I work around children, too.... 800 of them! I rarely catch a cold, never had the actual flu. I do get a flu shot every year.

telling hubby I'm on my deathbed, he expects me to be up taking care of everyone. But just let him get a scratchy throat, and one would need to bring out the cheese and crackers to go with all that "whine".

Having suffered chronic pain since I was 7, I can tell you that there are many flavors and everyone reacts differently. The same guy that gets floored by a flu might ignore critical symptoms of heart attack or appendicitis. Especially when we grow up being told to "suck it up" or stop being "whiny."

if it were an exception, it would be different.

Problem is, it seems pretty universal. A woman gets sick, she keeps on taking care of the house and everything in it. The man gets a freaking hangnail and he's dying.

Seen it up close and personal too many times with too many different men from too many different parts of the country and walks of life. Have heard same from hundreds of women.

I'm sorry you've suffered, I do not mean to make light of that at all. And yes, some people do have legitimate reasons for reacting differently. But this, this is different.

My 8 months pregnant sister took care of her four year old and two year old while she had the flu, throwing up, etc. Her husband, "had a fever" - never threw up and took to bed for two days. And he was a GOOD guy.

We have a lot of cultural baggage fed to us to condition how we respond to pain and suffering based on gender. Just remember to calibrate that against the individual. Guys are taught to ignore isolated pains but not systemic pain. That idea that we can't show weakness in front of other males actually encourages us to "go into hiding" when we are feeling sick.

Conversely, I keep trying to get my wife to take a day off when sick but she "can't" so she suffers for a week instead of a day.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just be individuals?

When they get the sniffles, they take to their beds in full drama, expecting Mom to take care of them and make it all better, even if she's having trouble deciding which end goes in the toilet first herself. It's entitlement at work again.

However, try to get them to a doctor for those sniffles and they balk. Admitting any sort of physical weakness to another man seems to be the big taboo. They wait for the Big One and 50% of them won't live through it.

I'd suggest that even though we may subjectively experience various things differently, the symptoms of flu are pretty clear-cut.

But yes, it has been my experience that many men do not soldier on as readily as women do in similar circumstances.

Just because a person never gets the flu does not automatically mean that person is an asymptomatic carrier.

Some people don't get the flu. That shouldn't be so difficult to understand.

Do you believe it's possible to be an asymptomatic carrier of the flu virus? Yes or no.