| GRAY MATTERS,
Our self-delusions may astound you, but bear with us — we’re trying to evolve
It’s tough being a man. Settle down and put away your Twitter posts: I’m not going to launch into a long lament for the embattled patriarchy. You’re not going to read some White whine-drenched polemic on how those pesky women’s libbers have declared war on Y chromosomes, and now the world is heading straight to hell.
We’ve lost the gender war. We know it. Men are the red giants of the human race, big and dim and inching ever closer to obscurity. We tote around the sad tokens of our faded glory by the wheelbarrow load, the camouflage ball caps and the bottles of Axe Body Spray, the Dodge Challengers and the Vin Diesel Blu-rays piled up like Weimar Republic banknotes, abundant and valueless.
Who feels the need to affix a pair of rubberized artificial bull testicles to the rear bumper of his Silverado? A guy who knows he’s on the wrong side of history, that’s who. Winners don’t need truck nuts.
What makes it tough to be a man is that we’re, well, men. We live in this strange self-generated cocoon of bamboozlement. Our lives are built on lies, layer upon layer of self-deception: “This combover is fooling everybody!” “Sure, I’m 50 pounds overweight, but when I wear my form-fitting Lycra cycling shorts and matching jersey, I look downright athletic!”
“You know, if I only had a chance to meet her, that Wonder Woman lady would find me irresistible.”
I am 54 years old. I haven’t been on ice skates in at least 10 years. The last time I played competitive hockey on any level, Jimmy Carter was in the White House. And I am convinced, with a conviction unshakable, that it’s only a matter of time before I become the starting goaltender for the Buffalo Sabres. Every day for 42 years, I’ve patiently awaited the phone call.
A holy trinity of self-deception comprises the foundation of just about everything men do. No matter his race or creed or station in life, every man you know believes this about himself: 1) I am an excellent driver. 2) I am a sensitive and skilled lover. 3) I can fix this.
Outbound U.S. 290 at 4 p.m. on a Thursday effectively refutes the first one; the wistful and unfulfilled expressions on the faces of our significant others is all the counterexample No. 2 requires. Disabusing us of No. 3? You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
“I can fix this” has done more to muddy the waters of domestic bliss than just about anything else. Even the president of the United States is not safe. Surely you’ve seen the clip of President Donald Trump and the first lady striding across the tarmac at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Mr. Trump in front, Melania behind him. The president reaches for his wife’s hand. Mrs. Trump, in a move that’s become known as “the Slap Heard ’Round the World,” swats him away with the malice and alacrity of Dikembe Mutombo rejecting an opponent’s feeble 15-footer.
We don’t know what The Donald said or did to prompt that reaction. Something untoward must have happened on Air Force One. Maybe he criticized her dress. Perhaps he’d said something disparaging about Ajdovi Žganci Pecenica, the sausages-and-soured-turnips concoction that is the national dish of Slovenia. The Slovenes are a proud and noble people, and they broach no effrontery of their native cuisine. We simply cannot say.
What we know is that something happened, and Melania was offended or hurt, and then they had to make a public appearance (imagine, for a moment, having to step in front of 47,000 members of the international press when you’re in the middle of an argument with your spouse) and the president, thinking Man Thoughts, said to himself, “I can fix this,” and he couldn’t, not even a little bit.
Trump is certainly not the only president to be hoisted by the “I can fix this” petard. William McKinley’s wife, Ida, suffered epileptic seizures. She was frequently stricken during official state functions. McKinley, in an early-20thcentury version of “I can fix this,” would calmly drape his handkerchief over his wife’s stricken face, and proceed as if everything was normal. There is no record on how Mrs. McKinley felt about this presidential cover-up.
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had his own uncomfortable bout of Icanfixthisitis. Hunkered among the dignitaries at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the president found himself with Mrs. Obama on his left, and on his right, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the talented, intelligent and beautiful prime minister of Denmark. Obama did what men usually do when they are sitting between two talented, intelligent and beautiful women, one of whom is his wife and the mother of his children, the other a vivacious Scandinavian: He went with the Dane.
The president and the prime minister laughed together. They posed for selfies together, Obama all the while sporting a goofy, Alfred E. Newman grin, his inner 14-year-old unleashed and running free. Meanwhile, Michelle stared daggers through him.
When the moment passed, and Obama remembered that the talented, intelligent, beautiful woman he’d been ignoring was the love of his life, his male brain’s first thought was, “I can fix this,” and he planted a kiss on Michelle’s hand.
Mrs. Obama was unmoved: Obama’s improvised gallantry left her with the expression of someone who’s just bit into a spoiled pistachio.
Every man who has ever been in a relationship has been Donald Trump at Ben Gurion Airport. We’ve been Barack Obama at the Mandela funeral. We are little more than hairy tubs of testosterone and incompetence, and for all the messages to the contrary, for all those little voices telling us, “Stop. Don’t do this” and, “Just shut up and apologize” and, “You don’t need a selfie with the prime minister of Denmark,” we press forward, making our dumb mistakes, then letting “I can fix this” drown any impulse toward true contrition.
This is a new age, an enlightened age. We men are trying to catch up. Recently I was out in the far reaches of Chambers County, a place that’s churchy and conservative and country. A handful of refinery workers, grizzled tough guys, was gathered around a huge flat-screen TV with their wives and daughters, totally wrapped up in the College Softball World Series.
“These gals can play!” one of them enthused.
And if it takes us some time to stop calling women athletes “gals,” be patient with us. We really are trying.
And sooner or later, we can fix it. We