When asked for writing advice, Delicious Tacos likes to keep things simple: get up early every morning and write. And there is something to that- the foundation of writing is interpreting the disorganization of the writer’s internal world through language and bringing those ideas to a place of external organization- coming to terms with what is initially termless. This is why keeping a journal is often recommended as a form of therapy.

However, this only explains the process of writing- the easiest and most direct way to become a writer- rather than explaining what the goal of a writer really is, something that warrants equal examination.

A good writer is tasked with splitting his veins open with a razor blade and covering his keyboard in blood- a prolonged and terrible ritual. You’ll know a piece is finished when your face is numb, eyes unfocused, and body trembling.

You’d think Delicious Tacos would have mentioned something like that- the horrible reality of being on the writing grind- considering I learned it from reading his work.

The only writer worth reading is an honest writer. How close can he cut things to actual reality? Actual reality may seem like hyperbole to those who read garbage, but anyone worth being a member of your audience understands that reality is layered and access takes teeth-gnashing grit. How long can you keep your face in a bee’s nest? How long can you last underwater- acknowledging that loneliness and despair are part of the toxic cocktail of progress. You’re a fat woman eating ice-cream in front of her bathroom mirror. Look away and you lose.

You need to understand yourself. You must come to grips with your genuine intentions- burning away the lies you tell yourself to make it past midnight. Understanding who you really are, unless you’re awesome, is going to be fucking awful. Chances are that most of what you know about yourself and your relationships have been total bullshit- fanciful stories and forced narrations which have little relevance to actual reality. An honest writer is brutally familiar with the awful person he really is and the meaningless relationships he’s forged.

Once you’re ready to move beyond the self, an honest writer must maintain a consistent and accurate understanding of the outside world. “You must become a master of human nature,” says Robert Greene, and he’s right. However, understanding this really sucks- long story short, it’s all horrifying and uncomfortable. People are massively flawed, entirely selfish, and have very little autonomy- this includes you (remember, you’re awful), but it also includes everyone you’ve ever loved or respected.

You can now fully diagnose your father’s insecurities, and trace their root to when your mother began chipping away at his sense of masculinity and self-worth. You can understand how your mother was toxified by elements that have nothing to do with your family or community, and were thought up by people whom you’ll never know.

You’ll understand what your ex-girlfriend really thinks of you, even if you remember your time with her “fondly,” and still believe you “had something special.”

You’ll come to know the duplicitous nature of everyone around you. You are the only one in-touch with reality and everyone else is to be studied, criticized, and written about.

Being an honest writer comes in two parts- both of which must be mastered. Self-knowledge and a firm grip on the way things work are non-negotiable- these are items on the front-end. They often exist in fragments within the mind of the writer. Writing is about bringing these fragments to proper form through language- the job of the writer is doing this with elegance and authenticity.

Writing with authenticity, or writing with a distinct voice, is what separates the adequate from the potentially great. Having good content- having the dibs on how shit really goes down and blasting your audience with hard doses of heavy truth- is cool and all, but doing it with a form so beautiful that the words sound like they’re singing to you when read aloud is breath-taking. An authenticity so earthy and visceral that the truth held within seems tangible and so intimate that it feels as though the writer directed the piece to you personally; a truth you can almost hold in your hands.

I’m sure I fuck a ton of girls with herpes. But I punish the good ones for not lying. For doing the right thing. Not only are they cool, always. Not only are they the exact sort of bohemian libertine I want to date. But they do the right thing and they take the hit for it. That’s balls. A person who suffers for honesty– that’s what “hero” means.

I don’t remember her name, but I know that she had herpes. No, that isn’t the title of a Japanese porn, it’s real! It’s true! I swear it happened, and it was serendipitous. It was beautiful. Beyond coincidence. As if God knew that I had to interact with this sexually compromised woman so I could fully tune into the high-frequency signal that Delicious Tacos was quietly broadcasting- real, genuine truth. Total authenticity. No bullshit veneer between the reader and his words.

You have this moment when you meet a woman with herpes where you think you’ve really lucked out. Before the big reveal, of course. Where you think you’ve found this super down to Earth girl who could just shoot the shit with you- no games.

