Don’t be the fake Alpha Male of the wolfpack

Unless you want to be the butt of all jokes, don’t act like an Alpha Male if you’re not one. And I’ve had the misfortune to meet a wannabe.

Never, ever, ever be this guy. The one who walks around any establishment like he owns the place and puts on the facade that he’s in complete control.

Not only will logical people see through you, but they will expose you. One dude I met a decade and a half ago and knew for years did all he could to make people think he was “so alpha.”

He was loud and tried evoking a domineering presence, especially in the gym. This guy was mainly concerned with training chest and the bench press, and he often yelled slogans concocted by bodybuilding influencers.

Note that this guy looked nothing like a bodybuilder, but had more of a powerlifting build. When talking about why he never bothered getting lean, he’d say, “I don’t have the genetics.” Then, he’d go and yell some more while lifting at least respectable weights.

Still, his physique never changed throughout the time that I knew him. And it didn’t go unnoticed. Several of my gym friends texted me about him, saying, “Hey, it’s been years and he still looks the same.”

And if you want the kicker, this guy had a weak, weak personality.

The wannabe Alpha Male exposed

First, what made me realize this dude wasn’t an Alpha Male? For one, he sought the need to remind everyone that he was “so alpha.” If you need to keep reminding people where you think you stand in a wolfpack that’s really more symbolic than anything else and not set in stone, chances are, you probably aren’t “so alpha.” Not at that point, anyway.

True alphas are loud, but they’re not polarizing to most in the wolfpack. They attract people to them, earn respect without demanding it, and display stellar leadership qualities. This guy did none of that.

He worked a typical mid-level job where he wasn’t exactly inspiring anybody, repelled more people than he attracted, and was a pro at fueling every negative stereotype regarding regular gym goers who lifted heavier than average weight.

And when someone called him out, he couldn’t get the call-out out of his head. He’d talk about it for days. Weeks, even.

The call-out of call-outs

I wrote about this guy for the first time a few years back, and I was far more blatant than vague. I used the nickname he gave himself and just went off. He actually found the article, posted it online with the message, “shout out to TC Marti for blogging about me,” and wow, did it pick up more attention than I would’ve expected.

I responded with my own sarcastic “thank you note,” considering how much traffic the article had driven. Looking back, though, my writing was probably godawful, since in those early days, I wrote first drafts and published them without bothering to edit or fine-tune my work.

Anyway, the fallout was that this guy blocked me on every social media outlet. One of those friends who I texted regularly with back then even said that a relative close to the guy flipped about the ordeal online.

Hey, if someone has to go to bat for you like that and it’s been about 16 years since you left college, you’re not an Alpha Male. If someone went to bat like that for me, I’d be too embarrassed to show my face anywhere.

I still have power over the guy

To this day, I’ll see him every now and again, often in grocery stores. Every time we lock eyes, he shoots me a glare, and any smug smile on his face vanishes.

As I write this, it’s been years since that initial article, and the dude still can’t get me out of his head. Once again, if you’re going to have a prolonged grudge like that, you’re no alpha. An alpha would’ve shrugged their shoulders, realized that not everyone is going to like them, then move forward.

A true alpha would never let anyone hold power over them. But it’s not just Alpha Males. In my 37,000-word dystopian survival novella, Beyond the Lost Horizon, Quinn Cozens lands in a life-or-death situation where he can’t afford for anyone to hold power over him.

Quinn, a sigma at heart, is dealing the fallout of a Red Dawn-like attack on America. And the cute sidekick he stumbled across is enough of a handful. If Quinn and Yui plan on surviving, they better learn that the second they let their emotional intelligence go, their lives are over.

Will they live to see another day, or will the terrorists attacking America end them? Find out in Beyond the Lost Horizon.