Men Are Weird

A friend of Baroy's is in town, someone he doesn't see very often. In fact, I don't know if they've seen each other in the ten years I've known Baroy. But they've talked, and I've heard stories about him. He's not a close friend--more a friend of Baroy's older brother--but a friend nonetheless.

Anyway, they had plans to pay golf today with another friend of theirs. Yesterday, it poured. Buckets. So this morning, we get a call from friend #2 saying that all the municipal courses have been closed due to flooding. So Baroy calls the friend in town, tells him that the golf game is off, says "Talk to you soon, bud," and hangs up.

I'm staring at him, openmouthed.

"Men are SO weird," I say.

"Why?" Baroy looks truly puzzled.

"Well, if that were my friend in town, and we hadn't seen each other in forever, and our golf game got canceled, we'd *make other plans to get together.* I mean, for us it would be about getting together. For you guys, it's actually about playing golf! That's weird."

"Nah. That's just men."

It reminded me of something happened a few months back, when a good friend of ours lost his job and was really, really down about it. I suggested to Baroy that instead of all four couples getting together that weekend, as we usually do, the three other men should take J out and get him drunk and let him vent if he needs to. Baroy looked at me like I'd grown another head.

"Hold on," he said. "You really think that he's going to feel BETTER if we take him out?"

"Uh, yeah. It's called friendship," I retorted.

"No, it's called pity. If it were me, I'd *hate* it if I was dragged out by people who obviously feel sorry for me. I'd be so embarrassed. And what do you think we'd do, anyway? Talk about how he feels about getting fired? That's what you women would do. That's NOT what guys would do. Let me handle it my way, would ya?"

And, for the record, he did. We all got together that night--four couples with a total of eight kids--and at some point or another all the guys ended up in the kitchen drinking, and Baroy was telling J about his experiences with the same company, and you could tell it was making J feel better. And when I asked Baroy how, exactly, that was different from my suggestion, he just looked at me. "Because it just happened. We didn't make a big deal about it and make him feel worse by making it into some kind of 'occasion.'"

Whatever. I just don't get men.