Dude & Dude

A new masculine archetype has arrived. Social media is obsessing over “performative males” … He is the opposite of macho — the antithesis of toxic masculinity. His vibe is designed to attract progressive women. – New York Times Newsletter, 19 August 2025

The woman sat in a straight-backed chair at the foot of the bed, smoking a cigarette, her tanned, luminous body covered only in a black, pseudo-lace bra and matching panties, and by her torso-length, silky straight dark brown hair. The rest of her clothes and accessories, and those of her companion, were strewn around the bed, and on the end table on the same side of the bed as the chair on which she sat.

She faced away from the bed, deigning to take no notice of the tallish but scrawny, pasty-skinned male who was still in it, naked, partially covered by sheets and blankets. She did not see, she showed no interest in seeing, that the male was looking intently at her, with a half-bewildered, half-terrified ‘how the hell did we wind up here’ text scrawled across his face.

It had been noontime at the conference center midtown, where he had been attending a three-day tech meeting, one of the first post-COVID gatherings to feature mostly in-person attendance. The last of the third day’s sessions had just ended, he had said his goodbyes to most of those friends and acquaintances who had not bailed on the meeting the night before, and he was sitting at a table in the hall’s ground-floor main lobby, sipping an iced matcha latte that he had gotten from the lobby’s coffee shop, listening to audio on a cherished vintage device that still accepted the wired earbuds that he was wearing, and following along with the video on the device’s screen.

He was so chill that the world around him vanished – until a bangled hand swooped across his face, three, four, five times. Startled, he looked up to see the stunning brunette in the power suit with the plunging neckline at the shoulder end of the hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three similarly-dressed women seated at a nearby table, watching them and smirking. Only for a moment, because the brunette grabbed his full attention by puckishly pulling the bud out of his left ear.

“Earth to Dude!”, she announced. He nodded to acknowledge, too taken aback to speak, much less complain. “Is that matcha the real deal, or a cheap imitation?”

“At the price they wanted for it?”, the male finally found his voice. “It had better be the real deal. I don’t get any sawdust notes in the finish, so it’s probably OK. You want some?”

“Maybe later”,  she replied, brusquely. “What’cha listening to?”

“Sally Rooney podcast”, he answered. “Mostly a rant about Gaza, and how she’s even more determined to have nothing to do with Israel than she was.”

“Uh huh”, she grunted, distracted by the pink and brown Labubu monster that was hanging by a strap from the tote bag in which he kept the keyboarded tablet that he had used at the tech conference. She picked it up, stroked it, toyed with the strap. “Cute”, she told it, then lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. “Cute”, she said again. Then, abruptly, she vaulted to her feet, spilling the latte, and raced to the elevator with the Labubu, which she had stealthily unbound, in her right hand. Astounded, he raced after her, getting to the elevator just as it was closing, and forcing his way in. He could have sworn that he heard whooping and hollering from the same three women he had glimpsed at the start of this episode.

The elevator door closed, with only the two of them in the car. He straightened himself up, preparing to demand the return of his toy, and what the hell was all this about anyway? He never got a chance, for the woman grabbed his head, planted a kiss on his lips, and made it plain that this was just openers. The male was overwhelmed. By the time they got to her hotel room, it was clear that clothes were surplus to requirements, and once they got inside, so it proved.

The woman took a last drag from her cigarette, slowly blowing out the smoke. She addressed the far wall of the room. “I have to be at a board meeting in an hour.” Then, a quarter turn towards the bed and its occupant. “Cab?”

“Yeah”, the male responded. “Thanks.”

The woman bent down from the chair, shuffled around the scattered clothes and things, came up with her cell. She activated it, telling the phone’s AI to summon a cab. The phone acknowledged. She then put the phone down on the end table next to the male’s tote bag, and ground the cigarette butt into the tote. Something about the bag caught her attention. “Spiders?”, she asked, almost sounding interested.

“Yeah”, the male answered, sitting up in the bed. “Latrodectus species. You’ll find the same picture on the Labubu. It’s an emblem or logo of sorts.”

“A logo? For what?” the woman asked, almost involuntarily.

“Our support group”, came the answer.

The woman turned away, sniffed audibly. “Support group”, she echoed acidly. “I thought you males didn’t need friends, never mind support groups. Wuss.”

“Cab will be here in five minutes”, the phone called out.

For the first and only time, the woman looked directly at the male, inclined her head. The male nodded in response. With that, the woman gathered her things from around the bed and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. In a few seconds, the male heard the shower come on.

The male finally left the bed, mopping himself off with the sheets. He then collected his things, rueing the cigarette burn mark on his tote bag (didn’t burn through to the tablet, thank dog), got dressed, and headed to the elevator, the lobby, and the waiting cab. As he left the hotel room, he called out, “I hope I was performative enough for you!” He had no hope of being heard, or heeded.

The cabbie, a burly Hispanic dude, took one look at the male’s tote bag and decided that he didn’t need to be helped into the vehicle. Once into the back seat, the tote-bearer called out “Airport”. The cabbie grunted, and turned up the car’s media center to full, oppressive volume. He would not speak again. Since the fare was paid, there was no need for additional conversation, and the driver made it clear that none was wanted. The sound that blasted from the car’s speakers, the driver’s preferred conversation, was talk, all Spanish, all macho, all angry.

The cab stopped at the departure gate. The driver grunted, pointed. The scrawny, pasty-skinned “performative male” got himself out of the vehicle, stepped wobbily onto the sidewalk, slammed the door. Practically the second the door closed, the cab sped off as if trying to escape a contagion. Its rear bumper was prominently red – a MAGA bumper sticker.

Abruptly, the scene was overwhelmed by a WHUPWHUPWHUPWHUP that blotted out all the departure gate’s traffic noise, obliterated all other sounds. Three black military helicopters passed low overhead, passing along the departure gate’s road as if escorting the MAGA cab to its next mission. The male watched as the parade of cab and helicopters passed out of sight and sound …

or he would have if he hadn’t been interrupted by a uniformed police officer who appeared out of nowhere and shook her nightstick in his face.

“Move it or lose it, wuss”, she demanded.

Further reading:

Administering Human Sexuality

Cop-it-ulation

One Morning At Precinct Headquarters

Pop (Goes the) Ulation

The Rocket’s Dead Glare

Selective Service

Thanks For Nothing, Walter Mitty

For any who think that gender role dissatisfaction is either (a) new or (b) the exclusive province of today’s “progressive females”, this work from approximately the year 380 Before the Common Era is recommended – a work no longer common knowledge thanks to Baby Boomers destroying the last vestiges of classical education in these Untied States in North America, because such education was not “relevant” (English translation: not what Boomers wished to hear).