The First Coming of the Mask
In addition to all my random ravings, I'll occasionally post articles by my favorite columnists. Here's the first from the Mask.
Everytime I write an article that could be considered sexist or anti-female by some stretch of the imagination even though it's based entirely on fact, I get slammed with e-mails. They range from “You couldn’t be more right,” to “You’re just a bitter asshole,” to “Use this to enlarge your penis.” I dismiss pretty much all of them. But just the other day, I got one that actually caught my eye: “You seem to hate a lot of things about girls and dating in general… instead of bashing us, why not give us some tips on how to piss you guys off a little less?”
So all I have to do is write a piece encouraging women to act in a way that will get them guys, and they’ll break one of their sacred gender rules: always talk and never listen? How fucking convenient. Ladies, I present you with an honest blueprint for becoming an instant keeper. Break yourself down by dropping all the annoying shit you do, and build yourself into the perfect woman by following these seven easy, but completely serious, steps:
1. Get your own hobbies. We appreciate the effort you make to get involved in the things we like - but only to a certain point. The stereotypical “keeper” has always been a chick you can watch football with amidst a flurry of beer bongs and belching contests. But we’ve come to understand that a woman like that is rare, and we’re willing to settle for less. So if sports aren’t your thing, don’t push it. When the ninth inning or fourth quarter comes around, go amputate your face or something. There’s nothing more annoying than trying to watch a game and having to answer stupid questions every five seconds. Why do baseball players grab their crotches so much? Who cares, just grab mine.
54secondstofreedom.jpg2. Use your brain when buying us gifts. We're not as needy as you, so we don't expect presents on any day you're not required to give them to us. But we expect you to not fuck it up on those rare occasions. A watch? A tie? Hey great, a gift to countdown the seconds before I use the other one to hang myself.
And worst of all: You think you’re doing us a favor by buying yourself sexy lingerie for our birthdays? You couldn’t be more wrong. Last I checked, that’s a gift to you - one to make yourself feel sexier. And to be blunt, it’s just one more item of clothing you plan on keeping on way too long on a day you’re supposed to be having sex with us at warp speed. Here’s what’s sexy: you not wearing anything, then raping us, then us playing with a real gift such as a brand new video game or kickass power saw. If you’re going to buy lingerie, make it cool and original. Like a bra that has a digital clock on each cup, counting down the seconds until you take that stupid thing off. (See my diagram; Carmen has the right idea.)
3. Learn to enjoy cooking. Easily the most cliché item on the list, but notice I didn’t say “learn how to cook.” We struggle to master the intricacies of making toast, so we’re not expecting a gourmet feast out of you. In fact, we get antsy doing any food preparation more than three full strides from the barbecue, and can’t grasp the concept of cooking anything that doesn’t involve the immediate risk of burning our fucking faces off. You taking five minutes to bring us a sandwich and a drink goes a long way, considering the same process would take us the better part of an afternoon and several anti-Down Syndrome injections.
4. Never, ever use your vagina to get your way - or a guy. This is looking out for you more than it’s looking out for us. If you want to be a whore, you’ll just end up getting walked on like one. No guy wants to end up with a girl he sleeps with on the first date - once that night of heartless passion is in the books, he’ll start thinking about how many other first dates you’ve gotten plowed on. Ask anyone with a penis: minus a few desperate douchebags you wouldn’t want to date anyway, none of us will ever take a slutty girl seriously. She becomes a toy, and a running joke among our circle of friends. Behind her back, we’ll find an STD that rhymes with her name, make a song about it, and compare having sex with her to tossing a Tic-Tac down a hallway. That’s just the way things are.
5. Hone your sexual craft with us - or at least act like you did. So you’ve survived the initial stages of the relationship without relying on your naked body, and you think it’s time to take that plunge for all the right reasons. Bravo. Here’s a tip: when it comes to dating, we all want (in Ludacris’ words) “a lady in the street but a freak in the bed.” And no matter how far-fetched it is, we want to think either you learned all you know under our tutelage, or were directly inspired by us. So feed our egos.
Taking over the bedroom on day one like some sort of professional isn’t as impressive or arousing as your precious magazines lead you to believe. Our subconscious creeps in at the worst possible moments. All we’re thinking about is the dicks you’ve honed your craft on in the past. Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick… the last thing we want to think about when we really care about a girl is her getting rammed by some asshole with the dick and stamina of Smarty Jones. It’s like watching an awesome porno that focuses completely on the hot chick, and right when you’re ready to blow into your tubesock the director feels it necessary to show a twenty second close up of the guys long, hard cock. WHERE’S THE FUCKING REMOTE.
6. Which brings me to my next point… don’t you ever fucking touch the remote control. Ever. Even while cleaning everything else on the coffee table. It doesn’t need cleansing. We caress our precious remotes enough to prevent dust build-up, and the tiny bit that seeps between the buttons is fine with us. We call it love dust. It’s a combination of caked drool leftover from napping through post game infomercials, and rare instances when we failed to wipe our Cheetoh fingers on the underside of the couch cushions. And to be honest, when the fourth quarter just won’t end and we’re starving but don’t want to miss anything by running to the fridge - we depend on licking the love dust for survival. Deal with it. You should have prepared more sandwiches.
And finally...
7. Have dead or comatose parents. The relationship equivalent of a full rectal exam is... any situation involving your parents. And it’s not just the first time, either. It’s every time, and especially on holidays we used to enjoy as children. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter… they’re events we’ve loved our entire lives, and being blindsided by your parental discomfort will likely fucking ruin them forever. All of a sudden we’re forcing awkward conversations with your senile dad and trying to look down your overbearing mother’s shirt without getting caught. It’s no way to go through life. See what you can do about it.
