50 Shades of Dan

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The No. 1 movie in America is Think Like A Man, based on the Steve Harvey book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. If you haven’t seen it yet don’t worry, as my next door neighbors say, “Why bother? There hasn’t been a good movie since Gone With the Wind.” The film’s premise is that four women are walked all over by their men until they read Harvey’s book and turn the tables on them (until the men find out what they’re up to—that’s when hilarity ensues).

It’s a time-honored rehashing of the “men are dogs and should be leashed” line of entertainment. But at a recent outing at a very exclusive restaurant (for what my accountant calls “research”), I met several (OK, two) men who are not only not happy that Steve Harvey would break the “guy code” and tell women how to “handle” men, but that life in the 21st century has actually left men “behind the curve” since women have become equal in all aspects of life but that “guys are still forced to remain in these structured dating roles.” That’s according to Dan, a financial analyst in his late 30s who seemed genuinely annoyed and moderately inebriated but was a spectacularly opinionated goldmine. “I’ve had women tell me they are offended when a guy opens a door for them. Offended! But did they offer to pay for dinner? (Here is where he threw in a side-eye.) And even though they can now act like men, if a guy even thinks about getting emotional, he’s not man enough. What (women) say and what they want are two very different things.”

Amen, Dan. I’m sure I speak for many of us when I say, “I don’t really know Dan and he in no way speaks for this writer or this magazine.”

But you’ve got to admit he’s expressing himself in a refreshingly beer-fueled manner, giving voice to a lot of frustrated men. When I asked him what he thought of the New York Times best seller, “50 Shades of Grey,” he seemed literally perplexed. “I’m not sure what to think of it. On one hand it might open some doors for us (guys). But on the other, they’ve (women) even taken porn away from us now.”

Dan is awesome. And single.

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