I May Be a Man

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What is UP with the drama? Look, I don’t need any. See me over here sitting quietly on the end of the girly, feminine spectrum? I hate shopping, don’t do eyeliner, clip these nails the moment they’re long enough to go. If you want to torture me, force me to endure a bridal or baby shower and make me play the games – your idea of fun. I have nothing to add to inane talks about your favorite TV shows because I’m a bore who doesn’t watch TV or movies. I’d rather be writing my book on the meaning of life. Are you getting this? I’m not a busybody, don’t know pop culture, don’t gossip. And I still attract drama.

Because I am a woman.

Oh, to be a man! When life is as simple as the pork juice on your chin and the beer bite on your tongue. To be able to hear yes and no without translating no and no. To enjoy the peace of mind that a few minutes of exchange will not spin into a saga. Why in the world did I spend those months investigating the sport of fighting, wondering why men punched one another and then hugged? Oh, if I could upper cut a woman who pushes me over the edge, shake her hand, and call it good with some honest fun in a mean game on the court. Only with women could a BFFship of years dissolve in one hard acid day.

And how do you men take your nice, strong arm and sweep the clutter of To Dos off your mental table? It’s a gift – the amazing ability to check in with yourself, distill competing voices down to your need in the moment. Why did I ever complain of your one-track mind? Food, sex, game that’s on, sleep. You just roll over, close those eyes, and…”Honey? Honey? I was saying –” You’re gone. Way off in a deep sea of sweet nothingness. I’m jealous. I’m stupid. I mean, why wouldn’t I want sex or sleep? Ah, but I carry within the million-dollar answer. Hostage to hormones. People say that time of the month like it’s one day. It can run a week, people. And that’s all just the merry prelude to the bloody show. Did you know many of us also feel discomfort and get emotional when we ovulate? How many clear and free days does that leave us in the month? I’m pleased not to be one of those women who can call up tears at will. But catch me on the right days, and I’m a bawling mess. Weeks like this, I’m not sure which is worse. To be a woman or to have to live with one.

 

183 thoughts on “I May Be a Man”

  4. Well…you just made my day! Oh so true. I have no idea how old you are, but it gets better with age. I believe I got invisible balls at my 40th birthday, they grew over night and I got the “I don’t give a shit attitude” on my 50th birthday…all that combined with Menopause…it’s my dream come true lol. I am finally the woman I wanted to be when I was younger. I just don’t care anymore about how I am suppose to be…finally I am who I want to be. I say what I think and mean it. Some might not like it, but oh well it won’t be their first loss! I wear what pleases me, high fashion or old comfort clothes…it’s all me. Great post…Thank you for sharing! (sorry for the rambling)

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  5. Say it, Sister! I’m on the far side of menopause (thank heavens), but I remember the earlier days well. You could have written that entire post about me (and about most other women, I think). Was it cathartic?

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  6. LOL, awesome! I love honesty. I am a no drama-mama. Naturally I seem to encounter every single drama queen on the planet. I have enough drama in my own head people! I don’t need it on the outside, too! Sometimes women can really make me crazy and I am one. Go figure.

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  7. Oh my gosh–baby showers and bridal showers!! I refuse to go to those. But can I interest you in a Pampered Chef party or whatever kind of jewelry you are selling to supplement your income for, you know, fun? Hang me by my thumbs, but please no girly ‘fun.’ ‘Cause it is really not. Whew! Loved this one…yeah, don’t even get me started. 🙂

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    • I sold a variety of products, mostly health – one season. But yep, ditto on the girly tupperwarish sales parties. Except for one I actually might go to next month because they are functional coolers for all the homemade stuff I schlep everywhere.

      Hang us by the thumbs is right.

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  9. But wait till you hit 50 and the hormones become an E Ticket ride at Disneyland (oh but you’re too young to remember that, just like you’re too young for Menopause!) and Your “clear and free” days are as rare as a pimple-free face on a teenager. Fun, fun, fun….

    Great post.

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  10. My daughter and I have SO much fun giggling about male vs female brains. We laugh so we don’t cry 🙂
    Hang in there, Mama….you’re doing it with grace and style. I’m smack dab in the middle of surgical menopause and that roller coaster is every bit as interesting 🙂
    You have had a prolific writing day, no? I’m so glad that I get these e-mailed to me now…I don’t want to miss anything. You’re a gem!

