Literally Matt

Literally Matt is a daily blog where BuzzFeed's Matt Bellassai writes about cute boys, gives boozy advice, cries over Beyoncé and aspires to Oprah-hood. About Matt Follow Matt on Twitter Like Matt on Facebook Follow BuzzFeed BFF on Tumblr Follow BuzzFeed BFF on Twitter

[literallymatt]

The day I’ve long feared may finally have come. Hot Delivery Guy is gone, and no amount of food can fill the cavern he’s left in my heart. Goodbye, my sweet taco-bearing prince. MAY WE MEAT AGAIN.

[literallymatt]

21 Things I Wanna Do Before I Die

1. Be the recipient of that thing that Oprah does where she takes both of your hands and shakes them in the air and in that moment, it’ll just be the two of us and nobody else in the world.

2. Take a shot with Beyoncé at a fancy event. Or, like, my birthday party. (Which, to be fair, will likely be a fancy event.)

3. Write a New York Times best-selling book. Maybe even two.

4. Be on the cover of a major magazine in a bunch of expensive clothes that someone with more fashion sense than me puts me in.

5. Have a one-on-one coffee with Anna Wintour and survive.

6. Skinny arm with Harry Styles, preferably by his personal request.

7. Get invited back to Northwestern, where I graduated, to give the commencement address. Say something funny but also profound that gets turned into some iconic commencement address quote that struggling students will read one day and be like, “woah, this guy.”

8. Be photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

9. Travel all over, but especially London, Paris, Berlin and Australia. Live in one of those places for at least a short time and have a romantic fling that ends in heartbreak and possibly a five-time platinum album.

10. Skinny arm with both Meryl Streep and Hillary Clinton, preferably at once, but separately if necessary.

11. Dance with Ellen.

12. Get invited to the Met Gala, the Golden Globes, and the Academy Awards, (preferably as a nominee, but I’ll also take “as a rich, fancy, talented guest”).

13. Attend a private dinner with the President of the United States, as long as they’re not terrible.

14. Write a TV pilot. Maybe get it made. Whatever, just write it.

15. Be a part of the group hug at the end of Saturday Night Live.

16. Marry a guy that I love and get him pregnant. Buy a house together where we can host Thanksgiving dinner. Also have a place where we summer with clear water and a private beach where I can take off my pants.

17. Be truly happy with how I look and not just “yeah, whatever” about it, but like “damn, girl, you look good” about it.

18. Do something extravagant and beautiful for my parents where they’ll be like “woah, this is too much” and I’ll be like “nothing is too much for you” and then they’ll cry.

19. Personally heal the feud between Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell.

20. Recognize that you can’t make everyone happy, but try to make people as happy as you can. Stay positive, even when it’s easy to go negative. Be a force for good whenever you can be.

21. Make someone laugh so hard they literally piss themselves.

[literallymatt]

9 Possible Zac Efron Origin Stories

1. Bit by a gay spider on a class field trip to a spider museum, Zac wakes up with six pack abs, a perfectly chiseled chest, and all the powers of an actual homosexual with none of the societal consequences.

2. After losing her lover in a freak firefighter calendar photo shoot accident, a powerful sorceress creates Zac in an effort to formulate the perfect man to fill the emptiness left upon her beloved’s untimely death. Also to have sex with it.

3. A young girl drops a Ken doll into a vat of industrial waste, and it mutates into a fully-formed, perfectly-proportioned male humanoid named Zac. Of course, like Ken, Zac doesn’t have genitals or a spaces between his toes or internal organs. Just a smooth, glossy groin connected to detachable legs. But he’s got a rock hard ass.

4. Born as the product of a radical science experiment in which two gay men conceived a child in the complete absence of a woman, Zac later developed the supernatural ability to turn any heterosexual man into a homosexual with only a passing glance.

5. Born and raised on the planet E-Fron — which, with perfect atmospheric conditions, allowed for the evolution of mutants we would deem technically perfect by human standards — Zac is abandoned on earth during a rare solar dust storm. With no way of getting back to his home planet, Zac is forced to live out his days as a physically flawless specimen among the mortals of earth.

