Whenever I consult teenage guys or young adult men I’m always reminded about how my ‘Game’ has changed over the course of my lifetime. The 17 year old Rollo Tomassi would be be appalled at the mindset of the 46 year old Rollo Tomassi.
Granted, much of that shock would probably be attributed to the lack of experience my younger self had with regards to female nature, human nature and, if I’m honest, I suffered from the same naiveté most young men do when it comes to judging people’s character. In fact, at the time, my belief was that I shouldn’t ever judge anyone’s character, nor did I, nor should anyone really, have the right to.
Part of that assumption was from an undeveloped religious learning, but more so it was due to a youthful idealism I held – I’d been conditioned to believe not only that you “can’t judge a book by its cover”, but also that you shouldn’t do so, and ought to be ashamed for considering it.
I’m flattered that people might think I’m some phenomenal interpreter of psychology, the nature of women, intergender relations and a model upon which men should aspire to in order to get laid and still have a great (now 18 year) marriage. It has not always been so.
If I have any credibility now it’s not due to my getting everything miraculously right, but because I had everything so horribly wrong more often than not.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned in my time studying psychology and personality studies is that personality is alway in flux. Who you are today is not who you will be in another few years. Hopefully that’s for the better after learning something and applying it towards your own personal progress, but it could equally be a traumatic experience that changes you for the worse.
For better or worse, personality shifts – sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly – and while you may retain aspects of your personality, mannerisms, talents, past experiences and beliefs into the next iteration of yourself in a new phase of your life, rest assured, you will not be who you are now at any other time.
Game Changes
I’m sorry if this sounds all fortune cookie to you at the moment, but it’s a necessary preface to understanding how Game changes for men as their life situations and circumstances change during different phases of their lives and the shifts in their own personalities and learned perceptions change as they age.
It’s an easy step for me to assume that, were I to find myself single tomorrow, I wouldn’t approach Game in any degree as I would were I the 26 year old version of myself. Indeed, the primary reason I’ve involved myself in expanding the Preventative Medicine series into the next volume of The Rational Male is to help men at different phases of their own development understand what to expect from women (and themselves) during these periods of their life.
About two weeks ago I broached the subject of how Game should be a universal knowledge-tool for the everyman. My intent in Game and Circumstance was to shine some light on how Game and red pill awareness is (should be) a benefit for men regardless of their circumstance.
As I expected, the comparisons of Looks vs. Game was the inevitable discussion in the comment thread, because the presumption is that a man’s most evident condition is how he looks and how women are or are not aroused / attracted to their perception of him. I’ve written more about this Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks arousal dynamic than I care to review at the moment, but suffice it to say I do place a high importance on a man’s physical bearing.
However, my intent wasn’t to engage in a debate over the importance of looks, but rather that Game and red pill awareness is applicable for men of every social or personal condition – even the short, pudgy guy who empties the trash in your office. He may not have the potential to enjoy sex with a swimsuit model, but the tenets of Game can help him improve his life within his own circumstances.
Game Beyond PUA
When I was writing The Rational Male I specifically wrote and published a post on the Evolution of Game to be included in the book in order to demystify an impression of Game which I still think people (particularly the blue pill uninitiated), sometimes intentionally, misconstrue as some magical panacea to their ‘girl problems’. My definition was thus:
For the unfamiliar, just the word ‘Game’ seems to infer deception or manipulation. You’re not being real if you’re playing a Game, so from the outset we’re starting off from a disadvantage of perception. This is further compounded when attempting to explain Game concepts to a guy who’s only ever been conditioned to ‘just be himself‘ with women and how women allegedly hate guys “who play games” with them. As bad as that sounds, it’s really in the explanation of how Game is more than the common perception that prompts the discussion for the new reader to have it explained for them.
At its root level Game is a series of behavioral modifications to life skills based on psychological and sociological principles to facilitate intersexual relations between genders.
Game has more applications than just in the realm of intergender relations, but this is my best estimation of Game for the uninitiated. Game is the practical application of a new knowledge and increasingly broader awareness of intergender relations – often referred to, for convenience, as Red Pill awareness, by myself and others in the broader manosphere. Game begins with red pill awareness and using that awareness to develop Game.
