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Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.
Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.”
Dear Asshole — I just wanted to tell you how disgusting I think you are. What gives you the right to give people “advice” when you’re obviously a mess yourself? What’s more, your perpetuation of negative gay stereotypes—drunk promiscuous gay men, cheap lesbians, lesbians who move in together after one date, etc...—is not only reprehensible but dangerous. How can we expect the rest of the world to stop using negative stereotypes and treating us like second class citizens when self-loathing queers like you keep perpetuating them?
Free speech is a sacred right but irresponsible assholes like you who abuse it shouldn’t be allowed to spew your hateful words in public forums. Do everyone in the gay community a favor and go away.
I’m sure you won’t have the guts to print my letter but I don’t care.
— Barbara, Jamaica Plain, MA
Dear Barbara — Thank you for your kind letter, and also for helping to perpetuate another negative gay stereotype that Spike neglected: the humorless, intolerant, PC dyke. How could Spike have been so careless?
Dear Spike — Who do you think will win the big Oscars this year?
—Jamie in Medford
Dear Jamie — Spike isn’t sure about Best Picture or the other acting categories, but he thinks Tom Cruise is a shoo-in for Best Actor for his performance as Baby Suri’s father.
Dear Spike Sez — What do you make of the situation with Isaiah Washington calling his gay co-star T.R. Knight a “faggot”? Do you think Washington should be fired from “Grey’s Anatomy?”
— Bob M., Harvard, MA
Dear Bob — Frankly Spike doesn’t understand all the hoopla. “Faggot” is just a word like any other. No better, no worse. Spike thinks that everyone should just give a nigger a break.
Dear Spike — What can gay people do to ensure that we have greater represention in movies, television and music?
— Kathie from Northampton
Jesus Christ, Kathie, asking for more gay representation in movies, television and music is like asking for more black representation in the NBA! Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Notes on a Scandal, Ellen, Rosie, Doogie, T.R. Knight, Queer Eye, the L Word, Logo, Here, Scissor Sisters, Elton John, Panic at the Disco (at least they SHOULD be gay)... Enough’s enough! Now if you want to talk about QUALITY representation, that’s a different story.
Dear Spike — I’m pissed.I have an awesome idea for a gay dramedy but no one is willing to produce it. I’ve been trying to shop it around to various producers for like 2 months nonstop but none of them have been interested. They all claim the gay-themed show market is saturated right now. I think that’s bullshit and think it’s just homophobia from them. What should I do? I know my show would be a huge hit.
— The Next Darren Starr, Cambridge
Gee, Next-Darren, maybe you could stop bitching and whining and earn some money so you can produce your damn show yourself! You didn’t see Salma Hayek boohoo-ing in her tostadas because no one wanted to produce a show about a fat, homely hispanic chick, did you? No, she put her pesos where her mouth was (or something like that) and produced “Ugly Betty” herself. If you think your show is such a sure fire hit then how about you take the risk? Or better yet, ask your parents to bankroll your little dream so that when it fails and they lose their entire life savings and have to live in a state-funded nursing home, maybe they’ll finally do what they obviously should have done when you were about ten and smack some fucking sense into your little bitch head.
Dear Spike — I’m expecting my fifth child in March. I named the first four after months (April, May, June and August). I’d really like to come up with another name that references a month but none of the others work for names. Any suggestions?
— Pearl, Camden, Maine
Yeah, Pearl, here’s a suggestion: how about keeping your legs closed for a little while? Just what the world needs, another brat whose mother think it’s cute to have theme names for her kids. Spike is just grateful that you weren’t a big fan of Snow White.
Dear Spike — I’m really offended by people’s insistence on labeling others based on their sexuality. I’m a 27-year-old man. I happen to be sexually attracted to men, but I don’t define myself as gay or homosexual because my sexual preference is just a small part of who I am. I don’t need any advice. I just wanted to make that point.
—Tony T. in Dorchester
Dear Tony — Thanks for sharing. As my Aunt Veranda used to say, however, “If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, and sucks cock like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”
DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.
Humor / Politics - Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are deciders.
Give me liberty because I’m the decider.
All men are created deciders.
I have not yet begun to decide.
Those who forget history are doomed to decide it.
Speak softly, carry a big stick, and be a decider.
The only thing we have to fear is fear of deciding.
…if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "We were the deciders."
I have a dream that I am the decider.
