An interesting comment on Homo North Americanus......
I was flipping around on the net earlier and stumbled onto an interesting interview with an author who wrote a serious sociological study of modern North American men.
Rigil: You may want to stop reading now. LOL.
Well, technically it's about preadulthood (the 20s, apparently) and how women's desires to be financially independent before marriage yet insistence upon 'chivalry' has confused the fuck out of men and left them angry and hurt and jaded. But I (or the author of the book, that is) digress.
Anyhoo, what struck me was that her description of the various 'archetypes' TRULY covers our NCIS boys ridiculously well. The "child-man", as the author refers to them, comes in many different guises.
There's the geek guy, uneasy around strong/intelligent women and obsessed with his gadgets and video games. (Hello, McGee!)
There are the emo boys, guys who are preoccupied with themselves but have refined some pretty eclectic tastes. (Hello, Tony AND Gibbs!)
The raconteur - it's all about me! me! me! (Ducky, you doll!)
I don't think the study is very accurate but what interested me was this:
She concluded throughout the course of her study that it's late 30s/early 40s when the grown-up kicks in. They still retain their pre-occupations as they evolve into this 'grown man' concept she has articulated ; the child-man part of their psyche that remains is countered by an increased self-awareness and desire to settle down into a pair bond.
I guess what drew my attention was that all season, we've seen Tony and Tim both searching for that pair bond and in both cases, we saw them set themselves up to fail with women not ticking the right boxes (EJ and thieving gamer girl) and agitate about the people they really want to pair-bond with. We've seen this more with Tony but I think we'll start to see it more with McGee.
And for those of you who think, WTF! She called Gibbs an emo boy:
Divorced three times, still kind of 'reveling' in his grief, angry and discontented constantly as he shakes his fist at the sky?
He is soooooo emo, he's like a yankee Byron with a gun.
Rigil: You may want to stop reading now. LOL.
Well, technically it's about preadulthood (the 20s, apparently) and how women's desires to be financially independent before marriage yet insistence upon 'chivalry' has confused the fuck out of men and left them angry and hurt and jaded. But I (or the author of the book, that is) digress.
Anyhoo, what struck me was that her description of the various 'archetypes' TRULY covers our NCIS boys ridiculously well. The "child-man", as the author refers to them, comes in many different guises.
There's the geek guy, uneasy around strong/intelligent women and obsessed with his gadgets and video games. (Hello, McGee!)
There are the emo boys, guys who are preoccupied with themselves but have refined some pretty eclectic tastes. (Hello, Tony AND Gibbs!)
The raconteur - it's all about me! me! me! (Ducky, you doll!)
I don't think the study is very accurate but what interested me was this:
She concluded throughout the course of her study that it's late 30s/early 40s when the grown-up kicks in. They still retain their pre-occupations as they evolve into this 'grown man' concept she has articulated ; the child-man part of their psyche that remains is countered by an increased self-awareness and desire to settle down into a pair bond.
I guess what drew my attention was that all season, we've seen Tony and Tim both searching for that pair bond and in both cases, we saw them set themselves up to fail with women not ticking the right boxes (EJ and thieving gamer girl) and agitate about the people they really want to pair-bond with. We've seen this more with Tony but I think we'll start to see it more with McGee.
And for those of you who think, WTF! She called Gibbs an emo boy:
Divorced three times, still kind of 'reveling' in his grief, angry and discontented constantly as he shakes his fist at the sky?
He is soooooo emo, he's like a yankee Byron with a gun.