Being a Gentleman in an Ungentlemanly World

Recently, I was walking in a park near my home, enjoying the brisk air of a Canadian winter, and the exquisite beauty of a snow-covered landscape. It was evening and the setting sun stained the white snow with shades of crimson and gold. There wasn't a sound to be had, all was quiet and beautiful, truly serene. But then I did hear something, sounds like shouting and struggling. Naturally concerned, I followed the sounds to behind a small grove of trees, where I saw another young man attempting to force himself upon a young woman, who was against a fence. She naturally took objection to this, and was struggling to push him away, but with his greater strength and size he was easily winning the struggle. I consider myself to be a gentleman, and a gentleman could not stand by and allow this to happen. Moving quickly, I set a hand on the man's shoulder and pulled him away.

"Sir, I don't believe the lady wants your company this evening," I said. The young man shouted a curse word, then drew back and struck me across the jaw, whereupon I struck him back and sent him sprawling onto the cold snowy ground. He looked up at me with anger, pain, and perhaps more than a bit of drunkenness in his eyes, decided that it was not worth the effort, and scrambled off. I then turned to the young woman to see if she was alright.

"Are you okay, miss?" I asked. She did not answer me. Instead she drew a can of pepperspray from her purse and sprayed me with it, shouting "CREEP!" loudly. She then quickly and sharply raised her knee into my reproductive organs, and ran off, leaving me doubled over from the pain which was, i'm sure you know, quite excrutiating.

I sit at my desk today, pondering what that young lady, scared and possibly traumatized as she may have been, was thinking when she inflicted such pain on her rescuer. Perhaps in the confusion she mistook me for the other young man, we were roughly the same height and build, both light brown hair, blue eyes. Perhaps she was a 'liberated powerful modern woman' and a hardline feminist, for whom being rescued was just as bad as being sexually assaulted. Perhaps she was just crazy. But the fact remains that this was not an unusual occurance, I am often punished or scolded or reproached for trying to be a gentleman in this ungentlemanly world.

For example, at my ex workplace I arrived by bus, at the same time as a lady who also worked there. I usually hold the door for her, it's just good manners. This had gone on for about five weeks, and though she never thanked me, being a gentleman was reward enough for me. I was then approached by my boss and told to stop holding the door for her, because she was perceiving me as a sexist who was mocking her, as holding the door for her did not imply my good manners, but that she was too weak to open the door for herself.

Another time, I was out for a walk in the evening, when I saw a group of three young ladies dressed rather... provocatively, being harassed by five or six young men who seemed rather intoxicated. Naturally, I rushed to the young ladies aid and, with a few blows exchanged, saw the young men off and on their way home. But I obviously overstepped my boundaries when I commented that if the young ladies wouldn't dress like the harlots those young men usually associated with, then those young men would no longer bother them. They then launched a tirade about, if they had 'it' they were going to flaunt 'it' and that was their right, no matter what trouble it would get them into.

It's sometimes hard to be a gentleman in today's world. I am snickered at when people learn I listen to Bach, Handel and Tchaikovsky. In a recent writing course I took, I was openly discouraged from sharing a passage of Kipling for a required reading we were supposed to conduct, due to Kipling supposedly being 'racist, imperialist and chauvinistic'. I am mocked for wearing a properly-fitted suit rather than the "style" of the modern young man, which is either excessively baggy or disturbingly skin-tight based on your social group. My military aspirations, my desire to serve Her Majesty as an officer of the Royal Canadian Army (and it will always be the RCA to me), my personal dream of defending God, Queen and Country, that is made ridicule most of all by my peers.

But still I stay the course. We must all stay the course, or else all those distasteful elements of society that we so oppose will have won at last. We are outnumbered, outmanuevered, outgunned perhaps, but I know that I at least will hold the faith. I hope you all hold that faith as well. As long as I live, I shall remain a gentleman and well dressed.