Your age and your favourite cowboy

[moremojo]

Howdy, folks--

Scott, letting ya know that I just voted. I am a male, thirty-nine years of age, and, even though I love both Jack and Ennis, I do have to admit I am more drawn to Ennis. Maybe it's that silent, stoic 'Marlboro Man' thing he's got goin' there; I also sense I would feel very safe and protected in his presence (and in his arms [if only...sigh]).

Scott

[ednbarby]

OK. I'll take your word for it. Though that still doesn't explain quite ednbarby characterizing them the same way.

Sure it does.  I dated a boy, fell painfully in love with him, he wasn't ready to settle down, or at least not with me.  Then I met Ed.  Mature beyond his years, or at least seemingly.  Quiet.  Stoic.  Biting wit when he did say something, but wasn't one I'd characterize as a talker.  Steady.  Puts everything in perspective.  Doesn't much like surprises.  Isn't one for emotional outbursts except for the very rare angry one, and then it's just a string of expletives and a beating upon the most readily available inanimate object.  The boy was 25 years old when I fell for him.  The daddy was 29.  I was 23.  Not much chronological age difference.  But eons of difference in temperament.  Whenever I hear the song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want (but when you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need)" by the Rolling Stones, I smile.  Because a boy is what I wanted, but a daddy is what I needed.  And got.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Sure it does.  I dated a boy, fell painfully in love with him, he wasn't ready to settle down, or at least not with me.  Then I met Ed.  Mature beyond his years, or at least seemingly.  Quiet.  Stoic.  Biting wit when he did say something, but wasn't one I'd characterize as a talker.  Steady.  Puts everything in perspective.  Doesn't much like surprises.  Isn't one for emotional outbursts except for the very rare angry one, and then it's just a string of expletives and a beating upon the most readily available inanimate object.  The boy was 25 years old when I fell for him.  The daddy was 29.  I was 23.  Not much chronological age difference.  But eons of difference in temperament.  Whenever I hear the song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want (but when you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need)" by the Rolling Stones, I smile.  Because a boy is what I wanted, but a daddy is what I needed.  And got.

Gee, and I thought a "daddy" was just a gay thing. ...

Seriously, Barb, what a sweet and lovely testimonial! Reading it just improved my mood on an ugly, stormy Monday morning! Thank you for sharing that with the rest of us!

[serious crayons]

That was a nice story, Barb, and I won't try to argue that you and Jeff can't characterize these cowboys however you want to, for whatever reasons make sense to you!

But I see Jack as the mature parental figure: patient, nurturing, steady, protective. And when I look at Ennis, I see an adorable, sad, poignant, vulnerable, confused, needy 19-to-39-year-old. Yes, he's stoic and Marlboroish, but those qualities seem offhand and natural in him rather than developed through experience. In fact, it's the conflict between his vulnerability and his stoicism that makes Ennis so appealing.

In high school, we used to talk about how in any couple one person or the other is always "the baby of the couple" -- the one who gets catered to and protected and indulged and sheltered and fussed over. To me, Ennis is the baby of the couple.

And I would love to have him as my baby! On the other hand, if he wanted to be the protector and beat up some slop-bucket-mouthed bikers on my behalf, that would be OK, too.

[ednbarby]

That was a nice story, Barb, and I won't try to argue that you and Jeff can't characterize these cowboys however you want to, for whatever reasons make sense to you!

But I see Jack as the mature parental figure: patient, nurturing, steady, protective. And when I look at Ennis, I see an adorable, sad, poignant, vulnerable, confused, needy 19-to-39-year-old. Yes, he's stoic and Marlboroish, but those qualities seem offhand and natural in him rather than developed through experience. In fact, it's the conflict between his vulnerability and his stoicism that makes Ennis so appealing.

In high school, we used to talk about how in any couple one person or the other is always "the baby of the couple" -- the one who gets catered to and protected and indulged and sheltered and fussed over. To me, Ennis is the baby of the couple.

And I would love to have him as my baby! On the other hand, if he wanted to be the protector and beat up some slop-bucket-mouthed bikers on my behalf, that would be OK, too.

