The Pain Nobody Talks About

After last week's serious post, I thought my readers might enjoy this tongue-in-cheek observation.

Am I getting older or what? During the spring I dug weeds out of the flower beds and had a small backache.

Lest my young adult readers think you are light years away from boring talks about pain, you should know there is a pain which men suffer during dating years. It’s so debilitating they choose not to talk about it.

It’s called, for lack of a better term, armnumberosis.

It occurs when a guy takes a girl on a date and keeps his arm around her for long periods of time.

Let’s say they attend a symphony concert and sit in the same position for an hour and a half.

His arm goes numb about fifteen minutes into the evening. Fearing that moving it might be interpreted as rejection, he leaves his arm around the back of her chair for what seems an eternity.

He becomes incapable of thinking about anything except restoring the feeling in his arm without being conspicuous.

After the concert he gets up and pain shoots from shoulder to fingertips. What to do?

At this point he has several choices.

First, he can pretend he’s the director of the symphony, waving his arms in the air. Or, he can stand and take a r-e-a-l-l-y long stretch with his arms over his head.

Should that fail to restore feeling in his numb arm, there are a few more choices.

If he can walk without grimacing, he should walk the girl to the car. Once in the parking garage, he can pretend to wave to a friend far across the lot. He can slap his arm on his thigh while saying, “Aren’t those mosquitos something tonight!”

After he closes her car door, he then is free to react a little more strenuously.

First, he must make sure he is out of his date’s line of vision. He then walks behind the car, gives a silent scream and swings his numb arm wildly in circles. As stars dance before his eyes, he jumps up and down, reversing the direction of arm-circles.

Stalling for time, the guy then walks around the car, kicking the tires. (He can tell his puzzled date he is checking tire pressure.) The sudden jolt keeps his mind off his tingling arm. He must deal with foot pain next; however this is mild compared to the screaming lightning bolts still dancing from fingertip to shoulder.

So you see, pain at any age is inevitable. It's all in how you respond.

What about you? Any advice for men suffering from this debilitating condition? Don't forget to comment below.