“Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.”
One of the major hurdles I had to really come to terms with when I decided to start getting involved with the new male paradigm was why I was so passionate about it in the first place. Ever since I began contributing at SoSuave and the manosphere in general, I’ve always tried to make a point of not emphasizing my past sexual and relational experiences to base more global ideas upon. Women’s default position is to do just this; personalize the instance to come to a universal conclusion. Not only is it the pinnacle of solipsism to think your experience should define the frame for everyone else, but it myopically ignores that exceptions usually prove a rule.
That was my basis for not wanting to relate too much of my own experiences. People can draw too easy a conclusion from the conditions that molded your point of view. This is actually one of the easiest ways to read a woman because their experiential sense of self-importance tends to define their reality. I wanted a more pragmatic approach, and this all came at a time for me when I decided to add a second major to my university studies – behavioral psychology with an emphasis on personality studies. Game, or what would become Game, influenced this decision for me. I wanted to know how the TV worked instead of that it just worked when I turned on the power.
All that said, I was still left with the question, why the fuck do you even give a shit whether guys unplug? I unplugged without the support of an internet community of Men comparing experiences, why even bother? I have had what most Men would consider a very good marriage for over 15 years now. I have a whip-smart daughter, I make good money, I’m successful at what I do, I’m well travelled, why is it so fucking important to make my voice heard?
It’s when I’m forced to answer questions like this that I have no choice but to apply my own personal experiences to the equation. I’m loath to do so because it’s far too easy for critics to mold them into some purpose that serves their perspective – he’s bitter, he got burned, this is his catharsis, he’s vindictive, etc. However, it’s necessary to present these experiences as observations for a better understanding. I wont pretend to be unbiased, no one is, but I do take the pains to be as self-analytical as I can in what I offer.
So you want to know what my problem is?
My problem is living in a world teeming with young men who’ve become so conditioned to believing that anything remotely masculine is to be ridiculed, vilified and subdued until they have no concept of what it truly entails much less pass off even the possibility that it could be something positive and attractive.
My problem is when a personal, AFC friend swallows a bullet because he literally “can’t live without” the girlfriend who left him.
My problem is watching a pastor’s pretty wife leave him and 4 children so she can pursue her hypergamy after 18 years of marriage because he pedestalized her and deprecated himself every day of their marriage.
My problem is when a 65 y.o. life-long chump cries in my lap about how he’s been consistently blackmailed with his wife’s intimacy for the past 20 years of their marriage and won’t man-up for fear of losing her.
My problem is talking a close friend out of killing the wife he married too young at 19 and the man she just cheated on him with in the parking lot of the motel he’s spent all night tracking her down to find with their 3 children crying in the backseat of their minivan at 4am.
My problem is civilly sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with a hyper-religious sister-in-law and the new millionaire husband she married just 8 months after her former AFC husband of 20 years hung himself from a tree when she decided “he wasn’t the ONE” for her. My problem is staring at the brand new tits and Porsche she bought herself with the money from the home he built for her that he busted his ass for just 3 months after he was in the ground. My problem is emphatically teaching my 22 y.o. nephew how not to be the AFC his father was, while tactfully pointing out the hypergamy of his vulgarly opportunistic mother.
My problem is watching my father, though decaying from Alzheimers, still playing out the Savior Schema in an effort to get laid that he’s thought should work for his entire life at 68 y.o. My problem is watching him feebly default to a behavior that obsessively motivated him to succeed until he was forced into early retirement at 53 and his 2nd wife left him promptly after that.
My problem is consoling a good friend whose fathered 3 daughters with 2 wives and is being emotionally manipulated by his 3rd (another single mommy BTW), who’s become so despondent that he dreads going home from work to deal with his personal situation and waits with anticipation for the weekend to be over.
My problem is counseling a guy who thought the best way to separate himself from “other guys” was to be ‘chivalrous’ and date a single mommy with 3 children from 2 different fathers, only to knock her up for a fourth kid and marry her because “it was the right thing to do.”
