Now who’s being shallow?
I was minding my own business, reading my book and sipping on my latte when I became aware of the middle-aged guys at the table next to me.
They were grumbling about women.
It was about the usually suspects — how women only care about how much a guy makes, and their cars, and their stuff, and their hair
(like, if they have some). 
“Women are shallow, my friends, what can I say?” one said.
I looked up from my book to see who had said that — it was the saggy-bellied, balding one, ‘natch — just as the three of their heads
jerked to stare at a yummy mummy blonde who’d just walked in with two adorable toe-heads hanging all over her.
Yes, well, as Dennis Miller says, “There’s nothing wrong with being shallow as long
as you’re insightful about it.” Not much evidence of that at my local coffee shop.
“R women shallower than men?” I texted Sara.
“No.”
“Y do u say that?”
“It’s harder for fat gals to have sex than fat guys.”
“Doh, & ur point is …”
“We’ll f–k a fattie but a fattie won’t f–k us. U tell me whoz shallow!”
OK, she has a point. But I actually think both sexes are pretty shallow — for different reasons. Women are still drawn the idea of a prince who’ll carry us to his castle where we’ll live happily ever after, and men are still drawn to Playboy bunnies. But depending on what studies you want to believe, women are shallower than men.
Over things like money and material things. Maybe height.
But, not about weight, evidently (even though most princes in fairy tales and Disney movies look pretty damn buff to me!)
Which makes it seem like we gals are pretty much looking at the whole package, not just all the little — or, in this case, big — details. You can be fat and we’ll still screw you! Well, not me; others.
How lucky is that?
But if you’re a fat woman, forget it. Most men want a hottie — hottie meaning beauty plus brains for some, and just beauty for others. Rarely are “hottie” and “fattie” happily together in the same sentence.
Is one shallowness better or worse than the other?
Maybe if we’re rejecting someone over something he or she can’t control. Can’t control height and baldness, but we sure can control a lot of other stuff. Income? Sure. Beauty? Harder, but there are products … and things like self-esteem and confidence. Weight? Well, doh.
Still, I don’t think it’s shallow if we reject people who aren’t attractive to us, no matter what the reason — with the understanding that narrow definitions of attractiveness limits your pool. And if you’re going to get all tweaked about being rejected for things you can change, change or get over it!
- Who’s shallower, men or women?
- Is it worse to reject someone over something he/she can’t control?
Why men give better advice than women
“Which looks better with this?” I asked Sean, holding up two black shirts, a sleeveless turtleneck and a V-neck.
“They both look good.”
“So, one doesn’t look better than the other with this skirt?”
“They’re both black, right?” he said, although I could have sworn I heard his voice tense up a bit.
I sighed, a little louder than I probably should have.
“OK, OK, the turtleneck. Sheesh!”
“Thank you,” I said as I blew him a kiss.
And so on went the turtleneck, and off we went to a dinner party at Mia’s.
When we arrived, fashionably late, Sara sidled up next to me.
“I love that skirt: I’m so glad I talked you into buying it.”
“Me, too, but it would have been even nicer if you offered to pay for it, too,” I joked.
“You wish. But, what’s with the turtleneck? It isn’t working for me.”
“It’s working for Sean; he picked it out,” I sniffed.
“Kat, you know better than to ask a guy
what to wear.” 
She’s right, of course. Despite the fact that most uber-fashion designers are men, whenever I’ve followed a boyfriend’s fashion request in the past, I’ve typically ended up looking like some skanky Hooters waitress.
That may be OK in your 20s, but at my age?
Uh, not.
Men are good for a lot of things, but not everything. However, I often trust guys more than I trust a woman; we gals are so programmed to be “nice” that it’s often hard for us to look a girlfriend in the eyes and tell her the truth. And nice is sometimes a cover for some really not nice behavior — the bitchiness, jealousies and petty cruelties women can often resort to under the guise of being “nice.”
