It’s okay to be an asshole. We live in a world where you can’t simply roll over and play dead any time you have an interpersonal conflict. They will happen, and you will have to deal with them in a way that might make someone else wish they could drop one of those poisonous jewels from Game of Thrones in your wine. However, there is a fine, fine line between being a confident asshole and the kind of douchebag that the majority of America might vote to see kicked off a cliff with extreme prejudice.
You might be sitting there thinking, “but how? How can I be a douchebag?” I’m glad you asked, because there are a number of tell-tale signs that determine that you’re the kind of person dogs inherently want to bite, babies inherently want to cry around and women inherently want to overhand fast-pitch their drinks toward.
1. Of The Seven Deadly Sins, Yours Would Be Vanity
You spend more time preening in front of a mirror than Kim Kardashian at an ass-themed photo shoot. If you are the kind of person who read the ancient Greek myth about Narcissus and asked, “What was wrong with any of this,” you are a douchebag. Sure, as an upstanding modern Bro it pays to look the part when you hit the town, but if that involves more mirror time and makeup than your girlfriend’s prom night did, you might have a problem, Chief. There is no reason to go all Dorian Gray and spend your time obsessing over every single potential shadow of a wrinkle that appears on your face. You’re a man. Cut that shit out.
2. Without “Loud and Annoying” You’d Have No Personality Traits
Are you the guy that walks in the door, immediately bellows out a terribly cliche catch phrase, then proceeds to treat your friends as subjects instead of real human beings? Congratulations, Count Cockula, you’re the Lord of Douchebag Mountain. We’ve all seen the Jersey Shore, or pop culture influenced by the Jersey Shore. Those people are not role models, and yet you roll into the party like The Situation after a three day bender with gym breaks in between. Do you ever wonder why people cringe when you start speaking? It isn’t because they’re intimidated by your incredibly confident presence, it’s because, for a fleeting moment, they are contemplating all the things that would be better than being near you. Things like being hit by a freak meteor impact.
3. You Have An Incredibly Douchey Nickname Or Catch Phrase
Speaking of catch phrases, if you have one, you probably suck a metric ton of dicks. The same goes for incredibly terrible nicknames. If your friends came up with said nickname, it’s almost certainly a sign that your friends are also douchebags. No rational person should go around introducing himself to anyone as “Ruff Ryder” or anything similarly pants-on-head idiotic. You are not a rapper, so you don’t get a cool nickname unless you’ve been shot a few times. After that point douchey nicknames are a go because, frankly, you’re a badass if you can survive that. Just use your real name like a regular goddamn person.
4. You Prefer “Clubs” to Bars
Do you know who likes clubs? No one. If clubs everywhere else are like clubs in DC, then there hasn’t been a single redeeming thing about them since their inception. Clubs are that guy who was always trying too hard to be cool in high school and college, but found enough success to become a smarmy douchebag in the real world. Basically, they’re douchebag of entertainment venues. You don’t want to go to them. They’re loud, full of creepy dudes in their 40s wearing Joseph A. Banks suits and the drinks will cost you your first two children, each. Clubs are social disappointment personified, and if you like them, so are you.
5. You Call Women Some Variation of “Females”
This is the 21st fucking century, can we at least give women equal respect when it comes to them also being human beings with rights? “Females” isn’t a nice, neutral way to refer to women. It’s a passive-aggressive way to vent your frustration with an entire gender, a gender you might even have more success with if you stopped dehumanizing them and trying to seduce them with long island ice teas and that cologne you bought at Hollister’s 50% off sale. You know what women want? A confident, masculine guy that knows how to respect them, not some gutter-crawling club douche that spent his Christmas bonus on hair gel.
If you read more than one of the above and went, “dear God, that’s me!” fear not, for there’s still time to repent before the end, Ebenezer Douche. Take inventory of your life and throw out those jeans with the holes intentionally ripped in them, stop bathing in cheap body spray and get yourself a book on manners or something. You can repent and put yourself back on the path to Brolightenment, but you must act before you become a 40 year old used car salesman in Tampa. By that point you are beyond all hope.
[Header image via Youtube Screenshot]