1. You must buy her a more expensive ring with a bigger diamond. Real shiny.

2. Tell her she’s beautiful as much as you can and really mean it.

3. Don’t judge her because you’re not exactly St. Peter either.

4. Love her in every other way that you can’t normally.

5. Cherish each moment because she might never leave her husband.

6. When you talk to her, don't look away.

7. Always remember that no matter what happens her heart is just as delicate as yours.

8. If you don’t get down on one knee the proposal will not count.

9. Don’t ever assume that you’re the one.

10. Remember her love ends when she comes back home to him at night.

11. You and he (her husband that is) are two sides of the same coin.

12. If her husband sends killers after you: don’t regret your love, open your arms and embrace the dark veil and go out like a champ, holding your hanging intestines in your hands until you fall on your face. 

13. Keep your promise about a house with a pool.

14. When you have your first child, and they grow up to ask how you met, just say you met on Match.com.

15. Promise her you will be the perfect husband even though there is no such thing.

16. After she says yes, and she divorces her husband and marries you, just stay away from social media altogether. (Give it approximately six months to a year.)

17. Remember that you’re not living in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600s and the love of your life is not a witch. Don’t drown her with your love, because she’ll resent you.

18. And as you ask for her hand in marriage be mindful that real love is not like in the movies. True love is ugly and divine at the same time like the last marathon runner throwing up at the finish line. 

19. She loves you and she might love him too, but it’s not the same love.

20. Love like this is once in a lifetime so you might as well propose, and this is your Hail Mary pass [e.g., Miami Miracle, Nov. 23, 1984]

21. As you get on bended knee with ring in hand and look up at her don’t forget that she’s still the most beautiful girl in the world despite her lies and cheating and hypocrisy.

22. You weren’t looking for this and it just found you and now that it’s here, you must own it: keep repeating that lie or else this universe will collapse under you.

23. You go around telling anyone that will listen that she’s your Ava Gardner, but is she really your Ava Gardner? Perhaps she’s more like your Princess Diana and you’re her Dodi Fayed or James Hewitt to be more precise. [That’s the Calvary Officer the Princess had an affair with.]

24. Everyone will think you’re a fool, but double down. If your ‘I love yous’ were lies, then you’re worse than her.

25. If she gets pregnant before your proposal and claims that it’s definitely, positively not yours, it’s probably yours.

26. Don’t demand a blood test, because legally, in the state of Florida, if you don’t sign the birth certificate you have no rights. Your blood child will be raised by him. Get used to it, champ, I mean chump.

27. Falling in love with a married woman is like renting a Bugatti Veyron that you can’t handle or afford. Good luck with that.

28. She doesn’t love you more than her husband. She doesn’t love her husband. She doesn’t love you. But go ‘head. Love her as much as you want.

29. No matter how things turn out, her scent will be ingrained in your nostrils.

30. Her sweet, floral scent will be potent (like the scent of the yellow rose from her native Colombia) you will have nightmares and fantasies (Day dreams.) about turning your Arab nose inside out to scrub her out.

31. Play the Powerball religiously for a whole year. And if by a miracle of miracles you win, drive directly to Bal Harbour and pick out the biggest and shiniest diamond you can find. Her ring size is seven.

32. If she says yes, and she divorces her husband to marry you, there will come a time when you’re spooning her in bed (after many years of being together) and you will be jealous of her until you die. You will have bad thoughts and draw up evil plans on how to entrap her like a bird in a cage just for yourself until you get sick of her. You will think about these things most of the time and you’ll suffer from chest pain because you will never do anything about it. You hate her and you love her but you cannot be without her.

33. Remember that she will always be the woman of your dreams no matter how badly she mistreats you. But in reality, you’re mistreating yourself. As a matter of fact, you probably hate yourself.

34. And if there is one good reason for you not to propose, well the best reason is that you’re not in a real relationship. If you were smart, which clearly you are not, you’d realize that right now you’re in the best position but you’re blinded by fantasy. What you must understand is that you’re only getting the best parts of her. Not the nasty, annoying, boring, until death do us part, in sickness and in health realities that are the intricacies of a marriage. You’re just a fantasy to her as well; you’re her little oasis in the middle of the dry, colorless landscape of her desert life beside her unremarkable husband.

35. The real reason you’re in this situation is because you broke every rule from that ‘Side Nigga’ video that you found on YouTube.

