Now that the weather is getting warmer, I’m dearly enjoying taking long walks across Madrid. The sun shines bright over the Spanish capital this time of the year, and while the breeze blows nicely, you can still feel the 33 degrees celsius that foretell the upcoming scorching summer. This city is beautiful, even more so in the late spring. The busy streets are clean and well-kept, there’s trees and bushes everywhere, and the empty blue sky contrasts nicely with the old churches, palaces, and white buildings you’ll come across often. The lack of skyscrapers allows you to see the open sky everywhere you walk, and this, coupled with the beauty of the city, makes a man feel free.
The people in Madrid make an effort to dress nicely. It’s a classy place. People like to look good here, perhaps motivated by the rich social life one usually has in this city. There’s always something going on, always a friend to meet for a cortado and a mini-cigar, always a group of friends having tapas in a terrace just next to El Retiro. As you walk these streets, you cannot help but feel compelled to level up your style and overall appearance. The fanciness of the city motivates you to take care of your appearance, to love yourself enough as to put some thought into the image you are presenting to the world.
I recently came back from a business trip in Berlin, and this became even more apparent to me. It’s as if people in Berlin make an effort to look trashy, and as a consequence, the streets look the same way and the overall energy of the place is, well, trashy. Not a big fan. Your environment has a significant impact on how you act, look, and feel, and your entire being changes when you live in a city where you can see beauty and class wherever you look.
Lately I too have been trying to make an effort. Before I moved here, while I don’t think I ever dressed poorly, I didn’t put much thought into it. Now, living in Madrid, I realize that as soon as I walk out the door of my apartment, I’m opening up to the world, presenting myself to it, and stepping out to encounter new opportunities and people. Not a day goes by that I don’t make a new connection. This happens naturally. Maybe the girl at the cafe asks you something and you end up talking to her. Maybe you take the metro and strike up a conversation with an old lady. Maybe you just accidentally cross paths with someone you met weeks ago. I don’t know why this happens, but as it does happen more and more, I realize how much more ready I feel for these random encounters when I put some thought into looking good when I’m about to leave the house. This is not a mystery either, I have written about this before. How your appearance does matter and how you should put some effort into looking good. But still, living here has made that even more apparent.
So I’m walking down the streets of Madrid, getting sunlight on my skin and feeling all cool, fancy, and special. I’m wearing a new light blue linen shirt and a pair of beige pants that I just ironed. I put an effort into dressing nicely as I’m going to meet some friends. After a few blocks, I realize I’ve seen at least 20 men that are dressed just like me —or way better honestly. I look right and there’s a fancy guy. I look left and there’s a group of 5, all looking way more classy than me. Right in front of me is a couple, and the guy looks like a million bucks. This makes me laugh a bit. I was feeling all coooool and it’s now painfully obvious that caring for your appearance, while important, is just the bare minimum, and it won’t make a man different from the rest.
This got me thinking a lot. One year ago, a girl I met and whom I cared for very dearly told me that there weren’t any men like me. That’s still the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. But as I walk these streets filled with good-looking fancy people, I start to ponder on what it is that she saw in me that made her say that, and about the things that really make a man uncommon in a day and age when all things superficial are heavily commoditized by social media. It clearly wasn’t my style, because there’s 20 men dressed just like me or way better wherever you look.
As I think deeper and deeper about this, I realize that all the things I once derived pride from are just meaningless commodities when it comes to truly being a “one-of-a-kind” man. Masculinity gurus online lead you to believe your lack of recognition or your low self-esteem is due to a lack of superficial or material things. The internet has us all thinking that if we just had more money, bought a more expensive watch, or had a more aesthetic physique, we would be special. It won’t be your clothes, your physique, or your haircut what will make you different from the rest. Not even your money or successful business ventures. Yes, those things hace a certain degree of importance in building you into the man you can be, but I guarantee those weren’t the things that led this girl to tell me what she told me. That was not what she was referring to. All of this I know when I walk around Madrid and realize those things are not special enough. They are not unique enough, and simply not important enough.
And yet we’ve all heard before how easy it is to be a 1% man nowadays. Everyone says that competition is nonexistent. We know how most modern men are: childish, feminine, lazy, and unprincipled. But it’s not your clothes what will make you different from that archetype. It’s not your high paying job, nor your six-pack. What will truly make you different, what will truly make you stand out from the crowd in order to have a proper impact in this world is something else entirely, and it has nothing to do with material success.
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