>>> Primal Urges
By staff writer Nathan DeGraaf
February 15, 2006
Nathan: So did you learn anything?
Ricky: Yeah, women are really just whores who want uncaring and insensitive assholes, that have no respect for proper courtship. No offense.
Nathan: None taken, Ricky. Want to see a picture of Linda naked?
Ricky: Yes, yes I do.
“How are we supposed to teach them what we know when we don’t even know what we know?”
-Billy Crystal, Running Scared
My friend Ricky wants to learn how to be an asshole. He says that assholes get all the girls and he’s tired of getting laid approximately once a presidential term. I can’t say I blame him, but it’s hard to teach a genuinely good person how to be an asshole. (I had him read an article I wrote explaining why I get laid and my friend David does not, but he needs more help than that.) He can’t even say “asshole” correctly. When he says it, it either sounds like “as whole” or “a sole.” Also, he’s too cute and too sensitive. I told eight or nine different girls who know him (and who he is attracted to) that the fellas at the Local Pub and myself are trying to make him into an asshole so he’d be more attractive to girls and they all said the same thing: “Ricky will never be an asshole. He’s just too nice a guy.”
(Side note: I found it absolutely hilarious that none of these women even considered arguing with the fact that women fall for assholes. This, apparently, is just a rule of life. If only we were all raised by abusive drunks, huh?)
As the local fellas and I began working on Ricky, we realized that we had no clue how to teach him to be an asshole. Some things just come naturally. Because we couldn’t instruct him, we decided he should learn by observation, so we all hit up the Smoky Pool Hall and sent yours truly to work. Ricky stayed as my shadow and wrote the following as a result. This is barely edited by the way. Ricky can write.
“The chick learns nothing about Nate and he learns everything about her. This is weird because I always thought Nate’s favorite topic was himself.”
Girl #1:
Nate doesn’t even ask the girl her name. He just sits next to her, lights a cigarette and asks her what her tattoo means. The chick is indifferent at first. She ain’t talking. Nate matches her attitude. He looks over at me and smacks me on the back. “Ricky!” he yells. “How the hell are you?”
Then, Nate motions to the girl. “Hey, uh, what’s your name?”
“Linda,” she replies, while taking a drag of her cigarette.
“Linda,” says Nate, “this is Ricky, the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”
I smile and thank Nate for the compliment. Linda smiles at me, and her hardcore exterior seems to fade a little.
“Linda, you’re not gonna believe this, but my friend here wants to learn how to be an asshole.”
“So he’s learning from you?”
“Yup.”
“Seems like he picked a good man to learn from.”
“I gotta be me,” Nate says, and then rubs his hand up her thigh. She opens her legs a little, reaches over and whispers something in his ear. Her left hand goes into his shirt pocket. She then gets up and goes to the bathroom.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ricky.” She nods in Nate’s direction. “Mr. Asshole,” she says.
“Nice to meet you, Linda,” I say.
In a polite tone with a subtle nod of his head, Nate replies, “Ms. Bitch.”
And Linda actually laughed.
I look in awe over at Nate.
“‘Phone number,” he says, holding up a business card with a cell phone number on the back.
You suck Nate, but I don’t say that.
(Nate’s note: That phone number was fake.)
Girl #2:
This one takes Nate a lot longer. He talks to this chick about sports and school and all this stuff. She’s really into him, so there’s no attitude to get through. There also is no introduction for me, either. I notice that the chick learns nothing about him and that he learns everything about her. This is weird to me because I always thought that Nate’s favorite topic was himself. I guess that changes when he talks to girls. His favorite topic is probably them, anyway. Or them and him together. Eventually, the girl actually says to Nate, “So when are you gonna grow a pair of balls and kiss me?”
He grabs her by the neck, almost violently, and lays a hard one on her. After twenty more minutes of face sucking, they go home together. Once again, you suck, Nate.
As I sat alone with my Budweiser, one of our other friends, Aaron, came up and asked me if I learned anything.
“Yeah,” I replied, “women want me to be someone I’m not. They don’t like nice, polite guys. They want assholes.”
“I’m sorry, what?” asked Aaron. “I was checking out that ass over there. Man, I’m gonna go get me some of that.”
And with that, he left me alone.
And maybe that’s for the best.