And if all else fails, get implants.
Everytime I write an article that could be considered sexist or anti-female by some stretch of the imagination even though it's based entirely on fact, I get slammed with e-mails. They range from “You couldn’t be more right,” to “You’re just a bitter asshole,” to “Use this to enlarge your penis.” I dismiss pretty much all of them. But just the other day, I got one that actually caught my eye: “You seem to hate a lot of things about girls and dating in general… instead of bashing us, why not give us some tips on how to piss you guys off a little less?”
So all I have to do is write a piece encouraging women to act in a way that will get them guys, and they’ll break one of their sacred gender rules: always talk and never listen? How fucking convenient. Ladies, I present you with an honest blueprint for becoming an instant keeper. Break yourself down by dropping all the annoying shit you do, and build yourself into the perfect woman by following these seven easy, but completely serious, steps:
1. Get your own hobbies. We appreciate the effort you make to get involved in the things we like - but only to a certain point. The stereotypical “keeper” has always been a chick you can watch football with amidst a flurry of beer bongs and belching contests. But we’ve come to understand that a woman like that is rare, and we’re willing to settle for less. So if sports aren’t your thing, don’t push it. When the ninth inning or fourth quarter comes around, go amputate your face or something. There’s nothing more annoying than trying to watch a game and having to answer stupid questions every five seconds. Why do baseball players grab their crotches so much? Who cares, just grab mine.
54secondstofreedom.jpg2. Use your brain when buying us gifts. We're not as needy as you, so we don't expect presents on any day you're not required to give them to us. But we expect you to not fuck it up on those rare occasions. A watch? A tie? Hey great, a gift to countdown the seconds before I use the other one to hang myself.
And worst of all: You think you’re doing us a favor by buying yourself sexy lingerie for our birthdays? You couldn’t be more wrong. Last I checked, that’s a gift to you - one to make yourself feel sexier. And to be blunt, it’s just one more item of clothing you plan on keeping on way too long on a day you’re supposed to be having sex with us at warp speed. Here’s what’s sexy: you not wearing anything, then raping us, then us playing with a real gift such as a brand new video game or kickass power saw. If you’re going to buy lingerie, make it cool and original. Like a bra that has a digital clock on each cup, counting down the seconds until you take that stupid thing off. (See my diagram; Carmen has the right idea.)
3. Learn to enjoy cooking. Easily the most cliché item on the list, but notice I didn’t say “learn how to cook.” We struggle to master the intricacies of making toast, so we’re not expecting a gourmet feast out of you. In fact, we get antsy doing any food preparation more than three full strides from the barbecue, and can’t grasp the concept of cooking anything that doesn’t involve the immediate risk of burning our fucking faces off. You taking five minutes to bring us a sandwich and a drink goes a long way, considering the same process would take us the better part of an afternoon and several anti-Down Syndrome injections.
4. Never, ever use your vagina to get your way - or a guy. This is looking out for you more than it’s looking out for us. If you want to be a whore, you’ll just end up getting walked on like one. No guy wants to end up with a girl he sleeps with on the first date - once that night of heartless passion is in the books, he’ll start thinking about how many other first dates you’ve gotten plowed on. Ask anyone with a penis: minus a few desperate douchebags you wouldn’t want to date anyway, none of us will ever take a slutty girl seriously. She becomes a toy, and a running joke among our circle of friends. Behind her back, we’ll find an STD that rhymes with her name, make a song about it, and compare having sex with her to tossing a Tic-Tac down a hallway. That’s just the way things are.
5. Hone your sexual craft with us - or at least act like you did. So you’ve survived the initial stages of the relationship without relying on your naked body, and you think it’s time to take that plunge for all the right reasons. Bravo. Here’s a tip: when it comes to dating, we all want (in Ludacris’ words) “a lady in the street but a freak in the bed.” And no matter how far-fetched it is, we want to think either you learned all you know under our tutelage, or were directly inspired by us. So feed our egos.
Taking over the bedroom on day one like some sort of professional isn’t as impressive or arousing as your precious magazines lead you to believe. Our subconscious creeps in at the worst possible moments. All we’re thinking about is the dicks you’ve honed your craft on in the past. Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick… the last thing we want to think about when we really care about a girl is her getting rammed by some asshole with the dick and stamina of Smarty Jones. It’s like watching an awesome porno that focuses completely on the hot chick, and right when you’re ready to blow into your tubesock the director feels it necessary to show a twenty second close up of the guys long, hard cock. WHERE’S THE FUCKING REMOTE.
6. Which brings me to my next point… don’t you ever fucking touch the remote control. Ever. Even while cleaning everything else on the coffee table. It doesn’t need cleansing. We caress our precious remotes enough to prevent dust build-up, and the tiny bit that seeps between the buttons is fine with us. We call it love dust. It’s a combination of caked drool leftover from napping through post game infomercials, and rare instances when we failed to wipe our Cheetoh fingers on the underside of the couch cushions. And to be honest, when the fourth quarter just won’t end and we’re starving but don’t want to miss anything by running to the fridge - we depend on licking the love dust for survival. Deal with it. You should have prepared more sandwiches.
And finally...
7. Have dead or comatose parents. The relationship equivalent of a full rectal exam is... any situation involving your parents. And it’s not just the first time, either. It’s every time, and especially on holidays we used to enjoy as children. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter… they’re events we’ve loved our entire lives, and being blindsided by your parental discomfort will likely fucking ruin them forever. All of a sudden we’re forcing awkward conversations with your senile dad and trying to look down your overbearing mother’s shirt without getting caught. It’s no way to go through life. See what you can do about it.
And if all else fails, get implants.