“But the last time I forgot our anniversary you didn’t slap me…?”

This guy was obviously overdrawn. Perhaps this time last year, his balance was substantially higher than it is now.

See, the metaphor is perfect. The correlation, unassailable. The quiet, almost orgasmic chemistry? Ineffable.

It’s just too amazingly simple. This is the great teaching tool of the 21st century.

The problem is that most of us attend colleges, immerse ourselves fully in our jobs, and invest a great deal of time and energy into stringent diets. But do we study our woman (real, prospective, or imaginary)? Do we know the late charges for missing a date? The withdrawal fees for looking at other women? Are we privy to the terms and conditions of our relationships, both platonic and romantic? No, of course not. If we did, lets face it, I’d not be writing this.

Every time you miss meeting times, gawk at a passing 34D, or forget to return a call, you’re making withdrawals from your relationship’s account. This is fine, given that your overall balance is in the positive. Withdrawals can change in magnitude, and thusly can be more or less detrimental to your relationship. If you are five minutes late for a dinner date, it’s a minor deduction. No biggy, she’ll just ask that in the future, you refrain from keeping her waiting. If however, you are caught sexing her best friend, appendages flailing about wildly, the neighbor’s dog barking, Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” playing in the background, then you’ve gone beyond making a withdrawal and have brazenly proceeded to take the preliminary steps in closing your account.

You’ve seen “Out of Sight” right? Of course you have, cause any self respecting movie lover has seen it. (I saw it for the first time about two months ago). There’s a scene where the debonair Clooney walks into a bank, holding the teller up with his legato voice and poignant gaze. No gun. No bombs. No threats of Ebola-in-a-Box being switched with the graham crackers in the break room. There is no need; he knows the rule: relationships, all relationships, are akin to bank accounts. This is a pristine example of a well-learned master at the height of his abilities. (He later makes a “deposit” in Jennifer Lopez, but using the same character for two examples in one piece would betoken a languid effort on my part. I’ll save a detailed extrapolation of the J-Lo ass tapping scene for my next article). He is, simply put, a player.

Oh yes, bank accounts and players. “Spenders” if you will. If you’re good you can walk into a bank, sweet talk a young lady, have her give you thousands of unmarked bills freely, and then be thanked for your efforts.

But really, the point at hand is that if you’re reading Rush, you’re not George Clooney. So, you don’t have the ability to sex anything you make eye contact with. Ah, the need for the maxim is ubiquitous! Relationships are bank accounts!

Now I could delineate an entire financial scheme, explicating the various monetary values for different actions, but that’s sorta boring. Right? Right.

So instead, I’ll just create two “imaginary” examples, which, if all goes to plan, will clearly show how this metaphor applies to relationships.

Let’s use Paul and Christine. Paul is a guy and Christine is a girl. But…hrm, well if you want to make them both guys, or both girls, that’ll work too. It would mean that they’d get discounts at Disneyworld one day a year, which would rock, but otherwise the maxim would remain unchanged.

So…Paul doesn’t really pay attention to his account balance. He attends the nudie bars, buys Christine flowers as long as they are being sold by a buxom blonde, and occasionally pays for dinner. How is he able to retain Christine? Well, aside from the fact that he’s offensively wealthy, he and Christine have a credit history. He bought her flowers for her birthday, and he bought her diamond earrings for Christmas. While he fails miserably at some things, namely: being nice, attentive, loving, affectionate, and showing interest in what she says, he is able to stay in the game because he buys her lots of shit. Not only did he buy stuff, he bought stuff on the important days. For some girls that’s enough.

Now lets take case two. Paul is amazingly kind, affectionate and he buys Christine plenty of things. But he seldom listens to what she says. He nods when she says things, he answers queries with apropos responses, and he never cuts her off when she’s speaking. But he doesn’t touch her soul. She’s a palm tree on a small island, waving in the Pacific wind, always looking for gentler soil in which to ensconce herself; he’s a beached traveler, always looking to the sea in the hope of finding a better island. He misses her beauty and pith because he doesn’t want to delve. Sadly, even if he desired to, he’d be unable -- not only because he lacks the key to unlocking her innermost essence (which she allows to be opened) but because she’s moved on. The relationship is over, although she has yet to voice with her feet what has long been a truth in her soul.

In the first case there is very little need for account maintenance; yet in the latter, Paul must pay close attention to his friend, or lover, or roommate – whatever she may be to him. Failure to do so may mean that she will allow the relationship to continue while the possibility of true communication, connectivity and conductivity has long since become impossible.

I’d love to set this all up in precise mathematical form - a cigarette clinging to my bottom lip - you know, like a true intellectual. There’d be a gargantuan outcry of joy from women of the world; “Jonathan Sharp and his esoterically erudite education have arrived, finally, our men will understand and appreciate us!” They probably wouldn’t say it like that, but you know what I mean. They’d agree with what I say; that’s the important part.

It’d be sweet to guide the masses in their relationships, taking each couple (or threesome... but lets not broach that) under my wing, releasing them again into the world with a newly found understanding of relationship dynamics. But hey, would I get paid? Probably not. Would I still have time to sit around and do nothing for seven straight hours on my days off? Definitely not – so fuck that.

Besides, I’ve gotta spread this shit out so that I have something to write about a few weeks from now. In fact, lets just extrapolate from that okay? Let’s wrap this lesson up with a quick aphorism.

Ready?

In relationships, as with money, don’t blow it all at once.

Quote me.