Directory of Lost Causes

I've just been thinking about someone I haven't thought about in a very long time.

I hope he's well.

I remember a conversation. I don't even remember the setting. Maybe his house, in Barnstaple. We were students, of that generation where some of the blokes probably even thought of themselves as feminists, and wanted to be known as Loretta.

We were discussing the various pros and cons of being male and female. Women, of course, seem to have all the difficult things (was the conclusion we were coming towards), childbrith, menstruation, possibly the lion's share of sexual abuse, and so on. And then there was the question of what problems men have (of course there are some), baldness was almost definitely mentioned. And then someone said, and I paraphrase, hoping to regain the simplicity of the remark, "Of course, the biggest tragedy in a man's life is that he's not a woman."

I thought that was spoken like a true poet.