If the red pill and Game-awareness have a lasting effect of any future significance, my hope is that the red pill becomes preventative medicine for young men’s feminized conditioning.
This awareness is the single greatest threat to the feminine imperative and feminine social primacy. I’ve covered aspects of this prevention in Hear Me Now, Believe Me Later, but this post was more of an after-the-fact perspective from older men’s experiences, and how they wish they’d have known about the red pill, Game and the intergender dynamics I’ve written about for the past 12 years of my writing.
When I wrote the now seminal post of Navigating the SMP and introduced the comparative SMV chart I had no idea how influential (and usefully accurate) it would be. My hope then was to educate (albeit a bit tongue in cheek) a younger generation of red pill men about the basic outline of how men and women’s sexual market value waxes and wanes during phases of each sex’s lifetime. This post – and more than few subsequent ones – was prompted by the desire to have an outline of what young men should anticipate in a contemporary, westernized gender landscape.
For as much as the critics of that SMV outline would have you believe it’s just an effort in wishful thinking on the part of older men convincing themselves of a higher sexual market value, the salient message of that graph is an uncomfortable exposing of the strategies women use in optimizing hypergamy over the course of their lifetimes. When considered chronologically, many identifiable patterns become apparent both in women’s motivations and behaviors at or around distinct phases of a woman’s life.
Depending upon her capacity to fulfill them at any particular phase (attractiveness), we can get a better overall idea of what is motivating a particular woman during that period of her life and adjust Game and/or expectations accordingly to a Man’s best advantage.
Roissy wrote a fantastic piece about the difficulty of Gaming women by age brackets back in 2010, and I’m going to refer readers with a mind for Game to cross reference this article while reading what I propose here. With a better understanding of these phases, and the SMV particulars of those phases, a Man can more easily adjust his Game, maintain frame, apply Amused Mastery, and host of other red pill / Game applications covertly and confidently with a reasonable expectation of outcome, or a better understanding of the traps that may await him.
One common understanding most men had with regards to the woman in my Saving the Best post, and how her rationalizations of her past and present sexual behaviors affected the man considering divorcing her, was that she was subject to conditions at particular periods in her life which motivated her to those behaviors. I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect the blue pill guy in that situation to have seen her sexual hangups and self-consciousness with him as the red flags that we can being dissociated with his condition – however, there is a certain awareness that comes with the red pill that helps us better understand what those flags are. The armchair counseling we give him is that he should’ve known that she was looking for her Beta provider when he married her – it was at that woman’s phase of life when women are looking to consolidate on her own long term security.
But can we really expect this from a guy who in all likelihood based his decisions to marry her on false presumptions and a thoroughly blue pill hope that she’d ‘come around’ to being more sexual with him later in their marriage? Can we really expect him to know what her motivations were then for her long term security when he’d never had the benefit of ever having those motivations spelled out for him by the red pill?
It’s with this in mind that I’m presenting that outline here.
Click for an expanded view.
What I’ve constructed is a loose and generalized chronology of how women effect their hypergamy over the course of typical woman’s life between the ages of 15 and 50. I’m fully prepared for the same outcries of generalizations and NAWALT that the infamous SMV graph inspired, but understand this, before any woman or femen comes up with those predictable objections, this is an outline; variables like culture, ethnicity, moralism, socio-economic status and outlying circumstance are all factors to consider when evaluating the motivations of any woman. This timeline however is intended as a roadmap to follow to get a better understanding of what motivates women at particular phases of their lives and hopefully help men to better prepare themselves for the strategies women will use to optimize hypergamy during those phases.
Understanding Hypergamy
Before we get too involved in this chronology it’s important to get a good idea of how hypergamy motivates women during these phases. A lot of the manosphere likes to define hypergamy as a woman getting the best bang for her attractiveness buck, but this is only one side of hypergamy. Using the Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks principle of women’s dualistic sexual strategy it becomes clear that there is a drive to balance hypergamy between these two impulses. As I stated in Schedules of Mating, hypergamy wants to have both sides of the AF/BB equation satisfied by the same man, but rarely is this dualistic satisfaction met in the same individual.
