Men want commitment, too



Tell no secrets.

You’ve dropped some hints — about having babies, about how nice it would be to have a place of your own, about growing old — but he’s resolutely refrained from asking The Big Question. Finally you ask yourself: “Why is he do scared of commitment?”

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but maybe it’s just that he scared of commitment with you. Men look forward to having kids of their own and growing old with someone they love as much as women do (after a certain age, admittedly). And, like women, they want it to be with the right person. However, unlike women, men are never going to say Yes just because “because their heart tells them so”.  They need more than a flutter in their stomachs to commit to anything.





Men fear rejection, too

Beneath their crusty, shiny exterior, men are really all softies squirming with insecurity. They are terrified of being rejected; they actually hurt more deeply than women do because of the need to keep up that ridiculous macho charade. Women that tease men will often find themselves hated by the opposite sex, because men will come to view them as “risky” — the chance of such a woman rejecting you out of pure fun is too high.

This guy obviously can't handle rejection.

”Playing hard to get,” is another ploy that men do not take kindly to. Although it may seem to you the best way of keeping him interested, all you’re really doing is showing him that you can play games with his heart. Unless you’ve starred in America’s Top Models, you may want to reconsider this strategy — most men would gladly take their chances elsewhere.

Men want to be the biggest, fastest, bestest ever



The man any decent boy dreams of being one day.

Yes, men all seem to have a fixation for the longest, biggest and fastest everything. This is because of that little boy inside every man, with his huge insecurities, just dying to Be The Best He Can Be. He wants to a super-duper-achiever, and gain recognition for it from his Mom, his girlfriend, his kids, his next-door neighbour.

When making a decision, a man will choose the the path that displays him in the most powerful light. If it’s the wrong choice, he finds himself in a pickle: being in that powerful light means he cannot show weakness – he cannot admit that he was wrong. So, he shows anger instead. It lets him mask his other emotions, and preserve the sanctity of Little Boy with the Big Problems inside. My advice is this: let him have his way. Deep down, he knows his mistake anyway.

Men like gutsy women

In this age of liberated females, nothing turns a man on more than to have a woman call his mobile phone and ask him to dinner. Better yet, to have her buy him that dinner, and then take him home to her place to watch a movie she chooses.

Men are tired of always having to be the one to make the first move (and risk rejection). Men are tired of having to remember to pick their underwear up off the floor, in case they might have a visitor to bring home. A woman who takes the initiative is, to be a frank, a welcome change.

Men don’t like make-up

This is a guy, believe it or not.

Is Britney really that good looking? No. As a woman, you know that underneath all that make-up, she’s just another plain-old Caucasian girl with freckles and whiteheads. But why do men seem to ogle over her so? It must be the make-up.

Now, this is a little difficult to explain. Although men like looking at women that use their foundation, mascara, rouge, eye-liner and lipstick plus gloss, they don’t fancy being in the company of one. The moment they see you up close, they start analysing your make-up, searching for flaws you might be trying to hide. It detracts from your natural beauty, which is what they’re really interested in. (Hey, are you still going to have all that make-up on in the morning?).





Men don’t like being changed

One of men’s greatest fears is not being loved for who they are. They are terrified of being loved for who they could be, which is not quite the same. In fact, it’s an insult. You may be certain that he would look terrific in a tailored suit, but you’re never going to make him think so. And even if you do, you’ll never make him feel more comfortable in an Armani than a pair of jeans.

If you start making suggestions about the way a man should dress or behave, he will grow suspicious of you, and why you’re with him in the first place. If you fell in love with him in jeans, leave him in jeans. Changing him threatens the Little Boy. He’ll begin to wonder if he ought to get out of jeans just to keep you loving him – now, that would be a terrible pity, wouldn’t it?

Men dislike “The Spot”



What happens to a man when you put him on The Spot.

Sometimes, it’s because you catch him eyeing a woman with to-die-for legs at the mall. You ask him if he thinks the woman pretty (he says No). You ask him if you look fat (he says No). You ask him if your hair seems limp (again, he says No). You ask him several more questions, leading him to The Spot. He writhes, he squirms, but there’s no way out. Then it comes: “What can I do to make you more attracted to me?”

He could have been honest and said the woman was a real knock-out, but that would have hurt you (see #7). And you knew he was lying… else you wouldn’t have asked him all those questions. But you couldn’t it leave it at that, could you? Oh, no. You had to put him on The Spot.

Please don’t. Ever.

Men lie with good intentions, too

The “Am I fat? — No, you’re not” conundrum has been bandied around for decades without us having to go over it again. Yes, men will lie to get themselves out of a tight spot. But that’s not the only reason.

Men are sensitive to other people’s needs and wants, too. And, they will lie to make sure they don’t hurt your feelings — or anyone else’s — even if it’s at their expense. A man will not “say it to your face” if he can help it, and would rather suffer a date with the girl of his nightmares than hurt her.