Don’t worry, be a decider.
Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.
Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.”
OK, Spike! The boyfriend/partner/ball and chain thing is NOT unique to the gay community ("A Boyfriend By Another Other Name...", posted 1/05/07)! And your assumption that straight people move seamlessly from BF to fiance to husband is extremely bigoted of you, oh great gay one!
This is a big issue for me, too—really! I am an almost-45-year-old woman, and Russ, the guy I’ve been in a relationship with for 6 years, is 12 yrs older. "Boyfriend" seems truly a silly term, given that. "Partner" has connotations of homosexuality and capitalism—and not that I'm against either, but they don't have much to do w/ my relationship! "Lover” seems like way too much information, "special friend" seems like kindergarten, and "ball and chain" is just perjorative and crude!
So what would you suggest to this gentle reader?!
—Babycakes in Fargo, ND
Dear Babycakes — Let Spike get this straight: you think that “boyfriend” is too silly a term for your 57-year-old guy but you have no problem calling yourself “Babycakes?” Go figure. Spike, of course, recognizes your reference to one of Armistead Maupin’s great “Tales of the City” books, but why not just call yourself “Fag Hag from the Boonies” instead of trying to get all literary? What are you, a poetry professor or something?
But Spike jests, gentle reader. From the tone of your letter he can tell that you are clearly a kind and thoughtful person seeking genuine guidance, and so he will try to help.
First of all, one shouldn’t take Spike so literally. It’s not like Spike spends any time or gives actual thought to his replies. They’re usually just jotted down on used cocktail napkins between rounds. Then at the end of the night the napkins are stuffed into pre-addressed and stamped envelopes that someone gave Spike once upon a time and dropped in a mail box. Then they go someplace where someone apparently takes the time to transcribe them and put them on the internet. It’s really quite wonderful and magical, and someday Spike must find out who’s doing it and thank them properly...and ask for some money.
But Spike digresses.
The point is that the columns are forgotten as quickly as they’re written (and as quickly as they're meant to be forgotten after they’re read), so Spike went back and read some of his earlier columns to discover the advice to which you were referring. It must be said that the benefit of short term memory impairment is that reading each column was like discovering some wonderful new treasure for Spike, and frankly Spike is mystified why some wealthy syndicate hasn’t contacted him yet about bringing “Spike Sez” to a respectable medium like print, but that’s beside the point. It also must be said that perhaps Spike WAS a bit too broad in his generalization.
But it seems to Spike that he has already given you a perfectly suitable suggestion. In your particular case, “my old man” seems MORE than appropriate. And if you’re concerned that people might misinterpret the term to mean your father, just give Russ a big old tongue kiss right afterward. That should clear things up...or at least make you emminently more intriuguing to your friends and colleagues.
In all seriousness, why introduce Russ as anything other than Russ? Are you trying to establish immediate ownership so other women (and perhaps men) will keep their distance? Or do you feel a sense of insecurity that compels you to let people know that, yes, you are capable of being in a relationship, and what’s more, you’ve found someone who actually wants to be with you? Spike just doesn’t understand this need people have to define their relationships to others. It all seems quite silly.
So Spike declares that henceforth all people should introduce their boyfriends/girlfriends/partners/fiances/husbands/wives/significant others/love muffins/fuck toys/etc... simply by name. In Spike’s experience, if people want more details they’ll be sure to ask. And if they don't, then they really don't care. It's as simple as that.
I hope that helps, dear Babycakes. If not...now what was Spike saying? Oh well, it couldn’t have been that important.
So ciao for now to one and all,
Spike
DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.
Humor / Sports - Bill Parcells retired as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
How good a coach was he? Forget about the 183 wins, the three Super Bowl appearances, and the two World Championships. Here is the real mark of a champion: When coaching the Jets, he described a time when the stress of wanting to win so badly caused him to vomit in his mouth while sleeping.
Most people will do anything to avoid vomiting, including coaching an NFL team. Vomiting brought on by stress is one of the leading indicators someone is in the wrong line of work.
Do you vomit if the French fries you're making are just a little overdone? Maybe it’s time to give McDonald’s two weeks notice and think about flipping soy burgers at a Siddha Yoga Meditation Ashram. Did you upchuck during your wedding ceremony? You may have a few more issues to work out.
