One of the exciting new features you can look forward to here will be the convenience of A Man to answer your questions regarding male behavior. The feature will be called Ask a Man, and written by my friend Romeo, who is not only male but has served in our armed forces, drives a truck and currently brandishes a forbidding mohawk.
Romeo has always shown a willingness, however reluctant, to answer all my questions and now he will answer yours, too.
Here are the ones that bother me most, or let’s just say they mystify me the most:
When two men greet each other with a handshake, how do they know which kind of handshake to use? If it’s the fist on top of fist, how do they know whose fist goes on top? How do they know whether it’s going to be just an ordinary handshake or a special Bro Shake? What is the signal?
My second question is, why are men so fucking touchy? They can’t take any direct criticism, obviously, but anything that might remotely be construed as some kind of criticism makes them get testy. While they love to open sentences with “You ought to try…” or “Why do you always…” it is strictly verboten to address a man like that unless you want him to snap at you or sulk for an hour. Why are they so thin-skinned??
While I await Romeo’s lucid explanation of these mysteries, feel free to submit your own question for him in the comments. I am looking at this coming Friday as the launch date for Ask a Man.
How do I make it sound less like nagging and more like reminding?
How do I get my boyfriend to clean a little? I’m a realist and I know he’s never going to seriously clean something but he works half the hours I do and I’m sick of being a bitch around the house.
How do men know from an early age to call each other “man” even to men they dont know. Why isn’t it annoying? If some one called me woman all the time, i would get annoyed.
I will have lots and lots of questions for Romeo.
Right now the first and most obvious one that springs so readily to mind is, Why are men such fuckwits? Why can’t they be more like the rest of us?
Another one that occurs is, Why are so many men homophobes?
Why do they feel so threatened by gay men?
OK Romeo, roll your sleeves up and go to work.
i would reiterate your question– why are they so hypersensitive to criticism?
Why are poop jokes so funny to you but the mere idea of menstruation makes you flee like wimpy little pansies?
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Oh! I’ve just remembered, Rex Harrison already asked that one.
I’m with Sam – I want that assertive edge but equally how have I ended up being the person to have to say things! Why do men sort of make wives feel like they are mothers to them?!
David, it’s the other way around.
Everybody knows women are by far the superior beings so men have to become more like women.
Then things will be better.
If you men can’t manage that, then we will just have to eliminate you altogether.
I don’t think we really need you any more.
Comment on that, Romeo!
Well, men should aspire to become more like women, but can they really? As one Polish saying goes,” you should not expect pears from a willow”…
Make Do Style, a friend of mine says that her husband borrows her brain and she want him to stop; he also calls her “Mother”, as in “Mother, what’s for dinner today?”. I think it’s a horrible habit.
I would like to know why a guy who can navigate his way through a continent without GPS can’t find anything in his own kitchen, despite cooking several meals in the said kitchen. Any theories, Romeo?
“Is it a coincidence that women live longer because they’re fortunate to live with men.. while men seek that peaceful long dirt nap sooner?”
Romeo, would you agree that you should never trust a man with a mustache and no beard, nor a man with a mustache but no beard?
I’d like to know why men misplace things so often. And why, once an item has been misplaced, they’ll search for it for all of 30 seconds before freaking out and declaring it lost or stolen?
Wait, what? This Friday? You ought to try checking with me first rather than just throwing me under the bus like that. Maybe I’ll be done seething with impotent rage by Friday, but I’ll probably be too busy taking it out on wild boars.
Also, I’m pretty sure the “special Bro Shake” doesn’t take place when a couple of buds greet each other but at the urinals of very select fraternities.
…nor a man with a mustache and a beard, nor a clean-shaven man?
It is offical, I should not be allowed near the computer after multiple glasses of red wine
What I was trying to say is this,
Do you agree that a man with a mustache and no beard should not be trusted, nor should a man with a beard and no mustache?
Braindance, I totally knew what you meant!
And I second Sam’s question.
Well, it’s Friday here.
Let’s go, Romeo.