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  13. Hey! I never see your posts in my reader anymore. I was just thinking about you the other day, wondering how you are. This post doesn’t sound anything like the earlier ones, has someone hacked your account? Or perhaps slipped you a little extra something in your wine glass? All in good fun, though, I hear your gripes. I used to not like girls much, “so catty,” I used to say. Decades later, I have a few girlfriends I can trust. I see them almost never, though, so perhaps this is an illusion!

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  15. You must be my sister from another mother because I DO NOT like drama and people who are at war within themselves just can’t stand it. I would swear on four m&ms if I were a boy, I could probably coast through life. Can’t we just be left alone? I worked with a bunch of men before and I tell you, besides the ocassional needy dama king/social vampire it was like a vacation from petty enmity.

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  17. I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying. I’ve never really been a girly, girl, although I do manage to throw on some girly clothes and make-up from time to time. I think I’d like to be a cat, I prefer ‘pussy’ to ‘bitch’ any day…sorry, I lost it there for a moment.

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  18. I found this quite amusing as a man. 🙂 especially since I could care less about any games or beer HAHA.

    However, one section of your post reminded me of a quote I once heard (forgive me, I can’t remember the source) which says “men socialize by insulting each other and they don’t really mean it, women socialize by complimenting each other and they don’t really mean it.”

    I did enjoy this post. 🙂

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  19. Although I may not have as much life experience as you, I could definitely relate to this! Thank you for sharing 🙂 I’m glad to know that I’m not the only ‘non-girly’ girl out there 😀

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  21. “Way off in a deep sea of sweet nothingness.” Yes we can! 🙂 I’m sure you’ve seen that most entertaining video on “The Nothing Box!” The presenter ends his entertaining discourse by saying there’s nothing that drives a woman mad more than a man in his nothing box.

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  22. Hostage to hormones–that’s the key! Had you ever thought what the world might be like if men woke up mad just because their “horrormones” took over that day? Talk about wars and rumors of war! I look back on all those days of cycles and wonder how my husband has managed to hang around for 53 years! He has to be a jewel.

    Then there were the days before my cycles, when I envied my three brothers and wished desperately to be male. The brother older than I could take his violin and catch a bus to music lessons across San Diego during WW2, and nobody told him he was too young or too fragile to go by himself. The two brothers younger than I were my wards–yes, I was responsible for them, not the other way around. They were in my face every waking minute, and I only had quiet time to think and reflect after they were in bed. It was like being a mother when I was not old enough to be one.

    Don’t mistake me, I loved those little boys; they gave me the purpose and skills I needed long before I had children of my own. I loved them, but wished I could be a boy and climb trees without someone saying, “Keep your skirt down.”

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  23. BFFs who suddenly just dump you … ugh, yes, I’ve had my share of those. It hurts, too! How is it possible to be fascinatingly unconventional one minute, and unacceptably not normal the next? Oh well … moving on.

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  24. After all the drama that came with having BFFs, I decided to stay away from women as much as possible.
    Then I woke up some days ago and somewhere in my state of nothingness, realised i was such a girl! Felt a lot like i had been living as one person on the outside and someone totally different on the inside. Been meaning to write about this new discovery.

    And the things men bond over? Beer, Brawl, Ball (footie or Bball), Their lives are so easy.

    Why do we get so hormonal eh? I can’t stomach anyone at that time of the month 😦

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    • Yeah, actually, I went to bed after posting wishing I’d mentioned how I discovered this year I HATE everyone 2, 3 days out of the month – the most intensely symptomatic of days.

      That’s cool: write about the realization! =)

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  26. “I’m not sure which is worse.” Uh, both? Tee heee…Very relatable, though. Very, very, and did I forget to mention, very relatable??? 😉

    Just curious, what martial arts do you train for? I’m just about to go back to the one I used to go to.

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  28. Ummm, I’m not sure what to say. Well, I do have one short story about tuna fish (not what you think, whatever you may be thinking – Ha!). 😀 Many moons ago I used to haul frozen unprocessed tuna whole from Cape May New Jersey to a Canadian manufacturing plant in St. Andrews new Brunswick. I had a temp controlled trailer and we would preset it to -20 F before loading and then the fish, completely whole (and quite large) would be hand loaded one fish at a time frozen whole just as they came out of the water.We would stack them like frozen cordwood with all those glazed eyes watching with disapproval.

