Tag Archives: men

Why I love men…an extremely random musing

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If you have continued reading past the title please be assured that I’m really not being patronising or sexist, that isn’t the point.  Possibly I just started thinking too much, albeit not very clearly.

And so, another random musing……

Men are lovely, aren’t they?

There are the men who strive always to be terribly polite and helpful (usually at work). Nothing is too much trouble.

There are the men who don’t give a damn, who make a big play of not caring what anyone else thinks, but just occasionally look over for approval.

There are the men who are terribly easy on the eye – sadly they are generally aware of this fact and let it go to their heads, but even then, the more interesting ones tend to know they shouldn’t take themselves too seriously.

There are the ones who always make an effort to say a kind word, to send a song, picture or story I’ll like, or to tell me something about their day which’ll make me smile.

Then there are people like the man I met up with one evening last week. I’ve known him for years. He’s married, he has a child, he’s quite good looking. I worked with him 10 years ago. We didn’t get on terribly well at the time, but for various reasons kept in contact, and our friendship has developed over time. The whole evening was great, although it went far too quickly. He was late, he was dishevelled (an office move apparently, rather than a deliberate ‘look’). He carried off both of those with aplomb.

And there are the ones who start at the periphery – a casual meeting, acquaintance through work, friend of a friend.  And gradually, they begin to feature a little more day to day – maybe just a few tweets, the odd text message, or ‘dropping by’ from time to time on an evening out, at work, at the airfield. They might offer helpful suggestions re: IT problems, or happen to be there as a shoulder to cry on when needed. After a while, you start to notice when they’re not available, and start to miss them…

I quite often think it must be hard to be a man (even when I’m not singing Country & Western): by tradition, we women get to be rescued and they have to do the rescuing. So despite decades of progression and eons of evolution, we always in a small way have that natural get-out, however successful & capable we may be in day to day life, there might be someone there to save us, and maybe that functions as the parachute we *know* we’ll never have to open.

But that leaves a lot of men always there waiting to see if they will be called upon to rescue someone 😛

Ah well, I haven’t said it terribly well (and would ask to be excused as I wrote most of this after slightly too much wine – oops!)  In summary, in my experience men are generally kind, generous, helpful and good company: I like them 🙂

And those who know me will also know that I think girls are fabulous too xxx

The great divide – some musings

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So, to follow up on a brief twitter discussion earlier, why do some men appear to feel threatened by independent women who earn more than they do?

Disclaimer: this blog post is not here to debate the relative difficulties of work compared to childcare – there are lots of other posts you can go to for that discussion.

Is it simply the awkwardness and insecurity that comes from going against their own heritage and societal norms?  Or is it deeper, an in-built genetic need to be the provider?

Or is this for men, the equivalent to many women’s quest for thinness – the area of their life where the expectation to conform to a certain stereotype is for the majority, unrelenting?

For all of us who go out to work, it does take a lot of time, effort and energy and takes us away from the other important things in our lives.

I know it’s important to me to feel that I’m being well-rewarded for that. But there are such huge disparities between what different jobs pay, and in many cases, no correlation whatsoever between pay and the amount of effort, skill, qualifications, commitment and/or time a job involves, so it seems contradictory and a great shame that so many people appear to gauge their self-worth or confidence based at least in part on what they earn.

I was interested (but not altogether surprised) that during the twitter discussion, a number of men chimed in with the fact that they find successful women very sexy (which was much appreciated, thank you). But that is rather different from wanting to be in a long-term relationship with all the social and financial implications that involves.

Of course, like everything, it does come down to personality, some men are more than happy to be with women who are outwardly more highly paid and successful than they are. And some men are happy not to earn money at all. But it really does take a certain confidence to feel that way.

In my experience, most men who genuinely do not rely to some extent on their career or business success for their confidence, do have other areas of focus in their lives, maybe family commitments, political success or a hobby  or pasttime they feel passionate about.  Or maybe past successes in business or other areas which they can look back on. 

It is interesting that this is still a topic for discussion: a woman may now be able to earn as much or more than a man, but it is still not, by many, regarded as the norm.

