“No regrets,
just lessons learnt.”
Hardly
anything in life emotionally moves me these days. Any negative interface with women, friends,
foes, family or work colleagues, that may have previously perhaps given me
frustration or anxiety, is now nothing more than a mere inconvenience or hassle
that I could do without, but consequently a decision to just rub the water off
my back.
Nevertheless,
during a recent visit to Istanbul I saw first-hand the pronounced numbers of Syrian
(or war torn exiles from other countries) refugees trying to simply make it to
the next day. A lot can be debated about
the whole subject of immigration and asylum seeking – and the ramifications it
has on the resources, crime and expenditure within the “accepting” civilian
country, but it takes a pretty cold-hearted onlooker to be inflicted with zero
sympathy towards kids no older than a few years in age walking around with no
shoes on, no parent or adult guidance, and, most relevant, very little hope of
what life will bring concurrent to the pain in their stomachs growing stronger
by the minute. During the last couple of
days I passed on a few Turkish liras that made little difference to my life but
a significant amount to them, but on one occasion it was a decision I
immediately (although not retrospectively) regretted once being followed around
by them asking for more until they could pursue no further as I entered the
underground barriers.
Where’s
all this going, you may ask? Well on the
flight back I decided to look at the film offerings. I came across a film I had never heard of
called “Paper Towns”, and the synopsis alluded to a high school boy trying to
locate his childhood sweetheart. With my
interest in how horribly wrong men act with women, I thought it would be at
least worth 80 minutes or so of entertainment.
It proved to be so.
The
movie itself, in my opinion, is not something that will leave you craving to
watch it again or passing on blockbuster recommendations to your peers to go
and view it. If you hold desires to
watch it without knowing the plot, stop reading now.
There
are two key characters being Quentin (the geeky, average looking 18 year old
boy) and Margo (the popular, cuteish, biker looking 18 year old girl). The storyline in terms of timeframe was
predominantly based around the last few weeks of high school up to prom and
graduation, but there was enough history given to explain how Quentin had been
infatuated by his street neighbour Margo for pretty much 13 years of his life.
Margo,
as the character in the film, annoyed me from the start. I think this was all the more compounded due
to the quick transition from witnessing poverty to observing the perennial
spoilt, self-indulged, attention-seeking, self-obsessed American female
brat. She had barely noticed Quentin’s
existence for a sustained period of time due to hanging around the social proof
group and dating the high school jock, yet one night towards the end of the
academic year she creeps though his bedroom window. She asked him to assist her in gaining
revenge on her jock boyfriend who had, in her claims, been cheating on her with
her best friend.
Her
high self-opinion and expectancy brought about it as a given that Quentin would
play the Clyde role to her Bonnie needs in seeking this retribution that
involved high risk ramifications if caught.
Quentin, being the shy, reserved, risk-free and safe (and of course, to
her, completely boring) type, at first showed reservation, but with tongue out,
balls heavy to explode with teenage horny fat juice, and gullible assumption
his assistance would make her like him more, he quickly agreed to go along with
it.
Q-tip:
How many times, as a now
adult and mature man, do you look back at the exertions you made as a teenage
boy or early 20’s lost sheep in believing your efforts of money, time, energy
and favours given to the one you “loved” would bring about her eventual return
of affection? How many times did it reap
any significant reward? Then recall how
this same girl or woman gave her heart, and more, to the guys who gave her
nothing. Finally, if you could have that
time over again, how would you act now?
After
prank night, Quentin went to bed sporting a smile wider than the M25 circular
in probable hope the next day she would run up to him and smack one on his lips. The following day, Margo had gone, and gone
she was for the days and weeks that followed.
To her parent’s admission, she had performed this vanishing act before,
and she did it for nothing more than fulfilling exhibitionist motivation. Quentin naively convinced he could be the one
to save her, and he spent endless money and time in searching for clues to
where she may be. Hence the title of the
film, he eventually tracked her down in a “Paper Town” after driving 1300 miles
from Orlando to New York.
