Foundations

The primary principles and building blocks of Positive Masculinity.

The Wall

Not to belabor the fresh input contributed by new Rational Reader ‘S’, but her recent comment regarding The Wall has made me aware that I haven’t yet gone into too much detail regarding the Wall and its socio-psychological effects upon women:

Yeah, it’s a term I have seen before arriving at this blog but have never heard in reality. I always attributed it to a woman losing her looks but to place it at exactly 30 seems to me to be too precise a calculation…as there are many variable to be taken into consideration I would imagine. For example, a party girl, serial tanner and smoker could probably lose her looks long before she reaches 30, whereas a clean living late bloomer might not even realize her potential until her mid to late twenties. I’ve seen women from my school..the most popular girls (with guys) changed the most in a negative manner and the nerds or just the most unexpected girls have become more attractive over the years. It’s freaking odd.

The infamous Wall a woman reaches (or slams into as the case may be) is somewhat of an ambiguous term that was actually coined by catty women long before the manosphere came into existence. It used to be a relatively less combative term that women used for one another in an effort to disqualify a sexual competitor. A woman implying another woman had “hit the wall” was marginally more polite than calling her a slut, but the latent purpose is still the same – disqualifying a sexual competitor from men’s mating considerations.

The Fear of Decay

Underneath the obvious utility of the Wall as an epithet is a more painful truth; the inevitable decay of women’s sexual appeal – their first, and for most, only, real agency of power they’ve ever actualized over men to ensure their long term security needs. In the heyday of 2nd wave feminism, the sisterhood’s message was all about collective empowerment and solidarity, but beneath that was the intrinsic hypergamic need to compete for the best mate their looks and sexual availability could attract. As I’ve written before, women prefer their combat in the psychological and there are few fears women harbor as deep and as long as losing their sexual agency with men. They know the Wall will eventually come, and they don’t like to be reminded of it.

Women’s intrasexual combative use of the knowledge and fear of the Wall did not go unnoticed by men. Therefore the feminine imperative found it necessary to make the truth about the Wall as socially and individually subjective as possible. As with most uncomfortable truths unique to women’s weaknesses, the feminine creates social conventions and ambiguities to misdirect men from becoming aware of women’s eventual powerlessness over them (i.e. the progressive loss of her sexual agency). The Threat of having men become aware of women’s Achilles’ heel before they could consolidate long-term commitment with their best hypergamic option was too great a risk not to form social conventions about the Wall.

Implications of the Wall

Thus, in an intergender social context, the Wall became individualized and subjective for women, and it’s within this framework that women like S are most comfortable in addressing the reality of the Wall. “Not all women are like that” (NAWALT), the go-to mantra of feminized subjectivity, is a direct result of subjectivizing the inevitability of the Wall. In fact, virtually every operative social convention women rely upon for empowerment and self-esteem finds its root purpose in avoiding the fear of the Wall. The Myth of Sexual Peak, the Myth of the Biological Clock, the social convention that Women are just as Sexual as Men, are all very complex social rationales with the latent purpose of convincing the majority of men and women alike that post-Wall women can still be equally effective sexual competitors with pre-Wall women.

It’s important to bear in mind that all of these complex social conventions are rooted in a fear of the Wall. I’m repeating this point to emphasize the importance this has in a feminized society that’s subjected to feminine hypergamy as its most operative doctrine. When enough women, through cultural forces or personal circumstance, can’t capitalize upon what they think is their due, optimal hypergamic male option, then society must be acculturated to believe that women past their Wall expiration date can and should be just as desirable as those in their prime. Think of it as a retroactive social moving of the feminized goalposts. This is the gravity and extent that the fear of the Wall plays for women – feminized society is literally structured around avoiding it.

Defining the Wall

When I wrote Navigating the SMP, the reason I used 30 as the general age women typically hit the ‘Wall’ is really a combination of factors. Most importantly it represents the threshold at which most women realize their lessened capacity to sexually compete with the next generation of women in their ‘actualized’ sexual peak (22-24). However, there is a male part of the Wall equation that needs to be understood. 30 is also the general age at which men (should) become aware of their own, longer-lasting sexual market value and potential. This affects women’s interpretations of the Wall. Once a Man is aware that he has the capacity to attract the sexual attentions of the younger women he’d previously had limited access and understanding of, his actions and imperatives define the Wall for women who are approaching that threshold. And unsurprisingly this is the point at which Wall-fearing women begin their accusations of men’s infantile ego issues, shaming, etc. for preferring younger women than themselves.

When we (and as women in particular would have us) view the Wall in terms of physical attractiveness we don’t see the full picture and relevancy the Wall has for women. It’s very easy (and often fun) to compare pictures of girls we knew in high school with their current FaceBook profile shots at 40+ years old and get a laugh at how bad she hit the Wall. It’s also easy for women to point out the notable exceptions to the rule and find a hot 38 year old woman with 3 kids competing in the Ms. Fitness USA pageant. It gives them a sense of hope about their own decay.

However the Wall is much more than just the physical; it’s the conditional that accelerates or decelerates a woman’s date with the Wall.

Single mother? Acceleration.

Consistent, bad personal habits? Acceleration.

Careerist obsessive? Acceleration.

Obesity? Acceleration.

Do notable exceptions to these exist? Of course, but they prove the rule. And that rule comes in the form of such an overwhelming fear that contemporary society needed to be restructured to help avoid it. The 38 year old, careerist, single mother of 3 competing in fitness pageants is only a hero because of the fear of the Wall.

Value Added

There’s nothing more refreshing for me than to read the insights of new Rational Readers. Generally it’s not that most offer anything terribly novel (some do), but it’s the predictable, persistent, feminized societal interpretations that keep reusing the same tired rationales which gives me hope that positive masculinity is cracking that shell. In other words, girl-world isn’t really coming up with anything new; it’s just retreads of old tropes.

