Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Ask Becky, where you ask questions and I answer them – it’s as simple as that. This week, we have two very different but equally burning questions from readers to kick off your October.
Question 1: An interested friend asks, “Okay, but how do you get away with murder?”
A brilliant and all-encompassing question. At this point, I’d like to plead whatever the Canadian equivalent of the Fifth Amendment is. Instead, I’ll list some things to think about before you decide to try and get away with murder. I’d like to start with a quote that I think really sums up my answer:
“Ever hate someone so much you know that if you murdered them, you’d spend the rest of your life masturbating about it?” – Bridget Canning
Here’s the thing: you have to really hate somebody. Yes, there are those vicious serial killers that don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason (or any that we can understand) but if we’re dealing with a crime of passion, you’ve got to have gusto to kill somebody. Personally, I always get halfway through something before I get tired and would rather watch TV, but that doesn’t work when there’s a dead guy on your living room floor. So, if you’re not that hateful, leave the knife at home and stick to watching the kids from How To Get Away With Murder inevitably kill another person every season.
Secondly, physical strength is a factor. People are strong, and after they’re dead they’re just heavy. Your victim is going to presumably put up a fight, and moving them afterwards will definitely give you some kind of perennial back issue. Sure, you can hyperventilate through the whole episode, or become Jason Statham with hair, but either way, the process is exhausting.
Along that vein, people are also incredibly messy. The smallest head wound leads to you telling people about the time you hilariously spilled 3 quarts of ketchup on the living room rug every single time they come over for the rest of your life.
It’s important to remember that your murder extends far beyond the act of killing. For the next lifetime, your one mission in life is not to get caught. That means cleaning and disposing, as well as rehearsing, lying, and convincing for the rest of your natural life, with no guarantee that it’ll work. If you’re a bad liar, forget it. My best advice would be to always assume you’re going to get caught, and do everything to avoid it.
At the end of the day, it’s a simple code: you’ve got to be dedicated to the murder (people are tougher than movies suggest) and you’ve got to be really devoted to not getting caught. This means a full on PhD in Successful Homicide, supervised by Rosamund Pike and an understanding that murder is a long and strenuous process.
I get tired just thinking about it. My real advice would be to just sit back and let karma do its work.
Remember, leave the knives at home,
Becky
NOTE: Killing people is, like, totally wrong. Instead, you should just pull a Taylor Swift and write a nasty song about the person. Doesn’t getting rich sound like a more satisfying kind of revenge? – The Baron
Question #2: Grace asks “Hi Becky! So, there’s someone who I’ve liked for a really long time, but I don’t know how to approach them about it without sounding awkward. Do you have any tips for telling somebody how you feel?”
To be honest, I’d almost rather murder someone than do this, but we’ve all been in this position, and there are a couple of ways to handle it.
There is almost no way to broach this subject without sounding awkward. In my experience, it’s likely to be less stressful talking about your hemorrhoids to a news team than it is to tell someone you have feelings for them. However, it’s a misconception that awkwardness is always bad. Being awkward in this situation is natural, and it’s endearing. Only the worst kinds of assholes swagger into a conversation like this being absolutely positive they’re going to get the answer they want. Life isn’t a CW television show; your “confession of love” doesn’t have to be perfect, accompanied by a soulful Ron Pope song in the background. That kind of stuff just doesn’t happen.
Awkwardness is a given, but it doesn’t have to control the conversation. Focus on how you feel: tell them your thoughts and outline the development of your feelings, and where you think you might like things to go, but don’t press the burden of having to agree to be with you on them. Explain why you like them, tell them that they’re important to you in whatever capacity that is. Don’t make your feelings a negative emotion: they’re not. They’re your feelings, and if the other person doesn’t feel the same way, they should still respect that.
Prepare yourself for rejection, but don’t look at the moment as a failure if it doesn’t turn out the way you want to. It is an extremely important thing to be able to verbalize something like this, and it’s not a skill that many people have. At the very least, you’ll know for sure, and you’ll be able to say that you did something excellent, and carry that experience with you until the next time. If the person doesn’t feel the same way, then that just means that there’s someone greater waiting for you in the future.
The last and most important thing to remember is that you are a certified 10, and you should always keep that in mind in any situation.
Best of luck,
Becky
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