A.J. Jacobs Omnibus: The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, My Life as an Experiment

by A. J. Jacobs

  I feel momentarily gleeful about punishing this guy. Though more than a bit like a manipulative bastard in my own right.

  As it happens, I have been having a simultaneous e-mail exchange with another sketchy character. This is a guy who, in his opening e-mail, said he was a “BAD boy.” Capitalized. I ask him what makes him bad. He says he’ll do things that would take my breath away. I ask him for details.

  He writes “after the nice dinner and the club. . . . and after turning u on with my nice attitude and sexy thoughts, we will rush to my place where I’ll begin by kissing ur sexy lips. . . . kissing my way down your stomach. . . . and then your inner thighs. . . . [detailed description here of the licking] also. . . . i really want to see more photos.”

  I write back: “I’m afraid there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. When I said I wanted details of how you’d take my breath away, I meant details such as the type of flowers you’d send me, the candlelit restaurant you’d take me to, et cetera.”

  He responds: “it all started with a dinner and a night at the club. i just didn’t give u details about how romantic the dinner was. . . . no photo?”

  This guy is wonderfully oblivious. As if he’d only thrown in a description of the tablecloth before the graphic licking it would have been okay.

  But that’s it. No more of this nonsense. No more setting guys up and then smacking them down, even if they are cheaters. This is wrong. What am I? Fourteen? Or Chris Hansen from Dateline? I can’t be wasting my time on this stuff when I have to find Michelle a boyfriend.

  I feel guilty enough to write a softening note to the TV guy—who had apologized for making me feel dirty. I write that I overreacted but added that I still couldn’t bring myself to cheat with him. I send it off. Then I noticed I signed the note “A.J.” Damn! I am dumb. I’m dumber than an aspiring politician who sends dirty e-mail fantasies over the Internet. A week or so later, he e-mails Michelle again. He addresses her as “A.J.” and begs her to “come out an play.” I don’t respond.

  :-)

  Michelle has another off-line date, and this time I make sure to tell him to meet her inside the bar. It’s the smiley, shaggy-haired rocker. She’s giving him a chance.

  In a last-minute panic attack out of Three’s Company, I call Michelle to tell her she should say she went to a Super Bowl party last week. I had e-mailed the rocker to tell him how much fun the party was before I found out Michelle got sick and had skipped it in real life.

  Again, I wait with my cell phone in hand for the postdate update.

  “It was pretty good,” she says.

  “Just pretty good?”

  “It was great. He’s very sweet.”

  I feel giddy enough to do an actual fist pump. I’m investing a lot in this guy. He’s my discovery. He’s my stand-in.

  I had been worried that Michelle’s online personality would be too different from the way she acts in real life. She’s usually much shyer than the hybrid we’ve created. What if he suspects something fishy? But no, Michelle told me she actually made herself act less shy to conform to her online self.

  “When I got there, he said, ‘What do you think?’ And I made him turn around in a circle before I said, ‘Not bad.’”

  I’m psyched. I’m Henry friggin’ Higgins. Michelle doesn’t yet know if the chemistry is there, but the rocker is definitely worth a second date.

  I hang up, and my giddiness soon wears off. It’s replaced by sadness. A weird sadness. Almost melancholy, like something out of a Goethe novel. I realize it’s because I’m vicariously experiencing the feelings of a crush, the excitement, the possibility, both on Michelle’s part and the rocker’s.

  I’d forgotten that feeling. And it’s bittersweet, because I know that I can’t experience that sensation firsthand. I love being married—I love its depth and comfort—but I miss the crush. Unless you happen to be Mr. watchmeontelevision, you don’t get to feel the rush of the crush. I’m jealous of the long-haired rocker.

  :-

  The next day, Michelle pulls up a chair to my computer to go over that day’s haul with me. A whole bunch of e-mails. One cheeseball has written, “I know that you probably get tons of e-mails from dudes trying to use coy pickup lines. But I don’t care about that. I wanna know if you’re beautiful on the inside.”

