That picture is my father. The baby is me. I think he was 24 years old.
My father was 5'6" and 135 pounds. Women his age always told me he was "very good-looking" when younger. He told me he had a Little Black Book full of women's names, which I always thought was a myth until he told me about it.
He told me he got into a fair number of fights with guys envious of his success with women. Some of the women he wasn't interested in never forgave him. I was popular enough with women to know exactly what he was talking about.
Some tried to start fights because he wasn't very big.
By the time he was in his 50's his hair was gone, and he told me once he was standing in McDonalds and a woman he had not been interested in 35 years before pointed at his head and started laughing.
He also told me in his 70s about once a year a former girlfriend, whose husband had died, called him up wondering if he was available.
He dropped out of high school, got a GED, and spent his career as a general contractor. I estimated his IQ as about 107.
I grew up six inches taller, 25 pounds heavier, stronger and a lot smarter. He grew up a lot better-looking than me and a lot more popular with women. That's all he had on me. I was never envious of him. He was a moderate-IQ extrovert and I am a high-IQ introvert.
He and my mother fought all the time and I remember police cars in front of the house more than once. My mother once hit him in the head with a telephone and split his scalp open. The next day he got rid of his .38.
He couldn't handle his liquor at all and I remember one time finding him passed out in bed wearing his bowling shirt, with all the doors open and lights on, with a waste basket next to him to throw up in.
Here's my question. Who's the "Alpha" here? The "Beta"? Gamma, Delta, Sigma? I'm not seeing them. I never see them.
What I do see, every time, are men who are mixtures of all of them.
High IQ often leads to introversion. Most people you meet are boring, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteSome people even employ ancient folk tales to shame introverts about their solitary habits. What motivates them?
ReplyDeleteSince their system is so confusing all I can gather from it is whomever gets the most women gets the best greek letter.
ReplyDeleteBut they never talk about quality of women...always quantity. Nailing 20 BPD sluts or 20 obese women with low self esteem doesn't make a guy any more alpha than a virgin who is afraid to talk to girls.
"Most people you meet are boring, aren't they?"
ReplyDeleteYes.
Off topic, but relevant to your recent musings on women and envy. I am studying Chinese which as you use know uses characters aka Hanzi for their writing system. The two characters that form the word 'envy'[嫉妒] both use the woman/female root/radical[女].
ReplyDeleteThe Greek letter alphabet soup hierarchy is the modern day man's longing for a real hierarchical order. That is the only conclusion I can reach from the fanatics that prop this pseudo system up.
ReplyDeleteYou can't always compare what was "alpha" in one generation to another.
ReplyDeleteBecause female selection criteria changes, and female selection is a major component of the definition of "alpha" with regard to most writers. Sure, a guy can be a "workplace alpha", but for most men who want to be successful with women, such side issues are but mere noise.
The standard for alpha can easily change, and it certainly has since your father was a young man.
I disagree - there is such thing as 'alpha' behaviour...I have seen it and know it exists.
ReplyDeleteAny group of primates from humans on down will show it when they gather. When the 'alpha' appears in males we call them patriarchs. With females they are termed matriarchs. A pecking order will rapidly assert itself with the matriarchs/patriarchs at the top and everyone else coming in somewhere below.
Occasionally humans specimens will operate outside the group - I believe you once referred to them as Zeta males, Bob - and they are the ones that feel no pressure to conform or please the group.
That is where a lot of us manosphere guys operate today. We don't care about political correctness, we are fiercely independent, and most of us detest the power/status games played by poseurs like Vox Day, Roosh and their fans.
Zeta males (and females, if you want to use greek letters) are both envied and hated by regular humans. They often have as many friends as enemies.
I am at a loss to explain how such people are made though. I am not shocked at all that your parents had battles and problems while you yourself do not, Bob. By contrast, my parents were happily married, even though my mother was a loud, domineering femc*nt. I regularly got slapped and punched for telling her to FOAD. Pop was as likely to laugh at my insubordination as to punish it. I have flipped the bird at high paying but difficult employers and walked away from them without a second thought. I will probably do it again a few more times before I retire.
Leadership isn't all it is cracked up to be - not if it's done right...and I have no time or patience for it. Like you, I may not be wealthy but I am free.
"You can't always compare what was "alpha" in one generation to another.
ReplyDeleteBecause female selection criteria changes,"
Evo-Psych isn't a science.
^ Basing your opinions on the quality of anonymous comments on the internet? Some of evo-psych is established, some is dubious, some in-between. For example old studies about 'cheater detection' being far easier than any other type of logical operation are replicable.
ReplyDeleteVery touching story. It's taken nearly ten years after my father's death, but I can now finally think of him as he was as a man and not only as a father.
ReplyDelete"What I do see, every time, are men who are mixtures of all of them."
ReplyDeleteYep. Whether a man is a dominant "Alpha" male largely depends on what kind of dominance you're talking about.
One of my close friends is shy and uncomfortable around women, short, introverted and intellectual, and leans heavily on the bottle for support. He also enthusiastically embraced two tours of duty in a combat zone, has no apparent fear of injury or death, doesn't care a whit if anyone dislikes his strong opinions, and wouldn't flinch from instantly killing anyone who tried to attack him. Alpha or beta?
My overweight father has always been a very gentle and gregarious man- constantly laughing and joking with small children, and making small talk with anybody and everybody in town. His faithfulness to my mother was absolute and unquestionable; she said she never had to worry about him straying because it was absurd to even think of him seeking another woman. He also spent many years as a bouncer in a violent dive bar, and over the years has had pool cues shattered over his skull without so much as flinching, calmly de-escalated angry drunks who were brandishing loaded guns, and wrestled down an enraged pit-bull. Alpha or beta?
Another man I know is almost what the PUAs mean by "Alpha". Moderately handsome, he always manages to find a good-looking girlfriend or short-term sexual partner with very little effort (he's had a few since I've known him). Of course, he's also a devout Catholic consumed by guilt and the constant terror of hell-fire, because he knows that fornication is a mortal sin. He doesn't actually want to be sexually active, he just sleeps with women because he lacks the willpower and self-restraint to say "No" to a roll in the hay. Alpha or beta?
The list goes on and on.