8 Signs Your Date is the Untreatable Kind of Crazy

Photo Credit to kimkardashian.celebuzz.com

The collagen injection appointments written on Kim Kardashian's wall calendar have still collectively been on fewer dates than I have. These dating experiences where origins range from random bathroom line encounters to online dating sites like dare we say, Not OkCupid have given me the insight to spot someone's crazy quicker than you can say Prozac and vodka. This knowledge is just too good to not share with all of the screws tightly wound, individuals out there.

I don't mean to offend mental health care professionals or psychiatrists. God bless your souls for listening to twentysomething-year-old after twentysomething-year-old complain about being sad because their lives are "too perfect." Monday morning drinker's depression is a hell of a phenomenon. The crazies I'm referring to are the kind of people who are incapable of being treated with psychotherapy and medication. They're not crazy as in, "I come from a long line of bipolar people." They're crazy as in, "I come from a long line of bathtub birth giving, placenta eating, alligator wrangling, nudists." With that said, read on to learn eight signs your date is the incurable kind of crazy.

1. Your date repeats your name after every sentence. Statements like "I really like your hair, Savannah.*" "Come with me to the movies, Savannah" and "This is really good water, Savannah." lead to statements like... "I'm going to stalk you and then eat your internal organs** SAVANNAH."
*If the person speaks English as a second language, they can maybe get away with overusing your name, assuming they don't possess any of the seven qualities below.
**Never eat your placenta. No one should ever wet their palette with the taste of human blood. Your children will most likely become creeps who end every sentence with their date's name. They will then go on to eat their date's internal organs.

2. They're obsessed with the color pink, stuffed animals, dolls, or anything else a six to seven-year-old would adore. When I was in elementary school, I had a teacher who was obsessed with strawberries. She would wear strawberry hats, shoes, socks, and spray herself with strawberry scented perfume every hour, on the hour. I'm pretty sure she had a cat, or seven dressed as little strawberries waiting for her at home. I imagine the seven cats chased around seven little mice, also dressed as strawberries. I'm also picturing ten or more music boxes simultaneously playing "It's a Small World" to serve as theme music in the cat and mouse strawberry house. Even my nine and a half year-old self had the sense to keep an arms distance from this fruit basket (is the pun ever really not intended anymore?). I was always halfway out the door before the bell would ring to go home each day.

3. They make prolonged eye contact. If you're not one of the 99.9% of people who are uncomfortable with prolonged eye contact, you're most likely spending your Friday nights prancing naked around your living room on mushrooms while dressed as a clown from the neck up.

4. Your date has illogical fears. Fears like those of snakes, heights, or even atomic bombs are perfectly healthy ones. These aforementioned phobias keep you from being injected with poisonous venom or plummeting to your death from an altitude of 5,000 feet. However, if you're on a date with someone and they mention they have a fear of say... wooden cabinetry, flip your plate over and get the fuck out of there!

I once dated a girl who had both a phobia of birds and of movie theater screens. She wasn't just afraid of the flea ridden Pigeon type of bird (which I totally get) but ANY type of bird. Even Toucan Sam would send her into a state of hysteria. I thank my lucky stars we never watched Sesame Street. The sight of a six foot tall yellow bird with eye lashes would have undoubtedly caused her to permanently take on the mindset of a finger sucking toddler. But she would of course, take on this immature mindset just shortly after she's finished murdering me with an ice pick.

5. Your date is wearing pigtails. Shove her ass into the nearest Walgreens pharmacy and run like hell. I know I said these are signs your date is the untreatable kind of crazy but, it can't hurt to give her opiates. Plus, Walgreens will have a large selection of hair ribbons to keep her occupied.

6. They're two or more of the following:

• Polyamorous
• A Burning Man enthusiast
• Permanently surprised (but only in their eyeballs)
• A hula-hooping professional
• A tarot card reader
• A dog walker
• A permanent smiler
• An awkward and overabundant user of emoticons
• A limp hand-shaker
• One with an excessive laugh
• Unemployed

7. They ask confrontational questions with no right or wrong answer. For example, they ask questions like, "Do you suppose the Jews had a logical reason to kill Jesus?" They then answer the question with an answer like, "Maybe Jesus was a child molester. Or maybe the Jews were all atheists before they killed him and then became Jews right after he died to repent."

8. They elaborate on astrology. The astrology conversation can go one of two ways:

Normal person: "Hey what's your sign?"
You: "I'm an Aquarius."
Normal person: "Oh, cool."

Bat shit crazy person: "Hey what's your sign?"
You: "Oh, I'm an Aquarius."
Bat shit crazy person: "That means at this very moment your Jupiter moon is aligned perfectly with the 32 percent tilt in the earth's axis. We are all celestial beings and Venus says now is the time for self-evaluation and great growth. I believe firmly in the role the universe plays in molding the present and creating the future. We are all just who we are... We're just stuck inside this big playground of planets, stars, and drugs. You know?"

There you have it, eight solid signs that all point to bath salt smoking, crazy. Stay tuned for more on the Kardashians and how Bruce and Kris Jenner are the cutest lesbian couple in America. 

Music Festivals Aren't for Bovinophobiacs

Silent Disco at Treasure Island
 (photo courtesy of Fit Fun and Forever Young)

Contrary to popular belief, you don't just lose brain cells while attending music festivals. Here are twelve things you will learn while frequenting San Francisco music festivals and two that will always remain a mystery:

1. Listening to The xx without a significant other present, or the prospect of finding a significant other in the near future, will cause you cry yourself to sleep that night.

