Today’s vignette comes to you sponsored by masculinity. Whether good or bad, men do it: Masculinity!
So, I grew up around guys, like dudes. I’m the youngest of six boys, so my childhood involved lots of sports, video games, and people talking about “babes.” I was also raised in a small town, so the definition of masculinity was narrow. Additionally, I went to college and hung out with a bunch of guys on the rowing team who were very “boy.”
I mean, I loved it. I do love my gay stuff, like pop divas, Cate Blanchett, and Jane Austen, but I also love Resident Evil games, Garth Brooks, and gym stuff. On the grand spectrum of masculinity, I probably am somewhere over 6 but below a 7. I trend toward boy.
This also means that I get boy-er when I’m around straight guys. I was just raised that way. Suddenly, “shiiiiiiit” “dude” and “man” will pepper my vocabulary. It’s like a weird default setting I can’t turn off.
For instance, last week I was in an Uber with a guy who drove a Tesla. Between the Tesla and me saying “How’s your night?” and him saying “I’m with my boy, Tedd. Things are great”, my straight default turned on.
“Nice, man!”
The rest of the trip resulted in responses like me saying:
“Aw, yeah, man.”
“Sweet.”
“No way, dude!”
This same factory setting turns on when I’m playing Call of Duty with my college friends. It’s honestly a relief to remove emotion from my communication. I don’t have to talk about how work is going, my writing, or anything super personal: We just talk about murdering zombies in Cold War Russia.
It’s not that we don’t talk about our personal lives, but it’s highly efficient.
“How’s your job? Still employed?”
“Yeah, dude. Still sucks.”
The end: there is no nuance. And, for me personally, that kind of communication is a breath of fresh air after taking meetings all day where most people say 100 words and only 15 have any meaning.
This all leads to me going to a new dermatologist. (Wait, it actually does all tie together.)
My old dermatologist takes 8 months to see, and I discovered a giant, hairy mole on my back while trying things on at Lululemon. (Again, I think a great representation of the masculine and feminine inside of me: hairy mole v. pastel-colored athleticwear.) This meant that I wanted to see a dermatologist quickly and my old derm wasn’t an option.
Ernesto suggested his doctor, which was in my network, so I made an appointment and got in.
When the doctor came into the room, I was like “Oh, it’s a straight guy.” He also asked if I played college sports, so I told him about rowing.
The combination of talking to a straight guy AND bringing up rowing, set me into my straight default mode. I was saying things like “dude”, “man”, and “sweet.”
We get to the end of my skin check and he’s like, “Do you want me to look in your pelvic area?”
I do have a large mole in that area, so I responded: “Yes.”
He was very polite and told me to turn around so he could look more privately with the physician assistant present.
I turned around, shifted down my underwear. He knelt over and looked down.
And I said:
“Yeah, it’s this big guy right here.”
I immediately looked up and stared at the wall.
Why did I just say that?
Why did I say anything?
Should I say something and acknowledge that it just sounded like I called my penis “big guy.”
I quickly tested a sentence in my head: “Probably shouldn’t say ‘big guy when you’re looking down there.” But I really didn’t think it would help the situation.
This poor man was just trying to do a skin check, and I start spouting dialogue from an adult film.
To my great relief no one said anything. I didn’t see the physician assistant’s face, but she didn’t laugh like she did when I’d said I sucked at rowing, so I think we were good on that front.
The rest of the exam went normally with me simplifying my responses to “Yes”, “No”, and “Thanks.”
When it was over, I walked out of the room, took the elevator to the ground floor, and then laughed out loud on the street.
Yeah.
It’s.
This.
Big.
Guy.
Right.
Here.
WHO SAYS THAT? Why? My dermatologist wasn’t even driving a Tesla.
If anything, I learned a valuable lesson that my so-called “default” straight setting is pretty clunky. While I may think I’m speaking “bro”, it’s probably evident I am a queen who loves Cate Blanchett.
Next time I’m playing Call of Duty, I’ll ask my friends for some lessons. We may need to go back to basics if I’m going to avoid making other medical professionals uncomfortable. And, as I approach 40, the timing is getting critical. I need to be dude fluent before my first colonoscopy.