I rarely post two letters from readers back to back, but I received an email today that is both time-sensitive and potentially instructive to readers.
I’ll begin with a confession. The real name of the writer is very unusual, and after reading her letter I had a hunch I wanted to confirm. Sure enough, she is indexed in Google images thanks to social media profiles. It is as I suspected. She is a hard 9, at least, if your taste runs to Kate Upton on a good day. I don’t mean to objectify her, but I think she falls victim to a mentality that is common among beautiful women. It may sound counterintuitive, but beautiful women often have to make a special effort to land a good man, initiating intimacy, providing encouragement and offering reassurance along the way.
My advice would be the same in any case, but her looks are undoubtedly a factor in the dynamic between them.
Dear Susan,
Hi, your blog always gives such insightful advice on relationship issues, and I would love some right now because I’m in a difficult position with the first man I’ve liked in a long time. I’m 22, he’s 25.
I’ve been dating him for around two months now. I ended things with a guy this summer and was deeply depressed for a while, which is why I didn’t want to get emotionally attached too soon. There was a bit of imbalance – he took me out to nice dinners, walked me home, didn’t even make a move. When we started sleeping together, things were great but I was still not completely accommodating – I didn’t offer him coffee/breakfast in the morning, which I kind of regret now. I’m an introverted person and I don’t express emotions very well. Raised that way I guess. Nevertheless, we continued dating and he’d text and call very often.
I haven’t seen him in person for around 3 weeks. It’s sometimes been difficult matching our schedules (he’s working, I’m a student), and I have been travelling the past week. He said he wanted to take me to a lovely dinner the night I came back from an overseas trip. I was jetlagged when back and had a heavy lunch so I suggested a drink instead, and he accepted. I dozed off, got back to him a couple of hours later and said we could meet 45 mins later at which point it would be 10.45. He said it would be “a little too late” because he had to get up early for work, but we could meet the next day. I was pissed – that drink would probably lead to him coming back with me, he hasn’t seen me in 3 weeks, what guy says no to that because he’d get six hours rather than eight? I was so annoyed I said I was busy the next few days. He told me to “let him know when I could see him”.
So when I was out Thursday night I texted him (very late, early hours) asking if he was out too. For a weekday, I figured he might have been in bed. I got a reply the next morning. Friendly, as usual, but he hasn’t initiated anything since.
Worst part – Saturday night was a party hosted by a friend of his – an all night dinner and drinks. He asked me about a month ago and even convinced me to stay in town a far more days to attend. Come Saturday, I heard nothing. I’m just assuming he went to the party without me. I suppose most girls would text and go “what’s going on with that party??”. But I always assume a defensive position towards men – I think until the point of exclusive, the initiatives should be theirs. Plus, I did make an “initiative” Thursday night by texting first.
I was angry and in my irrational rage, I figured this was “finished from my side”, deleted him off facebook and deleted our text message history. That was yesterday, I assume he’s seen it by now, but he hasn’t said anything. I am twisting in agony trying to figure what the reason for his silence might have been… Whether someone said something about me. I can’t figure why, I’m not known as promiscuous, and I don’t think there is anything awful that may surface.
So as you can see I’m going out of my mind. I like the guy, and I know I acted irrationally when deleting him. But his behaviour was really schizo – he was all over me and seemed so genuinely interested, and then shut down on Saturday. I feel like it would be stupid to contact him now, it will seem as if deleting him was a provocation and now I’m “giving in”? I feel like it would give me an instant lower hand. Should I just wait it out?
Am I being completely crazy? Will this end right now if I don’t make a move? Or will I look pathetic? Or is it the case that if he likes me enough, I will hear from him?
An ex boyfriend accused me of always causing unnecessary drama. If that seems the case, please let me know.
Anne
Dear Anne,
It sounds like you’re a regular reader, in which case you’ve seen my posts about avoiding players, and also my posts about the need for a woman to escalate emotionally when a man does get through her filter and she wants to be in a committed relationship with him.
I’m going to cut straight to the chase here.
You have been employing the Principle of Least Interest with such success that you convinced Stephen you are not interested in him. To be fair, you describe yourself as having been hurt fairly recently and feeling somewhat self-protective. It’s hard to escalate emotionally while deliberately delaying intimacy. Being introverted and not emotionally expressive makes this more challenging as well.
It sounds like Stephen was happy to go all out in pursuing you, putting in most of the effort. You already have a sense that you did not give him the reinforcement that would have helped to seal the deal early on, as you mention having regrets about remaining aloof, even after sex. However, I see some poor judgment calls here on your part within the last week or so that I don’t believe you fully recognize. At the risk of being very hard on you, I’m going to highlight them in hopes that you can learn from this experience, whether things work out with Stephen or not.
You did not act eager to reunite with him when you returned from Miami.
I understand that you were jet lagged, and I’m sure he did too. You might have rescheduled, explaining that you were dying to see him but wanted to be at your best. You could also have mentioned that you simply could not function without a couple of hours sleep, would he be amenable to a late drink?
Instead it sounds like you dismissed his plan because you were not particularly hungry (bad call) and then left him waiting and wondering until 10 p.m. That was not very considerate of his time, and it may have played a role in his declining at that point. Or he may have calculated that you would both have a much better time with less pressure by doing it the next day instead. Maybe he wanted to enjoy your company for an evening instead of racing home from the bar to have sex before an early alarm.
You felt rejected, so you punished him.
If a man is rejecting you, punishing him for doing so is not a good strategy for exciting his interest. Had you agreed to the next night, you would likely have had a passionate reunion. Instead, you told him you did not want to see him. His response that you should let him know indicates hurt feelings and hurt pride.
You sought to increase your control over him.
After turning him down, and without letting him know when you were available to see him, and how much you wanted to see him, you texted him while out late on a work night. This served to remind him that you are a carefree student who can be out and about getting attention from other men while he is required to get his sleep before another grueling day at the office. I imagine he woke in the morning, felt peeved, and his resentment grew throughout the day.
Note that you have still not texted to “let him know when you could see him.” You have only texted to convey your fabulousness and desirability on a night when he was unlikely to go out.
You stubbornly waited for him to break.
You entered into a pissing match over who would blink first. It should have been you! Why do you always assume a defensive posture with men? Why are they required to do all the work? You’re bound to intimidate the hell out of most men as it is – they’re going to need some positive reinforcement to keep going! And they’re very likely to assume that they’re unlikely to hold your interest.
Deleting him from facebook probably signalled to him that you have zero interest in him whatsoever, and want all reminders of your association gone.
In short, I don’t think his behavior has been schizo or the least bit unreasonable. I think you’ve been acting like a bit of a spoiled brat. (I say this with a maternal affection.) I don’t know whether this is salvageable, but if you really look at Stephen and see a potential father for your children, here is what I suggest you do:
Go crawling to him on your hands and knees.
Stephen,
I regret the way things have been between us for the last week. I accept responsibility for doing a very poor job of letting you know how much I wanted to see you upon my return. I have enjoyed our time together very much and I’d like to set things right. Are you free tomorrow night? Would you like to come over for a drink and we can talk about it?
Missing you,
Anne
If he is kind but says no, you’ll have time for soul searching. If he is a jerk and really was playing you in some way, he’ll be rude and unresponsive, in which case you just got rid of a bad guy. If he says yes, you’re back in the game. Respond graciously no matter what.
No more silent treatment, it’s time to make a little drama here (the good kind – as in, a dramatic gesture to surprise and delight him).
{ 1518 comments… read them below or add one }
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Underdog.
The examples you take are a poor choice. It equals to saying this: All women are gold diggers…
Besides, a gold digger having the option to choose between D. Trump and a billionaire that looks like, say, Hugh Grant, who do you think she’s more likely to pick?
Young and healthy looking doesn’t mean good looking. Looks DO matter for women. The major difference between men and women regarding the importance they attach to looks is that, with women, the good looks of any guy quickly fades if, when he opens his mouth, he sounds as eloquent as Dan Quayle on a bad day.
“game seems to be about faking the behaviour normal guys in the past just had (like self-respect).”
Guys had more self respect in the 80′s and 90′s? Hrm let me dig out my creepers, my skull bolo tie, knox gelatin and eyeliner out of the attic and get back to you.
“To summarize, -game works-, -game over-.”
Where did I say that brute force social engineering hacks don’t “work”.
Oh, that’s right.
I didn’t say that.
Oh I just found my china flats and my cassettes of my Heaven 17 12″ remixes (they sold for a shitload on ebay back in 2000), I’m feeling much more respectable already.
@Damien Vulaume
“It equals to saying this: All women are gold diggers…”
No, it equals to saying all women are dominance diggers. Money, fame, social status, etc. are just various forms of dominance. I can name some ugly, awkward looking PUAs who get beautiful women solely from using behavioral dominance if you’d like.
@szopen:
“Yes, exactly. I think a lot of males have an inclination to build systems, which help understand the reality. This is a great thing actually, except when we start to overuse a system. If the system explains a lot and has a lot of inner logic, they guys tend to start explaining EVERYTHING in terms of that system, they tend to became blind to things which prove the system wrong, they tend to interpret reality in terms of their system.”
They are more models than systems.
In other words, the map isn’t the actual territory.
There will always be better models.
“Where did I say that brute force social engineering hacks don’t “work”.”
You certainly made it sound like there are more eloquent or ‘respectable’ ways to win over beautiful women, while denigrating what actually works. I’m sure your route leads to a much more fulfilling life, please Cassanova, do tell your privy secrets. Perhaps your own blog even.
@Underdog
The dominance thing is another story. It has nothing to do with the “looks factor” we’re talking about.
@Tasmin #474
The most perfect analysis of the Anne/Stephen “relationship”. And very well put.
@ENY
No, I think we’d have to blame the sociopathy for that, with its characteristic low empathy.
You make a good point though – is a person blameless if they have no conscience? Or if they sincerely believe that bad is good? Or are physiologically incapable of any behavior that is not predatory? Generally, we do hold people accountable for their actions, so I’ll amend my statement to say that the woman who constantly shit tests without thinking about it is “wired” in such a way that makes empathy unlikely, and her satisfaction elusive.
In both cases, stay far away.
@szopen
This is a widespread phenomenon, even on display here at HUS. You nailed it, right down to the dismissal of experts with at least the same level of intelligence.
The only thing you left out is that when a woman demonstrates that she does in fact work differently, she is branded an “outlier.” It sounds like some dystopian designation for the hinterlands. An outcast, a weirdo. Or else she’s treated as the Blessed Madonna of Mating, the one woman ever born without the sin of hypergamy.
This is why I concluded long ago that debate on certain topics among the “indoctrinated” is not productive.
@Jason
I have iq one hunnerd and ugreed with evryting u say. I am bootifull and san and cooking reel good. Chilly and mackronie. I also luv fuck! Fuck now big boy!
@szopen
I did remove some content at Anne’s request, on the off chance that Stephen reads HUS. Highly unlikely, but you never know.
@Damien Vulaume
“The dominance thing is another story. It has nothing to do with the “looks factor” we’re talking about.”
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention then. We’ve been discussing the importance of looks vs behaviors when it comes to male attractiveness this entire time.
@Susan
“I have iq one hunnerd and ugreed with evryting u say. I am bootifull and san and cooking reel good. Chilly and mackronie. I also luv fuck! Fuck now big boy!”
I believe this might be a slight misrepresentation of average.
However, Jason does have a valid point.
