Are American men as amazing as they seem on TV?

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I've always been interested in men from different cultures.

A lot of American men on TV have amazing white teeth, extrovert personalities, go to great colleges, have high powered careers, drive massive cars and despite all of this sometimes have very modest, caring, playful personalities.

Is this Hollywood, not reality?

I suppose people are different everywhere, I'm just asking does Jo Average as betrayed on TV resemble anything like a typical American male if there is such a thing.

That is very much the Hollywood version of an American male. Very little resemblance to reality.

American men (not all, but many), try to emulate and imitate the men you see on TV.. everyone talks about their displays of "independence" but most everyone you see is trying to be someone else. Someone they admire. If someone is even remotely successful in being like the American man from American TV, they have spent a lot of time practicing and a lot of money to fabricate an image. Very few people are happy with themselves as they are. Personally, I don't find American men on TV to be amazing at all.

This is a far better representation of what the average American man is like:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHcVNAuFK1Y[/youtube]

And that is why you can't believe everything you see on TV. In my country you would think hockey was some kind of religion, it's snowing and freezing the whole year, people go to work by dog sled and moose are wandering around freely in every town.

In fact if, I were to believe everything I saw about the US on TV, it would be that that most states that get snow only have it around the holidays. After the New Year it disappears and isn't seen again until next December.

That was hilarious. I have relatives who are like that. Those are the same kind of people who watch Alex Jones on YouTube in the middle of the night and say Obama is a Muslim Atheist

What you are looking at could very well be the modern day American Dream: High paying job, fast cars, extroverted personalities, great career, lots of choices in dating and never being exclusive to one person. And what you also see as well from what you describe is the American media telling people what to find attractive.

Nah. We're more amazing than on TV! Then again, I'm skinny, ride a bike, am introverted, went to a decent college, my career choice is more focused on trees than money, and I'm more likely to get a company dirt-bike than car.

TV is funny.

Most of the guys who are like that are actually macho, elitist, stuck-up jerks.
Not all of them, of course, but by and large they have to act like that to maintain their status in their social circles with their high-powered career peers.
Imho, it's more a result of the cultures at the schools they go to than anything else.
I saw perfectly nice people turn into stuck-up jerks after transferring to the high-powered prep school in the area.
I saw others, who refused to conform to that, become ostracized at that school.

American guys run the specturm, though, just like everywhere else.

My teeth aren't anywhere near perfect, I went to a small school with an alternative education program (and I never graduated), I don't have a high powered career, and my massive car is well over a decade old and in need of repair.

I dunno about my personality, I'm usually pretty nice but have, at times, been described as 'prickly'.

That's just me though.

What's a typical American guy like?
Might as well ask what a typical aspie is like.
The answer would be just as meaningless.

Certainly not what they're portrayed on the screen as, though.

If you actually go to America (I've been three times), the main remarkable feature (in males and females) you'll find is their weight.

Hollywood creates dreams in order to sell products. Nothing about America is the way it is portrayed in Hollywood.

I think it might be true that the average American guy is less sexist than guys from many other countries. My dad went to Australia about 35 years ago, and even then all of the Australian women thought that the Americans were great because they'd actually talk and dance, when the Aussie males would go off and drink in a corner together. My dad said that he and his friends didn't really know what to make of it, but that they didn't mind at all.

Of course, in retrospect I probably got a version of that story somewhat sanitized for a little girl's ears.

And I am a backward bearded baby-killer terrorist. /sarcasm.

This.

Hollywood has a knack of creating extreme unrealistic standards for both genders, if you expect someone to live up to them you're in for a lot of frusturation.

In the movie "The 10 Comandments" there is a scene where a prince of Egypt is working in a mud pit with an old man who is a slave. They both observe a woman being sexually harassed by a slave overseer. The old man comments, "beauty is a curse for our women".

For both men and women, looking like the people who are used to peddle products on TV or appear in movies is a sort of curse. They are almost swept along a path in life that often places them in a sort of alternate reality where they feel like they are "successful" yet are almost starving for something real.

Those of us who do not look like these "templates of perfection" often find ourselves subtly taking on a feelings of inferiority. There can be a slight benefit for the AS person in that the transient is sometimes less influential and the bombardment of images of the "ideal" have less of an impact.

I find being a Christian helps me see the world of bright white teeth in less attractive terms. I prefer a world where humor, kindness, and sensitivity have greater value.

You've just described me perfectly. Except the extrovert part, and I'm on disability. But I'm as modest as they come.



Yeah. That, too.