Where you feel comfortable being yourself yet still feel as though you’re respected as a man. Who has the same sexual proclivities as you; who seemed to have a thing for being humiliated- a shame fetish, I suspected. You think to yourself, could this be what it means to find a soulmate? Could this have been my “one and only someone”?

No, stupid, she just has herpes- and much like the burning and irritation it causes her genitals, such is the guilt she feels when she meets someone new.

So, she tells you. She confides in you. You’ve already built a rapport. She’s shown you that she’s different. She’s cool. No pretensions. She thinks it’s interesting that you’d get turned on by watching her cry- this is new ground for her. Yes, you could verbally demean her. She’s hated herself for so long that it’s become intertwined with her sexual identity. Then she tells you about her herpes because she thinks she’s built up some kind of equity with you.

She tells you that you probably already have it- “most people have it,” if you didn’t know. And if you (somehow) don’t already have it, you definitely won’t get it from her- she “hardly ever has an outbreak,” and when she does it’s “barely noticeable.”

She tells you these things because she can’t bear to lie anymore. The countless men she’s spread her leprosy to through silence and omission haunt her dreams. So she’s cultivated the perfect girlfriend personality type. Had she only done so before infection, maybe she’d be married with children, but she won the unlucky lottery and here we are.

The perfect girlfriend. Everything you’ve ever wanted in a woman, with one little defect, but how about it? You had your Mom buy you that pair of Air Jordan’s in 1992 with the tiny red dot on them, that you’d hope your sixth grade class would never notice, and that worked out okay, so isn’t this the same?

Sorry. Fuck no.

A few days later I found the Delicious Tacos blog-post “Girls with Herpes,” and it was all there- everything she had said, presciently described by Tacos, written years before I had met her, as if he had peered into my future and told my fortune. Tacos was in touch with the kind of reality that typically falls through the cracks and goes unforeseen- the horror that lies between the lines. This was a deeper reach into actual reality than I had ever experienced. Tacos wasn’t afraid to find these depths and exploit them.

Delicious Tacos is more than a dating blogger- he’s a modern prophet.

Writing a “fuck blog” is a clever cover for a heady examination of reality- and Delicious Tacos is a master of reality. He’s come to terms with himself and his own intentions and he’s integrated his self-knowledge into the foundational truth of all writing that follows: men are primarily horny.

And since society has stigmatized male sexuality as something inherently evil, the average man will jump through hoops to prove that he’s different- that he’s cool, that he’s the perfect boyfriend, he’s not primarily horny– unlike the others.

How you respond to this will reveal level of delusion.

Take, for instance, his “Lunch Break Diary: What’s on Your Mind” piece (available in “The Pussy”), where Tacos describes his platonic friendships with women:

I would like you to stop talking and come into my bedroom and have unprotected sex with me immediately, every girl I have ever known. I have jerked off to the thought of date raping you many times, and making you pregnant against your will, girl who thinks of me as a close and trusted friend. … If I could date rape you and get away with it– if some genie said go ahead, I guarantee you won’t get in trouble– I’m not saying it’s a “yes,” but it’s not quite a one hundred per cent “no,” girl who thinks nothing of being alone around me while drunk. When the bombs fall and we all turn into Mad Max, don’t think you’re gonna get my clean drinking water for free.

Where you stand on the idea of “wanting sex with every female friend and acquaintance you’ve ever had” has everything to do with how honest you’re willing to be with yourself. The mainstream idea of platonic inter-gender relationships is like a never-ending episode of Friends- just sitting around a coffee shop, dishing gossip with your gal-pals, who are dating men more successful, handsome, and masculine than you- but that’s okay, you’re just dying to hear about it.

No! Bullshit! You lie in wait, carefully biding your time like Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado.”

If you dare say that isn’t you, half-crazed, ranting to yourself as she tells you about how her boyfriend only seems like an abusive asshole, but really has a “sweet sensitive side,” you’re a liar- and reading “The Pussy” will make you feel like an asshole.

You’re a horny monster and Delicious Tacos knows it.

Purchase Delicious Taco’s beautiful, convenient, and affordable anthology- “The Pussy”– on Amazon and get used to the idea that you’re awful.

Oh, and “get up early every morning and write”- maybe then you can be a writer too.

Support Kill to Party through my Amazon link