I like men

I do. I admit it. I've been married to two wonderful men who know how to be good friends as well as good and provident husbands and fathers. In a mixed gathering, I often find myself in a corner with guys talking about business, sports or current events. (A husband of a good friend once told me, "You're the only one who remembers who spoiled Milt Wilcox's almost-perfect game* and will also ask me how things are really going." This snippet is included as a reassurance that I'm not secretly a guy myself.) I just like them.

So my eye was drawn to a paragraph in the May 2006 issue of First Things in which Richard Neuhaus reports that Marian Saltzman, coiner of the descriptive tag for cosmopolitan men "Metrosexual" (which is so last year), has come up with a term for this year's man: "Ubersexual". Hold your horses -- repellent as the associations with that term might be, the definition is pretty attractive:

Ubersexuals are “men who embrace the positive aspects of their masculinity, such as confidence, leadership, passion, and compassion.” But they do so “without giving in to negative neanderthal stereotypes.” “The ubersexual has a passion for principles. The metrosexual has a passion for fashion,” and so forth. The ubersexual does not “turn up his nose at any cultural pursuit that doesn’t involve sports, beer, or burgers.”

Well, I had no interest at all in Last Year's Man with his "passion for fashion" -- actually, I had little notion that he was Last Year's Man -- but I very much like and respect men with "confidence, leadership, passion and compassion."

If this definition helps men like this be identified and distinguished from the herd, all the better. I have some wonderful daughters and delightful single friends who would like to meet you.

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P.S. Therése once identified another characteristic of admirable men, in a backward sort of way. "Men who go to daily Mass are studly." Eloquently put.

* Jerry Hairston, Chicago White Sox, 4/15/83

"You there, come to the big kids' table", said Enbrethiliel

Hey, a tag! I wish it had been for something that wouldn't spotlight my lowbrow tendencies quite so much, but I accept with thanks.

THE BOOK MEME

1. One book that changed your life
   
   Who Moved the Stone by Frank Morison
   This is the book that tipped me over from unbeliever to believer when I was a freshman at the University of Michigan. I needed a fact-based defense of the actual invasion of the natural by the supernatural, and God sent it in this book.
   
2. One book you've read more than once
   
   Oh, so many. Let's choose Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
   
3. One book you'd want on a desert island
   
   Desert Survival Skills by David Alloway
   I am nothing if not practical.
   
4. One book that made you laugh
   
   Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Judith Martin
   This is also the book that taught me how to avoid unwanted committee assignments without being ungracious or feeling guilty.
   
5. One book that made you cry
   
   Again, so many.
   The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
   
6. One book you wish had been written
   
   I've thought a lot about this.
   Blessed by Adversity: How Being Overthrown in a Coup Changed My Life
   by the Rt. Rev. A. Hitler
   
7. One book you wish had never been written
   
   The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, et al.
   
8. One book you're currently reading
   
   Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
   (Don't be too impressed, fellow lowbrows. My husband's good influence is being felt, but we're still newlyweds. The jury is still out on whether my taste can be rehabilitated.)
   
9. One book you've been meaning to read
   
   Deep Conversion / Deep Prayer by Fr. Thomas Dubay
   It's on its way from Amazon. Fr. Dubay is leading our parish women's retreat, and this is the pre-reading.
   
10. Bloggers who I'm tagging
    
    Therese, are you there? Do you have time for this?
    Henry, whose answers will be particularly interesting
    TSO, I don't know if you "do" memes, but Tag, You're It.