Louis Roney: How macho do I dig thee?

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a high-paid macho film star these days. I hear that macho is “in,” and that wimps have used up their wistful moment in the sun. I never gave any thought to what a “wimp” is, until a girl who dotes on “macho” men told me that she views wimps with scorn. She had just met me, and asked, “Who is your analyst?”

“My what?” I replied.

“Your shrink.” I told her that I didn’t have a “shrink” — that my dentist takes care of all the things I can’t handle by myself.

Out of nowhere, the thought comes to me that I have never known a wimp who could sing Verdi — or Puccini either. The operas of Puccini and Verdi — whose own lives were the antithesis of wimpishness — demand unembarrassed, naked expression of strong emotion. Both Puccini and Verdi deal with passionate drama of love, political conflict and violence.

The characters in their musical dramas make difficult, perilous, decisions — often I have the feeling that wimps have a hard time identifying with such visceral stuff — don’t ask me why. I am simply a battle-scarred observer of the human predicament, who tries to provide his best guesses with a good education.

Jane Austen didn’t mess with characters who were long on sizzling romance and wrenching demise. In her books, she catered to characters who dote on genteel gab and parlor-game playing. Nothing goes “bang” on her pages.

Had Austen written the libretto to Verdi’s “Otello,” she would have had the Moor whimper, “Oh, dear!” ever-so quietly, then sit down over tea with Desdemona for a patient heart-to-heart tête-à-tête.

Austen might have called the work, “Otello” — “Or a Gentleman’s Bewilderment.”

Her wimpy “Lion of Venice” would have explored his wife Desdemona’s inchoate self-image. Was it true that his child-bride — the daughter of the Doge — was satiating a fantasy-need for another man, as Iago insinuated? If so, what was her deep-down inner motivation, excuse-wise?

Otello would be calm and attentive. He would not indulge in crude, loud raving about his life’s “falling apart.” In Austen’s version, Otello would walk over to the wings, his back to Desdemona, and sing his famous monologue as follows: “I daren’t lose my cool, but must perforce render my thunderous voice soft as very lambs’ wool while proffering my alabaster chick full understanding most empathetic. Away! And I had no annoyance in sinking of the cursed Turk all his monstrous flee — and ’twas but yesterday. God forbid I now founder when everything hits the fan in a guise so alien to my life’s brawny tempest.”

By talking it out the “civilized way,” Austen’s wimpy Otello would soon be assured that Desdemona was innocent: period!

End of story. But, where’s your opera, Jane?

Of course, in all honesty, if Otello had actually been a wimp, Desdemona would never have married him. Wimps, who are perhaps the worst of men, are often “best-men.”

But they don’t marry gals like Desdemona, who have the hots for strong, decisive guys who like to drink their coffee standing up.

Note: Just because I am a great aficionado of such composers as Debussy, Handel, Mozart, or Fauré, don’t get the idea that I am a “closet wimp!”

Even if you smile mealy-mouthed all the while in self-deprecating wimpishness, don’t you dare pin that label on me!

By the same token, I don’t want to be called “macho,” even though I admit to having lots of those attractive, super masculine qualities which daytime radio talk-shows say are now “in.”

It’s the labels I don’t like.

Inasmuch as machos are not apt to spend hours identifying their real selves to themselves — my own strong dislike for centripetal male self-examination could equitably be labeled “haute-macho.”

On the other hand, when I can manage to find my glasses, with no loss of masculine self-esteem, does that enlighten you about the limits of the human psyche?

At our house my beautiful wife and I may listen to Mahler or Duparc while Tom Brady or Jordan Spieth are romping on the tube. Doesn’t everybody?

As to my b.w., I knew I had to marry this run-of-the-mill, garden-variety musical genius the day we met. Of course, on that day she did play the French horn for me. Then she sat down at the piano and read the score to “Tannhäuser ” at sight while I sang. We washed my poodle and cooked dinner together, all the while talking about writers and politics. Then we grabbed a subway for a night ballgame at Yankee Stadium. Our quiet routine Day One.

I’ve admired many macho guys in my life. Singers such as John Charles Thomas, Enrico Caruso, Ezio Pinza, Jussi Björling, Fritz Wunderlich, and Richard Tauber, to name a few.

In other fields, such men as Bobby Jones, Joe Louis, Johnny Unitas, Jim Thorpe, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Charles Edison, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Rubinstein, Fritz Kreisler, Gutzon Borglum, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, and Harry Truman got my applause.

These men were well rounded. When asked for courage, they delivered. They may have been scared, but they didn’t hide. Most of these men were able to be gentle and caring, and were not embarrassed at showing tender feelings.

Macho’s heralded return to favor hasn’t altered my existence. As long as I’m still sharing life with my zippy Renaissance Maiden, just label me “lucky.” Whenever I do something that pleases her, whether it takes brains or brawn, courage or thoughtful tenderness, she says softly, “You’re quite a man.” That I dig