Men are more loyal than you think





The boyfriend who tried, but could not resist.

Men have a terrible reputation to live up to, when you think about it. They’re supposed to be zipper-free, virginity-conquering bigamists, with an appetite for variety and spice surpassed only by their appetite for fried chicken and football. But most of them are nothing at all like that… and not surprisingly, either.

Almost all men are loyal husbands and boyfriends. Unless you see lipstick on his collar and his belt buckle, he probably really was just having a drink with his boss after work. Men really are not as sexually charged as women think, and are more concerned about work and their career than sex.

Men are not all the same

Men don’t ALL like football, they don’t ALL enjoy farting and they don’t ALL think about sex ALL the time. In fact, men stopped being like each other — hell, they made a conscious effort to do so — several decades ago, when the first books that analysed the male psyche appeared. Since then, they’ve tried very hard to differentiate themselves from one another in a gazillion different ways. So, don’t compare them with each other, alright?

Women are more intuitive than men



Surprise, surprise -- Men talk more than women!

Entire books have been written on the subject. Songs have been sung about it. Movies have been made around it. But in truth, there is no such thing as “Women’s Intuition”. Sorry.

Scientific studies dispelled the myth that women are more intuitive than men ages ago. However, some research does suggest that women pay more attention to detail than men do. Anthropologist Ashley Montagu says that women are more sensitive to colour discrimination — where a woman would say “ebony”, a man would simply say “black”. It’s this attention to detail that makes it seem like women have more intuitive sense than men, because they notice the subtler signals in a situation that men usually miss. But mind-reading? Puh-leese.
2.    Women are talkers; men are listeners
Surprise, surprise: men have the bigger mouths, after all!

Studies have repeatedly shown that men talk more than women do in virtually any given situation (except arguments, perhaps), from as far back as 1951. In the most recent study by the linguist Marjorie Swacker, three pictures by Albrecht Durer were presented to men and women separately. They were then asked to describe the pictures, and were timed — the idea was that whoever took longer were obviously the more elaborate talkers. The scientists bet on the women talking longer; the gamblers bet on the men. But the results caught everyone by surprise.

Women took an average of 3.17 minutes for their descriptions. The men took an unbelievable 13.00 minutes.




Men blame themselves more than women do

He didn’t get the promotion he was counting on, and he’s really down in the dumps. You see the signs of his impending breakdown draw around him. You know those signs; you’ve had them before. Right now, he’s just disappointed. But soon, he’s going to be beating himself up with bitter regret and thoughts of, “I could have done it if only I….” And then, outright anger will set in. It’s an implosion in slow motion.

Fast talking baby girl.

Except that the breakdown never happens. Wonder of wonders, in a couple of days, he’s back on his feet and as cheery as a canary on a sunny Sunday.

The fact is that women are much harder on themselves than men are. They assume responsibility when things go wrong, even if there was no way they could be to blame. Need proof? Well, ask yourself this: why do women use apologetic phrases more than men like “I’m sorry” and “Excuse me” so much?

 

Men give more detailed explanations

Remember #2 in this list? Well, although men do tend to talk a whole lot more than women, they don’t necessarily say much more. Women still offer much more detail about an incident or their day at work than men, which is an odd contradiction when you stop to think about it — where does all his breath go?

Although men can give more detailed explanations about something, they often choose not to, preferring to be efficient in their communication rather than exhaustive. Women, on the other hand, give you the gory details anyway… whether you want to hear them or not.




Men don’t touch others as much as women do

Wrong again. It seems that men are touchy, feely people, too.

Research has proven that men are more likely to touch people than women, whether male or female. When in male company, it’s by backslapping or handshaking. When in female company, it’s by doing gentlemanly acts like helping women in and out of cars or leading them through a doorway. Nancy Henley, professor of psychology at the University of California, found that men touched women four times more often than women touched men, believe it or not. However, it’s important that women do not interpret these touches as sexual advances, especially if it’s on her back or shoulders. We said ‘gentlemanly’; not ‘sexually’!

Men don’t listen as well as women

You pour your heart out to him, and his face remains impassive. He shows no signs of listening to you, let alone understanding anything you’re saying. Why is he ignoring you?

Well, he’s not. It’s just that men look less attentive than women when being spoken to. Sally McConnell-Ginett, a researcher at Cornell University, found that women are more inclined to say “um-hum” than men when listening to another person. Men, on the other hand, are as cool as cucumbers, and prefer to remain blank and expressionless. Why? So they don’t lead the speaker into thinking that they either agree or disagree with what they’re saying!

Men are less emotional when they speak

Real men can cry now.

Rubbish. The only reason it seems that way is because men express their emotions differently from women. It’s all a question of style.

Paul Ekman from UCLA found that whilst women typically have five different tones in their speech, men only have three. That’s why women appear to be more emotional than men — those peaks and valleys in their speech really dramatise things… even when they’re saying the same thing as the men!

