I’d like to write a little about what Antediluvian By Choice wrote:

“We need men , not adult adolescents.  We should expect our boys to mature. We should feel it’s safe to send our daughters to school functions and parties and have them return intact in spirit and body.”

*Emphasis mine.

I work with Middle Schoolers, I know what adolescent and pre-adolescent boys are like.  I also know what men are like and sometimes I wonder who is the kid and who is the adult.  So many men I work with and know are existing in some sort of “extended adolescence” and it’s really frustrating.  A few years ago I was talking to a couple of guy friends about my boyfriend dumping me and A’s words of wisdom were “Guys are assholes”, as if I should just accept this and move on.  (I should probably point out that both the Ex and A fit into this category of Men in a State of Extended Adolescence.)

A’s advice makes me wonder what happens to a young man between being a sweet 12 year old who is just trying to figure out what all these changing hormones are about and how this fits into the childish life he’s been living, e.g. Sam Weir in Freaks and Geeks, and when he becomes “an asshole”?  What happens?  Why do Sweet Boys become Sophomoric Men?  They can’t all be stunted emotionally because their mother died and they were raised by an emotionally distant father; they can’t all be Frances Hodgson Burnett characters.  Can they?

Why is it that so many sweet boys turn into emotionally distant, fratboy-esque, beer guzzling, womanizing men who believe that women should just accept their arrogant ways because that’s ‘how they are and they’re never going to change’?  Men who think it sport to make women look foolish, who like their women to be airheaded floozies, who think complimenting a woman’s breasts or legs or thighs is epitome of charming?

Another personal anecdote, one I don’t find all that funny: A man in the bar stops me as I’m going to settle my tab and comments on my shirt.  I explain it was my dad’s from when he was in the navy about 30 years ago.  Dude says “Your dad must’ve been barrel chested 30 years ago.”  I end the conversation.  In what universe is that ok to say to a woman?  If that dude had had a shot, if I had been single, if I had thought he was cute or interesting at all my interest would have ended right there and then!  

It’s like they think we want them to comment on us as sexual objects (ok, sometimes we do, but not always); it’s like they think commenting on our bodies will curry favor with us.  Just so you know, fellas, all it will do is creep us out.  It won’t make us want to giggle and flirt with you more and it won’t make us reconsider dating you after we’ve turned you down. 

“No, sorry, I won’t go out with you…. Wait, what’s that?  You think I’ve got great tits?  Well, that changes everything!  Let’s be boyfriend and girlfriend!”

It’s never going to be a positive compliment.  Even if the dingbat floozy you pull one of these comments on giggles and makes out with you it’s still a degrading comment.  What Adult Adolescent Men don’t seem to understand is that women are people too.  And the funny thing is they get that… until they have an inkling of attraction to her, that is.  A man can know and respect a woman until he realizes she’s sexy and he wants her, then bam he treats her like a floozy.

Back to my original question: what happened to these guys?  What happened to the sweet boys they used to be?  Why do they treat women like this?  I’m not saying they’re all rapists, but they’re not helping.  By behaving this way they’re telling other guys that it’s ok to treat women like this.  I work in education.  If my coworkers are acting like this on their personal time, what sort of advice or example are they giving the boys who come through our program?  They’re not telling these kids about their conquests, I don’t think that poorly of them, but their attitude is still going to permeate other areas of their lives.

A, for example, never garnered the trust of one of his students.  He was too loud and rough and gym teacher-like for this one sensitive sixth grade boy.  The kid never took to A and was pretty much scared of him all week.  This boy is never going to disrespect a woman or treat her like less than human (he also might be gay) and he avoided A like the plague (A, who often treats women like floozies).  Is there a correlation there?  I’m not sure.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if A was exuding his Jackass Nature and the Sensitive Boy picked up on that and that’s why he didn’t like A.  I guess the question there is: Do the other boys, the other students we get see A’s behavior and try to emulate him?  He’s in a position of authority, they admire him, they see the women they also like and admire treating A favorably: does that make them think it’s ok to be sort of an ass?  That people will still like them if they act like that?

I expect all people to behave a certain way and sometimes am made to feel like I’m wrong or that other people think I think I’m morally superior.  I’m not.  I’m just as immoral as the next person, but I do believe it is important to act with a certain amount of dignity.  Why you’d ever do something to another person that you wouldn’t want done to you is beyond me.  Everyone deserves respect.  If you’re only going to respect someone because they first respected you, then no one will give you any respect (I’ve seen that go down and it is ugly).  We’re all the same, humans, none of us perfect, none of us without blemish on our record.  That doesn’t justify making another person feel worthless.  We all want acceptance and respect and in order to get that we must dole out acceptance and respect.  Rape is about neither.  I expect the people I am friendly with and the men I date to treat me, my friend and my family with respect.  If you don’t then I have no reservations about kicking you to the curb (trust me).

I think it’s ok to be as young as you feel and all that, don’t grow up too fast and live life to the fullest.  I don’t act or look or feel as old as I am, but I still know how to be an adult.  Men out there who act like you’re still fifteen or nineteen or twenty one, please, grow up.  When you do, you will understand what women are talking about when we protest at SlutWalks and are offended when you say we’ve got great thighs.  You’ll understand that being an adult doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.  You’ll understand why she didn’t pick you.  Women don’t actually want Superman…. we want Clark Kent.

One of my favorite Kid Conversations ever went something like this:

Elise: So when you go out with these boys do you kiss?

Girl: Oh, no!  Gross.

Fitz is really starting to win out.  Reading a book I, apparently, recommended to him; recommending books to me; telling me about what’s going on with him … not putting any bullshit pressure on me…. 

This is absolute crap, but I sort of can’t wait to see him again.

Ripped up jeans, torn Converse All-Stars, a guitar in hand — it was almost the uniform for a girl like her.
A hipster-that’s-not-a-fucking-hipster ‘cause she writes her own tunes and doesn’t pay attention to The Industry. 
She meanders through the park with a spiked coffee and cigarette taking pictures of derelict buildings and writing the soundtrack in her head.
Overhead, birds fly by and she watches them as the perch on telephone wires. Except no one has a telephone that uses wires anymore.
Her own cell phone is on vibrate in a pocket somewhere and she’s already missed three calls and a picture message.
It’s a picture of something absurd that will make her laugh when she sees it. It’s of a stray cat lapping up coffee from a Dunkin Donuts cup. It’s sad and ludicrous all at the same time.
Later she’ll write a song about it.
Right now she watches her cigarette smoke waft toward the birds on the wire. She snaps a picture of it and hopes you can see the smoke in the photograph.
The grey clouds overhead match her mood as well as her eyes. The wind keeps time as her feet pound the pavement.
It’s fall and she feels it.
The picture message is from him: he-whom-she-is-trying-not-to-think-about-but-won’t-leave-her-alone. And it’s not his fault.
She blames her free time. Pop songs. And Walt Disney for giving her false expectations.
There’s something about this pal that she just can’t shake. He is present in every little thing about her; from her coffee to the birds on the wire to pavement beneath her feet. His stability, his freedom, his passion.
Just a friend. A pal. Someone who sends her absurd picture messages.
She looks to the birds, smokes her cigarette and snaps a photograph.
In her head she’s already written the soundtrack. She goes home, picks up her guitar and begins to play it.