It’s my belief that a drive for hypergamic optimization exists in both the impulse to secure the best genes (sexy son theory – Alpha Fucks) and the best provisioning / emotional investment (parental investment – Beta Bucks) a woman’s attractiveness can be leveraged for. The problem then is one of leveraging her attractiveness relative to any particular phase of her life and the circumstance that phase dictates for her. Needless to say a woman’s physical conditions, her personal decisions and modern social pressures will influence this ‘balancing act’ (careerism, feminism, religious conviction, etc.), but I think it’s only half correct to apply hypergamy only to the Alpha Fucks side of women’s dualistic sexual strategy.
It’s also important to consider that, from an evolutionary standpoint, hypergamy always seeks an optimization of either side of the AFBB motives that is better than any individual woman’s attractiveness realistically warrants. Keep in mind that modern social pressures (social media etc.) exacerbate this, and further distort a woman’s realistic evaluation of her own SMV at any given phase of her life. The most secure, monogamous attachments women will make are with Men they perceive are 1 to 2 degrees above what she perceives is her own relative SMV.
The Teen Phase
I ostensibly began the relative SMV graph at age 15 since this is about the post-pubescent age during which girls come into their maturation and teenage boys begin to take a real awareness of them. As you’ll see on the overall timeline, Alpha characteristics with regards to teenage attraction cues are largely based on physical attributes and prowess. These physical arousal cues girls find primarily attractive in adolescent boys (later men) will continue for the better part of a woman’s life, but during a girl’s formative years her foremost attraction is for the ‘hawt guy’ with a good body, the correct eye color and the right haircut.
Between the ages of 15 and 25 women associate and prioritize men according to their physical features. Even a relatively introverted guy with a Beta mindset and/or a brooding ‘creative’ personality can still be considered Alpha if his physical presence meets a girl’s archetypal attraction profile.
The main reasoning for this is fairly obvious in that physical cues (though also influenced externally) are primarily innate. This physical interest from adolescence through young adulthood is the top prioritization in attraction. These physical attraction / arousal cues are intrinsic; extrinsic attraction cues such as status / performance do factor in progressively as a woman matures, but the priority is the physical, and other extrinsic factors (status, Alpha confidence, Game, etc.), while definitely beneficial, are prioritized lower by the simple fact that a girl lacks any real experience of a guy with Game or the need for provisioning.
Long term provisioning potential during this phase is rarely even an afterthought for a young woman. From adolescence forward a woman’s dualistic sexual strategy primarily revolves around short term breeding opportunity – Alpha fucks. This can be attributed to a girl/young woman’s provisioning needs being relatively accommodated for by family, the state in some effect or even her own self-provisioning, as well as the breeding urgency that comes with hormones and youth.
I’ll add the caveat here that a woman’s prioritization of the physical is inversely proportional to the degree to which her provisioning needs are being met beyond seeking a mate or mating opportunities. In other words, if thing aren’t secure at home (Daddy Issues) an adolescent girl physically and mentally prepares herself for a long term mate earlier than when a solid masculine father is present in her life and the home. Further reading on the physical aspects of this phenomenon can be found here.
The short version for teenage Game (when you’re in high school) is that looks, physique and physical prowess are a woman’s attraction priority. This priority will build a foundation for her attraction cues later as she matures, but the primary importance is looks and performance.
The Break Phase
I’ve added this phase here because it’s become an increasingly too common, and potentially damaging, occurrence amongst young men I’ve counseled. Generally the Break Phase comes at or about the time of a young woman’s senior year (or shortly after) of high school when she’s forced into a conflict between continuing a monogamous relationship she began in her teenage years, and severing it as college or a simple want for ‘freedom’ looms closer as she approaches young adulthood, graduation and possibly moving away from her home for an indefinite period.
This is a major frustration for Beta minded young men given to a feminized conditioning that convinces them they’ll be rewarded for loyalty, support and building relational equity with a girl. I’m highlighting this phase because often enough it’s at this beginning point young men are prepared to compromise their life’s ambitions to play a role that their feminine conditioning predisposes them for. The danger being long term life decisions made in order to maintain a relationship he believes his sacrifices will be rewarded for in favor of personal goals or developing passions and personal potential.
