I met him at an expat gathering outside Surigao City. It was Christmastime at a party arranged by the wives. The young man was sitting alone, looking like he could use some company.
“Hey, my friend,” I said, proffering a hand, “how’s it going?”
“I’m good,” he responded in a slight European accent, “how ‘bout you?’
Turns out he was a 39-year-old Dutchman who’d been in the Philippines a while. Unlike the rest of us, however, he had no wife. And while most of us owned homes in Mindanao, this guy was there by the grace of a friend.
“My only complaint,” he said, “is that there’s too much rain.”
A few days later, he called me in the midst of a storm. “I’m in trouble,” the guy said, sounding forlorn. Turns out his erstwhile host had asked him to leave. “I have nowhere to go,” the young man moaned.
And so someone I barely knew spent a week in my house. Which is how I realized he was a sorely lost boy.
They are ubiquitous. On college campuses, 58% of the undergraduates are now women, as well as 53% of the PhDs. Almost one in four young boys is diagnosed with “developmental disabilities.” American girls are 14% more likely to be “school ready” by five, two-thirds of the top 10% of high schoolers are female while a similar majority of underachievers are not, and boys are 50% more likely to fail in math, reading, and science.
Perhaps most troubling, men account for three-fourths of the “deaths of despair” by suicide and drug overdose.
“If you’ve been paying attention to social trends,” New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote recently, “you probably have some inkling that boys and men are struggling.”
Sociologists suggest a variety of reasons, all boiling down to one: that decades of feminism and other demographic, social, and economic upheavals have devalued traditional male attributes like strength, fortitude, protectiveness, and courage. The result: a generation of men that’s confused, demoralized, and hopelessly lost.
“Masculinity has gone haywire,” Brooks wrote. “More men are leading haphazard and lonely lives.”
The kind, frankly, that drove me and many other expats I know into the arms of Filipinas with traditional family values. Women who, by no means weak or submissive, highly value the presence of men.
All of which informs my aspirations as a father. Frankly, being naturally more cerebral and emotional than physical, I generally do better with girls. But recently I bought my 12-year-old son a basketball hoop and set of barbells to encourage his budding athleticism. And when he asks questions, well, I drop whatever I’m doing to engage.
Perhaps I should have done more of that with the young Dutchman staying in our guest room. “You are my tribe,” he triumphantly announced one day, assuming a familiarity I didn’t feel.
“What are your other options?” I cautiously inquired.
“Well,” he said, “I know someone in Manila who might take me in but I’d rather stay with you.”
“Sorry,” I countered after a nanosecond’s pause, “but we need the guest room for guests.”
“No worries,” the young man shot back, “I can sleep on the floor.”
After consulting my wife, I gently declined. He asked twice more after that: first before getting into the car, and finally by phone from the airport.
“Please don’t make me get on that plane,” the young man beseeched.
And then he was gone.
I still think of him now and again. Did he stay in Manila, or finally move on? Is he back in Holland with a bride in tow, or still wandering in a world he doesn’t know?
Bottom line: when, if ever, will this poor lost boy grow?
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David Haldane’s latest book, “A Tooth in My Popsicle,” is now available on Amazon and Lazada. A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where he contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, Haldane is an award-winning author, journalist, and radio broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines. This column appears weekly in the Mindanao Gold Star Daily.
2 Comments
The U.S. is different from other parts of the world only in that we pay a bit more attention to social trends. Brooks’ “masculinity” was always overrated. In 1970 I began paying attention to what was then regarded in my community as a disturbing trend. Groups of early 20 year old guys were hanging out on the streets. Had jobs but likely were already divorced once. Not having much of a future to work toward, they just hung out. Fifty years later, the future is even more bleak what with global deterioration. Now we live in a nation that is almost ungovernable. Our city streets are full of boys, and girls, living a borderline existence. Is it really different in the Philippines?
Of course, this is an international phenomenon, Rex. You can see it in the Philippines too, though in different ways and not quite as pronounced. Not yet, anyway. I am hoping against hope that it won’t get any worse.