One new Rational Reader, ‘S’ (maybe for Susan?) decided to take me to task for my graphically detailed essay on Navigating the SMP. Have Hamster, will spin.

While S suffers from the common female malady of reverse rationalizing her ‘circumstances’, she does provide a perspective on a topic I have yet to cover here in her followup response:

Fine, I read that. I just don’t agree with you philosophy that women somehow have no purpose after the age of 30. What if say there were circumstances outside of her control that prevented her from getting married at what a simpleton might deem as an acceptable time…what if she never partied and slept around? There is more to a woman than physicality and it pisses me off that there are men like many of the above (bitter much?) who don’t appear to see worth in a women once her..what’s it called..sexual market value declines…it just strikes me a scarily misogynistic..like some creeped up from of American Psycho shit and it makes me scared for our society.

There is a lot to be said for developing true companionship with someone, having a kind of partner in crime relationship that endures…A woman of any age is appropriate for this.

To paraphrase Roissy’s inimitable words, the closer you get to the truth the louder the feminine will screech. As odd as this is going to sound I actually agree with most of S’s point here. You see, when I was detailing the timeline of men and women’s respective sexual market values, my intent was to provide a raw and unvarnished view of how, in contemporary social dynamics, men and women’s sexual market values differ over the course of time. I made the efforts (loose as they were) to reveal the slow-burn valuation of men’s SMV in contrast with women’s quick-burn SMV.

Emotional Response

Exposing uncomfortable truths is kind of a mixed bag when it comes to the emotional response to those truths. For instance when I read articles about feminist triumphalism regarding how much more ‘advanced’ women are over men today, or I read reviews like ‘The End of Men‘, the analytical portion of my brain gives way to the more emotive response. Why try right? If I’m obsolete, if the cards are stacked in women’s favor before I even get dealt a hand, why not go my own way? There’s a certain hopelessness to that initial emotional response, especially when there’s no hint of sympathy or contrition forthcoming from ‘powerful’ women and all the women aspiring to that empowerment. This is just how the game has shaken out, too bad for you men, you’re fucked now.

I imagine S probably feels the same way when she sees the landscape of the sexual marketplace on display in such Darwinian, graphic terms. Once you’ve hit the Wall ladies, your value begins its decline in earnest, so The Threat then becomes men becoming self-aware enough of their increasing SMV to capitalize upon his increase and your decrease accordingly. This is the nasty part of hypergamy; the countdown to the Wall is ever-present, but so is the subconsciousness-level doubt about having made the optimal hypergamic mating choice before the clock reaches zero. Every SMP opportunity after that point will always be colored by what opportunities she could’ve consolidated upon before it.

I often get called a cynic or uncaring in the delivery of my observations, but try to understand my approach is always about pragmatism. Should women’s overall value mean more than just her physicality and sexual availability? Yes, of course, just as Men’s intrinsic value ought to be more broadly appreciated for the qualities of his character and the sacrifices he makes to facilitate a woman’s reality. I would love nothing better than to think that the human spirit combined with mutual good-will and understanding could lift us above our base, innate drives. I would love to live in a world where men could get a hard-on based solely upon his estimation of a woman’s respective “worth”, and where women swoon for a humble, noble, loyal and devoted overweight and underemployed man with a negative balance in his bank account.

In the manosphere, every day I read about the conflict between what our higher selves should want in a woman. There’s no lack for articles and blog/forum responses making impassioned pleas for women’s fidelity, loyalty, intelligence, grace, femininity, appreciation, and a long list of other ephemeral qualities as being ideal for an LTR prospect. In fact I’d argue that the majority of men’s misreading women comes more from seeing past the red flags and attributing more importance to these qualities than a woman actually merits. For every divorced man who uttered the words “I never thought she was capable of this” I’ll show you a guy who rationalized his attraction to his ex based on what he thought were her ‘value added’ qualities.

Relationships – Nature and Nurture

I would never argue that a man or woman NOT aspire to be better than they are as human beings. There are always going to be human elements to any relationship that transcend what we’d expect the nature of the Game to dictate to us, but underneath that compassionate understanding, behind the flowery sentimentalism, is still the base drives, the feral hypergamy, the cruel reality of the Wall, etc. that we will never be exempt from. On Friday I’ll have been married for 16 years to a beautiful, loyal, feminine, woman. Mrs. Tomassi embodies a great many of the ideal qualities that most men would put on their LTR vetting list – she’s a great partner in crime for me, but my initial attraction to her had far less to do with those qualities and far more to do with how much she turned me on. However, as comfortable as I am with her, as intimate as we are with each other’s identities, warts and all, I still understand the base framework necessary for all of this to take place within.

A relationship based solely upon physicality and sexuality is every bit as weak as one based solely upon esoteric appreciations of ‘higher‘ value-added qualities.

The strongest, healthiest relationships are those in which both parties have a mature, mutual understanding and embrace of both the natural aspect and the nurturing aspect of the SMP. Women will never come to appreciate men’s intrinsic sacrifices made for them without coming to terms with naturalistic side of Game and the SMP. Likewise men need to come to terms with the reality of their conditioning and the fem-centric Matrix in order to appreciate the gravity of their decision to commit to a formalized monogamy / marriage. They need to appreciate the risk of the situation they find themselves in, but have hitherto ben unaware of. For both genders, coming to this understanding is often an ugly prospect.

Likewise it’s important to develop an appreciation for, and an embrace of those value-added qualities which move beyond the naturalistic side of the SMP. While being of primary importance, sex and the feral aspects of the SMP aren’t the only aspects of a healthy LTR. When it comes time to make the transition from spinning plates to informed, committed monogamy, you still have to live with that person and this is when those value-added attributes make or break the LTR.

