In The Company of Men

It is not, I think, very energy efficient to have two parts of a machine performing the same task.

A mechanical and, by extension, a spiritual union might better be described as the conjunction of dissimilar parts such that the ability of each to realize a common goal is improved.

The roof is pitched to shed the snow, the floor is flat for the convenience of the occupants. Both conduce to the comfort of the inhabitants and to the structural integrity of the house.

Well, then, let's talk about sexual relationships. Let's talk about men and women. Our sexual organs, as has been noted, are dissimilar. It is also widely known—though to aver it in certain circles is impolite—that our emotional make-ups are quite different; and try as one may to hew to the correct liberal political line of equal rights, and elaborate a moral imperative into a prescriptive psychological view (i.e., men and women are entitled to the same things; therefore, they must want the same things), we know that such a view is not true. We know that men and women do not want the same things (as much as they may want the rights to want and to pursue the same things). And why men and women want dissimilar things is, as they say, beyond the scope of this inquiry.

As I amble so pugnaciously into my twilight years and into what I so dearly hope will be a time of reflection and peace, it seems to me that women want men to be men.

This is a new idea to me. In my quite misguided youth, I believed what the quite misguided women of my age said when they told me and my fellows that what was required for a happy union was a man who was, in all things save plumbing, more or less a woman.

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Leisurely reflection would have revealed to me and the boys that women do not, on the whole, get along with women, and that efforts by men to be more like women would give those actual women yet another batch of objects with which to indulge in the—forgive me—intrafemale activities of invidious comparison, secrecy and stealth.

So there we were as, disons le mot, Dagwood Bumstead, and wondering why both we and our women were vaguely discontented without being in the least starry-eyed.

Well, then, for the moment, to hell with women; and to hell with the battle of the sexes and its current and least charming aspect of litigiousness.

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

Men get together under three circumstances.

Men get together to do business.

Doing business is not devoid of fun. It gives us a sense of purpose. We run around in ways the society at large has determined are basically harmless, and every so often, we get a pay check for doing so.

Men also get together to bitch. We say, "What does she want?" And we piss and moan and take comfort in the fact that our fellows will, at some point, reveal that, yes, they are weaklings, too, and there's no shame in it. This is the true masculine equivalent of "being sensitive." No, we are not sensitive to women, but we are sensitive to our own pain and can recognize it in our fellows. What a world.

The final way in which men get together is for that fun that dare not speak its name, which has been given the unhappy tag "male bonding."

Now, let's talk turkey for a moment. Let's look at this phrase. What does it mean? We know, first of all, that it is not a description of a legitimate good time, and that "male" seems to be a derogatory modifier of an activity that in itself seems to be either an approximation or a substitution.

For who, friends, do we know who would suggest that we all spend a nice afternoon "bonding"? What is bonding? It means this: the tentative and somewhat ludicrous reaching toward one another of individuals who are neither prepared to stand on their own emotional feet nor ready, for whatever reasons, to avow their homosexuality. And if I'm lying, I'm flying. Male bonding is an odious phrase meant to describe an odious activity.

Whatever happened to "hanging out"? What happened to "spending time with the boys"? What happened to the lodge, hunting, fishing, sports in general, poker, boys' night out?

What happened to men having fun with one another? Because we do—though we may have forgotten—have quite a good time with one another, in the above-mentioned and other activities; and although the talk is many and, perhaps, most times of women, the meaning of it is: Isn't it great being here together? Now, perhaps one might think this is latent homosexuality. If so, so what? And if you're sufficiently liberal as to hold that overt homosexuality is no crime, then perhaps you might extend your largess to its latent counterpart and, perhaps, further, we might look at our impulse to brand the need of men to be together with various types of opprobrium and just say, It's all right.

Because it is all right.

It's good to be in an environment where one is understood, where one is not judged, where one is not expected to perform—because there is room in male society for the novice and the expert, room for all, in the poker game, the golf outing, the Sunday watching football, and room and encouragement for all who wholeheartedly endorse the worth of the activity. That is the true benefit of being in the company of men. And the absence of this feeling of peace ("Maybe she will think it's silly") is one of the most disquieting and sad things that a man can feel with a woman (it means "Maybe I'm no good").

I have engaged in many male and specifically masculine activities—shooting, hunting, gambling, boxing, to name a few. I have sought them out and enjoy them all vastly. They are times that I cherish.

I was sitting last October, bone cold, with some old-timers in a hunting shack, and they were passing around ginger brandy to pour into the coffee and reminiscing about the cockfights that their dads used to take them to back before World War One. Is this corny? You're goddamned right it is, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Nor the hanging out at Mike's Rainbow Cafe—rest in peace—with a bunch of cabdrivers and bitching about the police; nor leaning on the ropes and watching two guys sparring while a trainer or two yells at them; nor 25 years of poker games, going home flush, going home clean; nor doping the form out before the first race.

I love hanging out at the gunshop and the hardware store. Am I a traitor to the cause? I have no cause. I am a card-carrying member of the A.C.L.U. and the N.R.A., and I never signed up to be sensitive.

In the company of men, this adage seems to operate: You will be greeted on the basis of your actions; no one will inquire into your sincerity, your history or your views, if you do not choose to share them. We, the men, are here engaged in this specific activity, and your willingness to participate in the effort of the group will admit you.

Yes, these activities are a form of love. And many times, over the years, I have felt, at three or four o'clock in the morning, sitting out a hand in the middle of, perhaps, a vicious game, that beyond the fierce competition, there was an atmosphere of being involved in a communal activity—that by sitting there, we were perhaps upholding, perhaps ratifying, perhaps creating or re-creating some important aspect of our community.

You may ask what it was about our passing money back and forth that was important to the community. And I am not sure that I know, but I know I felt it. And I know that it's quite different from business, and from the competition of business, which is most times persecuted for the benefit of ourselves as breadwinner, as provider, as paterfamilias, as vestigial and outmoded as you may feel those roles to be.

I was shooting partridge, and I watched the dog on point in the frosty morning, and I said to the other fellow, "Isn't that beautiful?" and he said, "That's what it's all about," and it certainly was. That day's shooting was about things' being beautiful. And the trainer saying, "You got no friends in the ring" was about things' being true, like the one player who says, "Don't call; I've got you beat" and the other one who pushes his stack in and says, "Well, then, I guess I'm just going to have to lose."

Is this male companionship about the quest for grace? Yes, it is. But not the quest for a mythical grace, or for its specious limitations. This joy of male companionship is a quest for and can be an experience of true grace, and transcendent of the rational and, so, more approximate to the real nature of the world.

For the true nature of the world as between men and women is sex, and any other relationship between us is an elaboration, an approximation or an avoidance. And the true nature of the world as between men is, I think, community of effort directed toward the outside world, directed to subdue, to understand or to wonder or to withstand together the truth of the world.

I was sitting at a bar in Chicago many years ago. It was late at night and I was drinking. An old waitress came over to me and correctly guessed the root of what she correctly took to be my state of the blues. "Look around you," she said. "You have more in common with any man in this room than with the woman you'll ever be closest to in your life."

Perhaps. But in any case, to be in the company of men is to me a nonelective aspect of a healthy life. I don't think your wife is going to give you anecdotal information about the nature of the universe. And perhaps if you are getting out of the house, you may be sufficiently renewed or inspired that she will cease to wonder whether or not you are sensitive; perhaps she will begin to find you interesting.

"No one will inquire into your sincerity, your history or your views, if you do not choose to share them."