www.simoncollier.ca

Since I turned a quarter-century, I have been taking more notice of my body. I have bought, and attempted to consume, that disgusting V8 tomato juice; I have started going to the gym; I have been sure to vary my diet; I have even reduced the intake of sweet crap that I used to love so much.

Still though, things continue to change throughout my body.

I found a silver hair a few weeks ago. SILVER. It wasn’t even trying to be discrete with a “light brown” shade, it just leapt right in there with reflective white! Hardly graceful, and completely unfair and premature. I pulled it out immediately, incase any of it’s neighbours started getting ideas. A band of rebelling follicles is all I need.

Hairs have grown in around my nipples, too. What do I need these for?? Are they insulating? Is it to bring out the pink in in my nipples? What a complete waste of energy that was, growing nipple hair. That effort could have far more suitably been used to extend my penis, or to give me supervision. But no, my body opted for nipple insulation, the fuzzy dice of male bodies.

Not just that, but I have a rogue chest hair. It’s right between by belly-button and my diaphragm. What is it doing there? I think it’s trying to migrate south. Unsatisfied with the chest, it wants to move to warmer parts. It looks completely out of place, like it started to move down but then I looked, and it froze. So now what? Will it continue it’s journey when I’m not looking? Will all of my other chest hairs follow? A year from now will I have a bald chest and an explosion of hair in my pants?

My nostrils are filling with hairs, my eyebrows are filling in even more, and I’m confident my ears will grow their share of hair too. I’m going to be Ape Man.

Ape Man with Bald Chest.

Damn body.

Altruism and evil; God and the Devil; conscience and consequences.

It’s so frustrating to have so little guidance in life. We’re all guessing at what the Right Thing to do is, day after day. Justice and Righteousness are moving targets, sinking with the years that pass through our civilisation, if it can still be called that. What is Right now, was wrong so few lifetimes ago.

Marriage was a once-in-a-lifetime event, now we just don’t care enough. About each other? Or about the ideals of marriage, of two souls being destined for one another. Have we lost so much faith in ourselves that we just don’t care enough to try?

Marriage is interesting though, it was once a ceremony performed for God. Then it was for the happy couple, then the parents. Now it’s to prove equality, or for tax benefits.

Swearing used to be a sin and socially unacceptable. Bars used to have swear boxes, and people would fear God for swearing. Now children do it, not because they hate God (God is not welcome in our schools, why would they have an opinion) but because they just lack the vocabulary to construct an alternate sentence.

People used to have manners. Children would show respect to their elders, the police would be admired, teachers were listened to and the Queen treasured. Now you’re lucky if someone holds the door open for you.

I don’t mean to make history into something it’s not. There was rape and theft, child abuse was common and secret, the social class system resulted in many unnecessary deaths, men cheated on their wives. I know all this. In some ways we have moved in leaps and bounds. But rather than a step forward, it feels like we edged to the side slightly.

Is this part of our being? Must there always be the balance (or battle) of good and bad? Why does bad always win? Is that our failing, or the failing of something far greater than us?

I find we excuse an invisible God too often. Would it not be so much easier to follow a Right Path if God came down, shot a bolt of lightning up Bush’s arse, and said “alright, here are the New Commandments… there are 21,432 and an appendix for the internet.” Then we would know.

We would know there was a God, and we would know what was expected of us.

I have heard the excuse “If He made Himself visible, we would do the right thing out of fear, instead of because we wanted to. It would take away free will”.

Bullshit. The Church rules by fear all the time, that’s why it is so powerful. The Church is human, it fears and feels and acts in its own best interest. 900 years ago we butchered thousands of people in the name of God, because it was the Right Thing to do. REALLY?? Bush just led thousands into a fabricated war in the name of God. Why does God feel it okay to meet privately with Bush? Surely a public television address would be more appropriate.

Be Good or you will go to Hell. But how can we be good when the rules keep changing? How can the Church say “well, this year we think it’s okay for women to be vicars/Priests/whatever, couples to divorce, gays to marry (but not have sex) and Priests to have sex with small boys. (Oh wait, that’s not official yet.)

