Page 76 - Men’s Health - USA (December 2019)
P. 76
LIFE
I’ve been Simon, kind of. Late
at night one spring, I accidentally
infiltrated a boys’ night. I was
sitting around with a group of
coworker friends, drinking beers
and doing shots in one of their liv-
ing rooms. I was the only woman
there, but not in a “one of the boys”
way. I have never in my life been
one of the boys. I like spending
time with men one-on-one, or
even two-on-one (hold the three-
some jokes), but when I’m alone
in a group of men, I always feel
self-conscious. I find myself either
flirting with or mothering the
group. I know that my presence
causes some tectonic shift in the
dynamic and that everyone is less
comfortable because I’m there. I
know that because whenever my
friend brings her barnacle boy-
friend to dinner, we have less fun.
Back to that late night: I usually
leave early when I’m hanging out
with a group of guys—especially
work guys—but on this particular
occasion I stuck around. I stuck
around long enough that the night
became a boys’ night. A pizza
came and went. One of my cowork-
ers told a story about walking in on
another hooking up with a brides-
maid after a recent wedding. “He
was just pump-pump-pumping
YOU GUYS away,” he said, laughing as he burned
the image of my colleague’s pumping
Who Gets to Go tushy into my brain forever. It wasn’t
full-on “locker-room talk,” but it wasn’t
conference-room talk, either. Some of the
for Drinks? guys there were probably uncomfortable,
and I was extra uncomfortable. I forced
a laugh and stared into the depths of
If you’re hanging with work pals, you’re networking. my PBR. But I would have felt a lot more
And as LAUREN LARSON has learned, that usually comes at uncomfortable if I hadn’t been invited.
the expense of those (read: women) who aren’t invited. I should clarify that I don’t mind
being excluded from non-work-related
I RECENTLY READ Lord of the Flies for the Simon, the only morally steadfast boy on man time. A man I used to date goes on
first time. In case you, like me, went to a the island, contemplates a severed pig annual dudes-only camping trips with
student-fearing school that did not assign head on a stake. He realizes that he alone his friends. Whenever he brought up the
it: Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys stands in the way of the inherent evil trip, I would mention that I love camping
left alone on an island after their plane consuming them, and he stumbles back (“but no pressure!”) and he would gently
crashes. One by one, the boys succumb to to the group to warn them about their own deflect (“we should definitely go camping
their primal instincts—a “boys will be vicious natures. They murder him with sometime!”). Finally he explained that
boys” worst-case scenario. At one point, their bare hands. he and his friends spend most of the trip
74 December 2019 / MEN’S HEALTH ILLUSTRATION BY MITCHELL MACNAUGHTON
