Do Real Men Cry?

Love, MDMA & the 21st Century Geezer

Men were always in touch with their emotions.

Even the most calcified of old-world hardasses were, at least, occasionally, liaising with the inner functions of their own brain. It was more the expression of these feelings - happiness, sadness and variousness - was frowned upon. 

Then again, those emotions were still expressed, just in different ways, like eventual suicide - or infanticidal rage. You know, guy stuff. 

Over centuries of discrete misery, the stone-faced walls of masculinity were built up. Thankfully, there is one heaven-sent molecule that turbo-blasts through all those layers of stratified twaddle: MDMA.

The flung-openness of ecstasy has helped millennial men admit their feelings. That dam bursts. All those emotions, only permissible in the context of lower-league relegation battles, flow out: love, doubt, fear, pride, anxiety, hope. 

A slackening of the lower jaw and upper lip has softened hardmen everywhere. Once Mandy has love-bombed open the floodgates, there’s no closing them. The modern man cries at films, weddings and deaths - but also charity appeals, skylines and UFC Hall of Fame inductions. 

Another lasting side-effect of 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine is love. Those mud-thrusting hippies aside, we are the first generation of men acknowledging love for friends, verbally. That love was only ever implied through pints, avenging blows and meaningful handshakes. Perhaps, the words were spluttered out once a lifetime or so - in a stag-du blackout, the density of which guaranteed erasure.

Save that for the deathbed, pal. Love was something annualised for wives in pre-written greeting cards. Voicing “I love you,” -  always butched right up with a term of macho endearment, of course - “man/mate/dude/bro”, is now the norm. Other quantum breakthroughs in male friendship comms, include: I miss you; I’m proud of you; that jacket looks nice mate, really suits you. 

It’s only very recently that men started having mental health problems, as far as society is concerned - which isn’t that far at all. 

The 21st century geezer supports their mates, emotionally. Men now know laughter, at the expense of the depressed, is not the best medicine. Although, sometimes it is. Nor is the sincere counsel that a heartbroken friend “just needs to get their dick sucked.” Although, sometimes they do. 

The generation of men before us didn’t even express tiredness. Hopefully, our sons will live in a world where no anorak goes uncomplimented for fear of reprisal.

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