I said I’d be away until after May 1st, but I lied because Athol Kay has a post up that made my heart sing, and I wanted to share it with you. Are Women Like Exotic Pets?
One of the strangest things I’ve encountered as a blogger overlapping with the manosphere is a view of women as rapacious man-eating vixens, cold-blooded fiends who suck the life out of men and should be caged during ovulation. According to this view, we’re devoid of moral character and lacking a cerebral cortex, guided instead by something called the “hindbrain.” We’re sexual Terminators, ruthlessly and relentlessly searching for the more dominant male, the bigger asshole, the man most likely to leave us brokenhearted (if we had a heart).
If we’ve been “lucky” enough to have such a thug in our past, a man must be on guard at all times for signs of “alpha relapse.” Preventing us from having such errant thoughts is critical, and this can only be accomplished by acting like a bigger asshole. The thinking is that if men can keep us sad, threatened, anxious, worried, suspicious and jealous we won’t have the time or mental energy to find another man attractive, much less cheat.
We’re also programmed to reject any man who reveals his humanity, vulnerability, or need as a runt who can’t survive the rough and tumble world long enough to mate and care for his family.
I’ve debated this view of female nature more times than I care to admit here at HUS, and more than once I’ve wracked my brain to come up with a single example of a woman who fits this description. I believe they do exist, but only because I’ve seen them on TV.
The worst thing about this view is that it destroys the ability of men and women to relate to one another in any meaningful way. A relationship with such a woman would be doomed, or so entirely self-destructive it would make no sense to try. Athol Kay, a rational male blogger whose method of saving and improving marriages has won him well-deserved accolades and success, relies on science and actual results rather than hyperbole and hucksterism.
Athol received the following letter from a Reader who shares my horror at the dystopian vision (excerpted):
The Manosphere paints women in a pretty ugly light (by my standards), and I can’t help but think if it is really that bad, why bother at all? If my SO’s true nature is like that, what is the purpose of being with her? …What I’m being told is that no woman will ever understand me, understand my concerns or issues, and doesn’t really want to know what makes me tick. The impression I get from them is that women are like kids at Disneyland: They love the rides, but don’t want to know how they work, and would be disappointed to find out.
…I get the feeling that what is described is much more like owning an exotic pet than having a mate…How can I emotionally bond with someone if I can’t tell her how I really think and feel? How can we support each other if we don’t understand each other? Can I ever expect her to understand on any level the dedication and work I’m putting in? How can I keep her from taking me for granted if she has NO idea what I’m doing to make things work?
Athol’s response (also excerpted):
Most of the Game websites view women exactly as you say, as “exotic pets” and they give advice as such. Frankly though, if women really are exotic pets, you shouldn’t mess with one at all. Eventually every animal has a bad day, and a 400 pound tiger having a bad day isn’t the same as a 10 pound cat having a bad day. Likewise, if women are essentially dangerous wild animals, divorce and cheating are essentially assured unless you relentlessly manage their behavior. If that were truly the case, my advice would be to buy a Fleshlight, a ten-foot-pole and the highest quality streaming porn money can buy.
He goes on to desribe the reality:
- Both men and women have biological drives toward a primary pair bond and opportunistic sex.
- Both men and women have modern socialization, education and intellect.
- Both men and women have access to technology that can gain some degree of control over sexual outcomes.
- Both men and women have rationalization hamsters.
And then he describes what separates man from all other animals:
Most importantly, both men and women can have either an unconscious relationship, or a conscious relationship. By unconscious relationship, I mean they simply go along through life believing that all their feelings and thoughts are something that they have no control over or ever hope to understand.
The conscious relationship, however, acknowledges that we have a ton of hormones and neurotransmitters following ancient programming telling us how to think and feel…Because we are conscious of these things, we can also exert some conscious control over them by our actions. We can actually adapt and outwit our own biology to some extent. We can understand that we’re designed for a primary pair bond and also opportunistic sex, and be able to pull off monogamy by having regular sex together, and also some highly irregular high intensity sex together. One hits the oxytocin response, the other hits the dopamine one. Thus fooled, our bodies relax and tell us we’re happy.
…What most of the Manosphere advises assumes that the male is conscious (“Takes the Red Pill”) and the female is unconscious.
…If your SO is conscious and self-aware, I think there’s plenty of hope for a genuinely deep friendship along with the nuts and bolts of having to keep up the basic opposite sex attractiveness. Wife selection is absolutely critical though. Some women believe they are exotic animals, and they should be avoided. You can’t make a tiger into a house cat.
Perhaps the Red Pill should be a controlled substance, as overdoses seem common and casualties are mounting. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can get the truth from your Uncle Athol.
{ 1050 comments… read them below or add one }
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“Sexually successful men [10 to 20% of men]
The women who cock hop the above [nearly all women]”
That’s possible only if those men have no standards and are willing to have sex with any and all unattractive women.
>> “The women who cock hop the above [nearly all women]”
Why does everybody insist on ignoring the statistics?
I don’t mean this as a criticism of Hope or her mom, but as a comment about how to reach kids.
As coming from a four siblings household I will say it depends on the kid. I worked pretty hard with criticism to avoid them and turned out more or less “sane” my sister was practically destroyed by similar parenting so I think is better to observe and see what works with every kid and apply as needed, YMMV.
I have yet to see Shallow Jen about a woman learning to not care a man isn’t Hugh Jackman.
If I ever get my movie production house I will totally do that sequel. To the notebooks ideas.
Middle class American lifestyle is already better than the vast majority of people have it on Earth. I have no need for more.
Offering to make your sister’s wife would be to unfunny given that you like on Utah so what about if you have a boy and I have a girl we could arrange a marriage for them so we can be family?
I absolutely love this comment, best one in the decade. If only more people understood this half our problems would be solved.
@ Mule
I don’t disagree with your explanation about male attraction, so I’m not sure what you think I don’t understand.
A lot of the anger around this topic in the Manosphere seems to really boil down to, when you strip away all the Rationalization rhetoric, the simple fact that women can say “no.” Women have the agency to factor their attraction to men into their dating/sex choices. I get the impressino these dudes really want a world where women to jump at the chance to date or hook up with a guy solely because he-wants-her. If a plain Jane woman rejects an Ordinary Joe guy, it’s always immediately taken as evidence of their “hypergamy.” The concept that it could happen for ANY other reason is never entertained.
I’ve personally rejected men who I thought were too swaggering/dominant or just a bad match personality-wise, while favoring more “beta” guys. I screen guys OUT for high levels of dominance. “Beta” men are the ones I personally feel most comfortable with and connected to and it’s my right and responsibility as someone who wants to find a life partner to develop a sense of what a good match is for myself. In Manosphere theory, this way of thinking, for women, is totally alien. Never happens. All about ze status. Which again is weird to me, because most mature women I know in their 20s who want a life partner are MOST intensely concerned with compatibility, not having the hottest or richest guy.
I respect Susan for giving women with unrealistic expectations about men a dose of reality (and those women certainly exist and are hella annoying) but it doesn’t excuse Manosphere hostility towards the fact that women have the same freedom they do to ultimately choose or reject sexual partners.
Anacaona, thank you for that! <3 Setting up our kids sounds fun, although we can only try to subtly set them up and not make it too obvious.
By the way do you miss your siblings? I have two cousins I grew up with, and sometimes I wish they were living closer.
“That’s possible only if those men have no standards and are willing to have sex with any and all unattractive women”
.
Most likely they will have sex with many women they would not consider keepers in terms of looks. How many women do that? hmmm. These women need to learn [like from this blog] that it is not in their future best interest to participate. They are learning and will continue to learn
I get the impressino these dudes really want a world where women to jump at the chance to date or hook up with a guy solely because he-wants-her. If a plain Jane woman rejects an Ordinary Joe guy, it’s always immediately taken as evidence of their “hypergamy.” The concept that it could happen for ANY other reason is never entertained.
It isn’t this as much as it is seeing the same woman’s choices, as they play themselves out. Almost all men get over the idea in HS that they can’t get the hottest women, and that any woman may reject them. If they saw these women rejecting them and partnering up with another “Ordinary Joe” type, there wouldn’t be the same observations being made. It’s that Jane is rejecting Joe, but having a “OMH it just happened, I don’t know what came over me” ONE with Mr. Big — that’s the source of the consternation, because it creates an inequality of SMV within the same “objective” rank due to the way the SMP works today.
The way I have experienced this over the years (I am nearly 45 and divorced about ten years ago, so I’ve been in the market in the 1980s and 90s and then again in the noughts to present) is that it is a sliding scale of sexual power. Women have a lot of it in their early 20s, and most men don’t have much of it. That is, not only “hot” women have superior sexual power in that time frame (although they have the most), but all women relative to their objective SMV peers among men have superior market power. The power curves meet someplace in the late 20s/~30 time frame, and thereafter men begin to have, on average, more power than women do in the market. So it *does* balance out, but the timing of it means that many/most guys have an absolutely horrific time in the SMP until they are mid to late 20s, and a completely different experience than their peer value women. That creates resentment and anger in many guys. Just a fact. And an understandable one. It’s this discrepancy, more than the actual rejections (which guys expect), that fuels this, because men *do* notice “where the sex is going”, when it isn’t going to them. So it makes sense that many of the Game bloggers are guys in their mid 20s — it’s when they are really ticked at what the market has been showing them relative to their female peers.
court: “Women have the agency to factor their attraction to men into their dating/sex choices.”
That definitely is true. But the thing is, men have agency over commitment and provisioning, as you do over attraction. If women have the unfettered freedom to maximize attraction, then men have the freedom to minimize investment. They are attached at the hip, pull one, and the other comes right along. Push one, and other moves likewise. If you’re cool with that, then welcome to the future!
Thank you Emily!
My own estimate is this: The biggest winners in the SMP are alpha males, either born or made. Also women who snag those men for ST sex, usually a couple of notches lower in attractiveness.
Biggest losers: The most attractive women, whose “natural, assortative” mates are now preoccupied with banging 7s. And of course the least attractive members of both sexes, unless they get with each other. I have no idea if that’s happening. Based on a recent trip to Walmart I would say yes, but YMMV.
The guys getting easy sex on demand represent 20% of the male population, and the women having sex with them also represent about 20% of the female population. These numbers come up again and again, in every study of sexual behavior at college, in CDC data, even in Vox Day’s informal survey.
“many/most guys have an absolutely horrific time in the SMP until they are mid to late 20s, and a completely different experience than their peer value women”
.
There are TWO distinct sexual cultures in the US. The two do cross and the results are horrific for women and men. More so for the former. The men at least CAN, if they make an effort, enter into the SAME culture as they are in by going into Latin America or other similar places. The female culture in the US is unique, isolated and represents a very very small portion of women on this planet. Wake up!
.
@OfftheCuff
Uh…I’m cool with people having the freedom to make choices, including unwise ones. Are you?
@ Brendan
Thanks for a thoughtful reply. Women who allow themselves to be used sexually by men they know don’t care about them are definitely acting against their own interests repeatedly in the SMP and are, in my opinion, their own worst enemy.
My only objection is that I just don’t get the impression that every guy out there in the Manosphere HAS accepted the fact that he won’t land a top-20%-babe. I feel like there’s underlying resentment against very attractive women for wanting very attractive men because those men are–in the Manosphere contruct–less deserving of female attention because they are assholes. To me it makes sense that 8-10s would naturally get together, and so on.
I’ve thought a lot about the idea that the 5-8 girls are getting in on the 8-10 guys’ action and I have two responses.
1) No way this is true–why would an 8-10 guy sleep with a 5-8 woman if he could get an 8-10 girl? If 100 people go to nightclub, 50 men 50 women, and 10 men and 10 women are 8-10s, isn’t it likely they’ll find each other and go home with one another?
2) The only possible explanation I have for how this might work out is if there are actually fewer women out there–of any “rank”–regularly having casual sex than there are men seeking it. So sometimes there aren’t enough 8-10 available women and some alphas will take a 5-8 home instead of spending a Friday night without sex.
This would also reinforce my theory that there are many women out there–including a certain percentage of the very attractive ones–who want a loving relationship and aren’t “riding the carousel.” I don’t think there’s as many women out there doing regular ONS as there are men, and this feeds the sense of discrepancy. Despite BC, casual sex is still riskier for men than for women.
