10 Bad Manly Habits Worth Breaking

Having Bad Hands

There’s nothing quite as grody as shaking someone else’s hand and knowing that you need to find a bar of soap before you’ve even escaped their grip. Sometimes it’s simply the amount of sweat on their palm, but other times it’s the clear visual of a filthy hand or thick layer of black soot under the nails that points to a possible sexually transmitted disease hiding in their mitts.

Whether this is you or a friend, honesty may be the cleanest policy. Wash your hands before you eat, clip your nails every couple weeks to keep the funk out and use lotion so you don’t give off the bricklayer vibe. Just do everything your mother ever told you to.

Opening Pandora’s Mouth

It can present itself in many forms: a sneeze, a cough, a yawn or the granddaddy, a belch. Despite what you might believe at your core, people don’t want an endoscopy deep down your throat because Lord knows where that mouth has been.

If some of your indigestion tries to resurface with a second wind of fowl breath or snot, all you have to do is cover your mouth and save everyone from infection.

We’re very lucky that these zombie plagues aren’t real (yet), because with the lack of common hygienic manners, that virus would spread real quickly.

Acting Like a Know-it-all

Nobody likes them, and I would know because I used to be one, despite not knowing much at all. Regardless as to whether you’re right in most cases, it’s not technically required that it be documented by every unfortunate bystander.

Unless you’re preventing terrorist attacks, stop and think whether it’s more important to be the correct know-it-all prick or if you’re OK with letting a slight detail slide, however untrue, to avoid being socially insolvent.

If it’s not hurting anybody, there’s no point in correcting another, because being corrected is the only thing that really rubs people wrong, which means you’re only hurting yourself, smarty pants. And just to resolve a lot of future asshole corrections, there were, at one time, five ninja turtles, but the girl turtle couldn’t book it when they became commercialized.

Public Swearing

We know they’re fun little four-letter words to say, and they have the potential to make weak, ignorant sentences into big strong ones, but what the cuss?

It’s nice when people are smart enough to use their words instead of physical violence, but swearing in public is the fast track to having a classy gal tell you how immature and childish you sound. It’s true; women actually don’t enjoy the swearing, probably because it shows a lack of confidence and shortened vocabulary. On the flipside, using words like “gosh” and “darn” make you sound like a total pansy, so just learn how to use your words correctly. No matter how articulate you may think you are, less words is typically more when it comes to men. That way when you say something, it may actually carry some weight. And racial slurs are the darkest cuss words.

Litter Buggin'

There’s no bigger slap to Mother Nature’s face than tossing garbage on the ground or out the car window. Is there really that great a shortage of waste cans, or are you that anxious to rid yourself of this terrible gum wrapper burden? The only things you should be placing on the ground are your lady in the middle of a dewy meadow after a delicious picnic or your shoes outside the door of a Japanese restaurant.

While you’re at it, learn how to properly recycle. You’re not splitting an atom, just the two categories of trash. You don’t throw your whites in with the reds during laundry, do you?

Still Smoking

It may have been cool at one point in time, but now you’re just a single ionic breeze of air pollution in a consistently non-smoking section. The only thing worse is the one guy in the bar full of nonsmokers who lights up a fatty cigar right in everyone’s face.

The harmfulness of cigarettes was not well known in the early days of advertising, in which the Marlboro Man would ride his horse into town to smoke up his buds, but now after endless studies on the effects of cigarettes, smoking has been banned in most places and buying a pack has gotten pricey.

The number of smokers in the U.S. has dropped intensely by approximately one-third since 2000 thanks to smoking bans, and with good reason: your clothes, hair and breath reek of smoke through the following day, yellow fingers, discolored facial hair, bad teeth, lung cancer and flat out unattractiveness, just to name a few. Some of these apply to nonsmokers who just happen to be in the same room as a smoker.

Face it, you’re not Don Draper, and it’s not the 60s anymore. If you were, you’d probably be too busy verbally abusing someone or cheating on your wife to worry about something as little as cigarettes. Time to quit.

Picking Your Nose and Biting Your Nails

Every class has them. In fact, most kids grow up believing their boogers are a viable source of protein. Well, twenty years or more later, it’s not so much cute as it is repulsive. If you’re still willing to eat your own nasal waste, where does it end? Are you reaching wrist-deep into the punch bowl every time you hit the men’s room, too?

If you ever find your fingers are ever covered in snot, it’s time for a change. If you’re biting your nails (nervous or not), you might as well be licking a hobo’s armpit, and if you’re eating said nails, you might as well lick his puddle of urine. There’s no excuse for taking bodily waste and placing it back into your body.

Being a Bad Breath Seth

Morning or not, it’s the first thing people within five feet notice about you. Having bad breath is related to gum disease and cavities, too, so brushing your teeth is a normal activity that should be tended to early in your day. Hell, pop a mint, chew some gum or choke back some ginger root if need be.

It’s so simple to get rid of, yet so many people think they can get by without it, but they’re not fooling anyone. Not only is it a conversation killer, your peers will condemn you to the dirty crowd of people, sometimes referred to as “pond scum” or “transient losers.” Brush your teeth, bad breath Seth. You’ll be glad you did.