Proof of a Good Man
Why do we laugh at rejection?
I’ve experienced my share of rejections, so fortunately those moments don’t sting quite so bitterly anymore. Still, every genuine rejection (assuming we are not talking about some nightlife routine of simply asking every girl in sight) represents at least a small scale tragedy, in the true classical sense. We witness a hero who believes in his mission, who trusts that he can do it, and is thus motivated to take the leap.
But because of some failure or weakness inherent in him or in his knowledge, it is all for naught: a single sentence is enough to defeat him utterly, and his smiling hopefulness turns into bitter disappointment. The tower of aspirations comes crashing down. In few other contexts can a man experience such quick and radical whiplash.
The last time I got rejected, the cause of my optimism had been a look the woman gave me. Probably I was overly optimistic and self-serving in misreading or over-reading something that was in reality completely neutral. In any case, my knowledge was tragically lacking.
Even if the look she gave was neutral, that would not have guaranteed failure. What sealed my fate was some deficiency in myself in relation to the woman’s general expectations for men. I failed to meet them. This is the very stuff of Greek legend: the protagonist is unaware of a weakness that ends up unmaking his aspirations.
However, one thing I’ve learned is that where there is tragedy, comedy is never far away. A man getting rejected has always been a mainstay of comedy. Quite similar to a man getting a cake smashed on his face, or a man falling down after slipping on a banana peel.
To the person undergoing such failure and humiliation, the experience is simply tragic. But to outside observers, that same event is deeply comic. Why is this? Chesterton explains the matter by saying that it only reveals how the people laughing secretly recognize the inherent nobility of the man who got smashed with a cake, or fell down on his face, or got rejected by the girl.
Comedy is built on incongruence, and we all share a feeling of deep incongruity when we witness the noble side by side with the foolish, the clumsy, or the humiliated. It’s like a man dressed in women’s clothing. It’s improper, it’s silly, it shouldn’t be. A noble creature like man isn’t supposed to fall, he isn’t supposed to get smeared, he isn’t supposed to get rejected. When such a thing nonetheless happens, the juxtaposition is absurd.
In contrast, nobody laughs when a horse stumbles and falls down on its knees. The sight is simply tragic and pathetic. We feel bad in the pit of our stomach, we may even want to weep for the beast. Why? Because with a horse there is no essential incongruity between what it does and what it is. Its essence and actions are tied together. So when a horse stumbles amid the rocks, its essence stumbles with it. We hate the sight. It is awful to behold.
The fact that we do not feel the same witnessing the failures of man shows that we have an instinctive understanding of our Fallenness, of the deep gulf that separates our essence that was created good from all the clumsy, broken behavior we get to witness.
On the other hand, because of of this same disjointedness, the foibles do not affect the deep essence of man. This is why we can forgive others’ trespasses. This is also why we can laugh at other people’s failures.
And ultimately, given enough perspective and maturity, we can even perceive the deep humor in our own failures, and begin to laugh even at ourselves. Thus turning a personal tragedy into a personal comedy.
Good Men
Because comedy is never far from tragedy, the reverse must also be true. Besides laughing at our failures, in the name of honesty it is important to recognize the deep significance of romantic failure. After all, not all men get rejected, at least not time after time, year after year, to the very end. Good men least of all.
The fact is, good men get married virtually always (excepting some extreme cases such as where they make religious vows). This is especially true in today’s society, where good men are so rare and in very high demand.
There exists some chicken-egg confusion with the concept of a Good Man. I believe there may be a coping mechanism behind the confusion. Many modern sages claim that it is marriage that makes men good. I believe this is at best a half truth. It is certainly true that the responsibilities of marriage and family-life do give a man a significant boost, as he naturally has to put in more effort to provide for a family and to be a good father. In this sense I agree that marriage is a good way to squeeze out a man’s full potential.
But potential is one thing, being a good man is quite another. You cannot be good in potentiality. What attracts good women to good men is that they are good already. A marriage may make a good man even better, or file off some of the rougher edges of a non-good man. But to say that marriage generates the goodness in a man is to give a crude environmental explanation to a man’s virtue. In reality, a good man would be good even on a desert island.
There is another coping mechanism I must mention. Men who fail to succeed with women tend to say, and are often told, that they just haven’t been active enough, they haven’t tried enough. This coping strategy reminds me of the schoolyard of my childhood, where there was always some kid blustering and saying he would absolutely defeat us all in some game, but he just didn’t feel like really trying. Or that he’d surely win if he gave it a bit of practice.
There may be a certain endearing optimism in such attitude, but more often that not it is simply an escape from frustration, a way to try and save face. It’s motivated by avoidance of having to admit to yourself that you lack quality and virtue.
Tightly connected with this talk about ‘just being more active’, exists a deeply misguided notion of the role of women in pair-formation. Men, even many married men, tend to believe women are just sitting and waiting for a good man to arrive and make his move. But in reality, women are highly active agents in the search for a mate.
When a woman catches sight of a good man, she has a thousand and one wily methods at her disposal to direct things in such a way that he will be active. Usually, when a man thinks he is making the first move, the woman has already made at least a dozen. It is true that women are the passive party, but only in terms of accountability. Generally a woman will not risk losing face, and she will maintain plausible deniability in all she does. No matter how many subtle moves she makes, she wants the man to take the actual leap, and shoulder the risk of rejection.
The point here is that a good man is not so much on the driver’s seat he thinks he is. If women are interested in you, they will signal it, you will notice it, and you generally cannot help but make a move. So it is not so much a matter of “being active and asking lots of girls out ‘cause you never know”. This may be the tactic to go with if you are a non-good man. But for good men it is needless, and having to resort to it may in itself prove that you are not a good man.
Good women are on the prowl for good men, and there is hardly a silo or a bunker sealed and remote enough for a good man to avoid their nets for long.
All well and good. But what does this signify? Well, if years have gone by and a good woman has not sent you her signals and caught you in her net, does it not show that you are in fact not a good man? If what I described naturally happens to good men, but hasn’t happened to you, can an honest man conclude anything different?
