T H E T O P 1 0 WAY S T O N O T B E A N ASSHOLE IN 2020 (AND BEYOND)! By Kara Kinney Cartwright, mom of two well-adjusted, just-barely-adult young men and author of Just Don’t Be An Assh*le: A Surprisingly Necessary Guide to Being a Good Guy
DON’T TREAT YOUR PARENTS LIKE YOUR EMPLOYEES Do not tell your parents what to do. Ask them. Nicely. If the answer is no, do not throw a mantrum (A mantrum is the exact same thing as a toddler-style tantrum except that it is thrown by someone whose voice has changed and/or who is over five feet tall. In other words, it is not cute.) DON’T OVERSTAY YOUR WELCOME Pro-tip for avoiding painfully awkward exits from friends’ houses: if food starts being cleared away, there’s a change of lighting, or stretching and yawning of any kind—you need to get going. If you’ve stayed long enough to see the trash bag, congratulations! You’re on trash duty too. Get up and get cleaning. DON’T USE ALCOHOL AS AN EXCUSE FOR BEING AN ASSH*LE The precise moment you feel it’s imperative to take off your shirt, decide to whip out your cell and start texting a crush, or get an awesome idea that has anything whatsoever to do with live animals, you’re done. TIP: Never be the drunkest one in the room. If you are, you’re the assh*le everybody has to worry about for the rest of the night. DON’T APOLOGIZE OVER TEXT To avoid being an assh*le, you need to learn how to apologize for real. The sound of your apology needs to come out of your mouth hole and go directly into the other person’s ear hole, preferably while you are looking them right in the eye holes.
DON’T LOSE ALL BASIC HUMAN DECENCY WHEN ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT How can a young man possibly need more seating room than a grown-ass lady? Because that young man is a manspreading assh*le, that’s how. It’s not that hard to keep your legs together. Women have been doing it for years. DON’T CUT IN FRONT OF OLD PEOPLE I know that as us Old People get older, we get kind of beige and harder to see, but we don’t actually lose all human opacity, so you can spot us if you try just a little. So don’t be an assh*le and cut in front of us in every single effing line just because you can get there first. DON’T MANSPLAIN THINGS Before you launch into a manologue of any kind, pause. Ask, “Do you know [whatever your manologue is about]?” Then—and this is the big trick—if the woman you’re talking to says yes, pivot. Ask a question. “What do you think about it?” Then listen and talk. Back and forth. That’s called “dialogue.” DON’T BE RUDE TO WAITSTAFF If someone is taking away your trash, a good thing to do instead of pretending you’re in the mysterious presence of an invisible levitating trash ghost would be to say “Thank you” while making eye contact with the human being doing something to make your life a little better. DON’T BE AN INTERNET TROLL Nobody on YouTube needs your recommendations on how to improve their video. Nor do they need to know you think it sucks. Or blows. People on the internet are also human people, so zip it. THE GOLDEN RULE To avoid being an assh*le, just remember that people who are not you are also humans. One more time: Other people are, in fact, people. Yep. That’s the big secret to staying out of assh*le territory.
Follow author Kara Kinney Cartwright on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @dbakarakc and use the hashtag #JustDont to join the conversation. Just Don’t Be An Assh*le | Kara Kinney Cartwright | ISBN: 9780593138472 | On Sale 3/24/20