Tom McCarter
Guest Writer
When I was growing up we moved several times and I was often the new kid in school. I would make a few friends and have to move on.
I remember one year when it was cool to have three or four boys cruising down the school hallway with their arms across each others’ shoulders. I liked that because I felt like I belonged. But the next year it suddenly wasn’t cool anymore. No explanation was given. I felt separated from the boy world.
From 7th grade on I attended a military school and found boys with similar interests. At first we were building models. Then we got into drugs. It was the 60s, man! Two bad injuries sidelined me from playing on any teams but that was OK with me – I had never excelled at any sport. Growing up, I was always one of the last ones picked to be on a team.
When I went off to college, I’d had zero experience with women. I became friends with some of them and I listened to them talk about their relationships, but I just didn’t know how to get started in one myself. Recently, an old college friend told me she wondered if I’d ever have a girlfriend.
Finally, at 21, I was seduced by a woman classmate. It was a brief affair, but at least I had one.
After graduation I drifted through life, taking jobs to pay rent. Occasionally, a woman would express interest in me and we’d have a brief fling. I really never understood how it got started or why it ended. Again, no explanation was given. I did have one long-term relationship and we eventually got married. But then it all fell apart.
I still had drugs to get me by, then they stopped working. I got sober. I was still drifting and just getting by and now I had nothing to lean on. I went to AA, had a couple brief flings, and worked in odd jobs.
All that time, I never really identified as a man. My dad was a man and had done manly things – he’d been a fighter pilot, had climbed a mountain, and had become a successful businessman. He went hunting and fishing with his men. He played golf, and went skiing, too.
When I was growing up, he took me to a baseball game – once. He took me out hunting – once. He took me skiing once too, and tried to get me to learn golf. None of it took for me.
While I was in AA, several men approached me about going to the Sterling Men’s Weekend. It would change my life, they said, but I resisted. I just couldn’t picture myself in a weekend full of men, or imagine what value it could hold for me. Besides, I had taken EST, done rebirthing, and attended a few other supposedly transformational trainings without getting much out of them.
When I finally did go to the Men’s Weekend, I still wasn’t expecting to get much, but doing it was required in order to get on a team. Everything my sponsor told me about the things his team was up to made it very appealing, so to the weekend I went.
The biggest thing I hoped to get from it was to stop feeling like an alien around men. It worked. I walked out feeling comfortable in the world of men for the first time.
That was the turning point in my life.
I left there convinced that, just by being who I was, I could make a difference in the world. Joining a men’s team and taking on leadership positions strengthened that view of myself.
I went out and got a career. I bought a house. All with the support of my team.
In the early days of my participation, a lot of our activities involved working with women. I was able to see what worked for me and, after a few more short flings, I met a woman: the girlfriend I’d always dreamed of but hadn’t believed actually existed.
We’ll be celebrating 20 years of marital bliss next year. We are retired. I still volunteer out in the community, and I’m still a Man, and on a men’s team.
