I don't know, but I've been told. Eskimo pussy is mighty cold!

Chuck’s a big believer that as men age it becomes more difficult to make new friends. Loyal readers who know Chuck well will be choking on their latte’s at that statement, stunned that a magnetic personality like Chuck would make such a remark.  Chuck’s not talking about becoming buddy buddy with some dude at work that you occasionally head off to a football game with. Think about how many rock solid best friends you’ve made since you’ve turned 30? In all likelihood, that figure would be fairly low. Why you ask? Well consider this, when you’re in your teens and early twenties, you’re running with your pals chasing good times, booze and the opposite sex. Those activities form the experiences and memories that are the basis of friendship. As we age, our lives get bogged down with responsibilities and families that prevent significant time being spent with others and therefore a reduction in super close friendships.

The reason for Chuck’s startling insight on new friendship? Well, not so long ago, Chuck attended his first “Mothers Group” get together.

This is always a daunting step for a new father for a number of reasons.

1)    What happens if everyone there is a dick?

2)    What happens if you are clearly raising your child in a way that is different (and frowned upon by others)?

3)    What happens if you have nothing in common with these people?

4)    You’re never going to become great friends with any of these people.

Of course Chuck raised these concerns with Mrs Long before departing and was greeted with a swift “get over it”.

For those uninitiated, once a woman gives birth, they are promptly directed to a community health centre where they are matched up with other mothers who are encouraged to hang out and share their experiences. After 4 weeks at the community centre under the tutelage of a child health nurse, they are sent into the big wide world and encouraged to keep hanging out. The majority of the women live in close proximity and depending upon the area, are of a similar demographic. You’ll hear numerous stories of women who have made amazing new friendships with the women in these groups as they and their children bond and grow together.

It’s a bit of a different story for the blokes however.

Typically the men will be pulled along to events and functions on a sporadic basis – a barbeque here, a birthday party there. These get togethers normally involve a crowd as well. The problem with this set up is that the infrequency and the volume of people make it very difficult to form any sort of relationship or bond with other dudes.

And before any female says it, do you really believe for one second that any guy would turn up to a “Father Group”?

So you can appreciate Chuck’s apprehension at attending a “Mothers Group” function.  Upon arriving, Chuck was introduced to the host father, one woman breast feeding, another dad, a random couple with no children and some straggler that was a former work colleague of the host mother and who looked totally lost. It almost felt like the first day of school. Chuck did a quick assessment of the room and rapidly determined that his baby was the cutest, which for some strange reason made Chuck feel at ease.

The ladies all knowing each other made things a bit easier and of course new parents can talk about babies, the challenges of having a baby and the dumb shit dads do endlessly so the afternoon moved on effortlessly. The host baby had a healthy dose of South American in him and a nifty little trick he did with his eye (and which Chuck would encourage all young men to include in their repertoires) that made it look like he was propositioning the female babies. This got a hearty laugh from the crowd and was followed by one of the baby girl’s dads saying, “It’s a good thing her dad can shoot straight”. This in turn got a good laugh.

You may recall in this very forum Chuck discussing the additional stress that comes along with having a baby girl and how one of Chuck’s colleagues has instigated a work out regime so that he’ll be in good shape when his daughter starts dating in 15 years. So obviously Chuck zeroed in on this dude who was thinking on Chuck’s level. He was a nuggetty bloke and through general conversation it appeared he was a Queenslander. As the afternoon progressed however, this bloke used the same line at least 4 other times to lesser and lesser degrees of laughter from the crowd. Chuck thought that perhaps the first try had buoyed his confidence and eradicated his comedic timing.  At the 5^th and 6^th use, Chuck decided that the guy was a dick.

Was he really paranoid about his baby girl being violated in 15-18 years time by some Latin lover? Was he insecure? Or was he just a Queenslander? This was all too much for Chuck who had to get a better read on this ball of nuggetty uncomfortableness. As luck would have it, the dude happened to walk outside on to the balcony with his baby girl while Chuck was playing the role of super dad with his little girl. After exchanging pleasantries, Chuck decided to probe deeper.

Expecting to hear “cane sugar farmer”, Chuck asked what the dad did for a living?

“Special Forces” came the response.

Chuck’s not going to lie, that one was like a jab to the jaw. For all Chuck’s talk about dads looking after their little girls, Chuck had finally stumbled across a guy who could actually kill a boyfriend with his bare hands (or at least set GPS coordinates so that an air strike could take care of business).

The straight shooting line took on a chilling new meaning and made Chuck desperate for a second chance to win this guy over. Bring on the next mother’s group!

