Sex

When you’re going through a break-up, people are all too quick to offer advice — get under someone else, move on, reconsider suicide. But the consistent medicinal mantra these days seems to be this: “Get a dog!”

Yeah, because one of the best ways a single girl can market herself is by carrying a bag of fecal matter wherever she goes. A dog? I lost a living, breathing, thinking human being, and I’m supposed to replace that with a creature that eats its own vomit? Personally, if something is going to hump my leg and slobber all over my face, I at least want it to buy me coffee in the morning. But it seems quite therapeutic for a lot of folks. I’ve got at least three friends who got rid of one bitch only to replace her with another.

“I’ve never loved anyone like I love this little thing,” my friend said of her new puppy. Watching her walk down Newbury Street with the clumsy thing on a leash, I could see the allure — beautiful women stopping in their tracks, strangers gushing at your prized possession, compliments like “I want that!” and “Ohhh, I have to touch it!” becoming part of your daily routine.

Me, I feel the same way about dogs as I do about children — I like them when they belong to other people. I don’t think I’m cold or heartless for admitting either. In fact, I think it’s quite revealing as to what I can manage in a relationship: I don’t want anything depending on me for its basic survival. And if something’s going to look cute dressed up as a carrot on Halloween, it’s going to be me. But admit that and it’s like you just stoned a baby. I’ve been called selfish, unable to commit, self-absorbed, and unreliable upon the revelation. And at her recent show, Janeane Garofalo issued a terse warning about people who don’t like dogs: “Don’t trust them.” Why? Because I don’t want to spend my Saturdays hurling sticks in the park?

But survey after survey on the subject seems to support this logic. People consistently say they would ditch their lovers before they would ditch their dogs. The quandary earns cable coverage with shows like It’s Me or the Dog. Books are written on the subject, like When Pets Come Between Partners.

I think dogs just delude people about what they can expect from human beings in a relationship. No human is that predictable, unconditional, forgiving, or basic. That’s why people choose the dog over the dude. Take this nugget of wisdom from the aforementioned book: “Sometimes animals take the place of people in relationships.... Feelings of jealousy, anger, control, guilt, and fear can all play themselves out through our pets.” So when you’re lucky enough not to have the dog as a scapegoat, you can just heap all those horrible feelings right onto the human recipient who deserves them.

And therein lies the issue: replacement. We replace people with pets, lovers with rebounds, spouses with affairs, and so on and so forth, until we are covered in a collage of band-aids that makes us think we are healed.

This time around, I’m not giving in that easily. I’m not surrendering and heading to the pound anytime soon (with the exception of the local lesbian bar). I’m sure there’s someone out there just as maladjusted and as repulsed by shedding as I am. And once I find her, I’m going to collar that bitch and put her on a short leash.