“Khan – I’m laughing at the superior intellect.”
-Captain Kirk
Since the publication of Neill “Style” Strauss’ “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” nearly a decade ago, there has been a tremendous degree of debate about the merits of this “system” of seducing Women into bed – does it work? Is it “ethical”? Opponents of this newly discovered applied seduction science arrayed themselves powerfully, often with shrill voices of “moral outrage” and indignation, attempting to paint Game’s practitioners, variously, as “losers”, “socio/psychopaths”, “manipulators” and “rapists”. At the same time, these very same opponents attempt in vain to construct arguments as to how and why “Game doesn’t work”. The problem with all of this, of course, is that over the same course of time since “The Game” – which went on to become a runaway New York Times bestseller – a veritable avalanche of empirical science validating everything “The Game” discussed inundated the naysayers. Books like “The Evolution of Desire” (which was originally published in 1994, but was revised and re-released shortly before “The Game” came out), “Sperm Wars“, “The Red Queen”, “The Mating Mind” and most recently, “A Billion Wicked Thoughts”, just to name a few, completely undermined the “moral” basis of opposition to Game opponents. There was simply too much evidence backing up the PUAs (Pickup Artists) assertions and realtime, in-field experience and observations, to deny that such time-honored principles as the Neg, IOIs (Indicators of Interest), PAS (Proximity Alert System), Group Theory, Peacock Theory, AMOGing, and more, were real and did indeed work.
The evolution of the debate concerning Game was interesting to witness. No longer able to mount a successful counter-argument on empirical grounds that the principles of Game and its PUA practitioners were all wet, moralists shifted the debate to questions about both Game’s and its practitioners’ “ethical” dispositions. Again, the moralists ran up against a brick wall of empirical science, which proved that not only does “morality” have no place in attempting to determine the right and left of the science of human mating, but such attempts actually belied the preferred strategy of those who most felt threatened by the prospect of such an applied seduction science as Game.
Moreover, and no doubt much to the chagrin of the “moralists”, empirical science bears out the fact that unethical mating tactics are by no means the sole preserve or practice, of the male of just about any species, human or otherwise – indeed, biologists the world over have long known, that the female has just as much a rationale and “reason” to deceive a potential suitor, as the other way around – and when it comes to human females, since they seem to be the ones making the most noise about “ethics in dating” in our time – if anything, the evidence points strongly in favor of them engaging in mendacious behaviors along mating lines far and away MORE than human males do, Game or no.
I’m just saying.
While the aforementioned “ethical” strategy still has a bit of gas in the tank, it is clear that pretty soon, that dog too will simply no longer hunt. Putting this together with old-style McCarthyesque witch hunts that attempts to paint any Game author the “moralists” don’t much agree with as “writing a rape manual” – despite the fact that said author(s) were being disingenuously quoted wildly out of context, and, that even avowed Feminist Women came to said writers’ defense, an interesting development coagulated over the past year or so: what amounted to an “if you can’t beat em, join em” approach.
This has manifested in three distinct ways:
1. The Emergence of “Nice Guy” Game writers, most notably Mark Manson and Dr. Nerd Love, who attempt to present a “kindler, gentler” version of the core tenants of Game; Manson mixes in equal parts of quasi-metaphysical New Agey-sounding self-help agitprop, while DNL’s byline is “helping Nerds get the girl”. Neither have contributed anything innovative or original to the corpus of Game knowledge itself, and to be fair, neither, as far as I am aware, have held themselves out as such trailblazers. Rather, their claims to fame is, that they are a more “sanitized” version of Pickup. Press either however, and they will both grudgingly admit, that if it weren’t for the very kind of Game they are now attempting to “change”, they wouldn’t be where they are right now, both as mainstream writers, and personally in terms of the profound changes Game made in their personal lives. It is also worth noting that both writers tend to attract far more Women than Men to their sites, and neither seem to hold much influence in the broader Seduction Community.
2. The “Rise” of the FPUA – an acronym for Female Pickup Artist. A small, but quite vocal group of young ladies insist that Game principles have a unisex application, and as such are determined to make the case that Women can and should sup from Game’s insights. To be sure, some ladies will want to “learn” this in an attempt to inoculate themselves from poor Gamesmen, but there are at least a few who are True Believers who swear by notions that Negs work equally as well on Men as they do Women, and so forth. It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact these ladies will have on the ongoing discourse concerning Game.
3. Finally, and is the principal focus of today’s discussion, there is the attempt on the part of some rather sharp folks – ladies and gents both, I might add – to bifurcate Game into two distinct halves: Outer Game (henceforth referred to as Tactical Game), and Inner Game, with the chief distinction being that the former isn’t just fundamentally inferior to the latter, but that the former is also morally deficient, while the latter is morally superior.
All three shifts in the discourse on Game represents, in truth, a major capitulation on the part of the Game opponents, on the chief arguments and veracity of Game itself – simply put, they cannot deny that Game, works. So they’ve shifted the goalposts in an effort to “weed out” the pretenders – Tactical Game – from the contenders – Outer Game.
And in so doing, the Game opponents have not only revealed their rank ignorance of Game and the empirical principals upon which it rests – recall the books mentioned above – but they also reveal their tenuous grasp on logic and reason.
Hardly a “convincing” argument for how and why “certain” aspects of Game are “bad”, while others of it are “good”.
Let’s examine how and why this is, shall we?
Anything That Can Perceive, Can Be Deceived
As noted above, it is an empirical fact that throughout animal life on the planet, BOTH sexes have been observed to engage in tactics of deception and/or manipulation when it comes to mating, and Humanity is no different; indeed, the book “A Billion Wicked Thoughts”, for example, notes that more than 65% of all Women in the USA have reported lying about having an orgasm with their long term (male) mate (pp. 188); Women routinely lie to Men about being previously mated to another Man (known in Pickup circles as “I have a boyfriend”); and Women are not at all above leading a Man on into thinking that he has a real chance of mounting her, when in truth she was allowing him to think this in the service of some other goal she had in mind (both books, “The Evolution of Desire“, and “Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind” discusses this), just to name a few of the ways in which Women are not at all above engaging in mendacious behavior when it serves their mating interests and goals. Having said all of this, though, it is interesting indeed that not many Women seem all that interested in holding each other’s feet to the fire with fire-and-brimstone lectures about the importance of being so very earnest with Men.
Hmm.
At any rate, the “moral” impetus for the latest Wily E. Coyote style attempt to “reign in Game”, issues from the notion that Tactical Game – that side of Game that focuses on, as its name above infers, on specific tactics, actions and mimicry of the mating behaviors of successful males – is inherently “unethical”. The reason exactly why, however, isn’t particularly explained, especially in the light of the facts I’ve laid out above. Therefore, the Outer Game opponents say, such a strategy is morally inferior to Inner Game – which is centered on “building real value” – like confidence from accomplishing various feats (getting an education, experiencing career success, self-improvement like losing weight/getting in shape, updating one’s wardrobe, etc.). The argument goes, that Inner Game sets the stage for building much better lasting success, not just with regard to sexual relationships with the ladies, but with life overall. Therefore, again, so sayeth the self-appointed Guardians of the Game Flame, Inner Game is the superior choice for any Man worth his salt; “for Men, when it comes to Game, go Inner, or go home”, exhorts one particularly perturbed lady blogger.
The problem with this line of thinking, is several; to begin, let’s go back to “A Billion Wicked Thoughts“, pp. 190:
“Authenticity is important to both men and women, but in different ways. Women focus on emotional authenticity. This is one of the primary tasks of the Detective Agency: looking for clues indicating whether a man is being honest about his level of ambition and commitment. Is he really an alpha, or did he just learn the strategies of the Pickup Artist community? Did he really mean it when he says he loves me, or is he just trying to get me into bed?”
As the above quote makes clear, the “problem” with Tactical Game, is that it just might work – in theory at least. A Man – an average or less than average Man, at that, can learn to ape all the mannerisms of successful males in a mating sense, and, again in theory, a Woman wouldn’t be the wiser – especially in a short term context. This causes a potential cascade of anguish in Women from a psychological standpoint, again for reasons that “A Billion Wicked Thoughts” lucidly explains, beginning in Chapter 4, pp. 62, called “The Miss Marple Detective Agency”. Tactical Game presents a problem for the ladies, especially in a time when people live by the millions in anonymous, fast-moving environments like major American cities, potentially depriving Women of essential resources she needs to “sort” and then “vet” Men along the lines of authenticity – hence, recourse by certain actors in our time, to Inner Game.
That Game presents the distinct possibility that a Man could use it to deceive a Woman, or any number of Women, into sexual relationships and liaisons on less than honorable pretenses, is unfortunate – but there is precious little that can be done about it, anymore than the prospect of an entire group of people could be massacred by a machete-wielding group of people could have been forestalled if the machetes weren’t available in the first place. As anyone with the most casual understanding of history knows well, anytime technology is introduced – and make no mistake, Game IS technology of a very high order – there will always be the possibility that it will be used for less than honorable ends. However, and history has borne this out, said possibility is no legitimate reason to “ban” such technological advances – anymore than it would be to “ban” Women’s use of high heels, eyeliner or pushup bras (devices/appliances that artificially activate the visual cues of sexual attraction in the brains of Men - the true female equivalent of Game).
Having said that, the above is only one way in which the Anti-Game Shriekers have put themselves into a serious trick bag; there is yet another way, which deserves a section unto itself:
A Mistake Of The Intellect
Putting forth the notion that Inner Game is somehow morally superior to Tactical Game, underscores a major flaw in the logic of those who advance such notions. This is because there is nothing – NOTHING – “morally correct” about either Tactical or Inner Game. Neither holds any intrinsic moral value, and only does so when people – in this case, those who are attempting to do a “divide and conquer” routine on Game itself – puts one on it. Attempts to paint Tactical Game as morally deficient is long on assertion and anecdote, and woefully short on empirical evidence and substantiated data. Conversely, there is scant evidence that Inner Game, in and of itself, is the more morally superior option either.
Consider the following: if it is true that “building real value” makes for a better human being, how then are we to explain the clear and present abuses and recklessness of Wall St. over the past five years? We know, from US Senate and Congressional hearings, that the country’s most elite people working in the most prestigious firms on the planet such as Goldman Sachs, deliberately and with malice of forethought, engaged in a series of ruinous financial practices that contributed to driving this country into a economic tailspin that we are still attempting to get out from under of. It is a well documented fact that to be even considered to have a job at Goldman Sachs, one has to have been educated at one of the country’s elite schools, preferably HYP (Harvard, Yale or Princeton), and, that it is common practice that its executives just happen to all average over six feet tall (for Men) – something that is most curious, since most American Men are NOT six feet tall and over. By all accounts, a Man working at Goldman Sachs, would meet the requirements of Inner Game as propounded by its newfound acolytes – and yet, these are some of the very same Men who deliberately ran the country into the ground.
While it may be easy for you to dismiss my above example as an exercise in hyperbole, it nevertheless makes the point and hits the mark, that the idea of “building real value” cannot and does not, in and of itself, say anything about the moral character of a person, in this case, a Man. Indeed, many people flock to these professions, in large part BECAUSE they know that people far and wide, can and often do fall prey to this fundamental flaw of the intellect: because thus and so went to this prestigious school; has thus and so prestigious job; has this particular “look”; they, therefore, must be a good person! How many Women, living in the country’s gated communities, have made this very same mistake? Indeed, in the Black community’s equivalent of the romance novel/films, the idea of a Brotha who’s got it together “on paper” but in reality isn’t just an A1 Jerk but the Sista heroine’s worst nightmare, is so common its a well-worn trope. Indeed, my recent writings about “Mr. Big” and how that trope plays itself out in Black America along these lines, goes precisely to this very point. Being able to deftly deflect Sh*t Tests, be the life of the party, or have mad Guitar Game, is no barometer in the least, as to a Man’s character, heart or moral compass – and the Freeway of Love is littered with the carcasses of many a lady who made the fundamental mistake of thinking that this was indeed the case.
Conversely, just because a Man avails himself of Tactical Game, per the arguments advanced by the shrieking crowd, does not then automatically mean that he is morally bereft or a “sociopath”. Indeed, more often than not and in truth, quite the opposite – the guy’s “really sweet” but simply doesn’t have the tactical knowledge as to the whys and wherefores of human mating in general, and the human female mating mind in particular. Him getting a few tactical tips under his belt and embedded in his brain – like learning how to read IOIs; learning about Group Theory; learning about Body Language – not just his own, but that of Women’s – and more, will get him a heck of a lot further with Women, than spending lots of time and money, attempting to “up his value”…which brings me to yet another point:
The Pickup Community’s Been There, Done That
Ask any major Game guru and he’ll tell you, that merely having “real value” does not success with Women make. Indeed, it is not at all unusual to find high-powered businessmen, lawyers and doctors sitting in the PUA bootcamps, attempting to learn some of the very Tactical Game that the naysayers have taken to decrying in our time. In fact, we all know exactly what said Game gurus are talking about, because we have all seen exactly the same scenario play itself out – perhaps more than we’d like to admit. How many of us have seen the broke dude with mad, wicked Game, chatting up the ladies with ease, and the accomplished academic, businessman or lawyer, not able to chat up anyone to save his life? Yea, that’s what I thought.
Which proves the point: Tactical and Inner Game, are in truth, two indispensable sides of the same coin. They exist, not as distinct halves or spheres, but as a symbiotic, binary relationship. This is why Strauss’ memoir The Game becomes so very important a read – because he had to get both his Tactical and Inner Games up, and then align the two so that they would be in sync with each other (in fact, Strauss already had his Inner Game – that is, his success in his chosen profession, education, et al, already tight – his story proves just how powerful the need for and utility of Tactical Game, truly is). Gamesmen who are serious about the study of these things understand these things very, very well, and work toward doing what Strauss did.
And this explains how and why there is seemingly so much focus on Tactical Game as opposed to Inner Game in Pickup circles – because the specific rules of human sexual attraction, has not until now been fully, clearly explained. Part of the reason for this is due to the simple fact that Humanity is only now in recent years beginning to understand this; but at least as important is the fact that, as our shrieking interlocutors make clear, there are quite a few people in our time who aren’t all that keen for Men at large to know these algorithms. For obvious reasons, of course.
There’s more that I can speak to here – such as the notion that, because there appears to be so many bad practitioners of Game out there, that somehow this is an indictment on Game itself, and so forth – but all that can wait for a future post. In the meantime, I just wanted to make sure that our readers here understood not just two very important concepts of Game itself, but to also clearly understand how and why they pose such a huge world of butthurt for those who stand in opposition to Game in general. As they have tacitly admitted themselves: Game, is here to stay.
Get. Over. It.
Suggested further reading:
Amanda Marcotte’s Alternatives to Pickup Advice That Aren’t Really Alternatives (NoH)
Jezebel, “Jeffy” & The “Freedom/Rape Van”, Part Three: Summary Judgment
Now adjourn your arses…
The Obsidian
All this talk about “ethical” use of game is really a ploy to conscript game, and men, into the service of the feminine.
“Good” or “ethical” game tactics: Looking out for male self interest, holding back investment/commitment until attraction is established; self-improvement; confidence, “prestige”. These are “good” because they increase male value which inures to the benefit of women. These are also “good” because they’re most visible to women, who can measure and quantify them (relatively), which in turn encourages and facilitates hypergamy.
“Bad” or “unethical” or “immoral” game tactics: Negging, 2/3 rule, push-pull, pushing through LMR, going for SNLs and ONS; sex without first DTR or some level of commitment. These are “bad” because they are deceptive; they serve the male interest without regard to female interests; and they are geared toward increasing the woman’s commitment commensurately with the man’s commitment. These tactics force her to stake out a position — they compel a woman either to put some skin in the game by giving up sex; or to state her own intentions unambiguously by saying “no” to sex. They are “bad” because they smoke out the woman’s position and intent; and prevent her from concealing them. Men can use them to discover whether she is attracted or not, and whether she will give up sex or not.
According to the “game must be ethical” worldview, men must always act above board, honestly, and with discernible intent. This is so women can gauge men’s intent and value. Women, however, are free to engage in any conduct they wish, including deceptive conduct, and they can do so free from any moral accountability.
The thing is that the mating game is the ultimate game of selfishness. Its about getting the best resources and the most opportunities to be able to procreate and move on the next round. Survive and advance. So game is nothing but tactics to get what ever goals you are looking for. The big problem with ethical game is the big problem with any ethical system. Every person has their own code and values, some taught to them by family, some taught to them by observation of life. When you try to apply a code of ethics to a group if always gonna be somebody who is gonna ask themselves” is this code really gonna get me what I want?” if not Im gonna do it my way. Game/seduction has now worked for centuries. It has helped men and women get into positions of power, fame, glory, or just pleasure of the highest extent.and people just have to accept the truth that people are out for their own desires adn are gonna get those desire adhering more often that not to their own code of ethics and more specifically doing what works to get whatever it is they want
Obsidian,
This is one of your best posts.
From this blog :
Wednesday.
She was quiet.
She was never quiet. Something was wrong.
“Rough day?” I asked
“No.” She said. She wanted me to dig. I would, but not for long and only because this wasn’t like her. Firstly, though, I concentrated on my turkey sandwich. Being as broke as a guy can be, purchasing a turkey sandwich, even at TGI Friday’s, was something I would cherish and enjoy regardless of whatever LTR/FB bullshit was going on. We sat at a small, square table beside the stairs leading up to the bar area. It was meant to seat four people, but in that weird way. You know, where all your legs are awkwardly touching while you’re hovered over your plate, and you can’t tell whether your foot is on someone else’s shoe or the metal supports for the table so you have to keep looking down to make sure. Definitely not ideal for four guys, but perfect for me and an FB. I love bringing day twos here just for the reason that it’s socially appropriate for our legs to touch. I chewed and relished each bite of my child’s menu sized sandwich. I comfortably enjoyed the silence. She wasn’t having it. I looked up to find her staring at me, with that cute head tilt thing your dog does while you’re trying to explain why he shouldn’t shit on the rug because it’s bad, bad, bad with a finger shake.
Holding eye contact, I took another bite of my sandwich and chewed. I pictured James Bond in “From Russia With Love.” I pictured Marlon Brando in “Streetcar Named Desire.” I pictured Clark Gable and Tyler Durdan (Fight Club TD), and Dirk Diggler, and even my old natural friend from High School who was Johnny All-American. I pictured all of them, and I wondered how they would act right now; how they would sit. I had known this was going to be weird. I never really do a formal lunch thing with girls excluding a few LTRs from before I entered the community. I only brought them out formally like this when I was cutting things off. I don’t know why. Maybe because I haven’t developed anything better yet. Or maybe because it’s like #1,007 in my list of things I need to improve still. This HB knew what was coming too. She was an intelligent brunette, bout a 7.5 or an 8, with a fantastic personality whom I had met in the middle of May at Sananofre beach.
She was a surfer girl, but didn’t have that super-dark tan. She had a lighter skin tone with great complexion and a few scattered freckles around her face and body. Her skin-tone was the kind of slight tan where you can just make out the tan lines when they’re lying naked in your bed. I like tan lines. They remind me of the forbidden, and I find that sexy.
“Nice,” she had said after I opened her, pointing to the decal of a topless female-devil on my 10’ Robert August long board. “I can tell that you’re just starting out. If you WERE a surfer, that (the decal) would be a blonde girl.”
“Um, ‘IT’ is actually a SHE, thank you. You may look at women as merely objects, but I like to think of women as people first…Geez. Get it together! Actually, you’re right though, she’s not my type at all. I’m totally a sucker for blondes. They had these little blonde angels, but the angel thing just isn’t my style,” I replied.
“Oh you like the bad girls huh?” she said sort of disdainfully, with a lack of flirtation, “Well, too bad. I’m a good, Christian girl.” She explained.
“No, no. Didn’t you hear me? I’M ATTRACTED TO BLONDES (cupping my hands in a screaming fashion). So don’t get the wrong idea. You’re, like, totally in my friend zone already (credit BradP). I respect that you’re religious though. That’s neat-o. I used to be ueber-religious before I started studying philosophy and rational theology. Was raised Catholic actually. Still believe in the whole ‘no sex until marriage’ thing though.”
“NO WAY!” she exclaimed, “You are SOo not a virgin!!”
