The Modern Man's Guide to Life

A year or two ago, we sent out what amounted to a chain letter asking modern men for advice about modern life. We hoped that by doing so, we could raise a sort of extended barroom conversation, nationwide, and get the best take on life from the three or four modern guys sitting next to the pretzels there under the TV in bars across the country. We could ask, for example, "Hey, what do you think of rats?" and somebody would probably tell us a little more than we really needed to know about rats. And mice. And how to take a gentlemanly piss. And how to win a woman. How to survive losing one.

Most important, while collecting answers, we discovered something about figurative colorization.

Colorization is what they do to old black-and-white movies so they can make some more money off their re-release. It's complicated, expensive and very progressive. Trouble is, it screws up somebody's film in the process.

Colorization of one kind or another is everywhere. All the stuff that is supposed to make our lives so much easier only makes them more complicated. The most trivial daily activities--getting dressed and going to work, for example--have become fraught with political, social and moral implications. To be a man in the late 20th Century is to be a confused oppressor who dresses funny.

The New Man, who looked so promising in the Seventies, has broken down completely. The guy wimps around and cries on cue and is very sensitive and all, but he's useless in the sack and a pain at work and, worst of all, it turns out that girls, who were supposed to be the market for the New Man, hate the sucker.

The Modern Man is, in fact, an old-fashioned kind of guy, a reasonably thoughtful fellow who has listened with varying amounts of patience to all the new ideas so passionately advocated by well-intentioned people (sometimes including himself) over the past two decades and has discovered that while all of them may be new ideas, 90 percent of them are also bad ideas. So what appears here is conventional wisdom. Much of it was conventional 25 years ago; much of it will be conventional for the foreseeable future.

And that's just as well.

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Rules of Courtship

Just goes to show, there are rules for everything.

The ultrarule. There is no such thing as an innocent lie. Every lie you tell during courtship will come back to haunt you. A teeny little white one about something completely inconsequential ruins your credibility forever. If you're found out in a fib about being late to work, you can forget about ever being believed again; your flattery will go unwelcomed and your sincerity will sound like false flattery.

Modern Men--and most women--find that there is no charm in a lie, no endearing foible that justifies taking liberties with the truth. Never cheat on a woman whom you care about and expect to get away with it. She'll always find out.

Keep your emotions tidy. Tossing off meaningless emotional demands and tantrums is extremely irresponsible.

Control your ego. Don't make emotional submission a part of your sexual conquest. Making somebody jump through ego hoops is not only dishonest, it's cruel.

The Metamechanics of the Opening Line

In approaching a woman in a bar or other public place, remember that you'll almost never get back more than you give. A good opening line should always do two things: It should invite a response (other than a simple yes or no) and it should reveal something positive about you. Also note: While first lines are important, fifth and sixth and even 75th lines are crucial. If you don't have anything to say after she says hello, don't even start a conversation. Passive rejection is preferable to active failure.

The less threatening the environment, the more aggressive you can become. In the produce section of a supermarket, you can use almost any opening line that comes to mind. In the New York subway, nothing short of absolute brilliance will work.

Tramps like us. A good opener will imply that something special separates the two of you from the rest of the crowd in the room and beyond--e.g., "What are two good-looking people with legs like ours doing in a dive like this?"

The Proper Piss

One thing that separates the boys from the girls is the relative portability of our urinary habits. But this seeming advantage is not without its perils--especially given the occasional unpredictability of the equipment.

Avoiding the telltale dribble. The horror of the postpiss dribble can be easily avoided by firmly pressing one or two fingers up and out on the area immediately behind the scrotum after urinating. This forces a tidy evacuation of the urinary tract and prevents the surprise that appears after you've closed the zipper on light-colored trousers.

If, for some inexplicable reason, that doesn't work, simply walk to the basin, sprinkle water all over your chest and lower abdomen and, when rejoining your companion, place the blame on faulty plumbing in the men's room. Better its plumbing be suspect than yours.

Five rules to piss by:

1. Always lift the seat before pissing.

2. Always lower the seat when finished.

3. If you make a mistake and miss, clean it up. This is especially good advice for house guests, since it means that your host will not find himself standing in a pool of your piss during some nocturnal visit.

4. In houses with immodestly placed toilets or with flimsy walls, try to ricochet your shot off the porcelain inner surface. If this is impossible, don't mess around: Go for the big splash in the deep end. Make it sound like The Bells of Saint Mary's, and God bless you.

