Letters from the Pedestal

Background

The following is an instant message transcript detailing the soon-to-be break up of an 8 month live-in relationship. Our heroine in this classic tale of dutiful Beta vs. memorable Alpha had recently moved in with the Beta subject after a tumultuous two year Alpha relationship with “Chris” (names changed). From almost the moment she agreed to living with our Beta she began pining for her former Alpha lover. Chris was a musician who’d moved to a large metropolitan area to “make it big”. He was the perfect brooding, inflective, creative archetype, but suffered from the usual maladies, alcohol, drug abuse, overly self important – basically the perfect recipe for the artistic Alpha. Needless to say this was what led to the first breakup.

For the want of a more stable relationship, and a place to stay, she takes up with our Beta. They’d been ‘friends’ for so long, and he’d been so supportive in her time with Chris it seemed the natural fit for her. No more chaos, just the down-to-earth comfort of a relationship with a “familiar friend.” Needless to say thing don’t go as planned, and the secret phone calls to and trips to vist the former Alpha lover commence.

Before you read this analysis, I want to express that my focus in this is the Beta guy and to detail some of the more common misconceptions men have whilst plugged-in to the Matrix. Yes, our heroine’s behaviors are cruel, but only serve to illustrate the machinations of the Beta mind in this study. Is she blameless? Absolutely not. Is she following her hypergamic imperative? Absolutely so.

From the top, Beta’s commentary is in blue:

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, you have proved that with getting back with chris.
I never stopped loving you less or caring for you less when we were together. You say, I gave up, stopped trying, after I won you.

This statement here is a textbook illustration of what I call a “scarcity mentality.” As if the initial cliché weren’t bad enough, he refers to getting together with her as “winning you.” This puts her attention/desire into a reward status – classic AFC preconditioning. SHE is the PRIZE to be won rather than making himself the PRIZE who is to be sought after. This mentality is an instant confirmation of a lack of confidence. It’s she who should be appreciative of his own self-worth and identity, and desire to be associated with it, but from the outset he puts her on the pedestal and confirms for her that he is of lesser value. Off to a very bad start. Also, his hammy referencing of an old cliché is only one more glaring illustration of his lack of depth in experience; this just screams “I’m a beta.”

Thats not true in the least. I never stopped trying, it was the first time I had ever been in a relationship with you and the first time we had lived together, and over the first 4 months we were together we had only been in each other’s company like 12 days. I was trying to get comfortable with us. It was still kinda weird at first since I hadn’t talked to you in so long and we were together. So awesome and so sudden but that made it interesting. I never stopped doing for you, I never stopped being spontaneous with us.

Here, and in the previous comment, he interprets her telling him that “he gave up” as an accusation that he gave up on the relationship – not the real message, which is, he gave up on himself and his own identity to better identify with and accomodate her in order to secure and maintain her intimacy. As I’ve discussed before, he’ll “do anything” to make her happy and this is precisely why she has no respect for the guy. I think this is where the main point of conflict is rooted. He has a fundamental misunderstanding of what she meant by saying “he’d given up.” He thinks he didn’t identify enough or didn’t figure out the secret combination of sappy romantic gestures that would make her desire him because it’s been so mentally ingrained into him that a woman should always be considered a prize to be ‘won’. This is the root of his own frustration because her words and behaviors contradict his ego-invested expectations of himself and how relationships ought to be. So consequently he falls back on victimhood as a defense – according to his mental schema he’s done everything by the book and it’s she who’s been disingenuous.

“Yep, I won her heart finally, its time to sit back and relax.”

Again with the ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ romantic comedy banter; but also, again, he restates his position of supplication by making her ‘heart’ a PRIZE to be won.

Never would I think that. Nothing was set in stone, you could leave me at any point and for any reason. I knew you were still an independent person.

I was just trying to get on a comfortable grounds with us. God, we only lived together 5 months, in that 5 months, from June to Oct, is when you formed your opinion, cause it was all over in November when you decided you loved Chris more than me.

More melodrama, but rather than find fault in his own actions for even considering the fallout from living with a woman he’s involved with (much less, one in need of a home and fresh out of an intense relationship) he’d rather apply for victimhood again and make a plea for circumstance. In all likelihood her opinion of both he and Chris were already set, but he finds fault with her because it more easily fits his romanticized (and feminized) ideals. I swear, the guy should get into daytime dramas when he gets out of college, he’d be brilliant at it. But I can’t let her off the hook entirely here – she knew your own set of conditions and this guy WAS a convenient out for her. It’s just now she’s paying for that misjudgment.

Before you decided that everything you had done was a mistake and that you regretted coming here, and dating me.

You even said that. You did say that to me, so whats that say about you and our whole relationship. You think I quit trying and just wished you’d never have come here and/or dated me.

See my other comments, I think I addressed this fairly well. He misunderstands that ‘trying’ has nothing to do with the relationship, but rather establishing himself as his own person. He then finds it easier to accommodate his own idealized fantasy relationships against her indiscretions. She’s the flawed one now (and rightfully), whereas before she was his ideal, because it conflicts with his romantic mental narrative.

