By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

There are many ways men define ourselves. Race, class and age, to be sure. Region, education, vocation, maybe. Sexual preference, beer preference, underwear preference — yeah, yeah, yeah.

But nothing speaks to our image of ourselves more than our history of personal injury.

Some men brag about the women they've slept with, some hold tight to sepia-toned memories of playground dust-ups, but all of us — from gator wrasslers to that guy down the hall with all those "Lord of the Rings" figurines on his desk — hold a particularly warm place in our hearts for the the physical calamities we've endured. From doorjamb-gnarled knuckles to "you-should-see-the-other-guy" black eyes, we are what we injure.

It's quite natural, I suppose. If our primary perceptual relationship with the world is based on physical experience, as so many experts have theorized, it follows that our most dramatic, traumatic exchanges with the exterior world will imprint themselves most deeply.

Whuzzat?

I mean, I think, that men are more likely to appreciate the profundity of a five-stitch puncture wound than a long night of emotional being there.

Thus, when men get together in casual, free-speaking circumstances, it isn't long before the conversation turns away from Bakhtinian dialogism (or baseball — your topics may vary) to who tore what recently. A lively round of scar tissue show-and-tell often follows.

You'll understand my dismay, then, at my most recent mishap, which has left me with all of the expense and inconvenience of a decent sports injury but none of the payoff.

The official diagnosis is ruptured (always an impressive adjective!) tendon (ooh, painful sounding!) of the left pinky.

Pffft.

The injury, if you can call it that, happened a couple of weeks ago when I was playing in a media-league basketball game. I'm not actually sure when or how it happened — nothing sadder than no cool story to mitigate the weenieness of the injury — but when I got to the sidelines I noticed that the top portion of my finger was drooping. I pushed it straight, again it drooped. It didn't hurt, but it did — does — look pretty goofy. Think Nessie.

In a league with other guys who proudly sit on the bench sporting impressive breaks and tears and sprains, my piss-ant pinky was hardly worth the trainers' tape. The next day at work, I couldn't bring myself to revel in the ritual inquiry. And guys usually live for these moments:

Dude, what's that sticking out of your forehead?

What, this little thing? Ah, you know, you face the nail gun the wrong way, badda bing, nail in the head. No big thing.

But you can't act cool about a pinky boo-boo. I kept my hand in my pocket.

Like I said, guys — the dumbest of us, at least — really identify with their injuries, and this one pained me in new and unsettling ways.

In 35 years as a clumsy, brittle-boned nonathlete, I've broken nearly all my fingers and toes, an arm, a leg and both wrists. I've sprained stuff, pulled stuff, had a couple of teeth knocked out. I've had two concussions, not counting the time my sister accidentally dropped me on my head and fractured my skull. (At least, she said it was an accident.) I've even had my nose broken twice, once from an errant elbow in a basketball game, and again a month later, on a left hook from an irritated ex-love. All highly braggable, if lame, injuries.

Drooping pinky?

My pride may never recover.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2461.