Dear Coke Talk,

My grandma wouldn’t sign the sex ed form so my friend Ricky and I had to play tetherball outside.  What the heck were they talking about in there?!

Thanks a bundle!

–Tom Oatmeal

P.S. This is more for Ricky.  I know what they were talking about, but I thought maybe you could just tell me what you think it is first to kind of confirm that we’re on the same page.  But I definitely know.

Dear Tom,

Don’t worry, you and Ricky didn’t miss much.

If your public school was anything like mine, all they did was separate the boys and girls into different sections of the gymnasium.

On the girls side of the room, a nice lady from the local Baptist church showed up with some very colorful posters depicting all the myriad ways we could infect, defile, or otherwise bleed from most of the holes in our young female bodies.

Special attention was paid to areas of new hair growth, as well as the place in fiery hell reserved for evil girls who murder innocent babies in botched back-alley coat hanger abortions wherein they themselves subsequently die from guilt and exsanguination.

Over on the boys side, I’m pretty sure they just raffled off a few of those wooden triangle jump-a-peg games that the shop teacher stole from the Cracker Barrel.

“Eg-no-ra-moose” indeed.

Say hey to Eric for me!

Okay. So, I’m a vegan. Not for ethical, but health reasons. I do believe that I feel better and healthier now that I’ve cut this stuff out of my life. I don’t judge anyone on the dietary outlooks on life. If they want to eat a shit ton of meat, that’s their decision. Just as this is mine. However, I still get those really annoying comments about PETA, protein, carnivore-laden based facts, etc. How do I honestly just say “fuck you” to get them off my back. I’ve repeatedly tell these people that it has nothing to do with animal welfare. They just don’t seem to get it. They’re your typical two buckets of chicken wings, football on the couch, straight, beer drinking jocks. How do I put into to words that they will “hopefully” understand the health aspect in all of this. Or is all hope lost?

Listen, do you have something to prove or not? Either you don’t care what the KFC crowd thinks, or you’re pushing an agenda. Which is it?

Also, why did you throw “straight” into the mix when describing these dudes? How does sexual orientation play into this? It sounds to me like you’ve got a whole rainbow of chips on your shoulder, and it’s all more political that you’re willing to admit.

Do I need to remind you that some lifestyles are just plain old-fashioned incompatible? You’re giving way too much of a fuck here. Stop it.

Quit defending your vegan lifestyle to people who eat chicken out of a bucket. It’s pointless, and all you do is come off as annoying.

If you honestly want to say “fuck you,” all it takes is two little words. There’s no need to make it a teachable moment.

I recently broke up with a woman I was with for several years.  We lived together, got drunk, did drugs and had awesome sex together.  Some of that booze/coke fueled sex was recorded (by her request).  Since breaking up she has been a total cunt.  Should I make some of those dildo-in-her-ass/cock-in-her-snatch videos public?

There are certain things you just don’t do. Ever.

Violating the trust of an intimate partner is right at the top of that list, and yes, for the purposes of those sex tapes, she will always be your intimate partner.

I want you to think back to a time when you were head over heels for her. Remember that woman? No doubt, she was crazy beautiful and wild as fuck. You loved the shit out of her. You shared a level of intimacy you’d never before thought was possible, and there were moments when you were sure you’d spend the rest of your lives together.

Have you got her in your head? Do you see her, the way she used to be? That’s the girl you’ll be betraying if you make those videos public, the one you loved.

Don’t do it, man. You can never get your integrity back.

Trust me on this. I have a whole hard drive full of compromising pics featuring exes and former lovers who I detest, motherfuckers I wouldn’t cross the street to spit on today. Some of that shit would be on the six o’clock news if I posted it on this blog, but I would never do that, not in a million years.

Be a decent human being about this. It’s a matter of honor. No matter how much of a total cunt your ex is being, you still have honor. This is one of those things that determines whether you’re a good person.

I hope you never make the wrong decision.

I’m all for keeping the Second Amendment alive and all, and I get the impression you are, too.  But, do you think it should be illegal to keep a gun in the house if you have young children?

Should it be illegal to keep pointy scissors in the house too?

I bet your coffee table has sharp corners. Maybe we should get a state representative to draft up some legislation protecting your half-retarded offspring from bumping its head on the furniture.

Wait, I have a better idea. How about you quit trying to use the legal system as your fucking nanny. The government isn’t a substitute parent, you big pussy.

Oh, and for the record, any question that begins with “do you think it should be illegal” is pretty much guaranteed to get this kind of reaction from me.

After years of being platonic friends who were able to discuss anything and have relationships with other people, me and my best friend (a guy, I’m a girl) decided to have sex. We both agreed it was some seriously good chemistry, and we’re continuing to fuck as friends. This wasn’t a problem for a month or so, but of course feelings are getting involved and we’re slowly thinking that maybe a serious relationship would be a good thing.

