Most Men Have Big Bumpers that Keep it All In

When I woke up this morning and all of the windows of the house were open, I felt a chill. Oh no, no, is summer already fleeting? I shut the windows and then thought about my ride last night, in the nearly pitch dark, along the Norwottuck Bike Trail from Northampton to Hadley. I used my iPhone as a meager flashlight, and hoped that nobody would zoom up at me in the dark.

I decided I’d kill two birds, exercise and socializing,  so I parked in Hadley and rode in to meet my friend at the bar. We have a nice connection, he and I, often meeting to have beers on a Friday night. We talked about our lives and about what we’d like to do…and what we’re doing to get there.  He often says that he’s about to do something, or feeling as if he is ‘almost there,’ yet I get impatient. I reminded him that time is fleeting, like the summer, and that before too long we’d wish we’d done what we talked about there on that barstool together.

I admire him for the ease with which he relates to people; he brings out his inner self and reveals it. I asked him about this and realized that like me, he grew up with three sisters. There, that’s where it comes from. It is both familiar and comfortable to spend time with men who can speak their minds, and who let you feel as if they’re really revealing what is in their hearts.

Sometimes you can take that for granted, that you really are hearing what they deeply believe…but it’s not the way most men are wired. There is a huge front end, like the front bumper of an old car, that juts out and keeps most men from revealing what’s really under the hood. I like knowing how both men and women really feel…and I am never disappointed when I venture out on a Friday and we spend time on a barstool.