I don't have a fear of alphabetising people, I have a dislike of it. I think it's demeaning. it's also one of those things that people always seem to do when they consider themselves to be alpha. Nobody ever admits to less than alpha status for themselves when they are categorising other people. Categorising other people as lesser beings than yourself is not a pleasant thing to do.

Besides, it's all nonsense. A person can be dominant in one setting, for instance, and less dominant in another. Dominant at work, not dominant at home for instance. A lot of women on this site are always going on about how strong, dynamic, succesful etc they are in the outside world "nobody would ever guess I'm submissive to my husband" "I'm only submissive to HIM" etc etc. If you are one thing in one place and another in another then you are not wholly alpha or beta or anything else, you're a mixture, like most people.

Alphabetising people is oversimplyfying human nature, and I don't like it. So there.

And to suggest that I haven't learnt anything here is untrue. I've learnt a lot on this site about relationships and what I want from one. I still haven't learnt to like alphabetising people though, and I never will.

And I've no intention of teaching my sons to be Alpha. I hope they will not grow up with a peculiar obsession with categorising themselves alphabetically, but if they do it won't be due to my influence.

I agree with you. I have seen so-called dating gurus trying to advise men on how to become alpha. The end result is that you have these new generation of men running around trying to act dominant and getting their feelings hurt in the long run.

Alpha isn't something that you put on like a coat. It is my belief that my genes are from the Hunter Gatherer genes. We are the ones who produced this mythical alpha male to guide our small families and tribes to better hunting grounds.

I've been told that women can smell my pheremones and can smell when I'm horny. You can't duplicate this with fake pheremone creams or sprays.

You either have it or you don't.

The grain society people first came out into dominance about 500 or so years ago by killing off the hunter gatherer folks do not have this. It's been bred out of them.

They do have something similar to the original alpha male. Some kind of nice guy running around kissing babies and being liked by everyone.

True alpha males if they haven't learned to adapt to modern society end up locked up or living on the outskirts of society.

The ones who do learn to adapt usually end up being entrepenuers and leaders of their industries.

You can't fake higher serotonin levels and all that.

You can't fake a natural agression or burning need to control.

With Irish Tongue in Cheek, I chuckled quite heartily to your delightful article on the authentic alpha male because you are such a talented and descriptive writer on the male influence I will say! I can't even name how many times I laughed at your cleaverness and wit by describing the truth of the magnificence of a true alpha male in his natural element! Especially when he is a magnificent-looking man besides being multi-talented and multi-faceted and just a great big ball of fun! Primal Fun! Primal lust!

I have only seen a few genuine alpha males before my eye in truth.The first one was a legendary bear hunter who had killed over 250 bears in his lifetime. The second one was a handsome Italian from my own neighborhood back home. He hunted wills according to his own words years ago. That is all I can really compare your article with but I think it holds truth in its own right. Thanks for such a grand article!

Yea to some extent this behavior can be learned--in fact I would suggest near the end that it is always learned.

Although, every man has the power to get more into harmony with his natural energies there are caveats:

The more intelligent a person is the more they are likely to have not only the qualities of their own sex, but also of the other sex as well. Think Sean Connery, who is not only super masculine and also in touch with his emotions, fully capable of expressing them if he so desires, as well as warm, affectionate and generous.

Of course some men who are naturally masculine aren't particularly intelligent, even if their alpha male like qualities keeps them from acting with some juvenile sense of machismo. In fact those who generally act more "macho", studies suggest, actually have lower amounts of natural testosterone production in their bodies. Testosterone is a hormone, of course, and effects behavior. The calm self-possessed nature of many "alpha males" suggests high testosterone.

Which brings us to an interesting point about men such as you described above. Most likely they've had a father who was the same way. While it is possible that one's mother could have given them the genes for high testosterone, something else is required and that is having the opportunity to model the behavior from another male. So these two things the genetic propensity and the modeling usually go hand in hand.

Of course, It could also be true that these qualities run through the Mother's side of the family and the son learns the behavior from an uncle or if he's a very intelligent he can pick it up from something in popular culture. I mentioned Sean Connery above, but the epitome, as far as I am concerned, was Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (rent the movie, Hell in the Pacific, with Lee Marvin and Mifune).

I would also suggest that all human behavior is naturally learned and affected to a large degree, and the more intelligent a person is the more they are able to consciously chose how they want to "be" in the world.

So in short, all men can learn to contact more deeply with their masculine energies but it also limited to a degree supported by their constitution, i.e. their intelligence and amount of testosterone their body will produce.

P.S. In the effort to keep it short, my response might have been overly simplistic, for example, I never even touched upon the fact that all human interaction is first and foremost a battle over whose sense of reality is going to prevail. Although this exists when ever two people interact, it is especially apparent in the politics of man/women relationships.