Tuesday, May 03, 2011

So much for evolution

You know, one of the reasons I'm not fond of the theory of evolution(1) is fairly embarrassing: it means having to admit the men in my family, myself included, are probably more closely related to cavemen than we'd like to admit.

It would explain a lot of things really. It would explain why, despite our adaptability, occasional (and surprising) calm, our general level of intelligence and our addictions to modern conveniences we seem to have the ability to tap into some primal depth that lets us go longer and work harder than circumstances should allow.

(Was that fairly arrogant? Yes. Am I sorry for it? Not really. I probably should be, though.)

It would also explain other things. That we tend to favor going through obstacles instead of around them. Why we have so much trouble dealing with social niceties like passive agression, dropped hints and small talk. Why we tend to be more interested in getting things done and being practical than making things pretty. (Why worry about interior decorating when there are chores and projects that need doing? Why sit and watch television when there is work waiting? Why play competitive sports when we can compete against others in 'number ot things accomplished in the shortest amount of time'?)

It would also explain why, without any real reason, the reptile hindbrain kicks into a high gear and sets us off on irrational, unnecessarily aggressive protective tears for no rational reason.



For example.

I have a girlfriend. (If you didn't already know that, then you weren't paying attention nine months or so ago when I got her. I wandered around in a daze for about six weeks mumbling: "I have a girlfriend?")(2)

My girl friend has a friend. This friend and I don't know each other very well. In fact, we've met once. The way she functions in life and the way I function in life are completely different.

She's something of a social butterfly (nothing wrong with that!) and tends to be more interested in prime time dramas I've never heard of, reality television and interpersonal drama than with anything I'm interested in. In fact, a day or so after we met (for all of two hours or so) she apparently spent part of an evening discussing me and judging me with a friend who had never met me.

Generally, that kind of thing is enough to make me write somoene off. After all, she doesn't know me, so who the fuck is she to judge me? People who talk about me behind my back like some kind of nattering magpie when we've had such limited contact aren't generally people I want to deal with very much. They bring the drama. And I'm allergic to drama. Gives me hives.(3)

Still, she's my girlfriend's friend, which means there has to be more to her than that. And writing off your girlfriend's friend isn't smart.

(And really, I'm christian now. I can't really do that sort of thing anymore. Forgive, lead by example, be Christ to those I meet, etc.)

Sure enough, she brought the drama.

She gave out my girlfriend's phone number - without my girl's permission (or even bothering to ask if she could) to a guy. Now this guy is someone my girl knew when she was in middle school and he was in high school. And at that time, he apparently had a crush on her. Now, he apparently has a kid. (And maybe still has a crush on my girl.)

The guy texted her and said 'you should call me,' but my girl isn't all that comfortable with new people randomly appearing and saying 'we should have contact' without a)warning and b)desiring said contact in the first place. Needless to say, my girl (who has social anxiety issues and will kill me for this post) wasn't comfortable with the situation.

She was a bit freaked out, felt betrayed and backed into a corner. She didn't know how to protect herself without hurting her friend, maybe even getting the guy upset with her friend because she didn't contact him back. She didn't want to upset anyone or hurt anyone or cause any problems...but she didn't want to contact him back. She was having enough trouble adjusting to working a full-time job that involved 40+ hours a week of contact with total strangers and being surrounded by people most of the day.

People she had to talk to. Interact with. Approach and make contact with.

In some ways, that part of the job was living nightmare for her. But it was a professional thing, where she had the barrier of 'I am doing my job and providing customer service' between her and the people. There was no expectation (aside from a few creepers) of further contact or interaction outside the paradigm of the store. Limited contact for a specific purpose.

This was different - the guy wanted to forge a personal relationship with her, kindle (or re-kindle) a years-lost pseudo-friendship she didn't remember until much, much later. Not only would it be personal, social contact - it would be in situations where she didn't have safeguards in place. She would have to set boundaries (after figuring out what those boundaries would be) and go to the interpersonal effort of making sure those boundaries stuck.

This can be a monumental effort for those of us who don't have panic attacks when confronted by uncomfortable social situations. For her, it was like being asked to climb Mount Everest, without oxygen, after six weeks of privation camping in the Amazon rain forest. Without a rest in between.

She didn't respond to him, but it did eat at her a bit.

Some time later, we found out this person had been making some rather...not cool comments about my girl. Something along the lines of "She's not calling me back because she's having sex with her boyfriend."

Now, I was already profoundly annoyed that someone - anyone - would dare pass out my girl's phone number to a relatively unknown person without her permission. I was somewhat irritated by the presumptuous tone of the text the recipient of her number sent.

Up until hearing that, I'd been able to fight it off. I'd done a rather admirable job of being rational and reasonable about things. In my that other social circle, it might habe been perfectly acceptable to give out someone else's personal contact information without regard for their safety or desires. It might have been perfectly reasonable to sent a demanding text to a girl you haven't seen in years without so much as a 'hey, do you remember me?'

Hearing that, even third/fourth hand, set it off. That unreasonable, primal, irrational instinct to protect. Protect my girl from those people who weren't a credible threat - or even more than an irritation, really.

No. I dropped straight into it - what my mother calls 'caveman mode' - that place where all logic and reason is devoted to the pursuit of a single goal: take care of my girl.

