If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
One of the more contentious aspects of intersexual competition the early PUAs hit upon was the phenomenon of the AMOG – Alpha Male Of Group – and how ‘that guy’s’ apparent social dominance focused all interaction within a peer group on himself. The AMOG was an easy parody of a guy to hate on for early Game practitioners because his archetype was so relatable for men looking to improve their chances with women they’d never been able to consider before they discovered Game. The nefarious AMOG was their worst cock-blocking villain.
For a recovering Beta experimenting with Game for the first time it was bad enough that the very real, in-his-face proposition of rejection by women was always to be considered, but to have to account for a guy that looked (in his mind) like the typical jock who regularly out-Alpha’d him back in high school seems like an unfair obstacle to need to overcome. I think that a lot of men’s competition anxiety focuses on a very overdramatized caricature of the Alpha ‘bullies’ they were familiar with when growing up.
This characterization is also the basis of the long-clichéd plot of every boy-meets-girl, boy-overcomes-shyness, boy-overcomes-bully-to-get-the-girl story ever told, and not just by Hollywood.
While female written romance stories revolve around multiple suitors for a woman protagonist to tame the most Alpha among them – usually ending with the one who’s a misunderstood asshole to everyone but her – male written romance generally centers on an underperforming Beta male (with a heart of gold) who, through extraordinary circumstance is placed in a position of outperforming all of his previous rivals for his dream girl, or the girl he ‘should really be with’ instead of the shallow girl he thought would be so great. Instead of selfishly abusing his newfound Alpha powers by kicking sand in the faces of lesser Betas, he fashions himself as the hero exemplar of how Betas should act if they find themselves in a similar empowerment.
The stories of Spider Man, Captain America and even Back to the Future follow these male-romance scripts to the letter, but in every case the Beta-with-a-chance has to teach the bully a lesson before he can qualify for the girl’s attention, much less her intimacy. This clichéd story arch is a manifestation of men’s internalized understanding of their burden of performance. And while I can’t entirely assert this is an intrinsic part of men’s own mental firmware, I have to speculate that the fantasy of fulfilling it is part of men’s ubiquitous need to adequately perform for women’s intimate approval.
Regardless, the objective purpose is still to ‘get the girl’.
Examples of this Alpha bully archetype are part of most men’s formative learning. Not all men learn the lesson of the bully (some play the role with relish), but if we hold to the 80/20 rule of the manosphere we’re statistically looking at around 80% of (Beta) men who do. From grade school to high school to college, that guy, the douchebag, the guy who can’t help but actively or passively draw attention to himself, becomes the AMOG – and damned if he’s not the most contemptible bastard (or type of bastard) you know.
I’m highlighting that guy because more often than not he’s less a real person and more a manifestation of the anxiety that results from men’s insecurity about performing adequately for feminine approval. It’s easy to poke fun at the guys you see on hotchickswithdouchebags.com because they’re representations of the bully you hate. They’re the Jerks that every woman loves and every ‘normal’ guy vainly tries to make women rationally understand are the worst possible romantic option for them.
One very difficult hurdle men have in unplugging is getting past what they believe is the emulation of the Alpha Jerk who so regularly outperformed them, if not bullied them – yet, his asshole ways were still undeniably effective with the women he wanted to get with. Thus, for men who come to Red Pill awareness there’s a natural resistance to become that guy.
This AMOG archetype impression is tough to confront for men, but it’s important they do so.
This impression for men is an incredibly useful tool to effect women’s sexual strategy later in life when the woman (or type of woman) he’s held in such high regard and pined to be intimate with for so long finally “comes to her senses” around her Epiphany Phase and accepts him. For men with this AMOG mental impression, that woman’s acceptance comes with a certain degree of (sometimes smug) vindication. He waited her out and finally she’s “realized” what he’s been trying to make her see for so long – he’s actually the ‘perfect boyfriend’ for her.
He doesn’t realize he’s just playing the convenient ‘savior’-provider role women’s sexual strategy has conditioned and prepared him for, but believing his Beta Nice Guy life track has finally won out over the nefarious AMOG in his head is a strong reinforcer of a belief women need him to strongly believe when it’s time to cash in their Beta Bucks chips and her SMV starts its decline.
