The Doritos-Smelling Man Inside All of Us

The Discord mod: The kind of person I used as a benchmark for the type of person NOT to be.

“I’m getting horror obsessive thoughts again,” I texted my friend. “I’m terrified of being a greasy prickly sweaty Doritos-stinking Mountain Dew-stained man.”

I am unsure where my overwhelming repulsion towards this type of person developed. Perhaps it was my overexposure to them from spending a significant portion of my adolescent years on weird online forums, debating on MGTOW Facebook groups, and joining Discord servers full of exactly what you’d imagine a Discord moderator would be like.

“But greasy prickly sweaty Doritos-stinking Mountain Dew-stained men do not have the self-awareness to reflect on their behaviour patterns, they feel entitled in the way people tolerate them hence the stink and the grease,” my friend responded. “I have never once seen you greasy or prickly or sweaty and though everyone has these moments, you don’t go out and parade these moments because it’s not performative for you, it’s you really going through it.”

But I wonder if those men are “going through it” too. Because I go through it so often that I barely ever leave my room. I usually feel too disgusted by myself to emerge into the outside world. Little things like a scaly face and acne put me off from going outside because I feel too ugly to show my face to other people. When I’m nearing my period or having it, I tend to sweat and smell more. I also avoided going outside then because I was scared that even with extensive showering and deodorants, someone could still smell me.

Before I can confidently go out, I have to have clear and hydrated skin (which happens only when I’m ovulating) or put on makeup with high coverage to cover my flaws. Even imperfect makeup (scaly, dry, flaky) deters me from going outside, so I stay inside the whole day, even when I already have my hair and makeup done. Sometimes, I would sleep in the day with makeup, hair, and coordinated clothing and jewellery.

I’m scared of being “clocked” (apologies for adopting a word used by trans people because I have yet to find a word closer to what I am feeling than this) for being the kind of person that I feel I am on the inside: ugly, stinky, prickly, greasy, lazy, and degenerate.

My friend continued: “You are literally the opposite of all the things you are scared about. You are the furthest thing away from that.”

I try to present as the opposite of that, but I feel like I’m fooling everyone. I saw this reel of a content creator making fun of Twitch streamers’ day-in-a-life videos for having an easy job and an easy life while realising that the daily routine of these streamers (that people online are making fun of) is more productive than mine. At least these streamers stream videos and edit them for many hours of the day and make their breakfast. I cannot even be bothered to cook and instead rely on processed foods, milk, and cereal, and I’m not guaranteed to be productive on a given day.

More often than I’d like, I also put off work I am supposed to enjoy and do because I am waiting for the “right moment” to work. Usually, I do not postpone this indefinitely as I know the exact time and place I will be able to do the work. I cannot do it in bed when I am tired and distracted by Internet amusements.

I often feel like the only thing differentiating me from men who live in their mother’s basement (the archetypal “loser” according to societal standards) is that I am an international student trust fund baby who happens to be born in a class that allows me plenty of safety nets, the ability not to work casual jobs with dogshit pay if I so wish thanks to my allowance, and also having been educated in all manners of “good taste” and superficial ladylike behaviours, which sufficiently disguises inactivity and passivity as a noble pastime instead of being prime loser central.

The more I examine my repulsion towards a particular group of people (granted, my repulsion was also because they were sexually predatory towards me even as I was underaged at that time), I realise that by denying the humanity of the people I am repulsed by, I also deny the parts of these people that may exist inside me: repulsive parts I may also be privy to and is not immune from.

For example, I may think of them as having low conscientiousness, spending their time playing Call of Duty all day instead of working. But I also occasionally stay up all night scrolling mindlessly like a lab rat pulling the lever down, chasing dopamine. Because the positive feedback is intermittent and not continuous, my brain is primed to keep scrolling even as it no longer benefits me.

My conscientiousness is heavily dependent on the task I am given. When it is writing or liberal arts, I do the tasks as soon as possible (because I enjoy it!). When it is sewing, I can sew for extended periods (because I enjoy it!). When doing work for people I care about, I put my all into it, and my results never disappoint them (because I care about seeing those people happy). But I’m putting off school (science requires plenty of studying since I can’t easily bullshit it, and this is bad for my instant-gratification brain).

It makes me wonder if these “loser” men haven’t found their productive vocation yet.

But ultimately, I think what makes them irredeemable (amidst their retrospectively sympathetic human faults) is that they often mistreat women horribly.

I guess that, ultimately, greasy men can be greasy for various reasons, like losing their “true self” due to mental illness, but sometimes it is worth noting that they may just be disgustingly entitled people.

—

This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

***