Category Archives: Iron Rules

November 16, 2011

Sorry,..

By Rollo Tomassi

Apologizing for a lack of Game isn’t Game.

One disservice I think most men tend to overlook is an attitude of self-depreciation that they’ll resort to as a means of engendering interest in a potential woman by attempting to play to her sympathies.

Case in point (posted with permission):

Subject:
My apologies for being a complete douche
Body:
I actually wanted to call and talk to you tonight, but I just moved into my new place today and lost track of time and now its after midnight. Anyways, I was a complete tool the last time we talked. I thought about what you said to me, and I really have been lame lately. I think back to our first couple of “dates”, and I realize what a complete and boring reject I was. Those weren’t so much dates as me trying way too hard to impress you as someone that was mature (bad word choice, but I dunno what I was doing) and not myself. Anyways, I now realize I need to get this pole out of my ass and start having fun again in my life. Which is why I have been in a drunken stupor for the last 2 weekends.

I hope we can start hanging out again, because I do enjoy your company. But I promise if we do, I will drink, relax, and not be such a wallflower. I also promise no more gay-ass text messages. I hate when people do that to me, so I can only imagine how retarded i look when I do it.

-allen

This was an actual email passed on to me from a young woman I counsel after she blew this guy off over the course of three dates, and is one of many emails and IM texts I’ve gone over time and again with with women. This is a textbook example of how men will resort to self-depreciation tactics in order to provoke an “It’s OK, I understand” sympathy response from a woman with the expectation that she’ll take ‘pity’ on him for being a “flawed man” and give him a second (or third, or fourth) chance.

This is a direct manifestation of men being socially conditioned to recognize and acknowledge their weeknesses, and in confessing them they will become strentghs, and ergo, attractions (since they mistakenly believe that doing so will make them “not-like-OTHER-guys” and therefore unique). “You see? I’m really a sensitive, introspective guy willing to cop to his own character flaws, please love me.”

Iron Rule of Tomassi #9

Never Self-Deprecate under any circumstance. This is a Kiss of Death that you self-initiate and is the antithesis of the Prize Mentality. Once you’ve accepted yourself and presented yourself as a “complete douche” there’s no going back to confidence with a woman. Never appeal to a woman’s sympathies. Her sympathies are given by her own volition, never when they are begged for – women despise the obligation of sympathy. Nothing kills arousal like pity. Even if you don’t seriously consider yourself pathetic, it never serves your best interest to paint yourself as pathetic. Self-Depreciation is a misguided tool for the AFC, and not something that would even occur to an Alpha.

People seem to get confused about how self-deprecation really functions. I’m not suggesting that a Man take himself so seriously that he can’t laugh at himself; in fact a brilliant tactic is to present a prevailing, ambient sense of seriousness, then admit to and laugh at whatever goof it was that removes you from it. Nothing endears a man more to a woman than to think only she can break through your shell and get you to find humor in yourself. However, true self-deprecation is self-initiated. It’s not the “ha ha look I slipped on a banana peel” sense of deprecation, it’s the “I’m a complete douche, but really worth the effort” apologetic sense of deprecation. There is a marked difference between being pathetic and being able to laugh at yourself in good faith.

I’m not advocating that guys never own up to mistakes or wrongs they do; you should apologize in given situations depending on the conditions and do so appropriately, however Self-Depreciation is another mental schema entirely. Humility is a virtue (up to a point), but it’s simply not a virtue that a woman you’re interested in will ever appreciate in the manner you intend, and in fact often conveys the opposite intent. Virtuous humility is no substitute for self-confidence. If you are already involved with a woman, she may develop a socially mandated sense of appreciation, but again this is only up to the threshold of you trading her estimation of your confidence for your ability to address fault on your part. When a woman delivers a shit test based on this, and a guy submits through self-depreciation it’s damage done that’s not easily undone. Admitting fault is not a strength that inspires women, it’s still about the fault. It may be the honorable, necessary, truthful thing to do, but don’t believe for a moment women will value you more in the confession of fault.

