Universidade Federal de Uberlândia
Why It Helps For Women To Have A Male Friend
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Despite whichever feelings you have about gender equality, gender roles, genderism, and Ryan Lewis, it’s hard not to admit that (generally speaking) men possess certain advantages over women, and vice versa.
For instance, it’s documented that women tend to have a higher tolerance for physical pain than we do. Which, considering that some of them pay people to splash scolding wax on their vageens once a month for…really no reason whatsoever, makes sense. And, if my experience has taught me anything, they’re also much better than we tend to be at recalling mundane and seemingly forgettable details from month’s old conversations in a context-less matter (“Remember, back in June when we were watching Shark Tank and I asked you to pass me that bag of pretzels and you handed one to me instead?”) just to provide evidence of the truth of certain a narrative (“You’re selfish.”) they’re trying to prove today. They’re really, really good at that.
We also have our advantages. Some include being better than women at doing pull-ups, dunking, farting, building shit with brawn, and playing spades. (Don’t argue.) And, one of these advantages comes in the form of douche intuition.
“What do you mean, Wise Sublime Supreme One?” I hear you pleading. “What is this intuition you speak of?”
Let me give you a scenario:
“John” is at some happy hour or house party or Charades contest some other bullshit social event. He’s introduced to “Ken.” Ken is new in town. They speak for several minutes. Ken seems like a nice guy. Personable, social, handsome, and well-dressed, John isn’t gay or anything — nttawwt — but he can tell that women will probably be very interested in him.
Which is unfortunate. Why? Well, there’s something else John has been able to tell. Ken is definitely a douche.
Which may seem odd because Ken doesn’t look particularly douchey. And he hasn’t said or done anything particularly douchey. But John just knows. He can’t explain how he knows. He just does.
Every guy reading this has experienced this before. You don’t know what it is about the guy, but you just instinctively — and immediately — know he’s a douchebag. Not kind of an asshole or a dick. But a full on douche, a scumbag, a guy you make sure to spend as little time around as possible. You don’t say anything about it. You don’t want to seem like a hater. And really, you don’t have any evidence other than your own gut feeling. You just know.
But while you were able to sniff his douche out the first time he looked at you with his douchey eyes and extended his douchey right hand to shake yours, this intuition doesn’t seem to extend to the women he interacts with. Well, maybe it does for some. But enough are so completely oblivious to it that they don’t pick up on it until he does something particularly douchey to them.
But why? Why are so many women blind to something that so many men seem to see so easily? For a while I thought it had to do with attraction. Basically, sometimes these men have so many other attractive qualities that it manages to initially conceal the douche. Which is something every man who’s dated an Erica Mena can relate to. I also thought that maybe they noticed the douche too, but thought they could somehow change it. While that would explain a lot, it doesn’t account for the surprise present when the douchebag does something extra douchey.
Now though, I think it’s much more simple than that. I think we’re better douche detectors because we’re just better at knowing men. While (generally speaking) women might know individual men they’ve dated better than anyone else does, a lifetime of all types of interactions with men — classmates, friends, roommates, acquaintances, enemies — have made us (well, most of us) experts on men as a collective. That immediate and instinctual impression is nothing but a lifetime of determining to who to trust, who to not to trust, who to introduce to your homegirl, and who not to piss on if they were on fire distilled into thin slices.
This is one of the many reasons why it pays for women to have a brother or close male friend or cousin or co worker or former concubine they can count on as douche detectors; guys who, when you ask “Well, what do you think about Ken? He’s cool, right?” just respond with “He’s bad news.” And, when you ask why, they just say “Trust me.”