Of course, these are just my musings, and no doubt this is a reasonably contentious area. So I would love to hear your thoughts 🙂 But please be kind xx

‘That’ interview, monogamy and kink – some random musings

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Quite obviously not all of the topics above are connected, other than the fact that I was thinking about them in the same day.

So, Stephen Fry and ‘that’ interview, gosh.  I have always looked up to Stephen Fry (it’s hard not too for most of us, he is very tall after all). I did bump into him once at Liverpool St station, which inter alia does refute the claim I’ve seen from a number of sources that he has ‘never met’ any women who enjoy sex. I suspect he simply may not have been in a situation with those women where he could possibly tell. I don’t believe he would have realised from our encounter, for example.

So, back to the ‘gosh’: did he really say that? Was he quoted out of context? Was he simply being sensationalist?

Of course it is true that women do tend to approach sex differently to men.  But in a lot of cases, not with any less enthusiasm.

And it is true that men do from time to time get caught ‘cottaging’ on Hampstead Heath and the papers find out and make a huge fuss.  I don’t personally recall reading a similar story about a woman or group of women but it’s surely possible that women are just better at not getting caught.   Wave if you’ve had sex in a public place and not got caught? Yes, I thought so 😉 

Surely the truth is really rather boring and wouldn’t make a great interview (possibly won’t make a great blog either, but never mind, I’m enjoying it). Some women like sex a lot, really a lot. Some can’t be bothered and really would prefer to spend their time playing tennis or keeping their house tidy. And no, those are not euphemisms in case you are wondering. I know this because I know women in both these categories and plenty who really like sex every so often but aren’t desperate for it in between. In the words of one very good friend ‘if I could have sex four times a day it wouldn’t be enough, but that’s not always possible, life does rather get in the way’. 

Which brings me to Monogamy.  No that wasn’t a very good link, please refer back to the word ‘random’ in the title. And I trust you’ll allow for the fact that I woke up in an odd mood today.

For a long time I have questioned whether monogamy is natural for human beings – when I think back I remember some rather fun after-work conversations about it over the past ten years or so. I can absolutely see the attraction of finding one’s soul-mate, and I know people who have done that. And who could argue with the benefits of finding someone who is a true friend, a thoughtful and intuitive lover, someone to rely on, someone who is fun to be with, and who knows all our faults, weaknesses, quirks and foibles, and loves and wants to be with us anyway.

But I have always wondered whether one person can ever be all of those things to someone else, and if they can right now, can they still be in 2, 10 or 20 years’ time? And even if they can, is it fair to ask all of that of them?

For some people reading this, the answer to the above will be a resounding ‘yes!’ and I take my hat off to you. (For these purposes, please imagine said hat as a jaunty black velvet number).

But what about the rest of us? What are the alternatives? Of course, we can find someone who meets quite a lot of those needs right now, and see how things evolve. Or we can look to other relationships to cater for those needs which are not met within our ‘main relationship’. And I’m not just talking about sex – emotional needs can be met by close friendships and family. For those of us with a deep need for unquestioning adoration and devotion this can be met (for a time at least) by children.  In our society, no one questions our ability to love several children, nephews, nieces, god-children, parents, grandparents and close friends.  If we all understand and assume we have enough love to share amongst such a wide group, why is there an assumption that it’s possible to have only one romantic or sexual relationship?  If we truly believed that human beings have an infinite capacity to love and care for other human beings, why is such an artificial line drawn?

Editor’s note: if you’re looking for answers, you may be advised to read a blog written by an expert, I’m really just thinking aloud.

So, I’m afraid this will have to be another part 1/to be continued.  In this case, the reason is not to tease, as it was in earlier posts (NB: I will get around to finishing the London fantasy at some point, it just doesn’t seem appropriate to do that at the moment).  My reason for leaving this post at this point is that I’ve just realized what big subjects these are. I need to do some more thinking. Without doing that I’m at risk of making some sweeping and probably incorrect generalizations. Oh, and I also just thought of another fantasy blog 😉

As I am fond of saying, take care my friends, and be good to each other.