Souping Up Your Bromances

By Rainer Wasinger

Your first car is a rite of passage, a newfound freedom to see your world and expand your possibilities. For some, their first car becomes a glorified bus, a ferry their friends abuse for free transport. For others, they fancy their 1999 Dodge Neon as a drag racer, a way to pump adrenaline and rebel against authority at 15 over. However, though these people have their own problems, the people I want to address today are those people, (let’s be honest, boys) who believe that their car is a chick magnet, a way to attract females through means of impressive transportation.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a cool car. I can get on board with a fresh ride as much as the next guy, but that’s where your problem lies. The only people getting on board are guys. How many girls do you know that have any remote idea how many horsepower the new Dodge Challenger Hellcat has? Or have any idea if the Jaguar F-Type has two or four doors? If the answer is anything other than zero, you can email me her phone number. And if the answer is zero, this correlates with the overwhelming theme of this piece; it’s not that girls don’t like cars, it’s that for a vast majority of them, their overall attitude is indifference.

I’ve never heard a girl talk about other people’s cars, at least in the confines of high school. Maybe it’s because people at my school prefer the crunch of granola to the roar of a v8, and most students would rather attend a Greenpeace sponsored embalming than a Nascar race. Perhaps, somewhere outside of my small city sized bubble of liberalism, environmental activism, and just general crunch, the girls obsess on cars and having the coolest car is the petroleum powered key to high school royalty. However, in my experience, having a cool car simply makes the guys who were already your friends comment on “how sick your whip is, bro” and those people who you don’t get on with think you’re kind of a douche.

If you love the feeling of 300+ stallions with rippling muscles at your disposal, I don’t want to take that from you. If your natural high is doing donuts in the Wal Mart parking lot, at least you’re not on heroin. But if you decide that putting an aftermarket spoiler and custom exhaust on your Honda Civic is a good idea for the ladies, save your money, and buy an Xbox One. With an Xbox One, you’ll never get a ticket for breaking noise ordinances, and I won’t hate you indiscriminately when I see your car. Another tip, instead of modding your Subaru WRX so it sounds like a supercar, hit the books and in ten or so years, you might get a real supercar. Plus, when you’re an adult, a supercar means money, and if you’re down with gold diggers, you’ll get the ladies your lifted Ford Bronco never would.

I’m not trying to tell you to not fool with your car if it’s something you enjoy doing, or if you enjoy the testosterone fueled attention that it brings. It’s your life. But if your motivation is to attract ladies, save your money. Cash is at a premium in high school, and there are so many  things worthy of your “hard-earned” money. Save it for college, or buy experiences, like travel, not things. Work on building a bank of stories to tell, and opinions to have, not items that show how big your bank is. At the end of the day, in high school, people care far more about the interesting people, not the people with the most interesting things. Cars, and all other possessions will always be temporary; they break, go out of style, and are forgotten. Spend your money on things that make you happy, not items you think will bring you attention.