Boobs-A-Poppin'

I just got back from dinner with two friends. One of them, Jennifer, is a very close friend of Samantha, the ex-girlfriend with whom I've had my most serious relationship. Over dinner, Jennifer mentioned a few things about that Samantha's current lifestyle that triggered off a familiar twinge of--what? Jealousy? Annoyance? Some kind of emotional disturbance that was reminiscent of a time not too long ago with another now-ex, Kristen.

"I'm surprised you have tattoos," Kristen said to me. "You don't seem like the kind of person who would have tattoos." It was the first time she'd seen me with my shirt off.

"I don't think I am that kind of person. Not now, at least," I told her. "If I ever do anything with tattoos again, it'll be removal."

"Yeah," she began, "I've thought about it in the past, and I've decided that I've passed that stage already--I don't think I'd do it."

"My main arguments are just the typical ones. It's a permanent thing that you probably won't want ten years from now. It won't be an improvement on what you've already got. It'll get old and faded and ugly in the future. It's just a stupid decision."

"I know what you mean."

Fast-forward no more than one week after we stop seeing each other, and she's got a picture of a clipper ship the size of my hand tattooed on her back. When I first heard that she got it, I was really annoyed, and I couldn't figure out why. What the fuck? A clipper ship? The size of my hand? On your back? What the fuck happened to 'I've passed that stage?' It wasn't like I told her not to get a tattoo (although I certainly made my feelings clear about them). It's not like I could say I had any say over her decisions after we stopped dating. So why did her getting the tattoo annoy me so much?

Whenever I talk to Jennifer, we usually just find ourselves catching up on what we've been doing over the time since we last saw each other. Of course, she occasionally mentions important things going on in Samantha's life.

"Oh--" she began, as if she just remembered something, "her sister's getting a boob job."

I nearly blew a chunk of filet out of my nose. Samantha's sister is like nineteen. And she's extremely beautiful. And she doesn't need a boob job.

It's probably worth mentioning in actual text, rather than a footnote, the fact that I have relatively strong feelings against most breast implants. The worst thing about them to me, is that I don't think they look good unless they're covered up with clothes. I'll look at them, sure, but I sure as hell would never want my girlfriend or wife to have one unless she got a mastectomy previously. This in addition to the fact that they just represent a level of vanity, misplaced priorities, and materialism that I could care less about in most people, but would abhor in a wife or girlfriend. Again, I'm not saying I mind looking.

"Yeah, and Samantha said that if hers turn out well, then she'd probably go ahead and do it."

That time I did blow a chunk of my filet out of my nose. It landed on the middle of the table with a sickening plop. Jennifer made a face, and almost said something, but instead decided not to.

"What the hell?" I said. "She doesn't need a fucking boob job!"

"Dude, you should be happy," Joey said. "A girl you banged is going to have really nice boobs."

"She already has really nice boobs, and I'm not banging her now. Remember? Her boyfriend is."

After dinner, I kept thinking about the prospect of Samantha getting a boob job, and I kept getting really annoyed at the idea.

'She doesn't need fucking breast implants. What the hell is wrong with her? What makes her think that she's not good enough the way she is?'

It kept eating me up for the rest of the evening, until I talked to my dad about the general theme here--me getting annoyed at what I consider to be aberrant behavior in girls that I have previously dated.

"You have no control over what they do," he said. "You have absolutely no say in it, and you better get used to it."

"But why do things like that piss me off so much? I mean, I'm opposed to tattoos and boob jobs, but it doesn't make sense that I would be so much more annoyed with them for doing that. I mean, I know they'll make their own decisions regardless of what I want."

"You'd probably be pissed off if they picked a career choice you didn't approve of," he said. "It has nothing to do with boob jobs." He paused. "And what's the problem with boob jobs?"

I waved him off, but considered the statement. "I think . . . I think I know what the problem is."

The problem, in essence, is the fact that I want the girls that I've been involved with--the people I've been involved with--to have felt some kind of influence from me. I want them to consider my viewpoint (which I hold as gospel) when they make decisions. I want them to understand why I see the way I do, and realize I'm right. When people (girls in particular) make decisions that directly defy what I know to be the best decision, it eats me up, because it's not just a rejection of an idea, it's a rejection of me.

Samantha and I broke up, basically, over a difference in values.

"I just want her to find interest in things of substance, not in some superficial lifestyle of breast implants and tanning booths and shit," I said.

"There's no point in feeling like this," my dad responded. "You're going to have to realize at some point that there's a good chance that she just won't."