Yeaaaaah baybeeeee. It’s Thursday, and the Demystifying Divas and the Men’s Club are back after our collective vacation from thinking about social issues and other bullshit involving men and women. As such, we’re ready to volley this crap right towards you, with a topic that is guaranteed to irritate at least a few truly insensitive types.

Seekrit Note To Lurkers: Most definitely, the present mood of yours truly can be categorized as “In the interest of not caring who I piss off.”

Oh cabana boy, please be a doll and pass the envelope over, so that I may reveal the topic de jour, if you will:

If men to show their emotions, are they real men? Do women really want the strong silent type?

Yes and no. Okay, maybe. Good gawd the generalizations do run amuck for the highly uneducated, don’t they? Lumping the sexes into convenient little niches eliminates the need for – how do you say – actual concrete thought processes.

Generalizations persist for several reasons, and I would propose that a significant part of the rationale lies in the outspoken and brazen nature of the proponents. Those fellows who do not hold the view that men and women are completely different species aren’t as likely to speak up, since it really is a non-issue in their eyes. Let the neanderthals duke it out in the mudpit whilst commenting about wimmens tendency to engage in catfights. Isn’t that ironic? Heh. Fuck you, buddy.

The issue is not that women want “sensitive” or “insensitive” men. The problem is that different people possess highly different priorities on what circumstances dictate a display of emotions. It’s just easier to categorize these differences as male v. female, because it’s fun to stir shit up I guess. Whatever.

Some things just blatantly do not merit the amount of attention and energy as other things, and let’s face it, not everyone obsesses about the same things. Some folks have a greater capacity to let things slide and just roll with whatever life tosses their way. These folks prefer to just mull things over privately and not carry the details of public life into private relationships. Others like to talk about what a horrid day they experienced, complete with the who, what, where, why, and when. The former method is definitely more efficient than the latter, but is either way necessarily better?

“You said you couldn’t be with someone who didn’t believe in you. Well I believed in you. I just didn’t believe in me. I love you. always.”
- Blaine from Pretty In Pink

Insert finger into throat. We don’t want the unrealistic realism of Andrew McCarthy. Or the slackerness of the Nick Hornby antihero. Perchance to find a man who treats us well but also knows the permissible limits, and he doesn’t take any crap from us. After all, the last thing he wants is to be a sensitive man who got stuck with an insensitive girl. Do we want sensitive shemales or complete neanderthal assholes? Uh…neither. It is preferable to find a human being who treats us as such. Is that so difficult to comprehend?

More opinions and feminine wiles may be found at Cake Eater Chronicles, Just Breathe, and Villains Vanquished. For the ubersexymasculine take, take a jaunt towards Down For Repairs, Phin’s Blog, The Project Bowl, Naked Villainy, and with the very Quotable Jamesyboy.