Men! Group huddle. How are we doing, guys? Everyone feeling OK? Obviously, there’s a lot going on in the world. It’s the hottest summer in history, so that’s sort of existentially stressful. We’re not taking enough vacations. Lots of crazy stuff happening in politics. Russia is definitely up to some shenanigans.
All of this can make men feel angry, confused and — perhaps in the case of at least one out of every eight of us — delusional. As proof, let’s take a look at this YouGov study, which found one and eight of us normal, human, men think we could win a point off of Serena Williams.
Wait. Was this question confusing? That’s a possibility. After all, it was conducted in the U.K. Perhaps there is another Serena Williams over there, other than the 23-time grand slam champion. Or maybe by “win a point”, some responders thought the survey meant make a point, as in verbally. Admittedly, that wouldn’t be terribly easy either but it sounds at least possible.
Men, there are so many things we can do. Some might argue too many — like, say, dodge the legal consequences of our own actions for decades. But we can also do many appropriately manly things, like roast our own coffee beans, write letters to our mothers, fancast the inevitable Die Hard reboot, recycle our plastics and talk openly about our feelings with trusted loved ones.
But one thing that none of us — absolutely no man reading this — can do, is score against Serena Williams in tennis. We need to be honest about that and if that is a struggle, we need to take a little longer in this group huddle and get a grip. The stakes are high in the twenty-first century. Let’s make sure our heads are on straight.
