Gurdeep’s Column

Posted on October 19, 2007 in Uncategorized

October 2007: Out Of My League

As children and to some extent as adults, we are told that we are equal to others, that in no way should be feel, or be made to feel, inferior to someone else. An example of this is the classic scenario where a man, in male peer company, sees a beautiful woman and exclaims, ‘well, she’s beautiful, but she’s out of my league.’ The male company, conditioned by their training, supportive of their friend, turn around, by rote, and rejoinder, ‘no, don’t say that!’ They don’t want the notion – the crude notion – of leagues. It forces them in turn to admit that they are ranked, that they have a standing, of which there are people ranked above them, and below them, in terms of sexual desirability. As such, it’s easier to not acknowledge it after we’re taught that this concept doesn’t exist.

But let us say that it does – we’ve seen enough evidence. That there is a girl, who is beautiful, intelligent and funny, who makes you desire her, when you are near her and when you’re not. A girl who is kind, and talks to you and who you are comfortable around. But who doesn’t find you sexually attractive because you in turn are not attractive enough to her. A girl who finds that you are out of her league. A girl who you want to be with, but never could be with, because quite simply, she wouldn’t have you. So is this just because, in this instance, there’s no chemistry? Would a similarly beautiful girl, in another town, in another situation, actually want you as much as you want her? Perhaps. But let’s put aside any magnetism generated by power, by vast amounts of money, by fame in its rawest form. There will be in a level playing field a level of attractiveness that you yourself cannot attract. A question of gravitational pulls, of mass and the ensuing formulae. A person who won’t want to sleep with you, eat with you, be with you. People, male and female, Who are, endlessly and forever, out of your league. This is the real world that they warned you about. That realisation that you have a rank, that you will not be able to attract that lady, or that man: this is the realization of self, and the beginnings of the struggle for self worth.

Like the Didion essay, if you realise this and turn away, and respect who you are, and close the door on that opportunity that was no opportunity, you can be whole, you can move on to the next transaction, with no loss, with your head held up. But let in the gnawing doubt and then the pain enters your mind, that pain of meeting someone and loving what they do, how they do it, and uttering those words, that they are out of my league. And of being with someone, and not having them, of being someone else’s partner, and thinking, I could do better, of reflecting your own endlessly rediscovered hurt into their life, and being a bad partner in the end, a negative influence. It is, in effect, pricing yourself out of the market, of not respecting yourself enough to find your market value and setting some worth in that market value, and settling into a role in society that you can hold down and pull off with, or without – it doesn’t matter – aplomb.

What you’re doing is hurting yourself. Your self-rapproachment is construed in terms of others. Your self-identity is based on what you don’t, and can’t, have. The house of self is built on shifting sands.