The “Plankton” Generation – Revisited

As most people know by now, there’s a phrase coined for 45-plus women on the dating scene – the Plankton Generation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2022102/Why-struggle-single-women-45-meet-soulmate.html

It refers to women who are barely visible, and are “hanging at the bottom of the food chain” when it comes to attracting a mate.

It’s a derisive term, frankly, and one I’m not crazy about using.

But like most things in life aging-related, there’s no nice way of putting it.

Having said this, there are upsides depending on how you define “attracting a mate.”

I’ll explore those here…

~~~

It has been my experience that while older women find it difficult to find mates who fit their preferred profiles, they are better adapted to accepting – and making the very best of – the realities of aging.

According to Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a noted Yale professor of psychology women’s lives get better with age, not worse. Rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide in women go down, not up, as women grow older, and she contributes that to the natural strengths women possess — coping skills, empathy, ability to listen, patience — which help them to tackle new problems and situations that arise as they age. It also gives them the courage to pursue new paths.

Men, on the other hand, have tremendous difficulty accepting aging.

First, they have a tendency not to maintain close friendships with other men, nor do the friendships they do have involve any meaningful degree of emotional intimacy and support.

Women, on the other hand, cherish and nurture their friendships with other women which helps them navigate life’s many stages.

“Contrary to women, men do not celebrate older age as a time of joy, love, and fulfillment for all they have worked for and grown to be over their lifetimes,” as Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema states.

Note: Among the older adults, who were facing the adversities that come with aging, the men showed less inclination to use these important coping skills compared to the women. In other words, older women were more likely than older men to tap their mental, emotional, and relational strengths to deal with adversity, which in turn left them less vulnerable to depression and anxiety in the face of difficulty.

Contrary to popular opinion, women over 50 tend to find their confidence and increased levels of satisfaction from within… not from without.

Even in the face of our cultural obsession with youth and beauty, older women place a greater emphasis and pride on their own maturity, experience and wisdom.

But, make no mistake: “women over 50 think they’re looking pretty good, too:” according to Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema’s study, women’s body images actually become more positive as they move from their 20s, 30s and 40s, into midlife.

While many men consider this deluded thinking, it works in women’s favor given their level of self-acceptance.

Put another way, while women may not get their immediate needs met, they more than make up for it through friendships and outside interests.

A few of the websites and blogs that are especially effective at reflecting the interests and concerns of women over 50 include:

 The Art of Aging

 Aging Abundantly

 Fab After 50

 The National Association of Baby Boomer Women (NABBW)

 The Huffington Post/Aging

 Fab Over Fifty

 ThirdAge

 wowOwow (Women on the Web)

 StyleSubstanceSoul

 MarryingGeorgeClooney

 DailyPlateofCrazy

Good luck finding this many for men.

Writer Barbara Hannah Grufferman asked her friends on Facebook, Are women better at aging than men? and here’s what a few of them had to say (reprinted with their permission):

Barbara Briggs Ward: I think the tide has turned. Women are more in charge of their aging. They are no longer giving in to it. They run; walk; try new careers; eat well; find new loves. Age no longer means slowing down and retreating. Age does not define a woman-for better or worse. It only opens new doors for them. And I think all of this has given women an edge over the men who are used to doors always being open.

Denise Taylor Tremaine: You don’t ever hear, or rarely, of women going through a mid-life crisis… we handle everything with grace.

Kim Okerson: I agree that the social pressure on women is far greater, but it is up to each of us to have the grace and dignity to accept that our age is state of mind.

Connie Katon Wingo: The emotional impact of aging is difficult for men, I’d say. In their youth, they were able to have the perception of controlling their environment. Their identities as men were so often tied to their sexual perception and themselves. Their sex drive slows down, and for a great deal of men their “manhood,” is tied into their perception of their sexuality. Also, as men begin to age in the workforce, their roles begin to change and coping with the feeling of obsoleteness is frightening, possibly causing men to feel more insecure about aging.

Melody George: I dont think one gender has it over another on aging. I think with men and women it is equally daunting or exciting depending on the person.

Whatever your thoughts are on this… here’s the fundamental truth: the more we stick together, the happier we will be.

The unfortunate fact is that sticking together is something men simply don’t do well.

FINAL COMMENTS

As for the coping skills that older men do happen to have at their disposal, please note the following:

1] The ability to purchase and/or attract youth and beauty with money and power.

2] The distraction from existential pain using bigger homes, Aspen vacations and sports cars as leverage.

3] Hunting and fishing trips that get them out of the house and into the arms of escorts.

4] Online porn.

5] Routine testosterone therapy and plastic surgery.

Normal, well-adjusted older men have age-appropriate wives, children and grandchildren, for God’s sake.

They have vacation homes where everyone comes together at holidays and embraces all that life has given them.

They aren’t consumed with death and irrelevance – or both.

Their families are their relevance.

I know this is lost on most of you who read this blog, but these people do exist.

Of course, they’d bore you to death long before loneliness or depression took you down.

What “Normal” Looks Like for Rich, Big City Boomers

Buzz Bissinger, 60 with Caitlyn Jenner, 65

I thought this picture was interesting, so I decided to share it with you.

I have nothing more to say…other than the fact that enough money and success have a way of opening doors to behavior that might otherwise remain hidden behind pleated khakis and anonymous Internet hook-ups.

