Au contraire, you rat bastard- with love, Reg

I am so happy, and I can only I hope that someday you too can have the chance to be as lucky as I am. For I have my “special someone.“ That extra-special someone. The one who I want to contradict every time he opens his mouth.

This is an extraordinary relationship between a girl and her nemesis. He gives me someone to shake my fist at, growling “Damn you.” He makes my day better, because I can blame all my troubles on him. I can vent on his latest atrocities to my closest friends, releasing my own pent up frustrations.

He’s like that neighbor that always blows his leaves onto my driveway. I can count on him to always wake me up at 5 o’clock in the morning to the sound of the leaf-blower and he can always count on finding those same leaves on his porch when he gets home from work (Metaphorically of course. I would never do that…)

I’m not advocating being spiteful and vindictive toward everyone who slights you, and I’m not condoning scapegoats or other, darker things. I’m trying to advise that every girl needs a little competition. Thus, if you find yourself in a debate class with some ill-informed boor, go ahead and invalidate every point the makes. When speaking to him, make every remark subtly sarcastic. As long as you don’t throw any flying barns at him, your mental health will benefit and he will be blissfully unawares.

Some pointers for finding that special someone:

1. He is unusually charismatic and everyone loves him (this leaves the world blinded to his many faults, which you can discover!)

2. He misuses large words, but is left uncorrected the majority of the time (you can correct him)

3. He is opinionated (It is not fun to debate a moderate)

4. He pronounces certain words according to their IPA pronunciation in dictionaries (I.e. Piano is PiAHno, Encyclopedia is EncycloPEHdia)

5. He has a nick-name for his surname (This fits well with “Damn you ____!”)

6. He has in some way wronged you (your completely logical reason for being a not-so-nice-word-that-starts-with-a- “B”)

*Just a little piece of advice: Don’t hate the poor fool. It’s better to laugh at the both of you than malignantly at him. Sometimes, life should be like a sitcom.