Ryan Simcox

You want the truth? Just ask a question or drop a comment and I'll be sure to give you the hard facts on social etiquette.

ryan@enliv.com

When I sat down and thought about how to write this column, my first idea was to explain to you what to do in a relationship to make it more interesting. The only problem with that idea was that it has been done ten times over by every magazine. The usual “bring her one rose” or “surprise him naked in bed” is getting old and unoriginal. So I nixed the do’s and went on to the don’ts. But do people really need advice on what not to do in a relationship? Are people that clueless that they have no idea on what proper relationship etiquette is? The answer is yes. If it were no then why are there so many breakups? I was originally going construe the 13 Examples of the don’ts in relationships by giving straight advice. Then I thought of someone I know. We’ll call him Jay. His story is more distressing than anything that could ever be called fiction. This 13 Examples is Jay and his ex-girlfriend May’s relationship before they met, during their unity and after their breakup. After you read this you may think there is no possible way this is true, but believe me it is.

Before:
Example 13: Don’t fall in love with her if you met her online and slept with her the first night…I’m not saying that it’s not possible to fall in love with someone online, but if she is going to sleep with you the first night you meet her, I wouldn’t make any long term investment. If you think you are the first person she did this with, like Jay with May, you’re living in a dream…or a nightmare.

During:
Example 12: Don’t make fun of your small penis in public…If you want to make fun of yourself that’s your prerogative. But before you do, think about your partner. When he said this in public with her around, May was embarrassed. The mystery of her having all her sexual desires and fantasies fulfilled is blown. Women are very sexual and the thought of others knowing they aren’t getting it good isn’t something they want to make public knowledge. They want that info to stay more suppressed than how many guys they REALLY slept with.

Example 11: Don’t invade your partner’s privacy…Jay had a password stealer on his computer. While she was at his house, he told May to check her e-mail for the sole purpose of getting her password. She never found out about it, but it’s still an invasion of privacy. That’s pretty sick when your partner is sneaking around trying to find out where you’re going, whom you hung out with and what you did. Even though a relationship is about the two of you, sometimes we need our privacy.

Example 10: Don’t trash your ex to all your friends, then get back with them the next day…Jay and May broke up. He tells everyone that will listen that her breasts were gross and saggy. The next day he gets back together with her and says he was just kidding about the whole saggy breast thing. He was probably telling the truth the first time he said they weren’t up to his standards. Just think about how ridiculous you look after you trashed your ex and then get back with them.

Example 9: Don’t let your partner flirt with your friends…May flirted with a couple of Jay’s friends. Lucky for Jay his friends never pursued it. I bring this up because not every friend will resist his or her friends’ partner. How many times have you heard people ask, “Where did you meet?” And someone says “We meet when I was dating his/her friend.”

Example 8: Don’t have an orgy with your partner…Nothing is more fun than an orgy with two people from the opposite sex…as long as none of them are someone you carea about. Jay setup up a rendezvous between him, his girlfriend and a girl he met online. May never tried hooked up with another girl, but was willing to experiment. He never had an orgy. The stage was set and the girl arrived. Within two minutes of the event Jay was out for the count. He just sat back and observed. There he was watching the love of his life having things done to her better than he could ever do. What do you think happened next? Yes, from heterosexual to try bi to bye bye.

Examples 7: Don’t be blinded by love… Jay is suspicious that something is going on between May and her newfound friend. His suspicions lead to their breakup. After the breakup he gets lonely, so he tries to get her back. He arrives at her work with flowers. She is on the phone and spots him coming. Jay then hears her tell the person on the phone “Oh shit, Jay’s here, let me call you back”. It sounds like she was on the phone with someone that she was trying to hide from Jay. This is a common problem in today’s relationships. People find out their partner is cheating on them and they still want them back. Quantum Physics makes more sense than that.

After:
Example 6: Don’t stalk your ex…Before Jay was involved with May; he dated a girl six years earlier. He had others after her, but none meant more to him then her. When he started dating May, he was served a restraining order by the courts for his previous relationship. Apparently Jay was calling his ex and her new boyfriend, pretending to be her online and driving by her house. This all may sound sick, but nothing is sicker than the fact that it all happened six years after they broke up. Look people, if someone doesn’t want you, that means find someone else like O.J did. Okay maybe not like O.J, but seriously let it go.

