The Fallacy of John McClane, Hero of Nakatomi Plaza?

In July of 1988, the cold war was all but over.  Reagan was at the end of his second term in which he had already made his famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech.   Six months later, Pan Am Flight 103 would be blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, ushering in a too-close-to-home terrorist threat (My sister was a classmate of one of the victims).  But that summer, the answer for terrorists was a lone man, a cop in the wrong place and the wrong time, doing his job.    He would singlehandedly take down a group of European "thieves" in a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper.  His name was John McClane.

Die Hard invented a new genre of film.  In fact, it lent its own name to the genre as, “Die Hard on a blank.”  The premise was simple.  A very well organized and well-funded group of bad guys, usually a mixture of foreign players and one or two Americans, would attempt to take over, blow up, rob, or kill someone, only to be defeated by one man with some peripheral help and a creative mind in regards to weaponry and self-defense.   The lone wolf savior was usually an off duty police officer or former soldier, and in the case of the “Die Hard in a hockey game” offering of Sudden Death, the protagonist was a firefighter. 

The protagonist would usually pick off a few of the terrorists or criminals before having their weakness exploited by the mastermind or tricked by a false friend, leaving them in some lower than low state.  But in the end, some Deus Ex Machina type device would save them, allowing them to dispatch the mastermind in some symbolic fashion complete with a fitting catchphrase. 

Regardless of how many times the formula was reused in the cinema, the original was still the best.  Die Hard introduced a real human protagonist.  John McClane wasn’t Rambo or Commando.  He wasn’t some body builder or ripped athlete.  He was just a man on the edge with vices and flaws.  He had a trucker's mouth and a distaste for authority.  He was everyman, the blue collar American, your dad, or your uncle who went to war.   He appealed to us all who wanted something more realistic than Stallone or Schwarzenegger.   It wasn’t a political or religious fight.  It was usually greed that drove the bad guys’ plot.

But, could the original Die Hard exist today?  Look at all the drama and discussion surrounding American Sniper.

“It’s “right wing” propaganda.”

“It glorifies war.”

“Snipers are cowards.”

“We should never have been there.”

“This is why we need to defend the 2^nd Amendment.”

Each argument piggy backing a movie to serve its own purpose and soon an election will probably use the movie version of Chris Kyle’s life as a way to gain votes.  Exploitation at its best.

But again, could Die Hard work today?  Pacifists or “tree hugging, gun hating, pinko commie hippies” as they are probably looked at by others would say, “John McClane was in the wrong!” 

2^nd Amendment extremists or “Gun toting tea baggers” as they are probably looked at by others would say that Die Hard demonstrates the need for more freedom for gun owners to carry all the time.

Well, maybe they can both be right and wrong.  But above all though, what if John McClane was never involved, or involved to a lesser extent?

Let’s look back at the film.

It’s 1988 America and John McClane has just arrived in LA to visit his estranged wife at her place of business for a Christmas Party.   Combating jet lag, McClane takes to a private office bathroom to clean up and “make fists with his toes” to alleviate his condition.   At that moment, a well-organized group of criminals with great hair care invade and take over the building.  All inside are killed or rounded up for the nefarious purposes of a yet unseen crime.  Are they taking hostages?  Are they extorting some kind of ransom?  We don’t know.  We just know that John McClane, shoeless, grabs his service weapon and takes off for another floor to avoid capture.  He appears to be the only invited guest at the party with any kind of weapon other than security, who were easily dispatched.

The bad guys round everyone up and keep them confined to the main foyer where the party takes place, while a few of the participants attend to other matters such as security, networks, and extracting a much needed code from the President of Nakatomi Trading for the vault downstairs.  Meanwhile, John McClane looks on in horror as Mr. Takagi is murdered, causing criminal mastermind, Hans Gruber to go to Plan B which involves a yet unseen element after Theo drills through the first layers of the vault door.

John McClane attempts to attract police attention by setting off a fire alarm and then making a distress call on the emergency services band using the radio from a dispatched terrorist.  This forces Gruber to try and neutralize this threat, but more importantly, it advances Gruber’s plan by involving police forces and ultimately, the FBI.

Does John take out terrorists?  Yes.

Does John represent the best chance for the hostages’ survival?  Maybe.

Let’s take a look at the death count on the good guys’ side.