I understand S’s and so many other women’s frustrations with the Game as it applies to women’s deficiencies. I’ve written at length about how women would rather have the Game changed to better suit their capacities to play it. In this instance S repeats a common moan in that she expects men to appreciate the ‘value added’ elements of a woman’s persona in priority to her base attractiveness. Her fears that men might adopt some policy of neglecting “quality” women in favor of “arousing” women, while understandable in terms of feminine competition anxiety, are really unfounded. If anything it’s the majority of beta men conditioned to believe that “it’s what on the inside that matters” who’ve borne the brunt of women’s social dissatisfaction for the past 40 years.

Guys don’t seek out the community because they’re getting too much pussy from being ‘Nice’ and appreciative of women’s ‘deeper’ qualities and they don’t know how to let down all these women easy. If anything compromises self-respect (assuming an AFC even has a concept of that) it’s a Scarcity/Sniper mentality. Worry less about the guys tapping their “harems” and more about the chump crucifying himself to be the martyr for his singular “dream girl”. He’s far more common.

Think Like a Woman

Men perceive female interpretive reflexiveness in a male context. Women perceive male interpretive awareness in a female context.

Those are two $10 psychological ways of saying men instinctively think women will respond to their approaches (irrespective of Game prowess) on male terms. In other words, they expect women will respond in a rational manner similar to how they as men would. To be sure, this is a result of decades of gender equalist conditioning, but you can’t lay the dynamic entirely at the feet of equalism. Guy’s first order is to think deductively when constructing their mental schemas about how best to solve the problem of getting their sexual imperatives met (usually Beta Game). The disconnect comes when they presume that women are their gender equals and as such will react to their ‘game’ in a similar, reasoned fashion.

JDELA, from the SoSuave forum laments an understanding that comes from imposing a male perspective onto women’s perspectives. Case in point:

If a Neg hit works, not only does it show there’s a lack of self esteem and mental balance, but also the relationship will fail.

From a male perspective, this would make complete and rational sense. If a man were to Neg you or another man, the most rational response would be to interpret that as disrespect and to take offense. In truth, guy’s Neg each other all the time in the form of ‘giving his buddys some shit’ about something. Men do this as a form of unity building, but our inclination to rib each other stops there.

Now lets say that the guy getting Negged, not only accepts it, but becomes intrigued and friendly with the guy negging him. Would you have any respect for either one of them? Probably not. You’d say the guy doing the Negging was being an asshole (see AMOGing)  and the guy getting Negged suffered from a”lack of self-esteem.”

What you’re doing is casting what you’d expect a woman’s response to be in the male perspective. The most common complaint read on any dating site (SoSuave to Love Shack) comes from guys who are dumbfounded that women consistently opt for the Bad Boy Alpha Jerk instead of him and his Nice, loyal, respectful, dependable self. As bourn out by the experiences and observations of women’s behavior from countless millions of men for centuries, what we as men would expect to be the most logical, rational and pragmatic choice of action women could make is rarely proven by the ones they do make.

Don’t get lost in the details; this isn’t a debate about whether or not Negs work or the frequency with which women opt for a Bad Boy. It has everything to do with the fact that men base most of their actions, their beliefs, their personal investments, etc. upon deductive reasoning and predictable outcomes from what they believe is reliable information. So when all you ever hear from women is that they “want a guy with a good heart” or someone sensitive, respectful, humorous, etc. on down the list it would be cause for some considerable confusion when women consistently overlook guys like this in favor of one who is the opposite of her stated desires. Either the data is flawed, our interpretation of it is flawed, or the one relating it is flawed – and probably all three.

So in light of such a consistent conflict of purpose, we have to conclude that what women say and what women do are often at odds with each other. Negs work on women. There’s certainly an art to, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all, but they do work with enough consistency that you can generally predict an outcome. So the question is this: do the vast majority of women suffer from a lack of self-esteem or are we expecting them to act as men would?

It’s very easy to write off the women who’d opt for the Bad Boy as low-quality, but what do you do when your hi-quality woman does the same? You can shoot an arrow, paint the target around it, and get a bullseye every time, but you can’t ignore the incongruency. Breaking out of this plugged-in beta mindset that convinces men that women will react the same as they would is one of the most important transitions of taking the red pill.

The irony of this male-centric preconception is that even in instances where plugged-in men would agree that you “can’t treat a lady like that” the interaction is still colored by the assumption of a male interpretive perspective on the part of a woman. For plugged-in men this comes as an instinctual reflex – it’s one of many – that was part of his life’s conditioning.

Think Like a Woman

As I stated prior, unlearning what you know about women and your equalist mental preposition is usually one of the more difficult aspects of unplugging. Abandoning your old ways of interacting with women involves a very real risk of rejection, but keep in mind that relearning the reality of the differences in mental process between yourself and a prospective woman will make that transition easier.

A lot gets made about the advantages of ‘thinking like a woman’ in terms of Game. For all the variation of playing the Dandy or adjusting for a more feminine-identification technique, I think it’s very important not to actually become a woman in your mental outlook. Most plugged-in guys are already women in their perspective of gender. When I advocate a better understanding of the feminine mind, know that it’s always in terms of making what I study and profess here into actionable practices. Anticipate outcomes, predict results based on what you know a woman would be thinking; not what any equal and neutral, well-reasoned generic person would. Plugged-in guys avoid this even to the limbic root level of their own mental processing because it rings of sexism; and anything minutely associated with sexism is an automatic sexual disqualifier for men with the scarcity mentalities that fem-centrism has raised in them.

An effective Game-aware man has to accept a base understanding of sexism; sexism in the respective differences that characterize the differences between the sexes. Sexism will be used by you or on you, but you will not be exempted from it. You may have been raised into equalism, but clinging to gender equalism after the fact is simply one more Buffer against rejection, and it’s a buffer most guys have a very tough time recognizing in themselves.