~~~

Excerpt from Urban Dystrophy [the book] on what Midlife Crisis Looks Like from the Inside

“I’m sitting at a white plastic table in front of a wine bar. It’s one o’clock on a Tuesday morning and an empty parking lot is the only landscape.

The streets are deserted.

Most guys my age are asleep. Their time came and went, and they let go in that unconscious way most men do when their stories have been told and the end is a long, drawn-out epitaph.

But, I stayed behind, along with the rest of the itinerants of the night.

I have no place to go that I haven’t already been, and nothing to do but wait and hope and sometimes pray for mercy that relevance and that one big love will one day redeem me, but it never does. Not really.

We’re beyond salvation. Most of us.

There have been exceptions, but the grace is never a hundred percent and you have to make peace with that the best you can.

We’re members of the bitten, the damned, the fighters against the forces of time until we no longer can.

Most of us are children of narcissists, narcissists who never died because narcissists never do—they’re just recycled and the kids are left to clean up the mess.

I wonder where all the time went. Time is all I have left to make a final stand.

I remember my first midlife crisis at 28. The rest is a blur.”

~~~

The “buzzword” for most men I know is relevance.

To my late father, it meant carrying a business card with his name on it next to “Chairman and CEO.”

This gave him relevance no matter what else happened to be going on in his life.

Symbols like these are the quintessential calling cards that legitimize driven, proud men.

It’s otherwise known as a good “back story” every man needs to get the right party invitations.

I inherited this “gene,” if you will, and continue to struggle with what it means to feel a viable part of a world I’ve already traversed a thousand times.

Aging rockers continue to tour long after the songs have been written and the money’s in the bank. They don’t know what else to do with themselves, and more importantly, the limelight is better than no light at all.

Movie producers keep producing movies because they want to feel like they have more stories to tell, that there’s still juice in the tank…that they’re still viable.

I even heard a guy in Aspen say that no matter how much money he had to throw around during ski season, he still felt invisible:

“Hell, $200 mil is a drop in the bucket for a lot of these people. I can’t win.”

What he was saying was that he felt invisible in a world where money and power and influence and connections are the sole determinants of human value.

Sadly, for many men this is the fuel that keeps the soul alive.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t exclude myself from any of this.

Why are Middle-Aged Men Committing Suicide in Record Numbers?

In 2013, 78 per cent of the 6,233 suicides registered in the UK were men. That’s a rate of 19 deaths per 100,000 population.

That more men take their own lives than women is not new. But in 1981 the men’s total was only about double, or just under, the women’s.

Now it’s nearly four times as many.

Since 2007, in fact, baby boomers have had the highest rate of suicide of any age group in the United States.

Historically, people between the ages of 40 and 64 have had one of the lowest rates.

To complicate matters, baby boomers are now sliding into the over-65 demographic, an age group that historically has had one of the highest suicide rates.

Making matters worse, suicides among middle-aged men with mental health issues have soared by 73% since 2006, which may be attributed to a combination of alcohol, job loss and debt, as compiled by the University of Manchester’s National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness.

Oh boy. Want more?

“Our findings show that within mental health care, middle-aged men are particularly at risk,” said Prof Louis Appleby, the director of NCISH who was formerly the government’s mental health tsar and leads the national suicide prevention strategy. “The problem is not simply that they don’t seek help – they are already under mental health care – so we have to understand better the stresses men in this age group face.”

How about this?

More men in the UK have died by suicide in the past year than all British soldiers fighting in all wars since 1945.

I’m neither a Sociologist or Psychiatrist. In fact, my only authority in this area is interpersonal exchange and an open heart, for which I have earned several Doctoral Degrees.

Men my age and socioeconomic niche are, generally speaking, over-achievers. They made their “piles” working hard, passionately over many years.

Many have been married and divorced a few times over.

