Pissed Off
I can only plead ignorance on this subject, because I wasn’t in my twenties my entire life.
From what I can tell, my twenties (and certainly the rest of my professional life) will be an enormous pissing contest involving me and every other man I’ll come in contact with. I feel that when I’m introduced, or I introduce myself, we should shake hands, line up next to each other, drop trou and see who’s the more resourceful man. Then we wouldn’t even have to have the ensuing conversation and I can get back to chatting up the women.
The “good person” stand-alone model isn’t working anymore. I thought, perhaps naively and surely stupidly that the world would be very much like the place with which my idealistic college professors involved me via the great literature and philosophy of the last two thousand years or so. Great, sincere teachers, great works – but basically irrelevant if you decide to be anything besides a shepherd, or a Ph. D.
Not to replace these courses, which fill out the soul, but as a one-credit pass/fail course, everyone should have to learn “Practical Pissing Applications” from a dean, or associate dean, from the business school. (Not all business majors are insincere, but they are better at relating to people on a professional level, typically.) Topics covered in this mandatory course would be back archery, knee bending, and on-the-spot gut laughing — the kind that disguises any disdain for the person or activity you’re engaging in at any given moment.
It’s funny to me that only men participate in these such contests. It makes sense why.
Of course, this competition involves romance, too: Women apparently like sincere, sensitive men, but also (and maybe moreover) financially secure men. If I’m near a woman, and at the same time bullshitting a guy, embellishing what I do or who I know, I may be attractive to her in one way but insincere in every other way. So then, if we were to date, the fault’s found on me for being full of it. And that’s if I win the pissing contest.
The bottom line is, the wheels have to be greased. Appearances are a part of reality. I don’t like the idea of the pissing contest. I also can’t say that I won’t do it or enjoy it.
February 2nd, 2005 at 3:21 am
You absolutely don’t have to play it. And it’s better that way. Most sensible women (the few of us out there anyway!) don’t look at the ones who play it.
Not to say that money isn’t everything. You do have to eat. But it needn’t be caviar or foie gras everyday, or anything near that.
Most chumps who play the pissing game get so caught up in it that they forget what it means to be a decent human being. That is of paramount importance, if you’re a banker, an artist, or a sheer dreamer. It’ss the hardest game to play, and as a result, it’s the one most often ignored. Remember that Craig Cookish fellow the other night? I thought he was a bag of toxic piss. Anything Craig-Cookish is at least that!
Ladies play that game, too. The ones who do are often the ones looking at the guys in their pissing game. It feeds the stinky fire and keeps the wagon wheel turning through the pile of shit. It’s best to ignore them. They place their self-esteem in things that come and go, like riches and good looks. Not that we shouldn’t indulge in whatever gifts we have here and there, but they can and will leave us at times in life. In such times, the true colors of a person show through, and it can be quite ugly.