6. Living in a studio apartment above an abandoned tire factory, Zac spends his days as an aspiring actor and his nights as a moderately successful go-go dancer, until one fateful night, when he stumbles home drunk and discovers the factory beneath his apartment isn’t abandoned at all, but a hideout used by the Gay Mafia, who kidnap him and brainwash him into fulfilling their evil gay desires. Which, as it turns out, is mostly just the go-go boy stuff he was doing anyway.

7. A grad student at a state university somewhere in the Midwest, Zac stays late one night to finish a chemistry project and accidentally drinks an experimental super serum that gives him the superhuman ability to make my pants moist on command.

8. Killed in an unreported car accident during the filming of High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Zac’s body was taken to a research lab and resurrected by scientists in the form of a flawless cyborg.

9. Born in 1896, Zac is drafted into the Great War as an adolescent. Young and afraid, he strikes a deal with an old man who reveals himself as the Devil. In exchange for escape from the war, Zac is cursed to spend the rest of his days alone as an ageless beauty, young and ripped as fuck til the end of time.

[literallymatt]

29 Ways To Make Friends As An Adult

1. Take up a new hobby, like balloon-animaling or rock-collecting or, I don’t know, bugs. Then talk to all the boring people who care about the same boring shit as you.

2. Scream into a plastic bag in the park and wait until someone is like, “Same, man.” Boom. Friend.

3. Hate everything and be vocal about it so other people can be like, “Yo, I hate those things, too! Let’s hate them together as people who occasionally text and eat together!” (Examples of common things to hate: wet styrofoam, food portions at fancy restaurants, soap that doesn’t make suds, alphabet soup with a disproportionate number of vowels.)

4. Meet people from the Internet. You’ll either be murdered or you’ll end up with a new friend. You decide which outcome is preferable.

5. Go up to a stranger on the train and say, “Hello sir or madam, I am in search of a new friend with which to enjoy companionship and merriment, would you mayhaps agree to such a role?” Collect friends.

6. Take a cooking class or some shit.

7. Go for a walk alone and hope a kind stranger takes pity on you.

8. Go down to the van by the river. The man inside will be your friend, but only if you agree to put on his lipstick.

9. Join a birdwatching group and befriend an old man named Elb who will promise you he can do magic if you come down to his basement.

10. Join a book club.

11. Compliment a complete stranger on the sidewalk by saying something friendly like “you have the smoothest calves I’ve ever seen on a grown man” and then step back before you get hit in the face with some big, fat, throbbing friendship.

12. Get comfortable with going to a bar by yourself, even if all you’re doing is dining on the unlimited hot wing buffet. Talk to strangers who are there for similar reasons.

13. Just, I don’t know, imagine one. That was enough when you were a kid, why you gotta be so needy about it now?

14. Get a cat and start your inevitable path towards spinster-ship early. Join your local cat lady collective.

15. Get stranded on an island and form an emotional and physical bond with a piece of wreckage that will serve as the closest thing you have to a human connection until you die.

16. Join a gym if you’re that desperate. 

17. Befriend the flock of pigeons that hangs out around the McDonald’s play place around the corner.

18. Join a cult.

19. Make a YouTube channel. Because literally anybody can make a YouTube channel and suddenly you’re friends with all the YouTube people, apparently.

20. Go to the airport dressed as a driver with a sign that says “Marcus.” Wait around for a Marcus, convince him to get into your car, then tell him he’s your new friend while you’re speeding down the highway to the time share you bought together.

21. Befriend one of those toys that starts off as a little capsule but then you put it in hot water and it grows into a sponge animal. They make people versions.

22. Befriend the mysterious sea monster that lives in the lake outside of your stepdad’s summer cabin.

23. Get into some weird new musician, like Gavin DeGraw, and bond with all the other Gavin DeGraw fans.

24. Go to the discotheque. 

25. Befriend the cashier at Bed, Bath & Beyond who won’t give you 20 percent off without a coupon but if you come back with a coupon and your receipt, customer service can give you your money back.

26. Plant a tree and then wait 20 to 30 years for it to grow into a friend.

27. List a large item on eBay, like a handcrafted chifferobe or perhaps an elegant floor lamp. When someone buys it, get into a box and literally mail yourself instead. Legally, they have to keep you.