Thoughts?
@BroHamlet (578):
“Considering almost 6 out of 10 of those “average” dudes will probably get divorced in a legal action initiated by his wife”
First-marriage divorce rate among the college-educated is 11%.
That’s really not that high.
@ Jones
Yep–divorce stats need to be broken down by demographic a little more to give people a more realistic perspective. Some demographics have VERY high–like over 50% high–rates of divorce and some, like you said, are very low. Waiting until you’re at least 26 and having a university degree cuts the percentage down a LOT.
Susan, if the number of promiscuous males and females is equal at 20%, how do you explain the obvious power dynamic of “alphas” owning the market and setting the rules?
@INTJ
Susan’s post “57 Ways to Meet the Love of Your Life” has great ideas about places to look for women who want a life partner.
I’d say stay out of meat-market nightclubs if you want something serious. Some couples do meet there or get together after hook-ups, and I’m not saying every woman who likes to go out dancing sometimes is a poor marriage prospect, but in general it will be full of all the people and the social dynamics that I think many guys find toxic and frustrating.
Force yourself to notice and interact with quieter, less glamorous, less attention-seeking women. I’m not saying you have to aim for 1-2 level obsese women or people who never shower, just be mindful that there are plenty of women out there not getting tons of attention, either.
And remember that this isn’t a science and no one can guarantee results and people can surprise you or be unpredictable. We’re just talking strategies here and ways to increase your chances.
@ Herb
I understand. I think a tri club would be a great place for a guy in his 20s to meet cool, down-to-earth women but I definitely can’t speak to the dynamics of dating in your 40s after a divorce.
Yup. And median age at first marriage for the college-educated is 30 and 31 for women and men, respectively. Phew, I’ve got a few more years!
Still, 10 years between graduating college and getting married…that’s a long time. No wonder we have these problems.
People don’t really talk about this…but ultimately the problem is that it now takes longer for people to figure out their lives and careers. Also people move around too much, generating uncertainty. All these things work against commitment. That’s really the basic problem.
I’ve thought a lot about the idea that the 5-8 girls are getting in on the 8-10 guys’ action and I have two responses.
1) No way this is true–why would an 8-10 guy sleep with a 5-8 woman if he could get an 8-10 girl? If 100 people go to nightclub, 50 men 50 women, and 10 men and 10 women are 8-10s, isn’t it likely they’ll find each other and go home with one another?
2) The only possible explanation I have for how this might work out is if there are actually fewer women out there–of any “rank”–regularly having casual sex than there are men seeking it. So sometimes there aren’t enough 8-10 available women and some alphas will take a 5-8 home instead of spending a Friday night without sex.
Your second point is close but not quite there.
The issue isn’t the total number of women up for casual sex, it’s where they are in the bands of attraction. It’s quite true that within each band more men are up for it than women are — numerous studies have shown this to be the case. But what follows from that is that the women in the top bands who are interested in supplying casual sex to their peer SMV men are outnumbered by the men who are interested in casual sex, with a peer SMV woman or otherwise — such that the men in the top bands “reach down” to tiers below them for casual sex, again because their own interest in casual sex outweighs that of their own very high SMV female peers. So, as a result, in effect what happens is that the guys in the top bands who are up for casual sex (and it isn’t a small % of them) are having such casual sex with the women in the top 40-50% or so of all the bands — certainly not *all* women in those bands (lol), but the point is that in the *sex* market, the women who are having casual sex in those 40% bands are concentrating their, ahem, effort in that area in the top tiers of men (say top 15-20%). It isn’t so much that male tens are with female fives, but the top 20% is male 8-10s, and some of the 8s will get with a 5 if she’s on offer and he’s horny — just a fact. It’s much moreso the case if a woman is a 6 or a 7. So what you have is that men in the 5-7 range are seeing the women who are having casual sex in their own peer bands doing it with men in higher bands, because the men in the higher bands will do so, again because they want casual sex more than their peer SMV women do, and so have to reach “down” below their own SMV bands to get it — and they find plenty of willing women there.
It has a trickle-down effect, too, in that men in the 5-7 band can also reach “down” to women in the 3-5 band for casual sex to some degree (if they want to), but I tend to think that for both men and women there is an “attraction floor” that is probably somewhere around 3 or so for both sexes, regardless of the person’s *own* objective SMV.
Susan’s point about this being ~20% of each may be right (I am dubious of sex history surveys, to be quite honest), but even if true, the percentages are not equally distributed among the SMV ranks — that is, the ~20% of men having it are concentrated in the top attractiveness ranks, whereas the ~20% of women who are having it are not so concentrated, and so men in most of the top 50% SMV ranks will see rank peers hypergamizing their casual sex lives, and note this.
I don’t think there’s as many women out there doing regular ONS as there are men, and this feeds the sense of discrepancy.
Sure, that follows, I think, from what I wrote: the men who are having casual sex out there are having a LOT of it, scattered across women from all of the top SMV ranks, which tends to get the notice of men scattered across these ranks as well.
Author: Susan Walsh
Comment:
There’s no question the girl is an idiot. That’s not what I asked. The question
is whether the guy is a douche. Forget cheating on his gf – was his intent to
deceive Jane? He didn’t just not bring it up. He brought it up in a way that was
meant to give comfort when that was the last thing she should be feeling.
The problem is that women don’t want to turn a lovely romantic moment at the
park into a DTR talk. That’s on them – having that conversation is a necessity.
She brought it on herself by failing to do due diligence.
What do we think about his character as demonstrated in his behavior towards
Jane?
—————————————————————————
And, think about it. He had to have been lying all along. YOu cant tell me that there wasn’t a time when they were apart when she asked ” so what did you do this weekend?” and he certainly didnt say “I was with my gf”
so, yeah, hes a D-word
but shes still and idot… thats an obvious question she needed to ask BEFORE she opened her legs
@Courtley,
You see the 8-10 men don’t have to sleep with all those plain Janes aggressively trying to hook up with them (it’s happening, and a lot. We have eyes to see. Don’t negate male experience, that comes across as very nasty) in order to take them out of the market for other guys. It’s enough to allow them to orbit for a while and let them indulge in their fantasies of locking you down. The official term around here is, I believe, carousel watcher. The effect on the market is the same as if they were sleeping with those men, which they aren’t.
@ Jones
Yeah, I think it’s kind of sad that people aren’t mature enough to get married until the 26-30 age bracket anymore, I think it would be healthier if the average age that also corresponded to a low divorce rate were brought down to the 22-25 bracket.
@ Brendan
That’s a detailed breakdown and makes a lot of sense, thanks.
I think my issue is that some dudes in the Manosphere seem to interpret this data as “80% of all women in their late teens and 20s–like literally, 80% OF ALL YOUNG WOMEN–are having casual sex with the top 20% guys. Like, ALL of those women..”
This doesn’t quite add up in reality because I don’t think even the studliest alpha out there could actually handle THAT much sex unless he lived entirely inside his bedroom, haha. He would be having sex with multiple partners every day.
“how do you explain the obvious power dynamic of “alphas” owning the market and setting the rules?”
.
Are women in any way embarrassed about being passed around by just a minority of men? Maybe that is what frustrates men. Its that these woman don’t care because they are getting what they want, even if it means debasing themselves by sharing these men with many women.
I think my issue is that some dudes in the Manosphere seem to interpret this data as “80% of all women in their late teens and 20s–like literally, 80% OF ALL YOUNG WOMEN–are having casual sex with the top 20% guys. Like, ALL of those women..”
This doesn’t quite add up in reality because I don’t think even the studliest alpha out there could actually handle THAT much sex unless he lived entirely inside his bedroom, haha. He would be having sex with multiple partners every day.
Yes, that claim is quite exaggerated. If there is any truth in it, it is that it is possible (likely?) that the 1-2 ONSs a typical woman (outside the “promiscuous 20%”) has is probably more likely to be with one of the male top 20% than other men. But it isn’t 80% of women — the female 2s are too low SMV rank for that to apply, to be honest. I think for guys the relevant “vector” by which they tend to view these things is what they see the peer women around them doing. As you have rightly pointed out, this has quite a few variables in it: SES, location. I would add SMV rank as a variable as well as upbringing. But I think beyond the “80% of women are having sex with 20% of the men” exaggeration is the very real truth that on the top 50% or so SMV levels women have greater access to casual sex, if they want it, in their 20s, whereas men tend to have greater desire for such casual sex, on average, but less access than their peers. That’s a key part of what drives the issue, I think.
Cosign Brendan’s analysis 100%.
This: “the percentages are not equally distributed among the SMV ranks — that is, the ~20% of men having it are concentrated in the top attractiveness ranks, whereas the ~20% of women who are having it are not so concentrated, and so men in most of the top 50% SMV ranks will see rank peers hypergamizing their casual sex lives, and note this.”
is actually the only explanation that makes sense if the numbers really are equal. Still doesn’t really explain the apparent socio-sexual power dynamic requiring asymmetry though, does it?
@Senior Beta (#593)
“He was available. For that weekend.”
Interesting perspective. Do you think Tom’s girlfriend would agree with you?
And if the situation had been reversed: If Jane’s boyfriend was out of town and she failed to mention this fact to Tom before he came to visit and the subsequent hooking up, is she “available. For that weekend.”?
Would all this be OK if Jane was your girlfriend? Or is she just applying psychology to the male hamster?
Still doesn’t really explain the apparent socio-sexual power dynamic requiring asymmetry though, does it?
No, I think that’s explained by hypergamy, and differing levels of sociosexuality (promiscuity) among women. So, while hypergamy is relatively constant, it plays out differently in specific women based on their individual level of sociosexuality (and SMV): so some women will have high sociosexuality and decent SMV and have a lot of casual sex, others will have the same SMV, but have lower sociosexuality and less casual sex (or none).
The reason why there is an asymmetry is that women’s average SMV in their 20s at pretty much every SMV rank level is higher, on average, than their peer men — due to “market skew”. That is, the “objective” SMV is equal, but because of the way the market works, at any given point in time during their early to mid-late 20s, women have a higher on average “market” SMV than peer “objective” SMV men — i.e., she is more in demand than he is. That switches over time in favor of men as things move into the 30s (at least on a peer basis), but there is a very significant asymmetry at the earlier ages, and these ages tend to be formative as well.
@MCB (#567)
“Notice this video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM9WSElLklw”
——–
Hey MuleChewingBriars,
I agree that the guy is handsome — I think they had to dorkify him to fit the role and character. He would definitely be a good catch– and I think had a PhD in Russian Lit besides! 
I love that clip– thanks for the great YouTube!
What didn’t work for me–because I missed what I am now certain were substantial IOIs–was to get involved in extra-curriculars in college. There weren’t any women on the lax team, but the judo club was mixed. The part-time work was mixed. Having randomly assigned lab partners in science classes was an opportunity. Civil rights work was mixed. I worked in a sorority group–I look dumb but it’s a disguise–in a poor neighborhood running a community center.
The women are there for a reason other than to meet guys. You see each other focusing on whatever it was. You see the real people, or at least more real than in bars and clubs. They see the real you, or closer than when you’re strutting into a classroom trying to impress the freshmen women.
There are non-college equivalents, but not in the Infantry, which was my next gig.
Point is to be moving more or less parallel with the woman/women instead of meeting head on. If you’re a competent, initiative-taking, cool-headed problem solver–which are all a matter of effort–with useful skill sets (fighting served me in one case, thx dogsquat), first aid, a bit of wiring, seat a toilet, start a VW by pushing, et tedious cetera–which are all a matter of effort–you don’t have to go all alpha on the women. They already know.
And if you concentrate on the work instead of staring at the women, you look non-needy (“which is really half the trick”). Just get caught a civilized number of times forgetting to talk to the eyes. Don’t get all drooly about it. Just checking and appreciating, and on to the next chore.
And if you have at least a half-way, or even a quarter-way satisfactory dating life, so you’re not, perforce, slobbering, you can, in effect, let the women do the work. You’ll be a lot closer to knowing her and whether a relationship will be the kind you want.
But pay attention to the IOIs.
None of us could have been a protagonist on one of these “modern dating” TV shows.
Thank God for that I will be really embarrassed if a Dominican character was added to that type of shows.
