Elizabeth Gomez: How to Successfully Dick Around

There are times when this wildness builds inside me. It’s torturous and painful. It’s similar to the build-up and pressure that fills up inside of you before you climax. When it starts happening, I can feel it creeping over my shoulders and smell it in the air. Something in me rises and beats against the inside of my body that makes me feel a bit like a transitioning werewolf. If I don’t address it, if I don’t try to get a handle on it, I know I will explode.

In order to address this building pressure, I choose to confront my problem by letting the beast loose. This is when I drop all my responsibilities for a day, commit to nothing and “Dick Around”.

Dicking Around is my absolutely favorite thing to do. I mean ABSOLUTELY FAVORITE. Here are the rules:

1. Don’t commit to anything

2. Do anything you want

It’s that simple. If you ask my friends, I think they would agree that I am the master of Dicking Around. The point is to be present in your daily experience and be open to adventure. I’m going to walk you through some ways to dick around so you can try it and begin to feel the liberation through the power of non-commitment and complete selfishness.

Preparation:

1. Pick a day to dick around. Make sure you have no commitments and save that day for yourself. MAKE NO COMMITMENTS – if you must make a single commitment, make it your first event, so once you’re done, you’re obligation free! There are times where you’ll look on your calendar and think, “HOLY FUCK! I HAVE A FREE DAY!” That is also a great time for dickin’ around.

2. Check it out. Consider events that you might want to go to and save it in the back of your head. Listen closely to your friends so you know what’s happening in your peer group, just in case you want to meet up with them. MAKE NO COMMITMENTS, just know that there is a world of happenings that you can join or see. Best part of it, you don’t have to do any of it, if you don’t wanna.

3. Have a response prepared. When your family and friends invite you to something on your Dicking Around Day, be prepared to be honest, “I’m dicking around that day. I’m not making any commitments, but I will consider it.” NO COMMITMENTS.

4. Diet, hydrate, exercise, and get into the right state of mind. You’re going to need some strength. Even locking yourself in your apartment and laying on the couch for 24 hours takes some work. I once spent a whole Dicking Around day on my couch eating deli meats and watching Marvin Gaye documentaries. It was a good thing I did yoga the day before so that my muscles were limber for that kind of non-movement.

Once you’ve properly prepared yourself to do what you want to do when you want to do it, then proceed accordingly. Wake up and do what you want. I understand that for many the concept of being that free is hard to grasp, so you may still be having trouble with this Dicking Around concept. Since you’re a beginner, I’d like to give you some ideas to set you on your way.

Old Friend Dicking Around: Call/text an old friend you haven’t seen for awhile. Ask them what they are up to that day. If they are available, go out and meet them! This is the GREATEST when the person is available. Once, I called an ex-beau on a Saturday morning. Coincidentally, that morning, his plans fell through and he was up for some ceviche and Bloody Marys. We ended up spending the whole day together. We did all the things we should have done when we were a couple, but at the time were too busy to do. Brunch, early movie in the afternoon, walking through the neighborhood discussing nothing of particular.  Flirting, coyly smiling, slowly leading up to an early evening bedding. I’ll always love that afternoon because I had the opportunity to experience the essence of a person I enjoyed, who for those few hours, had no stress, no obligation, no pressures for a “future”. I had spent many months feeling foolish about how I had felt about him and beat myself up for making the “wrong” decision about dating him. While the realities of life made it impossible for us to maintain a relationship, this day had proved that I was not foolish or made a wrong decision. He was a lovely person, but not for me. We never saw each other again and it was the perfect way to leave him frozen in my memory.

All the Places You’ll Go Dicking Around: Pick a place and go for it! If you do it, do it BIG. Once, I called a girlfriend of mine and asked her if she had ever been to Schaumburg, a suburb 40 minutes out of Chicago. I’m talking big box stores, all dining experiences are at an Applebees, and mini-vans galore. She had been there but was surprised that I had not. The two of us booked a hotel in Schaumburg, got drunk at a mall, met a cab driver committed to dropping us off and picking us up anywhere we went because we were vacationing in Schaumburg, was thrown out of a karaoke bar when an old man accused me of stealing his wallet, ended up at a bar next to the hotel, and joined a wedding party for a celebration til the early dawn!

Goal Focused Dicking Around: These almost always end up being bar crawls for me. I don’t mean I join one, I mean I just go from bar to bar – by myself or with friends or with people that become my friends that I pick up along the way. Most recently, I decide that while I was going to dick around, I didn’t want to spend any money that evening. A friend of mine mentioned that he was going to an event with some professional kickboxers who were in town for a fight. We started there, went to other bar where we met a lovely man, who liked us enough to meet us at the next bar and then picked up the tab. Mission accomplished! No money spent and a fantastic evening was had by all! Goal Focused Dicking Around can be anything, not necessarily bar related. Make a decision to explore all the soup dumpling restaurants in Chinatown or invite your friends to all dress up in top hats and ride your bikes to all the nearby mini-golf courses.

Laying Down Dicking Around: Ok, this might be my favorite dicking around exercise. It’s Saturday morning. I have nothing to do and ton of Nick Cage films that I need to revisit. Yeah, I said Nick Cage. I wake up, go the the bathroom, rinse the sleep out of my eyes, pour myself a cup of coffee, and head straight to the couch. This requires some prepping because you don’t want to get off the couch again. Make sure your phone is within arms reach for perusing the web during dull scenes, set a few bites and libations in front of you (I’m partial to cheese and crackers with a bottle of gin and orange juice), and a warm blanket for nap time during the scene when John Travolta walks through the laboratory to learn the process of how his face will be traded for Nick Cage’s in Face/Off.

Now you have the tools to successfully dick around. A word of warning, dicking around is the best and you’re going to get hooked. Be careful, not to always dick around. You will have to make commitments to friends and families for big events or they will stop speaking to you. Otherwise, spread your wings, little bird, and fly!