28. Befriend a farm pig that you intended to raise for slaughter except, instead of slaughtering her, you fall in love. 

29. Buy one. Just buy a new friend. It’s the only chance you have.

[literallymatt]

A Complete Itinerary To Harry Styles and My Wedding

5:58 a.m. We’ll begin the day by rising with the sun in our joint mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The wedding ceremony will be held in Florence, and the reception in Paris, so we’ll be jetting there later in the morning. But we each requested that we begin the day with a casual morning at home.

8:00 a.m. Breakfast on the terrace in Florence. Shirtless Italian butlers serve us caffè e latte and biscuits with butter and jam. Fresh flowers will fill tiny vases on the table. The weather will be breezy but warm. This is a requirement.

9:00 a.m. We separate for hair and makeup. His hair will be tied in a bun, with braids dangling along his face, à la Legolas, son of Thranduil. My hair will be simple, yet elegant, parted along the side and brushed gently to the back, and spritzed with glitter so it glints softly in the sunlight.

11:00 a.m. Change into wedding garments. We’ll be wearing matching Yves Saint Laurent pantsuits. His, of course, will be unbuttoned from neck to stomach. Mine will only be unbuttoned far enough to reveal my necklace, carrying The Regent, commonly regarded as the world’s most beautiful diamond. We’ll each be wearing matching ruby red slippers, Givenchy jewels, and Chanel undergarments.

1:00 p.m. Annie Leibovitz arrives for photographs. Our bridal shot, of course, will cover Vogue’s September issue, a wedding gift promised by Anna herself. The shot — the two of us standing before a veranda full of 2,000 white roses, surrounded by exactly 77 pure white doves, kept in pure darkness before this moment so the image captures their very first exposure to sunlight and life — will be hailed by Time magazine as the greatest photograph ever shot.

2:00 p.m. Ceremony begins. The grooms, each shrouded in silk veils, will enter the church on separate converging red carpets and meet in the center of the chapel beneath a single ray of sunshine, at which point the veils will be dramatically removed in a flourish of fireworks, smoke and trumpets. The officiant, Oprah Winfrey, will rise from a trap door before her salutatory remarks. Vows will be exchanged via musical performance and interpretive dance. Both grooms will light the unity candle with only the flames of their burning passionate love. The two-hour ceremony will conclude with a rousing dance number.

4:00 p.m. Group photographs and receiving line. Following the ceremony, guests are invited to take photographs before the grooms, who will be situated in His & His thrones situated at the top of the altar. Guests are advised to kneel before the grooms while being photographed and to avoid direct eye contact. Guests are also advised to present their gifts at this time, which will be promptly weighed and appraised and consequently judged.

6:00 p.m. The reception will be held in the Great Hall of an abandoned Parisian castle outfitted with floating candles and a ceiling that manifests as the night sky. The reception hall will be pumped with concentrated oxygen so guests feel more alert throughout the evening.

6:30 p.m. Welcoming toast, in which I thank our guests for coming and move the room to tears with a deeply emotional and melodramatic re-telling of the story of how we met.

7:00 p.m. Dinner, a blend of Italian and French cuisine, which is to be served in a stunning 13 courses: apertivo (light wine with cheese, small quiches, crisps, nuts and various dippable breads with sauces), anitpasto (meat plates, cold shrimp, small sandwiches and other heavier finger foods), primo (small pasta dishes, soup, and a square of lasagne), secondo (the main course, featuring various hot meats), formaggi e frutta (local cheeses and fresh seasonal fruit), dolce (dessert, mainly eclairs, gelato, various cakes and pies, cannoli), and caffè. Other courses include: the potato course, the taco course, the banana course, the course where everybody drinks an entire bottle of wine, the vodka shot course, and the second-lasagne course.

8:45 p.m. The grooms gently glide onto the dance for their first dance as a married couple. The dance is accompanied by a live acoustic performance of “At Last” by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, who brings the entire castle to tears.

9:00 p.m. Cake cutting. The cake, baked by the renowned pastry chef Dominique Ansel, is described as “the only banana-flavored croissant, donut, cake hybrid to ever exist in the world and the only one that ever will” and as “the only cake ever known to make the Pope cry simply by laying his eyes upon it.”

