nor should you.

The only women impressed by the sheer 'manliness' of a man are idiotic lowbrows. Only stupid angry brutes use their fists in life rather than intellect and cunning. Don't worry about it

It is a state of mind. How and where you were raised may be a factor. Westerns are great. You are fine. I don't really know of too many really masculine men that hail from Vancouver anyways. Most are pretty soft. It's not your fault. Take care.

The world's changing and we'd best change with it, regardless of our admiration for some of the values we lose along the way; that's the lesson from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (dir: Sam Peckinpah).

Pal, take whisky instead of whiskey. You can have a Guinness, too. The whisky has to be exactly single malt. Never ever blended! That's all.

The most manly men I've met are competent in all areas of life- I know guys who could survive in the wilderness, build a house, whip up a great meal and take care of their kids too...and they are emotionally alive. These are the types of men I think you should emulate. The problem with westerns is that they are a cardboard cutout version of what a man is-one dimensional whereas a real man is multi-dimensional.

Hardly anyone in a cowboy movie is an actual cowboy. Also, do you really want to pattern your life after a stylized depiction of an illiterate agricultural worker turned freelance murderer? I can't think of anything less functional than that.

However, I totally relate to how you find yourself feeling unmanly. I think that maybe you should pick out a couple of virtues that you would like to improve and work on them. For example:

Physical Strength

Good With Tools

Something like that. Something specific that you can do.

Well, some people cope with stuff like this in different ways...going out and buying the biggest tonka truck there is with all the fixin's, dating the hoochiest thing possible to put on display...use this time as your 'own' time to think & sort things out.