Case Studies

Case Study – Adam’s Lament

 

The following dialog is from a recent consult (published with permission) from a young man, Adam, who’s becoming red pill aware in the wake of a breakup. I’ll let his quotes tell the story here:

 My girlfriend broke up with me last month due to her want to find herself and her self-imposed reasons to remain single (she just turned 22 and I just turned 24).

The first consideration I’ll make is that both of you are far too young for a monogamous relationship. Your 20s should be a period of learning for both sexes. Unfortunately it’s becoming more common for guys to hear this and take offense due to this socialized romantic notion that an LTR ought to be some idealized goal state, but the truth of it is that an LTR in this period of a man’s life more often than not becomes debilitating in his maturation.

What young men raised on Disneyesque romantic ideals fail to consider is that a mature LTR requires responsibility, liability and accountability that limit a young man’s potential and paralyze him in the prime years of his life. These are the years that should be devoted to ambitions and passions that will lead to financial and personal success (i.e. college, career, etc.) and contribute to his peak SMV later in his life.

Too many men lament later in life that they should’ve done more in these years preparing for their own successes rather than becoming saddled in dead end relationships. They lament their lives that could’ve been once they realize that their SMV maturation happens after  women’s peaks. Time and the freedom to maneuver within your interests are a man’s most valuable resources. As a Man on the other side of this I can tell you that there are few material things I have a want for now, but time for myself and my passions, that is constantly adjusted by my career, my wife, my daughter, my commute in traffic etc., is the most precious thing I can think of. Why young men who would otherwise fiercely defend their own independences would so readily and voluntarily give this up in order to secure the intimacy of a single woman is one of the greatest crimes perpetrated on men by a feminized, romanticized society.

Also understand that your Ex is going through a similar phase as well. Between the years of 18 and about 26 are the prime years for a woman to weigh her hypergamous options. I call these the “party years” for attractive young women. Generally they include college, but it’s during this period that women explore the benefits afforded to them by their peak SMV and looks.

The hard truth is that most women on some level understand that this period represents the peak of their sexuality and attractiveness and this is their best chance to explore sex and relationships without consideration for limiting the conditions they place on their intimacy. All women have an innate understanding that the older they get the less sexually marketable they become.

This frustrates young men (particularly plugged-in betas who internalized an ideal that an LTR is a goal state) until they come to the realization that the older a man gets, the more sexually marketable he becomes since this generally implies he has attained a certain amount of confidence, professionalism, status, affluence and a list of other conditions women value in trading their intimacy for long term security. At 22, these principles go unrecognized in women, yet their behaviors are predictable enough to prove that these conditions and understandings are in play later in life.

She complimented me when we dated for the 5 month relationship that I was the best catch she had found so far, but the timing was off in that she met me at a time where she was trying to force herself not to be co-dependent (she broke up with her last b/f of 1.5 years so she could find herself and remain single) it didn’t last long because she found me 2 months later and dated me for the second half of this year.

You were flattered by her compliment because it affirmed your ego-investment in LTRs as a goal state as correct. Your frustration is that her behavior and her stated reasoning for it confounds this ideology. Lets also consider that if she had a year and a half “relationship” with a previous boyfriend, a half-year with you, and she’s now 22, her relationship experience has been limited to adolescent socializations. She still uses whatever behavioral skills she learned in her adolescence. Not a good benchmark for validating you as the “best catch she has found so far” to put it mildly. Rather, this is a convenient way of “letting you down easy” in order to preserve her own ego and hopefully make you feel better for going off to do what she really wants to do anyway.

She was my first g/f in nearly 6 years and also the girl I lost my virginity too.

And here’s the rub. I swear, basic math skills are all a red pill advocate needs to pick apart situations; If she was your first girlfriend in 6 years and you are now 24, this would mean the last girl you considered a girlfriend was back when you were 18. Again this implies that you yourself are employing an adolescent social skill set in evaluating what course you think inter-gender relationships ought to follow. There’s no shame in this, I’m not pointing it out to put you down, but understand that this is how you and she are operating even if you’re unaware of it.  

You also lost your virginity to her. Stop thinking of it in these terms, this is what I’d expect to hear an emotional girl say. Only women”lose” their virginity, this is part of the feminine imperative’s controlling of the language. When women ‘lose’ their virginity it perpetuates their vaginas as the precious prize while also continuing the narrative of default female victimhood.

For you it was the beginning of opening a new part of your maturation process since sex (even casual sex) always implies new responsibilities that must be compensated for. However I do understand your attachment to her due to this and the fact that you’ve internalized monogamy as goal state myth. We all have a life long affinity for our first sexual partner since they are the ones with whom we share this life experience – you never forget your first.

 I matured a lot and unfortunately didn’t find your blog until too late. I’ve read all the articles online and now started reading the DJ Bible at SoSuave so I won’t get so screwed next time and be able to walk away sooner instead of dragging it out.

Good.

Do you really think she broke up with me because her reason?

No, I think she’s obeying her hypergamous biological imperative that the phase her life is in is dictating for her.

Personally, I think it’s a copout and she’s afraid of commitment.

This is, to the letter, exactly what I’d expect a girl to say about a guy when she is 30+ years old and ready to cash her chips in on marriage. The irony of a guy using the same jingoisms (“commitment phobic”) women use to describe the men they want to coerce into monogamy with them is an indictment of the power of the feminine imperative. Stop thinking like a chick and start thinking like an adult man with a firm understanding of his own masculinity. You MUST unlearn the idea that an LTR is the key to life’s happiness; it is not.

I think that she’d rather be able to have one night stands where she lives (bay area) whereas I live in San Diego.

Of course she would, she’s in her party years and it is what it is – so long as she’s mature enough to acknowledge and accept responsibility for her actions (doubtful). Also, this isn’t a statement on yourself, stop interpreting it like it is. She’s not a worse person for not subscribing to your romanticized conditioning of how women ought to want commitment. On some level of consciousness she understands the hypergamic opportunities this period of her life presents her with and her behavior is the result of this. 

Will she regret this part of her life later? Most likely. Will she look back to you as someone significant to her during her 20’s when she’s 30 and ready to cash her chips out? Probably not, but this isn’t your concern. This episode represents a point of departure for your life – departure from your old adolescent self into a mature, Game aware Man. You’re unplugging.

What’s more concerning to me is that after all you’ve described to me, this half-year “relationship” is long distance. Are you kidding me? How often could you have had sex with her while you’re on opposite ends of the state? You’re pining over an LDR and my take on this is that there is no such thing as an LDR; you do not have a relationship with her, nor did you ever really have one.

One or both parties in an LDR are going to “cheat” – though I can’t really call it cheating since it’s simply behavior manifesting itself in conditions that aren’t conducive to what our natural impulses are. Adam, this girl hasn’t hurt you, she’s helped you. By breaking it off she’s given you the freedom you need to grow beyond these silly adolescent ideologies that an LDR should ever have been an option for a mature Man.

She’s an atheist whereas I am a Christian and that kind of bugged her even though I dropped some values to date her…



For men, sexual impulse will almost universally trump moral conviction when the opportunity presents itself. Again, no shame here, but it’s telling that you’d expect her to appreciate your having sacrificed some (loose) convictions for doing what you wanted to do anyway. You’re not a martyr for dropping any values for having sex with her and it doesn’t place you on some moral high ground that she should change her mind about entertaining an LTR with you.

She said even if I moved up north to be with her or her down here she’d still break up with me to “find herself” because of her major need to be single.

They very fact that you considered altering the course of your young life to better accommodate your idealized relationship with this girl by relocating to San Francisco ought to scare the hell out of you. Are you so optionless that a girl 600 miles away is a better prospect than exploring other women in your own area? I can’t tell you how many men I’ve counseled who’ve irreparably damaged their lives, made career choices they’ve regretted for decades and voluntarily killed any hope of genuine ambition they may have had by doing exactly what you considered here – changing their address to better facilitate a ONEitis hope that the one girl who ever fucked them would eventually become their soul-mate wife.

