Men Being Sick

My father's been feeling under the weather, lately. It involves a lot of shuffling of feet and moaning. He insists that he's fine, and don't mind him, but then he makes the equivalent of a human creaking noise going down the stairs.

I noticed a similar phenomenon at school. When boys were sick, there was a strange mix of the need to be manly and the need to be pitied. "I'm oh so macho and look at my fine biceps, but don't you just want to make me chicken soup and do my laundry?" No, I don't, go get some Tylenol. Although I sometimes feel that girls can just take a hike, I like them much more as sick people than boys. Girls are usually upfront about it. It's like, "Yes, I feel terrible and look a mess." And either you're supposed to ignore it or empathize, or perhaps both.

It's amazing. I would watch guys stumble around with kicked puppy faces, demanding attention by renouncing it. "No, no, just ignore my hacking cough *hack, hack*. I'm fine, really." Some of them just play it up like you wouldn't believe. Stop pretending. We know what you're doing.

And a bit of advice to the guys: never, under ANY circumstances should you tell a girl, when she says she's ill, "Yeah, you do look kind of sick." We want you to pity us for being in what we make out to be our death throes, but we certainly don't want to hear like we look half-dead.