36. Stay away from Facebook. Watching her post things with her husband will destroy you.

37. On the weekends when you don’t see her, remain mysterious.

38. Be an open book on Tuesdays and Thursdays but a heart full of secrets the rest of the days.

39. Try to make her breakfast at least three times a week. No bacon. Turkey bacon is fine.

40. Don’t let your heart crack when she’s sitting next to you on your futon, rubbing her big pregnant belly, and she says no when you ask her if you can feel the baby.

41. It probably is your baby because she’s sitting next to you in your apartment, waiting for her hubby’s flight to land so she can pick him up from the airport. Who does that?

42. Assure her, honestly, and with genuine love, that she will not go to ‘Jewish Hell’ if she decides to return to you. (she says she converted because of her father’s last name. She went to Catholic school in Barranquilla.)

43. Go on Wikipedia and learn as much as you can on Jewish culture in case she really does want you to convert. Make an appointment with that Rabbi from Surfside that you met at the rare bookstore on 71st Street. 

44. If she leaves him don’t forget sitting in her car as she talked to her husband on speaker, and you, quiet as a mouse, witnessing a master at work, a legend being born. In that moment you didn’t focus on the crime but the criminal: the neck scratch she got from her cat that morning made her look like a damaged Mona Lisa. She was so delicate she made you wince. You disappeared that day down her pretty mouth, too far in the conspiracy to turn back. In the middle of the conversation she turned towards you and squeezed your paw next to her like the obedient dog you were. Then after she got rid of him you were both off to lunch at your apartment, five minutes away from work. Maybe that’s all you were; a convenient affair.

45. She somehow turned into your God. Or you allowed her to be your God. Or you were Godless looking for a God and then you found her. But she’s not yours to pray to or her husband’s; she doesn’t belong to anyone, not even to God itself. 

46. If the baby looks like her she will pass it off as his. Sorry buddy, but that’s the reality. So pray hard.

47. You can analyze this “relationship” in many ways but you will still get the same result – two irresponsible adults engaging in an irresponsible affair.

48. A lazy analogy would say that you are Jay Gatsby and she is Daisy Buchanan. What this means, is she will not show up to your funeral. Are you okay with that?

49. If and when you ask her to marry you (keep in mind you’re asking a married, pregnant woman for another commitment she might not be ready for) try to do a pretend proposal just to see how it goes, then based on her reaction, whip out the ring.

50. How many times are you going to look into those hazel eyes for answers about the baby? It’s either your baby, or it’s not your baby.

51. If it is your baby when she grows up someday, she will seek you out in your cave in Buenos Aires or Lisbon or San Salvador and you better have a good answer.

52. Don’t cry because you have no right to cry. Save your salty tears for a real tragedy. 

53. Don’t take it personal if you don’t get invited to the baby shower since it’s only supposed be women and it would be awkward if she invited the baby’s real father.

54. She’s the most beautiful pregnant woman you’ve ever seen and you need to tell her that every chance you get.

55. Bake her cookies in the morning, make her soup, for God’s sake feed her, and make sure you use all organic ingredients because it could very well be your baby.

56. When you see her flirting (like she usually does) with other men, don’t let it bother you, just ignore it.

57. Make sure you practice your reaction for when she confesses that it is your baby. DNA test says: you are the father! Mouth wide open; shock, but happy. It’s all in the crinkle on the side of your eyes.

58. Pray for her and a healthy baby. Let all the bitterness go. This is all love, love, love, and more love. What’s the point of resentment? Prove that you love her and the only way is to let it all go—everything, even the ghost of her. Let the ghost go. Don’t write her anymore love letters inviting her to a “cheap essential happiness,” like Dostoyevsky.

59. When the baby is born, don’t assume one thing or another. It takes months for babies to develop the facial attributes of the parents. And even then, the baby can end up looking like a grandparent.

60. Are you the father? Is her husband the father? Is it a mix? Who cares? Does it really matter? She’s not with you.

61. DNA tests are 40 to 100 dollars at Walgreens pharmacy.

62. Did Frank Sinatra ever recognize Ronan Farrow?

63. Don’t go see the baby when it’s born, because you will break down at first sight.

64. Does this baby, whether you’re the father or not, mean the death knell to your “relationship”? Probably not. 

65. Jot down a note saying something along the lines that marriage will never be sacred; for it is based on ownership. Now love, love is sacred.

