A live-in bf I had many years ago did a something that I thought was particularly manly--

One night we were in bed alseep and the phone rang. He answered it and all he said was, "I'll be right there." He started to get up and of course I asked, "Who was that?" He said, "Cathy has to go to the ER."

Well, Cathy was a "friend" of mine, a VERY difficult person-- cranky, demanding, abrasive. My bf hated to be around her, and several times had commented that she seemed like a negative influence in my life and wished I would stop seeing her. (He was right, and eventually I did.) She lived alone and couldn't think of anyone else to call in the middle of the night.

Later she told me with awe and gratitude that when she called that night, all she had said (in her usual abrupt manner) was, "This is Cathy. The doctor says I have to go to the hospital." Without hesitation, questions, qualifications, or excuses, my bf said (as I had heard on my end), "I'll be right there." Not WE'LL be right there-- he was fully intending to go alone and not even bother me by waking me.

This incident still moves me 28 years later. To me, this is the epitome of manliness: seeing what needs to be done and doing it-- no excuses, no whining, no shirking.

I always think of the firemen and other emergency workers on 9-11-- when everyone else was running from the distaster (and appropriately so!) THEY were striding into it, doing what needed to be done.


On a lighter note... there was another time when I was single that a rat-- a big one!-- got into the apartment and drowned in the toilet. Poor guy-- but yuck! I could NOT picture how I was going to get it out of there. Tongs? Rubber gloves? The idea of touching it-- even through layers of rubber-- was intolerable. (Now that I've lived in the country for 13 years, all such squeamishness has long since disappeared.)

But on that day, a friend came over later (not a bf) and I said sweetly, "Would you do me a big favor and remove a dead rat from my toilet?" Without missing a beat, and with a big smile, he said, "I would LOVE nothing more than to remove a dead rat from your toilet!." And he did, God bless him.

There's that quality again of stepping up to the plate and doing the unpleasant task cheerfully and graciously.