Every beta will recognize himself in “Superstud.”

I recently read Paul Feig’s memoir Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin.  (For those who don’t recognize the name, Feig directed Bridesmaids and created the cult classic show Freaks and Geeks.)  The book begins with his discovery of “the rope feeling” at age 7 and ends with the end of his virginity at age 24.  In between, Feig’s journey to non-virginity reads like a compendium of mortifying beta male experiences, except funny, because Feig is a deft, honest writer and the young Paul Feig of the book is so earnest and so sweetly naive that you can’t help but find him lovable even as you’re groaning at all of his colossal beta mistakes.**  Additionally, Feig was raised as a Christian Scientist, which meant that his hormones were always at odds with God, and a lot of the humor from the book comes from Feig’s ongoing inner dialogue with God as he tries to bargain with God and rationalize away his desires.  I imagine that every guy raised in a Christian home can relate wholeheartedly.

If you liked Freaks and Geeks, you’re almost guaranteed to like this book.  The young Paul Feig is clearly the inspiration for the geeks on that show.  But even if you’ve never been exposed to any of Paul Feig’s work, Superstud is still worth reading because it’s so honest, funny, and sensitive about growing up in contemporary American society as an awkward beta male with romantic dreams in his head.  It’s also a nice antidote to the Roissyness that’s out there that’s all about cold calculation and shielding yourself from feelings while you spit out glossy negs, crusade against feminism and hypergamy, and judge women for failing to meet all of your criteria on your checklist of ideal femininity.  Not that there isn’t a place for Roissydom, but it’s nice to know that not all men hate themselves for having a marshmallow center, either.

**Such as asking out the girl with the biggest boobs in school and then taking her to an REO Speedwagon concert to impress her, only to get AMOGed by drunken twentysomethings at the show; deciding to move across the country for the summer in order to break up with a girl he didn’t really like; enduring a day at Cedar Point with his crush and her boyfriend after he and his crush had secretly made out; and getting the woman who eventually deflowered him up to his bedroom only to freak out and play two games of MouseTrap on his bed before forcing himself to face the music.

Character matters: Morf and Bee edition.

Yesterday my mom told me that Morf, the son of one of her best friends, is definitely splitting up with his wife Bee after four years of a marriage that, as far as I can tell, never really took off.  There’s a “for sale” sign in their yard, and Bee has apparently already moved out.  Again.

Morf is a pastor’s son and attended Christian school all his life, including college.  He was popular, good-looking, and athletic, and seems to be a romantic.  (He gave his college girlfriend a promise ring.  I remember groaning when my mom told me.)  After college, Morf found some success as a salesman in the Chicago area, and it was during this time that he met Bee in (of all places) an internet chat room.  In a stroke of fate, Bee turned out to be a hometown girl who had attended the same high school that Morf did, only she was four or five years younger.  Bee had actually seen Morf way back when and immediately knew he would be her future husband.  Morf and Bee began dating and married when Bee was 20 in a ceremony where they had written their own vows.  The only thing keeping their story from being a Nicholas Sparks novel was that no one was terminally ill or in the military.

Unfortunately, the wedding was the pinnacle of their relationship.  About a year or so later, my mom told me that Bee had moved back in with her mom and wanted out of the marriage.  Morf tried to reason with her, explaining that they had entered into marriage for life, especially as Christians, but Bee flat-0ut told him that those rules didn’t apply to her.  Eventually, Morf was able to convince Bee to come back, and for a while it seemed that things were back on track.

Except, obviously, they weren’t.  Morf and Bee went to marriage counseling, but Bee had already checked out of the relationship.  Her friends were still in school or starting jobs, living it up in Wrigleyville (the fashionable young people’s neighborhood in Chicago), while she was stuck in podunk town married to a guy who now was working for his dad’s ministry, a.k.a. not a road to riches and earthly glory.  It seems pretty obvious that Bee had decided that a better life, free of the constraints of Morf, was out there waiting for her.