I just don’t get this girl. After a month of blackout and breakup now she’s really trying hard to be friends. I suspected her screwing a guy before she came down to see me, so maybe that’s why she called it off when she did.

So what? Spin more plates. If you had other potential women interested in you it would make no difference whether she wanted to play “friends” with you or screwed some other guy.

I was an AFC then, but I still spoke up for myself and stood my ground. Basically, I gave her an ultimatum.

Sorry Adam, but you still are and AFC or at least an rAFC. Ultimatums are declarations of powerlessness; by doing so you’ll kill any interest a woman may have had for you as this is the last resort of a lack of confidence. This is the kiss of death. You get points for manning up and speaking your mind, but it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.

I said if we have sex then we need to be exclusive. It’s all or nothing and if she doesn’t then she needs to be out of my life because I couldn’t trust her with all the guys I knew that were trying hard to sleep with her.

For as noble as your intent, she will only interpret this as a supreme insecurity on your part. You’re not going to talk her off the cock-carousel, neither should it be your responsibility to do so.

Adam, you need to let go of this notion that you require exclusivity in an LTR, particularly at your age. It’s self-defeating.

You have to unlearn this misguided idea that exclusivity is a necessity at your stage of life. All the Game skills in the book wont help you get past this basic idea. You will only settle for the first girl to respond to them. My advice to you is to NEXT this girl and get out into the field and sarge. Stop it with this LDR crap, they are fundamentally flawed and are only exacerbated by the ONEitis you have for this girl and will fluidly develop for the next one because it fits your old paradigm.

Kill the Bunny

New Case Study today. Reader JAS at SoSuave wanted help with his most recent target (edited for length):

I am 42. So here is the deal.

I moved to a new city a year ago and started a new job. There is a 35 yr old, hot woman there who I will call D. D is hot- about a 7, very smart, cool etc. From the beginning we hit it off and we have always spoken and interacted with some flirtatious undertones.. but we work together. Much as I liked her, I was up to my neck in pussy all this year. Little by little we would talk about our dates etc. and just generally were cool.. but we never spoke outside of work or anything. I liked her but not so much that I felt the need to pursue.

About 2 months ago I noticed a change in her that coincided with a change in myself – we were upping the stakes mutually. She would come around and talk more to me, lingering, lots of eye contact. I started feeling the need to do the same. Things went on this way until eventually until 2 weeks ago I asked her to get a drink. She jumped at the chance. We met up that Friday and hung out. I was still unsure if I was interested enough to pursue her, but by the end of the evening it had all clicked. I LIKED her.. in a keeper sort of way. We ended our hanging out with a peck on the lips.

We met up at a work function the night after and weren’t able to do much, but we snuck some hand holding and another short kiss. She wanted to do brunch the next day, but I had a  birthday party for family Sunday and had to say no.

So back to work on Monday and due to our schedules wouldn’t be able to meet for a bit. Wednesday we both walked up to each other and she literally stamps her feet an says “I really want to see you!”. I said me too and that I would call her that night to meet up. Its was do or die, because she had a trip out of town and would be gone until this week. So I get home, text and …..nothing. No response until 10 pm saying she went jogging without her phone and met her sister for some errands. I was like WTF?

I played it off and said no big deal, but that I did find that confusing, could we meet tomorrow? she said she had tentative plans and wasn’t sure, but knew I wouldn’t hang around waiting so probably not. I didn’t respond.

Next day she is texting me and asking me questions all the time.. I responded late and only curtly as I sensed she was fishing to see if I was angry.

She went on her trip and when she got back on Tuesday, I played it cool and didn’t say much at all. I was polite but never brought any of it up. But I didn’t flirt much either.. Just being neutral.

So yesterday I was talking to her and decided to force her to either drop it or go for it. I went to her and said “go out with me”. She kind of hemmed and hawed but said she wanted to and Friday might be best. I said fine, but then she said that maybe she had to check on something to make sure. I remained cool and said, contact me and let me know.

I haven’t heard from her yet, but its still Thursday, so I decided to just leave the ball in her court.

What are my next steps? If she doesn’t call at all, I plan to not remind her about our plans at all. If she is interested, she will contact. If she doesn’t I plan a freeze out. But not sure what else to do.

This was JAS’s set-up situation. Later he developed a bit more:

I get to work today and she is walking in early. She comes to where I am and starts talking about the weather etc, as she talks I continue my trajectory towards the spot I sit at outside during my break. She realizes I am continuing on my path and starts walking and facing my direction. I am not overly talkative, but not acting all butthurt either, just chill. She eventually breaks and goes inside.

Later on, during the day she is insinuating herself into my conversations. Again, I am not being rude, or any different than usual, except I cut out the flirty vibe we always have and thats all. I notice her trying to read me throughout, kinda like “is he really ok, or is he secretly mad?”, but that may be projection on my part. Who knows what thoughts are in there.

As I get ready to head home, She corners me in the hallway, this is, more or less, the convo as I remember it

Her: I feel I’ve fucked this up. I should have called you but I’ve really been a mess lately.
Me: its cool, I had a feeling you weren’t feeling it and made other plans
Her: really? I mean, should we talk about this? Its always so weird talking here at work, I feel strange.
Me: I’m not sure what you mean. What is it you want to talk about exactly?
Her: this, us. I don’t know whats going on.
Me: if you like we can
Her: I give up, I don’t know what……..
Me: for me its simple, we are either feeling it, or we’re not. By your behavior my assumption is you are not. Or you would have made more of an effort. And if that is the case, Its ok.
Her: Are you feeling it still?
Me: are you? Look, we’re being crytpic, So let me show you how its done: Yes, I would like to get to know you, I made that clear by asking you out. I expect, if its mutual for you to follow through. If not, well..
Her: it is. We do need to get together. Cant we get together tomorrow? Doing things here at work is just always confusing. I feel weird here, its confusing.
Me: I have plans (I really do)
Her: this is ridiculous. Wednesday?
Me. Wednesday is fine.
Her: I can’t read you. You give me this look, I don’t know what it means. I give up
Me: grabbing her hand: It means I like looking at you. So wed? set?
Her: yes.
Me:good
Her:good!
We both walk away smiling.

This is the first stage for JAS. He gets a B- for performance thus far. The first exchange was weak – a peck on the cheek, hand holding, etc. sound like an episode of Hannah Montana. This is not how adults date. If I had to guess, it was his hesitancy to consolidate on getting more intimate with her that’s what gave her pause. When the green light’s on brother, drive the friggin car.

However, his recovery is what’s saved him. She is qualifying to him and in a big way, this is exactly how you want it. He handles himself maturely and with amused mastery when he’s not ‘on a date‘, he needs to transition that into getting intimate with her. Notice how she accepted his direction here:

Her: I can’t read you. You give me this look, I don’t know what it means. I give up
Me: grabbing her hand: It means I like looking at you. So wed? set?
Her: yes.
Me:good
Her:good!

This is the dominance a woman is expecting from you when you’re building up to having sex with her. He owns it when he’s not on a date, but needs to own it when he is. Hesitate and thou art lost. Go timid on her on Wednesday, play nice and don’t escalate to making out (or more) and she goes off to find the next Alpha she thought you were.

Thus far JAS had been Alpha at work and Beta on the date. Her confusion comes from initially ‘reading’ him as Alpha, but he didn’t close the deal.

This is what women mean when they say they “can’t read you”
Translation: “You’re sending me Alpha cues, but you pull back like a Beta when it’s time to get physical.”

