Baring Your Soul

I'd guess that 80% of people have no real friends. This isn't to say that they can't find people to hang out with five nights a week; it just means that they don't have anyone who REALLY knows them. It's also not really a shortcoming - it's just human nature. For most of us, there are three, maybe four times in our lives when we truly open up to another person. It takes years to prove to yourself that someone else is worthy of seeing you at your weakest.

I'd actually argue that interpersonal relationships are more difficult for women than men. From a purely biological standpoint, women are programmed to work against one another, while men - at least in terms of self-preservation - have to work as a team. Since the first seed of self-awareness popped into the first Neanderthal brain, our genetic code has programmed men to learn to hunt in packs. In order to eat, cavemen had to entrust one another with their lives, most likely without a torturous, emotional discussion beforehand ("Zog bad person?" "No, no, Zog good person"). Meanwhie, the cavewomen stayed behind, gathering berries, reading US Weekly, and discussing what a whore Jessica Simpson is. Even if men are only allies of convenience, women have no allies at all. While we were out killing sabertooth tigers, women were at home honing social skills that would get them ahead in life better than the best-thrown spear.

And so we reached the current state of affairs, where women have a breezy facility with the word "love" and apply it to everything from celebrities they've never met to the salsa verde at Rubio's. But at least they put their emotions - real or fake - on the table. For guys, it's incredibly difficult to bridge the gap between one another. Valor and honesty with one's friends are virtues in every man - but keep it to yourself, dude. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; for example, you could probably compile a "Clint Eastwood's Greatest Hits" montage in which he never spoke.

Nevertheless, there are a few times in life when it's appropriate to let other guys know that you have feelings, and you are not an island. Acceptable places for these revelations include:
-The trenches at Verdun.
-During the final moments of a major sport's championship game in which you are participating.
-While about to undergo life-threatening surgery.

One of them is not while you are peeing next to me.

This happened to me at C.F. Donovan's in Dorchester the other night. I was in the middle of a long, Guinness-fueled pee, and some guy wheeled into the urinal next to me. Within five seconds, he asked:

"So, you from around here?"

This is the social equivalent of suckerpunching another dude. One moment I'm calmly perusing last night's Reds-Pirates box score - hey, Freddy Sanchez is hitting .347! - and then the next, my fight or flight response is blaring like crazy and I'm trying to zip myself up without lacerations.

Not only is talking to someone else at a urinal weird and vaguely homoerotic, it wouldn't be appropriate even outside the bathroom. Most urinals are close enough to one another that making small talk at that distance would be uncomfortable anyway. Not only that, "YOU FROM AROUND HERE?!!!?!" Is there anything you could possibly say that would be less creepy in that situation, short of leaning over and staring at my junk?

I used to wonder why some people get concealed carry permits for weapons. Tomorrow I'm buying a switchblade.