Back at Jen Martinez’s Collection of Thoughts, Jen describes The Retrosexual Code, a retaliation against metrosexualism and girliemanism. She’s got quite the list, and I know my gentle readers want to know how I stack up. Well, here you go:
| A Retrosexual does not let neighbors screw up rooms in his house on national TV. A Retrosexual, no matter what the women insists, PAYS FOR THE DATE. |
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| A Retrosexual opens doors for a lady. Even for the ones that fit that term only because they are female. | A real man opens a door for a lady when appropriate, but the five second rule applies. If I see a female several dozen yards away from the door, I won’t hold the door for her. I’ll go in and hope the next guy has the class to hold it. Also, this does not apply to all females; the grocery store would get mad were I to let a real bitch in to snuffle among the meat and run out with a steak in her jaws to feed her pups, or just her thin beagle self. |
| A Retrosexual DEALS with IT, be it a flat tire, break-in into your home, or a natural disaster, you DEAL WITH IT. | I concur. Although my sainted mother gave me a super AAA membership, I would feel silly calling them for anything but a tow (real man or not, I can’t lift my vehicle nor drag it for miles). Now, if only I could figure out where there’s some sort of spare on my pickup truck…. |
| A Retrosexual not only eats red meat, he often kills it himself. | My beautiful wife won’t let me eat cats, so I rely on the grocery store for red meat. Although I come from a long line of hunters and have gone hunting, I’ve not ever had license to kill, so I’ve never even shot a duck for dinner….but my father ensured we would not starve with plenty of ducks, geese, and “fuzzy chickens.” |
| A Retrosexual doesn’t worry about living to be 90. It’s not how long you live, but how well. If you’re 90 years old and still smoking cigars and drinking, I salute you. | I don’t smoke, but I appreciate the hedonism and materialism involved in this section of the code. I hope I have not been too girlie by opening IRAs recently, though. |
| A Retrosexual does not use more hair or skin products than a woman. Women have several supermarket aisles of stuff. Retrosexuals need an endcap (possibly 2 endcaps if you include shaving goods.) | I prefer White Rain brand shampoo, but because it’s a dollar a bottle. Of course, since I keep my hair (well, okay, my beautiful wife does the cutting because I don’t want to spend a half hour waiting to pay someone $10 for 5 minutes of hair cutting) under an inch (mostly), I could use the soap in the shower. Uh oh, that sounds like metrosexuality. I almost want to hump a fire hydrant. |
| A Retrosexual does not dress in clothes from Hot Topic when he’s 30 years old. | What is Hot Topic? I feel girlie sometimes for going to Kohl’s for Levis instead of Wal-Mart for $10 jeans. |
| A Retrosexual should know how to properly kill stuff (or people) if need be. This falls under the “Dealing with IT” portion of The Code. | By any means necessary, using whatever is at hand, with a determination that the stuff (or people) or I survive, but not both. |
| A Retrosexual watches no TV show with “Queer” in the title. | I recognize the multiple meanings of queer and dismisses this silly tenet of the code. Of course, I really only watch hockey and football on television, so I am only in danger of violating this if some city names its team the Queers and that team plays the Packers or the Blues. |
| A Retrosexual should not give up excessive amounts of manliness for women. Some is inevitable, but major re-invention of yourself will only lead to you becoming a froo-froo little puss, and in the long run, she ain’t worth it. | Especially women who would dictate a man’s behavior by saying real men or retrosexuals would do or not do something. I agree one hundred percent. |
| A Retrosexual is allowed to seek professional help for major mental stress such as drug/alcohol addiction, death of your entire family in a freak treechipper accident, favorite sports team being moved to a different city, or favorite bird dog expiring, etc. You are NOT allowed to see a shrink because Daddy didn’t pay enough attention to you. Daddy was busy DEALING WITH IT. When you screwed up, he DEALT with you. | Professional help? You mean pay someone to know yourself? Give me a break. I already paid Marquette University $50,000, mostly out of pocket, to teach me how to do that myself. |
| A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to conceal himself from prey. | None of my clothing make me stand out, ever. Prey? As long as no one messes with me, I have no prey, but my gear doesn’t make me look particularly tasty to predators, either. |
| A Retrosexual knows how to tie a Windsor knot when wearing a tie – and ONLY a Windsor knot. | I only know one knot, and I don’t know if it’s a Windsor. I don’t even know if it’s a knot or just a way to make it look like a knot. Of course, when I wear ties, a predator could grab me by the tie and have me, since I do tie something into full ties; perhaps a real smart man wears a clip-on. |
| A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting. | Well, I’ve never been shot or knifed, but I did once break my nose, several bones in my face (including my eye socket), and crack my cheekbone–and the blow didn’t knock me down. |
| A Retrosexual knows how to use a basic set of tools. If you can’t hammer a nail, or drill a straight hole, practice in secret until you can – or be rightfully ridiculed for the wuss you be. | A hand drill or a power drill? Power tools are not basic tools. |
| A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that your are riddled with fear, guns are TOOLS and are often essential to DEAL WITH IT. Plus it’s just plain fun to shoot. | This tenet of the code bores me. Guns are guns, shooting guns as fun is an aesthetic judgment call. I don’t judge a man based on his possession of a mystical artifact, even one guaranteed to Americans by their constitution. |
