Presto Change-O

Men can often come off as emotional black-holes. This has been the case in our culture for a long time now. Everyone knows that the guys always just want the quick hook up and that the girls always get attached, right? This notion is such bullshit that I have decided to blow the lid off of our whole cover. Here it is: Every man out there is a giant pussy. I don't care who you are or what you have been through; if you have balls, you are a pussy. The thing is, it takes a very specific set of circumstances to bring this fact to light. Guys, just to keep things in perspective; if you picture her fucking someone else and it bothers you, she's already making a baby out of you.

For most people, there is nothing wrong with that feeling. This is how a real relationship usually starts. It doesn't start on the first date or the first time a couple has sex. It doesn't start the first time you get jealous or have a stupid fight. Just because a couple has come to terms with the fact that they are not allowed to fuck other people, it doesn't mean that there is trust on either end. A real relationship starts when being vulnerable feels good. Most relationships don't reach that point due to the fact that most couples spend the majority of their time bullshitting each other and thinking of ways to cope if the other should do something fucked up. Most relationships are like a tandem magic show. Each magician flourishes and deceives the other into believing the legitimacy of each illusion. Most couples break up at a point well before the smoke and mirrors have been cleared and packed away. Others break up after someone glimpses the wire attached to the levitating assistant. Still others stay together after the show to become bored with their off-stage counterparts. Through all of this, real trust is seldom forged.

I have personally reached a point in my life at which vulnerability never fully feels good, and that fact has played a part in turning me into the callous asshole you have been coming to know over the past months. I am not the only one, though. This has happened to countless people and there are new recruits every day. These people have not been purged of emotion or vulnerability; they just keep it so guarded that most will never see it in its full manifestation. It seems that men are quicker to reach this point and become able to compartmentalize the things they want from people. This does not make us less emotionally vulnerable or complex than women; it only makes us harder to reach. Women, just know this: Once you strike a nerve, we can become blubbering pansies as quickly as you can become jealous of a hot waitress with awesome tits.

As an example to prove my angle on this whole thing I want you to envision this scenario: We have a couple (for the sake of this exercise we'll assume it's a guy/girl couple). The guy has a pretty bad cold. We men have a reputation for being total babies when we're sick, but that's not completely true. I'm about to blow up another of our trade secrets. A single sick dude will plow through the day as if he doesn't even know that he feels any different. He will go to work, then come home and play video games and eat some shitty food and then jerk off and go to sleep and then do it all again the next day. The guy with the girlfriend approaches the scenario very differently. A sick dude with a girlfriend becomes a soccer player in the last seconds of a game who gets tripped in the box and needs to draw a card for any chance of tying. With no formal training in drama or theater, a man with a cold can make his girlfriend believe that she could lose him forever to the next embellished sneezing fit. I know this because I am a man and I am no less guilty of this than anyone else. But don't get mad at us for this. While it seems like it's just a ploy for attention, what it really is is a ploy for attention and affection. The cold is the perfect excuse for a guy to stop being macho and let you stroke his head until he falls asleep on your chest like the squishy little baby he really is. Women never need to employ this tactic due to the fact that they are consistently open about their need for affection.

The fact is that some of us, male and female, have done a great job of burying these desires under layers of doubt, distrust, and overall apathy. Some of us have buried this stuff so deep that it would take an oil drill and a pumpjack to extract it. Having things tucked so snugly away can be at the same time empowering and depressing. It's nice to be able to snap your fingers and almost magically stop giving a shit about something, but sometimes such emotional solitude brings dark thoughts. It doesn't take away from one's empathy the way you might think, but it does occasionally stymie one's natural inclination for self-preservation. For this reason, I think it's of paramount importance to try to understand how your own mind works; otherwise you invariably develop self destructive behaviors and habits. I'll stop that train of thought just because I don't want this post to turn into a "How to be an Asshole" clinic.

This whole post stemmed from a conversation I had yesterday. I realized during that conversation that despite the wealth of experience and knowledge we have of how people really work, we still fall back on the old stand-up comedy versions of how men and women work. I'm not a psychologist or a human behavioral expert by any means; I'm just going on my appraisal of what I have seen in people thus far. I think that the reason we accept these simplified synopses of our emotional standings is that it is just easier than actually trying to figure ourselves and each other out.

