Mancation proclamation: I miss you

IF you’ve watched a television newsmagazine in the last year you’ve likely heard the term “mancation.” It’s defined by my urban dictionary as “men engaging in masculine activities such as golf, gambling, drinking and throwing power tools at one another without the presence of wives or girlfriends.” (OK, so I made up the power tools thing.)

Simply put, a mancation is a group of guys bonding over a trip. Maybe someone close to you is going to Las Vegas for this holiday weekend, so you know what I mean. The first mancation involved Christopher Columbus and three ships.

Actor Vince Vaughn helped popularize the term in last summer’s romantic comedy “The Break-Up.” That’s probably a version the travel industry prefers to cite rather than the mancation in “Deliverance.”

Formal mancations are an overt attempt to cash in on the success of “ladies’ getaways” vacation packages. Many hotels are even hiring “mancation planners.” With the exception of stylist to Nick Nolte, this is the easiest job in the world. Step 1: Truck in massive amounts of alcohol. Step 2: Who cares?

If anybody does care, these mancation planners arrange an eclectic schedule that may include whiskey sampling, Lamborghini racing and wild boar hunting, although preferably not all at the same time.

I’m proud to be a veteran of roughly 57 mancations over the years beginning with my first Scout camping trip in the early 1970s. Thus I realize the necessity of these male bonding experiences.

At that Scout camp (which went by the misnomer “Camp Utopia”), when I wasn’t being savagely knocked off logs by boys twice my size or engaging in pillow fights so vicious they made the Ultimate Fighting Championships look like cuddle parties, my thoughts turned to Becky Horton, my sixth-grade crush.

After 72 hours of camp-induced separation, my mosquito-ravaged heart beat even stronger for Becky, and not just because she was the only student to place a valentine in my box that year. (Although that had a lot to do with it.)

INDEED, nothing soothes the angst-ridden relationship like a little time apart. What better salve for the ennui that results from any good lengthy relationship than for John to fly off to baseball fantasy camp (and tear a rotator cuff while lacing up his spikes) to give that relationship a little downtime.

In this country, we’re bombarded by a media din informing us we need to “work” at our relationships. Nonstop work is a recipe for burnout. An occasional break from a relationship is as vital as time off from your job.

Even now as I prepare for my next mancation, a group of urban midlife crises guys wingin’ it to Wyoming to “rough it” (we’re only using our Bluetooths on odd days) in our casual business attire, my comrades and I anticipate the renewal this will give our relationships. After a week apart, my significant other’s “nagging” will seem like “gentle reprimands;” her constant guttural snoring now “life-affirming nasal contractions.”

I have a buddy who spent time in Pamplona, Spain, running with marauding, road-raging bulls. Early on in this bovine odyssey he began thinking of his girlfriend as a horn grazed his backside. It was while being treated by a medic sans pants on the side of a road praying the footage didn’t end up on CNN Headline News that he realized how much he missed her and decided to propose the moment he arrived home. And this was a guy so commitment-phobic he won’t keep MySpace friends for more than a month.

I can relate. Every mancation I’ve taken has only made my

relationship stronger. Although ultimately things didn’t work out with Becky, the grade-

school crush. Turns out she put that valentine in my box by mistake.

weekend@latimes.com