Here is the warning for any late teen / early adult man: This is generally the point at which you’ll have to make some real personal assessments of yourself if you have a girlfriend. This will be the first test of the red pill versus your feminized conditioning. Most blue pill guys entertain the ‘invisible friend’ of an LDR (long distance relationship) for the first time at this juncture, or they alter their educational priorities to accommodate maintaining their relationship.
Statistically the girlfriend you expected to build a Disney-story life with will break up with you as her options expand while yours constrict (due to prioritizing her goals above your own). The decisions you make at this stage are up to you, but understand (barring personal convictions) this stage will come as a woman’s SMV begins it’s rapid ascent and along with it opportunities she’s been scarcely aware of until now.
The Party Years
The five year span between 20 and 25 are what I euphemistically call a woman’s ‘Party Years’. It’s at this stage women generally experience their peak SMV (22-23 y.o.), and as I stated in Navigating the SMP, at no other point in a woman’s life will so many socio-sexual options be available to her. A lot of manosphere moralists believe that women ought to marry and get pregnant during the party years since this is the point of peak fertility as well as physical beauty, and in the not so distant, pre-sexual revolution past this certainly made sense. However, under the social conditions of the last 50+ years, women’s priorities have changed.
The available opportunities – social, sexual, educational and career-wise – that a woman experiences during these years are afforded to her in relation to her SMV. At no point will you find a woman more cocky and self-assured of her predominance in society according to the option she enjoys relative to her attractiveness. Her personal image will be one based on merit, and while it’s certainly possible she is talented and/or intelligent, her opportunities are predicated on her attractiveness and the leverage it has on other’s (men and women) decision making.
The physical arousal priorities she had in high school remain a top attraction priority, however, as she matures into the new experiences her SMV peak affords her, status, and later affluence (wealth or potential provisioning) start getting added to the attraction mix. As women learn the utility of their relative SMV, and begin to understand a future need for long term provisioning (on some level of consciousness) they come to understand the transactional nature of their sexual agency.
It’s during the party years that women begin to prefer ‘dating’ men older than themselves. Generally this is between a 5-7 year difference, however Roissy postulated that even more mature men still have potential depending upon their own SMV:
Hard to believe, but it is often easier to bed a very young woman than an older woman, if you are an older man. This is because 20-40% of women are specifically attracted to older men. It is hard-wired in them, and this hard-wiring can be reinforced by poor family upbringing resulting from divorce of parents or absentee fathers. Single moms are the greatest source of future generations of slutty daughters the world has ever known.
During the party years, hypergamy is still firmly rooted in physical attraction / short term mating cues, however, women begin to develop an appreciation for personality cues of confidence and (Alpha) character as it relates to her long term investment. Later in the party years a woman’s hypergamy leads her to look for the Alpha bad boy who might also be molded (tamed) into her long term ideal – this is the Tarzan Effect, the want for an optimized balance of hypergamic interests in the same Alpha male. The idea is one that an Alpha Man might be tamed, in some cases coerced via pregnancy, into assuming the providership role the other half of her sexual strategy demands.
One point of attraction older men (who capitalize on their SMV potential) have is that their capacity to provide for more than themselves, and still maintain an above average physique, tends to be a form of preselection for this hypergamic balance as women mature past the latter part of their party years.
Just to be clear, as a woman becomes more cognizant of her decreasing capacity to sexually compete with the attractiveness of younger women, her attraction for more than just the physical aspects of men begins to assume a higher priority. Those aspects (status, confidence, affluence, worldly maturity, etc.) are typically found in men old enough to have had the experience to acquire them.
I should also add here that, there are incidents of women who, for some condition or circumstance opt out of their party years. Either their socioeconomic situation prevents it, or an early, unplanned pregnancy, or for religious convictions, but whatever the reason they move past this phase without a sense of having capitalized on it. In some respects this may seem to be a better choice than riding the proverbial ‘cock carousel’ into her Epiphany and Transitory phase (discussed in the next post), but it’s important to remember that these circumstances don’t disqualify a woman from the maturation process I’ve described here.
In some cases it may be the source of resentment at a man for having ‘held her back’ from all of the experiences her girlfriends went through (through which she vicariously lived), or it may be her coming into a better understanding of how other men (perceptually) meet her hypergamic balance better than the one she settled for earlier than she had the maturity to understand. As we’ll explore in the next continuation post, this resentment can be a later source of marital dissatisfaction (and divorce) for women approaching the Epiphany and Transitory phases.
