Self-Made Man Quotes

“Women and men communicate differently, often on entirely different planes. But just as men have failed us, we have failed them. It has been one of our great collective female shortcomings to presume that whatever we do not perceive simply isn't there, or that whatever is not communicated in our language is not intelligible speech.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man

“Gratification kills desire. And constant gratification kills it permanently”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“Men’s healing is in women’s interest, though for women that healing will mean accepting on some level not only that men are—here is the dreaded word—victims of the patriarchy, too, but (and this will be the hardest part to swallow) that women have been codeterminers in the system, at times as invested and active as men themselves in making and keeping men in their role.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“If women are trapped by the whore/Madonna complex, men are equally trapped by this warrior/minstrel complex. What’s more, while a man is expected to be modern, that is, to support feminism in all its particulars, to see and treat women as equals in every respect, he is on the other hand often still expected to be traditional at the same time, to treat a lady like a lady, to lead the way and pick up the check.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“Ditto for the stereotype about men monopolizing conversations. Like Sasha, many of my dates—even the more passive ones—did most of the talking. I listened to them talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with, men they had divorced, roommates and coworkers they hated, childhoods they were loath to remember, yet somehow found the energy to recount ad nauseam. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy. I sat there stunned by the social ineptitude of people to whom it never seemed to occur that no one, much less a first date, would have any interest in enduring this ordeal.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“I was boring myself. That’s the worst part of a bad date. It makes you feel like a toad, and you keep telling yourself, “I know I’m more fun than this, and I know that when I came into this café I wasn’t in despair about the human condition.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“Dating women was the hardest thing I had to to as Ned, even when the women liked me and I liked them. I have never felt more vulnerable to total strangers, never more socially defenseless than in my clanking suit of borrowed armor.
But then, I guess maybe that's one of the secrets of manhood that no man tells if he can help it. Every man's armor is borrowed and ten sizes too big, and beneath it, he's naked and insecure and hoping you won't see.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“It was the woman’s job to be on the defensive, because past experience had taught her to be. It was the guy’s job to be on the offensive, because he had no choice. It was that or never meet at all.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“It’s hard to position a movement when the territory is so intimate. Men, after all, can’t exactly gather on the White House lawn and demonstrate for their right to cry in public or claim their lost fathers’ love. These, it would seem, are matters for the therapist’s couch. Private matters.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“He could put up a gruff front and he was no angel, but he was really just trying to hide his sensitivities so that he could hang on to them.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“I was never mean to him, but I participated heartily when the guys teased him.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“way. As men they felt compelled to fix my ineptitude rather than be secretly happy about it and try to abet it under the table, which is what a lot of female athletes of my acquaintance would have done. I remember this from playing sports with and against women all my life. No fellow female athlete ever tried to help me with my game or give me tips. It was every woman for herself. It wasn’t enough that you were successful. You wanted to see your sister fail. Girls can be a lot nastier than boys when it comes to someone who stands in the way of what they want.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“As men they felt compelled to fix my ineptitude rather than be secretly happy about it and try to abet it under the table, which is what a lot of female athletes of my acquaintance would have done. I remember this from playing sports”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“It’s hardly surprising, then, that in this atmosphere, as a single man dating women, I often felt attacked, judged, on the defensive. Whereas with the men I met and befriended as Ned there was a presumption of innocence—that is, you’re a good guy until you prove otherwise—with women there was quite often a presumption of guilt: you’re a cad like every other guy until you prove otherwise. “Pass my test and then we’ll see if you’re worthy of me” was the implicit message coming across the table at me. And this from women who had demonstrably little to offer. “Be lighthearted,” they said, though buoyant as lead zeppelins themselves. “Be kind,” they insisted in the harshest of tones. “Don’t be like the others,” they implied, while having virtually condemned me as such beforehand.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again

“Ditto for the stereotype about men monopolizing conversations. Like Sasha, many of my dates—even the more passive ones—did most of the talking. I listened to them talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with, men they had divorced, roommates and coworkers they hated, childhoods they were loath to remember, yet somehow found the energy to recount ad nauseam. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy. I sat there stunned by the social ineptitude of people to whom it never seemed to occur that no one, much less a first date, would have any interest in enduring this ordeal. This was a human, not a male or female, failing.”
― Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back Again