A Toast To Being a Man

I adore women. From your emotional intuition that we men can never rival to your psychological sophistication to just the way you guys decorate your room. You guys are beauty-driven. Everything screams sensitivity and heart and attention to detail. I love what you guys stand for but, today, we’re talking about the complimenting species — men.

I used to get stuck on one girl. Unable to let go, I find myself in the same position in the next relationship, and the next. Eventually, I realized, the world doesn’t revolve around these women. It revolves around myself. It’s not about whether or not I’m good enough for them. It’s about what did she do or have that deserves my full attention and affection?

A lot of us guys don’t feel great about ourselves today. Some of us serve as doormats, put up with women’s disrespect, testing, princess syndromes, letting them have their way even if they aren’t beautiful or successful. The gender scale is more balanced than ever. If anything, in our daily lives, we feel as though women, especially the pretty ones, receive a bit more privilege.

And with the quality of life better than ever, we’ve slowly evolved into domestic boys, who, aren’t exactly your Clint Eastwood’s of the world anymore. But isn’t this the time to stand stronger than ever, guys? Isn’t this the opportunity to stand out from the 99% of men out there who are losing their masculinity and power in society?

Of course it is. We simply need to know our value. The same way women have learned to love themselves and detach their identity from their boyfriends and husbands.

For all of us who still believe that we need to groom ourselves, drive a fancy car, study all the dating techniques to qualify as a decent option, let’s not forget, self-confidence is our strongest weapon, and we can only achieve it by unidentifying ourselves with material or looks or any externals.

Someone said this in another article, a guy’s bravado, moxie, and charisma have to come from within. If you’re a shell of yourself without your money, you weren’t a real man to begin with. You make the money, the money doesn’t make you. You make the money, the money doesn’t make you. I repeat. You make the money, the money doesn’t make you.

And so let’s not place a hot chick we just met on our top 3 pretties women in our lifetime. No girl, regardless of how special, is as special as ourselves. We’re the catch even if she and nobody else thinks so. When we adopt that mindset, we stop going out acting like we need to impress anyone and hope they approve of us. We just show up behaving the way we always do. If she isn’t interested, we don’t mentally subtract our own points. The right person will immediately show a certain level of interest. We go out expecting good feedback, boys.

What’s happened is that we’ve placed women on such a pedestal that we’ve forgotten our own masculinity. Women are supposed to be the ones searching for love. They’re supposed to fear loneliness and seek a knight in shining armor for rescue. Not us. We’re simply here to get shit done. Focus on our careers, hobbies, friends. Women aren’t our first priority. No need to guess, hope, regret, and scratch for them. They’ll come.

Women aren’t scarce. Men make up 50.4% of the population while women make up the other 49.6%. There are just as many females as males. Women desire men more than men want women. While you’re drooling over the gorgeous ungettable women across the bar, she’s also wondering how in the world she can get the attention of the sexy man from the next table over. What you believe will shape your attitude, and ultimately the way you carry yourself with women.

It’s harder being a woman still

I once debated this topic with a female friend. Is it easier to be a man or woman? We can agree that there’s no clear-cut answer. However, we guys do have a few things going our way.

First, we don’t have a time constraint on reproduction. I digress. We do, but we have so much time that it almost never seems like much of an issue. Where for women, their best reproductive years are in their 20’s as their fertility starts to decline in their 30’s. And so, no matter how independent, intelligent a woman is, she has to defer her career and dreams to her biological clock.

Second, women’s beauty fades quickly. Even with all the advanced technology and makeup and nutrition today, they can never quite return to looking like 18–22 years olds. All the power they used to wield back in school leaves them in a drop of a hat. So if you think you have self-esteem issues, put yourself in a woman’s shoes.

Third, the obvious reproduction cycles they go through every month, from cramps to mood swings to headaches to maintenance. Not sure what really goes on, but not someone pleasant to deal with every month.

Four, unless your face looks like a train ran over it. Unless you’re born defective in some way or from obscurely difficult parts of the world, you have opportunities to attract women by improving yourself. Regardless of a woman’s effort, sometimes physical appearance, unfortunately, determines most of their ability to draw attention from men.

Fifth, ladies may or may not have easier access to sex, but what about relationships? Sure, they might be the so-called “gatekeepers” of sex, but that’s as far as most of their power lies. We men still decide whether we want to commit to a relationship or not.

Sixth, women are social animals and have to oblige social norms more than us. They’re judged more for indecent behaviors like promiscuity, drugs, smoking, aggression, smoking, and many other behaviors that we men can get away with. Deviating from these norms sabotage their relationships at home, at work, and in their social life, which are all the roots of their identity and happiness.

Seven, we complain about women being stuck up and entitled. There are even more assholes out there. And women have just as tough of a time on dating apps and in the dating pool period. If not worse.

We’re still the driver

No matter how much has changed and what feminists say. Men have always and will continue to be the dominant gender because we’re wired to be the provider and protectors — the rock in the relationship. Women prefer to lean on us. We just have to believe in ourselves.

Let’s not find our value through the women we date. Let’s empower ourselves instead.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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