This post is the first in a 3 part series. In part 2 I’ll outline the Epiphany, Transition, Security and Development phases.
March 22nd, 2014 at 1:22 pm
@ DBM – Great point, and I have a refinement. Selling a product or service is a game and winning a women’s affection for a moment or a lifetime is a game. Using solid strategy and tactics and technique in both yields great results. However, sales and “game” are very different too. I sell large ticket IT products and services to mostly big corporations and while I see huge overlap in terms of what is being taught in the game/PUA community and sales in some respects, I think there are big differences too.
In B2B sales (retail sales are different because they are more emotional and spontaneous) the buyer’s point of view can be strongly affected by reason and argument. Personal aspects of the players are much less important than most people think. Yes, as a bit of a natural alpha, I can own a room and stand up to any questioning. Selling/speaking one on one or to a large group can be seen essentially as maintaining frame, and being good at this really helps sales. But personality and attractiveness rapidly lose their advantage. While my charisma and sharp suit will make a good first impression, that just gives me access, not a sale. A B2B sales campaign is better seen as a running argument for your product/company/pov/framing. It’s completely different than the elements of attraction I get from women and how I advance my cause with women. I’ve actually done multi-million dollar deals with people who hated me personally. I never got laid that way. In fact, in B2B sales, I’ve run rings around “relationship guys” who think being friends is the way to win. Nah, in fact there is real research in my business that shows “relationship sales reps” finish dead last in performance. Being provocative and dynamic is what wins deals, and often that requires creating conflict and dissent. Getting laid while arguing is next to impossible.
The less I pay attention to a woman’s “arguments” (shit tests, chit chat, requests, etc.) the more they want me. The more self absorbed I am, the higher my value. The more mysterious I am, the more their imagination can run wild. When selling, the opposite is true. The more service oriented I am, the more open, the more informative I am, the better I do. I know I’m winning a big deal at a subtle level just by how much time the client is spending with me.
A huge similarity between sales and game is observing behavior coherently. I learned long ago that at a certain point a client starts buying and I stop selling. You can’t force interest and buying behaviors. They are either there or they are not. I engage in the provocative behaviors that I think will elicit interest and then I look for prospective clients and women who engage in buying behaviors with me. It is very similar in the sense that both women and buyers will start investing in you (a client will buy dinner or really help you advance your sale or provide “inside info” etc). Most sales people – and men – are too involved with their own fears and needs to see beyond their own noses. The plain truth is that client’s and women usually telegraph very clearly where they are at, if we would just bother noticing.
Plate spinning is another huge parallel. Best way to negotiate any deal with clients without fear is to have an abundance mentality. Have many prospects and be willing to lose any of them if that’s the best use of your time. Never beg, never push and never “push a string”. Always have an alternative and always be willing to move on. My best days selling and being a pussyhound came when I was already crushing it. I once fucked 3 girls in the same day during that period of time in my life (funny how making half a million bucks a year makes H8 very available) and the third was just on a whim to see if I could pull it off. I didn’t give a fuck. I lost one of the girls that day, too bad. Next…
Some people see that as cold. Me? What’s the alternative? I get to miss and pine for “the one” who moved on because of her biology and a society spinning off of its axis? Nah, I don’t think so. I already played that number. I knew for a long time that women were inherently a bad deal beyond a certain point, and did my best to behave accordingly, but still had too much beta in my veins. Yikes. Okay, I’m going on, I’ll stop now – thanks so much for spawning yet another great dialog, Rollo!
March 22nd, 2014 at 7:10 pm
@ Glenn
Good breakdown of B2B sales. Part of what you’re describing is the inevitable clashing of civilized alpha males that occurs in the highest echelons of Business, Politics, and Academia. Two opposing men or groups of men of high status who are unable to kill each other due to cultural retribution.
My POV was D2D sales. This was incredibly hard as the typical customer viewed you with scorn or suspicion. Being able to “turn” a customer from asshole to interested was the elite tier skill that separated the men from the boys. There was very little emphasis on describing the quality of the product itself. It was assumed that nearly everybody needed it and it was just a question of the salesman being likable and entertaining.
