Table of Contents
Praise for Julie Klausner and I Dont Care About Your Band
Julie Klausner has the perfect comedic voice for a new generation of ladiesbrave, self-deprecating, high-larious beyond, and brand spanking new. Its one of those books that you take to bed with you, that keeps you up all night, and that makes you laugh so hard in public the next morning that strangers ask you what youre reading. And make me so glad Im not dating.
Jill Soloway, author of Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants and executive producer of United States of Tara
If you think dating cant get any worse, then you havent read this book. Julie Klausners hilarious memoir will remind you that the worse the date, the better the story itll eventually make. If nothing else, youll be comforted by the fact that YOUR blind date was never arrested for kidnapping.Em & Lo, EMandLO.com
Julie Klausner is Helen Girly Brown: hard-working, yet lusty! Romantic and intelligent! But best of all: unapologetic about wanting to be in love. I Dont Care About Your Band has more wit and all of the tsuris of Carrie Bradshaws Sex and the City, without the pithy bromides.Sarah Thyre, author of Dark at the Roots and actress on Strangers with Candy
All those misplaced orgasms and disappointing hookups with deviants were well worth it. Julie Klausners memoir is screamingly funny and wiser than a hooker with health insurance. Take it home for a ride!Michael Musto
Klausner fashions a breathy, vernacular-veering-into-vulgar, spastically woe-fi lled account of her youthful heartaches falling for guys who were just not that into her.Publishers Weekly
FOR MY PARENTS
I love you so much it is actually ridiculous. Thank you for your unwavering support in every single one of my creative and personal endeavors and beyond. Next time, I promise Ill write a book you can read.
introduction
Two things about me before we get started.
First of all, I will always be a subscriber to the sketch comedy philosophy of how a scene should unfold, which is What? That sounds crazy! OK, Ill do it.
The other thing is, I love men like it is my job.
I LOVE men so much that Ive never once considered what it would be like to take a break from dating them, or to focus my mind on other things besides falling in love with one, or to look for work in a field thats more female-dominated, or anything else lesbians suggest you do after a guy breaks your heart. And despite repetitive instances of heartbreak, humiliations, failures, and mistakes Ive accumulated, Ive never stopped casting myself as the straight man in the sketch who agrees to do something bonkers; who submits to the recklessness and absurdity of optimism, time and time again.
Here is why: I could never give up on the possibility of falling for someone whod make all of the pies I took in the face worthwhile. And this is a book about how frustrating it is to keep returning to something disappointing you will not give up on.
I am, by nature, an expert grudge hoarder. But I dont save up my grudges for breakupsfor me, its the disappointments that haunt me like Fail Ghosts. I dwell and retread and mourn relationships that could have been with characters youll meet soon. There are some doozies! And I havent even included the story about the guy I met at a Korean barbecue restaurant who said, after I remarked on the grill built into our table, that the place was perfect for a blind date, because, if you dont like your dates face, you can just mash it into the grill. That guy deserves a book of his own, but I think Bret Easton Ellis already wrote it.
What follows in this book are selective stories of guys who came on strong, then sputtered out; high hopes shattered by mucky realities; and romantic miscarriages I had to clean up myself, which is as gross as it sounds.
I DID not embark on the task of writing this book for the sake of basking in my own woe, Cathy cartoonlike. And by no means is this a cathartic assemblage of He Done Me Wrong stories served hot. Im not PJ Harvey, and this isnt 1998. I wrote these stories strewn with romantic collateral damage because I think theyre funny now that Ive stopped crying, and because I learned things from them I hope will resonate with women whove snacked on similarly empty fare when it comes to guys.
And there are so many guys. I remember the first time a friend referred to a guy I liked as a man, and I made a face like I was asking Willis what he was talkin bout. A man is hard to find, good or otherwise, but guys are everywhere now. Thats why women go nuts for Don Draper on Mad Men. If that show was called Mad Guys, it might star Joe Pesci, and nobody wants to see that.
Meanwhile, I know way more women than girls. Theres a whole generation of us who rode on the wings of feminisms entitlement like it was a Pegasus with cornrows, knowing how smart we were and how we could be anything. The problem is that we ended up at the mercy of a generation of guys who dont quite seem to know whats expected of them, whether its earning a double income or texting someone after she blows you. There are no more traditions or standards, and manners are like cleft chins or curly hairthey only run in some families.
It seems like everybody is just confused.
I know grown women who flip out like teenyboppers once they sense a sea change in a guy who seemed to be in it for the long haul but got scared after some innocuous exchange, and now they feel responsible. (I shouldnt have sent that text with that dumb joke!) There are ladies who hook up instead of date because those are the crumbs to feast on when they are starving. Women who feel awful because they knew a guy was bad news, but got involved anyway, then got attached, and now they feel terrible not just because biology kicked inI had an orgasm and I like him now!but because they feel bad for feeling bad. Like it wasnt enough just to feel bad because he didnt call you after his dick was inside you. Now, you have to feel bad because youre not allowed to feel bad.
Because we can hook up just to hook up now. Because you knew what you were getting into. And you did anyway. But then everything changed.
And instead of being the way some guys are at that age, lets say in their late thirties, and theyve never been married, and theres a ticking clock but they dont hear it because theyre like, My career! or Look at all these twenty-five-year-old girls who let me make out with them even though they didnt when I was in high school!you dont shut yourself off. You dont stop trying to connect. You dont close up like a clam, even when it gets hard to tell the difference between who you are and how you are treated.
You keep trying, in the nature of optimism; in the nature of believing in humanity, like Carole King told our moms to do. And when you cry about things not working out, youre crying not only because a guy you slept with now doesnt seem to care youre alive for some reason thats beyond everything youve been told by teachers, parents, friends and everybody else who knows how awesome you arewho helped make you that waybut also, because youre ashamed of yourself for crying.
ITS PART of the female disposition to take the blame for failed things. Were not as entitled as men, even fictional ones, like Will Hunting, who only needed Robin Williams to scream Its not your fault! to board the self-esteem bus after breaking down. Meanwhile, when we get hurt, were ashamed right away.
