Free Time: Rock, Sex, and Silence

It is a sad day when a Chris Rock joke proves to be providential for you as man. Not Hemmingway, not Patton, not even some move line from the 50s; instead at it turns out, Chris Rock is the only one who understands you.

I remember watching a comedy routine a few years ago by Chris Rock in which he made one of many jokes. He started by asking the audience if they knew what men wanted in life and the audience responded by shouting some indecipherable combination of profanity and sexist insults. He responded simply, “Three things…food, sex, and silence.” That is how I feel right now after girlfriend attended her first Dungeon and Dragons role playing session.

Four of my friends and I have been playing this game every week for about ten years. It isn’t that we don’t want to hang out with women; we just don’t want to hang out with them here. It’s our time to unwind, be misogynistic, and indulge in male-oriented nerddom. Sports would serve the same function if anyone else but I had any interest in them.

It isn’t really her fault. Having a woman here, especially a significant other, destroys the dynamic. It doesn’t matter which guy brings which girl, but having an audience, an outsider who doesn’t understand or engage, collapses the uninhibited atmosphere that we need to run the game properly. Without a girl around, it’s just the guys and the need to show off or to hide your nerdiness doesn’t exist. With a girl around, even a guy’s girlfriend, those urges come roaring back. All of a sudden the players don’t want to participate as much or publicly display their hard earned knowledge of the rules or Mind Raker anatomy.

Beyond ruining the game, another factor has emerged that makes it feel as though I am being nibbled and poked me to death from the inside. Having her here is just another step forward in her goal to worm her way inside every aspect of my life.

When we first started dating, she didn’t have a cell phone. At first, I thought it was odd and inconvenient. I am used to instant gratification in my communications. In the past if I want to speak to girl, I would either IM, text, or call her and then respect an answer or a return message fairly promptly. With this girlfriend, everything needed to be arranged a head of time. Let me tell you, that inconvenience was vastly outweighed by the freedom I enjoyed. Without a phone, she couldn’t text or call me several times a day like every girlfriend I have ever wanted to do and like every girlfriend my friends have ever had still does.

But serenity must end some time and eventually she bought a cell phone. From that point on, I could feel the shackles clack. At first, it was only a call or a text a day, but soon, her feminine impulses couldn’t be controlled and the dam burst. Every day would bring a flood of text messages, phone calls, and whatever else Verizon Wireless could create to torment me.
After the change in phones, she even began to invade my exercise routine. For years, the only exercise on my schedule was a 20-30 minute run every other day or so. Running is the only exercise I know of that provides me with euphoria and energy boost that makes the effort worthwhile. Best of all is how convenient running is; buy a pair of shoes and go. The time doesn’t matter; do it whenever you want. I would run at 5am if I woke up early or 8pm right before I went to the bars. Now of course, she wanted to spend more time together and so couple’s activities. But she doesn’t like to run and instead she prefers exercise classes at the gym with titles like “Sexy Bodies” or “Cat Fighting.” I refuse to do those, but after a while I did join the gym and so now we go together. She goes to the class and I run on the treadmill and workout. In truth, I like the gym a lot, but it still feels like another link on the chain around my neck and balls.

Moving in together had only compounded the problem. We wake up together, shower together, have sex together, take the subway together, have lunch together, go to the gym together, watch Hulu together, and go to sleep together. The togetherness never ends; she is the Siamese twin I never knew I had.

The closeness affects me and sometimes I act closed off. When I do, she can detect it and says, “Why won’t you let me inside?” and while in reality I mumble something and wait for the conversation to go away, I always think “It’s because you want to burrow into my chest, curl up, and live there until the end of my days.” She once even suggested that we buy “Smittens,” but I drew a line there.

The final draw for me might have been the most petty. For the course of our entire relationship, she used AOL instant messenger while I used Google Chat. That difference meant that we had never had a single online conversation a year into our relationship; emails sure, but never an instant message. It was the one place where I didn’t interact with her. But she recently signed up for Google Chat and now my day at work is plagued by messages from her. I always respond because I enjoy talking to her and she is always playful, but the problem remains. I have no space whatsoever for my own; no silence to complement the food and sex.

The thing about great stand up comedians is that they vocalize something that the entire audience knows, but never quite thought about and the comedian does it in a way that is both funny and understated. That understatement is the reason why the joke of food, sex, and silence rings true. The joke narrows down something that I always knew to be true about me in that I like to have my own personal space. I want to eat, have sex, and then be left alone to do whatever it is I do in my free time.

I think most men need that silence; that time where the rest of the world leaves them alone. Their boss at work won’t tell them what to do and they won’t have any errands to run for the house. Nothing will bother them, boss them around, or boggle them down against their. For some men, silence is working on cars and for others its Dungeons and Dragons. Any interference during that time is dangerous and can be interpreted as just another part of the outside world trying to control them.

If it is so bad, you might ask why I stay. Well the answer is simple. She is a wonderful human being and most of the time; her presence makes any bar, road trip, or walk by beach a much better experience. The second reason is also explained by the joke: it’s the sex.

But like the silence part of the joke, the sex part is more complicated as well. Chris Rock didn’t just mean a blowjob or the old in-out, in-out, he was talking about companionship. Men need sex, but they also need the companionship and support that comes with loving, caring, healthy relationships. My girlfriend provides that and so much more. With her, I feel content for the first time. The awkwardness of the past melts away.

Like the man says, all I need is food, sex, and silence.