with a friend, who expresses her concern about a date that she thought had gone quite well, but which ended up in him not calling her back.

So I reminded her that men and women are build differently, (which she, of course, knows) and that there’s no rules except those which apply to the person in question. In other words, Men follow a certain set of rules, except when they don’t. I suggested she call him, and she said “I can’t do that, I have pride”.

Sheesh.

OK, let me back up here, a moment, and talk about the differences between men and… no, fuck that. Let’s talk about men; I am one, and on that subject I have some knowledge.

When a man is 18- well, at 18 few males are men, yet, but you get my point. When a man is 18, his testicles pretty much do all the thinking. This is true to a greater or lesser degree in all men, but at 18 the need is strong. You can tell an 18 year old who desperately needs to get laid, by his complexion. Nuff said. Reminds me of the old Buddy Hackett joke:

When I was 17 I had acne so bad it disgusted me. A guy I worked with said “You need to get schtupped”. I thought it was, like, a cream, or something. So I went to the old yiddish drugstore, waited in line, asked the pharmacist “Can I get ‘Schtupped’ in here?” he said “Not even mit a prescription”

Anyway, to a teenaged catholic kid who was not horribly attractive, and a little chunky besides, with more than the normal amount of shyness around women, there were two choices: Have sex with someone (not bloody likely) or rub one out now and then (a sin, but less of one than (gasp!) sleeping with a woman!!!).

Suffice to say I had no problems with acne.

Now, at 18, a guy who is in the habit of rubbing one out now and then, will damned sure do so early, late, and often. An amazing amount of time is spent doing that instead of socializing, at that age; ask anyone who plays or played Dungeons and Dragons. There’s that moment when you’re on the second floor of a building and you see one of the office girls across the street having a smoke, and you drop what you’re doing and rub one out, not because you’re interested in her, but because she’s there.

At that stage in every man’s life, you might not be able to sleep the night through without smacking one off, and single men will rough up the suspect first thing in the morning well into their 50’s- why waste that morning wood?- but as time goes on, you see the interstices between interest and activity lengthen,so at some point you say “call Nora and get laid? What, is it september already?”. Thankfully those days are in my distant future, but still.

Anyway, back to my phone conversation:

“Why not call him?”
“I can’t do that, it takes HUGE balls to do that”.
“So grow some balls”
“I can’t. I have pride”

Pride, m’lady, is something that you, as a hot broad, can afford. When you’re ugly, hairy, and 390 lbs, you make the goddamned phone call and find out if you’re still on or it’s over, so you don’t waste three weeks wondering, you can just move on if need be.

Sheesh. It’s a wonder we ever accomplish anything at all.