“I have iq one hunnerd and ugreed with evryting u say. I am bootifull and san and cooking reel good. Chilly and mackronie. I also luv fuck! Fuck now big boy!”
LOL. Jesus, Susan, you are in rare form today!
@VD
Why is calm reason not a reality? We can train animals using positive, negative or intermittent reinforcement. Explaining your position in a rational manner is a way of delivering negative reinforcement, which will hopefully be followed by the opportunity to provide positive reinforcement. This should be effective with any creature with higher order thinking. The deployment of Dread is akin to the rat’s receiving a nasty electrical shock at the end of the maze instead of a piece of cheese. I reject any claim that women must be treated as feral creatures incapable of reason.
Stephen seems to have figured it out. Attraction seemed shaky, he cut his losses and moved on. No tactics of the sort Roissy recommends. If you’re talking about Athol’s clients, that’s a different discussion, and I have seen Athol on occasion dip his toe in the Dread pool. However, the posts about Dread that I have cited and objected to were entirely focused on prophylactic maneuvering to keep the upper hand and send the woman into a sustained state of anxiety and jealousy.
I do not believe this is appropriate, but equally importantly it is not effective. I think it’s bad strategy because it sets up an entirely adversarial dynamic between two people, breeding resentment, conquest and fear. You might as well be Scheherazade at that point. There will be no joy.
To the woman on the receiving end of Dread, intent is key. Is my husband so charismatic and funny that women gather round him at parties? (Yes, Mrs. Walsh, he is.) How does he handle that? Is he smarmy, touching them and winking, drunkenly making suggestive remarks, or is he aware of his magnetism, even enjoying it, while maintaining integrity and respecting his marriage? The wife of this man will be well aware of his SMV regardless of his response. The former breeds resentment, as it publicly humiliates the wife (Mrs. Walsh went home early, will weep and yell and refuse to have sex for weeks.) The latter approach reinforces the wife’s belief that she has won the top prize – she will feel proud of her accomplishment and motivated to appreciate this man who other women find attractive.
If you have to instill Dread, then you’re admitting that other women do not, in fact, find you attractive. You have to make up Russian exes who give good head and phone calls with loud sounds of revelry in the background. Do you not see something pathetic about a man’s getting out of his quiet car and entering a packed bar to call his girlfriend or wife? If he’s a man with those options, he doesn’t need to manufacture them – his wife will be well aware. If he’s not, she already knows it or will figure it out very quickly. This is why Dread is not effective strategy as more than a jump to the battery of a clunker.
A far better strategy would be to do the work of developing self-respect. I imagine that Dread corrodes a man’s self-respect, thereby worsening the problem. Unless he’s truly Dark Triad, he will not enjoy the Machiavellian approach, nor be able to sustain it. If he is, well then he’s writing blog posts instead of reading them.
@Underdog
I don’t know whose Kool Aid you’re drinking, but you’re seriously misinformed. Ugly rich men do well, yes. Why? Because Occupational status is the strongest female attraction cue of all. Rich guys are at the top of that pyramid, that’s a huge head start in scoring the weighted formula of female attraction. Status is made up of dominance and prestige, and women select much more strongly for prestige.
Women do like dominance – the popularity of romance literature proves that. However, the dominance is always coupled with good character in female fantasy, or involves a woman’s bringing out the best in a man of formerly bad character. Women want the benevolent alpha, not the asshole. In the absence of the former, some women do go for the latter, usually with unfortunate results.
Looks are important. The top males are handsome. I do in fact know handsome betas who are capable of getting ONSs – where they have difficulty is in sustaining attraction, because they act chumpy. Also, a lot of them don’t really want ONSs – they’re not wired for them. Or so I hear.
Looks are not as important for women as for men – maybe they account for 25-50% of attraction rather than 75%, depending on other factors. But a guy who scores a low rating in the “looks factor” will have a hard time making that up elsewhere to win.
Unfortunately, VD appears to have missed my query. But generally….
If “outliers” crop up on a semi-regular basis, that is, ALWAYS a sign that a given model/system/paradigm is culturally or subculturally bound.
Game defined as “let’s understand intersex psychology” doesn’t strike me that way. The more pickup-y versions, otoh, tend to — they TEND to seem to describe women in a given culture (London, Paris, US SWPL territories, east and west coasts, and cultural “island cities” such as Dallas). Their understanding of how *most* women work psychologically may be universal, but the model fails flatly in a number of other areas (rural flyover country, especially the Midwest, East-Central and Eastern Europe*, Brazil**, Japan***, etcetera).
*Where men tend to treat women very dismissively and cad-like behavior (especially in Russia) tends to be the norm; some of your classic “beta” behavior that gets you nowhere in the States can get you laid like a KING if you’ve got substance to back it up.
**Where feminists absolutely exist but where the male/female dichotomy is much more openly accepted, and acting like a man w/o being a cad (plus a willingness to dance) is openly appreciated
***Where, outside of the club venues, women chase the men and the rules are simply very different from the western world.
Susan – “Why is calm reason not a reality?”
Because by and large, people are simply NOT reasonable. And, as you and others have told me in many different ways: in general, women DO NOT respond positively to logic and reason, because it doesn’t make them “feel” good. If a guy is dealing with a woman that is already unhappy with him, do you honestly believe him logically outlining his grievances will get him anywhere at all?
My wife is certainly reasonable and logical, but for the most part not at all when she is upset. If we were on the rocks for some reason, the LAST thing I should do is try to reason with her, because it simply won’t work.
If you are imagining a scenario where two people in a relationship that is overall going well run into a snag, your approach is probably the best. (unless one or both of them are already emotionally upset.) A civil and unemotional conversation might do the trick to correct such a snag.
But, most guys in relationships that resort to dread ARE NOT currently in a happy relationship. In those cases, trying to appeal to his GF/Wife’s reason will fail, because she has already tuned him out. Then dread becomes a useful tool, and that is why Athol has “dipped his toes” into that pool as you said.
In terms of using dread in the early stages of a relationship? That is a risky gambit, because unless she is really into you, there isn’t much for her TO dread. Of course, a man doing so does send a message that says “you aren’t THAT special, cupcake”, and women used to being the “prize” often find that attitude entirely intriguing. She wants to know why this man isn’t hypnotized by her “magic vagina” and in some cases it will prompt her to pursue. (as we see in Anne’s case to an extent) It takes a man with a very outcome independent view, and one that is confident he can and will find another women in short order. And it is damn hard to deny that such a man IS indeed attractive to many women.
In terms of self-confidence vs. “faking” it? I agree with you there, but the reason ‘fake it til you make it’ is popular on the ‘sphere is: it works. The morality of it aside, game simply works. Will it work on all women exactly the same? Hell no! Which is why guys that dedicate themselves to racking up numbers learn lots of different techniques to reel them in. And honestly, even hard core PUAs will admit that they don’t score all the time. They get shot down a lot, but instead of being crushed they simply move to the other end of the bar and start over.
Do I want to be that man? Nope. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t learn something from him that I can use to further MY agenda, and in that way I can take something seen as negative like “dread game” and turn it into something positive: a way to save a marriage. You don’t have to like it (Lord knows there is a LOT about the Red Pill I don’t like), but you can’t deny that it works. And, once you come to grips with that fact, it is simply a matter of deciding your morality about its use and moving on.
” Is my husband so charismatic and funny that women gather round him at parties? (Yes, Mrs. Walsh, he is.) How does he handle that? Is he smarmy, touching them and winking, drunkenly making suggestive remarks, or is he aware of his magnetism, even enjoying it, while maintaining integrity and respecting his marriage?”
I’m always curious what we make of these woman’s husbands.
Are the women instilling dread by flocking to another man?
I suppose the intent is not dread but merely subconscious attraction which makes it acceptable, no?
Russ
“Their understanding of how *most* women work psychologically may be universal, but the model fails flatly in a number of other areas (rural flyover country, especially the Midwest, East-Central and Eastern Europe*, Brazil**, Japan***, etcetera).”
+1. That needed to be adressed.
Re: Dread. I think this may be a case where the Natural is capable of generating a certain sense of dread simply because he really does have many options (and his partner will continually be reminded of this by the environment), while the Artificial who does not necessarily have many options may feel that he should act in a deliberate, somewhat theatrical manner to create these reminders.
My intuitive sense is that even the real LTR Nice Guys of the SMP probably should have some “bad boy” tactics, techniques, and procedures held back in reserve, as unfortunately *some* people only seem to really understand and respect sex, violence, money, and dominance and will keep testing and probing until they are satisfied.
The hybrid that results may actually be liberated from having to employ the hard skills, in the same way that MMA-trained law-enforcement officers have fewer use-of-force complaints and suits against them because they have more “command presence” (vis-a-vis looking like fighters, in shape, etc.) and are more confident in their abilities to handle physical escalations.
It’s kind of an auto-recursive, catch-22 situation: the guy who has options will know it and so will his partner, so he will have a bit more confidence and she’ll have a bit more insecurity, so a stable strategic detente may result.
OTOH, the guy who does not have options will also know it and so will his partner, so he will have more insecurity and she may be more brazen in her testing of him. There may be a couple of ways he could play this: one would be to display the ability to walk away from the relationship because he’s perfectly satisfied with being alone (this wouldn’t be “Dread Game” as described here because it wouldn’t involve another woman; it would be based on the man’s emotional self-sufficiency), while a different path would involve displaying an ability to walk away because he has other women available—women who would presumably value his time and attention and treat him better than he was being treated currently.
@Susan
“If you have to instill Dread, then you’re admitting that other women do not, in fact, find you attractive. You have to make up Russian exes who give good head and phone calls with loud sounds of revelry in the background. Do you not see something pathetic about a man’s getting out of his quiet car and entering a packed bar to call his girlfriend or wife?”
Most men do not nor will ever have options.
Regardless of how much game they learn the best a majority of men are going to do is one girlfriend at a time with periods of loneliness in the middle (see delta, >50% of pop.).
If the requirement to maintain a relationship is the availability of options and most men do not have those the result must of course be to convince ones partner that you actually do have options when in fact you do not.
Dread works quite well for this purpose.
Of course, you and gamers make the mistaken assumption that what occurs at the top of the pyramid can be applied throughout.
Most women have more options than men but even then are not plentiful.
They usually do not require their man to have options or else they would be perpetually single or getting P&D’d by high value men.
This talk of options being required only applies to very attractive women.
Which constitute only a small percentage of the population.
Bastiat,
“My intuitive sense is that even the real LTR Nice Guys of the SMP probably should have some “bad boy” tactics, techniques, and procedures held back in reserve, as unfortunately *some* people only seem to really understand and respect sex, violence, money, and dominance and will keep testing and probing until they are satisfied.”
Bastiat, those “real LTR Nice Guys of the SMP” have a phrase for said women. It’s called “damaged goods,” and they generally avoid them, gradually NEXTing them if one slips under the radar.
But Dread does make them feel good?
He is not appealing to her for understanding. He is simply stating what he is willing to do and what he is not willing to do. If she’s lost all attraction and is ready for divorce, might as well rip off that band aid. I can guarantee you that a husband saying that he will not tolerate certain behavior is more effective than his stooping to her level of bad behavior.
You’re moving the goal posts. Dread as preached by Rollo and Roissy is to be deployed early and often, throughout a relationship. Let’s take this at face value.
