Rediscovering My Masculinity…

I find it interesting that most of my readership is female.  I think it had a lot to do with my situation in life – being a person who was “sick” and dependent upon my parents.  I was a lot like a child – almost taking on a feminine, subdued persona.  I feel this fostered a motherly attitude in many of my female readers who tend to be older and parents themselves.  Women also tend to be more likely to read personal “day in the life” journals as well more than men.  Don’t get me wrong!  My readership is wonderful!  People like Granny, Mary K., and Lacey just make my day with their comments.  But I would like to have some fellows to read along and give me some interesting guy advice. Most of the advice I get on the blog is from a feminine point of view. 

What if returning to work and doing more male centric things like drinking a beer, pursuing women for relationships, working on my car (now that I have money to do so), writing of sex, notes on work, will foster a more male readership?  I can only think of two of my male readers off the top of my head and that is Syd and Pipe Tobacco.  Pipe Tobacco will often write of masculine things such as libations with his father in law, smoking pipes, and musings about automobiles. 

When I wrote regularly about the gang down at the Piggly Wiggly, I had a strong male following.  I also had a much more vibrant and vigorous readership.  My life was rough and tumble – very masculine and worldly.  As my life degraded into dependency on my parents, these male readers shied away.  I don’t think my life garnered much respect within male circles – being a coddled 30 something year old man without any control over his life.  Men respect independence, money making, strength, and a masculine centered life and attitude.  My life went from drinking beer, having lots of sex, cavorting with extremely interesting and lively homeless and vagrant people, to this milquetoast existence that would bore the average male to tears. It bored me to tears as well and I think this was a primary source and cause of many of my mental and emotional problems.  I felt like I had no reason to live anymore.  My life went from interesting and vibrant to sitting at home all day for years watching television, wallowing in self pity, and wasting time on the Internet pontificating endlessly about my mental and addictive problems on an online journal as my father took more and more control over my life.  I was playing the role of the sick, addicted, and dependent family member, and this role has been surprisingly hard to break away from.  I have been met with stone walls everywhere I turn.  I am feeling some supreme and extreme pressure within my family to return back to the old “safe” me as my father puts it.

The majority of the blogs I read are written by women. That’s not a bad thing.  It’s just that I would like some more male perspectives on life.  I don’t have many positive role models or at all that are male.  On the other hand, many of these women are wonderful writers with rich, interesting lives, though. Women seem to tend to be more “talkative”, “chatty”, and more regular journalers – sharing their lives with their female friends.  Also, rarely do I read a blog these days about beer or politics or electronics or cars and sex – all things men seem to like and enjoy.   Maybe just the whole art of regularly journaling about your life is a female centric thing, and just not that enticing to males (unless it’s about that completely boring topic politics when men foam at the mouth over it seems).

I don’t know, but it will be interesting to watch and see if I garner a more male following over the next few months as I write about working, making money, building a yard care business, fixing up my car, gaining a healthy sexual life (if I can get my medications sorted), and other more respect and masculinity building endeavors. I hope I don’t lose my female readership though.  I have grown to value you all so much over the years!  Keep giving me that female point of view so I will have a more balanced perspective!