Pro Tip: We Put the "Men" in Developmentally Stunted | roughy d 1

I have to tell women something that I hope will be comforting: if a dude is struggling with his professional life, he won't mind making everybody miserable. There's a lack-of-accomplishment thing that sails ever onward ahead of the outstretched arms of every man. Every man that cheers on football--who cherishes a spectacular catch in slo-mo and then savors the same play shared in ten episodes of the same Sports Center--is seeing what he believes success must feel like. That moment, outstretched and actually physically grasping the goal. Only if he'd tried harder in high school.

This is supposed to be a good thing for you to hear, dear female friends, because it's not you. Guys should know better than to make it seem that way but, at least in my case, there's a total system shutdown that comes with disappointment in one's self. I can hear my wife now, "Well...should I throw the football for you?" And I'd laugh because it's true. Because in that quick-witted quip I'd hear my ever-the-internal wife express in humor a hot coal burning somewhere near her distaste for mustaches and unease with large groups of women. Now granted I've made some large, presumptuous leaps here, and there's a chance I'll land like Prince Fielder trying to get back to third, but at some point it will fit. At some point you'll feel the cold, yet be able to exhale and say, "Oh, right, you're emotionally retarded."

to be cont'd.