This is a post for my female readers.
I want to warn you about an insidious recommendation that periodically makes the rounds in the ‘sphere, one that when employed can destroy the quality of your relationship and change the background music of your life into a relentless hum of anxiety. I am talking about the exploitative practice of a man’s instilling dread and fear in his partner to gain the upper hand in the relationship. In particular, the practice of your boyfriend or husband flirting with other women or reminding you in any number of ways that he “has options.” Here’s how the PUA thinking goes:
A woman will lose attraction for her husband if she doesn’t believe that he is actively desired by other women. Like jumper cables on a low battery, insecurity and jealousy work to kick start a flaccid relationship, or keep it finely tuned. Anxiety generates sexual desire. The goal is to first generate fear, then allay that fear. Rinse and repeat for the duration of the relationship.
Whew. I’m uneasy and exhausted just thinking about it. Do we like it when we get the prize guy, the guy that other girls want? Yeah, we do, we like to win the prize. And we like to parade that boy. “He’s mine, all mine! Eat your hearts out, ladies!” Of course, female intrasexual competition being what it is, some biddies are going to flirt with our man. “Hell no, don’t go there bitch. Because he loves me, and he’s not available. I know how to keep my man happy.” There is no better feeling than knowing that the love of your man is secure, that you have taken him off the market and satisfied him. It’s a requirement for a healthy marriage.
What happens when we see the man we love flirting with other women? Responding to them, maybe even encouraging them? How do we feel? Lucky that he has options, that he could leave and get another woman with ease?
God no. We feel ashamed. Why is the man who claims to love us seeking affirmation and sexual validation from other women? Now those biddies are laughing at us, they know the commitment is vulnerable – perhaps he can be poached. Apparently our man is lining up alternatives, “just in case.” We know he’s desirable, other women lighting up when he’s around tells us that. What we wish we didn’t know is that he’s milking it, wants more of it, is getting off on it. It’s deeply humiliating and painful for a woman in love.
A man who does this is displaying low relationship fitness, in one of two ways:
- He is genuinely interested in generating sexual attraction with other women, even while professing to love you.
- He is using this behavior as a ploy to keep you on your toes.
This kind of behavior should be a dealbreaker. If your boyfriend does it once, let him know how it makes you feel. If he does it again, get the hell out. If your husband suddenly starts flirting with other women, address it immediately. Figure out where his fear and insecurity lies, and rush to reassure him in every way you can. This dynamic is a relationship destroyer, and it’s toxic for children. Don’t enable it.
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*get through
Susan, you should poll the MBTI types of the women that post regularly here. I wouldn’t be too surprise if all of us had intuition in common.
Maybe we should point out our single girls and boys to a dating site that could help them sort out some of this. http://www.typetango.com/
@OTC
I shall shout it from the mountain top.
Lol.
P.s. Im serious. I will. I already try to drop someone of what Ive learned here into everyday conversations I get into with other women and men. They always agree. I also have zero problem stating it like it is in mixed company. Even if there are feminist present. Ive been given ammo to shut them up now!
Appreciate all that, Charm. If it makes you feel any better, a lot of us menfolk develop pretty thick skin about the whole process. Helps to vent anonymously online here and there, but for the most part, we’re dealing with it as well as can be expected.
Now I just have to find one of those 10% Introspective/Intuitive or whatever-it-is types. Would have to be better than the date last week I cut short after she spent 20 minutes telling me why Rick Santorum is a misogynist just because she saw a bumper sticker (all I wanted was some coffee and light conversation). At least I can pat myself on the back for approaching more often.
@ Susan
I’m really just trying to stick with the established terminology. “Dread” probably is the wrong word for the concept – or at least, it establishes a pretty bad frame. But “fear of loss” definitely falls under the idea of “dread,” and part of the tactic really is about creating that fear for fun and profit. I just don’t want to mince words about it – coming up with nice-sounding words for a rough concept is the first step to normalizing it. I’m just not willing to let it fall out of the toolbox just yet, because it’s a useful tool for countering a lot of female mind games.
On the other hand, “dread” is definitely the right word for how a red-pill man could see any number of manosphere hot-button issues (from the big ones like abortion, false rape accusations, and nuclear divorce all the way down to smaller ones like a bad rejection or slander from a slut). Even if you can completely separate damage from the fear of those things from the damage done by the actual events, it’s still a pretty damaging fear. Definitely not a healthy one. But someone, somewhere thought it was a good idea to give women that power, possibly to address an existing problem, and probably encouraged by short-term results (for instance, the first no-fault divorces were probably okay even by sane standards, and it took a while to become the evil it is today).
Not a fan of doing one wrong to counter another, but I’m not wholly convinced it’s wrong. Just because most women want it (however much they protest) doesn’t make it right – but if creating dread is actually a necessary skill for dealing with most women, we’re left with either say “most women are not worthy of a relationship,” or “the ability to selectively manipulate your girlfriend’s fear of loss for fun and profit is occasionally necessary, and therefore acceptable.” That just leaves the question of whether it is not only useful, but necessary.
Or I can just stick with the plan to find a cute, single INTJ (about 4% of the population) and dodge the question completely.
“… I know how to keep my man happy.”
I agree somewhat with what you wrote, except this sentence… in the case where the wife does not REALLY know how to or maybe does not want to keep her man happy or more likely she has given up since she has already captured him in marriage and does not need to flirt with him or try to seduce him anymore. What is the man to do, tell her she needs to give him more attention and focus? And when she tells him that he has to love her the way she is, what then?
Sorry, I have found that after trying to communicate with my wife and her lack of response or change, creating anxiety works better. Do I like it, no not really. Yes, the response from other women is nice, but I would really rather not have to do that. But apparently my wife does not feel attracted to me unless some other woman is threatening to take her husband.
This stresses the importance of making a wise choice when choosing your spouse.
Reading through the rest of the comments now and this was spot on…
“What Susans husband said to her about sex would have been all I needed to get my shit together. I’d bet a fair portion of the other girls on here would probably agree. But I have to admit most women probably would not have. They would have taken it as some personal slight against them and raised hell over it. They would have tried to ruin your life for you daring to make a request of them in a relationship. In this case, men are thus forced to use the backdoor method of flirting with other women to “regain her interest”. And thats what gets me. Its a damn shame. You can tell a woman not to take you for granted because she will lose you and she probably wont respond until you’ve got one foot out the door and she feels that ‘dread’. ”
My wife took it as a major slight and was greatly offended.
I’ve been in many social situations where some married man was too attentive, placing his hand on my lower back, getting too close, going for excessive eye contact. Many of these men were cheating alpha types. I’ve had it happen on the Little League field, at PTA meetings, charity benefits, block parties and in church. We women have words for men like this: skeeze, sketchball, slimy, snake, cheater. I’m sure that every one of those guys thinks he’s just the hottest, when in reality he’s making a fool of himself and his wife when he acts that way.
I have no doubt you are correct about what they say, but then, there is that pesky gap what women say and what women do. You realize that some of the women who call men such names do so in spite of having had sex with such men, right? For how could those men be cheating alpha types if their sleazy approach wasn’t working for them? I’m not condoning the unfaithful behavior on either side, you understand, only pointing out that the sketchy behavior isn’t anywhere nearly as unattractive to women as you would like it to be. As most of us would like it to be; I happen to find it repellent myself and with one exception, prefer not to associate with such men. But part of the reason John Hamm’s character on Mad Men is such a powerful male sex symbol is because he is a shameless cheater. Women are strongly drawn to such men in part because they know they are safe with them in one very important way: such a man is not going to push her for a relationship or tell on her. So, whether she’s in a relationship herself or she just wants some casual sex without consequences, the “sketchball” is the much more attractive option than the fine, upstanding man.
Keep in mind that the married acquaintances who hit on you wouldn’t be trying it with you if it hadn’t worked with some of your friends and neighbors before you. How is he supposed to know you are really one of the faithful women or not until he puts you to the test?
I’ve caught death stares from some of those wives – it sure didn’t look to me like Mr. Alpha Cheater was getting laid that night. Mostly, I just don’t think it works. If it does, you’ve got a head case on your hands, and you’ve just made her a bit more neurotic with your dread strategy.
Well, from the male perspective, most women are head cases at least part of the time. Dread is no different than any other aspect of Game. The only reason it has been identified and articulated is because it was first observed to work. It’s not going to work every time, nor is it applicable in all situations. But every man who has had a sufficiently attractive woman send indicators of interest to him and subsequently noticed his girlfriend’s otherwise inexplicably increased attention understands that it does work, whether we ever intentionally make use of the concept or not.
Please – please – don’t answer this question, but perhaps it might be helpful to contemplate this thought. If your husband is going off to a week-long [conference or whatever] in [insert glamorous city] where you know there will be no shortage of women of the sort he finds attractive, are you more instinctively inclined to send him off with a) no sex, b) perfunctory sex, or c) your best gymnastics routine? If your answer is (c), then you understand on at least some level that dread works.
@ Charm at 148,
Are we related?
You have said exactly what I wanted to say.
Auntie Susan is right, but unfortunately her advice cannot be applied to the current situation, which is admittedly messed up.
One can’t make this stuff up. Things are as is, and the smart woman today needs to be thinking like you (and me).
Totally counterintuitive, but there we are…
OTC (at 150) and Rob (at 71) are my heroes for this post
Like Charm, I only learned about my own female tendencies from the Manosphere. It has helped immensely. Not to say I am a fan of the more seedy aspects of PUA.
But what these two men and Charm are saying is the absolute truth.
Feminism upset the cart of the SMP 50 years ago, and we are all having to pick up the pieces and learn stuff our parents would never have anticipated.
Bravo, lady and gentlemen
Folks I think we have a unicorn sighting – a woman who’s on fire for her beta boy…
@J
Respect, I can’t compete with that.
@Doc
Precisely. These are not loving or admirable marriages in any way. Committed men or women cheating, or sending the normal mating cues that they’re sexually available – which is what flirting is – are behaving in a way that is destructive to the relationship.
Extramarital flirting leading to affairs may even the score, but it destroys the relationship. If the relationship already sucks? Well, I’m not addressing those people.
Charm:
As we determined on the last thread a fair portion of the women here are in fact Intuitive s which Im sure isn’t a coincidence so to say that were “normal” isn’t accurate. We make up about 10% of the female population. So in this instance were “outliers”.
My reply:
Yes, INTJ here, super logical; my emotions are grounded in logic, my logic, which makes sense to me. I don’t look for outside validation for it, it is what it is. It has gotten me this far in life without any horrible consequences, so I’m keeping what I got!
Charm:
What Susan’s husband said to her about sex would have been all I needed to get my shit together. I’d bet a fair portion of the other girls on here would probably agree. But I have to admit most women probably would not have. They would have taken it as some personal slight against them and raised hell over it.
My reply:
Some time ago, I was dealing with what I have come to realize (as I look back now) was an early mid-life crisis–I’m in young middle age. I was sad but I was managing; but on occasion, I just came out with some bitchy-sounding things that the husband thought was off-the-wall.
As I’m an INTJ, my emotions are grounded in my internal logic, I tend not to get other people’s emotions well, so I didn’t realize how the husband would take my random musings out loud–my emotions.
