10 Signs You’re Dating a Baby

1. He Has Fat Little Hands

Whenever you try to hold his hand, he instead wraps his chubby fingers around one index finger. And that’s only if he exerts effort. Mostly, he gropes drunkenly for your hand and then clutches your gold bracelet with the intense, focused gaze of a serial killer. NOT CUTE! His hands look like a morbidly obese person’s hands, only ten times smaller and always grasping Gollum-like for small shiny objects. What a little gold digger.

2. He’s Easily Distracted

You spend four hours getting dressed up, applying makeup, and blow drying your hair; and when you arrive at his apartment, he’s more interested in the ceiling fan and some polka dotted curtains fluttering in the breeze. EUGH! You yearn for some acknowledgment that you’re special to him, that he thinks you’re beautiful, but you’re about as engaging to him as the ladybug crawling across his pacifier.

3. You Carry Him Everywhere

Not only does he not own a car, he’s not even bipedal, meaning you literally carry him everywhere in your arms like a sack of potatoes. And he always needs a ride somewhere: Gymboree, the pediatrician, or some goddamn puppet show. Sometimes you get exhausted, and you want to be the one carried around, but no; he’s the only one who gets to be carried. It’s like, come on, grow the hell up, baby. You’re being a baby.

4. He Laughs At Everything You Say

You always knew you were witty, but he thinks you’re the most hilarious person he’s ever encountered. At first, you’re like, “Oh, stop! I’m not that funny!” Then he giggles hysterically when you return from the bathroom, and you’re like, “Bet you thought I was gone forever, haha!” (He did. He doesn’t understand object permanence yet.) Then he’s laughing at a yawn, at you dropping your fork, at you blinking—shrieking, uproarious laughter. And you’re like, “Are you patronizing me, baby? I guess I’m just a big joke to you, huh? Is that all this relationship is? A giant, hilarious joke?”

5. He’s Always Passing Out

While you sleep a perfectly reasonable eight hours a night, he’s so indolent, he requires 16 hours of intermittent sleep throughout the day and night. You’ll be out with friends, and he’ll drop off to sleep in the middle of a conversation. OMG, so embarrassing! And this is in addition to being perpetually unemployed because, according to him, he “blubby patub blooo.” Whatever that means.

6. He Cries At Almost Anything

Sure, you’ve dated guys who cried easily. There was the guy who cried at the end of Wreck-It-Ralph, and the guy who cried at videos of kittens sleeping on dogs. This one, though, cries if you leave the room, if you enter the room, if a police siren goes by outside, if he sees a squirrel, if he knocks over a cup, or if anyone wearing a hat looks at him. Sometimes he cries for six hours for no reason at all, and then you almost “break up with him” in the creek behind your house.

7. He Never Dresses Up

No matter how upscale the restaurant or formal the event, he will not dress up. You beg and plead—“It’s my grandmother’s funeral! Please put on the suit!”—but he only fumbles mockingly at the blazer, braces his legs against the wall, and flips over backward onto his belly. Even if you dress up in a fancy dress, he shows up in his customary diaper and no shirt. Frankly, it’s repulsive and disrespectful.

8. He’s Always Broke

When you go out to a restaurant, you always end up paying because A) he doesn’t know what money is and B) diapers don’t have pockets. The same excuses every time, and yet you always forgive him because it’s part of his charm: his naiveté, his minimalist approach to life. Still, you wish he would get his life together, so this relationship might feel more symbiotic and less parasitic.

9. Your Friends Constantly Gossip About Your Relationship

Ever since you started dating him, your friends can’t stop discussing your relationship in hushed, horrified tones. “Where did she get that baby?” you hear one friend say. “Wait, are they—are they dating? What? Because that is not okay at all,” you hear another say. Of course, you understand their jealousy, but you wish just this once they could be happy for you instead of calling the police.

10. He Swallowed A Battery

He did what? OH MY GOD, CALL POISON CONTROL IMMEDIATELY! BATTERIES LEAK CAUSTIC ALKALI THAT COULD CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO HIS STOMACH AND INTESTINAL LINING, YOU STUPID, STUPID LADY! JESUS CHRIST, HOW COULD YOU BE SO IRRESPONSIBLE AS TO LEAVE OUT AAA BATTERIES WHERE A BABY CAN GRAB HOLD OF THEM? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU ARE A VERY BAD GIRLFRIEND!