Like Father Like Son? (Spitting Images Part 2)

Took a while for this inspiration but it was due to an interesting conversation with one of my boys that spawned this. Back in February I wrote a piece called Spitting Images which was really about how I felt women take after their mothers even in ways they don't want to admit. Check it out if you like! But I had an interesting conversation with my friend where we were speaking of why some men have problems with women. We spoke of this in the breath of a guy's confidence in speaking to a woman and approaching them the right way. Truth be told we know guys our age who are just timid. They  haven't found themselves as it relates to women I guess and haven't figured out how to spark and keep someone's interest. In that same thought my friend posed this question to me: Do you think not having male figures present in your life makes it harder for you to approach and be comfortable with women?

I thought it was a challenging question, I think thee could be some correlation, but I honestly wanted to leave it up to you all for discussion. In the meantime I can tell you how I can relate. As a young boy I could remember going to McDonald's with my pops and just hearing him interact with the female cashiers. Nothing inappropriate at all but I can always remember making these ladies (fine ladies at that) smile and laugh. I thought that was so cool to be able to make people laugh. I can remember visiting places with my brother when I was younger and him knowing once again real nice women. Or seeing my older cousins interact with women. In my family it seemed as if everyone "had it." I'm not sure when it sparked for me but I felt I had to stand out with women. To me that meant saying things no one else would say, being a gentleman, and being myself (which is as close to a clown as you can get). I feel as if subconsciously I took after what I saw when I was younger. The idea that I too can be as confident and have this ability to be comfortable with women. With the exception of my father in the household I saw all other guys in my family treat women well, respectfully, looking to make them happy. Being good to women I guess seemed right to me just looking from the outside in.

My friend mentioned some other guys and their woes with women and the point that their father's weren't around. I didn't buy into it much because my father left my life fairly early (at 6 and died at 13) so I felt it wasn't a plausible explanation. But like I said before I was fortunate to have other examples that may have shaped my mentality. I guess you can say things can go either really well or really poorly. As a man you can heed the good examples you may have been exposed to or the bad ones. I would suppose that you need some sort of positive example to gain your confidence from somewhere. I still consider myself rather timid with women until I hang around them long enough. I just happen to like being a fool and making people laugh so that's what works for me. I think like Jay-Z always says, to remain relevant you have to know your truth and play to it.

In this whole scheme of things I wanted to ask you all something. Are women supposed to tell a guy he's not smooth? Or are they supposed to tell a guy he needs some work? Would you ladies help out a guy who doesn't seem it have figured "it" out yet? I think those are legit questions, If you want to change things you have to start somewhere. I'm pretty sure having the right male examples  for a younger man can help a guy's comfortability with women. Truth is there's many out there trying to hit the jackpot but can't even purchase the ticket. I want your thoughts.

Be good