My problem is dealing with a 17 y.o. girl who’d just witnessed her new boyfriend being stabbed 30+ times by her ex boyfriend because he believed “she was his soulmate” and “would rather live in jail without her than see her with that guy.”
My problem is trying to explain to ‘Modern Women’ that – after 15 years of marriage, my wife could still model swimwear and confidently respects my judgement and decisions as a Man – I didn’t achieve this by being a domineering, 1950’s caveman-chauvinist who’s crushed her spirit, but that it is an understanding and adherence to living a positively masculine role.
And my biggest problem is seeing 14 y.o. AFC symps all ready to sacrifice themselves wholesale to this pitiful, mass-media fueled, pop-culture endorsed, idealized and feminized notion of romantic/soulmate mythology, all because some other AFCs trapped in the same quicksand they are, are affirming and co-enabling each other to further their own sinking and spread this disease to other AFCs. It’s infectious, and complacency, like misery, loves company. My fear is that I’m only one Man, and I can’t possibly be enough to kick these guys in the ass like their AFC fathers were unable or unwilling to do.
This is why I bother. It really is a matter of life or death sometimes. Understanding Game, for lack of a better term, how and why it functions, is literally a survival skill. Think about the importance of the decisions we make based on uninquisitive, flimsy and misdirected presumption we have been conditioned to believe about love, gender, sex, relationships, etc. Think about the life impact that these decisions have not only on ourselves, but our families, the children that result from them, and every other domino that falls as a repercussion. We rarely stop to think about how our immediate decisions impact people we may not even know at the time we make them. What we do in life, literally, echoes or ripples into eternity. That’s not to go all fortune cookie on you, but it is my reasoning behind my desire to educate, to study, to tear down and build back up what most would ask, “why bother?”
Amen!
Preach on, Rollo Tomassi.
Damn.
Two things:
1. Fix your RSS Reader title. It’s just your URL right now.
2. Add some formatting to break up the text wall, maybe a header or some bolding.
Shame to hide that quality behind a couple of easily fixable barriers.
Also, Rollo Tomassi is FAR more memorable than Rational Male. I’d recommend rebranding while the blog is still new.
How do I change the RSS Title?
I think it’s just this:
“You can change your site’s title or the “Just another WordPress.com site” tagline in the top two fields of Settings → General in your dashboard.”
Brutal list. The “why bother” comes down to empathy though.
Thanks for sharing Rollo.
Powerful words sir! Thank you for your efforts, I (and I’m sure lots of other men as well) appreciate your wisdom and taking the time to share it with us.
Thank you for this. this is pure yang, masculine power.
Stories & anecdotes capture the imagination and feed the soul in ways that data cannot. Humans are storytellers. The proto-humans no doubt invented language just to share the stories of epic hunts, and the failures and successes of love.
Thanks for sharing stories from your life. The illumination into motive and reasoning is an act of leadership in the community, and the vulnerability that can only come from trues strength.
Thanks for taking the time and spending the energy to help. I’m in the process of unplugging another friend and your writings are a key part of that.
I don’t believe all these “my problem” actually happened, but it doesn’t matter as they are perfectly plausible and pedagogic.
Keep “bothering”: guys like you are seeding a huge and inevitable change in society, making History.
In your elder years, you’ll see how thing are different from now (I’m not saying better or worst) and know that you played a role on this.
There’s a lot more I could add to the list that I wish hadn’t actually happened.
Look forward to reading it in your book.
Off-topic but relevant:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2011/10/j-crew-president-jenna-lyons-reportedly-in-midst-of-ugly-divorce/
J. Crew president divorcing artist husband Vincent Mazeau for a lesbian relationship. Hypergamy or sexual fluidity?
Butch-ism
Powerful stuff. It’s a fucked up world we live in, but you’re doing some of the best work towards fixing it out of anyone out there.
