Haven’t blogged in a while, (Belfast Times and Following The
Nerd have been taking up most of my writing time; in a good way I might add)
but recently I’ve noticed something that I wanted, nay NEEDED, to write down my
thoughts on.
Namely men and how we’ve become less manly over the years.
Now naturally I’m not talking about myself here. I’m as manly as they come; in
my weedy, computer game playing, comic book reading, unable to grow a decent beard kind of way
(form an orderly queue, ladies) but rather other men that taking beautifying themselves
to an extreme degree. You see recently, I was privy to a conversation involving
the best type of eyewear to protect one’s eyes whilst using a sun bed; whether
little paper coverings or goggles were the way to go. There are considerable
problems with both apparently, but with the paper things coming off best
because while they don’t provide adequate protection they also don’t cause
unseemly white lines around the eye area that the goggles quite clearly do.
Clearly eyesight is an acceptable sacrifice for a perfect tan.
Now this conversation was between two members of my own sex,
and while I’m not casting aspersions on the sexuality of either, it does strike
me as odd because these two are predominantly, due to other conversations
witnessed and partaken in, very much of the alpha male variety (“grrr, birdz,
tits and beer”). Yet here they are, one proudly proclaiming that he partakes in
a regular tanning session and extolling the virtues of same to the other in a
way, that I hope isn’t too presumptuous, more commonly associated with gay men.
It got me thinking…is this normal? Is this what men, who I might add are only a
few years younger than me, do now?
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| I'm not even the dude on the right. And he's the one that probably gets made fun of by the others. |
Granted both are, as far as I’m aware, single, and maybe
times have moved on since I was a-curtin’ so perhaps this sort of self
beautification is common place amongst the 18-24 single male. But God, I hope
not. When I was younger, the only regime I had was a morning shower, some hair
gel and a shave every so often (to be honest, it’s not much different now at
the ripe old age of 28); I didn’t go and get tanned, I didn’t wax my chest, I didn’t moisturise. To this
day my wife has to forcibly pin me down to pluck the hairs from my head when my
bushy eyebrows (plural) start threatening to become a full on monobrow
(singular), and it usually requires bribery of some sort on her part.
And then there’s the gym of it all. The tanning seems to
come as a direct result of going to the gym to get ‘ripped’ or ‘shredded’ and
other such awful words for turning yourself into a vein-y, pill popping,
shrivelled testicle owning ponce. [Have you ever seen the programme Geordie
Shore? Don’t, it’s awful.
Unfortunately I have and anyone that aspires to look the same as one of the muscle-bound,
borderline retarded twats on that show is a complete bell-end.] And also, don’t
tell me about your gym sessions, either directly or when I’m in earshot. You
cannot even begin to believe the amount of fucks I don’t give.
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| No caption necessary. But here's one anyway. |
So does the fact that I do none of these things mean that I
wouldn’t get a girlfriend today? I really hope not. I’m not one to pretend to
know the female mind in any way, but surely that’s not what women want.
Otherwise I’d be fucked, to put it mildly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I
just throw any old shite on me. I take a little pride in my appearance but if
I’m going for a night out my first thought isn’t ‘Shit, I better get a couple
of minutes on the sunbed.’
Ladies, you can fantasise all you want about your Channing Tatum’s
and your Ryan Gosling’s (incidentally, two actors I don’t get the attractive
appeal of. I mean, they’re no Jeffery Dean Morgan) but don’t expect me to bust
my ass to look like that. However the real problem is that I don’t think the
ladies are the ones who expect their men to look this way anyway. It’s the men
themselves that think that the womenfolk want them to look ‘shredded’ (even
typing that word pains me) that are the problem.
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| Sexy motherfucker, right there. |
But aside from the tanning fiasco the other thing that
really prompted me to write this blog was when I was at the barbers this
weekend, a mother came in with her son. He can’t have been more than 3 years
old. As the little kid sat in the barbers chair next to mine his mum came up
beside him and made all sorts of requests to the barber about what she wanted
done to the boy’s hair. It seemed awfully complex and sounded like it required
a lot of work. She used the word feathered. FEATHERED?!?!?!? Feathered hair.
FOR A THREE YEAR OLD!!! I can’t be sure but I’m fairly certain that when my
parents took me to get my hair cut when I was three, they sat me down in the
chair, pointed at my head and yelled “SHORT. MAKE HAIR SHORTER” at the barber.
Ok, this might not actually have happened, but they certainly didn’t request
that my hair be layered. You’re three. You’re not going to give two shits what
your hair looks like.
So is this obsession with male grooming and beautification
happening at a younger and younger age? Am I amongst an ever decreasing amount
of men who couldn’t care less about their appearance, at least not to the
extent that those not that much younger than me do? Are parents instilling this
in their children so that eventually they’ll grow up to be preening pretty
boys, with shaved chests and perfect abs and highlights in their hair?
I mean, ‘feathered.’
For fucks sake.
Real men should even know what 'feathered' means.