(and I went into my Virgin Except Anal Sex routine)
She spent the next two hours “teaching” me how to surf. I’m not great, but I can hold my own. Still, I let her believe that I was just plain horrible so that she could enjoy teaching me. We flirted, escalated kino. Played push/pull verbally a whole lot. Not just me, but she played too. Still, it was obvious to both of us that it was simply that…just playing. I could have been totally AFC and it would’ve resulted in a lay. She was majorly investing in me, and it was a solid connection. Definitely a cool chick and fun to hang around. That’s why we’ve been at it this long (I’m not good at keeping FBs around. I usually sabotage it in some way subconsciously. It’s an SP I’m working on). I think I’ve been leading her on to keep her around, but just didn’t want to admit it to myself. Not verbally, mind you. I’ve always talked with her openly and honestly. I run the whole, “I’m just not BF material” routine all the time. I even have this yellow t-shirt depicting a husband and wife cutting a wedding cake with the words ‘Big Mistake’ written under it. But my sub communication was manipulative I must confess. And I felt bad about that. Now though, I felt that she had sensed this would be an awkward lunch as my response to an ultimatum she had given me three days prior: “Commitment, or no more sex (more or less).” I had stopped calling her for two weeks (part of that sabotage-complex I think, but I always backwards rationalize some reason out of cognitive dissonance. Eventually I’ll have to resolve that too.), and this must’ve been the answer to that. In an earlier time, I would have felt lucky to have found this girl and would probably proclaim her my girlfriend. I’d say it had to be fate. These things just don’t ‘happen’. Quality girls show up all the time now, and I learned that this was all BS mostly (I actually do have a metaphysical view supporting the idea of fate and destiny, but you get my drift.) She had realized that this was Decision-Time, and it was grabbing a hold of her nerves. She wanted me to either start talking about it or dig for what was bothering her until she brought it up. She was getting all fidgety, eagerly awaiting my decision. [‘God I’m self-absorbed now,’ says my conscience]
Whatever. I was still going to finish my sandwich first. I started looking around the TGI Friday’s at all the sets out of habit and caught an HB8.5’s EC at the bar with her friend. I held it as I chewed monotonously the way a horse sort of chews on oats in cartoons, but with my mouth closed. She held it a long time- IOI. She was the typical Laguna Beach gold-digger wife. Had a huge rock on her left ring finger. Whatever, I knew I’d open her after dealing with the FB anyways (foreshadowing to Part II). After she focused back on her friend, whose back was to me, I looked back to my FB also. She had brought out what looked like one big fucking report. Something like 150 typed pages. She worked hard at school. What a cool chick.
“Okay, I bite. What’s wrong?” I asked in sort of a ‘here we go’ tone. But she held EC and remained quiet. It was awkward. I was intimidated actually and looked away first. Why did I feel so guilty? I verbalized how awkward the atmosphere was in sort a narrator way, “It got weird…” It’s a sound-byte of mine that usually gets a laugh or two during awkward pauses with groups. But like most sound-bytes, it’s hard to understand until you hear the tonality. She didn’t laugh, just held EC, but now with her jaw clenched. ‘Wow, what the hell was going on?’ I thought, awkwardly looking around the room, avoiding her EC. When finally, my eyes settled on the top of the first page in her massive pile.
“GEEW!!” (Pronounced like the word hue, but with a ‘g’) I screamed, eyes wide and body stiff. I could see the first two words of the entire document, but I knew exactly what it every single page read after that. I also knew I had been wrong about everything up to this point. I didn’t even want to look up into her eyes. For the first time in a while since entering the community, my intellect didn’t know what to do. My instincts didn’t know what to do. Even that little voice inside me, the one that helps out just a little every now and then, was hushed. I was ashamed.
“You left your laptop at my house when I took you to school the other day so I could watch Nacho Libre, remember?” She explained. ‘Gulp’ was the only perceptible reply I gave. We had fallen asleep watching a horrible, bootlegged version of the movie “Click.” (Great movie to watch with a girl you’ve already slept with FYI. Never take a day2 to a movie unless you’ve already established a connection and are comfortable escalating kino in the theater without talking much.) “Yeah, well remember how I told you I suck with computers? I never did find Nacho Libre. Instead,” she picked up the first page to begin reading. I closed my eyes tightly, not wanting to listen.
“Lay Report: Saint Patty’s Day. Laid HB8.5 right in front of old AFC friends,” she began reading. My mouth simply hung open in shock.
“This is all bullshit. You were never this smooth.”
“Huh?” I was lost.
“That day at the beach. You weren’t this smooth. You were pretty dorky actually,” she explained.
“Really? Are you sure? Cause I’m pretty fucking smooth,” I said, taking a sip of water while looking at the TV to feign disinterest. She kept eyeballing one of ‘her’ papers. “I mean, I must have done something right if I have a girl researching my life like THIS, Detective.”
“Hahah, you never kissed me at beach!” she wasn’t even paying attention.
“I know.”
“See, this is all bullshit,” she threw the page at me. It wasn’t the right FR. I could tell by the title. The community is always saying that teaching a girl something is a major DHV and generates a lot of attraction. Like at the post office, telling a girl who’s licking a stamp something like, ‘Hey, did you know that a stamp is 1/10th of a calorie?’ or something sorta lame like that. I agree, but letting a girl teach YOU something gets her to invest in you unconsciously. She’ll be more inclined to like you afterwards, or to convince herself that she does. She’ll ask herself, ‘Why did I devote so much time to the interaction? Hmmm, must be because I like him.’ This is called backwards rationalization. It’s much easier for her to backwards rationalize that she’s attracted to you than it is for her to handle the cognitive dissonance of investing in someone for whom she feels indifference or even dislikes. I tend to run the whole ‘I don’t know how to, will you show me how’ thing all the time lately.
“Hey, Genius, check the date. That’s not you,” I finally started to feel annoyed by all this. She grabbed the paper back.
“Yes, actually, it is,” she leaned forward and pointed to the sheet, “You’re talking about fishing in Alaska there, see? And you even write about how we were in a lull, and waiting for waves, and…” she must have been just scanning some of the pages. Had she actually read any of these? I hoped she hadn’t. She was now perusing the document thoroughly“…Routine..?” she whispered to herself, “wait, Fat Paul Walker ROUTINE?! THAT was a routine too? But it wasn’t even that funny. So, wait…” she kept reading, “This ISN’T me!” I knew she felt like our meeting had ‘just happened.’ She probably imagined that it was a cool story we could tell all her friends and even her parents about later on after we had been together for awhile. It was painful watching her realize that this was not the case at all. Rather, it was something I did all the time when I went to the beach.
“Yeah, I know. Listen, this stuff comes off really sleazy from an outside perspective, I know. But, look-“
“That’s because it is! It’s…manipulative,” she said.
“No listen…look, I wasn’t always good with women. They used to petrify me. Plus, I just plain didn’t understand them. Okay, see, there was this one girl Angela right? She was my-”
“You’re a player.”
“Better than a needy Whine-aholic,” I replied automatically.
“You shouldn’t lie like this. I KNOW you tell lots of girls about Angela. Is she even real?” Holy fucking shit, was I this stupid? That’s how it always is for me. I make one mistake, then I keep making more. I must’ve gone into a very common routine of mine out of habit. Every page she bothered to read probably had the whole routine or a reference to it. It actually was a true story. Most my common routines are. Well, it was 80% true at least, lol.
“Yes, it’s a true story, but see-”
“Do you tell every girl that she has an eye booger?” she asked, cutting me off.
“Well, not every-”
“What’s an AFC?” she asked, but kept cutting me off when I tried to talk.
“Mystery, Alessandro, BradP, Tyler Durden, Toecutter …are these all your fake names, or are they your friends? Do I know them? Jessica told me that your friend told her her nose wiggles too last Saturday. Are one of those him?”
“No, no they’re not me. And no, lol, they aren’t him either,” That bastard, I thought lightheartedly, “Well, I guess…yeah, they’re my friends…sort of.”
“What does David Shading mean? It says that you David Shaded me in one of your papers.” Hahah, I was NOT going to go into that.
“Okay, look, I’m not going to be put on trial. The point is, YOU did something wrong here, not me. You went into my computer. You read my journal. You printed out my personal writings. I’m sorry if you’re hurt by all this, but if anyone should be mad here, it’s me.”
“You’re a fucking asshole,” she pretty much shouted, shoving the papers to me quickly so that many fell to the floor around us. People we’re looking now.
“Sometimes, but the thing is…See, I’m not truly a social person, even though I want to be. The idea of approaching anyone new, guy or girl…that still terrifies me. All I did was find ways to overcome my greatest fear. Some girls would find that cool,” I had to try.
“Nope,” she said, gathering her things, “You’re an asshole. God, why can’t I just meet a nice guy?!” she was still really loud.
“You know what, lady?! Maybe I AM an asshole. But that whole ‘nice guy’ thing? I tried that!” I was a little heated by now, “And you know what it got me? It got me a whole lot of ex-girlfriends giving me comforting explanations for why they were leaving, telling me how I was exactly what they wanted in a husband when they get older, and then leaving for some non nice-guy who was sometimes even a ‘friend’ of mine. So you know what I figured out about your ‘nice guys’ (using quotes)?!! Your ‘dinner-date guys’?!! Your ‘old fashioned guys’?! They’re all full of shit. That’s right. Every one of them! You think they don’t have an agenda too? Cause they totally do! It’s even worse in my opinion. Every thing they do for you, everything they pay for, every compliment they give…it’s all some secret ploy. Everything for them is a fucking trade. They do this, so they can get that. They don’t fucking care about anything, at least not in the way you think they do. At least here (referring to her and I), we made a genuine connection. And I like you, FB, I really do. You’re a cool chick, and I have fun hanging out with you. But don’t stand there and feed me that typical ‘nice-guy’ crap. Cause I WAS one, and as much as I tried to convince myself differently to think that I was somehow more virtuous than my friends or some shit, I ALWAYS had an agenda. Okay, you know what I want you to do? Next time you find a ‘nice guy,’ you ask him this for me. Ask him if he considers himself an asshole. Ask him if he’s ever been a prick to a female. Ask him if he’s ever lied to a girl. He’ll say no, and then he’ll go into how he hates how some guys do this and that to girls, and how he’d NEVER do that. He’ll say he’s never been an asshole I guarantee it!! You know how I know? Because that’s what I said way back when too! And to me, the biggest assholes in the world are THOSE GUYS, the guy I used to be. The ones who won’t admit that they are, in fact, guilty of all three aforesaid vices. Every single fucking person on this planet has been an asshole to someone for no reason at least once in their life. It’s a fact. It’s how we all learn, by making mistakes like that. That’s why, on all those little fucking questionnaires you take they’ll ask, ‘have you ever cheated on a test’ or ‘have you ever stolen something.’ Because the researchers know that every paper filled out by someone who put NO for one of those questions is going to be complete Bull Shit, so they throw those papers out. They know that almost every kid finds out that stealing is wrong by actually doing it and then being scolded by Mommy or Daddy. It’s a fucking Step-By-Step episode for Christ’s sake! So there you go, sweetheart. There’s my final gift to you before you leave here. An Asshole test you can use just about anywhere in life. It’s the people who do NOT admit to ever being an asshole you ought to worry about. It’s the Ultimate Lie. See? They’re the biggest dickheads of them all, and the ones you need to avoid most. The ‘nice guys’.” Though I wasn’t yelling, I was speaking loudly and most the restaurant had been listening. Being too much into my rant, I was unaware until finishing. I felt extremely embarrassed.
“He’s right, honey. You oughtta write that down.” The waitress said, coming out of left field.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll do it for me.” She snapped. My ex-FB looked me long and hard before giving me her farewell speech which was simply, “Asshole!” grabbed her things and began stomping out of TGI Fridays.
“Yeah, we’ve covered that.” I answered as she left.
The waitress was cool. I knew her. She was actually one of my first number closes way back when. Only a 5 or a 6, but a sweet girl nonetheless. She gave me her number but also told me she had a boyfriend so I never called. I thought there was nothing I could do in that situation at the time.
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I assured her about the bill as I shoveled the leftover food onto my own plate. I was still embarrassed until looking up to see that HB8.5wife whom I had made EC with earlier was looking at me with almost DDB eyes. Had all this been a DHV? Could this be possible? I wasn’t quite sure what ugly truths I may have loudly divulged about myself to the ex-FB. Remember, this is all summarized. Might as well give it a shot though.
I had to piss so headed to the bathroom, but went up through the bar area to get there. I stopped on the way right in front of the two hot older ladies and looked HBwife in the eyes. I then leaned my head to the side and looked quizzically at her left hand. I grabbed it, and inspected her wedding ring from many angles, sort of like I’ve never seen one before. The wives were smiling, but totally confused. Dropping her hand onto her lap, I held both of my hands right in front of her face in the thumbs-down position while saying, “Booooooooo.” She laughed but I made no facial expression, just walked to the bathroom, pissed, and headed back to my table the same direction I had came. They re-opened me as I was passing like I’d hoped.
“So what was all that about anyways?” said my target while kinoing me by gently grabbing my arm.
“Whoa! Hold on, lady. What are you doing? You’re married and I don’t even know you!” Her friend laughed genuinely. I then turned to direct a question to her friend (seated to her left), so that I could also lean slightly against HBwive with my right side, “Nah, that’s a long, boring story, seriously. Hey, do you guys think I look like a Fat version of Paul Walker?”
“Hahah, sort of! I can see it!! But you’re not fat,” her friend consoled me…and kinoed me.
“Really? Cause get this, I was up fishing in Alaska last month, right, and…”
I went on to number close HBwife. It took a little persistence though, and I don’t think she’s really too interested, but it was a good sarge still, and it got my state back up after that whole ex-FB episode which was the whole point of the approach anyways. It also gave me a chance to practice a couple new routines, which I wanted to type out in this FR as stated above. Still, hopefully you guys can enjoy this regardless.
Great post Obsidian.
And it’s worth mentioning that “Outer Game” doesn’t have to mean PUA routines or anything relating to them (not to imply that’s what you’re saying).
It can simply mean making a focused effort to pay closer attention to your own & other people’s behaviors to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and being a little more deliberate & cerebral with your actions.
In all aspects of life, you’re a hell of a lot more likely to win when you show up with a gameplan and a playbook.
“Tactical Game presents a problem for the ladies, especially in a time when people live by the millions in anonymous, fast-moving environments like major American cities, potentially depriving Women of essential resources she needs to “sort” and then “vet” Men along the lines of authenticity – hence, recourse by certain actors in our time, to Inner Game.”
Hah! Western societies have erected enormous legal structures to alleviate this specific problem – anti-men family courts, rape shield laws, sexual harassment laws, affirmative action and so on. All of them serve the purpose of shielding women from the consequences of their own actions. The resources are still there, it’s just that they are not the old ones.
Good article. By the way, I’m sure it’s *rein in Game*, not *reign in Game*.
Good post O. That said, I don’t see how people like Mark Manson or Dr. Nerd Love (who I never heard of until this) are necessarily Bad Things For Game ™. The difference is a matter of style than technique. Just like Game doesn’t rest on one technique, the presentation thereof shouldn’t rest on one technique. They’re getting men who would otherwise be turned off by the hard approach to take the Red Pill. Think of it as sugar that helps the medicine go down.
Re: 7
In their case, there’s no medicine, only poison.
Problem with tactical game is that, if it works, it means women lack some agency and autonomy many would prefer they retain.
IOW, if a button is pushed and a result results most of the time, there is no choice. No agency. No autonomy.
@8
How is what they say poison? I don’t see how a certain style of presentation is poison. Like O said, Game is A-moral, not immoral. The morality one has with it, good or bad, is irrelevant.
Just tagging so I can follow at work…
deti is most rightest, as usual. I disagree that “simply put, they cannot deny that Game works.” In fact, women are so afraid of falling for tactical Game from a beta that they HAVE to propagate this dichotomy about inner Game, and unsurprising have ensnared many men into doing their will. Their method of denying that Game works is surprisingly simple: they deny that Game works. In the same way that lazy boys drop out of Little League because they tried twice and still couldn’t hit the ball far, many men are susceptible to the lie that practice does not make perfect. This then is the false dichotomy that those men are susceptible to: “You kinda sorta almost tried Game tactics twice and you still didn’t get the girl? Well, then, it must be because you lack inner Game.” This combo post-hoc plus No-True-Scotsman fallacy is apparently devastating to many would-be players who are induced to go home without even bothering to take their balls with them.
In reality-land, Game tactics work so scarily well it is almost too tempting to go whole hog for any man who wishes to retain his rags of respectability. And in truth-world, it is the fact that Game tactics work so well that causes inner Game, not vice versa.
Couple of comments:
Obs says that being an inner-gamed person, aka got it going on wrt ambition and success and whatnot, ought to be successful with the ladies, but, he says, some cannot start a conversation. True. The planted axiom is that being successful in these fields [law, business, academia] means you’re a complete person. Cite? Kidding, of course. It’s a stereotype that STEM people are dorks/nerds. Might even be true. Why, then, is success in other fields presumed to select against dorks/nerds?
The long essay having much too much to do with chewing a sandwich teaches us a couple of things: Even a dishonest dork can make game work for him. This guy is such a loser that he keeps a diary about his adventures with the ladies, and he’s such a loser he even lies to himself in the diary.
When he’s busted as a dishonest loser, he starts the nice-guy argument, aka whining, to the woman in question either to defend himslf against her accusations, or himself against his own inadequacy. Does he expect to convince her of something or other?
He did.
Then he’s running game on a couple of married women and gets a number.
That and a couple of bucks….
But, up until he got busted by what might have been a keeper–presuming he’s worth a keeper–game was working.
Hell of a lesson there. Somewhere.
Since he was surfing with an 8+, we can presume he’s reasonably good-looking. Lucked into good bone structure and keeps himself fit. Otherwise she’d wouldn’t have bothered with him. At her level, dishonest dorks who are also good looking are available. And some might not be dishonest dorks running game.
The biological bases of game ought to take into account that humans are, of all animals, least controlled by instinct. Instead of on/off switches, we have propensities of one level of strength or another, hugely influenced by experience, vicarious or direct.
That being said, it occurs to me that society has a major influence on such propensities, which is what I just said. And if society changes, behavioral responses to one or another stimulus will change.
What if, to use a current boogey-man, feminism or the sexual revolution made game necessary, or substantially more necessary?
Obs refers to “fast-moving” society, which is true. But we aren’t required to let our own lives move at the speed of the internet or twitchytwerpingnet or some damn’ thing. It’s a choice.
We can take the time to vet others if we wish. Hundred years ago, in a small town, you knew the other person and even knew what others kknew. Today…can do the same thing if you wish. Nobody’s stopping you.
Full disclosure. My own experience with game was that before I was exclusive, I was so monumentally oblivious to so many things that I looked monumentally non-needy. Which, I suppose, was an attractor. Oblivious to that, too, and the resulting IOI. Which, I suppose, multiplied the effect. Other than that, nothing direct.
I think your read on Mark Manson is wrong, he simply does not care so much about pick up, i.e., notch counts and he does not write for people who do.
When even KrauserPUA says that he thinks Mark Manson is where he wants to be in a few years in his head I would not dismiss him lightly.
What he does is a bit like AntiDumps Machine (you can find it in the Hall of Fame at SoSuave), he does not want a yes, he wants a FUCK YES!!!, from a woman, he opens up and if she reacts by being a snarky bitch he leaves and so further and so on.
Ultimately what that leads to, if you sarge on, is a woman you can handle moments of perceived weakness, who are enthusiastically into you and that enrich your life beyond access to a vagina.
Also, if you screen that way, “tactical” game is far less important than it would be otherwise, because such a man would approach, he is willing to walk away and he knows what he wants out of an interaction with a woman and that puts him ahead of the curve right there.
@Deti
” Women, however, are free to engage in any conduct they wish, including deceptive conduct, and they can do so free from any moral accountability.”
No, they can not, because I will simply walk out, not giving a damn what they do with their shitty lives.
Also, strictly from a “tactical” game perspective, having standards is indeed a social handicap, ethical peacocking if you will and if you can get laid in spite of it you are suddenly so much more interesting that you can get laid even more.
#14 lol @ “ethical peacocking”. The concept for me to digest this week. Keep in mind that (supposedly) the evolutionary advantage that a peacock is displaying is NOT that he is so good, so very very good, at all the logically best strategies to promote survival and reproduction, i.e. camouflage, keeping his head down so it doesn’t get chewed off, focused efforts at acquiring resources, etc. Instead he’s wasting time and energy strutting around in a fantastic display, showing that he can irrationally handicap himself and still get the job done brilliantly. The strategy of showing you can outdo others with one hand tied behind your back.
I ponder, and admit, that I have been among the world’s worst ethical peacocks, although not deliberately. I was more akin to the truly handicapped man missing one leg who tried to hop in the race, as compared to the man who ties up one of his legs but could let it down.
Excellent exposition.
By complete coincidence, I just ran a post which referenced the “inner game” rhetorical orgasm:
http://badgerhut.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/success-is-within-your-grasp/
“If you read people who are peddling rhetoric about “inner game” (especially in contrast to the rudiments of meeting and dating women that comprise behavioral game) it’s hard not to hear the message that you need to “arrive” somehow before you can expect to succeed socially, like there’s some magical spiritual plane of peace where all the answers are revealed to your a priori.
