What a birthday week—first Steve Buscemi got stabbed by some hillbilly in a bar brawl, and then Joey Ramone up and died. Yikes.
Anyway, to celebrate the day of my birth, I bullied a bunch of friends into taking me out to this old-school Italian joint for dinner. The food was amazing, though the waiters seemed curiously anxious to get rid of us—they dropped the check before anyone had even sung the happy birthday song to me! I live for people singing to me, so we handed it right back and I got down to the business of blowing out candles and opening presents.
My pal Rose gave me a Polaroid JoyCam, which came in handy when we retired to the bar, where the cutest, nicest bartender in the whole wide world let me take his photo as he refilled my seemingly bottomless glass of red wine. But the gift that got passed around all night was from the ever-helpful Heather and her spouse, who sprung for Red Flags! How to Know When You’re Dating a Loser by Gary S. Aumiller and Daniel A. Goldfarb.
The heavily credentialed authors—both Ph.D.s—have backgrounds in criminal psychology, which makes them more qualified than most to deal with the element I tend to consort with. They break down just-plain-jerks into 25 varieties of mook: the Player, the Sex Guzzler (I need to meet that one!), and the Bug-Eyed Boy, among others. Each chapter comes with a quiz so you can ascertain whether your stud is actually a dud. Though he’s no loser, my friend Travis qualified as Mr. Ego, the Know-It-All, and the Boozer—still the lovely Nancy is going to marry him! My exes were heavily represented in all sorts of categories that I won’t bore you with, but my issue with the book is that most of us know when we’re dating a loser—that’s not the problem. The hard part is finding one who’s not a jerk!
The fact that myriad books examining the foulness of men are marketed toward women is irritating as hell. Much to my embarrassment, I recently purchased a book called Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them by Dr. Susan Forward. Skulking through the self-help section made me feel like such a stereotypical broad—and judging by the other women (no men!) furtively browsing, I was not alone in my humiliation. When I finally found the book (purchased only for research purposes, I swear!), I was so mortified that I grabbed a novel to hide it under. And while these Mars/ Venus books showed me that, yeah, I have a tendency to gravitate towards men who aren’t worthy of my affections, where are the books that teach men how to behave? How to stop acting like a jerk? How to be nice? Why is the bad behavior of men always the woman’s problem?
This isn’t fair to men either. Shouldn’t they be enlightened as to how they can become better humans? Why should women have all this information at our disposal, while men who desperately need the help bumble through life blindly? True, nothing’s stopping a guy from cruising the self-help rack, but how many dudes are going to pick up a book called Men Who Hate Women? Even the biggest jackass on the planet isn’t going to cop to hating chicks—and if he does, he’s probably not looking to change anything about his behavior. Instead, someone should write a book called Staying Faithful Can Add Inches to Your Penis or Slapping Your Bitch Around Will Give You Cancer. That way, the scumbags of the world will get the information and change their evil ways—and we broads won’t have to waste valuable time that could be spent sipping cocktails giving men quizzes to determine just what breed of jackass they are.
Speaking of jerks, I got a review copy of a book called The Secrets by John Kee and David K. Hoffman, which promised to tell me what men really think about! Now guys aren’t exactly the most difficult-to-decipher creatures, so I figured that probably what they really think about is boobies. And lo and behold, page 10 reveals that men are, in fact, attracted to “round masses” (translation: boobies). Other Secrets include: Men prefer pretty women in low-cut blouses, and they think about sex constantly. Who knew? My favorite how-to-pick-up-a-guy tip outta this tome is this: “Employ the drop-something-and-bend-over-with-tight-fitting-pants-on technique. This is always a clincher for me. . . . For a twist on the old favorite, throw in a grunt . . . a really nasty Neanderthal grunt.”
I employed this technique last night and must confess it didn’t exactly meet with resounding success. So today I’ve been working on perfecting my grunt. I’m hoping that next time it sounds less like a burp.
Tell Dategirl what you really think about, and throw in a grunt. Write dategirl@seattleweekly.com or Dategirl, c/o Seattle Weekly, 1008 Western, Ste 300, Seattle, WA 98104.
