You gotta know how to treat me like a lady
Even when I’m acting crazy
Tell me everything’s alright
-from Meghan Trainor’s new single “Dear Future Husband”

Women (in general, it’s women) are often called the “c” word… get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about the word “crazy.” It gets thrown around pretty flippantly and it’s incredibly disrespectful. And, ironically enough, it is usually the action of the man (in general, it’s the man) that causes the woman to lose her cool and then to be called crazy by said man (again, this is a generalization). It’s enough to make your head spin.

Everyone acts crazy every once in a while. There’s a reason why so many love songs have the word “crazy” in them (Google it!). Love makes you do crazy things, feel crazy ways, and act crazy in love. Let’s remove using the word “crazy” as an insult from our vocabulary while dating… and continue the ban once you’re in a relationship. It’s not going to go anywhere good if you sling that word around!

Frankly, ‘crazy’ is also too broad of a description when you are describing a person’s reaction or an event. Let’s find other words in the dictionary to use, shall we? I don’t care if you have to pause and consult a thesaurus mid-argument, find other words that will likely better describe the situation. And then, when things really do get crazy — like the girl who got dumped and cracked open her ex-boyfriend’s patio door, slid the garden hose in, turned on the water, and left… or the guy who was cheated on and then poured milk under his ex-girlfriend’s driver seat (she didn’t even know what happened until weeks later, ewwwww!) — you can use the word “crazy” and not only will you actually mean it, but people will take you seriously.

And by the way, when we women use the word crazy to describe ourselves, we would appreciate you telling us that we are justified in our behavior! You will earn major points for that!

Dating can suck. It can make even the sanest person go crazy. Try as hard as you can not to let it. When your new guy or gal doesn’t answer the phone or immediately text you back, don’t automatically assume that he or she is doing something they are not supposed to. Take a deep breath. Distract yourself. And get those insecure thoughts out of your head so that you don’t begin to act and sound cray-cray. There will almost always be a very rational explanation which you should not assume is a lie. And if it is daylight hours during a workweek then you really can’t fault anyone for not giving you the attention you hoped for when someone is conducting business. In fact, if it’s only been one phone call unanswered or an hour without a reply to the text, then don’t even question the delay or you will sound cray-cray. If this is repetitive behavior and the self-made excuses sound fishy that’s when it warrants some questioning and doubt, but not before.

It is very common for women to dismiss all men as being afraid of commitment.  It seems they use this reasoning whenever they want to diagnose any problem they see in men.  If a guy doesn’t want to take a morning jog at seven a.m., he’s afraid of commitment. If a guy doesn’t want to go department store shopping for the better part of a weekend, he’s afraid of commitment.  If a guy has been dating a women for ten years, and still won’t propose, he’s afraid of commitment.  Okay, I concede on that one.

I may not speak for all men.  I may not be speaking for many men.  I may be speaking only for myself.  I don’t see anything wrong or scary with spending the rest of your life with the woman that you love.  I don’t even see anything wrong with spending the rest of your life with the woman that you tolerate.  Seriously, dating is hard.  The constant fear of rejection and the relentless pursuit of self-perfection gets tiring.  They can wear on you until you become irrationally afraid of weekends and of any restaurants that have valet parking.  Sometimes, we just want it to be over.  I am very much looking forward to becoming fat and apathetic about life.  Complacency is my ultimate life goal.

Though I don’t think I am afraid of commitment, I know for sure that I am scared of crazy women.  I think that if a woman becomes so sure that any man she dates is scared of settling down, she may work herself up so much that she can come off as insane.  If I’m on a date, for example, and the woman starts asking me how many kids I want before our bread arrives, I get scared.  This is not because I don’t eventually want kids.  This is because we have literally known each other for five minutes and I spent all week obsessively getting ready for this dinner.  Right now, I am completely committed to making this dinner as pleasurable as possible for the both of us.  You can’t just skip to us having kids.  Right now, I’m too focused on trying to figure out how to fill the next two hours with inane small talk to produce another life with you.