That said, true self-depreciation is pervasive. Contemporary men have become so steeped in deprecation and male ridicule by popular media that it seems a normative way of attracting women. The message is ‘women love men who laugh at Men’. Thus, you have to be hyper-aware of it and unlearn it. You have to catch yourself in mid-sentence so to speak. Women operate in the sub-communications and when you overtly admit to a lack of confidence in yourself or your gender you may as well just LJBF yourself. That’s a strong impression you wont recover from easily if ever. Women want a competent, confident, decisive Man from the outset, not one who’s self-image is that of a “complete douche” or even a partial douche. The stereotype of the quirky, but lovable guy who bumbles his way into a woman’s heart may work for romantic comedies, but not in the real world. I should also add that when you become hyper-aware of this you can also turn it to your own advantage when AMOGing a competitor or you’re sarging a girl with a self-depreciative boyfriend or suitor. It’s all too easy to reinforce her estimation of a guy like this by covertly confirming it for her, while at the same time playing up your own confidence and value.

All of this is not to say that it’s wrong to recognize your own weaknesses and understanding when you’re in the wrong. It’s simply how you go about addressing it that’s the point. There are plenty of ways to assume the responsibilties of fault that aren’t self-depreciating. The easiest way is to always adopt the attitude that you’re ‘getting better all the time’. This mentality fosters confidence and projects ambition, whereas self-depreciation shoves your nose in the dog shit and says “please love me anyway?”

24 Comments | posted in Game, Inter-gender Communication, Iron Rules

October 12, 2011

Frame

By Rollo Tomassi

Iron Rule of Tomassi #1

Frame is everything. Always be aware of the subconscious balance of who’s frame in which you are operating. Always control the Frame, but resist giving the impression that you are. 

The concept of “frame” is yet another ephemeral idea that had need of a term in the very beginnings of the great masculine awakening that’s become the ‘community’. If memory serves I think it may have been Mystery who first picked up on what’s really a very rudimentary and well established psychological principle. In psych terms, frame is an often subconscious, mutually acknowledged personal narrative under which auspices people will be influenced. One’s capacity for personal decisions, choices for well-being, emotional investments, religious beliefs and political persuasions (amongst many others) are all influenced and biased by the psychological narrative ‘framework’ under which we are most apt to accept as normalcy.

The concept of frame covers a lot of aspects of our daily lives, some of which we’re painfully aware of, others we are not, but nonetheless we are passively influenced by frame. What concerns us in terms of inter-gender relations however is the way in which frame sets the environment, the ambience, and the ‘reality’ in which we relate with both the woman we sarge at a bar and the relationship with the woman we’ve lived with for 20 years. One important fact to consider, before I launch into too much detail, is to understand that frame is NOT power. The act of controlling the frame may be an exercise in power for some, but let me be clear from the start that the concept of frame is who’s ‘reality’ in which you choose to operate in relation to a woman. Both gender’s internalized concept of  frame is influenced by our individual acculturation, socialization, psychological conditioning, upbringing, education, etc., but be clear on this, you are either operating in your own frame or you’re operating in hers. Also understand that the balance of frame often shifts. Frame is fluid and will find its own level when a deficit or a surplus of will is applied to change it. The forces that influence that lack or boost of will is irrelevant – just know that the conditions of an operative framework will shift because of them.

Pre-LTR Frame
Often I’ll see forum posts lamenting some loss of frame – “Lost the frame, how do I get it back?” A lot of times guys believe that because a woman initially gave them IOIs or was ‘really into them’ in the beginning that they had ‘frame’. This is another unfortunate misconception about frame – and I partly blame the PUA culture for it – but frame is not interest level (IL). Simply because a woman is attracted to you does not mean she’s ready to ‘enter your reality’. Her entering your frame may become a byproduct of that attraction, but it by no means guarantees it. In truth, under today’s social environment, I would expect a woman to resist tooth and nail from rushing into a man’s frame. This is why women have psychologically evolved a subconscious propensity to shit test; to verify the legitimacy of a man’s frame.

