LOVE YOUR HATE

“It’s not what you did.

It’s not what you didn’t.

God gave her the perfect body,

now I’m all up in it.”

– ‘Hey Mister’, Duane Lavold (Custom)

 

“You can choke me until I pass out.”

She hesitated at first, but she’s made her decision now, and she’s going to live with it.

Or not.

…

Shanny’s been working in town for a few weeks and when that happens the Radio Station pays for 50% of his meals, up to eighty dollars a night. It’s sweet. This is his last Saturday before going back to the Small Town, and after eating pizza we realize we haven’t gone out as often as we usually do when he visits. We aren’t planning a black out night, but we want to talk to girls.

Unfortunately, Shanny’s wearing his Wendel Clark hockey jersey. I don’t say unfortunately because I care about his fashion sense – the first time I met him he was wearing rubber tubing as a belt; what makes him Shanny is that nobody noticed until he brought it up to break an awkward silence – I say unfortunately because he’s a huge Wendel Clark fan, so he has a jersey from every team Clark’s played for, and he chose Detroit tonight, the same night the Red Wings eliminated the Ducks from the playoffs. And apparently, every Red Wing fan in the city is out to celebrate.

Some dude walks up and puts his arm around Shanny real tight.

“Fucking Red Wings rule, man!”

Shanny puts his splashing pint on the table and licks spilled beer off his hand.

“Yeah, they’re pretty good.”

“They fucking rock, dude!”

“Um, thanks, I guess.”

Shanny rolls his eyes and Red Wings Fan 1 moves on.

“Well that was awkward.”

“Looked awkward. Hopefully we find some girl Red Wing fans who grope as much as him.”

Clearly this won’t happen at our current bar, since there are hardly any girls, but we just grabbed a couple pints, so we stand and talk about important things, like politics, the time we saw a man chasing an ostrich along a highway, and Shanny’s ever-growing ass.

“On the upside, I’ve never felt so balanced.”

“That’s a good call. I feel like I could kick it really hard and you would hardly even notice.”

“Well if you –”

“OH YEAH! This guy knows his hockey! Fucking Red Wings! Woo!”

Shanny acknowledges Wings Fan 2, who’s drunker than Fan 1.

“How’s it going?”

“How’s it going? It’s going fucking awesome! Fucking Red Wings, dude, they’re going all the way again, hey?”

“Yeah, they could be. But I don’t really care about the Wings,” fan 2 doesn’t hear him, “I’m just a huge fan of Wend –”

Shanny points his thumb to the name on his back, but Fan 2 misinterprets his raised fist as a high-five knuckle-pound opportunity, and bashes it accordingly. I laugh. Fan 2 walks away triumphantly.

“Fucking Red Wings! Woo!”

This is getting weird, so we move to an empty table with a cardboard menu sitting atop four full pints, and talk about how it’s getting weird.

“They seem unusually pumped for fans of a team that wins a lot.”

“Who knew Detroit fans were such alcoholics?”

We glance at sports highlights on TV, then I look down at the menu-supporting pints.

“So, we’ll wait here to see if these are girls’ drinks?”

“Sure.”

…

I like girls.

Let me rephrase that: I fucking live for girls. I think they’re the most important things in the world. I’d even say our entire advanced society exists both because of, and entirely for, girls. Women, if you’d like. Those of us who make more of us. They’re great, and the more I think about it, the more I think nothing would ever get done if every woman, or even too many women, were lesbians. That’s not a knock against homosexual females – I’m not saying lesbians are lazy, though I’m sure some are (and really, how could I disparage a group of people so much like myself?). It’s a testament to endlessly interesting female humans everywhere – I’m saying if men didn’t have women to impress, we wouldn’t do anything more productive than playing video games.

Stephen Colbert said it best after Larry King asked him if he’d do anything for attention and he replied, “Of course – I’m the youngest of 11 children, I do everything for attention. And to impress girls. What else is worth doing other than impressing girls? Your mom or your wife. That’s what I tell my boys: just impress the girls.”

Cars, technology, humour – whatever. The point of pretty much anything that isn’t meeting a basic need is to impress girls and keep them interested in us. Sure, those things interest us as well, but we’ve long since passed the peak of our attention spans. We could stop now (and would, if women disappeared) and have enough toys to last generations. At this point, we’re just trying to go faster, in more advanced and hilarious ways, because we can’t come up with anything totally new, and enough of you still seem willing to sleep with us. Look around, ladies. Most of what you see is there, in at least a small way, to make you interested in sleeping with the person who created it.

Even this story, in some way, is trying to get me laid.

