Off! The Top Of My Head

by Chad Armbruster

Well friends it's been over a year since we last talked and a lot has happened in 365 plus days. I'll give you the basic rundown of events and save you the Jerry Springer-ness of it all. Since January of 2002 I started taking medication for depression, got married, had four new jobs, got divorced, stopped taking medication, lost 2 of my jobs, started taking medication again and found many friends I never even knew I had. Boy, it was a summer I'll never forget. I didn't see much of the boys after that. Randle now owns the video story; Dante owns the Quicker Stop and Sketter went off to fight in Vietnam... (Sorry wrong story).

So, being at that stage in my life where I am "reevaluating" my choices (while repeatedly thrusting my head into a brick wall) I've decided I need an outlet for all the goings on my life. Thus enter the adoring throngs of readers begging to hear my tails of woe and insight. It also didn't hurt that on two non-consecutive occasions complete strangers approached me saying, "Hey, aren't you Chad Armbruster? Didn't you use to write for OFF!?" You can see my dilemma; my fans require my intellectual stimulation! (Just so were clear and because sarcasm doesn't always travel well over the written medium, I'm kidding.)

Now then, down to business. What brings me to you this month is the time honored and well loved tradition of finding a compatible significant other. Now that I'm back in the dark seedy underbelly of the dating arena I'm here to bring you all the dirt that's fit to print or at least a reasonable facsimile there of. But fear not, this is not a subject matter I wish to tackle all at once in this article. Instead I'll narrow my topic and hopefully stir up enough of a debate that you (as in the more feminine portion of the globe) will feel compelled to respond to my one sided little rant-fest, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

WARNING: The following questions and statements contain opinions of a bitter, jaded and scorned male. Reader discretion is advised.

Ok, I'll just come right out and ask, WHAT KIND OF CRACK ARE WOMEN SMOKING TODAY? All I hear all the time is how women can't find good men and the world is just full of terrible men who do nothing but deceive, cheat, manipulate and steal. And to tell you the truth I'm sick of hearing it. I'm tired of women calling me up and complaining about all of their male related troubles and when I ask them if they'd like to go out all I get in return is "Sorry but your just a friend." Which reminds me, to the men of the world; when a woman says she's going out with one of her male friends don't worry nothing's going to happen between them. You know how I know this? Because I've been playing the role of the "friend" for almost two decades now and not once has a friendship EVER blossomed into some kind of great love or even one night of frenzied passion. So, men just back off and let the women turn her friend's advances down. Don't even bother getting upset over it because it's a woman's game and you're not invited.

Games, games, and more games, it's all women seem to want to play. I hear it time and time again "All I want is a man who will love me and treat me as I deserve to be treated." No you don't, you want a project. You want someone that you can work on and mold and change. Not true?

THIS JUST IN:

A 41-year-old woman of Cape Girardeau Missouri has just informed me that I am absolutely right! She is quoted as saying "Women will leave a good man in a heartbeat. It doesn't matter if he's the best man in the world and does everything for her. If some bad boy comes along, she's as good as gone. I've done it myself so many times." When asked why she simply replied, "Because they feel they can make a difference in that guy's life by trying to change him into something better. You know get him off drugs, alcohol, whatever."

We now return you to our regularly scheduled column.

So, maybe that's it. Maybe it's just the mothering instinct of it all. Maybe it's the need to fix, heal or plain nurture that makes them do what they do. Could I have merely interpreted women wrong for all of these years? Could it be I've been listening to women for all these years without ever really taking the time to figure them out as an individuals and not a lumped together sexual stereo-type. Intrigued by what could be the most intelligent discover of all man kind since Cocoadiles. I'm drawn to get more information out of other women. So, in true Cosmo style I went out to a bar the other night and began flagging down ever female I knew and gave them the simple one question test:

Why do you really think women go for jerky guys rather than the good one?

The responses were shocking, informative and really kind of frightening in there similarity. Almost every woman said it was the mothering instinct that drove them to bad men. Don't get me wrong though. It wasn't exactly a rising chorus of "We are mothers hear us roar." Some gave me the "Just because they're hot." theory. Which is to be entirely dismissed because after all how many ugly bad boys do you see out there with beautiful women on their shoulders. Then there was the not well know but still powerful suggestion, the "Drummer" theory. Now, I'll admit I've been witness to this phenomenon many times. I've seen women move over 1000 miles just to be with a drummer. (While it may have not been the sole reason I'm betting it had a hand in it, merely a statement in love Laura.) But in all honesty I'm willing to group those events in with crop circles, alien abductions and the Yeti. Their appearances are rare and never to be understood.

So, I'm not to sure if I've created a new "male" found understanding on the greater insight of women or if I've only confused the masses even more but at this point I'm convinced I need nothing short of the Rosetta Stone to figure women out.