And therefore those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.
I’m going to flip your AMOG impression upside down now. That AMOG isn’t the one you should concern yourself with.
Most of the first PUAs always suggested a process of containment and isolating your target woman in order to ‘poach’ her from that guy. I understand the proposed isolation idea is to remove a girl you like from her social group, but the effect is really similar to Mate Guarding – isolate her awareness of all other sexual competitors and focus her on yourself.
However, unless you’re making your approaches in clubs or loud bars it’s likely the context you’re working on a woman in isn’t one where an active, in-your-face AMOGing is happening. Isolation becomes a security measure to focus her on you being her best immediate prospect.
Roissy once stated that there are groupies for every male endeavor, I should also add that there are AMOGs in every male endeavor. Every group of nerdy programmers, geeks, chess club, your bowling team and even in your Bible study group, there’s an AMOG. Some are more significant than others, but rest assured, you know him, or you will.
Most men will compartmentalize themselves socially so as to best facilitate their chances of meeting, banging, marrying or otherwise interacting with women. This compartmentalization is really a form of Buffering against rejection, but it’s also a logical social positioning of a man putting himself into an environment where he can (hopefully) excel and be noticed for it.
All warfare is based on deception – Bear this in mind when you enter into a new social group dynamic or an unfamiliar social environment. You are an unknown commodity and therefore your strengths are novel to the group. Your weaknesses (your Beta-ness) will be more obvious than your strengths and thus more easily attached to you.
Playing to one’s strengths usually involves defining a man’s social environments. King Douchebag at a Vegas pool party is excelling in his environment, just as Bobby Fisher is at a chess tournament. One reason less ‘socially adept’ men enjoy more confidence at a ComicCon is because the environment buffers their social deficits, but emphasizes their particular talents. The first mistake most men make when considering an AMOG situation is underestimating the importance of that environment. In high school the environment was probably set for you, but as an adult you’ve got a greater degree of control over it.
Bear this in mind when you’re confronted with a guy “all the girls love”. There’s a tendency on the part of Beta leaning guys to think the AMOG is a ‘natural’ Alpha when in fact he’s really domain dependent on the social environment you share with him. Of course there will always be guys who excel in almost any environment because Hypergamy is universal to women and a ‘hawt guy’ is ‘hawt’ to all women, but remove him from his preferred domain to one you’re better adept in, or, outperform him in his domain with a particular strength or expertise you possess in such a way that he’s forced to acknowledge your skill.
To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.
The caricature of an in-your-face belligerent AMOG is really a social anomaly, and usually your experience of him is the product of an environment you’re not at home in. Far more common however is the AMOG who is unassuming, affable, and honestly a guy you probably can’t help but like. In fact this likability is his primary appeal. Obvious Alpha superiority combined with even a marginal humility makes for an irresistible AMOG to women.
One of my best friends to this day was a guy I despised when we were in high school. We ended up becoming lifelong friends, but initially I hated him for having such a natural Alpha affinity with the girls I wanted to get with. I actually attribute part of my early 20s sexual success (and if I’m honest some proto-Red Pill awareness) to many of the lessons women’s behavior around him taught me.
Both the nervous Beta and the PUA like to encourage the idea of an AMOG as being the drunk, loud-mouthed frat boy who pushes you aside to get to the girl at the bar you’re sarging (“Step aside McFly!”), but the Alpha Male of the Group to really consider is the guy women can’t stop talking about when he’s not even present. He’s the guy who leaves the room and girls giddily huddle together to agree about how ‘hawt’ he is. He doesn’t even have to be in the group to be the Alpha of it.
The best form of social proof is the unsolicited kind. The kind where women can’t help but talk about a guy, and ask his Beta-chump friends how they can get to know him better.
He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.
In the immediate sense, unseating this AMOG would be a challenge only the most exceptional men could hope for. He’s established in his environment and his status and social proof is perpetuated for him within his social group. This situation may seem hopeless, and if your goal is to supplant him you’d have to really consider what the rewards would be in doing so, however there is much to learn from him within your shared environment.
