Decent Men Come Last

All those who know me, friends, not so much my family as there isn’t so much of us left, and even acquaintances, know that I have issues with women. They are not so serious anymore, and I pray regularly about it. It is mixed up with a lot regrets, sadness and what might-have-beens.

 

It has been said many times, that decent men, genuine men, even shy men and men who wear their hearts on their sleeves, come last. All the ladies say they want a decent man to care about them and treat them right, get married and have children with and be loved and cherished and cared for. But that’s all baloney, right??!  Women, and it seems there are multitudes of them, go for bad boys, what I like to call, possibly slightly nastily, the ‘beaters, cheaters and down the streeters’, men who beat women, cheat on them and disappear down the street and turn up again when they feel like it.

 

I used to feel jealous of such guys, they way they didn’t care one way or the other about the women who would seem to throw themselves at them and cling on to those men, when I couldn’t even get a woman to look at me no matter what I did. Now, I tend to think that such relationships as they are, are really two self destructive people coming into each other’s orbit, with mutually assured destruction as the result. This is not self righteous judgement, and it is not just blaming the woman for being stupid or the bloke for being a predatory a**ehole, either. But, being that decent men are usually a little more sensitive, a little more shy, a little more genuine, not in every case obviously, but generally, the decent men are either pushed aside by women, ignored one too many times or simply switch off from the whole overplayed dating game/cattle market scene and stop looking. So, the decent men disappear leaving the field wide open for the bad boys. The women, who say in one breath they ‘really really would like to find a decent caring man’ but perversely choose a nasty one get what they want, the bad boys who treat women dreadfully get what they want, and the decent men and decent women for that matter leave the field like dejected heroes and heroines, the knight without a fair maiden, and the fair maiden without a knight.

 

Dramatic? Well, love is dramatic, and being hurt in this sphere of life can leave deep emotional pain and cast long shadows over our lives. It certainly has over mine. God has allowed me to suffer. ‘11 O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I am about to set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. 12 I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of precious stones. 13 All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the prosperity of your children. 14 In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.’ (Isaiah 54:11-15) Even when God allows you and me to suffer, even suffer grievously and for a very long time, there is a purpose and there will be a good outcome to it all. It may not feel like it at the time, but as long as we have faith in God, and keep the channels of communication open, He will deliver us. His promises are not empty promises, believe me. Better still, believe Him.

 

I want to talk about something that has made me think for a while. It involves unrequited love, a well known English bank, me and a little lady. This is not meant to be funny, and nor is it upsetting really. But this is often the kind of ‘romantic dalliance’ I have had throughout my life. In the past, this did upset me greatly. Now, I tend to reflect on the whole matter a bit more. I have had a few nice girlfriends, I dillied and dallied a little on the singles scene, which in the UK is often not much more than going out with your mates (this is pretty much the same for groups of men or women), getting drunk, sometimes gloriously so, and hoping to meet someone of the opposite sex for laughs, tickles and maybe more, after the bacchanalian orgy that has just commenced. It’s understandable that by the time many of us hit our late 20s or early 30s, we get somewhat fed up with the whole British dating scene as it is. I certainly did, and many years ago.

 

Suffice to say, it isn’t really a great way to meet someone. It’s a great way to get drunk, sleep around (sometimes) and get drawn into an ever decreasing circle of diminishing returns. And, although on the surface it can all seem like one long party time, in the end it is emptiness. It is also often the pursuit of people who don’t really have values or a genuine purpose in life, and may end up in a person pursuing an addictive lifestyle, which I would say ultimately ends in self destruction of some kind and starts with a person pursuing an illusion, of which the more they seek the less real it becomes.

 

