I Hate Math, Especially on College Campuses
A Chapel Hill Harem
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein
Thanks to several readers who sent a link to an article in yesterday’s New York Times Styles section:
The New Math On Campus
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/fashion/07campus.html
Chapel Hill, NC is a great college town. It’s got a vibrant campus and lots of restaurants, bars, coffee houses etc. There’s a very active Greek scene. Times reporter Alex Williams went out one night recently to check out the scene and was struck by the lack of young men. Everywhere he turned attractive coeds were decked out in cute outfits, hair and makeup, but they had only each other to admire their efforts.
In some ways, it’s the usual depressing fare, but I actually felt encouraged reading this troubling account of the social scene at UNC – Chapel Hill, one of the finest universities in the country. After years in which the mainstream media has refused to even acknowledge the existence of hookup culture (for fear of angering sex-positive feminists), it appears as if enough cultural and demographic indicators are signaling trouble that the current sociosexual environment can no longer be ignored.
The Root of the Problem
Nationally, women make up 57% of college enrollments nationwide.
- They have higher grades in high school.
- Men are far more likely to drop out.
- Among older, low-income, black and Hispanic students, women are more likely to attend college.
There’s a whole plethora of causal relationships that need to be teased out of this, and there are some academics studying and writing about what they call “the decline of the American male.” I feel strongly that the American education system has become hostile to boys from a very early age. Normal male behavior is routinely punished, and boys are not given enough opportunities for moving around and blowing off steam as early as kindergarten.
Richard Whitmire, blogger at Why Boys Fail, recently wrote an article for the Wall St. Journal called Pew Helps Explain Why the Right Man Is Getting Harder for Educated Women to Find.
Given that women prefer to find a well-educated, reliable earner as a husband, this creates a simple math problem. Well-educated women can’t find enough equally or better-educated men to marry.
The Times article opines, “In terms of academic advancement, this is hardly the worst news for women — hoist a mug for female achievement. And certainly, women are primarily in college not because they are looking for men, but because they want to earn a degree.”
Yeah, but come on! We want relationships in college!
Colleges are loathe to cross the 60/40 divide, because it makes it very difficult to attract top female students when the numbers get that lopsided. As a result many private colleges work hard to maintain a 50/50 split, including admitting a higher percentage of boys who apply, with lower overall grades and test scores. Recently, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced that it would be investigating whether colleges are discriminating illegally against qualified female applicants.
Stephen Farmer, Director of Admissions at UNC, posted a response today to the Times article on UNC’s Admissions page:
As I told the reporter, the percentages of men and women in the entering class at Carolina haven’t changed for nearly thirty years. If these percentages are “new,” then they’re new in the way that, say, cable television or microwave popcorn is new. I’m waiting for the next big headline: Orville Redenbacher Is Changing How We Snack.
Still, there’s no denying that women in college are miserable about the low operational sex ratio, which ensures that guys will be making all of the rules for the foreseeable future.
Needless to say, this puts guys in a position to play the field, and tends to mean that even the ones willing to make a commitment come with storied romantic histories. Rachel Sasser, a senior history major at the table, said that before she and her boyfriend started dating, he had “hooked up with a least five of my friends in my sorority — that I know of.”
And this doesn’t even take hookup culture into account! Stephen Farmer:
Dating culture, from what I can tell, has been skewed and on the skids for a pretty long time. My friends who have college-aged sons and daughters sometimes express amazement at the apparent dearth of dating at the schools their children attend. But the only thing amazing is their amazement, because dating on college campuses, regardless of the male-female ratio, has been dead for a long time.
Exacerbating the Problem
A significant percentage of the male student body is deemed “unacceptable” by their female peers.
“Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool.”
“Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent.”
Why are half of the guys eliminated right out of the box? Stephen Farmer says that UNC is at a disadvantage because it doesn’t have an engineering school. I’m not buying it — if they did have one, the number of males not worthy of consideration would probably be much higher.
The women are responding to conditions in the sociosexual marketplace. More college women than ever before are having at least some sex – estimates are around 70%. Fewer college men than ever before are having some sex – estimates are around 20%. I’ve spoken about this problem before here. This means we’ve got a small number of guys getting laid on a fairly regular basis. They are most likely to be found in frats and on sports teams. The sexual favors of nearly all the women having sex are directed toward this elite group of Alpha males. The rest of the guys are “locked out” of the hookup scene – Jayne doesn’t even know they’re alive.
