Will Love Change When You Marry Someone?

It isn't that difficult to see that most male bloggers who are hubby and father, don't write as often about their missus, or children compared with female bloggers who are missus and mother. Except for Count Byron whom I consider a great guy who never runs out of nice things to say about his family, there aren't that many male bloggers who devote a paragraph or two every once in a while to writing about their family. I confess. Entries written by female bloggers who are mothers are a great read. It describes a mother's joy for her children's success in getting through SPM or a school concert, or passing through another grade in the piano exam. At the same time I read entries that can touch you real deep about the frustration, and anger, of their children's failure to do well in sports, music recital or UPSR or PMR. Sometimes they write about their children's health. Cough, fever, or injuries to the knees, elbows and other parts of their children' body. I like reading about these. They teach me something, although I don't quite know what it is that I have learned from these entries. And how can I not enjoy reading about how they discuss pregnancy, bersunat and sex, talking about it gently, being very careful not to encourage their children from getting too inquisitive to experiment with the real thing. It ain't easy being mothers. I was lucky in a lot of ways. Maybe unlucky if you look at it from a different perspective. You see, I learned about sex in the brothel, right where the action is.

I believe a lot of people out there more or less could have guessed that I don't do much in a day except surf the Internet to read blogs written by people from all walks of life. From students to senior citizens, from housewives to single fathers, from straight men and women to homosexual and lesbian. From interesting, sometimes downright weird individuals highly knowledgeable in their respective religions to atheist. I read them all. Some of them have become people I interact with through emails, or phone. But if there's one thing I notice is that husbands don't write about their missus or children as often as their counterparts do. It is only natural therefore that I come to the conclusion that love changes when you marry someone. Or could it be that men have the tendency not to write about their missus because of some reason I am not aware of since I ain't no hubby myself, except for a brief period which didn't amount to anything worth talking about.

There are women who write about their troubled relationship with their hubby. About their husbands' romantic affair with a colleague. About keeping a tight schedule juggling between their life as professional, and housewife, mother and everything else that comes with the job. Maybe men are not comfortable to write about this sort of thing. Maybe it is too trivial since as men they should be more concerned with bigger things like making policies to make this world a better place for people who mean something to them, which is their missus and children. Maybe they are too occupied thinking about things related to formulating a policy that they can't be bothered with things like onions, the price of fish, detergent, a faulty pipe, or their children's bicycle that needs a bit of fixing because the chain doesn't sit too well on the sprocket.

I confess feeling very small reading entries written by men about big issues like religion, government policies, or things I have little or no knowledge of. At times I wish my thinking is more aligned towards theirs instead of finding joy in little things like laundry, or going to Tesco to look up for someone I want to love with everything I got, and more. Someone with whom I want to have children so I can worry about them when they run a temperature in the middle of the night. I read every blog faithfully to acquaint myself with different styles of writing but most importantly, to keep myself abreast with the line of thinking which I know I will never attain because I haven't been reading all that many important books compared with the kind of books they read. Most of them are smart, brilliant people. People who went to boarding school and university to earn a Ph.D or at least a Masters' degree. I am quite embarassed to talk about my academic background other than I didn't do very well in school. Maybe this is the price I have to pay for being such a playful fellow when I should have paid more attention to the books and the lessons. It's too late to regret so I have to go from here with what little knowledge I have and hope no one out there is making fun of me for being such an ignorant fellow. Oh well, this is a free country. People can make fun at anyone they wish.

Sometimes I get to thinking maybe I can't quite comprehend the concept of being a man because I had no role model of a father with whom I can use as a general guide to hone my maleness, if there's such a word. Maybe this is the reason why all my life, I am crazy about being macho, as if to prove something to someone that I am as male as a male gets. Maybe as a child I needed to prove to the boys in the village that eventhough I was raised in a house where there was no male, I am better than all of them put together. Maybe that's the reason why I did the things I did. To prove that I am braver, bolder, and wouldn't think twice of doing something crazy like diving head first right into the deepest end of the water because I am a man, inside out.

Maybe it is a macho thing to do, not writing about your missus and children. Maybe it is the male thing that I need to understand better. Looking back, I know my friends only within the small environment of a rig, far away from the domestic setting of a home, a family unit comprising a missus and children. I didn't get to see them with their family. I wouldn't want to do that because I may be an ignorant fool but when a man is away from his missus for two weeks he doesn't need the company of a friend from the rig. He'd need sometimes alone with his missus. I know that. It doesn't take a man, or a woman to understand this biological fact.

Let me take a break from this to figure where I should be going with this subject. Maybe this is too big for me to attempt to write. I should know better that I don't have the brain for this.

(This entry expires 4 April 2006. It will be deleted to make way for entries typical of the writing style and thinking format associated with Bergen. Thank you.)