Also, have a plan. You lead. Tell her where you’re going and what you’ll be doing. She enters your world, you don’t enter hers – from his last conversation this is how she wants it anyway. Be fearless. She wants a whirlwind, you need to be that whirlwind.

After the Wednesday ‘date’ JAS gives us an update:

Well, we got our coffee today. I think it was good and bad… not sure if it was more of one or the other.

We got a coffee because lunch was impossible for both of us. As we walked we talked a bit about BS, until I stopped her and said “lets talk about what we came here to talk about”
So we started in. She gave me the “I’m not sure about what to do” thing. “I like you- obviously- and I’m attracted to you, but this is really complicated for me”
Me: yeah I got that vibe.
Her: so I don’t know, some days I wake up and say I want to pursue this, and other days I wake and think “fuck it, I cant deal with it”. I know I’m going to regret it if I don’t”

And so I pulled out my favorite move. I LJBF her. I said “look, whatever we do we’re good. Lets just be friends then”.
Hit the mark, “really?” she asked looking disappointed. In short, she didn’t let it drop there. She started saying she was attracted to me, and felt a deep connection to me and that I really understood her, probably more than anyone.

By now we’re back within eyesight of our hosp. co-workers are in and out. We go back and forth talking about it all, and she says “I’m sad” I asked her why. She said she didn’t know. I tell her “I’m a little sad too” she asked me why. I said “for the same reason you are probably. There is something here” We go on like this for a bit.

This where I think I got one bad thing- and I immediately thought of Rollo. She says “but you’re not very aggressive”
OUCH. I let it pass, mostly, but then it occurred to me “you make sure to keep us surrounded by people and never alone enough for me to do anything. You have your shields up, and you know it”
Her: yeah, your right. I’m scared of you, I think.

So I LJBFd her again. Basically I’m push pulling here, using the LJBF as a push every time I get something I don’t like.
Eventually, I say I have to go.. that I am leaving town. She says “tonight?” arent you driving?” I say “yes” she says I should wait until morning.

Is this an invitation to invite her out tonight? I’m still in LJBF mode with her. I say that was the plan, but I’ll see how I feel.
I then pulled her to me and kissed her, mind you, within view of potentially the entire hospital. So it wasn’t a major kiss, but it was on the lips and risky. Now she looks a bit confused – to be honest I am as well, since I am not sure if this is all good or not. Weird.
She then tells me again “I’m sad”
Me: dont be
her: no? why not?
Me: this isn’t over.
her: its not?
Me: no

So some good and bad here. The “your not aggressive” was a blow. I think I fended it off well though. I got her to admit alot, while maintaining frame, but its not where I would have wanted to go with this. Its about what I suspected. She is still scared to have a relationship, after what happened with her ex. I got her to tell me more about it all. etc. So I need outside imput here.

I also am of two minds of how to go here. I can try to get her to meet up again tonight- tell her I want to see her again before I go, etc. Or I can use the next two weeks vacation as a reset. Use it as an opportunity to work her via texts and having her miss me.

I believe she is being sincere as far as she can tell. Rollo is right she wants me to lead, but all the while making sure I can’t by blocking me out at every opportunity. I think I revealed alot of herself to her. I think she is being sincere when she said that I am a mystery to her, that she has never met someone like me. She says I am dark, and deep, and complex and she feels connected and attracted to me. And scared.

JAS, read what I’m about to write here carefully because it might help you with the next girl you meet after this one.

YOU NEED TO KILL THE FUCKING BUNNY!

Up to this point you’ve just been batting her around and confusing her with this coffee house, “safe-date shit. You’re not Gaming her or push-pulling her, or preempting anything with a LJBF.

“lets talk about what we came here to talk about”

Learn this now, you cannot negotiate desire. This is exactly what you’re doing here. You wanna fuck this woman? You wanna get some kind of relationship started?

STOP BROKERING THE DEAL.

Sexuality is spontaneous chemical reaction between two parties, not a process of negotiation. It’s sex first, then relationship, not the other way around. Genuine desire cannot be negotiated. Once you get past a certain point in the waiting game, what once had the chance to be an organic, sexual desire becomes mitigated negotiation of a physical act.

I feel like I’m reading a script between two kids from High School Musical. Take her on a ‘real date’. Go to a lounge, have cocktails, be indirect. Up to this point you’ve been overtly telegraphing your intent – this is the kiss of death. It’s like you’re writing up a proposal for a speculative relationship you might have if she signs the papers.

She is still scared to have a relationship, after what happened with her ex.

Yeah, my guess is this guy was the decisive Alpha you haven’t been with her, or if not she was hoping to find after the breakup. My advice to you is to chalk this one up to experience and NEXT her (workplace affairs are always a bad idea as it is). My readers will probably tell you she’s damaged goods, but if you insist on following through with this train wreck, stop being the PG rated JAS and start being the R rated JAS. Presume you’re dealing with an Alpha Widow and standing in her ex’s Alpha shadow.

Flushing the Nest

Esteemed SoSuave member HITHARD relates a recent flushing of a nest:

It must be an attitude shift or something. But every time I come back to the SS forums my relationships blow up. I don’t notice myself doing anything different but if I’m with a girlfriend they must notice a change and purposely start pissing me off. Perhaps it’s a good thing, a wake up call that I’m not with the right girl and I should go back to FB for a while. My now ex started getting bitchy last week and it just escalated from there. I’m pretty laid back – but arc up if someone tries to stand over me or dictate terms. Her jaw dropped when I told her to pack her things and leave. She hasn’t been living here on a permanent basis but had managed to horde a bit of her stuff over here in the past three months. She was a really nice girl, very pretty good with money. But she started to not so much nag, but nitpick at me and I’m over that at this stage of my life. It’s either something she has managed to hide for all these months or I bring it out in her. Either way it’s a no go from here. Am I being selfish over this?

So perhaps SS is bad for me short term but a deal saver long term. Or it’s a subconscious thing of ‘relationship is already over time to go on SS’
After all the FB, plates and relationships, I do look around and am just not impressed with the quality of the women out there.
I do worry I’m starting to form a trend of breaking it off with women when I get bored or irritated though. My longest LTR was with what I think was a BPD chick long before what I knew what BPD or the SS forum was. I sometimes worry if that has left a lasting effect.

There’s always going to be a contingent of guys – mostly White Knights, but some well meaning red-pill men too – who’ll presume you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater when ever they read a situation like this. A Scarcity Mentality is one of the hardest mental schemas Men deal with in transitioning over to becoming Game-aware. For most, the better part of half their lifetime has been spent in a psycho-social condition that’s taught them women are to be prized, and her intimacy is a rare and precious gift, rewarded to only the man who can prove himself worthy of it.

It’s a hard schema to unlearn, and even the most unapologetic of PUA still feels that twang of doubt about a decision to NEXT a girl he thought might be of LTR potential. So it’s no shock that to NEXT a woman for what appears to be some minor infraction of nitpicking seems like a wanton overreaction – like stomping on a flower before it has a chance to blossom. Necessitous men, and men recovering from being so, will often adopt the same mentality women will when they hear about situations like this, and call it callous, or selfish, maybe even vindictive of past hurtful experiences. The reason for this is because these men, and women by default, still view monogamy from the perspective of the feminine imperative. Monogamy is meant to serve the feminine, so any action that controverts that, no matter how justified, is by definition selfish.

In the time I’ve been writing in the manosphere I’ve read more stories about how Game saved an LTR more so that the reverse, but that isn’t to say there aren’t breakups that result from a new Game-awareness. Hithard’s self-evaluation about his NEXTing isn’t unexpected. His story isn’t the first I’ve encountered about “Game destroyed my LTR” – that Scarcity Mentality self-doubt needs a scapegoat and Game is an easy foil for this, especially for guys who’ve just unplugged, pushed the envelope back against the shit they were accepting up to that point and the LTR imploded. In virtually everyone of these instances where a man reclaims his balls and the result is a breakup, inevitably the guy realizes what a tough, but ultimately good decision it was to rid himself of a toxic woman, or a woman too insecure in herself to want to relinquish frame after having been in control for so long.

