The Other 6 Seconds: What
Men Are Thinking About (Other than Sex), Including Robot Women, the Proper Way
to Handle our Fame in the Future, Spartacus,
Our Picture in Field and Stream Magazine, Cape Colors, Getaway Cars, Whether
Our Resume is Up-To-Date and the Usefulness of Pet Giraffes for Yard Work
By David Drury
After watching too much
Oprah the other day my wife directly accused me: “all you men do is think about
sex!” Following this was the usual pause
while she waited for me to reply. She cocked
her head into my field of vision and said a bit louder, “Did you hear me?”
Frankly, I was startled a
bit. I sensed that she had just said
something important and I had missed it and my ignorance would betray me as an
unloving husband who doesn’t listen to his wife. But I didn’t have time to guess what it was
considering the context. So I just told
her the truth—though perhaps not all of the truth. I blurted out, “Sorry, I didn’t hear you… um…
could you repeat it? I was busy thinking
about something.”
We men have a reputation for
thinking about sex. I think we might be getting
a bit of a bad rap. Yes, from time to
time we men do think about intimate relations.
A story even developed over the last decade that researchers found men
think of sex once every seven seconds.
I know what you’re thinking…
What about the other six seconds? So am I. What are men thinking about when they are not
thinking about sex? Well, I’m here today
to break the code of silence among men and share with the world six things that
we are thinking about with our other six
seconds—if the myth about the seven seconds can be believed.
Most women believe the fact
that we men think about sex is the most embarrassing thing about us, but it’s
not. Our secret is that this is the
least embarrassing thing we think about. It’s just a cover for far more embarrassing
things we are thinking about with the other six seconds. Here’s the list:
- We’re
thinking about how cool it would be to have super-powers. All men think this in one way or another but they
just keep it to themselves. If you
observe smaller men, which are called boys, you’ll notice that most of
their play-time involves imagining what it would be like to have
super-powers and acting out accordingly, such as putting on a cape and
mask and jumping off their treehouses.
Grown-up men (which is an oxymoron of sorts) continue to think how
cool it would be to have super-powers but it becomes socially awkward,
unless they are drunk, for men to share such inner feelings, or for them
to wear capes, which also requires drunkenness, unless the man is from
- We’re
going to quit our jobs soon. This is what we’re thinking about with
our next left-over second when we’re not thinking about sex. Of course, if we had super-powers it
would be easier to quit our jobs.
Being able to read minds makes our jobs needless. Plus we’d have to move into our secret
fortress of solitude. However, even
if we are not awarded super-powers most men think secretly of quitting
their jobs soon. Each week has its
ups and downs at work and during the downs we’re thinking of an exit
plan. Some men actually update
their resignation letters once a month—then stop at printing them off and
delivering them. We’re not actually
going to quit our jobs, we’re just dreaming
about it. We imagine what it would
be like to walk into the office of the boss, give him a piece of our minds,
then walk out giving well-deserved high-fives to our co-workers, becoming
modern day Spartacus for the
workplace.
- We’re
thinking that it would be awesome to be involved in a heist. It may
shock you to think that we spend a whole one second out of seven
considering the intricacies of such a random thing but we men would all
love to be involved in a heist.
First, a heist involves wonderfully detailed planning by a crack
squad of diverse people. Yes, the
man in your life may be a boring accountant but he is also dreaming of how
a team of 9 criminal masterminds may be in need of a gifted accountant to
be their money-man. Second, a heist
involves carrying automatic weapons and wearing masks—pretty cool. Thirdly, a heist involves a getaway car
and walkie-talkies, both of which are more exciting than our jobs, which
we are already thinking of quitting (see above.)
- We’re
thinking we are better at hunting, fishing & sports than we actually
are. We fantasize about the size of buck
(a.k.a. “grown up Bambi”) we’ll bring down next fall. On average, we increase the size of the
fish we caught by 50%. We really
believe that if we purchase a new pair of shoes we will be able to dunk a basketball. Inside all of us men is a desire to have
a cheering crowd consider us to be the most amazing physical specimen on
the field of play. Whether it be a
furry animal, a fish or the guy wearing the other color jersey—we want to
win and be cheered. We want to see
our picture in Field and Stream magazine next to a mammoth creature of God
that we have slain. We can close
our eyes and imagine what the fame would be like. We think through how we’ll handle being
so famous, how we’ll cope with the grandeur. Just to reassure you, we’ve decided that
we’ll still be “regular guys” after we’re famous—unlike most sports
heroes. This is so far removed from
actual reality that it’s embarrassing for us to admit. But we do it. We dream of being the ultimate sports icon
or sportsman.
- Perhaps ranking as the most juvenile and
embarrassing on the list, we men
are thinking it would be great to own a wild animal as a pet. Seriously. We men secretly think it would be
totally wicked to own a wild animal.
As evidence of this notice that many single men will own, right in
their living room, a large Python.
Other single men will have two aquariums: one for the piranhas and
one for the fish they’ll drop in the piranha tank for entertainment on
poker night. Married men do not own
pythons or piranhas. They are too
embarrassed to tell their wives they would rather buy a baby elephant than
a Yorkshire terrier. But deep down
if allowed all men wouldn’t mind owning a giraffe. We wouldn’t even need to buy that
long-handled tree-trimmer anymore.
And the ultimate guy-pet is a monkey. Yes—no woman in her right mind would get
a monkey for a pet. The list of
reasons a woman would come up with on why a monkey is a horrible pet is
longer than my arm. But men are
still thinking about it, when they’re not thinking about sex. Monkeys are cool. Period.
- The sixth thing men are thinking about is a bit
more complicated. You see—whenever
psychiatrists take polls or give people tests something happens called the
“Hawthorne Effect.” The observers
themselves affect the outcome of the test.
People don’t give fully honest answers. So, if this test ever happened that
discovered men think about sex every seven seconds the outcome would likely
be off a bit. And of course many
people have said that this “seven seconds” thing is false… a total
myth. That’s true. I agree.
There’s no way that men sitting across the table from a young female
researcher from the university would tell the truth about how often they
think about sex. In reality, we men
know that those men polled lied like crazy. They lowered the numbers. In reality they were thinking about sex
TWO TIMES every seven seconds. So,
the sixth thing that men are thinking about is, of course, sex, as well as
the seventh thing.
There you have it. This is what men are thinking about. Yes, from time to time we think of world
peace, getting a promotion and caulking the bathtub—but as you can tell with
how well those things are going, we don’t think about them much. We’re embarrassed by our actual thoughts, so
I now confess them to the world so that we can more fully become ourselves as
man-beings. Men—we should be proud of
who we are men!
I need to go now because
Oprah is on in 5 minutes so my wife will be distracted while I stage a fight in
the basement between my monkey and the python.
My money is on the primate—of course.
Monkeys are cool.
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© 2006 by David Drury
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