Get that man a spine

Recently, upon reflection, I had to face some inconvenient truths.

Broadly speaking (and I can speak only from the broadly point-of-view), I'm stronger than eighty or ninety percent of the men I encountered online.

I'm saner.

Less deluded, happier, and generally more flexible.

And you know what? I really, really, wish that wasn't the case.

For it's not that I am perfect, by any means. Introverted, self-questioning, sometimes clumsy, I have many traits that I'd like to change. I don't even know where I fall on the neurosis spectrum.

More or less, on any given day.

So I have to believe that the guys I've met, or with whom I've talked, aren't representative, statistically speaking, of the male population in America as a whole.

Because, really, the alternative is just too scary.

Weed out the cads (not that it's easy), the men looking to score, for a moment.

There seem to be a lot of men who just can't find the intestinal fortitude to speak for themselves, forge their own path, get a backbone.

Instead, they seem to lean, heavily, on the women around them.

And who is to say that some of these women aren't as wifty as they are?

I found myself getting more and more exhausted by the sheer need out there.

Sometimes I felt, not just like the adult, but like the schoolmarm in "the room."

"Something's happening to the men out there" said a friend of mine who is a counselor.

If so, what is it?

Is our culture somehow emusculating our boys so that they never learn how to be strong men (and being strong doesn't mean taking down the girls around them)?

Why is there so much dependence -- vulnerability to manipulation?

Does it feel safer to be bound in cords of velvet than learn to stand up for the magnificent persons you are?

I have no idea what's shaping this wave. And who knows, the women may be as sad and as much in a state of denial.

But I do hope that younger men can claim their own authority, grace and tenderness before the bad habits of years take over.

For the older guys, the ones I run into?

There's always time.

But only if you check your watch, and get crackin.'