I don’t often use flabbergasted in a meaningfully descriptive way, but I was truly flabbergasted by Tim Riley’s column on April 27. I found his statements not only sexist, but immature, though they possibly stand stronger than anything to validate the bizarre claims he tries to make. Riley says he has been told men are oblivious to the emotional needs of women and then, through a grouping of seemingly disconnected paragraphs, tries to, I suppose, give an excuse resembling, “Ignorant boys will be ignorant boys.”

Riley says women see men as only interested in food, beer and sports, and then defies us all by failing to contradict that statement. Instead, he decides to give it more weight, via an online article that claims more than ever women are looking to each other for love, instead of to men. Women like Lindsay Lohan, who is, of course, a perfect representation of the female population. The problem, according to Riley, is that women simply can’t appreciate the loving care given to them during halftime of “the game.” Silly women.

What follows is an odd leap-frog dance through various commercialized social concerns, from Miss California’s “between a man and a woman” statement on marriage (which Riley seems to agree with), to Plan B, to sex addiction, to President Obama. Plan B is confusing to guys because it’s an example of women “willing to go to court” to stop having babies with guys?

I’m sorry, but I thought condoms and birth control already made it pretty clear that women, and men, sometimes don’t always want to have babies. A confusing, flippant attack on the silly problem of sex addiction? I don’t understand the reason that’s in this article at all. It’s a real problem and reality shows don’t diminish it by publicizing it. Riley then lets us know that Obama wants us to teach real sex education in America, instead of only sexual abstinence, and I’m not sure, but I think Riley sees this as almost quaint.

To be honest, this progression seemed like a staggering stab in the dark for something to give weight to the kind of poor emotional education of the poor fellow who would rather watch a televised sports event than hang out with his girlfriend once in a while. And maybe it’s not their fault, maybe those types of guys were just never equipped with the proper stuff to understand life outside of food, beer and sports.

Regardless, it’s an extremely sexist statement to claim that this type of deformed person represents all of the male community, some of whom are capable of understanding women, even if they “simply make no sense,” according to Riley. I don’t think Riley makes any sense, and that’s what I care to get across in my response.

He wants us to believe that men, being stupid and without intelligence, try their best, God love them, to do the right thing, and if women don’t like it they can date each other. Well, maybe the “food, beer, sports” men can date each other, and the women dumb enough to look for real emotion in those men can date each other, and the rest of us can do our own thing and go out to eat, play board games, watch YouTube videos together, and do whatever non-emotionally vacuous humans do.

Cody Swanson

topical studies and ­human studies senior