Sometimes I get a little bored at work, and secretly surf through other people's xangas.  And it's only 'secretly' because the people whos xangas I read don't know I'm reading them.  Sometimes it motivates me to write my own xangas.  I wish I could write insightful things about my life, about politics, and give good advice through my xanga - but I inevitably write little stupid entrys of thoughts that pop into my head like: "I THINK I WAS A TEST TUBE BABY" or "TODAY I WENT".  Not exactly thought provoking.  Oh well.

Here are rules that will help you with relationships with the opposite sex that I just made up. To clarify, I just made up the rules, I didn't just make up the opposite sex. They exist, I promise. If you want to see for yourself, just tear your rotting carcass away from the computer and look at any semi-populated area for a few minutes. They're the ones with boobs.

Anyway, these rules either come from personal experience from things I just thought of and wrote down because I thought the list looked prettier with more points. Here we are:

1. Don't meet anyone through your parents. Ever. Even if your mom shows you a picture of her friend's rocket scientist/pop superstar daughter and she'd obviously be the best thing that ever happened to you... stay away! Your best option is to burn the photograph, purge all memory of the incident from your mind, and hope you run into that chick by accident at some point. Maybe your subconscious could even force you into a career in pop rocket science to increase the odds.

I don't have any personal experience to back up this point, I don't even have any anecdotal evidence, it's just a gut feeling propelled by the fact that everything ever recommended by parents, be it that sweater with the glowing purple reindeer Mom got off the clearance rack and tried to get you to wear in the fall of '92 to the bowling league that dad said would be fun and educational (only he neglected to tell you that, by law every last kid in the bowling league is one of those kids who, in elementary school, had a ring of mucus around his nose at all times, and dared himself to touch his own poo and then did) has ended in huge embarrassing failure.

2. Stay away from ladies with huge beards and moustaches. They're usually men. Or Russians. Neither of which bode well for a future relationship.

3. If a lady ever, ever, ever requests that you "win her" something at the fair, end the relationship then and there. This is absolutely non-negotiable. I don't even know what you were doing at the fair in the first place.

4. Long distance relationships are insanely difficult. You'll never try anything harder. Even trying to win her a three-foot tall stuffed bear at a rigged fair game run by a forty-five year old Romanian with three teeth and half a nose would be easier than pulling off a long distance relationship. I'm not saying you should avoid them, I'm just saying that they're nearly impossible.

5. If you enter a lady's room and find posters of a musician younger than you on the wall, hit the eject button ASAP. The same goes for any "Latin" singer regardless of age.

6. If you have anything approaching similar tastes in music, unless this comes from the fact that you really like Justin Timberlake and Hillary Duff rather than the fact that she likes anything remotely good (in which case you should just end it now, and by "it" I don't mean the relationship, I mean your life), you're utterly justified in keeping the relationship going much longer than it probably should.

7. Avoid hardcore feminists and hardcore not-feminists. Either way they're going to look at every decision you or they make for the rest of the relationship and evaluate it according to some random rubric that you'll never understand or care about, ever. Little things like opening doors and boiling the spaghetti noodles will suddenly become defining events in your relationship. And in practice it's even lamer than it sounds, if that's possible.

8. Don't worry about her uncles. Uncles should never have any bearing on any sort of relationship unless they're currently having an incestuous affair with your lady friend... and even then you should take it with a grain of salt. They're uncles. They're always going to be insane or intense or have long greasy hair or be just a little bit too friendly. That's what they do. Don't pay them any heed.

9. Siblings, on the other hand, are absolutely key. Think about it from your own side of things. Your siblings are the only people on the planet who ever have any sort of rational grip on the quality or desirability of your relationship, so the same obviously goes for their side as well. If her brothers and sisters have maintained an aggressive three year war of attrition against you and they're at least ten years old, they're probably right. You're not right for their sister. Get out of there. Even if they aren't right, even if they're just vindictive little wankers, you still want out of the relationship... because they'll always be around and they're not going to get any less vindictive. Ever.

10. Another "extremely difficult but not an absolute deal-breaker" factor is a language barrier. It's possible to navigate your way around them, but it takes time... and by the time you get around to finding out what the other person is actually like you'll already have accumulated too much relationship inertia to easily toss out the baby and the bathwater. So it's like a crap shoot, only a crap shoot in which you have to invest several months of your time and a massive amount of effort before you get the random result.

DISCLAIMER: These only apply to males who are gunning for females. I don't have much experience with any other configuration of relationship (to be honest, I don't exactly have much experience with the whole male-female thing either) so apply them at your own risk! You should probably apply them at your own risk even if you're trying to find a lady, since their relationship with reality is even more tenuous than my relationship with the opposite sex.