Defining The Manly Man

My recent spat with my friend, Chuck, in the comments section of this post about being a sports fan made me want to write about what it is to be a ”normal” man.  Normal being more specifically defined as a “manly” man.

And it seems to me anyway, that in order to be a manly man you have to be involved in, or at least have an interest in, the following things:

1)  Sports.  A manly man plays some type of sport.  It doesn’t really matter what it is as long as he plays something.  Softball,  bicycling, flag football, soccer, or even the occasionally pick-up basketball game at the YMCA is sufficient to make you a manly man.  “Sweating” sports are better, of course,  and the more traditional ones are the best (football, basketball, baseball), but even a round of golf at the country club with drinks afterward will suffice.

Now, as you get older you are allowed to skip participation, but only so long as you continue to watch sports on TV regularly or, what is even better, obsessively follow a specific team (your Alma Mater if you are a college grad or the nearest professional team if you aren’t or both if you are really manly) via radio talk shows, newspapers, Internet sites, and ESPN to the point where you can spout off the jersey size of your favorite player and know the last meal eaten by your favorite coach.  Wins are celebrated by manly men with the enthusiasm normal men save for the birth of their first-born son and loses are lamented as only true-believers lament the passing of a major religious leader.  Which, of course, is what sports are to the true manly man - a religion.

Saturdays during football season must be spent in front of the TV watching the SEC - if you live in the Southeast - and on Sunday watching at least two NFL games, one of which may be skipped only if the manly man promises to watch Monday Night Football.

2) Outdoor Activities:  In order to be a manly man you must either hike, camp, fish or hunt.  Camping, fishing, and hunting are the more manly of the four choices, but serious hiking serves to satisfy both the outdoor activity and exercise requirements of real manly manhood.  Hunting or fishing while you camp gives bonus points and if you do all three you hit the trifecta of outdoor manliness.

3)  Exercising:  You must exercise.  Running is good, although not as manly as say, long distance bicycling, especially since Lance Armstrong took the title of Worlds Most Manly Athlete.  Still, if you run long enough - say 100 miles - then your ticket to manly manhood is secure. 

Soccer is good exercise, but Bending it like Beckham is still not very manly to most American men.  Better to drink beer between innings of the local softball league than run up and down a soccer field for an hour.  It’s a good sprint between first and second base after all and it’s more the “appearance” of playing the sport than actually playing it.  Besides, if you want to see true athletic ability watch some 40 year old overweight drunk guy try to hit a softball.   If he connects then that is the true sign of serious athletic ability.

4)  Grilling:  A real man must cook outdoors, preferably on charcoal, but as long as the grill is very, very expensive, gas will do.  If you can smoke a whole hog while drinking a case of Bud and pontificating on the shortcomings of Coach “Can’t Win A Game For Crap” then you are truly a manly man.

5)  Drinking:  Manly men drink alcohol. Beer is the mainstay of manly drinking, but any good Scotch or Bourbon will do just fine.  Drinks like margaritas are okay if sipped near a pool or on the beach while watching chicks in bikinis, but anything with a fruit or umbrella involved is pressing this exception.  (If totally wasted the manly man may drink a fruity-umbrella drink, but only because it is funny to other manly men.)

6)  Car Maintenance:  A real man changes his own oil.  There is no excuse for not doing so.  To pay someone to do it for you implies you are have no testosterone at all.

7)   Lawn Maintenance, Woodworking, And Other Hobbies:  Manly men love to work in the yard or in the garage.  They don’t “garden,” but they do like to cut wide swathes of grass with over-powered riding lawn mowers and/or build things badly in their workshops.  Real manly men who have no talent for building things will quickly learn to fake this in order to blend in with those who do.

8)  Sex:  Married manly men never have sex and  spend most of their time either openly complaining about it or dropping subtle hints in the way of jokes about their wives never making love with them.  Single manly men do just the opposite by bragging about the many women they bed.   The irony of the situation is almost overwhelming since the plain fact is married men probably get laid more often than the single guys (admittedly that ain’t saying much).  Still, the point here is that in order to be manly you must either complain or brag about your sex life to other manly men. 

9) Man to Man Interaction:  Real men love to hang with other real men.  And I mean this in the platonic sense.  They prefer the camaraderie of other men so they can discuss points 1 through 8 above.  Men who might actually like to talk with beautiful brunette wives at a party instead of sitting on the couch watching football with their husbands are not manly men in the true sense of the word.  (Although these men may get laid more often because they show attention to these women, it really doesn’t matter as it applies to manly manliness.  Manly men just think these men are gay.)

And speaking of gay men, interestingly enough sexual orientation does not automatically play into who or who is not a manly man.  Even the gayest of gay men can be manly if they obsess over their favorite team or go duck hunting in dark, freezing, wet weather, while a married straight guy with seven boys is considered a girlie-man because he likes to watch an old black and white movie on a Sunday afternoon in October.  True, most gay men are smarter than this, but those who are not are staunchly in the manly man category.

So that’s it.  You now know what it takes to be a normal or manly man.  And unfortunately I don’t qualify on most of those counts.  I am into computers and not sports.  I love a classic movie over most televised football games, and I do enjoy the company of beautiful women over men.

Let the manly men think I am gay.  What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Or me.  Snicker.