Have you ever heard this sentence? I bet, especially if you are in your forties, hundreds of times … And it’s not only your father or other masculine family figures who said this, moms and sisters also do that.
But what exactly does “be a man!” mean? What should men have to be men? How should they behave? What should they do or not do?
No doubt, men in the prehistoric times were hunters, so their role was easier and narrower.
Since then, thousand of years have gone by and sometimes our brain is still attached to that familiar concept of “man-hunter”; (un)fortunately, evolution brought a much more complicated interaction between men and women, so that nowadays I would be very uncomfortable in answering to the above mentioned questions other than “it depends.”
Anyway, a good solution is asking women. Find a sample of let’s say 50 women and ask them. What you’ll get will be really astonishing.
First: when you ask a woman these questions, she will immediately think of her man or the man she wants; none thinks of a friend, a brother or a son. And this is really interesting … this topic alone deserves an article!
Second: women just want to be listened and loved. They don’t think that a gentle, caring, hugging, attentive, patient, insightful, supportive man is less than a man. They don’t believe men’s role in the couple or family should be to just bring home the money for the family, they need something more to be fulfilled.
Sometimes the difference between a loving couple and a couple on the verge of a crisis is the ability of both men and women to commit to each other; and while it is socially accepted that a woman looks inside herself to find the right answer, it is not the same with men. Some men find themselves uncomfortable with feelings, and most of the times it depends on the fact that this is seen as a feminine thing, that to look inside oneselves is perceived more as a weakness than a strength in the masculine world.
I think the right question is not “what does be a men mean?”; it is “how can you be a more fulfilled man?”
“Be a man!”