The majority have children somewhere.

Now they’re smack in the middle of the Baby Boom generation, with nowhere to go and nothing to do that they haven’t already been done a thousand times before.

Only this time around, they’re older – a lot older – with far less time to enjoy life the way they did when the journey started.

It’s a small window of opportunity in which to reinvent oneself before everything becomes a hobble along a windswept beach on the edge of oblivion.

With this as a backdrop, here are my 5 top reasons middle-aged men off themselves:

1] Loneliness

Heterosexual men in mid-life are dependent primarily on female partners for emotional support.

One reason for this is that they’ve never explored anything beyond sports stats with their “friends.”

Women, on the other hand, maintain their independent relationships throughout life – divorce notwithstanding – which is one reason they outlive us.

To wit, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts were three times higher among divorced men, and two times higher among separated men compared to married.

This is the quintessential dichotomy about men: While we love sex, we love relationships more.

2]Reluctance to seek help

Professor Shirley Reynolds, from Reading University, said one of the reasons for the rise in suicides is the fact only around ’15 per cent of men with depression and anxiety seek help’.

Most men my age practice intimacy-avoidance. They’d rather swallow a pack of Gillette straight razors than open up about clinical depression.

For one thing, depression is not manly. Men don’t suffer depression unless it’s tied to warfare, in which case it’s called PTSD, an acceptable acronym.

Anything else is an indication that you’re either gay and in denial, or didn’t get into enough fistfights when you were a kid.

In either case, you’re screwed in the eyes of middle-aged frat boys who are themselves gay, and in denial.

3] Money

Okay, I know a few people who put bullets in their heads when the market crashed in 2008.

Not having any money after have a shit-ton of it sucks more than just about anything else, excluding colon cancer, which is a close second.

You lose your house, your cars, your vacations…and usually, your wife.

So now you have nothing at age “60” and have no interest in starting over at Dairy Queen.

I get it. Use the gun. 30 years mopping floors or flipping burgers just isn’t worth it.

Plus you’ll never get laid again as long as you do happen to live.

4] Feminism

Many men bought into the notion that marrying super-achiever women – the ones who handle all of the traditionally male responsibilities – was a novel idea…until the women in question left them for real men who could buy and sell them a thousand times, which earned their respect.

It’s been my experience that women want men to be men in the traditional sense no matter what they say to the contrary. I’m not talking about some archaic master-servant relationship, but one where the man is clearly the head of the household everyone look up to.

But these days older men are caught in a cross-fire of conflicting expectations about what it means to be a man. This usually means that when things go South, they don’t have the coping skills to handle the downward spiral.

The bottom line here is that men should take care of themselves first – and everyone else – second.

5] Irrelevance

Okay, so your career is winding down, the kids are out of the house, and your ex-wife is a colossal bitch. What the hell are you going to do with yourself? You already proved to the world that you could become CEO of some star-up and make a pile of money.

Now what?

That job is done, but when people ask you what the hell you’re doing with yourself, you have nothing to say. This means you’re only as good as your last performance – which, by the way, was 10 years ago. Not good. Very bad, in fact. Particularly at society cocktail functions.

Men are inextricably tied to what they do professionally, so if you’re not doing what you were once doing, then what the hell are you doing?

Men need an answer.

If they don’t have one, they dwell on what to say to people.

This often leads to introspection, as in the meaning of life kind of crap and then hookers, drugs and a shotgun blast to silence the noise.

Believe me, older men need a good back story to survive. Otherwise, the only thing anyone will be interested in is conning them out of whatever money they happen to have left over from their glory days.

SUMMARY

Getting older sucks. The best you can hope for is money in the bank, good health, and a competent psychiatrist.

Note that money was the first on my list of must-haves because without it you’re probably better off dead.

How else are you going to afford the psychiatrist?

