Eugh! Short nails!

[Lobsang]

I am a man with long nails.

I am not gay.

I don't want to be a man with long nails.

But the utterly horible experience of having short nails forces me to have long nails.

Think of the sound of someone scraping their fingernails down a blackboard. Does it make you shudder and/or contort your limbs? That is how I feel when I touch anything (especially fabric) with short nails.

The skin that is normally protected by nail is sensetive, and the feeling of touching most things is horrible.


Anyone else get this? I would love to know what you do when you've broken a nail.

[matt_mcl]

Um.... you realize you can trim your nails to about one millimetre in length, without exposing any "skin normally protected by nail," right? What is trimming your nails for you? Ripping them out from the roots?

[Shade]

<sarcasm, because even with people I like, I can't resist being sarcastic in BBQ>

I agree! Damn digital measurements. Can't someone invent a length between 'short' and 'long'? It would be so convenient! No longer would we have to go through:

Small coke, please.
Here you go.
But that's barely a mouthful! How about the large?
Ah, you want the 'Niagara' serving.
Err, not quite. How about I get some more of the smalls.
How many? 1 or 10100?
Never mind

</sarcastic>

[Wabbit]

Good lord Lobsang--you're a damn freak of nature if it's that painful for you to touch anything. And it can't be more painful than breaking a nail (which is why I keep mine short--long nails are revolting IMHO).
So get to trimmin' boy! ;)

[Tansu]

When you've got long nails, the skin of the frontmost part of your fingertips doesn't get the chance to become toughened up, as it's protected by the long nail. If I break a nail, that part of the skin is a little more sensitive to touch than the rest of my fingertip for a little while until it gets used to it. Your skin can get accustomed to touch if you give it the chance. If you cut your nails, you'll only have to put up with the sensitive thin-skin feeling for a short while. The human body is pretty adaptable, you know.

[NurseCarmen]

My wife has the same deal. I thought she was some sort of lone freak. I was wrong. It turns out Lobsang is a freak too. :D :D

[Kalhoun]

Grow them to medium and quit weirdin' us all out.

[butter pie]

Huh. I cut mine as short as they could possibly get. You just need to toughen up the skin of your hands, boy.

[butter pie]

You know... do some manly work. With your hands!

[Lobsang]

OK. so I don't have 'long' nails. But I have them longer than most males I know - who sometimes seem to have no nail at all, what with biting them.

Mine are roughly one milimetre out from the 'connecting' skin. If they end at the connecting skin (like most males I know) then it is uncomfortable.

It does not 'hurt' I'ts just cringeworthy.

[zweisamkeit]

One millimeter is considered long? Here I was, thinking you had at least quarter-inch tips!

FWIW, I love guys with well-groomed nails. And it doesn't necessarily follow that you don't do a lot of work with nails. Hell, I worked as a garage tech with perfect manicures (my own nails, no fakes), with nary a chip, even after bashing my nail head on with a wrench.

[AHunter3]

Lobsang, we could never sit next to each other at the banquet table...

See? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=158047)

[Flutterby]

Anyone with extremely short nails drives me nuts. Like a millimeter from the skin is cool, that's fine I love that. Anything shorter just makes me cringe when I look at it.

I don't know why it does though, when I was younger I had really bad nails. Now I have nails that most other women seem to envy. When I wear nail polish I always get asked if they are real. The only time I have ever worn fake nails are those halloween nails when I was a kid.

Of course the opposite drives me nuts too. How can anyone do anything with nails that are longer then a centimeter give or take a millimeter or two? Since I work with food now I keep my nails trimmed to the tops of my fingers, but I cannot bring myself to trim them anymore then that. *shudders*

[Lobsang]

I just noticed/realized - No-one has rated my Pit thread. That seems to be the done thing here.


I am expecting a 2.

(or maybe a 0, looking back at the OP, it could survive un-criticised in GQ)

[SPOOFE]

I have "long" nails. For me, anyway. I used to HATE having ANY white nail showing, and I'd chew it off without giving it a second thought. I was an incredibly dedicated nail biter... 'til my grandmother offered me a hundred bucks to stop chewing my nails.

Now I have these harpy claws. The kind that go "click" instead of "squish" whenever I type on a keyboard.

Fuck you, nails!

[Wabbit]

No SPOOFE, fuck YOU!!!

[zoo]

I bite my nails so they are allways short.
I have broken the habit and allowed my nails to grow but because I am not used to having them long they would fetch up on everything and it would really hurt.
I now keep my index fingers at a normal legnth (try picking up a dime on a hardwood floor with no nails) but the rest are quite short. Drives my wife nuts.

[zoo]

I bite my nails so they are allways short.
I have broken the habit and allowed my nails to grow but because I am not used to having them long they would fetch up on everything and it would really hurt.
I now keep my index fingers at a normal legnth (try picking up a dime on a hardwood floor with no nails) but the rest are quite short. Drives my wife nuts.

[AHunter3]

I'm going to have mine surgically removed. I figure after the first three days or so, the "quick" will dry out and quit hurting and I'll never have to cope with them again.

[Nightime]

I play guitar, so I keep my nails very short on my left hand so they don't get in the way, but have long nails on my right hand.

[SPOOFE]

No, Wabbit, fuck YOU!! Long and hard! Right in the ear!

[Troy McClure SF]

Originally posted by SPOOFE
No, Wabbit, fuck YOU!! Long and hard! Right in the ear!

Are we talking about nails still?

[Wabbit]

No, not the ear!!!!

Have you no humanity?!

<runs weeping from the room>