Alpha humans and beta humans
I read this piece a couple of weeks ago and it has been rolling around in my head ever since. It's on No Nonsense Self Defense, a website primarily about physical self defence, but with a lot of wide-ranging insights tucked into its back pages. The following analogy is just so true, in my experience. It explains not just physical confrontations but a lot of petty conflicts (including a few of my own, I'll admit).
Many years ago Marc, his girlfriend and their cats shared a house with a woman, who also had her own cats. What was interesting was that both groups had an alpha cat. Their first meeting was 'unpleasant.' But after that both of these large male cats proceeded to share the same space by studiously ignoring each other. One would think that they were invisible to each other, except there was a very subtle pattern of never being in the same place at the same time. Or conveniently being 'asleep' (or otherwise occupied) as the other passed through an area occupied by the first. (Incidentally the other passed at a distance, great enough that the first could pretend not to notice).
However, the constant fighting occurred between the two beta males. Those two cats were not only constantly at each other, but actively sought each other out -- to continue the squabble. Both wanted to drive the other out of the territory, but were incapable of doing it, so the war went on and on. In fact, one could say those two cats were obsessed with each other.
It is interesting to note that you can see the same behaviors among humans. Contrary to what you might think, human heavy hitters do everything in their power to find ways to co-exist. Generally by
1) Ignoring each other (while at the same time doing the human version
of what the cats did)
2) Becoming friends
3) If not friends, then friendly/polite towards each other in a kind of middle
ground between these two points.
It is the betas who get their fur all fluffed and walk stiff legged with their backs up. This basically occurs because betas do not understand the concept of sharing space ... yes, we just said they don't know how to play well with others. What they especially don't understand is that it isn't all about them.
And that is why they end up fighting more ... with other betas. They aren't proving that they are alphas when they do this, they're just jockeying for position in the pecking order.
The whole website is very good. I come back to it every now and again to refresh my memory and see what else has been added.
Many years ago Marc, his girlfriend and their cats shared a house with a woman, who also had her own cats. What was interesting was that both groups had an alpha cat. Their first meeting was 'unpleasant.' But after that both of these large male cats proceeded to share the same space by studiously ignoring each other. One would think that they were invisible to each other, except there was a very subtle pattern of never being in the same place at the same time. Or conveniently being 'asleep' (or otherwise occupied) as the other passed through an area occupied by the first. (Incidentally the other passed at a distance, great enough that the first could pretend not to notice).
However, the constant fighting occurred between the two beta males. Those two cats were not only constantly at each other, but actively sought each other out -- to continue the squabble. Both wanted to drive the other out of the territory, but were incapable of doing it, so the war went on and on. In fact, one could say those two cats were obsessed with each other.
It is interesting to note that you can see the same behaviors among humans. Contrary to what you might think, human heavy hitters do everything in their power to find ways to co-exist. Generally by
1) Ignoring each other (while at the same time doing the human version
of what the cats did)
2) Becoming friends
3) If not friends, then friendly/polite towards each other in a kind of middle
ground between these two points.
It is the betas who get their fur all fluffed and walk stiff legged with their backs up. This basically occurs because betas do not understand the concept of sharing space ... yes, we just said they don't know how to play well with others. What they especially don't understand is that it isn't all about them.
And that is why they end up fighting more ... with other betas. They aren't proving that they are alphas when they do this, they're just jockeying for position in the pecking order.
The whole website is very good. I come back to it every now and again to refresh my memory and see what else has been added.