The gift that keeps on giving

Chuck,

I have a serious thing for a friend of my mate’s girlfriend and I think the attraction is mutual. However, before I launch into things with her I thought I’d come and see the “man” and get your take on a particular issue. This girl had the reputation as a good time girl back in the day. One of the widely known results of these good times amongst her circle of friends was a case of herpes. That piece of knowledge is the only thing holding me back. If I didn’t know her friend well enough for her to tell me i would have definitely made my move already. I’m stuck.

Mix Master David

MMD,

Is it safe for Chuck to assume that you’re not referring to the type of herpes that resides on the mouth?

Many a parched and dehydrated traveller has stumbled upon a stagnant creek or puddle in the wilderness and been faced with the decision “to drink or not drink” from the dirty and bacteria infested water. The dried tongue and beaten body scream “DO IT” while the last remaining fibres of commonsense in the brain remind them that the short burst of relief will be quickly followed by stomach cramps, diarrhoea and maybe death. Sometimes however, the flesh wins the argument. A better prepared traveller, flush with ample supplies of water on the other hand walks straight past the stale water, safe in the knowledge that they have better options.

So what the fuck is Chuck trying to say with that awesome analogy? Well not much, but if you haven’t had regular poontang, you could be easily swayed into making a hasty decision that could have severe ramifications to your future well being. Ok, so perhaps that is a dramatic over simplification of the entire scenario but Chuck desperately wanted to use the thirsty traveller bit.

Didn’t it used to be so much easier when the equation was: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl get married, boy breaks girls hymen, boy and girl live happily ever after. Now it’s boy and girl meet on RSVP (or E-Harmony if they’re looking for a long lasting relationship based on compatibility), boy and girl sleep together on first date, boy posts message on girls Facebook page that she might want to get checked for Chlamydia, boy and girl get married, boy and girl divorce 3.7 years later.

Anyway, with all the random hook ups and a reduced fear of STI’s nowadays, it’s no wonder you’ve bumped into a young lady who is tainted with a gift from the devil that she can never shake. For those of you unaware, let Chuck (with the assistance of Wikipedia) give you a brief rundown of herpes (Chuck made an executive decision and decided to leave the pictures out):

- Genital herpes second most common form of herpes appear as clusters of genital sores on the outer surface of the genitals resembling cold sores.

- In males, sores appear on the glans, shaft, inner thigh, buttocks or anus

- In females, lesions occur on the pubis, labia, clitoris and vulva

- After 2-3 weeks lesions progress into ulcers and then crust and heal

- 45 million afflicted in the US. 1 million joining the club each year

- Spread by sexual contact

- Cannot be cured although symptoms can be managed and outbreaks reduced by medication

As you can see, it’s a real treat of a disease!

Chuck can appreciate your reluctance to dive right in MMD, but at the end of the day love trumps all and if you’re careful you should be able to navigate around her affliction and have a normal and rewarding relationship. If you decide to make a move and she is interested, it’s important that there is a degree of honesty right from the start. Now you can’t expect her to lean over during y our first romantic dinner and whisper into your ear “I just wanted to let you know I have herpes” because that will definitely put you off desert. Conversely, you can’t make mention of it at all because A) you’ll destroy your mates girlfriend (for betraying her trust) and B) you’ll make your girl very uncomfortable.

Assuming she is a normal functioning human being and doesn’t want to pass it on, you need to appreciate how tough it is going to be for her to tell you. Mentioning to a potential love interest that she has an STI carries with it all sorts of risks for her. The worry that you’ll immediately assume that she is a tramp and dump her would be front of mind. If things progress and the time comes to get your freak on, Chuck would expect her to give you the heads up. Make sure that you act surprised when she tells you too but DO NOT respond with something like “wow, I never would have picked it, you look so clean”.

It’s key for you to have protection on hand because as we all know, the dick always triumphs as the sexual activity ratchets up and it’s at times like these (let’s call it a moment of weakness) that you could be tempted to dive in unprotected. It will tell you a lot about your lady friend. However, condoms are not 100% safe. Consistently using male or female condoms and other barriers for all sexual contact, including oral, anal, vaginal, and manual sex, will greatly reduce the risk of transmission. So will taking suppressive therapy, which lowers the amount of virus in your system. However, both you and your partner should remember that you can transmit the virus even if you don't have any symptoms.(About.com)

You’d obviously like to not worry about an STI that will always be looming behind the scenes but if you’re sensible and open about it, you should be able to manage the problem effectively. The frequency of sex can be impacted as you’ll want to dodge boning during outbreaks and there can be difficulties during pregnancy and child birth but we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here.