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I was in a branch of my local NatWest bank about a year ago or so, and needed help with a password for something involving the bank and a bonus scheme to collect points for elephant safaris or spending a romantic evening with Bill Clinton, or something, and I needed to ask one of the bank tellers, which I did. Now, both these bank workers (we don’t say bank tellers in the UK!) I know by face quite well, and they are both female and I have to say I found them, and still do, very attractive women, demure, obviously hard working, intelligent, the type of women most men really want to meet, be with, spend time with and fall in love with. Now, so far so good. I have to be perfectly honest, I liked both of them and wished somehow I could talk to either one of them and go on a date, but that seemed highly unlikely. I don’t know why, really. It’s not even so much shyness as how, when and why. I think most people know what I mean there. Anyway, there was also something else, too, which I found a little strange, and with this we get to the nub of the story. One of the women there that I liked is quite petite and has a very pretty face, the type of woman I have thought wouldn’t give me a second look most of the time. In this case, it seemed to be the same. Each time I came into the bank, not only wouldn’t this bank worker look at me, she actually seemed to make a point of never meeting my eyes at all and looked away from me every time I entered the bank. I figured quite naturally and understandably that she had no interest whatsoever in me and gave it little thought, other than I found her attractive and wanted to know her. This went on for a few months, until the aforementioned password incident, where I asked the other woman for help, and then Adele came out, told me her name and said she would help me if I came in again. It was only later that I suspected she might have been breaking the ice, but at the same time I was so used to being literally ignored by her that I didn’t give it a second thought.

 

What I am really curious about is, why if in the end she liked me, which I never once suspected, didn’t she at least look at me, even a little smile? I am truly confused about the way many women work when it comes to romance. It seems they can stand next to a guy, glance occasionally, even pretend to ignore someone, but it seems beyond so many women just to say hello. I will also say this too. I think many men these days when they see an attractive woman they like, are unsure whether to approach, not just through fear of being rejected or making a fool of themselves, but also the bigger fear of being accused of being a pest or stalker. I am being serious here. The accepted norm of romance is the man has to approach the woman and put himself in the firing line, so to speak. Many women can be hostile in this situation, for no apparent reason, or humiliate the man, or just be unpleasant. Obviously this can be exacerbated by alcohol which is why I don’t drink socially anymore and I don’t go to pubs or clubs anymore either. But women seem to think that it is easy for men to make the first move. Sometimes it isn’t.

 

So I believe truly decent men come last in love and often many other things, but I’m fine with that now. Not that I’m the most decent or perfect man, nor do I think it is any different for decent women, but as a Christian I accept the world the way it is, fallen and corrupt and we as human beings, whatever we do or believe and however we act, morally or immorally, are going to be or certainly have been victims of a fallen world. So, there has to be forgiveness for people and we all have to make allowances as others make allowances for us. We also have to forgive, as God forgives us.

 

So, very often decent men do come last. But sometimes, good things come to those who wait patiently. God will reward all those who put faith and hope in Him, and of course remain faithful to Him too.

 

‘30 ...many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’ (Matthew 19:30)

 

Update as of 17th September, 2018:

 

A year ago, or thereabouts, I started talking online to a very beautiful, sexy and intelligent Christian Filipina woman. This April, I visited her in the Philippines, because we both wanted to see how we felt about each other face to face. I fell head over heels in love with her, and thank God she did with me, once we met! I love her passionately, I think she is sexy, beautiful, young looking for her age, even though she is still young anyway(!), I love her funny family, and I love her friends, and I love the Philippines and I love Filipino food!!! Oh, I love her cat, Parker, too. He reminds me of me, but I can't really say why??!

 

 

God has brought me the perfect woman for me, and I won't lie, I prayed for a woman with beauty on the inside and beauty on the outside! But, so what? I love the bones of her, and I am going to marry her. So, there is a happy ending, and though often decent men, and decent women too, may come last and be pushed aside by the arrogant, self important status and money seeking types, patience has brought me my soulmate, lover, mother of our children and life partner, and there is a happy ending, after all.  

 

John Eldredge and Masculine Christianity

Political correctness in the last twenty years or so, and perhaps quite a lot longer in some forms, has seen the explosion of diversity and multiculturalism and the promotion of many ethnic minority rights and other what are seen as minority rights, too. Masculinity particularly has been attacked, diminished and sidelined, and in some senses so too have men. White men are a kind of all purpose bogeyman now, and to be honest some of that is not without reason. Men in general have been on the receiving end of all kinds of societal anger, resentment and hate, again, not without some justification. Masculine values and ideals are also under fire from many quarters too, and are seen as a problem. Of course, many men from all walks of life, ethnic backgrounds and many countries feel marginalised, and probably many women feel that it is not before time. Of course, within this fall other factors such as class, racism, nationalism and other things, not all men being equal after all. But, in short, men, masculinity and masculine values seem almost superfluous, almost redundant and not needed anymore. Men have become emasculated.

