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A Man Of The Sloth
I've been living
with this guy for three years, and it clearly isn’t working anymore.
Neither is he -- working, that is. He isn’t a complete loafer, but
he brings in the mail, not an income. He does some stuff around the house,
but both money and sex are nonexistent, and he’s never gotten serious
about looking for a job. I’m ready to say “Adios, amigo.”
Problem is, he’s a decent guy: emotionally present, genuinely kind.
How can I push Mr. Nice Guy out when he has no job, no money, and nowhere
to go? --Vexed
and Vacillating
"Parasite
seeks new hostess”? He’ll get right on it. Well, sometime. If only he
weren’t so busy bonding with the upholstery on your couch, he might find
time to pore over the classifieds for a position that suits him: one in
which the job description matches that of a throw pillow. To you, of course,
he’s more than some couch accessory. In fact, with those long, perilous
treks to the mailbox and those work-like motions he occasionally makes
with a feather duster, he’s practically CEO of your couch.
You can’t complain
that the guy’s ambitionless. He’s actively seeking to remain
as inactive as possible. That’s where the “decent guy”
show comes in handy. Then again, maybe he really is “emotionally
present” -- except when the subject of his departure comes up, and
he takes an emotional sick day. Regarding his being “genuinely kind,”
if only he’d be genuinely kind enough to blend into his native couch
environment, much like those insects that look just like twigs, so you
could start taking applications from potential new boyfriends. All he’d
have to do is get a full-body tattoo in bold florals or subtly-striped
velour, whichever matches the pattern on your couch. If you date men with
bad eyesight and keep the lights low, who’s to say whether that’s
a should-be ex-boyfriend or a should-be ex-boyfriend-shaped throw pillow
on your couch? Finally, in cataloging
his many good qualities, you forgot to mention how practical he is. Why,
indeed, would he go looking for a job, money, or an apartment? You already
have all those things. What you don’t have is a boyfriend who will
have sex with you or sometimes spring for dinner, and you won’t
until you close the homeless shelter for lazy upper middle-class men.
This requires ditching your self-image as someone too “kind”
to drop-kick a man who doesn’t seem to care about money (just as
long as you’re bringing it in).
Give the guy a two-week
deadline to find another woman to sponge off -- uh, get his life in order
and get it out of your house. Whether his life is actually in order on the
appointed day is unimportant; what matters is that it no longer remains
in your house, and neither does he. Although it isn’t your job to
pack his stuff, since his stuff is unlikely to grow legs and hop into boxes,
you’ll probably have to do it anyway. Get a friend to help -- someone
beyond tired of advising you to scrape the giant barnacle off your hull.
Make an appointment with a locksmith for “Barnacle Bye-Bye Day,”
which you might refer to in his presence as “The Day The Locks Will
Change.” This should let him know you’re serious. It should,
but it probably won’t. Be prepared for him to continue modeling his
behavior on that of natural-born upholstery, and be prepared to act accordingly:
like a woman ready for a boyfriend who accompanies her to BED, BATH, AND
BEYOND because he might buy something, not because he identifies with decorative
objects designed to lie around the house.
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