But here is where Bill Parcells is different from the rest of us: He wouldn’t let a gastrointestinal rejection of his pending nuptials stop him (as evidenced by his divorce this year). Why? Because he is the consummate pro. “I don’t want to hear anything about bad omens! Throw some sawdust down! Play a few choruses of “Sunrise Sunset.” And don’t stop until you get to the I dos!”
Vomiting due to stress may seem like old school for contemporary NFL coaches. It may even be possible to be committed to winning without puking on your wife the night before every game. Still, it won’t be the same not seeing Bill Parcells each Sunday, patrolling the sidelines, and thinking: I hope he didn’t eat Mexican last night.
ben.alper@onlineoffbeat.com
Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.
Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.”
Dear Spike — I dated a guy for 7 months. I fell really hard for him and thought he felt the same way about me. In fact he asked me to move in with him so I told my landlady that I wouldn’t be renewing my lease and started packing. Then about a month before I was going to move in he started acting like a freak.
For one example (and believe me there were many), at his sister’s wedding in September, I went to the bar to get a drink and got him one as well because he’d only had one and every time we’d gone to an event together before he’d always had two. When I brought him the drink he started going off on me in front of everyone, telling me he hadn’t asked for a drink so I shouldn’t have brought him one. I just walked away from the situation and spent the rest of the reception sulking like a little kid.
Afterward I confronted him about it and he told me he didn’t like me making assumptions about what he did and didn’t want. I let it pass, but then when I started to move some of my stuff into his place he freaked out again and started complaining that all my stuff was going to wreck the way he likes things in his apartment. After a huge blow-up he finally admitted that he didn’t want me to move in with him (the day before my old lease was set to expire). Needless to say, I broke things off and didn’t move in.
Now after a month we’ve begun talking again. He says that he recognizes now that he has control issues and that that’s what was making him act the way he did, and that he’s working on solving them. He seems to want to reconcile and I still really love him, but I’m not sure I can trust him any more. What do you think I should do?
Daniel in Watertown
Dear Daniel — He turned down a free drink? And he usually has just two at social occasions? What more evidence do you need that this guy has severe problems? And what’s up with moving in together after 6 months? Are you sure your name’s not Danielle? Good God, get away from this situation as quickly as you can!
Seriously, Daniel, this guy has WARNING written all over him...in big pink neon letters.
First of all there’s the big fact that he led you to believe, over an extended period of time, that he wanted you to move in with him, and didn’t come clean with the truth until the 11th hour, almost costing you your apartment. Generally speaking, those sorts of revelations don’t just come out of the blue. Awareness dawns gradually. Most likely he knew for at least a week or two that he wanted to back out, but lacked the courage and decency to tell you until he had no choice. And what’s more, he apparently gave no consideration to how his last-minute surprise was going to effect you. By Spike’s book, that shows a lack of respect.
But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he really truly didn’t didn’t know how he felt until that day. Well, in that case, he’s critically lacking in self-awareness or is incapable of admitting truths, even to himself. Either way, it’s a big problem in terms of having a relationship with the guy.
And now you’re considering getting back together with him? What’s changed? Sure he says that he understands his problem now and is willing to deal with it, but what evidence has he given you in the past that he is capable of understanding himself, never mind successfully dealing with his problems? Did he suddenly start accepting your common courtesies after the incident at the wedding? Spike thought not.
The other issue is that he’s self-diagnosed his problem, and the problem with self-diagnosis is that people tend to diagnose themselves only in ways that they find palatable. For instance, they diagnose themselves as having ADD, when in fact they’re just self-involved assholes who can’t be bothered to pay attention to anything or anyone else around them. Or they diagnose themselves as having control issues that keep them from having a successful, sharing relationship, when in fact they just don’t like the other person that much but can’t admit it. Let’s face it, have you ever heard anyone diagnose themselves as just a shit head? No. There’s always some deep-seated psychological issue that causes their behavior. Spike knows that Spike is just a cynical misanthrope. There’s no particular reason for it. It’s just fun.
Even assuming he’s right, that he really does have control issues, isn’t he perpetuating his behavior by diagnosing and choosing to “treat” the problem by himself? One would think that the first step to overcoming a control issue would be to seek qualified help from someone else, thus admitting that one lacks the resources and capabilities to deal with the problem by oneself. You know, essentially giving up control. His approach is like someone saying “I’m completely self-absorbed, so I’m going into isolation for a month to teach myself how not to be.”
