* Please forgive the grammatical errors. I'm a writer not an editor. If you understand Dr Seuss, you'll get through reading this just fine. I promise. ⌣
As a Gen X elder, I observe a lot of anger among my single male peers, among the single Boomer male generation as well. Anger. So much anger. I see it in older women also but not nearly as much. Granted this anger could be caused by early stages of mental decline, or perhaps mental disturbances in need of psychiatric help. Regardless I focus on my generation (and older) for the simple fact that we're too old for angst or having midlife crises. This anger is something more serious. The common denominator being that these men are single.
As a divorced (almost) 56-year-old woman, sure it can sometimes suck being alone but those moment are too few and too far in between to have a grain of the anger I observe in men. With one man I'm acquaintance with he wants me to be as angry as him and the fact that I'm not just makes him angrier. How are you not angry?! Well, it's simple. I keep myself busy with activities I love. Among other things, I love to knit. I love to read my Bible, pray, and study religions. I love movies. I love keeping up on new technologies. I love learning about science and medicine. I also love learning about bees, etc. I don't have time to be angry, nor would I allow that type of unnecessary stress into my life on a daily basis. Being angry is a choice. Being happy is a choice too. And while it is a free country, what benefits are you truly receiving with a choice of being angry?
Why do I care that so many men are angry? Because angry men elect other angry men into political offices who have the power to make other people suffer needlessly. "I want others to hurt like I hurt!" Misery loves company. Wanting other people to hurt is a loud cry for help. It's like stalking, harassing, or any other types of behavior that hurt other people especially women. Ah! And there we have it, no?
Hurting women, hurting LGBTQ, hurting children, hurting animals, hurting any living being is a loud cry for help. It is a loud cry that they themselves have suffered for a long time. "I want you to hurt like I hurt!" I know people think it's entitlement that makes men behave this way but (and this is just my opinion) these men are in excruciating pain. They feel their masculinity is being taken away from them because of sexual decline, perhaps a decline of employment, additionally age and death are scary facts of life for men.
Mothers are to boys what fathers are to daughters. Mothers and fathers lay the first layer of concrete to a person's foundation. How stable a person grows depends on the concrete. Gen Xers fended for ourselves from the moment we could walk. There's no reason for any Gen Xer to not be able to make themselves happy at 60, 70, or 80. Regarding Boomers, the only one I really got to know and love died in 2023 shortly after his mother died. Let me tell you a little story about my dearly departed friend Sheldon.
I met Sheldon around 1994. I was in my mid 20's. He was in his late 40's. A mutual friend introduced us and because Sheldon and I had so much in common from our love of travel, going to rock concerts, exploring new eateries, red wine, art museums, etc., we became fast friends. I got to know his family, friends, business associates, one of his cousins was my attorney after a car accident. Speed it up to 2001 I met a man, fell madly in love and got married 2002. I tried keeping Sheldon in my life. I introduced him to my then fiancée, but Sheldon just wasn't having it. He didn't want anything to do with my husband. My (ex)husband is a Swede and if you know anything about Swedish people, they're doers not talkers. When Sheldon made it loud and clear to both my husband and I that he wanted nothing to do with my husband or a married me, my husband just shrugged it off. I, however, was upset by Sheldon's decision. It really hurt me. My getting married hurt him. In return, he was going to hurt me by taking his friendship away. So be it. I was married for almost ten years. During that time Sheldon made another female friend he had nothing in common with he said. They both needed to eat. That was all they had in common he later told me. In 2012 while getting divorced Sheldon and I renewed our friendship. It was as if no time had passed. Then Sheldon's mother suddenly died. In 2014 Sheldon had to have a pacemaker put in. During this time my own dad was battling cancer. For the next few years, I went into hyper "nurse" mode. I babied Sheldon hard. Literally from the time he woke up until he went to bed, I was babying him on top of having a full-time job and a father dying of cancer. By 2017 my father had died. I desperately need to work on myself. Sheldon said, "Go. Do what you need to do. Take your time." Which I thought was an odd thing to say but I appreciated his understanding I wasn't going to be around as much. Speed it up to 2020 and Covid. No one was working. Everything shut down. Sheldon assumed I would come live with him. He assumed wrong. He was struggling in my absence he said. "Struggling how? You're a grown man." I said. More words were exchanged but the bulk of his problems were that no one was there to care for him and his housekeeper was a "useless old woman" who didn't care for him like I did when I had gone into nurse mode. Sheldon assumed nurse mode was going to last forever. He thought I was going to baby him forever now that his mother was gone. I said no. I told Sheldon he can take care of himself which was true. He had a pacemaker, yes, but other than that he no life-threatening illnesses. He would have told me if it meant my babying him some more. We got into a huge fight over it. Three years later Sheldon died. I now take prescriptions for hypertension, cholesterol, thyroid, diabetes, and low dose aspirin for my heart. Back in 2020 Sheldon was taking the same prescriptions. He died because without me babying him, without his mother cooking for him, he just ate cheeseburgers, pizzas, pastas, sausages, every day for three years, and drank himself into cardiac arrest death.
I believe people should die the best way they see fit. It's not my job to raise your children. It's not my job to see that you get into Heaven. It's not my job to babysit you because you're too lazy to do for yourself what most of the world, especially women, do for themselves every day. It's not my job. Sheldon had the free will to eat better. He had the free will to exercise. He had the free will to talk to his doctors about how he can improve his health, even his mental health. He had the free will to do so, and so do you, and so do I.
Men being angry because they have to do things to make themselves happy is no excuse. Blaming others, blaming women for your lack of happiness is a guaranteed way to fail in life.
I've known men over the years who own their own homes, have a steady income, have their health, own a car and can drive themselves, 100% self-reliant, but instead of feeling joy for their hard work and success, instead of finding excitement trying something new to meet women when their current method is unsuccessful, they rather be angry instead. No one, and I do mean no one, is going to find a man fun, or interesting, or enjoyable to be around when he's too busy waiting for someone else to make him happy. Women can smell that dependency a mile away.
Being a happy person is intoxicating to be around. Being genuinely grateful for life and all that you have like water to drink, food to eat, a roof over your head, means of transportation, clothes on your back, people who call you and check in on you, etc., being happy, mindful, and feeling blessed for these wonderful gifts of life is an automatic lure. Who doesn't, at the very least on a social level, want to be around a genuinely calm peaceful happy person.
Sheldon complained constantly about the new female friend he made after I got married, who remained his friend when he and I reconnected our friendship. He complained she only did things on a superficial self-serving level. She would only call him on her way home from work because she wanted the company while she was stuck in traffic. Instead of seeing this as quality time phone conversations, he chose to be upset by it time after time, after time.
Women handle being alone better than men because men have taught us how to be alone. Reread that if you need to.
Men have taught women how to be alone and then get angry that women prefer being alone. Reread that if you need to.
Having long term anger is a choice. If you have a roof over your head, food to eat, clothes on your back, an income, means of Transporation, means of independence, you have no reason to be in a perpetual state of anger. None. "Then why can't I find a woman to love me?!" Go ahead reread this entire blog as many times as you need to understand why. God bless.
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.
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