Why are so many middle aged white dudes....messed up?

[Rygar1]

Do you think the internal struggle between the two opposing forces causes many middle aged white dudes to give that messes up vibe?

Yes, and I think you can see this exemplified perfectly in the 1999 movie American Beauty.

The Burnhams do everything they can to keep up the appearance of a perfect middle-class American family with a picket fence, but Lester is tired of his soul-killing cubicle job where he's routinely treated like shit as well as his boring sexless marriage to his bitch wife Carolyn and develops an appetite for the free-spirited fun of his youth, starts smoking highly potent marijuana with the nonconformist neighbor, and lusts after his daughter's cheerleader friend Angela Hayes, while Carolyn is getting boned by her professional rival Buddy.

The couple is messed up due to an opposition between middle-class American social expectations and their true desires, to the point where they both lose control and go completely off the rails, with Lester almost banging his daughter's teenage friend and Carolyn with a pistol in hand premeditating her husband's murder.

The family next door? Even worse. A closeted homosexual US Army coronel who lusts after men while yelling homophobic rhetoric at every opportunity, a deeply dissatisfied housewife, and their drug dealer son.

I've never seen it, but it sounds interesting. And relatable. You would kinda expect this behavior in the slums or a rough and tumble town, but the DISCREPANCY between what we see on the surface and what goes on behind closed doors is huge, especially in the burbs. Heck, I grew up with it. You already know about my dad going to church, yet with porno mags under the bed. But wait, there's more. My buddy "hooked up" with a girl who had 2 kids by 2 different dads by 21, and would later have his a year later. 3 for 3. Her sister in turn was knocked up at 15, and had a "body count" of 20 by 25. There were many others as well.

I think for me Lucas, is the PHONINESS of it all...you can say what you want about baby boomers, those guys kept it real. I asked a guy mark once, aged 62, why he was married 3 times before 45, "power of p***y" he said, nonchalantly. Yep. Not. Love, companionship, but p***y. Kudos, brother.

Maybe a part of me feels excluded from all this though...so who knows, the mind works in mysterious ways.