Often enough, a breakup is the red-pill solution.

Flushing the Nest

However, I know Hithard (virtually) well enough to know this isn’t his case. He’s been unplugged for a while now, so my guess is twofold:

First I think there’s more to the ‘nitpicking’ and the nesting that this girl was initiating than he’s going into detail about. I think he’s trying to be more judicious about this because he’s seen (or is subliminally aware of) behavioral cues and attitude cues that are familiar to him from his prior (BPD) LTR, and wants to give her the benefit of that doubt.

He’d hit the 3 month point, and this is usually the time when a woman starts to get comfortable enough with a guy to attempt a frame grab. The obvious tell was how she was semi-permanently establishing a nest at his place. Never a good idea, but entirely expected of a woman who feels the urgency of sex decline with her competition anxiety. I don’t know for certain that this is Hithard’s experience, but it follows a very consistent pattern. At the very least she’s reached a stage at which she feels comfortable enough to make demands of behavioral change (nit picking, nagging, complaining).

On a basic, relational level these are shit tests, but these are now the variety of shit test that qualifies for LTR frame control, as opposed to the types of shit test a man receives whilst dating when the urgency of competition anxiety mediates a woman’s delivery. For example, while single, only the most vapid, self-absorbed women will feel comfortable in making the demands most other women will commonly expect of their LTR man. When single, the art of the shit test is in its nuance and subtlety, when monogamous the shit test is overt and unmistakably direct.

Secondly, after a certain age (SMV), and after some degree of prior relationship chaos there’s a want for some sense of stable normalcy. Most guys are all too willing to compromise what seem, at the time, like small concessions to their women’s demands in exchange for keeping the peace and the legs open. The problem is that this progressively becomes a situation of death by a thousand paper cuts, or frame control by a thousand conceded nitpickings. For beta men, frame control is ceded as part of their wedding vows, but of the Alphas I know who were “fixed” by their women, their backsliding into beta-dom was the result of an incessant etching away of that Alpha dominance by a steady stream of small shit tests and concession of frame by little compromises.

Dumping a woman is DHV (demonstrating higher value) of the highest order. True or not, It implies you had other, better options than her. Dumping a woman is the antithesis of the Scarcity Mentality and it broadcasts this not only to her, but her girlfriends as well as any other girls in her (your) social periphery. Dumping her implies you’ve just gone from a comfortable, familiar beta to the indifferent Alpha that she never realized you had a capacity for. My guess is Hithard will hear from her again. At first it will be desperate and crying, later it will be casual with feigned nonchalance – don’t take the bait.

Whether or not Hithard takes her back or bumps her down to fuck-buddy status, the message is now clear for her – he will control the frame. She will enter his reality or not at all. Most freshly unplugged guys have a very tough time owning this, because for most of their lives it’s been endlessly bashed into their heads that they don’t deserve it. This is the conflict Hithard must resolve.

Case Study – Wanted: New Daddy

I love Post Secret. Anytime I have humanitarian doubt about hypergamy or the twinges of sentimental wishes for a kinder, gentler, fem-centrism all I have to do is read the current week’s offerings of anonymous ‘secrets’ and, without fail, all doubt fades away to callous certainties. Ahhh, le sigh...

I’ve delved into the single mother cottage industry topic before, but in light of a recent PM and last week’s Wall discussion I thought I’d entertain this comment:

Wow. I have read some very interesting posts. I need some help and since most of you seem to be honest and not out to hurt anyone, here goes…

The Facts: 29, Female, Divorced mom of two toddlers, works full time, working on building self-esteem, being happier. Not seeking permanent relationship; however, not interested in whoring out.

I have met several men I am interested in and we talk and possibly hang out. What I am scared of is them thinking I am daddy shopping. I also don’t want to be left and laid. I am willing to “buddy up” but I do expect a friendship beyond the sex. How do I approach or have a discussion with a man telling him my time is rare, but still communicate my expectations of casual hangouts and fooling around? I am a woman and yes there are nights where he would need to engage with me in mind blowing sex. There may be a bad day at work where I just need a beer buddy. It is difficult for a woman with self respect to blow and go so thats not my intent.

I tried the honest approach, but never heard from him again. I gave it one more shot (different guy) and time will tell. Ive never been in this type of relationship before. I respect myself too much to engage in a one night stand only. Any ideas?

From what I read ut sounds like I am pretty much screwed. Im not single resulting from some kind of feminist movement crap. I like a guy to challenge me etc. I am a single mom because I am divorced from a bad person (cheater, abusive). I don’t seek a relationship because I know the majority of men don’t want the “baggage” of my babies. Additionally, I don’t want to risk hurting my kids. They are first. I am all they have and in a way they are all I have. All I want is an adult. If it progresses to more so be it. If not then that’s cool too. I don’t want to be viewed as just a piece, that is where the honesty comes in.

A lot of what gets offered for women in her position is usually the standard fare about single mommies and how guys perceive them. Baby-daddy issues, scheduling, substitute father interviewing and how single guys are “supposed” to react to them. All of this is valid of course, but after reading her own take of her own situation, I’m not so sure she’s really aware of (or is in denial of) her own conditions.

This woman is a textbook example of what I call Proactive Infidelity. According to her longer account she’d knocked it out with the Bad Boy (abusive, cheater) who was a “challenge” and got her excited. I’m going to do her the favor of assuming both her children were by him and if one is now 4 y.o. this would mean she was at oldest 24 y.o. when she became pregnant. Now that the Bad Boy has proven himself unreliable in sharing parental investment responsibilities, the guy she does end up in an LTR or marriage with necessarily MUST assume the Bad Boy’s responsibilities and liabilities.

New Daddies and Independent Women®

It’s essential to the single-mother rationale that they convince themselves they aren’t shopping for a “new daddy”. The fem-centrism of today’s social structure already has a long and well established framework ready to enable the most predictable of hamster spins. She’s an “Independent Woman®”, she “makes her own damn money” and ‘walks like da boss, talks like da boss,…” etc. The Independent Woman® brand is one of the most versatile social conventions because it covers so many situations. Blanket rationales like epithets of ‘Misogynist’ or ‘Homophobe’ pale in comparison to the usefulness of the Independent Woman®.

The Independent Woman® is unassailable and any contrary deviation from it leads back to the circular argument of patriarchal men’s selfish oppressions – feminism’s favorite trope. She “don’t need a man”, but she needs a Man. The real tragedy is the desperation apparent in the false pride. The truth is she needs a Man, her children need a Man, in spite of the pretentiousness fem-centrism has conditioned into her. But her decisions have left that Daddy position open to the lowest bidder.

The undeniable, unavoidable truth is that whether or not this is a conscious effort on her part, this is what the next guy, usually the Nice Guy, MUST deal with. Mr. Dependable, Mr. Loyal supporter/provider has no other choice but to assume parental investments that were never his. She bred with the Bad Boy and the Nice Guy raises her children. Any woman who can pull this off hits a bio-evolutionary jackpot.

The good news for her is that there are countlessly reinforced social conventions specifically designed with the latent purpose of making such a Nice Guy (essentially a proactive cuckold) think he’s a martyr and held to be in the highest regard of manhood for “looking past” her situation and “loving her for who she is.” Rest assured she’ll eventually attract a beta so conditioned to forgive her past indiscretions (essentially justifying and rewarding them) in exchange for the sexuality he’s been deprived of for so long. Her marginal intimate acceptance will only affirm his AFC beliefs and his “stepping up” to parent her kids will make him tolerable when he’s not as exciting as the Bad Boy was.