Up and At 'Em

I've been considering my last post and I think I have an idea as to the reason why so many people seem to feel the need to get hitched and knocked up so early on in their lives. The fairy-tale perception of these things starts to wear thin with age. The idea of a wedding in the minds of a 13-year-old girl and a 33-year-old woman are very different. For starters, the one in the mind of the 33-year-old probably doesn't involve Disney characters or even a chariot; and the one in the mind of the 13-year-old most likely doesn't entertain the notion of a possible divorce years into the marriage. As people get older, their expectations from everything in life start to lose grandeur. Potential rock stars become waiters who play bar gigs; potential movie stars become telemarketers who criticize actors; potential professional athletes become retail managers who wake up each day cursing a strained meniscus from junior year; potential doctors and lawyers become big fans of House and Law and Order...

The race to find romance at some point becomes a race against apathy as well. Sometimes if you stop and pay attention you can feel yourself becoming more indifferent with the passage of time. It seems like sometimes the urgency many people feel exists because they want to find love before they stop caring to find it or stop believing in it altogether; so they date. Many spend years doing it. I'm not sure what is worse for one's "love morale"; a string of bad dating experiences or a lack of dating at all. I suppose that all depends on how bad those experiences are. As someone who doesn't "date" in the traditional sense of the word, I can't really cite personal examples of bad dating experiences. I guess I'd have even more to write about if I threw myself into the world of dating but my masochistic tendencies only go so far; and publicly making fun of a string of anonymous girls week after week would eventually get old... Right?

I don't think I'm going to do that, although I always thought it might be fun to hit one of those speed-dating gatherings just to get a chance to look desperation square in the face over and over again for five minutes at a time, but what does someone like me talk about on a speed date? I feel like each conversation would be an intervention in which I inadvertently cock-block the guy behind me by making the girl feel like he is chomping at the bit to jump into my seat and waste her time, just like I'm doing. The difference would be that I wouldn't be lying to her and he most likely would be. I feel like the only honest opening line you could use on a speed date would be; "Hello, I haven't fucked in a while and you probably haven't either. We're both running out of options; do I look like someone you could fuck?" Either that or; "I have kids and my ex is in jail. Is that okay?"

I digress. Back to the point...

On top of jading us to the wonders of romance, time also makes many of us want children. The fact that most things become less exciting as we grow older probably fuels this perceived need. For most parents, milestones in the life of an offspring become the biggest and most cherished moments in their lives. This new-found enthusiasm can serve as a boost to the psyche. Excitement is probably the most effective nullifier of depression that I have found; and what is more exciting for a parent than to see a child's first steps, hear the child's first words, or any part of the plethora of milestones in human development? I sometimes wonder if there is a certain amount of selfishness in raising a good kid... There has to be; and as I sit here pondering that topic I'm realizing that I should probably just dedicate a whole post to it at some point.

At this point in my life I am fairly certain that I don't want children, although I would love a nephew or niece. I'd be a fucking awesome uncle, and I have no problem proclaiming that to the world. The only thing that has stopped me from getting the old "snip snip" is the nagging possibility that I might eventually reach that point at which the only thing that will fulfill me is to see a little half-me climbing the ladder of human growth the way I once did (which actually implies that the little shit would spend his life underachieving and pissing away his talents), so maybe not exactly the way I have done it so far. That couples with the fact that I'm not sure the doc would take too kindly to snipping someone under the age of thirty. I feel like a vasectomy would be an emotional age accelerator. Knowing that my loads had no potential for procreation would be somehow detrimental to my self esteem, I think. I'm also not sure that the perception of a guy in his mid-twenties with a vasectomy would be a good one. So for now I guess my junk stays intact. That's right ladies, I can knock you up. ;)

I guess that a lot of this all comes down to fact that we are all trying to find something to live for. Most people are looking for fulfillment in other people, others have given up on that and turned to more reliable things - generally mood-altering in nature - while still others have given up even on that and checked-out early. Then there are the diamonds in the rough; the happily married with children. To those people I say "congratulations" and I hope that things never change in your world. To the rest of us: you woke up today. Stop bitching.