Dear Boss,

Acts of kindness in this world come too few and far between, which is why I was pleasantly taken aback by your immense generosity this afternoon. As our Zoom meeting came to a close, with the agenda points covered and attendees not knowing what else to do but fill the remaining time with side tangents, you ended the meeting two minutes early, announcing you were giving us all our time back.

First, let me just say how much I value those extra two minutes. There’s so much I could do with this newfound time, I’m almost overwhelmed at the options. It’s like I have a new lease on life! I could listen to about half a song. I could go pee—I probably need to go pee, my bladder has felt like it’s been pressing into my abdomen for the last hour of this meeting. I could briefly disappear into the abyss of my own thoughts. I could watch exactly two full-length TikToks. In fact, I may spend so much time trying to decide what to do with these newly discovered minutes that I end up getting nothing accomplished at all! Ah, the freedom of it.

Although, if I may just offer a bit of constructive criticism—a little role reversal, if you will. Where was this energy when setting up a touch-base for a touch-base? One for which I received no less than six different invites within a 10-minute span, the timing of the meeting shifting in 5-minute increments before I could begrudgingly hit “yes”? I probably spent a good one out of my two now-refunded minutes wrapping my head around, wait, what is the purpose of this meeting? and then digging through my inbox to locate the most up-to-date calendar invitation.

I won’t bother stating the obvious that this touch-base could have been an email chain, but will point out some areas in which I would have really enjoyed my time back more: the 10 minutes in the beginning of the meeting that was dedicated to small-talk (yes, I hope everyone’s doing well, I would love to hear about the trash can your dog got into some other time, preferably with alcohol involved); the 5 minutes Jennifer spent derailing the meeting to discuss her own work stress (please see a therapist); the 7.3 minutes after we all thought the meeting had successfully wrapped up, which Jennifer then spent throwing out her own ideas for the very iniatives we had just finalized (Jennifer, were you even listening?? We are past that!).

I’d be remiss to not consider the fact that your remark was simply a joke. If that’s the case, let me just say that it was the absolute funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and your sense of humor is unparalleled. Have you ever thought of trying out for SNL? Yes, I seriously mean that! On a totally unrelated note, I’d like to chat about a raise…

But in all seriousness, two minutes are two minutes, and time is the one resource (aside from oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy) that we cannot get back once it’s been spent. So I simply have no choice but to say, from the bottom of my heart and my to-do list: thank you.

Now, I’m off to my next meeting. Crap, I really should have peed.

Warmly,

Forever Grateful Employee.

Dear Guys Who Invite Me Over to ‘Watch a Movie’

Between Justin Bieber still living in the US, the additional month I have to wait until Scandal comes back, and the fact that it won’t stop fucking snowing, there is a lot I could be hating in life right now. That said, there is still nothing I hate more than when a guy I don’t really know that well asks me if I want to “come over and watch a movie.”

If you’re going to just try to go for the V, you need to at least put some effort in. Take me out for drinks and dinner before you invite me to your place. I can’t claim that my game is on some Beyoncé level shit, but I have a fully functioning and disease-free vagina thank you very much, and I’m counting on some work being put in on your end before I inevitably refuse to give it up. If twelve-year-olds are willing to run around an obstacle course, answer riddles from a talking tree, and embarrass themselves on live TV just to fail at putting together the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, you can expend some energy into attempting to get in my ironclad pants.

My point is, people have been willing to do a lot more for a lot less.

Shit, now that Blockbuster’s gone out of business, you don’t even need to leave your house to drive to the fucking store to pick up a movie. YOU DON’T EVEN NEED A PHYSICAL COPY OF THE MOVIE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Now any asshole with a working laptop and an internet connection and his friend’s brother’s roommate’s dog’s Netflix subscription thinks he can hit it? No, and no.

And don’t think for one second I’m deluded into the whole “I’m being a nice guy who just wants to watch a movie in the company of a girl I like and incidentally also want to bone” bullshit that you might be going for. First off, if I wanted to be spend time with a nice guy, I would stay home and watch something that Topher Grace is in. Second, maybe some other basic bitch would believe that you could actually get to know a person while you’re sitting side-by-side, not looking at or talking to one another for 1.5-3 hours in front of your TV or Mac, but my four years of college partying have left me with enough functioning brain cells for common sense. So no, I’m not falling for that shit either…

Next time, I’m going to insist we watch 12 Years a Slave and fuck your whole plan up:

You’re not as smooth as you think,

The Betches

Dear Person Who Just Dramatically Announced Their Sobriety For The Evening,

Given that you felt so compelled to make a bold statement about “not drinking tonight,” you’re most likely at an event that’s entirely centered around alcohol. Especially since you organized it three weeks ago and asked us to buy you a handle, we figured it was safe to assume that you wanted to partake. Clearly you’ve decided to bail at the last minute, which is whatever, but for the love of God, please spare us from the painstaking details of why “you’re actually not going too crazy tonight, sorry!” Now I’m not saying you have to black out every time you go out. That’s just what I tend to do because I’m not a selfish person and I like to give back to the community. You don’t even necessarily have to be drinking. The whole issue is how aggressively you’re letting everyone know you aren’t drinking, to the level that I have to believe you’re actively trying to ruin our night, and I just can’t stand for that.