D2D sales is a black hole of dreams so I would not recommend it to anybody as a career path. However, a young 16-20 year old who has free time over the summer should consider soldiering up for it. You get to see fear, hate, and mistrust upfront and directed towards you at a daily basis and must be able to convert that into something positive. It was an eye-opening experience into social dynamics.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:26 am
fwiw medical sales reps, i.e. pill salespersons, are the worst salesmen of all. Almost entirely very young women, with a few young gay men, they are chosen for their looks on the theory that doctors will be susceptible to good looks. If they bother to try to sell they will use the canned sales routines they were forced to memorize their first week of sales “internship”, but otherwise they just show up with their pamphlets and samples, then chew gum and make snobby faces while checking their phones, until someone shows up, then they briefly glance up and inquire “So you want some, ok?”
March 24th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
PUAs and alpha-male narrative is a myth:
http://tyrionlannister69.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/pick-up-artists-game-subculture-evolutionary-analysis/
March 24th, 2014 at 1:51 pm
@impudent imp (tyrion) I don’t normally do the tedious word parsing posts, and in this case I’m sure greater red pillers than I will comment at length on the ideas in your post, so I’ll just stick with one sentence out of your missive.
“A prototypical PUA is a male who seeks to be successful at ‘seducing’ women.” – Tell me, great seer of diminution, what man is not seeking to be successful at seducing women? In reality, if one is hetero? Also, why the use of single ‘scare quotes’ around the word seducing, as though that is a strange idea or something? The frequency and kind of appetites men have vary extremely, but we are all trying to fuck some woman at some point of our lives and the interaction frames itself as a bit of a contest if one is honest about it. I’m just noticing the reality I’m in and the patterns of behavior which attend it and then optimizing my behavior accordingly.
Can’t wait to read the rest of the responses.
March 24th, 2014 at 2:24 pm
@tyrion, some reading material on Dominance for you before I opine:
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/study-dominance-not-looks-predicts-mens-mating-success/
http://www.wellingresearchlab.com/uploads/1/3/5/7/13572010/hill_et_al._2013.pdf
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/national-geographic-agrees-the-human-alpha-male-is-real/
I’ll add a few more and tell you what I agree with and what I don’t later today.
March 24th, 2014 at 2:52 pm
If tyrion isn’t a woman he plays one very well.
My broadest response to his analysis is: misunderstanding your opponents’ position doesn’t count as anything except strawman.
March 24th, 2014 at 3:45 pm
Re: dominance study. The research proves merely that men know what women like, and women lie. The number of partners the men had was TOTALLY predicted by the variable the researches called girth. “Ee consequently standardized and summed biceps, chest, and shoulder circumference,and weight to produce the composite variable “girth”.”
Women often say in studies, and often like to pretend, that they find bigger guys “gross”, but the fact is if a man is more sexually attractive that means more women choose him for sex. Period.
March 24th, 2014 at 3:53 pm
Agreed, however, physical ‘girth’ or an outstanding physique is a signal of male dominance.
March 24th, 2014 at 3:58 pm
Yes, girth is totally what men looked at, correctly, to rate dominance. Nothing else actually mattered. And girth mattered even more to actual attractiveness i.e. sexual success, as opposed to rated prettiness of face. Masculinity of voice mattered not at all (I am a prime example).
March 25th, 2014 at 10:53 am
@fj12,
“The number of partners the men has was TOTALLY predicted by … biceps, chest, and shoulder circumference”
Alpha fucks demystified.
Now to demystify what exactly is “beta bucks”. So one may embody both areas of the female dualistic sexual strategy.
March 25th, 2014 at 4:56 pm
i got into red pill about a month ago and I’ve learnt lots but I have a few thoughts I hope you guys will help me with. It seems to me there’s an assumption of materialism/naturalism-nihilism at the base of the mansphere pyramid. Obviously I agree that humans are part physical but red pill seems to implicitly rule out the existence of any soul/spirit/consciousness without stating why. The ‘soul’ aspect of a person might perhaps be expanded, say through meditation, and thus the individual transcends hypergamy and other physical drives. Some say this is the only way our species will survive into the future. Any thoughts on this guys?
