“Get in the ring”
“The gloves come off”
“Pistols at noon”
“Come at me, bro”
“Do something”
They all mean fight.
taps Sonya on shoulder “Put up your hair.”
Sonya taps you really hard on your face causing blood to gush as you hit the floor
Perhaps it was about Square Dancing. Were boots involved with the shirt?
This is the primary meaning I take the term ‘square up’ to mean. When I read the OP saying “I Love My Wife but sometimes I want to square up.”, though the meaning doesn’t quite fit, I took it as “I love my wife but sometimes I want to trade up”. Meaning, trade her in for a newer model, maybe with easier handling.
Sounds weird to me. Maybe it started as one of those, ____ do it in the ___ sayings. Or it originally had a carpenter’s square on it and that part got dropped? A visual pun in other words.
Googling it though, led me down a rabbit hole. “I love my wife’s butt…” - OK, I get that but, “I love my wife, my country and getting pegged” (complete with an American Flag and a bald eagle, left me a little confused.
Trade up makes sense, but it would be a brave Walmartian to wear such an atrocity in public.
I’m glad I’m not the only one puzzled by this dopey saying.
When I read your original post, I immediately thought of these guys.
square up - to turn so that one is facing something or someone directly, head-on, shoulders square
I mean…I guess the sentiment makes sense in a way (for some people) but it’s not clever nor even remotely funny. Why would you put it on a t-shirt?
There’s a subgroup that is proudly violent, even it’s often for display only.
I see someone is unfamiliar with the “Wife bad!” school of Boomer humor.
This boomer is grateful every day for my wife. I would never joke about physical fights between us. I don’t even like to argue with her.
Mazel tov!
It is, however, something Millennials and Gen Z have taken notice of in recent years - a lot of Boomer jokes, both amateur and from professional comedians, seem to revolve around older men hating their wives to the point where we wonder if they even wanted to get married in the first place.
Just google “Boomer humor” or “wife bad” and you’ll find plenty of examples.
This.
That is a different and totally legit definition of “square up.”
But from the rest of the context, the meaning intended is the one @Chefguy posits, not this one.
IMO YMMV.
My first thought was that it was composed by a non-native speaker of English who REALLY fucked up an attempt to communicate the concept of “trade up.”
I always thought it (I hate my wife humor) stemmed from the wish of men to be ‘free’ of their aging nagging wives who may have gained weight, don’t want sex any more, and aren’t ‘hot’ any more. Accounting for their deep envy and respect of Hugh Hefner and Playboy, where there are no old harrridans in curlers and ratty robes but an endless supply of ‘hot’ new better looking meat. And there they are, stuck mowing the lawn, stuck with their boring old spouses and obnoxious demanding kids.
Roseanne Barr, Joan Rivers, and Phyllis Diller built careers making fun of their husbands, so it was not completely one-sided.
Millenials and Gen Zs just haven’t been married long enough to appreciate the humor.
Us tweeners were taught that. First with Ralph Kramden, then his “son” Fred Flintstone. Husbands were always afraid of getting bonked on the head with a rolling pin. Taught me everything I know about relationships.
I’m not sure where the line is between this, and more generally all humor involving complaining about or expressing animosity towards one’s spouse (or significant other), which is probably as old as marriage and/or humor itself.
His “son” Fred Flintstone…love that. 