Whose fault is this? That is a very difficult question. This circumstance has been ushered in by numerous factors, including the Sexual Revolution, the Pill and Roe v. Wade. With fear of pregnancy theoretically eliminated for most women, sexual freedom means a girl can take her shot at Alpha. There is intense intrasexual competition among girls for these lucky few.
“Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day, staring down a George Clooney movie over a half-empty pizza box.”
“I was talking to a friend at a bar, and this girl just came up out of nowhere, grabbed him by the wrist, spun him around and took him out to the dance floor and started grinding,” said Kelly Lynch, a junior at North Carolina, recalling a recent experience.
Here’s how the girls are enjoying themselves with these paragons of genetic fitness and strength:
- “A lot of my friends will meet someone and go home for the night and just hope for the best the next morning. They’ll text them and say: ‘I had a great time. Want to hang out next week?’ And they don’t respond.”
- “Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down.”
- “[Cheating] is a thing that girls let slide, because you have to. If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.”
- “If a guy is not getting what he wants, he can quickly and abruptly go to the next one, because there are so many of us.”
Kathleen A. Bogle, a sociologist at La Salle University in Philadelphia, wrote the book, “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus,” which has been a primary source for this site. She commented for the Times piece:
On college campuses where there are far more women than men, men have all the power to control the intensity of sexual and romantic relationships. Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms. This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.
W. Keith Campbell, a psych professor at the University of Georgia, says that women on gender-imbalanced campuses are paying a social price for success and, to a degree, are being victimized by men precisely because they have outperformed them. In this way, some colleges mirror retirement communities, where women often find that the reward for outliving their husbands is competing with other widows for the attentions of the few surviving bachelors.
OMG!!! Retirement communities! Kill me now!
All is not lost
You are not powerless to make a difference.
1. Some men actually prefer relationships.
Several male students from female-heavy schools took pains to note that they were not thrilled with the status quo.
“It’s awesome being a guy,” admitted Garret Jones, another North Carolina senior, but he also lamented a culture that fostered hook-ups over relationships. This year, he said, he finally found a serious girlfriend.
2. There are some really cute, smart and nice guys in that underappreciated 50%.
You are not going to find them in frats, and you may not even be able to find them in bars. You’re going to have to go looking for them, and you’re going to have to assert interest, just like you do now with the Players.
But listen up, this is many years of experience talking:
You want to marry a man in that 50% that Jayne won’t consider.
- He is not spending his college years as an alcoholic man whore.
- He is not skipping class and barely getting by.
- He is not becoming cynical and jaded while using women as cum dumpsters.
Most of the men who are smart, and kind, and worthy of you are not to be found passed out in a puddle of beer. They are not covered with Sharpie graffiti from head to toe. Some of those guys may turn out OK in the end. Like, ten years from now. You don’t have that kind of time to waste.
The pool of educated, marriageable men is shrinking, and there is no solution in sight. If marriage and motherhood are your goal anytime in the next ten years, then now is not too soon to consider and pursue a strategy for experiencing healthy relationships.
I know it kinda sucks to be a young woman in college right now. Some women are going to get what they want, and some aren’t. You’ve got your back against the wall. Stop doing what doesn’t work over and over again.
Step away from that wall and put up a fight.
Related posts:
An eye for an eye and soon the whole world shall be blind.
The night is darkest before the dawn and nothing will change until it gets bad enough.
Yes, I'm being overly dramatic.
Personality does matter to me a lot, but attraction is still one of the primary elements. Many people assume that for guys attraction is *everything* and that personality is very limited. Attraction is important to me, and personality is one of the factors that defines how attractive I find someone.
Unfortunately, you evo psych literature is partially correct in that smarts, charm, or confidence won't make a difference if I perceive that there is no possibility of me being attracted to someone.
If my initial reaction is terrible, then there may sadly be no amount of difference those things can make. Confidence and wit can make someone who seems physically plain at first, really attractive to me. But there is a certain baseline of attractiveness for me below which it is fairly difficult to consider.
