I just wanted to say I like you, Men. I really like you.
It’s become commonplace that a woman can’t shell out a feminist high-five without kicking a man in the pants. It’s believed that one can’t take proper pride in her gender without hate-shaming the opposing team. See? I just said “opposing team”. Proof that dealings between ladies and lads are increasingly hostile. Well,consider this a peace-offering. For while I love that we girls have pretty hair and voting rights and boobs that can feed people, I see the good in you guys,too.
Beards, innate knowledge of car repair, funny party tricks involving bodily functions: You contribute a lot, mister. Sure, there are a few rotten beer bottles in the bunch. Men will always have to claim Hitler and Charlie Sheen. But you’re also in a club with Jesus and Bob Saget. Women will never be able to boot
Ke$ha from our roster. Low points of humanity can’t be helped. So here are some reasons I believe in you, bro.
You eat like you mean it. Dinner with the girlfriends sounds deceptively appetizing. However, many an outing we wreck a waiter’s night as he takes the slow, exhausting trek around our party of 20. No bread. No mayo. Saute but DO. NOT. FRY. Lettuce shredded on the right side. Wait. Nevermind. Whole Iceberg leaves delicately fanned across the left side. Extra Lemon. I’m detox-ing. Do you sell Diet Appletini? Scratch that. Thirty excruciating minutes later, his order book just reads “Water. Small bowl of carrots“. He would like to quit his job as much as we would like to eat more than infant birds from famine country. Women tend to view food as villain, dangling treats above our heads like a doughy, delicious devil. This is a generalization, of course. Many of us will eat “like a man” occasionally, but every woman, in some small corner of her mind equates food with negativity.
Meals with men, mostly, feel like a festive feast. You think of what tastes good, wash it down with a beer you didn’t enter into a calorie counter. You eat three plates past when you are full because – zippers be damned!-you’re celebrating life in this here corner booth!
You do friendship right. I’m not speaking to one of my dearest friends right now because she hasn’t called me in weeks and I’m not calling her because this was totally a friendship test. I just want to know she cares as much as I care, so I dumped her.
As much as gals fight for our rights against hindering laws and ridicule, impossible body image and men who have jobs we want and paychecks we deserve, we can be mighty vicious to one another. Navigating female friendships is akin to break dancing across minefields.One wrong look, one wrong side taken, one too-honest bit of honesty shared and wait for the boom. Not you, sirs. A bro is a bro, and you take your brotherhood seriously by not taking every other thing so seriously.
I marvel at a group of boys I hung out with in high school. They mocked and pranked each other relentlessly. As one made fun of the other’s acne, the other cracked jokes about someone’s mom. The only girl in the room, I’d cringe, wait for fists to fly, because I was envisioning this same conversation happening at the cheer leading team’s slumber party: tears, tears, tears, and somebody’s gettin’ her weave yanked. I admire your simple relationships, the basic way you can call or not call, hang out everyday or see a bud once in a blue moon, taunt one another ten minutes after sharing some deeply personal struggle, root for different football teams and still manage never to misinterpret who that person is to you: friend.
You admit defeat first, figure out what the war’s about later. Most men are completely comfortable with apologizing. So comfortable, in fact, that you readily accept blame before you know what’s happening. Case in point: I’m on my period. It happens every month (rude!), and the only time I get a break from it is if I commit to baking a whole person in my innards for close to a year. You tolerate our tampon trash, our mood swings, but what you cannot possibly know is that we are mostly furious with you because you do not and cannot experience womanhood. My husband comes home when I’m menstruating, a testament to his devotion. I am irked. The way he takes the trash out is wrong. He’s breathing too much. It makes perfect sense to me to be angry
at him. I’d like company in this misery, and there you guys are all womb-less with your perfectly low-maintenance wieners. In reality, no one’s ever been mad at me for having a vagina, but you men- standing by us through
pregnancies, the messier miracles of womanhood- are left to accept that you can’t understand or remedy the madness. So you stare at your pants remorsefully, shrug, “Um.Sorry?”.
You are slow to boil, quick to joy. My husband comes home from work. His day consists demanding people, impossible deadlines. It is no small wonder that he isn’t a serial killer. An extra load of laundry, sad blog stats, and frizzy hair is enough to push me so deep down in a funk I might never get out. But there he is, happily eating the dinner I was secretly pissed to prepare. A few minutes of playing with our son, some comfortable sweatpants, and he seems fixed. This is the miracle of your manhood, boys, this quick recovery.
Where as I might need a manicure, a nap, a new outfit, a lengthy apology, the blood of two freshly sacrificed cats to overcome such disastrous days, dudes can achieve bliss without the fuss. Sports on the TV, a sip of whiskey, and you’re so cured you’ve forgotten anything ever ailed you.
I’m currently raising a
small man, and he shows me that this easy happiness is as natural to him as vertical peeing. There is no glitter, no primp. There is no transference of grudges, lingering moods , just a tiny hombre who’s content to play with a cardboard box. And for this alone, my wallet and I thank God for guys.