I received the same talks during puberty by my father but I also had the fortune to witness those types of men with my very own eyes from an early age.
Yeah parents speeches backed up by reality are really a powerful way to learn about sex, love and life.
I personally think that Barbie’s bad rap is undeserved, but that’s JMO. (…those Bratz dollz on the other hand…)
Yeah Barbie is a clear case of “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” the woman has worked every single career ever and she hasn’t left Kent for a GI Joe. The Bratz doll on the other hand “shrugs”
Liza, women who don’t plug into media may overestimate their looks but once we see what advertising is trying to push on us (underarm whitener anyone?) we probably underestimate them.
I think it might be that the effect the media has is that women that don’t look like a magazine cover require a hugely attractive man (like the man those women easily get) to convince themselves that she is as worth it and as attractive as the “cover girl” because she landed a similar man even if she will never have her looks…just thinking out loud.
Anacaona, thank you for that! <3 Setting up our kids sounds fun, although we can only try to subtly set them up and not make it too obvious.
What is the point of having kids if you can’t brainwash them to your liking? :p
By the way do you miss your siblings? I have two cousins I grew up with, and sometimes I wish they were living closer.
I talk to my mother and sisters almost everyday, my little brother is not the talking type so I talk less with him the same issue with daddy. I see their pics on facebook and they see mine so I try not to dwell in the the lack of personal contact and to enjoy the electronic one.
@J (#562)
“Wow, that’s really insane, egregiously so. You should be proud of yourself and your late mom for overcoming this.”
——
Thanks, J!
There were so many strange things that she did, that in retrospect make perfect sense when filtered through an NPD. Charity prevents me from elaborating!
And I wish I could say my mom and I overcame that. But my mom had perpetually low self-esteem and mine isn’t especially high either. It *did* force me to work on having a good personality and good character, as my parents were big fans of being “pretty on the inside.”
PS: The hilarious thing was, she still saw herself as a 9 or a 10– the beauty standard. Still the belle of the ball– at 70+ years old! Have you ever seen “Sunset Boulevard”? I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!
Agree 100%. I think the “formative years” aspect is a big part of the problem that gets lost in the shuffle.
@ Brendan
“But I think beyond the “80% of women are having sex with 20% of the men” exaggeration is the very real truth that on the top 50% or so SMV levels women have greater access to casual sex, if they want it, in their 20s, whereas men tend to have greater desire for such casual sex, on average, but less access than their peers. That’s a key part of what drives the issue, I think.”
Totally agreed, that’s a succinct and clear way of phrasing it IMO.
@Ana
“I received the same talks during puberty by my father but I also had the fortune to witness those types of men with my very own eyes from an early age.
Yeah parents speeches backed up by reality are really a powerful way to learn about sex, love and life.”
—-
Hey Anacoana Cullen!
ITA (I Totally Agree) about talking and then backing it up by reality. I mentioned this long ago on another thread, but someone I know with a pre-teen (and teenage) daughter watches that MTV “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” show and then discuss it afterward.
The mom will ask, “What did you think of the way that boy treated her?” “Does he keep his promises– call back when he says he will?” “Does he respect her family?” etc
Then she (the mom) will ask her daughter about the girls on the show: “How much work does this look like, getting up non-stop to care for a baby? How do you think she will go to college? Did the baby bring them closer together?”
Obviously, the people on the show are total trainwrecks
But it brings about a good discussion with *tangible results*. It’s a lot easier for a teenager to understand a girl having to miss her prom because her baby is crying than just talk.
I can’t imagine anyone watching the show for entertainment, but it sounds like it provides a valuable service.
@Brendan & Jimmy Hendricks
Great explanation, cheers. I was going to say the same thing as Jimmy when I saw his comment. Funny how we all think alike and seem to speak “with one voice”…
Re: alphas. The economist Tim Hartford discusses a game theoretical construct called “The Marriage Supermarket” in one of his books. The experiment goes something like this: 20 single men and 20 single women are placed in a room and told to pair off (mixed-gender pairs) and negotiate a split on a $100 payoff. When a man and woman successfully reach a deal, they go up to the front, collect their $100, split it as they agreed, and then leave the pool (they are “married” in game terms).
With the 20 men and 20 women involved, the average split becomes, unsurprisingly, 50/50. The game is clearly very simplistic and it assumes that the only factor involved in marriage is the negotiation over the payday.
…but the equilibrium case of strategic detente is surprisingly fragile. Now remove a single man from the pool. Given 19 men and 20 women, we would expect the men to have a slight negotiation advantage due to their new-found scarcity; the next average split might be projected to be, say, 55/45 in favor of the men.
IIRC, Hartford writes that this assumption would be incorrect. In the Marriage Supermarket game, the removal of even a single man causes the remaining men to achieve much higher benefits from the game. Average splits of 90-10 or even 95-5 become common. Why? Because of the law of one price (commoditized products on offer at the same time, in the same place, will go for the same—i.e, lowest—price).
In this Supermarket scenario, one woman looks around and sees that she will be left without a chair when the music stops. She begins a process of undercutting the others and her choice then kicks off a spiral. Men learn quickly to step aside and delay commitment so that these intense competition dynamics can more fully work themselves out.
I suppose that herein lies one potential issue in the SMP: insofar as it resembles the ruthless, unemotional, and transparent price-war situation just described (we know it isn’t perfectly representative, but is it close?), the SMP solution matrix would suggest that the rational strategy for an attractive/alpha man (he would be one of the 19 who enjoys being “inside” the game construct and having the relative scarcity working in his favor) is to avoid commitment until competitive forces working in his favor have peaked. This calculation does not even include the costs/frequency of divorce, the difference between male and female reproductive windows and how they might create competitive pressures and desperation, or other factors.
Like an insurgent, the man wins if he can simply avoid the entanglement of a decisive, open-field loss in the early days and wage a protracted, grinding, attrition-style campaign full of probing, hit-and-run type attacks.
This would be particularly true in cases where natural experiments actually came close to duplicating the factors of the Marriage Supermarket (perhaps one such natural experiment is taking place with the current cohort of college students, where the numbers may be truly skewed and education-focused hypergamy may create an “island” effect that traps many women in the game, even if they might be better off in some ways by casting a wider net—if the men have no problems doing this, by the way, their advantage would become even more profound—and considering non-college males).
Thoughts? Does this create a potential dilemma in terms of the advice that should be ethically given to highly-advantaged young men vs. the advice that should be given to everyone else? Does one need to inevitably “take sides” and advocate for a particular demographic subset, or can recommendations vary depending on the recipient..?
@Emily
“Why does everybody insist on ignoring the statistics?”
Fact vs. belief? Very few people, past a certain age, ever alter their preconceived notions. Especially after investing years advocating them.
@El Marques
Pluralistic Ignorance. It’s been shown in studies that when you ask guys in college what percent of the guys on campus got laid the previous weekend, they estimate 75-80%. In reality, the number ranges from 5-10%. The damaging force is hookup culture, even though the data does not confirm that the majority is having casual sex. Virgins of both sexes feel like total losers. 80% of each sex is essentially boxed in, sitting on the sidelines because the culture is not compatible with either their values or their personalties.
TV, films, and music all promote the hookup culture as universal and ubiquitous – and it is, because no viable alternative exists. But it’s a minority of people who are participating.
The biggest opportunity, IMO, is to get this information out to the 80%, and to foster their connecting. I think it happens more easily after college, but it’s not easy. Even then, there is not much of a dating culture, and of course, fewer people than ever have any experience with dating.
@Jones
How about this? Today, the average person spends 17 years between puberty and marriage. 17 years! This is unprecedented in history. Very, very few people are going to remain celibate for this length of time. It’s hardly surprising that premarital sex is the norm. Serial monogamy is the only, and in my opinion, best viable option for people to develop relationship skills. It would perhaps be better if people married earlier, say in the 22-25 age range. I do believe the pendulum will swing back to that at some point, but at present it’s not feasible, as men are struggling financially and women are still being groomed for career superstardom.
I cosign everything that Brendan has said, as I generally do. This:
I just want to add that the most attractive women, in general, are loathe to sell themselves short. There are exceptions – some women, regardless of beauty, are just oriented toward short-term mating. (However, if testosterone levels play a role here, as is suspected, then the most beautiful women, who tend to be high estrogen, are unlikely to be in this group.)
My own sense from my focus groups is that the best looking women will eventually pair with reformed alphas. They’ll snag the players when and if they’re ready to marry. I maintain that the most promiscuous men – with counts over 50, say – will experience some loss of MMV as a result. Of course, this may not be much of an issue, b/c those guys are probably the least like to pair off in any case.
FYI, when I did the analysis on the 80/20 rule, I found that 20% of the men are having 80% of the sex, as in incidents of sex in a given period of time. They are definitely not having sex with 80% of the women.
The Justice Dept. survey on sexual assault revealed that 43% of men and 38% of women in college are virgins. So the notion that 80% of women are having sex is ludicrous, much less with the top males.
Promiscuous males tend to have a social scene with promiscuous females. While there are some reports of guys hooking up with good girls or church girls, the truth is that alpha male groups in college attract females who want to hook up with them, and that generally is no more than 20% of a college population. They tend to pair off within Greek organizations, or as athletes and groupies.
@Jackie
Just to thicken the plot, Tom’s gf did learn about Jane, but not for some time. Nine months later, in a bizarre twist, Tom’s gf and Jane met through a mutual friend. As they were not even from the same part of the country, it was an amazing coincidence. The gf confessed that she had suspected something was amiss, having heard rumors about the weekend. However, she chose not to confront Tom (facepalm) and even when she learned the truth, said to Jane, “I just really love him, you know?”
He cheated on his gf frequently, including over the next winter break. When she found out and confronted him, he said, “I was thinking we’d break up soon, so in my mind I thought it was OK to move on.”
So yeah, Tom was a total dick. I hope he plays in traffic.
@Jackie
OMG, your grandmother was Norma Desmond?
@Bastiat Blogger
I love Tim Harford – have just placed The Undercover Economist on my night table.
This makes sense to me intuitively. I have used the musical chairs metaphor myself, for this scenario:
American colleges are near 60% female enrollment, 40% male enrollment.
Therefore, a full third of American women with a college degree will not have the opportunity to marry a man with a college degree.
That’s going to be mayhem, a stampede. Musical chairs with 33% of the women left standing. Of course, some may marry or cohabit with a male without a college education, but it will be a move to satisfice. Studies suggest that female hypergamy decreases when the sexual ratio favors men, but I wonder whether hypergamy won’t rear its ugly head at some point in the marriage.
@Hope
Interesting, your mom sounds like the classic overprotective matriarch. My father-in-law told his daughter (my SO) very similar things when she was younger. Guys will just try to get in your pants, be on guard at all times. Luckily, she didn’t take it all the heart, and I wasn’t (just) interested in getting in her pants. I even remember my mom telling me when I was a teenager: 1) there are girls who will make you happy, they’re worth your time, look for them carefully, and 2) there are girls who are nothing but trouble, avoid them like the plague : )
@Pixie
Your last sentence when you go off the rails. As I said before I want an alternative to the PUAs. If I believed the bad boy theory I wouldn’t think there was an alternative.
As I’ve put it other places, I don’t know what women want but I know what they don’t want and they don’t want me.
As for the general qualities issue, perhaps I haven’t been clear. This wasn’t just general qualities but it was “you a great guy and any woman would be lucky to have you” while telling me why they weren’t interested. Nor is this isolated, but a reoccurring pattern. It if wasn’t an almost universal I wouldn’t be so confused and angry about it.
@Liza207
I have no illusions about my SMV. I’m a fat girl’s consolation prize. I married at that level (although I didn’t think of it at that time). My wife was 5’4″ and north of 180 when we met and north of 220 when we married. She had a very pretty face (although her attitude by the end of our marriage had stolen that) but the weight killed her SMV. Perhaps I did punch above my weight. Certainly I must have after she lost the weight because she moved on to what her SMV would buy.
@Courtley
I have no issue with women having agency. I have an issue with their lack of truthfulness.
Look, every women who rejected me has the only valid reason they need: they weren’t interested. What’s interesting of the two women I know who most align with the PUA attitude about what women are like and want one had a very understandable reason to reject me, a large age difference (ironically, she’s the one our common social circle was convinced we were dating or should be with a married couple in it trying to play matchmaker). Of the two, she was also the least attractive (overly skinny gamer chick…the other was more the urban progressive blonde girl).