At the same time, he is an ISTJ, with his own narrow constraint on his emotional perspectives–grounded in his own experiences and internal logic. The things I was saying evoked some earlier bad experiences he had in a much earlier relationship long before he married me, so he called me on it, and I knew I had to apologize and act better.
Yet, he can do his own craziness in his own quirky way, and this happened not long ago, when he did something that I found hurtful, and I dealt with it, calling him on his stuff, except that he didn’t seem at first to get my feelings the way I was able to get his.
So I was bit more emotional at the time, in our immediate discussion, but I cooled down right afterwards and didn’t raise it again. But in my own mind, I gave him time to think about why he needed to think about how I felt. I was pleasant enough for a day or two, but not as warm as before. By day two, he came around and apologized.
If anything, I think we generated anxiety in each other, in that we each woke the other up to our emotional realities in what were two situations where real live emotional issues and anxieties were at stake, not some make-believe manufactured anxiety to gain an upper hand, ie., by generating attraction in other people.
Did we game each other? I don’t know; I tend not to think in terms of “game” when it comes to my marriage. We get along smoothly as it is, notwithstanding the two stories I spoke of earlier.
@Rake
That’s a joke, right?
@OTC
Fair point. Women can definitely make themselves crazy by going headlong into the drama and imagining the worst.
I am not criticizing men for inadvertently causing anxiety. I am criticizing the behavior of using it as a tool to generate sexual attraction and keep a woman on her toes.
@OTC
The question is, what will Charm do when a man “treats her mean to keep her keen?” Will she fall on her sword for the sins of her sex, or will she want to be treated in a way that reflects her personally – and what she’s bringing to the table?
For me as an INTJ, my intuition lets me see immediately what 1+2+3+4 equals…LOL, so I knew exactly what was going on when the husband felt threatened, and I knew how I had to respond in the first story…At the same time I knew why he wasn’t getting my feelings in the second story and how I had to respond to that, based upon my understanding of him.
@Odds
We’ll disagree then. I’m well aware more and more men are adopting this strategy, which is why I felt compelled to write about it. We’re all reloading our weapons – it will be a fight to the death at this rate.
So Most Women find dread an aphrodisiac, and most men will exploit that for fun and profit.
I’ll continue writing for the apparent sliver of humanity that doesn’t wallow at that level.
@ROI
Yes, that is what the post is about. Filtering.
@VD
Tending to and protecting something you value highly is not dread. It’s the keeping and care of a strong relationship. It’s no surprise to learn that partners cheat less when their needs are being met. Most of the guys who seek Athol’s help can point directly to their own failure to do that. Being the best, most generous and attractive partner is obviously a natural strategy for holding on to one’s mate. Incentives drive behavior – people unfortunately forget that.
Instilling dread would be my husband’s telling me that he’s not sure he’ll have time to call when he’s away. Or not answering his phone at a late hour. On my side, instilling dread would be doing the same thing, perhaps going out with the girls to bars each night he’s gone. (For the record, I have never gone out with the girls to get drunk, and I don’t know any married women who have – I think we may be ignoring the elephant in the room here – socioeconomic status.)
I do not claim that dread doesn’t work. I just think it spoils the relationship. If the relationship is already spoiled, then maybe it’s “what the hell.” But I do think that once you’ve gotten to a point where the Mrs. will only stick around if you make her jealous, then you’re stuck at a very low level of functioning.
Funny you should mention Mad Men – when I watch it, it’s almost freaky how closely it resembles my own childhood. I was little Sally Draper. The point of the post is not that Don Draper doesn’t have affairs, or that women don’t find him attractive. Nor did he deliberately use dread as a tool to keep Betty invested. In any case, he destroyed his wife’s love for him and pretty much wrecked his kids’ lives, so the notion that dread is healthy for a relationship is invalid.
@JT
Has your SO deliberately tried to keep you fearful of losing him? If so, how does it make you feel? Would you mind if your daughter married a man, and he flirted like crazy with the bridesmaids at the wedding? Enough so that the guests were whispering and noticing?
The post is not about a messed up SMP. It’s about messed up one-on-one dynamics.
@VD
One more thing:
Almost without exception, couples where the husband flirts with other women and shames his wife are excluded from the friend circle. They’re the neighbors that never get invited back. The men hate the guy and the women are creeped out. The Drapers have no friends. Most of those marriages end in divorce, and it’s not fun to hang out with people who are headed for a breakup.
I do not claim that dread doesn’t work. I just think it spoils the relationship. If the relationship is already spoiled, then maybe it’s “what the hell.” But I do think that once you’ve gotten to a point where the Mrs. will only stick around if you make her jealous, then you’re stuck at a very low level of functioning.
That may well be. The problem is that it may well be that most marriages, indeed, most LTR, are not capable of progressing above a very low level of functioning. We know for a certainty that most LTR – not most first-time marriages – fail, after all. But I readily concur that dread would likely backfire on you, and on the more sensitive and instrospective women as well. I can’t see it helping my marriage in the slightest either, although I can think of a few where a judicious application might be in order. Any divorce wherein the ex-wife is genuinely surprised by the ease with which her ex-husband has replaced her is indicative of a marriage that dread might have saved.
The problem is that this works. In the cases Sue’s talking about, the men took the principle too far, humiliating their mates rather than simply creating doubt. Subtlety is required if you’re going to use it. Not that I advocate using it–it’s Dark Triad stuff. The way I see it, if you have to resort to manipulation to keep a woman interested, the relationships not worth it.
Like most game tactics, even when they’re sleazy, they contain a kernel of truth. In this case, the truth is that women want men that other women want. That does not mean, as some gamers seem to think, that women want men who want other women. Men who want other women humiliate their SO’s.
cont.
So how does one manage to be a man with options w/o humiliating his woman? I’m tempted to say that Amanda Marcotte had it right: be more attractive. Developing some inner game, nurturing your confidence and self-esteem, cultivating interests, and putting some effort into being the best “you” possible is going to make you a more attractive man, and is going to give you options without having to actually pursue those options in order to inspire fear in your SO.
@ Susan Re: #17
You are spot on Susan. Any guy who has to resort to BS tactics to increase his womans interest in him lacks creativity and insight.
Men wonder why a lot of women stop having sex, or even file for divorce if it gets bad enough?
It is the resentment that builds up over time. He drops his clothes on the floor instead of the hamper, he doesnt help in the kitchen, doesnt vaccume, has sex the exact same way every time, might be a really selfish lover, has a temper and says hurtful things, lacks empathy etc etc etc.
Many married friends (female) have cried on my shoulder over the years, and the story is like a broken record. I guess some guys think they married their mother to take care of them.
sorry on breaking in on this “for female readers” section, but….
JM
The way I see it, if you have to resort to manipulation to keep a woman interested, the relationships not worth it.
________
Not too sure I totally agree. The relationship may be well worth it, but the lines of communication need to be opened. People just dont fall out of love. There are reasons. Fix those reasons and the relationship may very well return to normal.
Some people may scoff at this, but ,”the couple that lays together, stays together.” Keeping all aspects of the relationship alive and fresh, including sex, is very important. Sure there are virtually sexless marriages that go the distance, but normally those are two low libido people. sex can be a focus point if at least one person isnt getting enough. Mismatched libidos can be a big problem.
Okay, but then you wouldn’t be resorting to manipulation, would you?
@ SW at 170:
“Has your SO deliberately tried to keep you fearful of losing him? If so, how does it make you feel? Would you mind if your daughter married a man, and he flirted like crazy with the bridesmaids at the wedding? Enough so that the guests were whispering and noticing?
The post is not about a messed up SMP. It’s about messed up one-on-one dynamics.”
There are 2 aspects to your question. I believe that Jesus Mahoney has answered one of them to some degree.
It is not about humiliating a woman. Because afterall, if a woman feels this way, she would walk. She should walk. I know I would.
The reason it is important for a man to ‘push the boundary’ is precisely for this reason. Many betas of previous generations never ‘fitness tested’ a woman, so they never knew what her limits were. Nor his, for that matter. It does work, as Rob and Jesus are saying, inasmuch as it will tell a man whether a woman is there for the long haul or not. (I agree there are better ways to do this than flirt with other women LOL).
The other aspect to your question is that it is never about an individual man or woman. We are all products of the current collective standards. That’s why it is best to keep the discussion on a general level.
I am not personally into the whole ‘preselection’ thing. I only date a man I like, not because other women like him. In fact, I would prefer not to have any competition at all, personally, as I don’t have the time or energy to fight off the competition
But a man still needs to do what he needs to do to keep a woman.
As everyone else is saying, if it is too much for a woman to take, he WILL lose her. But he needs to know where that boundary lies, early on. He needs to know what her ‘non-negotiables’ are. Otherwise he will be blindsided with the divorce that came from nowhere 12 years down the line.
If I have a daughter in the future and her husband-to-be is flirting with the bridesmaids, I will be confident that it is at a level SHE is comfortable with. Irrespective of anyone else’s reaction to it. Because she is marrying this man. That means she knows him well enough. And her mother would have total confidence that she chose the best man for her. Because no daughter of mine will be clueless in this game. Mom will make absolutely sure of that. Of that I promise you.
Susan,
I agree with the premise of your post, but I’ll admit that I had to learn this through my own trial and error. I always instinctively knew that flirting with other women in the presense of someone I was seeing was a sure fire path to keeping a girl glued, but it was also a path to insecurity, unnecessary conversations and arguments. I used to regularly do this, never crossing the actual line, but making it clearly evident that I can get others if I choose. I also dated a couple girls who played this game back, but since I never viewed those girls at potential LTRs it always blew up in their face as I didn’t genuinely care about their actions. The fact that I didn’t care made them CRAZY and even more jealous, as if they used the final card up their sleeve and were helpless.
Now, I would say that I’ve more so internalized this attitude and I don’t have the need to overtly display it. I’ve done it without thinking and much more innocently once or twice in front of my current gf (and yes, she got upset), but I’ve been much much better about it. Even if I don’t show it, I know and she knows what my SMV is worth, and that instills a good attitude on both ends without hurt feelings or arguments.
Charm – Spot and and brilliant! The more I see from you, the more I’m convinced the work needs more *I* women.
work = world.
I swear I’m never going to get used to typing directly onto a screen…
Respect, I can’t compete with that.
LOL. I wish I could say it reflects on my attractiveness, but it really says more about what a nutjob the guy was.
All kidding aside, it was a disgusting experience and had some big ramifications. It took my husband a while to process what had gone on, but once the disbelief wore off, he sat there stewing because he knew it was bad form to punch someone out at your MIL’s wake. (The guy actually had the habit of approaching women in situations where it would be very embarassing to react negatively. It was his MO.) Weeks later, I made a snarky comment about the guy to his wife, and she replied angrily, “Well, he likes you!” I said, “Damn skippy he does!” and told her what happened. She attempted to blame me; two other women came forward and confessed to similar experiences. (I’m not a special snowflake.
) She went home and instilled a little dread of her own. They came very close to divorce, but she wouldn’t have been able to support herself so she backed down. The wife still suspects that something is going on at work, but he gives her friends a wide berth now. And they avoid him as well. Few women visit the wife in her home any more because they don’t want to be around him. It was very humiliating for all involved.
