West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet

My friend Lisa writes a lot about alpha males. And my friend Robin wrote a quickie for Ellora's Cave about a very dominant man. So much so that when his woman would make a comment he didn't like, he'd snap into their games and bring her behavior into line.

For a few weeks after I read and loved Robin's quickie, I kept thinking about the way her male lead dominates the narrator. It's constant. It bothers me; in my brain, it borders on abuse. It's so foreign to anything I've ever experienced.

Or so I thought.



I'm a mom; most of you know that. While I refuse to be one of those moms who runs her kids from activity to activity with nary a second of free play, the kids do have their things. One of them is the place in which I met Alpha.

Now, don't get me wrong. I refuse to say a single bad thing about Alpha. I like Alpha, and I was looking forward to getting to know him. On the surface, he's a quiet, reserved guy, but underneath, he's got his mischevious streak -- evidenced on the day he nailed the Tour Manager with a water balloon -- yeah. There. I'm not sure which of the two of us laughed harder, me or Alpha. Definitely not my poor Tour Manager.


Many of you know that I took five days at the end of July and headed off to Cub Scout Camp. It rained four of the five nights, including one really evil thunderstorm that had some of the pack parents convinced that lightning had struck the flagpole outside their tents. It was a hell of an experience for me and my son; we both came back changed.

I knew that camp had had a profound impact on me when Alpha made a rule for the upcoming year's activities. Some of the parents protested this new rule because it would exclude them from activities, and that upset me. I'd gotten to know these particular parents over the past year. I like them. My son likes their kids. There's no reason to exclude anyone, especially from a group that you join to be included in.

I might not have spoken up before camp; this rule didn't affect me in the least. I was quite happy to live by it. Except that it meant that people I like couldn't be there, and that bugged me.

Well, this is where I underestimated how alpha this man is. Not only did he get upset that we discussed the issue over e-mail instead of calling him, after a few days worth of phone calls and e-mails among his higher-ups, him, us, and the affected families, the dust settled. We "troublemakers" were thrown out of the group and would be founding a parallel one.

Which is fine; I'm looking forward to that. What hurt was when Alpha told the Tour Manager, who has a rare skill for diplomacy in the sticky situations his wife drags him into, even willingly, that Alpha wished we hadn't spoken up in support of changing this rule. He liked us, loves our kid, sees a lot of potential in my child but because we'd spoken up in support of our fellow families, we were excommunicated. Just for speaking up.

It reminds me of something you'd see on Wild Kingdom. Except we weren't trying to challenge Alpha's leadership. We weren't trying to change the way the group is run. We just wanted to see others have the same chances we were going to have. After all, why be part of something if you're going to turn around and realize you're not welcome there?


There is a part of Judaism that calls on us Jews to perform acts of Tikkun Olam -- to heal the world. The Tour Manager and I stood up for what we believed was an injustice. We agonized for days over what to do about this situation; what was best for our son?

In the end, with the declaration of the parallel group, it seems to have worked out. That doesn't mean that from start to finish, people weren't hurt. Meeting the families involved in the original group will be awkward at best. I wouldn't be surprised if some encounters are hostile.

Yet I wonder. Did we do more harm than good by speaking up? I suppose that it's better that this happened now, rather than later, when we were more emotionally involved with the group and Alpha as our leader. And there's that quote by Dr. Martin Luther King about why we need to stand up when we see an injustice -- and this was clearly that.

But still. How can the world heal when the attempt to do so brings so much pain for so many involved? Didn't we make things worse in our attempt to make them better? And how do you judge that sort of thing, anyway?

I wrestled with this until last night. We took the kids to Temple for Friday night services. And as I was flipping through the prayerbook as we sang -- and sang! Oh, it was wonderful -- my eye caught one of those little boxes with a meditation inside. I was going to borrow the prayer book so I could repeat it here, but it said something to the effect of: In order to make something new, you have to tear down the old and sew the pieces into something new. That pain is part of the process.


I suspect I'll always be sad about the way things unfolded. I don't like ugly endings, and this is probably one of them. But on the other hand, I got a look into what the Tour Manager calls a true Alpha male, someone who will not be challenged by anyone. Ever.

Maybe one day, an Alpha of this type will show up in my fiction. Or maybe, this is just one of those things that I'll simply chalk up to experience and count it among my acts of Tikkun Olam.

Labels: musings