The body of infield evidence collected by 15 years of PUA is far more reliable and valid than anything social science has produced on seduction – Nick Krauser
As I’ve written in the past, everyone has Game. Every guy you know right now has some idea, methodology or system of belief by which he thinks he can best put himself into a position of relating to, and becoming intimate with, a woman.
From even the most rank Beta plug-in to the 14 year old high school freshmen boy has some notion about what he, and by extension all men, should do in order to become intimate with a girl. I described this a bit in Beta Game where I outlined the Beta plan of identifying with women’s “needs” and adopting a feminine-primary mental point of origin in order to become more like the target(s) of his affection.
What ‘formalzed’ Game comes down to is what genuinely works for the betterment of his life. Men don’t seek out the manosphere because their Beta Game works so well for them.
I’ll admit, this was my own Game when I was in my late teens. Like most properly conditioned young men,I subscribed to the idea that men needed to be more empathetic and sensitive to women’s experience (rather than putting priority on his own) as the most deductive means to getting a girlfriend who’d appreciate my uniqueness for being so ‘in tune’ with the feminine.
If you’d have asked me at the time (the mid 80’s), my belief was that the best way to ‘get the girl’ was to take women at their word, use their “advice“, be their friend, make her comfortable, sacrifice your own (chauvinist) self-importance and support her importance, and mold your incorrect male self into a more perfect feminine ideal. The idea was that the lesser you made yourself, the more you made of her, and the more likely she was to reciprocate intimacy in appreciation.
That was my Game up until I learned through trial and painful error that women loath a man who needs to be instructed on how to actually be more attractive to women. I didn’t understand that by my subscribing to this spoon-fed feminization Game and overtly advocating for it I was only advertising to the very girls I wanted that I Just Didn’t Get It.
This was simply the first stage of Game changing for me, and I’m fairly certain that you’d read a similar story from most of the manosphere’s heaviest hitters. I’m peripherally familiar with the early histories of the likes of Roosh, Nick Krauser and even Mystery, so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that the Game they practice today would be foreign to their younger selves.
When I moved into my rock star 20’s I began practicing a new form of Game, one based on social proof and demonstrating higher value (DHV).
Of course I had no idea I was practicing any Game at the time. I had reinvented myself and my identity shifted into that of a guy who was Spinning Plates, being more self-concerned and enjoying the benefits of that social proof and DHV; but if you’d asked me what I’d done to effect that change, or how my Game was affected by it, I wouldn’t have been able to give you an answer then – Game was just instinctual for me.
Now in my married years, as a husband and the father of a teenage daughter, and my professional life in the liquor and casino world where I interact with beautiful women on a weekly basis, I still employ Game when I don’t realize I am.
However, that Game is the compounded, internalized result of what I’ve learned and used since the days I believed in the “be nice for girls to like you” teenage Game. Amused Mastery, Command Presence and a few other principles became much easier to employ as a mature man, but also a new grasp of how women’s lives have a more or less predictable pattern to them.
Thanks to my time studying behavioral psychology I understand the methods women use to prompt and provoke men (shit tests). Thanks to my red pill awareness and simple understand of how women’s biology influences hypergamy I now understand why they do so – and more importantly, how to avoid the traps of falling into the worst aspects of women’s dualistic sexual strategy.
All of this influences my ‘Game’ in the now. As before, I don’t play a constant, conscious game of mental chess in my dealings with women (and even the men in my social and professional life), I just live it.
So, in closing, it’s important to consider that the concept of Game you might be struggling with now was probably some other man’s experience before you encountered it. What is Game for me at 46, will most likely not have the exact same utility for me at 56, but if I stay sharp and learn along the way I’ll develop a new Game for that phase of life.
In Roosh’s most recent book, he has a quote in it that struck me (I paraphrase): There are a lot of men who tell me they wish they knew back then what they know now, but in all likelihood that knowledge wouldn’t serve them as well as they believe it would. They’d simply make new mistakes (and hopefully learn from them) based on the things they never had any experience of in the now.
