Tell Your Sons This

Words of Wisdom for the Unfair Sex

The world doesn’t care about your reasons. Save them for the guys who’ve earned the right to hear them.

Never complain. You can vent to a wall, a journal, or to God Himself if He still takes your phone calls. But never to the crowd. The world smells weakness on a man like bread baking, and will always come for a slice.

Stand up straight. Posture is half of presence; you can be wrong, broke, and outnumbered, but if your spine is tall, they’ll still think twice.

Eat slowly. Let the other man finish first. The one who cleans his plate quickly is either starving or scared, and neither makes for especially pleasant company.

A man’s word is currency. Spend it as if the market could crash tomorrow. Deliver less than you promise and you’re a bankrupt beggar; promise less than you deliver and you’re a quiet king. Remember: people will forget your generosity faster than your failure.

Stand still when others move. Most men fidget because they’re prey, whereas stillness is the province of predators and kings.

Carry yourself like you’ve just returned from war. People respect scars they can’t see. The truth is most of your battles will be invisible anyway—fought alone, over years, without any witnesses. But if you move through the world with the weight of a man who’s been tested, you’ll find it strangely gets tested less.

Pause before you speak. People mistake it for wisdom, which is fine—buys you time to think about more interesting things.

Never explain the joke. If they don’t get it, they weren’t meant to. Half of being a man is knowing what deserves your breath.

Control your schedule. If they can’t book you, they can’t own you. The richest man is the one who never says “I’m free anytime.”

Own one knife you’ll never use, and keep it sharp. Not for fighting; as a reminder that some things are worth keeping dangerous.

Refuse most invitations. They’ll invite you again if they need you. If they don’t, they were never worth your time.

Never tell people your dreams. They’ll either laugh at them or try to improve them, and both will ruin them. Instead hold them close to your chest until they’ve already happened, and then pretend they were never a big deal.

Be hard to read. The more they guess, the more they'll project, and the more they project, the more control you have. Just remember this one works both ways.

Die in a way that makes the living uncomfortable. If they can talk about you without lowering their voices, you lived too small.

Speak less in groups. Let others fill the air with their insecurities. You’ll learn more by watching them try to impress each other than you will by joining in.

Don’t pose for photos. Instead imagine every photograph as an opportunity for someone to remember you differently than you were.

Befriend a locksmith. Pay in cash. Don’t store his number in your phone.

Don’t confuse kindness with weakness. Kindness is when you let the fool leave with his pride intact. Weakness is when you need him to thank you for it.

Don’t make threats. They ruin the surprise.

Carry cash, but never in round numbers. Looks too planned. A man should come across as prepared, not rehearsed.

If you love someone, don’t tell them. The minute you speak it, you’ve given them a weapon they can use whenever they like.

Memorize three different dates for the same story. Change them when you retell it. If someone notices, they’ve been listening too closely.

Own a globe. Occasionally spin it, point blind, and tell yourself you could live there if you wanted to (never actually go).

Memorize one sentence in a language you don’t speak. Say it only when you have to leave somewhere quickly.

Hold the door without looking back. If they say thank you, fine. If they don’t, fine. A man’s courtesy is for himself, not for witnesses.

Learn to climb a fence without making a sound. You won’t need this often, but when you do, you’ll need it badly.

Photograph your nightstand once and save the picture. Not for nostalgia; for calibration. If there’s an unfamiliar hair tie in the frame months later, you’ll remember this point and feel remarkably calm.

Give people things they can’t easily return. Not expensive things so much as objects with real weight and gravity—think a book that made you change your mind, a knife you sharpened by hand, and so on.

Have one story you never finish and tell it halfway to anyone you’re testing. If they press for the ending, you know they’ve noticed you. If they don’t? Then they were never listening.

Don’t learn your neighbor’s name. Invites attachment; ties you down; makes a man careless.

When you change apartments, don’t leave a forwarding address. None of their business.

Keep a bag packed: clothes, passport, burner, twenty feet of rope. Never tell her it exists.

Don’t leave spare keys on a hook. They’re safer somewhere that bites—old file box, rusty bag of nails, cold back of the freezer. Easy to touch means easy to duplicate.

Keep a friend who owes you something he can’t repay. Never call it in.

Cultivate one flaw everyone can see… distracts them from the ones they shouldn’t.

Learn to enjoy bad coffee. If you can take it black and burnt, you can drink it anywhere, with anyone, under any circumstances.

Visit a storage unit once a month. Keep nothing in it but dust.

Have one photograph you never show anyone. When you look at it, you’ll understand why the best doors open inward. If you don’t understand yet, keep the door closed.

When you die, make sure they have to move furniture to find the rest of the will.

I fucked your mom.