When Men Have Been Failed by Their Fathers & Themselves
Before you get your knickers in a twist, hear me out. I have been dealing with a very difficult family situation for almost 4 months now and it’s to do with a prominent alpha male in the family. The root issue is alcohol addiction complete with a lack of emotional awareness and maturity. It can’t be helped now – he is too old to change. But his mistake, and many like him, should have been the lesson to the men of my generation. It is not.
Last Friday night we were out at Curve, Park Street. Four ladies enjoying a few cocktails and engaged in a pretty serious conversation. We were seated outside and save for a young guy in his 20s, clearly intoxicated who came and told us that we’re gorgeous, have a good night, cheers and walked off, the rest of the night was plagued with men in their 40s and 50s behaving like school boys. It was honestly a damn pain. The first was a guy seated behind us who said excuse me, my friend thinks you’re hot and wants to know your name. I said, tell your friend I don’t deal with middle men and if he wants to know my name, he needs to ask. Then he said, you know we’re decent guys (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean in this context) and tried a bit more and I said no and got back to my chat. About 10 minutes later he said, you know I’m really sorry but my friend really wants to know you and he is shy. He grabbed the hand of a guy who was looking very embarrassed and awkward and I was like er no, it’s ok. It’s fine. I was not happy with this constant intrusion. When he interrupted for like the 4th time, I asked if he was from overseas and he said no, he’s a lawyer working in Sri Lanka. Talk about a facepalm. And he was happily brandishing his wedding ring. I even told my friends, if you guys ever make me do something like this, I will kill you. That’s when I realised, it’s no friend, it’s him on this mission to find out about us. That’s why he was relentless.
In the middle of this, another two guys turn up – a Sri Lankan and some white dude. They both approach with the ‘my friend in the red t shirt over there thinks your’re hot’ story. They stare at my friend going, Oh she’s the Alpha, yea, she looks it. Look at her posture, it’s not welcoming. You’re the Alpha right? They asked her and my friend was like, yea, so? And then they proceeded to make loud comments saying, she’s the sexy one, and this one is beautiful, yea these two are good. But wait, this one is pretty too and that one is sexy. It was so frikking awkward, like now we have to be assessed by men in public without any say in it? It was degrading to say the least and pathetic. And they kept asking do we want drinks, and we said no, we can buy our own. And somehow they just would not let us be. And kept coming back from time to time. At one point they were trying to figure out which schools we’re from and the Sri Lankan was like, you’re from Ladies College and I was like no. And he said, Bishops’ then. I said what does it matter, a school does not define a person. And he goes, in Sri Lanka it does. And I said, that’s bullshit. Finally we were like, I think it’s enough now. And he was like, they’re telling us to fuck off, and I said yes, but we’re nice. The white dude proceeds to say, take advantage of us, and we said we don’t want to.
Between these two pestilential parasites was another group of guys next to us who decided to imitate my laugh coz it had startled them. And they kept doing it. I was like, this reminds me of an O/L tuition class.
Honestly, what kind of pathetic behaviour is this? How is this acceptable from adult men? I can understand if we had gone to some pubescent party and the boys behaved like this. I can understand if we were in school. These were men – old enough to drink, old enough to drive and old enough to be married. But no, the behaviour was that of 16 year olds who have not met women, who don’t know how to behave like men. Please don’t say it was alcohol – all alcohol does is strip your inhibitions. If it makes you act like a prat – at this point in life surely you can learn regulation? Or are you so fucked up that getting drunk is your release? Your coping mechanism? Throughout we kept saying to each other, these guys need therapy, therapy needed, asylum needed. Seriously.
We were even saying, next time, we’re gonna ask, so tell us about your childhood? Were your parents emotionally mature? Was your dad available? Or was he also out drinking like this? Was your mother there or did she smother you with love?
And no, it’s not a compliment to have men harass you like this. It’s a fucking pain. An absolute thorn of epic proportions and it’s degrading. It’s sad that the young guy was mature in his approach vs. the older guys who clearly haven’t matured beyond 16.
History repeats. Acting like a drunk prat may be what your forefathers did but it doesn’t mean it’s ok or that you follow like a blind bat. If your parents failed to break the cycle it’s your job to do so. Without repeating like a hamster on a wheel. And if you failed to learn from your parents’ mistakes – then it’s on you. Stop using ‘tradition’, ‘boys will be boys’, ‘it’s a joke’ as excuses for pathetic behaviour. Not as a man, not as an adult. It’s not on.
And here’s to the school by the sea and the one where you’re supposed to learn and depart, your old boys love wearing your school t shirts and behaving like prats. Cheers to that. Must be another ‘tradition’ worth preserving.
