Michael Doran is happy he took such a tough and winding path toward realizing that he didn’t need to prove his manliness.
I’m not a “guy.” Somehow I have always known that I was different than other the other boys. Now, this is not the classical case of being effeminate and coming out of the closet years later to an accepting (or un-accepting family). I am definitely Hetero. I just never got into the things that guys got into. I was not into watching sports and only played them in a thinly veiled attempt to fit in. I liked computers and video games, but was not a braniac programming nerd—although I sort of wish I was since it’s pretty clear that nerds rule the world.
I was a sensitive kid. I got picked on and beaten up, but I took it like I thought a man should. I tried to fight back, but almost always lost because I was small and didn’t know how to fight. For years, I wondered what was wrong with me. I got along well with girls, but I was always as the friend, never the love interest. I eventually retreated into my world of Commodore 64 computer games and books, waiting and hoping for anything to change. They said I was just a late bloomer, that someday I would have my time.
I started to come into my own in my first year out of high school. At my local community college, unburdened by any association from the negativity of my past, I reconnected with an old friend and finally started having some luck with the opposite sex. As I grew older, I realized that I was different than a lot of guys, not that I didn’t waste a lot of time and energy trying to be one. I was always trying to fit in, always unsuccessfully. Sometimes I’d be let into a “group,” reluctantly, and then made the butt of jokes until I ended up walking away. This pattern repeated a few times before I finally wised up and became hyper-selective of who I considered a friend.
I joined a fraternity in my early twenties because I knew I needed to toughen up. I was too sensitive and had not been exposed to large groups of men. I needed to learn how to take and dish crap with the best of them. This also proved not to be very popular. I would speak up if I saw a brother taking a barely conscious girl to his room at a party (and would then make sure she either got home or got to her friends). I spoke my mind when I saw things that I thought were wrong. I left the fraternity even more aware of my outsider status in the of guys, with only a couple of close friends to show for it.
As I grew and entered the corporate world, I kept faking it. I would listen to sports-talk on the radio on the way into work just to be aware enough to talk intelligently about sports, even though I still had no interest.
Then something happened. I began to gain more confidence in who I was. I became more comfortable with myself. My extroverted side came screaming out as I found that I enjoyed things like jumping out airplanes, rock climbing, and white-water rafting. I mellowed. On the rare occasion I came across someone from my past, at a party or back in my hometown, and the inevitable putdowns would occur, I was now simply able to laugh off. Something about jumping out of an airplane 500 times helps reinforce that you are not a coward. The words no longer hurt, and my sense of who I was as a man made it easy to deflect any negativity directed at me.
It was not until I read Michael Kimmel’s Guyland that I finally recognized where I fit. The book talks about the modern guy culture and all of its various roles. Toward the end, he speaks about a minority group: a group that will stand up when they see wrongs, a group that will not go with the flow. Finally, this was my group, a group that he defines as men.
Looking back, I realized that I’d had an internal moral compass this whole time. I did have a sense of who I was—even if I was not aware of it at the time—and what my values were. As I now push 40, I value the path that I have taken as an adult because I can see the end result. Adversity does not bother me; fear does not hold me back. Bad bosses, office gossip, and politics, while it all may register with me, will not slow me down. Now, this path is not the easy path, but it is the path that I plan on guiding my own two sons down. I truly believe it is ultimately the most rewarding path to take.
So, I won’t ever be a guy. I won’t ever fit easily into the guys’ world. I won’t ever fit in with the group of guys gathered at the bar watching the game, won’t be privy to their clubs, outings, organizations, or groups. I am OK with that because I know that I am a man.
—Photo John Steven Fernandez/Flickr
I don’t expect anyone who considers themselves a “guy” to be happy with what I have written here. I stand by my article though, and my opinion. My views have never made me popular with the majority, however they elicit very strong responses by a minority of men, as well as heavily with women. That tells me something.
I encourage everyone to read Guyland by the sociologist Michael Kimmel. I think you will find it an interesting read.
I’m glad you found your way, but perhaps it’s not wise to denigrate other “guys” in the process. Whether you realize it or not, that’s what you did here. Cast all the guys who likes sports, join frats, give each other shit, etc as somehow lesser than your version of being a “real man.”
I wish we could all find our own way without putting others down.