SMV in Girl-World

If you haven’t been to the Badger Hut, why not? As reluctant as I am to thread-jack Badger I am compeled to repost his YouTube find because it, and his post, were instrumental in opening my eyes to a fresh take on an old (see, previously hashed-out) social dynamic convention. The manosphere has been awash in articles detailing the sexual marketplace and the impact women’s short-term vs. long-term sexual strategies have for them for as long I’ve been writing about gender issues (10+ years). These analyses range from the biological consequences to the insidious, life-damaging punishment a socialized feminine primacy (feminism) inflicts upon unassuming members of both sexes. The most recent manifestations of this have been the social ‘shaming’ efforts of the Man Up! 2.0 popularizations in mainstream media.

You can read Badger’s breakdown of the history of women lamenting their ignorance (willful or by design) of the true nature of the SMP and the inevitability of the impact with the Wall, which I cosign, however I recently had a somewhat inspired post about exactly the nature of the modern SMP about a week ago. So, yes, I’m guilty of cracking this topic more than once, but it took this video to really bring home the association of how feminism, equalism and the feminine imperative conspire to reinvent sexual market value for women.

SMV

Just last week I graphed out my own rudimentary overview of how the SMP lays out, as well as sexual market values relative to each sex. Although I began a bit tongue in cheek, in all earnestness I attempted to visually plot out what a persons’ life time-line might look like were he or she to have a ‘God’s Eye’ perspective of when their SMV will be at it’s apogee, when it builds and when it wanes. As with everything I put to keyboard, my effort was to get to the honest nuts & bolts of the SMP and how our live’s events coincide with that valuation. Here’s the breakdown from last week:

This was an effort in defining a contemporary, realistic view of how sexual market value fluctuates for each sex. I think it’s comparatively reflective, if a bit rough, however I approached this graph from a male perspective in that its intent was to educate Men of their SMV potential later in life, and to plan accordingly.

What I failed to account for is feminization’s influence on women’s (and by association men’s) gestalt understanding of their own SMV. Given the plentitude of manosphere articles devoted to women’s distorted and deluded interpretations of their sexual market value I figured this had been done to death, but it took Badger’s post and video to shake a new thought into my head.

Women like men

As if on cue, Team Red vents his frustration from yesterday’s comment thread:

“Why should money even matter anymore to these women in the long-term when it seems like the majority of them have put their careers first and put marriage/kids off until later on in life? It seems like the dating world is polluted with 30+ year old career women that have been riding the carousel 10-15 years and are now ready to “settle down” and pop out 2-3 kids by ripe old age of 40. What these women seem to have forgotten is the greater risks involved having children so late in life.”

I found this comment apropo since it sums up my epiphany: Women want to be men. This is the legacy that a since-decayed feminist social impetus has imparted to the generations of both men and women who’ve come after the Gloria Steinem’s got married themselves and blew away. Women need to be the men of tomorrow. I suppose I should’ve seen this messaging long before reading Badger’s blog, and in honesty I think the greater part of Matrix thinking revolves around role reversal, but this is more than reversal. Women want to be men.

If a man can wait until his maturation develops, his achievements are more actualized and his SMV peaks at 38-40, equalism says “why shouldn’t you Man-Girl?”

Whether it’s in terms of Dom vs. Sub in sexually fluid relationships, or in terms of respect or social entitlement, Women want to be men. This is what 60+ years of feminization has taught women is valuable, and taught men to accommodate for. In fact men are ‘lesser men’ for not offering women a ‘hand up’ to manhood. Feminization in this respect is the ultimate form of penis envy; acculturate consecutive generations of both sexes willing to masculinize women into prominence. This is the heart of the feminine imperative and feminine primacy.

Hypergamy and women’s innate psychologies naturally conflict with this socialization effort. Thus we have women expecting masculine equitability while simultaneously feeling entitled to traditionally feminine courtesies. In the interests of feminine primacy, if it works, use it.

So it should come as no shock that in a desire to be like men, a popularized parallel had to be socialized into women’s collective understanding of SMV expectations. In the most literal sense, if men could enjoy a more progressive and maturing SMV then, by the doctrines of equalism, a ‘new’ woman should also be able to mirror that masculine SMV.

Feminized SMV

By a combined effort of feminism, feminine primacy and its imperatives women have been socialized and acculturated to believe that their SMV profile encompasses and is synchronous with that of men. Since women are essentially men, Equalism (the religion of feminism) convinces women that their SMV schedule should at least be identical to that of men.

I could have simply recolored the MEN bell curve from my previous SMV graph to illustrate the feminized redefinition of SMV, but that would be inaccurate. It wouldn’t account for the obvious benefits women expect to enjoy in their true sexual peak years (22-24) in addition to the masculinized SMV feminization has convinced the modern woman of.

One thing I did find a need to account for was the Myth of Sexual peak. As Team Red laments, and in my post Myth of the Biological Clock, this feminine defined delusion is deceptively close to women’s post-Wall valuation. Since men’s SMV generally peaks around 38, women needed a social convention that would also make their sexual peak coincide with men’s. Thus we read the endless articles about sexual peak inflating older women’s sexual prowess above that of the 22 year old ‘girl-children’ men manifestly prefer for sexual partners. Equalism enforces the delusion that if men are at their most desirable at later stages of life, then so too must be wo-MEN.

Cracks in the Wall

For all its efforts to convince women of a feminized redefining of SMV, there are obvious cracks beginning to show in the social constructs designed to ensure a lasting feminine primacy. Badger’s video find is an excellent illustration of these cracks. Since the last wave of significant feminism was carried along by the Baby Boom generation, women of the consecutive generations are only now beginning to realize the gravity of the “have-it-all” lie.

The institution of gender primacy (masquerading as ‘equalism’) is largely, and grossly apparent, at odds with women’s true sexual market valuation and its progression. Try as it may the feminine imperative has never had an effective counter for the biological motivations that drive SMV – as women age, feminine primacy becomes a victim of its own hypergamy. Thus the imperative must continually redefine its mission, create new social conventions and rely on blaming the men it subjugates for its own inadequacies.

