The coat is key.

As we all know, Edward Cullen, dark and dangerous (but not too dangerous!) star of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, has ruined women on regular guys for the next ten years. (Read this: Ten ways Twilight has ruined a generation of high school girlfriends.) Merciful creature that I am, I have some tips for the victims of this literary vampire, who has sucked away your chances for getting a prom date and left you feeling fleshy and inadequate.

1. Purchase a pea coat. After that, if you feel okay, get some pants that actually fit. Wear them together at the same time. If you have anything in your wardrobe in any shade of red, green, or yellow, push it to the back and don't touch it again.

2. Tell a girl you're bad, very very bad. Then never do anything even remotely bad.

3. Get your hair off your face. Purchase mud, shellac, cream, pomade, or wax but *not* hairspray. Squeeze your product into your hands, and then grab at your head as if it's causing you agonizing pain. Continue to clutch your skull until all your hair is pointing away from your forehead. For style reference, check out Brandon and Dylan from Beverly Hills, 90210 circa 1992. No more Disney Channel shag.

4. If you can't think of anything to say to a girl, just glare at her. Never explain anything. Say almost nothing at all. If she asks you what you're thinking, put your arm around her and look away.

5. Imagine the expression you'd have on your face if someone stabbed you with a pencil in the gallbladder, spleen, pancreas or pyloric valve (any other dark, secret, unlocatable place in your abdomen will do). This should now become your default expression.

6. Your excuse for not doing anything should be that you want to too much. As in, you couldn't call because you wanted to *too much.* You couldn't wait for her because you wanted to *too much.*

7. Refuse to do anything physical with your girl, and only relent when pressed to extremes. At each base, you must stop yourself and her from going farther at least three times (claiming, of course, to want her too much).

8. Don't hum, laugh, punch other guys, or behave in any way that could be perceived as happy, relaxed, or lively. Instead, hold a book in your hand and stare off into the distance, maybe about half a football field away.

9. Never think of or mention football again, except if you're using it as a reference point for your distracted, tortured staring. Do not participate in sports, no, not even baseball unless you are an actual vampire.

10. Lead with your forehead. You should always be able to see a little bit of your eyebrow hair as you are peering out from under your brow. This is particularly true if you're attempting a smile. And your smile should always say, "I'm full, but I could eat more" and never "I'm happy" or "That's funny" or "Do you like me?"

Now, there are some lengths to which you should not go to bag a Twilighter. DO NOT:

1. Attempt to run up a tree.

2. Take off your shirt.

3. Wear lipstick.

4. Pretend you can type blood by sight.

5. Jump off a building.

6. Engage in warfare with a rogue vampire.

7. Take her to meet your family.

8. Attempt to stop a speeding car with your body.

9. Drive like you're immortal.

10. Eat a raw deer.

Good luck! Happy hunting, regular guys!

Labels: pop fiction, relationships, twilight

Your girlfriend is mine.

It used to be hard to get a date in high school. Now, thanks to Twilight, it's got to be damn near impossible. What Mr. Darcy did for husbands, Edward Cullen is doing for boyfriends, and another generation of women is losing interest in the happy jocks while musing over the dark-haired, troubled guy with all that anguish in his eyes.

Edward Cullen is the fictional teen vampire / Byronic anti-hero in Twilight that seduces awkward, brainy heroine Bella Swan. The characters in the book bump around school and rainy Washington, being moody and misunderstanding each other, as Bella and Edward fall in love. Then there are mean vampires, and then more love.

So what makes Edward the Vampire Fantasy Boyfriend such a PR problem for real life teens who just want to get a date to take to dinner and hang out with at the prom? What do the girls see in those black gold eyes?

10. The reason Edward rejects you initially is because he loves you *too much*.

9. Edward has super powers like running superfast and walking up trees, which he can perform while carrying you, making you feel very small and thin.

8. He's strong as an ox but physically effeminate and beautiful, looks great in a full face of makeup.

7. He can save you from speeding SUVs and vampires and thugs without sweating. If a real boy saved you from a thug he'd probably rehash the whole event in front of his friends forty times, but Edward just wanders off.

6. When he's being cryptic, and you push him to explain himself, it just makes him like you *even more.* Real boys tend to have to get off the phone when this happens.

5. When he's moody, it's because he wants to eat people, not because he's about to break up with you.

4. He can read everyone else's mind, but yours is a total mystery.

3. At the beach, his skin turns into diamonds. Real boys turn red and blotchy.

2. He's immortal. Real boys can be killed by almost anything.

And the number one reason that Edward Cullen has ruined things for average teenage boys:

1. He is overcome with deep, torturous lust for you, but he can never, never act on it, or you will die.

Edward Cullen is the safe boyfriend. He will never make you actually take your pants off, but he will constantly reassure you that he only wants to ravage you.

What does this mean? Teenage girls don't actually want to be ravaged. They want to be desired but not deflowered, that they want to be constantly, urgently threatened with intercourse, but never have to experience it. Edward will never, ever satisfy himself with Bella, because doing so would kill her. Let me make you a metaphor map: Loss of virginity = death. Edward = impotent. Therefore the perfect teen boyfriend.

So what's a regular guy to do, in the face of this kind of competition? Now that the movie's out, even the illiterate girls have Edward as a measuring stick for male perfection.

Next time, I'll give you ten ways that regular, average boys can compete with Edward Cullen, using sneaky tactics and clever ploys instead of actual vampirism.

Labels: edward cullen, pop fiction, relationships, twilight