Posted on: Monday, July 12, 2004

ABOUT MEN
At the beach, plain guys get the babes

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Heat waves rippled off the sand on the afternoon of my epiphany. At first, I thought they had baked my brain, that my vision was skewed or my reality overcooked.

But the beach doesn't lie.

There are no secrets here. It's a place where all is revealed, from tan lines to human relations.

And so it was, slouching in my beach chair, pushing sand into a foot rest and feeling like a grilled hot dog, that I gave a cheer for the ordinary guy.

He had staked a stunning claim on the beach: He was dating — even marrying — out of his league, and apparently doing quite well.

Everywhere I looked, there he was, sort of the yin to his companion's yang.

Remember when Billy Joel married Christie Brinkley? That's what it was like, minus the millions.

In a culture that puts good looks and the quality of your abs on a pedestal, these guys were second-string.

Not ugly, just nondescript.

Sort of doughy. Kinda pale. Trunks riding a bit too low. One guy was hairy like a bear.

But the women they were with were beautiful. (Is a man still allowed to say beautiful? I don't care. They were beautiful.)

These women moved like the reels of an R-rated movie. They glided in and out of the water, floated across the sand.

How did these ordinary-looking guys attract them? Moxie? Money? Viagra?

These were brave men, I concluded.

When I was single and encountered women like this, they always seemed unapproachable. Haughty, they could slay you with a glance.

And the men they dated seemed right out of GQ. Bronzed, bulging biceps, etc. Where had they gone?

Of course, Mrs. G. was studying the beachfront scenery, too.

For the record, she's the kind of thoughtful wife who will nudge me and say "thong alert."

The ordinary men probably had super-sized egos and could live with rejection, she said.

They'd keep asking until someone said yes. The law of averages was in their favor.

"Remember, they never look at themselves in the mirror," Mrs. G. said.

But even that had nothing to do with the sea change in the mating game.

Relationships are about supply and demand, she said. Ordinary guys were just the lucky beneficiaries.

The women were in charge of their decisions, not the men, she said. They had simply lowered their standards.

My brain was feeling more and more like baked ham as I recalled the two times Mrs. G. rejected my pleas for a date.

"And the cute girls know there are not that many cute guys out there, so we have to settle," she concluded. "You have to look for personality."

Not to worry, she said. She would never have settled for an ugly man.

Settle? The word sizzled. I looked around the beach. Didn't she finally call me?

Best not to mention that.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.