There are and will always be rules everywhere, and, naturally, there will always be those who, for a variety of different reasons, do not comply with them.
A very good friend of mine (let’s call him Archibald) once had a huge fight with his girlfriend. There aren’t that many things you can say about Archibald for certain, he’s a bit mysterious (even to his friends) which, I suppose, he thinks makes him look better, and, surprisingly, it does. But there’s one thing you can say with a 100 percent certainty – he adores his girlfriend. He is head to heels in love, poor fellow.
So, after the quarrel, Archibald headed home, buying a lot of alcohol on his way, which, at least to my knowledge, is not typical of him. After spending a considerable amount of time alone with only booze to accompany him, he got bored and went out to have a breath of fresh air.
Unfortunately, the oxygen hadn’t quite satisfied him, because soon he found himself in a bloody fistfight with another guy, who, at least as he claims now, was even more intoxicated than he was. What is more unfortunate though is the fact that they were unaware of the fact that they were having their fun in front of a police station, and, as they soon found out, police officers have certain distaste for this kind of behavior.
This resulted in both Archibald and the other guy to spend the night in a cell, which turned out to be a great place to meditate and really think about his behavior. In the morning, I and his girlfriend came for him. He looked at least ten years older, not in terms of appearance, but in terms of wisdom. As far as I know, they have never had a fight ever since.
There are, of course, 234 (really, I’ve counted) ways this story could have had a much worse ending. But I would say that in this particular case, behaving in a deviant way has given Archibald access to some invaluable first-hand experience from which him, his girlfriend, and, in a way, everyone around him, including even me, have benefited greatly.
I have always found women-targeted perfume commercials I sometimes catch on television a little strange. These days they seem to have the same basic structure: a famous actress or a model sees something she wants, but in order to get it, she has so submit herself to a man in some way or another; she follows the lead and, right when the male model or actor starts thinking that he has her, she cleverly outsmarts him and gets what she wants, and at the end, a deep voice says the name of the perfume.
Is this really what marketing specialists think would sell their product best? Sometimes I think these people need a healthy dose of reality injected right into their brain. But what do I know? Maybe nowadays the only way to get women to buy something is to show that with the help of the product they will not only become what they really want to be, but also humiliate a man in the process. Maybe the concept of femininity has shifted in this rather intimidating direction.
The contents of commercials for similar products for men are, on the other hand, a universal constant by which everything else can be measured, like pi or e. They, at least in my experience, have always shown that using the things advertised will make you a magnet for women. Period. No way around this. After all, this is a commonly known fact: the measure of a man is the number of women he has slept with. His job, his contributions to society, and his achievements – all of this is superficial in comparison with his aptitude for promiscuity.
I feel so old.
I realize, of course, that commercials for perfume are in no way absolute and perfect indicators of any changes in views on masculinity or femininity; many other factors are to be taken into consideration. Still, they are representatives of media specifically designed to influence its audience in certain ways, ergo – they have to be taken into consideration. The trends that can be set in motion by this kind of influence are in no way beneficial for the society.
