When I started in on the Hypergamy doesn’t care,.. post I knew it was going to come off as some unavoidably deterministic rant about the evils of hypergamy.
That post was born out of all the efforts I’ve repeatedly read men relate to me when they say how unbelievable their breakups were. As if all of the investment, emotional, physical, financial, familial, etc. would be rationally appreciated as a buffer against hypergamy. The reason for their shock and disbelief is that their mental state originates in the assumption that women are perfectly rational agents and should take all of their efforts, all of their personal strengths, all of the involvement in their women’s lives into account before trading up to a better prospective male. There is a prevailing belief that all of their merits, if sufficient, should be proof against her hypergamous considerations.
For men, this is a logically sound idea. All of that investment adds up to their concept of relationship equity. So it’s particularly jarring for men to consider that all of that equity becomes effectively worthless to a woman presented with a sufficiently better prospect as per the dictates of her hypergamy.
That isn’t to say that women don’t take that equity into account when determining whether to trade up or in their choice of men if they’re single, but their operative point of origin is ALWAYS hypergamy. Women obviously can control their hypergamic impulses in favor of fidelity, just as men can and do keep their sexual appetites in check, but always know that it isn’t relationship equity she’s rationally considering in that moment of decision.
This dynamic is exactly the reason the surrogate boyfriend, the perfect nice guy orbiter who’s invested so much into identifying with his target, gets so enraged when his dream girl opts for the hot asshole jerk. She’s not making a logical decision based upon his invested relational equity. Quite the opposite; she’s empirically proving for him that his equity is worthless by rewarding the hot jerk – who had essentially no equity – with her sex and intimacy. He doesn’t understand that hypergamy doesn’t care about relational equity.
This is a really tough truth for guys to swallow, because knowing how hypergamy works necessarily devalues their concept of relational equity with the woman they’re committed to, or considering commitment with. Men’s concept of relational equity stems from a mindset that accepts negotiated desire (not genuine desire) as a valid means of relationship security. This is precisely why most couples counseling fails – its operative origin begins from the misconception that genuine desire (hypergamy) can be negotiated indefinitely.
The Rational Female
Aunt Giggles recently posted a fluffy little piece of interpretive Alpha fiction extolling the virtues of Beta men (who of course to her are the real Alphas only without teeth, pee sitting down and only say sweet things about girls). It’s not a bad list in and of itself despite the fact that her definition of Alpha is George Costanza who morphs into Sterling Grey upon command when the moment strikes. It’s a noble effort, but where her list falls flat is in the presumption (her hope) that women will make a conscious, rational decision to opt for a Beta male as a suitable long term provider. What a novel concept!
Irony aside, Giggles still falls prey to two fallacies in her pleas for a better Beta. The first is as discussed above; the hope or the realistic expectation that women’s hindbrain hypergamy can be sublimated in favor of a rational cognitive decision making when choosing with whom to spread her legs for, much less settle down with. I understand it’s been at least 28 years since she had to make that particular decision, but not much has really changed in that time with regards to the limbic influence hypergamy has over women’s decision making processes. The short answer is that she believes that healthy relationships can be rooted in negotiated desire (which is also called ‘obligated desire’ in the real world).
This then leads into the second fallacy in which she presumes relationship equity – even the potential for that equity – will make the life time commitment to a “he’ll-haffta-do” Beta endurable while repressing her innate hypergamy. As I stated above, hypergamy doesn’t care about relational equity. If it’s a consideration at all in a woman’s decision making process, it’s only for comparative purposes when assessing risk motivated by hypergamy. Some times that risk association is present in deciding whether to accept a marriage proposal, sometimes it’s present when she decides another man’s genetic potential rivals that of the provider she’s already committed to, but in all instances the originating prompt is still hypergamy.
*late post edit* As is his way Roissy offers up another timely refutation of Aunt Susan’s played out trope ‘WARNING: Alpha traits alone are suitable for short-term mating only!’
The Rational Male
All of that may sound like I’m excusing men from the equation, I’m not. As I detailed in The Threat, when men progressively become more aware of their sexual market value, the better their capacity develops to assess long term investment potential with women. The trouble with this model, in its present form, is that the phase at which men are just becoming aware of their true long term value to women (usually around age 30) is almost exactly the phase (just pre-Wall) in which women hope to press men unaware of their SMV into their long term provisioning schema. As this relates to men, most spend the majority of their teens and 20’s pursuing women, following the dicktates of their biological impulses, and to varying degrees of success learn from experience what really seems like women’s duplicity or fickleness. So it comes as a breath of fresh air for the average (see Beta) guy to finally encounter what he believes is a woman who’s “down to earth” and seems genuinely concerned with hearth and family at age 29. Her past character, her very nature, even her single-mommyness can be overlooked and/or forgiven in light of finding such a rare jewel.
There’s a new breed of White Knight in the manosphere who love to enthusiastically promote the idea of rigorously vetting women as potential wives. It sounds like virtue. For serial monogamists playing the ‘Good Guy’ card, it sounds so satisfying to lay claim to having experience and integrity enough to be a good judge or authority of what will or will not do for his ‘exacting standards’. This is really a new form of Beta Game; “look out ladies, I’ve been through the paces so if you’re not an approximate virgin and know how to bake a hearty loaf of bread, this guy is moving on,..” and on, and on, and on. All any of this really amounts to is a better form of identification Game, because ultimately a profession of being a Good Guy is still an attempt to be what he expects his ideal woman would want – a good judge (of her) character.
Know this right now, no man (myself included) in the history of humanity has ever fully or accurately vetted any woman he married. And certainly not any guy who married prior to the age of 30 or had fewer than 1 LTR in his past. It’s not that high school sweethearts who last a lifetime don’t exist, it’s that no man can ever accurately determine how the love of his life will change over the course of that lifetime.
Right about now, I can hear the “wow, that’s some pretty raw shit there Mr. Tomassi” from the gallery, and I agree, but ask the guy on his second divorce how certain he was that he’d done his due diligence with his second wife based on all his past experience. Bear this truth in mind, you do not buy into a good marriage or LTR, you create one, you build one. Your sweet little Good Girl who grew up in the Amish Dutch Country is just as hypergamous as the club slut you nailed last night. Different girls, different contexts, same hypergamy. You may have enough experience to know a woman who’d make a good foundation, but you ultimately build your own marriage/monogamy based on your own strengths or dissolve it based on inherent flaws – there are no pre-fab marriages.