My mom is quite grieved that Morf and Bee’s relationship cratered, but in retrospect, the warning signs had always been there.  For starters, Bee was an only child of divorce and was used to getting her own way all the time.  She lived with her mom, and if her mom wouldn’t get her something she wanted, she would just turn around and get it from her dad.  The fact that her mother allowed her to move back in the first time Bee left was a bad sign as well.  Instead of telling her that she’d made her bed and now she had to sleep in it, Bee’s mother enabled Bee’s selfish behavior.  But it’s not Bee’s fault alone:  I suspect that Morf acted like a big, fat beta during their marriage.  Even before Morf and Bee got married, Morf’s mom had mentioned that Morf could never say no to Bee.  (Of course he couldn’t; he was the kind of guy who goes around buying promise rings.)  When I spoke to my mom, she said that when Bee came back to Morf, Morf acquiesced to every single thing that Bee demanded.  Which, as those of us steeped in manosphere principles know, NEVER WORKS.  By trying to make Bee happy, Morf just confirmed to Bee that he was not the man she had signed up to marry.

I suppose the golden lining is that Morf and Bee’s marriage is a classic “starter marriage,” which means that other than any emotional lumps they’ve taken through this whole thing, they’ll pretty much be right back where they started.  Not being rich, they have no significant assets to split.  They have no children.  And each is good-looking enough to attract a new spouse easily; Bee is cute, young, and vivacious, which is enough to make many men ignore all the warning signs, and women LOVE taking care of the good-looking, vulnerable men that other women abandon (it’s always a competition with women:  “I won’t treat you like dirt the way she did!”).  I expect both to be remarried within a few years, tops.

I could say that we should learn some very obvious lessons from Morf and Bee, but being human, we probably won’t.  No one wants to believe that their beloved is a statistic, rather than the exception.  Still, I believe Morf could have saved himself a lot of grief if he had more closely examined Bee’s character while they dated.  Her cuteness, along with his general desire and readiness to Be Married, probably blinded him to her shortcomings, and now he’s paying the price for that.  So, readers, choose carefully and look at the details as well as the whole picture.  Being a Christian isn’t in and of itself enough to save a marriage, nor is being cute, or young, or popular, or nice, or “having good values.”  You really have to get to the root of someone’s convictions.

P.S.  As far as I know, there is no third party involved in this split.

“The Hunger Games”: post-apocalyptic female fantasy.

LOGLINE:  As she is thrust into the national spotlight under circumstances beyond her control, a tomboy from the wrong side of the tracks must choose between her tall, dark, and handsome best friend and the shy yet heroic rich boy who has loved her from afar for years.

For those not in the loop, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games is the first of a trilogy of books that is one of the hottest things in YA lit right now.  A movie version starring Jennifer Lawrence is in the works (see this week’s Entertainment Weekly), and the brass are obviously hoping it becomes the next Twilight franchise.

Whereas Twilight was entrenched in the realm of fantasy (vampires and werewolves), The Hunger Games is futuristic sci-fi, set in a post-apocalyptic North American dictatorship known as Panem, which is made up of twelve districts and a Capitol.  Originally there was a thirteenth district, but the Capitol destroyed it when the districts rebelled.  As a result of the defeated rebellion, the Capitol instituted a televised gladiatorial event called The Hunger Games, held annually to remind the districts who’s in charge and to provide entertainment for all the residents of Panem.  The conceit of the Games is that the gladiators are all teens drawn at random from each district (one boy and one girl, for a total of 24 competitors known as “tributes”), and they must fight to the death until only one is left standing.  It’s part Survivor, part Roman coliseum.  Entry into the lottery is compulsory between ages 12 and 18.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen becomes her district’s tribute when her younger sister’s name is drawn.  Knowing that participating in the Hunger Games is certain death, Katniss volunteers to go in Prim’s place.  She and Peeta Mellark, the district’s boy tribute, travel to the Capitol, where they are styled and given star treatment (so the audience can get to know them and possibly decide to “sponsor” them, i.e., send them helpful supplies once the Games are underway) as well as trained for the Games by a previous winner from their district (a forty-something alcoholic named Haymitch).  Once the Games begin, Katniss must use all of her wits to stay alive…which she does, obviously, or there wouldn’t be much of a trilogy, would there?