1. Which Roissy dread tactics do you think are OK to use against a woman as insurance against future indifference?
2. Which ones are OK to use against a wife who is no longer sexually attracted to you?
3. How long do you think these effects can last? Once you go down the Dread road, can you get off? Are periodic “boosters” required?
4. How can you demonstrate that you are attractive to other women if you’re not?
“women DO NOT respond positively to logic and reason, because it doesn’t make them “feel” good.
But Dread does make them feel good?”
No.
A woman who does not feel good will not do what you want anyway.
Feels right would be a better description.
Dread is used to re-assert attractiveness which then enables the women to feel right about sexing up her husband.
Fucking the unattractive schlub is the worst thing that could ever happen to her in terms of evolution.
Logically explaining why she should be attracted is only good if your trying to troll her before divorce because she is not attracted to you and every word you say is disregarded because your unattractive.
@Susan
There you go. Looks is not the defining factor for male attractiveness. A great deal of other factors trump his physical attractiveness — most notably dominance.
That was pretty much my original point: A female increasing her physical attractiveness, therefore, is not the equivalence of a male increasing his physical attractiveness. But it is the equivalence of a male increasing his dominance — whether it be socially (money, status) or behaviorally (game).
If they have any self-respect they’ll be giving some negative reinforcement of their own. When I am in the presence of a man like that (who, by the way, is often popular with other men too) I enjoy his company at my husband’s side. In the unlikely event he singled me out, I would extricate myself very quickly.
Frankly, more often than not some guy thinks he’s all that, putting his hand on our lower backs, telling us how fetching we look tonight, winking and insinuating himself, when he is actually completely unattractive. I suspect most of the men trying to induce Dread come off like this. The wife winds up humiliated, because her husband’s behavior is both disrespectful and creepy.
@Susan
“If they have any self-respect they’ll be giving some negative reinforcement of their own.”
Not sure I comprehend this.
“When I am in the presence of a man like that (who, by the way, is often popular with other men too) I enjoy his company at my husband’s side.”
So a bunch of men bring their wives to a guy whom she is more attracted to than themselves? Perhaps its lost on me but to what purpose does this action lend itself? An interesting dynamic but I can’t see any positive gain for the husband.
“Frankly, more often than not some guy thinks he’s all that, putting his hand on our lower backs, telling us how fetching we look tonight, winking and insinuating himself, when he is actually completely unattractive.”
Yes I know these guys.
Not what I am thinking of.
I’m thinking more like star QB.
Susan – “You’re moving the goal posts. Dread as preached by Rollo and Roissy is to be deployed early and often, throughout a relationship”
I actually addressed that in the next paragraph. The guy sending the “not special” message? yeah, sorry to say, I’ve seen that work with my own eyes. Truthfully it made me mildly sick to my stomach, but it got a particularly hot woman to chase a douche.
Lokland just explained the why of it above. No, dread will not make a women “feel good”, but if she is already not “feeling good” about you, then you have little to lose by pushing the envelope a bit. And, in doing so, while making her “feel bad” you might also trigger her to start being attracted TO you, even while she is angry AT you. Yes, I’m saying that intentionally pissing off your GF/Wife can sometimes cause a positive behavior. Would I do it? Not unless my wife really pushed me. But, before I’d “just rip off the band-aid” I’d certainly try running dread on her. And, I’d do it fully believing that it was the best thing I could do FOR HER, because I firmly believe that staying in our marriage IS what is best for her.
Had I know any of this before my divorce, I’d have gamed the shit out of my ex-wife before I gave up on the marriage. As I’ve said many times, I’m not complaining that I didn’t save it, because I would have had to continue that level of “game” to keep the marriage sound in the long run. But, as someone that took those vows seriously, I would have gamed her to the end of the earth before I gave up.
@BB
Exactly. It’s quite easy to appear to have options when you actually have them. Not so easy to manufacture them a la The Wizard of Oz, where there is nothing behind the curtain.
How could he pull off the second approach when you’ve just said he does not have options. How does he manufacture a real option when women are not gravitating toward him? By flirting with other men’s wives at the church pot luck? Goosing your best buddy’s wife when he’s not looking? Leering at the boss’s daughter at the company picnic?
I don’t understand how to create the appearance of options when a woman can see with her own eyes how women respond to her husband. I know precisely how my husband ranks among women. I know exactly how many days would pass before he was inundated with female attention, were I to die or divorce him.
It seems to me that if a man is unattractive to his wife, he would be better served by making himself more attractive via inner game than relying on behavioral correlates that are easily dismantled by any observer.
@ SW:
THIS.
All these generalizations are really annoying.. NAWALT!
I have never competed over a guy. I don’t see the point. If he’s into you he will invest in you, doesn’t matter who else likes him. He will shut her down. If he doesn’t then that tells you all you need to know! Why make “winning” the guy’s affections about beating another woman?
Susan is right, girls who do that are about feeding their ego/getting male validation. I guess that’s fine if you’re into that sort of thing.. but you are just a walking penis and can easily be replaced by another guy. The relationship is built on a foundation of sand.
2 Russ in Texas
Crap, all that time I was reading your comments and thought that Russ was short for Russel, while it must have been short for Рус
They’re not bringing their wives to a guy, they’re bringing them to the holiday party. It just so happens that Tom Brady is going to be there. Tough shit. If your wife loves you she’ll be gracious and circumspect. Which is exactly what you should be if the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen enters the room. This is the only appropriate behavior. People should not make spectacles of themselves, especially with the opposite sex while in a relationship. It’s selfish and cruel. It’s the deliberate humiliation of another person for your own ego gratification.
Alternatively, you could refuse to socialize with attractive people. I would not enjoy that approach.
“The way you behaved tonight in the presence of that Channel 7 weatherman was unacceptable. You were undignified and silly. You shamed me. Do not do that again. I will be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight.”
@Susan
“I have iq one hunnerd and ugreed with evryting u say. I am bootifull and san and cooking reel good. Chilly and mackronie. I also luv fuck! Fuck now big boy!”
Part of me finds this funny and part of me finds it mean. Either way, you’re a better actress than I am.
(Then again, I don’t get romance novels.)
Yup, though it’s more like swamp muck when these kinds of tactics come into play.
@Susan
“They’re not bringing their wives to a guy, they’re bringing them to the holiday party. It just so happens that Tom Brady is going to be there.”
No you quite specifically said him not party. I’ve been to many parties and not talked to certain individuals for a multitude of reasons.
“If your wife loves you she’ll be gracious and circumspect.”
Would you define the flocking behaviour described prior as gracious and circumspect?
“Which is exactly what you should be if the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen enters the room. This is the only appropriate behavior.”
How did I get dragged into this? I specifically avoid talking to women in a non-professional context.
Also, behavioUr.
“The way you behaved tonight in the presence of that Channel 7 weatherman was unacceptable. You were undignified and silly. You shamed me. Do not do that again. I will be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight.”
I was thinking more of “you acted like a tramp and I can’t even look at you right now.”
That’s pretty eloquent.
“The way you behaved tonight in the presence of that Channel 7 weatherman was unacceptable. You were undignified and silly. You shamed me. Do not do that again. I will be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight.””
So he;
a) got embarrassed
b) made himself sleep on the couch
c) isn’t getting laid
Racking up the wins.
Better approach.
Inappropriate speech—->Emotionless sex—–> Now you can sleep on the couch tonight.
@Lokland.
Yeah, it’s very sad, but you’re right: one-relationship-vs-lonely is what a number of folks have on the table.
But, and we’re leaving your “triad” guys aside here for a moment, a ONS, gamed or not, will often make guys like this feel WORSE rather than better, precisely because it’s devoid of the relationship they actually want.
@Sai
“That’s pretty eloquent. I was thinking more of “you acted like a tramp and I can’t even look at you right now.””
+1
Tramp and slut would probably be involved in any spiel I had to give (which I have not).
@Lokland again.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m absolutely disgusted by your tramp-like behavior this evening. Good night.” ::goes to couch::
She nests. She thinks of it as “her bed” *because* she nests. And you just indicated that her nest is full of cooties and slime. For any woman you’d want to be with, this is a truly thermonuclear move. Any woman for whom this doesn’t immediately set off a six-alarm fire, that’s your cue that the relationship is over and it’s time to cut bait.
I agree Susan.
@Russ
Hmm interesting.
Never thought of that.
Susan, I agree that men frequently fuck this up and become subjects of ridicule. I think that the more savvy “Artificial Options” players are going to try to find subtle ways to create this sense of optionality, while the less-savvy are going to try the thuggish gropes, transparent alpha-mimicking social gambits, and heavy-handed flirting that you mention— or, perhaps just as bad, the self-proclaimed “I have options” speech.
I agree that it is much better to actually have the options and to let the environment carry the threatening big stick for you, but most guys just don’t have this. If a relationship starts to go sideways on them, they may try the honest communication approach and find that the woman responds poorly—perhaps she really does want confirmation that her man is attractive, a catch, etc. and won’t be satisfied by hearing him talk about how her testing is making him feel. Perhaps she’ll even think that it makes him look weak. Who knows. I don’t think a woman is necessarily being sadistic by conducting these types of probes; it may not be her conscious choice, really (just as some types of bad behaviors are going to naturally emerge from men if they are placed in certain situations).
Long-term, a man could ingest the so-called red pill—the realization that women ultimately respect and need male strength—and go about addressing his weaknesses through study and training and so on, but in the short-term he could just feel like chopped liver.
I wish these stupid reindeer games were not part of relationship mgt and envy relationships that don’t feature them, but IME the same basic scripts seem to come up time and time again.
@Deli
Not Pyc, but spent some time in the area. Got more ass than a bus-stop bench, with insanely attractive women, from the “Deep Game Tactic” of acting considerately, looking at her eyes rather than her tits, and actually sharing ideas and listening to what she had to say.
Stole a good-girl 8 who was hidden in plain view under frumpy clothes and Birth-Control Glasses, and brought her home.
Haha, you win. That is a better approach. Either way the object is to deny her what she wants or should want. Emotionless sex should do it!
Susan – “I don’t understand how to create the appearance of options when a woman can see with her own eyes how women respond to her husband. “
Easy: learn game.
“The way you behaved tonight in the presence of that Channel 7 weatherman was unacceptable. You were undignified and silly. You shamed me. Do not do that again. I will be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight.”
I call BS. I never, and I mean NEVER remove myself from my bed. If I’m that upset with my wife (and so far it has never happened *knocks on wood*) I would tell her if she didn’t want to sleep with me, that she could move herself to the guest room. I’m not giving up my comfort because she acted poorly.
@Ted,
Always, ALWAYS, have a comfortable couch. For general couch purposes.
Why is calm reason not a reality? We can train animals using positive, negative or intermittent reinforcement. Explaining your position in a rational manner is a way of delivering negative reinforcement, which will hopefully be followed by the opportunity to provide positive reinforcement. This should be effective with any creature with higher order thinking. The deployment of Dread is akin to the rat’s receiving a nasty electrical shock at the end of the maze instead of a piece of cheese. I reject any claim that women must be treated as feral creatures incapable of reason.
Because it observably isn’t. This reminds me of all the macroeconomic models that rely upon rational expectations, which simply don’t exist and thereby wreck all of the practical applications. I don’t think anyone is saying that all women must be treated as feral creatures incapable of reason, only that once it is observed that a woman is incapable of reason in a given context, treating her as a feral creature will obtain better results. I, for one, always test to see if a woman – or a man, for that matter, is capable of reason and dialectic. Once it becomes clear that she – or he – is not, I simply switch gears and treat them accordingly. Why would you find that objectionable, much less ineffective, in any context?
