“Relationships -- Bamboo under your fingernails is more fun.” Hands up everyone who has been dumped. Get out from behind that ego and fess up. We’ve all had a shafting from a partner at one time or another. And maybe even dished it out ourselves. I can personally remember this crying girl in a music shop. Every Friday night I’d return from the big city and pick her up for a weekend of debauchery (well, that was my plan anyway). One time I just didn’t turn up—ran into her the next day and she asked me why. My answer was classic eighteen-year-old male wank: “Ah, couldn’t be bothered.” Truth was, of course, I’d got pissed with a few mates and passed out. No conscious decision to do any dumping on my part. But I couldn’t tell the truth to save the relationship. Some sort of macho bullshit got in the way. Jesus, what a fun loving bastard I was. But look at it this way. A few months after that I discovered organic mind bending products, grew my hair down to my nipples, took to going barefoot in the winter, learned to play both the castanets and the bagpipes (I don’t know why either), discovered the music of the J.J. Cale and Peter Tosh, bought a Fiat, became interested in women who wore their grandmother’s curtains as dresses, and started wearing black shoelaces around my wrists. In short I became, if you were this poor girl’s parents, a complete deadshit. I dumped her and saved her. She went on to marry this nice, straight guy who drove an old Falcon with chrome wheels. (Sally was her name. Do you think she remembers me? God I hope not.) Still, that was quite a few years ago now, and you’d think I would have learnt a few life lessons by now. Fuck the Hell off! I think it gets worse the older you get. At least when you’re young you don’t have all that emotional baggage that comes from tearing other people’s lives to bits, or vice versa. Don’t let me depress you though. I am sure there are relationships that work. Not this next one though. A few years ago I lived in a smallish town on the coast. We all used to surf every chance we got. A married couple would let this guy from another town sleep on their couch when he came down to surf. One night I crashed on the floor, and what did I see? Well, the wife went to bed, but a little while later, presumably after hubby nodded off, she slipped out to the lounge and shagged the guest. (Maybe I am getting old, but I have a serious preference for my partner not shagging anyone else but me.) Naturally hubby found out. Divorce. Custody of the cat. Who gets the classic J.J. Cale music collection? And that’s how it goes. So. Why do we bother? What is it that compels us to pair up? …when it’s such goddamn hard work! Even when it’s going well there’s still those eternal questions. Does he still love me when I don’t shave my legs in winter? When he goes on that weekend to Melbourne to see Essendon play Carlton does he go to the Slobbering Wanker Gentleman’s Club and stick money down some slut’s g-string? Does she really believe that size doesn’t matter? How can I get out of watching her favourite Hugh Grant movies but still appear caring and sensitive, and consequently score later on? I’m thinking here that I have failed to provide any sort of useful comment on relationships at all. I am not surprised myself. Clearly, I am a total loser in the relationship department. Having bamboo shoots inserted under my fingernails is more fun for me than trying once again to connect in some meaningful way with, in my case, a woman. I am seriously considering becoming a monk. Can you still do that? I’d be interested if I could join one of those monasteries that makes expensive alcoholic drinks, or makes hit Gregorian chanting CDs. But you and I know that like countless bozos before me, I will, sooner or later, have one more try at getting the hang of that relationship thing. The emotional roller-coaster, the feeling like shit every time either one of you says something wrong, the wondering why they never call, the pain of getting dumped once again… . Pass me the Valium, I can hardly wait.