2. You will be scolded for throwing up in the recycle bin rather than in the compost bin.

3. Fuck the Scared Straight program. All troubled teens who are on the brink of dropping out of high school and/or royally fucking up their lives, should be required to spend three days standing at a music festival. Afterward, it can be explained to them, that the extreme exhaustion they feel and the sharp pain traveling up through the soles of their feet and shooting into their lower back, is the same sensation they will someday experience when they have no degree and are stuck working softlines at Walmart.

4. That girl is not overweight, she's just wearing tribal patterned stretch pants. 

5. It's best to attend festivals where you have no interest in seeing the headlining band, so that you can leave before the festival is over. This makes it easier to avoid exiting while harboring a persistent fear of being trampled by belligerents, or being forced into overly intimate encounters with strangers on shrooms. 

6. Wherever you find a grown woman hula hooping, you will also find drugs.

7. Making your child wear sound blocking ear muffs does not excuse the fact that you brought your child to a music festival. (Outside Lands 2011 - I had never heard a toddler laugh so loud. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the same contact high I experienced which, caused me to later eat an entire box of Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese).

8. It's called Treasure Island, because it looks like it's been raided by pirates with baseball bats and spray paint cans.

9. If you're looking for an Asian person and/or a pre-teen, follow the faux fur monster hat.

10. People will pay hundreds of dollars not to listen to headlining bands. They will instead, wait hours in line to hang out at the silent disco.

11. You either get good looks, or the ability to create chart topping indie music, but not both. For example, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that Best Coast is not comprised of several energetic, hot blondes prancing around with fresh tans. The music duo is actually made up of one, less than moderately attractive blonde with a Xanax hangover, paired with an overweight gentleman who very well could have served as the model for the hairy bear on their album cover.

12. You will be late to work on Monday.

These two remain a mystery:

1. How people who live in San Francisco, work in San Francisco and spend most of their free time in San Francisco still just can't get enough of it. They still have lots interest in purchasing both artwork for their home, as well as personal apparel that portrays San Francisco.

2. Whether the black shit that coats the inside of your nostrils at the end of a festival is actual dirt residue, or the remnants of the body odor, weed fog and theatrical smoke your lungs have been filtering for the last 48 to 72 hours.

Stay tuned for more on how I now completely empathize with those suffering from Bovinophobia; most commonly described as the fear humans experience when they feel they're being herded like cattle. No fucking joke, it's a real phobia. And, after attending more than a few music festivals, I totally get where Bovinophobiacs are coming from.

Hugs? No, Thanks. I'll Take Drugs Please.

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a hug, unless it came from someone who I really wanted to have sex with. I think my dislike for hugs started when I was in third grade. My teacher would stand by the door as we exited the room at the end of each school day and give me and my classmates the option for "a hug or a handshake." I would approach her and hold out my hand, always opting for the handshake. Each day without fail, she would grab my hand and pull me in for the hug. Instead of being flattered by the fact that she liked me so much a handshake was just not enough, I would completely dread the encounter. From my third grade perspective, hugs were for grandmas and Cabbage Patch Dolls. After all, I had known her less than a year, she smelled like White Diamonds and forced me to square dance to polka music on a regular fucking basis!

What I did not fully appreciate at the time, on my third grade teacher's approach to goodbye greetings, was the fact that she at least gave us an option (even though she never respected my goddamn decision). Mrs. ForcedIntimacy was really onto something. Because, the thing I hate most about hugs is that when someone goes in for one, no matter how much you dislike them, there is no way of escaping. Even if the perpetrator is Lucifer himself, the only way to refuse a hug is to literally duck under the person's arms and run in the other direction. Although, this duck and run approach would prevent you from bumping nipples with Lucifer, it's admittedly more awkward than just giving the damn hug. So, my request to all serial hug offenders out there is to start granting me and other hug haters (there are others...many others) an option.

Your next greeting would go something like this:

1. Approach the person you would like to kiss bellybuttons with.
2. Think about all of the different greeting options you have.
3. High five them and walk away...because high fives are fucking awesome.
4. Scratch that giving options bullshit.

And, the next time you would like to sexually assault someone with a hug, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Has their mother just died?
2. Has it been 2 or more 4 + years since I've last seen them?
3. Am I passing them drugs?
4. Does this person without a doubt want to have sex with me?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then go right in for the rib rub.

Loophole -  If I'm drunk you should always hug me, because, odds are, I'll want to have sex with you.

Stay tuned for more on side hugs, and how if your mother has ever given you one, she doesn't love you.

Hair Lesmorphia

Millions of lesbians around San Francisco and throughout the world are now suffering from hair lesmorphia; a condition where your half shaved head is in a stage of awkward regrowth. Others may not be able to witness the remnant inch and a half or so of this seemingly risque haircut due to the fact that you can easily conceal it by simply adjusting where you part you hair…but it's there, and it's awkward. I am one of the millions of individuals currently suffering from hair lesmorphia. I will admit, I was a little late to the game on this half shaved hair fad. While, many have surpassed the point of awkward regrowth and have successfully moved on to wear their hair in a high messy bun or a ponytail, I unfortunately have not. May this put forth a sense of solidarity to all of those living with this fully concealable (unless you're riding your bike) yet ever limiting hair condition. Let's look forward to the days when we can blissfully part our hair at any angle. 

Stay tuned for more on profound (insert romance language here) wrist tattoos…