I do not believe this is appropriate, but equally importantly it is not effective. I think it’s bad strategy because it sets up an entirely adversarial dynamic between two people, breeding resentment, conquest and fear. You might as well be Scheherazade at that point. There will be no joy.
I disagree, because the dynamic is already adversarial. Most women are happiest when they are submissive, when they find a man who defeats their little challenges, when they are conquered and taken. Dread is merely one of the many means of breaking a woman’s pride, and as such, can actually lead to long-term joy if implemented appropriately. Consider that you are actually advocating divorce and breaking up marriages and families instead of utilizing an intersexual tactic that you know makes an impact on women’s attitudes and behavior. I am not saying Dread is always effective or justified, only that it is a reasonable tool in the male arsenal.
If you have to instill Dread, then you’re admitting that other women do not, in fact, find you attractive.
You’re not understanding what Dread is. It is not the ex nihilo generation of false options, it is the implied threat to avail oneself of other options. Those options can be real or they can be manufactured for the hamster’s behalf. And real options will strike far more terror into a woman’s heart than imaginary ones.
A far better strategy would be to do the work of developing self-respect. I imagine that Dread corrodes a man’s self-respect, thereby worsening the problem. Unless he’s truly Dark Triad, he will not enjoy the Machiavellian approach, nor be able to sustain it.
One needn’t be Dark Triad, one need only be Machiavellian to enjoy it. Your imagination here is off-base due to your misconception of what Dread is. If my options are real, it doesn’t necessarily cost me any self-respect to allude to the possibility that I might avail myself of them… unless, of course, that violates my moral standards, in which case it would. But that is another matter entirely.
Russ in Texas – “Always, ALWAYS, have a comfortable couch. For general couch purposes.”
LOL. Very true. Our couch would work for a night, but for me it is a matter of principle. I wouldn’t kick my wife out of bed no matter how pissed I was at her, and I’ll be damned if I’m getting a crappy nights’ sleep because of it. I’m not a kid that can be sent to my room (or the living room. LOL) and I won’t act or be treated as one. If she is that upset, she knows where the couch is.
2 Russ
I am not disagreeing that having some “nice guy” traits can give you a head start back home in certain conditions, but consider that the allure of marrying someone with a green-”get out of this hellhole for free”-card maybe also played in your favor
Basically being a male foreigner, specifically an American, in Moscow is like being a HB9 girl in the States.
You can get scammed once or twice (Moscow is notorious for gold-diggers), but the competition will be fierce.
All you need to get laid is show up and be nice
I work in the international company and my foreign colleagues really like being sent to Moscow. You live in the city center, you get all expenses paid and you are living the pussy-dream. Lucky bastards
Deli,
In many circumstances, that would be utter truth. I try to avoid Moscow for just that reason, actually. Most of my friends over there are Siberians with much better heads on their shoulders.
@VD
You know more about this than I do so I’m not calling you a liar… but why are most women happier to be conquered and have their pride broken?
Sai (656):
This might be somewhat on topic: http://www.christianfictiononlinemagazine.com/nov-11-blitz_therapy.html
Man, all this talk about dread and now I can’t get this song out of my head!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Y2hv-3UCM
@Susan
“The way you behaved tonight in the presence of that Channel 7 weatherman was unacceptable. You were undignified and silly. You shamed me. Do not do that again. I will be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight.”
what kind of pussy ‘punishes’ a wrongdoer by removing himself to the guest bedroom? definite loser behaviour.
Ah, forced to make an other analogy again.
“Most women are happiest when they are submissive”
VD
“It is necessary, for their own good, to have the people submit by any means to the will of the party to defeat capitalist imperialism”
Klement Gottwald
This is the crux of our disagreement. I do not believe that options can be manufactured. Women know precisely what their husband’s SMV is. They know it when they marry him, presumably assortatively, they know it when it slips, and they know it when it increases. A woman may take the temperature of how other women view her man at any time very easily.
Sure, a man could put lipstick on his own collar and slips of paper with phone numbers in his pocket. He may be able to give his wife a good scare. But he will not be able to pull this deception off for long. Unless he has her locked in the basement, she is going to understand very well what his market value is.
I do not promote divorce over marriages remaining together, I just don’t think the tool of Dread provides that stability, and certainly not a repair to a really troubled relationship. Dread is not about submission, it is specifically designed to produce “anxiety and jealousy,” and to keep your woman in that state perpetually, as far as I can tell, per Roissy and Rollo.
I consider the instilliation of Dread to be an immoral application of an amoral tool, which is Game. But just as importantly, I don’t think it works, unless by “work” you mean anxious and frightened wife who nervously offers you blow jobs every night. If that’s the objective, I can see that it would work for a brief time, as noted above.
I know it’s very unlikely that Anne will read this, but this is what I would have said if I was an uninvolved-but-concerned party she came to for advice, or as the manosphere puts it, an “emotional tampon”:
When people play games in a relationship, they want to keep their distance (emotional and mental) from their partners. Sooner or later this scuppers any real romantic connection the two may have had, and will certainly build resentment among one or both partners. Trying to get someone to stay or become close to you via negative stimuli is like trying to get a dog to fetch you your slippers by beating or starving it–it may do what you want out of fear of getting hurt, but it won’t love you. By your account, it seems Stephen decided to cool it off to see what you would do next, because while you say he invested time with you, he had enough self-esteem to know when to pull back (and possibly move on) when you made it look like you didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.
You will have to honestly open up with him about your fears and experiences that led you to become suddenly cold, so as to restore any lost trust. This will involve becoming vulnerable, but don’t think of it as a surrender of power; think of it as a chance to give the two of you a chance to bond and further your emotional investment, a chance to open your hearts to one another and build love. If what you’ve told us about Stephen is true, then men like him don’t grow on trees. It would be a right shame to throw all this away if the two of you could be very happy together–you’d be playing the part of the “old flame” from Dan Fogelberg’s tragic Christmas song “Same Old Lang Syne.”
As for being defensive, this isn’t the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe isn’t coming and V2 missiles aren’t exploding over your head this very instant. It’s time to get your heart out of the air raid shelter–it isn’t fair to him that you’re acting as if he was the one who hurt you earlier, and it’s hurting your chances of romance. It is better to judge each man by his own merits (and misdeeds, if applicable) rather than think of him as just another cad out to hurt you. I’m sure you’d resent being called “just another dumb blonde” or “just another plastic pin-up girl” (no offense intended). If you want him to see you as you truly are, then why not grant him the same courtesy?
In short, it’s time for honesty and humility on your part. If indeed Stephen is a man of character, he’ll listen, understand, and hopefully, forgive you so as long as you don’t pull this kind of routine again. I hope the two of you end up spending a very beautiful Christmas together. The fact that so many women (and a few men) were wearing signs that read “It should have been me!” during the recent Royal Wedding highlights just how rare and precious a good intimate relationship truly is. But you don’t have to be a Prince Harry or a Kate Middleton to build one–don’t throw away that kind of chance, because it’s not something that Santa delivers.
——–
Something I’d like to ask Susan is whether Anne herself fits the stereotype, prevalent in the manosphere, that women only date up, not down. One of the reasons why so many men here have been throwing their “schadenfreude” at her is that they likely feel that “women in your league shoot me down all the time; why should I feel any sympathy when you get shot down?” or “women who refuse men left and right should get a taste of their own medicine.”
I’m not saying that Anne should have gone pub-hopping in the Elephant and Castle area (a low-income district of London most famously depicted as a breeding pit and training ground for violent chavs, yobs, and assorted scum in the Michael Caine film “Harry Brown”). Odds are she’d rather throw up in her drink than be continually subjected to the leers and pickup lines of ugly and drunken men. I’d just like to know if she’d be willing to date below her socioeconomic status if this relationship gets flushed down the bog, because just as a high SES is by no means a reliable indicator of the strength of one’s character, men of good character can be found in all parts of society.
Perhaps the beautiful women you said wished that someone could “make it through their filters” would do well to give more men of good character but outside of their SES fair chances. Most women resent being the target of a pump-and-dump; men likewise don’t want to be treated like cigarettes you light up and stub out at the drop of a hat. Certainly some men deserve to have a cigarette stubbed out in their drink, but why don’t those women give more promising men a chance to light their fires?
In the end, we are all ash in the wind, but we can always burn out more pleasantly with the right person.
@Just1Z#659,
Frankly, I’m surprised that none of the PUA types here regard it as Dread Game material. As I told Lok, this is a truly thermonuclear move, and can easily reduce your spouse to a sobbing wreck. (hence, don’t pull shit **** casually for light cause)
Susan – “But just as importantly, I don’t think it works, unless by “work” you mean anxious and frightened wife who nervously offers you blow jobs every night. If that’s the objective, I can see that it would work for a brief time, as noted above.”
In the case of a wife that has gone cold, it CAN help by giving her incentive to step up her game, so to speak. If she is simply not attracted to her husband, knowing he might just go out and snag himself a replacement for her might snap her out of whatever hamster induced haze she is in. If it doesn’t, then there was nothing left to save anyway, and at least the guy has a head start on finding that replacement.
Now I agree that this cannot be maintained for long, but who in their right mind would want to run dread indefinitely? In terms of relationship security goes, it would be completely counter productive. But, after a good dose of dread, if she were to come around, it would make sense then to move on to fixing whatever it was that caused the lack of attraction in the first place. If not, they would find themselves in the same place again in short order.
So, dread is a quick correction or last ditch effort technique IMO when it comes to LTR/Marriage. I’d say it is a lot like radiation: in some cases a dose or two can save your life, but repeated exposure is guaranteed to kill you. In small doses, dread can be a tool to cure a ‘sick’ marriage, but if it is the only tool used, the marriage will eventually die. Faced with divorce, I’d advise any man to run dread before they give up completely, that is IF they want to try and salvage it. If it fails, they were on their way to family court anyway. If it succeeds? One less divorce for the stats.
Wow. I’m such a potty brain that I typed **** and hatched-out “this” in reverse w/o even realizing it.
More coffee, yeah, yeah, that’ll fix it. ::facepalm::
Ted 664:
I’ve been watching this debate on Dread between Susan, VD with interest. I think you’ve nailed how Dread works in a marriage. But it can also be effective in a relationship as well, particularly when, as VD said, you have a woman who has used manipulation or is playing fast and loose with the truth.
But no one’s listening to us anyway….
Bit unfair ball, Deti, since I *did* ask a question directly but was ignored.
Russ 663:
Telling your wife about her disrespecting you and then retiring to the guest room is not Dread. It’s beta. No self-respecting husband puts himself out of his own bed, or lets his wife kick him out. If she’s that upset, SHE can go sleep in the guest room.
what’s your question Russ?
@Deti#s668/669,
If it’s beta, that’s fine. I don’t have a status to defend. What I know is that it works, and it’s so thermonuclear that I have to do it only when it’s absolutely an issue b/c its effect is so extreme.
Original question:
@VD#547,
This is the part that throws me:
Yes, it works. It ABSOLUTELY works, if executed correctly. But does that mean it’s necessarily the right tool for the job?
If a man’s crossed that oh so special line, I *could* bust his nose and reverse his knee as a way of getting him to see my point. Or, if I’m an actual reasonable human being, I might be able to fix the problem by sitting him down and buying him a beer.