That's a good point, latjoreme.  Jack really is the nurturing one and the one who caters to the other.  But I guess I was thinking of the question in terms of what "type" I was attracted to in my 20s versus my 40s.  If I were in my 20s now, I'm guessing I would find Ennis immediately the more appealing (well, depending on where in my 20s I was, I guess).  He would strike me as the seemingly hard-as-nails man who was vulnerable, too.  That's what appealed to me about my husband the most when I met him - he seemed outwardly strong but inwardly tender.  Whereas Jack is outwardly tender and inwardly strong, if that makes any sense.  Now that I've been with someone for so long who can be hard as nails to read sometimes, it'd be a treat to be with someone like Jack who lays it out there on his sleeve for you to see.  But again, I reckon that isn't what I need - too much like me, I think.  My Ed is the yang to my yin.  We wouldn't have lasted so long as we have if there weren't things in each other we don't already have in ourselves.

[twistedude]

How can you separate the two? I am over the age of both of them put together when they first meet, but since they were written together, I cannot imagine one without the other. If Ennis gives Jack a hard time--where would he be without that hard time? If Jack makes Ennis feel like he's nothin', nowhere--where would he be without his nothin', his nowhere'?

Jack is the prettier of the two--but a "trophy"--come on!; Ennis is the more solid. Jack is the more open, Ennis the repressed one. I just read a 9-hour fanfiction about the two of them together, and I think the author is right: thery would make a woinderful team, and bring out the best in eachother.

As for me, there was a thread on the CT board "Heath and Jake both looked at me"--and my feeling is that if either Heath or jake, or Jack on Ennis, had ever looked a me, they would look the other way...so it's silly to speculate about that.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I won't argue your right, either, Katherine. I will also note that right from the get-go, when he dips his bandanna in the hot water to clean Ennis's cut, that I've always been aware of Jack's nurturing behavior toward Ennis--and loved him for it!

I suppose perhaps the reason I have trouble thinking of Jack as a "mature parental figure" is because he's also a guy for whom "fuck-all" turns out the way he wants it in his life. He's not particularly good at cowboy things (though he does lasso Ennis  ), he's not successful at this rodeo career, and folks around Childress consider him a "pissant."

Not that I'm trying to make Ennis out to be any more successful in the things of this world, because clearly he isn't, but he's the one who points out that they have an obligation to sort out the mess of the mingled sheep flocks, when Jack just wants to "fuck Aguirre." While his primary motivation might be fear of society's reaction, Ennis is still willing to stick with his wife and children while Jack is willing to take the money from his father-in-law, leave his wife and child, and run to be with Ennis. What really saddens me about Ennis is that when the situation is taken out of his hands--Alma divorces him--he still won't ranch up with Jack.

I guess in the end it's just the way I was raised--laying greater importance on one's obligation to others than to one's self--that makes me see Ennis as the "more mature" of the two.

But then I guess we all react to these guys based on our own world views, don't we?

[serious crayons]

But then I guess we all react to these guys based on our own world views, don't we?

Yes, our world views as well as our views about things much closer to home!

[TJ]

I am 63 years old and I chose Jack Twist as my "favorite" (American/USA Spelling) because in spite of the fact that he was heterosexually married, he was willing to work and live in a long term relationship with Ennis Del Mar. (Wyoming cowboys might have said "favert cowboy" when talking.)

Jack got married for the wrong reason(s); because I think that one of them was in hopes that Lureen's father, the owner of the Childress, Texas, farm and equipment company, would have his company sponsor him in rodeos. Jack did complain to Ennis how nothing worked the way that he planned. In the book, other than talking "nicely" about Lureen in front of Alma Beers Del Mar in June 1967, Jack has nothing good to say about her in the rest of the book.

I get the impression from Annie Proulx's short story that Lureen introduced herself to Jack AFTER he won that belt buckle riding bulls at a rodeo in Childress, Texas. I have personally known guys who were exclusively homosexual in their sexual orientation and were in the closet (and I was one of them) who dated women AFTER they spoke to the guys first. I have met quite a few guys who should never been heterosexually maried in the first place. They sometimes mistook the fact that they loved a gal as a friend, aka liked her very much, and thought that was the same as being in love with the gal. But, they had no actual below the belt (physiological) sexual attraction directed toward them.

[Sheriff Roland]

I've voted - Ennis from a 53 year old male. I think I'm more of a Jack type wishing he were more Ennis like. Can't explain the whys and the wherefores of my feelings on the matter.

Thanks y'all for letting me be a fly on the wall to the interesting exchange on this thread.