The Middle Armrest

This is a classic dilemma that plagues trains, movie theatres and waiting rooms all over the world. It's also an issue I think about for probably a lot longer than necessary every time I'm faced with the problem. Who gets the Middle Armrest?

This situation is easy to resolve if the person in the seat adjacent to you is someone you know. You simply ask, "Hey, can I use this to rest my arm on?" And if they're cool, they'll say, "Yeah, for sure." If they're your sibling though, they will NEVER LET YOU HAVE IT. It's in the Sibling Code of Conduct: Section 15: Paragraph 3: A sibling will under no circumstances voluntarily allow their brother/sister to use the middle armrest without A) Constantly nudging said brother/sister's arm or B) Making a scene.

I don't make up the rules.

I know it's also possible to share the armrest, yes. But only with someone you know. Touching elbows with a person who you don't know is, for lack of any other word that could possibly describe it, awkward. But it's weird that it's so awkward. It's not like the elbow is a particularly erogenous zone. I think it's actually probably the least sexy place on the body. So that can't be the reason. I personally think that we find accidental elbow touching so weird because it's usually so unexpected. And I always panic. Like, should I look at them now? Should I apologise for brushing their body part with my own? Should I ignore it and pretend it didn't happen? Are we better seat-friends now that we've had physical contact? These are all things that go through my head when I experience an accidental elbow-brush.

So who gets the armrest? I usually stick with the opinion that if the other person was there first, they get first dibs. If they seem uninterested after a while, then I take it over, at least for a little bit. That seems reasonable. But the real problem for me occurs when I was there first and someone sits down and immediately claims the armrest. This person is probably a little more up front about things and they're also A HUGE A-HOLE. I'm mostly joking, but I do always get a bit annoyed. Like, this person thinks they're the freaking Roman Empire or something.

Then there's always the "No one uses the armrest just in case," scenario. What if the other person needs to get up to pee and needs to balance themselves with the armrest? What if there is a shoulder cramp and the other person needs more elbow room? What if they're reading a particularly shocking novel and they need to grab the armrest for support? If your arm is there, you're going to impose on their armrest emergency, and no one wants that.

The funny thing is that there is one option that almost no one ever goes for, and it's the easiest one: Ask if your seat-mate minds if you take up the armrest. I think it shows respect and appreciation for your fellow human beings. It says, "I know you're here, and I know this armrest is partially yours, and I welcome your opinion." But I hate talking to people, so this fantastic citizen will never be me.

Love in the Modern Day

 I am a self-proclaimed cynic, if I am nothing else. And one of my most favourite things to be cynical about is love. Specifically romantic love. Love shared by family and friends, that stuff is beautiful. But romantic love? That's painful and temporary and really hasn't done me a lot of good personally. Mind you, there's still plenty of time for someone to come along and change my mind about this, but I have my doubts. Plus, I kind of just want to grow up and be Emily Dickinson.


(I did, at one point, want to grow up to be Liz Lemon but then she went and got married (to a human, not a meatball sub) and ruined that fantasy.)

There is actually only one couple in my group of acquaintances right now that I actively hope will stay together forever. Everyone else, I really couldn't care less. Perhaps this makes me a terrible person/friend. More than likely it just means that I'm lonely and hate other people's happiness. (I've never claimed to be a thoroughly good person.) My sincerest apologies if I hurt anyone's feelings by saying this, but it really shouldn't come as a surprise. The biggest surprise should be that there are actually two people that make me happy when I see them together. This disturbs me greatly.

With that confession out of the way, I'm going to make a sweeping declaration: The Internet has murdered love. Curb stomped it right to the point of cliched oblivion.

Not saying love can't happen. I've seen it before. Hell, I've felt it before (I think. Mostly my regret and frustration has blinded my memory of most of the good feelings. I think I might be a bit bitter.) but the only place that got me was weeks of hysterics and trying to guess that good-for-nothing bastard's Facebook password so I could sabotage him. (I was 16, leave me alone. Did I mention the bitterness?)

So what has the Internet done to love? It's given people this strange notion that they need to broadcast their love to everyone. It's like people need to prove that their love is the best love. Which all blows up in their face when their relationship status goes from "in a relationship" to "single."

