There’s a long and glorious tradition around this time of year, as summer nights reach their peak and slowly melt into fall: trying to reinvent yourself. This is especially true for first-time college students: as they enter a life away from their family – and often the majority of their social circle – they look…
Lifestyle
Nerd Role Models: The Alpha Geek
We return to the Nerd Role Model series, where we examine popular characters from geek culture and deconstruct just what makes them so appealing to others… and what you can learn from them. This week, we’re looking into issues of “identity“. All too often, we unconsciously limit ourselves with self-imposed labels. We assume that our…
Understanding Men
There are few cliches that I hate more than the “Men are From Mars/Women Are From Venus” line. It’s an insult to both genders, turning 50% of the human race into an exotic “other”, telling everybody that one side is so disparate and estranged from their counterpart that we may as well be entirely different species altogether….
The Selling Of Masculinity
The topic of masculinity is one I come back to over and over again because it’s a long-running question for many men. The search for an identity and finding one’s own definition of what it means to be a man is an important part of maturity for young men, one that has been with us through…
The Toxic Alpha Male
Every once in a while, I like to go browse through some various blogs, forums and subreddits specializing in men’s dating advice to see what theories are being espoused. It’s not terribly surprising (to me) to see that the idea of “being alpha” is continuing to be tossed around as the end-all/be-all of dating; it’s…
Where Have All The Good Men Gone?
One of the ongoing topics in the media today is the perpetual woe and wailing overthe state of manhood, masculinity and the supposed “crisis” afflicting young men today – causing them to forgo the traditions of manliness of yore and to languish in some perpetual limbo. Guys today – or so claim perpetual pearl-clutchers and…