It occurred to me when reading some of whiskey’s posts, that the heroes on television, in the movies or in general that I have always favored were the heroes that were alone. This is not unique to me, it is a male theme, and very much one that girls in general do not understand.
Just as I thought that perhaps I had “grown past” television, to realize that it I am not unique there as well, that entertainment medium no longer cares to entertain men.
When I was a kid and read comics, most of the heroes were loners of one kind or another, but most of them yearned to be accepted, to no longer be alone. Often they yearned for a particular woman. Superman is like that, Spiderman too, the list goes on. Most of them do.
My favorite though was always the Batman, and people came and went from his life, but it was never something that drove him, it was never something that he yearned for. They were tangential or related to his goals, and that was it. Who he was never took second to other people. There were women in his life, but they never consumed it.
That was why I liked him above all the others. He was, alone and comfortable with it. He accepted it, he didn’t whine about it.
But it was the being alone that I realized is important. I am not sure if it is the fact that girl’s tend to have a social morality, in that it meshes with what the group says is moral, and not because they think it is moral or immoral, or if it is for some other reason. There is no moral dilemmas for most women because their morality tends to be what is morally expedient. Some authors have called this a wonderful pragmatism, but that is just sophistry.
Men tend to have very clear-cut ideas of good and evil, even if they may be hypocrites about it. It is this fixed idea of morality, the idea that something is wrong, regardless of what everyone else says it is, that gets men in trouble. It is the situation where the man feels there is the right choice and then there is the choice that is safer, socially, politically, and in every way better for the individual.
This is a situation that most men come into at some point in their life in one way or another, at different times they face a choice. Unless they really are amoral, and then there is no dilemma.
Most men take the path of least resistance. I do not fault them for that. For when faced with a moral dilemma a man is alone in that decision. If he could shirk it off on another person, it is no longer a dilemma. If he can avoid making the decision, or if someone else can make that decision, then it isn’t his dilemma anymore.
It is that type of aloneness that most men experience at least once. It is that kind of aloneness that a person decides what kind of man he is. The choice is his, and his alone and the consequences of his choice may impact others, but the results fall on his shoulders. He is responsible for his choice.
It is however, the reason men tend to have heroes that are alone, that do the right thing regardless of the personal consequences, because this resonates with life for men.
It is something girls do not understand. A typical insult or a way they attempt to convince a man that he is making a mistake is to say that he is “going to be alone” or “grow old alone” or he is a “lonely loser.”
This speaks more to the nature of girls than it does to men. They fear being alone, for them being alone is a kin to death itself.
Yet there is a vast difference between being alone and loneliness. Ask any man as he is getting divorced if he was lonely when he was married, and he will tell you he never felt more alone than when he was married. That is the strange paradox one can be more alone, more isolated, more alienated with people than while being solitary.
Being self-sufficient, means that being alone is not something to be feared. It is better to be alone than compromised. Women offer physical companionship, but very little real companionship and in return expect your very soul. It is a poor bargain.
