From Her Perspective

For years and years, girls everywhere have been asking the age-old question: Where are all the hot guys?  I know that my girlfriends and I spent countless hours scouring bars, trolling beer league softball games, and generally wasting a ton of time, money and self-respect in the pursuit of the answer to this very question.  And finally, after twenty-seven long years, I can definitively give you an answer.  They’re hanging out at the family lake house.

Weekends in the summer are lazy, hot and, if you live in town, can be unbearable.  So a lot of us leave: we head for the Cape, the islands; anywhere a keg and some water is available, even if it’s an inflatable baby pool.  Usually, I escape to my house in Scituate, but this summer, I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time in New Hampshire, in a beautiful lake house that’s filled with family, friends, Jack, and, to my incredible surprise, hot guys.  And I’m not talking the garden-variety cute-but-assholes that we run into in Faneuil and Back Bay.  These guys are funny, sweet, and look like they came out of an Abercrombie ad (the hot old ones, not the new ones that are kind of femme.  Okay, totally femme.).      

Upon my first visit to ManTown, as I like to call it, I was struck dumb by the fact that I was surrounded by tall (oh, so important, and a rarity in Massachusetts), broad-shouldered, joke-cracking, all-around nice kids who were as willing to put down a handle of Bacardi as to hold the door for you and make sure that you weren’t cold when you’re out on the lake.  Where are these guys in real life?  It made me wonder what my friends and I had been doing wrong, and why I didn’t bring better outfits.

Of course, as the only female in ManTown, I realized that my primary responsibilities were to oogle these boys from afar while I quietly sipped my cold whiskey, and to take notes.  After all, I have an obligation to the readers of this fine newspaper to report the facts.  Since I’ve never encountered so many of them in their natural habitat, it was important to be thorough, to buckle down, and concentrate.  Well, concentrate as best I could around a dozen dudes with no shirts on. 

There are many awesome things about ManTown.  These guys are hot, like I said before, but the best part is that they are totally funny.  I found myself snarfing up my Jack like the huge loser that I am, and giving nothing to the conversation, as I was totally intimidated and could in no way match their level of humor.  That’s the only problem with ManTown – I’m so outnumbered that I generally keep my mouth shut and observe rather than taking an active role.  But I’m okay with that, as long as I get to watch and someone throws me a smile once in a while – I’m happy.

Another great thing about ManTown is that there is always tons of food around, and you don’t have to be embarrassed about eating as much as you want of it.  With girls, there is a certain level of decorum that is maintained at all times.  But here, if you want to eat a whole bag of chips, who cares?  The guy next to you just ate three.  And don’t get me started on the drinking.  Handles of booze disappear in a matter of hours, as opposed to days.  Whatever you want to consume, someone is always game.  Which leads me to the last great thing about ManTown: the antics.

Sitting around the campfire, someone decided that it would be a good idea to play a game that I forget the name of because I was too drunk, which consisted of shotgunning a beer and whoever finished first got to peg the other guy with the empty(ish) beer can.  It was hilarious, and I can guarantee that if a group of girls was sitting around in the same situation, nobody would have thought to do that.  People were jumping off of insane heights into the lake, and the falls off of the jet skis were the result of tricks gone horribly, horribly awry.  You can definitely tell the fundamental differences between males and females, spending time exclusively with the other.

Despite a weekend of blue balls (mine, of course), I love ManTown.  There is nothing sexier than a hot, funny guy who respects chicks than a whole slew of them.  Next time, I’ll remember my flat iron (curls in the summer tend to look more afro-ish than pretty), try to think of funny jokes so the guys will think I’m cool, and of course, baked goods.  Because nothing is more appreciated in ManTown than homemade frosting.  And maybe a blow job.  What?!