I hope to god you’re using “alpha status” in a self deprecating manner.

The concept of “alpha male” is absolute bunk but, it most definitely isn’t alpha to lie about your sexual history because you’re ashamed of who you are so that you can get into somebody else’s pants, all to give yourself a facial.

Absolutely none of this is alpha status or energy, in any universe, and if you’re not being ironic, you’re sound like whatever beta males dominate in their minds.

EDIT: since it looks like this was deleted, and just in case, here was the reply I made to OP’s response to me

> If you’re the type to post this online, and not realize that using “alpha male” to describe yourself is a warning sign to others about how much of a “player” you mistakenly think you are, they already know, and are probably laughing about it right now.

> What you should be doing is nutting up and learning to accept yourself. I turned 30 this past December. I’ve only had a single girlfriend, and have only ever had sex once in my life.

> The best thing you can do is stop caring that you’re a virgin, stop caring about being an “alpha male”, and stop caring about what your friends think about you nutting on your face.

> If your friends care about this to the point where they actually think less of you for this, get new friends, and remind them that every girl they kiss is another man’s but they’re savoring.

> Quit being a pathetic alpha, and just be yourself.

I was going to offer a response explaining what you missed, but this comment shouldn’t be dignified with a discussion.

Waste your time elsewhere. We’re to discuss the very real and dangerous consequences of controlling and abusive guardians, without shying away from the strong, but necessary, language to describe their behaviors, and intent behind them.

You need to just buckle down and be independent as soon as you responsibly find the opportunity. You’re right, that no one is going to want to be around someone who gets reported as missing by overreacting guardians.

This is literally something that causes employers and recruiters to not call people back for job opportunities. As unfair as it is, they have an entire pool of candidates to choose from. Why would they willingly pick someone that, from their perspective, doesn’t seem like they have their life well enough put together that their parents/guardians have to make a fuss about it.

I’m not going to touch on the social aspects of it as, given your edit, you seem like you got a solid enough head on your shoulders. I will, however, emphasize the social/professional aspects of this.

You can feel however you want about whether or not your parents are or aren’t controlling, or whether or not they’re overstepping their bounds. However, as you just experienced, other people are going to have their say too. This is only the first time, and your grandparents have made it clear that they are going to do it again.

This is abusive behavior, and it will cause you to lose friendships, relationships, and professional opportunities, as your grandparents attempt to control your life through hyper vigilance and, potentially, outright lying to other people.

Ultimately, that’s what this boils down to. You grandparents lied to authorities in an attempt to control your life. Your mom, and you, aren’t people with lives and autonomy. You are possessions to be kept, protected, and displayed.

What happens when you turn 18? What happens when your college classes and responsibilities force you to stay out past what your grandparents consider acceptable? What happens when you’re applying for your first job, and you’re still living with them?

Heaven forbid, what happens after you move out, and your grandparents still have access to your information as a form of maintaining contact, but they instead use that to intrude upon your life wherever you go?

Will they call your job when you’re 25 and report you missing? Will they report your future fiancé for abducting you if you happen to go on a vacation to a place without cell phone service?

These might sound like exaggerations, but you just experienced 12 calls from the sheriff’s office, a call from your former high school, multiple calls from friends and family, and a bombardment of unknown numbers for not being home for 8 hours, and in spite of the fact that your grandparents could have literally just woken up your mom first to check.

I’m not saying “freak out”. I just want to emphasize that you’re making plans to go to college, and that is literally only going to make this problem worse, and it will likely continue getting worse until you make yourself independent, and likely cut off your grandparents, because they literally said they are going to make this an ever increasing problem for you once you turn 18, and beyond.

When people tell you who they are, listen.

Your grandparents plainly stated they are going to leverage at least this level of control over your life no matter how old you are.

This situation will very likely not get any better for you, and it’s going to be up to you to build a life for yourself while fighting against your grandparents’ efforts to control and possess you.

Before me stood a foe, arrogant and proud. Our warrior, felled by a superior blade; our barbarian lay dying at the blunt of an enemy club. The only one with wits enough to stand by my side was a rogue, unmatched in cunning and stealth, but outmatched in a frontal confrontation like the one we now deigned to face.

They deigned to face.

No warrior would face an enemy of this number alone, yet there was no life for us if we turned our backs here. All that was left to us was a life after perseveration, or death in cowardice. Neither I, not my rogue, we’re cowards, but no normal party would ever leave such an encounter alive, let alone one lacking in combat abilities such as ourselves.

Rogues weren’t respected, for their masteries lied in a silver tongue that gleamed with golden blade. They were masters of subterfuge, commanding encounters through preparation and foresight. They did night fight an honorable battle to your face, they would destroy your ambitions behind your back. Rogues we’re feared.

Healers, we’re not. Healers were respected for their abilities, but they were not feared. We were considered a necessary burden, tasked with the menial job of ensuring the rest of the party had the stamina to use their abilities and skills to their fullest, providing confidence that strengthens every allied blow, and a comfort that protected all from death.

