In this realm you will learn your place, among the guys and around the girls. You will learn how to fix your car and get a deal on your home electronics. You will be exposed to new avenues of philosophical discourse, political insensitivity, vulgarity, sports statistics, and blonde jokes. Most importantly, you will become intimately familiar with all of your most glaring faults.
So, suck it up Princess.
I’ve portrayed this phenomenon in a couple of writing adventures with varying degrees of awesomeness, in which men ridicule, support, and compete with one another, all the while celebrating the bond that defines them. In doing so, through occasions of tragedy, triumph, plunder and conquest, guys ultimately perpetuate the identity of the gender. Guydom will persist and persevere, and will be standing long after makeover shows and Oprah’s Book club have fallen into antiquity, because of this odd chemistry of knowledge, philosophy and fart jokes.
The truly tricky aspect of discussing anything guy-oriented is the continually contradictory nature of the male of the species. Nothing is easily measured among a population as constantly fickle as they are stalwartly dependable, that spend their youth pretending to be men and their adulthood trying to pull the adult hood off their head. These are of course creatures that hunt diligently to save a dollar on necessities but justify spending far too many on toys. They strut around flexing their muscles, breaking bricks with their hands, but become wimpy-whiny patients when they get a cough-due-to-cold. The very second the shadow of adolescence falls over young guys the anticipation of becoming a man, in a variety of literal and figurative ways, becomes an agonising waiting game. You practically beg your beard and body hair to grow as you prey and devour everything your hormones hone in upon.
Then you arrive. And the day after someone finally calls you ‘Sir’ life hands you a man-sized challenge and you seek nothing more than to climb back into your Spider-Man pyjamas and get under the covers.
And that’s when you have to suck it up, Princesses.
Then you arrive to this place, this land of guy talk, where the support from your peers comes in this burly beer-soaked form. You take a minute from your glass slippers and fairy dust to consider who these people are and why you’ve chosen their counsel. The genuine encouragement of your parents, teachers, and more sensitive coaches has been replaced by another grown man suggesting you pull it together, while comparing you to pretty royal heiress wearing a fluffy pink dress.
Numerous elements of guy talk revolve around this kind of… suggestion. First and foremost is the content of this advice. This statement acknowledges some level of adversity and encourages overcoming this problem, which the speaker obviously believes is surmountable and fully within the princess-guy’s capabilities. Referring to his friend as princess further challenges the guy to behave in a manner befitting their group’s shared persona, which probably regards a princess’ frilly pink poise lessons as somewhat contrary to that.
That, or he thinks it’s funny to see his buddy cry.
Or it’s a gay thing. It’s rarely a gay thing but it’s sometimes a gay thing.
No offense is intended to princesses or gay things enthusiasts.
Guy talk is not only about coaching, but providing an information source, a sounding board, and a meter by which you can measure your accomplishments, and thus derive some meaningless quantitative status in the pack.
Being a man is about secretly hanging on to the boy you once were, because of the adventure he once saw in the life laid before him. Guys define themselves in the discourse that revels in that spark of possibility. They come for the quantity but stay for the quality of that connection, and for the calibre of the fart jokes.
We have these fart jokes to preserve this discourse.
And we have so many fart jokes. We have so many guys ready to hear fart jokes, re-enact them, revisit them and recreate them. Though the sounds and the chuckles that follow may not translate to those within earshot not participating, rest assured they do have a purpose.
We have fart jokes, boozing stories, four-part biblical insults, repellent vulgarity, “Your mother is a...” references, feats of strength, using insults as compliments, and useless sports trivia to help hang on that kid and acknowledge to the guys in the circle that it’s okay to revel in this mischief, whether it actually is okay or not. We exist under the shelter of youthful excellence, and to a large extent, the world remains intact.
Guy talk is allowed to cultivate, to keep a guy’s seething primal level balanced. It really is for the best. Without it we would start measuring penises.
...And then we could be in danger of ending up back at the gay thing, again in an inoffensive way.
So Ladies:
The next time you’re on your man about what he was talking about with the guys as you walked in and they went silent, or your spending your energy trying to limit his blonde joke distribution, remember he needs that discourse to keep alive the adventure of being a guy, and you need him to keep killing spiders, providing sperm, and giving you something to bitch about…
...Otherwise known as Girl Talk.
Admit it, it’s true.
Enjoy the land of Guy Talk.
Maybe it should be a Kingdom.
Patrick
1 comment:
Well done Hughes. Taylor
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