March 25th, 2014 at 4:58 pm
I’m too impatient to wait for others’ opinions, so I will make up some. It seems tyrion fell into the error of believing that women had evolved to be good at picking out which men are sexier than other men, and that therefore undeserving men couldn’t and shouldn’t try to bypass the women’s pickers.
That is a woman’s argument.
March 25th, 2014 at 5:03 pm
@cmp, read this:
http://therationalmale.com/2012/03/23/moral-to-the-manosphere/
http://therationalmale.com/2011/11/28/humanism-behaviorism-and-the-amorality-of-game/
March 26th, 2014 at 3:20 pm
Still believe the sky rocketing divorce rate is because we can no longer kill the bastards that try to seduce our wives. Hell a 150 years ago, a man fooling with your wife was considered almost as low as the man who stole your horse!
March 26th, 2014 at 5:55 pm
@DeNihilist, I could easily have killed him, with this thumb, and then gone home and had me a nice hamburger without compunction. Instead I couldn’t eat for a couple of years.
March 26th, 2014 at 8:49 pm
“… the sky rocketing divorce rate is because we can no longer kill the bastards that try to seduce our wives.”
Agreed.
However, given a woman’s rather tenuous connection to concepts like, truth, honesty, honor, etc. I am rather glad this is against the law. Imagine the body count in today’s society and how many of those bodies would be created based on the false accusations of the woman. Far better to permit the man to beat/kill his wife for adultery. Aversion therapy works.
March 27th, 2014 at 8:46 pm
Rollo, thank you for your excellent work. I am going to give my 17yo son your book before he goes off to college.
Badpainter wrote:
“Women in their … 50s (are) entirely useless…”
Actually, there are attractive (to me) women in their 50s and even early 60s.
I go for GILFs ;-) A menopausal woman is the perfect date. No period, no fertility and no children at home.
I have a long history of dating women older than me. I have found that they are more mature/less gamey, more appreciative, more present/less shame, more orgasmic and less likely to be feminist indoctrinated. I have reached an age where I prefer sex with a woman I like and I prefer an ongoing relationship as long as my attraction lasts.
A former feminism indoctrinated and recovering nice guy, I’m 57 and had the red pill shoved down my throat by a tough divorce and subsequent entitled princess girlfriend. I discovered the manosphere about 6 months ago, and have gotten myself more lean and muscular than most men. Unfortunately, I almost (slowly) snuffed it following the trauma mentioned above and trashed my career and background check, so I only make about half as much as I used to as an engineer. Still, I have managed to live with a girlfriend while having a mistress for the last 2 1/2 years.
But neither relationship is quite doing it for me and I would like to upgrade.
So how do I proceed?
Rollo, I noticed that your chart ends at 50. I have been looking for red pill “dating” knowledge for men my age but haven’t found any.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
BTW, I have noticed women around 60 going for the alpha. I suspect that if a woman has her provisioning already taken care of, AlpFuc is her typical preference.
March 28th, 2014 at 9:49 pm
So – that’s it. I’m completely screwed?
43, I was completely derailed in 1984 at age 13 (developmental age 8 due to Asperger Syndrome) by sexual abuse by female peers…
Massive traumatic weight gain – almost died from pneumonia in 2011, recovering from cellulitis in my legs – had gained massively in weight to 43 stone and struggling back from that…
Means if I went in at all – I’d be starting out at age 50.
I#ve been told that “innocence is not sexy at all”. As I’m a Christian – I just die a virgin – or risk hell by going to a prostitute?
*sobbing*
March 29th, 2014 at 8:13 am
Cheers Rollo, interesting reading.
Having once been a scientologist I know how easily sub-cultures can also be echo-chambers. You may be interesting in the following blog post (and the blog in general) to keep challenging yourself:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/schliesser-on-evolutionary-argument.html
March 29th, 2014 at 11:05 am
@Al – I hear you, Al, I’m just not sure what to say. I’m 51 myself, and have put on a few pounds and am worse for wear due to a health issue. But it was not always thus for me, I had a very active sex life for a long time so our similarities do end there. However, I currently have a low sexual market value. I am working to improve that by exercise but that is a long path that I’m on the early part of so I’ll just cross my fingers that I can keep it up. I also do have the occasional opportunity with women, and game always helps massively. Hell, work a sympathy lay dude. Go see a prostitute – whatever, get the “V” off your forehead. For your own purposes.
