My eight rules for relationships.
Hi there and welcome to my eight rules for relationships. Before I tell you what they are I feel it would be prudent of me to explain why I have them in the first place.
I’m the kind of person that likes to try to bring order to the universe. There has to be a rational, logical and scientific explanation for everything. Like a wave hitting a beach for example. At first glance and to most people this appears to be a random event; but once you take into account all the varying factors such as water to air temperature ratio, surface tension, thermo-dynamics, aqua-dynamics, the gravitational pull from the Moon, centrifugal forces of the Earth rotating, Newtonian laws of motion (conservation of momentum etc), the molecular density of the water, salt and other pollutant content, barometric pressure, wind speed and so on you can formulate all the variables and work out that the wave hitting the beach isn’t a random event at all but predictable and of a calculable frequency.
Something that even Darwin would have struggled with is the complexities of human relationships. Why do they work in some cases and not others? How can two people who are psychologically specking polar opposites get along as well as some do? In the animal kingdom it’s a lot simpler. Establish the “Alpha” male and mate to protect the species. Basic survival of the fittest, with our allegedly more advanced society however there are many more variants that makes relationships about as predictable as a wave hitting a beach (see how the analogy works now?). So with a little help from some of my friends and my personal experiences I have come up with a simple set of eight rules to follow for success with the opposite (or not if that’s your thing) sex.
If you do not or are not willing to learn from your mistakes you are doomed to repeat them over and over again. So these rules are designed to bypass mistakes myself and my friends have made in the past.
These rules are for entertainment purposes only and do not actually guarantee any kind of success. Basically if after reading this you don’t end up living happily ever after you can’t sue me. So there.
Rule 1
The Generation gap.
Never choose a new partner who is more than five years younger or older than you. Five years older would be for most “Mrs Robinson” territory. Five years younger and you run the risk of looking like a pillock and dating would be like babysitting. Whilst the physical side of things may well be exceptional the emotional and maturity level could find you struggling to engage in conversation. Unless you want to be a toy boy or sugar daddy that is.
Rule 2
Distance.
Make sure your new partner lives more than ten miles away from you. Why? Well the last thing you want is to be living in each other’s pockets. You’d get fed up of each other and things could turn sour quickly. If you consummate the relationship with someone from your own neighbourhood you are putting yourself at the risk of undue and unwanted attention. If it goes well you could end up the local “go to guy” and have women propositioning you in your local shop because they’ve heard you’re good in the sack (not as good as it sounds believe me). This could cause problems because you’re in a relationship and not interested and could cause offence resulting in a knock on your door for their much bigger brother in a misplaced act of (“Aint my sister good enough for yer!”) chivalry. If it goes badly and the sexual chemistry isn’t there then you know by the time the damp patch has dried out everyone who passes you in the street will know all about it and you may as well forget about ever asking anyone else out in that area again.
If the relationship goes well it can be really annoying when people you hardly know but know your partner better stop and talk to you about it. Also if the relationship goes badly you can’t by fish and chips or drink in your local for a while.
So how exactly do we come up with ten miles you may ask? Well this is because of an incident that happened to a friend. He slept with another girl and his partner found out about it, dumped him and decided to bang the heck out of his door at three in the morning screaming “Why don’t you love me? How could you do this to me? I let you do me.....” etc. Ten miles would require a taxi ride or lift to achieve this. So the Lambrini fuelled rage would be limited to your answer machine, email, texts, Twitbook and your pet rabbit.
Rule 3
Work colleagues should stay that way.
Imagine all of the above in the confined space of an office. Now multiply it by ten and add a “Sexual Harassment” dismissal if you look twice at an ex once it’s all gone wrong.
Also at work if the relationship goes well, everyone else in the office will be jealous (even if they say they’re not) and either complain about it to the boss or throw a spanner in the works some other way. Usually gossip around the water fountain would do the trick. It is impossible to keep a relationship at work a secret, changes in body language and other tells will always give you away. If there’s a “no fraternisation” clause in contract expect a congratulations card with a P-45 attached if you were to get engaged. Again with the physical side of things if all goes well you’ll be the office stud and spend a lot of your day in the stationary cupboard (avoiding Bar-bra-less from accounts) or if it doesn’t go well you be the office joke and spend a lot of your day in the stationary cupboard crying to yourself. The Lambrini rage I mentioned earlier is worse when sober and via internal email. Especially if you accidently reply to everyone on the network by clicking the wrong box (Matt).
Rule 4
Never go out with anyone who has been introduced to you via a “friend”.
Obvious one this but it has to be said. If a “friend” introduces you to a girl it means one of two things.
