Men & Their Need For Chivalry

Last night I had a conversation with a friend of mine. He said he was having a rough time and felt confused about girls and relationships, mentioning past girlfriends and such.

So early this morning I was thinking about our earlier conversation... I wanted to give him my own observations of what I have seen or experienced over the years.

And here they are...

Men are sometimes obligated to act with chivalry.
Pretty sure, for most men, it is built into them to be protective and chivalrous, which is all well and good until they fall into the category of blind stupid chivalry that ends up messing up their life. One big example of this type would be when a guy stays in a lousy relationship out of a sense of pity (he doesn't want to hurt her feelings) or obligation (he started this thing, he guesses he has to finish it).

More so, one main situation that I seem to see men be blind to is when they buy into the idea that a woman's situation in life, shaggy dog story of terrible experiences, failures or problems are accidents of fate, or bad luck, or incredible circumstances out of her control, or actions of people or persons other than herself... meaning of course that she could do nothing other than what she's done considering what has happened TO her life.
Sure traffic accidents, disease, childhood abuse, or adult assaults do unfortunately happen. But, rather than observing how she handles these realities to learn about her strength, personality, and character, men decide to step in and heroically take over that responsibility for her.

Worse still, if she is still in distress, men assume that their must be some "dragon" to slay. However, dragons are generally the types of things that are OUTSIDE the person and guys need to look to see 1) how heavy a contributor and supporter she is to her own misery, and 2) how hard she works to survive and actually make things better. I know... nerdy analogy... (: but guys won't look or pay attention to these issues if they are off running after the dragon.

(Now for a movie analogy...) In Jerry Maguire, the girl in love with Tom Cruise is thrilled that he's turned to her in his "hour of need," but her sister appropriately comments, "He'd go home with a garden tool if it showed him any attention."

In spite of all the "garbage", some guys are drawn in by a girl's (pathetic) protestations of love and perhaps made guilty (tweak that chivalry!) by her "not wanting to lose him" (because she has so little).

To really be honest, a pretty face and a great body seem to have the magic touch to dumb guys down. Y'all make assumptions about pretty women that ain't necessarily true. While I'm sure there is a biological drive for men to pick up attractive women with wide hips may have some relevance to suggesting superior health and fertility, projecting your genes into future generations isn't the only consideration in human life: mental health, personality, and character are more important to the quality of your life in your own generation.

Ever read Hagar the Horrible comic strips? I read one awhile back online that seems to fall into this category pretty well. He comes across a beautiful damsel in distress tied to a post. He asks, "Excuse me, but aren't you a damsel in distress?" "Yes," she answers. He then asks, "Would you like to be rescued?" "Yes," she replies, "but only by a handsome and young knight in shining armor from a really good family." Hagar walks away confused. "Damsels are getting more picky every day."

So, perhaps the damsels in distress don't really want a man's help. Perhaps they want him to be their life or to give them a life and take responsibility for them so that they don't have to exert effort to fix it themselves. And so that, unfortunately, the guy can be the one to blame when they just don't "feel" better.

I think the "fix-it" mentality is part of the reason that the self-proclaimed nice guys fall into bottomless pits. Chivalry IS a good thing. Stupid chivalry is not only not a good thing, it's a black hole that sometimes seems so obvious to everyone around the guy when they are doing it, yet it's difficult to let go.

In all fairness to men, they seem to be pretty outwardly focused, meaning they don't usually spend a lot of time ruminating over their motivations and anxieties. When men end up becoming an "escape ladder for the damsel" they start to wander toward the "stupid chivalry."

One trait seeming to be more typical of guys than girls is taking the opposite sex at "face value." Us women, unfortunately, are more like paranoid shrinks asking questions like, "What does that REALLY mean?" or "What are you REALLY saying?" or "What are you REALLY feeling?"

Whereas, stereotypically, guys, even if they do bother to ask for a clarification, rarely think much about the response they get. If I were to be cynical I'd say it's because you men really don't care very much. I don't believe that's generally true at all, though. What I do think is that guys are all basically intimidated by the powerful and seemingly unpredictable emotions of women (like my friend had said, us girls are all psychotic on some level :) ... )

I could go on, but I don't want to.

I will leave you with this thought though... damsels perpetually in distress are usually the architects of their own miserable prisons and problems.