9:30 p.m. Tossing of the grooms’ bouquets and garters.

10:00 p.m. Presentation of the dragon eggs.

11:00 p.m. Ceremonial farewell. Each guest is to kneel as the grooms exit. Gift baskets, which include a fully-trained pomeranian puppy and an iPhone 7, will be distributed at the exit.

12:00 a.m. After party.

2:00 a.m. After after party.

4:00 a.m. McDonalds.

[literallymatt]

A Day In The Life Of Oprah, Probably

4:00 a.m. Rise. Bathe in the fountain and lie naked in the garden to dry.

5:00 a.m. Breakfast of six raw egg yolks swallowed whole, juice made of kale harvested from her gardens, and the meat of an entire roasted pig, raised and slaughtered by Oprah’s own hands.

6:00 a.m. All-hands meeting. A law-breaking servant is brought before the entire staff and beheaded, despite their collective cries for mercy. Oprah must stand for justice, not mercy.

7:00 a.m. Plot the next Zodiac killing over coffee.

8:00 a.m. Visit to the estate dungeons, in which Oprah keeps her enemies imprisoned. “Please,” they beg her, “Set us free.” She says nothing as she loads a pile of raw fat from a wagon into each of their cells.

9:00 a.m. Feed the dragons.

10:00 a.m. A procession of staff enters the Throne Room, where Oprah is sat waiting. Each servant stands before her holding an item she will examine. If approved, she will nod, and the item will be named A Favorite Thing. If rejected, she will pull a lever, and the servant will fall to the dungeons, where they will be butchered, baked into minced meat pies, and sold in English markets.

11:00 a.m. Mid-morning stroll. Oprah is carried through her gardens atop her portable throne, borne by muscled men covered only in fine silk cloths, and accompanied by the most beautiful of her servants who feed her the freshest of grapes plucked only from Oprah’s vineyards.

12:00 p.m. Phone call with President Obama. “Do better,” is all she says. Barack cries. “Help me,” he says, but the line is already dead.

1:00 p.m. Lunch with Hillary and Meryl. Oprah wears ruby slippers and nothing else. Neither Hillary nor Meryl are allowed to speak to her directly, their chairs are to be situated six inches shorter than Oprah’s so that she towers above them, and their heads are to be bowed in deference at all times.

2:00 p.m. Divination.

3:00 p.m. Potions.

4:00 p.m. A powerful woodland witch warns Oprah that a child will be born of strong ancient blood who will grow to be more beautiful and powerful than she before casting her down and taking all that she holds dear. Oprah finds the child and crushes its skull against a boulder.

5:00 p.m. Oprah checks upon the painting she keeps in her attic that grows older while she stays young.

6:00 p.m. Dinner with cryogenic Steve Jobs. Oprah details the blueprint for Apple’s invisibility cloak, of which she will be the sole owner.

7:00 p.m. Meeting of the Illuminati, in which Oprah officiates the ceremonial orgy, though she does not participate, for her body is to remain pure and untouched.

8:00 p.m. Meeting of Her Council. Dr. Phil weeps as Suze Orman is once again named Employee Of The Week. Dr. Oz defecates in a corner out of fear.

9:00 p.m. Second dinner of pure carbohydrates, which Oprah’s body requires to replenish the 8,000 calories she burns daily.

10:00 p.m. Phone call with Beyoncé. Beyoncé is forced to apologize for no reason.

11:00 p.m. Oprah consults the spirits, who assure her of her strength.

12:00 a.m. At midnight, Oprah leads a nude man to the top of an altar and slays him. “Valar morghulis,” she whispers as it’s done.

1:00 a.m. All-staff meeting in a forest clearing. Oprah communicates solely through the trees, whose voices belong to her.

2:00 a.m. Full shedding of Oprah’s skin. Each night, her body dies and is born anew, fresh and young and pristinely kept.

3:00 a.m. Oprah rips an old sequoia from the ground with her bare hands and burns it for warmth. She lies atop a pile of soft leaves, for this is where she slumbers. She rests, surrounded by nature.

