Why You're Probably a Douchebag (When you go out to eat)

It took me about 35 years, but I finally figured out that I don't have any career aspirations. I mean, sure I'd love to write a million dollar screenplay or write music for a living, and I pursue those activities, but they remain pie-in-the-sky imaginings as to actual income production.

What I have discovered, after being everything from a Gov't Contracts Project Manager to a Security Guard, Massage Therapist to a Cust Svc Rep for Highlights magazine is this - money and career don't motivate me. I like to have money, but it's not a life direction determiner.

So now, at 37 I'm making a little money as a writer for JoBlo.com, but make my nut from serving at Longhorn Steakhouse. It gives me the flexibility to be a dad for my kids during the day, and still make a decent living at night. Especially when you take into account the savings on daycare and commuting costs that I'd incur if I went and got a "real" job again.

Overall I dig it. Work stress doesn't come home with you, and it's a fun group of people. But it's also one of the sharpest insights into the human mindset you could imagine. The way people act when they are out to eat sometimes defies belief, and so to save you the wonder of if you are a douchebag or not when you go out to eat, here's a primer for ya:

1) Don't camp out - We make money by volume. You spend $100 and tip $25 because you're a good tipper and your server did a great job. Outstanding. But then you hang out for another three hours drinking coffee during the dinner rush and chatting away with your company. You've just cost me three rotations of that table, and anywhere from $25 - $60 on average. That's theft my friends. If you are going to hang out then you should strongly consider paying rent - an extra $5 to $10 for each extra hour. Don't like it, go sit at the bar.

2) Don't forget your manners - "Please" and "Thank you" will go a long way towards making your service better. Your server isn't your servant. Also, don't shake your glass at them or point, or grunt, grimace, demand. Unless of course you want everything at your table to take twice as long to get as it could.

3) Don't ask for extra strong drinks - Drinks are made how drinks are made. The only thing you'll do by asking for extra liquor for free is tell the server at the outset that you're a terrible tipper and you'll probably get ignored for most of your time at the restaurant. If you are a regular who has shown you take care of your server then benefits of this sort may come your way without even asking. Otherwise don't bother.

4) Don't think we like like you - It's a servers job to be personable and make you feel comfortable. Whether or not you're funny we're going to laugh at your jokes, and whether or not you're cute we're going to smile at your flirting. But it's just as sincere as a hooker would be. If you think you've really got some chemistry with your server then you've never been in the back of a restaurant.

5) Don't assume we should be working somewhere else - People love to ask why we're not doing "something else", as though serving is beneath a competent person. I've done just about every job under the sun, and the unique and varied skill set it takes to be a server is more demanding than what's required for 95% of the work I've done. Sure a lot of servers want to get out because it's very hard work, if you're not working you're not earning, and the benefits are largely non-existent, but make no mistake, we're probably out earning most of you.

6) Don't verbal tip - Leaving a 12% tip after telling us what a great job we did makes the tip suck even more, not less. If you think you're server did well enough to note it, then you should be thinking about leaving 22 - 25%. Otherwise, STFU.

7) Don't leave less than 20% - 20% is standard and if you think that's too much then make your own fucking food and serve it to yourself at your house. If you go out to eat with the attitude that your server needs to earn your tip, then you're basically disrespecting that person because you are not an expert on how to do the job. If you'd like someone who doesn't know how to do your job coming in to determine that your expected salary is too much, then you have a leg to stand on for tipping poorly. Otherwise, tip the 20% and get on with your life.

8) Don't forget how to do math - $8 is NOT %20 of a $48 check. $10 is NOT %20 of a $65 check. $20 is NOT %20 of a $140 check.

9) Don't ask for ToGo drinks - Asking for a ToGo cup for the rest of your drink at the table is fine. So is asking for a box for any remaining bread, but asking us to bring you a fresh drink to go, or a fresh bunch of bread to take with you makes you look cheap and greedy.

10) DO remember that we WILL remember you - If you suck, we will remember. When you come back to eat at your favorite restaurant your service will suffer. We will tell other servers how much you suck. If we're out, and see you at a bar, we'll tell the bartender (who we probably know very well) how much your suck. If you find that every time you go out the service isn't good enough to impress you, it's likely that you've brought it on yourself. Like going to the doctor, once something is noted in your file, it is there forever.

So if you fall into any of those categories, just know that it's not too late to turn things around. You CAN be a good restaurant guest with just a little work. And if you take only one thing from this, then take this -

DO YOU THINK THAT EXTRA COUPLE OF BUCKS WILL MEAN MORE TO YOU OR YOUR SERVER?

Thanks for listening, and don't be scared to educate those you love too :-)

Sex Is Awesome (and Makes You Stupid)

Was chatting with a chick at work the other night who is a virgin. Good on ya (or not actually) I say. Why? Why not? I think that getting married before you've slept with someone is a massive error, but choosing to keep your cookie intact, your wick dry, these are things I fully support if that's the way you want to do things.

After all, virgins tend to think and talk about sex a lot. They plan for it, imagine what they want, and are obviously quite picky about who they give it up to. Not necessarily a bad way to go about it. In fact, it's far more mature than most of the sexually active people who would rather fumble from one embarrassing drunken hook up to another than actually discuss the sex they are about to have, or want to have, or just flat out fantasize about.

My father, in conversations that were mortifying at the time, used to say, "If you're not mature enough to talk about sex, you're not mature enough to have it." Wise dude.

Oddly enough it usually feels much more intimate to honestly discuss a sexual relationship than to just get down to business. After all, sex without context is just organic IKEA. Slightly confusing at first, but fairly intuitive as to how to put it together.

