I woke up very early this morning to go out of the city to the office where I work sometimes, but I changed my mind. I’m slightly ahead in my schedule and I decided to stay in town and work on my tax preparations instead here in town.

I decided to have a leisurely breakfast at a coffee shop nearby. Breakfast was fine until a woman practically sat down in my lap. Actually, she was at the very next table, but the restaurant was almost empty and she could have sat almost anywhere else.

I suppose if the woman were attractive to me and I wanted to chat with her, I wouldn’t have minded, but she wasn’t my type and I did mind.

She must have been in her mid-forties but she was sitting forward on her chair more like a teenager full of boundless energy. When some bouncy Muzak came on, she weaved slightly back and forth, rocking on her butt. Then she finally leaned back in her chair in such a way that she was only about a foot away from me. Her body language suggested she wanted to talk, but her approach was so invasive and insistent I was completely turned off.

Here’s the thing. If she wanted to talk, why couldn’t she have simply said something to me? I wouldn’t have been rude; I would have put my newspaper down and talked to her. Unless I completely misread the situation, and I am utterly deluded, it seemed as if she were waiting for me to make a move, as if she were implying, “I am flaunting myself at you, and now it is your responsibility to pick up on it.”

This only works if I find the woman attractive. I’m not saying she was ugly; she was okay. I’m sure some guys would like her; she was just not appealing to me.

So I sat there continuing to read my paper, sipping my coffee, and feeling guilty, feeling unmanly. After all, aren’t I supposed to go after every woman who presents herself? Seeing as how they present themselves fairly infrequently these days, what was wrong with me?

But am I a hound who is supposed to start sniffing and humping at the scent of any willing female?

Is it so terrible to desire women not only as possessors of the precious yoni, but also for specific qualities of beauty or allure, and personality?

There’s a current article in Newsweek about “Sex and the Single Boomer.” It quotes Peggy Northrup, the editor of a women’s magazine devoted to the “over forty” set, as saying that female baby boomers “are not so uptight about their bodies as they were when they were younger. Their feeling is: if I’m naked and smiling, what’s your problem?”

So you’re naked. So you’re smiling. SO WHAT??

If we have a problem, maybe there’s a reason for it. It could be YOU...it could be ME...or it could be the lies people tell each other to get some sex and to get through the night with somebody they don’t they really care for.

Are we as men supposed to be grateful for whatever the universe hands us? Isn’t that the subtext of “If I’m naked and smiling, what’s your problem?”

If everybody was grateful for whatever they were dished out, we would still be living in caves.

It has been MAN’S desire to reach for the stars in so many things that has created the beautiful things of this world, as well the ugliness. And I say MAN, not humanity, and not woman, because it is men who for the most part have built and designed the world we live in, have created the foundations of everything from science to art to sports to government. Forgive me if I’ve left out any other pertinent fields. Until recently, we have lived in a patriarchal society, ruled by men; and we probably still do, media nonsense to the contrary.

The fact that men have fashioned a not-bad world for the most part, is proof that many men are not idiots; many men are not mindless; that we are capable of great and amazing things. It is feminist propaganda over the last thirty years designed to first make women equal to men, and then to raise women above men, that has created this image of males as dummies.

In my more bitter moments (usually when I’ve blown over two hundred dollars during an evening in a club), I sometimes imagine that lapdancing itself, in its modern incarnation as a widespread entertainment form, is not the logical evolutionary product of striptease, or a sexual shell game designed by clip joint hucksters, but rather an insidious invention, nay, a SECRET WEAPON, cleverly designed by a cabal of wily feminist supervillains to distract, befuddle, and weaken otherwise productive male members (pun intended) of Western society.

I TOLD YOU I WAS CRANKY!!!

But let’s get back to sex: by the time an average American man is in his mid-forties, he has seen plenty T&A. Yeah, sure, some guys will go to bed with anybody who’s available. But for some chaps, there any other elements that come into play. So why do so many women reduce men to walking hard-ons? Granted, some men are just that; but not all.

As I rant and rave, I then ask myself: why do I get so worked up about all this stuff??

So maybe the woman at breakfast found me attractive, or wanted to chat, or flirt, or whatever! Shouldn’t I feel happy about that?

Sad to say, this woman was a very average-looking person and her interest in me (unless I was deluded about that) only confirmed what depresses me: that I too am just an average man and this is the best I can get.

Maybe I sound like an idiot and a fool and an egomaniac to reject what’s available, but it’s not enough. I would rather be alone. Or just pay for the company I prefer in a stripclub.

I’m not saying a woman has to look like Jessica Alba to be attractive to me. For example, the dancers I like are often not the most stunning in the club, by conventional standards, but I always feel drawn to them by an immediate attraction specifically to their looks. If that attraction is not there, it rarely develops through conversation or even a good lapdance.

I look at women through my brain, not my dick. The brain is a guy’s main sex organ; the dick is its spokesman. The brain sees, approves or rejects; the dick indicates the verdict.

But I do seem angry as I write all this.

Maybe the real anger I have is with myself, for not having the wherewithal to transform Sir Cranky (if such a thing is possible) into the type of guy who attracts the type of women I find attractive. My bodybuilder/personal trainer friend Rexx is waiting to give me an exercise regimen to turn me into a “Hebrew Hammer” after I get myself a physical.

Let’s put it this way. Consider the movie Sideways. If, like the curmudgeonly character portrayed by Paul Giamatti, I could attract a beauty like the character played by Virginia Madsen, I would have no need to go to the gym or be angry that I haven’t gone to the gym. But Virginia Madsen was attracted to Paul Giamatti because...IT WAS A MOVIE.

That guy was so ordinary-looking, and acted like a putz so much of the time, that you wondered what the chick saw in him.

Just keep repeating to yourself...IT’S ONLY A MOVIE.

In real life, he would be trying to read his morning paper while some weird squirmy gal at the next table tried to get his attention!!