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The
Man In Manicure
By
Tim Latshaw
____________________
After
a rough and rugged day out corralling horses on the range, searing the track in
a formula one racer and/or fighting Nazis in search of the Holy Grail, don’t
you just want to sit back, revel in your machismo, and just moisturize,
moisturize, moisturize?
Thanks to the “metrosexual” movement that has swept the nation it has become
hip for males to embrace their feminine sides, mostly by worrying excessively
about their appearances and how much money can be spent to enhance them. It’s
true: the “man” has been found in “manicure.”
The term “metrosexual” was first coined by a journalist regarding David
Beckham, a British soccer player who other soccer players want to “bend it”
like, or something—I don’t follow soccer. The metrosexual movement gained
great momentum from the
show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” in which five homosexual men invade a
straight man’s house and make him very uncomfortable till he learns how to
maintain his hair (something called “shushing” or “jstuzing…” “jujitsuing”?).
As the show gained popularity, heterosexual men learned an important fact:
heterosexual women love gay men. Unfortunately, most men have misunderstood the
reason for this (women are cruel) and have taken it to mean that they need to
spend their paychecks on hair care products in order to attract the opposite
sex.
How bad is it? Not long ago I read an article in The Buffalo News on the spread
of metrosexual culture in the area. In it local men expressed their desire for a
decent place to receive a pedicure and to find the perfect shirt in every color.
One went so far to admit that he was “not afraid to spend $45 on a pair of
socks.”
$45 for one pair?! You can buy a gross of them for that in Wal-Mart and still
have enough left over for Spongebob boxers.
So you have to have money to be a metrosexual. But there’s another flaw: you
have to live in the city. That’s what the “metro--” prefix means.
Or else it means “uterus.” Really, look it up.
Even so, I come from the country, where the metrosexual lifestyle is as
effective as a lint roller in a nudist colony. Ladies are more impressed with
you lifting a full-grown sheep over your head than by whether your shirt is the
perfect shade of salmon. I was reassured by the members of every high school gym
class I ever attended that I had a definite connection with my feminine side,
yet were the girls all up ons? No, they all flocked around the quarterback of
the football team like beautiful moths around a dim, helmet-haired bulb.
So let’s review the requirements: To be a metrosexual you need 1) enough money
to afford both life and beauty products, although I hear cold cream doesn’t
taste entirely too bad, and 2) to live in a setting urbanely tolerant enough
that people won’t pull your $30 Calvin Klein underwear over your head. Odds
are that you do not fit into at least one of these categories.
But don’t worry. It is perfectly fine and healthy to be sensitive and in touch
with your feminine side, but trips to the salon and Pottery Barn have nothing to
do with it. Metrosexuality is all style and no substance; the time-honored credo
of “be yourself” still shines forth, untarnished and unprimped.
But you may want to start bench-pressing some lambs, just in case.
____________________
Tim
Latshaw is a junior at Niagara University, NY. His humor frequently appears in
the student newspaper, although this may just be because he's the editor. His
lifting record is two chickens and a young pig.
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