Something awry seems to be going on with modern men. As evidenced by Brendan Fevola allegedly passing around a nude photograph of ex-fling Lara Bingle (culminating in the photograph being published in a mainstream women's magazine), it seems that, instead of growing up, many men are actually becoming more immature by the minute. Unfortunately, you can forget your modern man taking you to a swanky white tablecloth restaurant because nowadays you're more likely to get an offer to sit on his couch and watch him play PlayStation all night instead. (Especially since the mean age of those who play video games is 33, Geek.com says.)
Oh, and don't expect this breed of modern man to clean up his mess afterwards either. Oh no. Apparently there's now a whole generation of dudes who don't cook, clean or wash their own underpants, most likely because they're one of the 25 per cent of dudes aged 20-34 who according to the Bureau of Statistics, still live at home with their mum.
Unfortunately for modern alpha females, it's clear to see that, while the women have had to "man" up in order to survive in a man's world, the opposite has occurred for the opposite sex ...
Take the character of Tom Scavo, Lynette Scavo's devoted husband in the series Desperate Housewives. While his high-flying-career-driven wife holds down the fort when it comes to the family's money, meals and mothering, Tom quits his job, joins a rock band and opens up a mediocre pizza restaurant ... enabling him to live out his childhood fantasies ... in his 40s.
While Desperate Housewives is clearly fantastical, Gary Crost, author of the new book Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity, says the notion that modern men are "immaturing" with age is very real.
Crost reckons that modern men have gone from idolising the likes of Cary Grant (mature) to aping the actions of actor Hugh Grant (immature). The reason? Crost surmises that it all comes down to the fact that the men have lost their role as the primary family caretaker and hence have ended up mightily confused as to what the heck they're meant to do be doing in all their spare time.
"Why not fill it up with having a mighty good 'ol time?" they say with glee.
Yet it seems the men themselves aren't the only ones to blame. Crost says the media is partly responsible with magazines such as Ralph and FHM to television shows such as Entourage and Adam Sandler movies all encouraging immature boyish behaviour.
There's actually a good 'ol buzzword to describe these gents. (And you know how we love a derogatory label at Ask Sam headquarters!) While the term was originally designed to describe an Italian phenomenon, thanks to Fevola and his ilk, the term is now starting to infiltrate our Aussie shores.
Introducing "mammismo", which is the opposite of machismo, and refers to a man who is forever a mummy's boy. Hence his social skills aren't fully developed by the time he is thrust out into the real world sans the apron strings.
My mate is dating one such mammissmo. Her biggest complaint? That he is utterly selfish, through and through.
"He always does what he wants to do, regardless of whether I want to or not. And everything is about him and his feelings. It drives me crazy how little disregard he has for anyone else but himself," she says.
But when she accompanied me the other night to listen to a psychiatrist give his two cents' worth on modern relationships, she and I were both shocked to hear him say that we all date someone who is a combination of the very worst aspects of both our parents "in order to finish the business we didn't finish with them".
Wow. Hendrix said we actually pick out a mate from an unconscious state, and we pick someone similar to the parent "with whom we had the most difficulty."
While I've long suspected that we do indeed subconsciously date someone like our opposite gender parent, to say that we have to go through a series of boyfriends or girlfriends in order to resolve all our unfinished volatile business with our parents is just plain torturous.
For the sake of all of us on this blog, I can only hope this isn't true ...
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