The book is a page-turner, and while not exactly gory, it doesn’t shy away from the killing.  What surprised me, though, was how “chick-lit” the book was once you stripped away the post-apocalyptic setting.  I’ve read other sci-fi/action teen series (Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy and James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, both featuring teen female protagonists), and neither of them was remotely as egregious as The Hunger Games in the area of romantic female fantasy.  (Then again, those series were written by men.  Hmmmmmm…)  For all the salacious “teens forced by the totalitarian government to kill each other” angle, the book’s emotional heart is pure chick lit.  To wit:

• Peeta has been in love with Katniss since they were five years old yet has never had the guts to talk to her. [Women love longing stories.]
• Still, he has always looked out for her when he could.  When they were eleven, Peeta, a baker’s son and therefore “rich” by the district’s standards, provided Katniss with some bread he intentionally burned on a day when she was hungry and rifling through their trash.  For doing this, his mother beat him. [The woman does not have to do anything to earn the man’s devotion and bravery.  Her mere existence is inspiration enough.]
• Before the Games start, Peeta confesses to an interviewer on television that he is in love with Katniss.  Katniss, of course, is skeptical because she thinks it might be a ploy to win viewers’ sympathy.  Haymitch encourages the teens to play up the “star-crossed lovers” angle for the audience.  [Playing pretend lovers is straight out of a Harlequin novel.  Or Candace Cameron Bure’s most recent TV movie.]
• During the Games, Peeta pretends to side with the tougher tributes as a means of protecting Katniss. [More devotion and bravery.]
• When Peeta is badly injured, Katniss tends to him.  After the change to the rules is announced – both tributes from a district will be declared winners if they are the last two standing – Katniss realizes that she can get more aid from viewers if she pretends to be in love with Peeta.  [See above re: Harlequin novel.  Even better if plausible deniability can be invoked later.]  Naturally, as they become more intimate with each other (at one point sharing a sleeping bag – he was ill, it was cold outside!), Katniss feels confused.  But maybe that’s because….
• Prior to volunteering for the Games, Katniss spends most of her time hunting (illegally) with her best friend Gale, who just so happens to be two years older, tall, dark, handsome, and angry at the government.  Katniss is better with a bow and arrow (no self-respecting heroine is worse than a man at anything important), but Gale is a good hunter and together they are able to help feed their families.  Although Katniss spends much of her time believing that she and Gale are only friends, she also spends a lot of time thinking about Gale during the Games.  Especially when she feels herself growing a little too close to Peeta.  [Romantic heroines usually must choose between two guys.  Even tough, not-particularly-feminine heroines.]

So…what we have here is a tomboy whose choices in men are a devoted rich boy and a hot loner.  Or a best friend and the new boy in town.  Or the beta she never noticed and the alpha who hasn’t declared his intentions.  Haven’t we all seen this movie before?  Did I mention that Katniss doesn’t want to get married, ever?

But that’s not all!  Because the Hunger Games are televised, the tributes must all get makeovers.  So the book devotes a significant amount of time to fashion and grooming.  Yes, we are treated to Katniss getting her legs waxed and details about her outfits and even her fingernail polish.  The tributes even get personal stylists.  (Lenny Kravitz just got cast as Katniss’s.)  The tributes get instant fame and must go through televised interviews that are like talk shows.  Of course, that the tributes have no choice in the matter (and are about to go to their deaths anyway) is supposed to mitigate this most girly of plot points.  But a perusal of YA lit aimed at teenage girls will reveal tons of books about being popular or famous or becoming popular or famous.  When Katniss (and ::SPOILER:: Peeta) triumphs at the end, she is informed that she will have to do a victory tour – more forced fame!  Quelle horreur!  And she’s still going to have to pretend to be in love with Peeta!  (Can you even stand it?)  Even while her feelings for Gale are getting in the way!  And she breaks Peeta’s heart!  What’s a tomboy who just survived death to do?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but I was really shocked at just how stereotypical and conventional the book was underneath all the window dressing.  Maybe the secret to The Hunger Games is that it’s Twilight for the people who think they’re too good for Twilight.  But at least Twilight didn’t pretend to be some sort of social commentary about war, survival, and totalitarian government.