But people EXPECT sex to be intimate, so they do stupid things like starting a relationship just because they nailed someone. Which is silly. If two people want to get it on, then get it on and let it be that. Don't make it more than it is. Also, if you don't JUST want to get it on, then don't pretend like you do. If sex creates an emotional connection for you then you should be damn careful who you let or get inside (figuratively and literally).

Do you know why a great hug feels so great, and sex often leaves you feeling so hollow? Because a great hug is physical, intimate, non-demanding and shared for mutual pleasure. Nobody's keeping score or bragging to their friends about the great hug they just had. Nobody's manipulating people with great hugs.

But that's 'cause we're not so damn conflicted about hugs.

Sex is the ever present pink elephant in the room. It drives us on the most base level and is a constant factor in our human interactions, but no one wants to acknowledge it. So people end up with all sorts of regret about the sex they DO have because they don't have the support, the courage or the gumption to talk about the sex they WANT to have.

So you get drunk and hook up with some beautiful/handsome (or not so beautiful/handsome) idiot one night. Instead of going into it saying to the person, I don't see much in common between us, but you make me so damn hot that I want to bend you over and roto rooter your plumbing, people try to turn that reasonable one night of fun into a relationship because they think that sex should be special.

Two things you need to know here.

First, sex is not by definition special. It's actually a quite common and typical part of the animal kingdom. We've just been raised to hold it on a pedestal while at the same time feeling shame about wanting it. No wonder we're all so screwed up.

Second, you cannot change a person by fucking them.

Allow me to repeat that - YOU CANNOT CHANGE A PERSON BY FUCKING THEM!

People will act all sorts of dishonest ways to get sex, but eventually the person you is be the person you is. No quantity or quality of sex can stop that from coming to the fore.

Why do you think most relationships end with someone saying "they're just not the person I thought they were". It's because when we're trying to fuck someone for the first time we'll contort ourselves into all sorts of positions that aren't natural to us to show that we're just the kind of dance partner they want. We'll say anything, try anything, go anywhere.

If dating were honest you could establish at the start if rimjobs and snowballing are a preference or a deal breaker. Instead people hide what they really want from sex out of embarrassment or lack of trust in their partner, and then 30 years later grandma and grandpa break up because they went outside of the relationship for swallowing and trains instead of giving each other the chance to fulfill their needs.

Stupid fucked up shit. Lack of honesty about sex is probably the number one communication issue in relationships and the major reason for infidelity, small pox and the economy.

So while I generally think virgins who make that decision from a standpoint of moralistic superiority, or my fav, a predilection for stating that it's not that big a deal, have an immature perspective - so do most of the people having sex in the world.

Personally I'd rather see rolling orgiastic plains of informed and honest sodomistic partnering than dry fields of scrapbooking pajama parties, but that's because sex feels awesome and I don't think there's any reason people who want to have it shouldn't be having reams of it.

But if you can't tell the person you're about become a Siamese twin with for the next 30 seconds to half hour that you wish they'd choke you and spit on your face then maybe you shouldn't be on that flesh train with 'em in the first place.

I don't mean we should get all Antioch College about sex - "May I touch your breasts?" "Yes." "May I chew on your nose?" "I'd rather you didn't."

But seriously, for anyone out there wondering why you keep getting stuck in bad relationships, or keep waking up unhappy with the figure in bed next to you. Try limiting yourself to bumping uglies with people you talked about the act with beforehand. You're quantity will drop like bombs, but your quality will become a phenomenon!

Clearly I'm punchy at this point so end of blog. Go find someone you dig and talk about the dirty things you'd like to do to them. And then do them!

Of course your relationship ended badly (or in FIGHT CLUB speak, "You are not special")

Enough OK. Please don't ask me to care about the ins and outs of how your relationship ended. Most relationships end. And when they do, they end badly. Otherwise they wouldn't end. Also please don't bother me with tales of all your "good" breakups.

A good breakup involves at least one person lying or a lack of passion for the damn thing in the first place.

Now I get some heat all the time for not being a particularly supportive person when it comes to heartbreak. And I'm not. It's like asking me to give a 5 star review to a movie sporting a plot I've seen a thousand times. It just gets old.

There will always be two aggrieved parties. There will always be he said/she said (or s/he said, s/he said). There will always be a battle for the allegiance of mutual friends and a pissing contest to lock down shared hang outs.

This is what comes with a break up. It's the cost of getting intimately involved with another human. Want to avoid the risk? Get a pet and a vibrator. Or a fleshlight.

Moving to a cave is another option.

Otherwise you're risking chest crushing hurt every time you date, and you do so with the full knowledge that I won't care about the particulars when it ends.

Why?

First of all, you're not really in the best place to give me an honest account of the relationship, and in the case of things like this I'm not interested in fiction.

Second, I'm unwilling to be ammo in the constant salvos you want to lob at the other person, or that they want to lob at you.

Third, most of your drama is something that those around you saw coming from a mile away.

So please don't expect me to care or ask about details or think you're a better person for all you're going through. Welcome to the human existence.

Now if you want to talk about how you can barely breathe right now and are wondering how you can possibly believe that things will get better, that's a conversation I'm happy to have.

If you want to talk about the fact that your desire to go out, drink yourself into oblivion and hook up with random strangers to get back at your ex seems to be hurting you more than them - happy to talk.

And God knows, if you want to really sit down and look at what went wrong, starting with what you messed up, then I'm there.

But if you just want someone to nod and say "What a bitch/dick," you've got plenty of people who feed off the misery of others that will happily fill that role for you.

Oh, and for my next blog I'm gonna give you a good idea of what probably went wrong.

HINT: When you try to turn the desire to have sex with someone into a reason to bond with them, then you've made the most common mistake that our fucked up view of sex causes.

Make sure to tune in cause we's havin' some fun next time!