The Importance of the B-word, and Ways I am Dating My Dog

I'll start this one out by making it clear that I'm not big on labels. As a self centered "Liberal Arts" Major, I like to operate under the romantic idea that I am somehow unique enough to not be accurately encompassed by the titles and adjectives we slap onto each other every day. Labels like "Private school girl" or "Only Child" or "Underclassman" or "Democrat/Republican" or "Heterosexual" or even "Team Captain" Make me a little uneasy. Being labeled in this way is being pigeonholed; like the person using it has chosen a single lens through which they can view me only as a 2-dimensional caricature of myself.

The label that gets to me the most, though is "Girlfriend." I'm sure that part of the reason for this is because my overly friendly nature seems to say to every creep/guy/male friend I've ever encountered: "Hello! I'd like to have sex with you! Lets start dating! Love me forever! Also, don't ever stop asking me out no matter how I respond!" (When what I'm going for is more along the lines of "Hello! I respect you as a person! Let's be friends who partake in intelligent discourse and/or fart jokes!")

I suppose another source of my aversion to the B/G-words is some commitment issues, but seeing as most of the people who read this will  know me personally, I'll just let you rant about that in your own heads and move on.

Truly though, I think what bothers me most is the idea of being presented as something less than yourself. When someone is introduced to you not as themselves, but as so-and-so's significant other, it automatically changes your perception of them. You may not (consciously) think of them as "belonging" to that person, but suddenly everything they do and say and are is forced into a different perspective because of their relation to that other.
 (Arguably this forced perspective occurs with EVERY person we meet in some way, no matter how we meet them, but if you want to talk about that you can go make your own dang blog, ya hear?)

Now, unfortunately for those who find themselves dating me, anytime I am called upon in society to use the b-word ("This is my boyfriend, __; I can't go out with you, I have a boyfriend; I'm meeting my boyfriend for lunch later." etcetera) these three factors swirl around in my awkward teenage belly and churn up all sorts of discomfort. As well as some mildly concerning choking sounds.

With my very first boyfriend I got pretty lucky on this front (to be fair, I was lucky on most fronts. I was just too immature, and too wrapped up in a stupid yet attractive friend to appreciate him). His name was Brendan, which starts with a B just like the B-word, so anytime I STARTED to say "boyfriend" and then chickened out halfway through, it would just sound like "This is my Boyyyy-rendan".... Then I would chuckle and try to play that off like it wasn't weird- and to anyone who could deal with the social pariah I was in high school, "boyyyrendan" was hardly a blip on their radar of strangeness. Which says a lot more about my social skills in high school than I intended.
As the relationship went on though, and I made the decision to provide exactly zero explanation for my actions, the poor boy got so confused he started to think "My Boy, Rendan" Was some sort of quirky nickname I made up for him, and then I had to play along with that idea, and then things just got really weird really quick.

The poor sucker I'm dating now, though, does NOT have a B name, which posed a bit of a problem at first... It got me to thinking quite a bit about the B-word... and eventually I thought "why not swap one b-word for the other?" Now, instead of "My boyfriend" he's "my bitch"
I kinda like it.

Now to be clear, Liberal Arts major that I am, I am plenty feminist and the like, so when I say the phrase "my bitch" you can rest assured I am not referring to any women; not even in the endearing sort of way that girls use it to describe each other. Nope, when I'm talking abut "My bitch" I'm talking about one of two things: 1My female dog, 2My boyfriend.


You're probably expecting a lot of goofy-sounding posts in the future now, where I talk about "my bitch" and through context clues, you realize that it's not my dog I'm referring to, it's my boyfriend, or vice versa. In reality, though, most of the things I can say about one bitch, I could just as easily say about the other. Take these, for example:

• My bitch doesn't know how to do laundry
• My bitch has big blue puppy eyes
• My bitch likes to steal my food when I'm not looking
• I take my bitch on long walks
• My bitch has soft brown hair
• My bitch likes to be the little spoon
• My bitch has ticklish belly spots
• I am responsible for my bitch's training and grooming
• My bitch gets excited easily
• When my bitch gets TOO excited, my bitch make a funny panting sound
• My bitch has dog breath
• My bitch doesn't like to share me with the other bitches
• My bitch likes to lick me all over

See? They're practically the same bitch!!... Wait, is that weird? That's weird, isn't it?

~Alicen

I think Haikus are
An excellent way to rule
Out the Plebians