I am, as you might imagine, not in favor of douchebags. However, there are varying levels of douche. If one must spend time in their company, I recommend The Harmless Douchebag. These are the charming sort. You see right through them; you're not under any illusions but they are generally cute and fun to flirt with in social settings. They're not getting anywhere with you, but they either haven't noticed that or don't care.
The Malicious Douchebag is to be avoided at all costs. These are the sorts of men (and women, I suppose, although I find there is a whole separate hierarchy in the female realm) are the ones who do things that are intentionally mean-spirited and pretty much terrible. These are the men who break up with you at your grandmother's funeral; bring a date to your birthday party even though you were under the impression he was dating you. Steer clear of this breed.
This brings me to The Common Douchebag. There is nothing remarkable about this sort of man. They will wreak havoc on your life, but not really in any truly awful ways. The Common Douchebag is, at best, an annoyance to be dealt with.
This week, I have found myself dealing with the remnants of when a particular man was more or less in my life. Until now, I was unaware of the label he deserved. I had suspicions, but my knowledge of this manchild was not comprehensive enough to accurately judge. He was someone I spent a bit of time with many months ago, who has occasionally popped up in my life. It serves as a constant reminder of what a weird situation we were in. Because he pops up in the conversations of others, in my inbox, at my table during dinner out, it has been rather difficult to delete him from memory--valuable brain space as I age. He never remains in my space for long, just long enough to muck things up a bit.
Several encounters in the past week have left me wondering what the hell? But no more. Ohh, no longer, dear readers.
Please use the following as a cautionary tale.
I said it was a weird situation, right? A big part of the weird is that this guy knows my father. Like, they see each other with a disconcerting regularity. However, I have kept my father in the dark on any and all details--a wise move, whether you know my father or not. Today I learned that Dad decided to get involved.
"I asked him why he never called you." Oh sweet Jesus. "He said, 'Well she can call me.' And I told him that attitude wouldn't get him very far with women." Dad's got the right idea. "But he said "it's a new era" and told me his girlfriend calls him and comes to his place all the time."
Well. I think that's all I need to know. You? That's what I thought. This attitude renders him a Common Douchebag--generally clueless and unthinking. Not worth putting on eyeliner and changing out of your pajamas. The Common Douchebag considers himself Quite a Catch and thus doesn't put forth much effort. This automatically drops them several points on the attractive scale. For the sake of having an example, let's say some guy is a 6. A 6 who doesn't call women and says they can call him? Well, he's a 3 now. To call feminism into it and suggest that because women are allowed to vote and wear pants they should also be the pursuer in a relationship? That dude is now a 1. And I think it goes without saying that having that whole conversation with a woman's father? Yeah.
Kanye may be toasting all the douchebags, but I'm not encouraging any of this behavior. It's time for guys to act like Men.
