You might have seen this Goldman Sachs 'unofficial' guide to being a man. PMB responds point by point below:
GS: Stop talking about where you went to college.
PMB: Stop talking about what it means to be a man.
GS: Always carry cash. Keep some in your front pocket.
PMB: I stopped carrying cash after the second time I was mugged at gunpoint.
GS: Rebel from business casual. Burn your khakis and wear a suit or jeans.
PMB: Under no circumstances should a suit and jeans be conflated as like solutions to a sartorial problem. If you're going somewhere and you can't decide whether to wear a suit or jeans, you're missing something.
GS: It's OK to trade the possibility of your 80s and 90s for more guaranteed fun in your 20s and 30s.
PMB: Is it OK to trade 50% of the hours of every day of your life in your 20s and 30s for a cubicle at an investment bank?
GS: The best public restrooms are in hotels: The St. Regis in New York, Clairidge's in London, The Fullerton in Singapore, to name a few.
PMB: Privatize public restrooms!
GS: Never stay out after midnight three nights in a row...unless something really good comes up on the third night.
PMB: Night 1: call girls and blow. Night 2: call girls and blow. Night 3: call girls and blow...again? Oh AND karaoke? You don't say! Fuck it, I'm down, bro.
GS: You will regret your tattoos.
PMB: I would too if my tattoos were all quotes from Ayn Rand and Bret Easton Ellis.
GS: Never date an ex of your friend.
PMB: Because at Goldman Sachs, we're all about loyalty.
GS: Join Twitter; become your own curator of information.
PMB: @BrockMan69 where we drinking tonight PUSSY #infocuration
GS: If riding the bus doesn't incentivize you to improve your station in life, nothing will.
PMB: It was all a dream / I used to read GQ Magazine / Seersucker on the bus don't stay clean / Mark Rothko on my wall / every Saturday Bellini brunch next to a shopping mall...
GS: Time is too short to do your own laundry.
PMB: Time is too short to brush your own teeth.
GS: When the bartender asks, you should already know what you want to drink.
PMB: Your bartenders should already know what you want to drink without you having to ask. C.f. 'be a regular at more than one bar.'
GS: If you perspire, wear a damn undershirt.
PMB: If you don't perspire, see a doctor.
GS: You don't have to like baseball, but you should understand the concept of what a pitcher's ERA means. Approach life similarly.
PMB: ERA = Earned Runs / Innings Pitched * 9; lower ERAs reflect greater pitching performance. So if I'm getting your drift, we should pay the pitchers with the highest ERAs massive end-of-year bonuses for failing at their jobs?
GS: When people don't invite you to a party, you really shouldn't go. And sometimes even when you are invited, you shouldn't go.
PMB: And sometimes when you really have to go you shouldn't go at a party. Find the nearest hotel.
GS: People are tired of you being the funny, drunk guy.
PMB: People are tired of you being the guy who squeezes really hard during a handshake to assert yourself.
GS: When in doubt, always kiss the girl.
PMB: "Her eyes say no, but they mean yes."
GS: Tip more than you should.
PMB: Feel entitled to assert your superiority over service staff by reminding them that you can spare the money.
GS: You probably use your cell phone too often and at the wrong moments.
PMB: You DEFINITELY use your cell phone too often and at the wrong moments.
GS: Buy expensive sunglasses. Superficial? Yes, but so are the women judging you. And it tells these women you appreciate nice things and are responsible enough not to lose them.
PMB: Try signaling responsibility in more substantive ways than the sunglasses you wear, and maybe you won't be surrounded by such superficial women all the time.
GS: If you want a nice umbrella, bring a shitty one to church.
PMB: I have a PhD from Oxford and I have no idea what that means.
GS: Do 50 push-ups, sit-ups, and dips before you shower each morning.
PMB: And don't forget to wear the tank top of the gym you belong to while you're out walking your dog, bro.
GS: Eat brunch with friends at least every other weekend. Leave Rusty and Junior at home.
PMB: Are Rusty and Junior children or pets? And are they self-sufficient left at home?
GS: Be a regular at more than one bar.