Now some people, even some men, may say the emasculation of men is not before time, and the feminisation of society is a welcome change. Some may even say that more women in power, in positions of authority and in politics, business and other spheres of human activity that have often been the sole preserve of usually powerful wealthy upper and middle class white men is a good thing, too. But, to be fair, many institutions tend to be dominated by men whoever they are and whatever background they come from.

 

But, didn’t God create male and female, and didn’t he do that for a purpose? Did He also create us to be different, as well? Knowing the trauma and conflict making us different genders and different colours and ethnicities would cause, just why did God create us all different? I suppose that’s another story. But it’s definitely obvious that male and female are very different, apart from the obvious differences. Most men tend to react differently to things than most women. Men usually have different abilities to women, and often have different interests to women too, although that is changing. Men can sometimes be solitary and ‘lone wolves’ whereas women tend towards empathy and sharing and caring. Of course, these are certainly not set in stone, and to be honest, how much of the general emotional characteristics that men tend to have and women tend to have are actually innate, or taught and socialised into us over the course of our childhood and later lives is most definitely open to question. What clever people might call the nature vs nurture argument.

 

I know that like with many things, masculinity is not something that is fully understood, but what I have a problem with is that there is now such animosity towards the idea of masculinity and so obviously to the idea of men. Many women may honestly say, ‘not before time’, but I think this in many senses is just the age old societal anger turning its ire to one group or another, and then in time to another group. Men and masculinity in general at this time are not flavour of the month. But, is this fair and is it acceptable? Should society demean masculine values and promote feminine values, if that is in actual fact what is happening? My view on this is quite simple. In the same way people vote for another political party when they become absolutely sick and tired of the one they have been voting for and not getting much from them, anger turns against one group or another when things are not going well politically or economically and badly in other ways. That can sometimes be immigrants, black people, Muslims, white working class people and so on. In the England of the 70s and 80s, Black people, Pakistanis and Irish people, women and gay people were the butt of jokes, casual sexism, casual racism and even violent racism. This hatred could be called unreconstructed as it wasn’t seen as completely malign, although those on the receiving end will probably beg to differ. In short, it was probably as much a lack of understanding than it was wilful and malignant and purposely directed. Although again, I would suggest that extreme racism and extreme prejudice has to come from focussed hate. But many people, as is human nature, just went along with it.

 

Today, political correctness has challenged such racism and prejudice and has turned its ire on the supposed architect of such prejudices, which is men, usually white working class men. It seems that greater, and self designated respectable, society always needs a group to point its respectable finger at, without fear of retaliation, the media itself being part of what seems to be respectable society. But as with many things ‘respectable’, there is always an agenda to shift society’s anger or frustration or the harsh economic realities sometimes imposed on the poor in some way, and usually it is shifted on a group that is either poor and can’t really fight back, or a group of some kind already resented in some way. Attacking the working class is quite an interesting move, because they are not really a minority and it cannot technically be called racism either, although I will dispute this at a later date, which seems to be acceptable to some, particularly those who seem to be quite vocally opposed to racism, homophobia and sexism. I truly find this rather strange, but not really surprising if I’m being honest. The white male, particularly but certainly not exclusively the working class variety, of which I am one of the said species, is the new scapegoat.

 

Working class masculinity is portrayed as negatively, and usually often as erroneously as racists portray black people or Jews or immigrants, or virulent sexists portray men or woman, or homophobes portray those who are gay. The working class are almost always portrayed by middle class writers or journalists or opinion formers, and very rarely portrayed by those who are or have working class backgrounds themselves. This often results in what are really extremes being portrayed as normal, so we either have the shaven headed, tattoo covered thug with can of strong beer in hand, or sometimes the saintly version who bears up and remains cheerful no matter how crap things are. One thing most of those writers seem to forget is we are all just human beings at the end of the day. But working class masculinity is seen now as almost completely negative. Of course, many of us rebel against this, but those of us who are smart, rebel in a smart way by being more masculine, looking more masculine, not being afraid to be men, and even grow beards these days! Men should be men. Women should be women. Never the twain shall meet!? Well, no, not exactly.

