Admonition
/ˌadməˈnɪʃ(ə)n/
A stern rebuke of non-negotiable standards and conduct, that meaningfully administers a warning to the culprit of such actions. A denunciation of harmful beliefs and practices that serves to reprimand the wielder or agent of their actions. A harangue that firmly draws boundaries and makes another attentive to their disillusionment.
Let’s talk openly for a minute (or perhaps a couple – let’s face it, these posts get a tad lengthy). The wallflower has been tending to memory, and a few stories have been brewing in that garden. And one among them, calls us to be frank. So lets get to it then: Men…
Ah yes. How are you doing Mars? Going in retrograde soon? Because your sons just need to calm the f*ck down on old Big Blue next door… They are becoming a bit brazen, and we are not living for it!
Alright… we totally are. I mean a little bit of self-certainty and attunement to desire goes a long way to tickle our fancy…
… but toning down that extra bit of assertive self-confidence and blazing sex drive might actually give the rest of us a damn breather from the Spartan directive.
Now, this is not meant to be hypocritical. I mean, I am of course a man myself. And perhaps (if not without doubt) much of the critique that can be launched towards the typically rough, untactful male in his prime is surely returned to me in certain instances. I can pretty much be a ‘typical’ male at times too…
But for the most part, I would love to think that I am successful at evading the brunt of male stereotypes that many men heroically assume by choice. So let’s jump right into one. The beautiful little phenomenon called: The Bro Code (also referred to as Guy Code).
I’ll leave you a little educational tool to help you. Here you go…
Perhaps you prefer such wisdoms as shared by Barney Stinson (any How I Met Your Mother fans?)
Basically, men have a mutual consensus as to the proper form of conduct by which their construal of the world is conducted. These rules of etiquette, or ‘the code’ as contemporary lingo now addresses it, is the cornerstone of the unwritten understanding between men from all walks of life. It guides their perceptions, scaffolds their interpretation, and thus their actions show fealty to the sacred oath imparted by an ancient blueprint. And women have their own version too (or so legend holds).
It’s comforting right? Knowing of a few key life hacks that could calibrate that gender compass so you rock the boat (or the bed) in all the right ways… Well sure. Mainstrean society has not really given their full investment to the whole “gender fluidity” bit. Our minds prefer schemas and wrestle with spectrums, so if something is not one thing or the other – male or female – then we pretty much have a bit of difficulty keeping up. So, the gender codes are still pretty fierce in relevance.
And, oh… you know. They work just swell and all… until you’re pretty much a straight guy expecting your fellow raging homosexual to abide by the same rules. Yeah, things hit a snag then, and the issue becomes a bit thorny.
Storytime sweeties!
So yes, I was this raging homosexual. Well, raging is a strong word… perhaps a bit extra even. Its not like the pride flag is refracted in my iris. But rewind the old clockhand to my early years at university, and I was just an innocent young lad that had to learn many of the basics of an altogether different code: the gay code. But we’ll leave that to another blog.
As for the unwritten contract of my male counterparts who grew from more heteronormative roots of thinking, I was already an expert as to the ways of the “straight” male think-tank. I graduated the class honey; but like a good graduate candidate, I am applying next to none of much of that knowledge in the real world!
I received that rude awakening one evening when a friend of mine was fuming in his quiet rage in the passenger seat of my car. I naively asked him if he was angry, adressing the obvious tension that was hanging so thick you could cut it with a knife. I did, after all, consider myself to be empathetic and caring. His response was a cold lash of words that whipped me into attention of the crime that I was culprit to: a violation of this Bro Code…
And to be honest, I did not even now I was at fault and thus at the mercy of the jury from the heterosexual pantheon.
Lets backtrack a bit…
There I was… all cool and collected on a quaint little evening, getting ready for a nice and relaxing dinner with friends. Perhaps I was dressing a tad ‘fancy’. But we were uni-folk sweetie. ‘Dinner with friends’ was not exactly one of those hobbies and interests we listed on our resumes – we were working on a budget! But even on a budget… we were about to fan out our tail feathers. So I straightened out that button shirt, slipped on that chino pair to give a little love to those assets, gave those boots a quick polish, and conjured a bit of spellwork with a haircomb. To me, grooming and dressing was just plain fun. This was not fine dining, but we weren’t doing drive-thru tonight! Lets work with a little TLC. So this was all fine, but nothing compared to my housemate and his get-ready efforts at the time.
So down the hall, the sacred ritual of male heterosexual prepwork was unfolding… queued by the fog of Axe bodyspray and ceremonial 90’s boy rockband music alternated with 2010’s rave club remixes – about sweating bodies and sex. This was not even embellishing it with exaggeration. That spray can opened, clicked, and dispensed so many times that a new Texan-sized hole in the Ozone was forming. Environmental NGO’s probably lost sight of our location in the dense mist. And then there was little old me, feeling like I was just winning at life by rocking a little scent of Eu de Par-Moi (smelling like myself).