I wish my own reactions didn't make me feel as if I am objectifying women, even at a 40 or 50 % level. If it's any consolation, I also feel much less attracted to someone if my personality clashes after I initially felt more attracted, so I do think it can be more even.
Well, this is just human nature, after all. The world would be a pretty confusing place if we were potentially attracted to everyone>, haha.
Another thing we often overlook. Scent/pheromones play a crucial role. Both women and men are sexually attracted to people with DNA very different from their own. And we say NO WAY if it's too similar, e.g. siblings. This of course, protects the species. Sometimes, you're just not feeling it, and that's probably for the best in that case.
I really enjoyed this article, Susan. As a college student myself I found a lot of the things you said very relevant.
I am entering the age where I'm going to be at my prime (my early 20s!) very soon. Yet, I am still torn about a lot of things when it comes to dating. I've dated in the past, not really hooked up. I've been tempted to hook up before just to kind of “fit in” in college, but reading your blog makes me think twice about what I'm looking for…it's constantly refreshing. I have been doing my best to reduce douche-bag tendencies, but sometimes it's just so hard seeing beautiful men so interested in beautiful women on campus, when I just feel like leftovers. I think most of the men in my life have actually just used me (guy friends included)…pretty much just wanted to mess around with me then discard me, so I have never been “good enough” to become an actual girlfriend, which is why my self esteem is so fragile, and why I have sky-rocket high expectations. Still, it's the white-knight syndrome, you expect this perfect man to sweep you off your feet so you automatically mark out the less-than-perfect men who COULD be damn near close to perfect for YOU if you just allowed them to. It makes you think twice about who you're filtering out when maybe you should be giving these guys a chance.
I agree with you that there must be sexual attraction…and I agree that it's probably going to be best to go for older men (the most successful chemistry I've had, although it didn't last, was with an older guy.) A lot of the men my age, however, are still very wrapped up in hookup culture. For the ones who aren't, the only thing is I think that the “dads” (who will make great boyfriends and husbands) are still kind of like “little boys”, shy, definitely nice guys, but they don't know how to act around girls and are awkward…but endearing
I know quite a few “dads” who are definitely adorable in their own ways (and all around nice guys), but they just need a few years on them to mature.
I am still recovering from douche-bag disease (using your system! lol) but still, it gets hard sometimes when it's so easy for your vision to get clouded. You know, not want the hot frat boys who only go for hot sorority girls. Still, I have hope that with the right mindset I still can find a man for me one day
Mani, of course you will! It's so important that you mentioned mindset, because that will make a huge difference. I encourage women to understand that they probably are not going to fall in love in college. The conditions are just too hostile to make it very likely.
I also agree that a lot of the good guys will come into their own with more time to mature. For them, getting out of college and into a less stratified environment will help a lot.
I know it's hard to be patient, and to watch as those sorority chicks have guys buzzing around them. Remember, though, be careful what you wish for. This article makes clear what relationships with these guys look like, and I've heard similar things in my own experience. A lot of times, the commitment is technical only, and the “girlfriend” is not feeling special or loved in any way. A guy agrees to date when he gets tired of the random hookup scene. For him it's just a more convenient hookup scene.
Live your life, get as involved on campus as you can, and keep an open mind. That's all you can do. In the meantime, I commend you for not selling yourself cheaply. You already know how that feels, so I'm glad you're in DB rehab
Hmm. What leaps out at me here is the phrase
“definitely nice guys, but they don't know how to act around girls”
If there's some sort of mis-match going on then it seems rather unfair, at first blush, to put the blame entirely on the boy, to define the problem as a failing of his. Why isn't it equally true to say that girls like you don't know how to act around nice boys?
Your view seems to be that the way you act is already sensible/mature/correct, and the task for the nice boy is to conform to what you want and expect (you call this “maturing). Well, what's your evidence for that? Why isn't it equally true to say that you're the one who needs to mature to see and appreciate the value that these boys already have?
In short, you come across to me as feeling tremendously entitled and judgmental, without even being aware of it.
I didn't mean to come across as judgmental, but this has been my experience.
For example, I've gone on a few dates with nice guys in the past. He asked me out and I said yes. The entire time I had to do all the talking while he just pretty much answered my questions like it was an interview. I tried to connect with him but it didn't seem like we had anything in common and he didn't know how to act around me.