[literallymatt]

Things That Can Go Wrong During A Hug

You could accidentally graze something that should’ve otherwise been left ungrazed. (Or accidentally chafe something, for the aggressive crowd.)

You could accidentally squeeze too hard and render yourself infertile.

Everything could get wrinkled. Your shirt. Your pants. Your life. Everything.

You could miss them completely and your entire body could come crashing down upon a newborn kitten, pulverizing its tiny feline skull.

Your belt buckles could become entwined and you’d be forced to spend eternity with your genitals smashed together through your pants.

Your spine could literally snap in half like an uncooked spaghetti noodle and shards of it could get in your eye.

You could catch a whiff of their pheromones and accidentally fall in love and then, when they inevitably don’t love you back, you’ll be heartbroken and destitute and nobody will ever love you again.

They could have an erection and it could pierce your skin like a knife.

You could catch any number of communicable diseases like influenza or tuberculosis or that thing that kid from Florida got where his poop turned purple.

You could spill your beverage, leaving you beverage-less.

A thread of your sweater could catch on one of their shirt buttons, and as you un-hug, all of your body coverings could slowly unravel, leaving you naked, alone, and yet again loveless.

You could get hit by a truck.

[literallymatt]

Traits For My Ideal Man

Able to soothe a spooked horse with only a gentle whisper.

Can carve a ham, blindfolded, and with both hands bound behind his back. Also, he should be able to season the ham and baste the ham and cook the ham. Or any kind of holiday meat. Really just the ability to make me a meal is important, but also the hands behind the back thing.

Knows how to make a macaron that is both crispy and chewy.

Can predict the weather with 97% accuracy, or greater than Al Roker.

Knows that the first thing to check any restaurant menu for is macaroni n cheese.

Able to birth a newborn foal and give it a beautiful name that means something deep and passionate and raise it to adulthood and treat it fairly and humanely and, on its death bed, kiss it gently and hold it as it passes softly into its next life.

Can blow a sick bubble of chewing gum. 

Knows the correct amount of pressure to apply when scratching an itch on my back.

Could theoretically solve a series of 2,000-year-old cryptic clues left by the Illuminati in famous works of art that might collectively hold the secret to a radical religious mystery. 

Able to crack a walnut clean in half with only his butt cheeks. (required)

[literallymatt]

I'm currently a freshman in college and I have been thinking more seriously about becoming a music journalist. Do you have any tips on being a successful writer and how to get your shit out there and noticed by the right people?

Well, truthfully, I have absolutely no idea how to be a successful writer. I just scream at paper until words show up, and usually those words are awful because I screamed them and my mouth was full of spaghetti. So my advice is about as useful as anyone’s with an Internet connection.

But, I GUESS, if an actual successful person were to give you advice, they might say that you should find something that you really really enjoy writing about and write about that a whole lot, in your own way and with your own voice. Even if it’s just on Tumblr or Twitter. And even if it’s about things that are dumb, like butts and boys, even though those things are not dumb and they are my life.

If you like music, then write about music! Start a Tumblr where you write about music! The most important thing, I think, is to just be original in whatever you do. A lot of people try to get jobs at BuzzFeed because they love writing about Beyoncé and One Direction — which is great, obviously, because I love those things, too, and can discuss them endlessly. But BuzzFeed has a bunch of people who write about those things every single day. So, realistically, you either have to write about something else that nobody else is writing about, or write about the things they are writing about, but in some new, exciting way that’s unique to you. That’s how you’ll eventually stand out and get noticed.

BUT. It takes a lot of time and practice and patience and screaming and spaghetti. Fortunately, you get used to the screaming.

[literallymatt]

Compliments You Should Never Ever Give Another Person

"Your feet must be so strong, to hold up your entire body like that all day.”

“I bet your armpits smell so fresh, just like, super fresh and clean. I wouldn’t mind givin’ them a lil sniff.”

“I love the way I can hear you breathing from the next room. It’s like, am I in a safari? Is that an elephant? Nope! Just Sue. Breathing heavy in the next room. Keeping things alive.”

“Oh my god, you look JUST like my friend, like exactly the same, you two are practically identical, look” (and then show them a picture of your dog).

