Yes, there is a man flu
Virginia, your little friends were wrong. They were affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. Yes, Virginia, there is a man flu! And at long last it’s supported by science. Research published this week in the BMJ medical journal found that, when it comes to respiratory diseases, men are more susceptible to complications than women because their immune systems are weaker.
So it seems there have been perfectly valid reasons why men are laid low, booked off work and curled up in the fetal position in a cocoon of blankets by what might appear to the untutored eye as no more than a sniffle and raspy throat.
Dr. Kyle Sue, author of the study and a professor of family medicine at Memorial University in St. John’s, says “man flu” is often used to suggest that men may exaggerate their symptoms. “It’s a frequently heard stereotype,” he says.
Now we know better. Not believe in man flu! You might as well not believe that the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn! Who knows? Maybe it was a sudden onset of man flu that caused Abner Doubleday, when he invented the game, to make baseball just nine innings instead of a more orderly 10.
Perhaps it was man flu that caused the Vapors to produce their one and only hit “Turning Japanese” in 1980, and then disappear from the music scene.
And have you ever wondered what happened to J.D. Salinger after the sensation of The Catcher in the Ryeand why he was pretty much never heard from again? Exactly.
The truth is out at long last. And the truth seems to be that Mother Nature, in her wisdom, decided that women should be the ones to give birth so they could have some idea of the agony a man with the flu endures.
A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay ten times ten thousand years from now, we might feel well enough to get up from bed and go back to work. For now, we feel a tickle in our throat and a sneeze coming on. Is there any more cough syrup? And Aspirin! Aspirin would be good, too.
Finally, scientific evidence that men aren’t just whining when they complain about the symptoms of a cold or flu