Is There Hope For Men?

f a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

It’s one of those ordinary days at work. People are busy doing their own thing; work and even non-work related stuff. You hear keyboard taps from every corner and, most of the time, people around are sounding like not from the country. Occasionally, crisp giggles and loud laughter-s are heard, which are actually signs that people here are trying to laugh away boredom. All-in-all, this day is nothing but exciting or noteworthy.

Not to some of us, perhaps.

He is noticeably quiet today. Then turns on the PC and prepares all the tools and applications needed to do the job we do every single day. The janitor who cleaned the floor and the stations seemed to have not placed his chair the way he always wanted it, so he fixed it. After everything is ready, he then put on the headset, got his calculator, slouches and takes calls. But sadness is all over his face.

I was aching to ask him what’s bothering him which is responsible for that sadness painted all over him. After all, he is the closest to a friend that I have here at work. Without much effort soliciting, he began narrating what happened to him few days ago which lead to the situation he is in right now. But I wasn’t surprise to learn what happened. He has been talking about this since last year and I even “predicted” it would end the way it did.

He played with another “team”. He got involved with another woman without his wife’s knowing. He, somehow, cheated on his wife. That explains why he got evicted from his house by his daughter’s mother.

He’s not the perfect husband or dad. And I am not endorsing polygamy and the excuses men would normally blame it on. I am just sad that it happened to someone I know.

This episode gives the existence of such poignant truth as real as it gets. A lot has been said about this ‘failure of character’ of man. People have given it some thought and tried to get to its roots to try to understand it. They hope to, after understanding(?), come up with effective means to avoid such heartbreaking experience. And yet some men fall down on their knees with the same mud.

So is it hopeless for us men? Is there really a way around it? Or do we have to surrender to the fact that it will happen to all of us, one way or the other?

I really would still want to believe it is still possible. A few I know believes so too. Without this “faith” true love would be meaningless.

****

It was just an ordinary day at work. At least, for the rest of us it is. But it’s not how my friend would take it.