Victim - Joseph Takagi

Killed By - Executed by Hans Gruber. 
Reason Killed - Because he wouldn’t give up the code.

McClane’s involvement – None.   

Reason for level involvement - He could have stopped them, perhaps temporarily, but then he’d be dead too. By giving away his position, he may have been able to take out many of the terrorists in the room, perhaps even Hans, himself.   But the cons in that equation definitely outweighed the good.  He would probably have been killed due to the odds, Takagi could have been killed by crossfire or in retaliation, and most likely, had John not nailed every one of them and saved Takagi, the smart thing would have been to go downstairs, kill all the hostages and leave before anyone knew what was up.   

Karmic impact – None if any

Final Word - John made the most calculated and logical decision given his circumstances.

Victim - Harry Ellis –
Kille By - Executed by Hans Gruber. 
Reason Killed - Because he got in the way, giving Hans information about John’s identity, and then ceased to be useful to Hans.  He was more of an annoyance.

McClane’s involvement – 80%
Reason for level involvement - Ellis told Hans who John was in order to help keep the hostages safe.  Yes, he was still a dick, but he didn’t know of Gruber’s end game.  When John didn’t give into Hans demands and was basically outed, Ellis was no longer useful.  John interfering with the entire ordeal caused Ellis to act on his own, leading to his death.  Furthermore, John not surrendering ensured Ellis’ death.  However, John would have been dead and so would have been Ellis pretty much.  While the audience and the characters may not still know the end game for this, Hans had no use for the hostages so Ellis would have been dead anyways.  But John interfering with Hans plan, even while advancing it, made for Ellis’ decision to try and quell the uprising.

Karmic impact – minimal.  He felt bad and even tried to save his life which made him more useless at that point.

Final Word - John being involved moved up Ellis’ death time but probably didn’t influence it.  Still, his involvement is implied.

Victim(s) - Five SWAT Team Members –
Killed By - Uli and Eddie ambushed four at the entrance with machine guns.  The Driver was killed by a missile exploding the SWAT vehicle, fired by Alexander and James.

McClane’s involvement – Direct involvement.  John called the police, involved Al Powell by dropping Marco onto his police cruiser which alerted the police’s full attention and SWAT involvement. 

Reason for level involvement - John’s continual annoying nature exacerbated the issue possibly causing their ultimate deaths as a statement of Hans’ “Do not mess with me, McClane!”

Karmic impact – less than you think.  The SWAT, by Hans’ blueprint would have been involved and according to Theo, they followed standard procedures.  They would have been there anyway.  They also took that role of their own accord so it came with the territory.  John’s involvement may have led to Hans using over the top measures but then again, why did he have a missile launcher in the first place?

Final Word - It’s their job but John put them there unknowingly.  Still, we don’t know if Hans would have killed them or more because John took out the missile launcher position and operators with the C4 in the elevator shaft.

 

Victim(s) - Agent Johnson and Special Agent Johnson, helicopter pilot
Killed By - Hans detonating the explosives on the roof caused the helicopter to catch fire and crash into the building... or gravity.

McClane’s involvement – Direct involvement.  He attempted to get the hostages off the roof but the FBI helicopter mistook him for a terrorist and began firing.

Reason for level involvement - John went to the roof because he knew the roof was wired to blow up.

Karmic impact – none.  Hans pulled the trigger but McClane being on the roof is what forced Hans to blow it.  The copter may not have been as close to the explosion had McClane not gone up there.

Final Word - While they were there because of their job, they totally planned on killing any terrorist they saw and possibly 20-25% percent of the hostages due to collateral damage.  John may have forced the issue, but Hans killed them and they were dicks.  That doesn't give their families any solace but they were in the business of being put in harm's way.

That’s all the good guy deaths.

Now, the plot of Gruber’s crime itself hinges on the fact the police would show up.  At what point in his original timeline would they be alerted to the situation.   For argument’s sake, let’s say John McClane is not at the party.  His plane was delayed.  So, Gruber and company take over Nakatomi unfettered.  They manage to execute every step of the plan with probably only one casualty, Joseph Takagi. 

