The Luv Doc: The Man Bar

Dear Luv Doc,

Please. Please. I beg of you, stop setting such a fine example of manhood. Please just stop. Every week I await the Chronicle like a kid waiting for Christmas. Finally Thursday arrives and I read your salty-sweet words of wisdom and ... sigh ... roll my eyes at the lump of man-flesh I have waiting at home. How can he compete with that?? Your sassy, LOL, feminist, and self-debasing humor. Add to that your non-Chronicle life as a local musician (oh, yes, this girl can stalk!) and whammo, instant marital dissatisfaction. So please, stop or tell me how to live with an average man whose idea of foreplay is Netflix and who has decided that my 20-year loyalty reward is his now forgetting to apologize when he burps in front of me. You may call it "being comfortable with each other" but I still prefer the decency of some shame around your bodily functions! Not to say anything about his leaving dirty dishes in the sink ... I could go on, but why? All I want is a man like you. So, should I up my stalking habits and track you down? Is abduction an option? Would you eventually succumb to Stockholm syndrome and love me the way I deserve to be loved? Or should I love the one I'm with? And how do you advise I do that with you raising the Man Bar so damn high?

– Love Struck in Austin

---

Happy news, Love Struck! While not apologizing for burping in front of your spouse is indeed reprehensible and leaving dirty dishes in the sink is, to be generous, selfish, I can say without hesitation that you're probably still winning the man lottery (not to mention that Netflix has this new series called Warrior Nun that's scoring a solid 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, so it's not the worst streaming service – that's clearly HBO Max). Yes, AT&T can ruin anything. So far I am only one episode in on Warrior Nun, but it seems to be about a group of badass nuns who throw regular ass-whuppins on demons. I don't know what must-see TV is for you and the hubs, but this show is action-packed and, as far as I can tell, seems to be favoring good over evil. That counts as a strong political stance these days.

Demons ... I mean ... everybody's got 'em I suppose. I can say with absolute certainty that while my colored pencil portraiture skillz may be sick, I am deeply flawed in many ways – fatally so, in fact. That's not self-debasing humor, that's just plain fact. There are plenty of things you can do to another human being that are much worse than gassing them with an acrid, garlicky burp (and yes, guilty of that too on occasion) or leaving them a pile of dirty dishes in the sink (guilty again). Sometimes people get busy and forgetful and sometimes people are just self-absorbed assholes. I have been both on countless occasions.

To be perfectly honest, I have never been perfect. I have not set the man bar high at all. In fact, you could probably easily step over my man bar wearing a pair of saggy skinny jeans, so I recommend you chill on the fantasies. I am neither a hero nor a saint. In fact, every time I write this column I am tortured by the hypocrisy that someone like myself is actually doling out advice. I didn't start out this way. This is just how it turned out. My first job at the Chronicle was slinging papers, which eventually earned me a spot taking personal ads over the phone. Fast-forward 30 years and I am writing an advice column where the best advice I can give is to not take my advice. Don't do like I say and definitely don't do like I do, but feel free to tell your husband you're so dissatisfied that you're considering kidnapping an aging small-time musician with bad feet, gray hair, and sumptuous back fat. If that doesn't get him "doing the dishes," I don't know what will.