Self-Made Man

Here's an NY Times review of a book by a female reporter, Norah Vincent, who passed herself off as a man, and who is now telling her tale of what men are really like.

I liked this section of the review, which recounts her on-the-team observations of a blue-collar bowling league.

' "They took people at face value," writes Vincent of Ned's teammates, a plumber, an appliance repairman and a construction worker. "If you did your job or held up your end, and treated them with the passing respect they accorded you, you were all right." Neither dumb lugs nor proletarian saints, Ned's bowling buddies are wont to make homophobic cracks and pay an occasional visit to a strip club, but they surprise Vincent with their lack of rage and racism, their unflagging efforts to improve Ned's atrocious bowling technique and "the absolute reverence with which they spoke about their wives," one of whom is wasting away from cancer. '

One of the funnier aspects of her story, is that she went on dates with women. She had been on dates with women before, since she's a lesbian. But she had never been there as a man before, and she didn't much like it:

"...as a single man dating women, I often felt attacked, judged, on the defensive. Whereas with the men I met and befriended as Ned there was a a presumption of innocence -- that is, you're a good guy until you prove otherwise -- with women there was quite often a presumption of guilt: you're a cad like every other guy until you prove otherwise."

Step in the other guy's shoes,
You get a different view.