Much inner-game discussion I’ve read actually sounds like an indirect form of “just be yourself” – don’t try to get better, don’t consider actionable behavioral changes, just try to “be confident” and do whatever comes into your head, minimize emotional disruption (which would indicate that you weren’t “authentic”) and don’t challenge yourself with situations that could push your personal growth. The thinking seems to be that strong “inner game” would make you supremely unbothered and, say, take away approach anxiety or Jedi-mind-trick the AMOGs into GTFO’ing.
One wonders what they would say if they were personal trainers – they’d probably tell you that exhaustion and soreness were the result of offending your “true physique” rather than a regular occurrence in the gym that portended improved condition and muscle growth.”
Female discussion of inner game tends to be paired with flowery notions of amorphous “confidence” with little in the way of how that confidence actually happens.
One of the dumbest things I’ve read was a riff on inner game over at the old watering hole where the lady of the house went off on how if you just developed your inner game and be “authentic” all the correct tactical maneuvers will “just happen.” That’s the kind of expertly useless advice men have received for generations.
If I recall she compared inner game to Mr Miyagi from “The Karate Kid;” this analogy was completely backwards, because Miyagi took a kid who wanted to fight (his “inner game”) and showed him the sort of physical and mental tactical behaviors he needed to be effective at his art. The meme of “wax on wax off” was teaching the right gross-motor dexterity and is revealed beautifully at a key moment in the film. He was faking it until he made it.
I guess she thought Miyagi was just giving the kid a psychological pumpup; I saw some very sophisticated skill-based teaching going on.
As I wrote in my post today, I’m very skeptical of any advice to men that has a “you need to do X before you’re allowed to be successful with women” message to it like it was a union certification. It’s just a rhetorical slip for women to enforce their perceived birthright of judging men fit or unfit to date other women. The message reinforces the inferiority complex that is the plight of the beta male and induces him away from action to improve. Morpheus has already posted a comment to this effect, I know we overlap on that point.
It’s like you aren’t allowed to have bad game, your game has to be good out of the box or some handful of women you approach in your first month of pickup are going to feel creeped out and the sisterhood can’t have that. To paraphrase a proverb about experience, “good game comes from experience, and experience comes from bad game.” You have to do the behaviors and hone them, just “thinking right” is not going to get it done.
When I read women discussing “inner game” and “authenticity,” what I hear them saying is “lie to me” (the lesson of sales, which existed in earnest long before game was codified, is that authenticity can be very effectively faked) and “don’t make me think you are a player” (because their mental image of a guy running game is one who is ham-fisted and deliberate rather than smooth and congruent).
I’ve read some of Manson and liked his stuff, and his interview with Manosphere Radio was very good. However you are correct to note him as one of the writers whose writings, if unintentionally, flatter the blue-pillian sensibilities of various anti-game folks who can’t or won’t admit the truth about how changing your behavior – not your mindset or your belief system, but simply your behavior – can improve your lot with women.
Used correctly, “inner game” is the habituation of good game behaviors and the rising of the mindset that goes along with them. They go in a pair. You can’t just wake up one day with the conviction “I’m going to be a confident, smooth, attractive man from this day forward” and have all the dominoes fall into place.
I think that’s what women writing about this tend to not understand, that men change their mindsets by changing their habits, and it seems women are able to get out of bed with a completely different self-image to a degree men aren’t able to do. Observe how much female marketing targets that switch in self-image, that buying or using a certain product will make you a “new person.”
Perhaps the breaking down of game into “outer” and “inner” aspects can be seen as a struggle for power that with time will result in a more conscious decision making about relationships, be they LTR or ONS. As you said O,”– because the specific rules of human sexual attraction, has not until now been fully, clearly explained. Part of the reason for this is due to the simple fact that Humanity is only now in recent years beginning to understand this;” Or we are just now putting reality into words.
Power is the ability to direct or prevent the current or future actions of other groups or individuals and it is channeled in 4 ways, coercion, obligation, persuasion and inducement. To quote Ian MacMillian, “In any power interaction one party manipulates a situation in a way that affects the actions of another.” Power shifts when the barriers that were put in place by the existing power structure are threatened or weakened. For many reasons the Power in the game of attraction has shifted from coercions and obligation to persuasion and inducement for both men and women.
“All’s fair in love and war.” There is no moral superiority in either outer or inner game. The only difference I see is that inner game should be a indicator of LTR/ marriage potential if that is what one is looking for.
Magnificent post O, so much in it.
Re: myself. In digesting the red pill for a little while now, I feel I’ve grown a third leg. It is The Little Leg That Could; in this case the little leg that could be bad. Since in real life I’m a fine upstanding citoyen, this third leg is itself a handicap, a burden, a besetting weight. And yet, the chicks dig it.
Re: game. I think that “seduction” is a valuable component of a larger study of persuasion, influence, neuromarketing techniques, negotiation theories, etc. These tend to offer two advantages to their students: 1) the Sword and 2) the Shield.
The Sword, or “instrumentalist argument for persuasion technology”, simply indicates those tactics, techniques, and procedures which make you more effective in achieving your interpersonal goals. The Shield is a metaphor for defensive techniques which are meant to make you more aware of those who try to persuade you to do things that are against your personal best interests, and better able to counter these attacks.
The biohacker and elite-level mixed-martial arts communities have come up with a basic template for exploring things like game/seduction:
1. Find out who the acknowledged experts in a given field are.
2. Find out what the experts say is *supposed to work” (look for general consensus at first)
3. Build a performance feedback system that allows for very rapid iterations between stimulus and response, observed cause and observed effect. Hopefully this system allows you to isolate one adjustment variable at a time.
4. Examine alleged universals. See if the stuff that is supposed to work actually works for you.
5. Examine local variations. Start trying stuff that is either not supposed to work or that has apparently not been tested in depth. See if that stuff works for you.
6. Particularly if you wish to share the material, attempt to build an explanatory model for what worked and didn’t work. The best models are elegant and parsimonious rather than overfit to the data, try to explain most of a phenomenon with the fewest parameters, and make readily testable predictions. The worst models are “not even wrong” because they fail to make falsifiable predictions that we can use to see if the model is accurate or not. Note that because of #5, a given model may lead to performance for one individual and not for another.
#18: Of course chicks dig that third leg!
And what use is it if it’s all angel and no devil?
It can be a burden and handicap, I’m sure, but think of it as a gift! And don’t call it little, be proud….
Oh, wait, what are we talking about here?
One other thing: “inner game” discussion is sometimes laced with the “women have a window into your soul” theory, a scare tactic that tells men that women can magically see through them and if they have any kind of nerves when running their game, women will be able to tell and so tactical game is pointless until you have a Biddhistic level of internal state control. IOW, “you won’t succeed so don’t even try.”
Women obviously have a vested interest in promoting the idea that they can read your mind, and another vested interest in telling themselves that they can do so and would never fall for a “fake guy.” A certain type of person has a further personal investment in the idea that they can “read people;” I’ve generally found that “people-readers” are really good at projection.
I quoted LaidNYC on this point who said “it’s all bullshit.” And generally speaking every person’s nervousness is bigger in their own head than it is externally, if you are self-aware of your nerves it’s probably not displaying as much as you think.
http://badgerhut.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/remember-that-women-get-approachee-anxiety/
Women do have very well-developed detectors for cues to emotional state, probably more developed than men’s on the whole. However, they only work in particular ways; Buss is right that perception can become deception, you can fake out those instruments. The early seduction guys found many effective ways to do that.
#16 thanks, very helpful post. Re:”It’s like you aren’t allowed to have bad game, your game has to be good out of the box or some handful of women you approach in your first month of pickup are going to feel creeped out and the sisterhood can’t have that.” Yes, precisely. deti failed to reach that point in his first comment, but that was the direction of his vector. Women need to feed their apex fallacy, and essentially the only way to do that is to tell all men to go away until the men are better. I.e. all women think every single encounter ought to be the World Series with never any Little League practice.
“Women need to feed their apex fallacy, and essentially the only way to do that is to tell all men to go away until the men are better. I.e. all women think every single encounter ought to be the World Series with never any Little League practice.”
Actually jf12, imho this is just human nature, always looking for the easiest way to get the biggest bang. Game requires everyone, dare I say, to bring their A game.
Welcome to the jungle ladies.
@ orion:
” Women, however, are free to engage in any conduct they wish, including deceptive conduct, and they can do so free from any moral accountability.”
“No, they can not, because I will simply walk out, not giving a damn what they do with their shitty lives.”
The point was that women in the main do not consider themselves constrained by any kind of ethics when it comes to dating, sex and marriage. “All’s fair in love and war” to such women. Most women feel justified in saying and doing whatever they wish, or whatever they believe they must, in order to meet their own individual dating, sexual and/or LTR objectives. This includes, but is not limited to, gilding the lilly, embellishment, duplicity, mendacity, deception, and outright fraud – all things that women protest strenuously when men turn, or attempt to turn, the tables.
#20 I’ve been honing my mixing of metaphors, and I can shake and stir at the same time. It ain’t bragging if you obviously can do it (doing bad things), and disdain to do it via ethical peacocking. Similarly, it ain’t so saintly if you obviously just can’t do it anyway. The sound exhortation of 1 Corinthians 6:18 to flee fornication becomes more difficult for the man with a third leg dragging, but it is ONLY to him that it is applicable. You can’t flee something if you can’t even get near to it.
I think the abundance mentality is the source, the wellspring of inner Game. But men cannot have that mentality until they try tactical Game. Naturals are merely those who tried it earliest. And clearly if the majority of men realize the abundance mentality then all of women’s hypergamous dreams are shattered forever.
WRT inner game. No reason not to make yourself a better person one way or another.
Once a woman decides to, or accidentally does, dig beneath game, it would be better if she found something of merit.
The success of Game is simply an indictment of the failures of Feminism and of weak men. Attacking game on moral grounds is pointless as ‘biological imperatives’ exist whether you like it or not. Rejection of Feminism and ‘toughening up the boys’ is the answer. The problem is that Feminism did create a playground for sociopaths by taking good intentioned guys out of the picture via indoctrination of false ideas, turning them into unattractive Betas. If the well intentioned guy knew the score he would Game his favorite chicks and get what he wanted, she would get her’s and all would be right in the universe.
And in truth-world, it is the fact that Game tactics work so well that causes inner Game, not vice versa.
I think it makes no sense whatsoever to view Outer Game and Inner Games as two entirely distinct things that have no relationship or connection. I think they are inseparably joined with causality flowing in both directions.
George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager, and arguably one of the most brilliant minds when it comes to economics, finance, markets has a theory he termed reflexivity.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a.html#axzz2qUUakT1n
In the course of my life, I have developed a conceptual framework which has helped me both to make money as a hedge fund manager and to spend money as a policy oriented philanthropist. But the framework itself is not about money, it is about the relationship between thinking and reality, a subject that has been extensively studied by philosophers from early on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)
Reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect. A reflexive relationship is bidirectional with both the cause and the effect affecting one another in a situation that does not render both functions causes and effects.
In other words, the effective use of specific “Outer Game” tactics can lead to positive outcomes which have a positive impact on “Inner Game” in terms of improved “confidence” and self-image. That increased confidence level can lead to use of Outer Game which is more congruent and appears more “natural”. There is the potential for a virtuous positive feedback loop.
There is a bit of a paradox when it comes to “outcome independence”. It is true that in one sense you have to be outcome independent especially perhaps in any single interaction. Good Game comes from outcome independence which is connected to an abundance mentality. That said, if you are not getting any positive outcomes that signal is telling you something is wrong with your Outer Game. How do basketball players become great free throw shooters? By focusing and developing the right techniques, and then shooting hundreds if not thousands of free throws.
The “Rise” of the FPUA
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???
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what is this i dont even
Isn’t this just saying yes?
One other thing: “inner game” discussion is sometimes laced with the “women have a window into your soul” theory, a scare tactic that tells men that women can magically see through them and if they have any kind of nerves when running their game, women will be able to tell and so tactical game is pointless until you have a Biddhistic level of internal state control. IOW, “you won’t succeed so don’t even try.”
Badger, as the great and wise Dogsquat (hope whereever he is he is doing well) would say STEEL ON TARGET. I think some women…ahem…have an enormous amount invested in their so-called ability to “read” people. I think it is mostly bunk. No one is psychic and can read into your inner mind, your deepest thoughts if you are effectively controlling what you are displaying and communicating on the outside. I mentioned this before…I was at a corporate training session for meeting facilitation where I was taped and watched it back. I was actually somewhat nervous, but watching myself I was surprised just how cool and composed I came off watching myself as an outside observer.
I think you are spot on in that “people readers” are mostly just projecting their own inner stuff onto someone else.
One other thought…the girls have also been disadvantaged by Feminism as they are indoctrinated with false ideas concerning men. But…..they are drawn to guys displaying game. Creates ‘forbidden love’ and the bad decisions that go with it. Girls should be raised ‘Game Aware’ by their moms and ALL BOYS should be ‘Game On’ as a default position. Now we have a legit field and gotten rid of the ethical crybabies. Before the rise of Feminism, this was the case.
This controversy exists because people are basically lazy.
Good game takes time and effort. It’s the male burden.
Being thin and physically attractive takes time and effort. It’s the female burden.
Denying and shaming game is the intellectual equivalent of fat shaming.
Today women expect to get high value men no matter how much ice cream they consume. Blue pill men expect to score hot chicks by virtue of being themselves. Feminism, and a libertine culture of tolerance just reinforces these lies.
Sorry, meant fat acceptance not shaming.
@Weak Stream, I am doing this with 12-14 yr old girls in my church. Needless to say the language is modified.
Badpainter +1 In full agreement with you.
One other thought…the girls have also been disadvantaged by Feminism as they are indoctrinated with false ideas concerning men.
This is likely true. That said, my experience…especially online…is that many women vehemently oppose any attempt by men to disabuse them of their false ideas concerning men. One common retort is that “none of the guys” she knows in real life think this way, talk this way, or act this way completely oblivious to the point that in many cases IRL men have motivations and logical reasons not to reveal their true thoughts on matters. I’m certainly not going to get into a discussion at the workplace with a short haired woman that long hair is generally 10x more attractive. Why? So I can get hauled before HR on some BS “harassment” charge.
Regarding Manson and Dr. Nerdlove,
Admittedly I know very little about both, but as a general rule, I think Follow the Money is a good rule. For anyone who is looking to monetize their writings whether books, or blog advertising or whatever, it makes sense to shape your product for certain market niches. There is probably a perceived market opportunity for “friendly, sanitized” Game that women can endorse and advocate.
There has been some implications in other areas of the manosphere that Athol has done this at MMSL any thoughts Morpheus.
“I think it makes no sense whatsoever to view Outer Game and Inner Games as two entirely distinct things that have no relationship or connection. I think they are inseparably joined with causality flowing in both directions.”
In my opinion the distinctions some people want to make is not so much “inner” and “outer” Game, but “Good” game and “Bad” game; or if you prefer, “Good game” and “Evil game”.
Women can use Good game to their advantage, but cannot do so with Bad or Evil game.
Marellus,
That was an enjoyable read. Reading that comment reminded me about the quotes/expressions about laws and sausages. The process of attracting a woman is similar
“The lesser the people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep in the night”. ‘to retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.’ would be a loose translation of this statement
Earlier still: A certain witty advocate remarked: “One would risk being disgusted if one saw politics, justice, and one’s dinner in the making.” – Nicolas de Chamfort (1741–1794)
A woman shouldn’t be consciously aware of the specifics behind how you attracted her. It ruins the magic.
As a side point, I know some guys will discuss Game specifics with their SOs or women they are casually dating. I think this is a bad idea generally speaking. As the example above demonstrates, most women cannot handle an intellectual deconstruction of the step by step playbook you ran to get her.
Women have there own version of Bad/Evil game they use to herd Beta orbiters.
Men spin plates, women herd orbiters.
Each sex has its own unique game. Neither sex can use the other’s game to gain the same results. It would be like using a penis as a vagina.
#27 Feminism as the world’s biggest shit test. Boy, are we having fun here or what? It continues to fill me with thankful wonderment how fertile is this soil of gender relationships.
Notice nobody ever says “Boy, are we having fun yet?”
#40 DU penetrator on target (my skull). That’s exactly what I was doing my whole life, being a genteelman and all: trying to herd women into being my beta orbiters. After all, I wasn’t about to actually marry them …
The funny thing is, I do have herds of beta orbiting men. I just figured women should be the same way.
Problem with tactical game is that, if it works, it means women lack some agency and autonomy many would prefer they retain.
IOW, if a button is pushed and a result results most of the time, there is no choice. No agency. No autonomy.
Richard,
I don’t think that is correct about no choice, agency, or autonomy. I think there is a big difference between no agency and say being highly responsive to certain emotional triggers. I think of it like this. Imagine emotion and reason as two input dials to behavior. My sense is that women for the most part (NAWALT) simply have a much more difficult time with restraining how much emotion plays into behavior. One example might be the frequency of sadness leading to crying. The one exception might be anger where men may actually be more susceptible to emotion leading to specific behavior such as something violent.
So I think if a man can use certain “Tactical Outer Game” tactics to trigger certain emotions that lead to certain behavior, women get disturbed when they feel those emotions have been “falsely” induced.
#28 Re: reflexivity. I think it complete error to focus on inner Game at all (keep in mind this bluster is coming from a 64 yr old grandpa of teenagers, only slightly less unhappily married than prior to the red pill but getting rather amazingly better responses from many other women now) in the same way that any man working on Game shouldn’t ever heed advice to “Don’t neglect your beta side because you will need it to balance the alpha you develop.” It is cargo cult superstition at best, Lamarckian misrepresentation of cause and effect at worst. The same nonsense as confirmation-biased New Age positive thinking. The reason you shouldn’t bother going there is because there is no there there despite wishful thinking. In fact, inner Game as distinct from outer Game (I agree they are inseparable) is identical with wishful thinking. There is no more precise definition of inner Game than the awareness that outer Game works.
Good work, Obs. Not TL, useful links, good takedowns.
I am rererereading the Book of 5 Rings by Musashi, along with Sun Tzu. So those influence me.
There is no “inner game”, there is no “outer game”, there is Game. “Outer game” is a manifestation of technique and “inner game”. “Inner game” is the internalized form of “outer game”. As noted, they are two sides of the same coin. One must have some care in the form of outer game, as it will effect inner game. One must cultivate inner game in order to have a foundation, or platform, for outer game to rest upon. To insist on one without the other is foolish, it is like deciding to lift weights but not bother to learn proper breathing.
Those women who choose to whine and fret over outer game vs. inner game are merely manifesting their desire for fried ice. They wish to have their cake, eat it too, and send the bill to “men”. This should be no surprise to anyone.
Why should any man waste time with the complaints of women about Game?
#29 “No means yes!” hoot!
Agree on the important point that “Inner” & “Outer” game are in a constant feedback loop… you can’t just choose to isolate one without affecting the other.
Morpheus
Clearly, people, outside of basic reflexes like the startle reflex, do not react as insects do, on/off.
However, to presume that a certain action will generate a certain reaction more often than randomnity means that it has some power. And it overcomes whatever was preventing the reaction in the first place.
So, while it is not on/off, it works. Presuming it works, that is. And that means the actor has the power to make the other person react in a desired way, despite what the other person may be thinking/feeling/desiring/prepared to reject.
IOW, the other person’s agency, choice and autonomy have been reduced by “tactics”.
It is of a piece with feminism’s rejection of certain parts of ev psych. If the propensity is built in, you can’t change it by guilt-tripping, shaming language, or consciousness raising.
Now, since it’s a propensity,whatever it is, presuming it is, then the individual’s propensity to do it, whatever it is, can be influenced, but the feminists want various things STOPPED, and BLAMED on the PATRIARCHY. That’s guys’ stuff. Women’s stuff being subject to tactics in a fashion other than the woman wants, or other than feminists want the woman to want, is seen as reducing choice.
Agreed, no on/off. But much communication, especially in advertising and politics, depends on or uses tactics one way or another.
For example, thirty years ago, showing a family all getting on different landline extensions to talk to a soldier who is obviously deployed would not have been an ad company’s first choice. It was not considered that throwing a soldier into the mix would result in warm fuzzies. Today, they would think it works. That’s tactics. Probably work, generating warm fuzzies for the client’s product.
Anyway, if a woman’s interest can be piqued by tactics, actions not necessarily connected to attractiveness in any rational sense, then her choice is reduced, or, to put it another way, forced.
Anyway, if a woman’s interest can be piqued by tactics, actions not necessarily connected to attractiveness in any rational sense, then her choice is reduced, or, to put it another way, forced.
