Humor by John Christmann
Running With the Top Dogs
As a rule, I don’t place labels on my fellow man. I believe that all people should be treated as individuals and that gross characterizations are irresponsible. This is why you will never, ever hear me referring to another person as a Big Fat Poopy Head.
So I felt bad the other day when I carelessly identified some overly-zealous fathers as Alpha Males. Because frankly, I don’t really know what an Alpha Male is.
But according to conventional social taxonomy, men today can be dropped into boxes characterized as Alpha Males, Beta Males, Gamma Males, and Omega Males. If you ask me, this makes us look more like breakfast cereal, and it unfairly places me deep in a carton of Cap'n Crunch; low in nutrition, low in fiber, high in fat.
In well-respected scientific publications, such as the Journal of Cosmopolitan, the Alpha Male is often characterized as a man who instantly obtains the phone numbers of really hot super models by viciously dominating other men, while the Beta Male stands patiently on line outside JCPenney hoping to obtain Cindy Crawford’s autograph. In sharp contrast, the Gamma Male is oblivious to well-respected scientific publications and The Omega Man is a movie starring Charlton Heston as the last man on earth.
But it turns out the Alpha-Beta classification is really based on the personality traits of less socially developed pack animals, and has nothing at all to do with humans. So by this more rigorous scientific standard I am more like a toga-clad Delta Man duking it out with John Belushi for the right to mate with wolves.
And so it was that I ignorantly slandered my brothers knowing full well that they were ordinary slobs just like me.
It happened this way. My daughter’s lacrosse season terminated on a hot Saturday morning with a celebratory father-daughter lacrosse match, pitting fathers against a much more dominant team of ten-year-old girls.
Believing erroneously that I might be an Alpha Male, I agreed to participate even though I was not sure which end of the lacrosse stick to hold. I quickly discovered that most of the other Dad’s were ex-lacrosse players dying to demonstrate their prowess.
“Where did you play in college?” grunted one Alpha Dad as he exploded the back of the goal with a warm-up shot.
“In the womens’ dorm.” I replied, because I thought that’s what an Alpha Male should say.
Thanks to my dominance and leadership on the field, our daughters were victorious; although the score wasn’t quite so lopsided once I figured out which goal we were trying to reach. Unfortunately, by that time, none of my Alpha brothers bothered to pass the ball to me, essentially banishing me from the pack.
After the game, my daughter summed up the experience this way: “Boy Dad, you really suck at lacrosse.”
Feeling the sting and humiliation associated with being the worst player on the field, I childishly retreated into name calling. Somehow, airily snubbing all the other dads as overly-aggressive Alpha Males in front of my wife made me feel a whole lot better about my new-found status as a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops.
The incident brought back haunting Little League memories. Like I was standing under a fly ball knowing that I couldn’t catch and hearing the harsh jeers of Alpha teammates suggesting that I would be better suited to play with the Beta Boys in Triple A.
Things got better because, for a time, I was the Alpha Male of the Beta Boys. And then I found myself underneath a fly ball once again, at which point I became an Omega Man.
Ultimately, I reached a conclusion that changed my life: I really suck at Baseball. This was quickly followed by the elevated Gamma Man rationalization that baseball is really, really boring, an excuse I still cling to today. I have a similar response to golf. And shopping.
Over time, I found other things to be good at. And some are even socially acceptable.
These days, when my son comes home disappointed because no one passes him the soccer ball, I sit down and talk with him. I ignore the three-hundred-pound Alpha Gorilla sitting in the room, and discuss Beta topics like fairness, respect, maturity, and breakfast cereal.
But the reality is, for men and women and children alike, being an Alpha at something is important. And so we seek those activities where we might run free with the top dogs and howl in the moonlight.
Of course, as someone who eschews labels, none of this is all that important. I am really not that shallow.
Which is why I eat Wheaties with beer in the morning. It’s the Breakfast of Champions you know.
© 2010 Dadinthebox.com