So which one is more fucked up, I think yours was much worse. Regretting me, having feelings in your heart for Chris that started pushing me out 5 months after getting here and for good 7 months later. So yeah, when you think and say to yourself  I wasnt a good boyfriend, cause his faults were just too great. He cared too much, would do too much for me and quit trying after I gave him a couple of months before I totally pushed him out of my heart and decided that Chris wass my main objective.

Our hapless Beta is in the right, but for the wrong reasons.

Restating the obvious here, but it does show that he enjoys the time he spends concocting ways to confront her on the righteousness of his efforts in order to change her mind. He falls into the same binary thinking trap that most AFCs do – “If I can just plead my case well enough and logically enough while applying a good amount of indignation, guilt and conviction she’ll see I’m the perfect boyfriend and desire me again.” This logic is great when you’re an attorney or arguing on a debate team, but he hasn’t come to the realization yet that desire and attraction cannot be negotiated. He only consolidates her estimate of his Beta status by lamely employing shame in an effort to engender the guilt he thinks will make her come to her sense and love him.

This is a very important lesson that beta chumps MUST transition past; shame will NEVER make a woman hot for you. You can be 100% justified in your judging of a woman’s behaviors and character, but in jarring her into self-awareness you will only generate her resentment of you – and especially when you’re unquestionably correct in your estimations.

You were much worse in the relationship than I was. Your total basis is pretty much irrelevant. Cause givin just a bit of time and you voicing any concerns it would have been different. Relationships are about change for both parties involved. You never came to me with the problems you had. You didnt care enough about me to do that, like you were looking for an excuse.

It’s important to remember here that this was the first “real relationship” this guy had ever engaged in. Would he know that “Relationships are about change” due to his many past, successful relationships? No, but his life long Matrix conditioning has taught him that this is ‘what’s expected of people in a relationship’. Here, he is qualifying her against his own preconceptions and trying to make himself the martyr rather than realizing that he’s just as culpable as her for even allowing the ‘relationship’ (such as it was) to happen. When women’s real-world behaviors conflict with beta men’s fem-centric life conditioning, worlds collide.

You came to Chris, you told him what needed to be changed, gave him an ultimatum basicly. You gave him lots of chances over the 2 years. For the last 8 months when you were getting any dick from him you told him.

You loved him enough to do that, you wanted him in your life enough to do that.

2nd, 3rd and 4th (and more) chances are for Alphas. Betas must be bulletproof from the start until they attain, perceptively, Alpha status in a woman’s estimation. Alpha can fail far more shit tests than any Beta would ever be given leniency for.

Our Beta can’t see past his own drama to ask why she allowed Chris more leeway and how this applies to himself. Even when she left, Chris was still his own person, he was the PRIZE, not her. In standard Beta fashion, he will interpret Chris as indifferent or uncaring towards her and try to play this as a card in his favor, but the subtext of it is she had respect and tingles for the Chris well after she broke it off (5 Minutes of Alpha) and his sense of identity is what planted the seed of doubt in her head. Betas will never come to accept this until they re-evaluate their own preconditioning. In the meantime he’ll conveniently use her returning to Chris to reinforce his own estimation of her, use Chris’ indifference as leverage in pleading his case (shame) for being a logically better boyfriend choice, and affirm his own Beta-Game beliefs. It might be interesting to compare how she feels about leaving the Beta to how she felt when she left Chris.

You didnt do that for me, not at all. You made your decision within 6 months of being down here together. Chris was in your heart the entire time. I never had you.

I was in love with you and you only thought you were in love with me. So dont ever think that you had it bad and that I was the one at fault. My faults were nothing, and you know that in your heart, they were nothing that couldnt have been easily changed with a little time. They werent deal breakers.

Im not saying I feel this way, im saying this is what I think and i believe it is absolutely true. at least most of it.

Here, he’s looking for absolution of his efforts at this point and using the only psychological skillset he’s ever developed – an adolescent one. He’s feeding his emotionality by concocting rhetorical scenarios about her that he’d like to be true in order to reaffirm his self-righteous, AFC idealisms, when in fact this whole experience is essentially a challenge to his ego-investment in moon-eyed romanticism. When something attacks this investment it also attacks his personality because he’s internalized it so fully. So in order to protect it (and because it’s easier than self-analysis) he transfers the blame to her for not playing the role of his fantasy girlfriend. She becomes the flawed one for not affirming his idealism. ‘Quality Woman’ becomes ‘Damaged Goods’.

Epilogue

It was not long after this that our heroine left our subject and temporarily got back with her former Alpha lover. It didn’t last long. For all his brooding and pensive Alpha-ness he was still the same loser she left. Not long after she eventually married another Alpha with the same self-confidence, but much better long term prospects. Her now-husband was, and still is, the prize for her, and that’s what she wanted, a prize.