It is very well possible that the entire purpose of family life is to destroy male friendships. Male friendships are just too much fun, there’s often very little baggage attached to them. Women are jealous, they’ve conspired over the years to create this value system that causes male friendships to be slowly but surely destroyed between first date and the man’s retirement (at retirement men are allowed to have friends again because their wives are sick of them and want them out of their fucking house).
All men understand as early as high school that their girlfriends are going to nudge out the guyfriends. Women are unfortunately trained by the culture that this is a good and necessary thing. I mean, compare the number of romantic comedies out there that are based upon the premise of the women getting the guy away from his ape-like friends and getting him to grow up to those painting the woman as the bad influence. It’s pretty much all of romantic comedydum vs. Saving Silverman. Of course, girlfriends having to come up with ways to nudge out the guyfriends is 50% of the reason high school boys get laid, so complaining about this impulse, even in retrospect, feels ungrateful. So we live with it.
What many men don’t realize, though, is how their own children will conspire with their wives in this way to destroy their male friendships.
Take sporting events. You may have, like many men before you, had a general rule about getting to sporting events like baseball or football games on time, paying attention to the action while there and staying until their very end, regardless of the score. You may have even actively mocked the “Dodgeresque” fans that arrived in the 3rd inning, or those that never sat back down after the 7th inning stretch in order to “beat traffic.”
When you bring kids to the game, all these, and many other, rules are out the window. Instead, you get there when you can. You must stop watching the game for multiple bathroom breaks and cotton candy breaks. Be ready to pay attention to about a third of the game. Half if you’re lucky. And that’s for the innings that you’re actually there for.
Because at some point in the game, the whining of the kids will commence. The first whine signals the 15-20 minute warning (10 if your child is particularly skillful; 5 for the ADD set). Whining kids effect men’s ears differently. We aren’t attuned to it and it causes immediate pain. Other people’s whining kids are doubly damaging (remember, men are supposed to hate other people’s kids). In this situation, the first thing that will happen is, in an effort to stop the whining, the whinerfather will focus inwardly on his kids for about one minute. This will end the whining temporarily, but one father will inevitably begin telling a story to the other (and 2 ½ hours into a game, it probably isn’t one of the guy’s best stories or it wouldn’t have been saved for the 7th inning, and, really, if it is a story told by a father who has as little of a life as you have, how good can the story really be anyway? (see how I’m rationalizing … my wife has already won ... she won YEARS ago)), and the child will start whining over the story, and the father will realize “I like this guy, but I’m now straining and pretending this squirming creature isn't making these awful noises for the purpose of hearing a barely average story. This just ain’t fun any more.” The first time this happens, you'll stay until the end as a matter of principle anyway. The second time, the "no leaving early" rule goes out the window.
Getting carryout is another area of shifting guy rules. Inevitably you will end up at your new “family friends’ house” (because you were smart enough not to go out for dinner) and you will order pizza or Chinese food or something and a crucial time will arise. It will be the Time To Go Pickup the Carryout Order. You may not have known, but this is a very important time. Indeed, a new guy rule that you have to learn is “all of the fathers go together to pick up the food” (corollary: unless there is a very good sporting event on: then one guy’s job is to prepare a one minute summary of the action on the field that the other guy misses).
This rule has two purposes. The first is that a group of fathers’ goals when at each others houses is to get as far away from the kids as possible. This is why fathers say “come see my new tools in the basement.” They don’t give a damn about the tools. They just know that no wives or children want to hang out in a dark, damp stank basement, so no one will follow them down there.
But the second reason for the “everyone in the car to get carryout” rule is because men in family friend situations know that they have to try to pay more than their fair share of the bill and at minimum must pay their fair share. As a male, once you are married, whether or not you get into heaven mostly depends upon whether you’ve tried to overpay group carryout bills enough. It’s in Corinthians somewhere. And all men know that if one or two guys pick up the food by themselves, you create an unequal bargaining position. It’s like the other guys will have snuck missiles into your personal Cuba. They’ll never let you know how much the tab really was. And then you will have to use non-guy-approved payment methods, like giving the money to the wife, which is pretty much a concession that you're a loser, or, even worse, hiding money under books or napkins or shit nice that. If you’re doing such wimpy things like this, you might as well just stick the cash down the other guy’s pants. And then your wife will want to know why you didn’t pay your fair share, and the next time you see the other guy he’ll give you the “I bought your wife dinner last time” look, which is really kind of like him making out with her if you think about it. So you pretty much have to get into that carryout pickup car
All men understand as early as high school that their girlfriends are going to nudge out the guyfriends. Women are unfortunately trained by the culture that this is a good and necessary thing. I mean, compare the number of romantic comedies out there that are based upon the premise of the women getting the guy away from his ape-like friends and getting him to grow up to those painting the woman as the bad influence. It’s pretty much all of romantic comedydum vs. Saving Silverman. Of course, girlfriends having to come up with ways to nudge out the guyfriends is 50% of the reason high school boys get laid, so complaining about this impulse, even in retrospect, feels ungrateful. So we live with it.