Pose as a friend, act as a spy. Befriending the AMOG may be your best option as it opens you up to his social proof as a peer. You may not replace him in the short term, but if you’re spinning plates as you should, his confirmation of you as a peer will only benefit you. This confirmation will allow you an insight into the dynamics of that social environment. Your ultimate success doesn’t lie in destroying the AMOG, or becoming one yourself, but mastering a shared environment in which your strengths are best applied.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance. The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
This tact is useful for both the in-your-face AMOG as well as the non-direct, status affirmed AMOG. Sometimes proving one’s superiority is simply allowing the mediocre enough time and opportunity to self-destruct. The trick of course is in being prepared to swiftly capitalize on that AMOG’s missteps.
Law 33 – Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usualy an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.
In the early part of my career in liquor branding I worked for a very rich man in his mid 60s. This guy had quite the resume of “successes”, but for the greater part they’d come from his self-importance and borrowing money than any real talent of his own. He was the owner, but had a reputation for attention seeking and a love of flattery that bordered on arrogance. Usually this would come at the expense of whomever happened to be outshining him as the master.
He was a consummate AMOG, but with no real legitimacy. At one point we had an important negotiation with a Chinese distributor to get our brands into an Asian market and as he’d typically do he wanted to entertain the reps over dinner after a big trade show we’d met them at. They were impressed with me because I was responsible for the creative side of the company, but even with my own deferential credits to my ‘boss’ he took it as an opportunity to AMOG me in front of his new ‘friends’.
I actually saw this coming (it’d happened on other occasions) and I had a good prior knowledge of the sensibilities of the Chinese from my time in doing casino marketing, so I diplomatically let him hang himself with his self-aggrandizement and bluster at my expense. Predictably the reps were off-put by this and we lost the distribution. The good news was that about a year and a half later I was offered a string of very lucrative branding contracts for several of this Asian company’s holdings (2 of which I still front now) because of this patience and letting my boss implode. And all I did was see it coming and let him convict himself.
Every AMOG has a weakness to exploit. Sometimes discovering this requires a patience most guys simply don’t want to wait around for, but with a bit of tact and attention it doesn’t take long. I think the older a man gets the easier it is to judge the character of others (or it should) – you experience the “types” enough to gauge a predictable character action.
There’s an old, but fantastic breakdown of the classic Boyfriend Destroyer script on RSD Nation. I wont repost it here, but if you take a moment to read the script, the premise is one of breaking down a boyfriend’s reputation by indirectly whittling away at the most predictable areas of contention in most relationships. Emphasize his Beta attributes while leading (not telling) her to consider and appreciate your Alpha attributes.
Yes, it’s bad form, and yes, your efforts would be better applied to new prospective plates to spin instead of working on some girl with a boyfriend. However, it is an excellent study in understanding how to deconstruct an AMOG and learning his thumbscrews.
Amused Mastery isn’t just a technique to hold women’s attention, it’s also an effective tool in defusing an AMOG. Once you have an understanding of that AMOG’s weakness – a penchant for self-aggrandizement, a taste for booze or a kind of woman, lack of legitimate ambition, Beta thinking/behavioral tendencies, etc. – the plan then becomes one of emphasizing those character flaws indirectly by exemplifying counter-strengths to those weaknesses.
Women love a man who Just Gets It, and the best, playful way of expressing that is with Amused Mastery; but it’s even more sexy when that Mastery extends to men who she perceives are your intersexual rivals. This then, by association, compliments her ego for your Amused Mastery of her.
February 6th, 2015 at 10:41 am
As in the image of hordes of incels roaming the streets like a zombie apocalypse.
“Rally behind us in wiping out this scourge – any means are acceptable to acheive the goal. The very future of mankind is depending on you to poach mates, no matter what any of the Great Books For Men may have said about that in the past.”
That’s what I’m talking about.
February 6th, 2015 at 10:50 am
Well, it is kinda like a zombie apocalypse. I’m guessing we’re literally discussing 20-30% (likely more) of the male population and 90% of those men have no idea how to get out of their incel status.
Incels aren’t going to be poaching women in any large numbers anytime soon, and I’d guess 99% of them would find it distasteful due to their blue pill conditioning.