As a kid, the only thing in school that came easy to me was language arts, specifically writing stories. And notes. As gay as it sounds now, I fully enjoyed writing and passing notes with girls because that was by far my most effective game. Instead of doing homework, I’d write a note to a girl. The note would make the girl laugh, which guaranteed further communication, and sometimes we’d end up kissing. Score.

Unfortunately, I only realized a few years ago that maybe working on the thing that came easy to me would be a fun way to make a living and impress girls. So now I feel like I’ve missed out on some good opportunities, and lots of literate pussy.

More immediately unfortunate, is that this bar keeps filling up with dudes, and two of them are approaching our table. One is wearing a Red Wings hat and raising his hand. I warn Shanny.

“Heads up.”

Shanny pre-emptively puts his beer down and meets Fan 3’s hand at eye-level. He’s not quite as drunk as Fan 2, but still. This shit’s getting old.

“Hey, man, go Wings!”

Shanny cuts him off.

“Actually I don’t give a shit about the Red Wings. I’m just a huge Wendel Clark fan, so I have a jersey from every team he’s played –”

“Oh yeah, Clark ruled! My Dad grew up a Red Wings fan in Ontario, so he was pumped when they got him. When I was little the Wings sucked but my Dad made sure they were my team too. Then they got Stevey Y and it’s been great ever since.”

“That’s great, dude. Real happy for you and your Dad.”

Fan 3 hardly hears Shanny as he finds yet another fan to high five. We avoid eye contact as they move along and decide without speaking to get the fuck out of here. We’ve got about a third of our pints left, but Shanny’s touched enough dudes to earn more.

“If no girls claim these by the time we’re done ours, we’re chugging one.”

“Deal. Hey, did it seem like the guy in the hat had Daddy Issues?”

“Maybe that’s why Red Wing fans are such alcoholics. They could never cheer hard enough for Daddy’s Team, and now we’re seeing the result twenty years later.”

A couple burns later and we’re ready to chug free beer, just as four more dudes approach. They don’t look drunk, so they probably won’t touch Shanny, but he’s understandably concerned.

“Jesus Christ.”

One of them speaks.

“Well fuck, you’d think setting up four pints with a menu on top would be an obvious enough sign that we saved the table.”

Oh.

“We just ran out to smoke and take a piss. What, did you guys think someone left these here for you?”

Shanny speaks.

“Actually, we were hoping four drunk girls forgot them and went to dance or something, but clearly that’s asking a lot at this bar. We were just keeping them warm.”

I speak.

“Who saves a table?”

We walk to the door feeling completely weirded out by the last half-hour. Shanny feels especially violated.

“Is that how drunk guys act towards hot girls? All scream-y and grope-y?”

“I’m not sure, but probably. Also, who leaves their beer to go smoke and piss with three friends?”

“Red Wings fans, most likely.”

“Red Wings suck.”

We walk out to the Ave and head right, figuring we’ll go to one end then cross and come back, and check any no-cover bars for girls dancing along the way. While waiting for a walk light we check a bar on the corner. It’s a trendy place with foreign beer and red velvety booth seats. I prop myself in its pompous doorway to properly judge the guy-to-girl ratio, then quickly jump back to Shanny.

“Holy shit.”

“What did you see?”

“It’s totally empty but I think a hot girl is about to stumble out of that doorway.”

Shanny laughs.

“Really? How hot?”

“I’m not sure, but hot, and looks really drunk. She was far away but there was literally no one else in there, and she looked determined for the door. I probably should have held it op –”

We hear a thud and see the door burst open. A really hot brunette girl in a really short silver dress comes flying out, stepping over the threshold but not anticipating the cement step at all.

“Hey! Do you guys know how to get to –”

She missteps and her high heel points awkwardly inward, shooting her right knee out and her left knee straight down on the sidewalk. We hear another thud as she collapses.

Shanny gets to her first.

“Holy fuck!”

“Jesus are you alright?”

We get her up and she squirms her foot back into her shoe. She smells like girly booze and she’s really hot.

“I’m alright, I’m alright.”

I look at her knee. It’s not dripping blood, but there’s a nasty scrape. Aside from that her legs are flawless. That thud had to hurt.

“Where are you going? Why are you by yourself?”

“I gotta get to eighty seven ave, and one o seven four,” she looks up, thinks, “…nine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. No wait! That’s where I live. I can’t go there.”

I look at Shanny. He speaks.

“Why can’t you go there?”

“Because I don’t have enough cab fare. You guys gotta find me a cab that will take me two houses down from mine so I can run into the neighbours’ yards and jump the fences.”

Shanny faces the Ave to hail a cab. I speak.

“I don’t think you should jump any fences tonight. But if you do, you should take your shoes off first.”