Don’t get me wrong. There are many things to love about women. I’m one, and it’s wonderful. What other majestic creatures can walk in high heels, smell like flowers, and maintain brilliant minds attune to nurture the world’s political and personal needs? At the end of the day, women are the magic machines that got you here with some breath and a push, son. This isn’t your fault. You’re great in your own right. So go forth, menfolk, and for every small or imaginary misstep we are prepared to scold your people for, remember Bob Saget, remember this post. Take pride that you’re a dude, by god, and that’s not entirely awful.
But in all seriousness would it actually kill you to put the toilet seat down,
Tori
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
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I remember when you wrote this. It was pee on the toilet seat funny the first time.
Except, of course, I put the seat down. 😉
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I like your manners, girl. As long as the seat’s down a little piddle is just fine 🙂
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Wow. That was an epic post, very worthy of Pressing. Or Pegging. But yeah, notice should have been taken of that one. And I heartily agree with all of those points. I am raising 2 men myself, so I see these things as well. Especially since my hubs is the most laid back, yet overly stressed at work, person I’ve ever met. How does he DO that? And the kids are just like him, thank bejeesus!
Well done, Tori!
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Sometimes my son gets incredibly pissy and impossible to please. Tom just looks at me like, “Well? He gets it from you”.
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Thanks for throwing this FreshlyPressed-less blogger a bone, Peg. Fingers crossed I won’t scare your sweet readers away!
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You and your particular brand of crazy are all kinds of welcome over here, Tori. Thanks for letting me use your great writing to give the place a shot in the arm. I’m delighted to have you!
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Remarkably well done. It should be more than FP’d – it should be inscribed on the walls of women’s restrooms everywhere. Love it!
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Just not with my phone number. A friend thought that would be a great prank in high school. I still get creepy calls asking for creepier services from the creepiest public pee-ers.
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Oh, Tori, you’ve pretty much nailed it. I grew up surrounded by brothers and yes, they are pretty damn lucky to be men. My husband does the same thing–he comes home, takes off his pants, plops down on the couch, eats three hamburgers, watches Hard Core Pawn and is happy as a pig in shit. It amazes me. Great post, and definitely worthy of FP!
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Ooh! Sweet banner there, Pego!
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It was clever, wasn’t it? That was specifically crafted for my “To Smile or Not To Smile” post. We are now back to our regularly scheduled, Freshly Pegged header.
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It’s hard being so darn delicate (read: fickle). I can be perfectly happy until someone looks at me sideways, a dog barks, or the wind blows. It’s Mood Roulet.
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I have a son and two daughters. Now, right now, the oldest is a tomboy whose good friends are boys and who plays football. She even seems to get thru her period easily. My youngest is a drama queen who started her period by 5th grade. The oldest two are MUCH easier to raise!
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A 5th grade period! Sounds like a fussy nightmare! My husband still gets a little scared when he notices tampons in the bathroom. He knows terror’s on its way 🙂
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Actually, my husband is pretty laid-back, so he takes it in stride. My son, however can be OCD and gets hyper if he sees anything lying around. Of course, even though he loves her dearly (and secretly!), he picks on baby sister, so even if she didn’t leave any evidence, he’d find something to complain about that she may or may not have done!
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Why should we have to put the toilet seat down? It’s a lot easier to put down than it is to pick it up. You know, gravity and all.
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Getting all scientific with the excuses! I like it. Something about having to stare at someone else’s pee splatter as I lower the seat for myself makes me want to try to hold my pee… eternally.
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Just close your eyes and hit it with your foot. It’s painless, I swear!
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Besides the thought of having to TOUCH the pee-splattered seat in order to lower it. Bad enough when it was deposited by Y-chromosomed people that you love, but when it comes to public restrooms? There isn’t a broom handle long enough to do the job.
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Just Perfect! Although I wish my man was… he tends to perceive imaginary insults in all conversations and can hold a grudge – oh, forever. He is still mad at his first grade teacher and he is 67.
On the other hand, he is a very good apologizer.
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Yikes. I try to hold grudges but I end up forgetting who I was mad at or why. Apologizing is a true skill, though, so he must be a keeper. I’ll go to great lengths to avoid saying sorry!
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I enjoyed the secretly-pissed-about-making-dinner part. Yup. That is my brain right there. I wish I could have that brain that allows me to unsee piles of laundry (#$%#@ I have to do laundry today!!!) and dirty dishes.
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I need to unsee my whole filthy house this morning. Those dust bunnies are just floating around mocking me. I usually opt for the passive aggressive “Glad you liked your dinner, dear” which my husband understands is his cue to thank me, excessively, for all the chopping and stirring and boiling of the water.
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I loved this post when I first read it. I love Tori. I love Freshly Pegged. I have a limited vocabulary this morning so I will simply stick with 3>.