Also, women’s speech is much more animated and their body language more distinct, making them more interesting and engaging. Add to that the fact that women are more likely to cry or have a quaver in their voice when talking about something bad, and it’s no wonder you think men are such cold creeps.

Men ask more questions than women do

Nope. Surely you’ve realized by now that virtually all men are Mr. Know-it-Alls. So, if they know everything, why should they ask questions?

If there is one general assumption about men that is correct, it is that men really are egotistical creatures. Asking questions mean that they’re not in the know about something, which would be utterly devastating to their self-esteem. Therefore, they remain silently ignorant… unless they’re pretty sure no one around them has the answer anyway. That’s why male scientists don’t mind asking questions about the origins of the universe, but refuse to call up their mothers for the family’s chicken stew recipe.

Men are equally anxious to talk about safe sex and STDs

I hate to disappoint you, but although men may be concerned about safe sex and STDs, they are much less likely to bring up the subject. In her book He Says, She Says professor Lillian Glass says that 70-percent of women (compared to 30-percent of men) were the first to bring up a problem… including such topics as birth control and HIV tests.

Although men are as aware as you about the dangers of unprotected sex and STDs, they are also more embarrassed when it comes to talking about it. They think that women ought to take care of intimate matters of their relationship like these serious subjects, and will wait for them to bring them up before offering any ideas of their own.

Men laugh at the same things women do

A man’s idea of a good laugh.

Whatever gave women the idea that men find gynaecological jokes funny, I don’t know. Men are men, for crying out loud — which part of that sentence do you not get?

Research shows that whereas women’s jokes tend to be more focused on word play and puns, men’s jokes are more sarcastic and abrasive than women’s, and far more aggressive. When it comes to laughter, men and women do not see eye-to-eye. So leave your penile dysfunction gags and your soiled pad anecdotes for your girlfriends, please.

Girls for hire, nice or not

This Saturday night, Sasha (her professional name), will not get home earlier than six in the morning. After a night of tireless smiling, excessive drinking and covert chatting with customers at a karaoke lounge, her hair will smell of cigarette smoke and beer. She would have had over forty cigarettes, and her breasts will hurt from being squeezed a tad too roughly by drunk men old enough to be her father.

Sasha is a Guest Relation Officer (GRO), but she goes by a slew of other titles including Public Relation Officer and Entertainment Hostess. Where she works, they all mean the same thing: Girl For Sale.

Time for sale

When I went undercover to find out how the sex trade works at the bars where girls like Sasha work, I found out quite a few things. Firstly, the drinks in these places are very expensive. And secondly, the GROs are essentially the bar’s employees, and they work for commissions on drinks sold. Nonetheless, they are welcome to earn whatever they can on the side… encouraged to, even — after all, if the men come back, they have to buy more of those expensive drinks, right?

The first place I visited hit me with its smell: damp, sleazy and cheap. There were cockroaches running around under the dilapidated sofa sets. It was on the second floor of a row of shop-houses, with no windows that I could see. It hadn’t seen the light of day in years.

As I stood at the entrance, nervously twirling my car keys in my left hand and switching my mobile phone to “loud” mode with my right, my eyes adjusted to the dark lighting. An attractive Chinese girl approached me from the bar, twinkling her smile. She was wearing what seemed to be the uniform for the girls working there: a short – and I mean short – maroon cheongsam (also called a Mandarin dress) with a name-tag that said her name was Yvonne, although I seriously doubt that.

She asked me if I would like a public seat or a private room (this was a karaoke lounge). I politely declined her invitation to look at the prices for a private room, and instead I made my way to corner of the room which I thought gave me a good vantage point of the whole bar. I seated myself on a sofa that sunk to the floor and ordered a drink.

The first thing you learn about places like this is that being relatively young and good-looking means nothing next to having a lot of money. I found that ordering USD10 beer was not enough to get someone to ‘entertain’ me. So I decided to ask for a USD250 bottle of Scotch, and was suddenly treated with a little more respect. The hostess who brought me the Scoth made her offer: USD10 for an hour of her time.

Lisa (the hostess) was in her late-thirties, had way too much make-up on and had a penchant for cracking her knuckles. Up close, she looked haggard, tired and sad — cigarettes, booze and a sunless existence will do that to you. I wondered how long she could continue to work there… or anywhere else, for that matter.

Street Walker in Hong Kong.

Asked if she has ever been offered money to have sex with them, and Sasha starts fidgeting with her collar.

Apparently, Lisa was the only girl who could speak English well enough to entertain a foreigner. However, she didn’t fit my research needs, so she was replaced by Candy.

Candy was twenty-two with a short hairdo and enough natural flush in her cheeks to not need rouge. She was skinny, though. The cheongsam hung off her shoulders like a shirt instead of hugging her figure like it should. At eleven o’clock, she was already slurring on Chivas, courtesy of a group of men in the forties who seemed to be having a reunion.

