The 2014 Guide Book for Men

To save their species from ridicule and humiliation, here are 30 things men must never do, especially in front of women (unless you plan to remain single), suggests Ethel Da Costa.

In the gym never ….

1.    pump up the volume on your walky, as you do squats. Nobody wants to know what you’re listening to, or worse, put up with your off-key sing along to `I Want Your Sex,’ unless you want a black eye.

2.    reserve the changing room by draping your sweaty underwear on the door knob. Size matters, but you don’t want it discussed between shots of tequila now, do you?

3.    strip to your G-strings, flaunt your six packs and then poke fun at the geek desperately working his way through a bar-bell workout. Show offs are shoved off.

4.    use the ceiling-to-floor mirrors to scratch your crotch or check whether your nipples are perky after a waxing session. Gross!

5.    boast of your last night’s conquest and roar about how good it did for your arm muscles.

In the car never…

6.    ask for directions in a dead alley. They’ll wonder whether you escaped from an asylum.

7.    drive to the grocers to pick up bread, if it takes you ten minutes to find your car in the parking lot.

8.    try to make out with your mate’s girlfriend who incidentally lent his wheels for the office party.

9.    pick your nose in public and when caught pretend you are tugging a shred of tissue paper stuck to your mustache.

10.  make monkey faces at your grocer’s wife whose car has stalled at a traffic signal.

11.  attempt to change your trousers at a traffic stop on your way to the disco, and then yelp when your zipper comes stuck between the legs. Ouch!

With other blokes never…

12.  share an umbrella, a lip balm, cigar or underwear.

13.  fight naked, unless you’re in prison.

14.  allow another man to give you a Kamasutra demonstration.

15.  complain loudly to the landlord in a crowded tavern that his daughter has been slipping condoms under his door.

16.  step into the landlord’s domestic spat unless their argument involves your wife.

17.  allow another man to give your chick cooking lessons.

18.  smoke to look sexy. Unless you want your butt looking like a turkey’s neck. Research says tobacco smoke destroys collagen, the protein that keeps skin taut.

In the pub never…

19.  talk about male menopause, or discuss performance anxiety with the bar tender

20.  make your own sound effects to the pub’s video game machine.

21.  leave your credit card at the cash counter. Buddy, say hello to bankruptcy.

22.  think that whistling will speed up the service. If your drink is `accidentally’ split all over your Versace jeans, remember we told you so.

23.  discuss your gay lover and what makes him so hot in bed.

24. walk deliberately into a ladies room to powder your nose, unless your sex change operation has been completed.

25. boast about how you got into this major brawl to explain your black eye, and then cringe when the real culprit, your girlfriend, walks in.

When with a gal never…

26. break wind in the car and blame it on the exhaust.

27. peek into her handbag when she turns in her seat to make a cell call.

28. share her perfume or borrow her bra for a cross-dresser party.

29. discuss the sexual antics of your former mistress.

30. borrow her credit card to pay the bill. Yes, women still love a chivalrous man, no matter how independent we say we are.

Writer’s Profile:

Ethel Da Costa is a Goa-based acknowledged fashion, lifestyle, music writer, radio head, creative entrepreneur, commenter and columnist of all things politically and socially incorrect. A published poet-author of Eve’s Revenge: Stories of Nemesis (2008) with a second sequel in the making Eve’s Light: Stories of Passion (2014), she be reached at etheldacosta@gmail.com

Website: http://about.me/etheldacosta