People make the best topics to talk
about. When one of your group has to go home, invariably we all
start talking about him/her once they've left. It's not always
spiteful, it's just what people do. One time, while at work, I looked
at everyone and said: “So, who do we scar up tonight? Who's not
working today? We'll talk about them!”
I do this..YOU do this..we all do.
**
If a new relationship lasts long enough
and I mean beyond the first couple of months, there comes a time when
the guy start to change. He becomes tame.
I listened while a male friend lamented
the loss of one his friends to a girl. “God, he's changed so
much...I miss the old Pauly. He no longer has that 'edge' anymore.”
Girls are elusive. The demands they can
make on you are at first small, slight...almost inconsequential. They
are slowly building a nest and training their new beaus to become
stable Dads. While they do this they also keep other guys on their
fingers in case this one will not work.
There was one epiphany I had many years
ago that alerted me to my quickening descent into pussywhip-dom. I
found myself down in the cellar, ironing a shirt. I never ironed a
shirt in my life unless there was a job interview, wedding or
funeral. If you just hang it up, the wrinkles fall out in time, well,
enough of them.
I then started to think. What else have
I been doing that's not in my personal repertoire? I thought back
and found that I had re-prioritized my friends against a girl I was
smitten with. Blue fishing off of some mud flat in Warren at 2 AM was
quashed so I could be up early enough to spend the day around
Washington county beaches. She shopped the tourist shops and I walked
behind her trying to stifle the boredom. I wondered how much fun
the guys had had the night before and how I was not there.
The big change is in how you dress.
Single guys rank clothing by “it's not too dirty.” That's good
enough. If you can shove a tee shirt into your face, inhale and not
smell reeking sweat, it's still good!
“Here. Put these on...” is what I
was told once at a Nordstroms once. I come out of the changing room
and I look very neat. I was a well kept upper-middle class guy in
khakis and a nice Burberry Poplin shirt with a high thread count. I
stood there like a statue. The stiff demeanor comes from years of
experience with Mom. You are dressed up as a young boy and then
told, with the threat of DEATH, not to “spoil it.” So you stand
there or sit on the couch, hoping not to disturb all the work Mom has
done. The other thought I had was, “Uh-oh...I'm slowly being
absorbed by the blob! I'm being broken in!”
There was a time I put my foot down on
one issue though and that was Pink Floyd. They had been touring the
US in 1994 and were coming to Foxboro and I had tickets. I had told
her a couple of weeks before, that if she wasn't ready to go exactly
at 6PM, I was going to leave her ass there. This must've simmered in
her because I basically told her, “You are worth NOTHING to me that
night and I'll throw “us” into the garbage in an instant when it
come to this.” I could perceive her annoyance with that in her. I
was a huge Floyd fan and how many times do you get to see this band
play? I could see her pretty much any other time.
She was punctual that night though.
“How OLD are these guys? Who's the
guy with the white hair? How come the guitarist is a fat pig? “You
can't dance to this!” Is what she had to say about it.
“Honey...they were part of the first
psychedelic scene from the 60's. Carnaby Street! They came out along
with Beatles's “Revolver,” Beach Boys “Pet Sounds!”
I should've guessed...a girl born in in
1976 wasn't going to know..or I was being made to pay for my
independence..or both.
**
Ok, I guess some
domestication is ok, just some. But the fun in being a male is still
keeping part of that wolf in you. The part that allows you to grow
your beard out for three days and carouse with the pack once in a
while.
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