|
ARCHIVES
|
Divining Men - Part II Posting Date: Aug 26 2007 2:02AM Last Week: We pulled back the curtain and exposed men for the simple creatures they are. This week, we rip the curtain from its little hooky things and throw the whole paisley mess to the ground where we stomp on it as if we were a rampaging pack of angry fiddlers.
Food: Men enjoy food, but only if it is manfood, for manfood takes us back to less complicated times. Our bellies pine for simpler days because men are easily befuddled by the swirling mysteries of our contemporary existence. Since we don’t know if we should hold the door, pay for dinner or stare at red g-string panties when they lift above low-rise jeans, we like to eat Kraft Dinner, baked beans and fried bologna. The act reminds us of childhood, of security, of believing that there was no problem dad could not solve with a trip to the toy store.
But when times get really tough, (like when women get angry at us for doing exactly what they expect us to do or for not being able to read their minds) revisiting childhood isn’t a dramatic enough trip. At our moments of peak confusion, we need to go farrrr back in time to find the simplicity we need. We head for the Middle Ages. Back then, electricity was unreliable and refrigerators sucked. You couldn’t keep a jug of milk from spoiling, so you had to drink beer. It was like a law. Now, men drink beer by choice … and to recapture those glorious days when books weighed seventy pounds and leeches were medical technology.
Finally, when things are truly desperate, like when your daughter dates her first biker or you find yourself at a Jennifer Lopez movie, men need to go back past the Middle Ages, all the way to our Cro-Magnon roots. We need to watch something bleed and burn. If you see a man using his teeth to de-bone a chicken wing or you watch some dude sear a two-inch steak on a barbecue, you knows he’s one confused little puppy, just looking for a gastronomic path back to his comfort zone.
Sports: The first sport of man was hunting. Our first fastball was a rock hurled at a Neanderthal rabbit. Our first golf swing was a rudimentary club flailed at a charging aardvark. In the Twenty-First Century, men aren’t allowed bludgeon aardvarks anymore so we play slo-pitch baseball and ping-pong. It’s a simple evolutionary change sponsored by ESPN and Nike. And since most men would starve to death if they had to trust their physical talents to put snacks on the coffee table, we mostly pass on participating and just watch sports instead. This allows us to live vicariously through the skill of others … and as long as Roger Federer and LeBron James keep their big bank accounts and washboard abs away from our women, we are as happy as simple creatures can be.
Sex: Just like manfood and sports, sex is a trip back in time for men, an escape from the confusion of not getting the promotion or failing to hook up a new computer without the help of the Geek Squad. When we were teenagers and not yet getting any actual sex, we men thought about it all the time. We scoured the Sears catalogue underwear section. We snuck our underage selves into Blue Lagoon at the multiplex. We spent every physics class figuring out how we would remove a bra one-handed … if we ever got the chance.
Now, as befuddled adults, sex is a time machine that takes us back to the first pair of panties we ever pulled down … and, oh boy, suddenly all is right with the world. Take that, Geek Squad.
Whither Man?: Evolutionary determinism dictates that men must evolve or parish, and frankly, I’m concerned for our future, for we men are deeply obsessed with the past. If we do survive, Evolved Man will be a creature much different from the history-bound lunk of today. He will be a skilled apologist, adept at reading and following instruction manuals, with a knack for asking the right question at the right time of the right person. And he will remember the answer.
I am so doomed. |
