Is there Such a Thing as a Real Man?

What is a real man?

What is my true identity?

I never have been able to answer these questions and the first one has taken on so many answers that I begin to question if there even is a correct way to answer.

I’ve been reading this book by John Eldredge, ‘Wild at Heart’. In the book Eldredge is attempting to say that men have basically been emasculated in today’s society, especially Christian men. I can sympathize with many of the men he talks about in his book and like any good read, there is subject matter he brings up that I’m not sure I entirely agree with. Needless to say it is very engrossing and I’m enjoying the journey quite a bit. I’ve always pictured ‘real man’ like the movies show them to be. Rough, rugged, heart of gold on the inside, but could kill a bad guy in a split second if he had too. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe…these are just a few of the names that come to mind, but they are actors playing characters. It is really the characters they portray that we want to be; and I’ve always managed to day dream myself into one those scenes as the good guy.

I can’t really say why, but I love Batman and when it comes to super heroes; he’s been my guy. Ever since I was a little kid reading my cousins’ comic books all the way up to the Dark Knight, I’ve been fascinated by the character. My buddies and I even got into drunken debate in college who kick whose ‘you know what’, Batman vs. Spider-Man. My two hippie friends were vehemently explaining to me and my buddy how it wasn’t even debate because Batman had no superpowers. But I think that was part of his appeal to me. With some flight of the imagination he was real guy and could afford those awesome gadgets because he also happened to be a billionaire, which kind of takes the ‘real’ out of it, but none the less I was intrigued by the Dark Knight. He wasn’t happy go lucky; he seemed like a tortured soul doing something not because he ‘loved’ it or because he had to, but because of some kind of internal force to fill a need or emptiness deep inside of him and you just go the feeling that in his own mind he never thought he’d fill that void; that he’d never be able to live what people call a ‘happy life’. I’m speculating obviously, but I can relate to that because I feel the same way.

There has been this huge void and I don’t like what I’ve been doing job wise or where my current status in life is. It’s hard for me to picture ever being truly happy and content with life. So back to my original thought, a real man; what is a real man? Ask 100 different people and you’ll get no two answers the same. You’ll get similarities, but all will have their own spin on what qualifies as a real answer.

In college I wanted to be a real man, but I had no idea what that was. I played the role for whatever social group I was around. Sometimes I was the small town country boy with a southern twang who believed in God, Guns, and saying yes ma’m or no sir. Other times I was the guy at the party who could drink 30 or 40 beers and still be standing at the end of the night when everyone else was dropping like flies. Or I was the church going, scripture quoting ‘nice guy’ with a nonjudgmental heart and an open mind. I was the movie buff or the history guy. I was literally being a different person in different groups and truly never realized it. With all those masks you lose your real face and with it, the actual part of your true identity. I was all those things and I was none of those things. That sounds like I’m trying to be deep, but in reality all those identities were apart of me, but I just took it up to the 10000^th degree and exaggerated to a point where it was hard to get back to the surface. I was actor without a part.

A real man; well to be honest I have some examples. My Dad for one; he married my mom when I was four and had no problems taking on a kid who wasn’t his own blood. And this kid had no problems taking his name. Truth is I didn’t know my real Dad. I knew him, but not the way a son should know his father. I wasn’t deprived of having a father either, because of good man deciding it didn’t matter if ‘she had a kid’.

I’d like to say it doesn’t bother me at all, but then at the same time I want to say it’s a mortal wound not ever knowing my biological father the way I should. I guess that’s an attention grabber in me for pity. I have to force myself to think about the sperm donor if I want to remember during the day that I’m his son.

I wonder does he think about me ever.

Does he blame me for the distance in our relationship?

He quit calling after 8^th grade. But for whatever reason the Dad ‘bug’ hit him when I was 14 and he called a every two weeks. Believe it or not I loved it. I had no animosity toward him like you see in the movies and on TV with some kids. I’d go over there on Thursday night and spend the night. We’d rent two movies and watch football. I can’t tell you why, but it always felt good like a mini-vacation. I remember watching Star Trek at like 3 in the morning. The original Star Trek, which lets be honest it’s the best one in the series. One of his ‘drinking’ buddies was a huge Trekkie and we just sat there and watched Captain Kirk and Spock fight aliens or get it on with green chicks. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was always dirty at his house though.

I hated taking a shower there because the water temperature would never get warm until after I spent a bone chilling 10 minutes in ice cold water and the towels always had a funny smell that would stay on your body well into the day. I slept on the couch in the TV room and did my best not let my hand find its way between the baby blue sofa because there was a good chance some kind of sticky mixture of peanut butter, melted candy bars, bubble gum, with a nice glob of hair would attach itself to my body. It was hideous and for me it meant a sprint to the bathroom and healthy scrubbing of dial to remove the alien like substance from my skin.

I even remember seeing a snake in the back yard one time, which looked like a jungle do to the fact it hadn’t been mowed sense they moved in and Dad came out with his Budweiser in hand and poured that can of beer down the snake hole as the serpent retreated from us. I thought that was the coolest thing ever, a drunken snake; I pictured the one from Disney’s Robin Hood. That’s what a 10 year old pictures in his head when he pictures a highly intoxicated serpent. I was very mature for my age. I told all my friends that story and for whatever reason it sticks out in my mind today. I guess the point is I enjoyed myself over at his place, sticky gunk in the couch and all. I loved going to visit him and my step mom and baby sisters.

So why did he stop calling?

Did he not enjoy it or just not as much as I did. I would have gone there anytime he called, but he didn’t call anymore. He missed out on all the big things in a young boy’s life and then for 4 months when I was fourteen years old something moved him to call like clock work every 2 weeks and then he stopped. I don’t think I hold any ill wills toward the man and I always tried to be respectful not to call my step dad ‘Dad’ in his presence. Some would say that he may have deserved for me to do that to him, but I’m not so sure it would have mattered; but to me I owed him that much.

No matter what happens in my life I have a blood line with him. I dropped his name and took the one of the man who took the job of being true Dad and to me that was enough. If I saw him tomorrow I’d call him Dad not for any other reason than that’s what he is and that’s how I know him. I’d feel weird calling him by his first name just as I’d feel weird calling my step dad anything other than ‘Dad’.

So what is a real man? I don’t know the answer yet, but I’m hoping that God will bless me through all this experience so I can help my sons if I’m blessed with any to make the journey on the right path. Lord knows I’ve taken plenty of wrong turns and dead end streets that I might be able to help them a little better than I did myself. Hopefully they won’t have my character flaws.