Dear Savannah,

I’m a regular guy.  I enjoy lifting a few beers with the guys, ogling the babes at the bar, and engaging in backyard wrestling on the weekends.  Jumping off the garage roof and smashing through a cheap utility table gives me a rush second only to sex.

Like everyone else, I’ve been pondering the fragility of existence lately.  For the first time
in my life, I truly understand that each moment is a gift.  While my instinct has been to handle this by cramming as much fun as possible into every minute, I suspect this is wrong.  The chicks at the bar give me dirty looks when I hop onto the table and shout lewd comments at Christiane Amanpour, reporting live from Pakistan.

I’d like to be able to express my newfound pensiveness.  Plus, babes really seem to dig that stuff.  Can you tell me how to go about this?  How can I show my sensitive side without embarrassing myself?

Stone Cold Steve Austin ROCKS!,

Randy Templeton
Cleveland

Savannah Says:

We have all been profoundly touched by recent events.  I’m glad to see you’re doing your patriotic duty by continuing to live a normal life, as we’ve all been asked to do.  If it makes you feel good to body-slam a friend of yours onto the hard concrete slab of your driveway, then I say who should judge you?  Besides the magistrate presiding over the bodily injury case, I mean.

Still, you are so right about needing to express your feelings.  Even men as macho as you
obviously need to vent their emotions from time to time.

My first husband, John Wayne, was the icon of strong masculinity.  He kept his feminine side turned inward from the world.  Even I, his loving wife, rarely saw his tender side, although every now and then it would peek out from behind that crusty exterior.  You’ve never seen a man cry so hard as the time I inadvertently broke his near-full, collector’s edition Wild Turkey decanter.  As he dropped to his knees sobbing, his tears mingled with the river of whiskey splashed across the floor.  It is truly one of the most touching memories I have of our time together.

It’s true women like sensitive men, to a degree.  I’m not sure I can tell you exactly how to show your sensitive side, but I can tell you what NOT to do.

Don’t cry during the latest Schwarzenegger movie, even if it is sad when he kills that alien-hybrid-cyborg woman who’s trying to steal his identity.  Don’t start ordering cappuccino
instead of black coffee or bottles of Smirnoff Ice instead of Everclear shots.  Don’t stop
watching football in order to catch women’s field hockey on the Oxygen channel.  Don’t offer to spend the weekend helping your girlfriend stencil flowers on her kitchen cabinets, when you’d normally get drunk with your friends and take target practice on road signs.  Don’t start
wearing paisley. (Unless your aim is to attract another sensitive guy.)  Don’t give up your
usual Friday night poker game-cum-drinking contest in order to stay home and watch “Message in a Bottle” on pay-per-view.

Don’t cancel your subscriptions to Playboy and Penthouse.  Don’t change your car radio from the classic rock station to lite jazz or, worse, adult contemporary.  Don’t volunteer to change the baby’s diaper.  Don’t say, “Honey, instead of having the American flag tattooed on my forehead, I think I’ll invest the money in a mutual fund.”  Don’t give up writhing around in a pile of hulking, sweaty men during that game of “touch” football with fourteen of your closest friends
in order to look at drapery swatches with your girlfriend.

It’s a fine line to straddle, I know.  On the one hand, we women value sensitivity in our
partners, while on the other hand we don’t want to be with men who go to pieces like a dry
donut dunked in hot coffee.  If you weep at the beauty of a perfect snowflake during the first
snowfall, you’ve gone too far.  Got it?

Good luck, dear!

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