I’m not saying I agree or disagree with those statements (each one could be a debate on its own) but if we are to believe in something so absolutely, then it needs to be consistent. Constant. Something can’t be okay today that was a sin yesterday. Can it?

The Bible is too old to refer to. Many Churches play down parts of the Bible as metaphors or ideas; contradictions are scattered throughout; it was written by many people over many years. The Church itself plays with the rules offered by the Bible, but much of it is extrapolation anyway. Any extremist freak can twist the Bible into something they want. (Again, look at Bush.)

And so here I am again, at my point. If we are to make the Right Choices in life, we need to know what the guidelines are. We need to know the rules for Heaven and Hell, or how our next life is determined, or whether the people looking at us from the next life are judging us or feeling for us. We need to know, without doubt, what is expected of us and what our rules of conduct are expected to be. We need to understand the consequences. Any grade school teacher would agree.

Another consequence of the capitalists’ hostile take-over of a day based around the work of a Saint, Valentine’s Day encourages the over-use of pink and the over-endulgance of women.

I know I sound cynical, and I am. It’s not because I’m single and therefore guaranteed zero sex on a day that many bed-boards are knocking, it’s because I really don’t like valentine’s day. In fact, I think it’s considerably less enjoyble when you ARE attached.

We buy girls chocolate. Why on earth do we do that? They’ll either get fat, or complain that they’re fat if we buy it, and God help us if we buy them Fat Free chocolate. “It’s because I love you, dear.”

Roses are priced artificailly high and dyed weird colours for freaks that like natural things, as long as they’re not natural. Teddy bears are mass-produced and available for less than a dollar at Wal-Mart, and all of the chain stores are selling cheap chocolate in bulk which neither tastes good nor means much. Everything is pre-packaged in an “I couldn’t be bothered to truly make an effort, so I bought you this” gift basket.

So, the day and traditions of chocolate, roses and teddy bears has been mass-produced and cheapened. So now what? We have to go to extraordinary measures to make an impression.

Now we need to go to a specialist chocolate store and buy imported European chololates for $15/nibble, find strange exotic roses in beautiful arrangements made by a florist who you also imported from Europe, and a teddy bear owned by Mother Theresa. We can buy jewlery (not a ring… I will say that again, NOT a ring), rent a nice hotel room in the mountains, buy a day at the spa (having arranged a day off in advance with her boss) and massage her for hours.

Still, all of this, no matter how thoughful or difficult or expensive or amazing, is all cheapened by Valentines Day. On this day, SOMETHING is expected. “Nothing” would be punished. Nothing will ever mean as much on Valentine’s Day as it would on ANY other day of the year.

Why do we do it all? It’s not even for the sex. Not today. It’s because there are consequences to NOT doing something, and that’s a crappy reason to make an effort.

Valentine’s Day sucks. I may never get a girlfriend if any prospects are reading my blog, but here it is: I will buy flowers and wine on Valentine’s day, but it will never be a “big thing”. “Big Things” will always be planned at other times of the year. Then it can be a surprise. Then it can mean something.

Men aren’t attractive.

We just aren’t. We’re hairy and have gross-looking sex parts and our bodies produce a lot of smells. We have more testosterone which makes us more aggressive and gives us deeper voices and Adams apples. We have stubbly faces and necks that just don’t curve elegantly.

I find men so disgusting I can’t imagine why girls would have sex with us. Some don’t, I suppose – they’re catching on. No wonder we ruled the world for so long, we have a massive inferiority complex. And rightly so.

So with this in mind, I expect girls to be quite picky. I expect them to take the least gross man they can find, so I get very confused when I see a beautiful girl with a funny-looking bloke. This happens more often that you might think.

This obscure (but frequent) occurrence has made me think… why?

I have some theories.

1. He Will Please Her
If he’s ugly, he knows it. That means he’ll spend his whole life worrying that she’ll leave him for someone more attractive (or at least less ugly). That means effort: he will do whatever it takes to please Pretty Girl. Wine her, dine her, lick her, hold her. He will treat her as gold. I can see that this would be draw for her.

