I am far from a man-hater. I don't go around with the phrase "Girls rule, boys drool" on my lips and I don't mutter "Men" under my breath with a negative intonation every time a man annoys me. Yet, this past week or two, I've been viciously tested. In recent days, Fate has dealt me countless opportunities to categorize all men as pigs and wash my hands of the matter altogether. As a matter of fact, the most tempting opportunity drifted my way in the form of a phone call only a short while ago.
For the most part, I am a detached individual. I can prevent myself from getting emotionally involved in a situation where emotional involvement is not called for and I rarely feel inclined to do so, anyway. The list of people that I would go out on a limb for, worry about, or even want to care about is so short that it's less of an actual list and more of a quick little memo. List or memo, whatever you want to call it, it's there, and I've had one girl in the top tier of that list/memo for as long as I can remember.
I've always been very protective of her. Even after she moved away, I've jumped into the car (and sometimes, numerous buses) to make sure that I could be there with her when she needed me. Shopping emergencies, all-nighters, sprained ankles, car accidents, mom drama, midnight releases, coffee nights, movie marathons, sugar highs, rock shows, pop shows, mosh pits, boy trouble - we've done it all and then some. She's the Grace to my Will, the Karen to my Jack, and as such, I am perfectly willing (and more than ready) to kick a certain person in her life all the way back to Louisiana. All I need is the go-ahead.
It's that same certain person in her life that has got me thinking about how often the macho man complex coincides with Peter Pan Syndrome. Thinking about the two as separates, one would think that they were starkly contradictory, but analyzed more closely and compared, they're actually very similar. Macho men like to think of themselves as men's men; rulers of their domains, kings of their castles. They don't know how their dinners get made, how the laundry gets done, or why the garbage they left on the floor has magically disappeared by the time they come home from work, and they don't care. They're macho men. They're above cleaning and cooking and treating their lovers like fellow human beings.
And then we have men "suffering" from Peter Pan Syndrome. I must point out the emphasis on the word "suffering," because really, when a man is so horribly childish and lazy that he's manipulated his lover into taking on the role of his mother, does he really suffer at all? Here we have a man who is so socially immature and selfish that when he comes home from work, he expects his lover - who works full-time and goes to college - to fluff his pillows and bring him a sandwich while he plays on his Xbox. So tired from a long day at work when he can't even find the energy to hold a decent conversation, he manages to devise complex (albeit virtual) war strategies and shout, "Die, die, DIE!" at the television for hours on end before he finds the physical strength to climb into bed.
Comparing the two in a side-by-side table, the macho man complex and Peter Pan Syndrome are remarkably similar. They're both presented differently, but at the core, they show striking similarities to one another on the grounds that neither the macho man nor the boy from Neverland want to (or even know how to) lift a finger to help themselves. They would be lost without those little fairies who creep into their houses at night, wave their magic wands, and make all their chores go away.
God forbid they take out the trash without grumbling and complaining the whole way.
God forbid they put the game on pause for ten seconds to put a glass in the sink.
God forbid they learn to do their own laundry so they have clean clothes in the morning.
Half of the problem, as I see it, stems from the stereotype that if a man cleans up his own mess, deals with his own problems, and manages his own life, he's a sissy. Whatever that means. When did common courtesy and owning up to responsibility become "unmanly"?
My uncle, someone I used to be very close to, recently told me that I am not a man. (Warning: Paraphrasing ahead.) He told me that because of the way I dress, the way I think about gender roles, and the way I handle relationships, I am 0% male and that should own up to it. I told him that a few psychology courses he took in college didn't qualify him to dissect my psyche. We debated on this for at least an hour before I finally forced him into a checkmate, but it was a bittersweet victory. Now that I know what he really thinks of me, I can't go to him anymore. I don't think of myself any differently based on his opinion alone, but I still can't go to him anymore. People like my uncle have very popularized cookie cutter concepts of what a man is supposed to be and he made it perfectly clear to me just what his thoughts were. In response, I say this -
If a man is supposed to be intolerant, inconsiderate, lazy, single-minded, rude, and so obsessed with self-image that he puts down every variation that comes his way, then the world is in a lot of trouble.
A lot of trouble.
Listening to: Call Me When You're Sober - Evanescence
