Deti, from a recent Just Four Guys comment thread:
Women cannot bear to see a Man experiencing negative emotions such as extreme anger, rage, fear, despair, despondency or depression for extended periods of time. You say you want to “be there” for your Man; but you cannot do it. If it goes on long enough, it kills the attraction; it sets off your hypergamy alarms; and subconsciously causes you to start hunting for a replacement Man.
A woman seeing a Male go through the above will seek to replace that Male immediately.
Women cannot listen to Men talking about or working out their dating/mating/relationship issues or problems. Women reflexively view a Man discussing such issues as “whining” or “complaining” or “bitterness” or “sour grapes” or “well, you just chose poorly, so sucks to be you” or “suck it up, no one wants to hear you bitching about it”.
As to both of the above principles; when a Male is involved, ratchet up by a factor of 5 the disdain and repulsion a woman experiences when seeing a Male do or experience the above.
Around the first week of August this year I suffered what’s commonly known as a ‘dancer’s fracture‘. For all of the risk taking activities I’ve engaged in over my life, I’d never had more than a hairline fracture on any bone in my body before this. This fucking hurt. Like edge of the bed, don’t turn the wrong way or you’re in agony kind of hurt. Forget about putting weight on it for 4-6 weeks, “holy shit I have a 2 story home” and my bed’s upstairs kind of hurt. The Doc explained that there’s really no way to set a dancer’s break so I’d just have to “tough it out” and take it easy. I refuse to take any kind of narcotic painkiller (Vicodin, etc) so it was ibuprofen and Tylenol for the better part of the first month.
After the first week, the pain went from “holy shit” to “ok, ow, ah fuck, yeah I can do this if I grit my teeth.” If a wild animal wanted to eat me, there’d have been no way for me to avoid it; I was literally hobbled for the first time in my life.
Sack up ya big pansy!
Now, do I sound like a big pansy to you? In my time I’ve squatted well over 400 lbs. I have benched 305 lbs. I’ve leg pressed the weight of small cars in my younger days. Most of the guys I know who’d broken a bone, or torn a bicep, or slipped a disc knew, and could empathize with, exactly what I was describing to them in great detail. However, my loving wife of 17 years and my fifteen year old daughter’s first reaction to my pain was “Oh, men are such babies! They all make such a big noise about how much it hurts. You think that’s hurt? That’s not hurt.” It was as if by their dismissing my injury I would get up and say “yeah, ok it’s really not so bad” and go back to mowing the lawn or something.
This has been a pretty consistent theme for Mrs. Tomassi – and every single woman I’d been involved with before her – women don’t want to accept that their Man could ever be incapacitated. Before I was Game-aware, I took this with a grain of salt. My wife has been a medical professional since she was in her early 20’s and she’s seen some pretty gnarly shit in various trauma centers so I had to take that into consideration. There’s a certain disconnect from human suffering in that line of work that has to be made or you lose it – I get that – but that still didn’t account for the default indifference to pain most every other female I know, including my own daughter and mother had ever had with regards to a man in legitimate physical pain.
The Mother-Nurturer Myth
One of the classic perceptions women, and even well-meaning men, perpetuate is the idea that women are the nurturers of humanity. They take care of the children, home and hearth. Theirs is the realm of the private and men’s that of the public – in fact this was one impression that early feminism took as its primary target, they wanted it all, private and public. Despite the statistics about abortion, despite the realities of Hypergamy and the War Brides dynamic, the classic characterization of woman as mother, nurturer, nurse and caregiver have endured, even as a complement to the Strong Independent® characterization feminism would reimagine for women.
Perhaps it’s due to a deeply enrgamatic hard-wiring of the importance of hypergamy into the feminine’s psychological firmware, but women cannot accept that any man, and in particular a Man worth considering as a suitable hypergamic pairing, might ever be incapacitated. The feminine subconscious refuses to acknowledge even the possibility of this. Perpetuating the species and ensuring the nurturing her offspring maybe part of her pysche’s hard-code, but ensuring the survival and provisioning of her mate is not. This isn’t to say that women can’t learn (by necessity) to assist in her mate’s wellbeing, it’s just not what evolution has programmed her for – it requires effort on her part.
I propose this because women’s solipsistic nature (predicated on hypergamy) necessarily excludes them from empathizing with the male experience – and this extends to men’s legitimate pain. The idea that a man, the man her hypergamy betted its genetic inheritance on for protection and provisioning, could be so incapacitated that she would have to provide him with protection and provisioning is so counter-valent to the feminine imperative that the feminine psyche evolved psychological defenses (“men are just big babies when it comes to pain”) against even considering the possibility of it. Thus, due to species-beneficial hypergamy, women fundamentally lack the capacity to empathize with the male experience, and male pain.
Empathy vs. Sympathy
Now, before I’m deluged with offended women’s binary responses to the contrary, I very specifically used the term empathize rather than sympathize in my evaluation of women’s psychological coping dynamics here. There is a universal and comparative difference between sympathy and empathy:
Empathy is the ability to mutually experience the thoughts, emotions, and direct experience of others. It goes beyond sympathy, which is a feeling of care and understanding for the suffering of others. Both words have similar usage but differ in their emotional meaning.
