Man Points Rule #2: Always Establish Dominance

 

One of the liabilities of being the blogger for Dear Mr. Man Points is that I have become oversensitive to the ranking of my own masculinity. This self-consciousness follows me everywhere I go and makes me a bit paranoid about doing certain things, especially when it pertains to shopping with my wife Carrie. How many Man Points do I lose, for example, when I’m holding her purse while she’s trying on clothes inside the changing room? How manly is it of me to show my fashion expertise when my wife pirouettes in a new outfit after which I mention her “exquisite silhouette” in front of the other shoppers?

The other day I accompanied Carrie on a shopping spree at the Del Amo Mall where she browsed through her favorite store Anthropologie. This is a boutique selling only women’s clothes, Italian ceramic ware, bedding, and fragrant soaps. It’s not exactly a Man Points haven. Worse, the store tries to affect a pretentious “indie” vibe with its eclectic musical playlist. A track from Belle & Sebastian’s “The Boy with the Arab Strap” album was playing as I rummaged through the sales rack, trying to find my wife a diamond in the rough. It was around this time that a couple, both in their early thirties, walked in. The woman was somewhat plain looking and joyless. The man who I assumed was her husband had dirty blond hair and a sun-burnt face and white goggle-shaped eyes evidencing a recent snow ski excursion. He was wearing low-waist cut jeans and boots. He walked in a bow-legged manner and looked fatigued but resigned to shopping with his wife.

The man was staring at me, sizing me up, and this didn’t make sense. I am forty-seven (though I look fifteen years younger) and surely did not attend high school with him. I did not appreciate him scrutinizing me the way he was doing. Perhaps he was jealous that his married life was a fake and mine was real, vibrant, and thriving. I notice strange couples often comparing the authenticity, or lack thereof, of their marriage to other ones.

But this was not the issue. Soon it became clear why he was staring at me. I was wearing his shirt. Or more accurately, he was wearing my shirt. Or more objectively, we were both wearing identical shirts.  To make matters worse, this was a very conspicuous shirt, a short-sleeve khaki Tommy Bahama. The front was solid khaki, but the back had a giant marlin, poker cards—a king and four aces—and the words “Poker Room. Open All Night.”

For some men, this coincidence may be perceived as mildly amusing, but I didn’t see our matching shirts as such a benign circumstance. To the contrary, our cloned shirts threatened to take away my Man Points for a host of reasons, not the least of which was that the other people inside the boutique would assume I bought my clothes at those ubiquitous discount stores that are trying to get rid of their crappy surplus resulting in a glut of these lame shirts hanging on the backs of shoppers with common tastes.  I would be tagged as an idiot who buys “bargains” without any concern for individuality. But there was a worse scenario here. Both me and my same-shirt-wearing wannabe doppelganger will be inevitably mocked as the “Bobbsey Twins,” which, let’s be honest, doesn’t exactly have a masculine air about it. In other words, wearing the same shirt as some other dude had a castrating effect and counteractive measures had to be taken immediately. The first thing I did was stand close to the guy so that everyone could see that, by virtue of my diligent combat conditioning, I looked far superior in the shirt. The way it drapes my muscles—my broad, rangy shoulders and striated pecs—would compel the other store patrons to conclude that only I should be wearing the shirt and they would scoff at the concave-chested impostor who was wearing what is mine and mine alone.

The man seemed rather nonchalant that I, such a superior specimen, was standing so close to him. His inferior station in life was reinforced by the fact that he was wearing a pathetic Casio watch.  I mean, we’re talking cheap plastic here. In contrast, I was wearing an Invicta Force Master Chronograph with a 52 mm bezel dome that magnified the black numerals and oyster face. The strap was black leather. Not every man can wear a watch of this size, but I can. Standing six feet and weighing 225 pounds with beefy forearms that are fifteen inches in circumference affords me the opportunity to wear a watch of such giant proportions.

 At this point, I was thinking if this impostor has any dignity, he will fetch his wife and go home immediately and never show his face at this boutique again. However, this pencil-neck geek looked rather content and seemed rather nonchalant about his decision to insult my very existence by wearing my shirt.