    At the receiving end the process would be reversed until the trailer was empty. I was quite taken that half the employees unloading were women. I had a tour of the plant (I used to like to do that if there was time and permission) and found that half of all the emplyees were women. I spoke with the supervisor as I had never seen so many women working in a processing plant before -each was inevitably staffed primarily with men. The town was quite small and the plant was the major job provider. Which meant that half the job applications received were from women. The plant had originally hired mostly men on the belief that the employees need to be strong enough to handle the heavy lifting. The problem was that men took short cuts with safety and the injury record was not good. Someone had the bright idea of trying the women as employees and sure enough the record began to get better. They found that the women would find other ways to get the lifting done and could, in the end be as productive as the men. So they went all the way and deliberately made half the employees women. The safety record became sterling and they were incident free. The productivity went up (apparently the men thought it was important to work hard around women to impress them) and the absenteeism rate dropped to zero. Consequently the cost of production dropped and the plant became more profitable, securing everyone’s job. At the same time the equipment last longer and was in better repair as the emplyess were more careful and aware. The overall effect with the 50-50 gender balance was an improvement on all levels – from safety to productivity to attendance to profitability. The plant was evetually shut down because of a political scandal – Tunagate – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunagate but until then it was the most effcient in the business.

    The moral that I took from this story was that men and women are apparently designed to work/be together and whenever there is a lack of one gender or the other, personal and group problems occur. So, in recap, I’m not sure it is a question of whether we work with men OR women but rather how do we figure out how to work with men AND women.

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    • All right. All RIGHT! lol
      Great story. All’s I know is what I’d failed to mention. That wherever it’s mostly women working “together”, it’s just an estrogen bomb about to go off and I’m outa there.

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  29. I’m with you! No drama, make-up or shopping. I don’t relate well to other woman. Most of my friends are men… Although they can get catty at times!

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    • Actually, when I became a Christian many moons ago, the transformation was so great on all levels I came to embrace my femininity. Hence, perhaps, the tone many of you might know me through. I can do posts on the importance of embracing and appreciating our own gender and friendships in it, but….

      ….some days out of the month I think the trouble with women around women offsets the benefits. LOL

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  30. Hello, soul sister (but we already knew that didn’t we?) Don’t wear make-up, like to grow my nails, but never adorn them with polish, hate wasting time on back stabbing, and like shopping (actually am a little obsessed with it, especially if it involves a deal, but dislike stores especially department stores. Would much rather get some thing off craigslist.) Other women seem to sense my differentness (fu, spell check, it’s a word) and purposefully avoid me. I used to wonder why. Now, I am glad for my own company, and proudly flaunt my strangeness. I had a friend once, well, he was my father’s friend, but he was also a friend to me during a very lonely time, who used to call me twisted sister. Maybe that’s what we are!

    Fondly,
    elizabeth

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  31. “I mean, who in the world would slam you because you sent them a surprise dinner made with love?”
    – Forget the women, send em my way. Absolute appreciation will be manifest by the juice on my chin and beer bite on the tongue.

    “Oh, to be a man! When life is as simple as the pork juice on your chin and the beer bite on your tongue.”
    – True – until our 30’s. … if only that were the case forever.

    “Food, sex, game that’s on (specifically football), sleep.”
    – Million $ answer? “Hostage to hormones”. Please do reaffirm this to the future wifey, especially stress the first two. Much thanks in advance!

    I’m not sure which is worse. To be a woman or have to live with one.
    – Ah… women. Thank God, I love em.

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  32. Yeah, women are weird.
    Recently I was eating lunch and a bunch of high school girls “friends” were sittin together. Each time one got up to refill a drink, the others talked trash about her. This happened to every one of em. I couldn’t understand why they thought nobody was talking about them when they got up. Oh well, time for a beer and football.

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  34. Well you just saved me having to write out my pretty much exact thoughts on this subject! It’s so nice to know, after 50 years on this Earth, that there is someone out there who thinks the same things as I about this. Fancy a game of bball followed by a shot or two at a bar some day?

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  35. I’ve worked mainly with women for all of my working life. There are bad and good women (and I’ve encountered some very bad ones), but I’ve never experienced behaviour on the scale of you and your commenters Diana. I’m most definitely not a girly girl and most of the women I mix with socially aren’t either. I also hate drama, while also being a hostage to hormones for part of the month, but I find it very sad when women discount other women as being all the same in a negative way.

