In defense of the Typical Male: Chapter 2

Below is a YM I had sometime back (meaning some months ago, but i was too tamad to blog about it til recently)...

Soloflite: my friend was telling me how he ate 60 siomais in 30 minutes in Superbowl's eat all u can promo
Insane D: iew. UMAY.
Soloflite: he had it yesterday.. And we already pigged out last sat on it! 30 nga lang sumusoko na ako e... 4 hrs pa kami nandun
Insane D: you can never really be sure of what they put in dimsum
Soloflite: LOL!! Shrimp naman to e
Insane D: how much is it? eat all u can
Soloflite: 120 pesos. but only from 2-6pm. Sulit sobra!
Insane D: sulit nun a!
Soloflite: Yeah, i was doing an extra kilometer on my threadmill routine since we pigged out. But theres a limited selection lang. Pansit canton, 5 types dimsum, and around 3 desserts and unlimited iced tea
Insane D: ok, thats just gluttony na. Gluttonous i mean. Wow. thats crazy
Soloflite: yeah... im still shocked... He says hes planning another one tomorrow... he'll target 100 na!!
Insane D: hehehehehe
Soloflite: these friends of mine... tsk tsk..
Insane D: thats just insane. boys, tsk tsk... You'll never hear girls say anything like that
Soloflite: yeah. yet another stereotypical testosterone-induced situation, i guess.
Insane D: "O my god, like, i had, like 100 siomai kanina. We made kain at superbowl and its super mura!!
Insane D: Super eat all you can!"
Soloflite: LOL!! I wanted another siomai, but its getting to be kadiri na...
Soloflite: But yeah, point taken. Its the hormones i think...

Got me thinking. Besides the fact that girls never seem to talk about eating 100 siomais for lunch, theres something typically male about what we tend to talk about.

Girls would go through the timeless questions of "Am I fat?", "Does this blouse look good on me?" or "What do you think of my new hairdo?". while we guys wince and squirm in indecision whether its a Yes or No she wants to hear (when in fact, the reaction going thru our mind is "WTF??! I didnt notice anything different!"), the females would have an equally canned answer "Of course you're not fat", "You look absolutely gorgeous in that outfit" or "OMG! I love your hair!!!"

I admit I cant read what goes on behind the female mind, but I know this: Any answer that comes from the mouth within 2 milliseconds of hearing the question is either a babble of surprise or a deviously crafted white lie carefully prepared just for that occasion.

And males have their own versions of the White Lie (besides pickup lines. Pickup lines i'll probably have another chapter on.)

Bigger, better and more exciting testosterone-enhanced versions.

Its in the war stories we swap while having lunch, the adventures we brag about in the bar, or the little black books we talk about nonchalantly any chance we get. Its the "big fish that got away" or the "hot chick we dated last night". And when an alpha-male wannabe starts talking, the others try to top it off with their own story.

Weird, this subtle one-upsmanship that brings out the competitiveness in every guy. Take for example the "fun leagues" that people organize that somehow end up with the nastiest slugfests and dirtiest trash talks. Think about it. It starts out with people "playing for fun", but once the excitement catches on, everyone just uses every dirty trick in the book just to win.

We guys play to win, because we want the rights to brag about it.

This I believe is more evolutionary than hormonal.

Back in the days when all men had to do to shack up with a woman was to club her on the head and drag her by the hair to his place, the only other real necessity besides hunting was to protect his own territories.

Other animals mark their territories by pissing on them. Human alpha males, on the other hand, protected theirs by cornering every non-alpha male that tried to get into his private harem and smacking him on the head. Then describe in every gory detail (enhanced version of course) the horrors of what he did to the hapless bastard to the whole tribe/community. Word would spread that resident in the particular cave was a savage cold-blooded brute and the other males would avoid it like the plague. And yes, the females would find him strangely irresistable.

Needless to say, it was the Alpha males' genes that got passed on from generation to generation.

And the stories would get better through time. The knight rescuing the damsel of distress would talk about his valiant war stories before doing the moves.

Knight: "I actually got back from a quest where I beat up the town drunk... er Ogre. Yeah, an Oh-Grrrre. A Big mean ogre."

Damsel : "OMG! A real life ogre?! What was it like?"

Knight: "Yeah. The ogre was uh... Big, Fat and Ugly. And smelled like beer.. They're like onions you know. With uh, layers."

Damsel: "Oooohhh. What a brave, brave big strong, absolutely-sexy handsome man you are.... Oh look. Why are my clothes on the floor?" *Hug, kiss, lapdance*

And thus, more genes of the alpha-male-wannabes got passed on thru the generations. Of course, when people started to realize there really arent any Dragons or Ogres, the stories started changing as well.

In time, these became the popular stories of sailors (with their women in each port), war veterans (where they got shot at from all directions and killed off their millions of attackers with only a one-shot-rifle and their bayonet), merchants (with their cities of gold and beautiful exotic women) and even diplomats (theyre politicians. Nuff said), all trying to outdo the stories of the ones before them. And guess who got the girls? (and in turn passed more of their genes thru the generations?)

Thus, the Typical Males of today are highly evolved humans, who thru generations of weeding out the most cowardly and useless pickup lines, have this primal urge to up the ante in all their endeavours.

Not just to get a chance to pass on their genes to the next generation mind you (though it does work for that most of the time). In this age where billions of people now live and where there is basically almost no chance of losing the family line, it isnt a necessity anymore. But the blood of our ancestors call us to action nonetheless.

The Typical males will always say "I've seen worse" in the strongest of earthquakes or the most savage of hurricanes. They will say "I dated better" to his friend who just introduced him to Angelina Jolie or Maria Sharapova. And they will always say "He was lucky the sun was in my eye" whenever they got beat up by anyone who got pissed at all their bullshit.

So there.

Its in our blood. Its in our DNA. And Im even willing to bet that it might even be a protein in that sneaky Y chromosome that causes it.

So whether my friend really did get to eat a hundred siomais or just fifty in one sitting, I have no choice but to prove I can top it the next time we meet. Or at least have a better claim to fame.

Its a curse the Typical Male has to bear.