There is always additional knowledge a man can know even when he possess the highest level of knowledge.
August 6th, 2014 at 11:32 pm
A woman should only ever be a complement to a Man’s life, never the focus of it.
August 6th, 2014 at 11:36 pm
Rollo Tomassi
August 6th, 2014 at 11:16 pm
LULZ!!11!!
August 6th, 2014 at 11:43 pm
A woman should only ever be a complement to a Man’s life, never the focus of it.
Indeed. And also not the necessary ingredient for him to be happy — that creates a dependency which is very detrimental, not just from a pragmatic perspective, but from a spiritual one as well.
August 6th, 2014 at 11:47 pm
Re: M Simon
August 6th, 2014 at 11:01 pm
I just got word back from the 1st daughter. She is opting looking for a beta. In her words (paraphrased) she doesn’t want “one of those assholes”. Ah well. Life will teach her its lessons. One way or another.
August 7th, 2014 at 12:45 am
@MSimon, did you see where Microsoft put in their microplatform launch for today, Shark Nado or something, only four years after everyone else, and only an order of magnitude more expensive?
August 7th, 2014 at 12:55 am
re: Feynman. Yes, he was quite the jerk, and not just around women, but especially if women were around.
August 7th, 2014 at 2:01 am
jf12
August 7th, 2014 at 12:45 am
I’m going to have a look at that. I have been watching them sporadically for the last 10 years and they don’t seem to get low power nor do they want to go off in a radically new direction since they seem to worship the “installed base”.
For radical I like GreenArrays GA144. It is data driven not clock driven. When it has nothing to do it does nothing. Quite a departure from clocked processors.
jf12
August 7th, 2014 at 12:55 am
But Feynman got Game long before it was a topic of general interest. And I reminded the daughter that the information wasn’t new citing “Shrew” and the Torah (Old testament).
She wants a “nice” beta. It will not end well. My only hope is that she does what women do – cleans him out. She won’t learn anything, but maybe he will.
That was one of the things I liked about Kate. She understood herself when it came to what makes a man attractive to her. OTOH MM seems to be going too far in the beta direction. But who knows? They might make it work. From what I understand he is a trader. A fools game without insider information.
OTOH I never considered a woman without experience who considered her V so precious. In the modern age with birth control that seemed silly to me. I did demand that the children be mine only. And I seem to have gotten that. If it is otherwise I don’t want to know. I’d rather keep that illusion if it is one.
Waiting is one thing if it is on my terms. If it is on hers I see disaster in the making. With so many available women why did MM settle? I suppose if you gotta have it and there are no other options. Which screams beta. As has been pointed out up thread. Likely it will end badly.
August 7th, 2014 at 2:10 am
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/39458f76-4f86-4c75-87df-8c4245977049/sharks-cove-now-available-for-preorder-?forum=HardwareBoards
I see what you mean about priced 10X too high.
August 7th, 2014 at 9:06 am
@Novaseeker: I agree that its about finding happiness within/from God first. Then the other person can make you happiER. But for some reason, men don’t believe this when women say the same thing about themselves :)
@M Simon: I am sorry to disappoint you. I have compassion for alcoholics, for sure, but I think men drinking due to PTSD and other traumas need a different sort of healing.
@Rollo: What’s the matter? Why did you assume my article was about you? I never mentioned you by name. So, clearly I have done nothing wrong. Right? #http://therationalmale.com/2013/07/29/the-script/
August 7th, 2014 at 9:33 am
Kate
August 7th, 2014 at 9:06 am
Sadly Kate, thanks to our Christian Conservative friends, the better alternative is not legal in America. Federally at least and even in most states where it is otherwise medicinally allowed.
It is one of the reasons my former Rabbi got into the business.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/104862/dcs-marijuana-reform-rabbi
How do I know? Well when he was here a year and a half ago I discussed it with him. As did a significant fraction of his former congregation. Who, surprisingly were very up on the science. That may have had something to do with Raphael Mechoulam. Look him up.
