Attn Men: Ignore the NY Times

I am the type of girl that has always had more male than female friends. I get so happy when I click with women, because it's such a rare occurence. It's just so much easier with the men. There are less angles, they tend to be more upfront, and I love confidence, a quality that seems to be underdeveloped in so many women.

That said, it looks like the NY Times will not rest until they turn men into navel-gazing, neurotic lunatics just like so much writing has made many women into retarded versions of Bridget Jones. Take this piece, about 'man-dates'. In it, the Times finds the biggest loser guys on the planet and gets them to talk about the awkwardness of hanging out alone with one of their friends in a setting not involving sports. Apparently, two men going to a museum or to dinner together is 'gay'.

The Times admits that 'man date' isn't a term anyone normal would ever use: 'Although "man date" is a coinage invented for this article, appearing nowhere in the literature of male bonding (or of homosexual panic), the 30 to 40 straight men interviewed, from their 20's to their 50's, living in cities across the country, instantly recognized the peculiar ritual even if they had not consciously examined its dos and don'ts.' The piece is cringe-worthy as when they tell an interview subject that his friend would like alone time with him and doesn't like that he pre-empts their 'man-date' by bring along other men. "If I had known he wanted to spend one-on-one time, I would have," Mr. Freimann explained, adding that group dinners had simply seemed "more fun."

Like I said, I spend a lot of time with straight men. Recently, two of them went to see Christo's 'The Gates' together. That's right. Two straight men went for a walk in Central Park to look at odd art and neither had a gender dysphoric breakdown because of it. My men friends go out to dinner together, hang out on the couch and watch movies, go out drinking and not sit at the bar and generally just don't overthink their experience with their friends. Because, really, if they wanted to overanalyze everything they'd get girlfriends and well, who wants that?