Pecking order group dynamic

Maybe its just me, but have you noticed when strangers meet and they will meet again they have to establish who is the alpha male? The pecking order group dynamic.

I have read and studied too much about human behavior not to notice. What's worse is that I understand things far more than I am able to express. It's a major bummer because if you could know what I know the world would be a better place, but I can't seem to show you what I know the way I know it. I can, at best, give you glimpses into my brain, my thought processes. This has resulted in people imagining what that's like and saying, "Wow, it must be crazy to be in your head all the time."

It is, don't kid yourself.

I filter the crazy out of what I say most of the time. And by crazy I don't mean crazy-insane asylum crazy, I mean the thoughts I have after a mountain of information I have thought about.
Metaphor start:
I am on this mountain's peak, looking down at you and I want to share this view with you, but in order to do that I have to tell you where the path is, how to walk it, when to take a break, how to get to where I am and it's a long process. Nobody has that kind of time, so what I do instead is say, "this is the path, and this is what it looks like at the peak if you want to walk it sometime I'll show you how." It is rare that anybody wants to walk it themselves, they'd rather hear a description of what I see and go, "huh, that's interesting," and never think of it again. Metaphor end.

Like hiking to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite. At the top of that rock looking at the valley below and the mountains around and being in awe, to have someone who could hike up there if they wanted, to have them ask you what its like. It's wrong. It is indescribable. All you can do is say its pretty and they should go, and you can talk about your own personal feelings after seeing the vista, but they will never truly know what it's like unless they go themselves. And even if you try to explain to them by recalling the view, or showing them a picture or a painting it isn't the same.

Anyway, I been meeting a lot of new people. It seems to me you have to establish a pecking order for alpha male. I really don't care about it, I'm not invested enough to be alpha male in every situation. It's too much work. But I am aware of how it goes down when I meet people. And by It I mean the following:

I met a guy at a party once and he says, "What up man, how you doin?"

"I'm doin well. Thanks. You from around here?" Already I am establishing my position as alpha male-grammar guy with the inclusion of the word 'well' and I am steering the conversation to me being from California--instant cred.

"Nah, im from far away. Grand Rapids."

"I don't know where that is."

"Its like an hour from here. Where you from?"

"SoCal." Instant cool-guy points as his face lights up.

"What the hell are you doing way the fuck out here?"

"A woman. University. Work. You?"

"Women. And my band plays here." You see that? He brought out the big guns after my so cal comment. He is in a band, that's cool, it might rival my growing up in Cali. If I were unaware of the pecking order dynamic being established I would think of something that tops his band, or find away to discredit his band. But I don't want to. I just want to talk.

"A band. Cool. What kind of music do you play?"

"Metal mostly."

"I love metal music, Metallica is my favorite band of all time." If I were a woman, or he was gay he would invite me to see him play sometime.

"Metallica is great. I play bass."

I couldn't think of any better way to end that conversation (metallica is Great I play bass.), so I spotted my woman and said, "Found my woman, take it easy man." And raised my beer to him, he raised his cup and thanked me.

He would forever be that guy that plays base in a metal band and I will always be that cool Cali guy that likes metal music. I'm ok with that.

Later on that evening some other guy walked right up to me and said, "I haven't seen you here before, I come here a lot."

"Yeah I'm new."

"I can tell by your clothes."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, they look gay." This drew a crowd.

"Does that attract you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I am not gay dude. Are you?"

"No. You just know how gay people dress?"

"Yeah, wait no. No I don't."

"Uh-huh. Ok."

"Dude im not gay!"

"Who are you trying to convince?"

"You. Dude. This is fucked."

"You started it, you can leave if you are uncomfortable or embarrassed and want to stop."

He looked around and then left.

Maybe these were bad examples, but next time you go out and meet a bunch of people try to pay attention to the establishment of the pecking order group dynamic.

They figure out who you are and what you do and then say something about themselves that is greater than you.

I am done thinking about this.