But as I said above, more than once I got “you a great guy and any woman would be lucky to have you”. If you get repeatedly told that for a while you’ll keep doing what you’re doing figuring that you’ll meet someone where it does click. After a while, though, you realize they’re lying. I used to get mad they were lying to me, but not I suspect a lot of them were lying to themselves as much if not more.
Still, would it be that hard to say, “you’re a troll who can only land fat chicks who stay fat so ask them out”?
Also, the other PUA woman, the urban progressive blonde girl is the one I’ve mentioned as a feminist who demands to be treated like a princess. She also accepted a date after being involved in a week long email thread about how I was hoping to use my tickets to that season of the ballet to start dating after my wife left me. After over $200 spent on her between flowers, ticket, and dinner she said she didn’t think it was a date, just a friend being nice to her.
That’s lying right up there with Tom. How hard would it have been to say, “Herb, I know you want to date but I’m not interested” before collecting the cash and prizes instead of after.
So, the ladies quoted above, I know I’m a loser, slightly overweight, troll who plays D&D (sorry, Jackie, I appreciate you saying I’m a catch, but I know better even if I didn’t in the past). Would it be that hard to say that upfront so maybe I could change it or decide it wasn’t worth changing to meet a woman and do so before taking the cash and prizes?
So, no, I have no problem with women having agency. I have problems with them exercising it without admitting the real reason and only after getting what they can from me.
@De
I think you’re misunderstanding 80/20. It’s from the Pareto principle. In this case it means 20% of the people are getting 80% of the sex, not 20% of men are and 80% of women are.
Susan’s had pretty good numbers that both sexes have about 20% getting casual sex, but for various reasons we seem to think more are. The issue, as I think Brendan explained, is both these don’t line up…it’s the top 20% of men getting it from a wider range of women and also, because the women are taken from a wider range more women hold off on chasing men from the 80% because they think they can get the 20%. So in terms of availability I think the 80% of the men realistically only have a chance with 50-60% of the women with the difference being those who “hold out for what they deserve”.
This leads to a couple of problems. First, the past 40 years didn’t see a sustained war until this decade and even then those wars had amazing low casualties from a historical view. So the 105 boys who are born for every 100 woman survived at the same rate as women. When we take the top 20% of men and 40% of women off the general SMP for either casual sexing or holding out for the kind of men who can we wind up with 84 men chasing 60 women. That means 24 men per hundred, just shy of a third (which would be 26) of those men won’t find a partner regardless of what they put into it.
These are the guys who learn Game because women are exotic animals. The exotic animals are those 20 women who aren’t doing the casual sex thing but are holding out for the men who can. Because the decent women partnered off early with the other men in the 84, they are left in an environment where all that is left are the 5-6s holding out for the 9 they deserve.
That’s what’s skewing the manosphere. It isn’t that AWALT but because the breakdown of assortive mating left them with nothing to chase but women who would “naturally” be their partners.
This is also where the idea of women grossly overestimating their SMV comes from. They are working from a skewed sample, but the 60 who didn’t are hidden because they paired off early.
Still, we’re talking 20% of men and women who aren’t going to find partners in a happy way if at all. That’s not the majority, but it’s still not healthy for society.
Susan said:
“His was a lie of omission. Is Jane to blame? Should she have parsed the vocabulary on that brilliant winter afternoon?
What is Tom’s responsibility? Is he just a guy who is adept at applied psychology?”
_____________________________
Been covered, but you asked me:
First, Tom is an asshole for cheating. He didn’t behave honorably.
Jane, on the other hand, was dumb. Being dumb is painful, as she now knows. In your example, she made some unfounded assumptions and failed to develop adequate situational awareness. In some lines of work, that would get her killed.
Hopefully Jane learned a lesson that day, and is a little smarter for it.
I wouldn’t lend either of them any money.
To answer directly:
Tom’s responsibility is to his girlfriend. I’d help her drown Tom in bloody diarrhea for the princely sum of two beers.
And yes, Jane is to “blame” for her situation. The Universe is a hard place. It’s naive bordering on suicidally insane to do as she did – traipse blithely through the flowered fields of life, expecting every other human animal she meets to put her desires before theirs.
@ Anacaona and Hope
Your best bet might be to use reverse psychology on your kids. Tell them to stay away from each other, and watch them rebel against your authority.
Susan said:
“In my view, when you seek gain at the expense of another you are behaving immorally if they have incomplete information. This applies in all areas of life, for both sexes. ”
_________________________________
I have sought to “gain” by looking for a non-promiscuous girl for an LTR. Had I offered “complete information” (promiscuous girls are ruled out for all Vitamin Dogsquat therapies) I would have been duped. More than once.
Had I not been oblique in my approach, subtle in my methods, I would have been lied to. Instead, I ended up walking away from some women who would have made me miserable.
I guess I’m like Tom in your Tom vs Jane example. I just had a different goal.
Crap, I just thought of this little misery:
One of those girls still drunk dials me and cries, a year and a half after the fact. She’s a good person, just not a good fit for me. I feel sorry for her.
In contravention to your view, I believe it was cruel and unnecessary to tell her why I dumped her. She can’t fix it, and her self esteem is shot. I should have been “immoral” and not offered total honesty. She’d be a lot happier, and I wouldn’t have another fucking stain on my soul.
@Courtley
I’d rather be beaten bloody with a carbon rod cane.
@Dogsquat
Jane has hopefully learned that grand military lesson in a non-lethal way: it’s not what you know can kill that will kill you, it’s what you don’t know that can kill you.
I’m more a hard cider guy (or a snakebite…meaning a pint made of equal amounts of both) but otherwise, yeah, I’m there with boots and gloves.
Susan said:
“In the same way, the PUA attempts to make the women feel insecure and off-kilter via negging and incongruent behavior. ”
___________________________
So what?
Those women are free to leave at any time. Instead, they CHOOSE TO stick around. The PUA is exhibiting a type of behavior. These women are obviously into it, OR THEY’D LEAVE. Alternatively, some bouncer with a low, sloping brow would happily justify his paycheck by tossing said PUA right out of the bar.
To state anything else is to imply that women are not fully developed, rational human beings.
There is no grey area. Women are either autonomous humans, or they’re not.
It is not both, or dependent on the situation.
Either/or.
Susan said:
“the PUA attempts to make the women feel insecure”
___________________________________
So effing what?
What other nebulous, subjective emotions that women experience would you hold men accountable for?
Women are not children. They ought to be able to take care of themselves, especially in this day and age.
Susan said:
“Additionally, he is pretending to be something he is not – a naturally dominant male with options. The “buyer” has been misled re the quality of what’s being offered. ”
_____________________________________
No argument from me on this one.
If you lack discipline, foresight, and are too lazy to do a little research on an important purchase, though – it’s your fault. No. One. Else’s.
@Susan
“OMG, your grandmother was Norma Desmond?”
Just without the international movie stardom, decaying mansion and Erich von Stroheim.
It was more like this: She had been the most popular and quite a beauty in her youth. She refused to accept that could ever change. It was basically the lens through which she viewed the world.
She still wore all her clothes from her 30′s, which all still fit. (In her defense, classic stuff from a good maker will last *forever*.) Her hair was naturally raven black –no dye, ever– until the day my mom died. Then, she went completely white within a year– crazy, huh?
The day after her husband (who was king of the alphas, but that’s a story for another day) died, she went out and found a job, and proceeded to work 70-80 hours a week until her death. Customers *loved* her and gave gratituties heavily –which she accepted as only natural.
You would think she would be joking or ironic about how much people loved her, the attention and how attracted to her they were. I assure you: She was absolutely sincere!
The loss of my mom was like the picture in Dorian Gray’s attic: When she went, so did everything else. Her hair went white within a year, she was asked to leave her job for errors, things started getting stranger…
NPDs have a lot of rage and delusion. When she needed me to run her errands, I was kind of her target for both. She would use her rings and shoes to demonstrate how “huge” I was (she was only 5 ft tall– I was more than 9 inches taller!) and how my bone structure was inferior to delicacy and “classic beauty.” CRAZY.
At that stage, I would bet when she looked in the mirror, she really did see a belle staring back at her, instead of a senior citizen. When I told my dad of her words he said, “Consider the source!”
Sorry for running on so! Back to regularly scheduled HUS programming
Jackie said:
“Just like there are “slut tells” for promiscuity, there are “character tells” as well. The guy doing this is pretty weak, character-wise, in my opinion. To me, his actions are telling the universe, “Who I am is not enough. I have to ‘use her hamster to the fullest’ to get what I want.”
Maybe he’ll get some short term copulation with someone he manipulates. Pretty sad (and cheap) trade-off for integrity, though.”
__________________________________
Yeah, this one reason so many men get angry and sad when they’re Red Pilled – I couldn’t have said it better myself. Damned if they don’t, but accused of low morals if they do.
I am aware now of the Hamster, and I know a little bit of Game. My relationship currently is the best one I’ve ever been in – I am so goddamned happy I can barely believe it. I can see in my girl’s face how much she loves me – I catch her staring at me smiling once in awhile, and she’d rather cook me dinner and have sex than sleep (saying a lot right there if you know any medical people).
I’ve been in love a few times before. When I get like this there is nothing I am not willing to do for my girl. I will fight dragons, or build a skyscraper with my bare hands. If she obliquely mentions something that may possibly please her, I will break my ass to obtain it/do it.
Without a little Game and Hamster Knowledge, though, I was just another Beta schlub who got cheated on and dumped.
It’s too bad you think of me as having no integrity or a weak character. I assure you that is a problem with your outlook, though, and not any reflection of reality.
@ Herb
But come on, no one says things like “you’re a fat troll who deserves only fat chicks” to the faces of people they don’t know well! Social niceties aren’t really the same as being deceptive, surely you know that.
If you were only asking out/noticing women much more attractive than you with a significantly higher SMV (according to your own descriptions) doesn’t that prove the point that men in the Manosphere who believe really negative things about ‘women’ are often putting themselves into scenarios that confirm their perceptions? I think it’s outrageously bad behavior to string a man along just to get free shit, but if you run a much higher risk of that happening if you’re not very conventionally attractive yet insist on only noticing/asking out more conventionally attractive women, or women who are much younger than you.
Also, this paragraph confused me:
“What’s interesting of the two women I know who most align with the PUA attitude about what women are like and want one had a very understandable reason to reject me, a large age difference (ironically, she’s the one our common social circle was convinced we were dating or should be with a married couple in it trying to play matchmaker). Of the two, she was also the least attractive (overly skinny gamer chick…the other was more the urban progressive blonde girl).”
If she had an understandable reason to reject you how does that make her a typical PUA-style woman?
@Susan again
(#641)
Wow, it was like the Universe was doing everything in Its power to bring her the truth! Yikes.
The thing about Tom is– How can he trust *anyone*? How can he even trust himself? How can he ever relax or enjoy anything when he has to keep a million angles going– tell her x, don’t tell them y, don’t let z see me with v.
To me, that would be the far worse hell (although being cheated on is WAY down there). And karma seems to be a universal law: What you put out there is returned to you. Often several times over.
@Susan
He already is…I’ve seen a guy with genital warts and a guy with four clap cancors at once (including one on his eye). Neither were pretty.
Dogsquat, you’re forgetting one very important thing: the 18-year-olds of today are not the same as 18-year-olds of 1980, 1970, or even 1940. Our society has extended adolescence until our mid-20s. Yes, some of us may be more mature for our age group, but NAPALT.
So, to answer your point more directly: no, women are not children. But the demographic that HUS is addressing is not exactly full-grown adults, either. My generation is still growing up, making mistakes, and learning from them. You shouldn’t mollycoddle us, certainly, but you can’t expect us to make zero mistakes from the get-go, either.
And by “us”, I am referring to both men and women of my generation.
@ Susan
Thanks for expanding on the 80/20 thing!
The difference between your situation and Tom’s, Dogsquat, is that your situation did not lead to an outcome where you won at the expense of the girl. You did not mislead her in the way that Tom did; you’re trying to conflate the two when in reality they are degrees apart.