Given the choice, wouldn’t the buy-him-a-beer non-nuclear option be preferred first?
Question to VD was: sure, let’s grant that Dread Game works. But many OTHER things work, as well.
Ignore last lines, was typing and decided to copy/paste instead.
Deti, stop instilling dread by posting with the comment # 666!!!
LOL
Russ:
Your question had to do with a man dealing with another man crossing the line. Either fisticuffs or reason can be the preferred tool, depending on the context.
Dread is a tool for addressing and responding to a woman crossing her man’s line. Different offender and offense calls for different tactics.
A man cannot use fisticuffs or brute force with a woman.
If a woman is in open rebellion, reason isn’t the best tactic. He can’t tell her she’s being illogical and unreasonable. That will simply escalate her anger. He has to do something to tamp down on the rebellion and gain some semblance of hand and leverage.
He can’t tell her she SHOULD be attracted to him because he’s oh so responsible and earns a good living. At this point she doesn’t care one bit about how great he is; her attraction is gone or never was there in the first place.
Keep in mind: She, not he, has brought things to a head through rebellion or pushback or dishonesty or disrespect. His response can’t be logical or premised on reason. She has drawn him onto her turf, and he has to respond using tactics that resonate with her, not him.
Question: if a woman refuses to put up with a man’s BS, and freezes him out, is she using Dread Game on him?
Han:
there are many here who assign to me that designation, I am sure.
Russ, I like the dove vs. hawk analogy you gave earlier. I see our marriage as consistently dove meeting with dove, which is why things go so smoothly. We know the other is capable of hawk, but we tend to avoid other people and situations that call for it.
deti, I think when a marriage has gotten to that point, it’s basically emergency mode. If a man doesn’t live in that mode, he won’t “get it.” I agree that drastic measures are called for to respond to emergencies, but the best would be prevention and to not let things deteriorate that far.
Russ in Texas – “Yes, it works. It ABSOLUTELY works, if executed correctly. But does that mean it’s necessarily the right tool for the job?”
Maybe, or maybe not. Personally dread would be a last ditch effort for me, but that is also because my wife has proven time and again to be much more reasonable than to NEED dread. My ex? Not so much. A good dose of dread and some decent game would have been the trick with her, had I known about any of it. Now? She is with a “good old boy” (and by that I mean an Ohio Red Neck kinda dude) that is rather chauvinistic and controlling, and she seems to be content with it.
I suppose the bigger question to me is: knowing what it would take to keep her happy, would I want to? Of course the answer now is hell no, I’m much better off today. But, back when I thought my world was ending because she wanted a divorce? I’d have tried anything, and probably failed because I would have tried anything…
Anyway to your question: is dread the right tool to use. I would say it depends on the woman’s personality/character, and the situation. I tend to believe that planning for disaster is the best way to avoid it, so to me knowing about “dread game” is simply another tool in my box of tricks should the occasion ever arise. Lord willing it won’t, but I hate to be caught with my pants down.
Sleeping in the guest room is not dread. Sleeping at a hotel is.
You know more about this than I do so I’m not calling you a liar… but why are most women happier to be conquered and have their pride broken?
I don’t claim to know why. There are various theories, from the Biblical Curse of Eve to the various evo-psych fables. But it is readily observable that the woman whose pride is permitted to blossom unchecked by a man is usually miserable, whereas the woman who submits, either voluntarily or involuntarily, is usually happy. My impression is that this is because women tend to resemble herd animals who prefer following to leading and dislike being accountable for their decisions. But why that would be, again, I do not know. I simply observe.
This is the crux of our disagreement. I do not believe that options can be manufactured. Women know precisely what their husband’s SMV is. They know it when they marry him, presumably assortatively, they know it when it slips, and they know it when it increases. A woman may take the temperature of how other women view her man at any time very easily.
It’s an aspect of it, yes, but not the crux. If you believe that options cannot be manufactured, then how can one with genuine options possibly instill Dread? Your position is incoherent. If a man has options, then by your revised definition of Dread, he cannot instill it and no matter how fearful he makes his wife that he will pursue those options, it isn’t Dread. Do you really mean to assert that it is only Dread if she fears the nonexistent threat, but not the real ones?
If not Dread, then what would you term a woman’s fear of a genuine threat based on a real option? And since Game is the synthetic mimicry of natural behavior, what natural behavior does Dread Game imitate?
Sure, a man could put lipstick on his own collar and slips of paper with phone numbers in his pocket. He may be able to give his wife a good scare. But he will not be able to pull this deception off for long. Unless he has her locked in the basement, she is going to understand very well what his market value is.
This, too, makes no sense. A man need not feign an elevated SMV to instill Dread in a woman. Especially considering that women find it particularly insulting to be abandoned for women with observably lower SMV, the fact that she knows his market value doesn’t make him faithful. Even a lowly male 2 involved with a female 3 might instill Dread by demonstrating credible options with female 2s.
Given the choice, wouldn’t the buy-him-a-beer non-nuclear option be preferred first?
Of course. I always prefer a calm and rational discussion. And in my experience, about 10 percent of men and 2 percent of women do as well. I absolutely advocate civil discourse and sweet reason as an initial step. And my interlocutor happens to indicate that he prefers a knife fight, it is good to know that I have my .50 caliber Desert Eagle locked and loaded.
To be clear, I don’t utilize any Dread Game myself. I see no need for it. But I can understand the hypothetical situations where it could be utilized to master difficult women or salvage problematic relationships. Remember, relationships are dynamic. No tactic is always applicable or reliable.
@Hope,
You’re seeing what I’m seeing. I posted the *male-on-male equivalent* for purposes of discussion. Deti appears to be positing “dread” as a reactive rather than prophylactic action.
@Deti,
I think your theoretical assumptions don’t match my anecdotal ones (and this is a problem for *anybody’s* theoretical discussion since, as the old saw puts it, “the plural of anecdote is not evidence”). I have, in fact, and on more than one occasion with more than one woman, gotten the desired result precisely by doing exactly what you’re saying does not and cannot work. Quality women can comprehend “your behavior has endangered this relationship, and the ball is entirely in your court as to whether YOU are going to step up and fix it.” I don’t hang out with non-quality women; they’re a waste of my precious hours and seconds.
@Hope
“if a woman refuses to put up with a man’s BS, and freezes him out, is she using Dread Game on him?”
She sure is. But then the question would be: does dread game usually work on men. The answer for that is in the original post.
Hope – “Question: if a woman refuses to put up with a man’s BS, and freezes him out, is she using Dread Game on him?”
Perhaps. It would be more “dread” if she also went on more GNO and/or put herself in places where she is likely to meet and interact with other attractive men.
” I agree that drastic measures are called for to respond to emergencies, but the best would be prevention and to not let things deteriorate that far.”
Sure, and this was what I alluded to in my post to Russ above. Knowing what I do now, it really should be relatively simple to NEVER find myself needing to use dread in my marriage. I certainly hope so, because it would hurt me to intentionally hurt my wife. However, if it came to hurting her feelings briefly to get things under control or finding myself preparing for divorce #2, you can damn well be sure I’d be running dread like mad.
I find this line of thinking truly distasteful, but I refuse to limit my options and live in fantasy land where such tactics are never necessary. The only place that will get me is chumpsville. When it comes down to it, I’ll do what is necessary to protect myself and my family, even if that means hurting their feelings in the process.
Russ in Texas – “Quality women can comprehend “your behavior has endangered this relationship, and the ball is entirely in your court as to whether YOU are going to step up and fix it.” I don’t hang out with non-quality women; they’re a waste of my precious hours and seconds.”
You are assuming that every man has the same definition for “quality women” which would likely be wrong. It seems that your ideal of “quality” hinges largely on a rather mature and self controlled woman, which is perfectly fine. But, by and large, that is NOT what all men are looking for in a mate, and to be frank you’d be damn hard pressed to find such a women in her early 20′s. My wife is in her 30′s, and well past being massively immature and unreasonable, but she herself has told me that she was NOT always that way, and in her 20′s would probably NOT have passed my ‘quality woman’ test, or yours.
My ex is a great person, truly a better person than me in fact. But, she is rather immature when it comes to relationships, and frankly a bit of a brat. I don’t like having to “control” bratty behavior, but didn’t have a clue as to seeing it as a red flag before we married. I pretty much assumed ALL women were bratty and went with it. I don’t know that she will ever change, so instead she hitched her wagon to a guy that is more than willing to treat her like a child when she acts like one. It is what it is…
I’m curious to know, how many of the men here have read a ‘light game’ book, like David Deida’s, “The Way of the Superior Man,” for example? I read it recently, and given that it came out in 1997, I’m left to wonder how much guys like Neil Strauss poached from that area of tantric yoga. It’s very full of concepts that are very gamey: men being masculine and establishing their own frame (i.e. purpose in life) and not supplicating to the whims of a women, social dominance, etc. It’s just that compared to Game it has a very positive message and reinforces the need for men and women to cooperate to fulfill their roles.
Does anyone know of similar books aside from Athol Kay’s work?
@VD
I’m actually running out of town for the weekend, so can only be brief and then leave it there.
The woman who is married to a man with options is well aware of them. In many cases, I daresay, more aware than he is. She stays on her toes because she understands that if her husband loses attraction for her or becomes unhappy, he will readily find crying shoulders and soft arms to console him. IOW, the man with options has no need to ever instill dread, the same qualities that make him attractive to his wife will be presumed to affect other women similarly. We saw Anne say this very thing in her comment.
If a man with options is unhappy with his wife, he should tell her so. She should be able to get the synapses firing rapidly enough to link his unhappiness with his many options, of which she is already keenly aware by virtue of observing other women in his presence.
For the man who does not really have options, and whose wife is no longer attracted to him, how would he manufacture credible faux options? She will already be aware that his unattractiveness has produced pre-unselection. If he starts flirting and strutting with an asshole vibe, he’s just going to come across as an unattractive asshole.
In short, if you lose the attraction of your wife, and you can’t really produce women to make eyes at you in front of her, it’s game over. Your best shot is to do whatever it takes to become attractive to her again, especially in the area of dominance, as you suggest.
Agreed – my lipstick and love notes example may be used by a man of any SMV. The 2 wife will worry that he has a 2 mistress. If said mistress does not materialize in some generally recognizable form over time, she is going to sniff that out immediately.
But I think that most times when a woman loses attraction for her husband, it does reflect a declining SMV. Hers may be declining as well, in which case she’s being unrealistic, but it doesn’t change the fact that he no longer appeals.
@Mr. Nervous Toes,
Similar ideas are universal to the western canon. I distinctly remember similar sentiments expressed in Nietzsche’s “on the uses and abuses of history.” Similarly, most western philosophers assume that a real man will examine the world around himself and test his acceptance of various hypotheses — one who accepts an idea — ANY idea — uncritically is a lesser man.
Ah. Here we are. Found you a link.
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/history.htm
@Fifth Season
Welcome, and thanks for your insightful and thoughtful comment.
Conventional wisdom says no. I think one factor is parental expectations. Anne actually mentioned that her parents would very much approve of this young man. And then there’s very real hypergamy, or at least the desire for assortative mating. I think there are areas of flexibility – but some sort of status equal or superior to the woman’s will usually be sought.
I’m not judging this one way or the other – but that’s my understanding. With college ratios in the U.S. quite lopsided and getting moreso, we will be able to have a front row seat as this plays out.
