-Males in their early twenties approach each new situation in life the same way we approach a new issue of Maxim magazine – first we look for the hot girls, then we check to see if there is anything else interesting going on, and when there’s not, we go about our day as usual. We are a simple species, yet so often misunderstood. For instance, if you follow entertainment news at all, you’ll know that everyone in Hollywood is freaking out because the highly coveted 18-34 male demographic doesn’t watch prime-time television anymore. I’d venture to guess that the reason for this is that Hollywood does not place enough emphasis on our three primary interests: chicks, beer and SportsCenter. This month, for the benefit of confused women and befuddled network executives alike, I’d like to take you on a journey through the world of the twentysomething guy. I have to warn you, though, it ain’t pretty.

-Guys never order fancy shit off of a drink menu. If it’s not either clear or brown, we don’t want it.

-Guys lose clothes when they get ass. Whenever a girl leaves my place in the morning and asks for something to wear, I always give her my most expendable shirt because I know I’m never getting it back. It’s like a sacrifice to the hook-up gods.

-Guys hate it when girls ask us to guess how old they are. The worst possible thing to do is offend them, so you have to make sure you guess younger than you think they actually are. Last week I met this chick at a bar and she asked me to guess how old she was. I was like, “Uh, eight?”

-Guys exist in only two states – pre-ejaculatory and post-ejaculatory. Ladies, pre is the time to ask us for favors, have political discussions, and meet your friends. Post is the time to quit hogging the blanket so I can get some fucking sleep.

-Guys don’t like to pay you back promptly. I’m going to see Chris Rock at the Garden in a few weeks and it was just easier if I charged six tickets myself and then collected the money from my friends. Of course, my buddies are making it as difficult as possible for me – they’re trying to pay me all in quarters, writing nasty messages in the memo section of their checks, threatening not to pay until the moment Chris enters the stage. It’s really not fair.

-Guys aren’t big on long-distance relationships. A friend asked me why I don’t get serious with this girl I’m hooking up with in Philadelphia. I was like, are you kidding me? I won’t even date a chick on the Upper West Side.

-Guys never pay more than twelve bucks for a haircut. A few months ago, in a moment of weakness, I tried to go to a fancy salon instead of my neighborhood barbershop. The guy butchered my hair. I should have known better when the stylist was wearing a fucking beeper.

-Guys learned most of what they know about women from watching “Real Sex” on HBO as impressionable adolescents in the early ‘90s. Thus when sex does not involve midgets, video cameras, or fudge, we get confused. Please cut us some slack.

-Guys don’t do yoga. Guys do, however, enjoy watching women in spandex thongs stretch suggestively. Thus, merely watching yoga is still OK.

-Quote of the Month. Guys like to fight other guys for little to no reason. A while back, I went to my buddy’s apartment to get hammered. Before we left the building to go out, me and a couple of friends were horsing around in the lobby and got yelled at by this doorman with a wacky crew cut. Drunk and emboldened, I responded, “Hey, fuck you Forrest Gump!” Just then, another group of guys who apparently lived in the building entered the lobby and heard this exchange. One kid came up to me with his fists raised ready to fight and actually said, “Hey, are you making fun of my doorman’s haircut?” Holding back laughter, I turned to the doorman, apologized, and gave him my stylist’s beeper number.

-Guys don’t care if a girl’s place is messy. A few weeks ago, I went home with a girl and she made me stand outside her door while she “tidied up.” Why? Honey, I’ll hook up in an abandoned mine shaft, if that’s what you’re into.

-Guys will watch any television show that involves ranking. Top ten plays, fifty greatest movies, hundred richest men, anything. Hell, one of my favorite shows is “Around the Horn” on ESPN where they argue about arguing about sports. And get ranked at the end.

-Guys take tickets to sporting events very seriously. When we get tickets to a big game, we are usually faced with the dilemma of who to take with us. For instance, if I score seats, my roommate usually automatically has first dibs. But last time I got tickets they were for a Yankees game. And he’s a Mets fan. However, he did take me to an Islanders game last season. But I hate the Islanders. It’s very complicated. You know, I just got Knicks tickets and I think I’m just going to take whoever pays me for Chris Rock first.

-Guys feel uncomfortable talking about girls’ you know, um, cycles. Last St. Patrick’s Day, after drinking green beer in the middle of the afternoon for five hours straight, I tried (unsuccessfully) to rip a street sign down and badly gashed all the fingers on my right hand. Not wanting to stop the pub crawl to get band-aids, I struggled on, gushing blood. I think some girl saw me turning blue because she gave me some sort of maxi-pad type thing to wrap around my hand. It quickly staunched the bleeding and saved the day. And that’s everything I know about tampons. And that’s fine with me.

