I was driving with a friend of mine and his wife to a promo last month. The parking at this particular gig was packed so it made sense to take one car and as I sat in the back seat I observed the behaviors and connected them to the conversation his wife and he were having while we drove. He was driving as well as any other guy I know; observant, careful, efficient, casual, basically a good driver, I didn’t even give his driving much mind. However, judging from the nervousness and fidgety behavioral tics of his wife you’d think he was drunk and reckless.
She clung tightly to the “oh shit” handle you see above the passenger-side window in most SUVs today. Her body language was one of fear trying to maintain polite composure, but every time we’d slow for traffic or a stop she would gesture with her hands as if she were bracing herself for impact. She simply did not trust her husband in the driver’s seat. She’d insist he switch lanes miles ahead of a turn so as to be ready to make the turn, or she’d coyly ask him to slow down when we were on the highway.
I see this a lot in couples where the power dynamic is one where the woman is the tacit authority of the relationship. These two were a textbook example. The buzz word term for it is ‘passive aggressive’ behavior, but that behavior is prompted by a root-level influence of women’s security need. My friend, being the Beta he is, made every attempt to calm his wife’s fears by accommodating her passive (and some not so passive) posturing and requests. It still wasn’t enough. She simply doesn’t trust the man she’s been married to for 10 years with her safety – regardless of his actions.
Now, from a Red Pill perspective, it’s important to bear in mind that women are always looking for an emotional rush whether positive or negative. I detail this in Indignation but in the absence of indignation, women will actively create it for themselves. Any PUA worth his salt knows that leaving an emotional impression on a woman is a key to seduction. Some men can do this effortlessly and often unaware depending on the social context and circumstances he surrounds himself with. These are guys we think are ‘naturals’ even though the learning process and the trial, error, reward mechanisms of it for him are just an internalized part of his personality. However, making this emotional impression can be learned, expressed ‘naturally’ and it can be internalized.
When we look at the dual nature of Hypergamy we tend to focus primarily on the Alpha Fucks side of women’s sexual strategy. For obvious reasons, it’s the part guys tend to have the most interest in, and since seduction is the key to STRs and LTRs, it’s also the part guys need to develop most. It’s tough for most Blue Pill men to behave counter to what their conditioning has taught them. Just like my friend’s driving here, most guys believe that comfort, trust, rapport, friendship, appeasement, and generally self-sacrificing are what’s at the heart of a good relationship. All of course based on the mystical “open communication” trope.
Selfish vs Self-Interest
Vox Day had an interesting back and forth with Kitten Holiday about this dynamic this weekend:
https://twitter.com/voxday/status/762307577560563712
For men who’ve been conditioned to believe that the key to success with women is to play nice and solve women’s problems for them with patient understanding, suggesting selfishness is attractive to women is counterintuitive. However, agreeableness and humility in men have been associated with a negative predictor of sex partners. So is it selfishness that makes a guy attractive or arousing?
I’ve suggested in the past that it is actually men who dare to place themselves at the center of their lives who make the most significant emotional impact upon women. This emotional impression is a byproduct of men who make themselves their first priority and when this prioritization becomes an internalized second nature to a man we say that he’s made himself his Mental Point of Origin.
I’m clarifying this here because it’s easy to conflate ‘enlightened self-interest’ with “selfishness”. A common criticism among the MGTOW set is that a man investing himself into anything with the express purpose of attracting women is vanity or wasted effort. However, it’s defining the point where this personal investment in oneself crosses over into having the effect of being an attractive trait to women that needs some more clarification. I covered this in Crisis of Motive, and unfortunately, it’s a line that’s subjective to the man who’s invested himself in virtually anything that uniquely benefits him and is attractive/arousing for women.
So we have two countermanding imperatives here. Men are conditioned, personally and publicly, to believe that niceness, comfort, and trust are the keys to success with women (whom we are told will have an affinity and appreciation for it). All of these Blue Pill qualities are pro-social attributes, yet in practice, in the real world, we observe men with anti-social, ‘selfish’ interest are rewarded with women’s attention. Self-interested men make a more significant emotional impression.
