Everyone who knows me knows how I love pretty, fluffy boys (i.e. Orli, Tom Welling, Clay Aiken) but I'm not all that big on this whole metrosexual trend. Yes, I'm all for men who actually care about their appearance and take care of themselves.... but men who spend more on their face creams than I ever would, men who get waxed... this has gone too far. I agree with Lauren that I prefer a real man - one who can repair my car or my house or anything else helpless me needs fixed. I want a man who looks good in dirt. I like cute boys, but I'm being totally honest in saying that you stand Orlando next to some buff, built, shirtless, sweaty construction worker & my affections may wane.... Give me a man who will smash a bug with his bare hands... a man who is strong and smart and rugged and rough around the edges. Can we talk about Viggo Mortensen? VIncent D'Onofrio? Sean Bean? That hot Irish guy who plays his best friend in the Sharpe series? Sean Connery? Thomas Jane? Give me something sweaty, smeared with motor oil, arms bulging against his ragged, holey T-shirt I keep trying to throw away while he's not looking. Pretty boys have their moments, but can they wrap you up in their arms and make you feel like they could fend off an attacker with their one free arm while still holding you safely in the other.....?




Mano a mano: Metrosexuals not fit to carry real men's beer
By Lauren Beckham Falcone
Thursday, April 22, 2004


If there's one thing the world needs less of - aside from traffic and low-carb bread - it's the metrosexual. Unless you've been living in the South American rain forest for the past year, the metrosexual is the new man. Coiffed. Waxed. Prefers chardonnay to Coors Light. Pretty, but dumb. The new blond bombshell, except with less hair.

Which is fine if you're, say, a 12-year-old girl with ``American Idol'' numbers on speed dial, but let me tell it to you straight: Real women like real men. Men who aren't afraid of a hairy chest. Who don't wax their eyebrows into something Joan Crawford would envy. Men who can't identify baby arugula, who know how to change the oil and can recite batting averages with authority. Men who are smart and funny and have bigger arms than their girlfriends.

Yet the species is in serious trouble.

Check any magazine or movie-star Web site and the big names are Ashton Kutcher, Clay Aiken, Ryan Seacrest and Orlando Bloom. These are America's most handsome, sought-after celebrities?

I'm afraid. Am I crazy to crave a guy who won't crowd my ``Princess'' mirror, borrow my Sally Hansen top-coat polish and raise an eyebrow when I suggest Ben and Jerry's One Sweet Whirled? Today, the couple that tweezes together stays together. Maybe the metrosexual is the woman's version of the trophy wife. Well-kept but keeps quiet. You can thank Demi Moore.

In my house, we have ``the list'' - you know, when two married people work up a column of celebs they'd run away with, given the opportunity. (Thank goodness we don't live in Los Angeles.) My husband's is standard fare: Ashley Judd, Jennifer Garner, Diane Lane, Charlize Theron.

Mine? Try Tony Soprano (as played by James Gandolfini), Jack Black and Vince Vaughn. Smart. Funny. Can threaten to ``put someone's head in the oven'' with authority.

Seacrest? His only hope of defending a woman's honor is to attack with his VO5 mousse and undeserved talk show contract.

I called a friend who also loathes the metrosexual craze and read my list to her. (I also included the exceptionally furry Alec Baldwin and my secret crush, the late, great John Candy.) She was a bit appalled by the latter addition, but concurred with my theory.

``There just aren't a lot of men out there,'' she said. ``Everyone young isn't a man. Maybe metrosexuals grow up to be men. I don't know.''

She came up with a few favorites: John Cusack, Ben Stiller and Val Kilmer. I told her she was showing her age. She told me to zip it.

``How about the Rock?'' she asked. ``Is he a metrosexual? He's hot, but I bet he waxes his eyebrows. He does. He totally does. You can't use him.''

We moved on to sports, and came up with real men - Tom Brady, the entire Red Sox team and some toothless Bruins - but it was a long, painful search. We had to go back in time: John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Paul Newman. We'd even take Burt Reynolds. Now, that's desperate.

And we're not alone. When a 2002 study revealed that men spend $50 million annually on skin-care products, make up a third of spa visitors and get plastic surgery 182 times more than they did in 1997, ESPN sportscaster Dan Patrick and Consort Hair Care for Men created the Save the Regular Guy Association, which is committed to making it easier to be a regular guy by challenging the metrosexual trend shaped in today's Madison Avenue kind of world.

Hallelujah.

It's not that we want he-men, men who won't change a diaper or are afraid to admit watching ``The Bachelorette.'' We just don't want to share our night cream, razors or hair colorists. I get ticked off when my husband eats the last of the bologna. Can you imagine if he were pilfering my $50 eye cream?

Luckily, I was married before this metrosexual craze, and my husband wouldn't know Prada from pistachios. He shops at Bob's and can eat his weight in steak. Which is fine with me, because, thank God, his jeans are bigger than mine.