February 6th, 2015 at 11:14 am
@yareally
“You can’t say you don’t respect men “who pursue the goals of others instead of theirs of their own” and then go on to define the acceptable goals for men. Cognitive dissonance and hamster rationalization…LIKE A WOMAN. Oh the irony. lol”
I am not defining “acceptable goals for men” I define what I respect.Hiltler migh have pursued his own goals but I do not respect him just for that. Do you?
I do not respect men who pursue the goals of others, but just the thing that someone is pursuing his own goals does not make him respectable for me. I respect men who pursue respectable goals! Respectable for me, of course, it is my respect :)
I am not shaming you. I present my opinion and I define what I respect and what not. It is called – the freedom of speech. You may agree with this or not, its your right.
I do not respect men that are willing to do anything just to score women – my opinion – exactly those dudes got us into the situation we are facing now. I said that I do not respect slaves and according to my opinion – this is slavery. For you – it might be acceptable, you might even be proud of it.
If you found yourself in a group of men I do not respect and you have a problem with that or you feel ashamed, ok. Its your problem not mine. If you do not have a problem with it, ok.
Lets say, we just have a bit…different opinions.
February 6th, 2015 at 11:43 am
@jacklabear
It’s still horseshit.
That’s not at all why I think the way I do about it. I know what it takes to succeed under the circumstances we live in and I’m willing to do it. While I don’t want to see Red Pill advice sugar coated to make it palatable (as it then becomes less about how reality works and more about being nice), in the end I can’t care what happens to incels while my own house is not yet in order.
I really don’t know how you make the leap from “If you want to get laid during a fat and feminism epidemic, you have to poach” to “Wiping out the scourge on incels”. I want to help those guys, but that’s not some kind of excuse or justification for my behavior. I want to know what actually works, and that’s what works. That’s all it is.
Whether I think there’s “hordes” of incels or not has no bearing on what works or doesn’t.
February 6th, 2015 at 11:50 am
I think Kristine is a lost soul. She seems to need to fix her relationships with her family/past/self before she worries about fixing any problems with her relationships. Goth has never meant anything to me other than an outward expression of unhappiness with life and one’s self.
@Yareally; haha, I think ANY woman posting to a blog like Rollo’s is doing her own boyfriend destroying just by being here.
February 6th, 2015 at 11:56 am
@gregg
Announcing publicly that you don’t respect a particular person’s actions is a tactic to shame them. Calling them out as any number of dirty names for their actions is an attempt to shame them. Saying otherwise is disingenuous. You’re attempting to sway them towards actions you find acceptable through a shaming mechanism.
“I’m not trying to shame you, but I’m going to try shaming you” is basically all I’m hearing from you and basically every other Purple Piller up in here.
February 6th, 2015 at 12:02 pm
Well…half a million now, but who’s really counting?
February 6th, 2015 at 12:32 pm
I’ve got the weekend post warming up, but I want to hit a few things in the comment thread before I pub it.
I’m not sure I can entirely endorse Ian’s advice for KRose to lock down the BF. I understand his motivation and I do agree with that, but hear me out for a minute.
Look at any of KRose’s pics on either of her two instagram vanity profiles. Get that 25 y.o., made up face in your head for a second. Now have a look at the ones with her and the BF together. Got that in your head? Now imagine her face at 35. She’s the mother of 2 kids, one 4 the other 1. She’s put on about 20lbs of ‘baby weight’ and that face is staring at you across the messy breakfast table of a small suburban house. The goth look’s been reduced to her wearing an old Ministry T-shirt she just sleeps in now. She’s complaining about how her mom wants to come visit the grandkids and how stressed out she is because of all the housework and childcare she does.
Look at that 25 y.o. face and imagine her at 35 going back to all her instagram shots, blog posts and XOjane articles on a laptop once she miraculously gets both the kids to take a nap. Is this the woman you were glad locked you down?
My daughter is 16. Yes, she’s got an instagram account. She also has a Red Pill father who’s worked in product design, advertising, promotion, marketing and branding for over 20 years. She knows the Jumbotron rule about anything she posts online. I show her examples of high profile people fucking up their PR and reputations online to the point of annoyance. She could give a shit about FaceBook. Her generation already thinks FaceBook is for old fuckers like me. In the future, social media wont be instagram or FaceBook or even Twitter, it’ll be something even more immediate and permanent – anything that can be digital will be digital.
