The other day I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation between two young college women. One of these women was describing the type of people she worked with — particularly, a young man — and one she admired at that. She held an obvious attraction for him — specifically for his personal integrity, convictions and ambition. Such admiration led her to admit her desire to marry someone like that.
Big deal, right? Conversations like these are a dime a dozen, and upon hearing them we promptly discard them as young infatuation. But for some reason, my curiosity was sparked. Her articulation of this ideal man elicited a question from me: “Excuse me. What makes you want to marry a man like the one you just described?”
Her answer: “He’s going somewhere. He has conviction. He has a plan. He has a job and he is a good, solid guy.” Shockingly, most young women I know would answer the same, yet are with, or have been with, the very antithesis of the one she was describing.
It is an anomaly. Her answer only highlighted for me the fact that there are few guys like the one she described.
It seems that they are a rare species, aggressively being overrun by what is now being labeled as the Omega Male (as coined by Slate Magazine’s Jessica Grose). What is an Omega Male? An Omega Male falls at the very bottom of the social totem. They fall prey to the notorious Alpha Males and less dominant Beta Males, even under the dominion of Alpha and Beta females. These are males who want to take their boyhood and extend it to their cozy coffin. They are the proverbial Peter Pan — never growing up. They are Knocked Up’s Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) incarnate.
Our culture has even supplied pleasant labels for them, such as adolescents, guys, twenty-somethings, or — if you are a 40-year-old boy — an adultolescent. These are the males who still wear Scooby Doo pajamas. They ask Mom to do their laundry and clean their apartment. They hold Star Wars conventions in their parents’ basement. They are terrified of anything redolent of commitment, and just can’t seem to hold a job for very long. Their ambition is to live in an oasis of non-responsibility, sipping guy-tais (or worse, light beer) and holding periodic dates with “World of Warcraft” after their afternoon porn.
Sadly, the Omega Male is now being fashioned in his early 20s, only to master his identity in his 30s and 40s. I was reminded of this Padawan status (you Omega Males know what I’m talking about) in a conversation I had with a 20-year-old woman concerning her boyfriend. Upon seeing a bag of trash on this young lady’s doorstep, the chivalry in me prompted a request to carry it over to the dumpster — a mere 25 feet away.
“No. I’m trying to train my boyfriend to take out the trash, so I leave it here until he does,” she said. Here was a beautiful young lady who registered for a full term, works part-time and maintains all the household duties while her boyfriend forfeits this one minor responsibility for SportsCenter and Nintendo Wii.
This is an Omega Male embryo.
So what can we learn from the identification of the Omega Male? There seems to be a consensus among the majority of women that they do not want Peter Pan for a boyfriend. Most of them are waiting for a man, not merely a male, to give them a reason to be with them. From a woman’s viewpoint, the implications of the Omega Male are especially disappointing in the bedroom. It is embarrassing to hear of a male who believes it is his prerogative to act like Don Juan in the bedroom when he conducts himself like Pee-Wee Herman in the real world only because it is endowed to him by his biological order.
Just because he is biologically male does not mean he is representatively a man. Or, as one author puts it, “If a man’s mind is soft, he has no right to be hard.” Take note, my fellow young men. I venture to say that most women are waiting for a man who leads, not a male who is lazy. They are waiting for a man who stands up for the right causes, not a male who sits on the couch. They are waiting for a man who shows rightful affection, not a male who just “wants some.” They are waiting for a man who would give his life to something greater, not waste it on something trivial.
So, let’s conspire against the Omega Male genome and strive to create a new species of young men who rise above the discouraging norms and gloomy statuses. Maybe we can illustrate for our culture a new breed of quiet confidence and silent strength, holding virtue in one hand and courage in the other. Maybe we can show them that we do in fact matter.
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