For example, if someone at a party kindly hands you a Solo cup filled with liquor, just take it. I don’t care if you have the stomach flu or the bar exam tomorrow, you can hold it for a few minutes. No one would even notice you weren’t drinking, and the festivities could proceed as planned. Instead, you have to loudly refuse while sounding extremely distraught, so everyone feels weird about it and pressured into asking why even though we DGAF.

There’s also something so self-righteous about labeling yourself as the person who’s “not drinking tonight.” It’s basically saying you’re the only person who has actual commitments and we’re all degenerates for having a few drinks on a Saturday. FYI, there is no moral high ground in this situation. What are you trying to protest? Fun? In that case, you’re the asshole, not me.

And it’s never just the one announcement either. Throughout the night you’re constantly making comments that imply you’re such a martyr for even showing up. As if we should be thanking you for pouting in a corner, meanwhile we all know you’d be sitting at home eating stale Doritos and Facebook stalking your ex if you weren’t here.

What it all comes down to is the fact that I don’t care how fun you are, if you don’t feel like being fun on a particular night, please stay home. Seriously. We don’t need you. Or if you do show up, don’t make such a huge deal out of the fact that you’re so bravely abstaining from alcohol for a few hours. I do that at work all the time and you don’t see anyone handing me out any trophies.

Oh, and BTW, we’ll take that tequila shot if you don’t want it,
Sabrina The Teenage Betch

Every good club eventually becomes a wasteland, and TBT has officially reached that point. Much like Marquee post 30 Rock, the club is now for wannabes and nice girls. Sorry, but it’s true. Here’s why.

TBT started as an occasional excuse to post skinny photos of yourself to be extra. Key word is occasional. Like a gift to your faithful audience, the TBT was meant to reward your friends with a preview of who you were before they knew you, or for the lucky lifelong friends, a reminder of how awesome it is being friends with you. Like, remember how long you’ve known me for? Yeah, I’m pretty fun.

Unfortunately, TBT has become a near daily ritual now, and we’re pretty sure we know how every single one of our friends looked as a fetus now. We’ve seen baby photos, bat mitzvah photos, prom photos, every single Halloween photo, and even the most embarrassing braces photos of all of our friends. Sorry, but we’re bored. TBT doesn’t even happen on Thursdays anymore, it’s just something people throw onto a photo when they want more attention for being a freak in middle school. It’s like, the goth makeup didn’t make you popular then, and it’s not going to now.

We (sometimes) go to yoga and meditate and we’ve learned that it’s all about living in the moment. The throwback photos are exhausting because of course every single photo of us in the past is worth sharing, just like every single photo we take now is worth sharing. But what are you going to show at your wedding slideshow if everyone’s already seen the greatest hits of your entire childhood? We’d love to eat ice cream for breakfast everyday but we learned to have control, and posting a TBT photo every week is like eating junk food after you’ve gone to the gym. Your feed is getting fat, and not in the good way.

Obvs we’re not saying you can never post a TBT. There are still special circumstances reserved for posting a throwback, but consider yourself on a diet. Exceptions to posting a TBT are if you were once a fat kid, met a celebrity, or were a child celebrity, then you’re allowed to post one of each of these things once a year. But honestly, looking in your past is over. We’re not interested in seeing what happened on this day 5 years ago anymore, because Facebook and Timehop have made TBT as boring as hearing about somebody’s dream.

Speaking of Timehop, if you must check the app because you’re obsessed with yourself you enjoy back-stalking your own life, you can still send TBT photos but only on group chats and in private messages. Nobody wants to see the picture of you on your 22nd birthday for the 4th time. We’ve all seen it. Send it to your friends that are also in the picture, and then move the fuck on.

Much like something becomes uncool when your parents and their friends start doing it, TBT has become more than basic, it’s just common now. If brands are posting TBT to get you to buy their shit, you know it’s officially over. Maybe we’ll start a new hashtag… Move on Monday… as in, post a picture of some goal you have, like becoming president or marrying Ryan Gosling, with the caption “future me is ballin, I’m moving the fuck on”.