So, there they are, with everything ready to go:

• Roof rigged with explosives
• All but one lock opened on the vault
• All hostages accounted for in the main area of the party floor
• No loss of terrorist life
• No resistance to their efforts
• No questioning of their command

All they need is for someone to call the police and have them show up.  Then, they give the fake “Release my brothers in arms” story to sell their hostage story.  SWAT team shows up with no knowledge of how many terrorists and what fire power they have involved.  Do they do a breach of the building without the knowledge that McClane gave them?   Better yet, do they even believe the story as Dwayne T. Robinson says, “He could be one of the terrorists, Powell” about McClane’s information?  In fact, Powell wouldn’t even be involved because he would have been home with his pregnant wife by the time Gruber was ready to execute the next phase of his plan.  No Powell means no questioning of the response.    

This is conjecture of course.  The SWAT team could have still been killed as Hans could have ordered more missiles fired.

So, was John McClane the best possible way to ensure that the greater good was served?   Was a lone wolf with a gun the best possible way to resolve the conflict?

Here are four possible scenarios:

No McClane = Hans executes his plan fully, all the terrorists escape with the millions and all the hostages are killed in the explosion on the roof. 
Statistics:

• 100% hostages dead
• 0% terrorists dead
• 0% FBI forces dead
• Maybe 1% of total SWAT officers killed (The math is fuzzy but 5 out of all total SWAT officers with LAPD Metro has to be around 1% I would think, even for 1988)

No McClane = Hans executes his plan up until the involvement of authorities, but due to the lack of McClane, the strategy changes and perhaps Gruber doesn’t get to blow up the roof with the hostages and escape with his money.  Some hostages die because the FBI takes them out as they are prepared to accept a loss during the firefight.
Statistics:

• 90-100% terrorists dead (Theo and Eddie maybe taken into custody)
• 20-25% hostages dead including Takagi killed by Gruber  OR maybe 100% of hostages dead because the roof blew and no McClane to get them down. 
• Same amount of SWAT officers killed roughly 1%
• Possibly 33-50% of FBI are killed or 1 Agent Johnson during the fight if we count helicopter pilot as FBI.

McClane involved  but surrenders because of Ellis = Takagi still dead, Ellis still dead, McClane dies because of Ellis, plan still carries out beyond that.
Statistics:

• 38-75% of terrorists are killed because of McClane or police/FBI involvement
  20-25% hostages killed, including Takagi who is killed by Gruber. 
  
  OR
  
• 99-100% killed as Holly still taken as hostage due to McClane and Ellis’ involvement and maybe killed later.
• Same amount of SWAT officers killed roughly 1%,
• Possibly 33-50% of FBI are killed or 1 Agent Johnson during the fight if we count helicopter pilot as FBI.
• 100% of heroes killed

McClane Involved as originally scripted = Movie plays out as it does. Gruber’s plan gets modified and timetable pushed up.  He blows the roof prematurely and has to try and steal the loot during the aftermath.

Statistics:

• 99% of terrorists dead (Theo taken into custody)
• Less than 6% of hostages killed (Takagi and Ellis),
• Same amount of SWAT officers killed or roughly 1%,
• 100% of FBI forces killed (Both Johnsons and helicopter pilot)  
• 0% of heroes killed.

Result – John McClane was the best option, using his training and brains. 
Yippee Ki-Yay Motherfucker!

And then, there's this gem:

NOTES : 

• Only one terrorist was killed by McClane having a gun at the party.  He shot Eddie at the end when he taped the gun to his back. Hans Gruber was shot by it, but died from falling out of the 30th floor window onto the pavement.    John either killed the remaining terrorists with other means or their own weapons. The list of deaths and how they occurred is here.
  
• Had any of the guests been carrying a registered and concealed firearm, it is more than likely they would have been shot before getting a chance to use it or it would have been confiscated had they been round up before being able to respond. This also plays into a fifth scenario that I did not explore. John shows up and is present when the terrorists take over. Most likely, being a cop, John would not have tried to engage them at the onset as he would have most likely been outnumbered and killed immediately. Also, his service weapon would have been confiscated. In the event he would have come up with a plan while being held hostage, he would have had to rely on his brains or mistakes made by the terrorists so the carry and conceal argument would not even play into it.

Ouija, Tetris, and other So Bad Let's Make Them Movies About Games

Battleship was merely the tip of the bad idea iceberg set to run aground and destroy us.   There is a Tetris movie in the works and this Fall, Ouija slides its way into theaters.