Empathy Sympathy Definition: Understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes. Acknowledging another person’s emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance. Example: I know it’s not easy to lose weight because I have faced the same problems myself. When people try to make changes like this (e.g. lose some weight) at first it seems difficult. Relationship: Personal Friends, family and community ( the experience of others) . Nursing context: Relating with your patient because you have been in a similar situation or experience Comforting your patient or their family Scope: Personal, It can be one to many in some circumstances From either one to another person or one to many (or one to a group). Sympathy essentially implies a feeling of recognition of another’s suffering while empathy is actually sharing another’s suffering, if only briefly. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’ shoes”. So empathy is a deeper emotional experience.
Empathy develops into an unspoken understanding and mutual decision making that is unquestioned, and forms the basis of tribal community. Sympathy may be positive or negative, in the sense that it attracts a perceived quality to a perceived self identity, or it gives love and assistance to the unfortunate and needy.
Women do not lack a capacity to sympathize with male hardship or pain, but they categorically lack a capacity to empathize with uniquely male experiences.
This needs to be made clear to both sexes. While I have no doubt that many a woman may have experienced the pain of a dancer’s fracture they’ve never experienced that pain as a man, and therefore cannot empathize with that experience. Now, extrapolate this pain to other aspects of a man’s life, or his idealizations about how he would want a woman to love him.
I constantly see the term empathy supplant the term sympathy when used by women; as if their feminine character uniquely transcends merely sorrow or compassion for someone in pain, but becomes somehow magically equitable with feeling that person’s pain. As an insulation against the cruel realities that their own hypergamy demands and exacts on men, women convince themselves that their sympathy is really empathy, and their innate solipsism only serves to further insulate them from even having the curiosity to attempt real empathy towards men.
It’s the Just Get It dynamic on a more subliminal level; if a woman has to put forth the effort to truly attempt to empathize with a man, he just doesn’t get it, she marginalizes his experience and continues her hypergamous search for the Alpha who doesn’t force her to real empathy.
This fantasy of feminine-specific empathy can be traced back to the Mother-Nurturer myth attributed to the feminine as well as the mysticism of the Feminine Mystique. If women are the unquestionably unknowable forces of nature that the Mystique constantly batters into popular consciousness, it’s not too far a stretch to accept that the mythical feminine intuition might also stretch to their literally experiencing the pain of others in an almost psychic fashion. If women are the “life-givers” (mother-godesses?) how could they not have some quasi-psychic connection to that which they’ve birthed?
That all makes for good fiction, but it hardly squares against the “oh, men are such big babies when it comes to pain” trope, or does it? If women are granted the authority to define what really hurts and what doesn’t for men – due to a socially presumed ownership of empathy – then this puts them into a better control of which men can best qualify for feminine hypergamy. In other words, women own the selective-breeding game if they can convince men that they know, by literal experience, what really hurts a man and what doesn’t, or what shouldn’t.
Hi Rollo, great blog. My question for you is:
Do you openly discuss red pill with Mrs T, or do you just imply it in your words and behaviour?
Hey, even honest women will confirm Rollo’s observations as per the excerpts below from Florence Nighengale. Nothing more needs to be said. —————————————————————————————————- “…. I have read half your book thro’, and am immensely charmed by it. But some things I disagree with and more I do not understand. This does not apply to the characters, but your conclusions, e.g. you say “women are more sympathetic than men”. Now if I were to write a book out of my experience, I should begin Women have no sympathy. Yours is the tradition. Mine is the conviction of experience. Now look at… Read more »
Great post. I have anecdotal experience in this.
In my experience, women who have a strong attraction for a guy or are shit-testing him don’t have empathy for how he may be feeling about any given struggle or pain.
They have empathy for guys they aren’t attached or attracted to—at least in my experience.
The idea the guy they were attracted to could be hurting would be low value.
These ideas all boil down to biology. It makes sense that to better pass down our genes, men and women are hardwired as: men: empathize with their children and mate to better provide/support women: behave more selfishly: choosing the best gene-provider, upgrading to a new provider when possible, and using different men to get the best genes and best provisioning. It’s always made sense to me that men and women are the way they are to prioritize successful reproduction. NOT personal fulfillment, NOT happiness, NOT to be honorable, etc. I know a guy that still loves his old girlfriend while… Read more »
This may be influenced by culture. I have experienced what you speak of with American women, but not with Japanese women. When I am ailing or injured, my Japanese wife, mother-in-law, and other women in their family take it seriously, as seriously as they take each other’s pain.
This looks like a direct consequence of hypergamy. Alpha is initally assumed (hat tip Martel). There is no world, no reality in which the male is not alpha, is not strong enough, is in pain. Any reality short of la-la-la-land abundance and protection is discarded and mocked.
I can confirm what Carlos wrote above, with the caveat that a distinction need be made between more traditional women and “modern” westernized females.
I assume that this also applies in other non- or only semi-westernized nations where men are still men, women are still women and marriage is more or less for life. In that case there is much more of a vested interest in maintaining the wage earner’s health, including nursing and other care when needed.