Perhaps we are arguing semantics, but the way I see it especially given human free will is that choice can never be reduced or forced through tactics intended to influence, persuade, or affect your emotional state. At least for mature adults. If I don’t feed a 5-year old for 10 hours, and then put them in a room with cauliflower on one plate and a chocolate bar on another plate, then I am sympathetic to the argument that I have “reduced” their choice to make a good choice on food consumption. I don’t view women as the functional equivalent of 5-year old children though so I hold them to a higher standard of their higher order thinking functions being able to overrule any emotionally driven behavior.
The self-revelations continue to ooze out. It has been almost a couple of years ago now, spring of 2012, as a sexually frustrated blue-pilled husband, after working at improving my physical appearance for a half year with negative effect on the wife, that I tentatively began to game an attractive younger woman (40s) I had just met, almost for spite of myself, almost to reassure myself that it couldn’t possibly work for me. But it worked immediately. The expected resistance was missing, was instead welcoming, and afterwards I had to backpedal rapidly for some days to avoid becoming enveloped. I could bore you with the details, which I posted realtime elsewhere. I didn’t understand: it (er, she) couldn’t possibly have been that easy, could it? A little dhv (I’m naturally garrulous, maybe you can tell, but I’m talking tangible displays), a little neg, a little push-pull, a little kino … it shouldn’t have worked that easy! Worse yet, if Game really worked, then I should have been smart enough to have done it like fifty years ago. Worst yet, when I “broke up” with her she was regretful and then we became friends! The exact opposite of all my prior experiences with women: women reacted negatively to my ungaming and dumped me and then hated me for letting them dump me, or something. In sum, I used her as an object, experimented on her, and she thanked me for the experience and wanted to do it again.
Then that summer, almost as a joke, I kinda started gaming an even more attractive even younger woman (30) while aloneish in the woods, both dirty and sweaty and with Eau de Mosquito Spray, again before getting to know her at all, this time letting her know up front I was just joking since she wasn’t my type and I was twice her age. It may have been all of ten minutes later that she began removing her clothing, to my consternation. She at first thought I was worried about someone seeing us and her solution was for us to go to her place, and then she was amused and attracted by my demurral “I’m not that kind of boy!” That whole autumn of 2012, coteaching a botany class, it was difficult for me to deflect her attentions, even though we never did anything. And we’re still friends. 2013 was, shall we say, eyeopening. Strange women invited no-strings impregnation, again detailed realtime. Familiar women began to notice. The wife fell off her high horse. Inner game blossomed in the arena dirt of outer game.
“Anyway, if a woman’s interest can be piqued by tactics, actions not necessarily connected to attractiveness in any rational sense, then her choice is reduced, or, to put it another way, forced.”
The tactics you speak of trigger attraction, and are no different than the woman using cleavage, makeup, and long hair to trigger attraction in men. Does a pushup bra also constitute a reduction in choice, or agency on the part of the man?
Many times I have been distracted by a woman’s appearance. Later I learn she’s dull, bitchy, or otherwise flawed. No different from using game tactics losing frame and revealing a beta core that incongruent with the tactics.
Really you’re talking about first step in the process of making a sale, that is ringing the doorbell.
What I’m getting from this discussion is that the whole “outer vs inner game” is merely another (in a long list of) shaming tactics designed to make men act against their own self interest.
Thing is, about tactics, is that they work on an unconscious level, or subliminal level. Why should body language work, or not? Why should kidding work, or not?
The free choice implies the woman says to herself, consciously, “he’s kidding me and teasing me and that’s attractive”.
Guys selling game insist it’s entirely subconscious. And there are people who object to advertising using similar tactics. Cute kid. Colonial house with a white picket fence to sell…lawn service, instead of a contemporary monstrosity. If it has a positive effect, it’s not on a conscious level. Ditto game.
In fact, the ad is closer to the surface because it calls up presumed positive connections–which would likely be other presentations of a colonial house with a white picket fence,whether or not you ever lived in one, or wished you had.
The purveyors of game say their tactics work without learned associations, but with instinct.
Now, I don’t sell game, and I’m not a feminist railing against it. If you have a problem with the issue, talk to the feminists.
#52 yes, but more broadly shaming tactics are merely another shit test, and shit tests are merely consequences of the apex fallacy, which is merely powered by hypergamy.
Like Badpainter, I’m not sure why the objectification of desirable behavior is seems criticized in different way than the objectification of desired physical attributes.
“I’m not sure why the objectification of desirable behavior is seems criticized in different way than the objectification of desired physical attributes”
It’s a misunderstanding of the nature of the collaries. They are not opposites but analogues.
Outer game (a negative)= Fat acceptance (a positive)
Game as manipulation (something done to someone else) = beautification (something one does for ones self)
Commitment (long investment horizon no guarantee of payoff) = sex (instant gratification)
So these two statement should make it clear:
Men don’t run game on fat chicks for long term commitment.
Beautiful women don’t offer sex to men without game.
Ugly women are being protected, beta men are being used.
#55 Ah. Another example of the symplectic relationship of the genders, i.e. partial antisymmetry i.e. analogy with a twist.
Yes, Richard, the tactics work.
Yes, women are not anywhere near as mature as they think they are. This is why they need social support and guidance, especially from brothers and fathers, on proper behavior. The same applies to me, probably to a lesser extent. I often consult Mother Dearest on major ticket items or job problems, as she has vastly more experience and many of my impulses are probably incorrect and I am subject to manipulation.
What’s the issue? That it implies women actually have something to learn from other people?
Subtle changes in the way we present ourselves or word things can yield huge differences. In fact, the blog that prompted this discussion knows it, and suggested women use it to their advantage, by saying “I don’t do casual sex” instead of “I can’t do sexual sex.” One is empowering, the other is depowering.
Subtle difference, big change in results. One convinces you are the kind of person who actually doesn’t do something bad.
Yet it totally objects to the idea of men using the same techniques….why….because if a girl can so easily build herself up, she can so easily be torn down…and we can’t have men empowered to attack women, you see.
Morpheus said to always follow the money. I think it’s always good to consider the context. For instance, on another forum I frequent, someone posted an op-ed from a teacher, about how her job was so hard, and how students these days all suck and administrators all suck.
You know what, I don’t give a shit. Don’t sell me that story. This op-ed finds itself posted during a major discussion about educational outcomes, IE, whether to shut down under-performing schools, how to measure teacher performance and whether to hold them accountable AT ALL for any results.
That’s the context. The tactics are to show a bunch of examples about her crappy job. The strategy is to generate mood-affiliation so I am in her political court.
NO SELL
Don’t give me the sob story about your job. Give me the low-down on your political stance.
Always consider the context.
What would you assume the context is here?
@jf12: “.. In reality-land, Game tactics work so scarily well it is almost too tempting to go whole hog ..”
Whaddya mean, “almost”?
Coupla years ago, I thought it was me that was the one going mad. “why the .. what the ..?? O well, must try harder ..” Turns out the missing bit of the jigsaw was down the crack in the big fat cushions all the time.
There’s only one test of this stuff, as the likes of Rollo maintain.
It either does, or does not, produce results.
Good news fellas, like a chom, it voiks!
Now it’s just a race between me, and the undertaker (yea, I wasted/invested a lot of precious time).
Obsidian, this is a somewhat-more-than-averagely stellar contribution to the corpus. I am in your debt, sir.
Rule #1 of Game.
Never discuss Game.
But I’ll digress.
“…this fundamental flaw of the intellect:” (edited) because thus and so went to (the Same, allegedly) prestigious school as fantasy idol X; has thus and so (allegedly) prestigious,( by rumor of power and money) job; has this particular “look” like (professionally coifed, made up, coached “actor”/character in a roll from the fantasy of writers catering to such); they, therefore, must be a good person!
The fundamental flaw of “the intellect” (vs. emotional/delusional) is it’s primary lack, or total rejection if ever even partially gleaned.
In fact, the blog that prompted this discussion knows it, and suggested women use it to their advantage, by saying “I don’t do casual sex” instead of “I can’t do sexual sex.” One is empowering, the other is depowering.
Just for the record, I want to say that I would totally respect a woman who maintains that as her position..her code she lives by. The key though is that the code is uniformly, consistently, and steadfastly applied. I call total, complete, unequivocal bullshit if a woman says “I don’t do casual sex”……EXCEPT if I go to a out of town wedding with one of my besties from college and I meet a “hawt” boy and it just “feels” like the right thing at that particular moment. If that is true, then your code is bullshit…you don’t really believe it, and you will make exceptions.
NAWALT and NAMALT applies, but experience tells me this is a big difference between many men and women. Men have codes and you do things according to the code regardless of how you feel about it in the moment. Many women go with their feelings, and then loudly proclaim “DON’T JUDGE ME”. The takeaway for men is when many women say X, you disregard it, and just work harder to change their feelings knowing that is ultimately what they are going to respond to.
I’ll just throw it out that I don’t think anyone should discuss game with their intended.
I’d liken it to hygiene. Everyone appreciates a woman who is plucked and presentable but do you really want to watch that in progress? Assuming you aren’t German, you probably don’t want to know she had a suppository before putting on that tight dress either. Don’t explain how the sausage is made, just serve it and if she likes it, it’s good sausage (so to speak).
Dr. Helen has an interesting post over at PJMedia that deals with a theme I discussed in my post:
Why Marry if You Are a Call Girl?
http://pjmedia.com/drhelen/2014/01/15/why-marry-if-you-are-a-call-girl/
Comments?
O.
@Richard Aubrey:
There is a saying in Pickup circles that goes something like this:
“Attraction is not a choice”.
-David De’Angelo
This is in response to your queries above…
O.
Great post Obs. And interesting link to Dr. Helen and the double standards of deception.
8to12 says:
What I’m getting from this discussion is that the whole “outer vs inner game” is merely another (in a long list of) shaming tactics designed to make men act against their own self interest.
and
jf12 replies:
#52 yes, but more broadly shaming tactics are merely another shit test, and shit tests are merely consequences of the apex fallacy, which is merely powered by hypergamy.
I agree with both of these points of view. As jf12 states, because of hypergamy women want Alpha, and now that they are sort of aware of Game they fear getting involved with “fake” Alpha. Since women generally do not understand Game they wish to shame outer Game (‘fake”) and demand inner Game (“real”). And thus, as 8to12 notes, we get shaming tactics intended to force “fake” Alphas to reveal themselves (perhaps via supplication?), leaving the “real” Alphas visible. Of course, one result of this is to induce confusion in the minds of some Beta men, in order to discourage them from learning Game…
The takeaway IMO is that most women don’t understand Game, and so a man should take their comments on it as suitable for entertainment purposes only.
Yes, I think that’s right. There are two interrelated dynamics at work here. Or, more than two, probably but I’m just sticking to these two.
First is, women want the “real alpha” not the fake. “Game” sounds to them like deceptive advertising, like being sold a shiny lemon under false pretenses by shady car dealer.
Second, no one likes to be deceived or to think they have been deceived. So, in addition to “game” sounding like an ominous means of sticking a woman with an inferior product, insult is added to the injury when she has been TRICKED into it.
But of course if it “doesn’t work” there would be nothing to worry about. If all or most women had “intuition” to see through the tricks, ditto, nothing to worry about.
I also think that Rollo’s “Just get it” point plays into this. For certain women, if you had to learn how to be attractive, or how not to be unattractive, then you are a creep and you deserve to be a lone. We only want naturals.
Obs. Attraction is not a choice. So if a game guy sparks attraction by tactics, the attraction is not a choice. Thus, reduced agency and autonomy.
Which is what the feminists dislike about the thing. Either they presume it works in which case it’s vile. Or it doesn’t work in which case there are some questions to be answered about various “choices”.
richardaubrey-
“Obs. Attraction is not a choice. So if a game guy sparks attraction by tactics, the attraction is not a choice. Thus, reduced agency and autonomy.
Which is what the feminists dislike about the thing. Either they presume it works in which case it’s vile. Or it doesn’t work in which case there are some questions to be answered about various ‘choices’.”
Allow me to rephrase:
“Obs. Attraction is not a choice. So if some broad sparks attraction by fake boobs, and hair extensions the attraction is not a choice. Thus, reduced agency and autonomy.
Which is what the men dislike about the thing. Either they presume it works in which case it’s vile. Or it doesn’t work in which case there are some questions to be answered about various ‘choices’.”
Hmmmm….
Attraction just gets you in door to pitch your sale. After that it’s every human for him/her self.
Women are lazy when it comes to mating. They take no real risk, and put out no real effort. So tears about being susceptible to erroneous gina tingles are not the man’s problem. Just like men complaining that women lead them on have no one to blame but themselves.
@ Morpheus
One should note the use of the present tense in “I don’t do casual sex”. It doesn’t say “I didn’t do casual sex”. It doesn’t say “I won’t do casual sex under the right circumstances”. It merely says “I don’t do casual sex right now.”
Been there, wrote that:
http://therationalmale.com/2012/12/28/sanitizing-the-imperative/
http://therationalmale.com/2011/11/08/could-a-man-have-written-this/
Well done Obsidian, this is a tour de force essay for you. I had thought about responding to Aunt Giggles’ ‘Inner Game’ article, but thought the better of it since her marketing ploy since her sell-out to the HuffPo has been poking the manosphere for site traffic when her numbers drop.
I agree, there’s been a wholesale acceptance of Game in many different genres because the truths that Game and the red pill represent are undeniable, but they also represent a real challenge to a lot of ego-investments moralists and other with differing world view don’t like. So the logical choice is to co-opt the bits of Game that gel with that perspective and sanitize the parts that don’t. Thus you get Inner Game advocates, Christo-Red Pill advocates and Red Pill Women.
#61 When I, as a married man w/ conscience had decided to sorta flirt with another woman, not to see where it could go but just to see if it could go, I told my wife, since my pure-as-driven-snow intent was to provoke her to better our relationship. She didn’t believe me.
It was only after I fell out of love with her and clearly no longer cared whether she could be provoked or not that she changed.
@Badpainter I see it but I don’t see it. Yes, women often attempt to deceive the world at large as to their relative attractiveness, but unless they literally were wearing someone else’s body I don’t any men would complain. (our church doesn’t allow makeup btw) For example, probably the biggest reason a man might think a woman wearing lipstick looks more attractive is because he correctly assumes the reason she dolled up was because she was trying to look more like she wanted sex. It’s advertising her interest in generating men’s interest (blowing past her inevitable “I don’t do this for men I do this for me.”); it simply doesn’t matter to men that it’s false advertising provided her interest is real and therefore to a man her attempts are win win. In fact, I’ll go far as to say that clearly fake advertisement appears to be the currently acceptable human method of female primate sexual display.
So why would the fact of men trying to generate interest through arguably ethically similar methods, arguably less deceptive, generate such opposition? Why wouldn’t women enjoy more men trying to be desirable, like men enjoy more women trying to be desirable? I haven’t wrapped my brain around it yet, but I’m trying to.
I think the reason is that when a woman is trying to be more desirable, even obviously, even falsely, she is basically trying to show that she is more open for offers. And a man, being already desirous and merely wanting to connect with the relatively rare woman who is desirous, thereby rationally goes more for the surer thing, and is thereby more likely to offer to her rather than a woman who is obviously not trying to be desirable. But when a man is trying to be more desirable he is basically trying to get women to be more open to his offers. It’s not symmetrical. As a man he is already desirous and is wanting to make desire in a woman so as to connect with her less rarely.
In short, men actually like attractiveness-enhancing products for women because hey it makes them that much more attractive, win win, and hence the idea of attractiveness-enhancing products is fine with men. But women dislike the idea of (and according to Liz apparently turned off by knowing about) attractiveness-enhancing behaviors in men, even though they actually like the behaviors themselves.
Ohhh. I bothered to read what I wrote. Attempting such deception is not unattractive to men, and even including when obvious, deception can be attractive merely through the fact of her bothering to make the effort to deceive, but deception is only attractive to women if it is done well which tends to force the man to make the extra effort to cover his efforts.
Hidden ovulation really means she can partly suppress her ovulatory displays on those special days so she can partly deceive about being ovulatory on other days too. Hidden betaness means he must suppress his beta displays on every day, without letup, such that the fact of his suppression is also suppressed. Vanity of vanities. Matrix of matrices. Game really is enslaved to the Female Imperative. Ugh.
Jf12,
I agree with what you’re saying above. Really I do.
But now that the blinders are off I find I don’t give a damn what women think or want when it comes to men. Our available methods of increasing attraction are not unethical in and of themselves. Certainly they aren’t less ethical than women’s efforts to hide age, fat, and wrinkles. Besides women putting on a display are only looking for Alpha types anyway, they alone are responsible for recognizing the difference between real and fake Alpha. It is not my job, nor any man’s to make it easy for them. They want to be respected let them first be responsible. Perhaps when enough of them get taken in by fakes they ‘ll be more judicious about who they give it up for. I doubt it.
Now if someone can tell me why herding obiters is ethical while game isn’t I’m all ears.
.
Until Rollo’s comment I actually had no idea HUS had posted on “Inner Game” (though I should have guessed by the arc of this comment thread). It’s amazing how they think they are running a thought leadership community over there but they are just engaged in a bunch of ideologue name-calling. “Take that, you stupid guys!” is the taunting subtext of half their posts. It’s really quite puerile and vindictive, an example of the Voxic truth that female-orthodox communities usually trend away from actionable advice and towards a volcanic level of emotional rending.
LOL’d hard at the idea that “women have figured out what’s up.” I don’t see any indications that the trend of young attractive women making impulsive sexual decisions is waning anytime soon; the question is simply who can push the buttons most effectively. I hate to sound like I’m floating a No True Scotsman, but game is empirically defined – good game is what gets women wet, so if women have “figured it out” then whatever “it” is has ceased to be good game. I imagine that “what’s your sign” and buying women drinks used to be good opening moves, now they are painfully archaic indicators of beta.
Places like HUS and others have strongly suggested to me that women on the whole (NAWALT etc) just can’t grok what a guy really has to do to improve his lot with women, and they don’t want to see that sausage being made. As a corollary to that, I think as a group they are generally very threatened by the very idea that a guy can make substantive changes to himself and come out significantly more attractive. It throws their whole vibe of “authenticity” and “I can see who you really are” into a whirl.
Now I’ve wasted ten minutes typing this up and reminding myself why I quit even checking that site months ago.
@Morpheus
Absolutely. That would be a big plus in my book.
Ha, I see what you did there… Funny that some critics of game for its “lack of authenticity” have no objection to such a scenario.
Obsidian, Interesting post. Just wanted to say I appreciate your writing and the well developed arguments with clear lines of thought.
Badpainter, I have to do some Lamaze breathing here. Something big is coming out through reframing. Since women actually enjoy Game, then Game is a gift from men to women, much like displays of interest are a gift from women to men. But women naturally will try to pick Game apart if allowed, for the same reason they will look a gift man in the mouth – hypergamy. So a man shouldn’t be allowing a woman to dissect his Game to find fault in it because that would introduce a paradox, in the same way that it would be paradoxical if a woman quenched her displays of interest as soon as a responding man tried to escalate. There are only two ways I can think of for him to prevent her dissection (there are more ways that she can prevent herself):
1) Dole it out to her. Give her less Game than she wants, only as much as you want to make her think you feel like giving. I think this way speaks to your point about indifference to her wants, indirectly. Maybe the dole is equally good for sustaining LTR (daily “manna” for her) as for STR during push-pull qualification.
2) Dissect it yourself in front of her. Pace Liz’s expressions of sausage-making disgust, my limited experience in actually telling a woman what I was going to do, doing it, and then telling her what I did, did not appear to actually turn her off. The fact that I cared to tell her seemed even to myself at the time to be a blatant DHV “Hey watch me do this!” I think (no actual experience here) this self-dissection is most appropriate for same-nighters, assuming you don’t accidentally do harakiri instead.
#75 I just went to HUS and read the Inner Game article from last. The women are all clearly hysterical about the possiblity of large numbers of men walking around with abundance mentality, and understandably many men don’t want their own abundant turf crowded with more men either.
This baby has frighteningly bad outer game!
Talk about day game gone wrong!
@ Han
Well, that guy at 1:00 maintains frame like a pro.
jf12,
Interesting thoughts.
In the interest of developing good inner game, I am claiming my indifference as the foundation.
Now this is a theory I have tested in the field on a very limited basis. Assume the woman isn’t worthy of your respect as a woman. Be civil,polite and decent, discuss any topic as you would with a man in a formal context, like a client at work, or at church. But treat any display of feminine behavior as irritating inferiority, and weakness. Think Henry Higgins asking why a woman can’t be more like a man. Roll your eyes type of thing. My results having done this three different times were in each case the women became more obsequious. I wasn’t attempting to run game but rather an experiment thus my frame was indifference to the test subject.