“You have the smoothest knees I have ever seen in my entire life.”

“You must get a lot of compliments about that nose of yours. I could literally rip that thing off your face and keep it in my pocket.”

“Your ear lobes are absolutely stunning, do you wash them?”

“Ugh, I wish my femurs were as as thick as yours, then I could eat as much as I wanted and I wouldn’t have to worry about collapsing.”

“Woah, your arms are crazy strong! You look like one of those squirrels they found behind the supermarket that got into the whey protein.”

“Has anyone ever told you you look like Tom Hanks’s co-star in that one movie? Ugh, what was his name? He was like one of the main guys. Watson? Walfred? Had a round face, real bloody, sticks for hair? Wilson! His name was Wilson! You look just like that guy, wow.”

"Honestly, I admire your confidence. I could never pull off whatever the fuck you wrapped around your body today.”

"I know you probably get this all the time, but your elbows are radiant.”

[literallymatt]

Best Ways To Let Your Crush Know You’re Interested

1. Stand next to them in silence and mimic their breathing until your cycles become one.

2. Cook them a full spaghetti dinner and deliver it to their doorstep with a note that says “I wanna watch you slurp up every last noodle.”

3. Scroll back to their first ever Instagram and comment “nice” and nothing else.

4. Write them a handwritten note that says something romantic like “I bet your hair feels like a bush of feathers, like a big ol’ feathery bush of feathers.”

5. Sneeze at them.

6. Ask them if they’ll scratch the itch you can’t reach and then when they’re like, “OK, I guess, where is it?” point at your stomach so they literally have to scratch your bare, protruding stomach.

7. Make them a mixtape but only use songs from the Shrek soundtrack, the most romantic album of all time.

8. Write their name in ranch dressing on top of a pizza and then eat the entire thing in front of them, maintaining unblinking eye contact the entire time.

9. Go to their house after dark and throw pebbles at their window. When they answer, pretend like you’re just doing pilates. When they’re like, “What are you doing?” you can be like, “Uhhh. Clearly, I’m just doing my pilates. What are YOU doing?”

10. Stand next to them while you’re hungry and let your stomach do the talking.

11. Throw up near them.

12. Faint near them.

13. Die near them.

[literallymatt]

Activities That Should Be Acceptable First Dates

1. Eating two separate pizzas. Doesn’t even matter if you’re in the same room.

2. Silently scrolling through each other’s Instagrams and saying things like, “You been to Michigan, huh? What’s that like?” But only once every 30 minutes.

3. Mutual stretching. Just stretching next to one another so hard that one of your eyes starts twitching and your leg shakes like a dog.

4. Jousting.

5. Making a 6 foot sub sandwich together and then eating it on separate ends until you meet in the middle.

6. Watching an entire season of Spongebob Squarepants on the couch in silence.

7. You just watching me add stuff to my Amazon shopping cart and then at the end, you give me your credit card and pay for all of it and tell me I’m pretty.

8. Water balloon fight except the other person doesn’t know it’s a water balloon fight until they get to the restaurant.

9. Eating nachos by the fistful, like when you’re too impatient to dip just one pristine nacho at a time, so you dip an entire handful of nachos into cheese and then tilt your head back and unhinge your jaw.

10. Pie-eating contest.

11. Eating a gallon of ice cream in crusty sweatpants.

12. Just petting a bunch of dogs at the dog store. Not even talking to one another, just separately enjoying the tranquil gift of dog petting.

[literallymatt]

Secret Perks Of Being Gay

1. Of course, we start off by getting our Coming Out Care Package, which includes a gift card to H&M, a BeDazzler, Beyoncé’s entire discography, a can of Dole pineapple chunks in 100% pineapple juice, a pair of those tiny socks you wear below your shoe line so it looks like you’re not wearing socks but then your feet don’t smell, the first season of Will & Grace on DVD, a bag of rainbow jelly beans, a white iPhone, a jar of glitter, a pair of really cute underwear, and a 50% off coupon to Sephora. Also the “Personal Life” section of our Wikipedia pages gets automatically updated.

