The Guy Code

Obviously lifted from somewhere but i can't cut and paste. so i'm going to type it out. considering i have so much free time in between my exams and my paper tomorrow.

"Read any non-male magazines such as Her World, Cosmopolitan and Vogue, and you will get the inpression that a man in a relationship is like a drunk staggering around at night in a confined space.

The way the gals see it, a man has only the vaguest sense of where he is and where he wants to go, makes a complete nuisance of himself and falls down a lot. As a female friend once put it:"A man meanders blindly in the apartment of human interaction, banging into the walls of impropriety, hitting his shins on the table legs of rudeness and spilling beer on the Persian rug of insensitivity."

Granted, her descriptions hold some truth but - believe it or not - guys are not completely clueless.

We have rules - unspoken, unwriteen but, yes, rules that cover all manner of ettiquette concerning guys and their relationships with the women in their lives, romantic or otherwise.

And although you never hear us men discussing these proper procedures, as it were, every man worth his salt knows them - even if, ultimately, he chooses to ignore or breach them at times (from speed limits to the expiry date on canned food, men see rules merely as suggestions).

How men come to learn of this code is still a mystery, even to them. It's as if a guy was born with a chip in his brain that constantly intones him with such taboos as "You are not allowed to have any sort of physical contact with a friend's girlfriend unless - and only unless - she is hanging off the ledge of a skyscraper and you have to pull her up to save her life. Even the, if you have time, you should put on gloves."

So runs what the male of the species calls The Guy Code.

I became acutely aware of The Code during a recent get-together with a group of guy friends, One of them, Sunny, mentioned casually that he had started dating the ex-girlfriend of a friend. Qustions flew fast and furious, "Does he know?" "How long have the broken up?" "You told him right?," We hadn't planned to carpetbomb him withqueries but everone of us was bent on assessing if, and why, he had broken The Code.

First thing ladies, if a guy has the hots for a friends' former squeeze but said friend broke up with said squeeze less than a month ago, then said squeeze is out of bounds. It's a sign of respect and, well, protection against being beaten up by said friend.

If it has been more than a month since their breakupm the right thing to do is to ask the friend first. By the same token, the friend is obliged - no matter how he feels - to say yes. In the unlikely event he says no, one can still go ahead and do what one wants because The Cose has been heeded.

Here are some of The Code's other tenets:

If two guys have the hots for the same woman at the same time, all is fair in love and war. "Same time" here means that they met and fell for the gal within 24 hours. Potong jalan really only happens if one guy has a considerable headstart on the other. Now, potong jalan is a cardinal sin. If you are the one committing it and you end up black and blue, The Code stipulates that your friends cannot sympatise with you. You didn't follow the rules.

A friend's sister is off-limits - forever. Here, "friend" is anyone you have known for more than a day. The Code also stipulates that no negotiation is possible on this.

A guy is allowed to exaggerate - within certain limits. Anyone within earshot is allowed to call the show-off's bluff if the show-off is exaggerating the story by 200%. If the exaggeration has been fueled by alcohol, the show-off may go up to 300%. If there is alcohol present and he is exaggerating to impress a woman, then the MAB (Maximum Allowable Bull) limit shoots up to 500%.

A guy must not rat on a cheating friend. This is the most sacred and most famous of all the rules in The Code. You can go as far as respectfully voicing your disapproval, but that's about it.

Of course, The Code has some rules that do not involve women. But ladies might find these interesting.

Two men who are caught in the unfortunate situation of having to pee side by side in a public toilet must at no point make eye contact. In fact, their eyes must always lock directly ahead even if that means not being ablt to hit the target. A subsidiary clause to this rule is that no 2 men may pee side by side if there are available urinals which would put them further apart. A guy in the midst of doing his business is very territorial: how many times have you heard a male say to another male: "I'm going to the toilet, you want to join me?"

Hugigng between 2 straight men is completely prohibited. Exception 1: Both are mobsters and one is about to shoot the other. Exception 2: One of the two men has just accomplished a remarkable sportion feat like, say, scored a goal in football. Exception 3: There is no Exception 3.

At this point, our better halves might well ask if The Code says anything at all about how a guy should relate to women. Unfortunately, in that, The Code is silent."

back to studying!