Was
she excited to see him? No. Was she appreciative of his endeavours? No.
Was she impressed with the inspector role he performed to work out the
clues? No, and in fact in her words the
clues were not left primarily for him to locate anyway. Was she excited when he declared his undying
love towards her? Absolutely not, to the
point where her face illustrated the anticipation of a woman dreading the words
that she whole-heartedly expected. As
men, we’ve all been there at least once in our life – dangled in by her
obsession to feel wanted, special, or to get another guy jealous, only for her
to likely have a pre-conceived justification at the ready to why she doesn’t
feel the same way.
But
if nearly 99% of the film could have led a man into the head first path of
misguidance – in propaganda that this is the way a man in love should act – I
have to give credit where credit’s due to the writers and directors in so far
to how they wrapped it up. Rather than
my explanation, I leave you with the quote given by Quentin:
“What a treacherous thing
it is to believe that a person is more than a person. Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not some fine and precious
thing. She was just a girl. It took me a long time to realize how wrong I
was, but not just about Margo. I was
wrong about a lot of things.”
A
final thought
I
often ask myself how different I would have acted around women, like Margo in
the movie, if I obtained this kind of blog guidance from the manosphere when I
was an innocent 18 year old boy trying to figure out how complex women
are. My honest answer is, I don’t
completely know. Part of me thinks I
would have made initial mistakes in exactly the same way, but a bigger part of
me believes this literature and advice from older and experienced men, who are
open to putting their hands up to past shortcomings and not just obsessed with
taking victory laps from triumphs, would have allowed me to put the wrongs
right much earlier in my life than I did.
I
didn’t have a dad, god bless his soul, who could guide me in this way. In fairness, he didn’t have the vast
experience with many women either to lean on even if he had been open to
talking about it. As I’ve documented
before, asking women, even your own mother or older sister, is a complete waste
of time, and in fact it would bring about more detriment and head-scratching to
you than asking nothing at all. They
wouldn’t tell you the truth ahead of vainly concealing the mistakes they had
made in the past. The vast majority of
men, including men in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s are beta males –
clueless, too forgiving, too admiring and unwilling to accept the truth, when
it derives to female habits - therefore asking them to not be afraid in pulling
up women for their lies, manipulations, motives and agendas is next to
worthless.
This
is why, in my humble opinion, any teenage boy should read posts of this nature
and realize that they are objective, truthful, hard-hitting, realistic and
honest views based from life experience he, as the younger man finding his way,
does not yet have under his belt. In a
way, young men of today hold the key to a better future generally with women in
benefitting generations of men to come.
Acknowledgements
Interesting film/book reference. Never heard of it until your post! Wow, I wonder if the film will make guys realize how deluded they are about women. I'm sure, though, they'll think "that film character is a chump, thank gawd I'm not him!"
ReplyDeleteI hope you do continue posting as you have recently. Even better if people find your posts and learn from it. It's nice to know what I observe is not make-believe!
I enjoyed the film, if for nothing more than it being good illustration in how not to act from a young man's perspective. You would like to think a film like this can guide men in similar positions, but I guess that until they collide into advice of this nature then they will keep on making the same mistakes over and over... and many would still make the same mistake anyway - theory and practice. If you can't incorporate the practice, the theory is good for nothing.
DeleteQ-tip:
ReplyDeleteHow many times, as a now adult and mature man, do you look back at the exertions you made as a teenage boy or early 20’s lost sheep in believing your efforts of money, time, energy and favours given to the one you “loved” would bring about her eventual return of affection? How many times did it reap any significant reward? Then recall how this same girl or woman gave her heart, and more, to the guys who gave her nothing. Finally, if you could have that time over again, how would you act now?,,,WOWWWWWWWWWW.......the issue is ,,if,, LOL..that time is lost:)