The sexual revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for men.
And not just in the way your brain instantly sprang to.
Sometime in the last 30 years, men pretty much stopped having friends.
The real male retreat from society is husbands vanishing into man caves when not serving as their wives’ life accessories.
Most 18-45 year-old men have no clue that they need – or can even have – male friends after they get married.
Having friends isn’t a luxury. It’s a deep need.
Even more so for men. Contrary to popular misconception, a man’s true final end isn’t a woman.
It’s God.
After all, “Man sharpens man as iron sharpens iron”
Almost all Gen X, Y, Millennial & Zoomer men were raised to think that latching onto a woman is their sole purpose in life. It’s just another form of idolatry – worshiping the creature instead of the Creator.
Here’s what your dad – if he was around – never told you: Your wife is not your friend. You are not her appendage, and she can’t save you.
As a man, you are called to holiness.
If you’re a layman, you gets holy by consecrating the world to God through your life’s work.
But you can’t do it alone. If you’re married, your wife is there to help. Yet you also need male friends who have capabilities and dispositions to assist you in ways she can’t.
Yes, caring for young children is your wife’s job. Providing for the household is yours.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t pitch in with childcare & housework if she really needs help.
It is to say that keeping a man yoked with housework and joined at the hip with his wife, to the exclusion of male friendships, is as disordered as keeping a woman constantly confined to the house.
What Gen X, Gen Y, Millennial, or Zoomer man hasn’t witnessed the cringe spectacle of a married friend pulling out his phone and saying “I’d better clear it with the Boss” *wink*?
That’s effeminate and degrading.
Your wife isn’t your boss.
You are her head.
She needs you to provide direction and leadership.
It’s your responsibility to know your household’s schedule on a given day, because you should be the one who sets it.
So if your male coworkers ask you to help with an after-hours strategy session, or your bros invite you to hang out on Saturday afternoon, your call to your wife should go like:
“Hey, I’m getting together with the guys from work/church/the club.”
“OK.”
That’s it. No further elaboration should be necessary on either end.
Because you should have cultivated the virtues of honesty, charity, temperance, and yes, punctuality.
Let your “yes” mean “yes” and your “I’m meeting up with the guys” mean “We’re doing serious work or legitimate recreation.”
Not “We’re getting plowed and hitting the strip joint.”
If you think about it, there’s no point in having friends who suffer from serious deficiencies of virtue. They’re there to build you up, not drag you down.
So don’t just be the kind of man a woman wants to lead her. Be the kind of man other men want to befriend.
On another masculine subject, giant robots are awesome.
You should read about giant robots fighting:
