50 Things I Learned From My Guy Friends
(1) How to throw and catch a football.
(2) The positions in basketball/who Kevin Durant is. (And about 973 other important sports terms and figures of today.)
(3) The rules of beer pong.
(4) When boys are, and aren’t, looking at your cleavage. (Hint: pretty much always.)
(5) That, according to these particular boys, tits are rarely as exciting to see out of a bra as in one. But that nothing beats getting to touch a real-life boobie.
(6) What my limits are drinking-wise.
(7) How to deal with creepy unsolicited advances from strangers on the internet (Ignore them! You don’t owe them anything!)
(8) That Die Hard is a valid Christmas movie.
(9) More quotes from Training Day than any human who hasn’t seen it should know.
(10) That I shouldn’t walk with my hands in my pockets because I “look like a man.”
(11) That men and women can be friends.
(12) Just how good street tacos are.
(13) How to take care of drunk people.
(14) How to let go of having plans. Or any expectations that plans will be remembered or followed through with.
(15) How to block punches/ basic self-defense. (This is from us wrestling, not from us actually fighting—before you get too horrified).
(16) The length of hair boys prefer, the clothes guys like, what guys notice on a girl.
(17) The best way to slap someone’s ass (we spent a fair amount of time on this). Please note: totally consensually and for fun, not to random people! I feel like I shouldn’t have to disclaim so much.
(18) Who Cory Booker is. And a billion other fascinating people who don’t play sports.
(19) What imgur is. (This has proved life-changing).
(20) That boys will cry at About Time and Gray’s Anatomy, and their best friends graduating a year before them.
(21) Waaayyyy too much about balls. And boners. Ask me how I know about the phrase “pinch and roll.”
(22) The lengths a guy will go for a hookup. What do you mean you went to a girls house at 4 a.m. to listen to her cry for two hours about her best friend’s boyfriend in hopes that she would pity fuck you the night before a midterm?
(23) That they are surprisingly supportive of being ditched by another guy for potential pussy procurement. A lot of female friends would not be so chill about this. They don’t even always apologize for it, they just cancel! The gall!
(24) Approximately 50 Mac keyboard shortcuts.
(25) How to think before I speak. Because conversations are fast-paced and cutthroat.
(26) How to speak up and be heard when it really matters.
(27) More disgusting nicknames for genitalia than I ever thought possible. Beef curtains. Baloney Pony. Bald-Headed Yogurt Slinger. Moose Knuckle.
(28) How to shoot a rubber band with your fingers.
(29) What guys are insecure about—other than dicks, but also dicks. Hair. Height. Not being ambitious enough. Not being like their fathers. Being too much like their fathers.
(30) What goes into a girl’s 1-10 number ranking. (Ok I still don’t get it get it. But they’ve tried to explain it to me).
(31) How much smiling more actually helps*.
(32) And being a little more feminine*.
(33) And a little more non-threatening*.
(34) And a little more dumb*. (Yes, they have verbally confirmed this. Yes, I too am depressed by that.)
(35) How to not look so bored at parties, when really I’m just intimidated and freaking out.
(36) Just how much some guys think about marriage. Mostly it’s in a very abstract way, but frequently nonetheless. One guy blurted out that he wanted to have a house with a nice garden so that he wouldn’t have to pay for flowers at his wedding cause he wants to get married at home. Ummmm what?
(37) Same for kids. This even more so than marriage. I can’t tell you how many times a guy friend of mine has started a sentence with “My kid won’t…” or “When I have a kid…” And some of them have names picked out! (Not trying to shame, trying to express shock.)
(38) How to longboard. (Jk jk. How to stand on a longboard and shuffle around).
(39) Indirectly, how to clean up just about anything. From beer stains to eggnog spilled on a rug to pee on someone’s sheets. I know. Oh I know.
(40) That their advice is almost always “Don’t overthink it!” because guess what? They underthink. Let’s all try a little harder to meet in the middle on this one, huh?
(41) Just how much being passive-aggressive angers boys (and really all people). And how to be more direct.
(42) How to laugh off jokes about my weight. Or anything else that usually offends me. If they mean it as a joke, it’s a joke.
(43) The planning that goes into drafting a text message to the girl they like. Somehow despite “knowing” that boys have feelings, just the same as girls have feelings (CAUSE FUCKING DUHHH), I still need reminders.
(44) How much they share with each other. It has frequently shocked me what they feel I am clear to be privy to. Which girls lady bits were like what; who asked for what in bed; when and how they lost their precious v-cards; announcements when they get the occasional rando-boner… speaking of which:
(45) The size of their dicks. I can tell you 8 of my closest guy friends’ dick sizes within an inch. And I haven’t slept with them. (10 if we are going there.)
(46) How they want girls to deal with problems: head on.
(47) This: “If a guy is friends with a girl and she’s above a 6, he’s totally down to be friends with benefits with her. No questions asked.” (This I have seriously come to doubt, but in the same way that I doubted what I learned in calculus—probably true, but I’ll never be able to apply it.)
(48) What brutal honesty looks like (e.g., “You could be an 8 or a 9 if you lost some weight.” / “I don’t want you on my beer pong team because you aren’t good enough.”) and how valuable it really is.
(49) How much a person’s mother can be doing for them at 22 years old would shock you. SHE DROVE 2 HOURS TO SEE YOU WHEN YOU WERE SICK? YOU DON’T DEPOSIT MONEY IN THE BANK CAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW? ARE YOU A FOUR-YEAR-OLD? Sorry. Back to calm. Feeling neutral.
(50) Just how truly generous, protective, loyal, giving, thoughtful, emotional, loving, romantic (eww), boys can be—which is something I never really got to witness firsthand growing up in a house of all women, so color me pleasantly surprised (and madly in like with all of these fine fuck-ups that have given me so much).
*These will be argued. “What boys are you friends with that like dumber girls!? I don’t like dumb girls.” Well, these are smart, interesting, accomplished guys and the reality is, a hot, slightly dumber, nonthreatening girl is, surprise!—the easiest to approach! Especially for hookups. Sometimes this is true for relationships too. Sometimes not, but that’s just my assessment of a trend I’ve seen. 