Now all that may sound harsh, but it’s important to understand just how tough a road single mothers have to hoe. If laid out in harsh realistic terms, most women don’t willingly want to be saddled with an AFC marriage of convenience, and neither do they want to be locked in with an abusive Bad Boy, so what do they do?

First, they need to understand where they’re at and how they got to be who they are now. They’ve hit the Wall by default.

Own your indiscretions ladies, own your mistakes. Being a single mother, despite the feminized social conventions, doesn’t make you a hero; it makes you a statistic. As I stated originally, any guy that accepts you intimately MUST deal with you as a single mother. This means he MUST accept your schedule, your children’s schedule, their father’s schedule, both family’s schedules, and the emotional fallout from all this. The feminine imperative has taught you to believe you’re entitled to expecting him to want to be with you (even if this is just as a fuck buddy) in preference to a single, childless, generally younger and more sexually available woman. She’s your competition. And in spite of all this he’s expected to still be the Man, by denying his sexual predilections in favor of your circumstances.

Your fundamental acknowledgment and showing a constant genuine appreciation for the sacrifice he makes to accommodate your past is essential to any LTR you have in the future. I’m not saying that your kids shouldn’t be your first priority – they absolutely should – but it is imperative that you know and demonstrably appreciate ANY guy who’d make the concession to still entertain you intimately after knowing this.

A lot of women love to gnash and wail about how they’ve become undateable after they’ve acquired single-mom status. Actually, no. There’s a whole modern world that’s teeming with AFC providers, with Cap’n Save-a-ho Martyr Mentalities just itching to get at the reverent pussy they missed out on for most of their 20’s and are more than willing to follow the feminine meme and convince themselves that single mommies are just victims of the Jerks they knocked out their kids with.

Daddies & Buffers

Understand, single mommies are another form of Buffers. The deductive logic is that they’re ‘easier’ due the their conditions and the risk of rejection lower (particularly when rejection-phobic or in a dry spell), but the potential long term ramifications are never worth the effort incomparisson to childless women. Rejection is better than regret.

The problem with actualizing your fantasy encounter with a MILF is in the ‘M’ part of the acronym – ‘Mother’ – ergo, a single mommie with all of the very “real world” baggage that goes along with that. I’ve tapped my share of older women when I was in my 20s and I can tell you that the sex was no more or less extrordinary than the younger women (at least in terms of performance) I’ve been with. The only major difference? I never had to worry about 22 year old single girls finding a babysitter for a night or had to be concerned with her making too much noise during sex so as not to wake up her son in the next room. Nor was I concerned about it being “her weekend” to have the kids.

It’s very easy to assume single mothers are victims by default – some are, most aren’t. Trust me, a majority of single mothers are single for a reason – and it’s not always because of their Jerk BFs or deadbeat husbands. The common belief is that MILFs encourage an idea that they are more sexually available; you’ve got to ask yourself, why would they be motivted to be more sexual while single than when they we’re married or in an LTR? They become motivated to be sexual and hit the gym when single, but wouldn’t make the same effort when married, why? Because the guy wasn’t worth it OR because she became comfortable, he lost interest, became fed up, and she’s prompted to be more concerned with all that in order to achieve a long term security with another man that necessitates she do so?

Don’t get me wrong, there are attractive women in their 30s & 40s but these are uncommon exceptions to the rule. The social reinforcement of the MILF fantasy is just a modern extension and evolution of the “she’s still got it” social convention with the latent purpose of leveling the playing field for 30-40 something single mothers unable to sexually compete for the same calibre men with 18-28 y.o. women. The harsh truth is that a beautiful, sexually available, single woman in her mid 20’s is at a decided advantage for sexual selection than a single mother entering her 30’s who’s encumbered with all the responsibilities of being a parent. Schedules of Mating issues aside, even when both women are equally attractive and equally sexually available, the childless woman is still at an advantage because she comes with less liabilities and represents a “fresh start” in comparison.

Women’s sexual value naturally declines as they ages – it serves an older woman’s purpose if she can redefine sexuality as her conditions change through life, and convince herself and society that she’s correct and genuine. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore may epitomize this fantasy, but in reality, there are thousands of women filling gyms across the country for every Demi Moore convinced that they “still got it” while every year a new crop of 22-24 y.o. hotties commands the attention of the same men they’re competing for. This is just the natural extension of the ‘Have It All” lie that women have been sold for the last 50 years. Men only too eagerly buy this convention as well because it facilitates a Buffer for them and (presumedly) presents an easier route to getting laid. Therefore it is also in their interest that the myth and the Buffer be reinforced.

Case Study – Creative Intelligence

Below I have posted descriptions of 4 men from a case study I was involved with as part of a graduate study for personality psychology. Before you ask, no, this wasn’t an original study, however it was a measures experiment we performed to see how the results matched with our own university.These descriptions are excerpts from that case study comparing female mate selection. They were presented individually to 101 university women between the ages of 18 and 36. All were single/unmarried and none were aware of the intent of the experiment. I’ll present more details of the experiment after you have chance to respond so as not to spoil your genuine responses. Here are the descriptions:

––––––––––
M is an art student. M has always had a passion for painting and plans to pursue a career in art. He creates paintings of people and complex landscapes. His paintings are so lifelike that they are often mistaken for photographs. The consensus amongst his art professors is that he is, by far, the most talented student they have seen. One professor, an expert on lifelike paintings, says he believes M is one of the most talented artists ever to produce these paintings. To make extra money to support his schooling, M has sold a few of his best paintings. They have sold for between 100 and 200 dollars. One professor lamented that M’s paintings are worth far more, but like so many other artists, he will probably never make very much money selling them.

L is an art student. He paints abstract paintings. L came into art by chance. He took an art class as an elective because it fit well in his schedule. For his midterm project, he produced an abstract painting after an hour of “fooling around” with the paint and canvas. The majority of the painting actually consisted of paint he accidentally spilled onto the canvas. A very wealthy man who was looking for art for his home discovered L’s painting in the student art studio. He paid L $5,000 dollars for the painting. Some of the man’s other wealthy friends liked L’s painting and commissioned a total of $100,000 in paintings from him. L and his art professors were shocked at the success of L’s paintings, because, in the words of one professor, “he has no real talent, just some good luck.” L continues to capitalize on his success by selling his abstract art.

L and M are considered highly desirable by other women on campus and very attractive. Friends of L and M say that they are dependable, kind, and generous friends.

J is an entrepreneur who had great success in his first business venture. He started a small software business in a friend’s garage. His product was a new kind of software for improving factory designs to radically increase the profitability of manufacturing. Within his first year, J secured contracts with Ford, General Electric, and Boeing. In the next three years, J sold his software to most of the top manufacturing companies in the United States and several of the top companies in Asia. After 5 years in business, J’s company was valued at 120 million dollars and had 250 employees. The Wall Street Journal credited the success of J’s company to the “brilliance and novelty” of J’s product and to J’s “sheer genius as a businessman.” However, J’s company fell victim to misfortune the next year. After J rejected a take-over bid from Microsoft, Microsoft filed a lawsuit claiming that J’s software infringed on some of their patents. Although most experts agreed that the suit had no merit, the cost of defending himself against the lawsuit created huge cash flow problems for J, which drove the company into bankruptcy. Although J has very little money left, he has recently begun a new business venture to sell another of the software products he has invented.