I think your # 2 is a workable script. I’ve done similar with modestly positive results. I think it works if it’s framed correctly. I used the I’m stronger, smarter, and older bit, told a girl all about herself as though I were psychic. Explained what I was doing and why and how and why she reacted the way she did, had her attention all evening. A woman’s favorite subject is her own psychology.
I think Liz has point about the sausage making though. The issue is the manner explanation. Do it as sort bestowing knowledge,or revealing a secret and it can work. Do it as a cocky how cool am I thing and it looks cheap.
My problem is that a being nice guy beta (recently liberated) is doing stuff like that and not feeling like an asshole the next day. Old training is hard to overcome.
#80: LOL! Dear God.
Good thing no one had a heart attack!
“In short, men actually like attractiveness-enhancing products for women because hey it makes them that much more attractive, win win, and hence the idea of attractiveness-enhancing products is fine with men. But women dislike the idea of (and according to Liz apparently turned off by knowing about) attractiveness-enhancing behaviors in men, even though they actually like the behaviors themselves.”
Interesting to note though (or, at least, interesting to me), times have kind of changed there too. It wasn’t long ago that women would deny breast implants, hair lightening, and all that. They wanted everyone to think their double D breasts were natural, regardless of how incongruous with their frame. Their hair naturally white-blonde at age 30 too. They’d squat in bleach to “prove” it. Now it’s “look at my rad fake titties!” and “look at my dye job!” Interesting…so on that note, perhaps women will eventually be fine with men loudly and proudly discussing their gaming techniques on them. But I doubt it.
#10
It is poison to men because it’s nothing but an attempt to repackage Game and use it to further women’s interests at the expense of men’s. You as a man will never get what you want by following their advice. Those who accuse PUAs of being guilty of sexual assault and join forces with misandrist sharlatans like Aunt Giggles are men’s enemies and can never be trusted.
#12
It’s true. Game denial is in fact alive and well. The usual method of this denial among common women is to claim that “Game only works on low-quality women”, which is just a fancy way of saying “it’ll never work on me”. The funny thing is that women claim that low-quality women exist but cannot seem to be able to agree just who these women precisely are.
#16
All female complaints about Game ultimately boil down to the idea that your bad experiences with women (nuclear rejections, flaking, misandrist behavior, LJBFing, false rape claims etc.) should not have any consequences, and those experiences are all your fault only. If you had such bad experiences, you should magically transform yourself into a completely different human being or stop seeking women altogether because they might be displeased. You are vermin, a threat and a nuisance that must be “neutralized”. The reason is that if you “let” these bad experiences affect you, you’ll become “bitter” and “jaded”, and society can’t allow you to learn and practice “Outer Game”, because you’d only use it to take out your vengefulness and resentment on innocent, angelic women. This was, in fact, expressed in a statement on Slutting Up Smart a long time ago that an insulted, duped beta applying Game is worse for women than a cad doing his “natural” act, because at least the latter doesn’t have a “chip on his shoulder”.
All in all, female dating advice for men can be summed up as “don’t have bad experiences with women” i.e. “just be an alpha”.
#36
It’s not that these charlatans shape their product for “certain market niches”. They shape it to be deemed acceptable by the rulers of the mainstream media, otherwise it couldn’t be promoted far and wide among the potential buyers (useful idiots) of Game 2.0. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Neil Strauss and Mystery got all the media exposure they wanted? It’s because they are self-declared feminists spouting ideology-based nonsense about “strong, independent womyn” and the art of seduction that benefits women and “leaves them better than it found them”. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Aunt Giggles is getting all the mainstream media attention she wants? Of course not.
The next piece of wisdom we can learn from the peddlers of Game 2.0 is that feminists are morally superior to their ideological enemies because they refrain from making online threats:
Needless to say, no mention is made of the radfems why regularly call for the extermination of men and yet suffer no stigmatization at the hands of the mainstream media, or the female commenters on feminist sites who promote the mutilation and murder of anti-feminist men.
Morpheus,
Quick quibble before the day begins. Agreed entirely on the blatant price discrimination which is also endorsed as a good idea. I remember that discussion quite well, because it served as an “eye-opener”: originally she was looking at only the N aspect.
A lot to learn, obviously.
My point was more directed that those people are well aware that tiny changes in body language and phrasing can have huge effects. The “I don’t” vs “I can’t” is a huge indicator. I browsed through the website, and there was a discussion about the nudity on Girls, with one girl playing Monday morning quarterback for an interviewer who questioned why there was so much nudity. Then there was reference to how willing you would be to lock up people if you referred to crime as “beast” vs. a “virus,” and then there was the discussion about how crassness is always objectionable so men shouldn’t say “I would tap that!”
There is non-stop complaints about small things over there, and it should be obvious that men could apply this in attracting women. Full-stop.
I see references to Barking up the Wrong Tree and Marginal Revolution. Very well, I am familiar with both those websites. Barking up the Wrong Tree constantly refers to wearing red to make yourself more attractive. At several points it pointed to studies indicating that we LOVEEEEEE people who “play games,” and it also posted a study saying men with more muscles report more sex partners.
Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution believes the future of dating is an app that will read your date’s body cues for you, and then, when the moment is right, vibrate your smart-phone with the message “KISS HER NOW!”
What about that is Inner Game? According to Tyler Cowen, men won’t need to go Inner or go home: they will need to download this app or go home, because the app is going to be 10x times better at reading a woman than you are. That’s the point he makes with ALL technology, that eventually our technology will act like top level chess programs that no human could possibly beat, and that we will primarily be serving as an additive to the machine than the other way around.
Does that sound like Inner Game or Outer Game? If I have an App in my phone that tells me exactly how to dress and what to say and when to escalate, which Tyler probably believes is the future, is that authentic enough? How about if I hide it so she never knows I am using it?
ADBG
I suppose, should it work, that it would work in one part of your life.
Not sure what it would do in the rest of your life. You’d be like–single cup of coffee metaphor coming here–a P51 pilot who’d never seen combat lording it over survivors of WW I aerial fighting.
Now that I think about it, that’s a hell of a metaphor.
Anyway, there is the rest of your life–speaking of life, not length.
It might even be posited that the app’s help reduces your abilities in that field, which would be obvious, but possibly in the rest of life because you’re so used to artificial help.
Ex. You talk a good game about a fire in the fireplace. You can even lay a fire well and only take one match to get it going. But when the wood runs out and you don’t know where to get more, or how to cut and split it, or whether green or seasoned burns better, people, including you, are going to wonder. Not merely about the fire, but about the rest of anything you say.
So will you, if you have even a skosh of introspection.
As to tactics and choice and feminists’ view of agency and autonomy, I think I spy a bit of liberal here. Point something out and get accused of supporting it. Liberal argumentation. IT ISN’T MY FREAKING IDEA. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT, TALK TO THE FEMINISTS.
Oh, yeah. I suppose a pill to stop flop sweat would be a great idea. Might help, tactically, but it wouldn’t change who you are. And that eventually comes out.
Richard: “I suppose, should it work, that it would work in one part of your life.
Not sure what it would do in the rest of your life. You’d be like–single cup of coffee metaphor coming here–a P51 pilot who’d never seen combat lording it over survivors of WW I aerial fighting.
Now that I think about it, that’s a hell of a metaphor.”
(just as a side note) There’s actually a term for that in the Airforce. They call it “fighting the Nellis war” (Nellis AFB is where most of the testing/pretend combat happens)
Morpheus #39
I’m glad you enjoyed it. The blog I mentioned, though inactive, still has some thought provoking posts. I can honestly say that game works. I don’t do the approach thingy, maybe I should, so what I do, is I try to make fun of women.
How do I do it ?
I hmmmmmm the tones of their voices right back at them, after they say something. I always get a smile from them. And whatever they say next – I keep on hmmmmmm-ing.
They eat it up.
That “soft next”- thingy too. The sexy bar girl at my local – well I called her the other day for a lift to the bus stop, and then she basically wanted me to walk from my house (with my big bloody suitcase) … a goodly 2 miles to the bar; so that she could pick me up from there, and take me to the bus stop. That because she didn’t know where I lived.
I wasn’t having it.
So I made arrangements with someone else, and called her again to say that I’m going with someone else. She didn’t answer her phone. She didn’t answer at all.
So I texted her my change of plans.
She didn’t reply to that either.
She and the cook were doing her hair you know.
So I went to Gauteng with the bus, and came back with the family, and ended up at the local again. My brother was with me – he wanted to go to the local – not me.
I ignored the bar girl completely. She was having drinks outside with friends. I just greeted the boyfriend and went in. So me and my brother were inside the bar chatting to the barman, when she walked in. My brother complimented her on her hair, to which she replied ‘thank you’ because ‘some of the other regulars in the bar didn’t seem to see it’.
I still ignored her.
Then she went on about it being her birthday. My brother congratulated her, and I still ignored her. She went out in a huff. I started ignoring the cook as well. When my brother tried to talk to her, she started ignoring him.
Eventually me and my brother left for the other bar where we live. It was a lot more enjoyable there.
Later that night, she came with a whole coterie of orbiters, and her boyfriend, to the other bar where we were. She wore some kind of an angel-outfit and was attracting a lot of attention.
From the corner of my eye I could see that she was stealing looks at me.
I still ignored her.
Long story short : I blocked her on facebook and I stopped going to her bar, and started frequenting the other local bar.
And then I had to return a memory stick full of music to one of the regulars at her local bar. I put the memory stick inside an envelope, with a little bit of money for a drink, and a thank you – note for said regular. I went to the bar. She was there.
Ai yai yai.
It was her, an old fogey that was one of her most adoring orbiters, and yet another patron. Now since where I live is such a small community -everybody knows everybody- you greet everybody before you sit down. So I greeted the old-fogey-orbiter hand, then her by hand as well – while she said “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you”.
I moved on to the other old fogey, and she said, “I SAID IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I’VE SEEN YOU !”
… louder with a tremor in her voice.
After I greeted the other patron, I looked at her quite distractedly and said :
Tjoepstil (you say it : choob + still … it means ‘very quiet’ in my language. She could either have interpreted it as a command to be quiet, or as a knee jerk response to a normal greeting, because that’s how I always respond when somebody greets me. She didn’t know from the expression on her face methinks )
I asked her if the patron that gave me the memory stick is still coming to the bar, and if she would give him the envelope with the memory stick inside. She said yes. I said ‘thank you’ and left.
I just left.
Usually when I leave her bar, I give her a hug. She was getting nothing of that. Fuck her.
So I went to the other local bar where I had nice chat with the bar girl there.
You know a woman likes you when she’s doing all the talking, and you’re just hmmmmm-ing and nodding. The trick is, you’ve gotta get up and give her a hug when she starts talking about all the drama in her life. I mean it.
The bargirl, in the other local bar I went to, was just like that; she talks about her life and I pay attention, and when she starts talking about all her drama, I get up from my chair, walk behind the bar counter and say “Stand up”. She stands up. I give her on helluva hug, she giggles, and then I go sit back on my chair again. And then she chats further. Now the thing is, it’s almost as if she starts going into her drama with more vigor then.
When she does that, I just give her a look and say ,”I’ll come and give you hug now now”
She smiles and chats further then. And then she goes into all her drama yet again. So what do I do then ?
I give her a look. I sigh theatrically. I walk around the bar counter. I look at her with mock exasperation and say “Stand up”. She stands up. I give her one helluva big hug. “Feeling better ?” I say then. Before she can even reply, I give her another big hug, and then go sit on my chair again.
For my efforts, she bought me a free Jägermeister, and helped me with buying another drink. She took off her top, and was more than generous in showing her ample cleavage to me. Le sigh. She was even twirling her hair as she talked to me, which is methinks, a classic IOI.
Game works.
@HH #89
Don’t forget all the hate messages that Matt Forney received after writing an inflammatory article.
#87 “All in all, female dating advice for men can be summed up as “don’t have bad experiences with women” i.e. “just be an alpha”.” Too true. It is a consequence of the apex fallacy, which I grokked as soon as I heard about it and so far cannot find any woman writing anything that did not suffer from it. It really does boil down to the advice to
1. Be handsome
2. Be attractive
3. Don’t be unattractive
There is a lesson to be learned. I’m getting to it. Repeating some earlier points. To display their desirability, women usually automatically first try to enhance their physical appearance. Not just artificial products or grooming, but also smiling, wetting their lips, postural displays (breasts and/or rear i.e. primate stuff). What they are really doing through such displays is advertising their readiness to engage in sexual behaviors, essentially in still photos instead of video. Lately, since the sexual revolution especially, many young women have taken to displaying sexual behaviors (e.g. twerking) as a method to enhance desirablity, i.e. essentially in video instead of still photos.
You know how much better women respond to Game instead of antiGame behaviors? I am, belatedly, realizing that’s sort of video level, and most beta men would be much better served to focus on women’s automatic first go-to i.e. appearance i.e. still photo level. In particular, facial handsomeness.
Based on (still photo) rankings, full bodies and parts, about 50% of a man’s attractiveness is purely facial, and 100% of that is rigid bone-structure conformity to the usual masculine handsome standard: jutting jaw, angular cheekbones, strong brow, etc. all tending directly towards the Rock-Em-Sock-Em robot helmet face. There is absolutely nothing the vast majority of men can do about it, except facial bone plastic surgery. As soon as that begins to take off, it may be Game over to some extent.
@jf12- “It was only after I fell out of love with her and clearly no longer cared whether she could be provoked or not that she changed.”
Been there, done that, bought that particular T-shirt. And as happy as I am to have found something that seems to have arrested the freefall my marriage was in, I’m disgusted that it works. Primarily because I was raised, trained, and drilled regularly to find it disgusting. All these freakin’ inane games over DHV/DLV, kino, dominance… the only thing Game’s got going for it (in my mind) is that it works. I absolutely hate it, but find its use necessary to keep the marriage going. And to cap it all, the disgust I feel over the whole thing works in my advantage as a form of dread game.
One should note the use of the present tense in “I don’t do casual sex”. It doesn’t say “I didn’t do casual sex”. It doesn’t say “I won’t do casual sex under the right circumstances”. It merely says “I don’t do casual sex right now.”
Or, perhaps more accurately, “I don’t do casual sex with you.”
Re: outer. Outer, outer, all the way. Over at Herself’s blog, the gals were drooling out of various orifices over this guy, ironically in a post about discernment.
http://static1.worldcrunch.com/images/story/fe154456e98e857075749192c4a6026f_priest_3.jpg
No inner game at all, unless you count “Lord, why won’t these vile sluts leave me alone!” as a Technique. And believe me their attraction is NOT based on his behavior Game, strictly appearance: Helmet face, including the de rigueur (and always-denied-by-women, which is a great clue as to its truth) beady eyes and thin lips. Always. Guaranteed.
#84 Liz, yes times have changed, but you’re focusing on what the women say, which is deceiving
The truth is that in the past women wanted to pretend that they were not OVERTLY enhancing desirability, merely in order to proclaim plausible deniability if some guy said “Hey, you, you are obviously advertising, right?” Nowadays it doesn’t matter that they deny, nobody cares to pretend to uphold some standard, not even the women. The men never did pretend to care, and probably most always would have preferred a woman to have made it even more obvious e.g. wear a big neon flashing sign “Come and get it, boys.”
ADBG…re Tyler Cowen, while the book is interesting I think he is too worshipful of what he (repeatedly) calls “Genius Machines,” and I think his understanding of how these technologies are used and will be used in actual organizations is lacking. My critique is here:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/40176.html
#97, yeah, me too, disgusted that it works, disgusted that it HAD to be used. 23 years I was irrationally infatuated to no avail, her infatuation having burnt out within the honeymoon period, a couple of years, returning only sometimes either despite or because of my best efforts. Last year I felt I had to go Dread and couldn’t, until I fell out of love, and then it was easy. I likened it, my love at the time, to trying to right an airplane going down in flames, pushing buttons and flipping switches frantically, until I accidentally hit the eject button. Now it’s smooth(er) sailing for both of us; even though she’s still in the flaming plane, she’s doing more of the things she ought to have been doing earlier e.g. what I tell her.
#97 Re: disgust at Game as Game. Are we talking overt outer disgust? “I hate that I have to do this to make you do right, honey. You’d better show me some good lovin for me doing this.” Or is it hidden? One reason I ask is that nowadays when I (I think covertly) try to manufacture my own in-love behaviors, far less frequently than when I was actually feeling it, then she responds correctly. I can’t imagine that rubbing her feet while holding my nose would work.
Jf12: “#84 Liz, yes times have changed, but you’re focusing on what the women say, which is deceiving
Heh, fair point.
“The truth is that in the past women wanted to pretend that they were not OVERTLY enhancing desirability, merely in order to proclaim plausible deniability if some guy said “Hey, you, you are obviously advertising, right?” Nowadays it doesn’t matter that they deny, nobody cares to pretend to uphold some standard, not even the women. The men never did pretend to care, and probably most always would have preferred a woman to have made it even more obvious e.g. wear a big neon flashing sign “Come and get it, boys.”
Hm. My take is somewhat different.
In the past (more) women wanted to pretend they DIDN’T HAVE TO enhance their desireability. “That’s right! I look exactly like this naturally.”
Analyzing the proverbial sausage I’d hazard a guess this had to do with selectivity too. Unnatural=not genetically gifted in that respect. Now so many people are unnatural I guess it doesn’t matter as much. Of course, as you mention (fairly) there are still ruses (outright lying in some cases, camillionism, or just the general truth that women really don’t know exactly what they want even when they think they do so it’s no big surprise that there’s often a large divide between reality and what they say).
Chameleonism, not camillionism…spelling ‘tard over here.
#104 The point you’re not getting is that the reason women wanted to pretend had NOTHING to do with expected outcomes, i.e. the guy finding her more attractive, because he would actually find her more obviously attractive if she were more obvious about it (I’m walking a fine line between rabbitholes here. You’re free to express admiration instead of trying to get me to go down one. There’s the obvious rabbit hole of “But, being coy works! Sometimes, almost.” but there are a couple of better ones I won’t say.) Remember men, ferally, are just plain happier to impregnate the ugly girl AND the pretty girl instead of just the pretty girl. And attractive women, remember, actually have fewer children. A caveman wouldn’t leave an ugly girl alone, wouldn’t feel she wasn’t worth the effort of clonking her on the head, wasting a perfectly good rock. He had an abundance mentality with plenty of rocks.
#106 “The point you’re not getting is that the reason women wanted to pretend had NOTHING to do with expected outcomes, i.e. the guy finding her more attractive, because he would actually find her more obviously attractive if she were more obvious about it”
That’s true only if the “prize” is sex. For a woman, the prize is usually commitment. As an example there were plenty of “painted ladies” in the past who weren’t coy about trying to attract men. The least coy of all stood on street corners and were paid for it. Not trying to push you into a rabbit hole, scout’s honor.
#107 “were paid for it” = resources as prize, not sex. I don’t think the problem with these rabbitholes is that my feet are too big, it’s just I’ve already been down them and back out. What is the ugly cavegirl going to feel she had to do to acquire resources from any man for her child from any man? What, oh what, can she possibly do? Think hard, now.
#103 I don’t make a point to express my disgust, but neither do I make a point to hide it. I imagine it comes across as general dissatisfaction with her. Hence, dread game.
“What is the ugly cavegirl going to feel she had to do to acquire resources from any man for her child from any man? What, oh what, can she possibly do? Think hard, now.”
Keep him around.
For some reason, I’m reminded of the scene in Boardwalk empire, when Lucy tells Margaret no matter what she does, her man always come back for her cunt:
Margaret Schroeder: When I was a girl in Ireland, a raggedy man would come around every spring with a little Bantam rooster. He’d trained it to peck out “The Mountains of Mourne” on a toy piano hung off his chest.
Lucy Danziger: So?
Margaret Schroeder: Well… the first year he came, we all of us, the girls in that place, we thought it magical. The second year, we laughed behind our hands at the odd man and his tatters, and the third year we didn’t even go, because “The Mountains of Mourne” was all that little rooster could ever do.
Lucy Danziger: So what’s the point?
Margaret Schroeder: That maybe your cunny… isn’t quite the draw you think it is.
Look, jf12 I’m not really so daft that the underlying condescension you’ve been throwing has all been over my little head. But I enjoy levity.
Per the topic, I still don’t think it’s a great idea to tell a woman about game. Unless you have some serious inner game already (for instance, Badpainter mentioned explaining it to a woman who seemed interested…he would have to have some ‘inner game’ to do that). I don’t think most people like to believe they’ve been tricked. They might find it amusing for others, but not themselves (so…watch this, I’ll game that girl or whatnot might work). Women trick more than men.
And…My husband does have beady little eyes and thin lips. I hadn’t considered this before. I do like his nugrushes (was that it?) and skittles.
@ jf12
If any of those teenagers are male, do them a favor and pass on all the red pill wisdom you can.
