When I go walking along the Wales Coast Path, when I walk the dog in Bute Park, when I take a bike ride across Cardiff Bay Barrage… I notice something…
Yes, there are couples, and the odd groups of men but there is a predominance of women, young women in sports gear getting their power walks in, running, cycling… Women in walking kit or more casually dressed but out together for exercise, to shoot the breeze, to be social and healthy.
But I don’t see the boys, the men. Of course, there are exceptions but as I say, out and about it’s the women that predominate. The women will be healthy. But the men?
I have nothing to back this assertion up apart from anecdotal comments and erratic personal observation but I fear that boys stay indoors whenever possible and, of course, play games. And those boys become men who have lost the ability to be social in a casual undefined way. They can follow patterns of behaviour and get out for a right royal piss up but even that is a lesser thing, and especially in these troubling times. And so the men stay indoors and play games just like their lesser aged selves.
In an extreme case from non other than the USA, a man is sued by his parents who simply can’t get him to leave the family home.
A 30-year-old man didn’t get the message that it was time to move out of his parents’ home, even after they left him five notices and an offer of cash to help find new digs.The New York family drama eventually rolled into the court system, where a judge on Tuesday ruled in the parents’ favor and ordered Michael Rotondo to leave.
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I am of the opinion that the boys will become the blinking and pale and socially awkward things of derision that are portrayed in so many films and the women will be healthy and well balanced humans with much to contribute. This is a real divide. And it’s all in my head, an extrapolation drawn from casual observance. But those observances are striking and someone really needs to look into this at thesis level and this, if I am right, is not good for any community or country.
So, throw away your controllers boys and get out and wander the paths and trails near your homes. Do it for yourself, in your current iteration and for yourself, in it’s future packaging. Boys, be like girls.