The reason this video is humorous is because all too many women in this demographic are realizing their true SMV isn’t what feminization has convinced them of too late – one crack in the Wall. Another other tact is to shame men for their unwillingness to participate in the SMP the feminine imperative defines for, and expect them to participate in. “Man Up you infantile boys!” – and another crack appears in the Wall.

That a writer like Kate Bolick can form a prosperous career and celebrity around her inability to come to terms with the conflict between her true SMV and the SMV model the feminine imperative has conditioned into her ego is an indictment of the scope to which the distorted, feminized SMV model has been ensaturated into our women and our culture.

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:

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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.
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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.

Final Exam – Navigating the SMP

You know, there’s really no substitute for graphs, and charts, and data plot maps. Human beings, being essentially a visually oriented species, see a graphic heads-up display, a God’s eye view as it were, as essential to seeing the forest for the trees. You may not like being on a budget at home, but show a guy a graph of where all his money goes in a month and he’ll feel better about not pissing it away for a peck on the cheek over the course of a couple weekends.

So it was with this in mind that I took it upon myself to plot out a chronology of the little known and far too under-appreciated sexual marketplace (SMP) we presently find ourselves experiencing (at least since the sexual revolution). Bloggers in the manosphere (as well as other self-impressed pseudo-feminist gender pundits) often use the SMP in a context which presumes that readers are already familiar with their mental model of it, and understand the dynamics of the modern SMP. Personally I think this presumption is fraught with individual bias, both intended and unintended. And make no mistake, I’m about to define the SMP and sexual market values (SMV) from my own perception, but I fully recognize the want for defining these dynamics in a clear, understandable format, so I’ll beg forgiveness for this indulgence.

Can I Graduate?

As some of you know it’s about graduation time for many high school seniors, and with that comes a lot of pontification from ‘adults’ who want to impart some grand words of wisdom to the next genration as they launch headlong into a future of student debt and/or dismal employment prospects. This is a special time for parents and childless adults alike to reflect upon their own lives and ask themselves “what would I tell my younger self to do differently?” and hope against hope that the 18 year old they feel compelled to cast in the role of their younger selves will tear themselves away from texting their friends about who’s going to get whom to buy their prom night liquor long enough for it to sink in. So you’ll have to forgive me for playing the professor here for a moment while I make the same vain attempt.

Not long ago I had a commenter tell me,..

“Rollo, I just wanted to say that your stuff has been truly groundbreaking for me. This material should be a graduation requirement for all high school seniors.”

Well, far be it from Dr. Rollo J. Tomassi, Professor Emeritus, to be so remiss in his sacred charge of educating the next generation about the perils of the sexual marketplace they would otherwise so blindly stagger into. Challenge accepted. So please gather round the podium, turn off all your cellular devices (prom night liquor’s easy to come by), take a sheet of notebook paper from your Pee Chee folder and prepare to take notes on,..

Navigating the SMP

Now class, if you’ll direct your attention to the display above (click on it for the larger version) I’ll explain the parameters of this graph. In the vertical column we have Sexual Market Value (SMV) based on the ubiquitous ten scale. Professor Roissy emeritus at The Chateau did us all the good service of elaborating upon individuated sexual market valuations for both men and women long ago, however for our purposes today it is important to note that these valuations are meant to encompass an overal sexual value based on both long and short term breeding prospects, relational desirability, male provisioning capacity, female fertility, sexual desirability and availability, etc. et. al.. Your milage may vary, but suffice it to say the ten scale is meant to reflect an overall value as individuated for one sex by the other. Outliers will always be an element of any study, but the intent is to represent general averages here.

On the horizontal metric we have a timeline based on the age of the respective sex. I’ve broken this down into stages of five year increments, but with notable ages represented for significant life-to-valuation phase for each sex to be detailed later in our lecture. As an aside here you may notice I began the SMV age range at 15. This is intentional as it is the baseline starting point for the average girl’s midrange desirability value as evaluated by the average high school boy of the same age. Also of note will be the age range between 23 and 36 which represents the peak span years between the sexes, also to be detailed later.

Lastly, I’ve color delineated each gender’s respective SMV range bell curve and indicated their crossover phases accordingly.

Women’s SMV

In various contexts, women’s SMV is without doubt the most discussed topic in the manosphere. Try as we may, convincing a woman that her sexual peak lay actually between 18 and 25 is always an effort in debating denial. For all the self-convincing attempts to redefine sexual valuation to the contrary, SMV for women is ultimately decided by Men. Thus this bell curve is intended to represent the sexual value of women based on men’s metrics, not as women (by way of ceaseless social engineering) would like to define desirability. Please see the Myth of Sexual Peak and Sexy for cross references.

As we continue along you can see that the peak years for women’s SMV tops out at around 23 years. Fertility, desirability, sexual availability  and really overall potential for male arousal and attention reach an apex between 22 to 24 year of age. Remember this approximation isn’t an estimate of personal worth or character, or any metric beyond a baseline of desirability invoked in men. Ladies, on average, this is your best year. I don’t think I’m relating anything the cold truth of your hindbrain hasn’t woke you up at night over.

At no other phase in your life will you enjoy more affirmation or legitimate male attention more zealously applied for your sexual approval than this brief stretch. Once past the apex, every effort you spend on generating male arousal cues will be in trying to recapture the experiences of this phase. Every post-apex, pre-Wall (24 to 30) calorie you burn will be motivated by the memories of your SMV peak.

By the age of 27 women’s SMV decline has begun in earnest. That isn’t to say that women can’t remain stunningly attractive and vivacious in their post-peak years, but comparative to the next crop of 22-23 year olds, the decline progressively becomes more evident. Competition for hypergamously suitable mates becomes more intense with each passing year. The age’s between 27 and 30 are subliminally the most stressful for women as the realization sinks in that they must trade their ‘party years’ short term mating protocol for a long term provisioning strategy.

