Vive la difference.

Imagine a child born on a desert island and raised by mute parents with no, or little, life experience. Now imagine that child finds an iPhone (other smart phones are available.) which is still logged in to Twitter, washed up on the beach one day. Unable to learn much about life in the "civilised" (Sic) world, he turns to twitter to learn how to behave in polite, and not so polite, society. And yes, I'm aware there are ridiculous holes in this particular scenario, but let us not get pedantic. If you need the holes filling then let's just say that some super intelligent monkeys taught him spoken and written English. And the iPhone was already logged in with no passcode set. Happy now? Good.

As I was saying before interrupting myself and heading off on a stupid tangent, this boy, lets call him "Geoff", sets to learning how to behave for the day he is rescued from his golden beached, lusciously forested, safe and beautiful home and brought back to civilisation. He dreams of meeting the woman of his dreams and living happily ever after in wedded bliss, of visiting swish functions where he's introduced to dignitaries and celebraties. There is, fortunately, a plethora of useful, and some not so useful, advice on Twitter for just such a situation. So what would he learn? What kind of well-balanced individual will this lead to? Let's take a look at some of the advice currently available.

"REAL men go for a girl with curves, only dogs want a bone."

What an enormous, steaming, puerile, nonsensical pile of shit. Real men? Technically, real men have a penis. That's pretty much all you need to qualify. Men like curves, men like skinny girls, men like fat girls. Some men like blondes. Some brunettes. I see the point, make the "curvy" (Make of that description what you will.) girls feel better, I'm all for that. Everyone should feel valued and attractive. Everyone is valuable, are attractive and don't need you or I to tell them how they should look. But that's exactly what these poor, mislead individuals are doing. How long before skinny girls start binge eating and not making themselves sick on purpose because that's the only way they'll ever get a real man?

Also, the analogy itself is shit. If you have a steak in one hand and a bone in the other I can guarantee you my German Shepherd would be staring at your steak-filled mitt. Dogs love bones AND meat, just like Geoff.

"The best kind of relationship is..."

A quick Twitter search throws up these beauties...

"The best kind of relationship is the one that starts off as good friends." I've tried that, it doesn't work and you lose a friend. (Fuckbuddies are a winner though.) 

"The best thing about being in a relationship is that you don't need friends." If your lovely, new partner tells you this then my advice is leg it. Run. Run like fuck. Isolating you from your friends and loved ones is abuse. Proper, actual abuse. 

"A relationship with God is the best kind of relationship any person can have." Don't get me fucking started.

"I don't care how tough you are...."

Usually followed by something along the lines of "when a little girl smiles at you, your heart BETTER melt and you'd BETTER smile back!" Or what, dickhead? What the fuck are you going to do about it? Sat in your bedroom, listening to Justin Direction, Arcticplay or ColdMonkeys and flicking between Twitter, Sextube and FaceBook. Little prick. Fuck you.

Back to Geoff. What has he learnt so far?

Whatever his real preference he will have to date a chubby girl because otherwise people will think he's not a real man, but he has to be friends with her first. He mustn't have other friends, and ideally he needs to fuck a deity. Also, whenever he sees a happy little girl he should make friends with her.

Fast forward a year or two. Having been rescued from his tropical hell by a passing canoeist Geoff is in a committed relationship with, I dunno, let's say Mary. Mary is Rubenesque, she has no friends, as does he, and before courting they became friends at the local Church.

He's also signing the sex offenders register, is banned from the park and is addicted to Twitter.

Love who you love, hopefully they'll love you back. If not, log in to Twitter, someone will tell you where you're going wrong.

J2H