Her efforts to make me comfortable only succeeded in making me exceedingly fidgety. She patted me on my knees and hands and flirted blatantly. Conversation was stunted, but animated — I nodded to her Chinese, and she nodded to my English. GROs are trained conversationalists, and they get you chatting about your pet fancies in no time. Also, because they meet so many people, they can be surprisingly knowledgeable about current issues, and share their opinions freely… if the customer wants to hear them, of course.

I paid her the USD10/hour rate, but was sharing her with the Chivas men. Still, she seemed a lot happier to be with me than with them, although that could be wishful thinking. Nonetheless, when I gave no indication that I was going to buy more of her time, Candy drifted back to the Chivas group. She smiled at me, as did the gentlemen who were buying the drinks. One of them reached around her and spanked her bottom, drawing laughter from his friends. Even in the darkness I could see her blush, and a pained expression flickered briefly across her face as she sat down next to him. They lifted up their glasses, and toasted to peace, prosperity, and love.

I glanced casually around, and saw other men at other tables eyeing the proceedings intently. Seemingly like me – single and lonely – they waited patiently for Candy to pay some attention to them.

But that wouldn’t happen until they bought her time… and a bottle of Scotch.

All in a day’s work

I had seen enough. For my next stop, I decided to head into the city, where the lounges were rumoured to use pest control services to tackle their cockroach menace and the girls apparently spoke real English.

I was not dissappointed. Upon the recommendation of the Yellow Pages, I went to a place holed up in a shop-office complex. It was dimly lit, but smelled much nicer than the last. And as soon as my first bill came, I understood why: USD25 for a pilsner. This was one place where I certainly could not afford to order a Single Malt.

Undeterred, I turned on my journalistic charm and convinced a junior manager that I was doing an Executive Karaoke Lounge review (that’s what they like to call their establishments) for a travel magazine, and that I would be grateful if she would show me around.

Next thing I knew, my beers were on the house. Lucky me.

Again, not wanting to restrict my viewpoint, I took a small table in a corner (the only one available), and let my eyes and ears adjust themselves to the surrounding. The first thing I noticed was that the girls were dressed in very smart pantsuits. Also, the lighting for the place was very clever, with the walkways lighted up from the floor, but the table and sofa areas sufficiently dark so that everyone remained anonymous to everyone else. The sound system was much better, too. Everything seemed to indicate a much better work environment for the girls.

On an out call.

The first to come up to me was Sasha. She was in her late-twenties, with long, black hair and a nice-looking face. Not exactly pretty, but pleasant. And, wonder of wonders, she spoke English.

It was Sasha that I decided to engage as my subject for the evening, since she was matured enough to understand what I was doing, and could at least say something other than, “Do you want another drink?”

It turns out that Sasha wasn’t always at the ‘exclusive’ place, but began her time as a GRO in a much cheaper joint out of town. A ‘talent scout’ found her there. Apparently, in ‘exclusive’ places, the ability to speak English is quite valuable because of the expatriate community in the city.

But did her life change?

“Customers here are richer and more used to getting their way,” she says, with what seemed like a smidgen of regret. “In my old workplace, they would back off if I told them to. Not here, though.”

Sasha came to the city ten years ago to study. Through friends, she discovered the joys of clubbing and partying. Soon, her money was gone, and she flunked her exams. She had to look for a part-time job to be able to continue her education.

“I just couldn’t tell my parents that I’d blown everything on clothes and booze,” she says.

She needed something that would leave her free during the day so she could attend classes — a day job was out of the question. Her first job was as a waitress at a disco, but it wasn’t enough to support her lifestyle and her education. It was then that she was offered a job as GRO at a karaoke lounge.

“The guy said that the job function was more or less the same, except that I would have to be more ‘intimate’ with the customers,” recalls Sasha. “Since it was nearly double the pay, excluding tips, I took it.”

‘Intimate’ turned out to be more that she bargained for. The hours, longer. On most nights, her job simply means getting customers to buy the most expensive drinks on the menu by pouting at them, acting cute, dancing with them and suffering the occasional fondle and bad joke. But there are bad nights, which she prefers not to talk about.

“It’s the regulars that I don’t like,” Sasha sighs. “They give so much business to the place so they think they own you. And they don’t tip. Not anymore.”

A hard day’s night

Asked if she has ever been offered money to have sex with them, and Sasha starts fidgeting with her collar.

“Only every other day,” she replies. “It’s called ‘toilet service’ around here.”

‘Toilet service’ is the act of oral or full sex literally done in the lavish and well-spaced rest rooms of these outlets. There is also strip dancing: for a price, some GROs will do the full Monty for customers. But Sasha refuses to do anything more than let them fondle her in the open. It isn’t hard to go from Girl for Hire to Girl for Sale, and she does not want that to happen.

“My colleagues say that the first time is the hardest, but that it gets easier as you go along,” says Sasha. “You’ll be rolling in cash — at USD50 a go, the money is good. But you’ll also be no better than a prostitute — I don’t want that.”