On top of that consider the properties of the Holy Anointing Oil. Gives visions and heals a very diverse number of maladies. And why would it heal so may different ailments? Because endocannabinoids regulate every system in the body.
Now you want to talk morality? The people blocking this medicine are committing a crime against humanity. I have talked to them. And their reason for supporting a black market? The kids might get it. As if black markets were not a more efficient distribution system to children than regulated markets.
I could go on at much greater length. But that is way off topic. It is one of my hot issues.
August 7th, 2014 at 9:41 am
Here is a little ditty I did for my Christian friends:
http://classicalvalues.com/2014/02/christians-oppose-healing-the-sick-on-moral-grounds/
August 7th, 2014 at 10:04 am
@M Simon: Yes, it is a hot issue, and I am certain you have many valid points. Again, thanks for your most recent advice and good will.
August 7th, 2014 at 10:06 am
@Jacklabear: No, I have not seen Frankenhooker. LOL It sounds terrifying. I could barely even watch Sharknado! :)
August 7th, 2014 at 10:36 am
from OP :”He may not have the potential to enjoy sex with a swimsuit model”
Not actually misreading, and not ironically, she’s not my type anyway. I know I wouldn’t *enjoy* slipping her tiny thong off as much as I would enjoy flipping up the skirt of the girl next door. It’s not sour grapes, simply the blessing of being able to appreciate of relative realities. There must be a term for men’s lack of hypergamy extending to not actually being interested in out-of-reach women.
August 7th, 2014 at 10:36 am
@ Max Power
“Well said. Everyone male with a SMV under 8 is playing in a game they are genetically programmed to lose.”
Thanks for the compliment, but that was not my point.
I don’t have time to go into detail right now, but humans are genetically programmed for lots of things, like living nasty, brutish and short lives. Through intelligence, observation and technological advancement they have defied or at least altered that programming in many ways.
Thinking you are programmed to lose, you will. It depends on your definition of losing, I guess, but let’s assume you know what the end game is, and you see there is no way to lose; what do you do?
Don’t play, or at least don’t play by the slanted rules. Don’t enter a relationship with “any woman who will have you” just to have a woman in your life.
So, no, I don’t think SMV guys of <8 are "programmed to lose".
August 7th, 2014 at 10:37 am
Mary Ann over Ginger was one famous example.
August 7th, 2014 at 10:56 am
In scene one of Jesus life post being a Carpenter…
Jesus becomes the Life of the Party.
Powerful people see it.
People wrote about it.
Words become well known.
But, Jesus didn’t shack up and brag about it. Didn’t happen.
August 7th, 2014 at 11:17 am
@Mark Minter, you know, if you actually did get married in July it’s not too late for an annulment yet.
August 7th, 2014 at 11:32 am
A Mother sets the example for her daughter.
http://kck.st/O3IgSn via @kickstarter
Not funding it.
But it has gone viral.
Yellowberry by Megan Grassell
August 7th, 2014 at 12:07 pm
Magent:
“you are trying to keep from taking a clear and definitive position someone can argue with.”
She’s a woman. :-D
August 7th, 2014 at 1:18 pm
@Rollo
I sincerely enjoy reading your blog and I return to the articles and comments ever so often, as it feels like entering realms I couldnt even imagine they existed in our present days. There’s one big issue I have to vent about, however. It started dawning on me during the Elliot Rodger aftermath, elsewhere in the manosphere and specifically on this blog. I say specifically on this blog because I regard you, Rollo, as one of the more laid back and rationally (no pun intended) writing authors among the sphere, and it struck me rather painfully when I read “The Severing”, “BPD” and several other side blows on occasion.
It’s not that I’m feeling butthurt or something, dont get me wrong. But the usual tone with which the so called “spergs” or simply “pergs” are being dismissed with is – fucked up, frankly. I dont blame you personally nor the numerous commenters and other bloggers for blatantly belittling “pergs” here and elsewhere, but I blame the menacing ignorance towards people, specifically men, on the so called autism spectrum.
