My wife and her friends go to lunch together several times a year. Because I'm not a complete buffoon, I've never tagged along with them. Why would I, right? It's a girl thing. I imagine they sit around and talk about stuff that doesn't concern me. Stuff like ... well, I couldn't even begin to guess. Girl stuff, I suppose.
The point is, my wife and her friends enjoy their little luncheons and I'm glad they do. After all, I figure they need the time together, away from their husbands, so they can bond.
This is hardly breaking news, of course, but guys also like to bond. What's more, there's a need to bond, just like the ladies have.
I don't know, maybe it goes back to the caveman era, back to when men sat around the fire after a good day's hunt. Something tells me even back then guys laughed at each other, pushed the bounds of common decency and generally busted their buddies' chops.
Perhaps it went something like this: "Hey, Drogg. Nice job tracking down the woolly mammoth today. You looked pretty scared when it turned around and snorted at you. ... Are you still shaking? Hey, fellas, Drogg is still shaking from the 'woolly mammoth incident.' Dude, maybe tomorrow you should stay back and gather berries with the women."
So, in other words, a prehistoric beer commercial.
Like most guys (middle-aged or otherwise) I've got a group of buddies I hang out with on occasion. They're guys I've know since college and we usually get together for lunch three or four times a year.
We're all involved in a fantasy baseball league together, so we meet for our draft every spring at Crown Burger near West High School in Salt Lake City.
We usually meet at the end of the season and again just before Christmas for our annual white elephant/Yankee swap gift exchange.
We usually show up one by one, stake out a big table, order our food, share the same old stories we always do and laugh until it hurts. Obviously it causes quite a scene, especially when one of us opens a gift that is clearly not appropriate for mixed company. That's when we laugh like a bunch of fifth graders in the back of the lunch room.
Sure, it's a little embarrassing, especially now that we're all older, more established gentlemen. But in those moments, we resort back to cavemen and, frankly, it feels pretty good.
As I noted earlier, I believe men and women need this experiences. I think it's almost instinctive.
My wife and her friends get together, eat lunch at some she she, upscale bistro and talk about who-knows-what. They probably keep track of who paid last time and figure out whose turn it is this time.
It's what they do. It's who they are.
Me and my buddies, we stand in line at a legendary burger place, pay for our own food, then go find a place to sit down and rib each other for the next two hours.
It's what we do. It's who we are. We're cavemen ... even the berry-pickeres who now order the turkey salad with Greek dressing on the side.
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