It was then time to take matters to a whole new level. Now let me explain at this point both his and my wife were trying on clothes in the fitting area and that the impostor and myself had slowly followed our wives to the back of the store. There is a giant ottoman inside the fitting room area and a single chair. With the fraud on the ottoman and me on the chair, we were facing each other during which time I pulled from the ankle pocket of my camouflage cargo pants my “emergency vitamins.” Not only do these supplements give me much needed pep in the late afternoon, they show the world how dedicated I am to my rigorous training and nutrition program. Now these weren’t ordinary vitamins either. Their outer coating was smooth and chalky, a big tabula rasa, so that I could write on them with a black Sharpie. That morning, I had spelled the words “BULL TESTOSTERONE,” “GONAD EXTRACT,” “ESSENCE OF GORILLA SCROTUM,” and “VIAGRA X 1,000.” And now with the impostor studying me closely, I took out the oversized vitamin capsules and carefully placed them on my quadriceps, which are so massive they serve quite well as a makeshift table. I then nodded toward one of the sales ladies and asked her if she would be so kind as to get me a glass of water. I then looked at the fraud with an expression that said, “Who’s in charge now?”

My advantage over this copy-cat became even more pronounced when his wife came out and asked him how she looked in a pair of mauve dress slacks. He told her they made her butt look too big. She did not appreciate his uncouth observation.  She stabbed him with dagger eyes before turning around and slamming the dressing-room door. He knew he had made a huge mistake and buried his head in his puny hands.

My wife then emerged from her dressing room and asked how her purple and white print blouse looked.

I gloated at the copy-cat as if to say, Here’s how real men do it.

I then smiled at Carrie and said, “My God, honey child, you look like Anita Ekberg in Federico Fellini’s famous fountain scene in La Dolce Vita. I say that blouse has got your name written all over it!”

She kissed me on the forehead before telling the saleswoman she’d take it. We exited the boutique and I was positively gloating knowing that my Man Points were brimming over the rim while my adversary had sunk into the Man Points shitter. In the battle between the two men in the identical Tommy Bahama shirts, I had emerged as the victor.

 

One of the liabilities of being the blogger for Dear Mr. Man Points is that I have become oversensitive to the ranking of my own masculinity. This self-consciousness follows me everywhere I go and makes me a bit paranoid about doing certain things, especially when it pertains to shopping with my wife Carrie. How many Man Points do I lose, for example, when I’m holding her purse while she’s trying on clothes inside the changing room? How manly is it of me to show my fashion expertise when my wife pirouettes in a new outfit after which I mention her “exquisite silhouette” in front of the other shoppers?

The other day I accompanied Carrie on a shopping spree at the Del Amo Mall where she browsed through her favorite store Anthropologie. This is a boutique selling only women’s clothes, Italian ceramic ware, bedding, and fragrant soaps. It’s not exactly a Man Points haven. Worse, the store tries to affect a pretentious “indie” vibe with its eclectic musical playlist. A track from Belle & Sebastian’s “The Boy with the Arab Strap” album was playing as I rummaged through the sales rack, trying to find my wife a diamond in the rough. It was around this time that a couple, both in their early thirties, walked in. The woman was somewhat plain looking and joyless. The man who I assumed was her husband had dirty blond hair and a sun-burnt face and white goggle-shaped eyes evidencing a recent snow ski excursion. He was wearing low-waist cut jeans and boots. He walked in a bow-legged manner and looked fatigued but resigned to shopping with his wife.

The man was staring at me, sizing me up, and this didn’t make sense. I am forty-seven (though I look fifteen years younger) and surely did not attend high school with him. I did not appreciate him scrutinizing me the way he was doing. Perhaps he was jealous that his married life was a fake and mine was real, vibrant, and thriving. I notice strange couples often comparing the authenticity, or lack thereof, of their marriage to other ones.

But this was not the issue. Soon it became clear why he was staring at me. I was wearing his shirt. Or more accurately, he was wearing my shirt. Or more objectively, we were both wearing identical shirts.  To make matters worse, this was a very conspicuous shirt, a short-sleeve khaki Tommy Bahama. The front was solid khaki, but the back had a giant marlin, poker cards—a king and four aces—and the words “Poker Room. Open All Night.”

