Beyond Caprice
In the film Almost Famous, Philip Seymour Hoffman portrays a fictionalized version of the American music journalist Lester Bangs. The film centers on a teenaged kid traveling with a popular rock band, and he's an aspiring music journalist himself. Towards the end of the film, Bangs' character is giving his protégé some advice, hoping to give him context for a problem he's facing.
In his monologue, he offers, "We are uncool. Women will always be a problem for guys like us."
This past summer, I attended a large festival in southern France. This event draws tens of thousands of people who crowd the streets of a relatively small town. I was there with a group of a few dozen people, as a lone American amidst the native French.
One of my friends is a guy who is much better looking than I am. I can say this with complete confidence in my own heterosexuality. It's simply an objective fact I can state, without being self-deprecating. Not only are his physical features are more striking, but he carries himself with more confidence and charisma than I do.
At this festival, I was standing amidst the dense crowd when a girl came wandering by my cluster of friends. It didn't seem she wasn't headed anywhere in particular; she was just making her way through the throng from some A to some other B. She passed by on my left. In scanning the crowd, her eyes suddenly lit upon my friend, standing a few meters to my right.
I'll never forget the way her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, and almost instinctively, she suddenly moved with purpose, making a beeline for my friend. In the process, she nudged me and the person I was talking to out of her way, so she could pass between us. It was a busy evening, and while I have no idea what happened when she approached my friend, I'd guess that he got away from her pretty quickly.
To the best of my knowledge, no girl has ever reacted to me this way, drawn lustfully toward me based on a mere first impression. In my youth I would have felt jealous of my friend. At the time this happened, though, I felt the complete opposite of envy. I remember thinking, Better him than me. I had a girlfriend at the time, and while this was pretty much the only factor that drove my thoughts, I could still appreciate not having to expend any energy to identify and ward off the capricious.
I identify with the group of guys that Lester Bangs places himself into. While I'm not a bad-looking guy (*adjusts tie*), I am uncool. But he has it completely backwards. While I understand that what he means is that getting any girl won't ever be an effortless process, I learned long ago that women will never be a problem for guys like me.
In his monologue, he offers, "We are uncool. Women will always be a problem for guys like us."
This past summer, I attended a large festival in southern France. This event draws tens of thousands of people who crowd the streets of a relatively small town. I was there with a group of a few dozen people, as a lone American amidst the native French.
One of my friends is a guy who is much better looking than I am. I can say this with complete confidence in my own heterosexuality. It's simply an objective fact I can state, without being self-deprecating. Not only are his physical features are more striking, but he carries himself with more confidence and charisma than I do.
At this festival, I was standing amidst the dense crowd when a girl came wandering by my cluster of friends. It didn't seem she wasn't headed anywhere in particular; she was just making her way through the throng from some A to some other B. She passed by on my left. In scanning the crowd, her eyes suddenly lit upon my friend, standing a few meters to my right.
I'll never forget the way her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, and almost instinctively, she suddenly moved with purpose, making a beeline for my friend. In the process, she nudged me and the person I was talking to out of her way, so she could pass between us. It was a busy evening, and while I have no idea what happened when she approached my friend, I'd guess that he got away from her pretty quickly.
To the best of my knowledge, no girl has ever reacted to me this way, drawn lustfully toward me based on a mere first impression. In my youth I would have felt jealous of my friend. At the time this happened, though, I felt the complete opposite of envy. I remember thinking, Better him than me. I had a girlfriend at the time, and while this was pretty much the only factor that drove my thoughts, I could still appreciate not having to expend any energy to identify and ward off the capricious.
I identify with the group of guys that Lester Bangs places himself into. While I'm not a bad-looking guy (*adjusts tie*), I am uncool. But he has it completely backwards. While I understand that what he means is that getting any girl won't ever be an effortless process, I learned long ago that women will never be a problem for guys like me.