  I’ve gotten more believable e-mails from Nigerian barristers. But he’s right about one thing: she gets lots of dudes complimenting her on her looks. Her pretty eyes, pretty smile, pretty dimples. She’s been called the entire “attractive” entry of the thesaurus: “captivating,” “luminescent,” “radiant.”

  “How many of them do you think read the profile?” Michelle asks me. I laugh and turn to look at her. She keeps her eyes on the screen.

  We click on a thirty-four-year-old who describes his job as international investigator for a corporation—whatever that means. Michelle looks at his photo.

  “If we have kids, they’ll have huge chins,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “Because I have a big chin,” she says. I stare at her chin. It’s not big. It’s not even half the size of Reese Witherspoon’s. Now, I’m sure Redbook has run a thousand articles about how even Gisele has insecurities about her body. But beautiful women don’t confess it to men so much. Maybe Michelle is starting to see me as a fellow woman. Disturbing.

  The chin issue notwithstanding, a couple of days later Michelle goes on a date with the international investigator. I get the cell phone call.

  “How’d it go?”

  “It was just okay.”

  That’s Michelle’s equivalent of “disastrous.” A date with Muqtada al-Sadr would be “just okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was really self-conscious,” she says. “He stared at me the whole time. I couldn’t even look him in the eyes.”

  The next night, a second date with the rocker, at a Thai restaurant. I wait for the call. It comes too early, just ninety minutes after the date.

  “He’s nice, but there’s no chemistry, I think.”

  I’m crushed. I thought there was a chance. I can help her write the notes, I can pick the guys, but I can’t control that damn chemistry.

  Maybe she’ll find some chemistry with Ted from Long Island, the one with eight siblings. He’s scheduled for next week. And so is “Loveable Hal.”

  I know she’ll find it with someone. Not just because the e-mails from interested men keep flooding in, unabated. But because of the men themselves. The only thing more surprising than the quantity and deviousness of the creeps is the emotional honesty and fragility of the noncreeps. It’s a side of men that other men just don’t get to see.

  It’s enough to bring out the nurturer in anybody. Which is why I log on to the dating service and do a search for “depressed” and another one for “lonely.” I find this:

  ummmm, I just turned 28. Sorry to say I still live at home with my mother. Shes getting old and I help her out. I have NO LIFE. Go to work and come home, and play video games.

  The next day, Michelle and I write him a note: “I just wanted to say that I think it’s great that you take care of your mom. There aren’t enough nice guys in this world. I don’t think we’re right for each other (I don’t believe in long-distance relationships), but I think you’ll be a catch for some lucky girl.”

  Well, it’s something. To paraphrase another guy with a double identity, with great beauty comes great responsibility.

  CODA

  A few weeks later, Michelle dumped me. She let me down easy—“I think maybe I need a break from Internet dating,” she said. But I knew what that meant. I was getting the boot. I was no longer her Cyrano.

  I tried to convince her to give it another shot. But when we logged on and saw a note from screen name “Violentbunny,” that was it. She was finished for good. (Violentbunny: you, sexygentleman, and Topnotchlover need to have a good brainstorming session.)

  Michelle said she’d just wait and hope that love came to h
er. Which I thought was a terrible idea. But it actually did. Six months later, she started dating an old friend she knew from when she worked at a Washington, D.C., hotel. They’re still together.

  I wish I’d been the one to find her love. But Michelle told me that I helped. I got her back into the dating mind-set, back to thinking about relationships. Without her great Internet Dating Adventure, she says, she’d still be single and lonely. I hope she’s telling the truth.

  Regardless, my dating career is over for now. I’ve got mixed feelings. Being a beautiful woman had its perks. The nonstop positive attention comes to mind. But it was also an emotionally draining experience. The amount of rejecting I had to do was mind-boggling. Every day it was “no, no, nope, no thanks, no.” And not just to the sleazy guys. Sometimes to kind, vulnerable men. Type the wrong thing and you’ll send these fellows into a tailspin. I never before thought of the built-in guilt that comes with having a pretty face.