5. Never try to piss in the dark.

First-Date Misdemeanor

Ladies love outlaws, sure enough; but just watch the opening scene of Bonnie and Clyde to see the effect of involving a woman in some spontaneous larceny. This doesn't mean that to win her heart you've got to risk an ambush by federales. But if robbing a store on the first date got Clyde wrestled to the floor of his stolen car by an admiring Bonnie, then breaking into the zoo by moonlight or some similar misadventure ought to at least win you a smooch.

How Esquire Fooled You

Women hate so-called New Men, despite the media's protestations to the contrary. The idea of a man's sitting down and weeping about his difficulties on the job or shedding tears of joy at the thought of a Saturday-night dinner date is enough to make most women puke.

The World of Work

The office is where you spend the most meaningless hours of your life. To admit this, however, would be to wear a Gillette bracelet, so go to work and get serious. Acquire wealth and power. Exploit markets and labor. Win. Win so hard it hurts good.

Never steal anything from your employer with a market value of less than one year's salary. This includes stamps and pencils.

Brain power. No matter how many hours you spend working, your brain won't give you more than six hours a day.

You'll notice that if you work longer, you become distracted and require more rest intervals. You can think about this as long as you like, but after six hours, you'll be on overtime and running on empty.

What It Takes to Be a TV News Personality

You should be female, preferably a female member of a minority group. You must, however, try as hard as possible to sound like a white male. Listen to women who work in radio and TV news. Do you think they talk like that around the house?

If you're something other than female, you should have relatives in dentistry and hair care.

You should be a college graduate who majored in something called communications. A network-news personnel director--an old hand at the business--pointed out with some sadness that the networks are no longer interested in hiring print journalists, the traditional background of correspondents and anchor men. "The people we're hiring can't write complete sentences," he said.

You must be able to project what one network vice-president called believability. You can cheat on your wife and your taxes, but if you can look into a camera and pretend you understand what you're saying, you can get on TV--no sweat.

If you have a normal attention span, shorten it. Ditto your vocabulary.

Make certain that your view of every story you cover conforms to conventional wisdom. If you work in TV, you probably won't have much of an independent point of view, anyway, so talk with a lot of people around the office and see what they think of the world. If you get seriously divergent opinions on an issue, ask for a show of hands. Get someone to help you count.

Power

For secular success, this is the big one, the only one that counts.

Who has it. Almost nobody has real power. Look around you. Divide your working world into two groups--those who have the power to say yes or no and those who have only the power to say no.

Your first list will have very few names on it: the president, maybe the chairman of the board. Almost everybody will be on the second list: receptionists, secretaries, administrative assistants, vice-presidents. Anyone can say no.

The trouble is, nobody wants to appear powerless. Therefore, those who have the power to say no exercise their franchise with wild abandon, since the admission that they will have to ask a superior for the power to say yes is crippling to their self-esteem.

Five Things to Do Every Day to Help You Get Organized

If possible, do this stuff the night before; you'll sleep better.

1. Set your priorities by making a careful and thoughtful list. This is such an obvious aid that most people just skip it. Don't. Take the time to make a list every single day.

2. Do the items you want to do the least the first thing in the morning and get them out of the way.

3. Get all correspondence out of the way immediately--if possible, early in the day.

4. Meet with your staff frequently and make sure channels of communication are wide open. Always allow time to be available to discuss the staff's various projects and problems.

5. Commit one hour at the end of the day to reading. Go through all those newspapers and magazines that you'll lug around for weeks because you think there might be something useful in them.

Firing People

Firing people is the downside of all the other upsides you enjoy as an employer or supervisor.

Start your dismissal conversation by reinforcing yourself as the employer. You're going to be nervous, and it's not such a bad thing to show it.

Build your case over a period of time--and make sure it's in writing. Lawyers are everywhere.

Always fire an employee first thing in the morning. It will cut down on the angst. Never do it on a Friday; you don't want him to brood for an entire weekend. Monday is the ideal day for an axing, because your ex-colleague can go directly from his former workplace to the (concluded on page 173)Modern Man's Guide(continued from page 97) employment agencies and the unemployment office; doing something about his new state of unemployment will help give him a sense of control over his situation.

Be positive. Talk about his strong points and emphasize his worth. Don't overdo this, or he'll end up with your job.

Shine, Mister?

Patronize your local shoeshine parlor. A good shine performed by somebody who really knows what he's doing is not only a threatened masculine tradition, it's also a damn fine show--the snap and pop of a buffing rag in the hands of a pro is a unique thing. Besides, loafing for a quarter hour in a shine parlor is good for what ails your ego; you are, for example, strongly advised to visit a shoeshine parlor on your way to a job interview.

