My Man, the Dude's Dude.

Attention ladies (and gents):



Do you have a boyfriend who loves to talk about cars, buildings, construction, more cars, sports and occasionally liberal politics? Does this make you zone out and turn the sounds coming out of his mouth into the indecipherable adult-jabber from the Peanuts cartoons? Then, I have just the solution for you:



My Halbastram.



When I first met Halbastram in 2003, a lot of people were convinced that our relationship wouldn't last due to our age difference (he's a whopping 8 years older...oh no!!). Gradually, over time, my friends slowly came around to enjoying his presence, mostly because he wasn't a raging idiot like my previous beaus.

Since I was in school in the burbs when we met, and he had a real-life career as an architect in the city, we could only see each other on the weekends. And weekends usually meant random parties off campus at my friend's apartment. Most of my friend's friends had boyfriends and since this wasn't a typical hookup environment, we usually just sat around with our drinks, talking shit and being loud for no other reason than because we could (but not really, because the neighbors frowned on the noise). Having been dragged there by their girls, the guys would usually just stand nearby, drinks in hand, listening patiently but looking very uncomfortable. Once in a while, one of them would speak up, offering up knowledge on a subject the girls either didn't know much or care about. This would usually be cars, football or video games. We weren't stereotypical girls, only interested in shopping, makeup and Hello Kitty. We were the artsy girls, preferring to divulge in movies, music, American Psycho quotes and people on campus who annoyed us so we had to give them petty-yet-funny nicknames.

Anyway, just let any boy utter one of the keywords and in swoops Halbastram, offering his knowledge on the topic and a much-needed out from just listening to the girls jabber on about their favorite Seinfeld episodes. Most of the time, I don't even notice when Halbastram moves in on the boyfriends. We'll show up to a party, he'll hand me a beer, I'll go out for a smoke and come back two minutes later...and Boom! he's got a new man-friend for the night. Since I drag him to most of my girly functions, he savors the opportunity to discuss some of his favorite topics with other dudes. He just has a strong personality and forwardness about him that makes it easy for him to jump in and help a fellow dude in need of some time away from the estrogen.

The first time I noticed this was in my dorm one night, when my roommate was preparing to go out on a blind date. Halbastram was over and hanging out in the room when she was telling us about the guy: he was in construction and for the date, they were going out to play billiards. Halbastram didn't say much, since my friend just complained a whole lot about the going to play billiards on a first date. When the guy arrived, following introductions, he starts talking about the place where he's taking my friend for their billiards date. She grudgingly acknowledges this, whereas Halbastram jumps in, asking him if he's any good, how long he's been playing, and which construction company he works for. It was almost as if they would've had a much better date.

It didn't take long to pick up on the fact that Halbastram, being a man's man, was the go-to guy for uncomfortable situations. We labeled him the "Boyfriend's Boyfriend" and if a friend is afraid of bringing a date to a gathering because he'd be bored, we assure them: "Halbastram will be there. If he likes cars, he won't be bored."