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There are some really sick people out there. I’m not just talking about people like James Holmes, the suspect in the shootings at the theater in Aurora, CO. It is obvious something is wrong with anyone who guns down innocent people for no apparent reason.

But I’m talking about people who will try to make a buck off of incidents like the shootings in Aurora. I received an email from such a person recently. I’ll leave his name and company name out, but let’s just say he works for a company that tries to match up men and women for dating purposes. This gentleman and his company prefer their clients to be fairly well off financially.

In the email he sent, he said in the aftermath of the shootings in Colorado, his company had done a survey of its constituents to see which males would be most likely to jump in front of their dates to save them from a shooter! If that wasn’t disgusting enough, he went on to state that the survey found that men who make between $80,000 and $125,000 a year are most likely to be willing to sacrifice themselves for their dates, and that men in the other financial brackets would be less likely to take a bullet for their dates!

I was appalled when I read his email, both at his lack of conscience and his nerve to think that how much a man makes determines whether or not he would be willing to sacrifice himself for his date. Obviously, I disagree with him, both on the need for the survey and the monetary nature of it.

To me, money makes no difference in whether a man is willing to give his life for a woman. It is more his upbringing than his wallet. Having been born and raised in the south, I can’t speak for men from other areas of the country, but I would hope that regardless of where they were raised, how they were raised makes more of a difference.

I was raised to respect and honor women. I’m sure in this day and age of equality, some may find it chauvinistic, but I was taught treat women with courtesy, to hold doors open for them, to carry heavy packages for them, to assist them in picking up items they dropped, to give up my seat to a woman if there are no seats available, and, if the situation requires it, to step in front to take a bullet. What I make for a living was never a factor in what I was taught, and never came up.

Being a fan of small towns like Thomaston, where everyone knows everyone, I am probably a little biased, but I think, for the most part, that men raised in small towns are more likely to sacrifice themselves than men raised in big, dog-eat-dog cities like Atlanta or New York. Of course, I also hope I’m wrong on that account, although I certainly don’t want some disturbed person like James Holmes to test my town size theory.

But am I wrong? Is it the way a man is raised that causes him to act certain ways in certain situations, or is it the size of his bank account? What do you think?