Gender Benders

Internet dating is not an activity for the faint of heart. Last fall, after realizing it had been four years since my only love (aka the Dude) and I parted ways, I thought I'd give a relationship another whirl. As nobody seems to speak without first filtering through Facebook or eHarmony I signed up on a free site and waited for the adventures to begin. Within days my inbox was full of puzzling responses from men assuring me they could single-handedly take down three men in service of my protection or various poorly spelled variations thereof. Most included pictures and most were freakishly large men with thick necks so I assumed it was just the steroids and hit delete. After about a week of this, some chap with the moniker Tru2U asked "What's a mensch?"

My profile indicated I was "looking for a mensch-someone you can count on to have your back in sketchy situations." In retrospect I ought to have predicted the confusion that would result from this ambiguity. It seems my would be paramours who bothered to google mensch had as much difficulty defining manly as me.

On a trip to Nepal I spent time over the course of a week with a local business man. The first day he laughed at me and my adamant, if floundering, attempts to do everything for myself. Many of these things, ordering dinner, asking directions, would have been easier if I'd demured to his capable countenance but I was nothing if not obstinate in my efforts. "I've heard," he said shaking his head and chuckling, "that you Western women are like men and now I see it's true."

Naturally, I was deeply offended by this and pressed him for an explanation but he just laughed and waved his hands. By the second day however, I was already resigned to following his lead and began to see how much simpler things were when he handled them. I began to relax. I let him take care of me. He was not only solicitous but he anticipated my needs. For the first time in years I was able to let my guard down. And, as embarrassed as my culture would insist I should be to admit it, I fell in love with this man in the chaos that is Katmandu for this simple reason: he made it easy. Like he made everything easy. Anything I needed or merely wanted he made it happen. Mind you, I'm a simple girl and my wants and needs are fairly simple too, but still, to me, that was manly. How, I ask you, is a girl to resist?

Since then I've had numerous conversations with males about manliness because it seems to me something that's sorely lacking in our culture. How did we lose it? Was it ever there or am I just being sentimental about some place we've never been? One fellow I discussed this with said simply, "You're liberated now, get over it." Possibly. But does my right to education and the vote necessarily preclude his right to have good character and be nurturing?

One Christmas the Ex (not the Dude) and I were shopping in a big box electronic store. In the middle of the second verse of "Run, Run Rudolph" there came the resounding crash of breaking glass and a voice yelling, "Give me everything in the case!" Someone was robbing the camera section of the store. I knew this because I witnessed the entire event from where I stood behind the movie shelves. My ex, on the other hand saw nothing, as he had ducked behind me and was using me as a human shield. This then, by my standards, is not manly.

I am not suggesting, by the way, that he ought to have sheltered me from any potential onslaught of bullets but I do maintain that he might have retained a shred of my respect (and respect is, according to psychologists, sociologists and others who study these things, actually more important to the viability of a romantic relationship than love) had he not pinned my arms to my side in an effort to hold me in place. So yeah, not manly but this is, apparently, what a mountain of burned bras has bequeathed me.

How did this happen? Is there more to this than culture? It seems I'm not alone in asking these questions about masculinity and, most heartening to me, Oscar Boyson has, in "An Emasculating Truth", reached the same definition of manliness as me; among other things a man accepts responsibility, is caring and nurturing. And where there's one there must be more than one. So there may be hope for this spinster yet.

Plautdietsch Word of the Day : Kjäakjsche = kitchen maid (or "the help")