You say Michael Doran has denigrated “all the guys who likes sports, join frats, give each other shit, etc.” Have you ever objected to any individuals in the category you defend when they have denigrated guys who didn’t happen to share their interests? I’d say the particular denigration I’ve just mentioned has been going on far, far longer (for generations, I’d say) than any critical comments on the part of Michael Doran. I’ll give you some examples of real denigration from my own observations and experiences. I’m sorry this reply won’t be short. When I was in the eighth grade,… Read more »
Thank you for your comment. I had similar experiences, and even when trying to fit in by joining the football team, or later a Fraternity, was still singled out somehow as “different”. Different being that I spoke my mind and did not just go with the flow. It affected me at the time. I did not really overcome it until I became a skydiver. I have over 500 jumps and really learned more about myself through it, as well as how to use Fear to propel me forward (no skydiver ever is unafraid, at least the sane ones aren’t). Suddenly… Read more »
Thank you for your response, Michael! Ever since my early teens, my heroes have not been sports stars, actors, or rock singers. (After all, they’re entertainers, not heroes.) I’ve long been inspired by men (and women) who led social reform movements in this and other countries or spoke out against oppression behind the Iron Curtain or risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust. I’ve deeply appreciated those individual Americans who first questioned the legitimacy of Jim Crow and then spoke out against it. I suspect most of these men were “different” in the same way as you; namely,… Read more »
Great article, Michael. Thank you. Bill Engvall (Blue Collar Comedy Tour) wrote a book titled “Just a Guy”; he also has a skit where he compares being a man to being a guy. I just wanted to mention it for anyone who wants to explore the comparison/contrast between the two. I’m an outsider as well. Your story echoes with what I’ve gone through. But, for all of you who feel the same, take Shakespeare’s words to heart (spoken by Glendower, King Henry IV Part 1, Scene 3): “These signs have mark’d me extraordinary; And all the courses of my life… Read more »
Amen! Like you, I struggled with that issue (maybe still do from time to time). For me, add in the perils of an all male prep school (boarding school, yet) with 24/7 pressure to prove you’re a “man” whatever that means at age 13. Getting along, but not quite fitting not; wishing to fit in but not really wanting to. Add in my occupation as a pastor and its hard to find guy friends who treat you like one of them. I’m not a sports nut, but have found my recreation in hands-on stuff like building and remodeling and furniture… Read more »
I agree, I think the most important thing is to find a subculture, or group that has similar morals to you, as hard as it may be. At times, before ‘I found that, I often felt like the only sane person in an insane asylum. Funnily enough the Skydiving community fit my needs perfectly, people in that community often see themselves as “being the island of misfit toys”. Not fitting in anywhere else but there. In my 8 years in that, heavily male centered envirionment, I never saw any man overstepping the boundaries like I saw in my fraternity, or… Read more »
I was also very fortunate to make some lifelong friends; my boarding school experience led to college and seminary so that by the time I’d made it out of grad school, I had been with some of these guys for 12 years, time enough to outgrow high school and become friendly, if not friends with them. BTW I have no axe to grind with jocks–I just never was one and found myself envying their camaraderie. I wonder if they also went through the insecurity of finding their identity and I just didn’t know it and assumed only we “misfits” did… Read more »
I actually was a jock. I played Football and ran track in high school, and was big into Basketball afterwards (intramural) but also sang in the choir. So a bit of a conundrum I am sure. People like putting people into categories, and when you have a foot in a few of them it can generally confuse them. If anyone thinks I have an axe to grind with Athlete’s, I don’t. I do, generally, have disdain for the system of organized sports in our country though, and the double standard that exists around it. I finished my BA as an… Read more »
I don’t share your take on the terminology involved, Michael, but I understand what you’re saying. (To me a “guy” is simply a man who takes life casually and focuses on the things he likes rather than meeting anyone else”s expectations or “climbing the ladder.”) Your story has many elements in common with my own: I was never a sports nut, a ‘jock’ or a “tough guy” (although I’m very tall, rather than a little guy). I took it simply as a description of a fellow introvert, with a working brain. In some sense, a brain is a serious drawback… Read more »
Like how the term “guy” has become such a derogatory term, and how you’ve position yourself as the “man”.
How is this group bad ? just because you didn’t fit in with them.
Take a look at what is happening at Penn state right now (and what happened previously). That is the guy culture I am referring to. If you speak up to a group of guys when you see one of them doing something wrong, what happens to you? Do they listen to you, take in your opinion objectively, and have a rational debate about it? Or do they simply blow you off with an expletive and derogatory comment? From my experience, it is always the latter. To me, guy is a derogatory term. That is why I wrote the article about… Read more »
I’m a long time faithful husband, father, engineer, homeowner, skier, football and basketball fan, volunteer, mentor, and youth and family counselor, and a bunch of other things.
And I’m a guy.
“I would speak up if I saw a brother taking a barely conscious girl to his room at a party (and would then make sure she either got home or got to her friends). I spoke my mind when I saw things that I thought were wrong.” Thank you! Just wanted to say that. This article really made me happy. I’m glad that you were able to overcome the pressure and be who you are, because you seem like a pretty good guy – I mean man! “I did have a sense of who I was—even if I was not… Read more »