Interesting blog, Rollo. Any thoughts on how to explain the tendency of doctors (male and female) to prescribe more pain medication to men than to women (corrected for body weight), to refer men sooner than women and to altogether take men’s complaints more seriously than they do women’s complaints? One would expect female doctors to maybe take men less seriously in the light of your reflection? Or does it only work this way when a women views a man as a potential partner instead of a patient, who is vulnerable anyway? Not trying to contradict you, it just struck me… Read more »
Maybe in your skewed femworld.
“Maeve O’Connell, a pharmacist for Boots The Chemist, says: ‘In my experience, women are more likely to buy painkillers than men.”
” men are more likely to suffer in silence”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-125947/Are-pill-popper.html
“An estimated 500,000 women and 100,000 men in the UK suffer daily headaches caused by the overuse of painkillers.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2403818/Taking-painkillers-INCREASE-number-headaches-suffer-from.html
In an old book I’ve read that women can still feel attraction for males with a mental instability but having physical, strength and agility shortcommings are a major turn off. But I disagree on the used definition of the word empathy. What Rollo calls empathy I’d call empathic concern or compassion. Empathy is by definition (originating around 1909) only the capacity to recognize experienced emotions and sensations in other beings. If that makes someone feel compassion or sympathy is a whole different story. An extreme example: The success of many psychopaths hinges on their strong empathy which they use to… Read more »
If your perceived helplessness like a pet or small children, women couldn’t be more nurturing. I will do everything in my power to avoid disclosing any pain or being sick to my mate, for I believe there is a glue factory out there she could take me to, while I sleep.
Empathy to a man and a woman are from different dictionaries and worlds. The best example I can give first hand is the pre-nuptial marriage arrangement that comes up in discussion – on the basis the man has more monetary resources/assets to lose than the woman: Man: “I will marry you, but on the basis of a pre-nup.” Woman: “So you haven’t any faith in us or you think I’m after your money?” Man: Not so much, and I do trust you today. But things can change and people can sway opinions away from objectivity.” Woman: You can’t think we’ll… Read more »
@Bourdonne: A man will avoid going to the doctor as long as possible, doing it only as a last resort. So, if a man finally goes there, it is serious. The doctor knows this, so he prescribes medicine accordingly. A female doctor will treat you as a patient, not as a man, but only if it is physical. If it is behavioural, say you go to a female doctor because you have genital disease, she will snap back to her female self and will instantly assume you have cheated on your mate… It also works in the other direction, if… Read more »
@Bourdonne As was mentioned, medical professionals must by needs develop a clinical detachment from emotional reactions in others in order to function for any length of time in their jobs. With such a detachment, it would seem logical then that they view pain objectively, that is, without the throbbing heart rending urge to internalize it in themselves. As such, I would think then that a man’s pain would stand out as more serious than a woman’s pain in some situations. Most men would rather crawl on their naked belly over glass than admit pain to a stranger, whereas most women… Read more »
I’m not quite sure I get the connection here or to what Rollo is trying to connect.
Sure we see the nuancical differences between empathy and sympathy, but I’m not quite sure the analogies you gave summed it up for us.
Anywho- probably just me.
Once again, another good post – for those looking for LTR or marriage. Once committed, Men will over look these types of short comings in a woman, and in many cases, will help them through it (even if in a bumbling or awkward way). For many Men, it’s a shock to the system when their wife (or SO) doesn’t help them when times are “tough”. In my experience, there is more anger than caring during those times – and a basic rallying cry of “get your shit together” or the ubiquitous “Man Up”. And if Men ever open up about… Read more »
outstanding writing.
also, this right here is why ultra high end girls ping so hard off the dark Triad and specifically psychopathy. the higher the quality girl, the higher severity her hypergamous instincts necessarily are. she requires a man with no empathy and very little sympathy to stay in polarity with her own hard coded instincts.
she can’t slip and neither can you.
Perhaps if the bone was protruding…or you have massive blood loss…then they might understand.
If it is an internal pain…forget it.
And women will complain if the temperature isn’t at ideal conditions.
@earl, this x1,000
All of those negative emotions Deti mentions are signs of weakness, of lacking, and it is male weakness that women hate. The more you display that you lack something, anything, the more women will be turned off. Displays of negative emotions are always signs of lacking something, usually the ability to influence the world or achieve your desires in some way. The ultimate man, to a woman, is a man who has everything and lacks nothing. That is the peak of hypergamy. Game is largely about simulating the man who has everything: that is what outcome independence, abundance, and the… Read more »
@Bourdonne
And then there are facts.
“An estimated 500,000 women and 100,000 men in the UK suffer daily headaches caused by the overuse of painkillers.”
My comment with links is in moderation.
But doesn’t seem that women can handle pain all that much.
