> WHY DO GUYS ACT MACHO? SMILE WHEN YOU SAY THAT!! > (by Dave Barry) > > > Our topic today, in our continuing series on guys, is: Why Guys Act Macho. > > One recent morning, I was driving in Miami on Interstate 95, which should have > a sign that says: WARNING! HIGH TESTOSTERONE LEVELS NEXT 15 MILES. In the > left lane, one behind the other, were two well-dressed middle-age men, both > driving luxury telephone-equipped German automobiles. They looked like > responsible business executives, probably named Roger, with good jobs and nice > families and male pattern baldness, the kind of guys whose most violent > physical > activity, on an average day, is stapling. They were driving normally, except > that the guy in front, Roger One, was thoughtlessly going only about 65 miles > an hour, which in Miami is the speed limit normally observed inside car > washes. > So Roger Two pulled up behind until the two cars were approximately one electr > on apart, and honked his horn. > > Of course, Roger One was not about to stand for THAT. You let a guy honk at > you, > and you are basically admitting that he has a bigger stapler. So Roger One > stomped on his brakes, forcing Roger Two to swerve onto the shoulder, where, > showing amazing presence of mind in an emergency, he was able to make obscene > gestures WITH BOTH HANDS. > > At this point, both Rogers accelerated to approximately 147 miles per hour and > began weaving violently from lane to lane through dense rush-hour traffic, > each > risking numerous lives in an effort to get in front of the other, screaming > and > getting spit all over their walnut dashboards. I quickly lost sight of them, > but I bet neither one backed down. Their coworkers probably wondered what > happened to them. "Where the heck is Roger?" they probably said later that > morning, unaware that even as they spoke, the dueling Rogers, still only > inches > apart, were approaching the Canadian border. > > This is not unusual guy behavior. One time, in a Washington, D.C. traffic > jam, > I saw two guys, also driving nice cars, reach a point where their lanes were > supposed to merge. But neither one would yield, so they very slowly -- we are > talking maybe 1 mile an hour -- DROVE INTO EACH OTHER. > > Other examples of pointlessly destructive or hurtful macho guy behavior > include: > > - Guys at sporting events getting into shoving matches and occasionally > sustaining fatal heart attacks over such issues as who was next in > line for pretzels. > - Guys on the street making mouth noises at women. > - Boxing. > - Foreign Policy. > > Why do guys do these things? One possible explanation is that they believe > women are impressed. In fact, however, most women have the opposite reaction > to macho behavior. You rarely hear women say things like, "Norm, when that > vending machine failed to give you a Three Musketeers bar and you punched it > so hard that you broke your hand and we had to go to the hospital instead of > to my best friend's daughter's wedding, I became so filled with lust for you > that I nearly tore off all my clothes right there in the emergency room." No, > women are far more likely to say: "Norm, you have the brains of an Odor > Eater." > > But the real explanation for macho behavior is not that guys are stupid. The > real explanation is that because of complex and subtle hormone-based chemical > reactions occurring in their brains, guys frequently ACT stupid. This is true > throughout the animal kingdom, where you have examples such as male elks, who, > instead of simply flipping a coin, will bang their heads against each other > for > hours to see who gets to mate with the female elk, who is on the sidelines, > filing her nails and wondering how she ever got hooked up with such a moron > species, until eventually she gets bored and wanders off to bed. > > Meanwhile, the guy elks keep banging into each other until one of them finally > "wins", although at this point his brain, which was not exactly a steel trap > to begin with, is so badly damaged that, in his confusion, he will mate with > the first object he encounters, including shrubbery, which is why you see so > few baby elks around. > > Another example of macho animal behavior is guy dogs, who are so dumb they > make > elks look like Rhodes scholars. Every male dog firmly believes that if he > makes > wee-wee in enough places, he will be declared Dominant Male Dog of the Entire > Earth and receive a plaque plus valuable dog prizes, such as a bag of chicken > heads. Of course, since there are several billion dogs in the competition, > everybody is extremely busy trying to stay ahead of everybody else. > > One time I took a hike on a mountain with two male dogs named Rubio and Moo > Shu. > Every three minutes Rubio would carefully select a spot and establish his > dominance over it; then Moo Shu would come sprinting from as far as a mile > away > so that, despite having the entire mountain to choose from, he could establish > His dominance over the same four square inches previously dominated by Rubio, > who by now was several hundred yards away, dominating a new spot, which Moo > Shu > would then frantically sprint toward, and so on all day long, with each dog > absolutely convinced that he was the Baddest Hombre on the planet. > > Ha ha! At least we human males don't do THAT. We don't need to. We have > tanks.