| Crying. There are very few reason that a Retrosexaul may cry, and none of them have to do with TV commercials or soap operas. Sports teams are sometimes a reason to cry, but the preferred method of release is swearing or throwing the remote control. Some reasons a Retrosexual can cry include (but are not limited to) death of a loved one, death of a pet (fish do NOT count as pets), loss of a major body part. Retrosexuals do not cry for movies. They can get a teary lump in their throat under a few notable exceptions, such as when “the guy” heads out to die and save the day or the flag goes up on Suribachi. | It’s none of your business when or where I might be moved to tears. You won’t see them, and it’s my business. |
| A Retrosexual man’s favorite movie isn’t Maid in Manhattan (unless that refers to some foxy French maid sitting in a huge tub of brandy or whiskey), or Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Acceptable ones may include any of the Dirty Harry or Nameless Drifter movies (Clint in his better days), Rambo I or II, The Dirty Dozen, The Godfather trilogy, Scarface, The Road Warrior, The Die Hard series, Caddyshack, Rocky I, II, or III, Full Metal Jacket, any James Bond Movie [sic], Raging Bull, Bullitt, any Bruce Lee movie, Apocalypse Now, Goodfellas, Reservior Dogs, Fight Club, etc. | Spare me the presumptiousness of knowing what a man should enjoy. Any man’s favorite movie speaks to the individual’s experience, and I trust his judgment. Also, please note, some refer to the Clint Eastwood series as The Man With No Name trilogy; the first Rambo movie was First Blood, the second was Rambo: First Blood Part II, and the third was Rambo III; The Road Warrior was the second movie in the Mad Max series (between Mad Max and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome); and Apocalypse Now was a piece of peacenik cavaltrava. Thank you, that is all. |
| When a Retrosexual is on a crowded bus and or a commuter train, and a pregnant woman, hell, any woman gets on, that retrosexual stands up and offers his seat to that woman, then looks around at the other so-called men still in their seats with a disgusted “you punks” look on his face. | Okay, I’ve not been particularly adamant about this one. I’ve felt bad about it, but I’ve often let them stand, and sometimes when I have offered, the woman has refused. |
| A Retrosexual knows how to say the Pledge properly, and with the correct emphasis and pronunciation. He also knows the words to the Star Spangled Banner. | There are three verses to the “Star-Spangled Banner”. Sorry, I lose. But I know a lot of “America the Beautiful”. |
| A Retrosexual will have hobbies and habits his wife and mother do not understand, but that are essential to his manliness, in that they offset the acceptable manliness decline he suffers when married/engaged in a serious healthy relationship – i. e., hunting, boxing, shot putting, shooting, cigars, car maintenance. | Sorry, but I have an understanding (and smoking-hot) wife, and my mother doesn’t object to much that I do. |
| A Retrosexual knows how to sharpen his own knives and kitchen utensils. | Understand the theory? Check. Do? Not so much. |
| A Retrosexual man can drive in snow (hell, a blizzard) without sliding all over or driving under 20 mph, without anxiety, and without high-centering his ride on a plow berm. | I am from Wisconsin, for crying out loud. I only fear other drivers who are not, and retrosexuals who feel the need for driving over 20 mph to prove their manliness when 20 mph or less is the safest speed. |
| A Retrosexual man can chop down a tree and make it land where he wants. Wherever it lands is where he damn well wanted it to land. | Yeah, so? With the right number of ropes, pulleys, and friends, I can put a tree on Venus. What’s your point? |
| A Retrosexual will give up his seat on a bus to not only any women but any elderly person or person in military dress (except officers above 2nd Lt) NOTE: The person in military dress may turn down the offer but the Retrosexual man will ALWAYS make the offer to them and thank them for serving their country. | I thank them, but I don’t ride buses or trains. |
| A Retrosexual man doesn’t need a contract — a handshake is good enough. He will always stand by his word even if circumstances change or the other person deceived him. | Screw that. I know what contracts are for, and they’re about covering you legally against the unscrupulous who might take advantage of your respect and your honor. I always argue until I get the contract I want, and then I adhere to it as written. |
| A Retrosexual man doesn’t immediately look to sue someone when he does something stupid and hurts himself. We understand that sometimes in the process of doing things we get hurt and we just DEAL WITH IT!!!! | I’ve not yet sued anyone, nor would I unless greatly wronged. But I don’t rule it out. |
The whole quiz reminds me of my grandmother’s wedding. Some years after my grandfather died, she married the her second husband and honored me by selecting me to participate as an usher. Wedding colors were black and pink, but I preferred to wear a white shirt instead. I was a college student paying my way through college by working a job that required white shirts; ergo, I had white shirts in abundance, but nary a pink shirt nor money to buy a nice pink shirt I wouldn’t wear again, and let’s be honest, I don’t like pink. My step mother, God rest her soul and hurry about it, said, “Real men aren’t afraid to wear pink.”
“Real men don’t fall prey to manipulation about what ‘real men’ do,” I replied, and I wore a white shirt. Probably with a thin black tie that I had which was a couple years out of fashion even in 1991.
That’s my response to anyone who would try to create an artificial code for what a real man would do. Real men know it without being guided by those who would manipulate them artificially.
(Link seen on Michelle Malkin.)
