I would rather be a man

I would rather be a man than to be a macho man. Although the difference might seem subtle or even inexistent, it does exist and its due understanding is of paramount importance in the pursuit to attain true equality between men and women.

A macho is, at first, a victim of himself. Pressured since birth to extol his stereotype in detriment of his own humanity. If you are reading this, and if you are a man, how many times have you heard that men do not cry? Or that men do not wear pink - only blue. How many times have you heard that men are meant to be the breadwinners? We are bombarded since we are forced out of the womb to suppress everything that makes us humans; we are taught that men do not show emotions, brainwashed to believe that we are some sort of super-humans, the problem solver, the protector and so forth. The madness goes on to the extent in which we teach our little boys that God has created us to his own image and that he has sent his only son to save us from sin. We are surrounded since the nursery by our fellow men, more than half of which will grow up poisoned by the belief that his gender is an appropriate and reasonable excuse for any of his transgressions, blatantly repeating that boys will always be boys whilst women can never be girls, even when they still are.

Not long ago I received a call from a friend, who said to be in need of a shoulder to ‘cry’ on and if I could lend him an ear he would pay for my pint - oh! The good old bro code. He talked for hours about how he had found out that his long term girlfriend had cheated on him, setting the whole scene to make sure I understood it was a proven fact and not a suspicion on his part. Then he started - as I delighted myself with my fifth or seventh pint - extolling how good a boyfriend he was, saying that he had never forbidden her to go out with her friends, he had never forbidden her to use this or that clothing, even though - he added - a lot of the outfits she liked wearing were not a proper outfit for a decent woman. He said, whilst staring into the void with his sad brown eyes, that she had stabbed him on the back. He said he was nice. He said he did not deserve such betrayal.

Suddenly, the sadness in his eyes was supplanted by rage and a wicked look as he said - oh! She has regretted it already. At this point, a sinister grin completed the countenance of one who desperately needed a straightjacket and a padded cell. He continued insisting that she had already regretted it and that she did so because she had come to her senses and realised what she had lost, no… what she had thrown away. He voiced, with a blatant pride that she had been calling him desperately. His countenance had now taken on a moue of distaste as he mentioned that she had gone to his house, that she had tried to apologise. He said, as if describing a heinous murder, that her theatricality was so good that her eyes were watering, but she managed to hold back the tears as if she wanted to appear strong, thinking that she was honourably acknowledging her fault. - As if there’s anything honourable in what she has just done to me! - He finished.

After too many pints to count, I was able to open my mouth for the first time. I have never been good at amending hearts, especially my own, however, in order to help my suffering friend I tried to make him take his eyes off of what he said his girlfriend had done to him and pay a little more attention to what he was doing to himself.

Most men get furious when women cheat on them not because of the cheating itself, but because the masculinity of a macho is so fragile that it feels threatened. To make matters worse, the threat does not come from another macho specimen with whom he can exchange a few punches. Provided the other hominid is bigger than him, he, who is not stupid to that extent, goes home seeking anybody on whom he can discharge such macho energy, so to speak. That is because; the boisterous demonstrations of macho-pride are not actually demonstrations, but a desperate cry for approval. 

As a dire outcome of hundreds of years being told who he was supposed to be, the macho never had the chance of even questioning himself who he was meant to be. Thus, given that the macho does not know who he is, he needs other people to validate his suspicions.

He suspects he is a man, but not a mere man. He suspects he is The Man. Therefore, as The Man he suspects himself to be, he submits his suspicion to stringent quality tests, which in turn are carried in three simple steps:

I AM - I WANT - I HAVE.

Step 01 - I AM:

This is the most delicate phase, in which the specimen tends to confuse step one with step two. In step one, the aforementioned researcher tries, as hard as he can, to convince himself that he is a man. Due to the fragility of this step, it can lead to two outcomes; one negative and another positive.

The negative outcome consists of the aforementioned phenomenon in which the researcher confuses step one - I AM - with step two - I WANT. This is particularly problematic to inexperienced researchers because what he really wants is to be a Man, and oblivious to the fact that he already is - at least biologically - he precipitates step two; placing his uttermost object of desire before the verb to be. 

As for the positive outcome, it is also a failure. However, as the researcher has, now, a bit more of experience in how to deal with the matter, he is able to understand that there is no other smoother way to slide into step two. Thus, he deliberately fails in the completion of step one; which consists of repeating to himself that he is a man in order to feel as such. The hominid researcher then outsources the validations that should have come from himself and ridiculously expects the others around to acknowledge him as a man by acting in the only way he knows, as a macho.  He shouts and drinks, he stomps his feet, hit on the table, laugh out loud and makes as much noise as it is humanly possible. If he is a rather large specimen, even better. He then seats on his chair in a very relaxed manner - as if he were actually trying to lie down on the bloody thing. He will do this, and whatever makes him noticeable to those around him, because as mentioned, is the smoother way to slide into step 02. 

Step 02 - I WANT:

After the rather turbulent step one, step two tends to be much more concise. Now, that the hominid is truly convinced of his identity - poor b*****d - he takes on the mantle of a hunter. Not just any hunter - I honestly do not know any famous hunter to make a fair comparison - it has to be a bloody good one. After all, now that he is kind of a hundred percent sure that he is a man - yeah, right - not even the sky is a limit, and that marks the end of step two and the beginning of step three. Now that the hominid-researcher has turned into the brand new hunter-man, all he sees are preys, and as soon as he finds a suitable one, he promptly jumps into step three.

Step 03 - I HAVE:

Similar to step one, this is a very fragile step that can lead to two possible outcomes, one means success, whilst the other… not even close. To understand the nature of this possible success - or failure -we must understand that step three - I HAVE - has two interpretations. First, if the hunter-man succeeds, he, then, gets to say ‘I have what I want’, and we all know that what the hunter-man wants is a she to be his. If by any chance she does not want to be his, he then thinks ‘I have the right’, and we all know the end of this kind of story.

As for the man, the real man, he refuses to be a macho because he understands what it is to be a man, what it means to be a man, the historical weight and the responsibility of being a man. Therefore, he is aware that chauvinism is a disease and it is not the sole duty of women to learn how to defend themselves and teach other girls to do the same. He understands that this is a subject urging a debate in masculine circles and that saying ‘I’m not a chauvinist’ is not enough. Thus, he understands that he must educate his fellow men, especially boys, how to be a man - a real man. So that hopefully, in the near future, we start listening to our Angelas and stop murdering our Marielles.

My friend looked at me confused, as he probably hoped for me to provide him with a different kind of support. I, then, as the teacher that I am tried to make him understand that he was not mad at her and that I honestly believed that what had happened was, indeed, a mistake. Moreover, I said that he should reconsider his initial thought, wait a few days and talk to her as a civilised human being.

He got mad. He questioned my loyalty - who are you, Cersei Lannister? He asked me why I was defending her after all I had heard. I remembered him that just a couple of days prior to that encounter, we came across each other in a party, and then I asked him if he was not the one who told me to have gone out alone that night because ‘I wanted to have something different’. I told him that he had never lied to her as much as he had been lying to himself. To her, he merely omitted the fact that he was not as faithful as he claimed to be. Therefore, when he saw himself in her, he understood what he had done, which meant that he was bitterly disappointed in himself, not her.

Once again, he got mad. Michael Douglas in Falling Down kind of mad. He could not speak without stuttering, repeating harshly that his case was different. Yelling - as the hominid does in step one - that he was a Man.

I did not need to say anything else for him to get madder and madder, until the point that he simply vented out of the place, and the worst part is that he did so without paying the bloody tab.

Author's Note

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