2. Our bones are actually 50% less dense than heterosexuals, so, at certain altitudes, we can actually float.

3. We get all the cupcakes we can eat, and they all have the perfect frosting-to-cake ratio, and they’re moist as heck.

4. RuPaul is automatically added to our phone’s contacts and we can call her whenever we want with whatever emergency we might find ourselves in and she’s legally obligated to rescue us. 

5. We can talk to birds.

6. There’s a secret VGP (Very Gay Person) entry at all of your favorite clubs and we get in first. 

7. We have a heightened sense of smell, and can communicate with only a series of clicks and jaw claps, like dolphins.

8. We’re not weighed down by society’s smothering expectations of what it means to be a dude or a lady. (Well, we are. But like. We don’t care.)

9. We can see colors that aren’t even on the spectrum that straight people can see.

10. Dogs like us more.

[literallymatt]

When are you going to get a super hot English boyfriend who wears beanies and plays the piano and can draw and also owns a bar that always takes requests and doesn't care that you ask for her Maj Beyoncé every single damn time because he loves you? When?

Someday, my prince will find me. And he will dig me out of my trash heap and we will gallop together atop our stallion into the sunset. 

(But idk, he’ll probably need some help finding me, please send all leads to twitter dot com slash mattbellassai, thank you for your assistance.)

[literallymatt]

How to deal with a friend who tells you your obsession is out of control

I got an email asking for advice from a reader who I’ll keep anonymous. They wrote:

“I, too, enjoy Harry Styles, his butt, and the greatness that is One Direction.I usually hear comments from friends laughing at my obsession, considering I am 23 years old. I can laugh with them because I know it's ridiculous. But I have a close friend that's completely lacking a sense of humor. I received a text from her explaining why I'm annoying because I'm ruining One Direction for her... She's decided to "take a stand against my obsession." Should I be taking her seriously? Am I wrong for thinking she sounds like a ridiculous idiot?”

OK. Here are my thoughts.

Obviously, I also love Harry Styles, his tiny pancake butt (though recent photographic evidence suggests those cakes may be growing), and the glory and honor of One Direction's warm, luminous embrace in this cold, dank world. And, obviously, as a 24 year old, (which is NOT that old, contrary to what my teenage haters would have you believe), I catch a lot of heat for it. Of course, I have a handful of friends who agree with and partake in my obsession. And I have a handful of friends who find it ridiculous and laughable and devoid of all respect and honor and decency.

And, even though I strongly disagree with the latter, and find their shaming to be woefully misguided, after significant reflection and soul-searching, I've found it in my heart to forgive them of their sins, for they know not what they do.

The truth is, my first reaction to, say, a stranger who said this to me would be to say "Fuck you, I like what I like, and you're gonna have to fucking live with it." And then I would kick down a door, revealing a life-sized statue of Harry Styles I'd have carved out of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, and I would laugh and laugh and laugh at them while I licked the side of Harry's buttery face, and they would stare ahead in horror as I spiraled further into a butter-induced rage, clutching at Butter Styles's slippery abs and weeping. Because nobody should make me feel like less of a person because of something that makes me happy. That's the point of the thing in the first place: to make you happy.

But then there are our friends, who, despite whatever else we may have in common, lack this particular obsession. And, for their sakes, I'm usually inclined to dial back my addiction and talk about something else in their presence.

Of course, when I'm with my friends, there are any number of topics I could draw from for conversation, which includes, but is not limited to: birds, fallopian tubes, the thing that hot guys' jaws do when they're chewing gum, picture books, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, corner brownies versus center brownies, One Direction, pig races, lakes, and, of course, chocolate dildos. I'm friends with most of my friends because we share at least some of these interests in the first place. But, not every friend will feel as strongly about every thing, and that's OK. If you really care about that friend, you gotta pick and choose how fervent you are about the things they don't care about when you're with them. Ideally, you'll have other crap to discuss when you're around them, and then you can focus on your obsession on your own time, perhaps by keeping a locket filled with a photo of Harold's face pressed tightly to your chest at all times. Or, ya know, find other people who are equally emphatic and obsess with them.

BUT, this setup only works if your non-obsessed friend respects your right to continue your obsession on your own time. It's unfair for anyone to ask you to stop doing what makes you happy altogether.