@JS123 That makes sense regarding emotional issues/problems (depression, complaining about work, etc). But physical pain caused by a real thing, such as the broken bone in the article, or being shot in the leg, or whatever, is real pain that has nothing to do with one’s outlook on life or state of mind. I get why a woman would scoff at a weakling who went around wringing his hands about his feelings, but to hold a man in contempt for feeling actual nerve ending induced heavy pain is an engagement in the belief of a fantasy being at best. No… Read more »
“I don’t want to talk about how she endured chronic debilitating lower back pain 3 times during our time together, and i was there dutifully and carefully helping load and unload her into the car to doctors visits and getting her whatever she needed no matter how inconvenient to me. A courtesy she did not return in kind when i ended up on my back for over a week after a massive lower back strain injury. She thought i was faking it for attention.” http://whoism3.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/gauntlet-cast-you-throw-down-now-back-your-shit-up/ I couldn’t believe the look of shock on her face when i had the temerity… Read more »
Quite so, couldn’t agree more. Recently experienced a personal example of this phenomenon. I’ve been taking some extreme fat burning pills recently (DNP, look them up – I’ve shed 7-8lb of fat in 10 days so far), which have fairly horrendous side effects. Permamently boiling hot, short of breath, sweating, no energy, nearly uncontrollable food cravings, low mood, no libido. To begin with, my girlfriend insisted she remain with me to look after me, and I thought “sure, why not.” However, even though we talked about it beforehand and she assured me she wouldn’t, she began taking my bad mood… Read more »
Rollo,
You wrote ” deeply enrgamatic hard-wiring. I can’t find a definition for enrgamatic, is this a typo?
Jim West: thank you for your explanation. I agree that many men will wait until the very last moment before seeking medical attention for a problem, and are therefore rightly referred very soon. Although the other problem also exists, namely that women’s complaints are often underestimated and written of as ‘hysteria’ which leads to important diagnoses being missed in women, such as heart infarcts. Not sure if that is the right terminology, sorry if it isn’t. English is not my first language. Burninator: thank you for your response. I agree with what you describe. Childbirth IS painful though. I have… Read more »
@Bourdonne, thanks for the props, welcome. I actually travel to the Netherlands 1-2 times a year to visit one of our distilleries in Schiedam.
@js123….lacking nothing but feelings that is. the lack of emotion is allowed.
in the wild, a silverback gorillas success is predicated by his ability to maintain a food supply. nature does the rest.
feeling don’t play into finding food either. only finding food and protecting the family do.
everything the modern woman and her society tells you is not only wrong, but she WANTS you to defy the social norms. they are speed dating, just not telling the men. 😉
Phero: are those prescribed pain medication, or bought over the counter? The system in the Netherlands may be different, most medication can not be bought without prescription. I was referring to a hospital study of post-operative prescribing of opiates. Will try to find the abstract. But I might also be wrong, of course 🙂
Actually, positive emotions are allowed, they show abundance. Think of positive emotions as enjoying your bounty as the man who has everything.
Well, I can’t find the original study, only the educational material from my medical training, which is specifically about Dutch hospitals and a post surgery setting. In PubMed I can only find that women tend to be more sensitive to opiates (which would justify their receiving less, of course) and women being more prone to overdose and become addicted, which is what Phero said. So I stand corrected, I guess.
So I’m not in a freak situation for finding myself under attack when I’m ill or injured. I was starting to think I could be somehow keeping her captive and she’s taking her chance to break free & escape. Either way it really doesn’t help to have one more trouble when in pain/feeling crap, hence struggling at work, oh and spending money on meds. Don’t laugh but I entered marriage thinking it was a partnership and that together we were stronger, turns out I’d be better cared for on my own. To the questioning woman earlier – it’s good to… Read more »
I enjoyed the highly nuanced post, Rollo. Thanks for putting the work and effort into it.
Most people, men and women, are not interested in the discipline of introspection or understanding nuance and changing their world view.
That’s the major reason why I find most women to date uninteresting for long-term commitment.
I first noticed this pre-red pill. In college I dated a girl who was really sick for about a week and couldn’t shut up about it and expected everyone to be her servant and nurse her back to health. From being around her so much I, in turn, ended up getting sick – REALLY SICK – For about a week. When it first manifested itself I was in our dorm’s bathroom brushing my teeth and I just passed out, smacking my head on the floor (Someone told me it may have even been a mild seizure). Suddenly her feelings towards… Read more »
Traditionally, men wouldn’t even sit down when in the same room as a woman because it was a sign of weakness.
@JS123
“Traditionally, men wouldn’t even sit down when in the same room as a woman because it was a sign of weakness.”
That was paying homage to the fully Beta concept of chivalry and the extreme pedestalization of women . I’m not entirely certain that’s interchangeable with the concept that men should never, ever acknowledge intense physical pain.
I totally agree with you, but I wanted to add my own observation as a side note… I somehow suspect that most women (under 35 years old) BELIEVE in doctors. If you have a pain, illness, or a cut, you go to a doctor, and he fixes it. It’s not until grandparents or parents end up in the hospital that they realize how life threatening things can get.
As a side observation, i have noticed this directly with my mother. She is one of the most sympathetic women i know to friend and stranger alike. Dare i say even empathetic. If empathy was genetic, i certainly got it from my mom, not my dad that is for sure. However, the way in which me or my brother were treated, for even minor such illness’s (supportive, coddling, boderline smothering) was vastly different from what our dad got (berating, stern matter of fact advice without emotion, suck it up, chastising, harsh, resentful) solidifying your line – “Perpetuating the species and… Read more »
Even if she acts concerned for your welfare while secretly keeping her thoughts to herself, that’s more than enough.