It’s at this point that rationalizations of ‘living a new life’ or ‘getting right with herself’ begin to formulate; not as a result of guilt per se, but rather as a function of relieving the anxieties associated with the new reality that she will eventually no longer be able to compete effectively in the SMP. The writing’s on the Wall; either she must establish her own security and provisioning, or settle for as acceptable a provider as her present looks will permit to secure his long term provisioning.

Men

It may seem dismally pessimistic to begin boys SMV at so low a starting point at 15, but recall that we’re looking at overall averages. A 15 year old girl will look at an 18-20 year old man’s sexual approval as more valuable than that of her same age peers. It’s not that notable boys’ attentions are worthless, but they are far more mundane to a mid teens girl, thus the evaluation starts much lower.

As men age you can see that their SMV tends to level off during their 20’s with a gradual rise up to age 30. This represents men’s slow build SMV as they become more valuable by metrics of physical prowess, social gravity, status, maturity, affluence, influence, and hopefully dominance. It’s a slow process and unfortunately, of a man’s significant maturing to his SMV, most of it occurs while women are reaching their own SMV peak. At age 23, while a girl is enjoying her prime SMP value, a man is just beginning to make his own gradual ascent.

By age 36 the average man has reached his own relative SMV apex. It’s at this phase that his sexual / social / professional appeal has reached maturity. Assuming he’s maximized as much of his potential as possible, it’s at this stage that women’s hypergamous directives will find him the most acceptable for her long-term investment. He’s young enough to retain his physique in better part, but old enough to have attained social and professional maturity.

Comparative SMV and the Peak Span Years

One important note here is to compare men and women’s SMV decline. Women’s SMV being primarily based on the physical, has a much more precipitous decline than that of men’s. who’s decline is graduated upon a declining capacity to maintain his status as well as his health / looks. Since a man’s SMV is rooted in his personal accomplishments, his SMV degradation has much more potential for preservation. Women’s SMV burns hot and short, but men’s burns slow and long.

Now class, please address your attention to the critical 15-16 year span between a woman’s peak SMV and that of men’s. It should come as no surprise that this span is generally the most socially tumultuous between the sexes. The majority of first marriages take place here, single-motherhood takes place here, advanced degrees, career establishments, hitting the Wall, and many other significant life events occur in this life stage. So it is with a profound sense of importance that we understand the SMV context, and the SMP’s influence as prescribed to each sexes experience during this period.

At age 30 men are just beginning to manifest some proto-awareness of their sexual value, while simultaneously women are becoming painfully aware of their marked inability to compete with their sexual competitors indefinitely. This is the point of comparative SMV: when both sexes are situationally at about the same level of valuation (5). The conflict in this is that men are just beginning to realize their potential while women must struggle with the declination of their own.

This is the primary phase during which women must cash in their biological chips in the hope that the best men they can invest their hypergamy with will not be so aware of their innate SMV potential that they would choose a younger woman (22-24) during her peak phase over her. I wrote about this in The Threat:

Nothing is more threatening yet simultaneously attractive to a woman than a man who is aware of his own value to women.

The confluence between both sexes’ comparative SMV is perhaps the most critical stage of life for feminine hypergamy. She must be able to keep him ignorant of his SMV potential long enough to optimize her hypergamy. In men’s case, his imperative is to awaken to his SMV (or his potential of it) before he has made life-altering decisions based on a lack understanding his potential.

Every man who I’ve ever known to tell me how he wished he’d known of the manosphere or read my writing before getting married or ‘accidentally’ knocking up his BPD girlfriend has his regret rooted in not making this SMV awareness connection. They tended to value women more greatly than their own potential for a later realized SMV peak – or they never realized that peak due to not making this awareness connection.

Well, I’m afraid that’s all I have space for today class. I hope this brief intensive has given you some food for thought as you enter a feminized world legally and socially dedicated to the benefit of optimizing hypergamy. Just remember, as you see your illustrious manosphere instructors gazing proudly from the gallery in our professorial caps and gowns, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Class dismissed.

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[Update] Star student White Raven at Elephants and Trees has posted his most excellent term paper regarding the SMP. A+, highly recommended.

The Abdication Imperative

Rationalmale regular and all-around red pill evangelist MikeC had an interesting Matrix experience recently. This comment was drawn from yesterday’s Respect post:

“This is another socialized manifestation of hypergamy: the man must always perform for her, ***always qualify to her.***“

Yup….I actually got engaged over the weekend, and when we got back in town we visited her parents. Me and her on one couch, her parents on the other, and I have a friendly relationship with them (her Mom loves me).

Anyways, we were talking some plans and stuff, and her Dad chimed in about getting used to just saying “Yes, dear”….”Yes, honey”, etc. First thing that popped into my head was the femcentric thinking involved. I didn’t think it was the time or place to call that out for the crap that it is…but I didn’t need to as both myself and my fiancee chimed in at the same time that our relationship isn’t one where she calls the shots and I just go along with it.

It truly is mind-boggling. It almost seems like at some point, a mass brainwashing took place that instilled in men that to “RESPECT” women you simply had to go along with whatever they wanted to say or do in that moment.

[Congrats Mike, and I mean that sincerely since I know you have your roots planted firmly in positive masculinity and Game-awareness. RT]

I was listening to a local talk radio show on my commute home last Friday and a caller tells the hosts that he’s getting married for the first time over the Memorial Day weekend. After all the ubiquitous congratulation, he petitions for advice from the show’s hosts as well as any listeners who call or text or IM into the show.

I can’t say as I was surprised, but predictably, every guy who dropped some words of wisdom couched it in exactly this “just say ‘Yes Dear’ to anything she asks, she’s always right” mass groupthink. “Happy wife equals happy life” was literally what at least 5 of these guys called in or texted to say. Everything after this was autonomously, automatically implying that a husband’s primary duty in a marriage was to ‘keep her happy’. “Make sure you get to all the things on her Honey – Do list and you’ll be alright” was another caller’s advice intoned in a voice that sounded as if he were telling a new arrival at Auschwitz of how best to survive in the camp.

