I started lusting after girls before I hit my teens. I spent my youth playing baseball and basketball. I love horse racing, pro football, and fishing. I enjoy cold beer, straight whiskey, and the occasional cigar. I've owned a series of sports cars over the last three decades. Nonetheless, at the relatively ripe old age of 65, I've come to the unequivocal realization that I am a girly man.
As with most things in life, my wife came to this conclusion long before I did. Pretty much from the day we married she'd proudly announce to anyone in hearing range that she was the guy and I was the girl in the relationship. If something needed fixing around the house, I'd look at it, not have a clue what to do, and turn it over to my wife. I'd usually stay nearby in case she needed my "manliness" to reach something high or move something heavy, but for the most part I'd simply stay out of the way.
My wife also likes to point out that I'm the one who remembers our anniversary and can recall who-what-when-and-where minutiae about our first date. I like holding hands and cuddling far more than she does; and I'm the one who reads Nicholas Sparks novels, watches movies with subtitles and, with nary a trace of embarrassment, the one who cried when Haddie returned home from college to be with her cancer-stricken mom on Parenthood.
I used to attribute this aspect of my character to simply being in touch with my feminine side, but I now realize it's much more pervasive than that. I proactively seek out and embrace the feminine aspect of my character. Many of my closest friends are women and I do find myself confiding more to them than I do to my guy friends. In addition, while noodling this idea, I've also recognized that most of my guy friends are also girly men. They don't cheat on their wives, they don't drink or gamble to excess, they don't feel compelled to exercise their Second Amendment right to own firearms, and they tend to be soft-spoken, empathetic and humble. They're good people who don't hang out at the country club bar to escape from the old "ball and chain."
I've never been a particularly competitive guy. Whether playing sports or playing board games with friends and family, I don't really care if I win or lose. I'd prefer to win, but the reason I play is to play. I guess that's why I've never been attracted to the likes of fantasy football. In fact I don't even understand its appeal. It requires way too large a time commitment and delivers none of the intellectual, social or emotional rewards I value. Plus, if I had Russell Wilson or Luke Kuechly on my fantasy team would I have to root for them even when they're playing against my beloved Patriots? I don't get why anyone would purposely choose to add yet another conundrum to our already confusing lives. But there I go again thinking like a woman instead of a dude.
Life is short, which means it's all about choices. So rather than watching half a dozen sports events every weekend, I limit myself to one or two -- and oftentimes none. That means I can't name the leading running backs in the NFL, the division leaders in the NBA, or the top 20 NCAA teams. But I'm okay with that. It's not important to me. What is important is learning more about the world around me and the people that are important to me -- my family, my friends, my students, and myself. And the way I achieve that is via so-called girly activities like reading, listening, and introspection.
I've been a writer for my entire life. I sold my first article when I was sixteen, and I've had a wide variety of books and articles published over the years. Recently, however, I've decided that the "wide variety" was disadvantageous. I needed to focus my writing. So guess what? I decided to focus on the romance and "chick-lit" genres. I realized I enjoyed reading and writing about the interplay between men and women far more than the cat-and-mouse intrigue of mysteries or the life-and-death plot twists of thrillers. I've found that I learn far more about relationships and the human condition from Jodi Picoult than James Patterson. Similarly, I glean more insight when writing a love story than toiling away on a sci-fi adventure. And the beauty is that I can sip just as much whiskey while writing a bittersweet romance as I could working on a hard-boiled whodunit.
One of the assignments I give my students at Boston College is to write their own eulogies. That's a difficult and oftentimes troubling task for young people, and it's not much easier for folks like me in their seventh decade. But one thing I'd hope to have spoken at my funeral is that "he was a girly man and proud of it."