The lounge does not take a cut from this money — it is a strictly private transaction between the customer and his new ‘friend’, done in the comfort of the lounge’s plush ‘lavatory’. The only money that passes hands between the bar and the GRO is a low basic salary, plus commissions from the beverage sales.

It is a fine business model. The bar is happy because of the repeat business (at super-high profit margins, I might add). The customers are happy because it is legal. And the girls are happy because it is both.

Technically, then, being a Guest Relation Officer is not illegal. It’s a loophole in the system. The owners can claim complete ignorance, since the money changing hands is between ‘friends’ and they get nothing. The girls are willing participants, and can choose for themselves how much — or how little — they want to lease out to the strangers who visit them: USD10 for a fondle, USD20 for a strip dance, USD50 for a ‘toilet service’. And although the management does not provide rooms, only an idiot would presume that they do not know what is going on.

Not all GROs are lavatory prostitutes. Some, like Sasha, are just trying to make a living. They don’t sell sex. They just lease their time and allow a few caresses here and there. Still, her future looks pretty bleak. She never finished college. But there is one hope for her: the possibility of getting married and leaving it all behind.

“Even though the customers at this Executive Lounge are rich and usually have girlfriends of their own, there are still proposals,” says Sasha. “There always will be in this business.”

She knows of two of her peers who settled down with customers and started families. Granted, their husbands have not stopped visiting GROs, but at least they don’t have to worry about what they will do after forty.

“At the most, I can only do this for another ten years… if I still look good,” says Sasha sadly.

“Is that time enough?” she asks me.

I cannot help but think of Lisa, my hostess at the earlier place. Was she, too, waiting for her prince charming?

“Sure it is,” I lie. In ten years time, Sasha will probably need to lease a lot more than her time to earn a living.

Girl for Sale soon. Enquiries within.

Their delicate spot is right between their legs

Photo credit: CarbonNYC. Click image to visit the photographer.

Ironic, isn’t it? Both physically and mentally, our most fragile spot is slotted right between our thighs. We are so painfully aware of this fact that you see some us holding our hands in front of our crotch while we wait for taxis, unconsciously shielding ourselves from an attack upon the very thread from which our sanity hangs.

Physically, you know that our jewels do not take to disturbing caresses very well. This wouldn’t be so bad in itself, except that why does it have to be right next to our most precious utility! I consider it an aberration of nature which I hope will resolve itself over the next sixty million years or so.

Where are the Men’s Nights?

I enjoy clubbing, I really do. The feverish excitement of sweat and perfume mingled with body heat and flashing light always gets me going. But I’ve always wondered this: where are the men’s nights? At the clubs, at the the movies and at the theme parks, Ladies’ Night’s are many with plenty in between. Some even offer ladies’ nights every weekday, provided that they stick to a dress code. But men? Where’s the love, huh? We can’t even get an hour a week to stroke our egos and feel appreciated!

Men are the weaker sex

Women should know better than to doubt the wisdom behind this. The life ambition of man is as follows:

1. Find woman
2. Have sex
3. Repeat steps

I have a stunning girlfriend. And yet, should I be out with her, I can’t help ‘checking out’ other, less attractive women. I don’t know why! Is this that ‘to-sow-his-wild-oats’ theory? What gives?!

Men love ‘stuff’ more than they do themselves

There are only two things I readily spend my money on: music and computers. The only time I get clothes and/or shoes are in wrappers at Christmas and on my birthday. I can’t bring myself to buy something personal no matter how hard I try.

And women wonder why men seem so dull after a while….

Men can’t have babies

If it weren’t for this very important fact, I believe that men and women could live quite comfortably on different continents of the world without mingling. We’d never fight again. It’s not that I wish we didn’t need women to procreate (I’d never say that!). But I would at least appreciate the option of being able to father a child without a woman.

Men never smell good

Phew! Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think men smell too good. We never have, and in all probability, we never will. But why not? I’ve tried to follow my girlfriend’s regimen of body care and odour-beating defences, but they don’t work on me. Within the hour, I smell like something the dog dragged out of the garbage, whilst her perfume still lingers in the air when she walks by.

Why this fundamental biological disadvantage has been accorded to us, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve got to go have a bath.

Men can’t prove their chastity

I once met this hot girl that I wanted to lay, who said she would only surrender to a ‘pure’ guy. I pledged eternal devotion, and swore I was a virgin. She didn’t buy it. But I was, I swear I had never been with another woman before her.

How does a man prove to a girl that he’s never done it? You can’t!

Sexist or gentleman?

There is a fine, grey, sparsely dotted line that separates the gentleman from the sexist. On some days, opening a door for a lady will get you an appreciative smile. On others, a curt “I can do it myself” glare. And girls wonder where all the knights have gone! No wonder we’re all mucking about, mixing up lust and love and getting nowhere in our relationships: we can’t even figure out if offering to carry your luggage is chauvinistic or chivalrous.