~~~

For more information, here’s a good article on depression in older men:

http://www.fiftyisthenewfifty.com/mid-life-crisis-depression-or-both/

Majority of Boomers are Positive About Their Generational Label

Many millennials don’t even want to be identified as such, with 60 per cent not considering themselves to be part of the ‘millennial generation.’ Instead, 33 per cent say they are part of Generation X~~~

Millennials attribute negative traits to their generation and the Silent Generation and Boomers see themselves in a positive right, describing their generation as patriotic, responsible, hard-working and moral.

Generational identity was strongest among the baby boomers, with 79 per cent of those within the applicable age group identifying with the ‘baby-boom’ generation.

Around 30 per cent of Generation Xers – those ages 35-50 – said their own generation was self-absorbed and wasteful, and 20 per cent of the baby boomers said the same about their age cohort.

Source:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3221560/Millennials-self-absorbed-wasteful.html

A few more facts about Baby Boomers:

The last of the baby boomers turned 50 in 2014 – there were 77 million people born between 1946 and 1964, which is defined as the baby boomer era (U.S. Census).
The 2010 Census shows the senior age group is, for the first time, the largest in terms of size and percent of the population in the U.S. Ove the next 30 years, the 65+ population will be larger than the younger generations.
The 50+ population has $2.4 trillion in annual income, which accounts for 42% of all after-tax income in the U.S. (Consumer Expenditure Survey).
Boomers and seniors have seen a decrease in their median family net worth, however they still have a net worth 3x that of younger generations (Economic Policy Institute).
Every year, the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey shows adults 55-64 outspend the average consumer in nearly every category, from food, household furnishing, entertainment, personal care, gifts, etc.
Baby boomers account for nearly $230 billion, or 55% of consumer packaged goods sales (Nielsen).
The NAHB predicts that the aging in place remodeling market to be $20-$25 billion. That’s about 10% of the $214 billion home improvement industry.
Boomers spend $157 billion on trips every year (NextAvenue).
Americans 50+ account for half of all consumer spending but are targeted by just 10% of marketing (AARP).
The Internet is the most important source of information for Boomers when they make major purchasing decisions (Zoomerang).
Boomers outspend younger adults online 2:1 on a per-capita basis (Forrester, 2009).

Straight Talk from Boomer and “Pretender” Chrissie Hynde [63]

press session for Chrissie Hynde: Stockholm

There’s just something about the tenor of my generation’s words that always resonates with me.

I can’t imagine why.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/pretenders%E2%80%99-chrissie-hynde-no-regrets-about-rape-comments/ar-AAdVJVW

Up Next!

“Isn’t It Time You Older Guys Start Winding It Down?”

No.

How many times have I heard this from spouses who feel left behind by men who’ve decided to make the most of middle-age?

“Why are you spending so much time in the gym?”

“You had your youth. Let go!”

“Acceptance is the key to happiness!”

“You’re no longer a child!”

Grow up!”

