I'm Having More Fun Than You

by Karo, Aaron

  INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS

  Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has said to me, “Karo, you’re my best friend.” And you know what? It’s true. I am her best friend. Because when girls have a boyfriend, they rearrange their lives way more than guys do. You ever notice that when two close guy friends both have girlfriends, those girls always end up hanging out together? But the opposite is never true. When two girls who are friends both have boyfriends, those dudes don’t spend time with each other unless absolutely necessary. That’s because we still talk to our same twenty friends from high school and college every single day. You’ll never hear a guy say to his girlfriend, “Baby, you’re my best friend.” Because it’s just not true. Guys value longevity. You may be a great girlfriend, but in the scheme of things, you just got here. There’s a pretty good chance I’m gonna do something dumb soon, and you’re gonna break up with me. I don’t run that risk with my boys.

  When my frat buddy Jason moved in with his girlfriend (now wife), I always felt so awkward and immature when I called their home number and had to leave a message. It usually went something like this: “Hey Jason, it’s Karo…uh, and, um, hi to you too, Jocelyn. Hello to the both of you, um, together. Uh oh, am I calling too late? Oh man, I’m definitely calling too late. You guys are probably sleeping. Or having sex. Oh God I shouldn’t have said that. OK, uh, Jason, just give me a call back. Or Jocelyn, you can call me back too, I guess. I mean, I was calling for Jason but, you know, I don’t want you to be insulted or anything. You know what? Maybe it’s best if we never speak again.”

  Another frat buddy, Adam, lets his wife, Beth, access his email account and send replies pretending to be him because he’s too lazy to write back himself. The best part is that she even tries to replicate his horrible grammar and spelling—though she hasn’t quite perfected his unique syntax yet. So if I get an email from “Adam” that’s properly capitalized or contains words with more than two syllables, I’m pretty sure it’s an imposter.

  * * *

  OBSERVATION

  Ever notice that the friends who only call you when their significant other is out of town are the ones who get the most upset when you can’t hang out? My buddy Neil will call me and say, “Karo, what’s up, dude? Let’s go out and get fucked up tonight!” I’m like, “Bro, I’d love to, but I already have plans.” He exclaims, “Don’t be a fucking pussy, Karo. Just break your plans and come hang out with your boy!” I’m like, “Dude, I haven’t heard from you in three months. What, is your girlfriend out of town?” There’s a brief pause, and then he says, “Yeah, but that’s not why I’m calling you.” So I say, “OK, then let’s hang out tomorrow night.” He replies, “Uh, I can’t.” Me: “Girlfriend gonna be back in town?” Him: “Yeah…” Me: “Well, I hope she brings your balls back.” Click.

  * * *

  I have a few platonic female friends who, before hanging up the phone, always say to me, “I love you.” This usage is fine with me; after all, I do love them as friends. Take my college buddy Jen, for instance. The only problem is when she calls when I’m with a girl that I’ve been seeing, but haven’t dropped the L-bomb on yet. We’ll be lying in bed and my phone will ring. I pick up and the girl only hears my end of the conversation with Jen: “Hey, what’s up? Yeah, uh huh. Listen, let me call you later. OK. Um, yeah…I love you too.” And I can just see that look on the girl’s face that says, “How much longer do I have to put up with shit before I get one of those?” My biggest fear is that a girl I’m dating is gonna come over to my apartment one day while I’m in the middle of something, and I’ll say, “I love you.” And she’ll be like, “Oh my God, I love you too!” And I’ll point to my ear and say, “Actually, I’m on my Bluetooth with Jen. Sorry?”

