On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Actual Advice from Cosmo

January
Okay ladies. I'll bet you thought that January's Cosmo was going to be packed with tips for a happy, healthy, successful new you for 2011. And it is, as long as that new you understands that finding and keeping a man is really the only resolution that matters. First you've got to find one, and then--this is important--you have to keep him and make sure that he doesn't cheat on you. Because we all know that when a man cheats it's definitely not because he's a scumbag, and almost certainly because he wasn't having enough morning sex.

The Man Manual
Cosmo dedicates several pages to this "special section" called 101 Things About Men. One of the gems from here is "Decode His Emoticons." I mean, it's like Cosmo has just accepted that actual grown women don't seriously take their advice and realized that their actual audience is mainly thirteen-year-olds at slumber parties (Squeezed in between the Zac Efron movie marathon and the "how far have you gone?" conversation). But, having been one of those girls, I can say that their "decoding" is pretty bogus--I mean "Winking face: I just made a joke. Did you get it? LOL because my ego is on the line." Wrong. Wink face means "I just said something raunchy and I want you know know that it was a joke, even though I was kind of serious" In texting, winking face always means sex. So do ellipses. Fact.

The Moment He's Most Likely to Cheat
This article tries to explain what could "drive" a guy to make a "lame-ass" decision like cheating. Now, I'm sorry, but a lame-ass decision is buying an Ed Hardy shirt, or growing a soul patch. Cheating is a terrible decision, but obviously if a guy cheats it's because his girlfriend drove him to it. Cosmo suggests to prevent this you 1.) have morning sex at least once a week 2.) tell him his butt looks good, 3.) flirt with someone else to remind him how good he has it, and 4.) keep things interesting by making an on-the-fly short film on your iPhone. Which, okay. I'm sure everyone would be happier if they were having more sex and getting more compliments. But suggesting that "if you know how it works, you can prevent your guy from ever being tempted" --and, conversely, if you don't have enough morning sex and impromptu cell phone videos it's your fault if your significant other cheats on you--is pretty bogus.

60 Hands Free Ways to Wow Him

#44 Lick his eyelids, then blow on the saliva
This seriously sounds like the least sexually appealing thing ever. This advice comes courtesy of one Sadie Allison PhD, author of a presumably real book called (I'm not making this up) "Tickle His Pickle." Yes.

#36 "I love when a girl puts her mouth on my penis sideways, like it's corn on the cob, and slides her lips from side to side"
Well, thanks a heap for that visual, Schubert, 33.

#57 "On a cold night I went to my girlfriend's place. She put my penis under her armpit. It got me hot, fast. "
Silly Andrew, 22. Girls don't have armpits, we have underarms. Just like we don't have gas, we have occasional irregularity.

#33 "I was out to dinner and the girl I was dating kicked off her heels and gave me a foot job under the table."
Maybe I'm not as much of an exhibitionist as some people, but this is fucking disgusting. Food and feet and bodily fluids...annd I'm just going to be over here Purell-ing my brain. Bye.

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Actual Advice from Cosmo

I impulsively bought a copy of Cosmo before a long car ride with a bunch of girlfriends a few weeks ago. I hadn't actually bought one in a long time, although I'd read a few because my roommate subscribes. I had fond memories of giggling over it at slumber parties and sharing copies at the beach, but I didn't remember it being quite this...stupid. I don't know if the magazine has gotten worse since we were reading it at eighth grade slumber parties, or if once you're old enough to actually be Cosmo's target audience you've already outgrown it, but this was some staggeringly dumb shit. The tips below are from Cosmo's August edition. I'll let them speak for themselves.









....Alternatively, order a Sex on the Beach or talk loudly about how you sleep naked














....Because standing in line at the DMV quietly humming and rocking back forth whilst stroking a picture of yourself in a bikini isn't strange at all.












...And make sure you moan so your fellow cubicle-dwellers know just how much you're enjoying that soft, comforting material.
















...Because everyone loves minty tits!

























He'll be totally seduced by the way you're too dumb to tell the difference between employees and customers. Also, men love it when you shove shoes in their faces.



This is kind of hard to read but I wanted to scan it to prove it's real. Cosmo suggests that you print out online coupons and offer them to strangers as a means to meet men. Because no man can resist a woman who spends her workday scouring the internet for coupons to McDonald's. Along the same lines as the "do you work here" ploy is the second tip, which suggests that you doggedly insist that a man goes to the same gym as you do, even when you know he doesn't. This just sounds annoying, and once again, you look retarded. Sexy! My favorite part of the article is the beginning, though: "Since it's not a typical pick-up scene, men let their guard down." Ladies, pay attention: you have to be ready so swoop in when a man is vulnerable, or hungry. And as soon as he lets his guard down and you seduce him with an internet coupon for a free McFlurry dig those claws in deep, because finding a man is the means to the only important things in life: diamond rings and babies!

I mean, give me a fucking break.

Recession Busting

I am pretty tired of seeing articles about how to be a “recessionista.” They just refuse to go away. For those of you who have not lately been skulking around a Rite Aid reading Cosmopolitan (tucked inside a copy of the New Yorker, obviously...I have cred to maintain), a recessionista is a woman who is finding creative ways to beat the recession while still being fabulous. Or something. Setting aside the sheer stupidity of the word, a recessionista is really just someone who paints her toenails at home instead of getting a pedicure at a salon. Apparently Ming at Lucky Nail is in league with Goldman Sachs now. Yes, that's how we're going to beat the recession, ladies. Home pedicures.