-Guys don’t really listen when other guys tell them important information. I went on a family vacation to Aruba last year. When I got back, I had 27 voicemails on my cell phone, which was cool, except not one of my friends had any inkling I was away.

-Guys are highly illogical. Somehow we are extremely protective of our little sisters but have no problem masturbating to Hilary Duff.

-Guys are easily distracted. I was talking to this girl in a bar once and she mentioned offhand that her grandfather invented the Chipwich. We kept chatting for a while and then I was like, “Wait, did you say Chipwich? The chocolate chip ice cream cookie?” For the next half an hour I bombarded her with annoying questions about the novelty ice cream business. Needless to say I don’t know if she kept a kept a clean apartment or not because I didn’t get anywhere near it.

-Guys are surprisingly resourceful. I don’t cook. My roommate doesn’t cook. Our apartment is kind of small. So when we don’t know where to put something, we just stick it in the oven because it’s never been used.

-Guys give up surprisingly quickly. My buddy Seth was dating this girl for about a year when one day they got into a huge fight over the phone and both hung up in a huff. They never spoke again. That’s it, no discussion, no reconciliation, no break-up, nothing. I was like, “Dude, you can’t do that, you have to talk to her, you went out for a year!” Seth said, “Why? Forget it, we’re through.” I pleaded, “Seth, do it for me, please. She had hot friends. Damn it, I need closure!”

-Guys are really proud of their dirty, disgusting baseball caps. I’ve been wearing the same beat-up New York Rangers hat for going on eleven years now. Once the fire alarm went off in my apartment building. When we evacuated, I took my hat but forgot my roommate was fast asleep in the other room. Funny thing was I think he was more angry that I didn’t try to save his old Mets hat.

-Guys will attempt to get anything delivered. I’ve overhead friends on the phone trying to convince flustered shop owners to deliver beer, liquor, porn, video games, and even food orders that totaled less than two dollars…with tax.

-Guys also have no perception of when stores close. If we’re hungry, we believe someone out there should be willing to provide food. Ever see a drunk guy banging on the door of a pizza shop at 5:30am? It’s pretty sad. Of course, then he just goes home and tries to get it delivered.

-In the end, the 18-34 male demographic is a fun-loving bunch. We work hard and we play hard. But despite what you may think about our lazy, lecherous, and illogical ways, twentysomething guys are still out there, every day, changing the world. For instance, a group of my fraternity brothers once took a trip to Prague. Out partying one night, they were dismayed to find the line to the bathroom was wrapped halfway around the bar. Cutting to the front of the line to get a closer look at the situation, my friends were surprised to see that the bathroom was not being used to its optimal capacity. While the confused Czechs looked on, my buddies entered the bathroom together and all took a piss – one in the urinal, one in the sink and one in the garbage can. The next day, they left the city to go backpacking through Europe for a month. Upon their return to Prague, they once again went out to the local bar. After a few shots of absinthe, my friends went to the bathroom, prepared to cut the long line again. What they saw amazed them. The Czechs had organized themselves into three short lines – one leading to the urinal, one to the sink, and one to the garbage can.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Ever notice that when you’re sitting at a restaurant and the waiter comes over to take your order, you instinctively re-open and look at your menu even though you already know exactly what you want?

-I just got a new computer with a CD burn drive. How come they sell blank tapes and floppy disks that hold so little data in boxes of five but blank CDs that each hold like half your hard drive only come in packages of a hundred?

-As I’ve said before in this column, I do the vast majority of my shopping online these days. One of the reasons is that I hate going into stores where it’s not clear right away which stuff is men’s and which is women’s. The worst is when you’re looking at a sweater and the salesperson causally comes up behind you and tells you it’s a women’s sweater. You’re always like, “Yeah, um, I knew that, it’s for my sister.” And then you get the hell out of there.

-Why do women always make you switch tables at a restaurant because they “feel a draft”? Forget the fact that the draft is non-existent, why can’t my mom make the decision to switch tables right away? She always starts complaining about ten minutes after sitting down. So now that we’ve dirtied the napkins and water glasses at this table, how about we all get up, take our jackets, change waiters, bring our bread plates, and move ten feet away? And of course we all need to look at the menu again even though we already know what we want.

-When did everyone become so obsessed with candles? I can’t walk into an apartment anymore without being besieged by twenty different burning aromas. And I love the people who have candles but never use them. There’s always that lighter sitting neatly in the wax tray, just begging to be used, but you can’t be the first otherwise everyone will know it was you who stunk up the bathroom.

-Speaking of stinking up the bathroom, in my bathroom, there is a can of air freshener with the scent “Butterfly Garden.” That’s great, when someone takes a shit and then uses the spray, it smells like someone took a shit in a butterfly garden.

-Memo to the producers of SportsCenter: don’t worry, you’re still my favorite show behind Seinfeld, but could you please stop showing so much Kobe Bryant trial coverage? If I wanted to watch court on TV, I’d watch Court TV.