  I think the relationship that guys have with their best friends can be summed up by the day in 2001 when Claudio’s girlfriend dumped him. It was the same day that Brian and I, both single at the time, had finally secured entry to an exclusive Manhattan nightclub we’d been dying to hit up. That night, as Brian and I pre-gamed in our apartment, Claudio, obviously upset, called Brian. The phone rang and rang. I looked at Brian, but he didn’t say anything or pick up. Finally, I understood—we couldn’t get into the club with another dude, so Claudio, distraught or not, had to be sacrificed. We didn’t tell Claud what happened until six years later, at which time he merely shrugged it off with a laugh in typical Claudio fashion. He accepted our explanation that we couldn’t give up a night of possibly getting laid just to console him. That’s not what friends are for.

  MANCATION

  His pugilistic tendencies notwithstanding, I’ve traveled with Triplet #2 to London, Sydney, and Buenos Aires. He’s a great person to travel with because we have similar sightseeing protocols: skim the major landmarks and then hit the fucking bars hard. What is it about girls that makes them want to linger at every single plaque, rock, or tree? Guys are much more efficient. While swimming in Lake McKenzie, a top tourist spot in Australia featuring crystal-clear freshwater surrounded by white beaches and lush green forest, Trip 2 said to me, “Wow, this is beautiful.” “Yeah, it really is,” I replied. We both admired the landscape for a moment and then Trip 2 said, “I could leave in fifteen minutes,” and I was like, “Totally.”

  I always like to have the most up-to-date information when I travel, so I splurged for a brand-new Fodor’s Japan guide when I went to Tokyo with my Wall Street buddy Rob. The ever-miserly Rob, however, toted around an old, dog-eared Lonely Planet. I have to admit, though, occasionally he put me in my place. At one point, as he was trying to navigate, I said, “Dude, you have no idea what you’re talking about; that guidebook is four years old!” “Karo,” he replied calmly, “I’m not too worried. This temple was built in 738 A.D.”

  You know what I really hate about couples? That how long they’ve been in a relationship is directly proportional to how far in advance they make plans. You ever try to make plans with one of your married friends? I’ll say, “Hey dude, wanna come over and watch the game?” He replies, “I can’t, but how about six weeks from Tuesday?” My parents have a calendar in their kitchen that’s booked until 2012. What are they doing, training for the Olympics? Plus, couples never make interesting plans. If I make plans eight months in advance, it’s because I’m going to Barbados. If my married friends make plans eight months in advance, it’s because they’re going to brunch.

  * * *

  ADVICE

  If you go out of your way to organize something fun for your buddies—a party, a dinner, or especially a vacation—you will end up getting the shaft. Someone won’t pay, or will break something, or will otherwise embarrass you. This is the collateral damage that comes with trying to make plans for borderline alcoholics. Figure it into your costs ahead of time.

  * * *

  Bachelors and guys in relationships should also never go away on vacation together. Our objectives are completely different. If you’re in a relationship and you go to an exotic country—even if you’re not with your significant other—you want to explore, immerse yourself in the culture, eat interesting food, and walk along the water. When I go to a foreign country, I want to spend seven minutes at each of the five most famous sights, take three pictures, and then go find strange pussy.

  The easiest way to tell if a guy is in a relationship is if the Facebook album from his trip contains a photograph shot while lying on a beach chair, looking past his feet and out onto the crystal blue water. What the fuck is that? I don’t want to see your feet! Single dudes never take pictures like that. If I go on vacation, I will only show you pictures of some chick’s tits, some dude vomiting, or a donkey. If I’m lucky, all three in one shot.

  I’ve traveled around the world, but please don’t ask me to do anything that involves roughing it. A few of my buddies went camping once and asked me if I wanted to come along. I asked them if there’s a word more negative than “no.” Since I moved to LA, my friend Scott has been trying to get me to go hiking with him. I always tell h
im, “Hiking really isn’t my thing.” And he’s like, “How do you know if you’ve never even tried it?” I say, “Dude, I’ve been outside before. I get the gist.”