@Mr. Nervous Toes
I read Deida’s The Way of the Superior Man and really liked it.
I think his 3 scenarios–where you have a masculine husband and feminine wife, vice versa, and neutral husband and wife–are a bit to limiting and simplistic (and he even acknowledges this) but as long as the reader is willing to provide a little more imagination and take the general principles he gives and apply them to one’s own situation then it is a great read.
@Deti FWIW, I don’t find you diabolical
As a last ditch effort I suppose trying to make your wife jealous by trying to fool her into thinking other women want you may be worth a try, but I am more than a little dubious of its efficacy.
She wants the man she married. If you’re not that man, get him back as quick as you can. And don’t wait until she looks at you with poorly disguised indifference, or worse, revulsion.
Male pouting is a DLV. Just saying.
@Ted
Two points:
1. Perhaps men should be more discriminating re character in a woman.
2. Early 20s is too early for most women to marry.
It occurs to me that we have no testimonials from men who have run Dread game. Ted thinks it might have worked had he tried it when his marriage was failing. Deti has previously shared some straight, harsh talk of the calm and reasonable variety.
Has any man here successfully convinced his indifferent wife that he was truly a catch and that other women would love to scoop him up, even if no such evidence of these other women existed?
We know that the tactic is decidedly Machiavellian, and we know that Machiavellian types of both sexes are wired for STRs, and generally fail at LTRs.
What evidence is there that this theory has ever worked? (The R’s don’t count.)
@Susan
I think this is mostly due to the culture not requiring maturation at an early age. Such maturation is possible but we have extended adolescence for both men and women. I’m generally of the opinion that children and young adults are more capable of responsibility and maturity when they’re expected of them but we live in a society where young people are too coddled and little is expected of them.
As an example from a more conservative subculture that promotes marriage and makes it seem like something very valuable for a woman to do (and not that Mormonism doesn’t have its flaws), my mom and sister both married at 20 and are going strong in their marriages many, many years later. My sister married her then 22-y/o fiance and both were still in college and finished.
I’ve been watching this debate on Dread between Susan, VD with interest.
Ha, me too…although I don’t think VD is going to make any headway at all with his arguments.
But no one’s listening to us anyway….
Male pouting is a DLV. Just saying.
Wow…really. That is pretty snarky, passive-aggressive attack there Susan. Just saying.
Deti, word of advice to you…and Ted. There is a certain relief you have when you simply stop giving a f*** about persuading someone of something who is not persuadable.
@Mr.Nervous Toes:
You may want to try Kirkegaard’s “Either or”, which in short explores two alternatives “styles” of interaction with a woman.
Or Stendhal’s “De l’amour”, which in English is I think simply translated as “Love”. It’s an in depth psychological analysis of the woman’s psyche and emotions, as well as all the facets of what we call love: Carnal love, passionate love, courteous love, conventional love, etc. written in the romantic vein (by romantic I mean the first part of the 19th century). Most fascinating study.
I’m actually running out of town for the weekend, so can only be brief and then leave it there.
No worries. First things first… have a Merry Christmas.
What concerns me there, Mike, is that if the theory dismisses outliers, is it a universally-applicable theory, or an exercise in confirmation bias/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc thinking?
Most of these arguments are being answered with the assertion “it works.” But counter-arguments such as my own “it works” are being readily dismissed.
Good theory doesn’t dismiss outliers: it attempts to comprehend provide explanatory power *for them.* Good theory TRIES to fail.
Susan,
Earlier upthread, you talked about the use of calm reason. I’m going to challenge you to head over to Rollo’s and at the very least watch the video excerpt of First Man Awake, and note the behavior and speech of many of the women protesters. I then want to know if you think they could be calmly reasoned with. I would argue what you see there is literally the apex of histrionic emotionality.
I think women vary in their ability to suppress emotional outbursts and emotions taking over higher level thinking JUST AS men vary in their ability to suppress anger taking over higher level thinking. When I was bouncing, there were certain guys who could be reasoned with and up to a point, but at some point the only language was physical.
Honestly, I think it is very unfortunate if a relationship gets to a point where games of brinksmanship have to take place. Ideally, it never gets to that point, but if you are in the relationship, and either cannot or don’t want to NEXT the relationship, then some short-term extreme measures may be called for to benefit the long-term. Chemotherapy makes you sick, but it gets rid of the cancer.
Self-control/future-orientation/willpower/maturity don’t just translate to better relationships. They help other things like better social ties, overall health, lower rates of overweightness/obesity, more conscientious parenting, etc.
Obviously both men and women vary in their levels of the aforementioned traits, but two high-trait individuals will have a much smoother relationship than any other combination. I think what people like Russ and Damien are saying is, if you are a mature, actualized person, why waste time on someone who needs constant correction?
Mike C:
Yeah, between you and Hollenhund, and now Susan’s snark, message received.
The fact that Susan’s reading my posts and taking the time to snark at them indicates she’s listening, even if she’s not persuaded.
“Male pouting is a DLV. Just saying.”
Losing an argument (again) with VD on your own blog is a DLV. Just saying.
What concerns me there, Mike, is that if the theory dismisses outliers, is it a universally-applicable theory, or an exercise in confirmation bias/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc thinking?
Most of these arguments are being answered with the assertion “it works.” But counter-arguments such as my own “it works” are being readily dismissed.
Good theory doesn’t dismiss outliers: it attempts to comprehend provide explanatory power *for them.* Good theory TRIES to fail.
Russ, I’m not sure if you are addressing me or a different Mike, but you raise some good points and questions.
First, let me say on the record that I would never say any theory is UNIVERSALLY applicable. That has never been my position. It is convenient for some to paint something that way, because it is easy to dismiss. I’d bet VD agrees with me. The running joke is that just about every statement a red-pill guy makes has to have NAWALT tacked on to the end of it otherwise it would be assumed the person is talking universal applicability.
JP had an excellent point that I am in full agreement with. The MAP is NOT the territory. Of course, in the real world, the objective is to navigate the territory to get from A to B. So even if a map has some errors in it, the answer isn’t to say “fuck the map, and throw it in the trash” and just say I am going to wing it and hope I find B. The issue is we have a lot of different maps, and everyone says there map is better, and tries to highlight the mistakes in the other person’s map. But if you are navigating the brutally treacherous terrain of intersex relations and mating/dating you’ve got to use some map knowing full well that ALL the maps have some mistakes or are maybe missing some aspect of the terrain. That said, there are better and worse maps, and there are some maps that some people have that show a big pretty blue pool where there is big lake of quicksand.
It gets further complicated because some people want to get from A to B while someone else is trying to sell someone on how to get to C never telling the person that. And then some people have financial interests in selling a certain map. It can get quite complicated.
I’ll just leave this blast from the past here. Regulars will remember this isn’t the first time at this rodeo for Dread.
http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2012/03/15/relationshipstrategies/the-sad-reality-of-using-anxiety-to-generate-attraction/#comment-108667
“@deti
“In a marriage or LTR, the only time “dread” can really be effective is if she has already done something to destabilize the marriage/LTR and the husband runs “dread” for a short time to bring order and balance back, to gain some hand.”
To which Susan replied:
“That makes sense. Not to hit below the belt, but honestly, in that case I totally understand instilling dread, in the form of an ultimatum, let’s say. My husband once told me, when I turned down sex too many times in a row, that he was not interested in remaining married to me unless I changed my attitude. Which I did, fast. Our trust was maintained, even though the relationship had been threatened. He could have gotten me back into bed by flirting with other women, certainly, but the trust would have been broken by the threat. The way he handled it, he was saying he wanted more of me, not someone else instead. It made all the difference.”
HanSolo:
I actually backed into Deida from his other work. In the body of his work, the sexual typing is only the first stage of, for want of a better word, spiritual awakening. In his model for yoga is a tripod, with yoga as therapy (90 % of what’s practised in the West), yoga as a muse, and yoga as a spiritual practice being the three legs. Typing someone as masculine or feminine is mostly for therapy, because for the muse component you really have to let go of that identity.
I am sort of mulling it over as this way: A man may prefer 3x as much masculinity as femininity, but ultimately how strong a person (sexually) is determined by the absolute levels of masculinity and femininity, and not the ratio of the two. If a man actively suppresses his femininity, he either: 1.) also limits his masculinity, or 2.) becomes hypermasculine and hence unbalanced in his approach to life.
I may be mostly preaching to myself on this one, and I’m having a bit of trouble finding appropriate English words for the concepts.
Russ:
Ah, yes, the classics are all full of so-called, “Red pill wisdom.” I guess if we’re talking about stolen ideas, I have to wonder how much of European philosophy evolved from what came out of India.
“Has any man here successfully convinced his indifferent wife that he was truly a catch and that other women would love to scoop him up, even if no such evidence of these other women existed?
What evidence is there that this theory has ever worked? (The R’s don’t count.)”
Even if someone did come here and relate an account, you would simply dismiss it as an anecdote, an isolated incident from which no conclusions could ever be drawn. You’ve done that with Fly Fresh and Young, who told a story here of having sex with a woman while on some errand away from her boyfriend. Your interest in the story was limited to trying to poke holes in it and detract from his credibility.
Or if you didn’t dismiss it as an aberration, I suspect you’d simply ignore it. You are convinced that Dread won’t work, cannot ever work. How can anyone ever hope to convince you otherwise?
Just to go along with what Mike is saying: the archetype for a HUS-endorsed husband appears to be a 25-27 year old STEM nerdling of limited sexual experience, introverted Nice Guy/beta personality trait cluster, N=1-3 with extreme intolerance for promiscuity, and safe, stable, SAMH-compatible technical job. He will actively want an LTR, will not consort with dark alpha swordsmen types, and will be unaware of his attractiveness to mate-poaching, increasingly-desperate, wall-hitting sluts facing stiff intrasexual competition for scarce resour—er, “eligible males with provisioning potential.”
The problem is that this guy may also be a bit boring to the ambitious, hypergamous alpha female carnivores that stalk the female side of the SMP. He doesn’t play a particularly strong hand or start from a dominant position of strength and sexiness (his value proposition—”Mr. Good Enough beta provisioner”— sounds cuddly, guileless, and adorable, like a pet rabbit).
Good theory doesn’t dismiss outliers: it attempts to comprehend provide explanatory power *for them.* Good theory TRIES to fail.
Russ, I’m going to disagree with you here strongly. From a pragmatic view, who cares about explaining the outliers. Let me give you an example, and I hope Bastiat shows up to add to it.
I trade financial markets. They are highly chaotic with perhaps hundreds of input variables determining the path of various asset/security prices. Some people get really, really, really, filthy stinking rich building maps and models that capture/explain only some segment of security prices (maybe Bastiat is one of them, examples are guys like Buffett or Soros, or Tudor Jones or Steve Cohen).
No one model could fully explain everything. There may be some security that behaves in way that is not explainable. Maybe the academic might take up the challenge, but the real-world trader says “who gives a fuck”. I’ve got 20 other securities that my model predicted perfectly, and my bank account proves it.
Re the term “outlier”, someone upthread tried to assign some pejorative meaning to it which I thought was quite silly. It simply refers to a statistical property that in any sample/population you are going to have the + and -2 SD that don’t resemble the mean. The real debate is what is the outlier and what is typical. None of us knows the population. We all have our particular samples that we extrapolate. Arguably, and I am open to this, some of us may have self-selected samples. That is where the criticism comes in that you can’t extrapolate your anecdotal experience to the overall population.
