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Contrary to popular belief, the biggest mind games men play are not with women but with ourselves. Primarily, we run the gamut when exercising our machismo: who can run the fastest, who is the strongest, who has the most stamina, who is the toughest, who is the better leader, who has the biggest chain saw, who caught the most fish, who has the best team, etc.
Unfortunately, we have conditioned ourselves to reside in a world of comparing ourselves to others while refusing to face our imperfections and fragility. We often embrace what we profess to loathe; we are weak and vulnerable when we can’t force our will on others, we see ourselves through rose-colored glasses with no lenses and broken frames and we long for the affection and attention from the very ones that we brazenly identify as the weaker sex!
As we yearn to maintain our self-imposed status of being an alpha-male, we incessantly question ourselves as we feverishly invest an unmeasured amount of energy into ensuring we impress upon others that we are worthy of their surrender to our self-awarded loftiness. History would suggest that we happily and fervently seize all available opportunities to dedicate our lives trying to prove to other men that we have the moxie to earn that coveted prize.
We deepen our voices in the presence of the women we admire while straining our vocal cords and put abrasions on our throats in the company of the men we want to impress with our toughness and tenacity. We squeeze another man’s hand as a show of suggested dominance and as a signal of silent aggression as opposed to, shaking his hand firmly without challenging him to a duel.
Sorry ladies: in our Neanderthal-like aggressions, we not only covet your beauty and your company, we sometimes “pursue” specific women to signal to other men that, yes, we are indeed that “alpha-male” and that you had better recognize that fact while I place another trophy over the mantle of my fireplace.
Yes, beauty queens, runway models, and the wonderful girls next door, you are beautiful and desirable. However, far too often, a man’s ego blinds him to the important situations and people in his life as his testosterone levels create mental tsunamis of adrenaline that often cannot be capped.
As our adrenaline rushes to a speedy crescendo causing our inner thermostats to burst, eyewear to fog up, and our speech to be reduced to a stammer. We are ever pursuing that seemingly elusive plaque that has our names indelibly etched in the center of the universe, proclaiming that “Pegasus” is indeed the blueprint for all males to follow and I am “Pegasus.”
We proudly assume our places on our “self-erected” Mount Everest’s’ basking in our man-made oasis, continuously telling everyone within earshot how great we are. Then, in a whisper, we die the saddest of all. We die alone with our rooms filled with well-wishers and family, you see, for much of our entire existences, we fought gallantly and without pause to secure a position that belongs to no man!
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Melvin “Chief” Lars ©
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