No one appreciated that softened, though. No one considered the difficulty of triaging a friend in battle, through death, sometimes for many, and often all at once. People thought is weak for covering weaknesses, and though we packed the strength necessary to fell does.

But our oath to do no harm was not a suggestion, or a bythought. To do no harm eas to deny ourselves the animus of battle, and shed the desire for glory. As long as we were allied, we would use our power to protect, and we would sacrifice the glories of esteem at the altar of life, to stave death.

However, I no longer was bound by those chains. Neither of us had the strength to face this many enemies, even weak as they were, alone. At least, none beside did.

I stepped forward to the laugh of a raucous crowed of chattering rabble. They cacophony inflated by the felling of haughty heroes soon fell silent as a wave of magic slithered along, slicing the Achilles of all caught unawares.

As outcast groups, the rogues and the healers often worked together out of necessity. We provided cunning supplies for cunning folk, and my rogue now sat with only enough attention to avoid an unbecoming surprise.

It was the only permission I needed.

With a wave of my hand, blades of light covered the cervical vertebrae of all who now knelt. Their heads heads now offered me in obeisance, in their blood an atonement for their sins. I blackened my oath with efficiency. To use my powers to harm was looked down upon. I knew the destruction. I had been the destruction. I had been a feared, crazed, battle mage of an era I wished to forget, and I wrote the oath of the Guild of Uriel so that none would again taste the frenzy of battle as I had.

But the hubris of my party had gotten them killed. The difficult task of giving one’s life and energy for others is a skill underestimated no more, and the sanguine wetness I tasted on my lips pursed my lip into a smile that was no longer appropriate to hide.

There was no time for confusion. A second wave tore through the enemy at the thigh, severing the femoral arteries of many who were standing. Those left tripped backwards in fear, or stumbled forward in stupidity, their comrades left to die dishonorable deaths within the minute.

It was how the Black Mage Barbatos started all battles. The first ranks would kneel, the second would wail. It was always melancholy to hear men crying for mothers, but they had brought this upon themselves. The symphony of their screams fed my frenzy.

The final ranks would revere.

Men with no respect for magic were simply not, in my presence, and those who dared to rush forwards in defiance now begged for mercy, their bodies wracked with an unholy pain that I always taught my students before continuing on to the ways of anatomy. There would be no more black mages, and this poison of the soul ensured it.

As I looked that enemy champion in the eye, those yet living were released into the hands of my faithful and present companion, death. Their punishment was to be forgotten in the wake of my terrible name. My rogue collected as many materials off the wasted corpses, to be used by the guild in service of life that was once wasted.

Fear filled his heart. Fear always filled their hearts. Healers weren’t respected because the world forgets. There were always who forget, and those who remain ignorant to remember.

But I had been party to enough failed expeditions. Our township alone had lost too many proud warriors, and my Lord was growing both frustrated and fearful. Neighboring townships were suffering the same woes, and attacks by bandits had increased as towns lost their protectors.

I gave my seal to my rogue, and he began his journey back. Within a few days, expeditions would cease, and all Guilds of Uriel would be posted by the gates of every inhabited castle in my lord’s lands, the people hidden safely within. I would meet with my fellow mages in secluded location passed down to us through the eons, and stories of laughter on the battlefield would, for the time being, begin their hushed rounds through the enemies ranks once again.

First, do no harm. An oath I created to shed the creed of the black mage:

> The enemies kneel in blood.

> They offer their heads in obeisance, their loins are bathed with the their blood, and their lips cry out for mercy.

> Their mothers will forget them.

> Their fathers shall be visited by famine.

> Our lips will drink the wine of victory from their necks.

Same. While I will listen to policy, I spend most of my time listening to how a candidate acts, forming a character assessment, and voting based on that. At the end of the day, I find I want somebody who embodies what I want to see in a person and/or leader more than somebody who is good at saying all the right things.

Unfortunately, as a left-leaning American in (what I feel is) the most chaotic, stupid, and possibly divided, democratic political system to somehow manage to stay together (so far!) in the modern, western, world, a character assessment of a candidate often means checking how often they repeat directly harmful rhetoric, and lies, about minority groups, when platforming their politics.

Needless to say, most of the time, I’m voting a straight ticket in one specific direction, to avoid putting people into office who believe that, say, they can see Russia from their house, women’s bodies have “ways to shut it [rape] down”, or their grandparents were “good at nuclear”, and less so who has better policy. At least there is a correlation between lying, and having bad/no policy, seems a bit correlated still.

I’d rather people respect other’s boundaries, and work to find a compromise. If somebody really doesn’t want their picture taken, find a way to take pictures that respects their boundaries. Maybe have a picture of just them on their birthday, as a memory. Maybe they just don’t like the attention of pictures, but they’ll let you do a nonintrusive video.

Maybe, people will just have to find other, more appropriate, ways of memorializing someone, such as writing down the positive memories people have of them,