So, I thought.  Why not beat the machine to the punch.  Here is my list of the SO BAD LET’S MAKE THEM MOVIES BASED ON GAMES

Christopher Nolan’s Reversi
Hungry Hungry Hippos 2: The Purging

Martin Scorcese’s Monopoly with Daniel Day Lewis playing Rich Uncle Pennybags

Joaquin Phoenix stars in UNO, a film by Spike Jonze

Judd Apatow’s Ants in the Pants

Russell Crowe squares off against Christoph Waltz in Terrence Malick’s RISK

Quentin Tarrantino’s Grindhouse double feature Trivial Pursuit/Scrabble

Rob Zombie’s Candy Land

Liam Nesson in Sorry!

Michael Bay’s Perfection 

A Touch of Madness

   For the last month, I’ve been down the rabbit hole.  That is, I got back into acting and did a local performance of Alice in Wonderland for a community theater group.

   Now, it wasn’t Broadway or even Lewis Carroll for that matter.  It’s an adaptation that puts a group of actors on the hunt for a girl to play Alice.  They just ask her to pretend along with them and to Wonderland they go.  For my part, I was the leader of the actors and also The King of Hearts. 

   I haven’t acted on stage in about 10 or 11 years.  I gave it up along with all acting in order to settle down and have a full time job.  I simply couldn’t juggle it, work, and life.  But in light of recent events, I thought it would be nice to do a small show, about 18 rehearsals, and five performances.  I haven’t been this tired in a long time.  Don’t let anyone ever tell you that a kids’ show is easier.   It’s not the case. 

   But somewhere, in all the delirium of exhaustion and lack of sleep, I had a thought.  What if we’re looking at Alice the wrong way?  We all know the story.  Alice, a little girl in England, longs for something unusual to entertain her during her doldrums of lessons and boring life.  She follows a white rabbit into a hole and ends up in Wonderland where nothing makes sense.  All the while, the residents of Wonderland give her exactly what she wants, mostly to her dissatisfaction.    But is it all in her head?  And… who is actually being forced to do something they don’t want?

   So, one of the ideas we, as actors, thought about during the show is how sadistic we really are.  The characters NEED an Alice and when they find one, they don’t exactly ask her to play along.  They kind of rope her into playing their game.   They’re pretty much torture her with nonsense for an hour until she breaks and goes along with it.  Granted, by the end of OUR play she is the one calling the shots, the Queen’s gruff and psychotic demeanor softens as she forgives the Knave for stealing her tarts, and Alice returns to her world which has been there all along as we were all just pretending.  Still, the amount of crap we throw at an unsuspecting Alice all because she “asked” for it is rather sociopathic.   But what if we’re the ones who are being directed?

   By the end of the run, I had developed some pain in my knees from a particular scene where we pretend to be the rabbit hole, swirling about Alice.  Every so often, crouching down for her to deliver a line, we end with “Is she almost there?”   Giving that line I felt like, “Enough is enough, my poor knees can’t take too much more of this.”  The director actually wanted to re block the scene so that I wasn’t in pain.-  She didn’t realize all of my perceived difficulty with that scene was acting.   I hammed it up just for that line to come across as a game changer.     In the next scene, Alice complains about being too large to fit through the door to the garden and starts to cry.  We all look at each other in disgust and roll our eyes at her dramatic crying to which we give her a handkerchief.   Once again, Alice has the power and we are just going through the motions to satisfy her.    Those two moments made me think, “What if we’re all in an asylum and Alice is some sadistic puppeteer forcing us to endlessly pretend to be these characters every day just to appease her psychosis?”    It hearkened back to another show I was familiar with back in college, Marat/Sade, also called The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.  The title alone sounds sadistic, right?  Now, I am not trying to say that the depiction of class struggle and human suffering can be compared to Alice in Wonderland but the idea of a play within a play and the sadistic tendencies of Sade directing inmates to perform for his amusement do.    Think of the little girl who forces a parent into having a tea party all the time, slowly driving them mad like the March Hare or Mad Hatter.

   My thoughts are not entirely original, I’m sure.  Other plays, movies, and television shows have questioned what is real and what is madness?  It’s a trope called Schrödinger's Butterfly.  