For some men, this coincidence may be perceived as mildly amusing, but I didn’t see our matching shirts as such a benign circumstance. To the contrary, our cloned shirts threatened to take away my Man Points for a host of reasons, not the least of which was that the other people inside the boutique would assume I bought my clothes at those ubiquitous discount stores that are trying to get rid of their crappy surplus resulting in a glut of these lame shirts hanging on the backs of shoppers with common tastes.  I would be tagged as an idiot who buys “bargains” without any concern for individuality. But there was a worse scenario here. Both me and my same-shirt-wearing wannabe doppelganger will be inevitably mocked as the “Bobbsey Twins,” which, let’s be honest, doesn’t exactly have a masculine air about it. In other words, wearing the same shirt as some other dude had a castrating effect and counteractive measures had to be taken immediately. The first thing I did was stand close to the guy so that everyone could see that, by virtue of my diligent combat conditioning, I looked far superior in the shirt. The way it drapes my muscles—my broad, rangy shoulders and striated pecs—would compel the other store patrons to conclude that only I should be wearing the shirt and they would scoff at the concave-chested impostor who was wearing what is mine and mine alone.

The man seemed rather nonchalant that I, such a superior specimen, was standing so close to him. His inferior station in life was reinforced by the fact that he was wearing a pathetic Casio watch.  I mean, we’re talking cheap plastic here. In contrast, I was wearing an Invicta Force Master Chronograph with a 52 mm bezel dome that magnified the black numerals and oyster face. The strap was black leather. Not every man can wear a watch of this size, but I can. Standing six feet and weighing 225 pounds with beefy forearms that are fifteen inches in circumference affords me the opportunity to wear a watch of such giant proportions.

 At this point, I was thinking if this impostor has any dignity, he will fetch his wife and go home immediately and never show his face at this boutique again. However, this pencil-neck geek looked rather content and seemed rather nonchalant about his decision to insult my very existence by wearing my shirt.

It was then time to take matters to a whole new level. Now let me explain at this point both his and my wife were trying on clothes in the fitting area and that the impostor and myself had slowly followed our wives to the back of the store. There is a giant ottoman inside the fitting room area and a single chair. With the fraud on the ottoman and me on the chair, we were facing each other during which time I pulled from the ankle pocket of my camouflage cargo pants my “emergency vitamins.” Not only do these supplements give me much needed pep in the late afternoon, they show the world how dedicated I am to my rigorous training and nutrition program. Now these weren’t ordinary vitamins either. Their outer coating was smooth and chalky, a big tabula rasa, so that I could write on them with a black Sharpie. That morning, I had spelled the words “BULL TESTOSTERONE,” “GONAD EXTRACT,” “ESSENCE OF GORILLA SCROTUM,” and “VIAGRA X 1,000.” And now with the impostor studying me closely, I took out the oversized vitamin capsules and carefully placed them on my quadriceps, which are so massive they serve quite well as a makeshift table. I then nodded toward one of the sales ladies and asked her if she would be so kind as to get me a glass of water. I then looked at the fraud with an expression that said, “Who’s in charge now?”

My advantage over this copy-cat became even more pronounced when his wife came out and asked him how she looked in a pair of mauve dress slacks. He told her they made her butt look too big. She did not appreciate his uncouth observation.  She stabbed him with dagger eyes before turning around and slamming the dressing-room door. He knew he had made a huge mistake and buried his head in his puny hands.

My wife then emerged from her dressing room and asked how her purple and white print blouse looked.

I gloated at the copy-cat as if to say, Here’s how real men do it.

I then smiled at Carrie and said, “My God, honey child, you look like Anita Ekberg in Federico Fellini’s famous fountain scene in La Dolce Vita. I say that blouse has got your name written all over it!”

She kissed me on the forehead before telling the saleswoman she’d take it. We exited the boutique and I was positively gloating knowing that my Man Points were brimming over the rim while my adversary had sunk into the Man Points shitter. In the battle between the two men in the identical Tommy Bahama shirts, I had emerged as the victor.

Comments

[doby14]

Huge Man Points for having the good taste to post Anita Ekberg in this entry.

[Jeffrey McMahon]

If AE is good enough for Fellini, she's good enough for me.

[Tom Welch]

I don't worry about man points, a stupid idea. I'm more concerned about being a decent human being.

Living up to my highest ideals, on a day-to-day basis. Cancer has a way of stripping the bullsh*t from your life.

[Jesse Menn]

I just got back from Los Angeles, was actually in Anthropologie at Del Amo (which by the way has this new addition? what the heck?)... I think I lost man points when I was checking out a button up cardigan and thinking, "I wonder if they got this in my size," before realizing it was women's. At least Anthropologie's stuff is slightly different than the other stores there, although I admit, only slightly. They're still owned by the same dudes that own Urban Outfitters, so...

[Jeffrey McMahon]

Anthropologie is pricey. Its allure is all stylized.

God, how I love to mock Man Points.