The fact is, and I cannot stress this enough, NO ONE cares. Okay, maybe there are a few genuinely good people out there who want other people to be happy. But very few. You see, anyone who is in a relationship and happy will laugh at your "best relationship ever" status because clearly they have the best relationship ever so you're completely deluded, obviously. And anyone who is in a relationship and unhappy will envy you your apparent happiness but proceed to write about how great their relationship is because no one wants to admit their love is failing. And of course, single people hate on anyone in a relationship, regardless of how many "I love being single" captions they put on their selfies.

With that out of the way, I've made a list. (Yay! Lists!) This is a list of the most annoying things people in "love" do on the internet, in no particular order:

• Kissing Photo Shoots. Ugh. UGH. There are very few people in the world that look good while kissing. And it just makes me laugh when you think of like, whoever holding up a phone and being like, "Okay, time to kiss. Oh, just a sec, I'm holding my phone at a weird angle. Ahh, this thing is designed so awkwardly for taking pics with one hand. Okay, are you ready? Wait, fix your hair, you have an alfalfa. Okay, looks good. Ready? *click* Ahh, damn, I missed most of your face. Let's try again." Like, maybe a candid shot at a wedding is acceptable, but taking the pic yourself? Stop it.
• Facebook status: "Doing blah blah blah with the boy." The boy? Which boy? Does he have a name? This seems degrading to me. Do guys write, "the girl?" No, because that sounds like they don't respect her or some feminist nonsense. Don't assume that I know you're talking about your boyfriend. Use names to identify who you're talking about, because that's what names are for. But the worst part I think is the "the." It's like saying, "the dog," or, "the sandwich," or, "the lady at the counter who doesn't know how to order a latte." It just sounds rude and impersonal and a bunch of other stuff. I dunno.
• Random month anniversary announcements. Okay, so these are the monthiversaries that I deem worthy of celebrating: 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 60, continue at intervals of 12 months. See what I'm saying? You can publicly celebrate half years for the first two years but after that, please, puh-lease, keep it to yourself. Because we (we being the single people) don't want to be reminded at monthly intervals that someone as annoying as you has a significant other while we're stuck crying all over our cats and Fritos.
• Declaration (sweeping, at that) that you have the best boyfriend/girlfriend ever! You most likely do not. In fact, everyone is laughing at you because everyone except you knows that your boyfriend is being very suggestive towards other females and therefore is most likely not the best ever. Or something like that.
• Writing a status about going to the gym or something and ending it with "Love you so much Jimbo, you're my soulmate. You make me want to roll my windows down and cruise. <3" The f*** does that have to do with you going to the gym? And 14 other people just quoted that song in the last 25 minutes. Be original.

I recently had an experience where I liked a person. It was disgusting really. Couldn't concentrate on writing. Had a huge lapse in blogging/tweeting which resulted in who knows how many lost Twitter followers. I did not love this person. Not even close. I maybe could have though, eventually, and that's where the disappointment lies. I've since been cured of that nonsense, as you can tell by the almost daily blog posts that I've been pumping out. Cured maybe isn't the right description. It was more like a slap in the face by reality, telling me that love sucks and it's usually not going to work out. But I think I knew that already. 

The thing is, love is the best until it's not. You think everything is great and you'll be together forever and have little babies and then it just doesn't happen. And that's soul-crushing. 

This is basically a crude representation of what I dream about every night.

Really though, is having a guy beg for my affection, shower me with tasty, cheese-covered food gifts, and never talk to another girl again for as long as he lives too much to ask from a mate, seriously? It's like no one wants to work for love anymore. They just want it to be presented to them on a platter, all drizzled in chocolate and ready to cuddle and watch The Breakfast Club with you. (I'm included in this group of lazy lovers, although I'd prefer cheese sauce over chocolate.)

But as I said before, I am a cynic. And more than likely a few of you are reading this and think I'm a jealous idiot. Which is partially true, I won't deny it. But the people who think I'm an idiot are probably also the people who take kissing pics and think that they're going to be with their significant other forever even though they've only known them for five minutes.

Have a nice Post-Valentine's Day Day (notice that I waited to post my love-bashing until AFTER the celebration of love, so as not to be rude. Lol, just kidding, I tweeted a lot of love hating.) and laugh at the following Aziz Ansari quote that I stole from Pinterest. He knows what's up. (He's also ruining the sanctity of my blog with his not bleeped out f-bombs. I'm sorry.)

Kissing Is Weird

I assume you read the title of this post, so, I don't think I really need much more of an intro than that. Kissing is WEIRD. It is. Press your face up against someone else's for a little bit. Touch your mouths together. Your mouths, where bacteria and all kinds of yucky stuff lives. And then tongues get involved and SERIOUSLY?! That's disgusting.