2. She Has Been Hurt By An Attractive Man
Pretty Girl meets Attractive Man. Pretty Girl falls in love with attractive man, who has sex with her sister. And mother. Together. Attractive Girl leaves him, and avoids other attractive men incase they share the same over-confident emotional brutality that Attractive Man had. Pretty Girl meets Ugly Bloke. Ugly Bloke will never have sex with her sister and mother (probably couldn’t if he tried), and this appeals to her.

3. He Is Well Hung
Sometimes, it’s just about the sex.

4. She’s Slumming It
Have you ever gone by a run-down pub in a small town, and felt the urge to walk in and have a drink? It’s not that you want to make it your regular drinking spot, and you’re not keen on the sticky patches either. But frankly, it’s a little different: groups of people you would never otherwise meet, and you can drink the crappy American beer because you know nobody will judge you. Such is the dating of Ugly Bloke for Pretty Girl: it’s about the different experiences.

Eventually Pretty Girl will leave Ugly Bloke for Rich Doctor, or get fat and bitchy. Ultimately, everyone falls into their little pigeon holes and lives the stereotypical life they were so desperately hoping to avoid. In the meantime though, I’m still trying to make sense of it all. Am I missing something obvious??

Any thoughts?

People rarely show their true colours until it’s too late. We tend to be polite creatures, which is really another way of saying “deceptive”. We just don’t let people see what we are in day to day life.

This can be a very good thing. Do we need to know that the cashier at Superstore is Pro Life and thinks we should burn in Hell? Do we need to know that the old woman next to us thinks our hair makes us look like a gang member, or that the waitress thinks we smell bad? We can do without this, day to day.

We all have differing opinions, it would make life very difficult, and possibly tense, if we all said exactly what we thought, all of the time. We have become masters of deception, hiding our thoughts and whispering our secrets.

“Don’t call her fat”, “don’t tell him he can’t dance”, “don’t mention the war”, “be tactful”, “be diplomatic”.

Be insincere. Be artificial. Be fraudulant.

Unfortunately, this behaviour that we encourage allows us to practice skills of camaflauge, passing our polite and courteous selves off to be our whole selves. This can be a very, very bad thing.

There are two groups of people this is especially bad for: politicians, and dates. Policitians can be covered another time, I am going to concentrate on The Date.

Dating is hazardous at best, but add the deceptive nature of first encounters and it’s quite difficult to see a person’s true colours. It’s a shame to spend months with someone, only to find them to be complete dicks (for which I apologise to all of my ex’s). I can’t have a complete listing of tests to check for someone’s decency on a first date, but I will list some things I look out for. Perhaps more suggestions could be added in the “comments” section of this article?

1. Opening the Car Door
Open the passenger door for her, so that she can get into the car first. This is only good manners, but also means you get to your (locked) door last. So, does she reach to unlock your door for you, or strap herself in and check her hair in the mirror?

2. Treatment of the Waitress
She is sweet and cuddly towards you but that’s the protocol, so you can’t tell much from that. What counts is how she treats people who she has no future expectations of or requirement for. How does she address the waitress? Is she sweet and cuddly with her too? Does she make eye contact with her when she speaks? Does she say thank you when her glass is refilled? Does she say “could I have” or “bring me”? Beware the girl that is nice TO the waitress, then mean ABOUT her: she will do that to you one day soon. And probably about the sex.

3. Passing the Credit Card
If she is a modern girl and chooses to not only pay, but pay with plastic: how does she get the card from her hand, into the cashier’s? Does she hold out her card for the cashier to take, or does she throw it on the counter and look away?

4. The Tip
Different people have different opinions about how much to tip. In fact, this may well be a blog article unto itself. It’s tough to judge people on how well they tip, but if it’s less than 5% you probably want to check and make sure you have enough change to get home.

Find a girl that opens your car door for you, that treats the waitress nicely and doesn’t bitch behind her back, that hands payment courteously and tips reasonably. Of course, that’s as likely as finding a cute, young, slim nymphomaniac that wants nothing more than to please you.

I want both.

Posted by Simon on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 at 21:24