  It was draining, too, trying to suss out the schemers. There were a huge number of people out there pretending to be what they aren’t. Including me, of course. (Incidentally, a colleague of mine goes into Internet poker rooms and pretends to be a woman, because he says his opponents assume women are worse at poker. I can’t decide whether taking advantage of sexist stereotypes is ethically acceptable.) There’s a lot of deceit, boasting, and creepiness that you’ll find in Internet dating.

  But the semi-anonymity of the Internet also makes it an honesty amplifier. Men will open themselves right up, laying bare their fears, insecurities, and hopes. My months of e-dating convinced me there are plenty of mensches out there. Or maybe they’re just sleazy guys who had their sensitive sisters write notes for them.

  Chapter Nine

  Whipped

  The most common theme of the e-mails I get sent—with the possible exception of Canadians who are furious that I misspelled Wayne Gretzky’s name in my first book (who knew Canadians could get so worked up?)—is that my wife is a saint.

  These e-mails are sent by readers who are in awe of Julie for putting up with my biblical beard, or for tolerating the endless stream of facts about, say, China’s opium wars during my year of reading the Britannica. And all the other general nonsense that comes with my projects. Often, they’ll say that I owe her something for the suffering I’ve inflicted—precious stones, perhaps.

  But a handful of readers have suggested that diamond earrings aren’t enough. I need to pay Julie back in a more appropriate fashion. I need to spend a month doing everything my wife says. She will be boss. I will be her devoted servant. It will be a month, they say, of foot massages and talking about feelings and scrubbing dishes and watching Kate Hudson movies (well, if Julie actually liked Kate Hudson movies, which she doesn’t).

  I’ve laughed off the idea for a couple of years now. I won’t argue with the thesis that Julie’s a saint. But the experiment is…well, if I’m being honest, it’s actually a pretty good idea. It does seem a suitable way to end this year of human guinea pigging, the honorable thing to do for my wife. Plus, it could be revelatory. It’ll let me explore the tricky power dynamics of the modern American marriage. It’ll allow me to study the Mars/Venus, Everybody Loves Raymond clichés about gender battles and figure out which are true and which are hogwash.

  When I told Julie about Operation Ideal Husband (or Operation Whipped, as my friend John calls it), she jumped for joy. I’m not speaking metaphorically. She bounded around the living room on an invisible pogo stick, clapping her hands and saying “Yay!”

  When I told my friends, they all had the same joke: You’re going to do everything your wife says for a month? How is that different from every other month in the last eight years?

  Yeah, yeah. It’s true. Julie is, in some ways, already the CEO of our family. Since I put her through such misery with my experiments, I tend to defer to her on most other matters—travel, food, clothes. Especially clothes.

  I’m a terrible dresser. My only two criteria for clothes are that they be soft and loose-fitting. One of Julie’s favorite jokes is to give me a dollar when I’m looking particularly disheveled. You know, like I’m a hobo.

  She got so disturbed by my fashion blindness, she spent an afternoon rearranging my closet. It now has three sections, each with a black-and-white printed label taped to the shelf.

  Clothes to Wear Only at Home (my sixteen-year-old Brown University sweatshirt, for instance)

  Clothes for Both Home and Outside (anything with a Banana Republic label)

  Clothes That Require Permission to Wear (anything purchased at Saks)

  Yes, I have to ask my wife’s permission to wear my nice sweaters. Lucky for her, they usually are too snug for my tastes, so I rarely have the urge.

  So to use a clothing metaphor, Julie generally wears the pants in the family. But this month, I’ll be washing those pants and ironing them. I’ll be geishalike in my obedience. I’ll think of nothing but her happiness. I’ll take over her chores. I’ll be like an obedient eighteenth-century wife to my twenty-first-century wife.

  I should make a confession, though: part of my plan is to be so compliant, she’ll see that that’s not what she wants. She’ll learn to appreciate my occasionally insubordinate pain-in-the-ass self. That was the plan, anyway.

  GROUNDWORK

  A couple of days before I start, I ask Julie to tell me some things she wants from me during this month. She lays down Gone With the Wind—which she’s been reading for the last two months—and starts to talk. It’s a good thing I brought a notebook.

