"I Feel Silly"

Can a T-shirt and khakis kind of guy survive a metrosexual makeover?

By David Plotz

From Reader's Digest

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Overstepping the Line

Here's when I knew I had to change: My two-year-old pointed at the monster in her book and said, "Dada, that wild thing is like you." I looked in the mirror: My four-month-old son had spit up milk on my only clean shirt. A line of bicycle grease ran up the right leg of my khakis, my "nice pants," and a splatter of white paint ran down the left. I'd run out of razors and hadn't shaved for a week. My hair looked like I'd stuck my hand in a socket. I could have carried groceries in the bags under my eyes.

Once upon a time, I was a presentable young man. But I married, my journalism career got busy, two children arrived and middle age loomed. My neat, stylish clothes grew ratty. I didn't have to look nice for Saturday night, because Saturday night dates were with our VCR.

Soon after my daughter's comment, my wife, Hanna, and I channel-surfed onto an episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the Bravo series in which five hip gay men make over an oafish straight guy with cool clothes, a trendy haircut and chic home furnishings. I was baffled and horrified. Hanna was mesmerized. "What a great haircut!" she exclaimed. "He's so cute now!"

I asked Frank, my best-dressed straight friend, about the show. He told me of a whole world I was missing: straight guys who don't settle for two-minute showers and $10 haircuts, men who style their hair, shop for clothes and get facials. They look great and women love them. There's even a term for these cool groomers: "metrosexuals." I did a little research and found that men are going to spas in record numbers, that the men's skin care industry -- who knew there was one? -- has been growing about ten percent a year for the past five years.

Feeling socially sanctioned, I decide it's time to shape up: I, too, will become a metrosexual. I may not have a life, but I will have a lifestyle.

But I have no idea where to begin. Fortunately, Hanna is thrilled by the project (maybe a little too thrilled) and suggests I start small.

I've been cutting my fingernails with the same pocketknife for 18 years. I have hangnails, bloody cuticles, ragged edges, intractable dirt from working in the garden and grouting tiles. At Hanna's urging, I make an appointment for a manicure and pedicure.

My "nail technician," Lily Pham, orders me up onto a black, thronelike chair and dunks my feet into a warm salt bath. She massages my arches with peppermint oil, nips off the revolting bits of cuticle, makes elegant curves of my jagged toenails, and scrubs off ancient calluses. I feel mighty on my throne, and mighty relaxed.

The manicure doesn't make me feel nearly as kingly, but my devastated nails do become smooth and neat. Lily says men who "don't do hard work" often get polish as opposed to a buff. I don't do hard work. I go for the polish, and soon my nails are glistening.

I take them proudly home to Hanna, who is horrified: "If I went on a date and the guy had polished nails, I'd run screaming from the room." Then she patiently explains that on a guy, buffed nails would be manly and elegant, but polished nails are creepy. I've clearly overstepped some line.