The Guy Who Punts

The guy who punts, who kicks the can down the road, who blows things off, the procrastinator, the man who checks out, I am, you are, we are all these men at times. And yes! Sometimes it just feels good to check out. If you work, raise kids, have a relationship, check email, pay bills, keeping up is a lot of work. But the downside is you find yourself tired, letting down people you love. And so the paradox of it all, I started punting more often.

Punting in a different way, punting thoughts, trying to free up some resources, some mental bandwidth, to be more "checked in". Five minutes or ten, whatever is available, just sit and think, maybe close my eyes, then punt the first thought that comes to me, then the next and the next and the next, again and again and again. And down field about 50 yards or so, there's a bunch of thoughts, big and small - take out the trash, call Jake, email Julien's teacher, look for the table cloths, invoice Sanchez, post on the blog, figure out life - sitting on the grass down field and I can barely see them they're so far away and eventually they just dissolve into the grass, like fertilizer.

And the grass is the playing field, of life. And the punter works for me, he doesn't have a name, he is the guy who punts, he punts to clear the field, and when my mind is empty, he can take a rest, at least until the next thought pops up. And during this busy holiday season, I've been grateful for him. He's giving me more head space, more energy, all in the name of showing up for the ones I love and being more checked in. Amen!

Men, Change Now, or Tell Her, Shut Your Trap and Put Out? One Star Reviews: The Golden Underworld Of Amazon

Yesterday I spent some time on Amazon looking at the book "The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work" by Terence Real. The 4 & 5 star comments were fairly predictable and laudatory. And it was only when I clicked on one of the three one star comments, did I find some gold. By gold, I don't mean truth but insight into the panorama of manhood.

The main premise of Real's book is that the 20th century male is trying to meet the relationship expectations of his 21st century women and it's not working. It's not the man's fault but now he's got to change to catch up. As a relevant side note, the greatest expectation of a 21st century woman is (drumroll, please), take a guess:

A. Sex
B. Take care of the kids
C. Wash the dishes
D. Intimacy
E. All of the above.

And the answer is (second drumroll, please) intimacy. No surprise there.

So back to the one star reviewer, who says Real (the author) is wanting men to become "Chatty Cathies" and maybe, I thought, he's got a point. He goes on to say,

"The enduring theme of this work, which promises so much to women, revolves around men being to blame for the failure of modern relationships. It seems that we have neglected to alter ourselves to the necessary extent. If we did then we could better meet the needs of the liberated woman. The new rules are a process and curriculum whereby men and women can save their unions provided that men learn to act more like women."

Huh, that's messed up, men need to act like women?

The reviewer goes on, "Male nature is neither an outcome of regimes nor media slant, it is a result of biology. Over the course of the last decade the social constructionist perspective has been rendered obsolete by science. Women and men are known to have disparate biological imperatives and goals in life. Advocating for one sex to obliterate their concerns and proclivities in the hopes of making things easier for the other is both absurd and despicable. More importantly, it cannot work anyway. Societal cheerleading will never succeed in getting men to purge themselves of their essence...which is what makes them men."

Purge myself of my essence? What is my essence?

"Getting men to verbalize their thoughts and emotions is pointless, foolhardy, downright goofy, and a waste of time. After all, talking about emotion is as useful as singing about electrical engineering. Of course, there is much to disdain about The New Rules of Marriage, but what offended me most was its pervasive celebration of inequality amongst the sexes. Women want more out of relationships today so...men must give it to them. Why is that the case? In every equitable transaction, the side who asks for more must offer more in exchange. This leads us to ask, what do modern women offer men that is superior to what their predecessors proffered in the past?"

Marriage, an equitable transaction? What about love?

Three paragraphs later, he ends it, "Rather than internalize these New Rules men should memorize a more imperative injunction: Caveat Emptor."

Caveat Emptor means "Buyer Beware." (Had to look that up.)

So I kept going down the rabbit hole and clicked on all his reviews. Five star reviews of books about the death of communism, the fall of the welfare state, a title by the venomous Michael Savage, and a pattern emerged. It hit me, this guy was an old school guy, likely fitting into the social model of conservative Republicanism, an Obama hater. I had no disdain but had been intrigued to find him through a book on marriage.

And then finding, in the one star reviewer's company, was a two star reviewer's recommendation of "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It" by Patricia Love, a book working from the perspective that men don't like to talk about their feelings.

The two star reviewer said the Real book didn't work and her husband had heard about the Love book on TV and they tried it and it worked a lot better. Men hate talking about their feelings, it makes them feel like a girl. Wow! I thought, all my work on trying to help men get in touch with their feelings. Was it bunk? But then a one star reviewer named Sunny (male or female?) said of the Patricia Love book, "If you've read the bible you don't need to read this book. It's a very nice way of saying - Shut your trap and put out."

Huh? That's harsh. Well, maybe that works for some... women.

And then coming up for air, out of the rabbit hole, I had the grand (well, not so grand) realization which I've had many times but had somehow escaped me in the myopic underground of one star Amazon reviews: What works for one couple doesn't work for another. One size does not fit all.

A Republican southern couple might do much better with the Patrica Love book, whereas a Boulder, Colorado couple might do better with the Terrence Real book.

So, I thought, what kind of coach do I strive to be, with men? One who works with a man, based on who he appears to be? Or based in who I think he should be? Huh? We always have to be reminded: One size doesn't fit all.