I'm Fired! You Quit!

Aside from dying at your desk, the only way to get out of a job is to get fired or to quit. So don't make a big deal out of either one. These things happen.

If you leave a job with bitterness, conceal your feelings from your co-workers and your boss. Leave no loose ends, even if it means working overtime. If you explode and storm out, you'll just be leaving a group of people who will happily gossip about you and call you a jerk behind your back.

Revenge

Revenge must be seen as a risky investment in which you will either gain a great deal or lose much more than you can afford. Therefore, we don't recommend it. If, however, you just can't help yourself:

Make it fast. The romantic notion that you can wait a lifetime to avenge some slight is bullshit. The longer you wait, the more your determination will cool.

The return. Be sure the screwing you give is worth the one you'll get.

Clichés. Every cliché we've ever heard about revenge is true, especially the one about success' being the sweetest variety. If you really want to get even with ex-girlfriends, ex-wives or ex-employers, get along better without them.

Modern Romance

The cardinal rules. On behalf of all men everywhere, please observe the following rules of behavior at all times.

1. Do not whistle, shout or make animal noises at females in public.

2. If you are over the age of 40, do not make suggestive remarks or double-entendres during a flirtation ritual with a younger woman.

3. Do not make rude or suggestive comments to any females with whom you have a less than intimate acquaintance, especially if you are in the company of other males.

4. Never touch a female with whom you have a less than intimate acquaintance in any way differently from the way you would touch another male.

Note: Women who wish you to violate these rules will make their wishes known to you in unambiguous ways. Until then, assume that all women--along with all Modern Men--will find the violation of these rules grotesquely offensive.

Seduction and Sex

Look out for number one. The key to great sex is selfishness, not hypersensitivity. The best sexual encounters begin with bold and unapologetically smoldering gazes and lead to a kind of foreplay in which your thoughts and moves subtly impart the message that you're going after what you want, no matter what. Then forget all you've ever heard or read about technique. In fact, forget about everything in the world, except for that part of it which is before you. No amount of tender (or timid) consideration will ever please her as much. Never ask if it was good (you'll feel no need to) and be sure to return to being a gentleman when the lights go back on.

That's how it works. Sometimes.

An English-Language/Girl-Talk Dirty-Word Glossary

It's very fashionable for women to be foulmouthed--but only in public. In private, intimate moments, when blunt words might be expected, women turn coy and revert to a chaste, mysterious language. Below is a brief list of translations.

English

Girl Talk

Cock

It

Balls

Those

Tits

These

Cunt

There

Shit

Freshen up

Fuck

Dinner and a movie

The Pubic Workout

A good round of P.C. (for pubococcygeus)-muscle exercises will do more for your sex life than years of psychotherapy.

The P.C. is the central muscle of the pelvis, suspended like a hammock from the front of your crotch to the back. The proper exercise of the muscle may help you enjoy more frequent erections, increased sexual endurance, an infection-free urinary tract.

Simply finding the P.C. muscle will give you an intuitive understanding of why this workout helps. To locate it, sit down on the toilet with your legs spread and urinate. The P.C. muscle is the one you use to start and stop the flow of urine. Now that you've found the muscle, you can exercise it--without having to piss to do so.

You exercise the P.C. simply by contracting it according to the following variations.

1. Flicks--which are rapid and rhythmic.

2. Holds--which are maximum contractions held for ten seconds or so, then relaxed for ten seconds, then repeated. Work yourself up to the point where you're a P.C. heavyweight. Note any benefits; if the P.C. exercise works, you'll be sure to keep it up. And share this information with female friends: P.C. workouts also increase orgasms for women.

Breaking Up

There's only one rule here, but as much gloss as you like:

The rule. When it's over, it's over.

The gloss. Your desperate attempts to patch things up--especially if you've been dumped--will make you look even more pathetic to your estranged honey and to everyone else.

The more effort you put into trying to unbreak a breakup, the more unlikely is the possibility of a reunion.

If you do manage to get back together, you'll find that the relationship has been fatally wounded, and it won't be long before you'll break up again.

If you do persuade her to give it another shot, she'll hate you for making her do something she doesn't want to do.

The comfort. The chances are about 50-50 that if you let it go, she'll call you sometime within five years, and you'll discover you don't want the relationship anymore.

A reminder. Three months after you've split, you'll find yourself thinking you want her back. You'll be wrong.