Don't Feed the Animals

Sometimes, the traps you set only snare yourself.

I'll never claim to be a modern-day Lothario when it comes to my dalliances with women, nor would I profess to hold an infinite and complex understanding of them in general. I've had my conquests and subsequent failures, licked my wounds, and moved on. The hidden saving grace among the dating rat race we all run is the eventual realization, which hopefully comes to one sooner rather than later, that you, as the individual, need to rule your own kingdom. It's very easy to allow your own being, and your own ethos, to become an ambiguous mess when too great of an impetus is placed on finding  someone, regardless of the reasons behind it. Most likely, we've all been there. I have, and while it was far from my darkest hour, it still proved to be an at times frighteningly confusing period. Once you lose your true sense of self, you can no longer accurately differentiate between wants and needs. Purely external factors manipulate and alter internal desires. You simply are no longer you.

The real point is accepting your own haste and coming to terms with your own being. You don't point fingers, you don't lay blame elsewhere, and you always look inward. Otherwise, insecurities and other perceived failures only further imbrue and can unknowingly manifest themselves in some terrible, awful ways. In the downward spiral of thinking less about yourself, you also choose to see the worst in others, finds faults (real or imagined) in those around you, and bitterness and spite reign supreme. You become cynical in your pursuit of interests, calculated in your motives, and you lose the humanity which should define us. People are no longer viewed as fellow humans, but as mathematical queries from which you seek to derive a formula to solve and extract whatever value it is you want out of them.

Or, of course, you can lie to yourself, throw your hands in the air, and say "well, shit, I'm just a nice guy and women don't respect me", which some cynical, broken bastards do on a daily basis.

There's nothing more annoying than the archetypal bullshit "nice guy", barely masquerading his pent-up frustrations and budding misogyny as an "aw shucks" down-on-his-luck trope. If your intellectual study of women stopped at  the age of 16 because one-too-many girls you longed for opted for the perceived bad boy, and you aped through your college years being a wallflower and convincing yourself over and over again that you simply aren't "interesting" or "edgy" enough to be taken seriously, you very easily could become this guy. Most adult women can smell you from a mile away.

And, admit it, if you are "that guy", you're dangerous. Yes, you. Are. Not. Safe. 

Seriously, own up to it. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your faux-nice act and pseudo-emotional attentiveness is a contrived act meant to overcompensate for your own perceived lack of manliness. You, and no one else, decided you aren't suave enough, attractive enough, or ANYTHING enough to be honest and straight up about much at all. You don't really care about her problems, her past boyfriends, and her life in general. "She", no matter how high a pedestal you try to place her on, is nothing but a prize; a mythical princess you don't wish to save but to acquire and keep as validation that you can use emotional manipulation and otherwise trick into procuring. "She" isn't a person to you. Hell, you probably think all women are beneath you. If you have honestly convinced yourself you can use smoke and mirrors to win someone over, you obviously do not hold their intellect in high esteem, right? I mean, they're just "dumb bitches", right? They just always seem to fall for the dumb jocks who treat them like shit, right? Right? Answer me, motherfucker.

You know what, don't bother. You know why women don't take you seriously? For one, acting like a lap dog isn't attractive to any woman with an IQ in the triple digits and with any self-respect. People in general actually like a confident, headstrong individual, so playing the doting "good listener" role over and over again isn't winning you any points in the "okay, this guy has his shit together and can go places" department. There's no intrigue, character, or soul there. You might as well be a piece of furniture.

Furthermore, there's enough of you out there that most women have already run afoul with someone like you before. They've had a friend in their past who sprung into action during a time of vulnerability and stress, made themselves oh-so-emotionally available, and it too perfectly segued into something more. That is, until the rug was pulled out from under them and it became clear "attentive friend" was nothing more than an opportunistic fuckface. Game, set, and match.

