Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Man! I feel like a woMAN

So you just saw the guy standing beside you wearing Nike shoes, a Dolce Gabbana shirt with Calvin Klein belt on the latest Levi jeans. Well, you think he’s gay. But hold that thought. He isn’t gay because you just saw him kiss a beautiful girl. A guy who’s not gay yet so stylish. How is that possible?

Metrosexual is thy name. A metrosexual man always looks perfectly put together. He can be in a t-shirt and jeans or heading out to a black tie event. His hair never has a bad day. His nails are always clean. His clothes are perfectly pressed and neatly coordinated. He smells like flowers. He is a normal straight male who possesses qualities of a gay male without being attracted to men.

I found it hard to understand the term metrosexual. But it wasn’t too hard as I had a living example of a metrosexual man in my house. It all began when I noticed that every week my face cream was vanishing more than I was using it. Hence one day I questioned my mom about it. But she flatly denied ever using my cream. It was only a few weeks later that I noticed my brother sitting with his laptop (a typical sign of masculinity- man with his gadget) with his face covered in my cream (a typical sign of femininity – women and her cream) that I uncovered the mystery behind my vanishing face cream. I wanted to laugh at this pretty sight, but it was then that I realized that it was foolish on my part to think that men cannot groom themselves. I would often find my brother applying moisturizers and lotions to his face. He even had a hand and feet cream to help keep them soft and smelling good always – something that I never had or bothered to buy. It was only on the day that he brought himself a ‘pink’ shirt that I was convinced that there was more to my brother’s feminine taste than what meets the eye. He had not only crossed the line of masculinity but also surpassed the line of femininity!

I was getting more and more intrigued by this sudden development of feminine tastes in my brother’s choices. So I decided to do a little investigation into his life. One day as I was on my way back home from college, I saw my brother walk into a Lakme salon. In normal circumstances, I would have not even raised an eyebrow. But the fact that this was my brother’s second visit to the salon in one month got me a little curious. I walked right in too, in the pretext of finding the rates of the salon for a haircut. And Voila! What do I see? My brother sitting with a female attendant doing his eyebrows. This sight was enough for me to fall flat on the floor. But the sight of three other men in the salon in similar situation and one man waxing his hands made me want to run from the place to a place where men are still men and are still hairy!!!

The term metrosexual was coined by British journalist Mark Simpson in 1994 to refer to a new breed of young metropolitan males who had a strong aesthetic sense and spent a great deal of time and money on their appearance and lifestyle. Not surprisingly, magazines eagerly pounced on it and used the expression. The word became more popular after Simpson wrote an article in 2002 projecting the soccer star David Beckham as a metrosexual man. David Beckham soon became the epitome of this new cult of males- a man who wasn’t afraid to show off his feminine side without losing his masculinity. Metrosexuality was considered a western phenomenon and was thought to be existent only in America. However, it was not too long ago that the Indian markets also capitalized on this phenomenon and made heterosexual males like Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan into metrosexual males. In fact, recently Shah Rukh Khan even appeared in a soap advertisement with rose petals surrounding him in a bath tub and now he is considered the icon of Indian metrosexual.

In today’s world, a physically attractive personality is very important. Men don’t want to be far behind in this race and want to walk with women if not overtake them. There are more salons opened for men today than before. There are also more men visiting them and having a pedicure, manicure and facial than before and they don’t have any qualms admitting it. These are the guys with whom you shop till you drop. They can discuss fashion, will notice your great new shoes and buy their grooming products from the same places you do. You can actually ‘talk’ to these guys about something other than sports, cars and other traditional male interests. Being metrosexual is almost synonymous to being stylish.

Some of the things that clearly distinguish a metrosexual male from a heterosexual are:
They own 20 pairs of shoes, half a dozen pairs of sunglasses, just as many watches and they carry a man-purse. They see a stylist instead of barbers because barbers don’t do highlights. They shave more than just their face. They also exfoliate and moisturize. They can’t imagine a day without hair styling products and would rather drink wine than beer.

Metrosexual men are a phenomenon that we cant run away from. These men are here to stay. Whether it is a strategic tactic used by the fashion and media industry is still debatable. Yet these men are all around us. In our college, offices, locality etc as our friend, boyfriend or even maybe your Brother!

So next time you bump into a guy who is cool, smart, attractive, stylish and cultured, don’t be afraid to ask him out for a date. Take my word. He’s not gay, but just ‘METROSEXUAL’.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank god for some clean men who look and feel good!!! I totally appreciate metrosexual men!!

Unknown said...

Timeless!!!

nooshin said...

Denca....im thoroughly thoroughly impressed :D Superbly said!!! Lets hear some more!!