• A direct reference is The Matrix where Morpheus uses the red and blue pill to signify Neo’s choice of leaving the fake world for the real one.  
• American McGee’s Alice was a video game released 15 years ago that supposed that Alice was locked up in an asylum after witnessing the death of her family post Through the Looking Glass.  However, the character leaves to return to Wonderland.   
• Total Recall (1990) asks the question, “Are you sure your life is real?”  After visiting a place that sells dreams as reality, Schwarzenegger’s character unlocks a memory of his alternate life.  Now, he can’t tell which is real, his boring life or the one where he’s a spy on the run from evil corporate giants. 
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Normal Again did a stint where Buffy was infected by toxins from a monster that caused her to hallucinate that she was really locked up in an asylum and that her entire career as a Slayer, her friends, and all the supernatural events of six seasons were all in her mind.  She has been in a state of catatonia for six years with a brief period of lucidity right about the time she died in the show’s fifth season finale.  
• Taming of the Shrew is a bit of a Schrödinger's Butterfly where a drunk is put into a performance of a play and is led to believe what he is a part of is real life.
• Revolution used the nanotechnology as a way of convincing certain people that they were living in a Utopian dream world.  The dream would was a way to get them to give up specific information that could help the nano survive. 

   There are plenty more.

   What madness there could be with an idea that our daily lives are the dream and our dreams are our reality?  Or further yet, that someone else is pulling the strings and our lives are the figment of the imagination of someone else, kind of like Taming of the Shrew or St. Elsewhere.

Revenge of the Nerds: Entitlement, Misogyny, and Misconceptions Perpetrated By a Classic

Oh 80s, you silly time.  No one cared about PC culture or what was considered right.  Hollywood took a concept used time and time again and equated it to College, dating, and social status.

In 1979, Bill Murray and a bunch of ne’er do wells took on the rich, more entitled campers of Camp Mohawk in Meatballs.

In 1980, it was the slobs vs. the snobs in Caddyshack as the likes of Danny Noonan, a poor caddy, and wealthy, but uncultured Al Czervik take on the likes of Judge Smails and Dr. Beeper at Bushwood Country Club.

But in 1984 the haves vs. the have nots trope was spun into the nerds vs. the jocks at Adams College in Revenge of the Nerds.

Simple concept, two nerds try to fight the established “Greek” social society infrastructure at a college in order to be given the same treatment as their more physically fit and attractive male counterparts.  Brains vs. Braun.   Along the way, main nerd Lewis develops a crush on sorority cheerleader Betty and pursues her in spite of the fact that she clearly has no interest in him and already has a boyfriend, footballer and alpha male Stan.

Through various tests of wills and basic knowledge of science, the nerds defeat their jock antagonists and Lewis wins Betty from Stan in the flimsiest of plot points.

And that moment set the stage for a variety of cultural misconceptions that have always existed but were exploded into a “thing”.  If a nerd can just convince an attractive, out of his league female, he will be rewarded with sex and status, regardless of anything such as earning these concepts.

I’ll admit it.  I loved this movie growing up.  It was funny.  I was a budding teen and this movie was an HBO staple at the inception of my adolescence.  In other words it had boobs.

But it also had other things that, upon review after 30 years, are somewhat unsettling.  It has, in no particular order:

• Sexual harassment
• Rape
• Invasion of privacy
• Destruction of private property
• Lewd and lascivious behavior
• Theft
• Misogyny
• Pornography

I was talking about the acts committed by the nerds, mind you.  Yes, it is shocking to think that something considered to be a "comedy" could really be the basis for a horrible reality.  Even the title creates an air of violent tendencies "REVENGE" of the nerds.

Now, to be fair, the treatment of the nerds by the jocks is unfounded.   If you want to get technical about it, the jocks fire the first two or three shots.  They physically assault the nerds, throwing them from their dorm rooms in a manifest destiny of “Well, my football players need coddled because they are the driving force of enrollment and funding for this institution of higher learning.”  They also humiliate the nerds by inviting Lewis and Gilbert to rush Alpha Beta fraternity.  In fact, Betty is complicit in her role as deceiver of affections towards Lewis.  In the end, they choose to resort to physical violence at a pep rally before they are stopped by another stereotypical character, the scary and possibly more intimidating African American male fraternity.

