Analysis of a Loser

Apologies for the somewhat autobiographical nature of these opening posts. I reckon it's my brain trying to work through some stuff in order to construct a viable blueprint for the future of the blog. Or I'm just an attention-seeking self-obsessive prune, Anyway...

So when I left you, I was but an embittered boy who had just come to terms with who I was. I had come to the following conclusions about myself:

• I was a Beta male. This was another way of saying I was half a real man.
• This was why I had such a poor track record with women.
• I was very poor at communicating with others, especially men
• I was suffering from chronic self-esteem issues
• I wasn't capable of surviving in the real world.
• I had to change.

And so I did change. Quite drastically really. I basically thought about all the things I had in my life and made a sub-conscious decision over whether they should stay or go, apparently based on their associations with my Beta hang-ups. So, out went the following:

Unemployment. Fed up of taking money from the state to fund my studies, only to spend it in TK Maxx, Threshers and Oxfam, I found myself gainful employment, providing a valuable service to literally a number of people by displaying wholesale goods in a manner that enabled these customers to admire, peruse and eventually purchase said goods. I stacked shelves.
Female best friend. Let's be honest, nothing says effeminate male more than spending all your time with a girl, drinking Amaretto, listening to Tracy Chapman and watching Tim Burton films.
Smoking weed. I was never a big user, and whenever I did I had a tendency to cry/pass out/write poetry. Hardly the most manly of pursuits. From now on it was proper drugs or nothing. (note - I settled on nothing)
Playing guitar This was possibly because I wasn't very good.
University Ok, this one's a bit of a tricky one, because let's be honest, it was a really fucking stupid thing to do. I can't justify it. But I'm going to try.

Reason 1: The course I chose, the course I thought so long and so hard about for over a year and had decided would be the route to a whole host of career opportunities.

American Studies.

American Studies.

American. Fucking. Studies.

What the fuck was I thinking? I had an A in Politics A-Level. I liked the American bit. So I thought I'd do that, but a bit less politic-y. Right from the start, this was a stupid thing to do. It lacked ambition, it lacked purpose, it lacked direction. How very me.
I got the chance to take 2 other modules - Politics and Philosophy - with the chance to change to them after the first year. I was considerably better at both, and mid-term exam results bore this out. But I stuck with it, because changing would have posed too many questions, would have rocked the boat. It would have meant admitting that I'd been wrong. Above all else, it would have been pro-active. That would not have been me.
By the time I realised that my chosen discipline was a steaming hotchpotch made-up bunkum tossbag garbage pail amalgamation of several different flavours of arse gravy, any friends I had made on the course had jumped ship and I was cast adrift on the Educational Cruise Ship of Bleak Despair (note to self- contact Mr Gove with this idea). It really was that shit.

I got a holiday in Vegas out of it though. Another story, another time.

Reason 2: Friends. In my first year I made a lot of friends. It was all very superficial and was based almost entirely on proximity, but there were a couple of good solid friends, not to mention the best I ever had. I was happy with my friends, and they with me, so it seemed. Then I went home for summer. Then I went to Vegas for a term. Then I came back. And in relatively young friendships, 6 months is a long time. Everything had changed. New friendships, new dynamics, new memories, all without me. And in my mind, they were better than anything my friends had had with me. Being 6 months out of sync with your peers can really mess with your head, and I never really felt I belonged again.

Reason 3: I was a lazy bastard.

So there we go. Bye bye Uni. And then, finally:

Long hair
After 2 years of ever lengthening lustrous locks, one summer's day I renounced my shoulder length statement of lackadaisical head decoration, and shaved it off.. In fact, I got the most bullish, loutish specimen of maleness I knew to do it for me. Grade 0. All over.

That night I went to work. I went to work with a purpose. A purpose, and an ideal. An ideal of what a man should be, and how I could aspire to that image in an effort to assert myself on this world, this baffling world in which nice guys don't win, confidence and popularity are gained through boastfulness and boorishness, and where the measure of a man can actually be measured, on any number of perverse scales - money, possessions, 'conquests', pints of lager. I was determined to cast off the shackles of my restrictive Beta childhood, and become a Man.

It didn't last very long.

Getting Beta.

