Fish Out Of Water

This typically characterises men at antenatal classes. Looking around the circle of about 15 pregnant women, most with their male partners, I felt a kinship with these chaps. Not that I showed it, oh no! That would have been distinctly unmale. Eye contact was kept to a minimum, and glances were generally kept to those needed to surreptitiously appraise which of these men looked more comfortable and confident than I did. A bit like the checking out that, I am told, happens in gents' toilets.

It's an odd thing. We are all there for the same reason, and presumably we have got there via the same method. But us men, of course, are notoriously bad at publicly acknowledging before strangers that such intimacy has taken place. We pretend, with our presence, that we are New Men. More in touch with our woman's needs, willing to be an active participant in all aspects of pregnancy and labour, just as we were at conception. Yet we revert to type and don't want to stand out as being either too ignorant or (perhaps worse) too knowledgeable.

So we sit quietly, noticing with subtle subtle scorn when one of our fellow males makes an accurate contribution that we would have been perfectly correct in making ourselves, thus making the rest of us look substandard. The competitiveness never abates, and neither does our squeamishness. For all our enthusiastic desire to place parts of our anatomy into various parts of someone else's anatomy, we are woefully inadequate at engaging with the human body in a mature, non-sexual way.

And then to be encouraged to join in. Oh the horror. The simple instruction to stand up to find out about good posture sent those glances darting about the room. Were we supposed to stand up? Of course, we did, because everyone else did. Are we supposed to adjust our posture? Surely we aren't experiencing the same demands on our physiology as our pregnant partners? No. We have joined them in the standing up part. They can do the standing properly part while we looking on, hopefully coming across as lamely supportive rather than voyeuristic. Some of us caught in half-hearted attempts to shift our own posture in case we are supposed to do so, but not too obviously in case we aren't.

Then comes the massage, which involves getting into a vaguely intimate position with someone who, everyone else in the room knows, we have been in far more intimate positions with before. Except these people weren't there that time (in most cases - each to his own). So it has the potential to be an embarrassing competition to see who is the best masseur. This I suppose isn't helped by the physiotherapist saying she will come around and give us marks out of ten.

Then it is over. We shuffle off in the same subdued manner in which we arrived, having watched with admiration our womenfolk engage openly and honestly with their experiences with ease. Secretly wishing we could be as forthcoming.

When all is said and done, the antenatal class was informal, informative and painless. Very glad I went, as it also gave me the opportunity for making these observations.

Men are stupid. Throw rocks at them.