Assume three things. Number one you ‘re in a restaurant. Number two you like your steak rare. Number three you ‘re a man.
So you order a rare steak and you ‘re really looking forward to it. The juices are flowing. You ‘re in the company of good friends so the craic is flowing. Ah, the smells, the atmosphere, the wine, it doesn ‘t get too much better than this.
Then your steak comes out. You stare at it, suspicious like. It ‘s not rare. It ‘s medium rare, maybe even medium. The red mist begins to descend. You were anticipating it with relish, in at least two senses. Now it sits before you, out of place, a pin in the balloon of your entire culinary experience.
But what do you do? Better, what is the manly thing to do?
Does a man sit and take it and say nothing? After all, it ‘s only a piece of meat, the dead carcass of an animal. It doesn ‘t really matter, in the grand scheme of things. It ‘s unmanly to make a fuss, to complain, to ‘whinge like a girl ‘. A man is a rock; it is beneath your dignity even to think of such things.
Does a man demand his rights? After all, you ‘re paying for it, you ordered it, you ‘re eating it. Why shouldn ‘t you get exactly what you want, what ‘s due to you? What, do they think you ‘re some kind of pussy, that they can throw whatever they like at you and you ‘ll eat it off the floor?
Or maybe a man chooses the middle way between cool indifference and hot-headed rage. Maybe he expresses his opinions to the waiter in a cool, calm but assertive way. Maybe he uses reason, evidence, and the language of a lawyer. And so maybe there ‘s no real difference between how a man and a woman might react in such a situation.
Ah yes, we ‘re all the same now. Aren ‘t we? Tell me, men, how would you feel?
