Six Things Society Outright Lied to Me About.

So my roommate Cat wrote this article recently called "Ten Things I wasn't prepared for in my post-graduate life" and it's pretty good, I wasn't prepared for a lot of those things either, but I think a more helpful article would be "Six Things Society Outright Lied to Me About." So I am going to write that article. Right now.

6.) If you are pretty, you will get free things.
If by free things you mean a case of syphalis and a hangover, then yes, if you are pretty you will get free things. The only truly free thing you will recieve as an attractive woman is sex and that usually comes with bad, bad consequences. Everything else that seems free is most definitly not. You get a bunch of free drinks? Well that guy will eventually expect something from you, whether it be your phone number or a hook up. He isn't just giving you those drinks to be nice. And now you feel awkward because he pressured you into accepting the drinks and now he is pressuring you for something else. This is why you have to remember that nothing is really free, so just don't accept the drinks to begin with if you don't want to turn the guy down later. Here is another good hint: Almost every guy you meet at a bar will be a huge dissapointment to you.
Guys who are creeping around bars aren't looking for girlfriends, they are looking for a one night stand. So never think a guy that you meet randomly at a bar has relationship potential. I don't know a single one of my friends who is in a relationship who met a guy at a bar. But just to be clear here, I mean meet a guy you have never met, nor have any ties to at a bar. If you meet a guy at a bar through a mutual friend it is a different story.
Back to my original point though, being pretty means that people want something from you. Just like every other good aspect about you.Your smart? People want to exploit that. Your funny? People want to exploit that as well. The world is basically filled with people who want to exploit you for your god given gifts and unless you are a jaded, sarcastic bitch like me, you will probably get taken advantage of. Just try to remember that nothing is truly for free.

5.) Chicks before dicks.
Every girl has heard this before. Guys have their own variation of it: Bros before hos. And both of these slogans might have been very helpful when you were in highschool, but once you graduate college they aren't true anymore. A guy that you are serious about will almost always come before a friend. Heres why: Money. Marriage isn't just a union of love, it's a union of money. And now that your money and his money are tied together, he is going to matter a little more than your friends do. It's just the truth. This is why when you start to feel seriously about a guy, even before you get married, he will come before your friends. Because eventually money will be involved. Those stupid slogans that society throws at us only work when you have an immature notion of love and no experience in it.

4.) If you have more than 4 drinks 3 times a week, you are an alocholic.
Alright this might horrify my mother, but I know that it is actually completely normal behavior for a young twenty-something. I drink almost every single night of the week and 4-5 of those days I blow right past 4 drinks. Am I an alocholic? Most likely not. If I am, then I am a very highly functioning one. With the above, very loose definition of alcoholism, I would be very definitely able to say that all of my friends and almost everyone I know is an alcoholic. With the exception of pregnant women.
People think you drink a lot in college. Untrue. You don't drink that often, but when you do drink, you drink enough to shame your family. When you graduate and are working full time you drink almost every day, and you have at least 3 drinks every day. Why? Because you hate your life and you want to drown it in alchohol. Really though, you do it because when you come home from work you can't exactly go out on a bender, and you don't have anything else to do, so you stay home and drink enough that you think your life is actually interesting.

3.) Working out will make you happy.
We have all heard that working out gives you endorphins and endorphins make you happy. I think that is a whole lot of horseshit. I have never, ever felt happy after working out. I feel miserable because now I am tired and sweaty and in pain. Maybe I feel slightly accomplished, but in general I am usually still punnishing myself for eating that bag of popcorn and wondering if I burned enough calories to make up for it. And just like with the alcohol, no one really talks about it, but I am pretty sure the majority of Americans feel this way. Yeah, we all pretend we like to go running, because if we tell other people that then they will think we aren't as out of shape as we really are and also, maybe it will come true.
Yes, there are always exceptions, like the freaks like my little sister who really do like to run, but most of us hate it and are secretly scared to admit it because we think the world will then think we are fat. Here it is though, the world will think you are fat if you are fat, regardless if you claim to like running. Here is another thing, historically, beauty is based on what is hardest to accomplish. Back in the day being fat was considered hot because it was damn hard to be fat when you were poor and working the fields all day. Now being skinny is hot because it is damn hard to be skinny when you sit on your ass in front of a computer all day. So no, you won't like working out, but you have to do it if you want to be attractive, so like getting a job and paying taxes you just have to suck it up and do it.
Just a thought though: Wouldn't people be skinnier if we still played games like hide and seek like we would when we were kids? Why don't we do that anymore? Man, I would kill to play a good game of hide and seek.

2.) If you are dedicated, and work hard, you will succeed.
This is bull shit. Yes, if you are dedicated and work hard you will do well, but I think you learn pretty early on that there is no real quantifiable way to determine success in real life. Most base it on happiness and in todays society you will probably never achieve complete happiness. This is why no matter how hard I work, I am still unhappy, because my career means nothing to me. Maybe if I was on a different track I would be happier.
Its also bullshit because 50% of success is based purely on who you know. That's a damn fact.

1.) That there is such a thing as "the love of your life."
I don't even want to go too deep into explaining this one at the risk of giving you readers far too much insight into my psyche. It's pretty much a deep, disturbing cave that you can never find a way back from. Nevertheless I will say this, find someone good enough and stick with them. Its the difference between being a satisficer and a maximizer. Satisficers are almost always the happier of the two. If you keep rejecting men because they weren't your "Mr. Perfect" you are going to end up all sad and alone and at the ripe old age of 40 where you can't even really procreate anymore. Get married and pop out kids while you can, you are gonna love your kids a whole lot more than whoever the heck you married anyways.