Guys, I don’t know if I can keep doing this. I really don’t. Does it accomplish anything? Anybody can tie a tie or cut down a tree, it doesn’t make a difference in the long run. You can be the most skilled, best dressed guy out there and it doesn’t mean jack-squat if you don’t have the right base to build off of.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve had my eyes re-opened to some things that I once knew. I have seen some things in a new light. The utter lack of concern, tenderness, and care that we boys (how dare we call ourselves men) show towards ladies is appalling.

Does a man ever try to take advantage of a woman, especially on a first date? Does a man cheat on a lady for years while constantly putting her down? The list goes on and on and on.

It makes me think back to when I was in middle school and the beginning of high school; I was part of an organization, and there was a strong ‘move’ among the guys to be chivalrous and treat ladies right. This sentiment was prevalent among the group and promoted by the adults and the students alike. These guys were some of the most gentlemanly men you’d ever see. A lot of females looked up to these guys, and us younger students that were just entering the group did too.

I went to a summer camp with the group, and guess what? I started to see the fractures. When the guys were in the dorms, two of the students that help head this push for gentlemanliness were talking about inappropriate things that I won’t divulge here. Not only that, when one asked me if I knew what the crude slang they were using was, and I said that I thought I did (unfortunately, I was right), he said, and I quote, “[insert other guy’s name here], this guy’s [me] cool!”

As time went on, the organization ended, and the true colors came out. 90% of those guys that pretended to be so chivalrous then have completely gone 180 degrees. I’ve heard some of the girls that had known them then express surprise at the change. Guess what? They never changed. They just stopped pretending.

I have seen the same thing happen with another group more recently.

Boys pretend to be courteous and to treat women right so that they can have sex later on. It’s the hard truth, and it makes me sick. Not every guy does this, some of us really do try to be gentleman, but it seems that we are all but extinct. I don’t think I can keep putting up information on how to be a ‘man’ knowing that most of the time, it will be misused and used to hurt women that we should be sacrificing ourselves to protect. I had allowed myself to forget the lessons I learned in the past and hope that maybe, just maybe decent guys existed out there, and we could learn to be men together. I was stupid and naïve to think so.