@ HH
It’s plain old double standards, as Emma the Emmo has so effectively demonstrated:
http://emmatheemo.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/misogyny-behind-the-keyboard-part-1/
@ Escoffier
Heh you’re right.
The “I don’t do casual sex” thing is particularly entertaining this week, because I recently heard that in a particular boudoir in DC late, late at night — though not, perhaps, in the manner we have discussed here.
An anecdote (because this is what I do):
The remark (“I don’t do casual sex”) essentially marked the apex moment of a long evening of red wine, poetry, bad music (Jesus, more Nick Cave?) and rye. Because I do not fuck around with cars or motorcycles when I’m contaminated (death penalty in regard to flying privileges and single father parenting), I had announced that I would be sleeping on the sofa, not to worry I’ll be gone by 5 a.m., etc. By saying no but remaining proximate I was about to be assaulted.
This followed another intense evening with an intellectual 30-something whose recent history beats most of ours for its unpleasantness. I probably give her too much rein, and too many allowances, because of those experiences. Our banter had escalated to the point where I said,
“Are you really [placekeeper] Giordana Doe? Because I have no fucking idea if I even know your real name.” I may have been inspecting the label on her brassiere at the time. (I’m really bad at guessing cup sizes.)
“And I have no idea what your real name is. So there we are.”
I pondered this, while feeling the hot breath of an experienced woman transiting my dungarees. Then I stopped pondering it, as my IQ was reduced by half.
Later, she complained, as I was sliding into third, “You really can be *much* more assertive.” I took that as a challenge rather than a trap. I tossed her over a shoulder and headed for the stairs.
“I don’t do casual sex,” I said, not huffing too badly on the incline, because she is skinny, if tall. “Are you the sort of person who’s going to freak out in five hours — and I’ll never see you again?”
“I have had 50x more lovers than you [whoaaaa, what!!!] and not once has anyone ever asked me that question. But actually, yes, that does happen. Why.”
“Well,” I said, “Like I said. I don’t do casual sex.”
“Well it happens. We’ll just have to see. And of course, neither do I — do casual sex, I mean.”
BV’s takeaways:
Unless a woman is profoundly religious, she’ll do casual sex, and she may well do it *much* more easily than we men do. After all, if women knew what they wanted, why are they instigating 2/3’s of the divorces, and causing 4/5ths?
All casual sex is framed today in terms of female empowerment, adventurousness, pleasure-entitlement, and (in the case of someone like Giordana) reverse-game. I define reverse-game in terms of the slinky, foul-mouthed, hard-drinking and -smoking sex siren Lauren Bacall played so well, or Gellhorn played to Hemingway, or (more recently) Rene Russo in the second Thomas Crowne. Or HIllary, in whatever weird circumstances she chases in counterpoint to Bill’s more obvious ones.
All women do casual sex; and the ones who don’t? They’re not infatuated with us. They don’t want us. At the risk of anecdote drift, a major risk with me I admit, I recall a first date with a South Dakota surgeon who drove through a blizzard to see me in a restaurant beside a lake in Iowa on December 24; she removed her coat and was wearing (this is in Iowa, folks) a bustier, jeans and three inch heels on legs that challenged a 38″ inseam. To her, this was entirely respectable, being 6’2″ walking through a restaurant filled with farmers and schoolteachers on Christmas Eve, dressed like a 1980’s Times Square hooker: she was getting laid, and we don’t mean drainage tile. This is “You Go Gurrl” to the max — no different than Lauren Bacall telling Bogart in her first movie: “You do know how to whistle, don’t you? [Inhales cigarette.] You just put your lips together … and *blow*.”
For me the challenge is two-fold:
a. I don’t like to believe that all women do casual sex, being nostalgic for times gone by when sex was more associated with love than it is today; therefore I can convince myself that a woman really likes me even though she won’t have casual sex. Well, no. There’s no such thing as a woman who won’t be ripping off her panties if she likes a guy. In the car. On the first date. After three minutes of qualifying kisses. So the danger is getting LJBF’d, something a mature man should ridicule in conception and in delivery.
b. I actually don’t wish to play the casual sex game. It doesn’t matter why. However, and there’s a reason I didn’t describe the conclusion of my evening with Giordana, after I dropped her on her bed and turned, saying, “I just don’t do one night stands”: a guy having any sort of rule structure or casual-sex boundary condition is going to be nearly assaulted. *We* all know what an anti-slut-defense is; when a girl says, “I don’t want you to think I’m a slut I’m not like that I never do this I can’t oh no YES YES YES” she’s really saying, “For fuck’s sake, help me with this belt buckle of yours.” But same girl hasn’t encountered the reverse ASD, and doesn’t realize that her reverse-Game follows a trite, prescriptive path: it’s not transgressive at all.
I have met three women in the past 14 years who did not do early, and often, casual sex:
a. two who wanted to LJBF me.
b. one who wanted to marry me, so figured she’d wait until the fourth date.
When a woman says, “I don’t do casual sex” what she is really saying is: “Will you stop pretending you still have a chance? But you can buy me another cocktail [/tight-lipped smile}.” It’s unpleasant, but true.
Not being Amish, I think I have known two or three virtuous women in my life, and one of them was telling me last fall about the experience of sitting in her living room, on the day her divorce became final, with a man she had scheduled-casual-sex with once a month, “I remember thinking clearly,” she told me over lunch, “BV should be here with me today, not That Guy.” But That Guy was Mr. Right Now and BV was Mr. Last Year; when the most virtuous woman you know has casual sex? All women who can get it, are getting it.
If I’m correct, and I know I am in my case, men are now the gatekeepers to relationships, women the gatekeepers to sex. The Sovereign Man must develop his filters, for the roles have reversed. They’re truly reversed.
#107 through #112 I’m a levity kind of guy. Keep in mind I got banned from (code-named) TTN’s blog for daring to repeat my assertion that by definition any alpha male primate (and other mammals, like lions) never bothers to provide resources for nor groom any female: females groom him, and give him bananas and stuff. It is THE hallmark of a primate beta that he provides resources (and grooming etc) for sex. Any man who tends to give a woman nice things and does nice things for her is beta, whether or not he is actually in love with her (which he is, trust me). Like I said, love make a guy want to give a gal resources, and love makes a gal want to give a guy sex.
It’s amazing the lengths to which a woman will go to avoid having to deal with the idea that her man is beta. She wants to have her footrubs, and call it submission too (“But he’s the one who wanted to rub my feet!).
AFBB is an immutable part of the femine imperative. The guy who didn’t stick around for the ugly gal was alpha for her, and the johns for whom she dolls herself up for their bananas are betas.
#116 In Ecclesiastes, Solomon complained about the rarity of virtuous women, zero in a thousand. Proverbs 31 expands more quantitatively, more decimal places, on this rarity: although maybe not zero out of millions, still much rarer than rubies. Although usually taken to be a job description of a good wife, Proverbs 31:10-31 could also be read as the lament of an extremely experienced man who cannot find a good wife and must instead fantasize about her. “Who can find a virtuous woman?” Who indeed.
I think the casual sex thing thing,and whether woman does or does not, is entirely a matter of her understanding of the word casual. I think most woman mean it in the same sense they understand casual Friday dress code. They don’t do casual sex but the still do promiscuous sex.
Liz.
I took my kids to see Top Gun so they could watch people who went to work sitting down and who sometimes got sweaty.
My point about the P51 issue is that thinking yourself personally superior because you have superior equipment issued to you by somebody else doesn’t make sense.
The guys who drove the M1 Abrams in the Gulf War sure as hell didn’t look down on the guys who drove the M4 Sherman (Ronson, the Germans called it,or Tommycooker) in the ETO.
The point is, either tactics as in game or the app which can read another person–woman–so well may help you in one part of your life. The rest of your life….
In addition, banking on artificial help in one area might make you less competent in other areas since you don’t have artificial help there. Or maybe you just don’t go there.
So what happens once a woman digs past the artificial help?
#113 My granddaughters are 17 and 15, but I would never tell them anything except to avoid bad boys. And my son is 23 and partly involuntarily going his own way, voluntarily having seen how his mother is, and of course involuntarily how all the girls his age have been his whole life, but although I have grandbaby fever I can’t see myself directly telling him, contradicting everything he’s been taught, that he ought to be bad to a girl if he wants a girl. On the other hand, I could, hmm, possibly, maybe, with forgiveness after instead of permission before, go with him (sans his mother) to somewhere (he plays guitar in a couple of Christian bands, for example) where there are abundant girls his age and pick up a girl in front of him by me being bad. I actually feel certain it would be relatively easy for me, now. I would have to explain my purpose would be to illustrate how bad girls are and how he must be careful. And no I would NOT offer her to him, just discard her (or discard her phone number, depending on the close).
Directly relevant anecdote. I happen to be heavily involved with teenagers, nowadays especially nerd boy teenagers on a high school robotics team. Last spring at a regional competition for a few days, our team occupied two blocks of hotel rooms, one two floors above the other, the upper rooms mostly for all girls, with a couple of families also. We try to avoid the near occasion of sin, such as putting girls next to boys if we can help it. Although the female chaperones would enter the girls’ rooms if needed, usually I was the first one banging on their doors to get them moving, and as often as not engaged in much levity. So anyway, during one lunch I was in line with a tall mopey boy on my team who doesn’t talk much, just brushes his too-long hair from his eyes, and a pretty girl ahead in line from another team seemed to be displaying interest in him. I chatted her up and invited us to sit with her (not the other way around), and while carrying our trays out to the yard sure enough there she was gaily waving us over, she and two other girls. A really nice earnest girl, and her not so nice friend on my end of the table who sized up Mopey instantly and turned to me instead. Forbidden fruit indeed. But we bantered easily, as the boy moped between the other girls at the other end of the table from me, and nice girl and pretty girl were bewildered, I guess, by why he wasn’t bantering. Pretty had to use the bathroom, so Notsonice scooted against me to let her by (I had to lean away, a little), and then Nice also scooted towards me and leaned away from Mopey, to say some earnest things to me. Mopey was checking her other end out, stupidly, as Pretty returned.
She had a Magic The Gathering medallion on her purse, and I remarked that Mopey was a good player and often beat me. She was sooo happy! And even Mopey seemed to find some connection. She had brought three decks but couldn’t get Nice or Notsonice to play (Notsonice batted her eyes at me and said she’d like to play if only someone would show her how), and he had brought two, and we still had a whole hour to kill so they were going to run up to their rooms and bring the cards down. Pretty, actually, naively wanted us to go up to their room (“It’s got plenty of room! We could play on the beds!”) but I suggested I would hold the table, and Notsonice stayed too. Four times her age. “Have you got a phone?” I asked knowingly. She surrendered it immediately, telling me her passcode instead of punching it herself. I hadn’t told her what I planned. A bunch of notsonice text messages popped up, and she grumbled something notsonice about the 3G service. “Oh,” I told her, “the WiFi here doesn’t need a password, just turn it on, like this.” She mentioned something notsonice about her dad, and technology, and a boyfriend, and I told her I didn’t want to hear that language, and downloaded an MTG app in less than a minute. “Here, see, it’s got a nice tutorial.” She was vaguely disappointed, and didn’t pay much attention as I started scrolling through it.
But our heads were together as they returned, with me waving gaily this time, her phone in my hand, and Notsonice looking guilty for some reason, Pretty in the lead by several lengths, Mopey stupidly checking out *her* rear end with Nice hanging back beside him, watching his eyes the whole time. They settled as before, we two with our chairs still together on the other end, and Pretty gave us her other two decks while Nice got Mopey’s other. I built a quick deck for Notsonice, and showed her all my cards too. We played side by side, with me holding her “hand” a lot, and quickly built back up to higher level of rapport. Nice wanted to be treated that way but Mopey wasn’t picking up on it, having turned back to Pretty and even stupidly arguing about allowed cards, so I suggested he help her but Pretty intervened to help her instead. It was a quick game and Pretty was winning halfway through in mere minutes, but Nice was getting the hang of it and wanted to attack Pretty so she scooted over to me again to see how to do it best, and we laughed about some of the creature descriptions on the cards. And Pretty thought we were having too much fun or something so she scooted over too, to make sure it was fair she said, and Mopey was by himself, and looking at me accusingly, even though I had tried to help him out.
@ jf12
That was a hilarious read.
#112 I have been lightly harshing, primarily because I couldn’t get you earlier to see that the reason his actions i.e. the noothgrush (from Wocket; the book we bought my first child after she first read One Fish Two Fish, the book all my children learned to read on) meant a lot to you was NOT his actions but instead your feelings. He probably gives dogs a pat and a treat too, being a thoughtful kind of guy. Just saying.
What you described, quite well, in your article is how a woman feels when in love. It doesn’t describe well, if at all from what I can see, his qualities (yes, there’s a list, but). And this isn’t a criticism, but we don’t see him, we see you seeing him. I believe that what a man does or doesn’t do has little enough to do with the quality of a LTR relationship, because the quality hinges completely on the woman’s responses instead.
#122 I have mastered, in mere months, the minigame, but I think anyone could if they tried.
There’s push and there’s pull.
IOW, you could be attracting woman because you’re hawtashell. Or because, although average, everything in her world is pretty lame. So she’s pushed toward you.
Ex. Years ago, talking to a new dental hygienist, we established she was born the year I started with the practice. Dentist poked his head in and said she had a flat tire.
I said I’d fix it. Damndest time finding the spare. IIRC, it was a Dodge van with the tire–we eventually found it–drawn up under the underbody between the two front seats. It is lowered in its cradle by a winch whose access is nearly invisible in the floor.
Then you fish the thing out from under the vehicle and you’re in business. I did. Told her which tire store to go to to get a new one.
Got home and since we were having company, I was vacuuming around the coffee table in the family room. “How do you like the bouquet?”, my wife called. “What bouquet?” “The one on the coffee table in the family room.” “Oh. That bouquet.”
Big seasonal bouquet with a very nice note.
A bit overdone but there you go.
I had to return to the practice a couple of times shortly thereafter.
Both times the hygienist told me the tire was still not where it needed to be because “my husband’s not strong enough”.
Hell of a thing to say about one’s husband to a guy twice his age.
BTW, the winch has a very high increment–which I think means you turn it a whole lot of times to get it seated. Meaning there’s no particular need to throw any muscle at it for any one turn. Easy peasy.
I call that a matter of push. You can’t take any credit for being the subject of a push.
Don’t know if her husband’s not strong enough to reseat the tire–and I’m not sure the tire store guys wouldn’t have done it–but he’s clearly not up to some bar or other.
Never heard that changing a tire while seeming incompetent by not being able to find the spare is “game”.
Richardaubrey- “Never heard that changing a tire while seeming incompetent by not being able to find the spare is ‘game.'”
It’s not game in an active sense, but it could a part of game as it’s an action that may provoke a response that can be manipulated.
My first exposure to game was Neil Strausses book. It struck me as rediculous posing that could only work on the weak and the stupid. My mistake. Game Is far more subtle and comprehensive than silly tricks, and goofy headgear. It’s way of understanding that allows you to act with determination in the service of a self directed purpose. Think of game as Total Quality Management for inter sexual relations and communication.
C’mon now, I think we can all agree that it’s poor feminists who bear the brunt of all online hate-speech, right?
wxw.h0okingupsmart.com/2014/01/14/personal-development/online-hate-speech/
Badpainter. Anybody can change a tire. My point is that I was the subject of what I call “push”. I doubt her hubby wasn’t strong enough to manage the tire. Hell, any kid could do it.
But something was wrong there and …Aubrey changes the tire.
richardaubrey,
Gotcha, your perception is better than mine. If that had happened me I would never have noticed.
Wow, I perused the latest few HUS bits. They are mad, mad, mad, at us, can’t stop talking about us. Every thread, by comment 8, turns into Manboobz regardless of topic.
I particularly love the female commenters that have 15,000 posts to their name castigating male commenters who dare post a comment or two during the day – “dont their employers know” (veiled threat of getting them fired for their opinion)? See how they’re “unemployed losers”? Of course, no such threats are leveled at MegaMan.
Commented on a femblog some years ago. One of the fems claimed I’d emailed her with a death threat. False, of course, but they also tried to poison me with my employer.
That didn’t work, but you have to understand what kind of people they are. Vile.
OH! HEY! HEY!
St. Hugo of The Schwyzer wanted to linkedin with me. Got the note or whatever it was.
I used to comment oh his blog. I can’t say he looked any more like a fraud than some of the other folks with his schtick, but there was something off about him.
Anyway, no idea whether linkedin does this stuff automatically or if he’s reaching out from his narcohaze trying to connect with the real world.
Declined.
OffTheCuff
Wow, I perused the latest few HUS bits. They are mad, mad, mad, at us, can’t stop talking about us.,
Susie and the mansphere,
Sitting in a tree…
#126 Think of Game as picking up. Full stop.
I don’t know all the reasons why I didn’t know it before I knew it, but what women respond positively to is men picking them up. I was raised “right” which means the olde way, not treating women as objects, not flirting except with your spouse (Abimelech saw Isaac sporting openly with Rebecca, and it wasn’t a euphemism. He could have been pinching her rear, or making her blush whispering suggestions for later.), standing up when a woman leaves the table, never saying anything that could be offcolor when a woman was present, etc. And yet almost uniformly women responded negatively to me treating them right; maybe 10% of women responded “right”. Yes, I probably should have held out for one of them, one of the rare women who respond well to nice men, but afaik they all wound up with better men than me very early, being the first girls to get married.
Anyway in picking up (and flirting) there is an essential component of being bad, doing something at least a little bit naughty, “we shouldn’t be doing this here”, maybe best as a single word: conspiratorial, “You and me, babe.” Most sequences of Game flow naturally from that perspective: conspiring with a babe to pick her up, in full view of God and everybody, as if He or they aren’t privy to what’s going on between the two of you. “Conspiring with” is what women always accept as “quality inter-sexual relations and communications”. And, frankly, they accept relatively nothing else but “conspiring with” as quality.
Now women also constantly conspire with women against other women. I would call that THE characteristically female intra-sexual relations method, e.g “Susie did tell me she told Janey about you. She said not to tell you she told her, but I couldn’t promise not to tell etc etc etc.” And so Game is, unfortunately for most men, natural for women, as deti said somewhere. It doesn’t feel as wrong, as bad, to a woman who has been lying to her own friends every day just for drama, to “pretend” to conspire with some guy to act like she’s being picked up by him, just for funsies, like it feels wrong for most men.
And it’s not just any old conspiracy. You aren’t Gaming if you’re just helping her deceive Susie about what Janey said, you’re just friendzoning yourself, just being treated as a girl, if you do HER conspiracies. The specific conspiracy is yours: “you and me, babe.” Again, keep in mind the essential source (besides me saying this!): the abundance mentality. She feels special, because now she’s in your Game, because you picked her to conspire with, not because you thought you could trust her to do the right thing, but because you picked up on her vibes that she could be trusted to do a little bit of a naughty thing with you.
And it is definitely, fundamentally, a conspiring WITH. Not AT, or ABOUT, but maybe FOR. Somewhere (here?) recently (today? my head is swimming; I’ve been surrounded by teens again all evening, and I can still smell my wife on both my hands from this morning) I said that Game is a gift from a man to a woman. Game is what she wants, but definitely not necessarily what he wants. But what gives it the spice of naughtiness is what he wants (or what she can be made to think he might want): what the purpose of the conspiracy is, i.e. the point of picking her up.
That was the big picture: Game is being naughty with a girl by conspiring with her to pick her up. The new thing of the PUA community was dissecting it and finding the specific nuggets, like the time-honored principles mentioned in this article. Tell me if this lacks any clarity of explanation, and Rollo or someone please tell me if I’m at all mistaken, in any way.
Rollo #127
Did you see how the womyn tore apart a commenter, by the name of Redlum, on Jezebel ?
Just because he said this :
The top reply was this :
Write a post on what this guy did wrong, if possible.
This threat from a feminist, for example, wasn’t even made online and anonymously:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/karen-hughes-ill-cut-out-the-tongue-of-gopers-talking-149146.html
“Write a post on what this guy did wrong, if possible.”
He tried to reason with feminist vermin. That’s all.
[…] after my post about believing in your own progress as a man, Obsidian at Just Four Guys posted a tome on Inner and Outer Game and their advocates. I quoted Alexis de Tocqueville in my post; Roissy riffed on a different quote […]
#135 “Write a post on what this guy did wrong, if possible.” Why, clearly he PROVOKED women into attacking him by risking saying men are vulnerable when attacked by women. Somewhere someone accused me of leading with my chin (Moi?), as if my exposure of a weakness made her feel she had to exploit it. Pure victim-blaming of course, but even pointing that out, as a victim, is provoking.
Jesus you guys have a lot of comments now. Well, nicely done with a thought provoking blog.
“there are quite a few people in our time who aren’t all that keen for Men at large to know these algorithms. For obvious reasons, of course.”