My girlfriends aren’t like that – they wouldn’t be my girlfriends if they were — but there are some things that I think men “get” more than women. So, when I need help, here’s what I go to them for:
- Anything mechanical — I used to think it was genetic, those “blue” jobs, until I married Rob, whose idea of fixing things was to get out the Yellow Pages and let his fingers do the walking and check-writing. I’ve gotten quite handy as have some of my girlfriends, but when the dishwasher starts making a weird grinding noise, I know who I’m going to call.
- Car maintenance — ditto.
- Beer — I like my vodka and I like my red wine, but on a hot summer day after a long hike, a cold beer is awfully nice. But since I have beer like two or three times a year, I don’t want to waste those calories on something that tastes crappy. There are too many varieties; I need help!
- Sports — I play some sports and I watch some sports, but I don’t know all the intricacies of the games, like ground rule triples (however, I do know how to make triffles and truffles, so perhaps it’s a toss up).
- Money matters — until women stop drooling over things like $10,000 Birkin bags and $700 Louboutins, I’m going with what the guys say (unless his name is Madoff).
- Me as a datable women — gals think like gals, so we can’t possibly see our flaws from a guy’s perspective. Guys will tell you straight up where you’re falling short. It may hurt, but it’s honest. If the goal is to be with a man, you gotta go to the source and ask, “Would you date me? Why or why not? And listen carefully.
- Handjobs — best thing a gal can do is watch her guy masturbate (it’s a very lovely sight, BTW). If he’s not your BF yet, ask — I’m pretty sure they’ve got it down from all that, you know, practice …
- Blowjobs — Ideally, you’d be in a threesome with two hunks who are attending mostly to you, but who might want to have a little fun themselves. Not working for you? Ask; since they own the equipment, they know what feels good.
- Gynecological stuff — I’ve always had males gynos, which may seem weird because you’d think women would know their own bodies better but many of us don’t (that’s why many women don’t enjoy sex). I figure any guy who’s become a gyno did so because, like most guys, he’s really, really interested in a woman’s body and he’s trying like hell to figure it out. Women? Not so much …
- Boyfriends — I rarely ask a gal’s opinion on a guy I’m seeing because too many care about things that I don’t, like income and power, and let that influence whom they find attractive. Since guys understand guys, I going to trust them to tell me if a guy I’m interested in is the real deal or not.
- Breakups — Same thing. The gals are mostly going to point out all his faults; I want to know where I messed up!
- Sons — Sometimes The Kid absolutely confounds me; why does he do what he does? Since kids don’t come with operating instructions, I have to turn to guys to find out if I’m mommying a male member of the species properly. On the other hand, raising a boy has helped me understand men, like forget about asking them what they’re thinking about once puberty hits; sometimes it’s really nothing.
- Career advice — the worst bosses I ever had — ever — were women (see above for bitchiness, jealousy and petty cruelty remark). Plus, most women don’t know how to negotiate raises and contracts — I sure don’t, and it’s cost me plenty. When it comes to being aggressive about work, I want a guy to tell me how to do it, unapologetically.
Still, there are some things I’m just never going to ask a guy and take his advice seriously, like:
- Techie stuff — OK, they may know all about the iPad and latest Blu-ray whatever, but too many guys love all the bells and whistles on this stuff so they can — well, I don’t know what they want to do with it! Probably watch porn. All I know is, I don’t want it, I most likely don’t need it and I’d rather not have to even think about it.
- Directions — Uh, I think this one’s obvious!
- Weight — Never, ever, ask a man about your weight. If you have to ask a guy if something makes you look fat, you either 1. have really bad body image issues and would better off going to get some pro help, or 2. are really fat. Either way, he’s going to break out into a sweat just having to think about it, let alone answer truthfully. I think most of us can figure it out without dragging the poor guys into it.
- Fashion — duh, unless you’re going for the skanky Hooters look.
Everything else, I rely on my gals.
How about you? What do you trust women for when it comes to advice, and what do you trust guys for?
