In Defense Of The Movie-Date

And in support of a *gasp* alpha male

Aura Wilming
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read

Here I was, blissfully slacking off at work on the generic social media site I use, when a friend posted a link to a video that instantly irked me.

This YouTube video got posted by my friend Charles on a post made by my more-than-friend Geoff, which was a quote on how a gentleman behaves. Now both of these gentlemen are true gentlemen, one American, one British, and being gentlemen is something they pride themselves on. I must say, they wear it well. So both the quote and the video were something of a public service. I did not ask, but I am fairly certain Charles simply typed in some keywords and posted without really watching to video because he certainly does not need a tutorial on how to be a gentleman.

The video in question was one from the following YouTube channel.

Now, I do not consider myself easily offended — triggered, if you will, but men using the words “alpha male” outside of the biology classroom will do it. So, after my heavy duty eye-rolling, I simply could not refrain from clicking the link. I was gearing up for a good, cleansing rant. Everyone needs a good rant from time to time. It’s good for your emotional health. As long as you don’t overdo it, a rant does wonders for stress relief.

I don’t think I can properly explain how much it pains me to say, while I was watching this earring wearing (both ears) guy, who named his YouTube channel “Alpha M.”, giving a tutorial on how to be a gentleman, I could not find one thing I could call bullshit on. Nothing I disagreed with in that video. Or in the second. Or in the third.

The closest I got to getting upset watching his videos was during his “How to flirt” tutorial, when I felt like reaching in and clasping my hands over his mouth…

“No don’t..don’t…don’t make it sound like such a…calculated action” *embarrassed couch* *guilty blush*

Sigh. He’s right.

It works. The glances, the smirk, followed by the laugh, that whole thing works. For both men and women, on both men and women. Do you see how painful this is? Here’s a pickup artist type of person and he offers good, solid, unoffensive advice.

By the time I get to the video where he acknowledges the earrings make him look like a douche, I’m a fan. So the earrings have a story, and he has a good sense of humor about them. And yeah, he does pitch a bunch of products, but hey, we all have to eat. There’s a tiny bit of slut shaming going on sometimes, like when he flat out says, in so many words, men should not date strippers. But honestly, most people (and it’s never come up but I’m like 90% sure I should include myself in that group) couldn’t handle dating a stripper, or any sort of sex worker for that matter, and would resort to taking out their own insecurities on their partner in a toxic way, so I can’t call this bad advice.

I’ve become convinced the title “Alpha M.” is calculated to reach his target audience. Men who actively use “alpha” should be watching these videos. In fact, he regularly calls out some of the more vile beliefs of the “alpha male” crowd as bullshit. This guy is doing society a service putting this, too often commonsense, information out there for everyone to find.

Since I am the stubborn type, I kept watching videos until I found something I disagreed with. I found it, but it can hardly be called a rant. My disagreement is really a minor point. I still think it’s worth pointing out though. It was in a list of the worst date ideas. He said “going to a movie” was a bad idea. His reason for including it: You sit silently for two hours. You could be the best conversation partner in the world and they would never know.

On it’s own, that’s reason is not without merit. I can agree that the movie date is often misused. But, if you do it right, a movie date is a great first date idea.

A lot of people do dinner and a movie wrong

People, movie first. Dinner afterwards. It’s as simple as that. Go to the 4pm show, you’ll get out by 6, maybe 6:30. That’s a great time for dinner. See, with the dinner afterwards, you get some huge advantages. You don’t need to stress if the restaurant takes its time getting your food to your table. You don’t need to rush through dessert and after dinner drinks.

But the biggest advantage: You just got handed two hours worth of conversation topics.

A first date without movie, can so easily turn to awkward silence because of nerves. Or, it turns into both of you sort of reciting your social résumé. It’s hard to get a feel for the person on the other side of the table when all you’re doing is covering their personal trivia.

But with a movie, it is much easier to slip into discussions that get to the core of a person. And because it’s in the context of a movie, it’s safer than, say, politics or religion. Even if it’s a bad movie, you’re almost guaranteed to have something to talk about. If you can’t get a conversation going after watching a movie together, then you really are incompatible. In that case you can choose to skip dessert and drinks and head home. In this worse case scenario, at least you got to see a movie.

Unsolicited Bloggings

The vanity publication no one asked for

Aura Wilming

Written by

Writer of fiction, blogs and erotica. Frequency in that order. Popularity in reverse.

Unsolicited Bloggings

The vanity publication no one asked for