Lexi and I have recently discovered a good place to meet men: the neighborhood sports bar. I've always enjoyed beer and even the occasional football game, but I've come to love the latter surrounded by pigskin fueled, trash talking men. I'm not there scoping for dates (not much anyway), but sometimes just hanging out with a group of guys can give you that touch of testosterone you need in your life. They might buy you some drinks or offer you a seat, but they will also without mercy or regret ridicule you, your team, and your mother if necessary.
Over the last few weeks, my ex (I know, I know but he's also a genuine friend) and I have kept up a pretty steady email correspondence of your mother's so ... jokes and hits on each other's lazy eyes and roach ridden apartments. When one joke actually stung and I emailed back my hurt feelings rather than a cut about the ugliness of his sister, he was disappointed and maligned my "guilt trip." So, I let it go and went back to talking about his mother, much to his relief.
The men in the sports bar would no doubt have understood his argument. Men prize thick skin. If someone talks about how badly your team sucks, take the hit and then hit back even harder. There is no place for wussies in a sports bar, and even less place in a relationship. Love is after all a full contact sport (or a battlefield as Pat Benatar would surely remind me). Those insults thrown at us and rapidly around us were men being men. They are also good preparation for our next relationships, so that, unlike my past ones, I won't take cracks about back fat and crooked toes to heart.
But is this really what my ex (or any man) wants: a woman who is one of the boys? Women should wear high heels and pretty underwear, but also be able to belch the alphabet. I have to take the crass jokes and cutting remarks, but still be soft enough to hug, kiss, and comfort him when he wants to talk about his feelings or something else too embarrassing to share with his boys. How can I possibly be everything in one? Then again, isn't this what we usually want of them only flipped inside out? He can share his feelings but not weep when Bette Midler sings The Wind Beneath My Wings in Beaches. Fantastic if he kills the roach, but please don't mourn its passing. I want the body of a man but the heart of a woman who will understand that even jokes that combine the words fat and my name are never okay and that sadness doesn't equal weakness.
Maybe we're never satisfied, but while I search for the guy who has the right balance I'll keep going to the sports bar wearing armor and cute steel toed boots.
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