Queue the 80’s action movie music (I’m going in...)

A marginal guy must save a hot chick from bad guys; when he does, he gets the girl.

I just described 853 movies from the 80’s and 90’s. 

Remember how everyone went ape shit over violence in movies? Swords, guns, explosions, rape, murder, beheadings...oh my. New ratings, new warning labels. Phil Donahue running himself ragged up and down the aisle. 

True, 1 hour of primetime Airwolf for instance contained a higher body count than some (most?) slasher flicks today.

But the people who wetted the bed over how much violence was in these films never watched them. Because if they did, they would have seen the real boogie man. The story or as described in the first sentence, the lack of one.

Violence is like a laugh track for movies that obviously can’t use them. It’s meaningless. “Did you see his head come off?” say the teens as they loudly annoy pizzeria customers discussing the movie. None want to behead a guy, they just want the chic at the end of the movie to want them. Just the like the chic in the movie wanted the guy who did the beheading.

What really drives all these 40 year old men today is the story they were raised on 30 years ago.

Hint: It wasn’t violence.

A generation of adolescent boys learned immediately four things: 

1. marginal guys are the real heroes. That’s right. Sit around watching tv, doing nothing and eventually the story will find you.

2. heroes never die. Shoot em, stab em, fall several stories. They might have a bandage on at the credits but they always have the pussy.

3. bad guys exist as bad guys, not as good guys who went bad, or bad guys with some good in them also.  Darth Vader was unquestionably bad starting in 1977, unimaginable that he was once a sweet young boy with good in his heart.  That story had to wait a whole generation to be told.

4. in order to get (active verb: to obtain, procure, convince) a hot woman to fall passionately in love with you, you  have to do do some extraordinary things: take out thirty terrorists, master kung fu, be in the special forces, etc.

Fast forward 30 years.

No extraordinary things. No terrorists slain. No kung Fu. Just taking out the trash. Chasing off the the neighborhood cat. Cubicle office job monday thru friday...And what women could be attracted to that?

Just add water and you have adolescent 40 year olds. Of course, 40’s the new 30 and bulls the new shit.

“Men today don’t want sex as much, I blame Porn...” Wrong.

The male libido falls not because he's not interested in the woman he's with, but because he's not interested in the movie he's in. Repeat this sentence again. Aloud. 

Uh-oh. Now we come to the crux of the matter.

What drives us men and especially the narcissist is that HE feel like the 80’s action hero in YOUR eyes. He thinks you are lying if you tell him you love him and want him because deep down he knows that he hasn’t really done anything (he thinks) to truly have earned that love. Thanks a lot A-team.

Even if he’s in a Long relationship, he suspects that this women could not love him without the 80’s sitcom music introducing him, so he’s out of sorts. Distant. Not ready to procreate and will prefer masturbation since he can’t stand the gaze of a women he probably shouldn’t have (and who is probably cheating on him with - you guessed it - an updated version of the 80’s action hero).

Plus no one is looking back at him during masturbation, to judge. Not really.

There is some truth to the porn actress looking back at the camera as too actually perform for the male audience not a voyeuristic thrill but a sensation that, oh, thank god, she notices me. 

But that only works if its the “real me” she’s checking out.

Not the guy sitting here alone touching himself of course but the guy I will one day be. Ripped and tan and irresistible, with a terrorist under my boot....A real live girlfriend would 'see' thru all that unless she is a borderline. Seeing yourself, especially as you are ruins sex.

Sad part is (queue the slow piano piece) she may truly love you despite the fact that you act tough and pretend to be in special ops and do the whole strong, quiet type at her sisters wedding. She knows your a dud on the big screen and chooses to just laugh at your antics with her friends. But that only causes you narcissistic injury and if anything causes violence, even in weak, timid men, its injuring the narcissist within.

(insert explosion)

N.

You keep on pushing my love (over the Borderline)...

We interrupt this show already in progress for a programming note:

You think narcissism is just vanity but you’d be wrong.

I create an identity, then I try to force everyone else to buy into it.  The borderline personality disorder (BPD) however waits to meet someone, and then constructs a personality suitable to that person. Borderline buys in.

If I am the main character, bending and manipulating whatever I can get my hands on (and I am), borderline is always the actress waiting for her script. If I like football, than she will love football. If she used to be a fan of a team I hate, she adopts my team. She is the Echo.

That is not to say the borderline doesn’t believe my team is now the best. She believes it wholeheartedly because that is what the script says and she’s going to hit that mark. When the last of her friends try to wake her up to the destruction I am causing, she will say, “you don’t know him like I do...”.

Those rare few, who can judge based on behavior can see this. We’ll call them Nemesis. But the borderline is judging the version of me that she has accepted, bought into and wanted to see.

Most girls I meet know that I do not know kung fu, they may like me anyway when I lie and pretend I do. Borderline however believes I know kung fu. 

So the online world (especially) is filled with souls running around looking for the perfect type, our supporting cast, while oblivious to the idea that these ‘characters’ actually have lives, dreams, hopes and fears quite distinct from our own.

The rest are running around looking for someone to complete them. Give them a script they can believe in. Give them the meaning they just know is out there.

It’s not that we are all stupid and can’t grasp this, but it’s what has been and continues to be pumped into our craniums all our lives as normal. I’m not here to tell you Advertising/marketing is the illuminati, hell, you give them most of what they want anyway. But a laser light, scope is pointed at your forehead 24/7. It’s trillion dollar industry for a reason. Your entertaining treason to think otherwise. Besides, the laugh track will laugh for you, so relax. No need to notice, go back to your cubicle life now...consume, consume, consume.

All those characters in sitcoms and movies whose sole existence is to help the main character find themselves, reach new heights; only to what?...disappear? fade into the background? Cease to exist. On TV, friends exist only to listen to main characters every ridiculous thought and fashion quibble. In real life they have shit to do and often they just don’t answer. And we fail to truly connect with them because of it.

These are all missed connections. A life of missed connections...

N.