What it feels like to be a man
Being a man today is tough. It’s tough because we live by an archiac code that our female counterparts have long since shed. We sit there, driven by our inner emotions and constructive thinking, and yet as we peer out into society, on one hand we have our lovely parents and family and friends telling us that it’s fine to be yourself and who you are, and on the other hand we have TV, media, magazines and god knows what else suggesting that we be muscle-clad beef heads with as much outward emotion as a cold rock.
It’s tough, we sit there, conflicted, not knowing which way to turn, adopting one stance for one person and a completely other for the next. Some of us take our confusion out on our familes, our kids and our friends, others, slink away into the dark shadows, a mere reflection of the person that they truly can be. We try to reason it all in our heads, explain it to ourselves the way things should be, like a logic equation, a set out path, but what we sadly miss out on is that 50% of being a man is actually “feeling like a man”, and that’s not a bad thing.
Feeling like a man is picking your little boy up that’s just hurt his knee from running, a big, bloodied scrape on the tip of his knee, and he’s crying his eyes out, yet you pick him up and squeese him tightly, you feel the love instantly in your heart, you kiss his knee, patch it up for him and get an ice cold bruise reliever for him to dab on himself. You hold him in your arms all the time as he gets comfort from your warm embrace.
It’s also breaking down in tears at the saddest point in a film, knowing that others can see your vulnerability. It’s ok to be vulnerable. It’s reaching for the hankies and blowing your nose profusely and wiping the tears away with the back of your hands as you can barely see what’s in front of you.
Feeling like a man is knowing that sometimes you’ll be emotional too, prone to huge bouts of anger, sadness, or happiness, and that those emotions are totally justified. It’s about recognising who to tell to fuck off when they minimise your emotions, and laugh and joke that you’re a big ‘woman,’ and who to let close to you, embracing those emotions, and validating them fully.
I hurt, and I’m not ashamed to show it to my Son. Feeling like a man is embracing the hurt and showing your offspring that you are actually vulnerable. That things can actually get to you, that the pinnacle point of life isn’t perfectionism but learning new coping mechanisms. And that’s fine. Feeling like a man is showing everyone you’re not perfect.
It’s choosing women to date but being entirely respectful of her and not groping, touching or anything of the sort without her consent. It’s not being forceful or aggressive or anything like such. It’s about being respectful wholly. And in every way possible.
Feeling like a man is treating your partner with respect, that when your friends laugh and joke about you being under the thumb you educate them on the difference between having a controlling partner, that wants to dominate you, and one that merely requires that you don’t go out with them five days a week. She wants to be with you a lot too!
It’s treating your partner with respect and listening to her, actioning what she asks you to do, because there’s many things that she does for you that you don’t realise or give her credit for. It’s treating her with the respect you would like your kids to treat their partners with, as you lead by example on how much you respect your wife.
And treating a relationship entirely as a two way thing. That if she wants to work and you to raise the kids, and that’s fine. That you’re still strong and vibrant and powerful and nothing should detract from that. It’s about having a loving, two way relationship in the fullest.
It’s also about being in the moment with her. When two lovers collide then being a man is breathing her body in, encapsulating her femininity in your wholeness as you both come together in mind blowing love making sessions, and not being away in the last porn film you watched.
Being a man is about loving yourself, and others.