One requirement I have of most of the men (and women) I do consults with is that they read The 48 Laws of Power (The Art of Seduction is in the class syllabus as well). In the introduction author Robert Greene runs down the ethical implications of understanding and employing the various laws. If you look at the synopsis of the laws I linked you can get an idea of how uncomfortable some of these laws will naturally make people feel. Many of these laws understandably rub the uneducated the wrong way because for the better part of our lives we’ve been taught to emulate socially acceptable mannerisms and adopt a mindset of cooperation above self interest.
Most people are conditioned to think that deliberate use of power is inherently manipulative, self-serving and sometimes evil. In context this may or may not be true, but in so demonizing even the desire to understand power, not only do we inhibit a better critical understanding of power, but we also make the uneducated more vulnerable to the use of power against them. The 49th Law being: Never educate others of the principles of power, which is itself a form of using power. Never talk about Fight Club.
I bring this up because, just as with the Laws of Power, there will be articles of Game, or foundations of intergender communication – complete with all of the underlying motivators – that Men (and women) will be uncomfortable accepting or employing to the point that it challenges some deep rooted emotional or ego investments. Let me be the first to establish that discomfort is part of understanding; truth is supposed to make you uncomfortable in order to inspire you to action.
I should also add here that even though you may not be comfortable in exercising a particular tactic or don’t feel confident in approaching an interpersonal situation in some way, it is still vital that you do understand the concepts and methodologies behind why those laws, principles, techniques, attitudes, etc. do work. You may have personal reasons for not wanting to involve yourself in some particular aspect of Game, but it’s imperative that you fully acknowledge the mechanics behind that aspect before you decide it’s not something you can employ. Declining to use a particular Law or aspect of Game doesn’t make you immune to the consequences of it, nor does it invalidate that aspect when others use it for their own benefit, and potentially to your own detriment.
Half the Battle
The primary (though not exclusive) focus of this blog has been devoted to the critical analysis of the mechanics behind intergender dynamics, Game-practice, Game-theory, social and evolutionary psychology just to name a few. I can understand the want for practical applications of this field of study, and while in my line of work I have done my own ‘field testing’ with the majority of what I explore here, I have neither the time, opportunity or resources to develop practices beyond what I offer here. At least not to the degree of which the majority of my readers are able – and that’s the good news.
“This is brilliant stuff Rollo, but how do I use this to make my life better with the next girl I sarge, etc.?” This is a common desire from my readership, and the best I can offer is Knowing is Half the Battle. One size doesn’t fit all for everyone in Game or intergender relations. Anyone hawking a book giving you an instruction manual on how to have a great marriage or how to pick up chicks is still limited by their own individual experience. In other words, they’re not you.
It’s for exactly this reason I spend more time and critical thought on the foundations and functions of gender dynamism than pick up artistry. When I get associated with the “manipulative machiavellian Game gurus” it only serves to highlight an ignorance and lack of any depth of understanding what I focus on here. Game is psychology, sociology, economics, biomechanics, evolution and politics. Game is far broader than simple tricks and techniques. And it’s exactly the latent purpose of these applications (PUArtistry) and the mechanics behind their workings that threatens the ego-investments of those who’s feminized interests would rather see them marginalized and passed off as folly, or usefully ridiculed to shame the curious for fear that the underpinnings might be exposed.
Head in the Sand
Sweetening the poison doesn’t make it any less deadly.
I can remember a time in my mid-20s working as a stage tech for a casino cabaret show. The magic act I set up and struck every night involved a Bengal tiger and a black panther. Both of them were professionally handled by trainers, but even though they seemed the most docile of animals I knew they had the potential to seriously fuck me up under the wrong set of circumstances. The trainers would keep them at distance from the rest of the cast and crew, only myself and one other tech were able to get close since we were the ones wheeling them out in special cages at their particular point in the show. One trainer told me, “the moment you think of them as pets is the moment they’ll go feral on you.” They would play with these wild animals, and they seemed to have a special connection (almost like a pet), but when you watched them eat, you knew what they were capable of.
I learned a valuable lesson from this when one night I was wheeling the panther out to the curtain. She was in what was basically a reinforced acrylic aquarium on casters with a velvet cloth draped over it. A few minutes before my cue I’d thought the drape was falling to one side and lifted it to even it out. It was then that I was face to face with this “pet” in nothing but faint stage lights and about 4 inches of transparent acrylic between us. She looked at me with those yellow-green eyes and gave me a very low, almost muted growl and flashed just enough of her teeth to let me know this was not a “pet”.
It’s a mistake (and sometimes a fatal one) to ignore what you know is just under the surface. It’s comforting to believe that you’ve got a special connection, and while the conditions are right, you’ll preserve a relationship based on mutual trust and shared affinity. The flaw is in believing that trust, and kinship is unconditional; that the underlying feral motivators are subdued to the point of being inconsequential. It may be that you do have a special bond that goes beyond just the physical, but that relationship is still founded on physical rules that constantly test and influence that individual.
You know better, but the desire for that connection is so strong that you marginalize the natural impulses into feel-good rationalizations. Every divorced man I know has uttered some variation of “I never thought she was capable of this.” In their comfort they wondered how they dropped the ball, especially after having played by the rules for so long. Some knew about Hypergamy, others made it their “pet”, only their beautiful panther went feral.
Play My Game
It is a far healthier approach to accept the laws of power, the laws of Game, Hypergamy, etc. and fashion a life around an understanding of them than to convince oneself that they are an exception to them.
There are those who seek power by changing the game – by lowering the basketball hoops in order to better shoot a basket – but in ‘leveling the playing field’ they only succeed in changing the nature of the competition to better suit their individual abilities, neither improving the game nor themselves. The temporary change of rules only serves their inadequacies in that game.
Then there are those who accept the game for what it is, they understand it and they master it (or at least attempt to do so). They understand the need for adversity and the benefits it gives them when they reach the next level of mastering the game – not only in technique, but from the confidence this genuinely and verifiably confers.
Don’t wish things were easier, wish you were better.
It’s the aberration who seeks to legitimize her cheating at the game as the new way the game should be played. Shoot the arrow, paint the target around it, and you’ll always get a bullseye.