But this outright contempt for everything a man experiences…especially his times of being poor, sick, and bad…is why men are getting fed up with women. Life isn’t and was never meant to be a constant bed of roses.
@earl, those parts in the wedding vows that mention ‘for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health’ were written in there by men.
I should mention a couple of things I thought about while putting this post together: 1.) I couldn’t shake the feeling that by making these observations, in as objective a way as I could, I would be perceived as complaining about women’s lack of true male empathy. This of course is rooted in the Male Catch 22: Man Up or Shut Up – The Male Catch 22 One of the primary way’s Honor is used against men is in the feminized perpetuation of traditionally masculine expectations when it’s convenient, while simultaneously expecting egalitarian gender parity when it’s convenient. For the… Read more »
Did you happen to read this blog entry Rollo? Similar stuff.
http://anarchopapist.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/the-discounting-of-lived-male-experience/
The theme of these comments brought to mind an instance where I almost cut my finger off.
I called my wife while she was at a family party. I told her I was racing over to the ER to see if they could save my finger. She basically ignored me until she was shamed (for lack of care or empathy) by other party guests. She begrudgingly showed up at the ER (but only out socially initiated guilt).
She has no empathy or caring whatsoever.
I remember the time when I was a kid my dad was burning trash and thought it was a good idea to throw gas on the fire (to which he later admitted was idiotic). As a result a big fireball came back at him and burned quite a bit of his chest. While he was agonizing in pain telling my mom to get him to the hospital…she still took her sweet time to make sure everything in the house was ok before they left. Even driving she still going the speed limit while dad was yelling at her to speed.… Read more »
I saw this dynamic with my brother, who was on massive medication for 10 months before they performed an operation to fuse some vertebrae. He had to drive himself to and back from doctors/hospital and while in hospital his now-ex wife didn’t bother to come visit him. My own ex-wife was the same. If she felt poorly (in even minor ways) she’d stay at home and expect me to stay home to help her, yet if I was sick she was “grow up you baby” and impatient and off to work. Yes, I could go another kick in the nuts… Read more »
Stories like these make me wonder if there isn’t some evolved psychology for women that predisposes them to abandoning an incapacitated mate as a survival strategy.
I had meant to include this post from SSM’s old blog:
http://leticiamary.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/what-to-do-when-your-husband-is-injured-or-ill/
It kind of underscores the whole point of women lacking true empathy that they would need to be taught what to do when a husband is sick or injured.
Rollo: that was exactly my thought. Her mate injured his leg fighting a boar? Dump him, find someone that can protect you, quick. In a pre-medical world, tons of injuries will prove fatal, whether from moving when you shouldn’t (leading to internal bleeding) to infection to some upstart beating you up in order to steal your hottie mate.
Meanwhile, I now have 1000x better understanding of why a girlfriend dumped me while I was in the hospital after a car accident.
@Archon, you could also make the connection that body scars (facial ones in particular, so long as they’re not disfiguring) would be attractive to women as a physical marker of a guy who’d survived a life threatening situation and lived.
Using the evolutionary train of thought.. would it not be disadvantageous for a female to leave her wounded mate instead of tending to him and getting him back into health? After all, if the primary impetus for her empathy is her children, back in the day, wouldn’t her kids be at risk of being killed or extremely neglected by a new mate, as he would want all his provisioning and resources to be towards his own biological offspring and not some other mans? Many animals in the wild do kill off offspring that aren’t theirs. She’d therefore have to leave… Read more »
Perhaps if the bone was protruding…or you have massive blood loss…then they might understand. Just don’t get it on the carpet. I’m no stranger to lack of empathy, I don’t have much. I’m also a self-conscious sick person, and resent being fussed over, so that may feed into that, who knows. I’m not even particularly nurse-y toward my children, it’s just not what I do. Don’t get me started on childbirth – it’s not that bad. I had a whole deal rolling around in my head contradicting your assertion that hypergamy feeds womens lack of empathy, but to keep it… Read more »
before I’m deluged with offended women’s binary responses to the contrary Last year at this time I would have been first in line to deluge you, but on the comment thread of my article which you kindly linked to above, I had the opportunity to freak about about this and work through it (people who participated in that conversation might tell you I got so upset with Deti and Earl during the discussion that I used the F- word, but I challenge them to find any evidence for that assertion. 🙂 ). This isn’t to say that women can’t learn… Read more »
That was paying homage to the fully Beta concept of chivalry and the extreme pedestalization of women .
no, it’s paying homage to the concept that when men gather together to discuss and get shit done, women can contribute little of use.
@earl
That anarchopapist site is quite interesting, thank you for the link.
@itsme
Context is key. Men standing in a library with women sitting taking tea is not an example of “men getting shit done”. I don’t disagree with keeping women out of “get shit done” conversations, mind you, I’m just noting that the rule applied, at the time, regardless of the context. To take one situation out of the many where it applied, does not make it a universal maxim.