Now, bleeding heart liberal that I am, I'm offended that anyone's whining about not being able to afford a pedicure when there are people in this country who don't have enough to eat, but I'm not going to go there because I'll get really worked up and it won't be pretty. (One of these days I'm going to scrape together five dollars and actually buy a copy of Cosmo for the express purpose of ripping it apart here, but I had to buy lunch today so you're out of luck.) What I really find ridiculous about these articles is that the tips aren't even that great—and so I came up with a few of my own. These are not Suze Orman tips, and they're not tips from my crush Paul Krugman. (What?! He looks like Clooney and he can explain the federal deficit to you in entertaining yet informative prose!) So this is not the New Deal--these are starving intern tips. But being a college student, I figure I know a hell of a lot more about saving money than some hack at Cosmo. (who presumably has a job at a magazine in this economy. Bitch.) So here we go.
1.Live at home. It's not fun, I know, to be in your twenties and still sharing a room with your sister and her stank-ass field hockey equipment and God knows what else, but it's the world we live in. If you're a student and serious about saving money--and they'll still take you--you're better off living with the rents whenever it's geographically feasible.
2.Get a library card. Now, my library sucks and all they stock is Twilight knock-offs and various romance novels about sexually repressed middle aged women (sometimes they're Mormons, sometimes they're Upper East siders, sometimes they're even vampires!) BUT they actually have a pretty awesome CD collection, a sizable portion of which I've ripped onto my computer. For someone like me who pours a good chunk of her paycheck straight into the pockets of Bullmoose Music, this is huge. Not legal, per se, but it's a recession!
3.Pack your lunch. Actually, I won't lie--my awesome mother usually packs my lunch. But this is the biggest money-saving tip I can give you. I walked half a mile to pay ten dollars for a goddamn salad and Diet Coke today (I don't usually eat like Posh Spice, today was a fluke)—but that'd be sixty bucks a week if I did it every day. Do you realize how much peanut butter and bread sixty dollars buys??
4.Save your pennies. I'm not even joking. Save them up in a coffee can and in six months or so dump them in one of those Coinstar machines. I usually come up with forty or fifty bucks—and when you're operating on a college student's budget, a spare $50 is a fortune. (That's like three thirty racks...four if you can stomach Keystone) I bought all my spring clothes this way. (Do get it in cash form first...although I've paid for stuff with loose change too. Michelle from Walgreens, I'm sorry. I really needed that lemonade...it had a date with some raspberry Smirnoff.)
5. Stop smoking so much weed, you guys. I don't have anything against it and I think it should be legal and that it's no biggie if you do it once in awhile and blah blah blah, but that shit is expensive. You, with the drug rug and the vape and the wake and bake habit? Trust me, your friends are tired of driving you around because you spent all your gas money on weed. Or else they think you're an entitled douche because you spend your parents' money on weed. Either way, no one likes you.
6.Just stop buying so much shit. It's bad for the Earth, it's bad for the Southeast Asian preschoolers who are making it, and it's bad for your wallet. Plus it's bad for you on a spiritual level, if you believe in that—we have a way of thinking we'll be happy if we just have more stuff. Did you learn nothing from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood? Jesus Christ. My point is, just think a little harder before you head to the register. Buy a little less. Try it, you'll like it.

I'm Officially a Fish With a Bicycle

I’m a college student. I’m also a feminist, and not shy about the label. I’m also in what is pretty much my first adult relationship. (the kind where you don’t end the evening making out in a Civic while your parents watch from the upstairs window.) I was grossly under-prepared me for what a minefield this is, and for what it means. Because what it means—having a relationship that isn’t about “parking” (yes, where I’m from we still go parking) and making out in front of your locker and “you hang up first, no, you hang up first”—is that I’m really fucking old.

First of all, most college students don’t really have relationships anymore. I’ve done the booty-call thing and the random hookup thing and the you-have-a-girlfriend-why-are-you-touching-my-boobs thing, but in my two years of college I haven’t tackled the relationship thing. I like having fun, and I really like being independent. A boyfriend never really fit into my life, or anyway I couldn’t imagine how one would. Then, when I was busy living my life, working hard, playing hard, doing my thing…a guy who fit came along. Just like that. I live in a Cameron Diaz movie. It’s fine.

But after those few weeks of off-the-radar 24/7 coupledom were over, it was time to tackle some tough stuff. I still wanted to go out with my girlfriends. I still wanted to slob around my dorm with pore-refining mud on my face while eating cookie dough. (There’s a place on campus that sells individual cups of cookie dough, spoon included. There is no way to eat that alluringly, I’m sorry.) Plus, I’m a writer. I need time to think. I need time to be down in the dumps, because I just get like that sometimes. It’s usually followed by the most bearable writing I’ve done in months. So where do you draw the line? How do you say, I love you, but please leave me alone? Where is the instruction manual for this rig?

Those questions we’ve handled, so far. We’re getting the time management stuff down. But what about when I’m at a party without him? This is college—everybody is all up on everybody. There’s a lot of sweat and Keystone and other fluids all over everything, and there’s just generally a lot of mingling of fluids. It’s fucking disgusting, I won’t lie, but what are you going to do? Now, obviously I’m not letting anyone near my fluids. But what if I’m dancing with someone else? Or if I kiss my best friend in exchange for a six-pack? Nobody tells you. Not health class, not your mom, not your human sexuality class, not Cosmopolitan (otherwise known as “Twenty-seven ‘Sexy’ Things to Do With a Scrunchie”).

Answer: We have to talk. We’re a couple now, and we have to straighten this out. Almost like…grown-ups. Damn.