A dear friend of mine, Jack, has inspired me to go public with my theory about beards. Jack is about 6 feet 4 inches tall. He is muscular and has a face like a romance novel studmuffin. His cheekbones are chiseled, he has a nice, full mouth, and there is a delicious spark of mischief in his eyes. However, from cheek to collar, Jack’s handsome-beyond-belief face is covered in hair.
All the women I know are at war with his beard. It’s a massive, face-erasing hive of black scruff that women want to torch while Jack is asleep. They all secretly want to kiss him, but they don’t actually do it for two reasons: no one likes chafing, and no one wants to introduce a cave-dwelling bear to their mom. (What if he were to bellow at dinner?)
One day not so long ago, after hours of listening to him go on about how no one would date him, I got up the nerve to ask Jack if he would ever consider shaving his face. He said, “Hell, no, I wouldn’t! Don’t even ask!” When I asked him why he grew the beard in the first place, he said the thing that hundreds upon hundreds of handsome guys have said to me: “I look like a little kid under there, and I don’t like my chin. No one would take me seriously if I shaved my face. No one would respect me.”
That, my friends, is the WRONG ANSWER.
Guys, growing a beard to hide your face is equal to a woman wearing a huge, scary man-sweater to hide her body. Do you want hot girls to do that? I didn’t think so. If you think you have a baby-face and hate it, consider Zac Efron, Taylor Lautner, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Before you think that they look like sissies or douches, remember that every woman on earth wants to get with them. These men know how to capitalize on their “boyish” faces. They bare their youthful-looking features with confidence. They don’t care what other guys think because they’re famous and they get laid. All the time.
Before you think that I’m just a hater and want all beards to go up in flames, I’m going to tell you how to do facial hair the right way, complete with examples.
Facial hair, like your haircut and clothing, should be a style choice. It shouldn’t be a big, gnarly curtain you use to cover up your face. Think about it… when I say “hillbilly”, you get a picture in your mind of what he grows on his face. When I say “rock singer”, you get a different picture. Get my drift? Any facial hair that you grow projects an image to the public. What image do think the following men project through their style choices? Do you think that how they look is in line with how they want to be viewed and treated? Consider:
-Chewbacca (Wookie.)
-Barack Obama (the president is beard-free. Worth noting.)
-Aragorn, King of Gondor (Has a big sword. Lives in the woods.)
-Osama Bin Laden (Famous hairy terrorist. Osama and Obama are super-hard to confuse, even with similar names, because they have made radically different facial hair choices.)
-Salvador Dali (Crazy artist dude.)
-Frida Kahlo (?)
If your facial hair projects the image that you strive for, congratulations! You’ve done it right! You are a man of style who sets the bar for your scruffier counterparts. If you’re not sure how you are seen by others and you would like to know, be brave and submit a picture of your face to aerieavery@gmail.com. I’ll ask people what their first impressions of you are and get back to you. Then you’ll really know.
In the mean time, get shaving! Or growing. Whatever. Just make sure you do it with purpose and flair! And guys with gorgeous faces, for heaven’s sake, quit covering them up with chubes! If I see much more of that, I’ll have all the sexy women I know wear muumuus every day until you stop.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Does This Make Me a Nerd?
I am NOT a nerd. At least that's what I firmly believed until recently.
I don't play video games, I don't watch sci-fi on television, I don't read books with bad purple fantasy art on the cover, and I don't go to ANYTHING-con. I don't have a nervous laugh. I have friends. I wear makeup. My clothes are decisively non-frumpy.
Then I got an OK Cupid profile for a few days so that I could write a sample ad for the site. Even though there's already a guy I like in Real Life, I wanted to see what it was all about before putting pen to paper. I clicked around, answered a few questions, and found out that anyone who scored over 80 percent compatibility with me was a SELF-DESCRIBED NERD. The first thing they wrote on their pages was, "I'm kind of nerdy..." or "I'm a nerd, but..." or "I guess I'm a nerd". Their nerdiness, believe it or not, was their HEADLINE.
Are these nerds the people who I should actually be dating? Have I been dating the wrong people all this time? Am I really more compatible with nerds? If so, does that make me a nerd, too?
There are only two other explanations for this, and God help me, I hope one of these is right:
1. The guys are playing the nerdy beta male card because everyone thinks the guys from Juno and Zombieland are kind of hot... or maybe because they saw that IMAX movie about cuttlefish, and learned that the beta cuttlefish are actually more likely to reproduce because they don't waste time fighting with the other males like the alpha ones do.
