If there’s one thing in life that I hate (and we all know that there is a lot more than just one) it’s hangnails.
They piss me off to no end, particularly since they seem to be inevitable.
For a long time I’ve wondered if there would be any value in getting a manicure in order to avoid hangnails.
Today I found out.
As I said, I’ve often wondered, but though there seems to be some sort of nail salon everywhere you look in these parts I’ve been reluctant to try finding out, for what should be fairly obvious reasons.
One day at work Kathleen was talking about getting her nails done, though, and I decided that I would tag along with her the next time she went, and so I went today.
I have to say that it was a weird experience, in particular when she was just chopping away at my cuticles with what looked like some sort of esoteric torture device.
It wasn’t painful, just slightly unnerving as I watched the skin clippings piling up.
I’ve heard some people, including men, talk about how relaxing it is to get a manicure, but while I didn’t find it to be entirely unpleasant, neither did I find it particularly relaxing, even though she did perform some sort of massage on my forearms while the paraffin wax dried on my hands.
I suppose the fact that I’m not entirely comfortable with being touched didn’t really help with the whole relaxation thing.
Overall I’d say it was an interesting experience, but it’s not one I’m likely to repeat often, if ever.
So there’s no danger of me turning into some sort of metrosexual with perfectly manicured fingers or frosted highlights in my hair (other than the “frosted highlights” that age keeps putting there in the form of gray hair).
After we were finished Kathleen and I went to a pizza and sub shop next to the nail place for lunch and she told me about a dream she’d had last night in which she’d gone to a sort of grown-up slumber party that was “just for the girls.”
In the dream, she’d brought me to the party.
I suppose it’s hardly surprising, considering that today we got our nails done together, and that every week we take a cooking class in which I’m (usually) the only male, but even so, it’s a little disheartening.
After all, despite the aforementioned activities, I’m not an especially effeminate person.
Sure, I’m no macho, NASCAR-loving, beer-guzzling redneck, either, but I think that I definitely put forth a masculine energy.
(And for the record, while I’ve never liked NASCAR, or considered myself a redneck, I did spend a good portion of my life guzzling beer. Also, it’s worth noting, that Kathleen said that in the dream all the girls liked me.)
Still, this is hardly anything new, and it’s actually something I’ve had to contend with many times over the years.
As should be apparent, in a lot of respects I tend to stray pretty far from the basic patterns of behavior of the “typical guy.” I hate sports, I tend to be quiet most of the time, I actually listen to people when they talk, and, until I’m fairly comfortable with people at least, I tend to keep my cruder comments to a minimum.
Even in the presence of other males I’m reluctant to engage in much in the way of “locker room” talk, and in general if I have to spend time with anyone, I’d rather hang out with women than with other men.
That being said, I do still have all of the same basic desires as any (straight) male, and when I see an attractive woman I’m just as likely to be thinking nasty, perverse thoughts as the next guy.
But I don’t think that the fact that I might want to do all manner of naughty things to a woman prevents me from still liking and respecting that woman as a human being.
Nor do I think that I need to obnoxiously broadcast the exact nature of the naughty things that I may want to do to that woman for all the world to see and hear.
Essentially I pay attention to what one “brain” is thinking, but I live my life based more on what my actual brain tells me, trying to find a proper balance, though I suppose that I err a little too much on the side of caution, which is why I so often end up stuck in a place known as Friendsville.
Friendsville is an imaginary town populated by guys like me. We’ve essentially been assigned to live there on the orders of the female population of the world.
The population of Friendsville is rather varied. Some of us are there because we’re nice but unattractive, or are simply lacking that “spark” that could lead to something other than friendship, or because our sometimes sexually ambiguous behavior has made it impossible to see us belonging anywhere else.
Years ago when Craig Kilborn was hosting “The Daily Show,” they used to run an ad featuring a female comic (I believe it was Liz Winstead) singing his praises to the women of America. She summed it up by saying that he’s “like your smart, funny guy friend. You know, the one you don’t want to sleep with.”
That describes the population of Friendsville pretty well.
Once you’ve been relocated to Friendsville it’s very difficult to get out, as it tends to be something like a roach motel: guy friends get in, but they don’t get out.
Years ago a (male) friend of mine had a female friend who was having a conversation with someone about guys. In response to her comments (I wasn’t there for the conversation, and if I ever knew exactly what it was about I’ve since forgotten), someone asked her how my friend fit into her view of things. She responded that in her view of things my friend was not a guy.
She went on to explain that she had essentially castrated him mentally, recognizing that he wasn’t female, but refusing to fully accept the notion that he was actually male, as his behavior did not follow the rules of male behavior that she had come to expect.
At the time, being married and therefore not having to concern myself about the consequences of such a thing happening to me, I thought this was funny as hell.
Since that time, having gotten divorced and subsequently mentally “snipped” on numerous occasions, I no longer find it quite so amusing.