I do want to encourage you to try and be optimistic. Remember, optimism IS irrational. It works towards a good outcome when it’s unlikely. You do the math in your head and say you’re fucked. Hmmm, is there really nothing you could change? I mean, just take the weight. I do know people who have lost large amounts of weight in a year or less. Also, the real point for me is that for as long as I’m alive, I want to be masculine. Game for me is really a reassertion of self interested volition, informed by a clear, realistic view of the terrain in which I find myself, and an affirmation that being masculine is a good thing.
At first glance, game can seem impose a certain rigid deterministic, goal seeking paradigm on human behavior but not for me. It just claims to have some insights and heuristics about female behavior and the culture we live in that are very useful for men to understand given how out of kilter intersexual dynamics are for many men. But it also starts with understanding some basics that men simply don’t get straight talk about anymore. We are in competition with each other for sexual partners. Each of us is a bio-culturally motivated yet independent agent, but we all have basic drives. Men want to have sex frequently, with different women. If that’s what we truly want, what are we doing about having that happen? If our relationships are chaotic, is it in part because I’m not exercising leadership (appropriate and valuable dominance)? These and many such ideas simply don’t get talked about anywhere. That’s what the Red Pill is, a conversation about things we just don’t talk about – and it changes how you see the world fundamentally. If that’s happened, you don’t need any more science to know there is some truth here. But really, that’s all there is here, just truth, which is hard to get as well. It may be even more disheartening than your previous deluded state. Not for me, but then again, I was pretty miserable by the time I choked the Red Pill down.
At a deeper level, game encourages me to be the best man that I can be. I have to say, after a lifetime of suborning and denigrating my masculinity, it’s quite a journey to turn that around. I have very emotional, hopeless moments from all this but I realize that’s mostly because my mooring to a fundamental reality I held closely for most of my life has been severed. I’m adrift and flailing a bit at times myself. But I’ll tell you this. I’ll never give up, I’ll never throw in the towel. Being a man means being resilient – what we used to call “tough”. How can you rebound? Overcoming adversity is the hero’s journey that men are fated to travel in life – and really, it’s the nature of the human experience. I get it, you have had a real shit sandwich handed to you, I’m not downplaying that. I’m just saying, hey, no matter what, you never get to give up, okay? That’s all I have to offer, other than my sympathy for your suffering, which I get is immense.
I’m also not as interested in “the science” as some others might be here. I think there is still a lot to be learned about human behavior, so I take all this with a grain of salt, and maybe it’s just me, but I listen to the evo-psych stuff as suggestive. I still think our understanding of all this is quite primitive. I do the cafeteria approach – take what works for me and I leave the rest. Look inwards. If you are hopeless, there is no chance of making even modest improvements in your life and outlook – and hopelessness is an illusion. A jail one builds and then occupies. It’s okay to get knocked down, it’s not okay to not get back up. For you.
These basic masculine ideals are in short supply in our culture. But without them, as a man, I’m adrift. I had a real SOB for a Dad, but he did manage to teach me a certain gritty toughness during his campaign of terror. I actually pushed away some of those aspects of myself, wrongly identifying all those aggressive, tough, hard nosed, take no shit kind of attitudes as pathological in this feminized culture. No, that’s the one thing he had right – and I learned it. Who were your teachers? What did they teach you about adversity? Do you have what used to be called a “can do attitude”? Resilient doesn’t mean not asking for help. It doesn’t even mean not griping and venting when life sucks – by no means. It does mean that you don’t give up utterly though. Be looking for a way out even when none is obvious. Obstacles don’t have to be overrun – they can be gone around or avoided completely sometimes.
Or you could go the other way. MGTOW. Swear of women and intellectually choose asexuality. Play video games and work and jack off to porn. Separate yourself from society as much as possible so you don’t walk into the listening of what you “should” be as a man. Many men in the manosphere have done so. Me? I’ll keep fighting.