I have LIKED nice boys in the past too, but they have never seemed to know how to act around me (one in particular who was the total antithesis of douche), no matter how much I tried to flirt (he invited me to homecoming two years in a row, but every time I tried to talk to him he would clam up, yet online we would talk for hours. Our relationship never went past the internet…)
I'm not sure what you are trying to recommend here…I didn't mean to come across as judgmental. I do think that I have some maturing to do and some self esteem issues to work out, but I am definitely AWARE of myself. Perhaps, these have just been the nice boys in my experience which caused me to make that assumption, and I haven't ran across one that I have sparks with.
And if you truly think the problem could be me, please share how so and what I can do then, I'm all for personal growth.
Thanks Aunt Sue, I appreciate it
I have to keep reminding myself of this in college! Trust me it's a long and shaky road going through rehab but it is NECESSARY. You brought up another good point – a lot of the times, I really don't see what goes on behind closed doors. They could show the world they're so happy and that's all I see, while in reality who knows.
Hi Mani –
I'm favorably impressed by your considered reply, and the value you put on self-awareness; so I'd like to return you some value. I'm not much on personal growth strategies, per se, but if you would consider it worthwhile to learn how to better, more productively interact with a nice guy then I may be able to help you out. The key, really the golden rule as with many other human interactions, is to be able to picture what the other person sees and where they're coming from. Understanding their past experiences is also a big help. With this in mind, here is a precis on the mind of the nice guy, starting with how he probably sees you and where he's been, and then discussing how you can use this knowledge to get a good relationship going with him. I hope it helps! and I wish you good luck.
D.
How you appear to him:
————————-
If you're at least reasonably attractive, reasonably intelligent, and not apparently crazy or shallow, then to him you are: the Hope Diamond, but locked in a 12-digit combination safe at the other end of a tightrope stretched over a pool of alligators. In other words, you are a great and promising treasure, but he fears that to get anywhere with you he needs to do a whole series of things exactly right — one slip-up and his chance is gone.
Why does he think this way? Because of his prior experience. If he's the socially un-fluent type, then chances are he didn't do very well in high school; more exactly, he probably tried to make time with some girls, but very often failed; and, even more exactly, not being socially fluent he failed but doesn't know WHY he failed. Let's face it, high school girls are not known for telling the truth in plain language, especially when rejecting someone; the boy who can't read social cues very well is only left to wonder, What did I do wrong? After several disappointing years of this he, quite understandably, comes to see girls as basically flaky and inscrutable — as 12-digit combination safes, where if you don't do everything exactly right, you're gone. Keep that image in mind.
If you want to get with this guy in later life — he has a lot of advantages, too, as we will see — then your basic job is to demonstrate convincingly to him that you are _not_ the 12-digit safe, that you will _not_ require him to run a gauntlet of baffling tests and that you will _not_ dump him the first (or second) time he makes a mistake. Remember, coming out of high school that's his image of how all girls are — you have to actively work to overcome that image if you want to be worth his time.
You might actually find this surprisingly difficult! and it may be more work than you're interested in doing. But the potential payoff is huge, and that's why I'm here to help. So here's my quick primer on How To Get With A Nice Guy While Both of You Have Fun.
1. Be physical, but not necessarily sexual, early and often. Your nice guy, even if he's handsome and fit, probably has hang-ups about his body. As a woman you might be surprised to learn this — you thought only girls had body-image trouble — but it makes sense if you consider his past experience. He's been treated almost like a leper, basically untouched and untouchable, for years in a row; even if the real source of his problem was elsewhere, he's probably formed the idea, even subconsciously, that his body is somehow physically repulsive.
You can correct this impression — you want to! — but there are better and worse ways to do so. My advice is, don't jump his bones in one big go right away (see below); better is to do a lot of small things to show, quietly and continually, that you enjoy his physical contact. You don't need to grope him or fall all over him; just hold hands, put your arm around his waist, lean against him sometimes when you walk. Continuous, small reminders are what will really be convincing.
