Poser? Yes I am.....

Any man, if he is honest, will tell you that he is a poser. Not in the traditional weight lifter checking his watch sort of way, but in the context of he is not sure at all what he is doing. Yes, we look confident but deep down inside we fear that one day it will be shown how little we know.


Women will obsess over their looks. I'm talking about beautiful women who are convinced they are ugly. Or too heavy. Or they have too many wrinkles. And yet the people around them know how radiant they are and can't understand how they can be so insecure. I get it. Security is something that doesn't come quickly or stay very long with women. And a lot of the reason is us men. We feed the notion of a "perfect" body. Or just our insensitive and boorish nature. We see women for the wonder that they are but we suck at expressing it. There is a reason.


Because while they are busy running themselves down, we are busy hiding. We hide behind the facade of the tough guy. We don't have time for self examination, we have a life to run. We have work to do. We have kids to raise. We have a wife to make happy. We have buddies that need our company. We have bosses and employees, all who need us a lot. And we are scared to death. That is exactly right. Scared. Just because we didn't cry during "The Notebook" doesn't mean we can't. We just assume the pose of tough guy instead. Fear is powerful.


And the reason we hide. The reason we pose. Because just like the model puking up lunch in the bathroom, we're never quite good enough. We spend our entire life thinking we are blowing it with our wife or girlfriend. Don't believe me ladies? Ask your man if he thinks he is doing a good job in the marriage. Even though you may think he rocks your world, he thinks he is one screw up from being on a late night chat line trying to sound young enough to go clubbing. Same at work for most of us. One bad mistake and it's over. Back to delivering pizza on a bicycle. Parenting? Don't talk to me about parenting. (Jim Mora inflection) We know our kids will think we are out of touch as soon as they are old enough to know anything. We think they will come back around but that might just be for money.


All this brings up the obvious question,"Why are we so worried?". I wish I had an answer. I really do. Lack of faith maybe. In God, our fellow man, our spouse. Could be. Upbringing. Lots of people think so. They have the theory that we are scarred early on and spend the rest of our life trying to fix it. Society puts pressure on us? Possible. But isn't pressure everywhere? For my purposes I have come up with a working explanation as to why I am a poser. And the answer I use to deal with it. The reason is because I am normal. If it is screwed up to want to be good at what you do and be loved and respected than I am screwed up. But I don't think it is. Even great athlete's get butterflies before the game. Why should a husband be any different?Or a boos? Or a father? We want to perform well and that fills us with apprehension. It sounds normal to me. Isn't it possible that all the insecurity we live with is common to almost all of us? If that is the case than aren't we all normal? In my world, the answer is yes. So, drop the pose everybody. We are all in this together and it's okay to be who you are. We are too busy dealing with ourselves to notice.





Till next.......