Francesco Marciuliano - You Need More Sleep: Advice from Cats

For when you sporadically realize you share a life with someone.

A healthy relationship is as much about being together as it is as about personal space. And the best way to accomplish the latter is by never, ever sitting still. If your partner enters the room, get up and leave. If they follow you, make for the stairs. If they pursue, do a hard turn into the bedroom, bank off the dresser, double-back into the hall, careen into the home office, swipe the workstation clean, fall into a wastebasket, and go back down the stairs. Keep running until they go to work and you get the eight hours of peace alone you both need for love to bloom.

Nothing says I love you, without actually having to say those words, like a homemade gift. Your partner will appreciate the thought and time you took in creating it. Youll appreciate that you still have what it takes to bring down a raven. Just make sure the gift is intact. After all, you wouldnt bring half a cake to a party, so why bring something missing its head?

Or if that seems like too much work, you can give your loved one the greatest gift of allyourself, after youve rolled around in some tape and ribbons they forgot to put away.

Like a viral outbreak, a loving relationship needs to keep mutating to survive and thrive. Hence why its imperative you keep surprising someone with what you suddenly dont like now. Such fickleness gives a partnership that invigorating spark that can only come from recoiling from their touch... only to return for kisses and caresses an hour later while theyre on the toilet.

Love is never as complicated as humans make it out to be. Its simply about letting your partner shower you with affection for that brief moment between expressing sincere tenderness and trying to instill Stockholm Syndrome. At which point you can choose either to escape or stay put until their legs go dead and their need to pee assumes DEFCON 1 status, highlighting another of lifes key lessons: With great love comes great sacrifice.

Never be excessive in your affections. The more you share your feelings, the more common and valueless they become. Rather, keep such displays infrequent yet purposeful. Press your head against your persons chin, often with surprising force. Lick not just their nose but their nostril to remind them how weird that can be in public. Sit on their face until it clearly turns blue.

In short, do anything that will get them the heck out of bed by 4 a.m , at which time they really should be up making your breakfast or be pronounced legally dead.