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When She Says Man Up, She Has No Idea What She’s Talking About
I know some strong women.
Hard women, who put up with absolutely nothing.
These women call out their male friends for falling for another girl all quick, or roll their eyes whenever they hear a man is hurt over something another woman did. They are quick to tell men to man up and quit crying. A man gets sensitive over something a woman won’t get sensitive about, and she tells him there’s no need for all the sensitivity; starts bringing up all the ways a woman has it harder than a man and if she’s okay, he should be too.
She’ll say, “Man up.” The next time she says that, this will be my response…”Shut up.”
About a month ago, I tweeted out the following:
Gotta love how girls crack jokes on men who cry like girls but then turn around and cry when men act like men.
I have always said if a woman understood how difficult it is for a man to get to a place where he starts showing his feelings, she would never discredit him for doing so. A lot of men don’t have it in their DNA to wear their heart on their sleeves, so when we do, women should either try to help us out or step aside and let us figure out the problem ourselves. Any efforts short of those two should be saved for a later time when she and he can look back on the moment and laugh about it.
Coming from me, this may sound like some sort of defense. Anyone who has read this blog long enough knows I have no problem sharing my feelings on anything. I have no problem admitting when I have cried. I have no problem saying the last time I cried won’t be the last time I cry. I have no problem saying even if I hurt someone, I hurt myself in the process. None of this is because I want to throw some pity party. All of it is because I want women to understand not all men are stone cold, emotionally inept individuals who only get passionate about things like the playoffs.
Every time I pour my hear out, there’s always one comment from some woman who says something like, “Oh man up,” and I’m pretty sure she has absolutely, positively no idea what manning up is really about. But this isn’t for those commentators. This is for the women those commentators represent; the type of women who think they’re being critical but are only being comical.
I know some women would like to think they know what a real man is, but I’m pretty sure they either get their idea from television and the movies, or they get it from the men in their families, which is legit. A woman who wants a man like her father or uncles or brothers should go out and get that, especially if there are men out there who want women like their mothers, but I digress…
What this really is about is women who think they know what it is to man up and their narrow, dogmatic schemes of manhood. A man shouldn’t cry here, and a man should know exactly what to do there. All this nonsense makes me want to ask some women to throw me their copy of “Man Laws” and match it up with mine because sometimes I swear these women have an outdated version.
First we should act like a man. Then we should act like a grown man. I’m falling for none of it anymore. There are some blanket statements I have made in past posts about all women that may not apply to all women, but there is one blanket statement I can make about women that I know I am absolutely right about.
No woman knows what it’s like to be a man, not one has the faintest clue.
When a woman starts spouting off at the mouth about how a man wasn’t acting like a man and wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do as a man I get this sudden urge to challenge her to an arm wrestling match. She thinks because she plays with the big boys every now and then, she knows what it’s like to be a big boy. Little girl, please. If you’re one of those women who really think you’re more of a man than the next man, then by all means move on to the next man because what you really want is a man who’s right for you, not more of a man.
No real man will let another man tell him how to be a man, so he for damn sure won’t let a woman do it either. I was raised by a man from the old school, but I spent my whole life trying to disprove his old school notions of manhood. I didn’t think, and I still don’t think, there’s only one way for a man to be. I think there’s the man that I am and then there’s the man other men are, and if a woman wants to date me she needs to understand it is a wholly unique version of masculinity not made in the mold of her father, brother, uncle, best friend or Don Draper.
To me, telling a man to man up is like telling a woman to woman down, and start only doing things like cook or clean or both at the same time. And that doesn’t sound so 2010, does it?
As far as I’m concerned, a real man stays true to himself, his feelings, his beliefs, and his principles, and to man up is to never fall back on any of those things. If a woman can’t understand that, then oh well, looks like I was probably too much man for her.
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