I'm surprised D.C., and, well, anyone reads here.

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In recent reactions with other men, some of whom I suspect very strongly of reading here, I get a mixed signal.  Younger men tend to get it, if not always agree... or sympathize.  If they are too young, or... naive, they don't quite bite.  There is a very strong thinking that all women are like mom, they will find out.  Older, and to be honest more traditionally conservative (if often quite liberal, somehow) men, especially if they have been married to one woman their whole lives, or at least married most of their adult lives, are absolutely shocked, dismayed, and... horrified by what they read here.  Oh, they cover, a bit, as well as they can, but... it's plain to see.

If it were just the "story book" side of things, I could see that.  Some men don't have great imaginings, considerations other than salt and pepper, potatoes and meat, and what is purely real are outside their purview.  These are secular men, as I was before I became ill... and still am in an odd manner.  I suppose they were forced to put up comic books, and to be honest many put religion up with those other than attendance to please the wife, or try to hold their family together, or simply out of habit, in order to be bread winners.  Some men have zero imagination, or even faith, left to them.  I do understand that.  I went through that stage, though at a much younger age, in part due to illness, though it existed before that too, if willfulness played a strong part as well.  I never could tell exactly what all, or when what, was keeping me from the Church, or other "silly" things.

Then again, I do seem rather dogmatic, for a lunatic?  At least now.  And, if a man is in a place where he feels he is walking on ice in life, and has decided women are equal, gays and homosexuality are just fine, or whatever other "liberal" notion, if nothing else because the nag can, well, nag, better than he can or has had the energy to defend, or the boss has said so with his job and career on the line, then he is going to begin defending what he doesn't even believe so that maybe he can at least die in some peace, at home, with a job to the end.  Surrendering is never good, but maybe it is all some men have left, and it's all some men have ever known?  Or maybe he has daughters, and... has surrendered to them... foolish as that is... doting... but irresponsible too.  Still, I get that if I am hoping to be different.

Judgmental, fantasist perhaps, dogmatic, chauvinist if truth is on the side of it, and all the rest.  Oh, I understand.  Don't get me wrong.  It's just that I am not, nor have ever been, typical.  I never bent a knee until I met God, even when beaten save to acknowledge that I indeed lost.  I didn't believe what I was taught, and found my own teachers, often in books, who truly did know more than I, and certainly more and better than the nearly literal revisionist coloring books they handed me in schools, and many of the teachers who really didn't understand what they were teaching, or that they were teaching clearly incorrect ideology rather than subjects.  There were some sharp cookies in various schools, and some 'right' ones, rare as they were.  I did tend to gravitate toward them.  I started with the bible, actually.  I am, damn straight, different.  Most men are broken on the wheel of life.  Even near death I am holding on, holding my own, and not backing down.  Even when wrong, until I can find my own way to correctness or truth.  Not an inch.  So, yeah...  I guess I get that.  It, though, as I wake up, surprises me as much as women do, and their reactions.  I think, to some men, I am a thing to be hated... feared... perhaps mocked behind my back?

Is this the reason my words are rejected, are they too hard, do they harm? But then why continue to consume them?

No, I am fine with that.  It is... just... I thought there were more men like me out there.  And some men I thought were strong... aren't.  I, then again, haven't been married for many years.  I don't have daughters.  I haven't been indoctrinated to the point of not having an opinion, for work, play, even Church at times.  Fair enough.  Rather than anger me, or disappointing me... it saddens me.  Where they always broken, or did it just happen, or over time?  Where they born that way or is it a form of, or the beginnings of, death?  Sad.

Then again, with D.C. and Sig... I see, as with me, a quickening.  For this or that reason, both of these men are coming to conclusions which lie outside of what they had thought was the norm, reality, bread and butter.  It's not an easy thing, it is quite uncomfortable, it fucking hurts, actually.  Okay, I guess I can see that...  If Sig is still a little shaky on the "story" side of things, and maybe the chauvy side too.  :p  Hmm...  Just... thoughts that came to a head recently.  Men, women, whatever...  I am finally seeing things, good things, bad things, weird things, life.  I won't say I am even seeing them correctly.  I am simply writing what I see and believe I am seeing.  I am quite sure I will revisit this topic in time.

Perhaps my songs are a bit uncomfortable, but there is a reason for that.

I don't know if they have saved it... but they are trying.

As for why ladies stop from time to time?  Maybe I am just... like a living dinosaur?  A relic they remember, and somewhat fear, like a man t-rex?  Or perhaps they even miss the notion of when men were men and women were women, as the stereotype used to go (if I would suggest nothing has changed).  I don't know much about women, save that they have a really strange world view, some wisdom and smarts which are sometimes similar, sometimes totally alien to a man mind, and that I can really like them, platonically or not.  Perhaps they just like the stories.  They might even just worry about the crazy old coot(tm), and want to see that he hasn't kicked the bucket yet, or are waiting with glee for that?  *grin*

Don't know!  Who ever does in this place, at this time?  Well, there was Him, but... we took care of that little problem.  *sigh*