  BUSINESS CASUAL

  Nothing brings the boys together like a never-ending game of reply-to-all. I don’t know what it is about guys, being bored at work, and email that brings out the worst in all of us. It usually starts innocently enough. Once I sent an email to the crew asking for a bar recommendation. The first response came from Triplet #1, who—and I’m quoting verbatim here—suggested “Club Loser on 32nd and Nothington.” That was followed by an email from Chi who recommended the ever-popular “Bar Blow Me on 69th and Your Mom Avenue.” And those were the least offensive suggestions. The conversation soon degraded into name-calling until someone inevitably dropped an F-bomb, everyone using their work accounts feigned outrage, and then appended their Gmail addresses to the chain so that they could follow the discussion uncensored on their BlackBerrys. Just another day at the office.

  One of my boys is staunchly opposed to me emailing anything remotely risqué to his work account, and I respect that. However, he just got rid of his personal cell phone because he got one through work, and now he doesn’t want me texting him anything dirty either. I’m hamstrung. He says, “Karo, just don’t curse.” I say, “I’d rather not be friends.”

  The fact is, if you’re emailing a bunch of buddies and find yourself adding, “PS: don’t forward this on,” you probably shouldn’t be sending it in the first place. My all-time favorite, however, is the one guy in everyone’s group who has an automatic signature in his work email that always seems totally out of place. He’ll email me: “Yo Karo! Let’s get fucked up tonight and score some sluts!” and at the bottom it will be signed: “Warm regards, Jonathan.”

  * * *

  GLOSSARY

  BROGREEMENT

  I was at a house party in Santa Monica recently when my friend Jesse told me that he was leaving his job to work for his buddy on a film project. I congratulated him on the great news and for signing what must have been a lucrative offer. But Jesse replied that there was no formal contract, saying, “My buddy was just like, ‘Bro, do you want to work on this?’ And I was like, ‘Dude, totally.’” And so a new term was born: the “brogreement”—a handshake transaction entered into by two close guy friends where no lawyers are involved (despite probably being necessary).

  * * *

  As we move up the ranks of our respective industries, I often find myself engaging with my friends in serious business. While this kind of networking is not surprising, it does take some compartmentalization. For instance, I was working on booking a venue for a stand-up tour with my buddy Brian (a different Brian) who is both a tour promoter in LA and a raging alcoholic. When we’re talking contracts and financials on a Friday afternoon, he’s a complete professional. But still, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “We better get this done soon, because in a few hours, this guy’s gonna be obliterated.”

  My friends, of course, don’t just use their business connections to help each other professionally, but also to help themselves socially. For instance, when women ask what he does for a living, my high school buddy Eric, who works in fixed income sales at a multinational investment bank, enjoys describing his job in the most unnecessarily complicated terms possible. I’m not sure if he thinks this will impress girls or merely confuse them into hooking up with him, but I have to admit that either way it works pretty well.

  Then there are those of my friends who operate outside the realm of normal careers. As a comedian, I’m one of the few outliers. We also have my high school buddy Gadi. A happy-go-lucky Israeli, Gadi has a normal desk job by day—and works as a trance music DJ by night. In fact, he just played a huge trance festival in Acapulco. The show started at midnight and he went on last at 11 a.m., which I guess made him the headliner. The best part is that one of his early DJ stage names was E-Jekt. I guess only in the Israeli trance scene can you get away with calling yourself something that means “stop playing music.”

  FIRST OPINION

  A lot of people hate doctors—they hate thinking about the doctor and they especially hate going to the doctor. Five of my best friends are doctors: surgeons Shermdog and Triplet #3, as well as Adam, Christina, and Seth, all of whom are anesthesiologists. Each of them fascinates me, probably because being a doctor is one of the few things I can’t do. I mean, let’s be honest, I could be a lawyer if I really wanted to. Law school would blow, but I could do it if I really tried. But I couldn’t get past the first day of medical school without puking on a cadaver. That’s why I love hearing about my doctor friends’ jobs and lifestyles. I can’t get enough. Even though when I go to their apartments to hang out they make me wait outside and read Highlights magazine.

