Dogs & Boyfriends

I have three great loves in my life: 

my best friends

my boyfriend

...and of course my dog, Muppy.

 I’d like to say that I have put those in order, but honestly some days Muppy comes above all the rest.

 It was last Sunday night that I was sat with my friend Mike trying to catch up with him for the first time in months that Muppy became very low on my list of loves. He was outside barking at what was most probably his reflection and refused to come inside. It was at this point that I realised there is sometimes very little difference between my dog and my boyfriend. I was trying to coax him into the house, first by yelling, then by bartering with chicken and finally chose one trick that works on all men: I started to close the door. He ran into the house straight away.

I might sound crazy, but in a funny way this reminded me of dealing with almost every man I have ever met. When a man starts ‘misbehaving’ by which I mean being a bad boyfriend, refusing to commit and so on, there is only one thing that works. Whether you yell at them, or offer them sex (which I suppose is the man’s equivalent of chicken) nothing works quite like making them fear you’re going to close the door, on them or on the relationship.

The way I see it, the mistake that most girls make by yelling and bartering is that it shows a great deal of effort and need. If you’re going to those lengths for a man, even if you seem angry and hateful towards them it shows how much you care. But typical men, being as simple and stubborn as my Muppy will only respond to a fear of losing out. The thing is, when you start closing the door or even when someone closes a door on you, it makes you realise that you actually do want to be on the other side of it. Often people are so full of pride and confusion that it only takes the idea of rejection and disinterest to understand what they actually want.

I’ve even seen my best friend Tallie use such a method on me before. I was at her house and was obsessed with the idea of bleaching my hair. Again. She was yelling at me, and trying to compromise but only when she said “you know what fine, do it, I don’t care,” did I realise that I didn’t want to do it anymore. So maybe in some ways I’m as simple as my dog too, with just as frequent hair appointments.

But back to men. However offensive it may sound to call them dogs, I think often that is really how it feels. Dogs are needy, sometimes aggressive and want to hump absolutely everything. Sometimes you want to strangle them and get rid of them when they’re being annoying, attention seeking and just plain badly behaved. Muppy pisses on the carpet, Asher suggests a threesome with me and Tallie. It’s all the kind of bad behaviour that makes you want to slap them.

 But at the end of the day it’s worth keeping them around for the cuddles and the way you feel when you walk down the street with them.