MCB,
13 Going On 30
Spiderman
Bridesmaids
When Harry Met Sally
Those are just off the top of my head. I’m sure Netflix could help you find more!
I don’t consider myself a ‘sphere commenter, do I still count?
@Dogsquat
Hey Dogsquat,
Question: Where did you see me refer to your relationship in post #465? Tom is the person with no integrity that I am referring to. I disagree with your defense of him, but in no way did I conflate your relationship with his.
Congrats on being in a wonderful position in life– it sounds like everything is going well for you. Truly, I am glad to hear this, Dogsquat. I wish you all continued success.
Bastiat Blogger, I’m beginning to fall in love with your comments.
EXACTLY. FUCKING. EXACTLY.
This is why Susan, myself, and a myriad of other female commenters can say, “beta boys are cleaning up in college” until we’re blue in the face–because there is a REAL scarcity, and women everywhere are feeling it!
That’s why it’s not just the “Alpha Males” who are having fun in college. The betas in college can have relationships if they choose to — the odds are in their favor. It doesn’t matter if there’s one or two alpha guys who are getting sex with hot girls. The sheer dearth of men on college campuses is giving ALL MEN a MASSIVE advantage! Look no further than NYU for an extreme example: the M/F ratio is 30:70, and that’s including gay males. So the ratio of straight M: straight F is actually much lower. That leads to my next point…
This is exactly the path that my friends and I pursued when we were in our junior year of college. We all started casting wider nets by dating older men and/or dating men outside our college (a strategy employed even by my gay friends, btw). Guys at NYU were basically out of the question — not by our choice, though, they were too busy hooking up. Even the omegas were getting some.
It is a really good time to be a man right now.
@Dogsquat
You are focusing on the responsibility of the target to suss out bad motives and figure out who would do them harm. That’s fair, assuming that information is discernible.
I’m arguing that it’s not a question of agency, or rationality, or being fully developed.
Manipulating another individual for personal gain at their expense is immoral. Period. Where there is intent to deceive there is a failure of character. Always.
Most of us have done it.
Presumably your motive for telling a woman why you dumped her was not personal gain, so I don’t think that example applies. Though sometimes discretion is kindness – we really don’t need to tell people they look fat in those jeans.
When a person’s heart is at stake – honesty is required.
@ SayWhaat
Totally agreed. I went to a small liberal arts university that was 75% female. In retrospect, that was a dreadful way to spend my 18-22 years, not to mention how expensive and fairly unimpressive my degree is.
But it does make post-college dating in the “real world” SEEM at least a little bit better by comparison for women who want commitment, which is nice.
@Courtley
Sit down, this will take a while.
University gaming club whose membership draws on the entire community not just students.
She had just finished her graduate degree in CS. She was kind of cute, but at 28 looked like an unfed 18 year old. Still, she had something very attractive about her…not physical beauty (I have dated more attractive physically by most men’s standards) but just something.
We hung out a lot. As I said people thought we were dating or were encouraging it. She was openly talking about it was time to find a husband and look to start a family. At the time I was still hoping for remarriage and kids. I thought she was attractive. Our mutual friends thought we were a cute couple.
I asked her out. Her reason to say no was age difference. It was 12 years. Sounds perfectly valid.
However, for the remaining two years she was living there she turned down another member of our social circle who was only in his early 30s (33 if memory serves) who was looking for the same thing. I don’t know why she said she was not attracted to him.
What she did do was continue to sex up an ex-bf who was a felon. She also hooked up with a 23 year old player who would call her over for sex then kick her out so he could get some sleep. Great guy (he was also in the gaming club) and a blast to hang out with. Had I know the term then I’d have called him a Game natural.
She also had the audacity to call me for comfort when player guy didn’t want to cuddle. I fell for it a couple of times (at 40, trust me I’m blushing writing it).
So, the reason she gave me would fly, but the choices in men to invest in were 100% different from what she claimed she was after.
I’ll see her at the end of May for rejected 30 something guy’s wedding. She’s 33 and alone. I’ll admit I’m hoping to see she’s hitting a wall.
As I said, my ex-wife was obese from the moment I meant her, which fair or not is a huge SMV killer. I honestly thought for a long time I punched my weight there. I still do because I don’t think her second husband is better than me overall, especially by what women as a whole claim to desire.
As for no one is willing to say “you’re a troll who should date fat chicks” why is it easier for me to say that to the mirror than a woman who will never see me again to say it?
FWIW, last time I checked “Hot or Not” I was rated over 8…I can’t see what my picture at OkCupid is rated. It’s new (Hot or Not was back in 2003). If someone could tell me how, I’d check.
Your best bet might be to use reverse psychology on your kids. Tell them to stay away from each other, and watch them rebel against your authority.
I know how we are already plotting to run our kids lives and the poor ones are not even born yet. I don’t know about Hope but I want grand kids and given the liberal/feminist place I live I should start early. I think she will do fine in family friendly state though.
Tom’s responsibility is to his girlfriend. I’d help her drown Tom in bloody diarrhea for the princely sum of two beers….
I’m more a hard cider guy (or a snakebite…meaning a pint made of equal amounts of both) but otherwise, yeah, I’m there with boots and gloves.
Ohh that is so sweet reminds me of how my friends offered to beat “the gringo” to a pulp during my husband first trip if he demanded something I wasn’t willing to give. Luckily for all of us hubby is a gentleman and I was willing to give without him even asking
@Jackie
Sadly this is the way women that had nothing but their beauty to offer to themselves and the world end up, complete denial. At least she didn’t had the means to get plastic surgery to keep herself “young” that usually ends up even worse.
@SayWhaat
At 21 I was responsible for reactor and submarine safety affecting over 100 lives (over 10,000 in port with the reactor).
I’m a piker for responsibility compared to Dogsquat.
My whole life I’ve been told women should be held to the same standard as men. I’ve tried to oblige.
“It is a really good time to be a man right now.”
If that were the case you wouldn’t see men literally screaming their lungs that the whole damn system is broken.
It is really good if you have some game.
If you have no game, it is a nightmare. And not “oh no, I couldn’t keep my pants on and thought this guy was my boyfriend” drama, I am talking not getting laid in YEARS kind of nightmare.
I know because literally every single male I know is living in it except for the one guy in a relationship.
I’ll see her at the end of May for rejected 30 something guy’s wedding. She’s 33 and alone. I’ll admit I’m hoping to see she’s hitting a wall.
Please tell me that you are over her and if she starts making puppy eyes at you, you won’t even bother. It might sound cruel but if she wants you after trying every other man but you, chances are she will become your second ex-wife I don’t think you can handle that much bitterness without your body exploding killing all western hemisphere life and part of Central America in the process.
@ Herb
“As for no one is willing to say “you’re a troll who should date fat chicks” why is it easier for me to say that to the mirror than a woman who will never see me again to say it?”
Social convention, Herb! People just don’t say those things to other’s faces. Especially women. It may not seem logical but it’s a deeply ingrained part of our Western, British-based sense of politeness.
Again, I’m not making judgment calls on your attractiveness, if other people rate you highly don’t call yourself an ugly troll.
Otherwise, thanks for the story on the first chick…She sounds, like, a TEXTBOOK Manosphere woman.
Our generation may not be “mature”, but it can’t claim ignorance…
Kids now are pretty damn aware of hookup culture by the time they’re 13-14 years old. By the time they’re 18, they’ve already seen and heard plenty, even if they haven’t participated.
Now if you plopped an 18 year old from previous generations into today’s world, I truly would feel sorry for them. They wouldn’t knew what the hell hit them. Mature or not.
@ADBG
“I know because literally every single male I know is living in it except for the one guy in a relationship.”
My circle of friends and co-workers is almost the complete opposite. In fact, most of the singles are women. What does that prove?
Jackie (@625) and Susan (@641)
Now you are adding additional facts to the original Tom-Jane story. This is the kind of thing that drove students nuts starting their third week in law school. Not fair.
Tom liked Jane. He liked her even better in the sack. What is the expression “all is fair in love and war?” For Tom, given the original facts, I say “mission accomplished.” I know Dog thinks there is some dishonor here. But was a Marine. I was Navy. Big difference.
I think it can. I was extremely ignorant of male sexuality until I started commenting at HUS.
@SayWhaat
I’ve only seen #2 and #4. Neither fit the bill.
Shallow Hal is specifically about how Hal has to be hypnotized to see Paltrow as she is, not in the fat suit, to learn that her personality is worth more than her looks.
While certainly the less attractive man gets the cute girl in When Harry Met Sally she never rejects him over his looks nor is the point of the movie that she needs to do so.
Same with Spiderman but in addition, are you kidding me. Tobey Maguire is a pinup boy. At least in WHMS I think we’ll all agree Billy Crystal isn’t better than average.
So, again, name me a film specifically about learning the ugly guy is a good person and loving him without him, during the film transforming into someone physically attractive. As someone pointed out about Don’t Buy Me Love the geek fluffs his hair and turns into Patrick Demsey.
I freely admit most movies are like that regardless of the ugly person’s gender. That’s why Shallow Hal stands out. It’s just as fake with women. As Lisa Michaud pointed out in the excellent Guy’s Guide to Geek Girls 15 years ago, the geek girl turning beautiful by taking off her glasses isn’t real. In reality she trips over the furniture when she does that.
You’re also in your 40s.
“Now if you plopped an 18 year old from previous generations into today’s world, I truly would feel sorry for them. They wouldn’t knew what the hell hit them. Mature or not.”
Hahahahaha, explaining the concept of hooking up to my parents was an interesting time.
Dad: “You mean you actually have to have a conversation about whether you are boyfriend or girlfriend after you had sex?”
ADBG: “Yes”
Dad: “That’s fucking pathetic”
Beauty and the Beast? She confessed she loved him before he turned back into a human.
“My circle of friends and co-workers is almost the complete opposite. In fact, most of the singles are women. What does that prove?”
Not sure. What is your age range?
My favorite male rationalization hamsters:
Women don’t care about men’s looks. And yeah, most young women (including older women) are really into old dudes.
I could make a list of them but I will stop right here.
Regarding male looks and male age differential…
I don’t believe most young women “are into really old dudes”. What I do believe and I’ve got plenty of experience, both my own and guys I know is that age difference doesn’t really matter if you are attractive enough on other aspects (looks and personality). I know a 29 year old guy who literally cleans up with 18-20 year olds. I was 31-32 when I was bouncing and I had no problem getting interest from 21-22 year olds once I developed some basic Game. One thing an older guy can have working for him is the status thing. The 29 year old guy I know drives a Cadillac STS. The average 22 year old guy is driving a beat up jalopy.
Regarding male looks. I think if we surveyed a bunch of guys only a very small percentage would say looks don’t matter to women. Firstly, many guys are going to engage in projection so they are going to assume looks matter to women simply because looks matter A LOT to men for sexual attraction. Inside the “Game community” where guys are aware of just how powerful psychosocial dominance is as a sexual attraction trigger, you’ll get more debate on the importance of looks. Only a small minority of guys believe looks are 0%, and they tend to believe in some kind of Jedi magic with Game which I think is total bullshit. If you gave me the choice of
A. Tall, handsome, well built with just some very basics of Game
B. Short, balding, dweeby looking but SUPER-TIGHT Game
I’d take A 24/7. In the years, I’ve spent following this stuff, what I’ve seen with below average looking guys with really tight Game is they do really well with 5-6 to maybe 7ish girls, but they are not pulling 8-9s at all.
Anyways, bottom line is looks matter for guys. Now what I’ve found that is different from women to men is women have “A LOOK” they go for while a guy can find a variety of looks appealing. For example, I could find the tall, athletic girl with A cup attractive, and also find the shorter, more curvy girl with D cup physically attractive. I’ve found this not to be the case with women. If a woman likes a physically muscular guy, odds are she isn’t going to be into skinny guys. If she likes blondes, she probably isn’t going to be into Mediterranean looking guys.
@Ana
Here’s the thing. When I met her and thought she was cute the fact she was “bones sticking out of her ass thin” didn’t register. Now I can list a ton of physical flaws (head too big for neck, slightly bulging eyes, etc).
Male standards of attractiveness, as Susan loves to point out, are malleable. One big way they are is attraction. The woman I’m seeing now is incredibly beautiful. Some times I look at her and it overwhelms me. She also has flaws (which I won’t list out of politeness) that I intellectually know but don’t register if that makes sense.