Why is it that sharing a tooth brush is considered absolutely horrid, but we can rub our saliva all over each other's mouths and that's super romantic or hot or attractive or whatever it is?
And you wouldn't walk up to someone you don't know at a bar and take a sip from their drink (I say this, but a guy definitely walked up to me at a bar once and drank half my beverage but I think he may be an exception to the rule because I was in Montreal and everything is backwards there.) I do, however, know plenty of people who would walk up to a person and start kissing them.

Now, I'm not really a big germaphobe. I don't believe in the ten-second rule, I believe in the however-long-it-takes-me-to-see-it-and-pick-it up-off-the-ground rule (with exceptions to certain questionable locations such as bathrooms and airplane tray tables.) But retrieving your food off the ground is a matter of survival and environmental friendliness! Touching your tongue against another person's is not.

It's like when suddenly you're in a relationship with someone (this counts friendships, because friends do this to) it's okay to take a sip from their drink because clearly if you know this person they must not be carrying any diseases or dangerous bacterias. And everyone who you don't know very well must have a mouth crawling with the plague, obviously. For instance, one time at Costco my mother took a drink of what she thought was my beverage, but it was actually just a cup that had been left on the table from the previous inhabitant (BTW this is a pet peeve of mine. Throw out your damn cup, you lazy jerks.) Anyway, so Mom takes a sip, before I could inform her that this was not my cup. She of course proceeded to spit the contents out, which I think is a natural reaction. But think about it: Why is that cup any less sanitary than drinking out of my cup? I don't think there is any such thing as a clean human mouth, so what's the difference? (In case you were wondering how the Costco story ends, I was scolded for not throwing out Mr. Lazy's cup before I sat down because I was supposed to foresee that my mother was not going to buy herself a drink and was just going to steal mine. Sorry, Mom. My intentions here are not to sound like a brat, I just feel as if you should have purchased your own beverage. I'm a thirsty girl.)

This is a PG blog, so I'm not even going to get into how weird other things humans do together are (again, if you really think about them. And more so if you take a quick surf through urbandictionary.com. It's a real eye-opener.) No, actually, let's talk about it. Why (why why why why WHY WHY WHY WHY!!!) is it acceptable to put our mouths ALL up in other people's unmentionable areas? It's not even like this is an animalistic thing, really, because I think only monkeys and dolphins do it too, and they're like super smart. But probably I'm being extremely ignorant to all kinds of knowledge and studies that say differently. Whatever. Anyhoo, we all know what comes out of those areas, correct? But I'm doubting I could find a lot of people who would lick the inside of a toilet bowl. See what I'm saying here? Yet, this is an acceptable (to some extent) practice.

So, we can put our mouths all over each other, but when a dog comes along and tries to lick the remnants of your breakfast burrito from the corner of your mouth, that's disgusting and you have to go rinse your mouth out and spit for like ten minutes and cut your lips off. Okay, to be fair, that dog was just licking its butt and eating a dead squirrel but for all you know the guy you kissed at da club last night also enjoys the occasional road-kill snack. I'm not saying making out with your dog is something that should start happening, but I'm just saying I think it's funny what we deem as gross and what we deem as a fun past-time with another person.

Unsanitary-ness aside, kissing is also weird in the way that dancing is weird. Waving your limbs around and wiggling. Have you ever stood above a dancefloor and just watched everyone? It's actually hilarious, regardless of how "good" a dancer you are. (I know we're getting off topic, but I actually think that the most ridiculous-looking dancers are the "professionals." I'm possibly way over-thinking or over-analyzing the act of dancing. But over-thinking is what I do. That's why this post exists.) Anyway, kissing, shoving your mouth against another person's. Or against their forehead or cheek or whatever. For birds, this exact action is called pecking and it's an act of aggression (I assume, because I know essentially nothing about birds.) And this is arguably the most sincere way we have of telling people we're attracted to them or we like them or whatever. Or at least that's what movies teach us.

I don't want to get into the psych behind kissing or the biological reasons that we enjoy it, I'm just saying that it's weird when you look at the big picture.

In case you want to check out someone else's view on the weirdness of kissing, I found this fun article as well, on a website that I personally enjoy very much. I found this AFTER I wrote most of my post so there is no plagiarism involved, you scholarly jerks. Study: Kissing is Really Weird from hahajk.com.