The Hopeful Monster

Today I guess I've finally come to terms with something. And understanding the reason why it is, is some- though not much- consolation.

It's about genes.
It's about how evolution works.

I will die alone.
But I will die leaving descendants. I almost certainly have descendants already, and by the time I die - probably younger than most- I will have left behind more than the average person does.

It really is about that. I keep thinking it's about me, it isn't.
It's about what women want.

It all goes back to the reproductive strategy our genes thrust upon us. It's a numbers game. But for men, it's simple.

We can sow our seed wherever it is accepted. But with a limited amount of energy, our genes choose the genetic combinations they think will produce most variety. It is no coincidence I am attracted to women of other ethnic groups far more than I am to women of my own. As a general rule, the darker the skin, the more I'm likely to be attracted. It's my genes. Seeking diverse combinations.

Men, we choose to sow our seed wherever we think the combination stands most chance of survival. But push come to shove, it's a numbers game and we'll go for as many combinations as we can. We're selective insofar as we know (or our genes know) that our time and energy are limited.

For women, it's different. Evidence suggests women pursue a different strategy.

A study done in the UK after the Second World War found that in this, the most tight lipped country in the world, one in ten children had a different father to the one they thought they did.

And the evidence of nature suggests the same, amongst all species where males lay claim to women.
It makes sense.

Women want two things.
A man to BE a father to their offspring.
And men to father their offspring.

The evidence suggests human women are prone to 'cheat'.

They want a cuckoo in the nest.

That's their wildcard.

They want a man there for life to be with them to bring their children up. Mr Stable. Mr Responsible. Mr Caring.

But they secretly want something else.

They want at least one of those children he brings up to be the child of a wildcard. A hopeful monster.

Someone who loved and left.
Someone who has none whatsoever of those characteristics. A genetic risk taker.

Because Mr Stable is the man of today. Binding her genes to his, ensures the immediate survival of her offspring.

Including the offspring she has with the hopeful monster.

But her genes have an eye to the future.

And the future, that belongs to Cuckoos.

What is the cuckoo? What is the hopeful monster?

That bizarre genetic comination, that peculiar mixture of genes that fascinates just long enough for her genes to think 'This just might be the route to the inheritor species'.

Because in a million years, every gene that most of us carry will be extinct.

There will be no Homo Sapiens.

We will have descendants, for sure, but of all the genes that currently exist in mankind, the ones that live on then in our successor species, and maybe that will be several species spread across the galaxy, they will be a tiny minority.

And none of them exist in Mr Stable.

When a woman chooses the hopeful monster, she is throwing the dice for the future of her own genes.
Her genes are deciding 'This might be the route to the future.'

MIGHT.
It's a risk.
But a risk her genes one day must play.

Because the genes that live in us today made that choice over and over again. They are the survivors of risk taking genes. The genes that were passed on through hopeful monsters.

And so it is.

I suppose I've always found it slightly wierd and uncomfortable the way women (and sometimes men) react to me. I guess I've always seen myself as quite asexual and I must admit to finding it slightly unpleasant when people see me in sexual terms. I resent being seen that way, I resent the fact that anyone should be attracted to me on purely sexual terms, I like to think people are attracted to me on the basis of my intelligence and my personality.



I just walked in to the pub and got blatantly leered at by several of the women of a certain age and type in there. And I find it wierd in some ways. Because I'm so NOT the typical ideal of masculinity. I don't get this tendancy to obsess about me. Sometimes I actually find it physically repellant.

And yet, really, the only women I'd actually want to feel that way about me never do.

I realise now it's about genetics. It's about the hopeful monster.

I will die alone because any sane women can see that I'm not fit to be a father to her children. Not in that way. Not in the way of life that we live today. I cannot satisfy here and now. I'm not Mr Stable. What they do see, is a father OF her kids, a sperm donor.

Children to grow up themselves as hopeful monsters.

I've come to terms with the fact that actually, most women see me as just fling material. That's all they'll ever want from me. Or all their genes want.
This is what puzzles them as well as me. Because they THINK they'd only want a fling with someone who was physically fit, good in bed, etc, etc.

And then they can't quite explain it when they tire of me so quick. Or realise that I'm not the man of their dreams. Just an easy ride.

Because the fact is, they didn't want me, just the chance to blend their genes with mine. They don't- nobody does- want to grow old with me.

They know, deep down, that in the here and now, I'm not what they want as a person. That the bizarre genetic combination they want to take a risk on, is dangerous in the here and now. That I will burn myself out and die alone. That I will love and leave them, or die young, or they will find me too much and tire of me. Deep down, they know.

They can see what life will bring me. They can see how I am driven.

Here and now, the man to be with them, care for them, hold them tight and be around is Mr Stable. The Breadwinner. Goes to the gym regularly, has the physical frame a man should have, is in touch with himself emotionally, etc, etc. He's here and now, he's Homo Sapiens of today. The man who will pay the mortgage every month.

But in that frail, boyish frame, in those blue piercing eyes, that taciturn face, that tinkling giggle, that mind that is slightly beyond the norm with that heightened set of communicative abilities that beguiles in the short term, but pales in the long term, is the chance to play dice with a hopeful monster.

Because maybe the genes that pair with that hopeful monster will inherit the earth.

Because maybe those genes that seem such an out of kilter combination today, will be amongst the ones that make up the successor species.

I've realised now that women don't lust after me. It's not my body they want, they don't, it actually completely goes against the type of body most women think they want. But yes, even though they don't realise it, they do really only want me for one thing. Maybe it is my mind, but not so THEY can have it. Only so that mind lives on in their offspring. They'd rather another mind, perhaps less advanced, but more in tune with THIS life, actually was there with them to guard those offspring.

Their genes see the genes that make my own life so complicated as being the genes that might be the ones that survive.

One day a Dinosaur gave birth to a brood of eggs.
One of them was slightly wierd. One of them had strange, slight indentations on its limbs.

The descandants of all the other eggs are dead.
His descandants are birds.

Any woman with her head screwed on can see I'm no good for her.

But her genes can see a world a million years from now where a human species of tiny framed people, in a world technology has made the need for physically fit bodies an irrelevance and therefore tiny frames are more economical, where the human form has neotonised (Let's be honest, my figure is quite neotonous), where synastheastic conceptualisation and the like are the norm of human thinking. And her genes want to take that throw.

I tell myself that this life I lead is my choice, but it isn't. It is the choice of genetics.

I really am nothing more than a hopeful monster, a set of genes to be taken in and then the shell that carried them spat back out.

Because today doesn't belong to me. Today belongs to Mr Stable.

I will die alone, I know that. The only woman I truly want will die in the arms of a Mr Stable somewhere.



But I have my vanity to cling on to.

I will die knowing that there is a chance- a slim chance, but a chance nevertheless that my descendants will inherit the earth.

Is that enough?

Not for me, no.
I'd rather die in the arms of the woman I want.

But I guess my descendants will see it differently. Not that they will have a clue that I ever existed, except in the logical sense I must have done. I'll just be one of their vast number of ancestors.

Survival of the fittest is a funny thing. The present does not select me, but the future may do.

I guess that thought is some comfort, in a strange kind of way.

I guess I just give up on expecting it to be any different. I am what I am and no long term use to any woman in the here and now.

Guess I should just head off to the pub and hawk my genes as I usually do.
After all, it sometimes gets me some short time comfort.
That's the reward my genes give me for being a hopeful monster. Pointless sex and the odd stroke on the cheek.

I'm used to it now.
I accept it.
I no longer care.

I can live with it.

I have no choice.