature in a top-ten list. Am I really going to have to take Nicci’s advice and write a “Top ten birthday gifts to buy your girlfriend” list? Let’s see what the girls at The Frisky are up to this week…
Oh. My. God. You guys. CNN ran a feature video this week shot inside the Frisky office! Look who’s there! It’s Amelia what’s-her-name! Way to chuckle while you “act” like you’re to busy to talk because you need to buy clothes online, Amelia! Julie Gerstein? Who’s that. I don’t recognize that name from any bylines. Where’s Wendy I-Can’t-Write-For-Shit? Where’s Judy McGuire? I bet she looks like such a cow in real life.
Oh, shit. Here’s an article called “9 ways to make a classy exit after breakup”. You want to make a classy exit? I’ll tell you how it’s done. Let me tell you, if there’s one thing that springs to my friends’ minds when they hear my name, it’s “classy.” Yeah…I found my top ten list.
The Top Ten Ways To Make A Classy Exit After A Breakup
Some of the items on this list have been taken from real-life experiences, others have not. Still more are things I wished I’d done at the time, but my conscience got the best of me.
10. Speed-Build A Wall – There’s an old sports cliche that goes something like, “The best offense is a good defense.” In breakups, sometimes the best way to offend can be to very quickly build up some kind of defense. Like an invisible wall. When I was in college I walked over to this girl’s room I was dating and sat down on her shitty bunk-bed and told her, “Listen. I can’t be in this relationship anymore.” Then she started crying. I knew at that moment that her emotional response was an elaborate ruse intended to turn me vulnerable. Girls often use tears to manipulate men; they like to make us feel like we’re sorry for them or taking pity them, when in reality they are just trying to spend more time in our company. So as soon as she started crying I stood up from her bed and said, “I can’t take this anymore, goodbye.” And I walked out of her room. She tried calling me like an hour later, but I was already back in my room playing Madden or Grand Theft Auto or something, pounding cans of Sunkist and getting stoned off my ass. I didn’t want to deal with that shit, so I just unplugged the phone for the next few days. She got the hint. The best part was, I stayed classy the whole time.
09. Steal Her Friends – On the other hand, sometimes a really good offense can overcome a poor defense. With that same girl, I decided that because she wasn’t going to stop calling me or begging me to take her back, I needed to tell all her friends just how pathetic she was being. My goal was really to have them tell her that it was over and I didn’t want her anymore. What I didn’t plan on — and what ended up happening — was her friends agreeing with me that she was acting a bit psychotic and weird, then deciding they didn’t like her anymore. So not only did I drive her mad with my talk-to-the-hand approach to breaking up, I also accidentally stole all our mutual friends away from her. This left her in a really awkward position, because she had to basically rebuild her life. I kind of felt bad about it for a while…
08. Keep Having Sex Until They Finally Say “NO!” – Then, a few months later I started having sex with her again. What happened was, she didn’t have any friends left so she was afraid of being social because she didn’t have anyone to go places with. I guess out of pity (and perhaps needing to get laid — okay mostly out of needing to get laid) I would start visiting her to help her with school stuff. One time she needed a subject for some psychological test and she said she couldn’t find anyone else. I thought she just wanted to see if I had psychological issues (of course I do). I brought her some ice cream and we did the experiment. Then I did her. This started a period lasting a few months when I would just call her when I wanted sex. And she answered the phone every time. Conversely, she would call me all the time and I would never answer. We were, after all, broken up. Then one day I asked her to come over and fuck, and she showed up with a whole bag of shit I’d either left at her place or given her during our brief dalliance, and she hurled it at me from her car and said she never wanted to speak to me again. I’m sure in her mind she thought I would be really ashamed or embarrassed, but I was happy to have my stuff back and I felt really good about my ability to help her through what must have been a really tough time in her life.
07. If They Don’t Get The Hint, Help Them – Imagine you’ve just told somebody you don’t want to see them anymore. Maybe that person responds with a comment like, “I hate you. You’ll never find somebody who loves you more than I do!” Which is exactly what my high school ex-girlfriend told me when I pulled the “It’s not you, it’s me!” card 18 months after we started dating. When she started writing me letters and calling me for clarification — “Why are you doing this to me? You’re breaking my heart!” or “I love you, Evan. Please don’t do this” — I decided I needed to help her see things more clearly. So I called up this girl who I knew wanted me very badly (a girl who later dropped out of school to have a baby) and asked if she wanted to take a stroll around campus with me. My goal was to cross paths with the ex and make-out with someone else in front of her. You see, sometimes if a girl doesn’t understand subtleties such as, “I don’t want to be with you anymore,” it’s okay to be less subtle and, for example, make-out with another girl in front of her. It’s all a part of the healing process.