Chuck would encourage you to ask this girl out and see how things progress as there’s a chance you don’t even get close to firing a shot and all this worry has been for naught. Once again, the problem can be managed and you can be happy.

Of course you may have a big problem if you have fetishes that include sniffing or wearing ladies underwear!

Have Baby, will not Travel

Chuck’s humblest apologies, dear readers, for the lack of activity last week, but Chuck was on the road. Many of you will be choking on your skinny latte at that weak excuse since Chuck’s other role as a successful businessman sees him travelling frequently yet he makes the time to dish advice on a regular basis. The difference on this trip was that Chuck was travelling in a new capacity – father; and fuck Chuck drunk, it’s not easy.

A couple of key points to consider before Chuck moves on:

1)    Mrs Long does the vast majority of the heavy lifting – early morning feeding and nappy changing in particular.

2)    The spawn of Chuck is incredibly good natured.

You’d think that with the two above points in play, travelling with an infant would be a breeze but Chuck’s here to tell you that the logistics required to take a baby on a plane and to a holiday destination would make the preparations for the Olympic opening ceremony pale in comparison – put it this way, Chuck wasn’t calling in any of the Indian Commonwealth Games organisers for assistance.

What’s so hard you ask? Where the fuck should Chuck start? Typically you’re told to be 60 minutes early for domestic and 90 minutes for international flights. The moment you add an infant to this mix, you simply have to tack another 2 hours onto things. The first nightmare is the packing. Baby Chuck averages at least 4 outfits per day (mainly because Chuck and Mrs Long have made the bold decision to remove any clothing that has faeces, urine or vomit on it unlike other more contemporary parents: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/01/3027558.htm). So when travelling for 5 days, you’re talking 20 outfits right there. On top of this you have nappies, wipes, sleeping bags, hats and a whole range of other assorted goodies. Now Chuck is a chronic over-packer at the best of times but scoffed when he saw how much stuff Mrs Long set aside to take on the trip. Low and behold, the baby churned through the entire stash. Fuck knows why Brad and Angelina are on the road as much as they are with the piles of crap they’d have to lug around for their brood.

Despite the Spawn of Chuck being incredibly good-natured, her favourite things to do at 3 months of age in no particular order are: vomit, poo & wee. Oh and she loves to smile. She is so radically unpredictable on all of these things other than smiling that you cannot plan ahead. You can clean a monster turd, put a new nappy on, and redress her (and do not get Chuck started on the complexity of children’s clothing. Bugger child proof lids on medicine, they should wrap the drugs up in a baby one-piece night suit. The thing is like a fucking rubics cube) and not 3 minutes later comes the sound of her internal cappuccino machine as she bubbles up a fresh new turd. On both the departing and arriving flights, little Miss Long cooked up a steamer within 10 minutes of take off. Of course you could smell the stench seeping from her with no course of action possible until the seat belt sign went off.

The sheer volume of bodily fluid that comes out of an infant is shocking. Being moderately refined, Chuck and Mrs Long are loathe to leave her in her own dishcharges meaning countless hours are spent searching for baby change rooms so that she can be hosed down and repackaged.

Another critical thing to consider when flying with a baby is the pressure build up in her ears. The take offs and landings are obviously the critical part and if the baby’s ears don’t equalise, the poor little thing’s head will feel like exploding. Chuck was horrified when he realized he couldn’t just slip her a stick of gum and let her chew her way to equilibrium. No, Mrs Long had to perfectly time breastfeeding with take-offs and landing. Apparently the sucking action acts as a mechanism to relieve the pressure (Chuck will be sure to remember to suck on a titty the next time he needs to relieve some pressure). Unfortunately, if the plane is not on time or you have to taxi to a far runway, feeding times may not line up in which case a nipple has to be offered up for sacrifice so that the baby can suckle and avoid the dreaded ear ache.

Eating out is a massive challenge with a young child. Ordinarily, Chuck would just leave the baby in the hotel room and head out for a meal, but that’s been frowned upon heavily since a kid got nicked out of a room in Portugal. Option number 2 would be driving to the casino and leaving it in the car park but the holiday destination was casino-less. So with out a go-to plan, Chuck had to scout out restaurants that were deemed baby friendly. How did Chuck do that you ask? Well the obvious idea would be to go to a restaurant with no one in it, but an empty restaurant would suggest that either the food is terrible or their speciality is salmonella. Actually it was pretty simple, Chuck just walked in to the restaurant and asked if they had room for a pram.  The tricky part is getting the child to sleep just as the mains arrive (or to have Mrs Long grab her and walk her outside until she fell asleep).

