The Alfalfa Male

I love my fraternity outings. As per my last count, I've been to at least seven of them, which I guess makes me old...relatively. Granted, half of the people who are calling me old are 18, but I like to say I'm "seasoned" when it comes to fraternity outings. There's one thing I wanted to dwell on for a moment, in reflection after this most recent pledge retreat, and that's the notion of competition.

As a general rule, guys tend to be pretty competitive. With most character attributes, when people get together in a group, certain characteristics cancel each other out, but the competitive nature of 18-24-year-old males amplify when in groups. For the most part, there comes a desire to prove to the rest of the group ones' dominance. Granted, with such a large group, there will be a wide assortment of personalities, so not EVERYONE is competing for the elusive title; there are some who simply sit back and chuckle at the guys who are trying to prove something. Well, I'll bring it back down a little bit more, when i say "there are some who...sit back," that's actually the majority of people. What I have found is that there are generally a handful of people who want to show everyone else how manly they are. Maybe it's fed by some inert desire to gain the approval of their peers. Perhaps it's contributed to by a subconscious questioning of their own manliness. I'm convinced that there is a type of person who simply just needs attention, and when they don't have attention, there's a little part of their self (possibly the gall bladder) that shrivels like a raisin. If there is anything an 18-year-old male wants less than a shriveled attention gland (the left kidney?), I would like to hear about it.

The moral of the story is not that men are attention starved beasts (Honestly, if you took that out of this, I'ma punch you), but the moral is more on an entertainment level. Next time you're in a big group of people, find the couple of guys who need to prove  that they are an alpha male. There's always at least one, and they usually stick out like a sore thumb (which, by the way, is an axiom that I've never really understood, but I do know it's apt. APT!). When you find them, just follow them the rest of the night, because you're guaranteed a night of better appreciation of what you are not, if you know what I'm sayin'.