An Answer From a "Beta" Male

In response to a question posed on a acquaintance’s blog here, the answer really isn’t that simple. The “Alpha Male” has not really gone anywhere, per se. He is just hidden behind all the momma’s boys out there. I think part of the problem is the feminizing of the American male. This is brought up in the book that I referenced in my comment to Ms. Lesli Joe. (also here) The author uses folks from Australia as an example. He says that Australian men love American women because they are so “difficult” and they enjoy the challenge, while Australian women love American men because we, as a group, have become wussy and they can dominate the relationship. I blame this on the babying of today’s generation.

It used to be that it was never okay for a boy to cry except under extreme circumstances. It would take pretty much a shot to the nuts for a male child to be allowed to cry. If you were one of those kids that got picked on a cried a lot, those boys that didn’t cry would make fun of you and call you names, like Ball-Baby Bobby or something like that.

Today’s male children have it so much easier. Not only can they cry, they are encouraged to do so in order to share their true feelings and not keep everything inside. “Sharing is Caring” or some nonsense like that. So, not only can they cry, they can also run home and be coddled by their over-protective mother who doesn’t want to see little Johnny “feel bad.”

Furthermore, with people having fewer children these days, most of our young boys no longer have older brothers to treat them mean for no reason. It seems they now have older sisters who like to play dress up with their little brothers. In my day (sounding old), my brother would not hesitate to sit on me or squish my head between his legs and jump up and down. Granted, he was much older then me, and still is, but I often felt that the only reason he picked on me was because I was there and he was trying to “toughen me up” in the proverbial sense. How this helped me with the ladies, I am still trying to figure out, as you may be able to tell from many of my obnoxious posts about the female of the species.

Now to get back to the issue at hand, we males are not only at fault for this predicament. True, I have never spent one day at a “Singles Ward,” the meat market for RMs and the women who love them. So I have a bit of a different perspective from Lesli Joe. But females are just as much to blame for this as males are. All your freaking rules about everything, like you can’t date people from where you work or you aren’t really looking for a boyfriend right now. Fine.

We males aren’t always looking for a relationship; sometimes we just want to meet people that we can go hang out with or have back-ups so we don’t have to go watch “Star Trek” by ourselves. Y’all really don’t need to tell us that you don’t want a boyfriend for the three hours that we are driving to/from and watching a movie. We understand the first time. Stop trying to convince yourself and just enjoy the movie.

Finally, stop being so old-fashioned. Sometimes we just need a swift kick in the pants (figuratively) and need to be asked out. If you think that we have a chance, maybe, just maybe, take that leap first. We’ll ask you out on the second date to makeup for it, even if we don’t really have a good time. Some folks may feel like they owe it to you for being so brave.

I’ve said my peace. That is all.