A Cheerleader? Really? -- Alicia

I think the first time I ever met of a male cheerleader I was maybe fourteen years old. It came as a shock. The concept of cheerleading is such a feminine thing; to dance around in a short skirt, egging your team on--for a traditional man, that's just coloring outside the lines. It also didn't help that he was the only male cheerleader. Or that he was potdealer. That did his own poison. So he didn't remember most of the games. And he was supposed to be the spotter; the safety person.
All hands down, this boy did not make a good impression. But, business and hobbies aside, it still struck me funny that he was a cheerleader. My first thought was that he was gay, but then he kept hitting on me in a sort of creepy way. So that was out, and I was really confused. He was a . . . straight . . . male . . . cheerleader. I mulled it over for a few weeks before I was at peace with the fact that straight, male cheerleaders exist. I had to work on the idea that men don'thave to do only "man" things in order to remain masculine. They don'thave to think "cook" means "grill," and they don't have to "wear the pants" in a relationship. Though, for that specific point, I may have been younger when I came face to face with that.
I was around six the first time I played the board game Life. It was (almost) as fun as Monopoly until it came time to get married. (Also, as a sidenote, they make it mandatory to get married in that game. Thinking back on it, I think that's strange. Does than imply one sex needs the other, or that they need each other mutually?) Your piece that you move around the game is a car. Into this car you stick little blue and pink pieces depending on whether the people are male or female (again, with the assumptions. Some girls absolutely loathe pink). I had myself, a pink piece, of course, driving the car. When I got married . . . did that mean I couldn't drive anymore? Should I switch my pink piece with my new husband's blue piece and relegate myself to the passenger seat? What was the right thing to do in this situation? It was a revolutionary thought when my father told me I could keep my piece in the drivers seat and have hubbie take shotty. Its strange now to think that my main original problem with the set-up was that the man appeared weak when he didn't take the wheel. He wasn't Prince Charming when he didn't steer his great white stallion. That, I think, was the turning point, when I let my little pink piece steer that little car past the church (nongender-related sidenote--only a Christian church? Really?)and on into baby-land and retirement.

Funny how a little game of Life changed my own.