R recently inherited 20 million dollars from the couple who had adopted him when he was a year old. They died in a car crash, having made their fortune in commercial real estate. Before they died, R worked as a sales person at a computer company. Although R worked at the company for several years, he had not advanced past his starting salary or rank within the company. He went to a community college, but after graduation he didn’t feel sure what to do with his life. A friend who was working at the computer company suggested that R join him and work there. In R’s words, “I guess I’m just not very good at this job. At least now I won’t have to worry about money any more.” R and his adoptive parents were very close, and he was deeply saddened by their deaths.

J and R are both attractive and in their mid-twenties. They were recently nominated as two of the most eligible bachelors in Los Angeles.
–––––––––––

Bear in mind, these guys a theoretical archetypes, how they relate to women is irrelevant. How the subject women percieved them is what’s being assessed. Of these 4 men, which do you suppose was rated the highest in desirability with which to have a short-term sexual affair with by these women? And which man was rated the highest in desirability to enter into a long-term relationship with?

This study was done to determine comparative priorities in women with regards to male ‘creative intelligence’ vs.‘provisioning ability’ in female mate selection. I would’ve titled this thread as such, but I wanted to get some unbiased and impulse responses from readers here to see what the perceptions of these archetypes were from men and the reactions guys expected from women to these archetypes.

You’ll notice that care was taken in these archetype descriptions to balance out the physical attractiveness of each man (i.e. both artists were considered equally attractive by peers and both businessmen were ‘eligible’ bachelors). What was at issue wasn’t their extrinsic characteristics – comparative physiques or obvious Alpha presence – but what women chose in regards to these men’s intrinsic characteristics. The theory being that Creative Intelligence is of a higher mating value in the short term while a better Provisioning ability is more desirable in the long term. Bear in mind that hypergamy influences the decision making process for both of these sexual strategies. Also added was the caveat that legitimacy of provisioning ability, and the potential for future provisioning in it’s absence (i.e. the down on their luck men), played a factor in this mate selection.

Creative Intelligence

So what exactly is “Creative Intelligence”? Although there is no firm consensus on how to define it, we often know it when we see it. We also know a bit about it from a century of creativity research. Within humans, creative intelligence is closely associated with the highly heritable general intelligence, and creative intelligence seems to rely on the generation, selective elaboration, and skillful implementation of ideas and strategies. In other words, creativity represents a strong capacity for successful improvisation, thus it became a desirable, selected-for species survival trait.

The problem is that creativity sounds desirable, as does intelligence, so “creative intelligence” can become a vague term that seems useful for solving any behavioral problem, whether technological, ecological, social, sexual, or cultural. Many plausible adaptive functions explain the origins of human creative intelligence. These include: tool-making and tool-using, hunting, foraging, and food preparation methods, social strategizing within and between groups and sexual courtship dynamics (i.e. hunter-gatherer proto-Game).

Sorry for the psych lesson, but we had to be specific.

Trade Offs

As I elaborated in Schedules of Mating, most women face trade-offs in mating. In selecting a long-term mate, it makes hypergamic sense for women to put greater weight on traits that advertise ability and willingness to invest in protection, provisioning, and care of the woman and her offspring. This will favor the evolution of ‘good dad’ indicators – reliable cues of paternal investment ability and willingness to participate in those responsibilities. In our past, women of very high mate value (HB 8 and above) had the luxury of attracting a long-term mate who has both good dad potential and good genes. Fast forward through the ages and women have progressively had to settle for a committed partner who is not ideal either paternally or genetically. Then add to this the increasing complexity of men adapting to mimic these cues in order to facilitate their own breeding strategy. Consequently women are, by order of degree, incentivized to secure better genes or better paternal care from short-term or extra-pair partners, while simultaneously seeking long term provider males. Either would help at any time.

In this study, the idea was that, issues of relative attraction and arousal being satisfied, women will prefer a male possessing a higher capacity for Creative Intelligence in short-term sexual encounters to ensure the best possible future options for her offspring, while choosing a mate with better Provisioning ability for long term parental investment.

Art and business were chosen as two contrasting domains of work. Each requires distinct styles of creative intelligence, but both demand combinations of practical and theoretical skills, individual effort and social interaction. Hence, merit-based success in either domain may function as a mental fitness indicator. In each domain (art or business), one vignette described a man who showed high creative intelligence in his work, but who was poor due to bad luck and adverse circumstances. The other vignette in each set described a man who was average on creative intelligence, but who was wealthy due to good luck and beneficial circumstances. All vignettes made clear that each man’s creativity level was largely endogenous, reflecting natural (and presumably heritable) talent, but that his wealth level was largely accidental, gained through no merit or fault of his own.

Results

Each woman completed two forced-choice questions: (1) “Based on these descriptions, who do you think you might find more desirable for a short-term sexual affair?”; (2) “Based on these descriptions, who do you think you might find more desirable for a long-term committed relationship?” (L or M in the artist vignettes, and R or J in the entrepreneur vignettes). Next, participants rated the desirability of each man as a short-term mate and as a long-term mate on two 9-point scales (where ‘1’ = not at all desirable, ‘5’ = average; ‘9’ = extremely desirable). The rating questions were as follows: “Overall, how desirable would you find L [M, R, or J] as a long-term partner?” “Overall, how desirable would you find L [M, R, or J] as a short-term partner?

In this study M was overwhelmingly chosen as the short term partner. 89% of the participants chose the naturally talented, but out of luck artist for a short term sexual encounter. 7% chose L the rich artist, 3% chose J the poor/talented businessman and 1% opted for R the wealthy/untalented businessman.

J was rated highest for a long-term relationship, but not as significantly as M in the short term. 67% of our subjects chose J, and surprisingly 17% chose L (rich artist). R was rated at 12% and M took 4% for the long term choice.

Tickle Me Emo

A Rational reader asks:

I realized some (not many, but some hot) chicks tend to fall for the sensitive sissy – the one labelled as “Wimpster” or “Emo” (I guess you know what I mean).

I think, these “men” are as pathetic as it gets. How do they manage to get hot chicks? I really saw some couples HB+Emo-Kid during the last months.

What do they have in order to attract hot women?
What sort of secret “quality” is it, that makes (some of) these poor, pathetic losers so successful?

Any idea?

You’re pigeon-holing the ‘Emo’ thing as a specific type, when it’s really just a manifestation of an archetype. Emo Game is really a variation of the Dandy. Playing the Dandy has been a time-tested seduction schema for centuries. In the late 70s and into the 80s you could make comparisons to David Bowie or even Jim Morisson (before they were famous) or the Glam Rock phase. You can even compare them to the pensive, Kurt Cobain style Grunge Rock ‘artists’. Emo guys are just the next check on the bill, and in fact I’d say their time is just about up as the herbilicious Indie-Rocker has pushed them to the side these days. Splitting hairs, I know.

But to answer your question, just break it down into understandable dynamics. Why does this type of guy attract women?

Exceptional Emos

First of all, only exceptional guys of this archetype really attract women with any regularity. The sissy-boy, sensitive, Emo guy is only going to get so far if he is exceptional in some way and even then, only with women who have the capacity to appreciate his characteristics. While most arousal cues are universal, women tend to base their learned attraction ‘preferences’ on what they think, at least subconsciously, is within the realm of attainability proportional to their capacity to attract that ‘type’ of guy with some degree of predictable success.

However, the notable Emo (dandy) guy must be exceptional in some respect to pull off his schema. By exceptional I mean they must posess some real demonstrable talents in order to play the stoically tragic, socially misunderstood, artist character. You don’t have to be an artist to play the Emo card, but this is the natural association women apply to the archetype. Remember, women are like casting agents for their own fantasies; the fat kid with nothing to back up his ’emotional nature’ (such as demonstrable artistic merit) is simply an even bigger, whining, ‘Baby Huey’ dressed in drag, mascara and painted nails, and has little success in pulling off the sensitive thing when no one is paying attention to him in the first place.