2. Don't command a performance that he can't (yet) deliver. Suppose you do indulge the urge to grab his crotch and say “All right, big boy, let's give it a go!” You might think of this as giving the ultimate compliment, fulfilling every young man's dream; but the most likely result in your nice guy is panic. Not that he's rejecting you! Trust me, he appreciates your enthusiasm! But you might not realize that you've put him in a tough spot: as he sees it, he now has to deliver a performance that he has little or no experience giving. He's thinking, what do I do now? Should I feel her up? should I try to take her shirt off? should we just kiss for a while? What's the right thing to do next? The truth, which is that any of those might be just fine, will not occur to him; instead of just doing whatever comes naturally, he fears that if he does the wrong thing at the wrong time you will change your mind and bail out.
Why should he think this way? Again, most likely because that's what happened to him before. Imagine a standard high-school-age scene: a girl and a boy are alone together, hot and heavy for the first time; but at their age it's often the blind leading the blind. She's expecting him to lead the way, but when she finds out he's just as inexperienced it's not uncommon for the girl to call a halt to the proceedings. Different boys react to this in different ways. The self-centered ones, budding misogynists and future players, may blame the girl; while the now and future nice guy will more likely blame himself, able only to wonder What did I do wrong? Thus he builds up the 12-digit safe image: if you don't know exactly what to do next at every turn, then you might as well not start.
Don't worry! this doesn't mean that you can't have fun sex with a nice guy! It's just that you'll be better off if you don't frame the situation in such a way that he's giving a high-stakes command performance. Make it absolutely clear that you're not going to grade and criticize his every move, and that you welcome the spirit of whatever he wants to try. This is probably true, you just have to get it across. And try some stuff yourself! nice guys, unlike alpha jocks, are usually very receptive to women taking the initiative.
The same principle applies in many other, daylight situations. If your guy is not a fluent talker, then a dinner date may be a long and painful experience early in a relationship. You may just want him to relax and talk about whatever he wants to; but he may see it as a command performance, that he has to work to impress you — over and over again, every five minutes for two hours. This is one reason I wouldn't recommend dinner dates before two people know each other fairly well; a restaurant setting is blank, it doesn't give you much to work with. Better is an event, a parade, or even a walk around town, where new stuff is always coming into view and gives both of you something to talk about.
The bottom line here is, try to avoid setting up situations in which your guy feels he has to perform something he's not good at; it will be painful for him, and make him look less attractive to you.
3. Visit him when he's at his best. The flip side of the same token is that it's within your power to make your guy look _more_ attractive to you. (Isn't that a fun idea? having a magic wand that does nothing to you, but instead makes other people prettier for your benefit?) The key here is to spend time with him while he's doing something he's good at and that he enjoys. It may be playing a sport, or an instrument, or fixing up a car; almost everyone is good at something. You will appreciate seeing him happy, relaxed and masterful, and he will appreciate the chance to show off for you successfully. Note that this tactic is specific to nice guys: nice guys get a kick out of the idea that they can impress a girl, while alpha jocks consider it beneath them even to try.
4. Feel free to be your best, and don't even think of bimbo-izing. This is another, subtler advantage of going with a nice guy: around them, it is to your advantage to show how smart and skilled you really are; they'll enjoy and appreciate it, where alpha jocks would be bothered and threatened. The reason why has to do with different approaches to ego support.
A quick, common, though unimaginative attempt at ego support is to display yourself as being lesser or weaker than the other person: “Oh, Rocko, you're so strong, can you open this pickle jar for me?” This is the kind of support that alpha jocks like to get; their security comes from women's insecurity, from the idea that they have higher value and so women will be drawn to them and afraid to leave them.
A different approach to ego support is, be as good and amazing a person as possible yourself, and then elevate the other person by singling them out for your favor. This is the kind of support that nice guys like to get. Remember, as a reasonably attractive woman you start the relationship with a nice guy in a position of superior power; you don't build him up by tearing yourself down. Once he's convinced that you really go for him, then everything good about you — your skills, your culture, your intelligence — reflects back positively on him; he'll enjoy bragging about how competent and amazing you are. So don't act like a bimbo, even for a moment! Be your best, it's all to the good. You may find this difficult to believe, but among nerds (typically a subset of nice guys) it's actually a high compliment when someone says “Man, your girlfriend is _smart_!”