In browsing through that old comment thread of mine, I found this comment by Deti that might be of interest to some readers: From comment #125: When a wife sees a husband in fear, anxiety or depression, or other negative emotions, and he can’t get out of it or it goes on a long time, it literally scares the hell out of her. For one thing, she cares about him and doesn’t want to see him like that. But it goes deeper too. On a visceral level, she knows that if he’s feeling these things, he’s not operating at 100%… Read more »
[…] Tomassi has an interesting post today, Empathy. Though I don’t agree with every single word he wrote, he makes some really good points, […]
I’ll still hold that men standing when women were seated was because men were very conscious about any displays of weakness, not out of some self-sacrifice for the benefit of women’s comfort. Men at that time were highly sensitive to any affronts to their honor/frame. And they were very alert as to not appear weak or needy in the slightest.
“people who participated in that conversation might tell you I got so upset with Deti and Earl during the discussion that I used the F- word, but I challenge them to find any evidence for that assertion. :)” For me she’s talking about how I mentioned the “internal clock”. The clock every woman has when her man goes down with something (loss of job, physical injury, etc.). Every woman has her man on a clock for him to get back on his feet…and if he doesn’t do it before the time is up, she finds someone else. The longer and… Read more »
@js123……er….not really. HER positive emotions are allowed. Never, never get it twisted. you may have whatever emotions necessary to fulfill her need, and if you benefit good i guess…… everything else is superfluous.
she can feel good even when she feels bad, but you are much better off feeling nothing.
@M3 “Using the evolutionary train of thought.. would it not be disadvantageous for a female to leave her wounded mate instead of tending to him and getting him back into health?” That depends on the environment this woman has lived in and to which she even adapted over generations and her situation. If there are young children around then that’s one more reason in favor of staying with the father. If it’s easy to find a new guy then she’s more likely to bail. What keeps a woman faithful is first of all fear. People grow bored of pleasure but… Read more »
Paul Elam has called Rollo Tomassi a PUA in the comments here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij69NeNgdB8
LOL!!! As Rollo states in his book “The Rational Male”
“You’ll think ‘well, not in my case, and here’s why,..’ or you’ll think ‘wow this is some really ground breaking stuff.’ I’m not a psychologist, or a PUA, or a men’s rights activist, or a motivational speaker
I’m just a guy who’s connected some dots”
So true. And the way he connected them has been life changing…
“would it not be disadvantageous for a female to leave her wounded mate instead of tending to him and getting him back into health?”
What Andrews said.
But, she might be able to leave the wounded and incapacitated mate, and get a new one.
That comment by me which SSM put up doesn’t support the notion that women have empathy or sympathy for the lived experiences of men, or of real pain and discomfort men experience. I was talking there about the effects of male pain, discomfort and negative emotions on women, and how women respond to and react to those things.
@LiveFearless, it’s OK, I forgive Paul, he knows about as much about me as I do of him.
I can hardly wait to read what he has to say when my guest post drops at Return of Kings,…shhhh,..
This is fascinating — I’m glad it was the one non-work thing I chose to read today. Purely anecdotal, but I’ve heard female friends with kids insist their husbands are being wimps about being sick. Louis CK has a bit about this — how his wife insisted that if he was really sick, he should go to the ER, so he did (and he was really sick…and they’re divorced). From partnered friends without kids, I hear frustration that their husbands aren’t taking good care of themselves. Personally, M. *hates* when I fuss over him when he isn’t feeling well, so… Read more »
I noticed the lack of female empathy when I first married. I got a bad case of the flu, my new wife seemed to be pissed. I didn’t understand why. This is after I nursed her through more than one migraine headache. As time went on, (we have been married 18 years now) I fractured my T8 vertebrae. An obviously very painful event. This led to 3 three years of chronic pain and difficulty in sleeping. All the while I was working my career, being an active father to my children and being active in the household. Did I get… Read more »
Heheh,..I’ve been flipping through other blog’s comments who’ve linked to this post and every male commenter has had an anecdote that confirms my assertion in this post.
My personal family experience does not confirm this at all. I come from a traditional family, and looking back at the older generation, all the wives supported their husbands. Including my own parents when my dad was not able to work for about a year. My experience outside the family with my “peers” has been the opposite. Which is why I made 40 and never married. I never went into the detailed theories like this blog, but coming from that kind of family environment the whole dating, SMP, princess syndrome and bitchiness just didn’t “add up” for lack of better… Read more »
I’ve been flipping through other blog’s comments who’ve linked to this post and every male commenter has had an anecdote that confirms my assertion in this post. Well, I wouldn’t want to go all NAWALT on you, but I gotta say my own experience doesn’t confirm this at all. Whenever I was sick, my ex-wife was always helpful and never spoke or acted the way you indicate here. Recently, I got into a fairly bad accident while biking, and for more than a month my present wife was constantly telling me to take it easy, and if anything, I was… Read more »
This is a great post and ties in with everything that I have ever seen. The lesson is the same. You are a man. You are only allowed to be strong. The rewards of being strong mean being in control of your life and having the affection of those who are weaker (e.g. women). We call that affection love. If you allow yourself to get weak, then only bad things can happen.