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    • I half-feel bad (as in sorry and guilty) because this is coming from you, Andrea. =/ The post was in half-jest. ^^ I don’t honestly believe all women are evil (aahhh, though the next post might have you believe otherwise about me) and of course I know blanket statements about anything and any gender or group is ridiculous. As I said to some others here (in self-mockery), I am sure I would sing the enviable prize of motherhood — between cycles. ^^ Hope I didn’t disappoint you tOO much. This was supposed to be funny. HAHA. *punch arm* Eehhh…. eh. *slump*

      Xxx
      D.

      AND that’s AWEsome that you have managed to enjoy mostly peace among all those women!! =)

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      • Not at all Diana – I could see the humour in your post, I was just a little sad at all of the comments, which seemed to be saying that women couldn’t be trusted – which always seems worse to me when it comes from women themselves 🙂

  36. Boy am I glad I’m no longer in that club! When I had to have a hysterectomy in my forties it seems like a and thing, especially as my ovaries went too. Actually it was a bonus, even if I did have to suffer hot sweats, cold sweats, night sweats and an emotional roller coaster for a while.

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  37. This had me in stitches this mid-morning…such a witty well written piece, and I think a classic I must file away. While I won’t admit to the fact that men have their moments as well, the drama that comes from the fairer sex that we love does make for a more eventful life and while we will not admit it, makes us love you just all the more. At least I think that is the case…I just may be feeling a bit more optimistic this morning than usual 🙂

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    • I don’t buy the optimism. It’s what Truth Tracer said (took this post to break the silence of this reader). You guys just don’t care how @#$$ women can be. You’re not the ones wiping the egg smear off your face and wresting the knife out of your back. All’s you see are the boobs and legs and pretty long hair, and couple that with the pork fat between your teeth, life is certainly good nuff.

      HA (bet u never expected a comment like this from me).

      lolololol

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      • Are you telling me that you don’t see or feel the same when you’re around a woman?!? How can that be possible 🙂

        And you are correct, ha ~ never expected such a comment from your witty, caring and optimistic mind 🙂

      • I don’t get any jollies even around brawny biceps and shirtless six-packs. =)

        Perception is such an interesting thing, isn’t it?

        *She asks a photographer* ^^

        Optimism is never a word I would’ve attributed to myself. But the Holistic Journey is one place where I cling to

        hope.

  40. I feel like you were reading my mind 🙂 I enjoyed this post very much. I’m not a girly girl either and I think men have it really easy all the time (unless they have to shave every morning, then they have it very easy 23 hours and 45 minutes a day) 🙂

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  41. Sing it, sister! I pinch myself regularly to keep believing my good fortune in spending my married life with a person who is as unsuited to easy gender definition as I am. Want a hammer swung here? I’m your guy, having grown up in a construction-centric family and done my years of labor in that field. Wanna watch a chick flick and cry genuine tears over it? Call my tender-hearted, imaginative spouse. Love to look at outlandishly tall and pointy shoes but refuse to wear them at the cost of my comfort? Oh, yeah, me too. Have super-sensitive senses and revel in looking at beautiful gardens and delicate art? Yep, my husband’s up for it all just as much as anyone. But I’m happy as can be living the life of a fairly traditional homemaker and sticking to the background as support staff for R when he’s doing Official and work-related stuff, and he’s fine with spending his free time parked in a recliner, eating pizza and watching junky TV in his shorts when he has the chance, too. Confuses some people; fits us.

    I know I’ve said before to you that I tend to suspect that every aspect of our individual sense of identity—mental health, yes, but also sex attributes, intelligence, interests and skills, likes and dislikes, and much more—is more flexible and variable than mere Y/N, M/F, B/W thinking can explain or contain. And yet I absolutely believe that stereotypes originate in recognizable patterns and probabilities, too. So it’s probably no accident that I think of slightly (or very) hysteria-prone people, male-female-or-other, as Drama Queens and not Kings, since there’s more than simple tradition and convenience and the obvious linguistic link to the uterus that contribute to my thinking of that approach as more commonly feminine than masculine. And regardless of their sex, Drama Queens drive me batty!!!

    Great read as always, dearest!
    xo,
    K

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    • LOL WOAH! I got my mental food fix for the day!
      You must keep writing your books, K. All those genius thoughts just run away with themselves…

      And I’ve no doubt you’d marry a “different” sorta fellow, as special as you are.