1/ His girlfriend is fed up of you hogging her man so has set you up.
2/ He has set you up to get a stalker of his case.
If “1” is the case and all goes well there’s a weird obligation for your “friend” who got you two together to be the best man at the wedding. This will have repercussions. The best man speech will be crap, his partner will have a smug “I told you so” face on all day and your actual best friend will feel rejected. If things don’t work out in this instance you will lose your friend because he will be put into a position by his partner that it’s you (now aka the Devil) or her. A win-win situation for her because she has either palmed you off on an acquaintance of hers or got shot of you by default. (Please note the word “will” has been used and highlighted in all of these instances as there is no question of certainty; they will happen.)
If “2” is the case and all goes well prepare to be laughed at by your “friend” for the rest of your life and the most humiliating best man speech and stag do in recorded history. This is because he has managed to get rid of someone he wouldn’t look twice at or has “been there; done that”. If it goes pear shaped he’ll buy you a pint for getting the stalker away from his bunnies and she will then stalk you until she either finds or you point her in the direction of someone else.
There is of course a third option. If your “friend” doesn’t need inverted comers and genuinely feels you would get along with a genuine friend of his or hers. This is very dangerous territory. If you mess this one up you could lose a real friend and blow a chance of a serious relationship. This is why that kind of arrangement is destined to fail. So politely decline but show interest. Then your friend won’t feel guilty if it goes wrong and you can give them partial credit if it goes well.
Rule 5
Never ever go out with the same person twice.
Once it’s over it’s over. Seriously, if she dumped you she’ll do it again and again and again. You may as well change your name to “Door Matt”. “It’ll be different this time” “I’ve changed” oh and the classic “I’m in a different place now”. Ignore all of the above of suffer the consequences. You have been warned.
If you dumped her she will be happy to go back out with you (provided you didn’t do a hatchet job on her). Just as you get into a comfort zone she will either dump you, cheat on you or worse simply out of spite. “Hell hath no fury” is not just a saying. Every argument will end in her mentioning the fact you dumped her once already “you might as well do it again”.
If you’re in a position that you both decided that a relationship wasn’t the best way and you remain friends. Don’t go back out with her or him. It will just highlight the issues you had before and you’ll lose a friend as a result.
Rule 6
Timing.
Never go out with someone you fancied years ago and just happened to bump into years later. It’s like the poster of a car you had on your bedroom wall growing up. It may have been the best car in the world but by the time you drive one you will only ever be disappointed.
If you like someone do something about it. It’s like a scratch card, one rub with a coin and it is either “win or lose”. Don’t waste your time waiting for the draw. If it’s someone who lives nearby or you work with (taking into consideration the other rules of course) then it will look strange knowing someone for a period of time and not asking them out until you do. You will either look like a stalker or a pillock. To quote a well known phrase “don’t mug yourself” tell her or him and see what happens. Happily ever after or nothing; it’s only going to cost you a conversation.
Rule 7
Bisexuals.
Sorry about this one but from an interesting experience I have decided that bisexual women are trouble and my friends who have consulted about this agree to some extent. It’s bad enough going out with someone knowing you have to compete with the members of the same sex. Remember the whole Alpha male thing from the animal kingdom? Well our brains are still pre-programmed that way; after all we are just animals ourselves and we at least at a subconscious level see other males as predatory and feel the need to safeguard our position with the Alpha female. If the Alpha female is interested in other females as well it can send our pre-historic brains back into the cave and see everyone as a potential threat to the relationship. This can make even the most basic of social gatherings troublesome. If you are looking over your shoulder the whole time you will lose her.
Before you interrupt with the ubiquitous “Woo-who! Bisexual girls mean threesome!” This is about relationships not sex. Besides however good you think you are with women another woman will run rings around you in the bedroom department. Also in a relationship with a bisexual (unless it is purely sexual) I have found that monogamy in the relationship covers both genders. My bisexual partners in the past have never cheated on me with another man or a woman.
Rule 8
And finally the most important rule of all.
Only ever break three rules.
Like the wave hitting the beach there are several different factors to take into consideration when it comes to relationships. Some are predictable but these are not easily calculable or quantifiable to an extent that an exact guide can’t be formulated. The complexities of human nature itself is something that can be partly explained but vary so much from one person to another that trying to come up with a definitive answer is an act of futility.
So what’s the point of having a set of rules where one of the rules allows you to break the rules?
It simply punctuates the irony of trying to make a set of rules in the first place. All the psychology, biology, physics, anatomy, palaeontology, quantum physics and other sciences in the world can’t help predict the impossible.
Best of Luck, Rob.
(previously published by myself and I own the rights to it)