Photo © kuhar – Fotolia.com
The end of the world as we know it
I’m not a big fan of those multibillion-dollar apocalyptic movies like “Doomsday” and “I Am Legend”; there’s just so may ways you can destroy the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and Golden Gate Bridge without getting somewhat numb to it all.
Not to get all 2012 on you, but I do feel the apocalypse is coming, it’s just not going to be in the form of a comet smashing into the Earth, another Ice Age, a pandemic or an alien invasion. In fact, it isn’t going to destroy the world at all. It’s going to be a more personal apocalypse, just for us Homo sapiens.
And it’s going to come with just a whimper, certainly (if you read further) not a bang. From us.
We’re just going to stop having sex. 
Not me, mind you, but a lot of other people, the ones who should be having sex because they still can make babies (and thus populate the world).
I know it sounds weird, but there have been a few things in the news lately that have led me to this conclusion.
A few months ago, I read that quite a number of women in a survey said that fitting into their “skinny” jeans again would be better than having sex (this according to Special K, which sponsored the survey so, granted, it’s not entirely unbiased). Of course, they’d be able to fit into those jeans quicker if they had an energetic romp a few times a week, but whatever.
In any event, that shows you what a lot of women think about sex; not much, especially when those $125 pair of size 28 True Religion jeans look so friggin’ hot on!
Oh, but don’t go pointing your finger at the ladies. Guys aren’t stepping up to the sexual plate, either. In fact, most of the men who participated in the MALES study (that’s Men’s Attitudes to Life Events and Sexuality) put having a satisfying sex life right up there with having “a nice home”; in other words, dead last (because have you ever been with a man who jumped at the chance to help pick out the living room curtains? No!). This from 27,839 men ages 20 to 75 in eight countries — a pretty broad selection. More important than sex was “being in good health” (OK, makes sense); “a harmonious family life” (ditto); and “good relationship with partner/wife” (which is great, but it would be a hell of a lot better if you were going down on her nightly; just an idea).
OK, but what does that have to do with the apocalypse, you might ask.
Not much, except some UC Berkeley researchers discovered that some freaky things have been happening to frogs. Like, gender confusion. Some frogs living in water contaminated by a common weed killer began acting weird: they hardly developed sperm, their testosterone levels were practically nil and they lost their mojo, forgetting to “sing” the calls that not only attracted the ladies to a personal party but also threw the stink-eye to their competitors.
In other words, they were becoming like manpurse-toting modern-day male novelists — too cool for sex.
And the few that, thankfully, didn’t had other, uh, interesting, results. They started to resemble post-op trannies, not only producing estrogen and developing female external reproductive organs, but acting like a cougar at happy hour, flirting with other other male frogs and even letting them fertilize their eggs (yes, the males had eggs).
Which grew into healthy frogs — male frogs.
OK, we’re not frogs, but there are parts of the country where the same levels of the herbicide — known as atrazine — are in our drinking water.
So — follow me here — a good portion of women would rather be skinny than have sex, and a good portion of men would rather be enjoying a lot of other emo things instead of banging their old lady. OK, that portion of the population can go over in a corner somewhere and have their genitals shrivel up. But if the rest of the guys who place sex a little higher than having a house straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog are drinking water, it’s likely they’ll either:
- become demasculinized or
- become feminized, and give birth to boys only
Who will either not be interested in sex, or will, as long as they can turn all girlie and let some guy do the nasty deed so they can have a nice little family of boys.
See where this is leading? It’s just like a Cormac McCarthy novel; it’s not going to end pretty.
I know that I obsess a bit about sex — who’s not having it, who’s having it but not enjoying it, who’s wanting it with me, etc. — but this time, I have a good reason.
So, if you want to save the planet, please start having more sex. No, girls, those jeans do not make your butt look fat. Yes, guys, you can place a pair of European overstuffed club chairs in a modern living room (just pay attention to the accessories).
And whatever you do, don’t drink the water!
Photo © Nathalie P – Fotolia.com
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