Man challenge

These are the rules of the sophisticated social interaction known herein as the man challenge.

1. Definition: a ‘man challenge’ is when a man looks at another man, and the other man looks back at the first man (ie the eyes of the two men meet).
2. Definition: ‘another man’ is a man the first man does not know.
3. In the event of a man challenge, the man who instigated the man challenge (ie looked at another man) must, upon discovering that his look has been noticed and his eyes have been met, immediately look away.
4. Definition: ‘look away’ means the man who was looking pretends he was looking at something else (eg something in the distance or a woman or another man with his back turned) and the man challenge was merely a matter of misinterpretation.
5. If a man challenger does not immediately look away, the other man becomes the man challenger. This means both men are man challenge-ing one another. Thus engagement is complete and a man challenge has commenced in earnest.
6. In the event of a properly engaged man challenge, either man is obliged to look away.
7. If a man looks away, the other man has won the man challenge.
8. The winner of a man challenge, who has successfully not looked away, is then entitled to perceive himself as a tough and strong man (until such time as he is the loser of a subsequent man challenge).
9. The loser of a man challenge is wimpy and lame, and must at his earliest convenience seek out another man to man challenge to enable himself to feel tough and strong.
10. The loser of a man challenge must, until such time as he has successfully competed in a subsequent man challenge, give himself some semblance of masculinity by treating a woman or child with little or no respect.
11. The winner of a man challenge may instigate another man challenge at any time, and is likely to succeed given his feeling of tough and strongness.
12. In the event that neither man looks away, the man challenge reaches critical man mass, and can be resolved in one or both of the following two ways. The men must fuck and/or fight.