5. Don't ever flake out, or do anything that even faintly smacks of a power game. As mentioned above, if you're a reasonably attractive woman then you will start a relationship with an inexperienced nice guy in a position of superior power. Whether it's true or not, he will likely believe that you can get another guy at the snap of your fingers, while he can't do the same, which gives you the upper hand. Some girls find this not to their taste; and if so, then they are just advised to stay away from these guys. If you're willing to live with the upper hand, though, then my advice for you to be happy with your nice guy is simple: never, ever show that hand. If you try some sort of power move, to yank his chain even a little, it won't end well for you. At best, he'll be resentful of having his insecurity exposed; at worst he'll respond by turning himself door-mattish; and you don't really want either of those if you're at all a decent person.
The problem is, you may think you don't want to do anything like this, but everyone does some of it naturally, without thinking. The simplest example is flaking, ie not showing up to an appointment, or showing up very late. Making other people wait is a traditional assertion of power, used by everyone from senators to DMV clerks. You probably do it, along with everyone else, without even realizing it. My point here is, you should be extra-careful not to flake out or otherwise overtly demonstrate power when dealing with an inexperienced nice guy, it's really just asking for trouble. If you _do_ have to miss a date, be absolutely sure to show explicit contrition later, even if only symbolic (brining a cupcake is a good start).
Anyway, that's all I have time for now, but I hope it makes sense and helps you find success with some deserving nice guy in the future.
[...] Susan Walsh – “I Hate Math, Especially on College Campuses” [...]
[...] [...]
A whole generation of frustrated Beta males are going to deal quite harshly with the indignities that their slutty female contemporaries have subjected them to.
Those of us with self-respect are not willing to have alpha-male leftovers. Even ONE alpha male in a girl's past is enough for me to reject her forever.
It is my full intention to subject these aging, wrinkling, child-burdened women to the exact portion of cruel rejection that they meted out during their “hot” years.
I would like to reduce at least 5 women to tears within the next two years. I think that is a reasonable goal. Care must be taken, though, to ensure that the recipient is truly worthy of the “honor” of my contempt.
I know that you don't approve, Susan, but I think it is too late for me to change my mind. If my actions disqualify me from being a good, decent Beta male and turn me into something else, well, then so be it.
But nothing galls me more than these women (running out of options) trying to marry themselves off to a guy who spent his college nights studying, while they were giving some fratboy a blowjob.
The only guys that will be available to them will be the desperate ones. So desperate for female attention that they are willing to settle for a banged-out loser of a woman.
Oh boy, I see we caught you in a very bad mood, Rick. I think you know by now that I totally get it wrt the plight of nice guys. However, let me ask you something. If women are “programmed,” from an evo POV to respond to certain male cues with sexual attraction, then how can you blame them for doing so? One Alpha male in a girl's past? You are too harsh, my friend. Please keep in mind that women are often deceived by Alphas. They don't exactly advertise their questionable motives, and they are very good at pretending to be sincere and caring until they get what they want. A woman who is focused on finding a satisfying, committed relationship will learn her lesson early, but expecting women to be Alpha *virgins* is a standard I fear few will meet.
Re your plan to reduce 5 women to tears within two years:
That's one of the more unusual resolutions I've heard. I understand where it's coming from but if you succeed, what will you have gained? Revenge can be sweet, but it's not really enough to live on.
How about specifically targeting women who've made bad choices for 10 years? You can exact your revenge on that whole generation of women. Then seek a woman with good values, 10 years younger than yourself, without a great deal of sexual experience. They're out there, but you're going to have to dig to find them. Church is probs a good start (not being funny here, I'm 100% serious).
Well, okay, but if you really want to talk about programming, guys are programmed to club the woman over the head and drag her back to the cave, right?
I'm not sure that I'm ready to declare woman as helpless pawns who have no defenses against the wiles of an alpha male.
And yes, revenge is hollow. But so are those delicious chocolate Easter bunnies!!!
Touche! You got me there. Guys are actually programmed to be dominant and aggressive, and it's problematic in today's society when it turns to physical abuse. So yes, we need to defend against our natural inclinations when they get us into big trouble.
And I cracked up about the Easter bunnies, haha. So, so true. I saw a quote online (anonymous):
Be the trouble you want to see in the world.
Gandhi is rolling over in his grave, but I love it! The perfect revenge motto.