Learning from Dad

It always happens. I find myself wanting to play Monopoly and it ends up a mess. I really don’t understand how I’ve spent my rainy days as a child fully entertained pretending I was Henry Sy buying up the whole place and now I can’t even seem to remember the mechanics of the game. I remember Hugh Hefner saying just buy the orange properties, the mid-ranged ones, and in moth empirically and mathematically he never fails to win. And yes, it does pay to by utilities.

It’s been a couple of years now and my friends and I can’t seem to agree on how the game is really played. We all have our own version of the rules and as vintage games would have it we have all lost the rule sheet and are too cheap to buy new sets. As cursed as we are to remember things we’d like to forget, we are equally as doomed to forget the simplest of facts.

Which leads me to something really unconnected as usual. The first man we know, assuming yours has the semblance of a nuclear family, is our father. He’s probably the first person you know who owned Betamax tapes of porno and maybe even the first man to ever to make you happy.

I grew up seeing mine burp, fart, snore, laugh, cuddle and yawn through life. As a just retired disco bunny, my dad is now nearing the winter of his years, retiring at 8 p.m. without fail. He was the kind of dad that just looked at me when I was crying my pupils out in the driveway after scraping my knee. He was the kind of dad that froze when I whispered to him, "I’m having my period." It wasn’t because he didn’t care nor was it because he had already set his parameters of responsibility towards me. It was because like all other men, he had no clue what do with a girl.

In a time of metrosexuals, we give men more credit that they deserve. They are, after all, the simpler sex and we with the fluctuating hormones and penchant for drama always tend to forget that it’s simply just that for them.

I look at my sweet dad stretched like a tomcat on his floormat watching Cinema One and I’m reminded of everything that I have forgotten about men.

• They really like beer.

• They hate anniversaries. They only celebrate it for the sake of the women. Because quite honestly, they couldn’t care less.

• When we go bonkers on them, they always think it’s that time of the month.

• They have no idea what to do with babies even if they have a brood of their own. Never let them carry a baby alone. Chances are, they’ll drop it.

• They really love watches and shoes. From what I hear buying these items makes them feel good. The more expensive, the better they feel.

• When they cheat they never do it to hurt you. Men are not deliberate like that. They are biologically preconditioned to go around gardening. It’s nothing personal but you are still allowed to chuck them.

• Men have no idea what to do with girls’ feelings because when they meet you they only want to sleep with you. They only pretend to listen because they are imagining you naked.

• Repressed men are simply perverts waiting to happen.

• Men love the most and feel the most when they are quiet.

• When men are quiet that can also mean that their minds are blank. They are masters at zoning out. Especially while being forced to watch The OC on ETC.

• Men love their carbs. Putting them on Atkins is just beyond hopeless.

• A man will only fall in love once. He can love others but only feel that vulnerability once in his life. It usually happens when he’s between 14 and 16.

• They’ll never admit it but a man never forgets his first kiss.

• Men, when they love you, really are dead scared of you. Or so I think they are.

• Men have verbal diarrhea. Otherwise known as babbling.

You can be any Joe Shmoe’s sweetheart but you’ll always be Daddy’s little girl. Learn from him.