What many men don’t realize, though, is how their own children will conspire with their wives in this way to destroy their male friendships.
Take sporting events. You may have, like many men before you, had a general rule about getting to sporting events like baseball or football games on time, paying attention to the action while there and staying until their very end, regardless of the score. You may have even actively mocked the “Dodgeresque” fans that arrived in the 3rd inning, or those that never sat back down after the 7th inning stretch in order to “beat traffic.”
When you bring kids to the game, all these, and many other, rules are out the window. Instead, you get there when you can. You must stop watching the game for multiple bathroom breaks and cotton candy breaks. Be ready to pay attention to about a third of the game. Half if you’re lucky. And that’s for the innings that you’re actually there for.
Because at some point in the game, the whining of the kids will commence. The first whine signals the 15-20 minute warning (10 if your child is particularly skillful; 5 for the ADD set). Whining kids effect men’s ears differently. We aren’t attuned to it and it causes immediate pain. Other people’s whining kids are doubly damaging (remember, men are supposed to hate other people’s kids). In this situation, the first thing that will happen is, in an effort to stop the whining, the whinerfather will focus inwardly on his kids for about one minute. This will end the whining temporarily, but one father will inevitably begin telling a story to the other (and 2 ½ hours into a game, it probably isn’t one of the guy’s best stories or it wouldn’t have been saved for the 7th inning, and, really, if it is a story told by a father who has as little of a life as you have, how good can the story really be anyway? (see how I’m rationalizing … my wife has already won ... she won YEARS ago)), and the child will start whining over the story, and the father will realize “I like this guy, but I’m now straining and pretending this squirming creature isn't making these awful noises for the purpose of hearing a barely average story. This just ain’t fun any more.” The first time this happens, you'll stay until the end as a matter of principle anyway. The second time, the "no leaving early" rule goes out the window.
Getting carryout is another area of shifting guy rules. Inevitably you will end up at your new “family friends’ house” (because you were smart enough not to go out for dinner) and you will order pizza or Chinese food or something and a crucial time will arise. It will be the Time To Go Pickup the Carryout Order. You may not have known, but this is a very important time. Indeed, a new guy rule that you have to learn is “all of the fathers go together to pick up the food” (corollary: unless there is a very good sporting event on: then one guy’s job is to prepare a one minute summary of the action on the field that the other guy misses).
This rule has two purposes. The first is that a group of fathers’ goals when at each others houses is to get as far away from the kids as possible. This is why fathers say “come see my new tools in the basement.” They don’t give a damn about the tools. They just know that no wives or children want to hang out in a dark, damp stank basement, so no one will follow them down there.
But the second reason for the “everyone in the car to get carryout” rule is because men in family friend situations know that they have to try to pay more than their fair share of the bill and at minimum must pay their fair share. As a male, once you are married, whether or not you get into heaven mostly depends upon whether you’ve tried to overpay group carryout bills enough. It’s in Corinthians somewhere. And all men know that if one or two guys pick up the food by themselves, you create an unequal bargaining position. It’s like the other guys will have snuck missiles into your personal Cuba. They’ll never let you know how much the tab really was. And then you will have to use non-guy-approved payment methods, like giving the money to the wife, which is pretty much a concession that you're a loser, or, even worse, hiding money under books or napkins or shit nice that. If you’re doing such wimpy things like this, you might as well just stick the cash down the other guy’s pants. And then your wife will want to know why you didn’t pay your fair share, and the next time you see the other guy he’ll give you the “I bought your wife dinner last time” look, which is really kind of like him making out with her if you think about it. So you pretty much have to get into that carryout pickup car
(although for the big sporting event exception, a male truce is implied and cannot be broken; the guy that is the less intense fan has to go get the food; ties mean that the host father gets in the car).
2 comments:
The other reason for going on the carryout run - drinks.
This trick doesn't work with pizza joints because for whatever reason, most don't have a bar. Other places, though, are equipped.
I employ a couple of tricks for this --
Order the food and immediately get in the car to go and get the food. You'll have a good 10 to 15 minutes at the restaurant which is enough time to drink a beer and watch a few plays of whatever game is on.
Screw the call altogether and just get in the car. You can order there and this gives you yet more time. You might get two beers this way and more time away.
Pretend to call and do the above. This involves more peril since lying is involved. You'll feel bad, so reserve this for extreme get-me-away-from-these-f***ing-kids emergencies.
As an ancillary bonus, you might be introducing this trick to a new guy friend. He'll be impressed. Just be sure he's not one of those guys who feels the need to flip you to keep in good stead with his wife.
holy shit the above is brilliant.
i'm a little embarassed that i've never even thought of this.
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