You loose man points for using the leg press; double loss for bragging about ho much you can leg press
Rollo: Schiedam is lovely! Lots of distilleries there, too. Our infamous Saint Liduina of Schiedam, who spent her life bedridden after some small ice-skating accident on the frozen Maas, does not set a very good example of how females handle suffering… 😉 I would like to share an observation about men and suffering that I have experienced in my husband but also my father and brother and friends, and I am curious about if you recognise any of it. Namely that men actually *CAN* be ‘big babies’ in the face of small sufferings, but very uncaring about their own health… Read more »
sounds like you swallowed some shit, and the resulting excellent analysis is.the indigestion. better: incapacitation is subjective. dont be. instill dread, fear. be icy and crueler when weak. indifference, cold shoulder. a delicate balance. alpha down, beta must go down too, as narciso babaero said.
application: ask her to bring a hammer. if she does, ask her to hold out her foot. if she does, swing. words superfluous.
btw this is 100% true, except its not carrried.thru to application. i was sick unemployed two years and lived off my girlfriend. cruelty and indifference were the secret. women shit test weakness, period. its your job to pass, so you may as well enjoy cutting the bitch.
[…] Empathy | […]
bourdonne men have independence and resistance to fresh battle type surface injuries. otherwise our pain functions the same. we chafe more at that which limits.
dan your deathbed scenario speaks to me. your job is to stare the void of death in the face. she cant. therefore she is weak. when necessary, remind her that only one of you is willing to go all the way to black.
Koanic: So you are saying that my husband’s body was ‘interpreting’ the fallen rock as a blow from an enemy, therefore putting him into fighting mode? That does make sense. Thank you for your answer.
yes. to be precise, we,re just designed to handle it. soldiers with fresh flesh wounds typically fight on until they stiffen or faint. no broken bones, he,s still functional for a while. large trauma, rush of calm high chemicals, calculating survival odds. burns and internal problems different. all relative of course. see shots that drop mma fighters.
this is what happens when apt internet is down…
I can see the point here, but my experience has somewhat differed from Rollo’s. Two years ago i broke my ankle in the worst possible way while vacationing in the mountains. Only the skin held the bones in on one side, it was nearly a compound fracture. I sheared off all three of the malleoli in one ill fated misstep. I wound up having surgery two weeks later which required thirteen screws and two metal plates to put it all back together. I was on crutches for 10 weeks. I also have a two story house with my bedroom upstairs.… Read more »
Seems like the corollary game advice (for single men spinning plates) would be: go dark when ill or injured. Cultivate an air of mystery rather than exposing yourself as physically incapacitated.
I guess you could just chalk this up as another bullet point on the ‘hypergamy doesn’t care’ post if it’s not already there.
Look into the term “protective frame”.
This dynamic with women probably originates in the same part of the brain that produces the idea in teenagers that they are invincible no matter how many stupid risks they take.
Fear of cold hard reality gives rise to a form of denial.
Another reason why women are not biologically averse to harems. Strength and provision uber alles.
The Curse of the Metatarsal! English football has been a martyr to it over the years. Now, do I sound like a big pansy to you? Well that puts you in the same bracket as fainthearts like John Terry and Wayne Rooney, never mind Stevie G, so not too shabby on the manhood front. (Arguably England’s finest, btw, still, after all these years. They’d run through a brick wall, laughing,for club and country, all of ’em, and not a whisper of complaint). Most people reckon it’s those accursed ‘blades’ that became fashionable instead of proper studs on the boots. BTW… Read more »
I heard a woman in a radio interview describing how she’d broken her neck doing gymnastics. First thing she does is phone her man to tell him & ask if he’s going to stick around.
At the time I wondered why she worried about that straight away. Maybe we know now what she’d have done – first train out of town & felt bad about it for a few hours. She’s OK with hm joining her in the genetic graveyard, but her, not so much.
Odd. I’ve had precisely the opposite experience. I’ve had Crohn’s Disease for nearly 60 years, since I was a toddler. I’m in daily, sometimes extreme pain from it, and it manifests itself in a rich variety of symptoms, since the disease attacks not only the digestive system but all the mucus linings of the body, including those of the brain. I’ve always found women to be extremely sympathetic, in fact almost worshipful, toward my condition, and used to easily and unscrupulously seduce girls in high school with my pale poetic looks and brave little soldier act. In later life, my… Read more »
Hypergamy is faciliated in the abundance of male prospects-it is not a moral choice for women
Even a ugly woman in weelchair has options -so she can ”level up”
But a average man has not-he can t do this so there is no hypergamy.
Thats why , even in the middle ages -the majority of divorced were initated by women-always a dick handy.
So all this women a cruel , heartless and whatnot is mental masturbation.
Let the war of the sexes to the feminists.
Very incisive points here, thanks for adding to a timeless discussion. Two thoughts from my own (Depth Psychology) experience: 1) Whenever we are fond of thinking ourselves a certain “type of person,” i.e., one who “presses the weight of small cars” we can always expect to see the need to work on its opposite, whatever that is for us. It is how the psyche regulates and grows. Perhaps your ladies were responding to the difference between how you like to present yourself and what they were seeing in your misery/ 2) There is more difference within the sexes than between… Read more »
“There is more difference within the sexes than between them.”
That’s true for the differences between chimps and gorillas as well.