Gamer girl has gone from “she’s cute but needs to eat a sandwich” to “so skinny I’d break her during sex and not aging well.” That’s not really about looks but attraction.
Don’t get me bitter…you don’t want to see me bitter
(although maybe the clothes ripping would be sexy and alpha…hmmm). 
While certainly the less attractive man gets the cute girl in When Harry Met Sally she never rejects him over his looks nor is the point of the movie that she needs to do so.
Actually I think 30 going on 13 does qualify, when she is 13 she ignores chubby best friend because she wants to be part of the popular girl group and make out with the hot guy. After getting tricked by this girls she decides to blame the chubby guy and part ways with him and becomes part of this horrible girls group (we don’t see this because part of the magical plot device that transports her to her 30′s) at the end she learns that living the “superficial life men included” had made her a terrible woman and that her chubby ex- friend (engaged at this point) is actually a lot better person and that she should had grow up to be the kind of woman he would marry. She of course go back to be 13 learns her lesson and marries the friend. So I will say that SayWhat is right about this one. Haven’t watched Bridesmaid though so anyone feel free to chime in.
@SayWhaat
True, but Dogsquat isn’t. Also, there are still over 80 subs in the fleet and my heirs on them are 19 and 20 just like I was (although two of my boats are gone and the last won’t be around longer…talk about making me feel old).
Your generation can do it, but they aren’t. Perhaps that’s because we don’t expect it of most of you but that doesn’t change the fact you can.
Half credit, as he does turn into a prince, but only after she admits to loving him.
Last scene in Shallow Hal is them hoping in bed AFTER the hypnosis is reversed and her throwing her sixty inch thong past the screen.
SayWhaat is right, it is totally awesome being a beta man. We have FFM threesomes and women propose one-night stands, sometimes both at the same time.
It’s good to be the king!
@Susan, Dogsquat
It seems like the crux of this issue is not the jerk Tom, but the truth and how much of it we should tell. This is my opinion:
Follow the golden rule and tell people the truth you would like to know in their shoes, the way you would like to hear it told to you.
If you were Jane, wouldn’t you prefer to hear, “I like you a lot… but I do have a girlfriend” before having sex with him? (BTW, this in no way absolves her of her actions. She has to own her behavior, 100%.)
For me, my experiences affect my viewpoint: Being lied to and manipulated through the deliberate omission of important information is *awful*. Being used is beyond painful.
When I see other people doing what Tom did (manipulation and cheating, self-gratification at the expense of others ), there is no way I am going to stay silent. Silence = Tacit Acceptance. He could have told the truth in a million different ways– casually mentioning his GF could have been a piece of cake.
As for telling the truth, you can clarify and be completely forthright without ever crossing over into cruelty. If someone’s values aren’t a match, that’s that. I would be relieved if someone rejected me that way, instead of just fading off.
One person I know who is good at delivering truth will always use “and” instead of “but.” (He said: “but” negates everything before it; “and” links the good quality and criticism smoothly.)
This reminds me of debates from a class on ethics, so I’ll stop now.
SayWhaat,
+1
I think you hit the nail on the head! I’m a different person at 27 than I was at 24, when my last serious relationship ended. I met the dude when I was 20, and so much about me has changed — from my hair to my political views! My outlook on relationships has completely different! I have a much better idea of what qualities I need in a partner for a relationship to work in the long term. (Believe me, at 20 I thought I had it all figured out, but nope! Life experience taught me otherwise!)
I’ve made plenty of mistakes when it came to love and settled when I should have move on. When you’re young and inexperienced you make rookie mistakes and hopefully wisen up.
I understand having little sympathy for the willfully ignorant, but I don’t think it’s fair to paint all youth with such a wide brush. Getting burned and learning from the experience is different from making the same so-called “mistakes” repeatedly expecting the outcome to change IMO.
I’m not defending carousel riders, but I don’t think kids of either gender should be judged so harshly for rookie mistakes in dating. (There’s a learning curve)
Nope. They’re actually the same win from different sides of the coin.
Male lesson and win: he still has sex.
Female lesson and win: she still gets the love.
Heh. That’s exactly what ex-Fake BF was up to. (His threesome was MFM though.)
Half credit, as he does turn into a prince, but only after she admits to loving him.
Do you remember the beauty and the beast TV series with Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman I know it was the 80′s and things were not as bad but she (and all of us) loved Vincent in spite of his looks and the fact that he lived on a sewer.
Don’t get me bitter…you don’t want to see me bitter
(although maybe the clothes ripping would be sexy and alpha…hmmm). 
Someone should make that superhero: Barnabas Bethany: the Beta guy becomes and Asshole hot Alpha out of the bitterness every time a woman rejects him. He them pumps and dumps say woman, goes back to his normal beta self and leaves on the middle of the night she spent the rest of her life unable to fall in love again waiting for the alpha hot guy to call one day. We need a name though. Super Dick? Roosh the god of Pump? Super Alpha?
@SayWhaat:
No, they’re not.
Male lesson and win: he still has monogamous sex with a 3 who has a nice personality.
Female lesson and win: she still gets the love with a 10 prince and a castle full of servants.
That said, I will give that she rejects the alpha asshole (the PUA) and we don’t know if the Beast as a human is alpha or beta (but is a 10 and rich so hypergamy for the win).
@Senior Beta
“Now you are adding additional facts to the original Tom-Jane story. This is the kind of thing that drove students nuts starting their third week in law school. Not fair.”
——
Hi Senior Beta,
I was merely asking your opinion on message board– how is this “not fair”?
My viewpoint of Tom’s ethics is post #687. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. The kind of “mission” is accomplished by cheating on your GF with someone else behind your GF’s back is not especially impressive to me.
And before you go about claiming that ex-Fake BF was an “alpha”, consider that this was a guy who:
- gave me backrubs
- introduced me to his friends and held my hand in front of them
- asked me out on dates
- invited me on a weekend trip with other friends
- never pressured me into sex. Never even brought it up.
- ALWAYS responded to my texts. Texted me out of the blue, just to check in.
- did little “princely” gestures, like whenever my shoe slipped off my foot, he would kneel down and hold out my shoe for me to slip my foot back into it.
He was beta. And he turned out to be a jerk.
Oh, everyone knows MFMs don’t count, they’re kind of gay. What an omega.
@Ana
Do I become an incurable beta if I admit I not only regularly watched it but have fanzines for the series with lots of fan fiction?
And that one I will give you and his looks were a key part of the ongoing plot.
Hourman is already taken.
While I’m having trouble with a character name the book should be Five Minutes of Alpha. It’ll be the back-up feature in The Adventures of Manbra and Lazeeboy
Herb, you clearly have your mind made up so there’s no point in arguing with you.
Belle sought true love and found it. Shallow Hal got sex in the end as well. I’ve also listed a number of other movies where you found the example to fit better, but you continue to belabor the point over trivialities in movies that don’t (in YOUR opinion).
So. Whatever.
@ADBG
It was a rhetorical question. It doesn’t prove anything. They’re just the people I happen to know and hang out with. But that’s true for everybody here.
I’m probably older than you, but I went several years without getting laid. Not my preferred choice, but it didn’t kill me. I avoided making a few really bad mistakes too, instead of just going for sex without thinking about the consequences.
That’s the opinion me and my girlfriends had after we found out.
Hey, that sounds like me up until about two months ago.
@SayWhaat
I admitted I can’t evaluate the others you listed that I haven’t seen. Ana says one might fit the bill and I don’t dispute it might.
What I think you’re missing is Shallow Hal isn’t a male fantasy where he gets what he wants. It’s a female fantasy where he does what women would like.
The closest to a male fantasy version of Shallow Hal I can think of is Revenge of the Nerds and I suspect it meets my criteria. Technically the point where the sorority girl realizes nerds are good is a rape scene (as I thought at the time) and that is troublesome.
So, a movie that is close enough for jazz does exists and I’ve seen it.
I said half credit on Beauty and the Beast because she does admit her love before he changes. However, he does change making her choice meaningless in the longer term. She gets it all for choosing love as being more important. While a classic mythic trope it does go counter to what I was after.
As Ana pointed out the TV series of the same name DOES have the focus I was after, even it was targeted at women more than men. In fact, that series would be a good counter to a lot of PUA stuff: how did it appeal to women who fit the manosphere profile.
Perhaps you haven’t seen it due to age. It only lasted about a season and may have ended before you were born. I’d say look it up on IMDB.
Do I become an incurable beta if I admit I not only regularly watched it but have fanzines for the series with lots of fan fiction?
There is nothing wrong with being a Beta I married one.
. Were you as dissapointed with the ending as I was?
While I’m having trouble with a character name the book should be Five Minutes of Alpha. It’ll be the back-up feature in The Adventures of Manbra and Lazeeboy
Heh that is funny although I was thinking more of a webcomic. I don’t trust publishing houses anymore (Looking at you DC with Smallville, wonder woman movie and Marvel with Astonishing X-men and One day and civil war)
Well, you could send him this to console him – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7gwX7rjOw
@SayWhaat
“Hey, that sounds like me up until about two months ago.”
You and I were in different local chapters of the same club. My membership expired ~8 years ago, after I joined a better club : )
@Jones and @Courtley:
Fair enough. I was in a hurry when I wrote my response so that point probably wasn’t articulated correctly. My point was to illustrate, that since close to half of marriages end in divorce (across all demographics), and women initiate most of them, guys aren’t exactly entering a win-win situation by seeking out marriage. It’s riskier for them and holds fewer benefits, plus women are seeking marriage later and later, and in fewer numbers (hello cohabitation!), so where does that leave us? Dating around until we find a girl who’s marriage-minded AND has the character to go the distance AND we are attracted to enough to sign up for a LIFETIME COMMITMENT where if it ends, we could be in a bit of trouble, especially if kids are involved. That’s why this conversation continues to be had.
A Definite Beta Guy described the situation best with this quote:
This is the best summary of the situation I’ve seen on this thread. Not being able to get your needs met SUCKS, and I don’t wish it on anyone, but realize that for most guys aside from a few top dogs, the rest of the pack is fighting for scraps. So while you’re spending those extra years looking for wifey (that is if you feel like getting married at all given the risks), you better have your game tight, because otherwise you’re probably going to go without, and in doing so, lessen your chances of finding her at all. You can try to minimize that all you want, but for some people, it sucks out there. Essentially- pre-marriage is a longer period for most 20-somethings, and there’s less incentive to get married than ever before, so guys (and girls) are playing the alternative for longer.
@Ana
Did you ever see the actress we thought was going to be Wonder Woman if Whedon had done it:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1231899/
Funny Wonder Woman story. My dad and I used to watch the 70′s version with Linda Carter religiously. In the 90s SciFi started to rerun and I decided to watch it. About five minutes in I had no idea why my dad watched something that bad beyond being a good dad. About 15 minutes in she went from Diana Prince to Wonder Woman.
Suddenly, I was enlightened.
Oh, and The Adventures of Manbra and Lazeeboy was going to be a web comic back in the day. I just can’t draw.
Plus, after Casey and Andy there was nothing left to say. Satan, actual Satan, as your girlfriend. The ‘sphere would shit themselves.
As for B&B, of course I hated the ending. What do you think the majority of the fan fiction was.
As for nothing wrong with being a beta, well, I’m still conflicted on that one.
In fact, that series would be a good counter to a lot of PUA stuff: how did it appeal to women who fit the manosphere profile.
Oh manophere can reinterpret any man that gets the girl as an Alpha no matter what. They did with Titanic in which poor artsy Jack is the Alpha (for the life of me I don’t know how) and ubber rich asshole Cal is the Beta and they did too with piano lover, book reader “Without you my life was like a moonless night” and “you can be friends with half naked guy that promise me to steal your from me” Edward and label bike rider trouble maker , go for the kill first ask question’s later, home wrecker loose lips Jacob the Beta *head meet desk* just because they got the girl at the end they have to make him an Alpha somehow. I’m sure Vincent will be the reinterpreted as the Alpha too.
No thanks. That was one of the few SNL videos that I couldn’t bear to watch.
I don’t think he needs much consolation. He told people I gave him a blowjob at a party where I was in actuality softly crying on his shoulder because two hours earlier, he had told me he didn’t want a relationship. Oh, and he deleted me on Facebook and Twitter after we had made plans to meet up one weekend, so I doubt I could get that to him even if I wanted to.
