Location & date of speech unknown, uploaded Yotuube 2011
Reading question card: Waht is wrong with me, I find a flaw and can't get over it. For example if a guy chews with his mouth open, I could never see him again.
You are the problem with you. If you have a list of deal breakers that has more than five things on it, you need ot wait around to get a sex robot -- that you can program to be perfect for you in every possible way.
People., there is no settling down without some settling for. There is no long-term relationship not just putting up with your partner’s flaws, but accepting them and then pretending they aren’t there. We like to call it in my house “paying the price of admission.” ... I have certain flaws that I shall not tick off here, and my boyfriend has certain flaws that I shall be. And we've been together fourteen years, actually thirteen but we're like a hotel, where we're skipping the thirteenth floor, because it's bad luck. His flaws used to drive me fucking crazy. He also wasn't what I thought I wanted -- he's seven years younger, and didn't go to college, and he's an artist, and you know I'm a dumb writer, and I thought I needed soembody whose a doctor, or a lawyer, a stable career becasue I'm an idiot. And he wasn't what I was looking for and you know we fell in love and we're still together. If I wasw like 'you won't do, you won't do', if I didn't give him a chance, I would have cheated myself out of the love of my life.
Your boyfriend who chews with his mouth open, you can say, 'Chew with your fucking mouth shut,' and hopefully he'll get there. But if he never does, him chewing with his mouth open might be the price of admission. ...it might be the price you need to pay to ride that ride.
We used to make the dumb mistakes and these things I think play out more toxically in those mixed gender relationships you heterosexuals get into, that never work out. Because they're fraught with women's studies courses and female opression and centuries of female oppression -- he doesn't put anything away, he makes a sandwich and then there's the mayonnaise jar sitting there on the counter, there's the bread, there's the milk that he left out, there's the mustard, there's the meat, all of it left out. In August. We're all going to die of tomaine poisoning. I used to follow him around and yell 'put that fucking shit away!', and then one day, I put it away. And it took a tenth of the time that yelling at him about itsould have taken, and I went, oh, right, this is one of the prices of admission.
I love him so much, it's worth it. Just to put the fucking mayonnaise away myself.
And you can’t have a long-term relationship with someone unless you’re willing to identify the prices of admission you’re willing to pay — and the ones you’re not. But the ones you’re not — the list of things you’re not willing to put up with — you really have to be able to count [them] on one hand…
And it can't be superficial bullshit like 'chews with his mouth open'. It really can't, as disgusting as that is.
Because you'll never be in a relationship with anyine. You're going to be Jerry Seinfeld, but without the millions in residuals ... constantly rejecting women because she has 'man hands' - all this bullshit, right.
People, when they’re young, have this idea… “There’s someone out there who’s perfect for me There's the one.”
“The one” does not fucking exist.
“The one” is a lie. But the beautiful part of the lie is that it’s a lie you can tell yourself.
Any long-term relationship that’s successful is really a myth that two people create together … and myths are built of lies, and there’s usually some kernel of truth…
My boyfriend and I have a long term relationship built on a solid foundation of lies and deceit.
When you think about it, you meet somebody for the first time, and they’re not presenting their warts-and-all self to you — they’re presenting their idealised self to you, they’re leading with their best.
And then, eventually, you’re farting in front of each other. Eventually, you get to see the person who is behind that facade of their best, and they get to see the person behind your facade, your lie-self — this lie that you presented to them about who you really are.
And what’s beautiful about a long-term relationship, and what can be transformative about it, is that I pretend every day that my boyfriend is the lie that I met when I first met him. And he does that same favor to me — he pretends that I’m that better person than I actually am.
Even though he knows I’m not. Even though I know he’s not.
And we then are obligated to live up to the lies we told each other about who we are — we are then forced to be better people than we actually are, because it’s expected of us by each other.
And you can, in a long-term relationship, really make your lie-self come true — if you’re smart, and you demand it of them, and you’re willing to give it to them. You have to be willing not to see him chewing with his mouth open, if you want to be around for his better qualities. And then buy into the lie-version where he never does that. Right? And they will hopefully do the same for you.
That’s the only way you become “the one” — it’s because somebody is willing to pretend you are. “The one” that they were waiting for, “the one” they wanted, their “one.” Because you’re not — nobody is. No two people are perfect for each other, ever, period — No two people are 100% sexually compatible, no two people are 100% emotionally compatible, no two people want the same things. And if you can’t reconcile yourself to that, you will have no relationships that last longer than two months.
And you know what? It’s not going to be their fault — it’s going to be your fault.