  Although traveling the country as a headlining comedian is thrilling, it will never hold a candle to being a doctor. When she was an intern, Christina called me up all excited and said, “Karo, you won’t believe what happened today! This guy started seizing in the ER and I intubated him right there on the spot and I saved his life!” I was like, “Wow, Chris, that’s amazing! Guess what? Today I wrote a joke about Chi freeballing!” It’s just not quite the same rush.

  * * *

  TERMINOLOGY

  Match Day is an annual event in March when fourth-year med students find out where they “match”—i.e., where in the country they will be spending the next three to seven years of their lives as residents. After matching, said med students go out and get demolished. In 2005, the year my friends went through the process, Match Day fell on both the first day of the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick’s Day, making it a perfect alcoholic storm.

  * * *

  Sometimes, though, I feel a strange kinship with my doctor friends. I was talking to Shermdog once, and he was telling me that his cardiothoracic surgery rotation was starting in two hours. I was on the road at the time, and I told him I was getting ready for a huge show that started in two hours. He said, “I’m actually kind of nervous.” And I was like, “Me too.” Then he said, “Listen, I gotta go—I’m gonna jerk off.” And I was like, “Me too!” Maybe I could be a doctor!

  I remember sitting around with my buddies drinking beers after they took the MCAT, and they all said, “Some day, Karo, all this work will pay off and I’ll treat you for free.” Then most of them chickened out and became anesthesiologists, which is of no use to me. I did, however, recently have the misfortune of spraining my knee at the gym. A few weeks later, I saw Triplet #3 in New Orleans at his brother’s bachelor party and asked him for an orthopedic consult. As he rolled up his sleeves, he asked me to fully relax my knee so that he could properly examine me. “Karo,” he noted, “I wish all my patients were like you. You are remarkably relaxed.” To which I replied, “Do you even realize how drunk I am right now?”

  BOYS

  There have been times in my life when I’ve looked around the bar to see Claudio, Chi, and Gadi, and felt like I was getting wasted at the United Nations. But despite our differences in appearance and nationality, those guys have always simply just been “my boys.” Sure, women have “their girls,” but there’s a huge difference. Namely, your girls suck. Your girls change every season. Your girls are catty. One of your girls probably fucked your boyfriend. Female friendships are often contentious, jealousy-ridden, and, ultimately, ephemeral. But not so with my boys. Moving to Los Angeles was difficult, but whenever I get a text message from one of my boys back East telling me how big a shit he is currently taking, along with how little he misses me, I feel like I never left.

  Dudes generally don’t make new friends after about the age of twenty-five, so although I was lucky to have met a good group of guys in LA, I never quite knew where I stood. Until the night we sat around boozing in West Hollywood and Zach made fun of me, Justin laughed, and Neil high-fived Brian (the LA Brian). All at my expense. That’s when I knew that I truly hated these guys—and that we were better friends than I thought
.

  The truth is, though, I was a little nervous when I left my friends behind in New York. I’ve always thought of myself as the connector, the nucleus of the group. Yes, the Triplets are brothers, but would they ever really hang out if I didn’t make the plans? Luckily, I’m able to keep an eye on things at least once every November when my high school crew (plus Chi, of course) gathers at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn for our annual holiday dinner. There we carry on a tradition of determining which one of us had the best year. For instance, the year that Brian got engaged and was accepted to business school, we declared it the “Year of the Brian.” When Claudio got a new job, a new apartment, and a new girlfriend, we declared that the “Year of the Claudio.” Sadly, there’s never been a “Year of the Karo.” That’s not to say I’ve never had a great year; it’s just that my accomplishments always seem to be too spread out. Plus, “new job” and “new girlfriend” aren’t exactly categories I typically compete in. Maybe this will be my year. But if not, at least there will be something comforting about being at dinner surrounded by guys who wouldn’t care if I went missing.