+1, Ana. Male hamsters at 90mph.
@Herb, Ana
Re: Beauty and The Beast
Have either of you guys seen the version “La Belle et La Bete” by Jean Cocteau? It is *old*, B&W, French and subtitled — but don’t let that stop you! Disney’s BatB stole absolutely everything from this one!
We had to view it in Cinema Studies. It’s considered one of the finest fantasy movies ever made. It’s like viewing a moving painting by Albrect Durer. So cool.
Anyway, the reason I mention it is because this version has her really fall in love with the Beast and upon his transfiguration into the prince Belle is actually repulsed at some level. The person she loves is really the ugly looking Beast. When he becomes the handsome prince, he asks if she loves him now she says something like, I’ll have to think about it, I miss the Beast.
PS: Herb, if you want to believe you don’t deserve a good relationship with an awesome woman who loves you, no one can stop you.
I’ll just say that I’ve seen quite a few mature (40s-50s) men who are not close to tri-athletes or 6-figure incomes who have found love. My former landlord was 5’3″, bald, portly and with a manual labor job; he married at age 50 to an awesome, awesome lady who adores him. One of his other renters was another dude in his 50s, a chunky hippie-type, who found his dream woman through Argentinian tango. Life offers chances, no matter your age or appearance.
VERBOSE COMMENT ALERT:
Long-time reader, first time commenter here. First off, let me say to Susan, great job on this blog. The Bolick article brought me here and I’ve been coming back consistently ever since. Simply fascinating discussions here.
From my experience, Game has a cultural dimension that is seldom discussed. The necessity for it is, in large part, a North American variant on social dynamics. Not sure of your feelings about this particular blogger, Susan, but Roosh V is practically the only one whom I have seen address the stark differences that he has seen, felt, and touched when travelling to different parts of the world. There are, of course, non-negotiables for women no matter what geographic region they reside in. Things such as bad hygiene, foul behaviour, excessive drunkenness (although in the Ukraine that could be seen as a plus), and truly awful looks (although a lot of the Eastern Europeans will definitely set a pretty low entrance threshhold, mind you, so you really have to be jojo the dog-faced boy to turn them off). By and large, however, men need to be aware of their options outside of the North American market, to be found even within North America.
A Personal Example: I’m not sure I even rise to a Beta. More than likely that I’m some combo platter of Delta/Low Gamma. Who knows, and who cares, really. Being from an Eastern European (native Russian speaker) background has allowed me access to women that I would not have had a hope with otherwise.
Where I live, the Russian community throws regular parties called Pizparty, the Piz part making reference to a vulgar terminology in the Russian language to a vagina.
Guys, listen up. With myself being, at best, a 6, I have regularly bedded HB-8/HB-9s. The only reason I used the past tense in the last sentence is that I am now in an LTR with a lovely woman named Tatianna. A solid HB-9 in her own right.
Women at these parties and other similar events around town like to be doted on by men, complimented, engaged in meaningful and deep conversations, treated with chivalry and respect and paid attention to. No game, no BS, no drama. The only exception, of course, are those women who are either: A) Excessively materialistic or B) Been in North America for most of their lives. The cut off point appears to be age 13. If a girl grew up in, let’s say Russia, for at least 13 years, she seems to be immune to this North American social plague.
At the beginning, when I started to tell people I knew where I would meet women, they liked to throw it in my face that it was only because I was of that culture and spoke the language that I was having any success. Know what I did? You guessed it. Next Pizparty, I brought a posse. Can you guess what happened? I’ll give you a second to mull it over. That’s right, everybody scored. We’re talking normal guys. Guys in IT for the most part, like me. Not lookers by any stretch of the imagination. Guys who can only talk about serious subjects. Guys who hardly knew any jokes or magic/mind tricks or witticisms. One was even a virgin at 29. Suffice it to say I’ve got him as a BFF now. Give a man a fish, and you’ve fed him for a day…..yada yada yada.
One thing that we all shared, besides an appreciation and longing for a good woman, is that we were curious about the world around us. We regularly discuss world affairs and politics with family, SOs and friends. When somebody mentions Putin in a conversation, we’re not looking around for fries topped with gravy. Know what I mean?
Big picture, and a message to all North American women. Tone it the fuck down. Bigtime. And soon. It’s a big, wide, world out there. More and more men are waking up and feasting their eyes on that Columbian cutie at the coffeeshot, that nubile Senegalese at the market, or that pert Russian in the park. My theory? Once men discover the abundance of foreign options, MGTOW will be history and North American women will be left in the cold with shrinking ovaries.
Take heed, ladies. Look around with a truly open mind, limit yourselves to 3 drinks maximum, and demand to be treated like a lady and not gamed. Attraction and respect, both for yourself and your potential partner are no mutually exclusive.
From my perspective, it sure is nice to be treated like a man, again. Had North American girlfriends early on, and let me tell ya, ain’t never going back.
@SayWhaat
“I don’t think he needs much consolation. He told people I gave him a blowjob at a party where I was in actuality softly crying on his shoulder because two hours earlier, he had told me he didn’t want a relationship. Oh, and he deleted me on Facebook and Twitter after we had made plans to meet up one weekend, so I doubt I could get that to him even if I wanted to.”
—-
Wait, this is the guy who has threesomes that include other guys? The fake-BF guy?
Sounds like you dodged a bullet, SW! Glad to hear you are happy with your awesome BF now!
@Ana
I don’t see Cal in Titanic as beta but I can get Jack as alpha, bad boy brand. In fact, to be honest, I think most romantic movies where she has to pick is alpha versus alpha.
To bring up Hugh Jackman again, consider Someone Like You, where the man character assumes the PUA view about men and makes her bones doing so (new cow theory), is her getting over alpha asshole by falling for another (who gives up womanizing for her). While I love the movie I suspect I’m showing my age by still thinking Ashley Judd is less attractive than Ellen Barkin.
Then again, Ellen Barkin in Sea of Love is just about the sexiest woman on the planet plus she played Penny Priddy. How do you beat that. Oh, and she made that lesbian S&M version of Fatal Attraction.
Whew, I think I should stop there.
Oh, as for how I can bring up SLY so easily, I’ve often claimed to own the most romcoms by a straight man in America.
Yep, this was Fake Ex-BF through and through.
I dodged a freaking bullet train with that one. I just wish I hadn’t lost “friends” who chose his side in the process.
@Jackie
I oscillate.
In all honestly, I don’t ever think my ego recovered from my divorce. Between feeling lead on, used, and disposable (and losing my job the same month it was finalized didn’t help) I crashed hard. I thought I was better within 3 years (divorce was finally July 31, 2002) but now I really only started to recover in 2008 after gamer girl. Getting laid off in 2009 and 2010 didn’t help (when my company announced layoffs in 2011 I told my boss he had to wait until 2012 so I didn’t get a hat trick…still employed).
In fact, the manosphere appealed to me more in validating how hard that was for me when the rest of the culture talks about how divorce is always men dumping women undeservedly and if a women dumps a man he deserves it. The unspoken “men have no feelings” meme the ‘sphere claims exists has made more sense than any alpha/beta/game/women as exotic pets stuff.
The other factor is time. I gave up well over a decade to marriage and I’m still paying for it. Trust isn’t a big thing and even if women think I’m a catch I’m still distrustful, wondering what they want. As I said upthread, my mother thinks I date poly women because they’re safe. Given they never completely invest in me they can’t reject me and in that thinking on my part she may have a point. I’m not sure if the time to trust enough again is the best use of my remaining 25 or so years.
“Dating around until we find a girl who’s marriage-minded AND has the character to go the distance AND we are attracted to enough to sign up for a LIFETIME COMMITMENT.”
You know, women have to go through this same damn process, too. And they risk getting dumped and divorced as well. Nobody falls backwards into a relationship that just happens to work out for the rest of his or her life. The search takes effort, but so does the marriage. The notion of quick, easy, instant success isn’t a long-term concept.
@Herb
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being whatever it is you are or want to be. Just know that doing certain things or not improving yourself will limit your choices. My major rule is this (and I am not sure if Susan agrees or not yet): always seek to be valued for who you are, not what you have. You don’t want women (or that one woman, or even men for that matter) to value you only (or mostly) because you can offer some kind of commitment or other tangible benefit. You want to be valued for who and what you are, not because you look responsible and that’s the right type of guy to choose.
Well, you could send him this to console him – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7gwX7rjOw
Little mind destroyed by that video, most rest now…
Did you ever see the actress we thought was going to be Wonder Woman if Whedon had done it:
I was so happy that the ship sinker didn’t got the movie that I didn’t paid attention to the cast. Is a shame though she does looks the part.
Funny Wonder Woman story. My dad and I used to watch the 70′s version with Linda Carter religiously. In the 90s SciFi started to rerun and I decided to watch it. About five minutes in I had no idea why my dad watched something that bad beyond being a good dad. About 15 minutes in she went from Diana Prince to Wonder Woman.
Heh I can see that. Linda Carter was an perfect 10 in those years.
Have either of you guys seen the version “La Belle et La Bete” by Jean Cocteau? It is *old*, B&W, French and subtitled — but don’t let that stop you! Disney’s BatB stole absolutely everything from this one!
I added it to Netflix. Thank you I write fairytales so I have to see all the versions that I can. Not that I don’t love them too.
I don’t see Cal in Titanic as beta but I can get Jack as alpha, bad boy brand. In fact, to be honest, I think most romantic movies where she has to pick is alpha versus alpha.
Oh boy….define Beta in your terms.
Oh, as for how I can bring up SLY so easily, I’ve often claimed to own the most romcoms by a straight man in America.
You should watch 13 going on 30 then is decent enough. Why do you like rom-coms? I mean most Latin men like them well enough but is a different culture I always find curious when a western guy actually likes them.
MegaMan is super on point tonight. : )
@Ana
Scratch a cynic and you’ll always find a disappointed romantic.
As far as defining beta, courtesy of Heartless Bitches (http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/genetic.shtml):
As to why I see Cal as alpha, the “taking what I want” and “I’m the most important person here” attitude. In fact, when I think asshole alpha he’s exactly the kind of guy I imagine.
That kind of guy is also what I think when I think PUA, although with some charm. It’s why I reject PUAs and their world.
@Ana
Cool! I added the 80s tv Beauty and the Beast to my instant watch as well.
BTW, I would *love* to see your stories and writing. Let us know when you start putting stuff out there so we can buy your stuff! 
“Nobody falls backwards into a relationship that just happens to work out for the rest of his or her life. The search takes effort, but so does the marriage. The notion of quick, easy, instant success isn’t a long-term concept.”
How true. And it’s totally worth it.
@Megaman
Calm down. I’m aware of all of that, but there’s more benefit in getting married for her than for him, even if it doesn’t work out- that much we’ve covered in spades on this blog. Did you even read my comments? Nobody’s preaching quick and easy, I was illustrating the reason why the search is taking longer for men (and conversely for women too).
Cool! I added the 80s tv Beauty and the Beast to my instant watch as well.
!
I will warm you that the ending was not wildly loved but the series is really good and you have to love sweet Vincent He is like a hairy Edward.
BTW, I would *love* to see your stories and writing. Let us know when you start putting stuff out there so we can buy your stuff
Err they are all published in my kindle store in Spanish. Sorry but for now I have nothing in English. Working on that though
@Herb
Hi again Herb,
Thanks for writing that out and explaining to me; I think I understand your situation now. And I’m so sorry to hear things have been so difficult.
Just my 0.02, but divorce is a loss like death, plus losing your job — even once– is one of the top 5 stressful things. (Loss of spouse, parent and divorce are the other 4, I think.) You’ve pretty much hit all of the worst in such a short time, unfortunately.
You have been gravely wounded, several times over, even if it’s not something you can easily see. Please do whatever you can to get better– if it means posting here for support, talking to someone, spending time with your
mom talking about memories of your dad. I am wishing you the very best, with the kindest regards–
@Ana
Spent too much on Kindle books while here and waiting…so take your time for the budget to re-fill.
@BH
“There’s more benefit in getting married for her than for him.”
