How to Turn Your Tapeworm Into Your New Best Friend

Your tapeworm has been living inside your guts rent-free for months, eating your food, stealing your nutrients, and laying approximately one million eggs a day inside your colon — and you haven’t even offered it a name yet.

Rude.

Sure, doctors will tell you to “immediately seek medical treatment” and “stop eating undercooked pork” and “for the love of God, wash your hands.” But doctors also told people that bloodletting was medicine, so maybe pump the brakes on trusting those guys unconditionally.

The parasite relationship is the most underrated bond in human history. A tapeworm doesn’t judge you, doesn’t borrow money, and has never once sent you a passive-aggressive text at 11 p.m. That’s more than your ex can say.

The First Step Is Acceptance — And Also Admitting It’s Probably Your Fault

Before you can build a meaningful friendship with your tapeworm, you need to understand how it got there in the first place. And yes, it involved something you put in your mouth voluntarily.

A tapeworm doesn’t break into your digestive system. It didn’t pick a lock. You ate your way into this relationship, pal.

Whether it was that sketchy gas station sushi or the “medium-rare” pork chop your uncle insisted was “fine,” you two were brought together by your own terrible decisions. That’s actually a beautiful origin story. Every great friendship starts with a mistake.

Give That Worm a Name Before It Gives Itself One

Naming your tapeworm is the most important thing you will do this year. Yes, more important than your taxes. Your tapeworm is not going anywhere — the IRS might.

Classic names work beautifully here. “Gerald” is a strong choice for a tapeworm because it has the same energy as a coworker who microwaves fish in the break room and feels no remorse. “Linda” works if it’s been stealing more than its fair share, which, again, all of them do.

For the spiritually adventurous, go Latin. Taenia solium is the scientific name for the pork tapeworm, which sounds like either a Harry Potter spell or a name that belongs on a yacht. Either way, your intestinal squatter deserves the dignity of being called something other than “the situation.”

Understanding Your Tapeworm’s Needs (So You Can Resent Them Together)

A fully grown tapeworm can reach 30 feet long inside a single human intestine. Thirty. Feet. That’s longer than a school bus. You are carrying a school bus of worm inside your body and you’ve been calling yourself “a little bloated.”

Your tapeworm eats what you eat, which means every time you have a nice meal, someone is in the back of the restaurant getting the exact same dish for free. Like dining with a startup founder.

It absorbs nutrients directly through its skin, which is somehow even more disgusting to picture than the rest of this. Your tapeworm has never once used its mouth to eat, which gives it better table manners than half the people you’ve dated.

What Your Tapeworm Is Probably Thinking Right Now

Research into tapeworm cognition is limited, mostly because scientists have better things to do. But based on available evidence, Gerald is probably experiencing something close to warm contentment right now.

You are, to Gerald, a luxury resort. Dark, warm, full of food, no natural predators. The only inconvenience is the occasional burp from upstairs, which Gerald has learned to sleep through.

The Communication Barrier Is Real but Not Insurmountable

Your tapeworm cannot speak. Neither could your golden retriever, and you loved that dog like a family member. Lower the bar, open your heart.

Pay attention to the signals. Unusual bloating after a meal means Gerald is really enjoying dinner. Abdominal pain and nausea could mean Gerald is having a rough week. Unexpected weight loss means Gerald has been absolutely crushing it down there and probably needs a vacation.

When you feel that mysterious rumble in the lower depths, that’s not indigestion. That’s Gerald, trying to connect.

Setting Healthy Boundaries With a Creature Living in Your Colon

Every great friendship requires boundaries. Yours is just slightly more medical in nature.

Gerald can have the small intestine. That’s fair, that’s his territory, and frankly the vibe down there is already chaotic so one more tenant doesn’t really change the energy of the room. What Gerald cannot have is your brain. Neurocysticercosis, which is what happens when tapeworm larvae migrate to your skull, is the roommate-from-hell scenario of parasitic relationships. Draw a firm line. No larvae above the neck. Put it in writing if you have to.

Beyond that, Gerald’s territorial instincts are actually pretty reasonable. He’s not trying to ruin your life. He’s just trying to live.

“A tapeworm only eats about 10–20% of your daily caloric intake. Your therapist has taken significantly more from you and still hasn’t fixed anything.”

The Dieting Community Does Not Want You to Know About This

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tapeworm pills were sold as a weight loss product. Real pills. With real tapeworms. Marketed to real people who wanted to be thinner and apparently didn’t place a high value on their gastrointestinal tract.

Women were encouraged to swallow tapeworm eggs in the name of beauty, which puts “I’m trying Ozempic” in a completely different light historically speaking.

The lesson here is not that you should use your tapeworm for weight loss. The lesson is that human beings have always been feral little creatures willing to do absolutely unhinged things for a thinner waist. Gerald is innocent in all of this. Society is the villain.

Fun Activities to Do With Gerald This Weekend

Friendship requires shared experiences. Just because one of you is an invertebrate flatworm with no sensory organs doesn’t mean the activities have to be boring.

• Eat an enormous steak and let Gerald join in. That’s quality time. That’s connection.
• Take a long walk. Gerald has never experienced the outdoors and could use the fresh air, filtered through your body and delivered exclusively as body heat.
• Watch a documentary about parasites together and see who squirms first. Spoiler: it won’t be Gerald, because Gerald has no spine. Literally. That’s a real biological fact and also a devastating personality description.
• Lie on the couch and do nothing. Gerald will do the same, because that is literally all Gerald is capable of. Shared sloth. Peak friendship.

When People Judge Your Relationship

Not everyone will understand the bond between a human and their intestinal parasite. These people are called “doctors,” “gastroenterologists,” and “your mother.”

They will use words like “host” and “infestation” and “please come in for a stool sample immediately.” They will act like what you have isn’t special. They are wrong, but also technically correct, and you should probably listen to them.

Here is the part where this entire bit collapses under the weight of basic public health: tapeworms are treated with antiparasitic medications like praziquantel and albendazole, which are safe, highly effective, and will eliminate Gerald completely within a few doses. This is what you should actually do.

Gerald does not love you. Gerald does not know you exist. Gerald is a worm.

The Breakup: How to Let Gerald Go With Grace and Dignity

Every friendship has a natural endpoint, and yours with Gerald arrived the moment you started symptomatic. Diarrhea, abdominal cramping, visible segments of worm in your stool — these are Gerald’s way of saying “it’s not you, it’s me.” It is, in fact, Gerald. Entirely Gerald.

The medication works fast. Within a couple of days, Gerald will be dissolving in your gut, which sounds brutal but is no more brutal than anything else about this entire scenario.

You may feel a profound emptiness. That emptiness is your small intestine, finally unoccupied for the first time in months. Fill it with fiber and probiotics and the quiet knowledge that you made a friend, said goodbye, and came out the other side a more enlightened human.

And maybe lay off the gas station sushi for a while.

The Deeper Truth About Parasites, Friendship, and Being a Human Person

Humanity shares its body with an estimated 37 trillion microbial organisms at any given moment. You are less a person and more an apartment building with opinions.

Every relationship involves something taking something from someone else. Every friendship is, in some biological sense, a little bit parasitic. Gerald just skipped the social contract entirely and went straight to your jejunum.

There is something oddly liberating about a friend who needs nothing from you except calories and a warm, moist, dark tube to live inside. No emotional labor. No Instagram DMs at midnight. No asking you to help them move.

Just a long, flat, eyeless worm quietly absorbing your lunch and minding its business.

Get the prescription, though. Gerald has to go. But appreciate what you had.