Whether you’re 18 or 80, it’s tough being a guy today. Not that girls don’t have their share of problems too – it’s more that their problems often are us, or so they’re quick to tell us. Listen to women’s conversations about men. We’re low-life jerks. No - we’re crude, obnoxious, mean-spirited and egocentric low-life jerks! Hell, it’s almost to the point that we’re EXPECTED to be assholes. Ask a divorcee. Ask your ex-girlfriend. We’re a maligned race, we guys.
We can write it off as just the rantings of ill-treated females, but then, there may be some truth in their perceptions - perception being the operative word here. Like Joe Jackson said, we don’t know how to treat a lady, don’t know how to be a man. We think we’re operating within the scope of society’s expectations of us, but the questions linger. Should we be sensitive or ‘manly’? Are we cultural or are we badasses? Do we show our emotions or do we give a shit? Just how in the hell is a guy supposed to act? What’s acceptable? What do girls want? What will lead us to love and happiness - or at least get us laid more often?
The answer is that we often don’t know how to act, and so, we screw up. We do whatever we think is right or OK to get our share of life, sex and love, and often hurt ourselves and others – girls – along the way. We end up branded as liars, cheaters, jerks and assholes. And the truth is, some of us are.
When our dads and granddads were us, a couple or more decades ago, the rules on being a guy were pretty clear. Boys wore blue. Girls wore pink. You didn’t cry. You didn’t complain. You fumbled through adolescence, learned about sex with the girl down the street, went to school, worked hard, got married, had kids and took a vacation once a year. Life was great, right?
Today? Today the rules for guys are pretty hazy. Come to think of it – they’re aren’t any rules or guidelines for being a guy. Look in the bookstores. You won’t find anything titled ‘A Guy’s Guide for Sexual Fulfillment and Happiness’ or ‘Men’s Handbook of Sex and Love’. But hey, the girls sure have rules for dealing with us! There are countless women’s articles, books, magazines and websites – hell, they even have Cosmo! We hear there’s a book that gives girls ‘rules’ on how to handle us - what to hold out for, how long to hold out, why they should hold out, and then, when we finally figure out what they want and give it to them -- how to dump our dumb asses in the street! (Hey! We’re just kidding….just a little vitriol here to relieve our male angst.)
So, things have changed for guys. Society has ‘evened-out’ the male/female hierarchy of our forefathers. We’re now accountable for our maleness - society no longer gives us ‘boys will be boys’ refuge for our sins against women. No, we’ll get our weenies whacked off (or worse) if we’re cheaters. We’ll suffer humiliation and ridicule hitting on the hot brunette at the bar. We can’t openly leer, stare or whistle. And God help the poor sap that forget this stuff – he’s destined to in-your-face rejection followed by aloneness and abandonment. Just nights of dirty, X-rated, titillating, naked-ass movies, magazines and midnight reruns of Baywatch (of course, we’re just going on hearsay).
We need help. Admit it, guys – we continue to turn left here and right there, getting lost deeper and deeper in a bewildering backwoods of ignorance and guesswork. Let’s just pull the damn car over and ask directions! But who do we ask? Can we really rely on smug, smarmy, doctoral-candidate know-it-alls who haven’t a clue?! C’mon! Do we really believe Drs. Joyce, Ruth and/or Phil have the real skinny on this stuff? (Now, Dennis Miller has some good ideas, but we find ourselves laughing too hard to remember what the hell he said!)
Miller-man aside, let’s ask the only folks whose smarts and opinion we really trust – ourselves! Who better than you, your peers, your contemporaries - both male and female - to guide the way? To provide a true reflection of how it really is in our sexual society. To get the best advice on how to act, what to do, what not to do in the male quest for sexual – maybe romantic – fulfillment and happiness. And hey, why not? The state of relations between guys and girls hasn’t reached any stellar heights, here in the 21st century. The genders are sniping at each other with increasingly meaner and more distancing vitriol - and hey, guys – we aren’t winning!
Obviously, we couldn’t mess things up any worse by telling others what we think. What’s worked well for us. What hasn’t been so much fun. By asking girls what the hell they want from us – and then listening to what they’re saying! Hopefully, we’ll learn something from ourselves and from the gender with which we want love, happiness and fulfillment. Oh yeah - and good sex.