I mean, I really wasn’t getting this. We were about to be four people, just eating out for the night. Us two lads, and two girls that were sort of becoming friends. But clearly I was missing the cues of straight-male impression building. The slaughter of subtlety that was occuring down the hallway could probably be allowed. And I am sure the hetero gods, now appeased by the acts of their acolyte, looked proudly upon their son that strutted out of his room: with upper shirt buttons loosened, hair that traced its heritage to the super sayans, musculature peaking through all the right places… and the whiff of raw masculinity that was testament to Darwinian theory. “Lets go!”, he said like some superhero catchphrase, as if epochs of his great feats were about to be written. Oh god…
So we drove over to the girls. They met us in the driveway to their house, decked out in a little casual wear and paid some attention to the detail in their glam. They were pretty by all standards. And me being me, gave each a nice and friendly sideways, one-armed church hug.
But my buddy, well… he drew them in for a full-on chest-contact moment that just oozed of desire. He and the dark-headed gal were getting real ‘friendly’ of late… so perhaps my hetero gene had just been in stasis for too long to recognise the so-called cues. But… I was caught up to a degree…
So off we went, and on arriving, we grabbed ourselves some choice seating and started a chat.
The topics of that banter escapes memory. I guess we were batting around the idle pleasantries, the adult-novice life theories, and the odd jokes that you only question afterwards. We were just being university students. But then I distinctinctly remember the subject of dating arising among the present company. And here I knew we were treading though some dangerous waters. No seriously, I was actually close to having an angina… and uttered a few private benedictions for the peace that had been maintained at that table.
Because: we had two girls here that manifested as amazons at the slightest misstep to their honour, and a guy who truly believed he was God’s gift to women in the making…
Now, my housemate was really of that special breed of man that believed in the dating coach biz. Basically it came down to the whole belief that dating is a game, of which the rules require ownership by the player. As a guy, you can basically be trained to talk to, hit up, and date any girl that you like with a few key formulas of conversation, demeanor and self-beliefs. Thus, women were reducible to quite a couple of key traits that needed to be understood, navigated, and managed. This was not to be confused with social-skills training, which is a mode of therapy all itself. What I was dealing with was a classic case of PhD level guy code, which manifested in very unique ways within the male-female dating dynamic. I later realised that I understood this according to a different curriculum within the gay code, something we happen to do in gay-man undergrad called, emotional intelligence and women. To us, it is about circumnavigating female emotion, which we then realise is actually pretty similar to our own. So then we pass that school with the understanding that it comes down to ‘feelings’ and that it is not a gender-bound thing at all. So we drop the bigotry, chauvinism, and robust male emotional exterior and realise that it is all really about not being an arse. And voilà! History created the camaraderie between gay men and straight women that has been mutually beneficial ever since. All because of that enlightenment. But our relationship and symbiosis with our own sex has been a bit slower in the making. We can just all blame toxic masculinity right now’ and leave that as discussion for another day.
So back at the table… there he was: geared with his strong perceptions surrounding women, about to drop the bomb with some far-out views on how girls in the dating scene actually operate, and how guys tend to approach them. And, call me a rookie, but I was not sure that guy-code actually prescribed that you reveal some of these ideas that are bound in the holy book of man. I mean I thought this sh*t was like sacred! But there he was, sharing some pretty unforgiving ideas with the subject of conversation gaining some intense momentum. In fact, it was turning out to be on the brink of becoming a fully-fledged bloody war! Our friends were not exactly impressed by his views, and you could get ready to place some saucers of milk in front them, because they were about to get catty! He was on the tangent of making a point that women are graced with a rating by the divinity of male specimens that roam the dating field. Based on a couple of physical traits and a few environmental clues, women were deemed worthy of approach and as target to flirtation. A woman’s natural beauty (basically her looks), her body shape (meaning her weight), her social standing (how popular or well-known she was), her accentuated features (her grading of ‘sexy’), and what she did for a living (how interesting she was to talk to) determined how coveted she was by a guy on the prowl. Then there were added bits like a best friend who acted as gate keeper; and how tactics needed to change when her rating is particularly high (because she can get any guy she wants). Basically, his whole premise was not built on what he personally found attractive (which no one can be blamed for if they have their preferences), but rather on a male pack-mentality of what is socially deemed as more valued in their small microcosm. He was laying down his truth as if the two women (did I mention we were trying to build a friendship here?) sitting across from us were the naive little underlings in the dating foodchain, and as if he was doing everyone a favour.
He then loaded his crossbow with a killshot bolt to quiet the table the f*ck down by saying: “Girls who are anything lower than a 5 or 6 have no chance of really scoring a guy out there.”
Yeah, the brunette looked about ready to have at him across the table… And I remember thinking that Girl Code must be really legit if it evoked that kind of gleam in your eye. We are talking about a look that threw daggers!
Now, if you knew anything about warfare, you knew that a crossbow needed some time to reload in battle. That was exactly when the girls verbally charged his defences, and basically started to rip him apart. And f*ck… I mean I had to spectate. I don’t know if the fumes of his ritual chamber back home had scrambled his chemistry of logic, but I knew better than to come up with all these screwed-up hypotheses. Damn bro, did you you want to be blood-eagled by a shield-maiden! (because it may just be the little dark fantasy moment any proud woman would have on dealing with a man who think they fell from heaven).