When we contrast this with the two aspects of women’s sexual strategy we see that the Blue Pill (pro-social) traits align with the Beta Bucks side of Hypergamy, while the ‘selfish’ (anti-social) aspects align with the arousing Alpha Fucks desires of women. For the Blue Pill invested man, it’s baffling to see how ‘selfish’ men are rewarded with intimacy, genuine desire, and sex. What they lack is a complete understanding of women’s dual sexual natures.
“So I gotta be an asshole to get women to notice me? Chicks really dig jerks?”
I’ve been reading this response from newly unplugged nice guys for as long as I’ve been writing. It’s the binary response I’ve come to expect from guys still on the fence with regard to Red Pill awareness, but it goes back to the negative associations they have with making themselves their own mental point of origin. It’s ‘selfishness’ not self-interest and this is exactly the opposite of what they’ve been taught will resolve problems for them.
This then comes back to my first point about women’s need for security. I’ve been married for over 20 years now, and for as good a marriage as I have, I still have my doubts that Mrs. T trusts me implicitly with her life.
It’s ironic because I actually saved her life when we were first married. There was a very swift moving river we used to walk our dogs along when we lived in Tahoe. It was spring and the river was high from snowmelt runoff, and it was cold – as in take your breath away before you’re paralyzed cold. One of our dogs had spied a few ducks on the opposite side of the river and bolted into it to go after them. About half way across he realizes it was a stupid idea and turns back. He couldn’t make it and the river swept him downstream. We both ran down the river after him to a point where he’d pass and Mrs. T jumped in to catch him. She goes numb in seconds, but she caught the dog by the collar. I know I’m going to have to go in to get them now so I prep in my head what to do. I get in now and grab the dog and bodily throw him up on the steep bank. Then I do the same with Mrs. T right before the water is so cold I can barely move. I managed to grab a large tree root in the bank I’d seen earlier to haul myself out.
In spite of that very memorable event, I’m not sure I have my wife’s implicit trust in this respect. I know that sounds bad, but even after all of that, there was no acknowledged appreciation for it. I was just doing what a man is expected to do. In many other aspects, I have my wife’s trust, but I wonder if the want for an emotional impression isn’t buffered by a need for security.
In my friend’s case, this lack of trust is manifested in his wife’s demeanor and interactions with him. The more Beta the man a woman’s paired herself with the more evident her need for security becomes a part of their relationship. Remember that security comes in many different forms. It’s entirely possible for a dutiful Beta to be a great provider, but still not be trusted with his decision making or his capacity to protect his woman from harm.
Women today are already raised to never put their trust in men as it is. Men are at best lovable buffoons, at worst untrustworthy incorrigible players. Popular culture directs women to only rely on themselves, to only trust in their own, implicitly correct decisions and directions – and then absolve them of any negative consequence of those decisions. Thus, we have several generations of women who claim the authority role in their LTRs and relegate their men to only marginally trusted companions.
All of that said, I would suggest that men opt to not concern themselves with so-called “trust issues” with women. Women’s feral nature is founded in Hypergamy and part of that nature will always be to doubt the quality of the man she’s paired herself with. It may seem ‘selfish’, but placing yourself as your first priority will be far more appreciated and accepted than a man attempting to endlessly earn the trust from a woman that can only be temporal at best. Your lack of concern over her status of trusting you will have much more impact than trying to appease her for it.
Beta men are endlessly told that a woman’s trust and rapport, her comfort level with a guy, is essential to her being intimate or sexual, or having a good relationship. Those are the guys who feel the sting the most when they see a woman at her feral best fuck the hot guy she met the same night who made a significant emotional impression on her. The guy who invested his interests in himself and she happened to be along for his ride.
Trust is just a convenient term used by women to vet for Beta men. ‘Trust’ only amounts to a list of prerequisites and rules for a Beta who believes it’s his duty to fulfill them, which are never an afterthought for women with more Alpha men.