The One Where I Tell You What You Wish You’d Known Then

Here I sit with a large (ish) mortgage on my mediocre house, our 3 kids, an often-pleasant wife who is probably sick of me and a job I hope I have at this time next year. These things I have are things I was supposed to wish for and scratch and claw for by the time was 30. Now I’m 47 and hoping in the next thirty years I will die in my sleep without a lot of struggle and without body fluids flying everywhere as I expire. I often find I want to make a phone call to myself from the future to contact my 20-year-old self and give an earnest warning based on what I now know is true. Here’s what I’d say:

Point One: If you fall in love with “the right one” remind yourself there is no right one, just a person who is being thoughtful for the time being until the bigger-ticket items in life have to be negotiated for weeks. There are dozens of people within a ten mile radius who could be the perfect life partner; everyone needs someone and when someone needs some thing they’re smiley, awfully nice and extremely accommodating. That ends one day and generally you don’t know what day that is. You come home one afternoon and there’s a large duck-shaped brass doorstop flying through the air towards your head because the milk you bought yesterday had an expiry date stamped: Christmas, 1993. REMEMBER: Get your own place and keep it no matter what. Let her buy the house of her dreams and help out if she needs simple repairs done. If she suggests you move in and help with expenses make sure to remind her (use your own flat as an example) that you’re a disgusting, repulsive person and you’re probably carrying disease that is actively dismantling your immune system hourly. Leave half-eaten pizza in pizza boxes under your sofa and throw in a huge rubber rat which sort of sticks out from behind this same sofa. If you have the time, put a piece of pizza cheese in the rat’s ears and make it look like he’s dry humping some pepperoni thus giving the impression that even the rat has lost its mind infiltrating your vile abode.

Point Two: So she’s bought a nice home and you have your filth-encrusted flat that you can run to, alone, if she starts talking about future children. REMEMBER: She has a biological clock that ticks louder with each passing year and she’s sizing you up for your DNA contribution. You need to know there are ways out of this discussion. One night, after a romantic dinner that didn’t by start yelling into a speaker at a Drive-thru, look deeply into her eyes and appeal to her soul. Tell her about your batshit relatives who eat thick wool yarn convinced they’ll shit gold coins later that same evening. Don’t forget to point out the fact you can’t even spell the O in O Levels. Remind her of all the dumb things you’ve ever done in your life including lighting off fireworks inside your wardrobe while only wearing swimming goggles when you were 27. Take her hand and tell her the safe bet is to go to a cryogenic reproductive bank and look through the sperm donor profiles so she at least has a shot at having a baby with a lower lip that’s way, way above its own navel. Silently remind yourself that your future pay packets depend on your ability to negotiate with her desire to have a healthy, happy INTELLIGENT child. Sell her on the fact you’re a loser with thumbs. Play up the idea that she might be able to design and have children with the brilliance of Stephen Hawking and the attractiveness of David Beckham. Assure her that having a baby with you means the child will need to carry a laminated card with breathing instructions for the rest of its life. Wear a condom every time even if it means you have to duct tape the rolled-up part on to your scrotal area just to be sure.

Point Three: Work is work and you’ll always need a job both for the money and because you don’t want others to assume you’ve not even qualified to ring the bell in a church tower. You will need somewhere to go each day in order to blend in with normal people and not become easy pickings for religious nut cases who will target you for their UFO-based cult membership. REMEMBER: If you keep your expenses and expectations low enough you can do mindless work and make a somewhat decent living and easily cover your expenses. Granted the professional title “Cheese Sharpener” isn’t going to impress anyone but if you have an extra 500 quid at the end of each month, who’s the big winner in life? You are. Plus you can look like the hero when you buy new shoe laces or cotton mittens for your partner’s sperm-donor kids who are far too bright to even notice you’re in the same room. Having extra money in the bank each month will be a load off your mind when things get tough. Knowing that 6 pints of lager cost more than your monthly rent will also keep your mind at ease and your wallet relatively fat. Remind yourself that somewhere in the world Richard Branson is paying someone to write a speech he doesn’t feel like giving at a dinner he doesn’t want to be at with people who are telling him things he’s heard repeatedly for the last 22 years. You? You’re at home eating discount orange cheese puffed snacks while watching “Top Gear” re-runs in Y-fronts you purchased in 1982.

So remember: No mortgage, no kids and no expenses which £30 can’t easily cover. You never know what the future will bring and what economic or social challenges you’ll face as you get older. Hedge your bets and take no risks and certainly don’t get in over your head when it comes to relationships and other obligations. Be a man who never grew up because you can’t go through a midlife crisis if you’re psychologically 16 forever. It kinda makes sense although Christmas and birthdays can be a drag; it’s not like that rubber rat can provide perspective to existential quandaries which you continue to face as a by-product of living in civil society.

On second thought, maybe I won’t make that phone call from the future. Not tonight at least.

By Bart Manly-Chest