J – he sounds like a real scumbag. I have to wonder though, did he only start acting this way AFTER they got married? I would venture to guess no, which means she did a pretty poor job of vetting him out before hand. If so, then something is either terribly wrong with the marriage, or something is terribly wrong with him.
I will never understand how a woman can marry a guy, and THEN notice his bad behavior, as if it never occurred before the wedding. Most men I know that act this way, have ALWAYS acted this way. How can any woman claim surprise when he STILL acts that way after getting married?
He should’ve approached him with a smile as if he had no clue what happened, lured him outside with the promise to show him something funny (can’t show you here, ya know, don’t want to be disrespectful and all), and then beat the fucking snot out of him in the parking lot.
Almost without exception, couples where the husband flirts with other women and shames his wife are excluded from the friend circle. They’re the neighbors that never get invited back. The men hate the guy and the women are creeped out.
This is my experience as well. The exception is when the wife continues to socialize with the other women on her own. She continues to be allowed in because the other women pity her and don’t want to abandon her. The husband OTOH becomes a pariah because the women don’t want to be approached by him and the men resent him.
At one point, my friend threw her husband out. He showed up with his suitcase in his hand at the apartment of a man in our crowd who is divorcing. He expected to be welcomed as a fellow “playa.” Instead, the other guy refused to let him.
Any divorce wherein the ex-wife is genuinely surprised by the ease with which her ex-husband has replaced her is indicative of a marriage that dread might have saved.
Meh. Maybe. I think part of that dyamic is just that men are simply more apt to look for rebound relationships than women are. Women are often tied down with kids or worried about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Men will look for another woman to provide sex and validation. Look at how the advice men and women give to their peers differs. A woman would tell a divorced friend to not date for a year, to let herself heal. The ‘sphere advises men to FTOW.
BTW, when a guy quickly finds a replacement, most women don’t regard him as a player but as a shallow jerk. It’s a red flag for many women as it indicates that the man was never really bonded to his ex or might be incapable of bonding.
J – he sounds like a real scumbag. I have to wonder though, did he only start acting this way AFTER they got married? I would venture to guess no, which means she did a pretty poor job of vetting him out before hand. If so, then something is either terribly wrong with the marriage, or something is terribly wrong with him.
Hard to say. She’s never indicated that he was a pig when they were young. They married right after she graduated college. He went to college in a different city, and they would see each other on the weekends. I know that she felt that he adored her, treated her like a princess, etc. before the marriage. Who knows what he did during the week or if she’d have been aware enough to even wonder. On her part, she was a very pampered, sheltered rich man’s daughter. I doubt that she really knew how to select a man on criteria that didn’t relate to his being a provider. (And, as I’ve said before, I don’t think that should be the main criterion.)
@Odds
“intuitives” is the N function for MBTI types. So INTJs, ENTJs, ENTP, INTP, INFP, ENFP, ENFJ, INFJ.
We determined on the last thread that most of the commenter here almost exclusively fall into one of those types which is pretty rare considering those types for both men and women make up only 24% of the overall populations.
So that INTJ you’re looking for is not 4% but only 1% of the female populations which is why they are so difficult to come by. ENTJ women (my type) are only 2.5% of the population but I think that female INTPs make up the smallest percentage for women.
Good luck a catching one, Im an ENTJ their natural companion and I have yet to meet one knowingly.
@Susan
I’ve never had anyone try to instill “dread” in me before but the first person that I date definitely tried his hand at putting me down and making me feel inferior. It would come out of nowhere and I wouldn’t respond to it. He was a bit older than me, so I guess he thought he had the upper hand or something. Wrong. I ripped his throat out and he never spoke to me again. Im sure he didn’t see it coming either because he probably pegged me as a fool. If a man ever tried to use dread against me it would backfire and I’d be walking out the door before he could even turn back around from flirting. I put up with alot of crap from people in my family as a kid so I’ve had more than my fill of bullshit to last a lifetime.
This is probably more true than any of us want to believe.
Its definitely a necessity for most of those women “worth” dating.
Ultimately though I commend me for continuing to go out there even though the pickings are pretty skim. I bet the women that red pill men date have no idea how many months those men put into bettering themselves through learning game. The least they could do is respect you for what you bring to the table, but I bet they barely notice. They probably think they “do better” than a man like that. Ungrateful bitches.
Apparently INFP is the exact antithesis of the most common MBTI for men (ESTJ).
I partially agree with this. As Tom said, it think part of it comes down to opening up communication which appeals the woman, which is a benefit. But if a womans panties tingle when you hit on other women, and that not your style, the relationship probably isn’t worth it for you. But for some men I’d imagine they too would get something out of it. (an ego boost from flirting plus good sex when they got home)
You know why this works? And why it’s a good idea for men?
Women LOVE drama.
If you don’t give it to them, they will seek it elsewhere. I bet through all tears, your mom stayed with your dad, didn’t she?
J – “Meh. Maybe. I think part of that dyamic is just that men are simply more apt to look for rebound relationships than women are. ”
I don’t necessarily agree with this. I think the real truth is, once couples reach a certain age, the men simply have a better ‘resale’ value than the women. We have already mostly agreed across the board that in general, men have an increasing “market value” all the way through their 30′s and 40′s provided they are still at least doing as well as when they were younger (most are doing better by then.) So, when a couple divorces in their 30′s to 40′s, I think if the man is actually a decent guy, his chances of finding another mate are actually pretty good, because in his age bracket, there are plenty of women looking for an “established” man, either because they stayed single past their prime market years, or because they divorced and are back on the market.
Women in the same boat however, may not have it so easy. Surely they can find any number of men to sex them up, and they may even sex them up in a semi-exclusive manner. But, she may very well have a difficult time truly “locking him down” because frankly, he is in a good position to play the field. The mistake women often make is, they misinterpret the attention men give them as their interest in something long term, when in fact they are simply looking for a port in the storm. Its the same problem faced by young women in college for that matter, only with a totally different set of men. By and large, the men that are single in that age bracket were probably men that have already been through the divorce grinder and learned their lesson (hopefully), or the players that never intended to settle down in the first place. So, women really have their work cut out for them once they reach the 30′s if they intend to “put themselves out there” to find love and a relationship.
If it were me, the logical thing to do is: fix your marriage. You are already in it, you know your husbands issues/quirks/hang-ups, and if things aren’t too bad, he should be willing to assist. I would imagine his willingness to help fix things will be greatly increased if you sex him up some.
At any rate, good luck ladies. I for one will never go blindly into the light again. I’m doing my best to make sure no other man does as well…
JM #184
LMAO. There’s a part of me that thinks DH really should have, even though I’m not a big proponent of “Let’s you and him fight.” I wouldn’t want DH to get hurt or arrested over this sort of BS, though I’m pretty sure DH could have won this battle of middle-aged men.
The really fascinating thing about this guy is his MO of pulling his sh*t in such a way that his victims are reluctant to make a scene. He’s a master at setting the victim up to embarass themselves, hurt his wife or appear to be over-reacting. He had been dogging me for months before my mom’s death. While I stopped going to his home, I never had the courage to confront him directly because he would do this crap in an ambiguous fashion in front of his wife–brushing against me or other women “accidentally” or saying things that could be taken as suggestive–or not. She’d laugh this stuff off out of embarassment, and the other woman would look like a jerk if she said something. Even my husband was not quite sure at first what he saw when it was going on two feet away from him. He asked, “Was that what I thnk it was?” I replied that it was. He responded, “WTF. Should I hit him or something? It’s a wake for God’s sake.” I said, “Yep, that’s the MO. He relies on the decency of others to protect himself. Leave it alone.”
Some examples: I ran into him in a buffet line after I stopped visiting my friend at her home. He mentions, in the midst of the crowd, that I don’t come over any more. I look at him and say, “Hmm, what you do know about that?” It was the most I felt I could say without making a scene. Or, this. A mutual friend had walked over to this couple’s home. As she was getting ready to leave, it started to pour. The husband offers the woman a ride home. She’s uneasy but can’t think of a way to refuse the ride in front of the wife. The husband drives the woman home, tellling her how much he likes her and asking if there is anything he can do for her. He gives her his business card. Luckily, when I did finally confront the wife, the second friend produced that card. Otherwise, I might have been blamed for tempting him. He was a genius at setting this stuff up.
Agreed. I do think we need to separate out “can this marriage be saved?” from “women are so hypergamous this is the only way to marital happiness.”
J – my guess is this guy has always been a scumbag, and because they were apart so much early on, she never knew. And, from your description, I would also venture that she really didn’t know what to look for in a quality man.
Its unfortunate, because she probably doesn’t deserve to be treated like shit, other than the fact that she let it go on so long. I’m glad she put her foot down, but I don’t have much hope that he will stop behaving like a dog in heat.
You’d be surprised at how many men love that shit too. I personally hate drama, but I’ve seen guys participate very heavily in it.
@Jesus
Exactly. And women know when other women want their man without his having to participate or encourage them. The way to keep a wife most interested is to be attractive to other women – being generally charming and friendly is obviously fine – and allow your wife to notice that. By all means tell her that the young intern threw herself at you at the office, if you should be so lucky. Or enjoy her heightened awareness and you strike up a particularly interesting conversation at a cocktail party with some attractive woman. Nothing woring with that.
If a guy has to start flirting hard and god forbid, negging other men’s wives, he looks desperate and sleazy. That’s why it’s a DLV.
@Mike C..can’t you do both? Tell what the problem is and why, then demonstrate the natural consequence that happens as a result of the offending action?
Over the course our lengthy time together, both in dating and our marriage, I have most appreciated and respected my husband when he has directly communicated what he expects from me. He set this tone early in our relationship. “I think it’s rude when you interrupt me when I’m talking.” (I come from a family that can be rather verbose—we talk non-stop and cross-talk with each other, both men and women. It never occurred to me that it was rude behavior.) I appreciated that he expressed how he felt about it, and I adjusted my behavior for him.
Throughout our years, he’s continued to let me know, very clearly with words, why and when he has felt disrespected. (It has happened rarely, and we can clear it up immediately.)
Bb, I’m basically in agreement with you here, but we are talking about two very different things. One is about specific actions while the other is a more about your perception of your partner. I agree that one should directly communicate displeasure with specific actions….you interrupt me in the middle of a sentence, you always leave your shit in the dryer, etc. Indirect here is really just passive-aggressive. Communicating or rather subcommunicating you are an attractive man with options is a different matter. Frankly, in my opinion, it would be kind of ridiculous to directly verbalize “Hey, you better realize I am an attractive, high-value man who could get a bunch of other women”. That’s the sort of thing best subcommunicated very indirectly. If you are interested, go read Rollo’s post just put up which in the last few sentences addresses the need to indirectly suggest some things instead of beating the woman over the head with it. Unfortunately, this discussion like many gets cast into binary black or white extremes instead of the shades of grey. How many guys out there get blindsided with the “I’ve lost attration for you” deal in their LTRs? So it is incumbent on a guy to try and stay attractive, but also indirectly remind the woman of that from time to time in case she is getting a bit complacent in that regard. To the extent a woman stays on top of her “be attentive, show attraction” game to her man, the less the man needs to indirectly communicate his attraction and options.