06. Be A Supreme Dick When It’s Uncalled For – When I heard that a girl I broke things off with was seeing another guy, I thought the classy thing to do on her birthday would be to send her a greeting card that read, “Happy birthday. I hope your new beau is giving your pussy as good a workout as I used to.” In retrospect it wasn’t the classiest thing to write, but I was probably high at the time. The good news is, she ended up marrying that “beau,” so ever since then he’s been the one who has to deal with all her bullshit. Thanks, guy!
05. Fuck A Friend: Listen, I don’t need to belabor this one, if the person you’ve broken up with refuses to recognize the fact that the two of you are no longer an item, the surest way to convince them is to have sex with one of their friends. I haven’t done this — I’ve fantasized about it, for sure — but it seems to be the absolute easiest way to seal the deal. That might not sound to classy, but if you can somehow convince the friend to bang you while dressed up like a real classy person — suit and tie, or makeup and heels — then at least the act of fornicating with your ex’s best friend will feel classy. Even if 99% of the population would look down on it, sometimes it only takes one person (that’s you, jerko!) to see an action (in this case it’s fucking a person a normal, socialized individual would know better than to fuck) as being sophisticated.
04. Never Be Alone – You’ve just stopped seeing somebody. If you’re a guy, you probably spent a lot of money on the relationship. Food, gifts, housing…I don’t know, it probably costs a few grand a year to keep a relationship going. Now that you’ve got excess cash, you can go out and have the time of your life. You can be the king. Treat your friends to high-priced meals and 8-balls. Treat her friends to drinks at the bar. Treat everybody except for her to whatever they want. You’ve got the money now; she’s out of the picture. You can do the same thing if you’re a girl. The point is, if you want to remain classy in the wake of a failed relationship you need to act and feel classy. You only achieve that by doing outrageous things and spending loads of money. It feels great. And trust me, exuding that much confidence is only going to get you laid that much more quickly. Then you can rub that in your ex’s face too. Everybody wins. Except for your ex.
03. Kill Their Favorite Pet – You would think that the murder of a defenseless animal would be reserved for the crazy stalker-type who was on the losing side of the breakup. Wrong! The winner can do crazy shit in the name of the relationship, too! What if you had to break up with someone because they were driving you insane and you simply could not take it anymore. You told them the relationship is over, you don’t like them as a person, you don’t like the person you became while dating them, and you never wanted to see the person’s face again. What better way to make your point than to run over their cat, or slit the throat of their dog? You could be all like, “Take that, fucker! That’s what you get for ruining the last three months of my life!” Three months, you ask? Trust me, that’s long enough to be filled with murderous rage. I’ve gone on two dates with girls and felt like killing their pets. I wasn’t even dating them long enough to know if they had pets. I just knew I wanted to kill something they loved.
02. Fuck Their Sibling – This one might be stretching the definition of “classy,” but hear me out. Every once in a blue moon, a person comes along who steals your breath. Your heart flutters. You get that woozy feeling people get when they’ve daydreamed about orgasming in unison with somebody else. You ask them out on a date. You go on several dates, and you become monogamous with one another. After a few months, or a few years, you realize that you made a bad decision. You decide you don’t want to be with the person anymore. This sentiment is expressed a polite manner. Why shouldn’t you now be allowed to fuck their brother or sister? Maybe the connection is better. Maybe the sex is better. How are you supposed to know until you’ve either consensually or non-consensually penetrated that person? And hey, I think we all know a lot of times the younger sibling turns out a little better. Think of it like a car. Each successive generation gets a little prettier, a little more modern, a little more sleek and classy. The older sibling becomes obsolete when the newer, fresh model is produced. By the way, I’ve never done this.
01. Mention You Might Have AIDS – The goal in ending any relationship is to win the war for attention. You want to be the person who continues to be pursued, not the one who does the pursuing. Why? Because at our core we all strive for attention. It’s one of our basic human instincts. What better way to exit a relationship with class than to tell the person you’ve just broken up with that you might have AIDS. Don’t stay on the phone or hang around them long enough to be asked any questions. Just…say it, and exit. This simple statement will ensure that you are pretty much forever going to be in the thoughts of the person with whom you have chosen to no longer date. First they’ll have to deal with getting themselves tested. They’ll be thinking about you the whole time. When the results come back negative, they’ll think about you even more. The next time they think about sleeping with someone, they’ll worry that the test was wrong, and they’ll think about you again! With any luck, the person will be too afraid to engage in sexual counduct with anyone else for the rest of their life. And they’ll be thinking about you the whole time. To warrant kind of devotion, you need to be a really classy person. If you’ve followed my advice today, you’re well on your way to becoming one.