Most Game incongruencies develop around a guy’s inability to establish frame and opting in to a woman’s frame. What’s ironic is that on a base level, we understand frame imbalances instinctually. If you feel like you’re being led on, or being made to wait for sex, you’re operating in her frame. Are you in the ‘friend-zone’ or did you accept an LJBF rejection? You’re in her frame.

Ideally, you want a woman to enter your reality. Her genuine (unnegotiated) desire for you hinges upon you covertly establishing this narrative for her. Famous men, men with conspicuous affluence and status, and men with overwhelming social proof have very little difficulty in establishing frame – they can’t help but establish frame in a very overt fashion. A woman already wants to enter that world. She want’s an easy association with a man who’s unquestionably a proven commodity and offers her hypergamy not just a actualized fantasy, but also a high degree of personal affirmation in being the one a Man of this grandeur would choose above other women.

Unfortunately, you and I are not this Man, he’s a feminine idealization. However it’s important to understand how hypergamy plays into establishing frame. The Man who impassively accepts women’s hypergamous natures has a much easier time establishing frame from the outset. You or I may not be that be that famous guy with an automatic, overt frame control, but we can be by order of degrees depending upon our personal conditions and the conditions of the women with whom we choose to associate. The default pedestalization of women that men are prone to is a direct result of accepting that a woman’s frame is the only frame. It’s kind of hard for most ‘plugged in’ men to grasp that they can and should exert frame control in order to establish a healthy future relationship. This is hardly a surprise considering that every facet of their social understanding about gender frame has always defaulted to the feminine for the better part of their lifetimes. Whether that was conditioned into them by popular media or seeing it played out by their beta fathers, for most men in western culture, the feminine reality IS the normalized frame work. In order to establish a healthy male-frame, the first step is to rid themselves of the preconception that women control frame by default. They don’t, and honestly, they don’t want to.

Post LTR Frame
In most contemporary marriages and LTR arrangements, women tend to be the de facto authority. Men seek their wive’s “permission” to attempt even the most mundane activities they’d do without an afterthought while single. I have married friends tell me how ‘fortunate’ they are to be married to such an understanding wife that she’d “allow” him to watch hockey on their guest bedroom TV,…occasionally.

These are just a couple of gratuitous examples of men who entered into marriage with the frame firmly in control of their wives. They live in her reality, because anything can become normal. What these men failed to realize is that frame, like power, abhors a vacuum.  In the absence of the frame security a woman naturally seeks from a masculine male, this security need forces her to provide that security for herself. Thus we have the commonality of cuckold and submissive men in westernized culture, while women do the bills, earn the money, make the decisions, authorize their husband’s actions and deliver punishments. The woman is seeking the security that the man she pair-bonded with cannot or will not provide.

It is vital to the health of any LTR that a man establish his frame as the basis of their living together before any formal commitment is recognized. As I stated in the beginning, frame will be fluid and conditions will influence the balance, but the overall theme of your relationship needs to be led and molded by you. Even very influential, professional, intellectualizing women still crave the right man to establish his frame in her life. They may fight it bitterly, but ultimately it’s what will make for the best healthy balance she can achieve. There’s a growing undercurrent of mid-life women questioning and regretting their past decisions to remain single into spinsterhood. And for all their late game rationalizations, the one thing they still simply refuse to accept is acknowledging that a man’s frame, the frame their “fierce independence” wouldn’t allow for, was exactly the salve their egos so desperately wants now later in life.

Gentlemen, you will establish frame in any monogamous relationship you have. You will enter her reality or she will enter yours.

40 Comments | posted in Foundations, Iron Rules

October 6, 2011

Shacking Up

By Rollo Tomassi

Iron Rule of Tomassi #4
NEVER under any circumstance live with a woman you aren’t married to or are not planning to marry in within 6 months.

You are utterly powerless in this situation. NEVER buy a home with a girlfriend, NEVER sign a rental lease with a girlfriend. NEVER agree to move into her home and absolutely NEVER move a woman into your own established living arrangement. I’m adamantly opposed to the “shacking up” dynamic, it is a trap that far too many men allow themselves to fall into. My fervor against this isn’t based on some moral issue, it is simple pragmatism. If you live with a woman you may as well be married because upon doing so every liability and accountability of marriage is then in effect. You not only lose any freedom of anonymity, you commit to, legally, being responsible for the continuation of your living arrangements regardless of how your relationship decays.