Example 5: Don’t be a puppy dog …You probably already guessed it, but if you didn’t I’ll tell you. May left Jay for the girl they had the orgy with. That was the mystery person on the phone. May had her doubts about her relationship with her lesbian partner, so she kept her options open with Jay. He made countless attempts to get her back, but to no avail. Soon her uncertainties with her sexuality lead her to call Jay over in an attempt to work things out. He drove forty-five minutes to her house. When he arrived she said she changed her mind and closed the door on him. It seems as though May had a fight with her new girlfriend and in those forty-five minutes made up with her. Doing whatever your girlfriend or ex-girlfriend says isn’t attractive. The person doing the ordering around may like the fact they can make you do whatever they want, but they won’t have any respect for you.

Example 4: Don’t call your ex’s parents…Pretty soon May told Jay to stop calling her. Since she wouldn’t talk to him, he got desperate and called her mom. He told her mom that he was concerned about her because she was suicidal. He did this just so May would call him and yell at him. His plan worked. Six years earlier, in Jay’s prior relationship, he did the same thing. He called his ex’s parents and told them that he had cancer, so his ex would call him and feel bad for him. Pretty soon she figured out that cancer patients don’t gain 20 pounds of fat when they have it.

Example 3: Don’t be a sucker…Jay finally gets her on the phone and begs to see her. She says no and tells him pretty much to drop dead. So you would think he would stop trying right? No. He shows up at her work again begging, pleading and crying to take him back. Does she show any compassion for this specimen? No again. She laughs and walks away. He leaves the store in tears. Sad isn’t it? After your ex tells you to stop calling them, drop dead and laughs in your face as you pour your heart out to them, you would probably move on right? Yes, but is that what he does? No. The next day he continues calling her. The only thing worse she can do now is tell everyone he’s got a little penis, oh wait he already did that himself.

Example 2: Don’t come uninvited…A couple of days after she laughs in his face, he drives all the way to her house uninvited. The problem with coming uninvited is that you find out things you didn’t want to know. He calls her from his cell numerous times to tell her he’s coming over. She doesn’t answer. He calls her from the gate at her complex, but she doesn’t answer the phone. She has a closed circuit television video in her complex, so she can see his car at the gate. He then pushes the gate open with his car. He rolls up to her driveway and honks his horn. He didn’t want to get out because it was a rainy day and he wasn’t sure she was home. She opens the shades and looks through the window at him, then closes them. He thought she would open the door, but he ended up waiting there for five minutes. Then he runs up to the door and knocks. After two minutes of him standing in the rain, she opens the door. He asks her why didn’t you answer your phone, she told him it didn’t ring. He continues the interrogation by asking her why she didn’t open the door. She said because she didn’t see him. They talked for a while, until she had to go to the bathroom. In her absence, he checked her phone. She had ten missed calls from someone named Stalker.

Example 1: Don’t be like Jay …Her relationship with the lesbian fell apart. Jay begged for a chance and she said maybe. During the time of her lesbian experiment, she was talking to a guy online. This guy lived in California and was coming into town for the weekend. May and this guy had arrangements to get together. Jay found out about it. He asked her not to see this guy. She told him, and I quote “Jay just give me this weekend”. That always makes me laugh. What she basically said is “We can get back together, just after I have sex with this guy”.

So what ever happened to Jay, his ex, her girlfriend and friend from California? Jay and May never got back together, but she did with her lesbian pal. Then they broke up and she moved to California with the online guy. You probably think you can’t relate to any of this, but if you read between the lines you can. Don’t let people take advantage of you no matter how much you love them.

I have been replying to e-mails individually for the past two months and I have enjoyed all of your letters so keep them coming. Since the huge success of the magazine and the numerous amounts of e-mails I received, I decided to make next month’s column a reply to one of your e-mails. I look forward to reading more e-mail’s and writing the next column. See you next month…