What's the most pathetic way you've seen someone try to look manly? I once worked in an office where

they let us pick out our new desks and order them from a catalogue. My boss came in to check mine out

and he noticed it was like six inches bigger than his new desk. I came in the next morning and

he had made the maintenance guys switch them. He claimed it was because his desk

was a better height for me. Shockingly, he turned out to be insane in other ways as well. Who'd have

thought it? I once saw a pee-plater, Australian for a new driver, in a hotted up car waiting

at the traffic lights in the rain. He was facing up a hill, and when the lights turned green, he put his

foot on the accelerator hard and attempted to speed off and ended up getting absolutely no traction.

This resulted in his wheels just spinning and him doing a kind of stationary fish tail while slowly

sliding back down the hill. He ended up missing that green light. I couldn't stop laughing.

There's a substance called Synthol that some bodybuilders, and a lot of wannabe tough guys,

inject themselves with, to create fake muscles. Googling for it leads to gems such as guys that

look like Popeye and stick figures in water wings. Not so cool. My voice drops low when I talk to my

father-in-law. I rarely catch myself and talk normal. When I do try to talk normal, I think I sound

squeaky. I'm nearly 40 with three kids, by the way. My boyfriend does this as well. When he's

speaking to my dad, his voice will be unnaturally low,

but as soon as you get any alcohol in him, he sounds like a frickin' pixie. It's hilarious.

When I was but 12, some kid came into middle school with a beard drawn onto his face in Sharpie.

He desperately tried to make everyone believe it was his real beard, that he grew it

overnight. I must have hit a growth spurt, he said. I wish camera phones were a thing back then.

I started shaving every few days when I was 12 and was mocked for it. I had a full beard by 14,

and I still got crap for it. You really can't win."

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