Me vs. The Pool Table

Women can be catty and competitive.  This isn't a secret.   Many-a-man has rolled his eyes while his girlfriend/daughter/wife/sister explains that it is important that she is skinnier/prettier/wealthier/more successful than her friends.   Hence the term "frenemy," a friend whom you secretly wish ill.  Men do not have frenemies. They have friends and they have enemies.   Only women, with their stunning ability to multitask, would think to combine the two.

When men compete it isn't the subtle nuances of saying, "I love your dress!" and then talking about how fat she actually looked in it  (it is exhausting to be female, and I'm not even talking about the hair removal).  No, because men have all the subtlety of a gang bang.   Any time men get competitive with each other it boils down to a dick-measuring contest.  Absolutely any time.  Today my coworker was telling me that one of her husband's friends bought a 70 in TV (which is big beyond all reason) just so that it could be bigger than her husband's TV.  And yesterday...

I came to the stunning realization that while my boyfriend is highly-evolved enough to wear matching argyle socks, he is not immune to whipping it out to be measured (figuratively, stay with me).  He bought a pool table.   Let me explain.  His living room is not big enough to comfortably accommodate and pool table if anything else is the room.  So in the middle of his living room is a pool table, and all the rest of his furniture is smashed pathetically up against the wall.   His coffee table had to be chucked to the side, his dining room table has to be sold because it no longer fits, and worst of all, he disrupted a pretty sweet couch and netflix projection set-up that was going on.  Why?!

But here's why he got it.  Because it was only $25.   I'm sure it was so cheap because some pissed off woman made her husband/boyfriend get rid of it so her living room no longer looked like the apt in Big.  Now, he gets the pleasure of bragging to all his friends, "Hey, I got a pool table for twenty-five dollars!"  And all the other men will stare blankly  in jealousy because they don't have a pool table, let alone one for twenty-five dollars.  So, for this simple pleasure, he allowed his life to become an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

I know I sound like a cranky cow.   I honestly don't care that he bought a pool table. I mean, I'm cool and fun and I get that sometimes you want to splurge. It's his apartment, I don't live there, although if I did, the pool table sure as shit wouldn't have made it inside (also, we wouldn't drink wine out of coffee mugs).   Although I cannot resist pointing out to him that he bought a $25 problem.   I just don't get the logic behind the purchase.   But I suppose my boyfriend wouldn't understand why I spend so much on my haircuts.  Same thing.   Same competition.  Although, while I actually know how to style my hair...

Me:  "Do you even play pool?!"
Him:  "I have a feeling I'll be motivated to learn now."