The hamster is strong.

(For further reading, check out Salon‘s article comparing the heroines of the two series.  Celebuzz did a comparison of the two series also.)

Curvy on the internet.

Bug killaz.

A couple weekends ago, I came back to my apartment with some female friends to watch a movie.  I went into the kitchen, and one friend said, “Uh…is that a big bug on your ceiling?”

I looked up at the ceiling and didn’t see anything.  Then I looked where she actually meant, and there, sitting on the vent, was a cockroach that was maybe 2 1/2 inches long.  My friends immediately wanted to find a guy in the building to kill it.  I suggested a neighbor who I was pretty sure was male (judging by the chubby guys I had seen entering with bottled beer on another occasion), so my friends ran over to recruit his services.  Alas, he was not home.

My friends continued to freak out, and I realized that if I wanted this roach out of my apartment, I was going to have to remove it myself.  Not having any roach spray, I decided to see if ant spray would be effective.

It wasn’t, really, but it did get the roach to fall to the floor, whereupon I smashed it with the can, and roach bits went flying.

My friends congratulated me on killing the roach and marveled that I was able to do it.  In my head I was going, “What else could I have done?  I couldn’t leave it there, and I couldn’t have you guys standing around freaking out about it for another half an hour.”

Secretly, though, I was sort of glad that I killed the roach myself.  I have a hard time asking favors of people in general, and sometimes I get the impression that men feel awkward being asked to help, or they feel put out/annoyed that someone is interrupting their plans.  Men seem to be happy to grab things that are out of reach, or occasionally to lift something heavy, but beyond that, things get questionable if you don’t know what a man’s specific abilities are.  He might be good at doing something…or he might not.

Maybe some of this just boils down to how patient a woman is.  Not too long ago, Suzanne Gosselin of Boundless wrote about how she never once changed a tire while she was single because she always had beta orbiters helpful male friends who would do it.  She saw this as a good thing.  My reaction was more of, “Why didn’t she just change it herself?  It’s not that hard.”

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I was talking to my parents on the phone today and my mom told me about an experience she’d had that I thought would be relevant to the blog.  While we were on the subject of American Idol, talk turned to Adam Lambert, and my mom asked if she had told me about her fellow election volunteer.  I said no (and wondered what prompted this particular non sequitur).  Well, my mom informed me, I needed to get a load of this lady.

So, apparently there’s another lady who volunteers on election days, too, and my mom has gotten to know her a little in the standard “we’re both stuck here all day so we might as well be friendly” kind of way.  According to my mom, this other woman is probably in her late 40s or early 50s, is married, and has three sons, the youngest of which has now graduated from high school.  I don’t know this woman’s name, so for the purposes of this blog post, I’ll just call her Rhonda.

Anyhow, Rhonda has been very nice and seemed relatively normal until the most recent election, where she showed up dressed like a goth and had a dyed-red streak in her hair.  It turns out that Rhonda is divorcing her husband.  Also, two of her three sons are gay (the middle one is the straight one).  The youngest son dropped out of school and got his GED because he was bullied so much for his flamboyance.

I told my mom that Rhonda was in the throes of a mid-life crisis.  My mom then told me (bringing the discussion full circle) that Rhonda also had a tattoo of Adam Lambert’s autograph.  A couple of years ago, Adam Lambert came to town to perform a concert at a major city festival that Rhonda and her family worked at.  They were able to go backstage and meet Adam, and Rhonda got Adam’s autograph not on a piece of paper but on her body.  The very next day, Rhonda had Adam’s autograph tattooed onto herself.

My question was, Where was the husband in all of this?  What self-respecting man allows his wife to get a (young, gay) male singer’s autograph tattooed onto her body?**  For a middle-aged Midwestern mom, that’s practically adultery.  I couldn’t help but think that either the husband had checked out of the marriage emotionally years ago, or he was fatally unequipped to deal with his wife and children.  Wielding some pimp hand along the way would probably have helped save his marriage.  It would even help him now, if he cared to exercise it.  A woman acting out to the extent that Rhonda is is BEGGING for an alpha to come into her life and show her what’s what.