@JT
The point about personal boundaries is a good one, but the PUA approach is specifically about exceeding the boundaries of comfort: INSTILL DREAD. For example, the groom’s behavior would have to spark some worry in your daughter – am I going to be able to hang on to this new husband of mine?
It’s that negative exploitation of trust that I reject.
Ted #192
That IS the manosphere wisdom on this subject. Certainly, as men age and die, the number of available men is greater than the number of available women. OTOH, I’ve seen a lot of divorced men who are really bad bets.
A friend of mine is in the process of divorcing a prominent surgeon and (now diagnosed) NPD victim. He was genuinely emotionally abusive for years and years. She left, he promised to change, she took him back, he got crazier, and she left again. Less than a month later, he found a divorcee with kids who was thrilled to have found a doctor. She is still busy trying to pick up the pieces. She gets asked out, but she just isn’t ready to deal with things. She’s georgeous. She’ll find someone when she’s ready.
On paper, it looks like he’s the winner here, but I don’t think so. Either this new gal will figure him out eventually and leave, or he will have found the sort of golddigger who can tolerate/manipulate a narcissist. (He hired the best attorney in the city, got pissed and told him that “doctor trumps lawyer.”) He’ll never be happy or make anyone else happy. Sometimes, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.
I do agree though that if people can fix a relationship they should. It’s tough out there.
@Jason
That’s incredibly mature for a guy your age who’s just gotten out of college. I give you a lot of credit. You’re right that your SMV is confirmed in her eyes just by the way other women respond to you in subtle ways. Your response is perceived as a betrayal. It may produce a night of fiery sex, I don’t know, but it’s like having a fight just to get to makeup sex. It’s a symptom that something is very wrong in the relationship.
Gotta love Frank,..
[Recorded June 12, 1964, Los Angeles]
Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, soon he will open the door,
Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger, you needn’t try any more.
For wives should always be lovers too,
Run to his arms the moment that he comes home to you.
I’m warning you,
Day after day, there are girls at the office and the men will always be men,
Don’t stand him up, with your hair still in curlers, you may not see him again.
Wives should always be lovers too,
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.
He’s almost here, hey, little girl, better wear something pretty,
Something you wear to go to the city,
Dim all the lights, pour the wine, start the music, time to get ready for love.
Time to get ready for love, yes it’s time to get ready for love,
It’s time to get ready, kick your shoes off, baby….,
@ tvmunson
I’m honored, Sir. I hope all goes well with you.
And to clarify for everyone else, the region I was pitching as a repository of unquenched feminine desire (i.e. a lot of young horny career women without a lot of opportunities for male companionship) I was specifically recommending the Morrisville-Cary region of the Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) to a gentleman in DC who was looking for fresh horizons. There are an overabundance of young, intelligent, well-educated women in the biotech, medical and research cube farms here who just can’t seem to find a man. A few of them might even be wife material.
But for the record . . . Southern girls are particularly gratifying. There is a sexual undercurrent to Southern culture that has survived the feminist wave. It is no accident that Southern women have a general reputation for being both incredible strong and incredibly feminine. Even adjusted for socioeconomic class the combination of good manners, a tradition of respect for family and social position, and a cultural architecture that tends to support a semi-formalized system of courtship behaviors and marital expectations mean a lot of the Red Pill work is done for you. A well brought-up Southern girl can bring a lot to the table in a marriage.
Of course then you’ve got the inevitable alcoholic family issues, Daddy issues (and no one can have Daddy issues like a Southern girl) and a tendency for drama that makes life . . . interesting even in the best cases. But the benefits far outweigh the challenges if you do your due diligence.
@J
Your story of that couple’s deteriorating relationship is one I’ve seen played out numerous times. Oddly, in three of about ten situations I witnessed like this over the years, the husband ultimately confessed he was gay and left the family to be true to himself and that lifestyle. I’m not sure what to make of that – obviously the men were trying to prove their hetero cred even as they were heading toward a coming out crisis.
In any case, I think it’s clear that extramarital flirting is predictive of divorce.
After all, it was the Sexual Revolution that led directly to extramarital flirting, which led to affairs, which led to wife-swapping, which led to swinging. And the divorce rate skyrocketed. We’ve already done this experiment, and it was damaging to families, to children, to the guilty parties themselves, and of course to society. In fact, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that period led directly to the need for Game.
Don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but the original Roissy/Heartiste post that introduced the “dread” frame offered it only as an alternative to the preferred scenario:
Roissy puts the probability of this scenario at 1% to 2%.
Realistically, there is a continuum between good relationships built on trust and horrible relationships in which vigilant game-playing is required just to keep the thing standing.
It’s the rare man who would find himself on the good side of this spectrum and still want to expend energy deploying stratagems. So if a dude is dropping dread bombs on you, there’s a good chance that he doesn’t see you as his potential soulmate.
@Ted D
Good observation. This is why I advise women to get out if they’re dating someone who uses this tactic to secure their attraction. It’s not going to get any better over time. It’s also why I suggested that if this suddenly becomes a problem in a marriage, it’s indicative that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. I urge women to confront what’s going on, and provide whatever they can in the way of reassurance that may be needed.
It’s also important for women whose husbands do not step out in this way to give them positive reinforcement for it. In my marriage, I don’t specifically mention it, but we both behave the same way. It’s an unspoken pact that this is what’s appropriate and best for our relationship.
Im actually glad to be a woman dating than I to be a man.
Charm, I once dated a girl who was smart and low-drama, who had told me that she was, basically, misogynistic. She considered girls, in general, to be unreasonable, overly emotional and manipulative.
I asked her if she would have been preferred to be a man and she said, “Hell, no. I don’t need to put up with girls, you do.”
I thought that was interesting.
Charm,
For the record, though, many girls, possibly a large minority, are reasonable and not particularly manipulative, but, the unsqueeky wheels do not get the grease. I understand you probably already know this, but it deserves repeating.
@Charm
Haha, you are one tough cookie! It sounds like you’re saying you understand why guys use such tactics, but the first one to try it on you was dead meat. Can you explain? Do you condone the instilling of dread or not?
J – I am aware that there are plenty of totally shitty guys out there, just as there are plenty of shitty women. And I would never look down or think badly of a woman that leaves an abusive husband. Any man that abuses his wife is NOT keeping his end of the deal, and that means she is free to assume the deal is off, and act accordingly.
But, overall, I think my statement holds true. I was truly amazed that at 39 years old, with two children living with me, and being in bad physical shape (although MUCH better than I was prior) any woman would even look my way, let alone want to hitch their wagon to me. But, six months (give or take a little) after my separation I found myself dating a woman that was seriously into me. I saw myself has having far too much baggage to be a good choice, and it turns out what I saw as baggage she saw as proof that I had my shit together, and could handle myself. I felt like I was barely holding on some days, but it seems that my idea of barely holding on translates to safe and secure for many folks. I guess that isn’t so surprising when I consider how much I focus on things like security and comfort. MY threshold for concern is a hair trigger compared to most people, so it makes sense that MY idea of security is FAR more than most people would deem necessary.
At any rate, my point is many men that find themselves single again after years of marriage, if they have the chance to find out for themselves, will be shocked and at least mildly pleased to find out they have options. LOTS of options. Woman in the same position have lots of options too, but most of them are for sex and no more. If they want the whole deal, they may very well find themselves on the “business” end of the market gun.
and I won’t lie. Now that I know exactly what it is I have to offer, if I ever find myself single again, I’m going to be very specific about what I want, and at least a bit demanding about getting it. I’m not perfect, but the truth is I’m in a pretty good position in terms of what I have to offer. Perhaps my SO was smart enough to realize this on her own, and if so she lucked out. Because, if I had to do it over, I wouldn’t be so easy to snag.
I’m not saying I’m unhappy at all with her! I’m just saying that had I known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have made it so easy on her.
@Rollo
That’s cool, as long as you don’t interpret “men will always be men” as meaning something more than noticing attractive women at the office. They certainly shouldn’t be flirting at the office – even before sexual harassment laws, that was a slippery slope.
In any case, holding up Frank Sinatra and Mad Men’s Don Draper as paragons of how to make a wife crazy with desire seems rather a stretch, as they both failed miserably at marriage. It occurs to me that Don Draper’s mother was a hooker. I think it would be interesting to learn about the life experiences and personality traits of men who engage in extramarital flirting.
@ SW at 199:
Sure, I agree with you totally that if that boundary is crossed once too many, the man is a fool and should be kicked to the curb like all the other idiots. She HAS to walk. Or she is dead in the water for the rest of the marriage.
I am with you on that
But I am not knocking the PRINCIPLE of a man needing some Game to keep his relationship going.
Although with a good woman who loves him, he shouldn’t need it longterm. It should be used sparingly, and only at the beginning of the relationship when they are both in the process of ‘drawing the lines in the sand’.
The point someone else made about the surprise replacement of a woman being preventable by this ‘game’ at the start of the relationship is a very good one and kinda endorses what I am trying to say.
It should serve as a useful exercise in any relationship where the goal is to study, study, study, verify, verify, verify before jumping into marriage.
99.999% of all affairs start with “innocent” flirting…Just saying.
For the record, a couple of people have asked why I’ve written this post – why I am willing to seek out and take on the most extreme PUA types in the sphere.
The reason is that these views are gaining traction. Game has gone mainstream, and some of the more negative aspects are the ones being adopted quickly. It’s so much easier to take the “dark” shortcut than to do the real inner work. Negs fly in every direction at freshman orientation. Girls wonder regularly if a guy is ignoring them or just pretending to ignore them. Amber Madison’s book attempts to distinguish between real assholes and Impostor Assholes, the latter being more relationship-worthy.
It’s a race to the bottom. It’s an embrace of the lowest, most base aspects of human instinct. And the real problem is this:
Good relationships cannot take root in such shallow soil. There is no tending and feeding. It’s like whacking a tree with a baseball bat when it’s dying to get one really good show out of it the next spring.
I can’t tell men what to do, but I can urge women to reward behaviors that indicate good character, and a man’s willingness to work hard on himself and his relationships. I expect no less of women.
I have never sought, and will never attempt, to get women used to the idea that guys need to be assholes to sustain their attraction. I’d much rather ask women to understand their own needs and triggers, and to select carefully to build a life partnership with someone capable and worthy.
Susan – “The reason is that these views are gaining traction. Game has gone mainstream, and some of the more negative aspects are the ones being adopted quickly. It’s so much easier to take the “dark” shortcut than to the real inner work.”
I’m sorry. I simply can’t resist saying: I told you so!
And furthermore, I can’t blame one single man for taking this route if it works. If women don’t like it, they need to stop rewarding the behavior, plain and simple. And, that doesn’t mean bitch and complain that men are doing it, that means stop putting out for men that act this way. I promise you, the instant men playing dark game stop getting laid, is the same instant dark game will be put into retirement.
Does this actually work?
@JT
I like Game for LTRs. It’s clear that Athol Kay has saved many marriages with his work. Keoni Galt saved his own by applying the concepts. I think where it gets tricky is in deciding which Game concepts should be adapted to LTRs, and how. Game was written by Mystery for ONSs and STRs. (IIRC his ultimate goal was to get a bisexual gf who liked threesomes, something I don’t think he ever achieved.)