A battle of the sexes was taking place at table, and my mate was being forced to swallow the foot he was putting in his own mouth. I was audience to a tirade that was reaching legendary proportions, and they were going at him where it hit hard: right between his cerebral knockers, effectively putting an end to his fertile imagination that was spewing disillusioned creeds (though I actually think they insulted his equipment as well). He was outnumbered, but he didn’t feel he was alone (as I found out in the drive back home). Because there was, after all, another guy at the table. Oh… he meant me. My sincere condolences for your thinking old sport…
So cue my reaction to this whole spectacle, and what you found was the heathen to the straight religion who was finding this ‘playful’ exchange a bit of a joke. I mean, everyone was surely not taking all of this too seriously… right?
He was clearly very talented at saving face during this whole debacle. He did not flinch, stutter, or halt his advances even once. So I was like: he is a big boy, he can handle his own little mess he made. And for heavens sake, you know… I did not come for this little ego show. I came to eat. So while everyone was clearly busy, I was paying heed to my meal like a normal little human being struck with famine and a dash of awkwardness, while the rest were clearly engaged in a bit of loquacious repartee spiced with sarcasm and gender-tinged innuendo. And I had to reiterate: no one was really taking each other that seriously, RIGHT? This was all good fun?
Well, I might as well have been put to the cross or some other torture for believing that. He was resolute in his conviction to the date-hunter subculture, and he was setting back the women’s movement by 50 years. This was clearly so the drama! And he at least, had one clear expectation from me – one he did not share though, but clear in his own mind – be a bro, have your bro’s back, honour the code. Well how in the all encompassing f*ck was I suppose to know that?!
Cue the moment back in the car, and this entire reasoning was presented to me in a little heated speech he had clearly been working on since the first time I snickered at one of the biting remarks by the girls. And boy was he pulling some straight old-fashioned scolding on me to clearly impress his male authority. And how I clearly failed at honouring the call of having another man’s back. I was, flabbergasted…
… because… first of all b*tch… how the hell do you call for the enactment of the guy-code in that situation? You were basically preppeing yourself to be roasted!!! Second of all, when your damn rulebook says anything about women, you are basically signing up for dismemberment and decapitation when you want a gay guy to be your wing man! And if some manage to actually learn the trade, then my apologies, but asking me to be a wingman is like moulting your soaring chances of ever actually finding happiness. PERIOD.
So this brought me to really reflecting on the issue at hand here: The Direwolf-Fallacy. Haven’t heard of it? Oh don’t worry honey… it is my little invention, aptly named because it encompasses a wide array of character faults that should be extinct, but have survived the millennia to manifest in those textbook larger than life alpha-types. It is a key trade of robustness and primal instinct tied with man since age immemorial. This should-be extinct collection of traits is revived in the fantasies of certain social circles on the belief of superiority held by certain males for their dominant virility. It is singularly associated with those ambitious hunters in the courtship realm, that includes characteristics of misguided cunning, brute approaches, stereotypical attributions, misjudged rivalry, and a dissociation with the realities of conveyed social cues. And a label proudly assumed by some men for its defining capacity in their lives, guiding action, diction and thought and their personas in the their social relations. Basically you are an egotistical narcissist snapping your maw in the wrong wilderness. So my friend here was believing he was howling at the moon…but darling… he was barking up the wrong tree by blaming my ignorance of his ‘sacred’ code. Quite frankly, I was getting bored with his little rant…
My younger self was, however, clearly livid at this injustice. And I was about to lay down some proper gay retribution to force him into a bit of humble penance! No one told him to go full-on alpha in the conversation, relaying his personal fantasy of prehistoric courtship practices. That was all him. And besides, he was asking me to choose sides to a debate I really had no personal investment in. I really didn’t care. The pain he felt was not my stab into his back, it was him falling on the point of his own f*cking sword!
Lets lay down the obvious truth: I was not about to be a proponent of an unwritten residual practice of hegemonic masculinity. His strong views on the male privilege to harbour such ridiculous views on an entitlement to brazenly classify a women’s worth by merely her appearance was basically unacceptable.
But above that, I was a f*cking wallflower! I came to bloom and relax a bit, not be planted squarely in the crossfire of their heteronormative drama. What’s more, how did he ever expect me as introvert to willingly enter a conflict situation with guns blazing (putting aside the point, for now, that any idea put forward in support of his views was basically social suicide to begin with).
In short… If the Karmic bus was not about to hit him square in the balls, then I was about to take the f*cking wheel and make sure it did!
We have talked a lot on this… it’s about expectations, the art of simplicity, and giving some stock to inner truth. All contracts have loopholes sweeties, especially when they are unwritten. Do not align your actions with a request that was not vocalised or shared, nor do so if such wishes asks you to grant faculties that you are not willing to invest. If the drama is not yours, then do not add to it by becoming a playwright to the scene. And if the wolf comes howling at the wrong moon, then eclipse his misguided belief and make him see a different light!
Love and Light fellow bloomers!
Ways of the Wallflower 