You know that thing you do where you get home, exhausted after a day of shuffling Very Important Documents for Very Important Clients? The kind of day when your boss has been bellowing halitotic insults in your direction every three minutes and you entertain sadistic fantasies of refashioning his face with a stapler?
The thing you do when you’ve been on your feet since six in the morning, your Humvee’s blown a tire and you’ve spent three of the last four hours cleaning up cat sick?
You know, that thing.
The thing where you sack off a proper dinner, and you and your wife stick a plastic carton of chicken jalfrezi in the microwave, open a bottle of Chablis and collapse in front of the TV?
GREAT, isn’t it?
The. Best. Thing. Ever.
Your day’s burdens drift effortlessly away as you fill your stomach with Delhi’s finest foodstuffs, and your mind switches from ‘on’ to ‘off’ in the time it takes Eva Longoria to stroll minxily down the stairs in her claret negligée.
Bliss.
But you know that other thing? The elephant-in-the-room-thing? The one that you don’t talk about for fear of making it worse. The one where you …
… HAVEN’T HAD SEX WITH YOUR WIFE FOR MONTHS?
Yep. Thought so.
THE TWO ARE CONNECTED. If you spend the evenings mindlessly shovelling food into your gormless gob, you will have less sex.
***
You say:
“Sure, but but but, it’s nothing to do with our eating habits. The bedroom and the kitchen aren’t connected. The most sex we’ve ever had was on our honeymoon and THAT’S NORMAL. We don’t even want to have more sex. We’re TIRED at the end of the day. No energy. We work hard. Sure, we might collapse in front of the idiot-box, but even if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be actually, you know, sleeping with each other. That’s for teenagers.”
I say:
Whatever.
***
So this is how you have more sex:
Irrespective of your shitty day, of the bollockings you’ve got about missed deadlines and not bringing in more clients, irrespective of the size of your tax bill and weight of your kids, do this:
- Turn your chicken jalfrezi out of its packaging, stick it on a plate, and set the table for two.
- EAT AT THE DINNER TABLE
- Have a conversation.
- Don’t fall asleep with your plate on your lap (much easier if you’re eating at a table).
- Retire to the bedroom after a scintillating and thoughtful conversation that reminds you why you’re married in the first place.
- Initiate some sweet loving and annoy the neighbours with your amorous yelps.
No Nookie = Vicious Circle = No Nookie.
Alternatively, keep eating semi-prostrate and enjoy a barren future, a widening posterior, chronic constipation and diverticulitis. Oh, and no sex.
EAT MEALS SITTING AT THE DINNER TABLE AND HAVE MORE SEX
Find yourself getting easily offended by the words and actions of others?
Are you quickly irked, miffed or put out?
Do you tut-tut and write angry letters of complaint to newspapers and television stations?
Yes? Get a grip.
Here’s what happens if you find other folk’s behaviour distasteful:
- You get upset, your blood pressure gets raised, you lose a lot of time worrying, and you shave a couple of minutes off your own life.
- Nobody else gives a shit.
Now, IT DOESN’T MATTER what others think, granted, and on top of that, you’re not qualified to determine the thoughts of others, but when you get upset by what other people do, that’s what happens:
YOU get upset. And that’s it.
There are a lot of things in life worth fighting for and getting pissed off about. You can legitimately be offended in the following instances:
- Bob looks you square in the eye and says, “you’re a useless waste of space”.
- Gerald tells you he thinks your kids look like they’ve been dragged through the ugly bush, backwards.
- Ernie borrows 100 dollars and tells you he has no intention of returning it.
- You see your name in a newspaper under the headline “This person is a nonce”. (Of course, you only have the right to be upset if you’re not, in fact, a nonce.)
You may not be offended or put out in the following circumstances:
- Encountering a homosexual, when your religion disapproves. It’s none of your business.
- Overhearing blasphemy, when your religion disapproves. Get over it.
- Seeing a crowd of youngsters smoking in a non-smoking area. (The consequences of getting involved can be harrowing, but it probably serves you right for sticking your nose in.)
- Hearing bad language on the television. Switch it off, don’t write an angry diatribe that nobody cares about.
- When somebody doesn’t adhere to the dress code at the country club.
- When a visitor doesn’t like your curtains. They’re probably only telling it like it is.
If you’re still inclined to take issue with something, because your life is incomplete without drama, then so be it. I’m not here to tell you what to do, you useless waste of space.
You might like to decrease your own stress levels by taking a decision to not be so sensitive in the future. Ask yourself this:
“Was the intention of that person’s actions to cause me offence, or is he just somebody who doesn’t do things the way I do things?”
The answer is normally “no, that person’s intention wasn’t to cause me offence, therefore I won’t get upset.”
On the few occasions that the answer is “actually, yes, I think he did want me take offence”, then don’t take the bait. Smile and nod and say something mildly patronising but largely innocuous.
Don’t give any of those bastards the satisfaction of seeing you upset.
Afraid to be direct? Constantly flit around the issue, or sidestep the question? Find yourself saying “no, that sounds great” when you really mean “urgh … I’d rather rearrange my facial features with a spanner”? Find that your day is taken up pleasing others and neglecting yourself?
This advice is for you:
SAY WHAT YOU MEAN!
There are only so many hours in the day. (Nominally, 24, but once we’ve arsed around getting things done and clearing up and going to work and changing nappies, the hours that count are fewer than we’d like.)
Make that time count by starting out any course of action with honesty.
If the question is:
Would you like to take a ride in my SUV and spend the afternoon picking wild mushrooms for an organic supper?
The the answer is:
“Yes” OR “No”
depending strictly upon what YOUR answer ACTUALLY is.
“Would you like” should be taken at face value.You either would like or you wouldn’t like. If you can think of nothing greater, then say, “Yes”. If you really don’t want to go fungus-foraging, then say NO.
You can qualify your answer. (N.B. You can do pretty much anything you like). If you’re going to do that, be direct as well.
“The thought of spending the afternoon with you is an attractive one. However, I can think of a dozen things more interesting and exciting than mulching around in the damp for toadstools. Let’s go ice-skating instead, then I’ll buy us pizza and we can throw stones at empty beer bottles.
BRILLIANT! You’ve not only carved out an infinitely more interesting Saturday afternoon for yourself, but you’ve also stamped some of your own character on to the proceedings.
And similarly, if you don’t really fancy going on a mushroom hunt, but you know that doing just that would make your counter-party immeasurably happy, and that is more important to you than ice-skating or pizza or avoiding an afternoon foraging, then, on balance, your answer is: “YES, I would like to do that“, albeit for reasons that weren’t immediately obvious to you.