I could go on and on with this bullshit… [and I will].

~~~

Based on a true story, the following dialog takes place between a friend of mine and a woman who’s middle-aged husband is either in the gym, meal-prepping and/or planning adventure vacations that involve rock climbing, mountain hikes, kayaking, swimming and yoga.

While all this sounds great, it isn’t as much so for a woman who thought she married a very different man who would embrace the last few decades of his life with more circumspection.

SPOUSE TO FRIEND:

“I don’t know what’s happened to my husband. He used to be such a normal man.

Now all he does is workout and prepare his meals at home, as if a little bread’s going to hurt him.

Why is he doing this? He’s almost 60!

Look at me! I’m not 25 anymore. And I’m okay with that.

Why isn’t he?

And those ridiculous handstand push-ups he does all the time are for kids, not full grown men.

It’s embarrassing!”

FRIEND TO SPOUSE:

“Maybe he just wants to stay fit and healthy so he can do all the things he did when he was younger.

What’s wrong with that?”

SPOUSE TO FRIEND:

“What’s wrong with that is that we aren’t young anymore.

I think he’s having some sort of midlife breakdown, thinking he can go back to where he was, instead of accepting where he is!”

FRIEND TO SPOUSE:

“Maybe you’re just feeling left out, or about to be left behind. His priorities have changed. He wants to live a healthy lifestyle, and now you’re feeling pressure to do the same thing.

Maybe you think he’s going to leave you, or have an affair?”

SPOUSE TO FRIEND:

“Listen to me you idiot! He needs to grow up and accept the fact that there’s a time and place for everything in life.

He should be doing more reflecting than pumping weights!

Stop and smell the roses. Ponder his image in quiet lakes, skim rocks across the water, and reflect.

We should be walking hand-in-hand along the banks of lagoon, deep in spiritual contemplation, connected to the earth as we prepare for death in a positive, healthy way…”

FRIEND TO SPOUSE

“And you think he’s insane?”

The Case for Dating Men in Their “60’s”

It’s not uncommon to see successful 58-62-year-old urban men dating and/or marrying women in their mid to late 30’s.

By standards that have evolved over the past decade, 37 and 60 are considered age-appropriate.

It’s a simple formula: 1/2 one’s age plus 7.

Of course, it could also be 1/2 one’s age minus 7, and still meet normal parameters.

In either case, the women are hardly 17 for God’s sake.

With this as a backdrop, I have posted a link to an Elle Magazine article I think you’ll find interesting.

I’ll follow it’s bullet points with comments of my own based upon real life urban experience.

http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a9/dating-men-in-their-sixties/

“Old men are polite and thoughtful and young guys are generally self-centered.” Megan Megan O’Brien, founder of the marketing agency Beauty Brander, almost exclusively dates men in their sixties and older.

Her reasons?

1] I like a man’s man.

The synopsis: “To a man in his 60’s it’s the norm to treat a woman like a LADY.”

COMMENTS

Older men I know are far more appreciative of the young women in their lives because they know that authentic love is no longer a disposable asset.

2] They don’t play games.

The synopsis: “The bullshit factor dramatically declines as the years of their age rise.”

COMMENTS

Time becomes a far more valuable commodity when it becomes more scarce, forcing demand through the roof. Therefore, “sealing the deal” with a younger woman becomes a far more likely outcome.

3] They are more thoughtful.

The synopsis: “Leaving love notes in your purse for you to find later is another common trait of a more mature man…..just because.”

COMMENTS

To older men, younger women are kind of like time capsules that transport us back to a time when life was more spontaneous and carefree. Younger men have precisely the opposite effect on older women for obvious reasons.

4] They have their shit together.

COMMENTS

The synopsis: “He’s spending more time and attention on your relationship [than at the office].”

COMMENTS

He doesn’t have to spend as much time at the office [see#4]. Most men in this situation work from a laptop and a cellphone for a few hours and call it a day.

5] He will be proud to be with you.

The synopsis: “Most guys in their thirties think they’re doing YOU a favor by holding your hand and saying that you look beautiful.”

COMMENTS

When you’re young, youth and beauty are boundless resources, so you take them for granted.

But older men have already been laid more times than they can possibly count, so they focus on other aspects of the relationship.

This, of course, will then lead to even more sex – only this time with someone who’s name they remember.

~~~

Why Older Men Tend to “Go It Alone”

When I was a kid, my guy friends were everywhere, though I’m not sure “friends” back then had much in common with friends of today.

As I’ve gotten older, I notice that friendships are something I have to pursue and nurture or they will fall off the face of the planet.

To wit, I received a phone call from a guy I know fairly well who was dismayed that after an 8-month hiatus from town, no one bothered to check in on him.

I got it.

Older men tend to fall away into their own lives like Mad Max in a desert with a dog and a shotgun.

We don’t bond well…or at all.

Why is this?

The following article sets up this discussion pretty well, and I will follow up with comments and a summary.

