Just the other night, I was watching an American comedy on TV. The script was not that funny, but what got to me was how sissy the lead actor was. He got into a tiff with his wife, and his main weapons were his pouty lips, his frown and a slow-mo turn to stare at the wall.

"Did he just do a 'woman-scorned' expression to show his displeasure?" What ever happened to good ol' manliness (ala "me Tarzan, you Jane" and lots of chest-beating) on TV?

Come to think of it, the '80s was a time when men were men and women were swooning lasses who longed for men-who -were -men.

How else can you explain the success of chest-thumping movies such as Conan the Barbarian, Rocky and Rambo? Back then, we men were conditioned to feel that it was a man's duty to grit his teeth and bear it, never to wince in pain, much less shed a tear.

And if the movies were to be believed, the more pain we endured, the more irresistible we would be to women. Maybe that's why in my wayward youth, I had hung around other guys who reinforced the notion that only sissies cried. Did I also mention that my gang and I were all sweaty, smelly soccer players to whom pleasure and physical pain were divided by a paper-thin line?

A case in point: Once, I had dislocated my right foot in two places - it swelled like a balloon. But I didn't go to the hospital for an X-ray until after I had spent five hours dancing at a disco! Why did I endure the throbbing pain, you ask? Because it was a group date and I would have looked like a mummy's boy if I had backed out due to a "minor" injury. The doctor was surprised that I lasted the whole night without painkillers but, boy, was I macho or was I macho?

The incredible sulk returns

How times have changed! In this age of the metro sexual and a soap-opera Superman on TV who is as sensitive as lie is tough; men are reconnecting with the femininity in us in our dealings with women.

If I was stood up by a date today, would I punch the wall in frustration? Come to think of it, with all that endorsement on TV, I too may pout, frown and turn to face a wall in disgust; After all, the modern woman seems to prefer guys who are not afraid to break manly conventions. And hey, I know a thing or two about crying. When the first one from our gang left to study overseas, I was sobbing like a girl for hours after. And at my own wedding, I was crying so uncontrollably with joy that my calm-and-steady wife had to remind me to sober up for the guests.

I don't think I've grown soft. Years of putting up a macho facade has turned men into pressure cookers, so now, in retaliation, we are reclaiming the femininity that has been living inside us all along. Now we too, are entitled to throw a fit and issue the icy stare of death through slitted eyes,