Before I go into detail let me emphasize that autism is a male issue – as much as that Hans Asperger, the guy who described the syndrome first, thought there wouldnt be any females affected by it at all (which of course was wrong, but there is still a major prevalence of males being affected). Because it’s a male issue, it’s a social non-issue, like prostate cancer vs. cervix cancer etc. That’s how we roll nowadays, right?
Elliot Rodger wasn’t a “perg”. He was mentally ill. Autism isn’t a mental illness. It’s a neurodevelopmental disorder that would probably pass as a “character trait” in most cases, depending on how far you are located on the spectrum. Unlike Rodger, a “perg” simply wouldn’t give a single fuck about people not reciprocating, since he usually has other things than social interactions that reward him much higher, because his neural reward system works in a different mode (google “mirror neurons”) and simply because he LEARNED being that way. All. His. Fucking. Life. Being a “perg” means knowing everyone is normal and YOU are the outcast alien from another planet – from the very first conscious moments on in your life, and way earlier than when you notice being gay, or transgender, or whatever affecting your sexuality. And not the other way around, like Rodger who thought HIS way to think and act was the right one, ending up in taking revenge on those who didnt comply.
That said, coming to terms as a “perg” is a lifelong process. It starts with identifying (!) your situation, often late in your life, accepting it, and then just move the fuck on as you always did, without listening to all those pricks giving you well-meant but poisonous advice. Do you already see the similarities to generally becoming and being a better man? It’s in fact swallowing the red pill on level 2. It’s always a process you have to handle on your own, in a constant loop of identify-learn-and-adapt.
There isn’t a theory of “extreme male brain” (Baron-Cohen) for no reason, to describe the autism spectrum. Researchers conclude that there are signs that being autistic is an overly male-ish way to seeing the world (being mechanistic, rather seeing persons as things, etc., i.e. being rational) whereas being psychotic is an overly female-ish way (being mentalistic, seeing a person’s traits in things, etc., i.e. being rather irrational).
Because of that I wish you would embrace the idea of being “overly male” as something rather positive than unworthy. I’m not talking about Game, alpha, beta or whatsoever, as you know these are learned traits and not innate. A “perg” may more or less easily adapt these things, because it’s what he did his entire life, because the only treatment for autism is mainly about self-understanding, self-acceptance and self-improvement – you won’t change society right away and on your own, but you can change yourself anytime. Does that ring a bell? “pergs” are not socially awkward per se, “pergs” dont have any problems with their nature (society does), and “pergs” are the main fucking reason we’re using microwave ovens, travelling at 500 mph in 30,000 feet altitude, and typing letters into a machine that is able to retrieve and display any fucking information available to mankind. Raw “pergs” are men uncoupled from the social (and to a degree sexual) constraints due to their utter failure at performing interpersonally, sublimating their desires into flying to the fucking moon above instead.
I’m not saying autism can’t be severe, but it’s not the reason people go to a gunshop, buy a glock and freak the hell out on society. People on the spectrum – and I suspect MANY of them are, undiagnosed, in the manosphere – are as capable of emotions and empathy as any “neuro-typical” human being. They just speak a different language in terms of that, lacking reception and emission of certain social cues at varying degrees. Once you’ve found out that you’re on the spectrum, you can go ahead an learn those cues. You’ll never be able to identify them instantly by the means of hard-wired reception mechanics – you have to consciouly THINK rather to feel them – but the outcome is the same. It’s like blind people learn to listen very sharply. And being on the spectrum doesn’t mean you can’t get laid, hell no. It’s just a matter of training and experience. And autism isn’t about being like Rain Man. The “real” Rain Man, Kim Peek, wasn’t even diagnosed with autism, he was suffering from a chromosome anomaly called FGS. Rain Man is like the worst fucking thing that ever publicly happened to autism awareness.
One thing you can do as a voice of the men, Rollo, is gaining acceptance of autism as just another shape of being male at the least, and raising awareness of it at the most, and please, please not denouncing it as something ill minded school shooters are being afflicted with.
End of rant. I’m putting this here because I dont know where to put it else. It’s written under the Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License http://www.wtfpl.net/
August 7th, 2014 at 2:01 pm
Bolte
August 7th, 2014 at 1:18 pm
Excellent! I might add that engineers are notorious for their lack of social skills. Which fits right in to your point.