PMB: But not after midnight more than three nights in a row...unless something really good comes up.
GS: Act like you'e been there before. It doesn't matter if it's in the end zone at the Super Bowl or on a private plane.
PMB: Or in an IRS auditor's interrogation cubicle.
GS: A glass of wine or two with lunch will not ruin you day.
PMB: But when you fuck up royally on a credit default swap because the combination of those lunch wines and the Ambien you took at 4am last night clouded your judgment, you'll ruin someone else's day for sure.
GS: It's better if old men cut your hair. Ask for Sunny at the Mandarin Oriental Barbershop in Hong Kong. He can share his experiences of the Japanese occupation, or just give you a copy of Playboy.
PMB: Yeah, I've been to Hong Kong; never left the Mandarin Oriental, but I'm sure you believe I'm a real world traveler from this yarn.
GS: Learn how to fly-fish.
PMB: Learn how to clean and cook a fish.
GS: No selfies. Aspire to experience photo-worthy moments in the company of beautiful women.
PMB: In other words, never update your aspirations from those of your adolescence.
GS: Own a handcrafted shotgun. It's a beautiful thing.
PMB: Place it next to your leatherbound book collection atop a shelf of rich mahogany, behind where you keep the fine single-malt scotch that you ignorantly drink with ice, proximate to the other cliches in your abode.
GS: There's always another level. Just be content knowing that you are still better off than most who have ever lived.
PMB: Be content, or be 'incentivized' to reach that next level after bus pass?
GS: You can get away with a lot more if you're the one buying the drinks.
PMB: As if you're the one buying the women, I'm sure you know.
GS: Ask for a salad instead of fries.
PMB: A sedentary lifestyle requires sacrifices.
GS: Don't split a check.
PMB: Why?
GS: Pretty women who are unaccompanied want you to talk to them.
PMB: Not the ugly ones though, right? Ugly women are allowed to have their own desires without you projecting yours onto them?
GS: Cobblers will save your shoes. So will shoe trees.
PMB: Do you tip a cobbler?
GS: When a bartender buys you a round, tip double.
PMB: Accept no acts of generosity without using money to leverage feelings of superiority and diminish the acts of others.
GS: The cliche is that having money is about not wasting time. But in reality, money is about facilitating spontaneity.
PMB: If you can't facilitate spontaneity without money, that the truth is that money only enables your lack of imagination.
GS: Be spontaneous.
PMB: Spend money.
GS: Find a Times New Roman in the streets and a Wingdings in the sheets. She exists.
PMB: A man of true refinement seeks a Garamond, and understands what this means.
GS: Piercings are liabilities in fights.
PMB: Investment bankers are liabilities in trying to have a night out where fights are avoided.
GS: Do not use an electric razor.
PMB: Time is too short to shave yourself.
GS: Desserts are for women. Order one and pretend you don't mind that she's eating yours.
PMB: And remember: salads are for men.
GS: Buy a tuxedo before you are thirty. Stay that size.
PMB: While you're at it, learn how to tie your own bow tie. All these fancy pre-tied men can't even operate the tools of their own vanity.
GS: One girlfriend at a time is probably enough.
PMB: Yeah, probably.
GS: #StopItWithTheHashtags
PMB: Hashtags are so un-curatorial.
GS: Your ties should be rolled and placed in a sectioned tie drawer.
PMB: Time is too short to curate your ties.
GS: Throw parties. But have someone else clean up the next day.
PMB: If ever there were a metaphor for investment banking, this is it.
GS: You may only request one song from the DJ.
PMB: What if it's R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" in multiple parts? Is that like a loophole, like carried interest?
GS: Measure yourself only against your previous self.
PMB: Invest in all-natural male enhancement.
GS: Take more pictures. With a camera.
PMB: But no selfies. And only in the company of beautiful women, in photo-worthy moments.
GS: Place-dropping is worse than name-dropping.
PMB: So please disregard what I said previously about hotels in Hong Kong, New York, London, and Singapore (if my accounting is correct; but we know you don't care much about correct accounting).
