The woman I love is marrying another man this weekend.
I met Mariska at the start of our final semester in college. I’d made a mistake on my schedule and showed up for the wrong class. I walked through the lecture room door, surprised to see about 20 chairs arranged in a circle.
She sat there. It was just us. Her hiking boots shed melting snow into a slowly growing puddle at her heels. She didn’t care. She was jut there, present, waiting. There were 19 available seats.
I can’t tell you what it was that made me long to know her but I did. I chose the seat directly to her right. I sat and turned toward her.
Hi, my name is Simon.
Wow. You’re very friendly. I’m Mariska.
Not all the time. I just wanted to meet you.
There’s nobody else here to meet.
That’s true. Tell me why none of the buttons on your sweater match and I’ll leave you alone.
Every month (when I’m not super-lean from running) my body realizes I foiled its attempt at reproduction and gives up in a stream of blood.
I wish you could understand how unsettling it is to have my body constantly changing. Some women are on steady cycles. Their body never surprises them. I’m not like that. Read the full story
This highly amusing (we thought so, at least) video gives all the advice you need about how to have safe sex.
Most of us learned this information in high school and are regularly bombarded with reminders to “use protection” and practice safe sex. If the information has been spread and we know in our minds how to have safe sex, then why don’t more of us practice it?
Because we make stupid decisions when we really like somebody.
Safe sex isn’t especially fun & kills the notion of spontaneity.
The decision to have sex is often made under the influence of one or more substances.
It would be great to see a video on how to have safe sex without seeming untrusting, boring, and generally unsexy.
I’m off to buy some plastic wrap. I substituted aluminum foil last night and it Read the full story
One recent Thanksgiving conversation with my uncles turned to desperately racist jokes. Always game for discussion, I called my uncle out on his joke. His response? “I’m the most tolerant person you’ll ever meet.” I’ve continued to think about his response and how, to him, being tolerant was enough.
If you want to build relationships that are structured to be rewarding in the long term, you’ll learn to be more than tolerant. You’ll learn to accept.
Tolerance has been tossed around a lot in recent years as political, religious, and racial groups discuss how others must tolerate differing agendas, beliefs, and cultures. But toleration brings with it the idea that what you’re tolerating is something inferior. You might tolerate a differing opinion, or you could accept it as an idea while choosing to disagree with it. See the difference? To illustrate: Read the full story
My 13 year-old cousin recently asked me what I thought to be the right age for her to start having sex.
Dear Men,