It’s only natural when we love someone to want to forget and forgive their faults, and in the moments when things are going well it’s very easy to do. It’s also easy to believe someone we love when they tell us that they understand their problems and are ready to change. But love isn’t a magic cure for everything.
Before you consider reconciling with this guy, Spike thinks you need to see concrete evidence of change over an extended period of time (because anyone can fake it for a few weeks). You might even want to try the “chick route” and test him a few times, purposely doing things to push his buttons so you can see how he’ll react. Yes, it’s immature and deceitful, but also effective, and you need to be certain that he is truly changing or you’re going to find yourself in the same situation 6 months or a year from now...except that by then it’ll be much messier because you’ll also have to find a new place to live.
It’s okay to be hopeful, but also be cautious, and at the first sign that freak boy’s issues are resurfacing get the hell out. Remember, just because you love someone doesn’t obligate you to accept their issues as your own.
So good luck, Daniel. Spike will be thinking of you...whenever he's trying to remember what town has the most Greek sub and pizza shops in Massachusetts.
Ciao for now,
Spike
DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.
Humor / Politics - In his weekly radio address, President Bush labeled lawmakers who criticized his latest plan for Iraq “irresponsible.” He also challenged them to suggest solutions for extricating America from this hopeless predicament. Here are a few options that would seem to have a better chance succeeding than his.
• Appease the warring factions by offering each fighter a free subscription to Netflix.
• Sell the conflict to Donald Trump. You don’t think that’s possible? Who ever thought you could own a beauty pageant?
• Madonna adopts the Sunnis. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopt the Shiites.
• Call up President Bush’s National Guard unit.
• All the troops out. Chuck Norris in (as long as we can pay him more than what he’s getting for those infomercials).
• “Good news, Mr. President. They just discovered a ton of oil in Grenada!”
• Pay George Clooney to date Condoleezza Rice. (It’s asking a lot, but he’ll take one for the team.) After sharing a hot tub with George, Noam Chomsky, and Barbara Streisand, Condi will be ready to pull troops out of Mississippi.
• Exchange the troops for Oakland Raiders fans. These poor people need to take their frustrations out on somebody.
• Refocus the Iraqis anger. Can you say Baghdad Church of Scientology?
• If all else fails, less Bush, more Yanni.
ben.alper@onlineoffbeat.com
DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance between characters in this strip and actual persons living or dead is unintentional. No actual cats were harmed in the making of this strip.
Mass. Media - Published in the Boston Globe on Tuesday, January 9, 2007
The anchorman was in a dither. “The weather is downright weird,” exclaimed Ed Harding of WCVB (Ch. 5) on a night when high temperatures broke records up and down the East Coast. Harding reported more heavy snow in Denver, no traditional lake effect snow in Syracuse where golfers teed up on greens, and a record 63 degrees in Boston. “What in the name of weather of going on?”
Harvey Leonard, the station’s weatherman could offer little insight, except to blame an errant jet stream and promise there will be a “price to pay later on.” He also cracked a joke about Harding golfing in Syracuse. Actually, he made two golf jokes. The tone turned serious during an unsettling story about dolphins stranding themselves inexplicably along the Cape Cod shoreline.
Down the dial at WHDH (Ch. 7), Pete Bouchard, resident meteorologist, showed off a pretty picture of a flowering plum tree in Jamaica Plain. On CBS4, anchor Lisa Hughes declared, “Oh omigosh, this is unbelievable,” about the record high temperature, but she presented the pleasant prospect of “beautiful” Patriot’s playoff forecast while Ken Barlow, station weather guy, referred to the immediate outdoor conditions as “mind-boggling.”
Spot on. The weather has been weird, unbelievable, mind-boggling or whatever other extreme adjectives you want to toss around. So far, this winter has been an endless hybrid of October and March, with occasional reminders of November and late May. In the Boston Public Garden, the willows weep new green and trees bud and flower. On local TV, don’t expect an explanation beyond the astonishing qualifiers.
By design, the weathercast is a temperate zone, a bastion of prognosticative bromides without any controversy. Weather people tell you to watch out for drizzle during the morning commute. This has been the extent of their cautionary role. They are promotional tools, teasing their forecasts throughout primetime. They are encouraged to chat chummily with the anchor people in calm periods and go into full froth during blizzards, thunder storms and other disturbances. Each local TV meteorologist presents the image of a weather jockey who loves the ride in severe conditions. Perhaps that explains why Kevin Lemanowicz of WFXT (Ch. 25) sneered about all this “boring” weather.
