The Making of a Metrosexual

¡Hola! Everybody,
I went to look at the most fantastic apartment yesterday! It’s a garden apartment in one of the nicest Brooklyn neighborhoods. I love it! The only thing is I have to wait until the end of June to move in. I’ll be signing a two-year lease at a rent that’s very fair! Man! I can’t wait!

* * *

Eddie the Metrosexual
“The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis – because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are... he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference... truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they’re pretty much everywhere.”

-- Mark Simpson, “Here come the mirror men” (published in The Independent)

[Note: Today’s post was inspired by my man Rippa’s rip-roaring post yesterday.]

Yes, colleagues and friends alike have accused yours truly of being a “metrosexual.” Now, I wouldn’t agree with the definition above -- I am neither vain (at least not overly so), narcissistic, nor a mindless consumer. But if metrosexual denotes a man with discriminating taste and attention to style, then I am a metrosexual to the core! LOL!

First, let me add some context to the discussion. I was raised poor in some of the hardest neighborhoods in New York City. However, being poor never stopped our mother from teaching us to walk with pride and dressed well. A couple of years ago, when I went to my personal trainer (who I promptly dropped when she wouldn’t fuck me ), she asked to see my posture, and I saw her surprise when she noted that I walked upright -- "Perfect posture," she noted.

That was my moms! LOL! She taught us to walk “correctly.” She would also shop at the Salvation Army shops located on near ritzy neighborhoods, like Park Avenue, so though we were poor, we dressed in really expensive clothes bought for almost nothing. I hated those clothes. My mother made me wear a suit and a tie to school everyday. Now, you have to understand that I was always very skinny and short, and growing up light-skinned with blue-eyes was hard enough in the Lower East Side. Wearing a suit and tie to school didn’t help matters, so I had to learn how to fight at a very early age. To complicate matters, my mother absolutely forbade me from fighting. And if I tore my pants or otherwise messed up my “nice” clothes, I would get a major beat down.

So I was the kind of kid that would take a lot of abuse, but if you messed up my clothes, I’d beat you to an inch of your life! LOL! The thing with fighting and violence is that once you do it a few times, you get used to it. Add to that the very important lesson my uncle taught me in boxing (he coached a boxing team for the police league, which, of course, my mother refused to have me join). His major boxing lesson to me was so (imagine a deep PR accent):

“What you do is don’t talk bullshit. If you think you and the guy are gonna fight, you go off and punch him as hard as you can in the nose. I guarantee you, if you punch someone dead smack in the nose, it won’t matter how big they are, they will cry like a pussy. Now, the other part is, if you punch someone in the nose and they don’t cry, you better run!”

I went around for like two weeks after that object lesson punching dozens of kids in the nose. All of them (except for Carlos the Terrible), cried like pussies and I developed a reputation and ma’fuccas stopped fuckin with me, though they would still rank on my clothes behind my back.

Thus was born a metrosexual.

All my life, I have somehow carried the other lesson deep inside my psyche, the other lesson being my mother’s plea that we had to walk with pride no matter what our situation. I can tell you that even in the worst of times, when I was in the deepest, darkest phase of my active addiction, I always managed somehow to look “good.” I always maintained good hygiene and if I had to shower in the street, by an open fire hydrant in the summer, I did! I may not have had a place to stay, but damned if I wasn’t the best-dressed homeless person in NYC! LOL! Having learned from my mother, I knew where to shop where I could get a Valentino sports jacket for $10. So yeah, I was that dope fiend with the sparkly smile and the good taste in clothes. Sure, you would look at me and sense there was something amiss, but you’d take me home.

Even in prison, my prison uniform was always pressed and creased, my boots shined to a high gloss. It’s how I live.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m overly consumed with the way I look. I’m not. I just have style. You would never catch me with a cheap suit because that’s ridiculous. And by cheap I mean make: the fabric and how it drapes. I know I like my cuffs at 1 inch with a “full drape” cut to them. I still have an Italian suit I paid $10 for over ten years ago, and when I wear it, I still get compliments. I’m that man, that if you’re shopping for your man and you see me browsing the store, you’re gonna want to cop my style for him. It’s not conceit; I’m merely stating the obvious (OK! I know it sounds arrogant, but really, it isn’t! LOL!).

In the summer, I wear mostly linens and silks and my clothes are impeccably pressed. I wear cheerful colors, like "mango," lilac, and aquamarine. Even when I wear a tracksuit, I look “dressed.” Not that long ago, one of my female colleagues mentioned that even in casual attire, I managed to look dressed. LOL! For me, that was a great compliment, because I ain't even trying that hard. I wear cologne everyday and if you looked at my “cosmetics,” you’d probably want to hang out in my bathroom for a while. This doesn’t mean I will vie for face time in the mirror with you, but it does mean I care about how I look and I take care of myself.

I realize there are women out there who prefer old timberland-smellin’-baseball-cap-wearing-ass-hanging-out ma’fuccas, but you wouldn’t catch me dead with such women. LOL I see dudes on here profiling some bullshit baseball caps and baggy-assed jeans and I snicker because that’s some baby shit. Brothers? Real women? While you’re looking at their tits and ass? They checking out your teeth and fingernails and whether you smell kosher or not. Any woman who doesn’t do that is a grimy-assed woman because, as a friend once told me, “You think imma let a nigga with grimy-assed nails stick their finger in my pussy? Nuh uh!”

So yeah, if wearing clothes that have to be dry-cleaned and caring about how my hair and teeth look makes me a metrosexual, then I’m a card-carrying uber Metrosexual! LOL

Love,

Eddie