The whole story made me sad to hear it.  Divorce stories are always sad.  But one thing is clear:  Female nature abhors an alpha vacuum.

**But blah blah blah, a woman is the sole boss of her body, blah!  In this case, NO:  the tattoo is a subconscious FU to her husband’s betaness.

THIS ARTICLE, I can’t even.

The article:  Heavy Issues for Heavy Women.  (So miraculous that NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED.)

The discussion thread:  Miracle on Matrimony Street.

A quote:

We’ve been married for almost seven years now. One child and an additional 35 pounds later [which makes her 290 at 5’3″], my husband is nothing but more attracted to my fat frame. And he gets a little annoyed about the guys who hit on me. Just as God had made some men who prefer brunettes, some who prefer tomboys, some who prefer bookish gals, God has given some guys a deep appreciation for fat women.

Especially in light of Roissy’s post on Why European Girls Stay Thin.

BRAIN GOES KABOOM.

Hallmarks of creepiness.

One thing I’ve picked up from my time in the manosphere is that a lot of men think women are too liberal with the word “creepy.”  They think that women summarily apply it to every man they find sexually unattractive, as though “sexually unattractive” were a subset of “creepy.”  While I’m sure that some women label every unattractive man “creepy,” most of the time it is a knee-jerk assessment.  Creepiness is a woman’s gut telling her that something is Not Right.  Every woman has had at least one experience being in the presence of a truly creepy man who set off every red flag in her head and made her want to run away as fast as possible.

Most of the time, creepiness stems from some degree of social inability.  People expect others to relate to them in a culturally accepted way, and deviating from these socially acceptable cues will set off alarms in people’s heads.  Probably the biggest creep factor is a combination of staring and lurking.  Staring makes people uncomfortable because people aren’t accustomed to prolonged looks, and lurking makes people uncomfortable because people interpret prolonged eye contact as a reason to approach.  A woman who is getting looks from a man will usually expect him to approach her and begin conversation.  However, if he continues looking but never tries to talk to her, she will start to feel uncomfortable and possibly threatened.  If the man has other unfavorable social markers such as hygiene and grooming issues, he’ll easily fall into the creepy category.

Icky touching is another creepiness factor.  Most people touch in accordance with the level of intimacy they share, starting with hand-to-shoulder and progressing to fuller bodily contact.  Creepy touching is touching that is inappropriate to the level of intimacy that two people share, or goes on too long to be plausibly innocent, or seems gratuitous to the situation.  For example, if some guy you don’t know too well is always coming up behind you and putting his hands on your shoulders and rubbing them as a means of starting interaction with you, that’s creepy.

Invasive conversation is likely to set off the creepy alarms as well.  By invasive conversation I mean conversation that is overly focused and inappropriate to the level of familiarity with the other person.  One time I was in a group where a man was asking another woman in the group a lot of detailed, personal questions about herself – questions that a normal person would not ask of someone they had just met.  The woman tried to answer the questions as politely as possible, but when he left, she turned to me and asked, “Did that guy seem creepy to you?”  To which I answered, “YES.”

Off the top of my head, the three issues I’ve mentioned here are the main ones that trigger the creepy factor (at least outside of truly, unmistakably socially “off” behavior).  What creepiness is NOT is social awkwardness.  You are not creepy if you’re shy, or bumbly, or prone to stick your foot in your mouth.  As I said before, creepiness is really about that gut-level feeling that something is Not Right in the way another person is interacting with you and that it could possibly put you at risk.

Did you complete the 12/12 Challenge?

I, alas, did not.  (Insert wailing and gnashing of teeth here.)  But if any blog readers attempted, or even completed**, the 12/12 Challenge, please let me know!

I may reinstitute the challenge at some point in the future.  We’ll see.

**If you completed the challenge, you deserve free fries at the fast food establishment of your choice for the rest of your life, or some other comparable lifelong benefit.

But what would she say about dads?