February 6th, 2015 at 1:15 pm
@ Rollo,
“ugh”
I would like to de-ugh you.
I believe I have assimilated the lesson and understand how it applies to me and others encountered here.
You pointed out that AMOG status is completely context dependent. Change the context, circumvent overt horn locking, and the bogeyman disappears.
The theater in which I operate plays to my natural strengths such that I never even engage or meet the enemy (AMOG as BF, husband). Since there is no battle, supplies, logistics and effort are not needed. The spoils come to me, and automatically they are of high quality to me.
I know now what’s behind long term married or otherwise years long celibate monogamous women repeatedly choosing me, lighting up sexually like Christmas trees, surrendering their hearts to me. I called it ‘LTR game’ but it’s not a conscious game; it’s a manifestation of who I naturally am. It naturally draws women who I consider high quality.
It works like this: I have good AF vibes now – my muscularity and fat% are probably in the 98-99th percentile for men my age. Thanks to the efforts of all you men here I have had a major attitude adjustment.
Meanwhile, an individuality of my limbic brain is a relatively strong drive for emotional connection. So even if I am consciously trying to kill the inner beta, my subconscious is offering women the comfort/security/companionship/cuddling part of BB that the State can’t replace. Especially if they read romance novels, I represent the AF/BB combined in one who seems to be tamable. It’s chick crack for women similarly able to bond. It tends to repulse sluts, since by definition they are non-bonders. And that’s fine with me because I hate rubbers.
The PUAs OTOH, operate on a front where who I am is not so much of a strength, and I couldn’t compete. That’s ok with me, I keep hearing about the high cost of battle and the mediocre spoils. That’s what was behind my BP sounding past suggestions that there is a benefit to bonding. Actually, it is a natural benefit to me, but obviously not to those more limbically quiescent.
As for you Rollo, I suspect that your cool rationalism here belies much depth of feeling, hence you and Mrs. Tomassi being happily married for 18 years. Since you are a superior man in numerous other ways, I have nothing to offer that you don’t.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”
February 6th, 2015 at 1:37 pm
Sun Wukong,
Chill out. I pointed out that my own mating behavior is fair game to the same ethical debate.
I was not addressing any individual. I was looking at it from a general sociological POV.
February 6th, 2015 at 1:45 pm
@jacklabear
Just because I call something “horseshit” doesn’t mean I’m not chilled out. It just means I think it’s horseshit.
And I realize that’s where you’re coming from, but I know of basically no one in the PUA/Red Pill community outside of the newly unplugged guys that see poaching and AMOGing as needing any justification other than “I will get what I want through whatever technique that works.” I’m not taking it as a personal slight, I’m just seeing it as wrong-headed to believe there’s any other motivation behind it.
Newly unplugged guys might see it as you were saying it is, but seeing it that way will cause it to backfire on you. For it to work for you instead of against you, you must be using those ideas simply for the sake of your own personal success. Not as some type of crusade for or against anything.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:09 pm
“For it to work for you instead of against you, you must be using those ideas simply for the sake of your own personal success. Not as some type of crusade for or against anything.”
+1
Make your own self your mental point of origin. Then the rest falls in line.
This is true whether you’re Cory Worthington or Rollo Tomassi.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:11 pm
In god we trust, all others bring AES 256 with a physically created key seed.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:25 pm
“In the future, social media wont be instagram or FaceBook or even Twitter, it’ll be something even more immediate and permanent – anything that can be digital will be digital”.
Facebook will offer a live coverage for people by installing video cameras in houses for the rest of the world to see.
And then it’ll become the law of the land.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:26 pm
The technology is a “Murphy Attractor” in more ways than that.
Think Tinder and its ramifications.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:28 pm
Mr. T,
Orwell never imagined that we would be voluntarily carrying around everywhere we go those two way televisions that the State monitors.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:35 pm
@Jack
Look at all our communications online, it’s all documented and it’s so easy to study anyone’s personality by digging on everything he/she wrote.