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I love the cyber heart, Miss Thang. I always end up hitting the wrong symbols and come up with a confusing <& or @+.
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I’ve only mastered a few cyber symbols. There are so many others where I fail. 😀
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This post is just as funny the second time reading.
We simply do not give men as much credit as they deserve. I’ll take dinner with the guys over dinner with the girls any day. While inhaling a steak burger, basket of fries, chicken wings, jalapeno poppers, and a chocolate malt is seen as horrific in girl circles, guys would slap me on the back and congratulate me.
Tori is the best and those Freshly Pressed peeps are surely sorry they missed out on this one.
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Ahhh. Jalapeno Poppers. That’s reason enough for me to want to eat like a man.
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Number 27 on the list of 100 reasons why it’s easier to be a guy: “we’re just plain lovable, no matter what.”
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Exactly. A guy friend told me I looked fat the other day but he did so by cracking a joke. I was so impressed with his sense of humor I forgot to be insulted!
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Very cleverly written and very true too!
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Thanks for reading, Pleun!
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This was great and thanks for sharing it. I’m glad you two made up.
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Me, too 🙂
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I think I’ve asked this before… but what is it about The Big Lebowski that men find so fascinating?
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ALL of it. EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT. Though they can’t typically give you an actual reason it’s awesome 🙂
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Maybe it’s one of those “it’s awesome because it’s awesome” reasonings?
I should try to think of it in terms of something “girly” like purses or shoes.
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The Big Lebowski is our Fried Green Tomatoes.
The Big Lebowski are our Fried Green Tomatoes?
Damn, I don’t know. Awesome because it’s awesome.
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The tomatoes of the Big Lebowski have greenness.
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It’s all the little details… they really tie the room together.
Like the guys who break into The Dude’s bathroom… they threaten him, throw a wild animal at him, break his furniture, etc., and yet, after all that, they remember / are ‘thoughtful’ enough to turn his lights back off on the way out! HILARIOUS!
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That is such a guy thing. I’m pretty sure I saw that movie, once. But gotta admit it left little-to-no impression on my life. Now, if it comes to quotes from Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion…
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I remember this post! Love it!
Also, I’m wondering the same thing as Jackie about The Big Lebowski.
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Me, too, Thoughtsy. Me. Too.
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Ahhh so true…!! Glad it was Freshly Pegged, as I wasn’t able to read it the first time. 🙂
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Thanks, Lily 🙂 So far I’m handling Freshly Pegged fame with a little more tact (which is to say I haven’t told peasants to avoid eye contact with me just yet)
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Maybe it’s because being Freshly Pegged results in just a teeny smidge fewer readers than being Freshly Pressed. Lessens the ego-padding pressure.
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I think my husband missed the non-stress gene. On the other hand, he always puts the lid down.
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Sometimes I wish my husband had it. He’d understand why my need to dust is so compulsive.
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This didn’t get pressed? Someone Up There is sleeping on the job!
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It probably had something to do with all the talk of lady parts…. and maybe also the mention of Hitler. Whatever the reason, I’m excited to be Freshly Pegged!
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This was a great read and tribute to our too often maligned men. Wish my man was less stressed as well. But, like most men, he’s most happy watching sports, drinking a beer and eating good food. Simple needs, kind heart, a ‘Man’s Man’, or so someone once told me.
Enjoy the Freshly Pegged ride! 🙂
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I`ve see you`ve FINALLY hit the big time Tori sista friend. Fist bump. Love ya!
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I like the cut of your jib.
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Yeah for cardboard boxes! Ah for a simpler hormone-free life…
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And yet, once the hormones go bye-bye life doesn’t get easier.
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Makes me proud to be a man, albeit a somewhat sensitive one. The only thought which popped into my head which you might not have accounted for was “I don’t think she’s ever seen Bob Saget’s stand up routine.”
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You’ve been watching us, so you probably know this: It would be appropriate to give you a celebratory head butt if you were another guy, which you are not. Love this post.
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Oh, I love this. I was nodding so vigorously that I almost got a neck crick.
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Girl has a way with words, don’t she?
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I probably won’t be able to pull off ‘The Dude Abides’ line again…
but I want too… I REALLY want to!
Still AWESOME, Ms. N, – a perfect choice for Peg’s Fresh Feature!!!
🙂
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This is a spectacular ode to those who suffer from testosterone poisoning, what would we do without them.
Freshly Pegged is a far better recognition!
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“Testosterone poisoning” ha!
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Hilarious! And every blessed syllable is true! Am kicking myself for reading this 5 days late.
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It’s never too late (thanks!)
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As a dude, I can vouch for the fact that my needs are not sophisticated. I like good food, I like taking a leak, I like movies, and I like more good food. I don’t like worrying about whether or not I was the reason that the women in my life are pissed off. That type of complication makes me want to hide in my room and blog about shit and stuff. But then it’s lights out and I sleep like the damned. That reminds me … I like naps too.
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