See, guy? Your inherent dishonesty is the problem. The "jerk" you despise, displaying swagger and pretty much everything you believe you don't have and can't flaunt yourself? At least, for the most part, he's honest...at least more honest than you are. If you don't want to hear another sob story about an asshole ex-boyfriend from someone you like, you can tell her so. Don't want to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to help a romantic interest buy a new set of bath towels? Then don't go. It's actually pretty simple; don't do or say shit you don't want nor mean. Live your goddamn life and try, at least once, to stop worrying about made-up bullshit. You'll be better for it.

Artistically Autistic

I've seen Drive twice; once in the theaters when it came out, and recently again via instant streaming on Netflix during a boring weeknight. I had mildly high expectations going into my first viewing; the early reviews painted a picture of a throwback Western film archetype ( a "man with no name" basically) thrown into a crime/mobster flick. At the time, I had no real opinion of Ryan Gosling either way; I did "like" him in Half Nelson and Lars and the Real Girl, yet neither his respective characters in each, or the films themselves left an indelible mark. In fact, the only role of his I can remember leaving any effect was his creepily obsessive "Noah" in The Notebook, but there was enough uneasiness to go around in that movie where blaming his character would only be the beginning. 

Anyways, the best description I can give for my initial reaction to Drive after leaving that movie theater two years ago was of the feeling of just being awakened. There is a dream-like quality to Nicolas Winding Refn's film, as everything about the opening sequence to the score forces you to think of the setting as taking place in a different era, yet that gets compounded by the film's glacial pace and ridiculously slow dialogue, so your consciousness can't help but keep digging into farthest depths of whatever neural ether binge your own mind can allow given the few clues you're given about the characters and their motives. I wasn't so much watching Drive and observing the characters and storyline in a passive sense as I would with most films; I was imagining what the characters were really saying and where the story would ultimately go. While this proved to be a fun mental exercise, the few "action" scenes were especially jarring, and not just for their graphic quality. When Gosling's "Driver" character went into ass-kicking mode, I'd jolt back in reality and then ultimately become somewhat disappointed with the realization that the last twenty minutes or so the film had completely washed over me because I had been too busy thinking the film as opposed to actually watching it. By the time the closing credits rolled, I thought I had just watched a decent film, but I wasn't really sure. Not a single line of dialogue actually stuck, nor did any particular character.

I figured I'd give it another go a couple weeks ago and watch Drive again, under a "this time, no bullshit" premise. Instead of letting my mind wander to fill in the gaps of a slow, plodding film, I'd turn the creative part of my brain off and just observe it as is. Great plan, I thought. Now I'll get it.

Well...yeah, I sort of get "it". See, there really is nothing to "get" in Drive. It really is the most linear and simplistic "crime" film I have seen in some time, and it probably is a better viewing experience to allow yourself to get lost in the moody score and brooding nothingness that fills half of the run time than literally sit on the edge of your seat trying to wring out every drop of actual substance from the script. I didn't jump off my seat after my second viewing thinking it was the suckiest pile of suck to ever suck or anything, as I enjoyed it for what it is, but I was a bit embarrassed I had to watch it again to realize just how...direct, and to the point the whole thing was. In fact, it's really hard to write about Drive unless you're a cinefile of the highest order. I'm not, but usually I can blab about movies for a significant length of time. Not this one, at least in discussing the film's merits in the strictest sense.

In fact, the only real takeaway I have, is wondering whether or not Drive is the biggest endorsement of the omega male to grace the silver screen. Even in this role, Gosling still carries the same boyish looks and naive sense about him, despite bashing someone's head in at one point with the fervor of a man who is in no way boyish or naive about the world. In this film, our omega male lead character is presented in such a slightly awkward-yet-nice-boy-you-can-take-home way, devoid of any threatening or totally off-putting weirdness which usually gets ascribed to those who like to do things their own way, I can't help but think maybe the underlying moral to the film is as a fuck you to alpha males. Or not. I'm clearly thinking again.