Do not play the "I'm more pathetic than you" game with me. You will not win.

There is nothing I loathe love more than getting an email from a good friend titled “Saw this and thought of you” and then clicking on the link and finding something that shatters my self-esteem. Apparently as of late there is something about me that just screams “I need to grow my own, plastic boyfriend”. Grow-a-boyfriend is a little plastic man that you put into water and then he “magically” expands. I’m not making the shit up. He only costs 2 dollars and grows about 600% if you leave him in the tub. (I tried coming up with a good penis joke, but couldn’t. Any suggestions?)

The marketing spiel on it says:
• Grow the perfect boyfriend!
• Great for a friend who has just broken up!
• For entertainment purposes only, not for consumption! (So, not only am I going through a devastating separation, apparently I have no standards and cannot be trusted not to eat plastic.)

My favourite part is the little enthusiastic unique selling points that they’ve highlighted on the packaging:
“He’s Polite”
“He never snores”
“Never look at your credit card bills”
“Always shuts up”
“MR RIGHT!”
“Never argues, always agrees”

Great. We have found the perfect man. And he’s an eyeless, mouthless plastic glob that grows in water. I never should have turned down that jellyfish that asked me out at the beach last summer. Oh how happy I could have been...

The worst thing for me, though, was the little line that says “Free Movie and Dinner Date”, as if I had reached such a state of pathetic-ness that I would actually fill a tub of water, inflate this thing, dry it off, dress it up and drag it to see 50 First Dates at the Mall.

I’m beginning to suspect that this is an elaborate scheme that my therapist hatched in order to keep me coming back for sessions, but I can’t confront her on it because then she’ll want to treat me for paranoia. (That woman loves Jimmy Choo shoes and she will milk my mother issues until she has a matching handbag. Yeah, I’m on to you, bitch!)