American Dream or Public Nightmare?

At what point in life do the jocks grow out of their superiority complex and come back down to earth? Most people would think high school, or at the latest after their college glory days are over. I didn't really put much thought into it until last week, when I was faced with the reality that some people, regardless of their age, will never grow past this status symbol phase. Sadly, their egos have been blown up too much in the past that unfortunately they cannot be deflated.

The whole ordeal that brought on the need for me to write this came about from a recent walk home with two of my friends from Fenway.  We were walking down Newbury Street when three reasonably young men in business suits walked by and made a completely unnecessary and rude remark about my friend's backpack.

By the time he realized they had said something they had already crossed the street and were a fair amount away from us, but in understandable retaliation my friend simply shouted, "fuck you" down the road towards them as we continued walking. I turned around only to see the three of them running back towards us. One of them in particular, hovered and yelled in my friends face as we kept walking making the most idiotic responses to whatever was being said. My friend told him to back off saying that they are twice the size and age of him, and why do you even care?

His responses were basically along the lines of "What? I'm 24, I'm not twice your age" along with "I have a job!" and "I don't even care!"(as he made sure to keep pace following us down the street with his face within a foot of my friend's.) I don't think they liked the fact that my friend wasn't taking their bullshit and actually said things to stand up for himself, so it came to the point where that one macho nacho laid his hands on my friend. It was more of a pathetic attempt at a punch, so luckily he didn't get seriously hurt or anything. Soon after they had enough sense to turn around and walk away.

These guys towered a good foot over all of us, were built bigger, but definitely were proven to not be smarter or wittier than us due to their best comeback had to do with our mothers. Good job guys. That will definitely be a killer story to tell around the water cooler on Monday.

A part of me wanted to push that one guy away from my friend, because who would be scummy enough to hit a girl? But something told me that they would have been the type of people that would go as low to actually do it, so I didn't. Plus, all I could picture was that one episode of the Jersey Shore where that guy at the bar punched out Snooki. It would have been a total reenactment of that scene except for the fact that 1) I am practically albino compared to her and 2) I didn't have three huge guidos on hand to then go and kick his ass, so I held myself back.

At some point during all of this I had to question whether or not they were drunk, since after all it was later in the night and, as we all know, after you start drinking, beer can basically become instant douchebag in a can, (not that being drunk is an excuse to act that way, but it would have at least served as a slight explanation as to why they were acting as they were.) But, none of us smelled alcohol and they were walking without staggering, which pretty much led me to conclude that they were not temporarily impaired by alcohol, but actually permanently socially impaired from being put on their ever-so-sturdy pedestal for so long.

For the rest of the walk home we couldn't help but to laugh about it and make fun of them, but at some points we were silent, where I was personally just thinking to myself, "What the hell? Is this really what humanity has evolved into?"  Those men were a perfect example of the ever-common macho-American-male living the "American Dream." In high school I can assume that they were the ones who wore their varsity jackets and walked around acting like hot shots. This mentality of being superior has most likely been conditioned into them from an age even younger than that. In a way, they are still wearing their varsity jacket that they just traded in for a sleek business suit. They still are serving as a status symbol over other people.  

People who hold a superiority complex have grown into being such a huge pet peeve of mine. I feel as though it is possibly too big to even be considered a pet peeve, since my others include trivial things such as knuckle cracking and slow walkers. This seems to have a more wide spread impact on more people than just myself since these complexes can easily evolve into bullying, which is pretty much what my friend experienced. It even goes back to what I wrote in my previous column, about people "not giving a fuck." It is clear these men didn't give a hell about the consequences of what they were doing and I doubt that they had any remorse afterwards about it. It really irritates me that I come across so many people like this in my generation.

The "American Dream" is portrayed to be highest level of quality of life in this country. So, is that successful appearance and powerful demeanor like of those men representing the "American Dream" is what kids in high school and soon-to-be business school graduates of OUR generation are being taught to shoot for?

God, I hope not, because then humanity would be in some serious trouble…