Boring only if you don’t want to contemplate the freaky plum blossoms in Jamaica Plain in January.
Something’s going on. Even while rollerblading or picnicking on the Feast of the Epiphany, outdoor enthusiasts had to worry about global warming or climate change. Just don’t expect to hear those fears spoken aloud by the local TV weathercasters who, traditionally, ignore environmental controversy and world problems.
Only Channel 4’s Barlow has reported on the effects of global warming, but he does not integrate the theme into his daily weathercasts. Barlow presented a hard-hitting story last fall in which he put the environmental crisis in context. “Global warming is happening,” he said in a story still posted on the station’s Website. “Consider these two recent findings: the planet is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years; and this past summer was the warmest in a generation. By historic standards the earth is in fact getting hotter. Readings were up one full degree in the past century. Although that might not sound like much, it really is significant.” Barlow also offered some very practical things you could do to stem greenhouse emissions, including turning off appliances. Since these include TVs, Barlow’s admonition seemed all the more brave.
Still, education about global warming need not be an anomaly for a TV forecaster. It should become part of the routine, when the weather is strange, to remind us that our fragile planet is in peril. To neglect to do so and fall back on the over-the-top adjectives and pretty pictures of plum blossoms seem a foolish disservice. To acknowledge global warming is not an act of treason, or a kiss up to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” -- despite what right-wing pundits would have us believe.
In these times, you do need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing. TV meteorologists are uniquely positioned to make sense of what’s happening outside our windows. They have the tools to put the weather into climatic context. With global warming an omnipresent threat, their role becomes more crucial. Playing Mickey or Minnie the Dunce with the anchorman doesn’t cut it for an audience whose nagging fear has become the change in the weather.
© Copyright 2007 the Boston Globe
monica@onlineoffbeat.com
Television - I finally caught up with “The Gilmore Girls” in the middle of last season when the show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was losing steam. Sherman-Palladino, with her husband Daniel Palladino, was the creative engine behind the giddily gassy “Girls” Both Palladinos departed after the sixth season in one of those studio dust-ups where no one knows the whole story but it probably has everything to do with money.
What snagged me into “Gilmore” was the unflagging spirit of show. Fatigued by police procedurals, staged reality, and anything reeking of “O.C.,” I admire the CW comedy/drama because it’s one of those old-fashioned television shows driven by scripts and characters. However, I can’t help but feel I’ve stumbled into to the party too late. Now, everybody seems to be losing juice.
The centerpiece of “Girls” has always been the relationship between a mother and daughter. Now, it’s harder than ever to tell who is who. Daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) is about to graduate from Yale while mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham) seems stuck in small-town America with an occasional guest-star husband whom the scriptwriters will have to get rid of because it would be too boring otherwise.
Questions about Lorelai involve her prickly relationship with her mother, her super stupid relationship with her best friend and her uncanny ability to be so self-consciously cute you want to pull the plug on her. She can really be annoying.
While Lorelai fiddles with fidelity, her used-to-be-true-love Luke (Scott Patterson) has not taken off the backward baseball cap he wore in the first season. Luke has his own little “Gilmore” girl living with him – his quicksilver smart daughter April (Vanessa Marano). The kid has a gift for rat-a-tat dialogue delivery and can talk circles around doltish Luke. And I must believe that actor Patterson is the luckiest man on earth to have gotten this gig for so many years and expended so little effort. He’s really a one-note.
Still, even in these times of lassitude, the show does not seem to be in a creativity crisis. With all its flaws, “The Gilmore Girls” remains a charming refuge for viewers who just want to relax cute.
monica@onlineoffbeat.com
DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance between characters in this strip and actual persons living or dead is unintentional. No actual cats were harmed in the making of this strip.
DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance between characters in this strip and actual persons living or dead is unintentional. No actual cats were harmed in the making of this strip.
Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.
Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.”
