Actions speak louder than words. If you valued them, you'd spend more time bulding skills to develop and maintain them. It wouldn't matter if your bros ragged on you about it. Frankly you wouldn't allow such behavior amongst yourselves. Not if you valued them. You'd be getting into ridiculous competitions over who's is best. You'd be arguing over all time GOAT husband/lover.

If you valued them, you'd tweak them constantly like you do all your other gadgets, thrilled to find new fearures and getting the most out of them. They would never be left to run automatically in the background. You'd be obsessed with knowing all the parts and how they work together. It would be what you think about when you wake up in the morning first thing and one of the last things you check on when you go to bed at night.

If you valued relationships, you'd want to preserve them. You'd do what is necessary for that to happen. You wouldn't forget things. You wouldn't wait till the last minute. You wouldn't do the absolute bare minimum.

There are very specific things men do and ways they behave toward things they truly care about and value. We all see it. We all know it.

Relationships do not get that kind of treatment or focus from the vast majority of men. When asked probing questions, most men will say something along the lines of relationships are a means to an end. They're a necessarity in order to have access to sex without having to "earn" it or "pay for it" every time.

This is telling. Especially considering the word 'relationships' may be referring to romantic ones, but not necessarily.

And hey, I don't know that many men from around the world but I do know enough to see that there is a not so subtle difference between the things they say and do in regards to relationships and what American men say and do in regards to relationships. On average. I'm also old enough to see how the overall thinking men do about relatuonships has changed since the Reagan years (I was a child when Reagan was elected to office). A lot of the language was the same. Men still talked about being providers and protectors for their families. But it meant something more all encompassing to them then. It wasn't an empty title they claimed ownership of and then used to browbeat the women in their lives.