The point is that some tactics that work quite well in increasing your odds of getting a F close in a bar – like doing a take away and moving along to flirt with someone else – are meant to secure a commitment lasting one sex session. Or – here’s a popular one – introducing yourself to a couple of women and flirting primarily with the one you don’t want first, working the other one into a state of doubt about her own level of attractiveness.
I have serious doubts about the efficacy of those kinds of tactics in producing harmonious and emotionally intimate relationships over the long-term.
Yes, the tree makes a lot of buds as it fights for its life.
Ted,
I can’t blame one single man for taking this route if it works. If women don’t like it, they need to stop rewarding the behavior, plain and simple.
I agree that women need to stop rewarding behavior they don’t men to keep exhibiting. But I’m not sure it’s fair to put all the onus on the women. Men should behave honorably because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s what gets them pussy. I’m sure that as long as there are women of low character who reward bad behavior, there will be men willing to indulge, but let’s not give them a free pass. Guys who run dark game are assholes, whether or not it gets them laid.
You get it! I wrote the post to exhort women to stop rewarding the behavior. Pointing out what men are doing is not bitching and complaining about it. I didn’t even address men in the post, much less attempt to shame them. I urge all women to walk away from such men. That won’t change the SMP as a whole, but it will perhaps enable women to avoid one of the larger red flags I know of.
There is a corollary for men, of course, which is to select women whose hypergamy is not off the charts. That too should be easily detectable while dating.
I know I’m picking nits but I’m not sure I agree with this:
“It’s so much easier to take the “dark” shortcut than to do the real inner work.”
Not a lot of men can pull off hardcore dark game successfully. I’ve already said in an LTR that “dread” should be used only to regain control after she destabilizes things. Even that limited dread and doubt is not easy to pull off, and you have to be ready to follow through if she calls you on it.
I think most men get the most gains from inner game and applying game cafeteria style to their relationships. And I actually think it’s easier than a man getting in touch with his inner asshole.
Susan – “Keoni Galt saved his own by applying the concepts. I think where it gets tricky is in deciding which Game concepts should be adapted to LTRs, and how. ”
I will take this a step further from my own experiences trying to apply game to my LTR. Not only is it difficult to determine which game tactics will work in a relationship, and how to adapt them to it, but it is damn hard to even figure out which ones will work at all on the woman I am with. As a single guy picking up women in bars, that is never a concern. You walk up, do your song and dance, and see if it works. If not, you move on. If so, you get laid. But, you NEVER find out exactly what did the trick. All you know is that something you did worked.
In a relationship, if you get shot down, you are down for the count. It isn’t like you can simply move on the the next target. So, it takes time, planning, and effort to even figure out what works, and what needs to be tossed out. Then, and only then, can a man start to refine the technique.
I am still in the “what works or not” phase, and it is frustrating as hell some days. I’m getting comfortable with at least some of the tricks that seem to generate a positive result, and to be honest I’m beginning to think I have enough tools to work with.
I can tell you that, as you seem to believe, the “flirting/dread” tactic can get results, but those results are short lived and can cause enough damage that using them is pointless. I once said that I intentionally “flirt” in from of my SO from time to time, but that isn’t entirely true. I do what you suggested: I’m polite, nice, and sometimes engaging with other women, but I DO NOT take that to the level of real sexual innuendo or even blunt sexual aggression. She responds well to that, partially because I believe it shows that I am capable of being social, despite my propensity to dislike it, and it shows I *could* probably chat up enough women to get a date or two if necessary. The fact that I would be uncomfortable doing so is irrelevant, as long as she knows I could manage it.
I view this as a game tactic, because on my own, I wouldn’t even consider chatting a stranger up, let alone a female one. Not because I’m afraid to, but because I truly just don’t care to talk to people. However, it is in my best interest to occasionally prove to her (and myself perhaps) that I *can* indeed do it. And, I can see the results very clearly. So, if my relationship was really heading down fast, I might consider using some real dread to change that course. But, as you suggested, I would never suggest it to be deployed in a healthy relationship. I think the better idea for a guy is to simply show his ability to connect with other people easily, and make sure some of those people are women. As you suggested, most women would see that as confirmation of his options, and act accordingly without the added issues dread would entail.
JM – “Men should behave honorably because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s what gets them pussy.”
LOL, man, are you actually saying to me that men should act more honorably? I think you know that I agree with you 1000% there. FOR ME, life is all about duty and honor above all else. But straight up, if I had learned about game before I married at 25 years old, I can’t say how things would have gone. In all truthfulness, when I first took the red pill, I literally felt like woman cheated me my entire life. I had a period of time there where I wanted revenge, serious, real revenge. Of course, I was with my SO at the time, and was logically aware of how absurd that thought was. It didn’t change how I felt at all. I can’t even say for sure what would have happened if I had simply been single. I’ve already admitted that if I ever find myself single again, I’m not taking the dating market lying down. I will never let a woman get an easy ride from me, even if she is a great person and deserves my respect, admiration, and love.
What I’m saying here is: I consider myself to be a pretty moral and honorable man, and I can’t say for sure that I wouldn’t have gone out and run shit tons of dark game to get my ‘revenge’. If *I* can’t be sure of how I would behave, I can’t expect other guys to do any better. Because, as I’ve said many times here, I do believe I am more moral and honorable than most of the people on earth. I judge people my my own standards, and in this case, I can’t say MY standards are strong enough to keep that temptation at bay.
I don’t blame people for choosing the dark path. I think most young people dabble in a bit of darkness. Even my husband was manipulative before he became more spiritually aware.
Some darkness can be a catalyst toward good. Jesus Mahoney did the casual fling thing and realized it wasn’t for him. Other times people get mired in it, because they get obsessed by the temporary highs from using dark tactics.
I would agree with Charm that “most women” are not great, but really, most men are not too great either. I would have rather remained single than be with a dark type.
What Susan said: “I’ll write for the sliver of humanity that doesn’t wallow at that level” is brilliant. Really, that’s the best we can do here. Choose smartly and make decisions for our individual selves. That sliver of light will seem blindingly bright in the sea of darkness, but that is also the point.
Hope – “I would agree with Charm that “most women” are not great, but really, most men are not too great either. I would have rather remained single than be with a dark type.”
See? This is exactly why I say most “people” simply suck. I simply accept that fact, and hope that individual people prove me wrong. I have friends, so I know there are indeed good, solid, “thinking” people out there. But, I have to tell you, most of the time people prove me right…
@Ramble
I chuckle to myself because this place is making me misogynistic and sexist against women. Lol. But I dont even think its that. I think that its just me acknowledging it all to be true. Men and women used to just accept the ugly truths about the opposite sex and theirs and not fight it too much. It seems that now everyone is in extreme denial about it.
And yes, I know a fair portion of women arent too bad. I know a lot of very sweet girls, though they are still pretty clueless as to why they do things. But the women who are the worse get the most attention as they draw them most attention to themselves. They also have a tendency to spoil those sweet clueless girls from the inside out.
Most women are too demure to let the female harpies know what it is. But I’ve never had a problem with those bitches and Ill put them right back in their places. They don’t even bother coming at with that attitude. I can’t tell how many bitchy women are surprisingly nice to me.
@Susan
Lol, Im telling you. I don’t play around. That guy, I think has low self esteem. He was trying to bring me down to his level and it didn’t work. At the time I didn’t know exactly what he was doing but it made me feel bad about myself and it only took a few times of him doing it before I said screw it and laid it all out for him. Im sure he didn’t too much like being put in his place by a girl 5 years younger than him.
The second guy I dated was sweet, but when he got mad he was one of those people that would call me ridiculously dispresctful names. Now my self esteem is pretty solid so it didn’t hurt my feelings at all and I never yelled back. But when he’d calm down he’d try to apologize and I accepted them a couple times. But then I told him if he talked to me like that one more damn time we were gonna have a problem. It never happened again. But he too had low self esteem and was self deprecating and we werent too compatible. Im ENTJ and he was ISFP which is the exact opposite.
Re Dread
Okay heres what gets me about dread:
1. The way Roissy tells it, all men should use dread a fair portion of the time with their women so that she always has that doubt in her stomach. Its like feeding a person just enough to keep them alive but never enough to get them full. I can’t imagine how many men that read Roissys blog like its the damn gospel and are out there ruining some really good women with this shit. When dread is used on a good woman (or man) I think its unacceptable. The way it made your mom feel is unacceptable. I think that in that case the shit goes too far. Contrary to all of the horror stories of marriage, I think there are a fair share of married couples (like yourself and athol) who are very respectful of one another because they have the sense and decency to do so. People like Roissy rarely acknowledge those people.
2. In the case where the women is a soul sucking-venomous-too fat to be bitching so much-harpy then I advocate the hell out of it. I can’t stand how women will shit on their husbands in public like they aren’t worth a damn. A lot of American women truly believe that their shit don’t stank and they can do whatever they want and all men will put up with it. I personally feel bad for those men and try to be nicer to them by default as if to try and balance evil with good in the world. I’d personally allow myself to be recruited to piss off someones wife by flirting with them. I might even flirt with someone openly (even if I wasn’t actually interested) just because their SO was treating them like crap as if to smack her right in her damn face.
I just can’t sit by and watch something like that happen to someone. I have this need to do something. I dont know if you know about the enneagram but Im a type 8 and apparently this behavior is pretty common among 8s. When ever someone is the outcast, outlier, black sheep, or is being brow beaten by someone else I always step in an try to empower them even though I have no stake in it. I try to build the weak up. I think this is why I can’t leave the manosphere. Its too much injustice against men. The fact that so many women blindly participate in it makes me dislike women as a whole.
@Susan again Re being tough
I told you that I worked with a young cad for a while. He was in the triple digits and what not. Anyway, I could tell upon first meeting him that he was really into figuring women out like it was some kind of game. He was used to being able to crack the code of a lot of women relatively easily for most of his life. So when I worked with him, we got to talking, and not 5 mins into the conversation he says “You’re not like most women are you?” and I said “Nope”. I think he thought his “magic” could be worked on me and he kept trying subtly but it never did. He’d tell me about all the women he’s banged and how experienced he was like was supposed impressed. I just smiled and nodded. He never did “crack” me but he kept trying, I think just to see if he could, but it never happened. I could see from his facial expressions that it annoyed him, but he didn’t realize that I peeped his game a mile away.
When I said that I didn’t like cads, I meant it. I crossed his ass right off that list and he stayed crossed off. He was a good person otherwise.
deti,
I think your situation was a bit different. Your wife hit you with two mack trucks after 15 yrs old marriage. 1. I’m not attracted to you, and 2. I’ve fucked a lot more guys than you think.
She shouldn’t have felt safe in that moment. Any sensible man would be considering his options at that moment.
Precisely. These are not loving or admirable marriages in any way. Committed men or women cheating, or sending the normal mating cues that they’re sexually available – which is what flirting is – are behaving in a way that is destructive to the relationship.
And I will say to society and the marriage rate in general people losing hope in marriage and considering cohabitation as good as alternative is also in part because marriage seems to be less attractive I mean if people is still flirting and looking it seems better not to close the deal ever. Not good for us as a whole.