But you are right, some men want to fuck and some enjoy to get fucked, literally and metaphorically. The differences between men and women aren’t that big after all. Amen.
I don’t get the point. How can women be expected to empathize with male experience? You can’t have a feminine woman who can appreciate the difficulties of masculinity. Same goes the other way. You can’t have a manly guy being able to empathize with the emotional turbulences of a menstruating woman or the pain of birth giving. Your advice is spot on though. Every relationship is a contract. Part of the contract that we as men agree to is being mentally strong. You stop honouring that contract for too long and you risk a break up. All I can say… Read more »
Here’s the difference: There is no parallel in the masculine that presumes male empathy for BOTH sexes. The point is that the feminine social mythology presumes empathy, true empathy, not sympathy, due to nothing else but the magical qualifier that they are female (i.e. the Feminine Mystique), yet EVERYTIME that empathy is tested the opposite is true as experienced by virtually EVERY man’s related experience. Flip the script now. How ridiculous would I be if I were to claim that by virtue of my innate maleness I had some mystical ability to be empathetic with women’s birthing pains? Now imagine… Read more »
Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Male and Female Psychology — “It is very shortsighted of any one to consider the nurse as a proof of the sympathy of women, because it really implies the opposite. For a man could never stand the sight of the sufferings of the sick; he would suffer so intensely that he would be completely upset and incapable of lengthy attendance on them. Any one who has watched nursing sisters is astonished at their equanimity and “sweetness” even in the presence of most terrible death throes; and it is well that it is so, for man,… Read more »
Be careful that text
http://therationalmale.com/2012/10/02/up-the-alpha/comment-page-2/ # comment-24944 is being investigated, delete
Rollo,better to exclude
problems
Edwin Calais = http://therationalmale.com/2013/11/13/empathy/#comment-24943
Marky = http://therationalmale.com/2013/11/13/empathy/#comment-24946
“Investigated?” By whom? Pray tell, I’m almost .. intrigued.
Is your link b0rked, Marky? Leads nowhere and the comments on that post only go up #22277.
Whereas .. on this thread, there’s a curious 2-post hiatus after Edwin, (see above) and before your helpful and concerned warning.
Strangely, there’s a lot of Minter and Kate chatter on that ‘up-the-alpha’ thread. But I can’t see The Proprietor firestorming over 2-1/2 thousand comments ..
Personally I believe the issue here is control of your circumstances or environment. I think women (indeed people in general) inherently feel empathy for people who suffer through absolutely no fault of their own – usually young children. Women perceive men to have a lot of agency so if men suffer then it means he has brought it upon himself somehow. There was a story not too long ago of that man who was born without arms or legs, yet carved a happy and moderately successful life for himself as a motivational speaker – can’t remember his name though. People… Read more »
It could also be that you just married an asshole and she spawned a daughter in her mold. Hardly the basis for broad, sweeping generalisations as to broads generally.
[Or it could be that virtually every guy on any comment thread linked to this post is posting the same common theme and the Generalization is warranted.]
I agree with the point on agency. Men cannot understand the feeling of helplessness inherent in women’s biological nature and the ease with which they panic. Women, for their part, see men as possessing that agency. Hence, why they can’t understand that a man can also feel threatened or helpless in a given situation. The key is to find the most self-sufficient woman possible so that can have a partner and not an albatross.
Just more anecdotal evidence, but same deal with my ex-wife. She totally lacked empathy, had very little sympathy, didn’t appreciate my sacrifice, didn’t appreciate being told the truth, etc. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now. Since ingesting the red pill, I had suspected this much but cumulative writings by Rollo, et al, leading up to this post have brought this out into the open. Excellent post. Other examples in my life have brought home to me the point that women have to be trained into showing more care when their husbands run aground, at least through their… Read more »
New Yorker, I think men are conflicted about getting a self-sufficient woman. It helps if she is able to defend or fend for herself, thus freeing him to concentrate on his own survival. But as the men here have stated here many many time before, men start to lose sexual attraction for these sorts of women. It most certainly dies if she beats up his tormentors like the way big sister used to come to your aid when you got bullied in the schoolyard.
Here’s the perfect example of how the social convention of women magically having higher pain threshold than men is spread by popular culture but is quietly debunked:
http://healthyliving.msn.com/health-wellness/do-women-have-a-higher-pain-threshold-1
There are a few determinants to the level of sympathy you get from a woman in the face of adversity: -Your relationship with her. If you break your leg or get the flu in the first few months of dating her, she will be at your side with medicine, pillows, hot soup, reading material, sexual favors, whatever. Once you move in with her, marry her, or have kids with her, it’s a whole different story. Now you are expected to be a provider, protector, and handyman, and any injury or illness gets in the way of that. -Your level of… Read more »
Since this is categorized under hypergamy, I’ll add this story that doesn’t have to do with pain. And I’ll try to keep it short but still illustrative. Recently used facebook to get in touch with a female friend I knew. Had never used facebook before. This friend has been doing some modeling, saw her on tv, and now she’s getting more into acting. We reconnected and have each other as friends and talked a little. Now since I’m new to facebook, I started exploring and found that you can look up post that people have made in a timeline for… Read more »
Man or woman… nobody wants to be around a moping loser.