I think this thought is worth expanding on. Who is not keen and why? Are the reasons really so obvious? I disagree.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Re: keen. Evidently the vast majority of men delight to share, even pleading with others “Use my knowledge, I beg you.” It’s, I dare say, only women and a tiny handful of alphas who don’t want to see the SMV applecart upset.
Re: conspiracy. Of course this is going to come across as the whining meme “I worked hard on this” but truthfully I did. I fretted about the wording in several places in #134, to give a broadly intimate tone deliberately for maximal convincing, then thud. I’m not the best read in this area, but I am a quick study and have not before seen the idea of Game as conspiring. Besides it being true and explicative of Games sequences, I think it has value, and legs, in connecting several other large ideas, namely of women responding best to bad boys (naturally, it takes a bad boy to be bad), women seeking intimacy-building rather than intimacy itself, the inexplicable efficacy of deception (and drama, etc) on women (from Eve onwards), all the the way up to huge concepts such as play as pretense, and the believe-me-most-because-I’m-truthful-about-lying paradoxes underlying much human interaction.
Keanu
I’m not keen because it presumes half the human race operates approximately on the lizard-brain level. Being married to, father and sister and son and father in law and grandfather and friend of representatives of that half, the concept offends me.
oops. “…father and brother…”
I’m not as solipsistic as you think. Donal Graeme’s post today laments the badness of being bad. What he is squeamishly determinedly not looking at is the fact that Game works. Womynz like the Bad. His fervent wish for an Alternative is commendable, exactly as commendable and as useful as fervently wishing Eve had never succumbed to deception. His Alternative pyramid is drawn completely wrong, however, and it is that which prompts my comment here, since I can’t comment there (someone stomped on my username). It should be redrawn, for your edification, as the following business model:
Alternative to Game
1. Ooze with masculine goodness.
2. ???
3. Collect panties.
This all falls under the general heading of “Boy wouldn’t it be great if women were different from how women are?”
I should add that Donal Graeme’s current worldview demands the dividing asunder of Outer and Inner Game, whereas with Game being conspiring, there can be no dichotomy.
Richard,
Riffing off the airplane analogy…
6:30. Dusk setting over the Indian Ocean. An Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer lists in the Arabian Sea, 250 miles to the Northwest. Iran plowed three exocets into side two hours earlier and rescue choppers are on the way. They are reporting a squadron of Su-30s armed with long-range AA-10s prowling the site. Routine satellite surveillance saw movement of old-school A-4s to a southern airbase a few weeks ago with some packages that looked like mines for the Straight of Hormuz, but now quite clearly are anti-ship missiles.
There may or might not be a few MiGs on the way, there may or may not be some civilian shipping in the area with various MANPADS, there may or may not be some SA-30s installed in the Hormuz.
You are the Admiral of the 7th Fleet and it’s decision time. You can launch exactly 4 fighter aircraft. Wing 1, in F-4 phantoms, armed with AIM9-B sidewinders not used since Korea, the Red Baron, Giora Epstein, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, and Kara Thrace. Wing 2, flying F-35s armed with AIM-120E and AIM-9X, are Rafe McCawley, Pete Mitchell, Kara Wade, and Jek Porkins.
Who do you pick?
Tech can make a big difference, and if future aps understand attraction better than humans do, then the humans who bring computers into their “Game” are going to perform better than the “naturals.” Just the way it is. I mean, you can point to all sorts of wonderful things about the naturals. And that’s great. But if that’s what women exactly don’t care about, how is it any different than me trying to be a Nice Guy, or trying to seduce women with my Pokémon card collection?
Re: something dichotomous this way comes. So how is it, with presumably strongish inner Game, such that no joke 100% success rate minigaming with a dozen strange women/girls (your choice to believe, but, no joke) of all kinds has led me to know for a fact that there IS abundance even for me for whom it seemed very not abundant before, how is it that so many familiar women/girls, including of course the wife and employees, are (as yet) unmoved (some have changed, drastically, but most have not)? How come Game works so much better on the strange? Yes familiarity germinates contempt and Game if present from the beginning apparently inoculates, so how come Game seems so ineffective after the contempt-infection sets in? Or is it just a matter of time before they come around and all start adoring?
Tech can make a big difference, and if future aps understand attraction better than humans do, then the humans who bring computers into their “Game” are going to perform better than the “naturals.” Just the way it is. I mean, you can point to all sorts of wonderful things about the naturals. And that’s great. But if that’s what women exactly don’t care about, how is it any different than me trying to be a Nice Guy, or trying to seduce women with my Pokémon card collection?
ADBG,
It is interesting to compare the games of Go versus Chess and how computer programs fare against advanced human opponents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)#Computers_and_Go
Go poses a daunting challenge to computer programmers.[101] The strongest computer chess programs defeat the best human players (for example, the Deep Fritz program, running on a laptop, beat reigning world champion Vladimir Kramnik without losing a single game in 2006). The best Go programs manage to reach amateur dan level.[102] On the small 9×9 board, the computer fares better, and some programs now win a fraction of their 9×9 games against professional players. Many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to require more elements that mimic human thought than chess.[103]
The “art” of Game if there is such a thing, is in the calibration. When do you dial back cocky funny and teasing and actually shift gears and try some earnest conversation to build some rapport? I have a hard time seeing a program or app that can make that call effectively in real time.
ADBG
I didn’t say tech wouldn’t work. I am making the case that, once you are winchester on missiles and go to guns, you’re now down to training and manuverability. If you have the VTOL F35–presuming like the Harrier it can use its VTOL to make serious manuvers unavailable to conventional aircraft–then you have an advantage.
My point is, when the cover of game is done and the real you is up for survey, what do you have?
Why should game be gone? Familiarity in the first place and/or circumstances not anticipated in game including the app.
A game bad boy encounters a real bad boy. A sports-talking wannabe jock is asked about a friendly game of, say,beach volleyball. The self-appointed king of the gym is invited to help get the boat up above the shoreline and tied off. The immediate world goes to shit and people are yelling from all directions and things need to be addressed in a particular order, presuming you have the presence of mind to manage overstimulation, knowledge of the issues, and competence to deal with the most important, not to mention the gravitas to get other people to do what you say NOW. Even if they don’t like it.
This is unlikely, in its worst scenario, but minor examples will no doubt occur from time to time.
Your anti-flop sweat pills quit working.
The app in question allows you to read a woman…presumably. There’s a reason lie detectors aren’t used in courts. But, anyhow, if she has a couple of brain cells to rub together, she may decide to override the lizard brain. Been kmown to happen.
Now, if you want to make the case that the tells the app picks up allow you to modify your approach in real time and she can’t help but be influenced….
You got yourself a puppet. Welcome to her. I think an ordinary guy might feel the need for an extra shower after such an encounter.
For some reason I am reminded of Andre Norton’s Canhound in her “The Last Planet”.
Ooof.
To make another analogy, see the various survivor shows. Sure, you could haul out your credit card and put up at Holiday Inn. But the skills needed when you’re in the middle of noplace and you lost your wallet and cell phone have several virtues. One is, you might have lost your wallet and cell phone–metaphor alert–or they may have quit working. Or, if you have the skills, you don’t need them to have a good time out in nature. Among other things, being competent and thus confident, you don’t even worry. And you look unworried. Nobody likes their leader to look nervous or their guide to start muttering, “Now what the hell do I do?”
Having the skills means you don’t need the tech.
The other issue is the effect on one’s life of depending on tech. Do you even approach a situation without having Sony on your belt?
Ref your example: We know where the bad guys came from. Nuke the bastards. I’m tired of this shit.
Shuffling my thoughts. Please-a ‘scuze the sausage making. Clearly you, generic you, isn’t going to be trying to pick up, even pretend pick up, certain women including daughters etc. But those women, presumably, must recognize pickuppable women’s pickuppalbeness for you, or something, especially if they actually observe you doing successful outer Game, not to mention inner Game if that’s somehow different.
Is that act of observing absolutely necessary (no, I’m not talking “I saw Daddy kissing” whoever, I mean seeing a strange woman react well like a girlfriend might)? How much do second hand accounts count? What percentage of women have to be directly Gamed to change others’ views? I don’t like this black box approach.
I’m gonna ask, not for advice, just for opinion: What do you think would happen if I happened to get my hateful ex-wife alone together (this is one situation wherein I think having observers would squelch it all) and I tried to Game her, and how honestly, i.e. how much should I tell her I’m gaming her? I truly don’t want to get her hopes actually up, but definitely she ought to get her bristles down, and nothing else has worked (and also Nothing hasn’t worked) these past 34 years.
I mentioned already that the couple of women I told I was going to pretend to be interested in them to see how they reacted, both reacted very well indeed and were very interested either because of or in spite of the pretence. Neither were offended, on the contrary seemed complimented. Does this lack of offense scale to familiar (or once-familiar) women?
“Many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to require more elements that mimic human thought” explains why I’m such a lousy Go player. Which begs the question (yes it does): Is there such a thing as an anti-Turing test? With the coming advent of humanoid robots, how will we be sure someone is a real boy?
Aside, a coworker’s 50th birthday was mutedly celebrated today, not all black balloons, and very tasty cake. She is a right jolly old … elf, so to speak, if you know what I mean. A big softie, a sweetie pie, a sugarplum, always been very nice to me. I gave her a little hug, which was kind of impossible geometrically so it was a big hug nonetheless, and lo she did behold my involuntary sudden real boyness. And she was instantly quite real girlness. I think nobody else noticed my reaction, but probably did see her rereaction.
Re: just get it. I think the conspiracy theory explains that too. “I want to be a part of some conspiracy.” is not symmetrical with “I want to conspire with you.”. I could, an may later, make the case that it is symplectical.
Back in the day, at the end of a field project taking half the summer in a nasty area, we looked at the maps and it transpired that I would be driving Ms. J to her home. Took two days. The group crashed at a college dorm which had been arranged for the first night, and then off we went in the morning.
Actually, several of us had a party under the trees. My ride came kicking through the bushes to find me in the morning. She could have just taken the keys. Always felt kindly about that.
So mid afternoon we arrive at her home, much to the relief of her parents. Much. Because people had been killed doing what we’d been doing.
Being the chauffeur gave me the credit for keeping her safe. Actually was true but the parents didn’t know it, they were just transferring their relief to the driver of the car.
Heard a drift of a rumor after that. She was going with a guy we’ll call Freddy whom the family didn’t like. At all. And as I understand it, there was a period where she heard, “You don’t need Freddy. Look at Aubrey. You found him and he’s practically adequate. Imagine what you could do if you set your mind to it.” And my name was mud. She was kind enough to write me in the Army a few times anyway. Married Freddy. Found out at reunion time from an acquaintance they’d divorced in a year.
Example of a push, as opposed to a pull. Or would have been if she’d listened to her parents and been my type, anyway. But this is another of those things for which no credit can be claimed.
@ ADBG
Probably screwed either way, as 4 F-35s won’t have the weapon-load necessary to deal with so many threats.
The Admiral must have a few nukes in the magazines. There’s a youtube vid. “farewell and adieu” to you fair Spanish ladies, with pix from the Napoleonic wars. One is of Nelson holding the telescope to his bad eye, one sleeve tucked up. Another guy laughing.
No matter what you do, sometimes your commo just craps out and you have to make a decision on the spot. Some swabby forgot to change the battery, or frequency or something. Stop his grog, we will, when we figure out who he is.
F35 is designed to go in stealthy with an internal load, probably HARM, but not many. Once the IADS is degraded and stealth isn’t important, they can wingload a bunch. So in this situation, they are probably pretty heavily loaded. Thing is whether the bad guys, should any survive, have a field to return to.
I vote no.
to the best of my knowledge, the only nukes currently deployed are the W76 or 88 (Trident SLBMs), W87 or 78 (Minuteman ICBMs), and the B61 (air drop, from strat bombers only). That’s it. No theater commander in any branch of the military would have nukes under his command.
Morpheus,
Right now, the Game App would be well beyond the capabilities of any computer or software programmer. Doesn’t really matter, though. The question is whether technologically can, in the field, augment the gaming abilities of a man. For instance, if your App can reference a database of the local teen birth-rate and STD rate and predict the possibility of a SNL in that location? That may mean nothing to a veteran gamer or a person who knows a lot about the area, but it might mean a lot to a novice and allow him to augment his game considerably.
Even better if future-gen iPhone can read, say, body temperature, or integrates Kinect into the system and can detect an IOI better than you can.
It’s an unexplored field, so I don’t know where it will go. However, technologically-augmented social interactions are probably going to happen sometime in the not-so-distant future, just like we have technologically-augmented battlefields. This might be less romantic, but it’s irrelevant: the gamers of the future will be iGamers and the guys who aren’t will be Don Quixote, just tilting at windmills with their dicks instead of lances.
Based on the idea that Game exists, to me it’s inevitable. And the existence of such an app, automatically proves Game: if attraction is some magical force then your iPhone will never help you, ever. Tyler Cowen believes that there will be a Dating App, which auto-implies the existence of Game.
Make sense?
Richard correctly notes that this helps more with the trappings of masculinity rather than masculinity itself. Much like a woman focused on the outcome of male competition is not so much focused on actual skill level, which is why a programmer who constructs a new database architecture for the ACA exchanges is going to get ignored in favor of the champion Kite-Flyer of the 10,000th district of Spokane, Washington or whatever.
However, that’s irrelevant to what succeeds in attracting women. Is it good to have something beneath all the superficial bullshit? Yes, and I think most men here would agree with that, but if it doesn’t help you attract women then it’s not relevant to the debate about whether or not Game exists.
Not hard to test this for yourself, and obviously I would encourage any man to do so.
Also, consider that innovation takes a lot of time and generally requires a lot of skill leveraging and tweaking that isn’t immediately apparent. Game and the Manosphere in general is in infancy compared to a lot of mass marketed material, or you can correctly consider it “niche.” Compare Obsidian’s Wall of Texts to the far more popular Buzzfeed lists.
Return of Kings has a more readily digestible format, though for obvious reasons I do not think it is going to gain a lot of mass market following:
http://www.returnofkings.com/26523/13-things-men-should-be-shamed-for-not-celebrated-for
I like the long essays and books, but I am a special guy. However, my thought is that this will eventually be ported over by one person or another. Anyone know if RoK has an app? If not, it might be useful: here’s your cocky funny tip of the day or whatever. Remember Roosh describing how he prepares for a night of sarging? See if you can send pics directly to a guy’s phone as a sort of psych up for the day.
Beats the fuck out of me how to make it work. Right now I am trying to gather content for a blog with some of my other buddies, since I got ban-hammered from the forum we used to frequent.
“Beats the fuck out of me how to make it work. Right now I am trying to gather content for a blog with some of my other buddies, since I got ban-hammered from the forum we used to frequent.”
Have you considered doing a few guest posts here first?
Just an idea, not my call to make.
ADBG
Having real masculinity minus an artificial layer of game does not mean you can’t attract women. Game is to fake real masculinity and hope the woman doesn’t catch on.
Related thought: My wife and I happened to be in the area so we decided to drive around the campus of University of The Ozarks (akd Hard Work U). I think we were a day before spring registration. Not a lot of people around but cars parked near admin buildings.
Saw a couple of tall, attractive young women in shorts and tee shirts with the jocks’ geitoutoftheway pony tails and fielders gloves. A guy with a tub of softballs was hitting grounders of various kinds. Looked as if he could dial any kind of hit he wished, iow he was good.
Hereabouts, the presumption is that he was a beta hoping to hit his way to some pussy by helping out a couple of women who might, if he were lucky, smile at him.
I suggest the possibility is that he was a friend hoping he could help his friends make the varsity. His social life was adequate elsewhere. Or maybe there, as an alternative.
I don’t like the presumption of betahood for anybody who seems to have female friends. Need more data.
Escoffier. Used to have a neato clearance, including something about nukes beyond what I got in the Infantry School. Found myself custodian of classified docs one place, not cleared to read some of the stuff I was responsible for, too. Scary when an bright E4 is all that stands between me and Leavenworth. So I suggest see “misdirection”, and port visits to New Zealand for units of the USN.
#159 ADBG, the “13 things” article is basically correct, although incomplete, and leaves off suggesting a shaming method. For example, if your yawning neighbor shuffles out to get the morning paper while wearing his wife’s pink fuzzies to protect his delicate little tootsies, most kind primate neighbors would have no qualms about hooting and pointing to shame him. How precisely should one stage an intervention, especially in public, for some of the 13 offenses?
Inner: I can get a woman interested.
Outer: I can get this woman interested.
Metaphor alert:
You’re driving west on I80 in January, in the vicinity of Truckee, where the soggy Pacific winds dump their first load of precip in the form of tons of soggy shit which shut down the expressway for a day at a time.
You heard it might happen and you planned to leave yesterday and beat it but you got delayed.
You didn’t get a chance to get the gas gauge fixed. You know you get 28mph on the flat since you have recently been in Nebraska. But you don’t know about mountains, so you get gas every 150 miles just in case, and because service stations aren’t always there when you need them. Not like east of the Mississippi.
You only have one set of keys so you have to be careful about that. Since you planned on beating the storm, you didn’t bring what you should have brought anyway for that route that month; blankets, heavy clothes, flares, flashlight, food, water. Your car charger for your cellphone crapped out and since service is lousy, the phone is searching, chewing through the charge like a shark. So you keep it off except for every hour or so.
It’s a sweaty drive even before it snows.
You pull off at a station and see a Greyhound bus getting in. One of the passengers is a girl you know. You go up to her and suggest pulling her luggage from the pile and going with you.
She looks at you emitting the sweaty-ride concerns you have, and says that she’s paid for the ticket and may as well, besides they’re not opening the luggage compartment.
Alternate scenario: You see the girl, put on your pirate hat and swagger up to her. Suggest she looks kind of ragged and ought to stay on the bus, looking like that.
If she buys it, you deserve her, and she you. Hope nothing happens.
Next alternative: Just before you get there, she runs into yet ANOTHER guy she knows who is driving a four-wheel drive Jeep with all the stuff he needs and who is perfectly confident of getting through. And knows it.
You have your pirate hat.
The attractive man who already has multiple women trying to get in his pants does not need game. But if you do need game, then besides the usual Outer sequences there are Inner sequences that can be focused on. Here’s one.
Inner: I can get a woman’s sexual interest. (constant background level, based on prior Outer success)
Inner: I can get some woman’s sexual interested by conspiring with her to pick her up. (keep in mind)
Still inner: That woman over there looks like she might be interested in conspiring with someone. (this is not yet reading IOI. The man targeting “that woman” will increase success rate. Shotgun approaches may work but I’ve not yet tried.)
Still inner: It might as well be me. (always needed)
Inner-outer transition, beginning trying to make “that woman” to “this woman”: Make contact (e.g. eye contact) to try to make her feel like you have some secret you want to share with her specifically.
(assume reading of IOI)
Inner-outer transition ending: Make “that there” to “this here” by getting physically closer.
Outer: (start to finish executive summary) The original “secret” of your sexual interest in her is now no secret, if it ever was, but she doesn’t know specifically what you have in mind for her, nor why you picked her specifically. Make her interested in finding out, by making her try to find out.
#164 Depends on intent, as well as your knowledge of the girl. If your intent is to impress a nice mentally balanced girl with your foresight “Come with me. It’ll be safer, I’ve thought of everything.” then your MMV for sure is increased with a preparations technique. But pirate screeching into the parking out and jumping out and kissing the ground “Whooee! I thought I was gonna die! Hey girl, I know you! You like to party too! I’m going up to my friends place for major bongage!” might get the booty quicker with a devil-may-care technique.
Test comment, just to see if I can log in.
jf12.
IMO, that could work if it wasn’t really involved in possible death. As in, let’s go to this bar where fake bikers hang out.
I’m talking about subliminally perceived cues as to masculinity. Provide, protect, make safe. OTOH, the guy is going through the mountains so he’s not entirely a wimp. Maybe he’s wearing his Death from Above sweatshirt he got after jump school and singing along to Toby Keith’s “Ballad of Balad” on his CD player. She knows he’s had two deployments.
And, besides, the guy in your version of my example doesn’t actually have anything going but getting through the mountains to whatever mundane goal he had. Once he got her into the car, the flop sweat and excuses for why he has to stop for gas every 150 miles, the request to use her cell phone, the obvious lack of survival gear, all would occur to her as downers within the first, say, ninety seconds. Unless that added to the excitement,which it would in one way or another, depending on your definition of excitement. If living on the real edge was a turn-on, maybe, except, as I say, once she’s in the car, they’re going to Sacremento. Period.
So even if he “won”, he’d be losing almost immediately.
