Ok, first off, let me say you guys rock. How would I know? Because I happen to be a reader. That’s right, boys, I read GQ for the articles. The Indian one (when I can pry it from the unwilling hands of MagicPants) as well as back issues of the firang ones wherever I can find them.
Why? Well, what can I say, sometimes a girl needs more than 501 new tricks to please your man in bed. Sometimes, knowing how purple is the new black just isn’t enough, you know? And it’s just so damned refreshing how irreverent you guys can be, on such a lot of subjects. It’s like having a really good guy friend – not boyfriend, because those have to be handled with microwave mitts and the kind of tongs they use to poke uranium with – no, a really interesting, really good guy friend, who you can talk to, maybe even flirt with, without things getting creepy and weird.
What? Those exist.
Anyway.
What I really wanted to talk to you guys about, was your fashion stories.
Don’t get me wrong – Indian men NEED someone to tell them what to wear. DESPERATELY. And if you’re going to take up the job of doing it, well, that just saves me and the girls a whole lot of drama. We may even send you a nice little fruit basket to show our appreciation. Because let’s face it, men aren’t big fans of The Wardrobe Discussion. They hate it even more than The Where Is This Going Talk. So yeah, if you want to take the heat on this one, maybe throw an arm around our men, take them out for a beer and gently break it to them that their wardrobe could use a little something, like maybe a blowtorch, then yeah man, be our guest.
But please, please for the love of God, remember that this is men you’re talking to.
Let me illustrate my point with an example. There was this Cathy strip I had seen in which this skinny young girl wearing a swimsuit, looks at herself in the mirror and sees this fat, ugly, old woman and her thought blurb says “God, I look horrible.” In the next panel is a fat, balding guy in a Speedo looking at himself in the mirror thinking, “Man, I’m such a stud.”
Both men and women are delusional, you see? But we women tend to judge ourselves way too harshly. You could say that every woman is her own inner Simon Cowell. Men, on the other hand, look at themselves far too kindly, giving their appearance the same general rating their mothers would. So your average bony, sunlight-deprived IT engineer thinks he has the same level of sex appeal as Batman and your garden variety chubby investment banker thinks he can give Indiana Jones a serious run for his money in the hello-ladies department.
And you’re not helping. Because when you say that tapered jeans are in vogue for men, they think you’re talking about them. They take one look at the fresh-faced, hot off the ovens, delicious men you feature wearing them with effortless sexiness and see no difference between those guys and themselves. “I could pull those off,” they think, carelessly disregarding trivial details like the size or existence of their waists. The result is an apparition with skinny jeans hugging spindly legs over which hangs a paunch the size of Mauritius. Which, and this is the truly horrible part – we have to watch with our very own eyes, while in our heads quickly forming diplomatic but firmly negative answers to the inevitable “Are these cool or what?”
So please, GQ, guys, when you’re putting out those nuggets of sartorial advice, do us girls a favour. Put in a little something that suggests the sentiment my advertising brethren have so breathtakingly condensed into two simple words: Conditions apply.
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