Men, Age and Expectations: What ‘Man Up’ Means

27 Dec Men, Age and Expectations: What ‘Man Up’ Means

I’ll say it off the bat. I expect any man over the age of 30 to act with a high level of maturity, and if he doesn’t, well, bye bye baby.

I’m willing to forgive you when we’re teenagers. I might even not allow myself to be disappointed in you, but not be hard on you, when you’re in your late twenties, because I’ll tell myself, “he’s young, can’t expect him to get it right most of the time”. But when you’re 30 and over, homie your brain knows what’s expected of you, and so does your heart.

I’m not talking about the horrid guys here – the tief heads, the sociopaths, or the playas. No, I’m talking about decent guys who sometimes want to let their little bad boy or ‘chupidee’ jump out.

At a certain age I expect you to be direct in your dealings. You shouldn’t be afraid to pick up a phone and call me if there’s a certain matter that needs to be addressed. If there’s a situation between us, I expect you to bring it up (obviously I can bring it up too). But if you want to talk about the newly refurbished Emperor Valley Zoo, your new rims or George’s doubles, when there’s an elephant in the room, man I just feel sorry for you.

By 30, you should be able to assert yourself and take charge of situations. You should be able to deal with emotional (and non-emotional) situations. This, to me, is what a man does.  We should be able to have a conversation, and deal with whatever it is in a responsible manner.

For instance, I have a friend who recently ended up in a little situation with a male friend of hers. She thought the friendship was platonic. She’d sensed some sexual tension some time in the past, but seeing that both parties didn’t make a move to make anything happen, because well they just didn’t even like each other that way, she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Then one evening, without warning, he moved in on her, and she didn’t know what to do. Let me rephrase that. She went along with the kissing, and the touching, and the feeling, but all the while in the back of her mind, she had no idea what was happening. It felt good… yes. But neither her heart nor her mind was into it.

She told herself they could go back to normal. He didn’t seem interested in a relationship, and she definitely wasn’t, so she figured as two adults they could go back to being what they were – liming pals. Instead of playing the let’s see who calls first game, she called him, and they spoke ‘like normal’. He fleetingly brought up the topic, saying that he would have definitely called her back after the “thing” they had. After exchanging a few pleasantries and promising to buss a lime some time soon (as was the norm), they hung up. Then weeks passed, and nothing. Then out of the blue, he sends a Facebook message just hailing her out to say hi. She knew it was his way of trying to break the non-communication, but seriously she thought, “that was it?”

Now to me, if you’re over 30, you should be able to be more brazen than that. And yeah, yeah I know the whole missive, “not everybody is bold or direct”. However, come on man, you’ve been dealing with girls on a romantic level from say what, when you were 13 or 15 years old? By now you should be able to approach them directly.

The same way I expect a man to ‘man up’, and face things squarely in the face, is the same way I expect him to deal with other aspects of his life. So my friend’s friend really needs to wheel and come again.

Who wants a guy who can’t talk about stuff, especially when you don’t make it hard for him?  Do you want someone who can’t make decisions for himself? If he can’t take a stand on a personal level, he’ll never be able to make a stand for you, when you’re in a relationship.

Being a strong personality, I like strong personalities. I have no problems being submissive. I do have a problem with being submissive to someone I don’t consider to be strong or good leader.

Ladies, well some ladies, just need a man to be a man. He doesn’t have to be brash or have loads of bravado; he can be the strong, silent type. At the end of the day, though, he should be able to live up to your expectations of what a man is, and if he doesn’t from the start, then maybe you shouldn’t bat your eyelashes into oblivion the next time you see him.