Last week I wrote about how the Unplugged become progressively more sensitive to the group-speak of the Matrix, and MikeC’s experience is a a textbook example of this. However, it’s one thing to identify the code in the Matrix, but it’s quite another to see the latent purposes behind the memes, the clichés and the idioms that the PluggedIn take for common sense.

Hypergamy and Cognitive Function

As MikeC astutely highlighted from Respect, Men’s preoccupation with performance is a direct psychologically, sociologically evolved response to qualifying for women’s hypergamy. Perhaps the most important reason women’s primary drive revolves around security-seeking is due to hypergamy, by definition, being an inherently insecure proposition. In fact so insecure is feminine hypergamy in principle that it was necessary for women to evolve psychological fail-safe schemas on the subconscious level (i.e. involuntary shit tests).

In general, when a psychological dynamic is pressed into the limbic, involuntary, subconscious level of our psyche’s, it’s primarily due to that dynamic requiring too much mental attention for our conscious minds to process effectively and maintain a cognitive awareness of other dynamics, stimulus, etc. in our environment that require our more immediate attention. Mother Nature has evolved humans with a wonderful ability to muti-task our awarenesses, but there are limits to how much information a person can process efficiently before that psyche becomes overwhelmed. Taken to the extreme this processing overload has potentially life threatening and species survival implications. Thus these processes that would overwhelm our conscious cognitive abilities are relegated to our peripheral awareness and/or pressed down to a subconscious / preconscious level.

This then is the mental realm of feminine hypergamy. When Roissy writes about women’s hindbrains or imagination/rationalization hamsters, this is the conceptual, psychological region from whence they issue. It’s easier to think of hypergamy – and its manifestations such as shit tests – in terms of breathing. We can control our breathing when we think of it, but when our mental attention is required elsewhere our autonomous nervous system takes over and we breath on autopilot until such time as we become aware of that breathing. Whether we are under stress or running a marathon, that autonomous system kicks in to allow us to focus on more important stimuli. So too is it with hypergamy – women are aware of it, and may adress it consciously, but more often hypergamy is pushed into women’s peripheral consciousness to allow them to focus on other stimuli.

The Abdication Imperative

Hypergamy is rooted in doubt. Hypergamy is an inherently insecure system that constantly tests, assesses, retests and reassesses for optimal reproductive options, long-term provisioning, parental investment, and offspring and personal protection viability in a potential mate. Even under the most secure of prospects hypergamy still doubts. The evolutionary function of this incessant doubt would be a selected-for survival instinct, but the process of hypergamy’s assessment requires too much mental effort to be entirely relegated to women’s subconscious. Social imperatives had to be instituted not only to better facilitate the hypergamous process, but also to reassure the feminine that men were already socially pre-programmed to align with that process.

In an era when women’s sexual selection has been given exclusive control to the feminine, in an age when hypergamy has been loosed upon the world en force, social conventions had to be established to better silence the doubt that hypergamy makes women even more acutely aware of. And nowhere is this doubt more pronounced than in the confines of a monogamous commitment intended to last a lifetime. Thus we have the preconception “Happy Wife equals Happy Life” pre-programmed into both gender’s collective social consciousness. It’s as if to say “It’s OK Hypergamy, everything’s gonna be alright because we all believe that women should be the default authority in any relationship.”

When you disassemble any operative feminine social convention, on its most base, instinctive level the convention’s latent purpose is to facilitate and pacify hypergamy.

As I covered in Hypergamy doesn’t care,.. it isn’t enough to profess love, promise support, exemplify dedication, etc., no, in a social context hypergamy demands a total pre-abdication of authority. Hypergamy wants social assurances before it makes a decision it has to live with. And even under the condition of total contrition hypergamy will not be pacified, but feminization, since the sexual revolution, has defined society in hypergamic terms, and that imperative will insist that the general populace internalize that “Happy Wife equals Happy Life.”

Chumps I’ve Known

It’s amazing the sheer amount of guys I know or have known who I’d classify as being AFCs. I’d like to say that pretty much every guy I’ve known has been an AFC with a handful of notable exceptions. Some grew out of it with experience, others were partially Game-aware or simply naturals who backslid and devolved into AFCs, and still others have been “lifers”; men who still don’t get it into their old age.

I was having a discussion about the legion of AFCs that most women have to sift through with my assistant where I work. She’s an attractive (HB7.5-8) young woman of 26 who’s been dealing with an AFC long distance and non-exclusively for well over a year now. Her frustration comes from the multitudes of Betas she meets in her dating life – in fact after working with me for over 2 years she instantly identifies guys as AFCs. She’s familiar with the mindset now; the lack of decisiveness, the neediness, the wish-washy yet possessiveness, and all the other Qualities of the AFC. All of this got me to thinking about the AFCs I know or have known and their individual circumstances.

Dave L
Dave L. is perhaps the most pitiable of AFCs I’ve known. His story, as he tells it, began with his very overbearing and domineering mother. He came from a very strict Baptist family and so dealt with a very guilt-conscious mother for the better part of his life. Interestingly he transitioned from an authoritarian mother to an authoritarian wife. He’d only ever slept with one woman, Sue, whom he met in the military in his 20s. She was a sexually abused (by her uncle) single mother of 2 delinquent sons who saw in Dave L. what she never did in the other men in her life – a guy she COULD control. They’ve been married over 25 years now and had a daughter. In this time he has been little more than a slave to her. Their history is one of a constant brow-beating by her as he perpetually tries to find ways pacify her in the exact way he tried to pacify his mother’s insecurities. Every decision he’s ever made has been to appease her and has never been “good enough”.

When I met Dave L. his daughter had learned from her mother how to control him just as strictly. It was as if she had been passed his leash so she too could learn how to discipline him, and to keep him in check. When we first met I used to butt heads with both his daughter and his wife (and unwittingly so) because I would openly challenge their authority over him by questioning his autonomy as a man. They of course instantly jumped to his defense and maintained he was a “real man” and I would be too if only I would defer to women’s authority.