I think this is the most poignant post/note I’ve ever read in the “Manosphere/Gameosphere” since discovering it back in 2005. You are absolutely right. For many men, the right knowledge and frame very well might be about survival or a permanent life altering decision. I remember the absolute volcanic rage I felt when I learned my ex-wife had been cheating on me. The aftermath of that in late 2004/early 2005 is what led to unplugging from the Matrix. You sir are truly doing great work here. I forget when I first discovered you and some of your writings, but it… Read more »
Excellent piece, thanks. I just finished reading the latest article of Mr Price on The Spearhead and this is a good pairing. It is the vocation to help others that makes the history. Last funny note, as a non-English mother language sometimes I am in trouble understanding familiar expression, so “talking a close friend out of killing” for an instant I had a doubt if that meant you convenced him to desist or you helped him to do that without he screwing everything 🙂 And maybe it is easier for a foreigner notice typos like “wait’s with anticipation” you Englishmen… Read more »
Brilliant.
Wow, this will be an article to link to for a long time whenever someone (specially women) complain about manosphere men making a mountain about a molehill with men issues.
This might be off topic but this is a good read.
http://postmasculine.com/a-new-masculinity
Your article and this one are some if the best reading I’ve read in the past year.
Great post. Really highlights the problem with the force fed feminism we see everyday and how it affect male psychology.
Feminism is so wide-spread, so deeply embedded in every facet of society that literally any man can get sucked into it. Indeed, the norm IS to get sucked into it. Doesn’t matter if you are intelligent or stupid. When you have been beat over the head with it your whole life, you know nothing else. I know some extremely intelligent men, analytical and pragmatic men, who take feminism hook, line and sinker. It can be a blind spot for even the best and brightest of our kind. Looks like your blog has been getting a surge in traffic(or at least… Read more »
Brilliant and heart breaking. Tell me if you’ve got a similar experience though… In many, many of these real life cases (and I got a list just as long if I really sat down to make it…on second thought, I will – great blogfodder idea Rollo), you try to unplug these men, and your explanations fall on deaf ears. I’ve tried. Many, many times. Here’s why it’s better to actually write about this stuff on teh interwebz – the guys the stumble across our blogs and comments are guys who are already open and receptive to the message. That is… Read more »
Yes. And I was one of those confused ones who stumbled across these blogs 3 years ago — and learned so much since then.
You guys are like the band of brothers I know I will never have in real life. Keep writing.
I’m one of the people that asks why bother.
I get it now.
I guess I’m lucky that I have so many strong male role-models in my life.
Thank you, thank you, thank you (and Keoni as well)
I don’t know many flesh and blood guys who are troubled by the matrix, but that’s largely because I don’t know a lot of flesh and blood guys. Other than ego stroking, a motivation I have for sharing what I’ve learned is that my younger self would have wanted to know. If that younger self was hungry without even knowing it was hungry, so too must there be many men out there hungry yet fighting against opening up for a mouthful.
I just want to thank you as well. I been lurking around for awhile and finally decided to comment. You’re one of my favorite bloggers.
Wow. Brutal list to read.
I wonder about my nephews (and my niece, as well) in this messed-up world. Especially since my two brothers are far more whipped than I’d like to see them.
[…] of Professor Mentu’s post Rollo left a comment and a link to an older post of his that asks Why Bother? I’d read it before in the archives and it affected me just as deeply reading it again as when […]
[…] my post What’s Your Problem? I mention a 65 y.o man whom I used to counsel who’s wife had emotionally blackmailed him for […]
Good example of male thinking: your friends’ problems are your problems. It wasn’t necessary to say that you glory twice over in your friends’ victories. It’s exactly how you would take down a woolly mammoth, or build a civilization.
[…] What’s your problem?.~Rollo Tomassi […]
This relates to why you bother:
http://www.aspentimes.com/news/10025636-113/aspen-oksenhorn-lost-stewart
Still in shock over it.
Damn….truth! First pain….then catharsis.
Thank you Rollo.
A good lesson indeed.