Dear Pizza-Loving Lovers,

Weddings are a trade-off. You get to rub your supposed marital joy directly in the faces of your family and friends (and Facebook feed) for an entire day, and we pretend to be happy for you. In return for our cooperation, you owe it to your guests to deliver on certain traditions: an open bar, hot groomsmen to keep us entertained, and the excuse to binge on wedding cake until our Spanx threaten to split open. Unless you’re some romantic idiot, free alcohol and cake are literally the only reason to sit through the torture of a wedding ceremony, but you had the nerve—the audacity—to serve a pizza “cake” at your wedding. I ask you: What the fuck?

Obviously, betches love pizza. Fucking everyone loves pizza. That’s why there’s a pizza place on every corner of every street in America. It’s so cheap that you can get a slice for a single dollar, which is like half the reason pizza is the perfect drunk-binge food. Waking up hungover and surrounded by pizza boxes means you’re out, like, $30 at most for the food (and $90 for the vodka, but whatever). But pizza at a wedding is an abomination.

Yes, weddings are expensive, but really? You’re so broke you had to order a bunch of delivery pizza like it’s your 11th birthday party and you couldn’t convince your mom to take you to Chuck E. Cheese? I barely understand the meaning of the word “budget,” but even I know that if you’re that strapped for cash, you can just fire the DJ and make a Spotify playlist for the reception.

Instead, you served pizza. As I already pointed out, drunk pizza binges are practically an American tradition, so I guarantee 95 percent of your single guests had eaten it in their hotel rooms the night before, when they were drinking away their fear of dying alone. You think they were excited when they saw you bring out four fucking pizzas stacked on top of each other instead of a wedding cake?

This couple had pizza cake instead of a wedding cake because not all heroes wear capes: https://t.co/cEP4qbTB7B pic.twitter.com/BmSwD5kqKG

— BRIDES (@brides) March 30, 2017

The answer is clearly no, they were not. I don’t care if it was “what pizza dreams are made of”—everyone was expecting cake, and you reneged on that promise. And how did that work, BTW? Did you bring the “cake” out after everyone had already eaten dinner like a couple of monsters? Have some fucking respect for the people who are currently showering you with wedding gifts you clearly don’t deserve. 

By the way, despite what you may believe, a gelato option—which they served—doesn’t make up for the lack of wedding cake. Sure, it tastes good, but the two foods are in no way equivalent. Bingeing on cake at the reception is an integral part of eating your feelings before you progress to drinking away your feelings and banging the semi-hot bartender in your car when the maid of honor calls dibs on the one hot groomsman. Bingeing on gelato just gives you a brain freeze. Do you see how these two activities are not equivalent?

Honestly, I’m not sure why there wasn’t a revolt immediately after the “cake” was brought out. Are your friends that polite? Was everyone so wasted they had already reached the pizza bingeing point of the night? Either way, please spend your honeymoon considering how to word your apology letters, and repeat after me: Pizza will never count as cake.

XOXO,

Dr. Frankenbetch

I’ve seen a disturbing trend on my timeline recently, and it’s not just because I only became Facebook friends with my dad a few months ago: people posting Facebook eulogies about their dead dogs. I know it’s 2017 and there are a lot more offensive things going on, especially on Facebook, than people posting about their dead dogs. But you know what? I don’t care. Call the Special Victims Unit, because this social media crime is especially heinous.

Yeah, I’m that monster who doesn’t care about your dead dog, and I don’t care who knows it. I mean, I sort of care because I’m writing from a semi-anonymous pseudonym as opposed to my real name. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m here to tell you why I don’t give a shit about your dead dog, and I’m willing to bet nobody else does either.

First I would like to say that I am not a cat person, nor am I a soulless robot who has never felt joy. On the contrary—I have had three dogs in my lifetime thus far, two of whom are now dead. So yes, I understand your pain and I know what you’re going through. But there are acceptable ways to express your grief and unacceptable ways. Uploading a photo of your deceased dog is fine. So is changing your profile picture to one of you and your late pup. Posting one—ONE—short status is also acceptable, with the key word being short. The world is certainly a darker place with one less dog in it, so it’s fine to let us know. You know what’s not fine? Posting a 1,000 word eulogy to your dog that sounds like it was actually written for a close family member, only for me to find out at the end after reading your entire essay that it was eulogizing your 17-year-old dog who’s had cancer for the last 4 years of its life. Stop it. You’re not a eugoogolizer. That shit is melodramatic. Dogs die. You knew going into it that your dog would age seven times faster than you. You can’t really be surprised.

“Today I lost my companion, my best friend, someone who’s been there for me through thick and thin for the past 11 years” — No I’m not copying and pasting from my timeline (I’m not that savage); I’ve just read so many of these and they all start the same fucking way. Like, first of all, your dog has not actually been “there for you.” Your dog wasn’t like, giving you advice and taking you out to the bars when your ex dumped you—they were just physically present. Also, and I’m not afraid to say it, if your parents took care of the dog while you were away at college and for most of your adult life and you hardly ever even walked this dog or picked up its shit, that hardly fucking counts. Like, you didn’t even do any of the heavy lifting and now you want to reap the sympathy points? Nah. I see you. 