Men don’t live long enough

Of the two predominant species of humankind on earth, guys have the shorter life span. Blame it on our lifestyles, the food we eat, our lack of exercise, the beer, whatever. The fact is that we don’t stick around long enough to enjoy a lot of stuff. And if we do, it’s usually a miserable existence of a slow, prolonged death anyway. I wish we had more time.

Men can’t win arguments

Unfortunately, there is only one other species on earth we can converse with, and those conversations frequently end up in tears. Care to argue? Yes, I thought you’d want to.

I’m off to take that bath now.

This work by The Chick Times is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.chicktimes.com.

Find out more about syndicating this and other free content.

Photo credit: The Pug Father. Click image to visit photographer.

Styling

Sporty, practical or boxy — what stage of life is he in?

The average Joe almost always wants to have a sporty car, and if he’s young and unattached and has money to splurge, he will express his boyishness with a car that is eye-catching (red, black or yellow) and sleek. However, this does not mean it has to be fast — fast cars are an expensive indulgence for the very wealthy. Even a mini can be accessorised with a bodykit and made to look like a lean, mean racing machine… and some of them really are!

On the other hand, a Responsible Man approaching the age of Settling Down And Having Children usually drives something a lot more practical and spends little on accessorising his vehicle other than tinted glass to make it more comfy. Think grey or blue sedans in their original colours, the kind of cars you see everyday and don’t look twice at. This is a man often dedicated to other priorities, such as his career, his savings, his Ikea-furnished apartment, his dog… and yes, his wife. This man is solidly reassuring, rarely exciting and, unfortunately, usually taken.

If you’re dating a man with a boxy, van-type ride, such as an MPV, then I’ve got bad news: he is already a family man. This is the type of car the Responsible Man (above) trades up for in anticipation of kids, a servant and trips to the beach. Make no mistake about it: men do not buy MPVs to pick up girls. If he’s doing so with you, you may want to check for a pair of stilettos under the front seat (see “Hidden Secrets”, below).

Hidden Secrets

High-heels, roll-on, shoe polish, toys and garbage bags

A car has many nooks and crannies that guys fill up with stuff they don’t want to see… and don’t want seen by others. This is typical guy behaviour, of course (just wait till you see his refrigerator), and in no way discredits him. It’s what he’s hiding that’s really interesting.

Firstly, evidence of Another Woman, possibly a Permanent Resident may be found in a pair of high-heels (check under front/rear seat or boot), used to walk from the car to the restaurant and back again, but nowhere else. A tube of hand cream (glove compartment) may be used to combat hot weather, but not by a guy. You might even find a pair of torn pantyhose stuffed into the door compartment. If you’re particularly unlucky, however, you’ll come across ladies underwear in the back seat, too.

The glove compartment is a treasure trove of information and almost as private to a man as his wallet. Here, you may find signs that he is somewhat smelly — roll-on and perfume are both suggestive of this unfortunate flaw that otherwise nice guys sometimes have. You may also get an insight into his character if you find shoe polish: he either insists on looking good at all times or he is habitually late for appointments. A bag of garbage is good: he has at least enough civic consciousness to not throw rubbish out the window.

Finally, do you see a child’s toy in the backseat? This could belong to his nephew or niece like he says (less probable — they would have taken it with them when they left), or to his own children which you’ll never meet (more probable). Hint: remember that children’s toys are often not what they seem. A drinking straw, a clothes hanger, a cooking ladle or even an empty cassette case are all favourite baby toys. But what you really don’t want to find, what truly stands out as an awful reflection of the guy’s character, is an electric shaver… with a car charger attached to it. I shouldn’t have to tell you that this means he is a slob — be warned!

Ornaments

Stuffed toys, bumper stickers and those ridiculous, bouncy-headed nodders — what’s his male psyche?

Ornaments are a big part of what makes a man’s car his, because this is about the only way he can differentiate his vehicle from the next. But how he utilises his dashboard space and interior walls go a long way towards explaining the type of person he is.

Start with the dashboard: does it have one of those annoying, wobbly-headed nodders? The kind that nods goofily at you while you’re stuck in stop-and-go traffic? If there is a nodder, what is it? A cartoon character? A celebrity? Does it look like a free gift put there on impulse, or did he actually (ugh!) buy the dirty, smelly little thing, and make it the pride and joy of his cabin?

Ok, so there’s no nodder. Fine. Let’s move on to stuffed toys: teddy bears, cats and other assorted animals are an almost sure sign of the presence of a Female Permanent Resident that he’s not telling you about (guys don’t dig Garfield tissue-box cases, no matter what they say). However, don’t be surprised to find a pair of furry dice hanging from his rear view mirror or some throw pillows in the backseat… although lacy covers should be construed as a red flag.

Bumper stickers are a good way to gauge his Wit Quotient — are they clever, or clichéd? They are also an excellent peek into his psyche (“NoUniversityAtAll” and other such declarations of independence could imply issues with his self-confidence), whilst offering even better clues into his working life — all work and no play makes John a drag.

