This past long weekend, between one activity and another, I passed time in the company of over a half-dozen young bachelors and yes, I know, shut up. So let us just say, there were quite a few first impressions made.

Anyway, I forget how we got onto the topic, but during a commercial break in the three-point shooting competition, I brought up what I look at when I first meet a guy. “In order,” I said authoritatively, “it goes: watch, teeth, shoes.”

(Sidenote: the guy I was talking to at the time shook back his sleeve and held out his wrist. “How’s that?”
I said, “Erk!” and immediately changed the subject.)

On Sunday, while camping out at my parents’ place for the all-star game, I asked my brother about it, just out of curiosity, to determine whether or not a) he, as a representative male, also had a priority list, and b) he thought my list was insane.

“In order,” he said, “for chicks, it’s like, eyebrows, shoes, purse, celphone.”
“You wouldn’t know a knockoff purse if you got hit in the face with one.”
“I have been hit in the face with one. And I could tell.”

So at least I had established that both sexes have a list, whether they’re doing it consciously or not – there’s a language of signs when we meet someone new. He did have some comments on my list, which I think I’m going to have to post here approximately verbatim so you can get the guy’s side of things.

“Prem,” he goes, self-importantly, “nobody wears a watch any more. They use their celphone.”
“A watch is a fashion accessory, not a timepiece,” I said. “I know what year it is, you uppity little bastard, I’m not a Luddite.”
“Yes you are. What’s a Luddite?”
“A well-dressed guy wears a watch,” I insisted. “A nice watch. It reflects his personality, it tells me a lot about the other things in his life that he likes and thinks are cool, it tells me if we’ve got the same taste in stuff, it tells me what he doesn’t like, and it tells me he thinks fishing out your celphone to look at the time is stupid.”
“Well, at least teeth and shoes are easy,” he sighed. “Bad teeth means he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about all the other stuff.”
“What other stuff.”
“You know. Like all the other stuff. Flossing. Cutting his toenails. Trimming his pits.”
“OK,” I said dubiously. “And eyebrows…?”
“Girls who take the time to pluck their eyebrows,” he declared, “take the time to do a LOT of other stuff.”
“So you’re saying girls with nice eyebrows won’t go out with you.”
“Oh fuck off.”
“You’re saying a girl who walks around with a unibrow won’t care enough to shave her legs.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m not referring to Cheryl specifically.”
“Yes you were.”

My mom, very ostentatiously eavesdropping, jumped in with, “Language! And what about the car?”
“Me no care,” I said, “him have car, me likey. Four wheels.”
Mom said, “What if he didn’t have a car?”
“Hemp-chewing hippy, me no likey. Do we have any popcorn?”

We trailed off after that, but can I just ask, in my paranoid way: is that shallow? That’s really shallow, hey? Am I basing my snap judgment of a guy on the wrong things? I mean, it’s not like those are the ONLY three things I’m looking at when a first impression is made. There’s his scent, his clothes, his hair, his walk. And then when he starts to talk, there’s other things to judge too – like his opinions on the new Star Trek movie, and Jack Kerouac, and blowjob coupons and Bach and Faulkner.

It’s just that if I meet a guy and look down and he’s wearing, e.g., socks with sandals, something in my brain powers down and the back pops off and the batteries fall out and that’s it, completely, for the guy as anything other than a pal. Because he’s just told me about a third of his life story – who he hung out with in junior high (the geeks and freaks), his relationship with his mother (who picked out all his clothes for years, because he didn’t care and she was paying), his general thoughts on hipsters (negative) and metros (generalized envy) and girls who like hipsters and metros (mild disdain). So we can’t date. We’re buddies. We’ll hang out at the Marble Slab on Whyte and I’ll never make a move on him because we’re not meant to be. And I know all that from that first furtive five-second scan when we met.

Seriously, does anyone else do this? Do I need to be locked up? Ladies, guys, do you have a list, and if so, what’s on it? Is it different for gays vs. straights? Did the list change after you got married? Let’s get a representative sample here. And if I have any lurkers, now’s the time to de-lurk and add your two cents!