Caves-R-Us

just as it was... in the beforetime

Men and women have always had different expectations for one another. If we generalize the two genders collectively, it’s safe to assume that men and women behave differently, in the aggregate, but to assume any given man or woman was, at any time, anything like the aggregate, was quite often a huge mistake.

Student: Please tell me about the roles men and women played during that time we now call: The Great Forgetting.

Teacher: Well, it was pretty simple, Grasshopper.

Men sought women who were primarily physically attractive, and later would consider them as life partners if they also happened to like the woman’s character attributes.

Women, conversely, usually sought men who were confident, strong, socially dominant, talented, or had been perceived as being ‘good providers’.

Student: What about ‘looks and personality’, weren’t those considered to be important qualities for women as well, when selecting a mate?

Teacher: Absolutely, but to a much lesser extent than with men. However, your question should be more precise, what type of looks or personality are we talking about?

Student: OK, like say… a nice guy!

Teacher: Oh no… that never worked well!

Nice guys usually got pegged by women, and put into their ‘Friend Zone’.

During that horrible era, in order to be selected for mating, women demanded that the guy be emotionally unavailable, distant even, if he was to ever have a hope of being considered desirable as a potential mate.

Student: Say what??!!

Teacher: Yeah, a man who showed his emotions, enthusiasm, and affections up front, was often considered weak in the eyes of women, especially those guys who showed it early in the courting process.

If a man was capable of concealing his emotions, women would interpret him as being in control, and thus feel safer. If a man displayed his emotions too openly, he was often viewed as being unstable, or incapable perhaps, of ‘catching a woman’s fall’ if need be.

So unfortunately, the mantra among men of that era became: “Ignore to Score”… and not just by ignoring the feelings of the woman in question, but by ignoring their own emotions as well.

Student: That doesn’t make any sense… How was this possible?

Teacher: A man’s emotional development was supposed to be a great prize, a magnum opus kept secret to him; only later to be discovered by her.

Remember, emotion used to be perceived as being the opposite of logic: a nasty bio-chemical inconvenience clouding one’s judgement.

Boys, in those days, had been socialized during their early childhood not to emote too much, in order to be perceived by potential mates, later in life, as being ‘strong’, ‘in control’, and ‘good providers’.

Of course, along with this programmed emotional disconnect came another host of nasty problems: the proliferation of psychopathic patriarchs and sociopathic narcissists. These guys usually rose to the top of the social pyramid and wreaked bloody havoc in our world… and do you know why?

Student: Because their behaviour got them ‘laid’ more often?

Teacher: Bingo! You win a hundred pounds of spaghetti!

Imagine what would have happened if women had directed their ‘affections’ toward gentler men of lesser status, men who were merely street people, janitors, or humble garbage collectors… instead of bankers, businessmen, politicians and lawyers?

Student: Street people, garbage collectors? …Gggrrrroosssss!

Teacher: The world would have changed in a heartbeat, and the so-called Patriarchy would have been no-longer.

Student: What was it about men’s emotions that had frightened so many women?

Teacher: Most women didn’t even know how to handle their own, let alone someone else’s.

So guys who were more openly emotional were often denigrated for being too clingy or needy, possible stalkers, or potential rapists even… just like what was being shown in the movies at that time, or on T.V.!

Student: But emotion is such an important part of the spectrum of human existence; it hardly seems fair.

Teacher: Remember, our species was mostly comprised of damaged goods; men and women each had deep seeded fears concerning the needs of the opposite sex… yet ironically, they proceeded to reprogram each other using complex methods of reward and punishment, in order to enforce a ruling paradigm that many had so claimed to hate… and often with monstrous results, all this due to the process known as: natural selection.

Student: Did this 'natural selection' process come from our distant past, our animalistic origins?

Teacher: Absolutely… and this despite many strong opinions about how men and women should behave towards one another.

Let’s face it, Grasshopper… It just took us a little longer to get out of the caves than we’d thought it would.

 

 

The Dirty One    Village 5, Nova Avalon.            Year 17 P.T.E.