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/08/american_mens_hidden_crisis_they_need_more_friends/

~~~

5 reasons why older successful men I know don’t have close friendships with other men:

1] Men are viciously competitive

As I state in my new book, Urban Dystrophy [@Amazon], “older men are fully assembled entities, no longer young men of endless promise,” and therefore, disparities in life achievement can – and do – drive a wedge between relationships.

In my own life, I still feel tremendous competitiveness from my close friends, particularly those in similar lines of work.

If, however, we’re both equally successful [or close enough], we cheer lead each other.

The truth is I have yet to meet a man who applauds the success of another when his career is in the toilet. It just doesn’t happen.

Both must be on top in order to maintain balance…and applause.

This is why men who tout their success on social media often get likes from everyone but their “closest friends.”

2] Intimacy avoidance

If an older man’s greatest fear is loss of control, the last thing he wants to do is talk about his issues with his mother.

This is why men can spend 5 hours on a golf course and recall nothing more than sports statistics.

In this sense, Freud’s “Madonna-Whore” model is just as applicable to male-male friendships as it is to men and their wives.

If the guy’s too damn close, he’s cast aside.

If he’s too distant, it’s time for a fishing trip and 3 strippers.

3] Too many demands on our time

With all of the demands on our time, why attempt a communication campaign with other men when we have no idea how to do it?

Most guys I know are always busy with something, even if it’s nothing at all, which is why it’s never a good idea to cross examine them on this.

This is defense mechanism, of course, designed to maintain mystery – and distance.

Again, we’re back to competitiveness.

TYPICAL MALE-MALE INTERRACTION

Mike:

“Hey, Tom, how’s everything?”

Tom:

“It’s all good. How about you?”

Mike:

“The same. How are the wife and kids?”

Tom:

“They’re all good. Back to school after our vacation in Aspen.”

Mike:

“That’s great. We’ll all be up there in December.”

Tom:

“No place like it. Great catching up with you!”

Mike:

Yea, you too. Take care.”

~~~

So that’s it, a full-on man conversation. They both keep the narrative short and sweet, while conveying certain key points:

a] We’re both happily married, highly successful [think Ritz-Carlton, Aspen], and run in similar circles [think Aspen…again].

Slam-dunk. Now we can applaud each other.

No wonder women outlive us.

Megyn Kelly Needs a “Wife”

I don’t want to make this personal as I don’t know Megyn Kelly outside of her nightly broadcasts.

But something has changed in her over the past 6 months.

Maybe it’s that she’s harder than usual.

It reminds me of the psychological shifts in older men after starting a regimen of weekly testosterone injections.

They’re overall demeanor becomes more aggressive, engaging and intense.

With this as a backdrop, I wasn’t entirely shocked when Kelly blitz-attacked Donald Trump in the first of the Republican presidential debates.

Her approach was not that of an honest journalist seeking answers to complex questions, as much as it was blatant grand-standing on behalf of Megyn Kelly.

I don’t care what her political views happen to be.

What I do care about is having to deal with another out-of-control narcissist commanding the airwaves when we already have Donald Trump.

Pathological narcissists on the level of Ms. Kelly view people like Trump as “competitors” who steal focus from them.

So she acted out in order to seal a position of equal footing.

That’s the pathology at work, and it’s gender-neutral if it makes you feel any better.

It’s also how she got to where she is in life [think Wolf of Wall Street] and why she needs a house-husband, not another Type-A personality like her 1st husband.

“I wanted a wife and she wanted a wife — we both needed someone to cook and clean and support us. She has very much a Type A personality. I couldn’t imagine her staying at home. She needed more of a Type B husband.” Dr. Dan Kendall, her 1st husband.

~~~

Most affluent older men I know tend to date and marry beautiful young women who are nurturers, not Alphas climbing corporate ladders.

The last thing they want is more competition.

After all, there’s only so much room on stage for a star, and the most successful couples I know keep the spotlight focused.

If you have any problem with this particular arrangement, the door’s over there.

Spouses must understand and accept the fact that narcissists are always and forever number one – no matter how much they love you.

Most women I know get used to this in a hurry, particularly if they want to keep the Range Rovers.

The same with men who marry women like Megyn Kelly.

They are either okay with their role as house-husband to a super-achiever, or they’re wanna-be famous writers looking for an opportunity to exploit their wives’ celebrity so they can become superstars themselves and then marry yoga instructors half their age.

~~~

I’m sorry to say that after her on-air antics the other night, my respect for Megyn Kelly is greatly diminished.

I know that anyone interested in journalistic stardom has to have a shit ton of self-confidence.

But when self-confidence is not the first thing that comes to mind…well, only Donald Trump can pull that off.

Here’s a great article on the subject by Robert Ringer titled “Megyn Kelly, Queen of Narcissism, Gets a Pass.”

http://robertringer.com/megyn-kelly-queen-of-narcissism-gets-a-pass/

FINAL NOTES

Alpha older women like Megyn Kelly are able to attract and marry handsome men their exact age – or younger – who play a subordinate role in their lives.

Alpha older men like Donald trump are able to attract and marry beautiful younger women who play a subordinate role in their lives.

As we age, money and power are always leveraged against youth and beauty in the struggle for balance.

SYMPTOMS OF NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER

Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., expects to be recognized as superior)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration
Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

November 2024
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3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30