Trying on Dresses, Vehicular Homicide, and Haircuts

Last evening I accompanied my friend Emily to an upscale dress shop where she was looking for something special to wear for her son's Bar Mitzvah. I decided to play dress up and try on a few things that I had absolutely no intention of buying (since they all cost more than my wedding gown). What I discovered however, is that either I have suddenly outgrown my usual dress size (which is distinctly possible), or, as Emily explained, dress sizes in these boutiques "run small." Perhaps she just told me that to make me feel better. Regardless, these types of shopping excursions do nothing for my self-esteem.

You know what else does nothing for my self-esteem? Driving past a woman who is the size of my pinkie with legs to die for and six-pack abs, running behind a jogging stroller. One has to assume she actually gave birth to the baby in that stroller, which, as I posted on Facebook, gives me the right to run her down with my car. Upon seeing this status update on my FB page, my son Ian inquired as to why I would want to run over this woman. Eventually he deduced that "you're jealous." Ya think? What was most fascinating about the Facebook post was the number of women who replied to happily support my murderous intentions. Clearly, our gender is more than willing to band together to encourage better pay and treatment by men, but we are not above vehicular homicide when the other woman threatens our self-esteem.

During the high calorie wine and pasta dinner that Emily and I shared after unsuccessfully and depressingly trying on dresses that were too small, we discussed haircuts. Emily is trying to decide what to do with her "do." I casually mentioned that, while I'm currently growing my hair long again, I always admire women with super short hair. Turns out Emily has a theory about this. She noted that other women always compliment you when you cut your hair short. She's not sure, however, if they genuinely think you look great with short hair, or if it's just a way to cut down on the competition from women with sexy long locks.

All of this leads me to believe that it's a Darwinian "survival of the fittest" response that causes us to have these reactions to other women. Probably back in our Neanderthal days we hated women who had the best woolly mammoth dress and drew the nicest hieroglyphics. You just naturally want to do away with the competition so that you're the one the man decides to knock up over the head and drag back to his cave.

Now, I had every intention of finishing this post by noting that men do not appear to exhibit this strange behavior or to possess these self-esteem related neuroses (as evidenced by their being distraught at hair loss, but fine with beer bellies), however, today I read this:

What do celebrities like Mario Lopez, James Franco and Brad Pitt have in common? Their fabulous dimples. The hottest rage in Hollywood right now is dimple implants for men.

There's really nothing more I can say. Apparently we've all gone crazy. And for the record, I think Emily took me along shopping so she could secretly enjoy watching me try to stuff myself into those little bitty dresses. I just hope she gets her hair cut really short...