This was not a jealousy thing. I'm not worried my girl would be remotely interested in this guy, let alone him being any kind of a threat to my relationship. But that neandrathal part of my hardwiring was screaming at me.

I can't describe it, really. My entire focus narrowed and all I could think of was: This person. He is a threat. If he had been there in front of my, violence would have almost certainly occurred. (Overreaction, much?) Hunting him down, backing him into a corner and threatening to rip his tongue out with a pair of pliers I had with me for perfectly legitimate reasons?

A good plan!

Getting his number from my girl and making threatening phone calls where I promised retribution most terrible should he dare utter one word about her, think about her or even have a stray thought of 'I wonder if she's still dating the crazy fat dude with the psychotic tendencies?'

A necessity!

He's not a threat. Why would it matter that someone I've never met and my girl doesn't really have any interest in renewing her acquaintance made a tasteless joke at her expense?

Hell. She'd even already gotten a new phone number (on my urging) when she switched cell phone plans. (If giving out her phone number was acceptable for one person, why not others? I didn't want to risk it.) And her friend had agreed not to give it out to him! (She didn't apologize or admit she was wrong for giving it out without permission in the first place, but you can't have everything from a social group with social mores that make no sense.)

But there I was, sitting in my car. I'd dropped my girl off at her place and I was hell bent on getting home, jumping onto facebook, and sending her friend a strongly worded (read: truly offensive) rant about what she had done.

Is this my place? No.

Can my girl take care of herself? Yes.

Should I have done it? Absolutely not.

(Did I do it? No.)

Not that it mattered. I was positive I had to protect her. I had to grab my club and hunt down those members of another tribe who had dared threaten my woman!

From afar. In a way that wasn't really a threat...just kinda rude, insensitive and presumptuous.

Yeah. Real mature. Real grown up.

I've seen this before in myself with other girls I've dated. Or been friends with. Or worked with. Or just known. Or met casually by accident.

This overwhelming, primal urge to protect. My Dad has it. My brothers have it. My grandfather has it. I can only assume my Dad's brothers have it. I've grown up around it.

My father would brook no insult to my mother, even though she was more than capable of handling herself. My mother used to have to talk him out of going to her office to let the people there know what he thought of how they treated her. Especially her male bosses.

Hell, he insisted on him or one of his sons being there when health professionals came to the house for her physical therapy.

How ridiculous is this?

Sure, it comes in handy when there's a crisis and we really do need to take care of our girls. The drive to go to any length, any effort, any expense (and without regard for ourselves or whoever was stupid enough to get in our way) to make sure we protected our girls has, in fact, made it possible for us to handle some fairly tricky and difficult situations.

The feral caveman-mode has made surviving really hard situations possible. The primal urge to be the strongest, best and most productive we could be, no matter what, has served us well (and has gotten us all into trouble).

Hard truth: I know better.

Not only do I know better from a purepy social perspective of 'it is not my place to fight her battles for her, I know better from a christian perspective of understanding that people - especially me - are fucked up and do/say things to/about each other without any real thought all the time. Most of the time, we don't even mean to be assholes and cause drama or hurt people.

Rationally, I'm sure her friend didn't, even for a split second, think she was doing a bad thing. I'm sure the guy didn't really think he was freaking her out. And I'm sure they would both feel bad if they knew the extent of it.

If I were really following through on the christian way, I should have encouraged her to make contact with them, helped her forge those relationships and helped her work through all her hurdles. And done so in a loving, patient, kind and forgiving way.

Yep. I failed.

I listened to the caveman in me and encouraged her not to pursue things; I was going to protect her from the discomfort they were causing by standing between them and her if I had to! I was going to growl and menace and keep them back - even if it meant I looked like (or maybe was being) an overly controlling asshole boyfriend.

Damn the consequences, she would be safe from them! They wouldn't upset her delicate balance. They wouldn't cause her confusion, awkwardness and emotional exhaustion. They wouldn't force her into unwanted social interaction if she didn't want it!

(Or maybe even if she did...I wans't too keen on how they were acting.)

I had no fear of their ire. I had no fear of what they would think or of what they would say. Or of what might happen because of it.

In my more lucid moments, when I was more modern man and not caveman, I even felt a faint shame about it. But the other hard truth is this: I'm not all that evolved, because that faint shame isn't enough to make me put down my club and start using polysyllabic grunts.

I still don't like the situation. I still don't like the way she's been treated. And I know there's a line there I can't quite see...and if they cross it, I'll forget I'm a reasonable, rational person and I'll start saying 'ooga booga, no hurt girl!'

So much for evolution. At least in my case.(4)

Footnotes

(1) This post is not meant to start any kind of a discussion of evolution or the theory of. It was just a lead-in to the actual point of the post.

(2) She is not 'mine.' This post is not meant to indicate possession. The term 'my' is used to indicate 'she is the girl with whom I am in a committed, long-term relationship.'

(3) The person to whom I am referring will see this post linked on facebook, but will probably not bother to read the post. Even if they do, I've never been one to hide my thoughts on such things. One of these days, I will master the art of 'not being an asshole,' but not tonight.

(4) Yes. Long post is long. It is my blog, after all.

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