2. EVERY guy on OK Cupid is a nerd.
Have you ever been on a dating site? Tell me what your experience was like. If something similar happened to you, I won't worry so much about this nerd phenomenon. I'll be able to sleep at night.
I don't play video games, I don't watch sci-fi on television, I don't read books with bad purple fantasy art on the cover, and I don't go to ANYTHING-con. I don't have a nervous laugh. I have friends. I wear makeup. My clothes are decisively non-frumpy.
Then I got an OK Cupid profile for a few days so that I could write a sample ad for the site. Even though there's already a guy I like in Real Life, I wanted to see what it was all about before putting pen to paper. I clicked around, answered a few questions, and found out that anyone who scored over 80 percent compatibility with me was a SELF-DESCRIBED NERD. The first thing they wrote on their pages was, "I'm kind of nerdy..." or "I'm a nerd, but..." or "I guess I'm a nerd". Their nerdiness, believe it or not, was their HEADLINE.
Are these nerds the people who I should actually be dating? Have I been dating the wrong people all this time? Am I really more compatible with nerds? If so, does that make me a nerd, too?
There are only two other explanations for this, and God help me, I hope one of these is right:
1. The guys are playing the nerdy beta male card because everyone thinks the guys from Juno and Zombieland are kind of hot... or maybe because they saw that IMAX movie about cuttlefish, and learned that the beta cuttlefish are actually more likely to reproduce because they don't waste time fighting with the other males like the alpha ones do.
2. EVERY guy on OK Cupid is a nerd.
Have you ever been on a dating site? Tell me what your experience was like. If something similar happened to you, I won't worry so much about this nerd phenomenon. I'll be able to sleep at night.
Monday, May 24, 2010
He Has a Point
Do you get e-mails like this? If not, you should seriously consider meeting my friends.
Angel Olivera May 23 at 9:58am
It would be a shame to lose you from the gene pool. :P
Aerie Avery May 23 at 12:22pm
What?! Why would that happen? I'm far from being suicidal... or a lesbian.
Angel Olivera May 24 at 12:32am
You did mention being afraid of hospitals when we had dinner at Spoon.
Angel Olivera May 24 at 12:43am
... And while I don't know the magnitude of your Suicidal tendancies, you do tend to enjoy crossdressing. :P
Thursday, May 20, 2010
No, It's Really True.
My life is unfathomably complicated. I've lived everywhere, met thousands of people, and explored the world. Many strange things have happened to me, and my life has taken many unrelated courses.
Read my claims below. These are some stories I tell a lot. They sound like lies, don't they? They're about as easy to believe as the claims of a homeless man who says he's the son of Marilyn Monroe. At best, my stories sound like the exaggerated musings of a pipe dreamer.
Read them, and see what you think:
-I knew when a white truck was about to lose control as my mom drove me to school. I told her to get away from it. Immediately afterwards, it spun off the road and smashed into the embankment.
-I've moved more than twenty times.
-I lived in a bank for awhile.
-There is a video of me viciously biting a mall Santa while wearing a prim, blue, velvet dress and pearls. My mom plans to show it to any man crazy enough to ask me to marry him.
- I have worked as a makeup artist, an assistant dog groomer, a caretaker for the elderly, an oil painter, an interpreter, a legal secretary, and an account exec. I can play the piano, paint, dance, read tarot cards and palms, restore houses, and learn languages almost instantly.
- I once walked into an abandoned house at night that had hundreds of ravens living in the rafters. They spooked when I came in and swarmed me.
- The show South Park was based on my hometown, and I know Mr. Garrison personally. In fact, I bought him a cactus for Christmas.
-My best friend is figuring out how to clone himself so that he can save his brain and put it into a younger body.
- I lived with a Spanish woman who saved money by turning off the hot water just before I got into the shower every day and refusing me access to food.
- I invented a religion when I was eight. It had songs, meetings, a language, a code of ethics, and sixty or so members. When I wanted people to listen to me, I would say that I was simply telling them what the invented God had told me to say. The success of my religion got me thrown out of class the next year.
- I faint when I breathe too much second hand smoke or have to deal with blood.
The list goes on. And on.
By now you think I'm testing you or that I'm lying, but I'm not. Everything on the list you just read is absolutlely true. Every time I go somewhere, something unbelievable happens. My head is always overflowing with stories that I just don't want to tell people because they will inevitably think that I'm off my rocker. That may be true, but so are the stories.