I should also emphasize the point that when you commit (and it is a financial commitment) to cohabiting with a GF you will notice a marked decrease in her sexual availability and desire. The single most common complaint related to me in regards to how to reignite a woman’s desire comes as the result of the guy having moved into a living arrangement with his LTR. All of that competitive anxiety and it’s resulting sexual tension that made your single sex life so great is removed from her shoulders and she can comfortably relax in the knowledge that she is your ONLY source of sexual intimacy. Putting your name on that lease with her (even if it’s just your name) is akin to signing an insurance policy for her –

“I the undersigned promise not to fuck any woman but this girl for a one year term.”

She thinks, “if he wasn’t serious about me, he wouldn’t have signed the lease.” Now all of that impetus and energy that made having marathon sex with you an outright necessity is relaxed. She controls the frame and she’s got it in writing that it is for at least a year.

Just don’t do it. Relationships last best when you spin more plates or at the very least keep each other at arm’s distance.

There was a time when the hip, counter-culture thing to do was flip the establishment the bird and cohabit with a girlfriend, sans the marriage contract. In the swinging post-sexual-revolution 70’s, feminism was more than happy to encourage the idea until it ran into the problem of making men financially accountable for all the “free milk” the cows were giving away. However, that not withstanding, there’s still a kind of a lingering after effect feeling about “living together” that seems like a good idea to guys to this day.

Of all the reasonable excuses I’ve heard for men wanting to cohabit with their girlfriends, the most common is that they did so for financial reasons. He (or she) needed a roommate and why not one that they enjoy fucking? That’s the cover story, but underneath it there’s the semiconscious understanding that it would be far more convenient to have a continuous flow of pussy as part of the utilities, uninterrupted by the formalities of having to go on dates or drive somewhere to get it. I can’t say that, on the surface, this doesn’t make perfect sense. Leave it a man to find the most pragmatic solution to his problem. However, as with most things woman, what seems like the most deductive solution is often a cleverly disguised trap.

Shacking up, just as in marriage, affords a woman a reasonable sense of comfort. It becomes at least a marginal shelter from the competition anxiety that she had to endure while living on her own and dating a guy who still had at least the perceived option to be unpredictable. Not so in the quasi-marriage that living together dictates. And it’s just this sense of predictability that allows her to relax into familiarity, and later, into dictating the terms of her own intimacy. In other words, she’s in the perfect position to ration her sexuality; to negotiate the terms of her desire in exchange for a living arrangement.

By the same reasoning, most AFCs view cohabiting as an ideal arrangement. Few of them really have the real options, much less the will to experiment exercising them, to see shacking up as anything but a great way of exiting the SMP, limiting potential rejection, and locking down a consistent supply of pussy. Men who are spinning plates, men with options, men with ambition, rarely see cohabiting as anything but a limiting hinderance on their lives. On some level of consciousness women understand this dynamic; guys with options (the Alphas they’d prefer) wouldn’t consider cohabitation. So when a man agrees to, or suggests living together it impresses her with two things – either he’s an Alpha who she’s won over so completely that he’s ready to commit to exclusivity with her, or he’s a beta with no better propositions than to settle into living with what he believes is his ‘sure thing’. What’s jarring for a woman is that she may start her living arrangement thinking she’s found the elusive Alpha ready to commit, only to later find he was just a clever beta who reverts back into his former, comfortable, AFC self after they sign the lease agreement.

Now all that said, what makes more sense? To live independently and enjoy the options to live unhindered with a live-in girlfriend, or move her in and have to deal with her every waking moment? Moving in with a woman implies commitment, and whenever you commit to anything you lose your two most valuable resources, options and the ability to maneuver.

37 Comments | posted in Iron Rules

September 23, 2011

Wait for it?

By Rollo Tomassi

Iron Rule of Tomassi #3

Any woman who makes you wait for sex, or by her actions implies she is making you wait for sex; the sex is NEVER worth the wait.

