Dear Lucas: Recently, I started dating again, and I think I found someone who could be “the one.” We like all the same stuff: dogs, hiking, beer, etc. But there’s only one problem: She likes to play-bite me seemingly at random around the house. I keep telling her to stop, but she thinks it’s funny and keeps doing it. It doesn’t really hurt; it just surprises me and gets quite annoying sometimes.
Dear Reader: Aww, aren’t you two so perfect. You two just love each other so much it’s overwhelming sometimes.
BARF!
Unrelated, but I must ask. Does she bring you spherical objects at random? Try to sniff you in weird places? I ask these things because you said she likes dogs. Are you sure she’s not a dog trapped in a human’s body?
If so, she’s probably play-biting because she wants your attention.
One option is to give her a very soft stiff-arm when she goes in for the bite. You have to time this up correctly. If you stiff-arm too early, she can parry and bite your forearm, or just pass the arm entirely and go straight for the body. Too late, and you’re already in the chomp zone.
Again, be gentle. The goal is not to physically shove her head away but to block her so her teeth are biting at the air like one of the chain-chomps from the Mario games.
If she’s too quick or too sneaky for your stiff-arm, you could always try chucking some tennis balls around the house to see if she will chase them.
If she’s not a dog trapped in a human’s body, this will probably insult her. So, if you’re unsure, you’re going to have to get your own annoying habit you can leverage against her to stop the biting.
“Oh, you don’t like when I cover myself in bubble wrap and roll around on the floor while you’re trying to watch TV? Maybe if you weren’t biting me so much, I wouldn’t have to wear all this armor.”
After this goes on for a few days, she’ll come to the table to negotiate.
You can call it “bitecoin,” meaning every day she gets one bite. Once she uses her token for the day, any additional bites are a violation of the peace treaty. Similarly, you get one “12-by-12” sheet of bubble wrap per day.
Of course, the bubble wrap means nothing to you. It never did. It was a negotiating tool to stop the biting. This, of course, assumes she is a human trapped in a human’s body and not secretly a dog. If it’s the latter, you may want to invest in some tennis balls.
Previous questions
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Look at this handsome fella. His name is Lucas and he will be writing more columns like this, despite common sense saying this should stop while he’s ahead. If you want to send hate mail or, for some reason, ask for his advice, please send an email to [email protected] .