It all started with a girl. Let's be honest, it usually does. This particular girl had, for the duration of most of my ill-fated first year at university, been subject to my smouldering gaze, faltering conversation and awkward physical contact. She clearly wasn't remotely interested, but we had loads in common, there seemed to be a mutual physical attraction, and we got on brilliantly when I wasn't acting the lovesick llama. I couldn't work out what that missing ingredient was that was preventing us from being anything more than friends. It took 3 months of knockbacks, the entire Jeff Buckley discography, a shared bottle of tequila and a heart-pouring session with my then best friend (also of the female persuasion) to get to the bottom of it.


"The thing is," said she "is that some people like their men to be...well...men."
"I can show you that right now, hur hur!" I'm a frightful bore when drunk.
"Haha. Ha. No. Right. Who was Jenny (for this was not her name) last heard to be shagging?"
I didn't need to pause to think. "Phil" (for this also was not his name)
"Exactly. He goes to the gym 4 days a week. He's studying law and is already lined up to work for his dad's firm. He has his own car and flirts with anything with an XX chromosome and something to put in a bra. He drinks his body weight in lager on Friday AND Saturday, then plays rugby on the Sunday morning."
"But...he's a complete ARSE!"
"Yes. Yes, he is. But he's an Alpha male. And that's all some girls want. And you, as sweet and kind and caring as you are, will always be a Beta."


Until then, I hadn't really thought about it. I always just assumed I didn't really like other boys. I had a handful of good male friends, but in general, and certainly in casual social situations, I was much happier in the company of girls. The fact that I clearly wasn't going to get laid probably helped in that aspect, but I never really thought it through. The fact was, I was intimidated by all these boys trying so damn hard to be men. I had no interest in proving myself as a male specimen, I just wanted to be, well, me.
But with this realisation, I started to think about things. In past relationships I'd always been the pursuer, rather than the pursued. I just, kind of, 'let' girls kiss me. Anyone I'd ever gone after always said the same - "Aw, you're so sweet, but no". And of these former girlfriends, who were they with now? I didn't have a lot to choose from, but suffice to say both of them were now with two prime candidates for Alpha Male of the Year, albeit in very different ways.
 It became clear to me that this apparent inferiority when held up against what a man should be had been a big issue across my youth. Never a leader, never a loud, confident speaker, never taking the initiative, always nervous about bringing attention to myself, easily embarrassed. If I was honest with myself, I'd never even had much ambition in life, other than to enjoy it and have someone special to share it with. Now however I started to think that the only way I could possibly enjoy it would be to do what a Man was supposed to do - get a top paid job, work out, socialise like Bertie Big Bollocks. And I couldn't do that. Just not me. I like the quiet life. I like a quiet drink in a country pub, a gentle walk in the countryside, settling down with a good book. That's not to say I don't enjoy the rowdier aspects of life, we all need a good blow-out once in a while, but I prefer them to be the punctuation in my life rather than the full script. From what I had seen in my life though, this clearly meant that I would have to wait a very long time before I could find that special someone - worse still I would be forced, at some point in my mid-thirties, to 'settle' for someone just because I didn't want to be alone.


So that was it. At the tender age of nineteen I was doomed to be alone for at least the next decade, I was well on the way to screwing up my degree, I had no discernible skills, and I had acquired myself a Label. I was officially Beta, and it sucked.


The point of this blog, other than to placate my shameful self-importance and describe how I got from that
sorry state of affairs to being a happy and confident, but still unequivocally Beta Dad of 6 amazing children in 12 years, is to really build the backbone of what I see as my purpose at this stage in my life. I want to create a resource for all the men out there who share my values, of peace over power, of gentle persuasion over intimidation, of the importance of a good bottle of red, but chiefly for all the fathers out there who want to be so much more than breadwinner. Those of you who feel that bringing up a child is not just a shared responsibility between mother and father, but ABSOLUTELY AND IRREVOCABLY 50/50. That housework is not just for the women, and that there is pleasure to be had in all manner of home pursuits. And that a household works best when everyone pulls together, parents and children included, to work for the good of the family. Because bringing up children in a happy environment is FUN, and the harder you work at it, the more fun it can be.


So, if you're like me, or you know someone like me, or know someone who knows someone who might be like me, I'd love to hear from you. I do not claim to be an authority. I'd love to have any kind of input, be it a link to an interesting website, a favourite kids' recipe, a good day out, or just a suggestion for a blog post. Because the point of being a Beta Dad lies in another use of the word Beta: a work in progress. And parenthood is a perpetual Beta.


Oh, and Beta is a really lame play on words for Better. But I did it ironically. Honest.