BTW, when a guy quickly finds a replacement, most women don’t regard him as a player but as a shallow jerk. It’s a red flag for many women as it indicates that the man was never really bonded to his ex or might be incapable of bonding.
Depends I have a friend that has been neglecting her husband for ten years now and is pretty much biding her time for divorce we are very sure he is putting up with her and probably is just waiting for her to do the official paperwork to move with another woman, there has been proof that there is something going on at work but at this point she doesn’t care or worst she is just preparing to blame him for her leaving. So I will say depends on the individual case it will look fast for outsiders but we know the details and we know this had been brewing for at least 5 years now, YMMV.
I put up with alot of crap from people in my family as a kid so I’ve had more than my fill of bullshit to last a lifetime.
My father is a really good man, husband and father but he also knew my mother had a very unhappy childhood and she will rather live under a bridge and feed us bread and water than put up with cheating or/and abuse. Is important to be certain of people’s boundaries early on.
I dabbled in ONS and attempts at hardcore pickup years ago in college. I had two college friends who were great at it. I tried to pick up bits and parts of what they did; they even tried winging for me, but I was terrible at it. It was exhausting.
I was a miserable failure most of the time — mostly because I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, nor any idea what (if anything) women found attractive in me enough for an SNL or an STR. And then when the inevitable “thanks, but goodbye” happened, I had no idea what I had done or why it was now over.
Very well said. Did you have the u/s yet?
It’s a race to the bottom. It’s an embrace of the lowest, most base aspects of human instinct. And the real problem is this: Good relationships cannot take root in such shallow soil. There is no tending and feeding.
That is true. Women, you’re welcome to fight men down all the way to the bottom – but once both we get there, you’re going to realize that men don’t really mind being there all that much.
I seriously doubt any of this is going mainstream, though. You’ll know it’s “mainstream” when women have been hurt enough, they actually start valuing betas en masse again, like Ana describes in DR. I don’t think we are even remotely close to that point yet.
“She shouldn’t have felt safe in that moment. Any sensible man would be considering his options at that moment.”
Hence the dread. And trust but verify. I was ready to walk. In the future, if I have to walk, I will. (That’s why women should not lie about their partner counts.)
I guess this is what I mean when I say inner game is easier. It’s not easy to go hardcore asshole on a woman, esp. a wife or an LTR, when all your upbringing, conditioning and training says you cannot, should not, MUST NOT do that.
You know why this works? And why it’s a good idea for men? Women LOVE drama. If you don’t give it to them, they will seek it elsewhere.
Yeah, some women do. OTOH, when younger women ask me, “How do I know this is real love?” I tell them that real love isn’t a roller coaster ride. If you feel good, warm and happy most of the time, it’s love. If you feel sad and insecure, it’s not love, it’s obsession.
“Ive fucked a lot more men than you think”
_______
A lot of women could claim that.
Deti – “I was a miserable failure most of the time — mostly because I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, nor any idea what (if anything) women found attractive in me enough for an SNL or an STR. And then when the inevitable “thanks, but goodbye” happened, I had no idea what I had done or why it was now over.”
My issue with “game” is and has always been that my goal with a woman was never simply to get laid. If I was interested in a woman, it was for a LTR, not a quick romp in the sack. I now can see how that is a bad tactic, and also see why I was never in any way successful at my few “pickup” attempts back in the day.
Every single one of my LTR partners were women I met through friends. I did not cold approach a single one of them, and looking back its fairly obvious why they were attracted to me. Here I was, this new, strange guy, hanging out with people she knew and trusted, looking comfortable and confident. Of course, at the time they had NO idea just what a rare occurrence that is. But, the truth of the matter is, that is MY best venue. I shine the most when in small groups of people I am comfortable with. the trick for me now is: How do I find ways to show my “social proof” when not in my venue? I’m finding that I have to act and behave in ways that are a little uncomfortable (like chatting up strangers from time to time). I’m not crazy about it, but in truth it is a very small thing to do, and if it works, why should I complain?
It is also interesting to note that prior to taking the red pill, I thought I knew exactly what I had to offer women that they would want. Now? I’ve learned that most of those things don’t mean a damn thing. The stuff that does? I’m finding much of that are things about myself I took for granted. Knowing what it is that makes me attractive has certainly gone a LONG way towards helping me better understand how to market myself if/when I should ever need to again.
Oddly, in three of about ten situations I witnessed like this over the years, the husband ultimately confessed he was gay …
Cripes, that’s a new one on me, but I cosign the rest of your post.
You do realize Don Draper is a fictional character, correct?
deti,
Right. But in your case, it wasn’t a false sense of dread. It wasn’t “game” so much as you being a man. Being a man is what good game is in my eyes, but it’s different from what Roissy’s advising when he tells men to instill dread. What you did came from your inner game. Which is awesome, btw.
Meh, I’d say that there are far less lying sluts than you seem to think. They’re out there, but I don’t know that they’re the norm.
Now Ted, I see where you were coming from in response to this quote. I absolutely believe that the red pill is a necessity for men, but once swallowed and your eyes are opened, I think that to go and contribute to and reward the behavior of these shallow women through game is ridiculous. Lets say a man learned game and used this game to “score” a bunch of ONS with a bunch of loose harpy women that he’d never date. Whats the point? You got laid, but in the process you just validated to those women that their behavior is okay. This translates to women who are not “like that” that this is what men want. No woman thinks, “Oh he’s just sleeping with her, he doesn’t care about her.” When women are in their early 20s all they know is that those girls are getting attention and they aren’t. And it sucks.
I read a post on the Rawness and he was talking about how men rail on and on about not being able to find suitable wives and mothers but they continue to feed the problem in the mean time. Not saying you do this or that most of the men here are doing it. But there are alot out there who are.
Im not dating current and don’t plan to for a while because Im leaving the country, but when I do date, I will not reward any bad behavior from men at all. Not for a second or a minute. I ascribe to the traditional style of dating where people actually spend a considerable amount of time getting to know one another before dating( not holding out while banging alphas in the mean time). Sure, you could argue most people aren’t doing this, and thats fine. But Im going to do what works for me. Most people are shitty anyway so Im not going to follow behind their lead.
I know Jesus gave it a go and chose to opt out which is very admirable. But Im with Hope, I will go without as long as it takes to find someone that I can build a respectful relationship with. I can stand a drought. It not like its he hardest thing Ive ever had to do. Plus this is the 21st century and vibrators exist Lol!
Ted D:
Funny how little we knew and how much we learned. It never occurred to me that some women just wanted a fling for a few weeks or months. Never occurred to me a woman might just want to bang, and that I happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right friend and I didn’t screw it up.
Looking back, things like preselection; social proof; cocky-funny; negging, peacocking, and displays of confidence were operating but we had no idea they were. I didn’t know any slut tells and didn’t understand hypergamy at all other than it applied only in marriage (which I don’t agree with, BTW. I think women always see men through hypergamous lenses and are always comparing their men to other men).
Ted #209
After 35, almost everyone has baggage. Smart people like your SO realize that HOW you handle your baggage is a DHV. That women come to value that stuff over looks or “alphaness” as they age is a mark of learning from life experience.
Were I to lose DH and find myself on the market again, I wouldn’t look for a “perfect soulmate” who matched all 987 points on my checklist. I’d look for a solid guy who had a track record of surviving what life has thrown at him without bitterness. That you found your SO really doesn’t surprise me. It makes perfect sense to me, in fact.
You may be right that most men won’t be successful at it, which over time should diminish attempts to use it. However, there’s no doubt that every guy in the SMP has figured out he can potentially benefit from ignoring the girl he likes, hitting on her BFF in front of her, negging her like crazy (and badly), trying to rack up some ONSs just to get to a critical mass of social proof, etc. It’s been documented extensively online, it’s hit the MSM – there are tons of comics popping up about Game now. It’s on TV, central to some characters’ MO in various shows and sitcoms.
Inner game is really a process of extensive self-development, something that few young men have the time, inclination or patience for.
I truly believe in this: A woman will lose attraction for her husband if she doesn’t believe that he is actively desired by other women. This is the law of competition. Do you compete with other girls?
-Frizey
@Ted D
You and I are very much on the same page on this one. I like how that feels.
@Charm
OK, thanks for elaborating on that. Sounds reasonable.
I’m with deti, the majority of men are not cut out for dark game.
Susan the key word in your post above is “potentially.” Sometimes ignoring a woman just makes her equally disinterested in you. Other times, it hurts her feelings to point that she concludes you are not worth any of her time. I.e., it doesn’t always work.
Depends I have a friend that has been neglecting her husband for ten years now …. YMMV.
Actually, I wouldn’t red flag that guy, Ana. That relationship has been dead for a long time. I can see how he’d have been over it a long time ago.
A male friend of mine is divorcing a diagnosed crazy after a 30 year marriage. She kicked him out. He was depressed at firest, but he bouncd back in about 3 weeks. It didn’t negatively affect my opinion of him because I knew her and what a relief not dealing with her issues on a daily basis was for him.
@deti
Escoffier, OTC, and others have said much the same thing. You’re all great mates, and if you’ve been taken for granted, I agree that a wakeup call is needed. Personally, the fact that there are some men who just can’t go into Dark Triad mode gives me hope for the human race.
No, we’re not close yet. But I have seen considerable shift in the discussion, the tone and awareness of these issues in the last three years. I used to have to define Game to my peers. Now every mother (of daughters) knows exactly what it is. That’s inconvenient, because I then find myself trying to defend it to very skeptical women.
Oh, and of course, simply ignoring a woman who is already not interested in you will in most cases not going to make her interested in you. 90% of the time she probably won’t even notice.
I have been ignoring Jennifer Connelly since Labyrinth and guess what I’ve never gotten a single IOI out of her …
@deti
This reminds me of something. I’ve seen guys say, “Ha! That’s no threat, she’ll just rape you in divorce court.” (or whatever). There are many reasons why many women would rather not get divorced. When my husband uttered words about “remaining in this marriage” it scared the hell out of me, even though I was guilty of taking him for granted. I believe that a threat to walk can be very powerful when the woman has reasons to prefer staying married, including loving her husband, loyalty, having kids, and finances (many women don’t make out like bandits on that front, and having two households is obviously less efficient). If the marriage is in serious trouble due to infidelity or years and years of going through the motions, the threat will not be effective. And of course, there are probably some spouses who would jump at the chance. I’ve heard of this happening – one person threatens divorce in a fight, not really meaning it at all, and the other person quickly agrees that’s the best course.
A man should not have to envoke jealously in his woman to keep her on her toes. A man who has to do that lacks creativity, cunning, and inventivness.
Most women WANT security in their lives. That goes for financial, emotional and relationship. The trick is to be the man she needs, every day, so that she doesnt lose her desire to stick around. That need is going to be different for different women. A smart man figures that out and adjusts. Some women need to be led, in life, in decisions, in the bedroom. Some women do not need the be led as much. All women want to know they are being heard (not just listened to), and respected. Think of your relationship as the lines on a freeway its ok to occationally bounce from one side or the other without crossing the lines. An occational correction in steering is all it normally takes (communication) to keep your ride running stright and smooth.
before JM jumps me…evoke…lol
This is another area where Game is making things harder for women (which is often the point). I used to say “If you’re wondering if he likes you, he doesn’t.” Now that’s not so true anymore if the guy is spitting game. I guess I would tell women to give it a few weeks – if he likes you it will be moving forward in some way. If it’s not, move on. And this is also an excellent reason to delay sex – never mind monogamy, is the guy even interested?