Ron
For a time Ron was one of my best friends and not a guy you’d really want to arouse to anger. He had my back in a lot of bad situation and I was his confidant and counselor for many years. But for as in control and assertive as he could be, Ron was an AFC. He had the Bad Boy posture that women loved, but he defeated himself with his soulmate-ONEitis mythology. He married Kris at 19. They met in the Navy, and he got her pregnant fairly early which prompted the marriage. Kris was beautiful and one of 3 women Ron had ever been with. He “did the right thing” and married her, and they stayed married, having 2 more children throughout their 20’s. Gradually, Kris left Ron to himself and the kids more and more as she felt she’d missed out on her 20’s and spent more time with her single girlfriends in the evenings. She began to resent Ron, who by now had let his physique go while she stayed in good shape. Ron didn’t see the signs, because he’d been progressively pushed into a position of having to qualify to his wife and internalized the thinking that it was “the right thing for a man to do.”

Ultimately at 29, Kris cheated on him. I was on the other end of the phone with him after he’d been searching all night through the town in which they lived for her car – with their children in the back of their mini-van. As melodramatic as all this sounds, he’d tracked her down to a motel and had been waiting in the parking lot since 4am for her to come out so he could kill her. I managed to talk him out of that, and he tried to “make it work” after the incident for another 4 years, but this was really last stop before toll. At present, she’s planning on marrying another lover she had and their family/children is in shambles.

While Ron wasn’t the cause of this, his AFC responses, progressive beta-ness, rationales and inaction only contributed to his present condition.

Dave B
Dave B is a textbook example of insanity – repeating the same mistake over and over. His first wife was his ONE, so was the second, so was the GF between wife 2 and 3 and so was the third. With wife #1 he had two daughters. After their divorce she gained custody of them and was awarded spousal and child support. Wife #2, another daughter, but only after they’d divorced once, made up, had the ubiquitous make-up sex and she got pregnant “by accident”, then they divorced for good. She too was awarded spousal support and child support for a daughter he never sees. After #2 Dave “met the ONE” again and moved her and her son and daughter from 2 different fathers into his home. After the teenage son was picked up for burglary of some neighborhood homes he got into a verbal argument with the GF. Dave B made the mistake of merely snatching the keys to the car, the car he’d given her, away from her hands. That was enough to have him restrained from entering the home he was paying for, driving the car he was paying for, and Dave B went to live with mom & dad for a spell until that was sorted out. Now Dave B is on wife #3; another single mother of 2 daughters. In the meantime wife #1 self- destructed and he was order by the court to assume custody of his first 2 daughters (which is what he wanted anyway) after they’d been abused by their stepfather and wife #1 turned up to be a meth addict. Turns out all that money he’d been paying for years went to feed her habit and the habit of the abusive step-father.

Shawn
Shawn is a guy I know who basically ONEitised on EVERY girl who EVER dated him. He’d been married for about 2.5 years to a fairly religious girl who told him she “wanted to be a pastor’s wife” only to have her eventually cheat on him with a guy who was the Bad Boy and ended up in Las Vegas. Shawn went on to get a master’s in education, and moved to a string of the “coulda been” girlfriends, who’d date him for about 2-3 weeks, figure out his Disneyesque views of love, LTRs and men & women in general. He was a very good songwriter until he found himself in one of these “coulda been” ONEitis spells. Then every song was about the girl he thought was his “gift from above” and he proceeded to smoother her in his clingy-ness and idealize her on a pedestal.

He went through about 3 or 4 of these while I knew him until he met his 2nd wife. Mary was a single mother of one son and technically his step-cousin (his step-fatehr’s, brother’s daughter). She’d “accidentally” gotten pregnant by a black guy on the college basketball team and according to her very strict (and notably racist) father had disgraced the family, but they being religious, she had the baby and began her life as a single mom. Shawn adopted the Cap’n-save-a-ho persona and started this whirl wind ONEitis crusade to “do the right thing” and not only marry her, but legally adopt her son. Mary of course was happy to have the help, but saw Shawn for what he is; desperate and a romantically idealistic AFC. Mary was actually a pretty good friend of Mrs. Tomassi for a time and she’d confide in her that she wished he had the ambition and drive that I had. The short version was that she wanted a Man she could respect – similar to her authoritative father – and while Shawn was welcome help, she just wasn’t hot for him. Now Shawn is legally bound to her and the child he never fathered and has little respect for him. After 8 years of marriage they still haven’t had the child(ren) that Shawn wants.

 

Recounting the stories of AFCs we’ve known is educational in that it illustrates the commonalities of conditions these guys (sometimes ourselves included) face and the mindset that accompanies them. It’s very easy to go all self-help-motivational on people and tell them what they ought to do and ought to believe about themselves, but stories like this make the conditions real for us. I’d encourage commenters to relate the stories of some of the AFCs they’ve known in the comment thread.

I wont argue the merits of bolstering your self-esteem and taking action to make a positive improvement in yourself toward becoming a capital ‘M’ Man. There are hundreds of blog threads in the community that address this, but recounting the wreckage of lives that AFCism (for lack of a better term) puts the reasons why a guy needs to “improve” in sharp perspective. It’s like seeing the emaciated starving children in 3rd world countries on Unicef commercials as a prompt to do something.

I didn’t start this post as a warning sign for AFCs, nor did I start it point out what not to do. It’s an illustration of the sheer scope of the problem and the very real impact it has not just on men’s lives, but their families, the women they paired off with, their children, their friends, etc. That might seem negative, but it’s reality. I could’ve just as well posted about PUAs I’ve known (which would’ve been a lot shorter), or glossed my own marriage in an effort to point AFCs in the right direction, but powder-puff enthusiasm tends to only come off as conceit. And in the end, the AFC still thinks his best course to a fulfilled LTR/marriage is doing exactly what he is already doing – only more so. The more you suffer the more it shows you really care, right?