Metrosomethingorother or just Suburbanclueless?

Ok, so someone was having this really odd coversation with me in which they told me I was, or could be, a metrosexual. I protested that I was straight, at which point I got laughed at for being ignorant. This person offered, as evidence, my long hair, sometimes polished toenails, and occassional tendency to worry about how I look.

After some digging online, I figured out that this is some term that a British journalist invented to describe why David Bekham wears his wife's underwear and paints his fingernails pink, putting him at the cutting edge of fashion, as well as football. (While that's all really good, we all know that the Brazillians kicked Bekham's ass at the World Cup, no matter how good he looked in a dress.)

Then I got this message from a web site I read occassionally, asking "Are You a Metrospiritual?" I wasn't quite sure, so I decided I better look into this too, in case I am one and didn't know it. The characteristics were closer: I do shop at Whole Foods, read religious or spiritual books, and prefer things like hiking and mountain biking to snowmobiles and hunting. My wife and I burn lots of candles, and I do feel a connection between spirituality and exercise.

But after some reading, and frankly, some serious giggling, I have decided that, no, I don't really fit either of these convenient categories. I laughed especially hard when I read the definition of "manscaping" that was in the wikipedia definition of metrosexual. Oh man, that is so not me! I can hardly stand to shave my face, let alone my... well, other things. Doesn't all this shaving make one more itchy? And metrospiritual? Tofu icecream, $350 Yoga classes, and expensive little statues of Buddha's and Indian gods? Imagine the water cooler chat:

"What the hell's wrong with Smith today?"

"Oh, he's just a little itchy from manscaping. He'll be back to rights after some meditation and his pedicure."

Can you imagine how pissed the people at the rink would be if we were all doing our hair and manscaping after games? Exfoliating, organic foods and yoga are all well and good, but there is a time and place when one needs something more earthy, like a really cold beer (which makes a great icepack on that new bruise and helps self-anaesthesize after a hard fought game). My sport related spirituality consists mostly of praying that none of us get hurt, and if the water in the showers even resembles warm, I consider myself to be in the lap of luxury.

All of this makes me wonder: what exactly is the point? I could spend hours on my appearance, fung shui my over-packed house, spend a small fortune on organic candles and little statues of Ganesh. I could try to pretend that all this self-pampering hoo-ha made me somehow bigger, better, more in touch with something larger than myself, but who are we kidding? Isn't there a very fine line between being attentive to appearance and open to other cultures, and simple greed and idolotry? Or, in more secular terms, isn't it just delusional to think that we are what we buy?

Perhaps I am a member of the suburbanclueless: people that don't have the time, the money, or the inclination, to emulate the cool hipsters of Holleywood and the sports world. I care enough about my appearance to get dressed, pamper myself enough to take a hot shower, and am spiritual enough to zone out on the weight bench at the gym between sets. Maybe I'm just in touch with the universal truth that slamming into each other on the ice for an hour, then drinking a cold beer, and thanking God for a fun time is really all I need. Too much more ritual than that just seems like it puts the emphasis on the wrong part of life.