@Hope#700,
Yes. So far as I’m concerned, even finding such women (or their male equivalents) attractive is DLV.
That’s not going to win me any friends by saying so…
@MikeC#703,
Great. Let’s build a better map. From what I’m seeing, my “native mode” clearly isn’t going to cut it for Deti, and his doesn’t do it for mine, either.
I despise Hegel, but in this case, synthesis may be appropriate.
@Susan 3:27PM
Yes, but the Cinderella fairy tale and James Cameron’s Titanic remain such popular stories because they feature love stories where the partner in the underclass is lifted up. I’d like to see just how the attitudes will change in the future. I also mentioned Prince Harry and Kate Middleton because it’s the most well-known and recent SES “upgrade” that Anne would be familiar with.
I don’t think Anne reads this thread anymore (the posters here never seemed primarily interested in giving her further advice, only in arguing about how her exchange fits in with their own mindsets), but I’d like it if you could pass along my message. More letters in this vein could help unravel the notion that “hot women” have it the easiest of all in the SMP/MMP.
@MikeC#708,
In context, fair enough. I’m accustomed to fields where you crash-test any theory you’re working, HARD, and outliers signify “back to drawing board.”
But put into your intellectual language, could we not presuppose an alpha where instead of adjusting for risk, we are instead adjusting for social context? That seems within bounds to me.
(now, I may be misusing the term, as my background is quite different, so pls feel free to pimpslap if so)
I think what people like Russ and Damien are saying is, if you are a mature, actualized person, why waste time on someone who needs constant correction?
Hope,
Of course, but what do you do if you are already in the situation. Of course, the answer to drug addiction is not taking drugs in the first place, or the answer to obesity is not overeating in the first place. But sometimes, you find yourself in a situation where course correction is a necessity. But yes, thinking ahead and trying to avoid those situations is better.
I think this gets even more complicated with relationships because of all the moving parts, and the injection of emotions and sexual attraction/chemistry into the picture. Say you get married to someone and later on you realize he/she has some issues that need to be “course corrected”. Do you bail or try to course correct? I think that depends on a number of things that can get quite complex and messy.
More letters in this vein could help unravel the notion that “hot women” have it the easiest of all in the SMP/MMP.
Fifth season,
Just curious, in your opinion, who has it easier?
@Mike#713,
Absolutely.
@Ted at 683: Re. quality as mature and self controlled, that is not what all men are looking for.
Me: Wow, that is surprising; now, I don’t mean mature in terms of age, but in terms of emotional outlook. The opposite is the drama queen, it seems to me, or the woman who is so out of control that life with her is one long roller coaster. I suppose that if a man likes that kind of thing, he will want the constant dopamine rush…Or if he likes controlling a woman who gets out of control….he will want that.
Thus I agree with hope at 700:
Self-control/future-orientation/willpower/maturity don’t just translate to better relationships. They help other things like better social ties, overall health, lower rates of overweightness/obesity, more conscientious parenting, etc…. if you are a mature, actualized person, why waste time on someone who needs constant correction?
Me: I was specifically looking for that in Mr. PVW: his emotional maturity, integrity, problem-solving abilities, whether he was a grown-up responsible individual who wasn’t constantly living on a roller coaster. Since we saw that we each fit the other in that sense, things are ridiculously smooth between us. Not that there hasn’t been dramatic moments, but we deal with them and move on…..
@BB 707: The problem is that this guy may also be a bit boring to the ambitious, hypergamous alpha female carnivores that stalk the female side of the SMP.
Me: But he would be ideal for his female counterpart, paraphrasing your text and drawing upon the actual experiences of various HUS female commenters who are happily married/partnered: the 25-27 year old female nerdling of limited sexual experience, introverted Nice girl/beta personality trait cluster, N=1-3 with extreme intolerance for promiscuity and an interest in domesticity. She will actively want a LTR.
The question is whether he can find her in the midst of the “hypergamous alpha female carnivores that stalk the female side of the SMP” who take advantage of the fact that he is clueless that the “increasingly-desperate, wall-hitting sluts facing stiff intrasexual competition for scarce resour—er, “eligible males with provisioning potential.” are hunting him down…
@MikeC#708,
In context, fair enough. I’m accustomed to fields where you crash-test any theory you’re working, HARD, and outliers signify “back to drawing board.”
Good point. If we are talking about airplane crashes as outliers then we definitely need a better model than hey this one is good enough and we can disregard the outliers. It is just so complicated with human beings. You can’t reduce a human being to a set of deterministic equations. What you can do is test, observe, and compare notes. Repeat ad infinitum and keep refining the map.
But put into your intellectual language, could we not presuppose an alpha where instead of adjusting for risk, we are instead adjusting for social context? That seems within bounds to me.
I’m not clear on your point/question here so perhaps this response is off the mark. I definitely believe being “alpha” is or can be contextual. NO. DOUBT. ABOUT. IT. To use Susan’s term of prestige, I think there are men who can be 11s on the 1 to 10 scale of prestige (Spinal Tap reference there) in a particular social environment, but yet in their minds and mindsets they may be different.
(now, I may be misusing the term, as my background is quite different, so pls feel free to pimpslap if so)
No, Mike, I agree, and it’s one of the fundamental weakness I’m seeing with a lot of stuff I read and comments I see over on Alphagame and CH – the theory doesn’t seem to adjust for make room for those sorts of adjustments, and context, as we both agree, COUNTS.
I’ll percolate and see what I can come up with.
@BB further thoughts:
The question is whether he can find her in the midst of the “hypergamous alpha female carnivores that stalk the female side of the SMP” who take advantage of the fact that he is clueless that the “increasingly-desperate, wall-hitting sluts facing stiff intrasexual competition for scarce resour—er, “eligible males with provisioning potential.” are hunting him down…
I’m adding: and will he appreciate his counterpart when he might very well be transfixed by the possibilities presented by the alpha female types?
I’m thinking here of the story from a few days ago of Karen v. Chloe.
@ Lokland
+1. Personally, I’d sign up for this.
Effective Dark Game, maybe I have an example….not marriage-related though, and about my current SO, of course.
I had been dating my SO for only a few months. She had moved away, and about a month into that I felt I was getting side-lined, but even earlier than that, if I had brought problems up, they weren’t really being addressed.
Fuck this. I was tired of being ignored and tired of having “a conversation” where nothing changed. So I wrote a long, angry email, sent it off to her. It detailed many things I considered faults, in great detail, along with specific examples of her poor behavior and how I was sick of her shit.
From what I understand, she was a bawling wreck for days and figured I was about to break up with her (another week later, and, yeah, I came really close).
I did not communicate that I had options, nor do I think it was a matter of “lost attraction.” On the other hand, I think she figured I DID have options: one of my friends from college was recently single, we had gone out with friends a week before, and my SO was rather suspicious of this girl who was recently single, attractive, and liked to hang out with me.
From what I understand, she was a bawling wreck for days. And maybe I was being immature, but she wasn’t listening when I actually TALKED to her, so what else was I supposed to do? Maybe FIDO? I wanted to give it a chance.
She didn’t dump me.
She tried 10 times harder to impress me and keep me.
She hasn’t outright ignored anything I’ve said since, though it’s only been a year in.
Beats me if this counts as “Dread Game” or whatever. I wasn’t trying to run a game. I had a friend I wanted to hang out with, who was also an attractive girl, and I had numerous problems with my girlfriend, who wasn’t listening, so I informed her that she was fucking up and I wasn’t taking her shit anymore.
But she wanted to keep me, I suppose, and the feeling of dread provoked her to try extra hard to keep me. This was the result of me being mean to her, enough so that Blue-Pill ADBG would have NEVER done anything like this because girls are special snowflakes, etc.
Red-Pill ADBG just didn’t give a shit.
Are Susan and I the only extroverts at HUS?
Extroverts get no love.
/DLV
That’s not Dread Game.
That’s Self-Respect Game.
@ pvw
There’s only one problem here. The female HUS commenters are happily married/partnered, as you pointed out. Unless he wants to mate-poach, that target demographic is relatively useless.
What one has to do is figure out what distinguishes a single female commenter on HUS like Sai from all the other female commenters who are successfully paired up. That’s the target demographic for us guys.
Well we were all single once!
And there are plenty of similar girls out there. Of course, the problem is that the introverted beta females are all at home watching Jane Austen movies with their girlfriends (which is their fault, not yours.) But they exist!
It’s the same demographic, INTJ.
I spent a long-ass time being single before getting a relationship. I don’t even know where it is appropriate to say where my single period begins!
Point is, there are plenty of single women in all demographics. Also, maybe you should get Sai’s email address.
Ha, cross-posted with Em.
@INTJ:
There’s only one problem here. The female HUS commenters are happily married/partnered, as you pointed out. Unless he wants to mate-poach, that target demographic is relatively useless.
Me: Hi, I didn’t mean in the sense of mate-poaching, but that these are examples of the male type finding his match in a woman who is like him. Most of the women in this category, from what I can tell, find their male counterparts quite desirable; they made successful matches, meaning that we and our husbands/partners were once single versions of what both BB and I described.
@Mr. Nervous Toes
I agree that having the right more balance is important too. An ultra-”masculine” man who could never enjoy a romance movie with his wife (maybe too much alpha) will turn her on in some ways but leave her feeling empty that he doesn’t have that emotional connection that she wants. OTOH, if he’s all chick flicks and feelings and emoting then she won’t feel much attraction even though she feels comfortable with him. Probably about 3 or 4 parts masculine for 1 part feminine is a good balance for a man.
And then strengthening and refining the good aspects of one’s masculinity and femininity is important.
@ SW
Thank you. That means a lot to me. I’ve heard more than once in the past that I am somehow a bad boyfriend for standing up for myself and what I want. At one point someone said “guys like you are the reason girls can’t trust guys,” or something like that. Which kind of sucks to hear, because I like to be a Nice Guy (a little bit anyways).
So thanks for saying that
Here’s the thing, I still have a tiny bit of me that doesn’t like that side, or actions like that. And like Lokland said, basic self respect is now considered “game,” because guys are taught to NOT respect themselves. Or demand things of women-folk, because that’s un-gentlemanly.
Blue Pill ADBG would say “oh no, I did something wrong” and flood her with emails and texts and maybe call her crying, I dunno.
It’s why a lot of us say that the MOST important thing for guys to do, is to remove anti-game and learn basic self-respect, NOT to learn Game, per se.
What the PUAs do is take my example and ask “hey, how did that work?” They correctly surmised that for some reason this girl liked me and that I instilled fear that the relationship was ending, therefore she tried REALLY hard to fix the relationship. They then use that dynamic for their own purposes.
If my relationship was constantly this? My SO would burn out right damn quick. PUAs aren’t interested in LTRs, they’re interested in milking a girl for all she is worth.
I can see how it can work, and how it can be abused, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t necessarily work in a LTR. If the woman values a relationship she will work harder to fix it. She may also take it as an assertion of dominance and her attraction might increase, I guess, or maybe the emotional roller coaster afterwards (make-up sex?) can provoke that reaction. Beats me.
All I know is that my relationship was improved at least somewhat by something that resembles instilling dread. On the other hand, because I am not an asshole, I am not going to use this as a preventative measure.