In the particular instance of Kathleen, it’s not really a problem, as I have no interest in being anywhere other than Friendsville when it comes to her (she is a married woman after all), and to be perfectly honest I’ve performed an equivalen mental procedure on her that prevents me from really thinking of her as a woman.
Still, it serves as at least a minor irritation to be thought of as almost being “one of the girls,” when you’re not.
I would not be foolish enough to suggest (or to believe) that all women are the same, but they do tend to be remarkably similar in a lot of respects, so when one woman views you as a eunuch, the odds are pretty good that most other women will as well.
This obviously doesn’t help matters much when you’re already running into dozens of other roadblocks on the path to finding true love (or even a one-night stand).
That is, of course, the most obvious problem of living in Friendsville, but there are others.
For example, Friendsvilleans tend to be held to a higher standard of behavior than most other guys.
Because most of the time we don’t behave like the rest of the male population, it suddenly becomes a big deal when we do, which we will from time to time, since, after all, we are men.
The best example of this happened when I was living in Tucson working with two other guys and a girl named Jenny.
After work the four of us had agreed to got to a local strip club. For $25 you could get the dancers to take someone up onto the stage and essentially torture him (or her) for everyone else's amusement. This was typically done to grooms during their bachelor parties, or guys who were having birthdays.
After midnight it was going to be Jenny’s birthday, and a scheme was hatched to pool our money and do this to Jenny because…well, I shouldn’t have to explain why.
In any case, we ultimately decided against doing this simply because we really didn’t know Jenny well enough to know how she’d respond.
While we were at the strip club one of the guys admitted to Jenny what we had been planning and that we’d decided against it. At some point during our time there some random guy got hauled up to be tortured for his birthday. Jenny leaned over to me and, in an amused tone, said “That’s what they were planning to do to me.” I said, “I know; I was in on it.”
The look of amusement faded, and she responded, somewhat angrily, “You knew and didn’t tell me?”
It was funny when it was the other guys doing it, but somehow there were different expectations placed on me.
I’ve run into that kind of thing a lot over the years.
“Friendsville” is, of course, a very clumsy, imperfect metaphor, and it’s essentially the standard complaint of dateless wonders the world over who whine about how women don’t like nice guys.
There’s no disputing that there’s a great deal of validity to that complaint, and obviously I’m just as likely to utter it as the next loser, but honestly there’s little point in carrying on about it.
The only real solution to the problem lies in the hands of the population of Friendsville. We’re the ones who have to change our behaviors if we ever want to escape. It’s not the women of the world who create the giant bubble that drags us back whenever we try to make a break for it (yes, that was a reference to “The Prisoner”). It's us. We do it to ourselves by continuing to not act the way the way women think that guys ought to act.
A lot of Friendsvilleans think that one day they’ll meet that special girl who will appreciate the special qualities they have to offer and will help them get beyond the Friendsville city limits.
I say, “Good luck with that…but don’t hold your breath for too long.”
If you really believe that all you have to do is “be yourself” you’re pretty much an idiot. You have to be who she wants you to be, and if “yourself” were that person, you wouldn’t be stuck in Friendsville, would you?
So, like George on “Seinfeld,” your best bet is probably to think about whatever you would normally do, then do the exact opposite. You’ll probably get a lot further ahead, and be able to reclaim your missing masculinity.
As for me...well, I’m one of those people who complains about being stuck in this dead-end town but does nothing to actually get out.
Why? Well, in part I sort of am that idiot who thinks that continuing to be myself will eventually pay off. And I’m not just talking about someone who will appreciate all of my good “guy friend” qualities and recognize them as good boyfriend qualities.
After all, I may seem like a nice guy, but once you get to really know me you’ll see that I can be as much of an asshole as the next guy, and maybe even more than the next guy, and we all know that chicks dig assholes, so…
Seriously, though, the reality of the situation is that I’m lazy and defeated. As lonely as I may get at times, it just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort it would take to try to do something about it.
Maybe that would change if I were to meet someone who made me want to get out of Friendsville, but given the circumstances of my life I don’t see that happening.
So in the meantime ladies, feel free to mentally snip away and I’ll be sure to send you postcards saying “Greetings From Friendsville.”
Anyway, I didn’t actually mean to go off on that particular rant.
On the topic of not being a typical guy, though, I need to get a haircut soon, and today I got a coupon in the mail for a $7.95 haircut at the place that just opened up across the street.
As that’s just a little more than half as much as I normally pay for a haircut it would seem like quite a bargain, especially since it’s just across the street within easy walking distance.
The problem, though, is that the place is called Sport Clips.
One of the “features” of the place is that they have TVs on playing sports all the time.
It’s supposed to make guys feel more comfortable, but for me it sounds like a nightmare.
Still, a cheap haircut is a cheap haircut, so I may have to overcome my distaste.
Not much else is new or exciting as I start my weekend. As I demonstrated earlier, I’m still having fun playing around with my new monitor.
Speaking of which, I think I’ll make some use of its cool features now and do some drawing.
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