Boys will be boys

Every girl knows too-creepy-too-forward-guy who doesn't know the difference between flirting and gross disrespect… or pretends not to know for his delight.
 
There was one colleague I once had who brazenly asked another colleague's mother if his workmate (her son) had been circumcised...and he's straight! Why he'd need that information is beyond me.

Friendly or inappropriate?

 I don’t know what dinner table topics he was taught were acceptable but most of us didn't have a Meet the Fockers’ type upbringing. He laughs about that night now but I don’t think he ever learnt his lesson.
 
And we shouldn't be surprised.

Clichés exist because they are repeatedly used. So history tells us that, ‘boys will be boys,’ ‘old habits die hard,’ and that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’ which after this week, I’m pretty sure is talking about men and their inherent inability to learn, to
change or to be bettered. I can’t be mad if it’s just in their genetic makeup.  
 
Knowing this should have dictated my actions last week when I honestly approached a boy who I thought was a man about the inappropriateness of his conversation with me. I wasn't China imposing censorship laws against his every word, I was a decent girl speaking to a friend who I thought respected me enough to accept my opinion and was man enough to appreciate my honesty. Despite his intelligence, a mutual appreciation for each other's conversation and an acknowledgement that we enjoyed the challenge that each brought to the friendship, his ego couldn't handle a simple request from me not to be spoken to discourteously. Was this for a love of vulgarity or was he simply too proud to accept that on this one occasion he might have been wrong?

If the situation was reversed, a woman would phone the person, apologise profusely for the indiscretion and vow never to do that wrong thing again. I would at least… but men and their ego’s are no new thing.
 
This week, a man we have loved to hate over the course of the Amazing Race, Chris Pselletes fronted the crowds that hate him in a live interview. Pselletes was labelled an "abusive, hot-headed misogynist." Appearing contrite in a Daily Telegraph interview, he said he was ‘disgusted’ with himself and would work on earning the high opinion of the people around him to prove that he was respectful. (You can read about it here http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/confidential/racers-shame-over-treatment-of-partner/story-e6frf96x-1226073590038 ).  He has a colossal task on his hands.

Although I know I wouldn’t be with a man that spoke to me like that, and Australia thinks his girlfriend Anastasia should take the Amazing Race out of that relationship, at least he grasped the concept that  respect was something earned, not established.
 
My friendship was platonic so neither of us had to fight it out, but this intolerance of being shown up struck me as typically male and I was curious as to why things turned sour when there was a threat to a man’s power?
 
An ‘inferiority complex’ is what most psychologists put this erratic behaviour down to. In 1912, a psychologist by the name of Alfred Alder wrote a book titled The Neurotic Character. His research in this book founded a popular area of psychology known as the inferiority complex which is a term used to describe a sense of inferiority an individual feels about oneself towards other people. It revolves around social status, power, ego, and dominance. You will have an inferiority complex when you feel inferior and think that other people are better than you.

Aha!…Light at the end of the tunnel…Chris yelled because he was unworthy of Anastasia’s forgiveness or partnership on the show and in life. He reacted angrily as a way to assert to himself that he was in control, and in his rage, spiraled out of control instead. Anastasia tolerated the anger, perhaps out of pity, perhaps out of love. Definitely, because she was better than him.

Although I was upset about a strangely sour end to a friendship, I’m not going to fight for someone who refuses to respect me. However, I will delight in the fact that he responded so illogically because he thinks I’m better than him….then proved I was.

Weiner and Woods get women wondering about love.

This week, Congressman Anthony Weiner’s private life was exposed because his private parts were exposed to women other than his wife. The Weiner’s and the Wood’s (Tiger that is) have something in common, where balls are involved, games will be played and the first ladies are put second to the lustful sport of adultery where little men in powerful positions gamble love for garbage.

It’s no wonder women are constantly losing faith in the male species. I almost did this week until scrolling through my twitter feed. A subscriber of all things loving and romantic, one person I followed tweeted ‘don’t say there are no good men left, say I go to all the same places expecting for the scenery to change and to meet new people,” (I’ve paraphrased but that was more or less the point…and WHAT A POINT IT WAS).  Here I was wondering where Mr.Right was when I was hanging out on Dormant Drive – there would be no volcanic, earth shattering romance here – I had little option but to keep walking, keep searching…anywhere but here.

Then a funny thing happened….Mr.Right-Now came knocking at my door. Now I can say with certainty that he is not right for me, but he is present in my life, this minute. He came…also on Twitter (and yes, it is fall of twats) with another perspective on what it would take for me to give him my heart. He said, ‘an intelligent man opens your mind, a handsome man opens your eyes and a gentleman opens your heart.” How nice I thought. I want a combination of all three.

While he claimed gentility, his words when not attempting to court me suggested otherwise and as I questionned his inability to maintain the myth he'd portrayed, alas, an answer came through Lara Bingle. Also trending on Twitter, she said, ‘women fall in love with what they hear and men fall in love with what they see…that’s why men lie and women wear make-up.” Who knew Bingle could speak with such profundity? Experience educated her – her beauty reeled Cricket Captain Michael Clarke in to love but her scandalous photos and foul play made what was visible less desirable and so Clarke’s sweet-nothings ceased to be whispered, making Bingle single.  

Some couples are able to weather any storm though with Weiner’s wife pregnant in her first trimester, she has (as far as we’ve read) promised to stand by her man, seeking guidance from none other than Hilary Clinton on how to wipe the slate clean. I guess the lesson from Hilary for women is, when your man doesn’t know how to conduct himself in public, keep him private… and then wear his pants.

Edmund Burke (not on Twitter) said “the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” These men, clearly unable to prove worthy of their power and abusing it when they have it, need women like Clinton and Beyonce to ‘run the world’ to keep them from misbehaving. Clinton wears the pants and Beyonce doesn’t wear any – perhaps finding a happy medium between the two is the secret to good governance of MANkind.