How to Read a How-to Article

I'm the child of the writer of the "How to do anything better guide," so you know I'm right.

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Written in 2022.

Through my teens, at airports and grocery store checkout lines I was a total sucker for catchy headlines about How to Give a Mindblowing Blowjob, How to Know If He’s Really Into You, and How to Make Him Want You More. With what I now understand to be mild OCD and a propensity to look for ‘the right way’ or ‘the truth,’ these articles held a promise of perfection if I could just ‘do it right.’ 

Cosmo was my drug of choice. In my teens, their How-To articles suggested that there was only one way to suck a dick and that all dicks are the same, which was awesome and so convenient because it meant if I read this article I would be awesome at sucking all dicks forever, right? They suggested that you could tell if your partner was cheating on you with the coveted insight that they blessed you with. How? She hides the phone from you when she texts. But what if she’s planning you a surprise party, or her friend is having a tough time and she’s consoling them, trying to give them privacy? 

What these articles often lack is nuance, context, and you and me. Now when I read a How-To article, I scan it for evidence of me. 

1. Verify the author. 

Who is this person? Why are they writing this article? What are their motives? What are their qualifications? I don’t mean that in a certificates and degrees, academically elitist way; I mean who the fuck are they and do you trust their judgment? Where are they getting their information? What are their beliefs? Can you get a sense of what their Politic or Ethic is? This helps you understand the context in which the article lives.

Of course, this also requires you to know yourself. Your own belief system becomes the filter through which you sieve these articles. How coarse or fine the mesh is is up to you and your integrity.

Any article I read is an invitation by its writer into their reality, but that doesn’t mean it has to be mine as well.

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