I’m so bored this summer I could totally bone your husband but RELAX I won’t, I’m also way too lazy to put in the work. I’m living vicariously through a friend who is newly single and is finding her mojo everywhere her usual daily grind takes her: She sends me photos from dudes and chicks on the street she finds hot: PANTY CREAMER ALERT! A cop on a horse! A MILF-type in the park with wind in her hair! SHE IS ON FIRE WITH LUST IN HER LOINS and I am drowning in my own morning wasted panty sludge. If I stick close to her, I can get some of her contact mojo, maybe.

She’s having some great epic sexting with a married man. I’ve had a few of those myself, whatevs, usually ends with some lunchbag letdown Skype session where all I can do is obsess about finding my good angle when scrunching my bra down. I AM THE WORST SEXTER EVER, a real boner killer, trust. But my friend has it all going on and it’s like they are both writing Harold Robbins revival novel. I still love my Harold Robbins and learned every trick I need to know from The Lonely Lady and The Carpet Baggers. I might be bad at sexting but I’m good at holding my breath with water in my mouth and you’d have to take me a porterhouse steak dinner to find out what that’s all about. Call me.

I feel like I could teach a course at the Learning Annex: How to Be the Post-Modern Madame Pompadour and Live Your Dreams. Even though I am a failure at love and all relationships in general, I have observed y’all doing the mating rituals like zoo animals with no regard of any superfluous and confining nuptial agreements. I have many case studies even though I have no clue whatsoever how the male mind works, I know the ladies and I have seen your mistakes aplenty. Take notes:

1. The first and most important hard and fast rule when embarking on this mistress lifestyle is: DO NOT GET ATTACHED TO THE OUTCOME. In fact this is the most important rule of life, it’s the Buddhist credo. It goes for playing a game of tennis to buying a house to the mastering the art of mistressing. You more or less just have to live in the now and not get hung up on the fact that at some point, somebody is going to get hurt real bad. Spoiler alert: It won’t be him.

2. Rationalize that his wife is a murdering shrew and you are saving him from a life of disparaging henpecking and of course, celibacy because they haven’t had sex in months or years. This is probably actually true by the way. I will never forget how last month I was at St. Louis Bar and Grill and I watched a husband and wife having wings and beers and he was blithely chowing down and she was staring at him, not eating, just staring with hatred of a raccoon stuck in an empty garbage bin, you could actually see a cartoon thought bubble appear over her head and in capital Comic Sans: I HATE THE WAY YOU CHEW! I SWEAR TO GOD I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON THAT DRUMSTICK AND I WILL MAKE GODDAMN SURE I WILL FAKE A HEIMLICH ON YOU, SO DIE, MOTHERFUCKER!  

It was palpable. And you really had to feel sorry for the dude and at one point, he and I locked eyes for the last second, his gaze pleaded “Help Me.” And after when they finished and he walked by my table, I made the finger in the hole hand gesture which he probably mistook for me mocking him which I guess I was because fuck him and his chewing chicken wings with his mouth open and licking his fingers, ugh. Anyway, you can have him, he’s probably ripe for Mistress 101.

3. Prepare yourself for loads of free time. Once this mistressing thing starts to happen, even during the sexting foreplay phase, these married dudes have a habit of disappearing for days at a time. One minute you’re sending hot sexy messages (whilst you are watching Netflix of course) and the next minute, nothing. It’s like your phone has died but it hasn’t because later you get a message from your best friend who is having a crisis and you ignore her because sexting comes first. But you end up watching two episodes of Hannibal and he still hasn’t responded so that was a waste. GET USED TO THIS SPOOKED HORSE, SISTER, AND DON’T EVER IGNORE YOUR FRIEND BECAUSE YOU WILL NEED HER TO GLUE YOUR DUMB ASS HEART BACK TOGETHER BECAUSE YOU FORGOT RULE NUMBER ONE.

4. Have you ever watched Roger Federer play tennis when he was at the top of his game and even at this year’s Wimbledon match? No? Well dude is in control, it’s like he loses the first few games on purpose to make his opponent think he is the one dominating. And then, after his rival is too tired to be all cocky, he knows how to place that ball so his opponent will have to scamper across the court to return it like a passed out drunkard. Take a page from Roger’s book, this is what you have to do as a Master of Mistressing. Make him feel like a boss in the beginning so he can maintain reasonable boner erectus AND THEN hit him cross court with some wack-a-doodle drop shot that makes him remember not to chew with his mouth full.

5. You have to compliment him on his penis. I KNOW! They are all the same to me, too. You have to make his seem special and they all are, yes indeed. To have a penis is like having a puppy around all the time. I wish I had one. A puppy, I mean.

6. Time management is tricky with some of these men. What is up with a grown middle age man who claims to have only a window of time or has to wait for his wife for whatever? Dudes: Why can’t just say “I’m going to Banana Republic to check the sales” and then take your sweet time about it? And then HOURS later come home and say they didn’t have any 34 Long in those stupid Dawson fit that makes your ass look boxy? Mistress, you are going to have to teach him to lie without his pants actually setting fire. And make switch him over to slim fit Aidens because you can. You have the power.

7. Ignore your friend when she tells you at the nail salon: “They never leave their wives you know.” You yell back: “YOU SAY THAT LIKE IT’S A BAD THING. I DON’T WANT A HUSBAND, LET  HIS WIFE WASH HIS SOCKS.” And then when you are home alone drinking a 1.5 litre bottle of wine to yourself because he is incommunicado with some family function, don’t get all caught up in that laundry fantasy you have where you sort his socks from light to dark and fan them out in his top drawer. Are you crazy?

8. Assume everything he says is a lie.

9. Know when it’s over. Seriously, sister, that could even be before it ever begins. But if you stretch it out for months and even years, you will know when it’s time and when it comes, you will walk away with all  the dignity you can muster because that is what Madame Pompadour would do. And then she got her hair did.