She reaches down the top of her dress and pulls something out. I don’t see much.

“Wait. How much is this?”

She opens her hand.

“Looks like thirty dollars.”

“Oh, right, but I can’t spend this twenty. I need this.”

“So just get a cab to drive you ten dollars of the way. That address isn’t far. You’ll be really close.”

“Yeah but I don’t know the neighbourhood. I just moved here. I won’t find my house if I’m not on the right block.”

Shanny finds a cab.

“Does she want this cab?”

“Wait! You guys, what’s two houses down from one o seven four five?”

“One o seven four nine?”

“Yes! Wait, no…that’s my address. I want one o seven four five.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Thanks!”

“Remember to take your heels off.”

…

There’s a conversation that I assume all guys have at some point in their lives. I’ll call it the, “I hope I never have a daughter based on my dirty thoughts alone” conversation. It sounds misogynistic but it’s actually really trippy for guys to think about. It basically goes like this:

“My god do I hope I never have a daughter.”

“I know, right?”

“I mean, I’m a pretty normal guy, and even I almost feel bad for some of the things I think about girls. I don’t want to even imagine what the actual perverts think about.”

“Having a daughter must be one of the worst things in the world for a dad.”

“How does a dad, being a guy and thinking guy thoughts his entire life, even let his daughter out of the house?”

“It must have been so much better when there were arranged marriages.”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m sure this would change if and when I actually had a daughter, but in a way, I’d rather she be butt-ugly than beautiful. At least that way she’s not having horrible things thought about her every minute she’s walking down the street.”

And so on. I know it sounds selfish, probably because it is, but for a male it’s tough to not objectify females, when females are so objectively beautiful. Does that make sense? It’s like, if men didn’t exist, and we weren’t around to observe girls, they would still be aesthetically attractive, just…in general. It’s not like that for guys. From what I can tell, girls’ attraction to us is much more subjective. It depends more on our personalities, our lives, which don’t always accurately show through in a physical way. Physically, as long as a guy isn’t hideous, fat or really short, he’s got as good a chance as any to become attractive to girls. An averagely attractive tall woman wouldn’t have near the same chance.

I worked in a small office and became close friends with my boss, a father of three daughters, each between 20 and 26, each very pretty. After a couple years, I finally felt comfortable asking him about the trippy question I know he’d asked himself many times: how does a normally-perverted guy handle having three beautiful daughters, knowing that the worst things he’s ever thought seem downright flattering compared to what the total freaks must think when they see his girls in public? Even the less-than freaks. I suppose it would get easier with each daughter, maybe. But still, his youngest had just turned 20.

“Oh, it starts way before they’re 20.”

“Really?”

“Of course. By their 20’s it’s almost easy to handle. I mean, two of them serve in bars. It’s not like when I go to a bar I don’t notice cute waitresses the same age as my girls. I can’t pretend they’re the exceptions.”

Hearing this jarred my memory. To this day I still think about an unbelievably gorgeous waitress at a sports bar I went to for the Super Bowl five years ago. She wasn’t even serving my section but I couldn’t help notice the tables of guys waiting to get their picture taken with her. She was almost painful to look at.

“So you don’t care when they’re of legal age?”

“Of course I care. But it’s…easier to accept when they’re mature. It’s when they’re 10 or 12 playing in the park – that’s when the urge to kill is at its highest. I’d make eye contact with anyone who had a cock within a six block radius, even if they were there playing with daughters of their own.”

A few years ago, I met my then-girlfriend at her place after she walked home from work. She told me that as she was crossing the street a car of four guys made a left turn around her, and they all checked her out. One guy put his hand out the window and held it flat, then twisted it back and forth like a paddle, giving her a mediocre grading on the thumbs up or down scale, otherwise known as the international sign for “meh”.

I couldn’t help but laugh, and she was just annoyed. But she wasn’t annoyed for being judged, she was annoyed because she wasn’t prepared to be judged.

“I honestly stopped in the street and held my hands out like, ‘what the fuck?’ All I could think was, ‘Oh come on, that’s not fair…I’m wearing my work clothes! My hair isn’t even washed!’”

All I can think now is how funny it would be if I crossed the street and a car full of girls did that to me. My first reaction would be to laugh, then quickly judge them back to see if I even cared at all. And I think that’s a difference. A car full of girls might glance my way, but they wouldn’t automatically judge some guy crossing the street (though I could see them judging a girl). A girl crossing the street fully expects to be checked out, just as much as a guy driving can’t help but look. Both perspectives want the girl to be hot.

Standing beside Shanny, it’s clear that the girls crossing from the corner opposite us, unlike my ex, are very much prepared to be judged tonight.

Part two here.