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Advice for real men | page 1, 2, 3
"I'd do whatever would make us both happy." "Sure." "I would." "OK. I found a great job in Pinole." "Sure you did." "We're moving to Pinole." "OK. We're moving to Pinole." "You're not paying attention." "I'm trying to tell you this story. So they're at the squash court and the art professor is trying to ask Segell what he would do in that situation. And the way Segell describes it in the book, it's what you call, wait, here is the passage, I'll read it to you, it was 'the equivalent of what hockey players call a screw-your-buddy pass ... There was no way I could handle Don's screw-your-buddy question and remain on my feet. Lined up behind him was a squadron of ever-vigilant sex-police referees ready to hit me with a life misconduct were I to suggest that Julie was making an unreasonable demand and they should find another solution to her discontent that didn't involve his having to sacrifice his very happening job so that she could have a better one. And I'm not sure I really believed that, anyway. What do I know about their life together, the difficulties of dual academic careers -- about the intricate and intimate calculus of another man's marriage? So I said something about how every marriage requires a lot of give and take, that compromise cuts in both directions, and it's pretty hard for both partners always to get what each wants. And then I suggested we play squash.'" "Oh, God." "Can you hear that? Can you hear the dismissiveness?" "Of course I can hear that. I can hear the dismissiveness." "And he doesn't notice that his friend is torn up about this thing?" "No. Of course not. He's a guy." "But I'm a guy." "Yes. But I had to teach you." "Not true. I studied the ways of men while living in the wild. I studied men from the tops of trees silently in the night. I waded into rivers and watched them and learned. But this guy has obviously done very little field research." "Well, he's probably done the academic research. He's just emotionally tone-deaf."
"Sure, there's eight big pages of source notes. Ever read 'Animal Genitalia and Female Choice?' Segell has. So anyway, he gives his supposed friend this total non-answer when the guy is obviously reaching out. And then they have a dinner party with all the couples of the men who play squash together. And they're talking about something trivial, the curfews they impose on their teenage daughters." "This Segell guy has a daughter?" "He has five kids. He 'lives with his wife, the writer Winifred Gallagher, and their children in New York.'" "God." "So they're talking. The art professor has been looking depressed all night. And it's something trivial about Segell (Mike) having a stricter curfew for his daughter than Joe. And the art professor says, 'That's because Mike is an asshole and Joe isn't.' So then Segell's all upset that this guy called him an asshole." "He probably drank too much. Guys drink too much and say things." "And then Segell starts brooding over it: 'Did he insult me because I'd won our last three matches? ... Or was it because he suspected I didn't approve of his decision to ditch a prestigious gig at a prestigious university so that his wife, who had a mediocre job, could have a better one?' And he says, here, he says, 'But I do know that I didn't particularly enjoy being called an asshole before my friends -- and by someone I thought a friend -- because of a presumed difference in sexual politics.'" "So blame it on 'sexual politics,' which is a code word for blame it on the women. It's like a fight breaks out over hockey and you blame the hockey. The whole book he's been saying things like this: 'The ubiquitous message: men are screwed up, and the opposite of a screwed-up man is a woman. As one Big Ten university professor told me, "The academy today is an incredibly toxic and hostile environment for young men."' I think he's implying that if it weren't for feminism, his friend wouldn't even have to think about leaving his cool, East Coast art professorship to support his wife's career move. No career, no career move, no hard decision-making for the husband, no need to have a real friend to confide in." "Yeah." "He talks about 'sex police,' but there's nobody looking over his shoulder when his art-professor friend asks him for his advice. Segell's all about thrill-seeking behavior. Here's him talking about hockey: 'It's played at an exhilarating pace and requires split-second reactions and decisions. Its constantly shifting geometry focuses my mind in a way that no other activity -- save, say, sex -- does. It's got speeding missiles and moving targets.' He's got a pulse rate of 48. He may have physical courage but he doesn't have the courage to be honest with his friends. Couldn't he at least have said to the art professor, forthrightly, 'I respect whatever decision you make, but if it were me, I wouldn't leave my job so my wife could have a better one'? What a stupid friendship. If guys have a problem, it's this kind of thing. We don't tell each other the truth. Why? Because we're afraid a fistfight will break out?" "Well, it's not that different with women. Guys are just bigger and stronger." "Maybe this other guy, even though he was an art professor, was actually bigger and stronger than Segell. Maybe Segell was scared the art professor would corn-hole him. That's what we were afraid of in junior high." "You were very sophisticated young men." "I was the most sophisticated ninth-grader. So I just think that part alone disqualifies this guy to give anybody any advice about relationships with other people. Sheesh. And the art professor probably picked up on the whole thing. It's so obvious. I rest my case." "'Standup Guy.' I still say it's catchy. It'll sell. Let's get Egg McMuffins."
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