When a woman makes you wait for sex you are not her highest priority. Sexuality is spontaneous chemical reaction between two parties, not a process of negotiation. It’s sex first, then relationship, not the other way around. A woman who wants to fuck you will find a way to fuck you. She will fly across the country, crawl under barbwire, climb in through your second story bedroom window, fuck the shit out of you and wait patiently inside your closet if your wife comes home early from work – women who want to fuck will find a way to fuck. The girl who tells you she needs to be comfortable and wants a relationship first is the same girl who fucked the hot guy in the foam cannon party in Cancun on spring break just half an hour after meeting him.

If a girl is that into you she’ll have sex with you regardless of ASD or having her friends in the room videotaping it at a frat party. All women can be sluts, you just have to be the right guy to bring it out in them, and this happens before you go back to her place. If you have to plead your case cuddling and spooning on the bed or getting the occasional peck on the cheek at the end of the night, you need to go back to square one and start fresh.

I’m probably going to ruffle a few PUA feathers here, but I’ve never been a proponent of breaking down LMR (last minute resistance) with a woman. Maybe it’s a result of experiences in my rock star 20’s, but at some point I came to the conclusion that sex with a woman who’s turned on by me is always a far better than one where I had to sell her on the idea of sex with me before the act. Now don’t take this to the binary extreme and assume I mean the only good sex you’ll ever have is a first night lay (FNL) with some tart who can’t keep her legs closed. What I mean is that if you’re still trying to figure out what the magic words are to convince some girl that she ought fuck you after 3 dates – or longer – you’re in desire negotiation hearings counselor. You are wasting your time and limiting your opportunity with better prospective women in waiting out a woman who would defer less than 100% of her real desire to have sex with you. The sex will NEVER be worth the wait. A prostitute would be a better alternative.

Genuine desire cannot be negotiated. Once you get past a certain point in the waiting game, what once had the chance to be an organic, sexual desire becomes mitigated negotiation of a physical act. Just the fact that you’re having to make a case for yourself (even covertly) is evidence that there are other factors inhibiting her capacity to be sexual with you. As I stated, barring a physical inability, this is almost always because of an unmentioned agenda on her part. It may be due to a concurrent boyfriend, it may be a natural internal caution, it may be that your process is telegraphing ‘beta’ to her, or it may be that she’s filibustering you while waiting to see if another, more preferable guy pans out for her, however, none of these are insurmountable if she has a genuine desire to bang you. Many a cheated on boyfriend knows this is true. In any circumstance, sex with you is not an urgency for her. If  she’s perceiving your value as as high as it should be, she wont hesitate longer than a few dates to become sexual – and she certainly wont tell you she’s making you wait. Hypergamy doesn’t afford a woman much waiting time with a Man she sees as superior stock.

One of the more frustrating situations I often encounter comes from guys who’ve been OVERTLY told that they’re being made to wait for sex until some circumstance or criteria is met for the woman. The standard filibuster (or loss-leader as the case may be) usually comes with the reasoning that she “needs to feel comfortable” before she has sex with a guy. Even more distressing is the guy who was getting laid, only to be told the same thing by an existing girlfriend. If you find yourself in either of these situation there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

First and foremost, sex, by it’s nature is uncomfortable. Sex that is motivated by mutual, genuine desire is a tense affair, fueled by testosterone, anxiety and urgency. When two people get together for a first dance ( a precursor to copulation), it’s rarely if ever an intimate slow dance. It’s salsa, it’s grinding, it’s pumping, it’s heat and it’s sweat. What it’s not is comforting and familiar. It’s not a nice warm bathrobe fresh out of the dryer. Don’t take this the wrong way, but sex is threatening. It needs to be, and you need to be considered a sexualized player in her personal sphere. Overtly agreeing to wait for her to become sexual is anti-seductive. It confirms for her that you aren’t a sexualized player to her; an Alpha wouldn’t wait for sex and she knows this. Worse still, it devalues her SMV as being worth less than of your utmost urgency.