However, if you think the nerds are absolved of blame, let’s take a look at what they do throughout the course of the movie.  Lewis and company sneak into PI sorority and steal underwear, physically enter private dressing areas, set up surveillance equipment, all because those women teased us, so we are entitled to look at their naked bodies without their expressed approval or knowledge.

During the Greek games, the nerds outsell the jocks in the charity pie bake sale by including, as a reward, a picture of Betty, topless.

Finally, Lewis gets his ultimate revenge by posing as Stan in a costume and following Betty into an attraction and effectively raping her into submission in his desire to win her from a jock with the argument that I am a better match for you because I am better at sex than Stan.   Yes, technically, it is rape.  She was not consenting to Lewis.  She was tricked.

But it’s all in fun, right?  It’s the 80s.  It’s college.  It’s acceptable behavior.

No.  It creates a false expectation in those who are considered nerds.   It forgives the egregious behavior by a subculture of humans that are clearly smart enough to know what things they should not do just because they feel they are wronged.

It also creates a false personification of an alpha male as an antagonist towards those with weaker physical attributes and stronger mental ones.   “Because he is clearly weaker, I must dehumanize him more for the sake of my position in my group.”  Granted, it is more acceptable to believe that because someone is a jock or popular, they are afforded more rewards because of their status.

Now, I am not absolving the jocks for their behavior in the film.  I am digging further into a concept that is becoming a huge problem in this age of instant gratification due to technology; entitlement.

The jocks feel entitled because they have physical prowess and are clearly the driving force behind the school’s success at capturing funding.  They feel that because of that role, they are deserving of the best accommodations, regardless of actually earning them.    They feel that others, who do not fit into their mold of perfection are not worthy of the same accoutrements.  They even leverage their girlfriends to deceive and humiliate the nerds.  They feel entitled to use women for their bodies because they are dating them.

The nerds, display the sense of entitlement that has developed into an epidemic of thinking among young men today.   “I am a good person.  I am smart.  I am nice.  I clearly treat women better.  Therefore, I should be rewarded by women, just because of those things.  Not because they actually:

A: Are attractive to them

B: Have common interests as them

C: Have a chemistry conducive to the foundation of a relationship with them

In the wake of the rampage by Elliot Rodgers due to “entitlement sex”, the foundations of nerd culture get called into play.  The problem is, like any culture or subset of a culture, the loudest and most antagonistic members are the ones the group gets defined by.  Whether it be Republicans, Democrats, Christians, Islamists, jocks, nerds, feminists, blondes, gays, lesbians, men, or women, every set has its “one bad apple”.     But we need to take it back.  We all do.

My own experience in this subset is somewhat skewed.  I am a hybrid of sorts.   If you imagine social strata as a wheel with each spoke representing a subset of culture; jock, nerd, popular, etc.  I tend to exist near the hub.   My attempts to exist in any one end or spoke is impeded by centripetal force constantly pulling me inward to where I exist as several different stock character types at once.    I grew up, dealing with things like being chubby, wearing glasses, being labelled as “smart” by my peers.  I had bad teeth and hair and clothes.  I also played basketball and baseball, albeit horribly.  I wasn’t a straight A student and found myself, at times, struggling with Algebra and Science.  Yet, I also felt as if I was well liked and had friends who operated in different spokes.  Sure, I had my own dealings with “jocks” and “bullies”, but I could always blend in when it called for it, but couldn’t stay there for long because that force of motion could not allow me to sustain any one trait.  It’s a sort of chicken and egg conundrum as to why I pursued acting.  I either developed it because I wanted to be an actor or I pursued it because I was already trying to be everyone at once.  However, I probably identify more with nerds than any other group.  Even though, I cannot hang with them beyond the surface in terms of certain things like Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Quantum Physics, Dr. Who, and D&D.

When that adolescence period hit and I was developing interests in girls, I, like most people, pursued what I thought was perfection.  In college, I was so livid over a certain guy because he consistently and successfully “scored” with women while he had a girlfriend “back home.”  I was friends with his "girls" and a few would confide in me that this guy would constantly lead them on, and they would comply, thinking that he would dump his girlfriend and eventually commit to them.   Meanwhile, I seethed that they could be so stupid to continually put themselves in that position, when someone, like me, was right there and would never do that.  Sound familiar?  Of course, it’s a typical situation.   But what was I really upset about, him, because he could get away with such brazenly bad behavior, or myself, because I was unsuccessful at doing the exact same thing?   He would gloat about his exploits and treat me like crap.  But I gave him all the ammo he needed with letting him get to me.  Did it really matter?  These few women were not the only ones in the world.   There were other possibilities out there.