  “Well, let’s start with the bed. No forcing me to the edge of the bed with your six pillows.

  “No waking me up when you come in at night by using your BlackBerry as a flashlight and shining it in my face.

  “And movies. No talking during movies.

  “No looking over at me during sad parts of movies to see if I’m crying.”

  I’m scribbling away, trying to keep up. It’s kind of disturbing how easily this river of minor grievances flows out of Julie. One after another, without a pause, pinballing from one topic to another.

  “No buying the first fruit you pick up at the grocery store.

  “No wasting food. If the boys don’t finish something, wrap it up and keep it for the next meal.

  “No leaving books in random piles around the apartment.”

  She was in the zone. I have pet peeves, too, but I don’t think I could recall them with such accuracy and speed. It’s at once impressive and disturbing.

  “No making fun of my family.

  “No complaining about having to go to D.C. to visit Henry and Jennifer every year.

  “If I ask a simple question like ‘Is the drugstore open on Sundays?’ and you don’t know the answer, try saying ‘I don’t know.’ Do not say ‘It’s a mystery that humans have been pondering for centuries, but scientists and philosophers are no closer to an answer.’”

  Fair enough. I can see how that might get old.

  “Go to sleep at a decent hour so you’re not a zombie in the morning.

  “Be more knowledgeable about our finances.

  “No hovering over my shoulder and reading my US Weekly and then claiming you’re not interested in that stuff.

  “No putting things back in the fridge when there’s just a teensy, tiny bit left.”

  “Wait a second,” I say. “You just said, ‘Don’t waste food.’ I’m getting mixed messages here.”

  “It’s a fine line, but I think you can figure it out.”

  It went on and on, this list. What’s happening here? Has the power already gone to her head? Or am I unusually difficult to live with?

  I must have looked like I just got beaned by an Olympic shot put to the forehead, because Julie softened.

  “I love you,” she says.

  “Noted,” I say.

  THE FIRST DAY

  “Good morning, honey! You look terrific!”

  I’m really playing it up.

  “Thanks, swe
etie!” She’s playing right back to me.

  Soon after, she assigns me my first chore.

  “Can you think of a third gift we can give your father for his birthday?”

  Three gifts? That was my initial reaction. My reflex was to make some lame remark, like “Three gifts? Two aren’t enough? What, was he born in a manger?” Instead I said, “Sure.”

  This is something I notice throughout the day. Whenever Julie says something, my default setting is to argue with her. It’s (usually) not overtly hostile bickering. It’s just affectionate parrying. Verbal jujitsu.

  But at the same time, I know it’s not good. You playfully bicker enough, and after a few years, it stops becoming playful. Am I on the way to becoming the short, bald guy from the Lockhorns?

  I’ve got to reboot my brain. I’ve got to stop seeing conversation as a series of offensive and defensive moves. Marriage isn’t a zero-sum game. It doesn’t have to be boxing. Maybe it can be two people with badminton racquets trying to keep the birdie in the air.

  I spend the day trying to suppress my me-first instincts. Every decision, I ask: What would Julie want? I start to cut the cantaloupe for my sons’ breakfast, and stop. Julie once complained that I cut cantaloupes all jagged, like a graph of the NASDAQ. I couldn’t care less, but it matters to her. So, a sharper knife and a smooth and straight cut.

  Frankly, it’s exhausting to check with my inner Julie every twenty seconds.

  “You liking this?” I ask.

  “Loving it. And it’s great for our marriage. Right?”

  “Right!”

  The apartment’s chilly, so Julie slides her hands under my shirt to warm them up. One of my least favorite of her habits. Two Popsicles on my stomach. I bite my tongue.

  HENPECKING THROUGH HISTORY

  If I’d tried this experiment a couple of hundred years ago, I’d be breaking the law.

  Stephanie Coontz writes in her great book Marriage, a History, that if the wife wore the pants in a family, the husband wasn’t just an object of contempt—he was a criminal. “A husband could be fined or ducked in the village pond for not controlling his wife.” In Colonial America, men sometimes “sued for slander if neighbors gossiped that a husband was allowing his wife to usurp his authority.”