Today, I saw a very popular /r/funny post which shows Barack Obama being cordial with the female prime minister of Denmark. There is an odd expression on Michelle Obama's face, who is observing the two interact. I know that the demographics of Reddit is heavily weighted toward young male Americans, and therefore there's a predictable sort of humor that they will eke out of the situation.

However, what does this guffawing by our fledgling males really say about the space that men have in which to interact with people around them, here in the USA? I wrote a critical comment, which naturally was immediately lost in the shuffle. I don't think that these young men understand yet how tenuous the situation can be, when men are trying to be kind to other people around them - and when they are seeking to forge bonds of friendship.

As a middle aged man who has lived many, many years in the USA, I recognize this as being a serious problem for my gender in this country. The adults whom I looked up to, as a teenager, would sometimes talk about how their fathers in the middle-1900s would be emotionally (as well as physically) absent from the household. They spent their time at work - and when they came home, they weren't warm and friendly in the same way their moms were. I believe that many of us American men even sixty years later in this current decade of the new century perceive problems with there not being really any room to show affection to other people without it being misconstrued. If being a warm, friendly person leads people to mistrust you... what happens if you're cold and distant? Is that going to make them trust you any better? Maybe it will. In that case, do we as men want that for ourselves?

Wouldn't it be a good thing that we men insist on the right to show affection to people around us without it being misconstrued?