Lately I have toiled with the idea of creating myself anew. I have referenced passed events, successes, failures, and overall social progress. But the idea doesn’t lie within how to improve myself, hardly. Instead, it deals with a choice of personal perspective: whether to be an asshole or a nice guy. It seems these days that many individuals give-up being nice and it’s no spur of the moment decision either. In fact, it’s more logical than we think. And until we experience it first and second hand repeatedly do our perspectives begin to change.

Recently, upon heading to a local coffee shop from my town’s library I came across a very interesting individual. In my hand clenched between my fingers was a novel titled The Power of Awareness. And it must have attracted the attention of a middle aged man sitting in a chair just outside. Sipping on a latte harvested by an underpaid individual from some foreign land he commented, “What’s your major?” Hardly a question I would consider normal for an opening comment… However, he seemed interesting enough to strike up a conversation with. I replied with, “Management, but you wouldn’t be able to tell”. And as the conversation progressed it was clear that this individual was very well versed in all subjects and for that matter, extremely intelligent. “I’m reading up on scripture myself”. He said that he was trying to piece his life together again and then went on to tell me that his wife had recently left him. That he had given her everything, only for her to turn around and take it all. Hanging by a thread his hospitality had been stretched thin, used and abused by some selfish demon. I could tell he was genuinely a nice guy. And so after several minutes of conversation I left him sitting there, imposed upon the hope that somehow this book would save him. And this wasn’t the first time I had heard this story…

There’s a point in time where everyone breaks. Where people just get pushed and pushed until they have the courage to say, “fuck it, I am not going to take shit anymore”. And I would like to think that this type of thing happens infrequently. That it doesn’t affect too many people. But to say this would be a lie. Would this man be broken as well? It was hard to tell, but it would take a great measure of composure not to be.

So what exactly causes this phenomenon and why would anyone want to turn into a maniacal bastard? Perhaps we need to look a little closer, on more of a psychological level. On the most basic level, our programming (for both men and women) dictates survival and reproduction. We desire to be with others and to have partners in life. This insures that our genes are passed on into future generations and is essentially why we fall into love. With partners, our probability of survival (until we are able to reproduce) is much higher. So from a male perspective it is his objective to find and attract a woman to mate with. And from a female perspective she is to select a male mate that demonstrates dominance. This insures that she will find an individual who will be able to protect and provide for her thus, increasing her and her offspring’s probability of survival. And so when a guy is spit out or rejected enough he takes measures to insure a level of success. And he does this by turning into a more dominant asshole as opposed to remaining a submissive nice guy. This way he is able to attract a female with more ease. So to keep it short, whether women are conscious of it or not they are promoting assholes. And unless a man wants his genes unapologetically weaned out of existence, it only makes sense to become one.

“It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on.”
-anonymous