February 6th, 2015 at 2:52 pm
I was told that I “wear it on my sleeve” before the web existed.
Maybe I need to cover myself with digital camo tats.
The flipside of the intrusion is the ease of using disinformation to manage the personae presented.
Matt Forney offers tips on that.
February 6th, 2015 at 11:47 pm
“Rollo, guys, I dunno if you have watched “Nightcrawler”…but I think that is one one the best RP movies from 2014…
The display by the protagonist should form, along with RM and other readings, the hand book for every man….
The character is a sort of antithesis to amoging, just being a man, purposeful in every way…”
Certainly Nightcrawlers is a fascinating movie, in fact – and I say this without exaggeration – politically it may be the most astonishing movie to come out of Hollywood in living memory. However the protagonist is hardly an alpha. In fact, he is scarcely human.
Allow me to provide my understanding of this film and why I think it is so extraordinary. If you have not seen it, be aware this discussion contains many SPOILERS.
The first and most shocking thing to understand is that this film is heavily “anti-semitic”, as they say and rather than being called “Nightcrawlers” could just as well have been called “The Jew”. No, no, bear with me, I’m serious, and I’m as astounded as anyone by this. I have no idea of how or why or for whom this movie was made. If anyone can enlighten me I will be very grateful.
As we are reminded repeatedly throughout the movie, the name of the protagonist is Louis Bloom. Clearly a deliberately chosen (heh) Jewish name. Few other characters in the movie are named and certainly their names are not repeatedly emphasized as is that of Louis Bloom.
Louis begins the movie as a poor, small-time, but dangerous criminal who is making his money in the second-hand trade (Jewish stereotype alert), breaking and stealing public infratsructure (manhole covers, wire fencing, copper, etc) and selling it to metal dealers. Thus the Jew is shown as a criminally-minded individual who has no regard for the public welfare and is concerned only with his own personal profit.
Early in the movie we are introduced to a very particular habit of Louis: no matter the context, when he speaks he uses only the impersonal language of business. He exhibits only three modes of business language: 1. He hires/sells 2. He manages (employees) 3. He bargains. For Louis, there is only business, and other people are nothing more than factors of business.
Clearly, there is something very wrong with Louis. He is quite simply a sociopath (definely not an alpha). And as this movie shows, he is beyond redemption (heh, again). Self-examination, the humanity of others, our mutual duties of care; none of these things have any meaning to him
The overall arc of the movie describes Louis’ progress from small time criminal and second hand dealer to budding media entrepreneur (Jewishness alert!). In the course of this journey — which involves zero personal change because Louis is incapable introspection, reflection, self-criticism, or the recognition of the humanity of others — Louis encounters and overcomes resistance from all of society’s competing (as he sees them) groups, whites, blacks, hispanics, arabs, men and women, and, always one step ahead of the law, in the end achieves business success.
Now, as a point of film analysis, we should remember, that — whether we are considering scenes, sequences, or an entire film — the scene, etc ends when it has made its “point”.
The final scenes of Nightcrawlers shows Louis engaged in the financial exploitation of idealistic young white people.
So, as I said, not a movie about “alphas”. God knows where you got that. Nightcrawlers is in fact, plainly, undeniably, a movie about the Jewish personality, its attitudes towards the rest of “society”, and broadly explicates the sociopathic psychology that underlies the methodologies of the economic and social rise of Jews in the modern Western world.
You will understand my astonishment at seeing this movie. And again, I have no idea of how or why or for whom this movie was made but if anyone can enlighten me I will be very grateful.
February 9th, 2015 at 1:06 pm
[…] this exchange our goth girl mentioned she was into BDSM and the whole picture came into […]
February 12th, 2015 at 3:15 pm
[…] of her low value beta off of her. Commenter ‘YaReally’ gave a great and reasonably pithy explanation on a post by The Rational Male, also worth reading and with a hyperlink to another description of […]
February 13th, 2015 at 3:12 pm
[…] their favorite martini bars. Modified versions of the Boyfriend Destroyer approach I mentioned in The Art of AMOG will do well for PUAs if you tweak it to presume these women are out in groups with the express […]