Also, I am an extrovert too
Yeah, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with guys standing up for themselves if a girl is being a brat (in fact, I encourage it.) But I do have a problem with preemptive “dread game” on a girl who’s being perfectly nice. IMO there’s a massive distinction between the two.
@ADBG#721,
Yep. Self-respect game, at the risk of sounding presumptuous, exactly what I advise in the circumstances.
When you rant and bitch and scream, it’s very easy for the one who’s done wrong to say “they’re out to lunch.” By calmly laying out exactly what the issue is in a factual way, you DHV (no monkey ranting, personal restraint, fact-based argument, clear communication that shit tests and bad behavior are out of line and won’t be tolerated).
The only addendum to that, Russ, was that I wasn’t calm about it. I was pissed, and I wrote that letter with damn full intention of making sure she knew it.
You stopped and wrote, rather than just flaming her up one side and down the other. Emotions are morally and socially neutral; how they’re handled demonstrates personal value.
Mike C @ 4:51 PM
Well, the ones who have it easy are those who are looking for NSA sexual activity and don’t experience any pangs of attachment because that’s what the hook-up culture is catering towards. “Hot” women, as Susan has outlined, may have the pick of the (unwanted) litter but are saddled with unique wants and needs like the rest of us, and still have to sort through so many if they want to get what they’re looking for.
@595 “Good thing for Anne is that she’s just 22. Her market value will raise for the next 8 years.”
.
Lets not single out Anne for this, but any 22 yo. Twenty two is probably the peak for a woman. There are very few woman who are prettier at 22 than when they were 15-18. Most will not acknowledge this for fear of being labeled a perv and such. America has brainwashed people into buying into the “we cant talk about teenagers in a sexual way unless they are 18+.”
Very much disagree, Marc. There are significant but subtle changes in bone structure which are still occurring, and depending on how rapidly the woman is aging, quite a number of women who are absolutely nothing to look at as teens for their peers (but just happen to have good skin), will look MUCH better at 22 and then 26.
Women who are at their best from 15-18 are the CLASSIC “peaked too early” syndrome. They’re not the norm.
it’s one of the fundamental weakness I’m seeing with a lot of stuff I read and comments I see over on Alphagame and CH – the theory doesn’t seem to adjust for make room for those sorts of adjustments, and context, as we both agree, COUNTS.
You’re either not paying sufficient attention or you are, as Roissy would say, sperging. The theory is quite adjustable and is specifically asserted to be contextually relative as well. Only the most focused pick-up artists have a rigid formula.
Or, as I said way upthread several HUNDRED posts ago but you probably missed b/c tl;dr from hell (DAMN threads here go long!), am relatively new to the theory. In fact, since I’ve not the *foggiest* idea what sperging is, let’s make that a definite.
Could you respond to 670 with an example in context? Deti has flat-out stated that my response 644 is hopelessly beta and will never work; his theory is contradicting my (obviously anecdotal) evidence. Would be interested in your take.
In both cases, stay far away.
Pity the crazy, don’t date them.
It only gets worse with intteligent males, since they know they are intelligent, so they are pretty sure their system is good. Moreover, the more intelligent guy, the greater chance most of people he interacts with have lower IQ, hence the larger chance he become convinced he’s got it and when he meets a critique, he will going to assume that the critique is invalid because it surely was formulated by one of those idiots.
Yeah they get used so much to being right that they cannot conceive ever being wrong. I particularly think that the day you declare yourself a teacher and never wrong is the first day of your intellectual death because you cannot learn anything else if you think you already know it all.
Always, ALWAYS, have a comfortable couch. For general couch purposes.
And the guest room also works for this purposes…
Perhaps. It would be more “dread” if she also went on more GNO and/or put herself in places where she is likely to meet and interact with other attractive men.
I’m quite familiar with female dread game usually applied by Dominican ladies when their husbands start to show the “signs” of an affair. I know a couple that dress to the nines, go out in a night they usually don’t without telling the hubby where they are going on advance or just a passing “going to a party with some friends…” and just staying a few hours in a park bench, drinking some soda… I don’t criticize it if you are in an emergency and trying to save a marriage but is indeed pathetic regardless the gender.
The problem is that this guy may also be a bit boring to the ambitious, hypergamous alpha female carnivores that stalk the female side of the SMP.
I never understood the obsession with finding an entertaining partner, the few times I had been bored I found many things to do to entertain myself, never though it was anyone’s job but mine to keep me entertained.Maybe the new wedding vows should add for exciting and boring times…
From a pragmatic view, who cares about explaining the outliers.
Tell that to the dozens publishing houses that rejected Harry Potter…
I know you cannot make a living out of hoping to hit the jackpot, but isn’t dating essentially weeding out the handful of outliers that might be a right match? I mean if we could just have a successful relationship with anyone people will probably be randomly matched by a mathematical system, not even arranged marriages assume all people will match they do filter in some other ways. My point being outliers are not to be ignored in many aspects, YMMV.
Are Susan and I the only extroverts at HUS?
Extroverts get no love.
Extrovert here!
Although I do prefer introverts, I found this cartoon adorable and fitting: http://www.intellectualbubblegum.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/how_to_live_with_introverts_guide_printable_by_sveidt-d5b09fj.jpg
@Russ
Sperging (showing Asperger traits) is being rendered obsolete by the DSM-V due to the rolling of the term into general autism.
So you don’t need to worry about the term because it’s being psychologized out of existence.
And yes, this blog is very commenty.
@ Fifth Season,
I read some, but it’s mostly just PUA conversation now.
I know some people saying they are ‘allergic’ to debate about social class and whether it matters (or whether they even exist).
Most women I know value confidence, social status, wealth, ambition, success etc. very high. I cared about looks a lot when I was a teenager, now much less. I know some girls who talk a lot about biceps and abs all that very often, but I don’t think they’re being honest with themselves about preferences, because their actions speak otherwise.
Confidence is the most important attribute to attract women, and men who are born into well-off families have a confidence other men don’t. My impression is that things can go into a positive or negative circle from a young age. A lot of men link their self-esteem and self-worth to their ability to get women, if they do well early – they continue to do well.
Undoubtedly some young guys are so full of themselves it makes them impossible to deal with. But most have certain demands from their families and if they will be in charge of a business some day, they can’t be messing around.
As Susan said, family expectations is one part of it. My sister brought home a bartender and my mother had sleepless nights. They eventually broke up, as much as my sister insisted she “could do as she pleases”.
I don’t feel the pressure for a guy to cross an “income level”, but my mother has been clear on me not letting a guy move into my apartment and live there for free and if we were to get a place together, he should bring 50% at least.
It is not as if you have candidates lined up with their incomes listed. I didn’t know Stephen’s “situation” when I first agreed to the dinner date. There is a certain gap between us (firstly because he’s already working), but not so much that it worries me. Of course his parents are wealthier than mine (albeit in a billionaire vs millionaire sort of way). His brother is in an LTR, her background is similar to mine.
Realistically speaking, I would look for a guy from upper middle class or above (but I find that too ‘vague’, since social class is defined differently in different countries).
Of course there are great guys of all backgrounds. I don’t think of this mindset as ‘exclusion’ though. Firstly, a girl’s options are geographically limited – my school, gym, local bars and restaurants. I don’t approach or initiate contact with men, so the selection of those men again is limited to those who approach me. I would have to either start approaching men (not happening) or change my social circle (why?) for the socio-economic group of men I date to change.
I can add that my impression has always been that men aren’t really looking to ‘date up’ in terms of wealth. I think it often makes them uncomfortable.
“Confidence is the most important attribute to attract women, and men who are born into well-off families have a confidence other men don’t.”
That’s because not being well off is kind of demeaning.
You know that you really don’t matter, economically speaking, so you feel inferior.
Bah, this “confidence” spiel again…
Yeah, confidence is important, as in, if you don’t have it, you’re screwed, but Anne, that isn’t enough by far.
My co-workers argue with the federal government and insurance companies all day long. That can get intense. They enjoy physical sports and tackle football without pads and are fiercely competitive. If you challenge them to a fight, they will obliterate you without a second thought. They do not give a single fuck about workplace rules: they cuss up a storm, they drink up lunch, and “hostile work environment” means nothing to them.
On my job interview, I told my job interviewer that she was wrong, to her face, still got the job.
Confidence is not what separates me from them.
What separates me from them is that I have Roissy, and they have Feminism.
“My co-workers argue with the federal government and insurance companies all day long. That can get intense. They enjoy physical sports and tackle football without pads and are fiercely competitive. If you challenge them to a fight, they will obliterate you without a second thought. They do not give a single fuck about workplace rules: they cuss up a storm, they drink up lunch, and “hostile work environment” means nothing to them.”
They sound profoundly subhuman.
Yeah, male intrasexual dynamics can look that way from the outside, but, tbh, I prefer it to some sewing circle nonsense where we all talk about our feelings and sip tea
Regarding Anne#742′s comment.
This is correct. My wife and I both come from ruined family (mine from squandering and wastage, hers from the Communists); social standing counts. We can socialize with anyone, but we can no longer pay the price of entry required to circulate in the same circles (and, of course, each of us had to scrape for an education our great-grandparents took for granted).
The problem with marrying up, as a man, is that so often the families of the ladies in question will make it impossible unless the gal is willing to abandon her family, which is a heavy price. That situation was in play with me once in college, with a lovely french girl from a good family, and because abandoning her family was a non-starter and I wasn’t an acceptable match, that was that.
Worked out better eventually; I prefer Hungarian cooking. But anyone who says SES doesn’t matter is involved in self-delusion.
@ Emily, SayWhaat, pvw
Well my point is that the young female commenters on HUS have a much lower probability of being single than the young male commenters. This is reflective of the general trend in society too. Sure, the introverted female nerdlings might find their male counterparts attractive. But there are far too few female nerdlings to go around for all the male nerdlings.
@ Emily
Ahh well it’s not like the introverted beta males are any better.
@ SayWhaat
Yeah considered that but AFAIK, she’s several thousand kilometers away.
@ Sai
Sorry for talking about you in the third person.
@Deti
I probably lead the pack of your detractors, and I don’t find you diabolical. A bit curmudgeonly perhaps but not diabolical.
I do find your situation sad and your marriage, at least as you describe it, untenable. FWIW, I think you and the wife need to forgive each other and move on–or just split up. I personally would hate to be stuck in the relationship you describe. It’s got to be very hard on both of you.
@Hope re women instilling dread
I find the notion of instilling dread as a relationship strategy to be sort of pathetic, but I will say that when both parties have real options outside the marriage, it does increase their appreciation for each other. I don’t think that can be faked though.
@Marc
There are very few woman who are prettier at 22 than when they were 15-18. Most will not acknowledge this for fear of being labeled a perv and such. America has brainwashed people into buying into the “we cant talk about teenagers in a sexual way unless they are 18+.”
No, there is actually a large cadre of men who prefer to be with a full grown woman. To most men, 15 is cute and coltish; 18-27 is young enough to be maximally attractive but also fully grown and fertile.
As a point of fact, pregnancy outcomes for 15 year olds are comparable to outcomes for 35 year olds. A women needs hips to give birth.
I can add that my impression has always been that men aren’t really looking to ‘date up’ in terms of wealth. I think it often makes them uncomfortable.
It does make them uncomfortable; it interferes with the natural male role of provider and also intimidates those men who who see financial dependency as a force that holds relationshops together. IME, the usual hypergamous trade-off is her looks for his money. A rich man can usually get a better looking woman than his poor twin can.
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