The "Man" Problem

This is not a post about being single.

Well, not completely.

This is about a conversation that I've officially had way too often.  No matter who it's with--coworkers, best friends--it's always eerily similar:

 Come on there are lots of guys out there.

Yeah, guys.  Little boys in the bodies of grownups, but no men.

You're going to come in one day with two black eyes and a big grin and say, 'I've finally got me a real man!'

Or:

No more passive-aggressive wusses.

Well, then, you're going to get beaten up again.

Why are those my only options?

 In every single instance, the conversation ends with the assumption that there are only two kinds of men out there: the "Real Men," who are all abusive apes, and the rest, who are so insistent about abdicating the role of Alpha that they forfeit their own spines.  I'll call them Amoeboys.

It seems our culture has decided to associate manliness with hyper-agressiveness. A Philadelphia Inquirer article about the rise of the anti-hero in superhero movies said exactly what I've been thinking forever:

Your little boy is damaged.
He's been traumatized by violence, oversexualized, and indoctrinated to believe that to be a real man he must be aggressive, narcissistic, manipulative, and misogynistic.

 So masculinity is boiled down to a stereotype.  And the ugliest, most dangerous one at that.  It sends the message that masculinity is something that has to be fixed, or sublimated like a flaw.  Where did it come from?  As an unfortunate simplification of the Feminist Movement, where all assertiveness was freared to be anti-woman?  Or the abovementioned hypersexual-hyper-violent media culture where violence is always the answer and humans are objects in the hero's game?  One theory I heard blamed it on men not being able to fix things anymore because our lives are run by machines we don't understand (when was the last time you upgraded your computer's memory or changed your own oil?  Basically, no more hunting-and-gathering.).

It doesn't actually matter.  What does matter is a generation of boys raised to believe that they have to transcend their own masculinity.  That they have to be so acquiescent to women as to be subservient, in order to avoid being labeled aggressive.  I call them "Amoeboys" for the amorphous organisms they resemble.  I'm a magnet for them, as far as amorphous things can be magnetic.  It's why eHarmony has been a spectacular failure so far; I refuse to make any kind of first contact, having decided that I'll only get more Amoeboys--if they want me, the grown-up men can be assertive and come to me.  It's not working--who's surprised?

I kind of get it.  I have a very, very strong personality, like, well, every single other woman in my family.  I provide a pretty rigid mold that Amoeboys can mold themselves around ("Here is what I want." "Oh I can be that.").  They defend this subservience by defining themselves as the opposite of the stereotype: literally, "well, I don't hit you, isn't that better?  I'm evolved."  Again, such stark choices.  Amoeba or Ape.  Punch or Puddle.  And since when do the invertebrates get to claim they evolved?  They've abdicated their own masculinity, and want a gold star for it--how on earth did this happen?  This isn't to knock any of my exes, they meant well and were wonderful people.  But Mother of God, Amoeboys are boring.

I can't believe the last one didn't stomp out the door when he heard me say this: "If we're always just going to do whatever I want to do, and you're not going to contribute anything, then why do I even need you?" 

It all boils down to simple Newtonian Physics: A Body In Motion Tends to Stay In Motion.  That girlfriend of yours with that big personality is a steamroller that's just going to run right over you unless you can apply some force.  Why would you want to be overwhelmed like that?  This is not to condone any kind of abuse, intimidation or violence on either side, or encourage hysterics and needless drama.  But you know how all those relationship experts say the couples who fight well are the strong ones?  I NEVER EVER had a fight with any of the Amoeboys.  No one's course is so correct that she can claim the momentum to be the perpetual-motion machine.  Every imperfect human being needs course correction, and that comes from friction.

Defining masculinity so narrowly, and treating it as a flaw because of that narrow definition, is unfair to everyone.  Especially the generation of girls raise right along side those boys, who were taught to be strong and assertive in good ways--that is, the opposite of Amoeboys.  We lose out because, here come the physics again...For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction.  Not just "there is," but usually "there has to be for such an action to occur."  When you jump as high as you can, you are physically shoving the ground away from you (action).  But it wouldn't work if the resistance of the ground itself weren't shoving you into the air (reaction).  Some of us need a force equal to our own.  So we all need to find a way to redefine masculinity, in the same way our mothers and grandmothers once redefined femininity, so a generation of strong girls AND boys can see how high they can jump.