What makes a man?

What makes a man?

Good question eh? Why don’t you ask Wikipedia?

There are far too many categories of manhood that help classify someone as a smorgasbord of toughness. This being said, a man is not just someone that has the words testosterone, but not estrogen, in their vocabulary as well as in their bodies.

Growing up I was told that there are three different types of “Men.” Man A: a man who understands absolutely everything about the components of an engine. Man B: a man that can stalk, hunt, and kill any type of animal. And then, Man C: a man that is an absolute sports junkie who could tell you the last 25 A.L. Pennant winners and Super Bowl Champs.

Certainly there are different components that make up what a guy is. A guy is someone that doesn’t worry about whether the toilet seat is up or down. Someone who gets far too excited about watching things go “BOOM!” Someone that doesn’t care if their pants match their shoes.

Guys are creatures that lounge around in absolutely nothing but a pair of basketball shorts all day long and not feel guilty about it at all. Guys eat a double cheeseburger at 1 a.m. and don’t worry about if any of it is going to their thighs. Guys don’t ask people for directions when they’re lost. Guys grow beards and pretend to be the Brawny man or Paul Bunyan.

A man’s euphoria is displayed over a good plate of nachos. A man loves seeing how many gummy bears they can stuff in their mouths on a Saturday night after drinking a 24-pack of Mountain Dew. Men love watching four hours of SportsCenter a day and being entertained throughout all of the highlights.

I’ve always wondered what the “true” definition of what being a man was. I was given more of an understanding this weekend though as Bryan, Mark, Jeremiah, Nate and myself drove out to New Castle (not White Castle) for what could be classified as a “manly” weekend.

We fished, we laughed, we shot at Eli birds that for some reason had a protective shell around them to spite men with guns. This bird also set up fishing line traps to spite the surrounding hunters. We talked about a variety of manly entertaining movies, which of course did not include Brokeback Mountain. We were men for the past 24 hours, and you could hear us roar.

When it came to what we all thought was a man, we did have differing viewpoints on how to be as masculine as possible.

Bryan’s definition of being a man was tracking, hunting down, and blowing the jaw off of a cottontail rabbit with .22 caliber rifle.

Jeremiah’s definition of being a man was skinning Bryan’s rabbit with a plastic fork, while attempting to lure crawdads in with chicken hearts and gizzards, a Chuck Norrisesque feat.

Nate’s definition of being a man was… well, drinking some type of cayenne pepper-lemon rind concoction that was supposed to “cleanse his system.”

As for Mark and myself? Well, our definition of being men was discussing last week’s Glee episode over the campfire, and being shocked that Rachel’s Mom was the leader of Vocal Adrenaline.

Alright, maybe that would be um, the Q Man…

Oh and by the way, 14 is NOT the new 17.