A man's tale ...

On instigation of Fay Vietmeier, I wrote the following tale, a man's tale ...

Once upon a time ... a group of befriended women got together for a coffee, some cake and a chat. They did this on a monthly basis, to have a good time together and to discuss what was on their minds, which could vary a lot. Since one of the women had seen some action movies with her husband lately, she curiously raised the question before the other women "What does it profit a man to cherish a macho image, to look and act tough, hiding his feelings?" She told the others, that she asked her husband the same question, but that he didn't had - or wanted to give - an answer. Since they were among women, curiosity was raised and they talked about the question the whole time, without finding a possible answer too. They agreed though, they would take up the question to a famous male philosopher whom one of them was acquainted with.

As it happened, two weeks after this, mentioned philosopher, gave a college before oncoming philosophy students, both male and female. The philosopher, who had received the question from his acquaintance, posed the question to his students. He told them, they had a week to think about it and find an answer.

The next week, the philosopher asked his students for their answers. As a tendency, the answers from most students sounded like "because in prehistoric times a man had to take care of the safety of woman and child, his genes still demand that he be strong, powerful and protective and this makes him feel good, emotions make him feel weak". One answer was "because men are forced to maintain this image by (social)media.

The philosopher listened to these answers and at the end, he genuinely started crying. His students were baffled and started to ask, whether he was alright. After the philosopher had calmed down, he told his upset students "you all want to study philosophy, I ask you a serious question and this is all you come up with? This really makes me cry! I want you to think about this and tell me next week why this makes me cry."

The next week, all the students came to the college excitedly. They all had tried to figure out why the philosopher had been crying, the week before, but the truth was, nobody actually understood. So when the philosopher asked for their answers, the students started to feel uncomfortable and a silence started to fill the college room.

The philosopher waited some time behind his desk, but still no one spoke up. Then the philosopher simply said: "are you waiting for my answer? Well, this is it! Exactly this happens when men are not acting strong or tough, when they don't hide their feelings".