To hell with The Code

Monday, February 21, 2005
Steve's office
(continued)

"FLIRTING with you?"

"Yeah! I ran into her at Doc's. She kept asking me these loaded questions, like about whether or not I was seeing anybody and stuff like that."

That son of a bitch, I think. He's fucking her!

First of all, Doc's is a ghost town on a Sunday night. NO one hangs out there on Sundays, except married guys who are cheating on their wives and don't want to get caught. There is no chance they ran into each other accidentally; one of them called the other to arrange it. And if I had to guess, I'd say it was Lila.

She is the one who asked what I would do if she screwed one of my friends. And she is the one who has been unable to get over our breakup, drunk dialing me too many times to count.

Sure, Dom could have called her, but that's not his style. If Dom wants to get laid, he goes to a bar and hits on blonde girls; he doesn't scroll through his Palm Pilot for old phone numbers.

No, this was Lila calling Dom, and Dom agreeing to meet her. And if Dom went through the whole process of getting dressed, shaving, and hosing himself down with cologne, he did it for a reason. He did it to get laid. Dom doesn't mess around when it comes to sex. He's a lot less patient than I am.

"Steve! Steve?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry, Dom. I was just thinking, I never got that 1096 I was looking for from payroll."

"Ahhh."

"So how did you leave off with her?"

He shrugs. "You know, we just talked for a while, that's about it," he says, averting his eyes. The fucker can't even look at me.

"How serious WERE you two, really?"

I look up at the ceiling. "Pretty."

"But you've got your future wife now, right? So it was all for the best," he says gently, with a sly smile.

"I'm very happy. I'm very lucky," I say, nodding.

"Yes you are." He winks at me and leaves.

I know what he is doing. He's introducing the idea that he might be nailing Lila, and he's gauging my reaction. He's trying to see if I'll freak out if he fucks her. But I don't delude myself into thinking that he had the chance to see that gorgeous body naked and turned her down just so he could speak to me about it. Personally, I think he's already fucked her, and now he's worried about what might happen if I find out. He probably figures she's going to tell me, and he's worried about the Guy Code.

Fuck the guy code. I never gave a damn about it, and I'm not starting now. When I make decisions pertaining to my personal relationships, I make them based on common sense, and on what I would want someone to do for me if the situation were reversed. I don't make them based on a set of rules that some asshole came up with 50 years ago in a dark corner of a VFW after drinking too many Pabst Blue Ribbons.

I don't chew with my mouth open or fart at the dinner table, but I don't do those things because they would probably make the person next to me throw up. I don't do them because it would be inconsiderate, not because Emily Post said so in some book she wrote. Who died and made her the queen of manners? What authority does she have to tell me what to do?

It's even worse with the guy code. Exactly who wrote it? Is it even written down anywhere? If so, where? No one really knows.

The end result is that, whenever a guy does something that another guy disapproves of, the disapproving guy whips out the "Oh man, that's against the guy code" bullshit. How does HE know? Does he carry it around in book form, like Robert's Rules of Order?

Having said all that, I think I am very fair when it comes to situations like this. If a girl has dated one of my friends, I usually don't pursue her. I don't even ask the guy his permission, because that puts him in the awkward position of having to say that he DOES mind if I go after her, and then he feels like a pussy. Sometimes a guy will come to me and say, "Hey, Steve, she really wants you - you should go for it." THEN I'd probably go after her. But I conduct myself this way because it makes sense, and because it's how I would want to be treated; not because it's written in some ridiculous "code".

I keep thinking about what I would do if I were single and the situation were reversed. What if my boss broke up with a smoking hot, horny 18-year-old, and what if she were basically delivering her boner-inducing womanhood to me like a curbside waitress at Applebee's? What if it were a sure thing, a slam-dunk, and what if my boss were already with someone else, someone who he loved very much? And finally, what if my boss were just a casual acquaintance, not really a true friend?

I know EXACTLY what I would do. I would fuck her brains out. And I would worry about the consequences later. So I can't exactly blame Dom for doing the same thing, can I?

It all makes sense to me, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. There's a burning in the pit of my stomach as I think about the two of them, facing each other on bar stools, her squeezing a piece of ice between her succulent lips, just like she used to do with me, and her tapping his foot with hers, just like she used to do to mine, and her tilting her head down and flashing her big brown eyes up at him, just like she used to do at me. I'm jealous.

Lila is terribly beautiful, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. And she is terribly sexy, and terribly horny, and terribly good in bed. Yeah, it hurts me to know that she is with someone else, especially someone I know, so that every time I see him I am reminded that she is gone.

Maybe he fucked her better than I did. Maybe he managed to hit a spot inside her that I never could. Maybe she realized that I was not as great as she thought I was. Maybe she'll forget all about me.

Yeah, I would do the same thing Dom did if the situation were reversed. But I also wouldn't be able to object if he struck back.

I pick up my phone and dial. A girl answers.

"Hey, it's me!"

"Hey sexy!" she says.