Probably the biggest challenge is stifling the baby’s cries once in the air. Chuck has been on plenty of flights with screaming babies and frankly it isn’t a great concern. However, the minute you have one of your own you suddenly become so worried that her cries are upsetting people that you actually consider smothering the baby’s face with a pillow (Chuck jokes, although the airline we were on didn’t supply pillows so it was never an option). Chuck isn’t really sure why you start to worry about how others perceive your baby’s cries, but at 2am Chuck will do anything to calm the baby so as not to disturb the next door neighbours (yeah the same neighbours who think nothing of having band practice at midnight or better yet, hold a Skype conversation without head phones on our front door step – fuck those fuckers!).

Seriously, no measure of good planning can totally equip you for the challenges you face when travelling with a baby. The upside to all of these challenges is that you get to take your baby on her first family holiday. Perhaps next time, Chuck will encourage Mrs Long to take some extra time and let her travel ahead with the baby.

Clothes make the man.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

-      Mark Twain

Dear Chuck,

My boyfriend has his very own style, which I really like (jeans, chequered shirt and converse all-stars are standard fare). I have a work function coming up where partners are encouraged to attend and the dress code is semi formal. All of the firm’s hierarchy will be there and I really need my boyfriend to look sharp. The two issues I have are that my boyfriend doesn’t own a suit and would be so uncomfortable wearing one that he probably wouldn’t enjoy himself.

As a man of sharp sartorial tastes, do you have any suggestions on how he could dress comfortably but still look really good?

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

Wasn’t this scenario played out in an episode of Sex in the City? Ignore the fact that Chuck just displayed an uncanny recall of a chick television show and focus on how that played out: Miranda took her bartender boyfriend out to buy him a suit, he felt uncomfortable having her pay, insisted on paying for it himself then crumbled under the weight of the cost. Steve decided he was out of Miranda’s league and they broke up. Or something vaguely resembling that scenario, Chuck cant really remember the specifics.

You could follow the above example or you could bring your boyfriend along in his jeans / shirt / sneaker combo, but you’ll likely torpedo your career in front of the company higher ups as they instantly realise that you’re dating a fuck knuckle who doesn’t understand dress codes and you don’t have the influence to make him. Some sort of leader you’d be if you couldn’t even control your man when you have the power of pussy over him!

That’s what they’d think anyway.

So how do you get Cinderella to the ball? If your dude doesn’t require a suit in his job, then it seems pointless to go and buy one, although according to Chuck’s principles of life, every bloke should own at least one: every guy faces a time that he requires a suit - weddings, funerals, partner work functions.

If purchasing a suit is not something that sits well and he’d rather spend his hard earned on a nice cardigan or some other item from the Kurt Cobain fashion catalogue that he gets his ‘very own style’ from then you have a couple of other options. Option 1 is renting a suit although just typing that is enough to make Chuck vomit in his own mouth. Do you realise how much DNA is in a rented suit? You could dry clean a rented suit with napalm and Chuck would still never wear one. Think about rented suits – the only time they are ever worn (high school dances & weddings), the bloke generally gets laid or at least engages in some form of heavy petting. Those suits have enough semen samples in them to power an entire episode of CSI.

The second option is to borrow one off a mate. Now in bloke-world borrowing a suit is totally acceptable on the proviso that it is returned dry cleaned with the standard male payment of a carton of beer. Sure there is a chance that there’ll be DNA in the suit but at least you’ll know who the father is.

There really isn’t any other way around this issue Chuck is afraid. If your boyfriend tries to go alternative chic by wearing skinny black jeans, white shirt, skinny tie and faux ye olde leather jacket he’ll just look like a knob who didn’t have the brain power to find a suit for a semi formal event. This in turn will reflect poorly upon you. It comes off being disrespectful and you’ll be tarred with that brush no matter how much time and effort you put into your frock. Ignoring dress codes to events is one of Chuck’s pet peeves actually. If the organiser has gone to the effort of stating a dress code, how hard is it to follow through on that request? If someone doesn’t want to follow the dress code, they really shouldn’t show up.

And that Lisa is the reality of the situation. If your boyfriend doesn’t feel comfortable wearing a suit and it’s going to ruin his evening then A) you probably need to leave him at home and B) get his head checked. It’s only a pair of pants and a fucking jacket with shoulder pads in it!