March 31st, 2014 at 12:24 am
@ alcockell:
You stated: “Fuck that. I’m MGTOW. I was derailed through being the victim of sexual abuse and assault through the proto generation (I’m 43) – fighting back from massive traumatic weight gain…
But trying to enter the SMP at approaching 50 appears futile – until we get some serious soul-searching and better quality women. Why should I go through all that effort for a whore?”
Do it for yourself first and foremost. Then maybe a lady will be an option. Even without the “prize” of a woman, rebuilding oneself is a worthwhile task. At first exercise is hard, but as the months pass, you will increasingly notice the benefits and subsequently the taskedness of daily workouts can become a labor of love. I come from a challenged past as well. My faith and working out, as well as my love for my son, have gotten me through life thus far.
April 15th, 2014 at 1:29 pm
She’s 21, I’m 27. This read like my relationship. She’s in her party years doing drugs with her ‘platonic’ dealers – which I stay away from. But, I’m a badass in a different way.
I’m not sure whether to end this.
April 16th, 2014 at 1:01 am
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May 8th, 2014 at 11:53 pm
I also would like to thank you Rollo.
Your well reasoned posts with their reach toward philosophy are stellar.
I enjoy all of your writing on both a game level and an intellectual level.
Thanks for writing your thoughts. And… it’s no understatement to say that you could easily be considered the Aristotle of the Manosphere.
June 1st, 2014 at 3:55 am
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August 28th, 2014 at 7:24 am
There is another period in which some women go ape shit crazy for cock, and that is shortly after they have been divorced. There are a lot of faithful women living and breathing pretty much sexless lives as the interpersonal fortunes of the relationship waxes and wanes towards the inevitable split. Once it is all over, her sexual life has a chance to be reborn anew. Some of these women go overboard and binge on the sexual buffet that is laid out before them, if they have maintained their physical appearance, kept themselves up through a healthy lifestyle and are trim and attractive.
All of that said, I ran into a guy who is 32 years old the other evening. He was overweight and unkempt and he sweat profusely from his forehead. Maybe his brain was a bit overactive. While I was trying to have a conversation with him, he decided that he had to excuse himself to play, “Game of Thrones”. He imagined that he was displaying higher value this way. Placing a higher priority on his personal interest than in social conversation. Sad. Sad. Sad. Turned out he was into fantasy gaming. But then it became obvious that the guy was video recording me while I was speaking to him, and while he was pretending to still play his video game. A woman had stood him up on a date. I wonder why? Now, why would a woman do that to such an interesting man? I did notice that something really lifted the guy’s spirits, actually, he began to “Woo-hoo!” a great deal, while pumping his fist in the air. That was after I explained to him how some cab driver tried to fuck me over, in the process of trying to benefit himself. The imbecile identified with the cab driver. Shortly thereafter, he began to try to undermine my personal sense of social value. That is typical beta male behavior. It’s also feminine behavior, in the leagues of low class women. Women were looking over with a bit of concern owing to the guy’s overexcited behavior. He identified with and psychologically associated with a low rent cab driver, a crooked cab driver who failed to get over on me, and the guy was suddenly imbued with a sense of power and the idea that I was a victim, and therefore someone others stood above. Yeah, he lacked comprehension as well. I have noticed that women try something similar, they will try to detract from you and from that which you own and value. They do it in petty ways, but it reveals their underlying psychological framework: New wooden kitchen cabinets? She will ask you when you are going to paint them; Nice, plush, one of a kind area carpet in your living room? She will ask you why it is so small that it doesn’t extend out to the walls; Received a personal gift you prize? She will ask you to hand it to her so that she can throw it out. She will make you something much nicer. She is out to diminish your sense of self, and your self confidence. She will replace those too, if you are crazy enough to let her. Her idea is to cut you down to manageable size. Women try to fill a man with self doubt in order to make him appear less appealing to other women. If a woman is the least bit successful in her efforts, then she is may become a little bit sadistic about it, in order to further her work, since it also provides her with a sense of power and mastery. Of course, if she gets away with it, you will feel your life’s blood being sucked out of you, as if you had been emasculated, and finally castrated. If you find that a woman is trying to suffocate you with detrimental suggestions, you are better off telling her, “Hey, hit the highway!”
November 4th, 2014 at 11:55 pm
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