Sigma Wives and Sigma Widows
It's the women's turn
Now that I’m done with Probability Zero, The Frozen Gene, Probabilité zéro, and Wahrscheinlichkeit Null, I’m very close to wrapping up Sigma Game. However, one thing I’m missing for the Sigma chapters is the female perspective on Sigmas.
So this post is for women married to Sigmas, formerly married to Sigmas, or formerly involved with Sigmas to share their perspectives on those men who, for good or ill, operate outside of the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy.
In addition to being a Sigma, I’ve known two of them. Both of them attended my university in Pennsylvania. Charles was a good friend who was a year ahead of me, and Max was a friendly acquaintance who was an additional year ahead of Charles. Both of them were unusually handsome young men, and in the spring of my freshman year, they were voted onto the Bucknell’s Best calendar that was produced as a group project by students in of the business classes. The calendar featured the six most attractive men and the six most attractive women on campus, although I have no idea how they were selected or who was responsible for the selections.
What was surprising about the inclusion of Max and Charles in the calendar was that both of them were independents on a heavily Greek campus, where one’s social status tended to rely heavily upon which fraternity or sorority one joined. Naturally, the fraternities and sororities were well-represented in the calendars. If I recall correctly, Max and Charles were the only independents to appear in it.
I was particularly surprised that Max was selected, not because he wasn’t good-looking, but because no one really knew anything about him. He almost always walked around campus by himself, didn’t seem to have any friends, and regularly disappeared on weekends, which was almost impossible at our small university located deep in the cornfields of Pennsylvania Amish country. And no one ever had any idea where he went or what he was doing.
It wasn’t until the following year, when we’d become friends, that I learned he was a professional male model and the reason he was so often gone on weekends was because he preferred to spend them in the New York City nightclubs with a variety of beautiful young women with whom he was professionally acquainted…
Now, please note that this post is not for men to post their experiences with, and opinions, of Sigmas, but for the women. Men, regardless of where you are on the SSH, or how convinced you might be that you are yourself a Sigma, please limit yourselves to commenting upon the women’s experiences.
In my estimation, I have only been aware of one Sigma in my entire social life. He was the priest at my parish during covid. What struck me about the man was he had almost zero patience with anything not contributing to his mission and you could tell he felt disdain for people's fearfulness though he shepherded them well. Likely because he felt no inclination to comply with mandates and continued to travel freely and internationally during shutdown.
He also had created a demanding schedule for himself. I recall him singing loudly over the choir (which tended to draw out the Latin chants) and forced a faster tempo to keep his preferred pace at Mass. He needed to be able to drive 4 hours between masses to do a morning and afternoon service at 2 churches. His sermons were incisive and unapologetic. I recall him going on a notable rant against the amount of cakes and cookies brought to the rectory by the women. "I cannot eat this much. It is gluttony and I do not want to become fat." Most priests would never chastise Catholic grandmothers about baked goods. Most couldn't. It was to the benefit of the community because he did not shirk away from telling women of the church not to nag him. Are you a priest? No, you are not ordained. This was a refreshing departure from other female influences I have witnessed within these spaces to the point where one woman in my childhood church was literally referred to as Mrs. Monsignor.
His face always bore his exact thoughts though some could still not interpret them. His interactions with men were interesting. He could listen to them so severely and technically was not disrespectful but he could be so visibly dismissive of a man you could watch them physically shrink. He's how I knew without a doubt I was dating a gamma. I couldn't unsee it after one encounter.
He kept his church open. He did not bow to the government. He pursued his theological studies. And he provided some of the most enduring lessons on the church's teachings that I have ever heard. He served God.
Overall, I liked him.
Here is a question for the women who know Sigmas:
Did your Sigma get vaxxed?