Boundless blogger Martha Krienke, in today’s post for “The Boundless Show”:

One of my favorite TV shows is “A Baby Story” on TLC. I like watching the new parents anticipate and prepare for their new baby, and the birth often makes me cry. My tears, which are the happy kind, are partly a result of witnessing a new life coming into the world, but I also admire the mother who just gave her all on behalf of that little one. What a hero!

A mother’s love for her children is astounding. Giving birth is just the beginning; next is the 2 a.m. feedings and interpreting the baby talk of a 2 year old. And who knows how a parent potty trains a toddler much less finds the nerve to sit in the passenger’s seat while her teen gets behind the wheel.

The Mother’s Day card I bought for my mom this year says:

(front) Motherhood. It’s not rocket science.

(inside) It’s brain surgery on astronauts during a lunar launch while reciting the Declaration of Independence bakwards — only with less logic. Happy Mother’s Day

I think that sums up well the magnitude of a mother’s role and the difference she makes in her child’s life. This Sunday, be sure to take time to honor your mom and express your appreciation.

A couple of comments:

1.  Regarding the Mother’s Day card – would ANYONE be able to find a similar Father’s Day card?  The card just seems to be another in a long line of “moms are superhuman rock stars, dads are sperm donors” messages in the media.  I highly doubt anyone would liken a father’s role to even basic brain surgery, even if he were an actual brain surgeon.

2.  My single male readers should spam bomb Martha with bountiful negs designed to tinglate the Christian soul.  Unlike all of the ungrateful urban wenches harboring Sex and the City dreams, this chick loves babies so much she cries when women she doesn’t even know personally have babies.  She could be YOUR baby-maker!  Step to it, sons.

Also discussed in this week’s podcast:

She says she has infatuated feelings for almost every guy she meets. Not only is this habit starting to interfere with how she interacts with men, it’s also affecting how she views herself and her relationship with God. Candice Watters, a regular contributor to Boundless.org, offers advice for this college-age reader to begin seeing her male peers as brothers in Christ.

I haven’t listened to the podcast, so I can’t speak to the advice given by Mrs. CW, but it’s not uncommon for some girls to develop crushes on everyone possessing a Y chromosome.  Everyone knows someone like that.  (Given the cynical attitudes in the manosphere about what type of man is able to attract women, one does wonder how many of the men in her orbit this reader actually does notice, however….)

What I imagine is going on in this reader’s scenario is that she crushes easily on any guy who looks at her more than half a second, and she gets irrationally excited at ~possibilities~, leading her to fantasize about being married to whichever guy she is talking to at the moment, which she then feels guilty about because she may be trying to flirt with him when she hasn’t gotten the green light from him to proceed, OR she’s dreaming about Guy X when someone else is praying out loud, or she finds it difficult to think about God because Guy X COULD BE THE ONE, MAYBE, LIKE SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE AFTER THEY’VE DATED CHASTELY FOR A YEAR OR SO AND HE PROPOSES ON ONE KNEE WITH A BEAUTIFUL SOLITAIRE IN HAND AND HOPEFULLY HE THINKS “JAYDEN” WOULD BE A TERRIFIC BOY’S NAME AND OH NO I HAVEN’T PAID ATTENTION TO THE SERMON THIS MORNING I AM A HORRIBLE CHRISTIAN.

This isn’t something I’ve struggled with, but this reader’s scenario seems pretty harmless to me and not necessarily requiring a rehabilitation so she can “begin seeing her male peers as brothers in Christ,” which is, I’m sure, what all of her brothers in Christ are hoping for.  As long as the people around her are encouraging prudent behavior and a more reasonable view of the situation, things’ll probably work themselves out just fine.  If it IS a spiritual concern for her – for example, her fantasy life is going off the rails sexually, or her infatuations are blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, or she is blindly following her tingles with men who wouldn’t make suitable husbands – then she should definitely pray about it.

On a more practical level, if this girl is crushing on every guy she meets, then she should probably also be taking a closer look at these men to see if she can find a potential husband in one of them.  Finding lots of male peers attractive isn’t exactly the worst problem in the world to have.

If anyone has listened to the podcast, please fill me in.