Rollo, thank you for some of the best-written, balanced, and well-researched materials on these topics that are out there. I’m female, BTW. I married (and later divorced with exceptional and mutual civility) a well-meaning but solidly Blue-Pill guy, who seemed at the time to be a great counterpoint to my own very strong Alpha/Amazon tendencies. Your writings have opened my eyes as to why that marriage failed quite spectacularly after almost two decades. There was no cheating; it just died a slow and inevitable death as it was bound to do from the outset. I’m now the mother of a… Read more »
Thank you that’s good to read
Keep the good work Mr. Tomassi.
I almost shed tears after reading this again….sigh!
Fuuuuuuk…..awfully sad shit. This helps understand your motivation even better. It’s only because your writing has inspired me to become a better man than I can admit I’ve lived through some shit scenarios myself due to the deep blue pill. Admitting that shit is part of acceptance to see the reality of all that and work to change myself so as not to be a poster boy for your messed up examples. I only wish I had found your work earlier. I’ve said it before and will say it again, thank you Rollo. You bring respect to the table of… Read more »
[…] I say that’s bullshit, and then I’m reminded of my own reasons for involving myself in writing what I do and who I write for. […]
[…] I made the effort from that base need to help another man avoid a painful fate – not unlike my reasons for writing at […]
It’s a good point. You’ve put me on the path. I moderate marriedredpill, and was searching for that masculinity you describe, when I first started actively pursuing. I got tastes of it while in the navy, and seeing “mess culture” die in front of me gave me a realization. Either build the institution a new, or accept it’s gone forever. I wish I felt for for guys self imposed sabotage, I do. All I know is there’s a subset of them that want more, but don’t know how. They are the potentials, and its amazing what a little push can… Read more »
@Rollo
Just lost another good man this week.Only 26 all state athlete succesful 2 children,divorced 6 months ago,hung himself yesterday.
Keep on keepin on Rollo,I’ll keep on referring your work.Wish there were more ways to do it.
[…] mi artículo ¿Cuál es tu problema? menciono a un hombre de 65 años al que solía atender, cuya esposa lo había chantajeado […]
I am fairly search literate and pretty good at figuring things out from context … but I can’t seem to figure out/find definitions for ‘AFC’ and ‘OMG’
I have said this before and I’ll say it again:
– the two Rational Male books are invaluable
– those books would have saved me a LIFETIME of heartache if I’d read them at age 16*
– my son will read them when he is old enough
– the more men who read them, the better
* Though whether or not I’d have been able to overcome Blue Pill conditioning even if I had read them is another question…
“This is why I bother. It really is a matter of life or death sometimes. Understanding Game, for lack of a better term, how and why it functions, is literally a survival skill.”
Nephew, friends, coworkers. I’ve irons in the fire at different stages. Unplugging is treatment given in preventive prn doses as tolerated, or as a drug of last resort. Better excising the cancer before metastasis as with my troubled nephew, than DoLR with a friend with recent suicidal ideation from serial failed romances.
Our household axiom: I’ll never regret the disaster avoided.
Fuck yes, mhn here. Adult and adolescent wards full of this slavish devotion too the matrix that is antithetical to our fundamental nature. We need more of this righting of the ship. Thank you.
[…] who’s read my post What’s Your Problem? probably has a good idea of what motivated me to write what I do going on 16 years now, but when I […]
[…] Çeviri : What is your problem? […]
Thank you, Rolo. This is probably one of the most inspiring peices of writing that I have read. You are saving the lives of many: not only whom you reach with your blog and your books, but those who are fortunate enough to learn from you and who will go on to help others. I have already been able to help some in my life that are the AFC type. This information is invaluable to me. I will soon read your books. Please do NOT stop writing.
Thank you.
Devin
All I can say is, wow. I’m in tears and I can’t quite put all the emotions into words in this moment. AFC or unplugged, if they doesn’t light your fire; your wood is wet. Thanks, Rollo! I needed that.
[…] mi entrada “¿Cuál es tu problema?” (en inglés) menciono a un hombre de 65 años al que solía aconsejar cuya esposa lo había […]