I am also sure that I probably ignored obvious potential relationships because I was blinded by society’s definitions of beauty or status.  But, we live in such a paradoxical society.   On one hand, we are told that we are special and that we shouldn’t limit ourselves in terms of what we desire to have.  We work hard for it and it will be ours.  Yet, we’re also told that our expectations are too lofty.  In dating circles this would be akin to trying to date out of your league.    We’re told we’re special, but nerds shouldn’t try to date the prom queen.  This limitation on what level of social being we can or cannot date is just as bad as the expectations we create about what we deserve.  Again, chicken and egg.  Are “nerds” coming up with these “nice guy” mentalities because they are told they can’t do something, or are the limitations being put in place because too many “nerds” are thinking they should be rewarded for nothing?

Who is to say?  If you try to argue the point that nerds should be well within their right to seek out dates with people out of their league, you piss off a lot of people.    And when you may be the one exception to the rule of “nerds”, it doesn’t matter.  You’re branded and you must move on and deal with the imagined reality that has been put in place.  If you argue it, you’re “Aggro”.  You can't turn it around.  It is what it is.    You get slapped with labels used by Internet dating sites and observational non-contextual so-called experts.  Again, you let the other person define you when it doesn't matter what they think.  You give them the ammo to put their labels upon you and treat you as such.

Let’s face it.  We are individuals, so we should be treated on a case by case basis.   We are not our labels.  Don’t think that because I am a ”nerd” I believe I deserve some kind of special entitlements.   If I were to want to date someone who is considered “out of my league”, it’s between me and that person, not anyone else.  If we share some special bond or chemistry, that is for us to discover, not society’s social watchdogs.  We are adults.  I will not expect any special treatment because I feel I would be worthwhile for any woman just as she should not expect that I am horrible because I may be not the typical definition of attractive.   Also, it works both ways.   I will not ignore the possibility that matches exist with people who I may not deem as a typical type of attractiveness, but will see that there could be something that is stronger between me and that person.   

Yet, we get this stereotypical, “Oh you just want to date someone unattainable.”    Well, who is to say that someone who would want to date me isn’t doing the same thing?   But yet, someone will give you grief that you are being irrational.  Again, isn’t between me and that person on whether or not we should become a couple?    So, it’s cyclical.  We don’t need to say that nerds shouldn’t date out of their leagues and nerds shouldn’t have to date someone in their league just because of proximity.   Now that we have settled, let’s get back to entitlement.

I don’t care which “spoke” you live on but you are not entitled to anything except what you earn.  Whether it’s money, love, position, sex, or respect, you should only get what you deserve.   Treat someone well and they may treat you accordingly.   If they don’t, so be it.  They aren’t required to reciprocate, but it would be nice if they did.    You cannot demand anyone to give you something that they are not willing to do.  You can only do the best you can do and let things happen.  You can’t make someone fall in love with you just because you are a better person.  You can’t demand payment for services rendered outside of a contractual agreement.  Meaning, if you do A, B, and C, for a woman OR MAN, they should automatically be thankful and repay you with some arbitrary reward.    So, guys, drop the “Nerds are better lovers and we can prove it” attitude and everyone else drop the “The nerds actually believe this stuff” attitudes.   

Somewhere, a long time ago, a few popular movies put forth the idea that it was the nerds time, that it was “game on” in the realm of love and war.    But, we need to break that stereotype just like we need to break our own.  People get what they earn and if someone else gets more, suck it up and deal with it.  No one owes you a thing and your actions, as well as your intentions, speak to your character.   People will screw you over no matter what.   Just don’t let it define you.    If you like someone put it out there.   If they aren’t interested, deal with it and move on.  It doesn’t matter if you know or believe that you are destined to be together.  You can’t make someone love you just by wearing them down.  You can only be who you are and those who are looking for those traits will meet you in the middle.   Don’t let movies define what you think you should get and don’t let movies define who people think you are.