My Boyfriend, Iraq

Okay, so I’ve been seeing this guy Iraq? For a couple years now? What a disaster. When Iraq and I first started going out, it was special. It was like, every day he gave up another city to me. Now? The moment I get home, he starts up with the insurgency. Quite frankly, sometimes when we’re together? I shut my eyes and fantasize about Iran.

I’ll admit that going out with Iraq was my idea. He’d been with Saddam for-ever. Everybody knew Saddam was bad news. So three years ago, this one crazy night, it was like, okay, I’m invading. Next thing you know, Iraq had thrown Saddam’s stuff out the window onto the front lawn.

Iraq was like: too bad, Saddam! You are not the dictator of me!

And so for a few months it was just this wild carousel ride. Everything was enchanted: me and Iraq, running through the desert together, the sirocco in our hair.

Sometimes, people would say, wow, you two are starting to look alike! Which, quite frankly, was fine with me. Iraq shaved off his beard, started wearing Dockers. Think: a young Broderick Crawford. With oil money.

To be honest, I’d gone out with Iraq before, in 1991. It was a wild relationship, but we were young. When we broke up, we both thought it was the right thing. We said we’d stay in touch.

But then, like less than a year later, I found out he was going out with Saddam again. I mean, Hel-lo? What does that say about me, that the second I’m out of there, he’s back with his ex?

Personally, I thought Saddam was terrible for Iraq, but what are you going to do? Sometimes I’d see them together, and there’d be Saddam with his zipper all the way down, and I’d think, Oh for heaven’s sakes. Talk about a no-fly zone. Somebody needs a little inspection.

So what can I tell you, we’re together again. But now, he’s just so immature. I mean I know Saddam made him this way; I keep thinking, there’s a little democracy inside him, trying to get out! But then I have to wonder: how long am I going to wait for him? Forever? What about my thermonuclear clock?

Was it so egotistical for me to think I could improve him? I mean, Iraq struck me as very good material. And okay, so he was rich, but that wasn’t all I was interested in. Although, as my mother always says, “it’s just as easy to invade a rich one.”

Some people say this is one of my big problems. My ex-friend France is always like, “America, whenever you see anyone, it’s like all you want to do is turn them into a little version of you. You’re smothering and controlling!”

I’m like, France? Remember how you just gave it up to Germany that time? Like she’s some big expert.

I had this same fight with Iraq last week. He was all, “I need my space! I need to be my own country!”

This from a guy who can’t even turn his own lights on. Oh, and he’s growing the beard back, too.

So now what? Quite honestly, if Iraq was a little more mature, I wouldn’t worry about dumping him. We’d have a little talk, and I’d explain, listen, I’m not happy with this invasion any more. We’ve grown in such different directions. I mean it’s like: me, I want national health care and better schools, and you, it’s like, jihad this and jihad that. You’re like a broken record sometimes!

The thing is, though. I can’t leave him. He needs me too much.

It’s like we’re trapped in this hopeless cycle of codependency. I wish we’d never started seeing each other.

It’s like that Rod Stewart song. “Wake up, Iraq, I think I got something to say to you!”

It’s not that I don’t love Iraq. It’s just that I’m not “in” love with him any more.

I just want us to be good friends.

By the way—and I’m just asking—but is Iran seeing anybody?