-Memo to people who list Evanescence as their favorite group: in the future, please limit your favorite artists to those who have been around longer than six months and have more than one overplayed song. Thank you.

-Memo to people who use the word “metrosexual”: just because an idiotic buzzword becomes popular doesn’t mean you have to use it excessively and, most of the time, incorrectly.

-Memo to Old Navy: I swear to God if you don’t take those Fran Drescher/Lil’ Kim commercials off the air soon I’m going to go nuts. And while you’re at it, do you think you could make it a little easier to tell the men’s clothes from the women’s?

-Memo to John Stamos: take a hint when not even the people in your commercials want to use your crazy long distance calling plan thingy. No wonder Rebecca hyphenated – it’s her escape clause.

-Memo to the women in my grandma’s old-age home: You’re getting way too excited. It’s just bingo. The winner gets a nickel for God’s sake.

-Memo to politicians and celebrities who are still wearing an American flag pin on their lapel: yeah, um, I think you can take that off now. Hollow displays of patriotism strictly for personal gain are so 2003.

-Doesn’t it seem like everything has an expiration date on it these days? Beer, cheese, bottled water, golf balls, playing cards. I’m worried that people are going to start paying less attention to their milk going bad when they see their tennis balls are safe until 2011.

-I hate the Lakers, but I have to hand it to their fans. Because Lakers fans will watch every second of every game on TV. They could be up by 37 points with sixteen seconds left in the game and my buddy Ryan will be like, “I just want to see if Kobe hits this free throw.” I’m like, you have to be kidding me, let’s go out. Besides, they’re replaying the game on Court TV later.

-Have you noticed that you can’t use a gold dollar coin without apologizing to the person you’re giving it to? Hell, my grandma won one in bingo and tried to give it back.

-You know when you get seated at a diner and one person is in the booth and the other is in a chair? I think which seat you choose says a lot about your personality. For instance, I always choose the chair. I prefer the ability to adjust my position in any direction because I’m a person who likes to be in control. Also, the booth makes my ass sweaty.

-I want to give a quick shout-out to Company E of the 131st Aviation Regiment, Alabama National Guard, who are stationed in Kuwait and Iraq and have been reading my book and column to get a little taste of home. You guys rock! We’re all supporting you back here. Some of us are even wearing pins!

-I just signed up for this site Upromise.com so now whenever I use my American Express card, a small sum of money is automatically contributed to my two-year-old cousin Daniel’s college fund. I feel good that now when I go out binge drinking and wasting my education, I’m actually helping Daniel pay for his own education. And maybe one day he can waste it, too. I know it’s a dream, but it’s my dream.

-Whenever I watch an old episode of Sex and the City, I can’t help but wonder, how come the girls I meet aren’t this easy?

-The good thing about Sex and the City is that you can, for the most part, watch any episode without having seen the previous one. I rarely watch continuous series. It’s just too much like going to church or synagogue – you have to be there at the same time every week and people make you feel guilty if you miss it. I’m like the guy who only shows up on Christmas – I only tune in for the season finale and pray I didn’t miss too much.

-And while we’re on the topic of TV, just once I’d like to see an episode of “ER” that isn’t advertised as “very special.”

-I hate when you stop the car so that someone can just get out quickly and get something and they leave the car door open because they’re coming right back but while they’re gone they’re either letting the air conditioning out, the cold in, or preventing you from moving when you’re blocking someone’s driveway, and you have to struggle to do that awkward reach where you attempt to close the passenger door while sitting in the driver’s seat and pull all your stomach muscles and the only thing stopping you from driving off without your stupid friend is the fact that his goddamn door is open in the first place.

-I have absolutely no idea how to score bowling. Once someone gets two strikes in a row I just give up and order another pitcher of beer.

-And, finally, as I said earlier, I don’t know much about women’s um, uhhh, you know, cycles. However, a while ago my roommate Brian and I were talking to a few girl friends of ours and the topic came up. Apparently, and again, this is news to me, when women work together in an office for an extended period of time, eventually their, um, cycles synchronize so that they’re all, you know, flowing at the same time. This both intrigued and frightened Brian and I, but we didn’t think much of it. A few weeks later, we were sitting on the couch in our apartment, happily eating turkey sandwiches and drinking Gatorade (which thankfully did not expire for another six years). We started to reminisce about some of the hijinks that have occurred in the two and a half years we’ve lived together. The story about long-term period synchronization came up and we both had a chuckle about the ridiculousness of the notion. A moment later, we simultaneously took the last bite of our respective sandwiches, licked our fingers, took a swig of Gatorade, leaned back on the couch, and sighed in perfect unison. Startled, we both looked at each other and said, “Fuck me.”

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