66. She probably does love you, but she’s pragmatic and therefore will make decisions with her head since the baby’s well-being is her only concern. (Or is it?)

67. You don’t make enough money to take care of a family by yourself. That’s the same problem salary men in Japan are having. 

68. Whatever you do, please don’t get drunk and slide into her Instagram DMs with a cheesy, romantic love meme.

69. Why did you do that? Now you’re gonna get depressed at the response she sent you for her husband’s sake: “I’m married and I have a daughter. That was an inappropriate message.”

70. DON’T RESPOND!

71. YOU RESPONDED!

72. At least you apologized and blamed it on the alcohol. Now leave her alone and run into a hole to hide and weep and feed your ego with the selfies she took of you two making out at the beach on the West Coast of Florida exactly nine months before you’re born again. That was the honey moon before the marriage.

73. I guess this is the real test – Does she really love you?

74. If none of your plans for a big pay day work out, whatever you do, don’t tell her that you are financing the Hail Mary engagement ring. 

75. Meanwhile, the Russian Blue Tabby you bought her to prove your love will continue to destroy the shower lining in your bathroom as you constantly worry about the same thing.

76. Don’t be too hard on yourself, as long as you don’t contact her until you have to see her at work, you will have a little spine left. You’re still not under the complete control of a married woman with a baby that might be yours.

77. Life is hard. Despite the emotional messiness of this particular situation, things could be worse. Way worse.

78. Eventually, you will have to move on. You don’t want to be Jay Gatsby. Do you? 

79. What are even the odds that you win the Powerball? And even if you win, are you just going to disappear for six months and come back driving a white Range Rover like she always wanted? “I can take care of you now, and that baby, that might be or might be not mine.”

80. You love her more than the baby inside her. You love her despite the baby. The baby doesn’t matter to you because it could very well not be your baby and you would still be there for her. But once you see the baby, that’s when you’ll know love for the first time. The horse before the carriage before the horse is how the saying goes.

81. There was a moment in this relationship/sex tryst/love affair/call it what you will, when you had the HAND, but you gave it up willingly, why did you do that?

82. Because I really thought she was going to leave him.

83. What made you think that?

84. She was behaving like a desperate person looking for a way out. I didn’t think anybody that started an affair like we did, would just double down on a failing marriage.

85. How did this love affair start again?

86. It started post Happy Hour at a country bar in Davie, FL. The kiss occurred next to the dance floor and continued in the parking lot and then inside my car and then back to her car. The kiss didn’t have an end or a beginning; it was infinite, transforming right before us into a beam of light trapped inside a sphere. Then two months after that we got invited to a co-worker’s wedding. It was on a weekday and her husband couldn’t go. We sat next to each other and she whispered softly, warmly in my ear, instructing me to count to ten first and then follow her to the restroom. She always referred to that day as our anniversary. To me it was when we first kissed, but who’s the fool: the Romantic or the Realist?

87. You fucked her in the restroom at a wedding or perhaps, she fucked you in the restroom at a wedding. Sounds like bad Spanish TV.

88. And yet, you claim to not judge her for those actions. You really think she will be faithful to you, if she ever leaves her husband and marries you?

89. I’m not saying she wouldn’t cheat, but I feel like it would be harder for her to be unfaithful to me. We like each other. I know she likes me, and the way I love her and I’m there for her.

90. The way you love her? You mean to say the way you let her use you.

91. Look, she doesn’t love her husband. She doesn’t even like him. For a marriage to last, you have to at the very least like the other person. A woman who cheats on the month of her second wedding anniversary doesn’t like her husband. If you like someone, it would be a little hard to cheat. That’s not love.

92. What if she does love him, but she’s just a serial cheater? What if she would have left him for you and all of a sudden you turn into cheated husband #2?

93. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.

94. Do you wanna be miserable like her husband? Didn’t you say that you’re both different sides of the same coin?

95. I don’t want to be miserable. I want it to be like when it felt like there was no one else in the world except us. 

96. But you will more than likely suffer, no? Is that what love is to you? Suffering for someone that will not appreciate you?

97. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want to suffer. I love her. I love her very much. 

98. So you’re going to prove it by suffering? Do you love yourself?

99. I’m not trying to prove anything.

100. I think you want to suffer.