Finally, if you don’t see any decoration at all — nothing hanging from the rear view mirror (religious artefacts don’t count), nothing in the rear window space, no clever bumper stickers and no dashboard ornament — then you can count on him being an extremely intriguing, hard-to-judge man. He does not believe in expressing his ambitions, philosophies and disappointments in his surroundings, so you’re going to have to figure out all of that stuff by yourself. Enjoy!

Sounds

Loud and obnoxious, clattering and wheezy, silent and steady — what type of man is he?

If there is one characteristic about his car that is most easily identifiable in him, it is the way it sounds… and we’re not talking about his choice of music (although that says a lot, too).

There is a myth that all men love cars. Not true. A clattering, wheezy engine tells you two things about a man:

1. He does not really care what you or anyone else thinks about his car; and,
2. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because he does not know much about cars.

Here is a man who hears his sick car crying for help but (gasp!) cannot be bothered to do anything about it — a rare breed indeed. Unfortunately, this also means that he does not take care of any of his other possessions, either — to him, all material gain is temporary and he places zero importance on them.

And then there is the silent purr of a well-maintained engine, all cylinders firing, the exhaust sensibly quiet as it should be. This is a man who likes hearing his car run well, and when it does, he feels good. The slightest squeak is a cause for concern. He opens the bonnet every weekend and spends several hours cleaning, polishing, tuning and caring for his vehicle. You will feel ignored, but you should not be so hard on yourself: after all, the car was there before you.

Of course, if a man has tuned his car to be loud enough to wake the devil, then you can bet on him having an equally loud and overbearing personality that will drown your voice and opinions in heated arguments. He has modified his car to be like that because he is fed up of being ignored on the road. He wants to be seen and heard. He has deep-seated issues with his self-worth that you will find hard to unearth, and you’ll have to put up with his childish revving in the dead of the night when he wants to announce his arrival.

He wants to be King. Hear him roar.

Cleanliness

Polished to shine, mud-splattered roadster or dust magnet — how much does he really care about himself?

Photo credit: wickenden. Click image to visit photographer.

If the way a man cares for his car on the inside is an indication of how well he takes care of his belongings (see “Sounds”, above), then the way he cares for his car on the outside hints at how well he takes care of himself.

A car that is always clean and polished, with the mats all dusted and the windscreen always bright, shows a man who is concerned about his health and looks and goes to great lengths to ensure that both are in tip top condition. A well-groomed car implies a well-groomed driver, and a well-groomed driver implies a well-groomed bill of health. Ask him why he cares so much for his car, and he’ll answer “Because I love myself”. You can either love or hate this in a man, depending on whether you think you should top his list of priorities.

On the other hand, a mud-splattered, sandy car with months of grime that cannot hope to ever be removed smacks of a man with an unhealthy diet, greasy hair and poor self-projection. He thinks that his car will last without care, and tends to believe the same thing about his body. He wants to use it for as long as he can and with a minimum number of overhauls, maximising his investment in it and disregarding all its pleas for a little tender love and care. He intends to do the same with his physical body. Ask him why, and he’ll answer: “It’s just a car.”

The man with a dusty ride and water-streaked windows straddles the space between these two extremes. Here is a man who works hard for his money, driving in the city every day. The neglect he shows for his car and his health is probably due more to being pressed for time than stubborn indifference. Ask him why he does not show his vehicle more respect and he’ll answer: “No time.”

At least you won’t have to worry about his car coming before you.

I wonder what he's hiding?

I like to think of myself as a new-age man. I cried as the Titanic sank. I sobbed as Sam’s daughter was wrestled away from him. I cheer for women’s rights whenever it’s warranted, and discuss gender inequality with my partner in a pragmatic manner. I can cook, clean, and do the laundry without batting an eyelid, and still manage to hold my own in the home-repairs department. So, you see, I have no problem with the ‘sensitive’ part of the new-age maxim. It’s the ‘macho’ part that I don’t get.

Most of modern man’s existence is spent in humble obeisance to the norms of his or her expected role in society. Historically and culturally, we are taught that at different periods in time, men and women played different parts in the fabric of civilization. And right now, men and women seem to be expected to play the role of equals: neither should function any differently than the other. Both accept the same responsibilities, treatment and privileges. The only thing that doesn’t change is that a woman will bear children, and a man will bear his shameless stupidity.

But as with everything else with the world: where’s the justice? In an ideal world of idyllic paradise islands where ideal men and women make ideal babies, a world with this equally ideal balance between manliness and femininity would be perfect. However, since the laws of man and nature are not the same, we fumble around looking for that equilibrium, and make adjustments to our present characteristics over our decades-old make-up: Men used to be hard-nosed creatures with an appetite for only sex and violence. (Some may argue that we still are). Now, we’re trying to fulfil our inherent need for the macho whilst acknowledging the ‘new-age’ orders-of-the-day, such as knowing the difference between frill and lace. It’s a tough time to be a chauvinist, male or female.