I have lived out of a suitcase by the skin of my teeth, without commitments of any kind for most of my life. Some people see glamour in that, but I see glamour in the white picket fence of stability.
I envy the girl who marries the boy next door and buys a house right down the street. I envy her because she knows who she is and where she is going. It's simple for her. She has a perspective because she has always looked at things from the same point of view.
I don't have a perspective anymore because I have had too many incongruous experiences that I have chosen to learn from. Now I see situations one hundred ways at once. I just can't help it.
When I was a child, I was like the picket-fence girl I described. I saw everything from the same point of view. I still remember it vividly. My stubborn soul was a thick window that I looked at everything in life through, like the lady of Shalott looked through her mirror.
Here in Atlanta, I have begun to develop a cohesive life for myself again. It's not there, but it's coming together. I'm focusing on permanent friendships, lifelong mentors, and attending to my life's only real work, which is writing. I'm cutting out anything that stops me from getting where I need to go. I'm doing away with distractions. Instead of dreaming, I have committed to winning through consistent actions that propel me forward, one small thing at a time.
My whole life has been a Devil's Playground, but I'm building something to come home to after all the adventures. Wish me luck.
Read my claims below. These are some stories I tell a lot. They sound like lies, don't they? They're about as easy to believe as the claims of a homeless man who says he's the son of Marilyn Monroe. At best, my stories sound like the exaggerated musings of a pipe dreamer.
Read them, and see what you think:
-I knew when a white truck was about to lose control as my mom drove me to school. I told her to get away from it. Immediately afterwards, it spun off the road and smashed into the embankment.
-I've moved more than twenty times.
-I lived in a bank for awhile.
-There is a video of me viciously biting a mall Santa while wearing a prim, blue, velvet dress and pearls. My mom plans to show it to any man crazy enough to ask me to marry him.
- I have worked as a makeup artist, an assistant dog groomer, a caretaker for the elderly, an oil painter, an interpreter, a legal secretary, and an account exec. I can play the piano, paint, dance, read tarot cards and palms, restore houses, and learn languages almost instantly.
- I once walked into an abandoned house at night that had hundreds of ravens living in the rafters. They spooked when I came in and swarmed me.
- The show South Park was based on my hometown, and I know Mr. Garrison personally. In fact, I bought him a cactus for Christmas.
-My best friend is figuring out how to clone himself so that he can save his brain and put it into a younger body.
- I lived with a Spanish woman who saved money by turning off the hot water just before I got into the shower every day and refusing me access to food.
- I invented a religion when I was eight. It had songs, meetings, a language, a code of ethics, and sixty or so members. When I wanted people to listen to me, I would say that I was simply telling them what the invented God had told me to say. The success of my religion got me thrown out of class the next year.
- I faint when I breathe too much second hand smoke or have to deal with blood.
The list goes on. And on.
By now you think I'm testing you or that I'm lying, but I'm not. Everything on the list you just read is absolutlely true. Every time I go somewhere, something unbelievable happens. My head is always overflowing with stories that I just don't want to tell people because they will inevitably think that I'm off my rocker. That may be true, but so are the stories.
I have lived out of a suitcase by the skin of my teeth, without commitments of any kind for most of my life. Some people see glamour in that, but I see glamour in the white picket fence of stability.
I envy the girl who marries the boy next door and buys a house right down the street. I envy her because she knows who she is and where she is going. It's simple for her. She has a perspective because she has always looked at things from the same point of view.
I don't have a perspective anymore because I have had too many incongruous experiences that I have chosen to learn from. Now I see situations one hundred ways at once. I just can't help it.
When I was a child, I was like the picket-fence girl I described. I saw everything from the same point of view. I still remember it vividly. My stubborn soul was a thick window that I looked at everything in life through, like the lady of Shalott looked through her mirror.
Here in Atlanta, I have begun to develop a cohesive life for myself again. It's not there, but it's coming together. I'm focusing on permanent friendships, lifelong mentors, and attending to my life's only real work, which is writing. I'm cutting out anything that stops me from getting where I need to go. I'm doing away with distractions. Instead of dreaming, I have committed to winning through consistent actions that propel me forward, one small thing at a time.
My whole life has been a Devil's Playground, but I'm building something to come home to after all the adventures. Wish me luck.
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