The Straight Man's Guide To Eating A Banana

At some point in the life of a straight man, it is inevitable that you will be put in the situation of having to eat a banana in front of other people. Here is a simple set of rules to ensure that the process goes ahead with the minimum of embarrassment.

1. Do not refuse. It may seem as though refusing point blank to bring the banana anywhere near your mouth would be an easy get-out, however, this will often backfire by drawing attention to the issue. The majority of the time you can get away with quietly eating it and nobody will think twice. But if you cause a fuss, they will start to wonder if you have some kind of hang up about eating bananas. You do not want their minds to start going in that direction.

2. Attitude. The best attitude to maintain is indifference. Any other attitude risks being misinterpreted. For example, if you appear very focused on eating the banana then observers may conclude that you are enjoying it too much. On the other hand, if you look like you find the process unpleasant, then they may suspect you are associating it with that time you experimented while at university. Indifference is the answer here. Ideally you should be occupied with some other task which appears to be taking up your entire concentration. This will enable you to give off an air of absentmindedness when you take bites from the banana. You may find the following mantra helpful to put you in the right frame of mind: "I haven't really thought about eating this banana at all." Repeat this to yourself as many times as necessary.

3. Chomp. With each bite, you should aim to bring your teeth into contact with the banana first, slicing off a sizeable piece in one swift motion. Then immediately remove the remaining part from the vicinity of your mouth before closing your lips. At no point must you wrap your lips around the shaft of the banana, since doing so may cause you to panic.

4. Moderate bite size. Obviously you want the eating to be over as quickly as possible, which implies bigger bites, however you also want to avoid thrusting a large portion of the banana into your mouth at any one time. The key here is to strike the right balance. An advanced technique is to take two or three smaller bites in one go, combining them into a single mouthful, however it is important that you do not accidentally violate rule 3, and further that it does not come across as dainty nibbling. If you are unsure, stick to one moderately sized bite per mouthful.

5. Peel gradually. One method of eating a banana is to remove the peel completely and then hold the bare banana gingerly between your fingers while taking bites. This is wrong. You should only peel as much as necessary for a couple of bites at a time. Doing this will allow you to maintain a firm manly grip on the unpeeled section, while the peeled skin lobes will help to distract from the fact that you are holding a cylindrical object and repeatedly bringing it to your mouth.

6. No cutlery. Occasionally, a straight man will have the idea of side-stepping all of these issues by peeling the whole banana out onto a plate and then eating it with a knife and fork. If this thought occurs to you, you may not actually be a straight man.

7. Only one hand. The correct number of hands to use is one. You may use two when peeling the banana, but only one while eating. It may initially seem like a good idea to cup your free hand under the banana to catch any pieces that fall during a bite, but the enlightened banana eater realises that this image does not look right at all.

8. Keep your head still. The number one mistake that some straight men make when eating a banana is to hold the banana stationary and bring their mouth down over it. No, no, no! Your head must be kept upright at all times - let your hand do the work of moving the banana within range of your mouth. If you have broken both your arms and they are in plaster, then you are permitted to violate rule 6, but not rule 8. Never break rule 8.

If you keep all of this in mind, you will be able to consume bananas successfully on many occasions. Beginners often find that rule 2 is the hardest, since it is difficult to appear nonchalant while focusing on remembering all of the other rules. The best way to overcome this is through rehearsal. You don't even need a banana to do this - you can simply open your mouth, make a loose fist with one hand, and practice bringing it towards and away from your face. However, you must only ever do this in private.

Good luck, and enjoy your bananas! (But not too much.)

Next time: The Straight Man's Guide To Buying A Cucumber.

So that's why those rumours started about me when I shouted, "GET THAT FUCKING BANANA AWAY FROM MY FACE!" Well at least now I know for the future.

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The chemistry must be respected.

If you mean the rumours about you being a raging homo, then I thought they started because we slept together.

I was hanging out with my bros a few days back and there was a really cute 16 year old boy with us. Really fuckin' cute. When I got drunk I really, really wanted to suck him off. And the fucker was teasing me (licking his lips) when I pointed out how cute he was.

Maybe I should really have been a bit more straight-forward, huh. Blew my chance to go homo, I guess.

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生者人之始也，死者人之终也，生死人之大道也。

Well you weren't supposed to tell anyone, all this time I thought it was because of my aversion to banana eating but no you had to go and run your mouth off! I hope you feel ashamed.

And you know what Drog? It's never too late

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The chemistry must be respected.

Don't worry, Drog. There will be plenty of other opportunities for you to become an active pedophile.

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Really now? I'm still in my 20s. And he's taller than me, doesn't really look 16, I was surprised when he told me his age, to be honest.

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生者人之始也，死者人之终也，生死人之大道也。

If my recollection of events is correct, you were the one doing that.

What can I say, I love the cock.

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The chemistry must be respected.

I'd say you didn't blow it, which is the real issue here.

Also, this thread qualifies as the best thing Smuel has posted in ages.

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On the one hand, I'm pleased to find that I have been eating bananas the "right" way all along.

On the other hand, Drog is bisexual?

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My North Star: Jose Gomez
I'm an introvert. Now shut up so I can be happy. Except for you, helpful sales bot. Also, download this.
Away from The House, yet forever near to my heart

Isn't that one of the ways how "honest mistake" pedophilia works? I'm not sure of the age of consent in China, but being in your twenties and hitting on a guy who's 16 is a bit pedo, at least anywhere that there's a statute of limitations for age differences beyond a certain level before boning. Though I guess if he was in a bar and 16, the age a person becomes an adult in China is lower than the age in the US, as goes for most other places.
To make this more interesting, in Pennsylvania a person who's 18 can't sleep with someone more than two years younger than they are, which would mean the first woman who slept with me committed statutory rape, simply because she was still sleeping with me after she turned 18 and I had 11 days left before I turned 16.
That's right, I was raped. And it was awesome.

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We call that Stockholm syndrome.

Nah, it's cool. It wasn't legally considered rape until she turned 18.

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