So, Coke Talk, should I get into a relationship with my best friend? I feel like switching to treating each other like boyfriend and girlfriend instead of brother and sister may be difficult and it’ll just ultimately weird us out.

Not to alarm you, but you’re already in a relationship with your best friend. You’ve been in one the whole time. The only difference is that now you’ve past the point of no return.

That’s why you’re writing me, actually. You just peeked over your shoulder and noticed that the bread crumb trail leading back to the friend zone has vanished, and you’re a little bit freaked out.

Don’t worry. You’re not lost. Keep walking the path, and you’ll be fine.

Try not to get caught up in labels. He’s not your brother, he’s not quite your boyfriend, and he’s certainly not just a friend anymore. You don’t need to put words like “serious” or “official” in front of your relationship in order to affirm the level of intimacy you already share.

The trust is there. The respect is there. The chemistry is there. All that’s left is for you two to recognize that the love is there too, both the platonic love that you’ve always known, and the romantic love that’s always been possible.

Good luck, and be sure to send me an invitation to the wedding.

My new boyfriend recently told me I was the perfect person for him. Am I wrong to assume he’s said it to other girls in the past?

Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter.

If you’ve got a new boyfriend who says ridiculous romantic cheeseball shit to you, then you can rest assured he’s said equally ridiculous romantic cheeseball shit to his past girlfriends as well.

It’s okay, though. You’re the one he’s with now.

He’s a guy, and by all evidence a relatively simple one. Don’t start picking apart these Hallmark moments looking for hidden meaning that isn’t there.

He’s saying nice things. Take that shit at face value, let it make you feel all warm and fuzzy for a minute, and then move on to the next thought.

Fair warning, once you get past the age of about nineteen, if a guy you’ve only been seeing for a few weeks starts making sweeping proclamations of love that include words like perfect, endless, desire, forever, or the ever popular soul-mate, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be changing your phone number soon.

Good luck.

People look up to you as a role model. That saddens me, and makes me worried about the quality of the human race.

Aww, you’re saddened?

Well, I’d tell you to go pop a xanax and lighten the fuck up, but I’m worried that without that smug sense of superiority there to inflate your ego, your personality might just collapse into a pile of its own bullshit.

It’s probably best you just carry around all that passive aggressive arrogance in your gut until it turns into cancer in about five years.

Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day.

I was engaged to a complete ass whipe 3 months ago.  We obviously ended it.  In that time I’ve been meeting new people and have found someone amazing.  Its been only 3 weeks, a very short amount of time, but we’ve dropped the L bomb on each other.  Is that too soon, even if we can’t deny that we do love each other?

You’re a fucking child. I mean that in the nicest way, but you are. I’m not saying you’re stupid. For all I know you’re excellent at math, but you have the emotional intelligence of a twelve year old.

You were engaged to be married three months ago, and now, three weeks into a new relationship, you’re telling a completely different person that you love them. This isn’t about dropping the L word too soon. This is about you assuming to have the slightest clue what love is.

Your former fiance was an asshole. Fine. Whatever. Why did you agree to marry him in the first place? Let me guess, at the time you were in looove with him. Even if you weren’t, that still demonstrates your incredibly poor decision making abilities when it comes to relationships.

Cut to today, and you’re dropping love bombs like it ain’t no thing in a rebound romance that started right around the time the World Cup ended. What the fuck? Do you really think this is love? Really?

Well, it’s not. You’re just a bitch in heat. You’re high on a drug. Whenever you catch a whiff of your new boy toy, your brain floods with dopamine like you just did a line of really good blow.

Yeah, it feels great. Fine. Whatever. You’re on the rebound and you should feel free to enjoy yourself, but get a fucking grip. What you’re experiencing is a short-term neurochemical response, not the L word.

Should I sell my soul to the corporate machine and go into advertising or should I struggle as a freelance artist and do the art I love?

I hate to break it to you, but the corporate machine stopped buying souls in 2007. You couldn’t sell out now even if you wanted to. You’re pretty much doomed to struggle as a freelance artist no matter what you do, and nobody gives a fuck whether you love it or not.

I know you’ve probably had your head up your ass in art school these past few years, but someone should have told you that we’re smack dab in the middle of the ugliest economy since the great depression.

The ass dropped out of advertising budgets several years ago, and the industry is in the middle of its long cycle of being bitch slapped by the recession. You’re trying to enter a field where very talented people with considerably more experience than you are willing to work for peanuts.

If you are one of the lucky few with connections, don’t be an asshole. Sell out. Otherwise, just pretend to have integrity as a freelancer doing the art you love until they start hiring again in December of 2012.