Happy Tuesday to all my Random Randys and Anonymous Amys, and welcome to Mediocre Advice. This article is a reboot of Ariel Barnes’ own Mediocre Advice column, which was last published during my freshman year back in the salad days of 2012. Like the triumphant phoenix rising from its own ashes, your weekly inquiries will once again be answered with extremely average and somewhat distorted advice; you might even say the advice offered here could be considered prosaic, middling or any other acceptable synonym for mediocre.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in the weeks ahead, please email them to mediocre.alligator.advice@gmail.com and specify whether you prefer to stay anonymous. Remember, I will always have your best interest in mind when answering you… though a heavy grain of salt is recommended. These questions are modeled after those submitted to the previous iteration of Mediocre Advice. Until next week, enjoy.
"Dear Mediocre Advice, I am about to be starting my junior year of college and have yet to find my ‘special someone.’ Granted, I haven’t really been looking, but even so, I am ready to settle down. How would I even go about finding this person!?"
– Rando Randy
Rando Randy,
Great question! Even though hookup culture has become the norm, you still have hope of finding your Wonder Woman aka unicorn aka Great White Buffalo. My advice: Keep a routine of meeting new people, yet search with a keener eye. Ultimately, this will just be a numbers game. I once overheard a line in Midtown that I’ll never forget: A girl was saying to her distraught friend, "Don’t worry about it… boys are like frogs, you have to kiss a lot of them to find your prince." A real paradigm shifter, right? Rando Randy, girls are like dragons — you have to go through a few to get to your princess. So, between this game of frogs, dragons and whatever miscellaneous real or mythical reptile you choose to work into your love life analogies, you have to keep on trucking.
"What does ‘we’re on a break’ mean?"
– Generic Romance Column Pseudonym
Generic Romance Column Pseudonym,
This can mean everything and simultaneously nothing. That phrase is essentially the Schrödinger’s cat of relationship vernacular. Do I still text him? Should I tell my mom? What’s going to happen to the cat we raised? Is he even alive at this point!?
My advice: Open up iPhoto and find a picture of you and that one person your ex despises the most (odds are it’s your elementary school sweetheart). Log onto your preferred social medium, switch to your emoji keyboard, close your eyes and randomly pick about six to eight emojis, and upload the picture.
"Why is it so much weirder to hear your roommate masturbate than have sex?"
– Feeling Extreme Horror
Feeling Extreme Horror,
Let’s try to answer your question with a question, FEH: Why is it considered weird to eat by yourself? Growing up, why did everybody make fun of the kid playing catch alone? In a culture where solitary activities of pleasure are deemed odd, everything has become a partner or group activity. Essentially what it comes down to is a projected sense of FOMO. Your roommate is assuredly not feeling any FOMO, and they’re perfectly happy getting themselves off. You’re just projecting your insecurities onto them and are curious why, unlike you, they aren’t using their tears as lube.
S. Moskovitz is a UF English senior. His satirical column appears on Tuesdays.
