Dealing with fighters, coworkers, employers and antagonists in street situations, I rely almost exclusively on social intelligence to keep these situations under control. Sometimes for my good, sometimes for the good of my fighters, and on occasion, even for the good of criminals if it also serves to make my marginal day run somewhat smoother. Anyone involved in general reading from the 1980s and 90s will be familiar with the concept of emotional intelligence and men being more logical and analytical and women being more emotional and in tune – the whole Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars bullshit, which really amounts to the fact that Mars was designed to rape Venus, with Venus being adapted to making sure that this was at least a profitable experience on her part.
In dealing with men my age and older, you generally have three types:
1. The logical guy who can never figure out women and can’t deal with people from cultures that don’t hold the same values as his and is served up with a surprise divorce by his hitherto obedient and compliant wife, who metamorphosed into Medusa with no warning whatsoever, and is then mugged by a panhandler on the way to his attorney’s office. We need this guy to build bridges, rocket ships, to let us know how much money we have in our mutual fund, but don’t let him make a fight for you—Don King would own him in 15 minutes—and don’t expect him to be able to apply any advice that you give him on dealing with the bitch queens that run his life.
2. The impulsive guy, basically a dangerous hairy woman with a dick, whom you could teach how to fight, can have a good time with, but can’t expect him to show up on time for his work out or make a deal with a manipulative type without getting screwed. Chicks like this guy because he thinks he’s in charge and they know they are in charge.
3. This is the new version of the impulsive guy, a young emasculated dude who lacks all the emotional intelligence of the logical guy and has had the impulsiveness of the other dude turned into a womanly emotiveness. This guy is hard to deal with because he thinks like the logical guy but gets upset like a woman.
Note that all three of these guys are victim types, none of them able deal with the conniving bitch queen or even initially recognize her. Also note that I didn’t put the manipulator on the list. That’s because I don’t like being a segment of a target population.
The manipulator, or the survivor, or the leader, the alpha man or the taboo omega male, are none of these three but are people who have integrated characteristics of numbers one and two into a survivable behavior package. In other words, the logical guy has to think you’re the impulsive guy, if he’s going to give up on that game so that you can arrive at a mutual accommodation. The impulsive guy needs to feel like you’re the logical guy, so that he can accept your advice and be confident that you’re not just a knucklehead like he is. This is the hybrid role of the coach who has to be able to go between the impulsive fighter and the logical manager/promoter so that both parties’ interests can be served without the fighter going off the rails or the manager/promoter taking undue advantage of the fighter. Learning how to work a situation like this is no different than running a negotiation between labor and management. Also, managing interactions with criminals is often simply a matter of identifying whether the individual criminal is of the impulsive or logical variety, and in the case of a group of criminals, having an immediate sense of who’s management and who’s labor.
In terms of women, that’s a whole different game. This article is really about dealing with other men in the context of them being in the clutches of some type of woman. As you can see, the problem person here is number three, this new type of emasculated nerd person who gets thrown into a tizzy just like a woman in a movie from the 1950s in the face of any impulsive masculine characteristics. Indeed, if you look at young men and women together these days, you largely see an impulsive female dominating the emasculated male, whether it’s a brother and sister, a date, or simply two coworkers interacting.
I personally have to be very careful interacting with this type of male as they are more testosterone-sensitive than women. You see, the woman is really hoping that you’re going to have sex with her, and unless this guy is a homo, he wants nothing to do with that, so is repelled. I haven’t worked it out for myself yet with the young guys at work, still cringing in fear any time I give a good morning or express a direct opinion. However, I have a suspicion that this is the new version of the logical guy, and there’s got to be a way to reach him, although I’ve probably gone too far down my own knucklehead rabbit hole to have any hope of affecting such a détente myself.
As it stands, the young women their age are more like guys were when I was coming up and are more easily related to, which leads me to the thought that my being sought out for companionship is an expression of a wider phenomenon, which includes some of my friends who are involved with much younger women who will have nothing to do with guys their age. I have no intention of troubling myself with such young vixens unless I win the power ball lottery and buy controlling interests in the Miss Bum Bum Brazil Pageant. But what do we call these old guys who are being sought by young women, not as sugar daddies but as hairy bodies to grind upon and a deep voice to listen to? If all the older women I have dated in my life were, as the term goes, cougars, would not these fellows be known by reference to the same animal, otherwise known as a puma (Latino), a panther (black dude), or a catamount (the BIG mountain lions)?
If we could adopt the above suggested naming scheme, it might once again be a prideful state of being to be a white-bearded, hairy-backed paleface.
Baby, just call me White Daddy.