For the guys that can back up the character (such as Mystery); I can see why this would confuse the average guy wondering WTF is going on. These guys can pull tail and it seems to contradict (again) what women say they’re “looking for” in a guy. Remember that it is a woman’s behavior that is the benchmark of her intent, not her words. So why then do they opt for guys like this?

Emology

First of all, guys with this schema tend to place themselves and their passion (or at least the perception of it) above anything else – and this includes women. This is fundamental to the personality type as well as the legitimacy of the fantasy that women want to cast him in. Their passions are literally the ‘other woman’ to the women that are attracted to them. This establishes him in a position of power in that he presents the appearance of being so consumed with himself and his art that he becomes a challenge to her and this is what locks her into his intrigue. He sets the frame for her and she has no other choice but to follow. In so doing this, he places her in a position of him needing her less than she does and she therefore chases and qualifies herself to him.

Secondly, guys of this type have a demonstrated value of creative intelligence with at least the potential for long term successes. From the Evo-Psych perspective, behavioral cues of creative intelligence is sexy for women – it represents a capacity for innovation and survival skills – this is why the starving artist gets laid, often with more variety than does the typical ‘good provider’ male. In respect to women’s pluralistic breeding strategies, Emo Guy makes for a wonderful short-term breeding prospect (good genes), but usually a lousy choice for a long-term provisioning or parental investment prospect. This is the same reason why women will fuck the pool boy, but marry the lawyer. Many an Alpha Widow pines away her late adulthood for the artist boyfriend she left behind for the stable provider.

Lastly, it seems ‘right’ for certain women to want to nurture this ‘artist’ because it plays into the whole romantic, chick crack predestination idealism that so many women want to believe can happen for them. They’re making the world a better place by sponsoring one more male to explore his sensitivity and helping him to fully realize his feminine potential by mothering him and letting him fuck her in appreciation.

At this point I should add a caveat here in that my intent isn’t to vilify the nature of truly artistic men (I count myself among them, and I have played the dandy in my youth to great success). Rather my purpose is to explain the appeal this type of guy has for women. The average salt-of-the-earth guy will (most times accurately) associate a man ‘not playing by the masculine script’ as wishy-washy, effete and indecisive (i.e. effeminate), but the more exceptional characters of this type, the legitimate ones, are some of the most determined and persistent Men you will ever know. Jim Morrison was a tortured, addicted poet, but he was Alpha as fuck.

My advice is to watch by patiently and stick to your masculine guns in this respect. The women that would pass you up for this type of guy are few, very particular, and rarely worth the effort in encouraging them see this dynamic at work in themselves. Hold out for the much more plentiful women that do respond to pronounced masculinity. It’s really only a matter of time until this type of woman tires of the ‘sensitive guy’ after coming to terms with the inherent emasculation and the associated irresponsibility of this kind of male. Very few men can play the dandy indefinitely.

[Now I’ll go sit on pins and needles to await Emma the Emo’s inevitable response.]

Detox

“Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”

Letter from an addict:

I can’t get my ex to stop popping in my mind. No matter what or where I go, everything reminds me of her. What can I do? As it stands I have the power, she’s called me last, but I keep gettin the urge to give in and call.

The fact that I’ve been spinning plates has only made it worse. When I’m out with these new girls, keeps reminding me of stuff that I did with her, its whacked.

I feel like I just can’t get away, no matter where I look or go, there she is. The sad part is, I don’t even pine over her, I despise her, I think of her negatively but I’m addicted.

I need help.

If you were a drug addict or an alcoholic the first step back to sobriety is your moment of clarity. You’ve obviously had that. The next step is to detoxify yourself – that’s the hard part. You need to isolate yourself, and put yourself into complete separation from your drug of choice; in this case that’s your ex.

You’re feeling hopeless about her and your present condition because the cessation of what you’ve mistaken as a reward for so long is now out of reach. You need to understand that what you want to go back to isn’t what you think it is, nor will it ever “get better”. Even if you could reengage with her, it will never be what you think it could.

Withdrawal Symptoms

I think half the battle of controling an emotional response is consciously recognizing that it is taking place. Children (of both sexes) cannot help but react emotionally to external stimulus. They do this because they have no prior experience with that stimulus to associate a response to. In addition, they have an underdeveloped capacity for abstract thought and therefore an emotional response is almost a given. But as we mature and experience things, we understand what is happening (because it’s happened to us prior) and we can better react and prepare responses for them accordingly.

When a person first experiences jealousy this triggers a complex chain of hormonal and emotional imbalances. True jealousy, the type generated by the suspicion of having invested emotionally in a person who betrays that investment, rarely occurs before puberty so there is no prior experience to prepare an individual for it. It also happens so rarely that we don’t acknowledge it as an issue to consider until we’re in the middle of experiencing it. This is further complicated by an immature, but developing capacity for abstract thought, as well as the fact that jealousy is an in-born, innate biological response that has served our species well for millenia. Needless to say this severly limits rational thought processes and the ability to form appropriate behaviors based on them.

Now lets further complicate the situation with the same chemical cocktail and the emotional responses associated with sexual relations and you can see where this is going.

Depending upon the level of emotional attachment, what most guys experience in a breakup are withdrawal symptoms from an addiction. The brain’s neurochemistry in response to environmental cues and the effects solidified by routine experience are truly fascinating. Studies have shown that the chemical/hormonal signatures that naturally occur in the human body while one is experiencing love are virtually identical to the euphoric properties of heroin. The reason you pine over this girl, the reason that her rubbing your nose in it (so to speak) seems satisfying, the reason seeing her with another guy or the idea of renting her a room to go fuck him in provokes such an intense emotional response from a guy is because it re-triggers that same hormonal charge you got from it the first time and you’re seeking ways to re-stimulate that rush. You’ve yet to develop the cognitive capacity to deal with the associations of this rush because you have few or no prior experiences with this jealousy/betrayal dynamic, so you think of it in the only terms that have been available to you up to now – that which media/culture has conditioned you to take at face value. Therefore you have this Shakespearean sense of betrayal.

There is a quantifiable hormonal response to environmental cues that inspire jealousy. From an evolutionary perspective this makes for a semi-efficient genetic-investment protection mechanism. Animals that get hormonally pissed off at the cues indicating cuckoldry will reserve their parental investments for better, more prolific breeding opportunities. However , the same evolutionary advantages that same hormonal response causes are also liabilities in other instances. While it may be beneficial for parental investment that a chemical cocktail engendering feelings of trust, infatuation, love, etc. be pumped into our bloodstreams to inspire pair bonding, that same cocktail can also become a powerful narcotic when the rewarding ‘high’ is removed.

Detox

What happens in a breakup is similar to coming down off a narcotic. The addict seeks to re-stimulate the reward process, only now that process is denied to him (or her). Thus the addict is forced to create novel ways to reestablish that reward, however under these new circumstances that reward rush doesn’t compare to the original high of infatuation, love, etc.. Creating situations where jealousy, indignation and suspicion are present is an attempt to trigger that rush the original triggers did, only this time it’s cheaper and less potent since its conditions are temporal, few and far between. So is the high of love, lust and infatuation replaced with the lesser high of suspicion and jealousy.

This is the biochemical addiction phase most guys find themselves in in a post-monogamy breakup. I should add that this is yet one more reason to cultivate a Plate Theory mental model of abundance, however, once again, knowing is half the battle. As the more rational and reasoned sex, one condition for dropping this default mental state is whilst under the influences of intoxication (funny we call love intoxicating) and hormonal imbalances. In other words it’s very hard to make rational assessments when your physiology is jonesing for a fix, but if you know you’re jonesing and why you’re jonesing, you’re half way to recovery.

