I Fell in Love with an Alpha Male

And other women don’t like it.

Photo by Dainis Graveris on Unsplash

He is tall, unfairly handsome, with a voice so deep that it makes others sound like tinkling cutlery.

I have a type — and it’s not him. I shy away from power. I don’t much like to stand out. The thought of trying to catch someone’s attention is tiring to me — I’d prefer to spend my energy doing things I love rather than jostle for attention, trying to impress. But here I am anyway… I’ve fallen in love with an alpha male.

He is tall, unfairly handsome, with a voice so deep that it makes others sound like tinkling cutlery. People listen to him. He is effortlessly easy, and likeable in the way someone is when they have no anxiety about trying to make an impression — he doesn’t need to try. Maybe he never has: other people are practically competing with each other to like him the most. In other words, he’s the kind of person I would normally see as entirely separate from myself and my world. The kind of person I’d never entertain romantic feelings for — there’s something almost funny to me about men who are supremely attractive and successful. They’re almost like fictional beings. I watch them from afar, and watch the women who flock around them and the men who want to be them, and I feel like I’m watching theatre. Yes, I know there’s empathy lacking in this view: alpha males are people too! But everyone is guilty of stereotyping others —and I just thought I was doing women a service — taking a dig at the patriarchy — by keeping my ironic distance.

And I guess I can still see the funny side: I’ve fallen in love with an alpha male. Me, of all people.

I guess it happened accidentally. It happened because I assumed it would never happen. It happened because it’s possible he even enjoyed my ironic distance, my refusal to impress, and in this space without expectations, we could both just be together. Because I didn’t just fall in love with an alpha male — he fell in love with me.

He has a love-hate relationship to the attention he gets: a dependence on it, and a resentment of it.