“ignoring the girl he likes, hitting on her BFF in front of her, negging her like crazy (and badly), trying to rack up some ONSs just to get to a critical mass of social proof,”
Eh. That isn’t dark game. That’s oat-sowing at best, douchebaggery at worst.
I think dark game is truly sociopathic shit. Dark game is openly cheating and lying about it. Or cheating and excusing it when caught. Or cheating and letting yourself get caught just to see how much you can get away with. Or deep machiavellian manipulation, treating your woman like a marionette with you pulling her strings. Or manipulating her into sexual conduct like threesomes, BDSM, etc. when she clearly doesn’t want to. Or threatening her with a breakup every time she doesn’t do what you want. Or hatef**king a ONS.
It was so strange – all three cases in our old neighborhood. And each of these guys was super buff and well dressed (should that have been a clue?). I didn’t know any of the wives well enough to ask them if they ever suspected, but I’ve often wondered.
I feel like the PUAs and the OMGs are evolving a symbiotic relationship in the SMP.
The rush-to-the-bottom with women for casual sex acts as a filtering mechanism. While the PUAs are out there banging every chick they can game, future OMGs are looking for the exceptions to the rule, often carefully doing due diligence based on intelligence provided, directly or indirectly, by the PUAs.
My brother (“Andy Ironwood”) was a victim of hypergamy that could have been avoided had he paid better attention to the Puerarchs who were banging his bride the night before the wedding. The Puerarchy cleans out the “weak and naive”, leaving those worthy of consideration for long-term relationships because they aren’t hanging low enough on the tree. The good, high-value women (suitable as wives and mothers) tend to be less prone (but not immune) to both the allure of the Bull Alpha and the transitory pleasure of a Faux Alpha PUA.
Depending on men to be “honorable” when it comes to such things demonstrates a misunderstanding of the term in this context. Getting laid is almost always an honorable goal. It’s how you go about it that shows your character. I’m not going to disapprove of the PUA’s pursuit of Single Game, because ultimately it serves my interests as an OMG. Indeed, I’m going to assist, when possible, as long as I don’t see an ethical conflict (like facilitating marital infidelity).
The SMP is a big watering hole, and there are all sorts of predators and prey out there. Some are lions, some are hyenas, and some are just really thoughtful Alpha Wolves who understand that the caribou with the flashiest tail isn’t necessarily the best dining. But it sure is nice to see who runs when the lions roars, and who scampers when the hyenas approach . . . and who might make the best Mama Wolf.
Men should behave honorably because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s what gets them pussy.
We should, but without properly setting up the social system, all it will accomplish is creating a carousel that rewards the ones who break the rules. Honor in a den of thieves is wonderful in stories, less so in reality. Gotta fix the system first – and one of the most important steps for fixing it is to get girls to stop rewarding the guys who lack good morals.
Really, what system is in place to punish guys who don’t live honorably just because they should? The worst they have to deal with now is that the 10% of Intuitive women don’t like them, and that some small fraction of honorable beta men won’t like them (most betas will instead strive to learn from them). Not a terribly compelling consequence.
Personally, I’ve made the honorable choice most of the time in my life, and will probably continue to do so, but it’s only served to convince me that no good deed goes unpunished. Show me a world where the good and honorable types actually have a major influence on the social consequences of dishonor (i.e., not modern-day America); until then, I can’t blame any guy who just stoops to doing what works.
It’s so much easier to take the “dark” shortcut than to do the real inner work.
Gotta go with Deti on this one. I’ve tried to pull off dark game and I cannot keep it going. I don’t even like the concept – it works, if you can hack it, at least in the short term, but it’s not me. And I’m hardly special. Most beta guys have a hard time with dark game. If we could do it easily, you’d think we would have started doing it naturally the fourth or fifth time being the boring nice guy failed us (if for no other reason than annoyance).
You’ll know it’s “mainstream” when women have been hurt enough, they actually start valuing betas en masse again, like Ana describes in DR. I don’t think we are even remotely close to that point yet.
Seconded, but with the caveat that women will always be most attracted in the most primal way to alphas. That they “value” betas is a sign of pragmatism, not of a profound shift in their desires. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to be loved just because I’m the first guy not to treat her like dirt; I want her to have started out with the goal of being treated well. Obviously I’m still going to work on improving all the good alpha traits as well, for very pragmatic reasons – if you’re banking on her valuing beta traits, then you’ve only got her loyalty for as long as she values reliability and decency over excitement. Would rather hedge my bets.
@J
I know it was one of those odds situations when she started talking about how bad her husband was and then when she actually gave details we pretty much were ????!! WTF! “So he is bad because he bought you an imitation Gucci bag instead of an original? and you refuse to find work because the only jobs available are low class” Yeah is amazing how some people are not aware of nothing but their “needs”.
And each of these guys was super buff and well dressed (should that have been a clue?).
Ummmm…yeah.
I didn’t know any of the wives well enough to ask them if they ever suspected, but I’ve often wondered.
I’m always amazed when people don’t see stuff like this coming. I guess you don’t see what you don’t want to see.
blockquote FAIL in my last post.
That sounds truly unfair. If your family needs you to work, you work. As for the Gucci bag, I don’t understand designer labels. There was a time that I used to covet Coach bags–stylish, good quality, classic, durable. Then they started putting their damn name all over the bag. Now they’d have to pay me to carry their product–literally. I’m not their freaking free billboard. (I actually voiced that to a saleswoman who looked at me as if I was crazy.)
Odds,
I agree that the system needs to be fixed and that an important way to do it is to convince women not to reward such men. That doesn’t absolve men of their responsibility to be honorable, though.
Personally I prefer the “intuitive” types, so that’s all I really need to concern myself with.
I don’t care about punishment (unless someone tries to fuck with someone I love). I just care about doing my thing and surrounding myself with people I respect and admire.
Honor isn’t worth much if it’s adopted because it “works.”
And for what it’s worth, “honor” is an alpha, not a beta, trait.
This…
and this are two completely different things. Stop treating women like they don’t have fully developed minds. No one can MAKE anyone do anything. Even powerful manipulation isn’t direct force. Get real.
“And for what it’s worth, “honor” is an alpha, not a beta, trait.”
Not in this SMP. If you had said honor used to be an alpha trait, I would have agreed.
Damn you Jesus M. I swore to myself I wouldn’t get cynical on these threads anymore.
Susan – “I believe that a threat to walk can be very powerful when the woman has reasons to prefer staying married, ”
The trick here is: Reasons to prefer staying married. Often times, the woman in question has checked out of the marriage long before it got bad enough for the man to speak up, which is why Athol carefully explains to men that after they improve themselves, they also need to be prepared for a divorce if that improvement simply isn’t enough to change her mind.
Also, I think you and I are on the same page far more than you believe. On an individual level, I have put the things I’ve learned here, at MMSL, and everywhere else in the ‘sphere to use to keep my currently healthy relationship solid as possible. As part of such a relationship, I truly do agree with much of what you say. However, if I was single, I can’t say it would be exactly the same. It is your purpose to help young women, but in some ways that purpose does not align with what is best for men. When we talk in generalities, I tend to side with men. Not only because I am male, but also because you tend to side with the women. Also, I am still working through some of these issues in my own head, which means I sometimes play “devil’s advocate” to get a better feel for where you and the other women here are coming from.
I’ve said before that I admire your conviction and mission, and if that wasn’t true I wouldn’t even bother to visit. But, there is a hint of truth to the ‘sphere comments of your “femalcentric” views of all this, and I think when we find ourselves on opposite sides of a fence, it is generally directly over the line between male vs. female. I think we both want the same thing: for people to find and keep good long term relationships, and to raise children in loving, stable homes. The only issues I have with anything you’ve written is in the details.
I’d also love to think that with the right group of people, this entire issue could be tackled head on at the social level and fixed. But, the truth is there simply aren’t enough of “those” people out there to get that ball rolling. Yet. Time will tell if that changes or not…
deti,
Not if you honor yourself as much as others.
Jason:
Women do have fully developed minds, are rational actors, and responsible for their conduct at all times. That’s not to say that deep, powerful manipulation doesn’t work on some women.
And some women in relationships like this submit to that manipulation. Some women allow that manipulation to form the basis for a relationship. He gets what he wants; she gets used. She’s responsible for that. It speaks much worse of her than of him in this anything-goes SMP.
I think it speaks poorly of both of them.
Deti – ““And for what it’s worth, “honor” is an alpha, not a beta, trait.”
Not in this SMP. If you had said honor used to be an alpha trait, I would have agreed.”
BINGO! That is 100% true. There is little to no incentive for anyone to act with honor and loyalty in most cases these days. I agree with JM that being “honorable” because it works is disengenuous, but at the heart of it all, humans are inherently selfish. As the idealist I am, I would LOVE to believe honorable people are that way because it is right, but the truth is, most of them are probably only honorable because:
1. it works for them
2. they are afraid of the consequences of NOT being honorable.
There is no compelling reason in this day and age to use “right” as a reason to do anything. Morality is so objective these days that I bet it would be damn difficult to get 10 people to agree on if something was right or wrong. In such an environment, how can you honestly expect anyone to put others interests before their own? Hell, I instinctively WANT to do it, and in many cases I prevent myself from doing so BECAUSE I know it will be repaid with shit. I’ve learned to NOT be as honorable, because in many cases it is nothing short of a hindrance when dealing with people that have absolutely no concept of the word.
DOH – I meant subjective, not objective. Please don’t punish me Jesus!
I agree that the percentage of men who can easily run dark game is not a lot. For one thing, it is contrary to deeply inborn male instincts towards group/gang formation and inter-personal loyalty. Stick with your buddies and all that. And isn’t a GF/LTR like a buddy? That is the default male attitude and getting to the place of realizing that just how differently men and women experience the world – and that treating women as if they were men=FAIL — is a long journey.
However, I fore-see an avalanche of increased awareness about Gamology. I mean, this can only go one way. The moms and W. Knighters might hate on game wisdom to their hearts content but it will not change anything about the hard-wired circuits in their daughters hind-brains. Given circumstances that allow those instincts a chance at free expression (the pill, economic independence, no slut shame-ing, etc.) successful gamers will swim in a poon ocean and the rest will have to watch from the side-lines. At least it will definitely look like that. And when guys hear game wisdom and notice that it explains all of this more or less perfectly they may not go all the way over to the Dark Side but they sure as hell won’t pedestalize anything about the female gender ever again.
There is no stopping this because it reflects reality. There is never going to be much real world evidence against the tenets of Game. In the old days they were merely kept hidden by layers of factors that we have spent the last 50 years dismantling.
So here we are.
People just need to stop dating douchebags. (And this applies to both genders.)
People aren’t going to improve unless there are incentives.