      =)

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  43. Love the insanity and the mixed signals in this post Diana. And I particularly love the term’ hostage hormones.’ Sheesh, I would have liked to have that term in my last book I wrote, MenoWhat? A Memoir. 🙂 Always an enjoyable visit hearing your words of wisdom. 🙂

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  45. Honest, I didn’t have more intense “emotions” during periods. May you be lucky like me….rather calm perimenopause…only had occasional hot flash after waking up ..for 2 min. or so. Then gone.

    Now it’s freedom..

    Women do have a tendency to spin into nitpickin’ getting-too-personal-focus on generic topics. Guys do also…I see the differences in joking, attacks and defensiveness on all-women cycling forums vs. male-dominant cycling forums. It’s much more risky for a woman to half-joke insult another woman vs. amongst guys.

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    • I imagine it’s in large part your cycling that’s kept you better balanced than most women, J. And yep, I can see that – men getting away with the half-insults. Wish we could. ^^ (You comment whenever I think of you. =) )

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      • Actually I find women who cycle for many years AND who integrate cycling as part of their lifestyle where they use cycling for transportation, they tend to be more pragmatic as individuals. But still there’s the tendency to be more careful how to express controversial stuff with women without someone taking a blunt point personally.

        Cycling with real serious grocery weight on a regular basis requires a cyclist to forget about how “cool” or sexy they look on the bike. It’s just mini survival that you don’t tip too far into the car traffic. 😀 and also not buying too much junk because after all you have to bike up that hill..

  46. I’ve run into the same stuff my whole life. The kicker was when I was having problems in my marriage and bought John Gray’s “Men are From Mars Women are From Venus.” What a crock! My traits were all in the men’s list and my husband’s were all in the women’s list. Your rant made me laugh, but I have to say it all goes both ways. There are men who are the biggest drama queens ever and they are no where near gay. The men I’ve known are so much more interested in cake, candy, pie, ice cream and anything with sugar on it or around it than any woman I’ve known. They can be huge babies when they are sick, and when they’re not busy being babies, they can be the worst of what it means to be an “old lady” when they’re 30. Last, there are a gazillion of them who don’t know a kibble about mechanics, carpentry, plumbing or how to use any tools. When my ex wouldn’t let me paint the rooms the color I wanted—he’s color blind and I’m employed as an art director—I screamed and thought to myself, “Most men want nothing to do with decorating!” And you know how so many men love long hair on women? Not mine. I had the one in a million who wanted me to cut my hair and dress like a banker! No hip, designer looks for him! Many times I’ve wondered, “Where are the men like the ones in the movies?!” But then again, there’s a blogger here who wrote a super funny piece about men who wear cowboy boots and don’t know a thing about the real thing, like the guy who sold me a car in LA. If you had put him out in the desert without any food or water and just his shiny boots, well he would have expired.

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    • LOL! Oh dear, Hattie. You sure landed yourself the one-in-a-mil. I hear ya on their morphing into sick babies and lovin’ sugar like there’s no tomorrow. At least my guy’s good for a lot of things lol, though he sports a ponytail. 😛 I feel so bad for you that you were straitjacketed as you were w/ the painting, as an artist.

      Yah. There sure is a lot to say on both ends. It was just what came out that particular time of the month!! lol

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  47. H!, I am what I am–tailor made by God–and at times temptation by Satan–can take me on a journey–with my eyes closed. Then I, wake-up–Lord open thy eyes–and now I, can see you–and the beauty that surrounds me.
    Thank You Lord–“Amen”

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  49. I can’t believe how draining drama and chaos can be. I love the phrase, “I did not audition for your drama.” I so envy those who are not as into people -pleasing as I am; they are probably better able to escape that drama. But I am working on it! Part of what helps me is to get some time TO MYSELF!!!! I find that I need that at this stage of my life now more than ever!! And I appreciate my husband more than ever for being different from me!! 🙂

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  50. I am thankful that God gave me two boys to raise. I think he knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle the girl drama all that well. It is interesting to note that I recognized your comments about men, even in my boys when they were young. They can fight it out (usually very physical) and then be best friends the next minute. All the ugliness is forgotten and life is good again as brothers.

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    • *chuckling*

      “They can fight it out (usually very physical) and then be best friends the next minute. All the ugliness is forgotten and life is good again as brothers.” Sounds heavenly. =)

      Reply

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