The Beta Response

As an end note here I think I should elaborate that Beta men, in comparison to more Alpha Men, tend to have a much tougher experience when it comes to jealousy and postpartum emotional states. You’ve got to consider that men who have less opportunity for sex, love, emotional investment, etc. will experience a sense of loss greater than men who have more intimate opportunities. On a subconscious level, the Beta male has a much higher investment risk in losing a potential long-term lover since most of his proverbial eggs are going to necessarily be tied up in one basket at a time. This is a liability of the Beta  breeding strategy – All In, but also All Out if he loses on his bet.

Furthermore, by his nature, the Beta will have less prior experience in coping with the emotional response prompted by that biochemical rush. Ergo, the guy who you “never though was capable” of the actions he takes will often surprise you by the extents to which he will go to reestablish that reward prompt. The Beta male and post-partum rejection, jealousy, betrayal, suspicion, etc. are often a very volatile mix.

Case Study – The Great Catch

Here’s a new Case Study from a Rational Reader who wished to remain anonymous (because he lives in my home state among other reasons),…

So I recently started dating this woman I met online. For the last 2 months I would say we were “dating”

Some facts:
-She’s successful and she knows it. 25, bilingual, owns her own place, masters degree in engineering. You get the picture. A great catch.
-We have very similar backgrounds when it comes to family, values, etc. Both hispanic, raised overseas, strong family, etc.
-She’s cute although not hot. Looks, HB6, however I’m far more interested in her intellect and overall qualities than solely looks. I can actually admire her achievements and intellect.
-She’s conservative when approaching relationships. Takes it slow, claims she’s a virgin and she’s waiting for the right man. From any ol’ chick, I’d say bullshit. In this case though, her life is so well together and coherent throughout, that I’ll actually “buy it”
-Talked about past relationships and what happened, she claims it’s not easy to find guys that respect not going intimate. She also claims she’s picky and tends to put up a wall when meeting people.

SO- two breaks in between when she went home (out of state) from a school break. Since I met her, she’s been away probably 3 weeks combined. Else, we have hung out at least once a week. During those breaks, very little communication, maybe a call here or there, some texting.

When we are together, it’s good. Great chemistry, etc. Last time (Saturday) I picked her up from the airport, we went to her place, instead of going out we cooked dinner, went to starbucks, etc. Good stuff, great time. I respect her intimacy “rules” so I don’t even push on that front. Frankly, I’ve gotten laid enough. lol

ANYWAY. here’s the bottom line. Communication in between dates is very very limited and this is where I’m concerned. I don’t know if in past relationships I’ve gotten used to too much communication (calling every day or texting, etc) or if in this particular case communication is lagging.

For example this week: Saturday airport pick up, did stuff at her place. Sunday silence. Monday she called me after work. Tuesday silence. Wednesday I called her in the morning to “kick off” the day, left voicemail but never heard back. Text her inviting her for an after work drink but she had a thank you dinner to attend. C&F wishing her a wonderful date, got a two liner back, the rest of the afternoon and evening silence.

SO the big question becomes: Is this a test? Low Interest Level? Am I expecting too much communication too early? Did I get used to too much communication too early in the past?

How often do YOU communicate with your successful prospect? How often do you find that you communicate with your adult ‘mature” women?

Oh and to top it off, her aunt and grandmother are arriving tomorrow, so the weekend is basically off limits. In other words if no hang out today, I probably won’t see her until next week.

If you haven’t already, you’re about to be LJBFed. Would you like to know why? Because every word you’ve used to describe this woman, every reason you’ve given for qualifying her as “unique” and every indication you’ve presented about yourself points to you approaching any future relationship from a submissive frame.

Predictably, the first response most guys will want to pile on about is to tell you she’s messed up or break down her problems for avoiding you, but honestly, the answer is starring back at you in the bathroom mirror. You’re ‘dating’ a woman who was raised as a man.

First, why are you meeting women online? You’re 25, meeting women face to face, approaching them, interacting in person should be your first course of action. I’m sure you’ll just come back with the “It’s just easier / I’m too busy” line of horse shit, but at 25 your scenario here about “meeting” her online is nothing but a Buffer for you. Also, what do you think constitutes dating? You’re certainly not banging this girl, so how many ‘dates’ have you had?

-She’s successful and she knows it. 25, bilingual, owns her own place, masters degree in engineering. You get the picture. A great catch.

If I heard a woman say, “wow, he’s got his own place and a masters degree in engineering, what a great catch” I’d think they were gold diggers to some degree, but it wouldn’t be unexpected. Any guy using the term “great catch” about a woman in the same context reeks of Beta. Women use this term to describe men, Betas use it to describe women who they think would make a good husband for them – and no, that wasn’t a typo. That you’d use the term as you did here only screams “I’m a chump who buys into buys into feminized equalitarianism in an effort to seem more attractive acceptable to them.”

-She’s cute although not hot. Looks, HB6, however I’m far more interested in her intellect and overall qualities than solely looks. I can actually admire her achievements and intellect.

Chumps love to rationalize their “choice” of women and their less than ideal looks by emphasizing that “it’s what’s on the inside that’s really attractive.” Admiring achievements and intellect are criteria for women’s attraction to men. Parroting this feminized talking point back sounds like you’re taking some high road, but the degree on her wall doesn’t make her look any better naked. This is a very common AFC identification rationalization. Here’s a secret: even brainy women will only want to fuck when they feel sexy, and she’s fully aware that your hammering away about how her mind turns you on wont make an HB6 an HB10. You’re not fucking her mind.

-She’s conservative when approaching relationships. Takes it slow, claims she’s a virgin and she’s waiting for the right man. From any ol’ chick, I’d say bullshit. In this case though, her life is so well together and coherent throughout, that I’ll actually “buy it”

-Talked about past relationships and what happened, she claims it’s not easy to find guys that respect not going intimate. She also claims she’s picky and tends to put up a wall when meeting people.

So lets break this down; she’s 25, masters degree in engineering, owns her own home, etc. Now, maybe an engineer can qualify this for me, but if I’m not mistaken a Master’s degree in engineering is at minimum a 6-8 year life investment, meaning she’d have to have began on it at 18. How many “relationships” do you really think this virgin has had in those 6-8 years while earning a masters degree in a very intense field like engineering? How many valuable learning experiences do you think she’s had with “relationships”? An HB6 girl with a master’s and a house at 25, yeah, she’s a virgin, but not because she’s so conservative, well grounded or picky. You’re making her necessity a virtue because you think it’ll lead you into some fantasy relationship with her.

I respect her intimacy “rules” so I don’t even push on that front. Frankly, I’ve gotten laid enough. lol

Exactly the rationale I’ve come to expect from AFCs reasoning why they aren’t getting laid. Genuine desire is non-negotiable. It happens or it doesn’t. Desire is a spontaneous, chemical arousal between people, not a pre-written contract. By placing preconditions on what will or will not qualify for a woman’s intimacy, she essentially rules out any chance for genuine, organic desire. You’ve basically by-passed the arousal stages and moved directly into comfortable familiarity – you’re already living out the role of being a good homemaker for her in your head. Comfort, rapport, familiarity, are all anti-seductive. Sexual tension is uncomfortable; it’s supposed to be in order to prompt desire.

A “friends first” policy is a shit test. This is basically a woman wondering if you understand women well enough to know that what she really wants is the contrary of what she’s saying, and if you’re Alpha enough to act upon that understanding with confidence anyway. You’re not which is why you’re explaining it away. Any 25 y.o. guy saying he’s gotten laid enough is selling himself something.

Well, oneitis is an issue, however i’m also seeing other women. It’s just that this one is a Ferrari and the others are Cadillacs! hehe obviously i’m going to try a bit harder.

So, the brainy, home-owning, HB6 virgin with intimacy issues is a Ferrari to you? Call me crazy, but I DON’T think you’ve gotten laid nearly enough.