August 7th, 2014 at 2:43 pm
Har har. Rollo: may your marriage last forever.
August 7th, 2014 at 2:49 pm
Yeah there are many ways to be offcalibrated, socially, and they shouldn’t all be labelled as spergy. I don’t necessarily see that here at RM so much, but it can be reflexive elsewhere.
Men who have the nature to dive deep into problems, for the sake of solving the puzzle, and who end up benefiting society enormously, are often most at risk of being taken advantage of, most susceptible to the ploys and barbs of “extreme female brain”.
It’s bad enough that popular equalist thinking often turns a cold shoulder to these guys because they usually tick a few privilege boxes, and thus by Social Justice Warrior calculus, deserve no sympathy.
The game of “out-alpha-ing” the next guy might not be for them, but beta-mitigation skills can be a life-saver.
August 7th, 2014 at 3:52 pm
Game means nothing if it’s not embedded in your psyche. If it is not second nature, if you have to think about it. It will mean absolutely nothing to you.
Game played in such a way can get you the girl. It can get you good girls, HB >8, I have no doubt about that. However your game will collapse once you relax in the mists of your relationship with that girl as you relax into your normal self. What is your natural beta self.
You need to accept the bitter truth of the red pill and swallow it with pride. I hate the fact that people are discussing this.
The one bitter truth is that female nature will remain unchanged. There is no point in discussing minor points. When you wake up for the coming months or years following your realisation that this is indeed how women work – the world won’t quite feel the same. But you know what, it’s better to wear glasses even if you are used to the blurriness.
August 7th, 2014 at 8:37 pm
Made an error, Meant to write:
“Thinking you are programmed to lose, you will. It depends on your definition of losing, I guess, but let’s assume you know what the end game is, and you see there is no way to win; what do you do?”
August 7th, 2014 at 9:19 pm
Rollo,
Thank you for responding to my comments. You responded after “Case Study – Low Expectation” as follows:
“@George, your understanding of hypergamy is based on a feminized definition of the term. You’ll find that hypergamy is much more than simply women’s propensity to ‘marry up’, and is very much the result of the hormonal and neurological particulars of women’s biology.
The Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks dynamic of women’s dualistic sexual strategy is a direct result of women’s biologically prompted, cyclic sexual impulses and evolved needs for optimization of the best genetic breeding opportunity, with the best provisioning and parental investment opportunity available to her.
Hypergamy is simply part of women’s neurological firmware.
When you consider the overwhelming evidence of women’s sexual preferences and arousal cues during different phases of menstruation (ovulatory shift), plus the mate guarding and contingent sexual strategies and behaviors men have evolved to instinctually counter women’s sexual strategies the conclusion is obvious – hypergamy is rooted in women’s biological make up.”
My response –
This is not to negate, contradict or conflict with what you stated, as some will undoubtedly assume.
Websters defines “hypergamy” as: “marrying into an equal or higher social caste”. Encarta Dictionary English (North America) defines the word as: “a custom in some societies that requires a woman to marry a man of a higher social class than the one to which she belongs”.
You are correct when you stated “your understanding of hypergamy is based on a feminized definition of the term” if you consider the dictionaries to be feminized. Not only is my understanding based on such “feminized definitions”, my understanding is also based on observation of female behavior. Females usually practice hypergamy, males usually do not. In college we commonly referred to various girls as working on their “Mrs.” degrees, and they literally were.
I believe females practice hypergamy mostly in their relationships with “beta providers” and less with the “alphas” they really WANT to fuck. Alpha character in its pure form does not guarantee long term provisioning. People like Corey Worthington (you exemplified him as an “alpha Buddha”) usually do not hold jobs for long and have a more difficult time getting hired to begin with, especially if they continue to behave and respond as such. I believe you are correct in stating that the same girl who “LBJFs” a “nice guy” on religious grounds will fuck the “alpha” she just met at the spring break party…
…..but you are claiming she fucks the “alpha” because hypergamy motivates her to?
September 10th, 2014 at 12:17 am
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