Kill something she is afraid of. Spiders are my specialty.
Cook with fire.
Field-strip, clean, lube and re-assemble (correctly) anything more complicated than a screwdriver.
Get sweaty building something around the house.
Eh. I think being able to toss a good salad, sautee some vegetables, grill up a cut of meat, and pop open a bottle of wine is the epitome of civilized manhood. Just look at Julia Child[sup]1/[sup]. :eek:
On the other hand, I’m not adverse to a little greasy-hand under-the-hood oil-changing, timing-adjusting, alternator-replacing action, either; and back when I owned GM products that required this sort of grease monkey work on a weekly basis, I did it all myself. Now that my current auto begs for nothing more than the periodic oil change and annual fluids/belts/hoses check and occasional adjustment or replacement of wear parts I generally have someone else do anything beyond oil and filter changes and brake work.
Real manhood is lugging a 5lb advanced calculus text out on a ten day hike in the Sierras and studying a chapter a night. Top that.
Stranger
[sup]1[/sup] I’m just kidding! I like Julia.
:sigh: One little typo in the coding and it all goes to hell…
Eh. I think being able to toss a good salad, sautee some vegetables, grill up a cut of meat, and pop open a bottle of wine is the epitome of civilized manhood. Just look at Julia Child[sup]1[/sup]. :eek:
On the other hand, I’m not adverse to a little greasy-hand under-the-hood oil-changing, timing-adjusting, alternator-replacing action, either; and back when I owned GM products that required this sort of grease monkey work on a weekly basis, I did it all myself. Now that my current auto begs for nothing more than the periodic oil change and annual fluids/belts/hoses check and occasional adjustment or replacement of wear parts I generally have someone else do anything beyond oil and filter changes and brake work.
Real manhood is lugging a 5lb advanced calculus text out on a ten day hike in the Sierras and studying a chapter a night. Top that.
Stranger
[sup]1[/sup] I’m just kidding! I like Julia.
Er, you forgot about their sexual proclivities and Hitler’s countercultural vegetarianism. And many of the High Command comitted suicide to avoid capture (especially by the Russians) or to avoid execution during the Nuremburg Trials.
Real men? I think not. A bunch of goosestepping pantywaists if you ask me.
Stranger
Shit the bed.
Drinking, driving around in pickup trucks, and shooting off guns.
At the same time.
Or maybe it just is in the south.
Dismantling and re-assembling a gun… over and over and over and over again.
Make someone crap their pants at the mere mention of your name.
I hit things. Hard things. Frankly, I’m surprised my hand hasn’t been broken yet.
You, sir, are a beast. Welcome to the boards!
Clear the brush on your ranch?
Playing computer games is virile?
No.
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Dimantle, clean, lubricate, and reassemble firearm.
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Clean and polish matching bayonet and check for fit.
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Load ammunition for the firearm, concentrating on accuracy. Any pantywaist can make a lot of noise. Of course you will have cast your own bullets, ideally over a fire started with flint and steel. Any activity involving the phrase “hot lead” is automatically Manly.
Repeat steps 1 - 3 for each firearm until:
A) You have cleaned all your firearms (Note: This is impossible for a Real Man. By the time you have reached the last of your arsenal, the first will need cleaning again)
B) The woman of the house, completely overcome by this display of testosterone, rips off her bodice and screams, “For the love of God, take me NOW.”
Hit someone in the face, or get hit in the face. Either one is good.
Yesterday I went mountain biking at Quantico with a Marine who just got back from Iraq. That felt pretty manly.
We power washed the bikes and stuck our hands in the stream from the power washer.
Then, we had a barbeque, and blasted several massive farts.
It was a good day.
All the better because Saturday night, I had to forgo watching the NASCAR race to eat a vegetarian dinner and drink wine with 3 women.
TIckle the puppy in the middle of her belly. Cook a 4 course meal with no planning and no preparatory shopping and get it on the table in 40 minutes and have it come out nice. Go in for a 20 minute Qi Qong backrub while on my lunch break. Timbuktu into three different remote systems simultaneously and edit a FileMaker 4 database on one, a FileMaker 7 database on another, and a FileMaker 6 database on my local machine while doing file copies on the fourth system. Glance at self in mirror after shower and feel good about sleek narrow skinny body. Kick back in the nice chair wtih a snifter of Kelt Cognac and Yusef Lateef playing and the light shining on the newly painted walls.
I think it’s some of the things conventionally considered virile (i.e., it’s nice to feel damn confident) and some of the things less so (luxurious hedonism & sensuality).
I proudly say… the following is all stuff I’ve ACTUALLY done.
-Fell and de-limb a four-foot diameter tree using only an double-bladed axe and two home-made bow-saws. Cut, split and stack the bigger portions to be used as firewood. All in one day.
-Defend the honor of a damsel. (Okay, so it was a barfight.)
-Lift several tons. (that is, weightlifting at the gym)
-Cause other men to remark “Damn you got some big arms” (big around, that is)
-Bend a penny…with my bare hands.
-Lift a car (usually done to win a bet)
-Wear a kilt… Most recently as the anchor of a competitive Tug-of-War team. Someone from another team remarked “nice dress” early in the day. He apologized later when my team went UNDEFEATED. (in this case, it was not worn regimental, as there were children present)
-Cause others to back down from a fight using facial expressions.
This thread is giving me a horrible feeling that I’m a man. Checks pants. Nope, still a woman. Good then.
I’ve done at least half of the general list, and not the computer half either.
Play 18 holes of golf; move furniture and paint a room; Barbequed dinner (all of it); have sex and immediately fall asleep. And that was just yesterday.