The real perniciousness of course is that the supposedly clever, informed and clued up in the media, politics and the world of academia, particularly in the US and the UK, instead of challenging stereotypes and prejudices either pretend they don’t exist, subtly and sometimes not so subtly go along with those prejudices and don’t allow any real debate on issues around class discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia and the like unless it comes from a very narrow politically correct agenda. In short, the people who claim to be liberal and open minded have become some of the most narrow and closed minded and illiberal people around. Some of them scream racist and fascist at people now merely because they have a difference of opinion from what a friend of mine called the New Orthodoxy, which I suppose is the idea that if you aren’t an ultra politically correct roving anti racist, anti sexist and anti homophobic champion of the oppressed, you don’t deserve to be heard. I’m waiting next to hear of books being burnt because they aren’t politically correct enough, or because the writer has had the temerity to hold an original and different thought from the PC Thought Police, on their quest to save the world from fascism and intolerance, except their own fascism and intolerance of course.

 

Yes, we do seem to have wondered a little off the topic of masculinity, but I see that as resentment has turned against the often racist, sexist and xenophobic nature of Western society, particularly the UK and the US, the political class and the well placed liberal opinion formers have found a target to blame it all on.

 

My view, as a white working class male, who also happens to suffer with chronic fatigue syndrome, has suffered with bouts of depression, unemployment, identity crises here and there, and now the ire of respectable society for being a white working class male who is not in any way ashamed of that, with an ability to grow a fairly good beard (now surely the last gasp of desperate masculine defiance?!) is to simply walk with the Lord. Whoever is persecuted in this world, for no other reason than simply being who they are without harming others becomes like Jesus when they act like Jesus. The world system may target one scapegoat after another to justify economic divisions and social and economic apartheids of many kinds, and political establishments and elites and the media will always seek to justify in however subtle a way they can such unfairness and injustice, but this is an unfair and unprincipled world where money is worshipped long before God is, and human beings come a very poor second to the worship of greed, success and self interest of many kinds, and that will never change.

 

We all, whoever we are and whatever injustice and persecution we may face in this world, have a saviour we can rely on. ’16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.’ (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

 

Masculinity isn’t a dirty word! Neither for that matter is femininity. Like it or not, God made us different for a reason. If men become women, and women become men, where will we all be? I am not judging people who struggle with who they are and wish in those rare and extreme cases to change sex, but the majority of us who are just happy to be men or women but feel that we should be constantly changing, constantly fearful of every new thing and social trend that says this is now acceptable but that isn’t, and then something else comes along saying the exact opposite. As a Christian, I don’t want or need changeable humanistic values or ideals, because no matter how good they are or start out, they always deteriorate eventually. Look at political correctness, or the most zealous feminists or even the proliferation of equal rights, which in that particular case hasn’t really changed that much. They all eventually become corrupted and sometimes vehicles for ambitious people for their own ends, and often against other groups of people.

 

God’s values do not change, neither are they the personal or special rights of any group of people, even long standing devout practising Christians for that matter, they are unchangeable laws that benefit those who obey them and condemn and bring to judgement all who arrogantly flout them.

 

Away from all that stuff, I really like to read John Eldredge’s very Christian and very masculine books that celebrate his Christian faith and celebrate the idea of men being unashamedly masculine without having to apologise or make any excuses for being men, and being masculine men as well. But also being Christian men, too. There is this growing idea, probably more so in the West, that men, especially Christian men, should be emasculated men. Yes, Jesus was said to be meek and mild, but this isn’t the only blueprint for Godly masculinity. Meek and mild is not necessarily weak and emasculated for that matter, either. John Eldredge says that we should reclaim our masculinity as Christian men, should see that as God is untamed as we men cannot be tamed either. That appeals to me. Obviously, becoming Hells Angels or football hooligans or pub brawlers is out of the question for Christian men, but going beyond the humdrum of emasculated manhood certainly isn’t!! I love being with blokes, having a laugh, not worrying about making, or usually hearing an inappropriate or off colour joke now and then, being loud and laughing even louder. But, I love my own space, being on my own, walking in country places surrounded by trees, greenery, hills, mountains in the distance and the feeling that I can walk wherever I want without a care. Oh, and I do like the beauty of a woman, too. I may add that Hells Angels and footy hooligans and pub brawlers may enjoy the peace, freedom, forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ, too.

 

I’ve been on this planet for nearly 50 years now. Sometimes I’ve lived as a man, sometimes I’ve lived as a half man. It’s like I’ve never lived. Well, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt at 80, so I’ve got some time yet. But, God made me a man, and a masculine man. It’s where my heart has always been. No longer should us men be ashamed of our masculinity.