Man-stration

Threadjack….

But not really, just an illustration of a very real aha moment regarding the relative angelic nature of women, as experienced personally…

See here's the thing. My SO is on her cycle and has been pretty short tempered and ill mannered as of late. If I EVER treated her in that way she would punt me out of the house, but I am expected, somehow, to overlook the behavior and attribute it to a hormonal phase. Yea, I know...I'm poking a sacred cow here and no, I have never experienced PMS directly, though I am an old hat at vicarious PMSing and at being the monthly punching bag. Save the castigation, please.

Ok. I get it. It sucks. You have my sympathy.

But what about MANstration? that's hormonal, isn't it? What happens to me when I am absolutely fuming with testosterone, put on the couch for weeks on end, expected to make her the sole focus of my sexual attention and expected to maintain a high degree of civility? Where is my license to misbehave?

I am angry, aggressive and ready to throw approaching males in the bushes. But I don’t. I want to make love to my SO, but I don’t because I am trying to be sensitive to her needs and her boundaries. I want to spend time in the man cave fixing a motorcycle so I can forget about my attraction to her for awhile, but, at her insistence, I leave the dark safety of my sanctuary to accompany her to a ballet where I see lithe dances in tight costumes flit about like milk bones before a starving cur. I am angry, aggressive, randy and ready to throw ballarinos in the bushes. “Go to the gym” she says, then plans five consecutive evenings of wedding receptions where I am expected to dress up and dance close with her in her stunning black dress and four inch heels.
“Go hiking” she says, then plans a short hike to a secluded, nude hot springs with three other athletic thirty something couples. I want to throw myself over a cliff and into some bushes. “You can handle it, sweetie. Real men can control their urges.” She says this as she slides nudely into the hotsprings next to the other equally naked couples…

I think I will use that line the next time she dives into a case of Blue Bunny ice cream sandwiches or asks me to give her several hours of alone time in the tub in our only bathroom. Maybe I will remember and remind her of this the next time they have a 70% off sale at Big Lots. “You can handle it Sweetie. Real women can control their urges…”

I am growing tired of the sensitivities afforded to mystique of femininity and the lack of the same afforded to the shallows of masculinity. I don’t wanna be stoic all the time. I don’t want to be the breadwinner this weekend. I don’t want you in my garage or my workshop. I want to skulk, grumble, hide and just be. I want to sit in my mancave, drink a Bud Light, listen to Motley Crue and fix that damn carburetor that has been driving me crazy for months now. I want to tell someone to go to hell. I want to refuse to wear that sweater your mom gave me to the Christmas brunch with your boring-as-death coworkers and their quasi autistic spouses. I really, really hate Alanis Morissette and Kate Bush.

I want to run, screaming and slapping passersby, all the way to the strip club where I can remind myself that sexual attraction is only a game, that a pretty face don’t mean a pretty heart, that everyone is in a relationship for self-satisfying-something and I can have all you can eat steak and eggs for $4.99.

BUT I don’t, because you ask me not to and you, as I know, are more socially, spiritually and intellectually advanced than I can ever hope to be. I just wish I had an excuse every three weeks or so to act a little badly. For the sake of my sanity.

Oh wait, I do. MANstration.