Incidentally, unless something suddenly changes, Todd's not even planned to appear in this chapter. But this particular arc with him is important, so I wanted to make sure it got brought up even if he himself isn't around. I wonder if there's any plausibility to the "machismo theory" though. Thoughts on that?
Also, as you can see in the last panel, Ruby is still there having lunch and remains totally unnoticed thus far.
No, the machismo theory doesn't cut it. At least not such that Aidyn bothers him any. Far more likely he's struggking with latent homosexuality; trying to deny it to himself via douchebagerry.
I was thinking even if he's perfectly straight, he might be worried as being seen as gay--possibly from family, or others--if he doesn't find a date. Or he IS gay and he's just very closeted.
Most, though probably not all, of the guys like Todd that I've met act the way they do because of a combination of poor self esteem and other factors I won't pretend to understand. I say that because there's always appeared to be a distinct stimulus response behavior to it that I was fortunate enough to be able to observe.
For example, if Bruno fails a test, and for some reason he knows he *can't* beat up the guy who got the high score, he's going to beat up someone else. And it won't be someone he just happens to run into; he'll choose a target and go out of his way to be able to beat up that target.
These people generally realized at a sufficiently conscious level that they felt inferior to the people they picked on to commiserate with their fellow bullies when they believed nobody else was around.
For what it's worth, offering to tutor them is probably not the greatest of ideas. I only have one actual data point to base that on, but it doesn't particularly seem like a good idea even apart from that. They really need to first be convinced that their abusive behavior is not going to be helpful to them in the long run. Unfortunately, before we can do that, we would need to correct our laws and society to make that behavior not be helpful to them in the long run. Considering who runs countries and companies these days... we have a really long way to go on that. We may have made some significant strides in the class room, but not a thing where it seems to be needed most.
Edit: added a missing 'o' in choose in paragraph two.
It's a deep subject, but without more information to go on it's gonna be hard to pinpoint the exact reasons behind this, but I would say jealousy over others having dates is a part of it.
This line of questioning is kind of creepy... But I kind of head-cannon Emily as a versitile and I'm pretty sure Rain is too new to her identity to really know what she wants in that department.
For example, if Bruno fails a test, and for some reason he knows he *can't* beat up the guy who got the high score, he's going to beat up someone else. And it won't be someone he just happens to run into; he'll choose a target and go out of his way to be able to beat up that target.
These people generally realized at a sufficiently conscious level that they felt inferior to the people they picked on to commiserate with their fellow bullies when they believed nobody else was around.
For what it's worth, offering to tutor them is probably not the greatest of ideas. I only have one actual data point to base that on, but it doesn't particularly seem like a good idea even apart from that. They really need to first be convinced that their abusive behavior is not going to be helpful to them in the long run. Unfortunately, before we can do that, we would need to correct our laws and society to make that behavior not be helpful to them in the long run. Considering who runs countries and companies these days... we have a really long way to go on that. We may have made some significant strides in the class room, but not a thing where it seems to be needed most.
Edit: added a missing 'o' in choose in paragraph two.
Feel like a narrative to force the blame for our own bullying onto our gender or sexuality
Essentially, some of it is loneliness and a horrible means of making friends.