Overheard at Arby's (a washblog)

So the other day I was "enjoying" the "roast beef" of a fine Arby's sandwich on a not so regular break in my day at work. For some reason unbeknownst to me, there was a large group of high school boys there. From the looks of things, there were several tables of them pushed together comprising some sort of sports team and a smaller table of kids who just weren't cool enough. Cool enough to skip, but not cool enough to hang with the real movers and shakers. Being somewhat of an in-betweener in high school, I felt I could relate to the latter. I continued my lunch despite the cries of bravado provided by the table of future employees of Glory Days Bar and Grill, but found the conversation from the table of not-quite-there's to be somewhat interesting.

Boy 1: I don't get it, dude, we talk all the time and she thinks I'm totally hilarious. We've got like 3 classes together; and we're always in the same study groups. But we never hang out. She's always out with Brian _____. He's such a dick. (nods of assent from his friends here) I mean how cliche is it that she'd want to go out with a jock?

I'd like to point out here that if the boy is intelligent enough to understand what a cliche that is, he should be smart enough to understand what a cliche he is. But wait, true believers perhaps one of his friends will enlighten our protagonist with such a pearl of wisdom...

Boy 2: Dude, chicks dig assholes. Brian ____ is a dick, and a huge asshole (personal snickering as to what that would look like anthropomorphically speaking). You're too nice dude. You're that nice guy that you see in movies that the chick never goes for.

Anthropomorphic DickAsshole

Almost there...boy blunders almost there...

Boy 3: That does it dude. I'm gonna stop being nice to chicks. I'm just gonna be an asshole and see what happens.

Boys 1 & 2: Yeah, fuck it. I'm gonna be an asshole, too. Fuck this being nice, shit.

Ouch! So close, but yet so far from any real life changing realizations.

And there you have it. You have the one conversation every nice guy in high school will have with his friends at one point in his high school career across every race, creed, color, religion. The conversation where they all consciously decide to be an asshole to chicks because chicks dig assholes.

Oh, boys 1,2 and 3. How sorry I feel for these kids. These poor bastards thinking they can change a part of their nature the way you, dear reader, or I would change our clothes from work to play. I wanted to shake them, and warn them as a recovering high school nice guy (we can smell our own), "You can't just decide to be an asshole, you retards." It's something you're either born with or it gets beaten into you from years of verbal abuse and failure. And unfortunatley, no matter how much you think you've experienced, you're far too young to experience real failure just yet.

Sure, they'll try to be assholes for awhile. It will be tough at first. Saying no to a study group with the girl you're in love with just to make her feel like you're all of a sudden aloof and disinterested (especially when you know that this is the only way you're going to spend time with her, studying). They'll even probably crack a few times and carry stuff for her or pick her up from practice etc. But then they'll get the timing wrong, or be too much of an asshole and ruin whatever meager chance they had with the girl of their dreams because they tried to be something they're not.

"Boys," I wanted to say, "you can't just decide you're an asshole one day."
"Save yourself some heartache. You can't be with these girls who seem to go for assholes because you're the nice guy. I'm not saying that nice guys finish last. Not by any means. I know tons of nice guys who have awesome girlfriends/wives. I'm telling you right now you need to give up on those girls. You don't want them really. The girls who go for assholes are the ones with terrible daddy issues that you as a nice guy, or any guy really, doesn't want in your life. So give up on these chicks, and find that nice girl who thinks you're impression of Cartman is spot-on and loves it. Or thinks that sports are stupid and that smart guys are sexy. As the bard says, 'To thine own self be true.' He knows what he's talking about, I mean can you think of all the chicks who must have fallen in love with Shakespeare? I think they made a movie about it. I think it was called Shakespeare in Love...with Banging Mad Broads".

From: http://www.arbys.com/menu/sides.php
Ranchy judgy goodness

But as I didn't want to be a weird creepy guy at the Arby's; I just smiled to myself and dipped my loaded potato bite into sweet ranchy goodness.