Who are these men?  Where do they come from?  What forces form them?  Is it nature?  Is it nurture?

Is there a specific set of childhood variables that must exist in certain quantities in order to produce these men?

We must admit that one attribute that these men have in common is ignorance.  As children, during the formative years, they must have been ignorant and unaware of situations where women hurt men.  Oh sure, we’ve all heard of poor John Bobbitt’s pain, but, seriously, what man considers amputation a likely outcome that need be guarded against?  In fact, there’s probably a man somewhere who has created some statistic which proves that the chance of a woman cutting a man is less than getting struck by lightning.

And men are proud creatures, the lot of them.  And rightfully so.  Is that it then?  Can we point the finger at an adult man’s pride?  (A father’s pride?)  Is pride the causal factor?  Is pride the reason that he wouldn’t share with young men that a woman had hurt him?  Or maybe he, the adult man, had never owned up to himself that she had hurt him?  Is this whole mess created by a simple lie?  Is it created by simple denial?  A virtual, “She didn’t hurt me.  I wanted to break up.  I hadn’t liked her for a while anyhow.  I can do better”?

Whatever the causes, I haven’t been able to figure out what words would get through to these men–or as Heat puts it, “All you are is a child growin’ older!”–these men who rush into relationships with women.  And no ‘mounta nothin’ cn talk ’em outta it–don’ matta who doin’ da sayin’.  I know, because I was one of them.  And then I almost repeated the mistake.  And then almost repeated it again.  And if I didn’t have such a hatred for patterns, I probably would’ve rinsed and repeated for the rest of my life.

Enter “old people”.

Turns out, they can hold their own in conversation.  And they’ve got, by definition, no shortage of experiences to back up the talk.  And I was looking for answers, ready to try anything.

So after a lot of listening, and a lot of thinking, the answer finally appeared.  I believe that I am invincible to women.  Or, rather, I believed I was invincible to women.  No longer.  Now, I know the truth.  Women are just as capable of hurting men as men are of hurting women.

So fellas (you know who you are), I have broken down the (our) problem as simply as I know how.  We need to acknowledge the simple, unbearable truth.  This truth is captured by four words, though I think its most effective delivery comes with repeating the words four times in a row, emphasizing a different word each time.

She can hurt you.  She can hurt you.  She can hurt you.  She can hurt you.

What’s the rush?

PS – As a reminder, hurt doesn’t feel good.