So. Bottom line: If you like one another enough, you can find something else to share while you're together. When you're alone at night, you can caress your posters of One Direction as aggressively as your heart desires.

[literallymatt]

If I Were On The Oregon Trail

I’d be setting out for Oregon with my lovely wife, Rosamund, and our three young daughters, Persephone, Alice and Strawberry. Truthfully, I’d prefer to be traveling alone with our studly farmhand, William, but it’s 1848 and I have to at least pretend, so it’s Rosamund, me and the girls, and William would ride along in the back.

We would leave from our hometown of Independence, Missouri, around the start of April with only $400 in our pockets, four oxen, a chest of clothes, a cabinet of cereals, a Tupperware container of William’s homemade potato salad, my face moisturizer, daily scrubs, weekly mask, ultra moisturizing hand salve, lip balms, invigorating oatmeal soap, body cremes, my magazines, my coffee table books, all of my winter scarves, both of my winter coats, my pair of sexy underwear, my crate of footwear (both formal and casual), my 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, my ergonomic Tempur-Pedic pillow, and my electric tea kettle from Oprah’s Favorite Things, 2013. Oh, and all of Rosamund’s crap.

We’d set out for Oregon at the beginning of spring, early enough so the grass would be fresh for our oxen, and the weather would be nice enough for William’s nude swims.

Of course, two weeks in, we’d attempt to ford a river and lose 56 pounds of our food, three of our oxen, and the collection of couture gowns I purchased from the fur merchant during week one. Oh, also Persephone would drown. She was always the weakest. And she fucking knew how much I loved those dresses.

We’d quickly run low on food, supplies and water, because I’d be too impatient to stop to trade or hunt. But whatever. I’m not about to stop this fucking wagon for a rest just because the children are “weak and hungry and susceptible to fatal communicable diseases.” William and I have fucking lives to lead. Anyway, the food rations would run out, and I’d attempt to hunt, but I’d accidentally shoot Rosamund in the face and kill no bison or deer.

A week later, Strawberry would somehow break her fucking leg, because things happen for no goddamn reason along the Oregon Trail. A month later, she’d die, but not after completely diminishing our medical supplies, and breaking the ceramic bowl that William made me for our third anniversary.

Not long after, Alice would somehow get cholera, because that’s what happens on this goddamn trail. People just fucking get cholera and then die immediately.

Finally, though, it would be just William and I, as I’d dreamed all along, although I’d imagined we’d have more food to share between us. And, unfortunately, despite his rough, manly presence, his strong jaw line and hairy chest, and the way he could wield a musket, he’d prove to be as useless of a hunter as me. We’d be forced to continue with no food During one particularly fierce thunderstorm, we would dance naked together in the rain, asking the gods for sustenance. But all they would give us was the measles.

One day later, William and I would each die in one another’s arms, having made it this far, three miles from where our journey to Oregon began. “Here lies Matt and William,” our gravestone will say. “They were gay and weak.”

[literallymatt]

Everything wrong with man buns

(...unless you can pull off man buns***, but let’s face it, you probably can’t.)

1. Most of them are weak and feeble, like newborn foals, but greasier and with less to offer the world.

2. There’s nothing in them. There are no gifts. There is no wish-granting genies. There are shining jewels. It’s hair. Just fuckin balled up hair with a rubber band around it. And crumbs.

3. They can’t even lift.

4. When you take them out, it’s is just like a long, gross river of hair sludge.

5. Guys are like, “Lemme just never wash my hair cause I can wrap this shit up” and then what? Mold. Mildew. Chlamydia. 

6. Usually they’re all loose and saggy and they droop like a shriveled grape.

7. They’re natural-born killers, I’ve seen them do it myself.

8. They hold too many secrets and I don’t trust them.

(***EDITOR’S NOTE: Apparently I have to add this disclaimer for the unawares: Harry Edward Styles is, obviously, exempt from any and all bun critiques because he’s a good frog and he shampoos and conditions and brushes his curls gently every night. 

Also, I don’t care what anybody does with their hair. Live your life. Bun it up. Tie it in a bow. Dip it in frosting. Go crazy.)