
I am a guy. I like guy things. Sports. Competition. Adrenaline. Guy movies. Guy humor.
My humor embarrasses my sweet nieces, Anna and Kathryn. They love me, as I do them, yet when I say something which I feel is funny, they inevitably don’t like it. They like me, just not my humor. They are beautiful, tender, and sweet. I am not.
My apartment is practical, yet barren. I have more devices and gadgets than I do serving plates. Wires and extension cords are everywhere. I have comfortable chairs, yet they are ragged and old. While my apartment is generally clean, my walls are also, with not one single picture hung throughout my entire living quarters.
Additionally, the people I spend the bulk of my days with are men. Both in work and in life. Both single and married. The common fabric of men is that we are generally, on average, well, um, gross. We say crass things (even married guys away from their wives). Hygiene is not our top priority. Not even a top 10 priority. Restaurants are chosen by factors of quantity, taste, and price; NEVER by the aesthetics or food presentation. Never.
So goes the life of a single male. . . at least this single male.
A few years ago, I realized something fairly obvious to most, yet which had never previously occurred to me. Married men have a natural beautification, a natural softness in their lives that I do not have in my own. Wives are a wonderful blessing to men. Among the many wonderful blessings, wives bring beauty and tenderness into the lives of their husbands. As time was going on, I felt this lack of beauty in my own life was affecting me. It was making me more coarse and “hardened” than I wanted to be. . . and as Kathryn and Anna would attest to.
Moreover, I am convinced that all men WILL seek beauty; it is just a matter of whether it is legitimate or illegitimate. Unhealthy (or illegitimate) substitutes for beauty men will sometimes gravitate towards are things like [Read more…]