As if it weren’t bad enough to put more thought into your dog’s memorial than your grandma’s, where this shit really gets extra is when you have the people who just won’t fucking get over it. The people who are posting daily updates on their grief and flashback photos every chance they get. Your dog died two years ago AND you got a new puppy a week later, give it a rest, Catherine! You are allowed one sympathy post. ONE. After that, you’re just fishing for attention and it’s sad and annoying. Not to mention, where’s your new dog in all of this? Why is Fluffers being neglected because Mr. Peanutbutter (may he rest in peace) passed away two years ago? We’d all much rather see photos of your new, alive dog.

And you can tell everyone else is sick of it too because the flood of “Thinking of you!” “Sorry for your loss!” comments and likes dwindle from a solid 100 to like, just your aunt Judy and the girl in your international relations class who’s afraid you’ll botch your half of the group project without constant reassurance. Dogs are like babies: I can guarantee you that nobody else thinks your dog was as cute or friendly or lovable as you did. 

To be clear, I’m not telling you that you can’t be sad when your dog dies—just stop fucking posting about it. Honestly, just stop posting about most things. Is the common denominator me? Am I the problem? …Probably. On that note, I’ll see myself out.

We here at Betches celebrate moms. Moms are great to talk shit with. They always take your side. And, most importantly, they gave us at least 50% of our current beauty. But just like all things that are great—like cheese and my regular coke binge—limits are key. It’s great to be close with your mom, but you’ve got to have boundaries. Otherwise it’s just plain weird. And that’s why I’m here, to write a response piece to an article I read called “My Mom Is My Best Friend And That Is More Than Ok.” I, a random Betches writer with literally no personal interest in the matter and who doesn’t even know you, am here to tell you that no, it’s not okay—it’s fucking weird.

Literally the first words of this piece are “Thank you for being the Lorelai to my Rory,” so I was already suppressing my gag reflex to begin with.

Things did not get any better for me when I came across passages like:

“Many people can see this as a bad thing or that it means that your mom is your only friend, but that is far from the truth.”

Okay, I am down with the whole “mom as a friend” idea to an extent—which we’ll get to later—but your ONLY friend? Honey, that is concerning. You need to have friends your own age, and you need to have friends that aren’t basically required by virtue of being related to you/having housed you in their womb to be your friend.

Like, if your mom is your ONLY friend in the entire world it means either of a few scenarios are possible. 1) You just moved, which, okay we’ll cut you some slack, Squid. 2) You can’t relate to people your own age which indicates that you should stop watching Oxygen and go to a party or something. 3) You just suck as a person so nobody who doesn’t have to be your friend will. Both the latter two options are troubling, to say the least. If you have ZERO friends other than the woman who carried you in her uterus for nine months, it’s time to look at your life, look at your choices.

“I may have seemed unappreciative growing up, but truthfully I just did not appreciate you enough.”

That … that is literally what unappreciative means.

“My mom is always the first person I call in the morning and the last person I call at night.”

Oh, so you’re one of THOSE. Look, I’m sorry, but between the time you called your mom at night, slept, and woke up, what could have possibly happened in your life that you need to fill your mom in on? Did you have a bad dream? Sorry, but seeing as you’re not Martin Luther King Jr., literally nobody cares. Not even your mom. Yeah, I said it.

“She knows all there is to know about my life and I would not want it any other way.”

See, this, this right here is the problem. Is it great if you’re close to your mom? Yes. Sure. By all means, have a ball. Should your mom know ALL THERE IS TO KNOW about your life? Hell to the no! It’s all about BOUNDARIES. Say it with me now. For instance, it’s cool to tell your mom you went out on a date. It’s even fine to tell her you met your date on Tinder. It’s NOT cool to tell your mom you and said Tinder date met up in an Kroger parking lot and you sucked his dick in the backseat of his car. I’m using a completely random and made-up example for illustrative purposes, obviously.

See what I mean? If your mom really and truly knows every detail about your life it means there’s something wrong with the both of you. Like, my parents love me and are interested in my life and all, but when they asked me what I was doing last Saturday night, they didn’t really want to know what I was actually doing, which was mixing vodka and Adderall emotions at a lingerie party in Brooklyn. They just wanted to know that I was going out with some friends. Both statements are technically true, but only one allows me to keep my inheritance. Feel me?

In short, if your mom is really your best friend, it’s fucking weird, and I don’t think it means what you think it means. I tell my mom about 20% of what I tell my ACTUAL best friends (sorry, Mom). If you think of you and your mom like Rory and Lorelai Gilmore, there’s probably something wrong. Then again, I never watched Gilmore Girls. 

Appropriately Distant Kisses,

The Betches