Tweet

Let me just say that I now appreciate the efforts my wife endures to keep legs silky smooth.

As a guy, it’s been relatively easy to shave. Sure, the face and neck have a lot of contours that make things tricky, but it’s not a lot of space, and I get to cheat. After all, when I shave my face and my face fights back with stubble, it actually has its own sex appeal. I’m not unshaven; I’m not unkempt; I’m scruffy. A state that is even sometimes preferable to baby-butt-smooth, or so I’m told.

Thanks to that leeway, I’d never understood why my wife felt it such a battle to shave her legs. Admittedly, it’s preferable for me to feel silky legs rubbing against me, but it’s never really bothered me when she had a little growth. It’s natural; it happens.

Yet it bugged her. “Don’t touch my legs,” she’d beg.

Somehow, now I’ve become a manscaper. I trim and shave some up top, and shave the rest completely. I’ve found I like how it feels. In fact, for some reason, I feel more attractive for it. Meanwhile, my wife — who appreciates some trim work in general — has been (to date) generally indifferent to the precise degree of razor work.

But when I feel stubble where it’s supposed to be shaved, it bugs me. And I actually feel less attractive.

So, I’m sympathetic to my wife on a whole new level. Admittedly, it’s far simpler to shave a relatively small sack and a couple crevices compared to a couple shapely legs, so my wife probably rolls her eyes at my “empathy”. But I feel for her still. And I repent for my prior lack of understanding.

I’ve learned: when you’re trying to keep something smooth, anything less than smooth is frustrating.

That said, I’ll probably still deliberately give her goose bumps, sympathy or no. Partly because I like the idea of giving her chills. But mostly because it annoys her. Yeah, I’m that guy.

Originally posted 2016-11-04 08:00:35.