On the one hand, women seem to like my sensitive, soft-hearted core. They think it’s sweet. On the other hand, I’m a weakling; a limp, spineless, pathetic little boy who hides behind a grizzly chin and corporate tie. While I try to maintain a gruff, disinterested arrogance for household utensils and ladies’ clothes departments, I still take an active role in home décor and lingerie. But with every soppy love-story I watch, waiting for the good guy to whack the bad guy over the head with a baseball bat, I get more confused. I mean — seriously now — is there really such a thing as a New-Age guy?

People tell me it is so, but I have my reservations. If men have our ‘basic instincts’, and lust for women and protector-like roles, then surely women have their primitive needs for strong, able-bodied men, that would throw any man who looks at her wrong a good right hook. The last time a companion of mine came under attack, I calmly withdrew from the situation, taking her with me. My rationale was simple: suppress my first instinct to punch his nose and run, and instead leave the vicinity under the guise of “a matured defence to a threatening assault”.

Unfortunately, her response was, “Why didn’t you kick him in the you-know-where?” No wonder Paula Cole sang, “where have all the cowboys gone?”

Oh, all right, so maybe that was an isolated incident. But that still doesn’t explain why we’re expected to ‘keep things together’ in the family way when they start to fall apart, and — my all-time favourite — to be ‘the rock to lean on’, and heaven knows how many other clichéd ‘good old-fashioned cowboy’ roles that need filling any time a situation that calls them. It’s downright unsettling.

So, I remain swaying between the modern and the primeval. Caught between my good-natured, willing-to-please-my-woman side; and my other, gloriously testosterone-crammed, Who-Is-The-Man? one.

I suspect that the New-Age Man might be our generation’s inverse Galatea: a statue carved by King Pygmalion, so dissatisfied was he with the feminine race, and brought to life as The Perfect Woman. But purely mythological. Fictitious. Make-believe. A product of exceptional imagination. So it is with the New-Age Man.

I’m no New-Age Dude. Anyone care for a New Age Dud?

Games, games, games.

The sign reads “Sunshine Cybercafe — 24-hours”, but this dingy shop in Subang Jaya, Malaysia has never seen the light of day. The smell of stale cola and cigarette smoke waft out the door as two pallid-faced tweens step out. Behind them, machine guns fire, grenades explode and bombs drop.

One boy massages his right hand. The other cracks his knuckles. These are their battle wounds. War Craft, Doom, Quake, Counterstrike: for USD0.50 an hour – 20% off for members – kids at Sunshine Cybercafe can be the good guys in cyberspace around the clock. Beverages not included.

Death by gaming

For many kids, computer games has become a serious addiction. Although authorities and health professionals are already clued in to the problem, many parents are not. But while the games are purely make believe, the hazards of excessive computer gaming are most certainly real.

In 2007, a 30-something man in Beijing died after a three-day internet gaming binge. In Hong Kong, a 28-year-old man and 17-year old boy died within a year of each other, both while playing the same first-person shooter. Deaths by gaming have also been reported in the US, where a man died after a week of playing Nintendo; and in South Korea, where a man died after four days of non-stop online games.

“Our society is becoming more computer dependent not only for information, but also for fun and entertainment,” says Dr. Maressa Orzack, Ph.D. of the Computer Addiction Service at Harvard-McLean Hospital in the U.S. “This trend is a potential problem affecting all ages, starting with computer games for kids.”

Dr. Orzack, who has been studying computer addiction of various forms for nearly twenty years, says that it is an emerging disorder suffered by people who find the virtual reality on computer screens more attractive than everyday reality.

“It is a problem very similar to Pathological Gambling or Compulsive Shopping; and, like other addictions, it affects other people such as family, friends, and co-workers,” she explains.

Healing the wounds

Computer game addiction is overwhelmingly more likely to be a problem with boys than girls. Computer games allow teenage boys to escape from peer pressures into his own private fantasy, where he can control everything. They seek solace in cybergames the way teenage girls seek solace in binge diets. Both addictions offer the illusion of control, which explains why Dr. Orzack recommends treating computer addiction just like you would treat eating disorders.

“The basic idea is to teach people how to normalise their behaviour — a key goal in eating disorder therapy.”

The technique, known as “cognitive-behavioral therapy” teaches you to monitor your thoughts and identify the ones that trigger addictive action. Dr. Orzack also encourages the use of Motivational Interviewing to set goals for kids who already know they are spending too much time at gaming and want to get better.

“All this is besides getting him or her to spend more time doing other things like sports or reading,” says Dr. Orzack.

Symptoms of Computer Game Addiction

• Inability to stop playing (for example, at mealtimes)
• Playing into the wee hours of the morning
• Reluctant to take part in family activities
• Lying about when or how long he’s been at the computer
• Back aches, dry eyes and carpal tunnel syndrome
• Seems happier when playing games than any other time
• Declining grades at school