Rollo, you don’t read for comprehension. I called him Mad Men’s Don Draper in that same comment. I mentioned him because Vox Day invoked him as a successful example of what you propose. I simply find it interesting that Matthew Weiner (creator of Mad Men) gave Don the womanizer a tortured history with his own mother. In other words, the extramarital flirting, followed inevitably by cheating in his case, is disordered.
@Frizey
I would disagree about “actively desired.” We like to know that our husband is attractive to other women. That’s like getting a high five from our competition. What we don’t want is for our husband to happily respond to that vibe, or cultivate it in any way. Then we’re shamed in front of our competition.
Women flirting with our husbands: OK
Our husbands taking the bait: Not OK
@EScoffier
Yes, that’s why guys are not going to get magic bullet results. They don’t really know what they’re doing without studying Game, and they don’t know how to read “the target” and calibrate accordingly. Over time it will just drive the sexes further apart. Guys will feel very frustrated that Game isn’t working, and women will see assholes everywhere they turn.
@Odds
It’s one part alpha, one part beta. All of either one is a disaster.
@deti, @jason
Deceit definitely works, because it withholds crucial information required for making a sound judgment.
Meh, I’d rather maintain my integrity.
JM – “Meh, I’d rather maintain my integrity.”
My work around for this is to try to minimize my interactions with people that aren’t honorable. When that can’t be helped, I pretty much assume no one has honor and go from there.
Always the half glass empty guy.
Besides, the only person that really gives a shit about my integrity is me. I don’t see a problem with discarding honor when dealing with people that have none. I’m simply treating them the exact way they treat me.
I’m not saying turn the other cheek and all that. If someone crosses my boundaries, then I’m going to act. Honor just means acting in accord with your principles. If your principles say to bitch slap anybody who messes with you, then go for it.
As you said, morality is subjective.
@Susan: That’s not fair to Charm. She’s a young woman, she knows nothing of unfaithful military wives or surprise abortions. Please keep in mind that many of the women here are in their early 20s, recently out of college. In her experience, the kind of injury described in this post might be the cruelest thing.
I will give you the military wives parts because most Americans are so divorced from the armed services it’s almost a different world. My ex-sister-in-law said until she met me she the military just sat around doing nothing waiting for a war. That was two decades ago. I’m sure it’s even a wider gap now.
But the defence of “in their early 20s and haven’t seen this” is problematic. Because by that age women are starting to pull these stunts and men know from direct or indirect experience of at least one kind.
Sure, most women do too (such as using dread) but somehow it doesn’t seem to penetrate. It’s the same current that let Hillary get away with her women are the primary victims of war comment. Men’s harm against women are the focus of regular campus events at the extreme end and often the plot of movies and TV at the lesser end.
I think it is vital for young women to be have that perspective shaken up if we to prepare them for the SMP, especially one where they won’t marry until their late 20s and are thus likely to encounter men wounded at least as much as they are. In fact, after this weekend I think formal, honest relationship training would be a good idea instead of the word of mouth system we have at this point (I think HUS is a first-step/proto version of this as are Athol Kay’s and other blogs).
Load of hamster wheeling.
Chicks will be dreaming of leaving their non-flirtatious “boring” loyal boyfriend in no time.
“Chicks will be dreaming of leaving their non-flirtatious ‘boring’ loyal boyfriend in no time.”
I’ve been with my wife as either husband or BF for 15 years now and I can’t recall ever openly flirting in front of her, either conciously to induce dread or otherwise. Yet she’s still here.
I know, she’s cheating, my kids aren’t mine, she’s already meeting with the divorce lawyer, the papers will be served tomorrow, blah blah blah ..
We’ll disagree then. I’m well aware more and more men are adopting this strategy, which is why I felt compelled to write about it. We’re all reloading our weapons – it will be a fight to the death at this rate.
Sadly, I think the next group of babies in the US to grow up without the SMP being a fight to the death won’t be born until 2020 at best. We’re so far down the reloaded road I suspect the only way out is through unless you’ve found a place in one of the subcultures where the dynamics are different (mostly, but not all, religious). Still, even those subcultures carry their own prices and are subcultures for a reason. Most people won’t be at home there.
Thinking about what you’ve said about the girls who have been at your kitchen table, it seems like you’re already providing first aid and often explaining to them they’re in a battle to begin with. More and more men their age watched fathers and older brothers go through it and are coming hard and armed for bear and shooting first, often at women not yet engaged. It’s a positive feedback loop and about 2020 we’ll get a generation of women who grew up seeing what this generation of men did.
After the total destruction of that phase hopefully they’ll call a truce and provide a better example for the boys AND girls they raise.
In the case of men I think a bit of jealousy can make them more attracted to their wives. Think about sperm wars. When the man has suspicions his wife has strayed he is extra motivated (horny) to have sex with her in order to get killer sperm in there to kill of competitor sperm or to get his fastest swimmers to outswim his and to use the head of his penis to get his sperm out. I have read somewhere that when a man is jealousy aroused he ejaculates twice as much sperm cells as he normally would. This is in large part the attraction of swinging where the guys aren`t just motviated to swing in order to experience variety with other women but very motivated to see their wife with other men to get this extra form of arousal. Many men I have talked to that would never dream of swinging or having a MMF threesome with their girl has confirmed to me that jealousy does make them extremely aroused. The same goes for a lot of the women I have talked to. It is not uncommon that couples include fantazies about third parties or cheating or talking about past experiences in order to just create jealousy arousal.
Although creating a little bit of jealousy to spike his interest might be beneficial and creating more might be very usefull ina relationship crisis, I am pretty sure creating jealousy often will backfire. Maybe it will always backfire. In the case of men I do think most just hate it although it can create arousal and interest so I think anything more than very modest and ocasional creation of jealousy will backfire in that regard with a man. It can also easily backfire in making him act way to needy and clingy and reduce his alphaness. If I understand them correctly the guys that post at fastseduction.com see creation of jealousy as a betaization tactic that women try out to see what kind of power they have over their man. If he does get jealous she might be happy at first and reward with sex because she sees it as proof of his feelings for her but a bit later her interest is diminshed because it was indeed a sign of him being less alpha and in control than if he had not shown jealousy because it shows he sees the other guy as a threat and has doubts on wether he can keep her. It might also backfire in the sense that men perceive it as a form of disrespect and respect is very important for them.
” Sometimes women generate their own anxiety. Be careful, the fact that you experience anxiety doesn’t mean he’s actually manipulating you.
Fair point. Women can definitely make themselves crazy by going headlong into the drama and imagining the worst. ”
When I talk about their relationships and dating with female friends most of that time is spent going through all their fears and theories about what he meant by doing this or that and what does this or that mean and theor worries about endless amounts of stuff 80% of which turns out to have been needless fears. The more feminine they are the more there is of this. All in all I`d say they actually like this. It`s not just with their relationships with men though. A lot of women just worry a lot and often enjoy worrying and talking to friends about all their worries. I actually kind of like this in women unless it gets completely out of hand. It allows me to be the calm one and calm them down.
I think a tiny bit of dread is important in a long relationship, but just enough to stop you from taking each other for granted. It should be a small rock in your shoe as you walk though life together, a little reminder to take the effort to keep each other happy, but not be a shot to the kneecap that draws all of your attention and stops you from doing other things.
A few years ago I came very close to divorce, and I stopped wearing my wedding ring. Even after we reconciled I made that choice because the ring was a symbol to me of my complacency – subconsciously I knew she would stay so I was no longer trying to be a good husband and father – and that was something I wanted to change.
The secondary effect of dumping the ring was that my wife quickly realized that I had a lot of options, and she needed to make the changes I was asking for if she wanted us to stay married. Frankly, I’m a great catch, and as word spread of our impending separation, she saw the sharks in the water much more quickly than she expected. She said at one point, “There’s going to be a line of women bringing you dinners and ‘consoling’ you about your divorce.” She even made air quotes when she said, “consoling.” She was right though, I had had a surprising number of casual inquiries already. She’s never believed the EPL fallacy, as she’s seen too many of her friends end up as cat ladies after a middle-age divorce that was supposed to solve all their romantic problems, so she acknowledged she would have a much more difficult time finding my successor.
Long story short, we acknowledged we both were complacent and taking each other for granted, talked of the changes we wanted to make, followed through and actually made those changes, and stayed together. We are happier than we ever have been in our 20 years of marriage, and that little sampling of dread for my wife continues to play a critical part in our choice to maintain our marriage.
Speaking of calming down, I’m still at the hospital, but the ultrasound went well! Healthy baby, normal heartbeat, good growth and we got to see the little baby squirming around on the screen. Definitely big sigh of relief.
Good news Hope…
@Charm:But the fact is that most women are absolutely clueless. They don’t know what they want, they don’t know why they do the things they do.
In my experience this describes most people, not just most women.
Very few people are encouraged to do the self discovery to know themselves, their wants, their needs, or their reactions.
That is half of the SMP issue period: we do things because they feel good now not because they fit into a longer term plan. I wish I’d learned that before my late 30s. I’d probably not be divorced (although in large part because I would not have married the woman I did) and be where I am career wise at 45 at 35 instead.
That you have realised this and are working on not being it puts you way ahead and not just in the world of romance.
Hope
That’s terrific news. I’m happy for you and your husband.
I’ve been with my wife as either husband or BF for 15 years now and I can’t recall ever openly flirting in front of her, either conciously to induce dread or otherwise. Yet she’s still here.
Hmmmm. I’ve been with my husband as either wife or GF for nearly 25 years now and I can’t recall his ever openly flirting in front of me, either conciously to induce dread or otherwise. Yet I’m still here. Must be a trend.
Wonderful news, Hope. Happy to hear it. Thanks for posting it here.
@J
Is only her and her husband, but yeah I don’t get the whole “I’m worth what I’m wearing/own” I dislike materialistic people as a whole. I just want enough money to feed myself, my kinds the husband, leave under a decent enough roof and have ice cream once in a while if I ever get more than that then I might spent it on luxuries like travel and charity but God knows that if someone starts to judge me for my accessories that person is going in the short list of people I don’t mind not talking too really fast, YMMV.
@Hope
Great news!
Bottom line- a man should flirt whenever he can, no matter his situation. Keeps him sharp and his skills ready.
On a cerebral, internet article level, women will never admit it.
But on a visceral level, in the presence of the overconfident flirtatious man, they love it. Whether they know it or not.
@Herb
I like your comment, you make a very good point about Americans being clueless about the military. I sat next to a young woman on a plane recently. She was a prison guard – first at Guantanamo and most recently in Afghanistan. I was spellbound as she told me just what her life and her work were like. She also told me that the amount of sex going on between male and female soldiers who were both married to civilians in the states was significant. She said it’s a real problem – lots of affairs and drama among the troops. Anyway, just talking with her I realized that even though I’ve always been sort of a news junkie, I really didn’t have a clue.
Awesome news, Hope!
@CornSyrupy
I love that story! Thanks for sharing it. Your wife is fortunate that she figured out the reality so quickly. And you didn’t have to “manufacture” messages of availability – it was a natural consequence of your announcing a separation.
She was smart, too, to understand that your SMV was now higher than hers. She’s lucky you decided to stick around.
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