On Leaving Boyhood: An Introduction

During an intense discussion about the emotional intelligence of one of her exes, Tara suggested that I do "manhood counseling," and while I'm hardly qualified to teach other men the way through that wilderness when I'm barely learning the land myself, I thought she may be on to something. Most of my female friends express continual frustration with the difficulty of finding, much less keeping, a man that they like. Most of my guy friends are flailing through their twenties, single, directionless, and bored. (No offense to said guy friends - just calling it like you say it.) Look around you and count the men in your life that you'd want to have your back in a fight and I suspect you'll end up with a real short list.

I don't claim to have any secrets about this, in fact the ideas here are cribbed from a book by John Eldredge, Wild at Heart. If you have the time to read this essay more than once, you should stop right now and go get a copy of the book for yourself, because the best I can do in an introduction is summarize the enormous concepts in his book. I also don't claim to have all the answers; these ideas are not new, Eldredge just does a great job explaining them, and hopefully I can do them justice.

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