Secondly, always remember why women resort to OVERT communications (the language of men) – so there is no, or less, margin that her message will be misunderstood. If a woman, point blank says, “I’m not having sex with you until X,Y, and Z happens”, what is her MEDIUM telling you? That there is a precondition that’s more important to her than fucking you with genuine, uncontrollable passion. You want her to be so into you that she’s willing to break the rules. The ideal situation is for her genuine passion to be so uncontrollable for you that she’d renounce her religion and throw her convictions to the wind to be with you. That might seem a bit dramatic, but you get the idea. The good news now is that she’s being overt, which means she’s exhausted her reserves to be covert and, assuming you’re not so desperate as to delude yourself, you can NEXT her and move on.

Rapport ≠ Comfort

A lot of “waiters” find all that a tough road to hoe. They want to stick it out and see if things “might develop”, and NEXTing their ‘waiting girl’ seems a lot like throwing the baby out with the bath water after all the time they’ve invested in building what they think is rapport. Usually this is due to the guy not spinning (enough) other plates that would bear more fruit. However, keep this in mind; waiting for sex isn’t building rapport. There’s a lot of confusion about rapport, most of which is due to well meaning PUAs conflating rapport with comfort. It’s a pretty esoteric term, but rapport is a connection; it’s an implied trust between two acting agents who previously had never met or only have limited knowledge of each other. You can have rapport with an animal – that’s the connection, it’s instinctual.

Comfort comes from familiarity and predictability; all decidedly anti-seductive influences. And while comfort has it’s own merits in interpersonal relationships, it is not the basis for genuine, passionate sexual desire. For people (myself included) involved in a marriage or LTR, it’s serves our long-term best interest to convince ourselves that sex is better when your comfortable with your partner, however, the reality of it sings a different tune. Here’s an easy illustration: As reported by both men and women alike, which of these circumstances provokes the most intense, memorable sexual experiences ? When a couple plans and arranges a romantic “date night” to ‘keep it fresh’ and reconnect? Or is it the ‘make-up sex’ after a horrible breakup, or narrowly averted breakup, where long dormant competition anxiety is brought back into being a very real possibility again? If you said the breakup, you’re correct! One scenario is comfortable, the other uncomfortable. One has the element of predictable certainty, the other is chaotic and uncertain, however in both situations there is definitely a working mutually connective rapport operating.

100 Comments | posted in Game, Iron Rules

September 8, 2011

Rooting through garbage

By Rollo Tomassi

HELP! I fucked up big time and I want her back! How do I get her back?

Easily one of the most common questions I’ve fielded at SoSuave over the past 7 years has been some variation of “how do I get her back?” It’s common for a reason; at some stage of life every guy believes that rejection is worse than regret. Lord knows I tried to recover an old lover or two in my own past. Whether due to infidelity on her part, your own or a regression back beta after initiating an LTR, there is one Iron Rule you should always refer back to:

Iron Rule of Tomassi #7
It is always time and effort better spent developing new, fresh, prospective women than it will ever be in attempting to reconstruct a failed relationship. Never root through the trash once the garbage has been dragged to the curb. You get messy, your neighbors see you do it, and what you thought was worth digging for is never as valuable as you thought it was.

Even if you could go back to where you were, any relationship you might have with an ex will be colored by all of the issues that led up to the breakup. In other words, you know what the end result of those issues has been. It will always be the 800 pound. gorilla in the room in any future relationship. As I elaborated in the Desire Dynamic, healthy relationships are founded on genuine mutual desire, not a list of negotiated terms and obligations, and this is, by definition, exactly what any post-breakup relationship necessitates. You or she may promise to never do something again, you may promise to “rebuild the trust”, you may promise to be someone else, but you cannot promise to accept that the issues leading up to the breakup don’t have the potential to dissolve it again. The doubt is there. You may be married for 30 years, but there will always be that one time when you two broke up, or she fucked that other guy, and everything you think you’ve built with her over the years will always be compromised by that doubt of her desire.

You will never escape her impression that you were so optionless you had to beg her to rekindle her intimacy with you.

15 Comments | posted in Iron Rules

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