Dear Spike — My boyfriend and I have been dating for 6 months. The other night we were at a bar and a woman we know introduced us to a friend of hers as “Cameron and his partner, Eric.” For some reason the word “partner” really gave me the willies, so afterward I asked Eric what he thought about it and he felt the same. There’s something about the term “partner” that suggests dependency and financial interconnectedness that was wrong for us. So we tried to think of other terms that felt right, but nothing seemed appropriate to describe our relationship. “Boyfriend” feels kind of juvenile, like we’re in 7th grade. I always liked “husband” in the past because it suggested a real relationship but also was sort of mocking of the whole thing, but now that Massachusetts has legalized gay marriage that doesn’t work anymore. “Lovers” is just annoying and suggests only a sexual relationship. “Significant other” is just weird. Any suggestions?
— Cameron in Cambridge
Dear Cameron — Have you considered “ball and chain?” Or maybe “albatross?” Or “soul-sucking leech?” Spike thinks that these are all excellent descriptors for the other party in a relationship.
Spike has to admit, Cameron, that at first read he thought your letter was a joke, since surely no couple that has been dating for 6 months would still be going out to bars. Rather, they’d be sitting at home knitting quilts together on the couch, watching reruns of “Matlock” and “Murder, She Wrote” and inhaling pints of Ben & Jerry’s “Chunky Monkey.” But Spike asked an acquaintance who has been in a relationship for almost a year about it, and this acquaintance assured Spike that on special occasions he and his partner (his words, not Spike’s) do still venture into the city for a night out...though they wear lots of foundation and sweaters so no one will notice how pale and tubby they’ve become. So assuming your letter isn’t al hoax, Spike will try to help.
Spike agrees with you about the inadequacy of the terms you listed. It’s interesting to note that this problem seems unique to gay men. In the straight world there’s an accepted progression from “boyfriend/girlfriend” to “fiance” to “husband/wife” to “fucking ex-husband/wife.” For dykes, the all-purpose “girlfriend” and “fucking bitch ex-girlfriend who ripped out my heart” seem to do the trick just fine (unless they happen to live in our fair state). But for gay men things are much more complicated. There seems to be an unspoken rule that at certain nebulous junctures new terms are required to describe the parties in a relationship. For the first night “trick,” “hook up,” or “drunken mistake” usually work just fine. But then one has to choose between “fuck buddy” or “boyfriend,” depending on whether coffee is partaken together the next morning. Then one usually moves to “lover” or “partner,” depending on one’s tolerance for ick. No one seems to know exactly when these new terms are appropriate or what each entails, but the evolution is instinctual...like lemmings throwing themselves over the edge of the cliff.
But since none of these terms is going to be adequate for you (or even uniformly interpreted by others), Spike has two other options. The first is to just embrace the ridiculousness of the whole thing and use terms that are so blatantly over-the-top that others can’t fail to recognize that you’re in on the joke.
These terms fall into several categories:
• Cute and cloying, such as “my honey,” “my sweetie,” “my pookums” or “my love muffin”
• Overtly sexual, such as “my bitch,” “my fuck toy” or “my cocksucker”
• Street-slang, such as “my old man,” “my boy” or “mi papi,” though these probably won’t work if you’re two white guys dressed in cardigans.
The second option, which Spike prefers, is to henceforth refer to Eric only as “Eric, my next ex.” While this may seem somewhat harsh, if you think about it it’s actually quite accurate, and it dispenses with the specific descriptors that you find so troubling. Chances are you’ll be broken up by the time you read this response, anyway, but even if you’re together for the rest of your lives, at some point one of you is bound to die, at which point Eric will, in fact, become your next ex.
More importantly, however, it defines Eric solely by his relationship to you (and isn’t that what we all want in a relationship anyway?) and will plant a critical seed of doubt in his mind that will keep him from becoming complacent. Each time he hears you utter the term he’ll question your commitment to him and redouble his efforts to keep you happy. It’s a win-win situation for you: you can be accurate and ensure Eric’s continuing subservience at the same time. A perfect solution!
Now, as for what Eric should call you, who cares? Spike is obligated only to help those who write to him, and since Eric apparently couldn’t be bothered to write, it’s not Spike’s problem.
I hope that helps, Cameron, though frankly Spike can't understand why anyone would consciously choose to be in a relationship—unless they're very ugly, very poor, or smell bad. It's all just so complicated and limiting. I mean, why settle for bon bons every day when you can choose from anything in the candy store?
But it's not Spike's place to question the actions of others...just to help where possible and mock where necessary.
So ciao for now, my sweets,
Spike
DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.
DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance between characters in this strip and actual persons living or dead is unintentional. No actual cats were harmed in the making of this strip.
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