How Do I Look?

How can four simple words, all single syllables, strike fear into the heart of any conscious male?

How do I look?

Is there a correct answer? Of course. You look great. That’s the winner. It’s clean, simple, hopefully honest. It’s direct, and positive. Great has meaning, significance, potency even.

How do I look?

Other answers suffice, but none measure up to you look great. You could add an affectation at the end, so that it comes out you look great, darling, or you look great, honey, or you look great, scruntchums, all of which make it a bit more endearing, a bit more earnest, a bit more human and connected. You look great, dear, doesn’t do that, so avoid the irony, the sarcasm, even the hint of wry humor, particularly if it’s morning, and you’re each racing to get dressed and out the door.

Inappropriate responses include:

You look fantastic. Too showy. Too forced. Too gay, unless you’re in a same sex relationship, and then go for it.

You look fine. Might work if you’re into a 70’s Barry White phase of life. But if that’s still your soundtrack, get with the program, drop those platforms and poly bell-bottoms and upgrade to this century.

You look OK. OK? OK for what? That gets each of you nowhere. It sows doubt on your ability to provide free praise or offer a compliment at any time. It completely undermines anything else you might have been doing, saying, thinking for the past, oh, I don’t know, length of the relationship. OK is just not OK, never. OK?

I don’t know. OMG, what would you be thinking to respond in this way? Is there a tumor putting pressure on your skull, restricting blood flow to the brain, neutering certain cerebral functions? Are you asleep. Never respond to this question in your sleep. Who knows what you might be thinking, and you don’t want to suggest your lovely significant other leave the house in what you’re imagining at that moment. Are you just clueless? Have you never heard the question before? Are you just an inert, sluggish, wisp of a being, incapable of thinking, responding, and communicating with others in a way that engages and extends existing relationships? (if the answer is yes, just return to your Star Trek play set immediately, and leave interpersonal relationships to those with legitimate interest in one another)

Are you talking to me? The denial option could work, but if you’re in a store, a crowded store, and you’ve been dragged along on a shopping trip. If that’s the case, you’re in way too deep, and even feigning deafness, confusion, vertigo, or any other illness or malady, permanent of temporary, won’t cut it. If you’ve not only been dragged to the store, but are still there when she comes out of the changing room, and haven’t come up with a creative enough solution to get yourself out of this predicament (think, I’m venting), you’re a goner. You damn well better have a good answer, and it better be something that sounds like you look great. (For reference, think of the response Rob Corddry provided his wife in the Farrelly brothers’ remake of ‘The Heartbreak Kid.” When out clothes shopping with his wife, he said perfect, you look great, and added thumbs up and facial gestures to support the spouse. All of these are perfectly good options, and work well, depending of course on conditions and circumstances.)

How do I look?

Don’t say she looks good if she just doesn’t in that getup. It will come back to hurt you, in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. At a time of her choosing. And she knows it, and you don’t, so it’s doubly dangerous for you to try and lie your way out of the predicament. Or even just gloss over it.

So don’t wake up unarmed. Don’t ever leave the house for a weekend shopping spree unprepared. Protect yourself against those scare words. Those questions that can lead to pain, suffering, even banishment. Don’t become a victim of circumstance. Protect yourself. Knowledge truly is power.

Besides, there is no good answer, or right answer, or ….well, I hope you get it by now.

Tomorrow, we take on the mother of all questions. That loaded six word question, again, all single syllables, that goes beyond fear, creating sweat lines across male foreheads the world over. Tomorrow, should I live to see the day, we take on the eternal question, does this make me look fat?