Limiting the discussion to marriages that actually work out and last (most, by the way), how exactly do women benefit more than men in these marriages? Also, I can give you a number of metrics that show married men benefit more (i.e. happier, higher income, live longer) than their non-married counterparts.
Spent too much on Kindle books while here and waiting…so take your time for the budget to re-fill.</i.
Heh you are probably the only man in the manosphere that might like what I'm writing (is a supernatural romance mix of harry potter and Twilight with the college hook up culture as a background and nerdy leads) . But don't worry I'm working with an editor to correct my mistakes of the first novel. Second novel is on first draft only and the third one is still on schematic levels so…plenty of time.
Waiting for what BTW?
@Megaman
While married men live longer married women live longer still and thus have an extended period enjoying the assets that both parties accumulate.
Women generally collect more social security than they paid in by collecting their husband’s benefits while men often collect less.
A married person can stay at home while their spouse supports them, but despite fifty years of feminism this choice is much more culturally supported for women than for men.
For the measures you used to compare married to single men, what are the deltas for women. For those that are positive for both sexes, which sex shows the largest absolute and relative increases.
Finally, as I’ve said over and over you don’t evaluate risk by absolute cost, odds, or best possible outcome.
The risk of an event is its odds times its cost. The absolute value of marriage should be (odds of lasting * value of lasting) – (odds of failing * cost of failing). The disadvantage to men isn’t in the first term nearly as much as the second.
@Ana
Waiting for the funeral…while I can work remotely some I feel in limbo. I’ve been here for two weeks the day of the funeral (Thursday) and go home Friday…I’ve bought five kindle books since Sunday as I read everything I brought already.
Scratch a cynic and you’ll always find a disappointed romantic.
That is what they say about the PUA’s and gamers…I will beleive it about you, they not so much.
As far as defining beta, courtesy of Heartless Bitches (http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/genetic.shtml):
Marries late, if at all, mainly because women rarely notice them. Has a life outside of work, but you’ll never listen long enough to find out. Devoted to wife and family, when married. Nice guys at all levels that do 90% of everything necessary to keep the world going.
Mmm half the truth I will say that Betas does get notice by women but not chosen til they are ready to settle, hence the infuriating. But then according to this any man that a leading lady has any interest is an Alpha. I think manosphere refers to the invisible ones Omegas.
As to why I see Cal as alpha, the “taking what I want” and “I’m the most important person here” attitude. In fact, when I think asshole alpha he’s exactly the kind of guy I imagine.
Well for me Alpha is an asshole but I don’t see Jack as an Alpha he has no social proof and was a virgin, Rose had to pretty much strip naked and tell him what to do that is not Alpha escalation and pressuring for sex like they advice for too nice guy, so what gives???
Jack was a virgin? I totally missed that.
Then again, I knew exactly how the movie would end when I saw the first ad (only one I called better was Armageddon) and still wanted to see it. I really didn’t care about the plot or the actors. I made sure to see it in a theater for the same reason I prefered The Untouchables and 2001 there and saw Avatar there (although talk about awful on a ton of levels): because they are beautiful.
Even though Kate Winslet was an attractive women, she was among the least beautiful things in that film (and yet, too attractive as Sarah in Little Children, a book I heartily recommend and whose end is probably a better comment on the SMP than any ‘sphere blog although it has nothing to do with the SMP).
@Megaman
First of all, women desire the security that marriage is believed to offer more than men do and the courts aren’t a good place to end up for a man on the outs of his marriage. Second, saying that married men live longer versus non-married ones isn’t really saying much. We need to see the delta in life length that women experience inside of marriage versus outside as well to make a comparison as to who gets more out of it. Third, you are favoring the best possible outcome, versus looking at the value of the rewards (and the odds of getting them) and the cost of the risks (and the odds of the negative situation in which the costs of the risk have to be paid), so your evaluation isn’t an objective one.
It would seem to me that the best case scenario would be cohabitation, where the risks (for both parties) would be the lowest, and the benefits would be similar to marriage.
@BroHamlet
In general, what research I’ve seen agrees with the former, especially for men, but the benefits are much lower.
So, cohabitation might be a better option (especially for men) but the benefits are not similar to marriage.
Jack was a virgin? I totally missed that.
Yes he was blushing while drawing Rose and when she asked him if he have had an affair with the hand’s lady he say that no with this expression of “never done that” and when both entered the car after the drawing session she took his hand and told him “touch me” she guided him and then at the end you can see the wonder on his face. So virgin so cute.
Then again, I knew exactly how the movie would end when I saw the first ad (only one I called better was Armageddon) and still wanted to see it. I really didn’t care about the plot or the actors. I made sure to see it in a theater for the same reason I prefered The Untouchables and 2001 there and saw Avatar there (although talk about awful on a ton of levels): because they are beautiful.
I love movies I try to go to the theater the most but all watched all those movies at home and I never planned to watch Pocahontas dances with blue wolves because I’m a writer and a gamer I can watch pretty worlds with better plots on my computer. My husband and I are probably the only humans on earth that haven’t watched Avatar or The Dark Knight :p
Even though Kate Winslet was an attractive women, she was among the least beautiful things in that film (and yet, too attractive as Sarah in Little Children, a book I heartily recommend and whose end is probably a better comment on the SMP than any ‘sphere blog although it has nothing to do with the SMP).
I saw the movie and I hated every single person on that movie. Crappy people doing crappy things if I was into that I would watch Jersey Shore or the Kardashians.
@Herb
I’d respond to some of your points, but as I’m not a human being, and facts don’t really matter in these discussions, I won’t bother. Adiós!
Waiting for the funeral…while I can work remotely some I feel in limbo. I’ve been here for two weeks the day of the funeral (Thursday) and go home Friday…I’ve bought five kindle books since Sunday as I read everything I brought already.
Oh sorry that I had asked. I hope we can at least entertain you.
I got curious about Marriage vs. Cohabitation, and found this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120118101335.htm
Sounds like there’s not that much difference from a happiness standpoint according to their study, and apparently in both cohab and marriage, the benefits shrink after the honeymoon period. I’m not seeing where marriage is the end all be all here.
@Ana
So was the book yet somehow unlike the Jersey Shore or the Kardashians I found the book compelling.
I think the difference is I can’t imagine being the idiots on Jersey Shore I can see making the sustained bad choices to be at least the main characters in Little Children. I especially felt a great deal of pity for Sarah. The sequence in the book where she orders the bathing suits to try on at home to find something that might be attractive to Todd (and which taught me what boyshorts are and created a mild fetish for them for a while
) was both sad and sweet. In fact, as Sarah plans her life after divorce you realize she was willing to be what Todd wanted and I wondered if he was right to stay with Kathy.
I also felt for Kathy and even Todd to a degree in the book, but really felt for Sarah. For all her flaws, bad choices, and plainness she seemed to be a woman I’d want to meet and maybe even date.
@Herb
You may be right, and I’ll retract one part of what I said- the benefits aren’t necessarily equal to marriage, because they were talking about happiness and such, versus life length, etc. There’s probably not enough data on lifetime cohabitation to make a comparison yet, so I’m not going to make any claims. I’d be interested to see how they stack up over a lifetime, though. Don’t get me wrong, I want to get married someday, but I have no delusions that the institution is quite as worthwhile as when my parents did.
@Megaman
I’m not trying to be argumentative here, but I think you misinterpreted what I said that you commented on. My comments were for Courtley, who didn’t seem to understand the reason why the whole “game” discussion keeps coming up, and. They were just to give some context as to why guys are out there doing it at all. She didn’t seem to understand the dynamic.
I also felt for Kathy and even Todd to a degree in the book, but really felt for Sarah. For all her flaws, bad choices, and plainness she seemed to be a woman I’d want to meet and maybe even date.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but maybe you are attracted to broken women and that is part of the problems with your romantic life. Just a though.
@Ana
Distinctly possible, especially in the first five years after my marriage. Believe me, I’ve given a great deal of thought of problems with what I’m attracted to (bad mate choice). During the period after my divorce I had a bad habit of dating crazy. As the MC at SPLF opening ceremony said, “Don’t stick your dick in crazy. Sex and mental health issues don’t mix.”
@BH
“I’m not seeing where marriage is the end all be all here.”
And yet you frequent a blog that’s pro-marriage? Strange. I have nothing against cohabitation if that’s what people want to do. And cohabitating can turn into de facto marriage if you’re in a common-law state. You don’t get the income tax benefit when cohabitating, as the couple can’t file jointly (I believe). Also, they don’t last as long as marriage (yet), and have a higher breakup rate, which everybody wants to avoid anyway. And palimony is a legal precedent, if you live with someone long enough. Unless you only plan on living with someone for 5 years or so, I don’t see the advantage of cohabitating over traditional marriage. We’ll never get to a point where relationships are totally risk-free. So just stay single if you want. Then nobody can break your heart OR your wallet.
FWIW, I’ve read that women benefit more financially in marriage, and men benefit much more health-wise, both physically and mentally. There’s a net benefit for both parties, over and above staying single. Who benefits more in what areas doesn’t really concern me. If people choose their partners wisely, and have graduated from college, the benefits of marriage are huge and the risks of divorce are rather low. Susan’s made that point over and over. You may throw it in the garbage if you want.
@Megaman
There are plenty of people here that aren’t pro-marriage, and you missed the part where I said I do want to get married someday. Really I’m not for or against yet. I’m here because I’m interested in finding out what gets discussed on the other side of the gender line. I think you’re taking my comment that was meant to illustrate that fewer men (and women) want to get married early a bit too far.
@BH
Just curious, how can you want to get married someday, and at the same time not be sure marriage is a good idea? Women are often accused of treating commitment whimsically like this. For a marriage to last a lifetime (ideally), you have to enter it enthusiastically, without reservations. I’m no expert, but I have experience in that regard.
@Megaman
I’ll fully admit that I’m a product of my upbringing, so I’m relatively conservative in my view of marriage. Truth be told I’m still in the question phase- trying to weigh the benefits and the risks, and I would love to have what my parents have (for them it has lasted 30+ years), but I see it as far less likely to happen to me personally. What you say is absolutely correct- you have to enter it with no reservations, and I won’t get married until I have no reservations emotionally or logically, about the institution, the risks and the benefits, or the person I would potentially enter it with. Nothing whimsical about any of that at all- I want it to happen, but not until I’m ready to give it the space it needs in my life, because I take it pretty seriously. And further, I’m not just seeking it out because I want to feel secure- I’m plenty secure in being single at the moment, so I’m in no rush.
So to sum it up- do I want it, yes. Do I think it’s a great idea, I can’t say definitely yes or no, but my current opinion is no, and that’s mostly because I take marriage really seriously, and it doesn’t seem like the state nor most people in my generation do either. I kind of feel like I want no part of it (at least not yet), to be real with you.
SayWhaat 664,
*applause* THANK YOU!
I think it’s something that you actually have to be experiencing to understand. So people who went to college back when there was a 50/50 gender ratio, or back when men still outnumbered women aren’t going to get what it’s like. Even if hookup culture wasn’t messing everything up and people still followed assortative mating, there simply aren’t enough guys for everybody. At least not in the colleges.
Today’s college dating market isn’t the same as it was in the 80′s, and the dating market that today’s 20somethings experience isn’t the same as what today’s 30-40somethings are dealing with. (I know I’ve said this several times and I’m probably a broken record at this point, but I think that this is the source of many of the misunderstandings around here.)
I didn’t mean to muddy the waters re the original question. I just spilled the ending to the tale because it was interesting. It doesn’t change my view of Tom when the incident first occurred – I recall hearing the story then and being disgusted by his opportunism and narcissism.
If that’s true, then infidelity is OK, as is stealing your brother’s wife, or keeping one’s medical status a secret.
How about we follow the Golden Rule? It’s the central tenet of the great religions and the most important prescription for leading an honorable life. That doesn’t mean supplication, obsequiousness, oneitis or killing someone with kindness. It just means not being an asshole.
@JAckie
Whoops, just saw that you already posted about the Golden Rule! That’s what I get for trying to catch up on comments in order.
I’ll leave my comment up though – double whammy!
@Iggles
I just saw a video with Helen Fisher, the world’s foremost authority on the brain in love, and she says some interesting things about both men and women falling in love as a direct result of having sex together. Maybe I’ll slap it up as a post this morning.
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