Why I won't ski with male skiers who are lousy.
Dec 03 '99
"I can ski double black diamonds!" my boyfriend naively bragged in the first week of our relationship. My stomach churned. I sat him down and explained two things: "I won't ski with you", and "If we do wind up on the same run some day, I don't know you."
Yeah it's harsh. But I've worked hard on my skiing and I won't be soft on anyone, no matter how cute they are. Men have been saying "I'll sleep with you but I won't ski with you" to women for years, and now it's my turn to do some spanking. They need it bad. It's not good to leave the male ego unsupervised; we'd all wind up back in caves.
Men are extremely competitive and performance oriented. Just watch them breaking golf clubs on trees or beating each other up over some imagined insult at 2am outside of bars.
Meanwhile hot, aggressive women athletes are in bloom. Those men who don't acknowledge and accept this now are only setting themselves up for a big fall later.
Skiing is the perfect stage to observe the male-ego phenomenon: If a man's girlfriend is a better skier, he'll usually lapse quickly into that wonderful sanctuary called denial. There would be a belch, a ball scratch and a loud voice barking "A woman better than ME? Not a chance!" The poor guy's manhood would feel so threatened, his chance of moving farther right on the simian scale would come screeching to a halt right then and there.
If she were to coo "nice job" or wait on him every run, it could get ugly real fast. The suffering man will know it's a blatant lie and then fight like a three-peckered billygoat to keep up. He'll ski things he isn't qualified to ski. Inevitably he would flail, and fall deeply into a pit of self-conscious agony. If he doesn't wind up wrapped around a tree, he'll soon resort to making excuses ("All those push ups made me tired!"), then he'll crawl home and sulk, blame her, sell his gear and never go skiing again. Who needs that?
If by some random chance he actually BUYS her sweet patronizing smile, his ego will be on fire. But there's always someone better lurking nearby who will rip by and shatter this delicate facade.
The trick is to either get them to use their ego wisely, or lose it forever.
Tell a man "You suck" and one of two things will happen. Either his ego will really kick in, and he'll go on a quest to rip and return to prove you wrong. Or he'll drop the ego entirely and become one of those who actually love skiing because it's fun, rather than one who uses it as a tool to puff up. Either way you win.
The bottom line: I refuse to fake being less of an athlete or less intelligent just to make sure men can live with themselves. Although I do have something to confess: the ego I'm trying to save is actually my own. I don't want to hang out with someone who shows up in blue-blocker sunglasses and a flapping Member's Only jacket.
But I still expect them to buy dinner.
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Epinions.com ID:
kristenulmer
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Member: Kristen Ulmer
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 91 members
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