GS: When you admire the work of artists or writers, tell them. And spend money to acquire their work.
PMB: No wonder every single done-up Hoboken apartment has the same shitty artwork on the walls, and Business Insider's list of 35 books to read at least once in a lifetime is a high school English syllabus.
GS: Your clothes do not match. They go together.
PMB: They go together to the Korean guy who does your laundry and has infinite time.
GS: Yes, of course you have to buy her dinner.
PMB: She's not sleeping with you otherwise.
GS: Staying angry is a waste of energy.
PMB: So is holding the debts of people with no money.
GS: Revenge can be a good way of getting over anger.
PMB: See above, then reflect.
GS: If she expects the person you are 20% of the time, 100% of the time, then she doesn't want you.
PMB: If Jane is driving down the highway at 50 miles per hour on the way to Jeff's house, and Jeff lives 10 miles away from Jane, how long will it take Jane to get to Jeff's house?
GS: Always bring a bottle of something to the party.
PMB: Human blood.
GS: Avoid that 'last' whiskey. You've probably had enough.
PMB: We know because there's vomit on your suit. I'm stating to come around to this not doing your own lanudry thing...
GS: Don't use the world 'closure' or ever expect it in real life. There may still be a mortally wounded Russian mobster roaming the woods of south Jersey, but we'll never know.
PMB: But isn't 'closure' part of 'foreclosure'? See this is going to be problematic.
GS: If you are wittier than you are handsome, avoid loud clubs.
PMB: Always avoid loud clubs.
GS: Drink outdoors. And during the day. And sometimes by yourself.
PMB: Drink in a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox...in the dark, in the rain...
GS: Date women outside our social set. You'll be surprised.
PMB: So will their friends when you walk into the Raven sporting a tie clip and throwing your credit card down at a cash bar.
GS: If it's got velvet ropes and lines, walk away unless you know someone.
PMB: Unless they're lines of cocaine.
GS: You cannot have a love affair with whiskey because whiskey will never love you back.
PMB: At lest whiskey will fuck you.
GS: Feigning unpretentiousness is worse than being pretentious. Cut it out with the vintage Polo and that '83 Wagoneer in Nantucket.
PMB: Cut it out with Nantucket.
GS: The New Yorker is not high-brow. Neither is The Economist.
PMB: You're not high-brow unless you've read periodicals from before 1800.
GS: If you believe in evolution, you should know something about how it works.
PMB: Like for starters, evolution is not a 'belief.'
GS: No one cares if you are offended, so stop it.
PMB: "I'm entitled not to feel guilty for offending you."
GS: Never take an ex back. She tried to do better and is settling with you.
PMB: It may be that being settled for is your best option.
GS: Eating out alone can be magnificent. Find a place where you can sit at the bar.
PMB: Because your ego is too fragile to be seen alone at a table.
GS: Read more. It allows you to borrow someone else's brain, and will make you more interesting at a dinner party--provided that you don't initiate conversation with 'so, who are you reading.'
PMB: Don't be afraid to show off your sensitive side.
GS: Ignore the boos. They usually come from the cheap seats.
PMB: Validate all actions arising from your will, regardless of the consequences they inflict on others, by creating an axiom that says poor people aren't worth listening to.
GS: Hookers aren't cool, and remember, the free ones are a lot more expensive.
PMB: Did you catch the subtle dig at women who court rich men who court women who court rich men?
GS: Don't ever say 'it is what it is.'
PMB: Say 'it is what it isn't,' and maybe they'll actually buy a share of that junk.
GS: Start a wine collection for your kids when they are born. Add a few cases every year without telling them. It'll make a phenomenal gift in twenty years.
PMB: In twenty years your kid will be so spoiled and entitled that they'll wonder why you only got them a 200-case, 20-year-old collection when Michaela's mom got her 500 cases of wine and car for her super sweet 16.
GS: Don't gamble if loosing $100 is going to piss you off.
PMB: *$100 of your own money, that is. Only gamble with other people's money.
GS: Remember, 'rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.'
PMB: It's easier to be guided by the rules rather than constrained by them if you're the one making them up as you go along.