And maybe the other guy is sufficiently concerned he gives her his cell phone number so that if the first guy screws up, the second guy can come to the rescue. Even if that never happens, it’s a hell of a cloud over the first guy’s head, and it’s visible. Or maybe the second guy lingers over his coffee and is unable to catch up and pass–that happens sometimes–and is first on scene when bozo spins out.
Anyway, keep the pirate hat handy. Might be somebody around who thinks you look like Johnny Depp.
And here I’m not talking about rational thinking. I’m talking about perceiving subliminal cues and coming to subrational or prerational conclusions.
@Ms. Liz:
“Interesting to note though (or, at least, interesting to me), times have kind of changed there too. It wasn’t long ago that women would deny breast implants, hair lightening, and all that. They wanted everyone to think their double D breasts were natural, regardless of how incongruous with their frame. Their hair naturally white-blonde at age 30 too. They’d squat in bleach to “prove” it. Now it’s “look at my rad fake titties!” and “look at my dye job!” Interesting…so on that note, perhaps women will eventually be fine with men loudly and proudly discussing their gaming techniques on them. But I doubt it.”
O: The reasons why for this, is really quite simple; for Men, the relative costs to mate are small(er) when compared to Women. Therefore, in the overall scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter is a Sista’s got a weave and wearing Apple Bottom jeans and has cupie doll eyelashes, fake nails, lots of makeup, pushup bras, skripper heels, etc, et al; in the end, it simply doesn’t cost as much for a Brotha to mate than the other way around.
Capice?
O.
@Richard Aubrey:
The problem often with your examples, and I discussed this offlist recently with the fellas on a related topic, is that you’re citing instances of guys who are by definition “elite”; I mean, just how many Men overall, are jump school grads?
Come on.
It’s my view that these discussions need to be much more pedestrian; hence, my focus on “Tyrone”.
O.
@Richard Aubrey:
“I’m not keen because it presumes half the human race operates approximately on the lizard-brain level. Being married to, father and sister and son and father in law and grandfather and friend of representatives of that half, the concept offends me.”
O: Your feelings are noted; nevertheless, the books I cited in my post do indeed point to undeniable findings empirically. It is, what it is…and it will do none of us any good to continue to live in denial.
I’m just sayin’…
O.
Obs. As to elite. That came second, once JF12 had started on his “joyful risk” game. IOW, you want risk, I got the real risk.
But the primary issue is the guy who’s prepared and confident and knows it with the associated tells being subliminally perceived versus the guy who isn’t and who, if flop sweat isn’t greasing down his face, is anyway emitting tells for a lack of confidence bordering on actual fear.
The books you cite all contain, or should, NAWALT in various versions. I’ve found exceptions, fortunately.
But if you want to show risk, what do you do for a woman who’s won trophies in barrel racing? Water ski? Even, for heaven’s sake, slalom!!!
My daughter and a female friend on alternative spring break, in the middle of Yucatan, getting the locals to do what was necessary to get them back to what was vaguely known as “civilization”.
My wife, at sixteen, missing a flight in NYC to go to Spain to study, getting a reroute through Iceland to Antwerp and several trains to Madrid.
Yeah, I needed a pirate hat to impress her.
What I did to impress her, afaik and I don’t actually know, was to join a sorority group doing a kid-centered community center in a lousy neighborhood. I lived up to the unspoken agreement that I wasn’t there to prospect. I did honest work such as guys can do–plumbing, some wiring, a little construction. I stared at local asshats who were attracted to the sorority girls and I accompanied the latter–actually drove them–when they went to meet parents in the evening. Without which they would not have gone.
There was nothing there an ordinary guy couldn’t have done except for my physical confidence based on completely voluntary participation in lax, judo and martial arts. Voluntary. Pretend I wrote down “voluntary” about a thousand more times.
About the only thing my wife has said about the whole process is that it was clear I liked kids.
I know about the NZ issue, basically, the USN position is, we might have a Tomahawk with a W80, or maybe we don’t, we can neither confirm nor deny, etc. And NZ’s position is, unless you affirmatively deny, you can’t use our ports.
However, with the two most recent treaties (SORT and New START), plus voluntary decommissioning, we’ve taken them all out of service. The Navy still has SLBMs, but that’s it.
Unless they’re lying to us, which I actually don’t believe, but which also might make me a fool.
@Richard Aubrey:
“Obs. As to elite. That came second, once JF12 had started on his “joyful risk” game. IOW, you want risk, I got the real risk.”
O: *Shrugs* In the overall scheme of things, in a world where what, barely 3% of the entire US population is in the military period, it really doesn’t mean a lot. I’m just sayin.
“But the primary issue is the guy who’s prepared and confident and knows it with the associated tells being subliminally perceived versus the guy who isn’t and who, if flop sweat isn’t greasing down his face, is anyway emitting tells for a lack of confidence bordering on actual fear.”
O: Again…*shrugs*
“The books you cite all contain, or should, NAWALT in various versions. I’ve found exceptions, fortunately.”
O: So? The point is, that attractions ARE real, that they CAN be learned, and that they CAN be deployed. Why does that bother you so, Rich? It doesn’t bother me one little bit…
“But if you want to show risk, what do you do for a woman who’s won trophies in barrel racing? Water ski? Even, for heaven’s sake, slalom!!!”
O: LOL. Read “Coming Apart”; most Americans don’t “slalom ski”; most Americans don’t even know what “slalom” even means. Do you see what I’m saying here? We need to STOP all this “elite” discussion, because IT DOESN’T ADDRESS REAL LIFE ON THE GROUND FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS.
Capice?
“My daughter and a female friend on alternative spring break, in the middle of Yucatan, getting the locals to do what was necessary to get them back to what was vaguely known as “civilization”.”
O: Again: how many Americans do this?
“My wife, at sixteen, missing a flight in NYC to go to Spain to study, getting a reroute through Iceland to Antwerp and several trains to Madrid.
Yeah, I needed a pirate hat to impress her.”
O: Perhaps. But again – it’s a non-issue for large swaths of Americans…tens of millions. That, is what I want to focus on- not the proverbial “one percent”.
“What I did to impress her, afaik and I don’t actually know, was to join a sorority group doing a kid-centered community center in a lousy neighborhood. I lived up to the unspoken agreement that I wasn’t there to prospect. I did honest work such as guys can do–plumbing, some wiring, a little construction. I stared at local asshats who were attracted to the sorority girls and I accompanied the latter–actually drove them–when they went to meet parents in the evening. Without which they would not have gone.”
O: All of which is fine – but the fact remains, that all living things, have mating strategies. Your having personal philosophical problems with that will not change things; nor will it change the fact that it is indeed possible for both human males and females to do same in our time. It is, what it is, Rich – we would do well to accept this, and get on with the business of living life.
“There was nothing there an ordinary guy couldn’t have done except for my physical confidence based on completely voluntary participation in lax, judo and martial arts. Voluntary. Pretend I wrote down “voluntary” about a thousand more times.”
O: Again, you have done exactly what has Buss has laidout in “The Evolution of Desire”; you would know this, if you had actually read the book…
“About the only thing my wife has said about the whole process is that it was clear I liked kids.”
O: Which is indeed a highly effective mating tactic for males…
told ya.
O.
Obs.
Point is still not about elite. The point is that there are women who can be impressed by other than artificial layers of game.
None of what I did was done to impress women. I did it because I wanted to or because otherwise I’d have been bored or because it looked like a reasonable way to pass the time, or a tool I might need.
None of which has to do with trying to impress women, or that I even knew–the depth of my cluelessness is beyond description–that women could be impressed, at least by me.
Whether people are ex-military or not is not the point. There are actual things you can do which indicate competence and willing risk-taking. They are not closed off to Tyrone or anybody else. We used to rib each other about wimpy summer jobs, the guy who fought forest fires working for the Forest Service winning that one. Steel mill one year?
Waterskiing is not a big deal. That’s the point. What do you have to do to impress a woman who wins barrel racing trophies at the risk of broken bones? Whatever it was, my son did it, the point being that waterskiing isn’t likely to be it.
Point is, there are women who don’t react as your books describe and my point is…there are.
Shrug if you wish, but a lot of guys tried to impress my DiL, or her two attractive jock sisters. They all ended up with even bigger jock guys with savage work ethics. None,as far as I can see do game while married, and the two I knew before they got married didn’t do it either.
As to my wife liking my liking kids, her previous squeeze hadn’t. But lots of guys do. So I don’t think that was decisive.
After a great deal of reflection, I have concluded that my unplumbable cluelessness led, by various ways, to a self-presentation of absolute non-neediness. Had no clue, of course. I used to think that neediness was a repulsor, a negative attractor. So if you’re not needy, you don’t have that particular anchor on your social presentation. But that didn’t answer. Now I think the far edges of non-neediness completely without any thought of game were a positive attractor. Might be a tell that the guy must have, someplace else, a fabulously terrific social life and that did the job.
Women act as you describe, but NAWALT. And none of the women in my family have done so, afaik.
Why do you have a problem with the possibility that some women don’t act as prescribed in your books?
@Richard
Not trying to speak for Obsidian here…
No debate from me that there are women out there that aren’t like that… but as Obsidian said, if it’s in the 1-3% range, I think most guys aren’t going to see it as being worthwhile to focuse on that group… entirely possible you won’t even cross paths with one you find attractive in your lifetime.
From my perspective, it fits my purposes better to focus on things that are attractive to say 60-70% of girls out there (specifically young & attractive ones).
Just a matter of numbers and efficiency.
@ADBG and Spawny
Yeah, ADBG, let me know if you want to do a guest post. Contact me via email.
87
I did not concentrate. Besides my wife, before my wife, I found considerably more than 1-3 pct. Some I dated, some I knew in non-social situations. Impressing any of them, and the women in my family would have taken more than (metaphor alert ) a pirate hat.
Some women are like that, but not as many as those selling game and associated concepts to the desperate want the desperate to believe.
WITH 300 mill people in this country, some of them are bound to be like…anything.
@ Richard Aubrey
Unfortunately, reality doesn’t care what we find offensive.
@ Richard Aubrey
If you want to go for someone who has that much apex experience with risk, you’re going to have to step up your own riskiness to match it…
http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/story/_/id/8133052/athletes-spill-details-dirty-secrets-olympic-village-espn-magazine
Nemesis.
I can dislike that which is real. I can work with it or around it. I don’t need advice about that. In my experience, even before I knew I was having experience, I knew, even if I didn’t know I knew it, that there were many women who did not have Game-vulnerable buttons. As I say, I did not concentrate on them. Sufficient were in my way, so speak, that I did not have to deal with the others.
It’s possible that feminism, or some other cultural phenomenon, has skewed the proportions. I’m not in a position to know.
As I say, even if you buy evpsych, behavioral issues are propensities. We all have an instinct to eat when hungry. But some starve themselves to death, some voluntarily vomit. Some fast for long periods, some are vegetarians. Some eat snails…. Some eat other people.
Since, if evpsych is a fact, it’s less than a million years old, probably only a hundred thousand years old, the opportunity for evoltution to turn it into something strict and unyielding is considerably less than the instinct to eat. And, as I say, there’s more variety in our propensities to eat than game allows obtain in the mating dance.
Having said that, I’ve just returned from a party for the sixtieth bday of a friend. Hubby threw a nice spread. In another room was a sorority induction–for a moment I thought we could watch the hazing but no luck–and there must have been forty young women. There were adults and some guys who were either dates or brothers still in junior high. Wearing suits, anyway.
I was reminded of my lax reunion some years ago. There was a separate pre-dinner for the guys who’d played in the early sixties. I went into the restaurant and asked the hostess for the loud old guys. Pointed me right to it.
Couple of fun hours. On the way out, I saw young couples, presumably from the nearby college. Lucky we’re married, I thought, looking at the young guys, or you’d be going home alone.
Walking sticks, balding, limps, graying, all notwithstanding.
Richard,
One doesn’t have to be “fake” to learn new behavior or skills… sure, there might be an awkward period where they don’t come naturally, but after awhile they all become subconscious.
Think of it this way… When I used to play baseball, I did a good bit of pitching. For a while I had a little bit of a hitch in my windup, and decided I needed to fix it to get better control on my pitches. It took a lot of pracice and repition, and for a while I had to concentrate really hard on “hitting my marks” when I would pitch… But finally over time I got to a point that the muscle memory I gained through practice allowed me to use my new windup automatically without thinking about it… it was my new natural throwing motion.
Was it a “fake” windup, since it wasn’t how I naturally threw before that? Heck no.
Behavioral changes work the same way. Eventually they become subconsciously natural for you.
Richard,
Also wanted to throw in that while I could be wrong, I don’t think anyone here is using as strong or definite language as you seem to be interpreting.
I don’t agree that game tactics always work, or that every girl responds the same way to the same cues every time. Far from that.
But there are generalizations that we can make, and say that IN GENERAL there are behaviors, actions, & attitudes that help generate sexual attraction from mainstream, attractive girls in their early to mid 20s.
87
WRT behavior and your pitching: In any endeavor there are ways to get out of your own way. You managed the hitch in your motion. Probably saved your arm. Got a relation who had the smoothest motion ever, said some of his colleagues, and was pitchig AA ball. Even with the Tommy John surgery–and what happens to wherever it is they take the tendon from?–his shoulder wasn’t up to it. Point is, what with his talents, he got to double A ball by, among other things, getting out of his own way. But there’s a limit. In any endeavor, there’s a limit to how far you can get by ridding yourself of counterproductive…motion, speech patterns, body language, planning techniques, etc.
So when it comes to women, don’t step on your necktie and you’re on the move. But when you’ve conquered the necktie and can disguise flop sweat and don’t make yourself look like a potential doormat, and aren’t intimidated–why on earth would a young woman intimidate anybody, what, she’s going to shoot you?–then, imo, you’ve got to have something real.
I admit there are women who can be faked into anything by artificial game, as there are people investing with that nice lady from Nigeria.
I have two points: Nowhere near as many as the people trying to sell salvation to the desperate want their potential purchasers–whether money or the gratification of being taken seriously or whatever–want the desperate to believe.
Secondly, those who are game-vulnerable span a continuum and many are nowhere near as manipulable by the pirate hat as the vendors would want you to believe.
I’ve spoken at tiresome length about the IOI I got back in college that I didn’t know were IOI for twenty years. Reflecting on them, I left out the “lean against” incidents. And this was before things were as huggy as they are now.
Waiting in a classroom building hallway near a door to the outside for somebody. A woman I knew came along and stopped to chat. She had to stand close because of the crowds going in and out. She leaned against me briefly, as we watched the snow bulleting past at about 50mph. “Hate to go out in that,” she said, “bye.” That was nice, I thought. To my memory I had done nothing on purpose resembling game. Never heard of it at the time, of course, since the term hadn’t been invented. In further reflection, I hadn’t done anything by accident resembling game. Just treated her like a friend. There was nothing between us that could possibly be considered either an inadvertent technique or a deliberate one, and no thought on my part of trying to move into any kind of relationship. She was just a nice, attractive womann in my world. I do not speak of the women I was dating, I should say, they being separate from this discussion.
The lean-against thing happened a number of times. No idea if it was common in the rest of that mini-world of a Big Ten campus in the Sixties. If it was, then it means nothing, but…. Nor why it happened.
But two things are true: I did not try to push any buttons, no matter how clumsy I might have been. Afaik, I didn’t do it accidentally, either. Somehow she thought I was a good guy, sans button pushing.
What did I do? Far as I can tell, nothing except not try to move in.
From which I deduce that at least some women can be attracted to someone they consider a good guy without having game run on them, one way or another. Whether I really was a good guy or not is still in dispute. No accounting for taste.
There were, of course, women who didn’t want much to do with me but that is to be expected. The point is that the ones who did, looking back from forty-plus years, hadn’t had anything like game imposed on them.
I have no idea what it was. Or whether there was an “it”.
Well, the day is starting.
#181 “Couple of fun hours. On the way out, I saw young couples, presumably from the nearby college. Lucky we’re married, I thought, looking at the young guys, or you’d be going home alone.
Walking sticks, balding, limps, graying, all notwithstanding.”
Aubrey, you’ve an inner pirate, wooden leg and all.
185
There are guys who look as if they wouldn’t cast a shadow at high-Sun noon and you know they have handshake like a slab of warm bacon.
You just know a resolute Brownie scout could stare him down and her friend the Cub Scout could run him off without breaking a sweat.
They get dates.
???????
With all due respect, richardaubrey is starting to sound like the old bags at you-know-where, simply on the wrong side of a generation-gap experience: “what is with all this silly talk about ‘game’? When I was young, men were just masculine manly men, and the women could just tell that they were strong men with bright futures, they saw through the James Dean wannabe douchebags and everyone paired up accordingly.”
Just to be frank (not hostile), it ain’t your grandpa’s SMP. That’s the frame and context in which guys like Morpheus and myself were raised, and by the time we were adult-ish, it was a completely inadequate model. Women had moved forward in what they expected and responded to from men. Much of this moving forward was subconscious, influenced by the media messages wrt sex and gender, or the removal of consequence and judgment from female behavior, or both.
Not applying this to richard necessarily, but boomer-esque commentators often have an accusatory frame: “guys didn’t have to do this shit when I was young. What must be wrong with you that you have to use this awful game and trick our poor daughters?” I’d prefer a different kind of analysis: “what’s wrong with society if what decent, gentle guys used to do to successfully get women is now providing them with nothing save calumny and ridicule (witness the unvarnished writings of young women on the Internet about the whole inadequacy of most men they are meeting), and further what does it say if these same guys can learn a few basic tactics from an ebook or a website and in a matter of weeks dramatically turn their dating fortunes around?”
@Badger 187
Any time I now hear a woman whine about being in a “bad relationship” or legitimately complain about a bad relationship where she says that he was a psychopath or abusive or what not I ask her WHY she chose him and why she stayed with him so long? It shifts the focus from her being a victim to being responsible for her choice. Regardless of how things used to be, in today’s SMP women have tons of choice and their choices are sending out sexual-market demand signals that have an influence on how young men respond–some check out, others game up, others try the beta-blue-romantic route they’ve been taught which usually leads to frustration.
I think it’s somewhat of a shame that the noble desire of romantic betas to really protect and care for women–sentiment that really does create a civilized world for women–is trampled on and despised in the absence of threat or want in today’s prosperous-society women and many men learn sooner or later that they have to remove so much of that nurturing feeling if they want to have success with women. Women’s hypergamy and delay of seeking serious relationships creates a gap decade during the peak of their horniness (about 14-24) where most young men have little power to get women and learn from cruel experience that they have to put off some of their caring nature and act or be more aloof and indifferent.
@ Badger #187
Haha yup. It’s an old tune from boomers (and their surrounding generations) when it comes to both the SMP and the labor marketplace. They seem to have a really hard time understanding the reality that young men face today.
Absolutely agree re: Boomers & prior generations… With all due respect and politeness intended, their experience just doesn’t translate into today’s SMP.
A think a lot of young guys would be more than happy to see a return to those old days, but that’s a moot point… That world is gone and it isn’t coming back. You either evolve or get run over.
I’m not lamenting the old days. I am suggesting that game ain’t all that.
Among other things, if game is tied to evpsych, then a cultural change isn’t going to be relevant. So the media goes nuts and romance novels are a bigger business than the GDP of certain members of the UN, and that overthrows a million years of evpsych.
OTOH, the culture has changed substantially and if that makes the difference, then evpsych isn’t the issue.
Thus, explaining game in terms of evpsych–as PUA merchants do because “It’s science”–is a dead end.
Feminism might be at fault, but seeing feminism making women more rather than less susceptible to game button-pushing would be hard to explain.
I am explaining my own situation and how I differed from other guys back then. And it may have a lesson for now, or not.
As far as I can recall, and I hadn’t figured this out until a couple of years ago, it didn’t occur to me a woman might like me for who I am, my mother excepted. I didn’t think about it, dismiss it and go around feeling sorry for myself. In my universe, the concept simply didn’t exist.
Thus, I could relate to women without approach anxiety which is at least subliminally perceptible if not obvious as hell. When I dealt with women,there was no approach at all. Nothing to get me nervous or have me making dreadful non sequiturs, insinuating double entendres. No stumblefumblemumblebumble. Nothing fake because I had no idea what was going on.
So, I hypothesize, some women decided I might really like them for who they were, not layering on an obviously fake pretense. I might appreciate their competence in something or other. We could work together comfortably.
And I was polite but not 100% talking to the eyes. Did pretty well, but not perfect.
So, my hypothesis, the woman in question here or there might have been thinking….”He really does seem to think I’m a neat person, not faking it to get hold of my lady parts. I kind of like that. Maybe I feel like volunteering….”
Just a guess.
But, for you battlescarred veterans of the current SMP, if you think there’s been a change, what caused it? Did culture cause it or reflect it?
We had the pill back then, and penicillin would take care of pretty much anything we ever heard of. And condoms.
I don’t know that women were different forty years ago. I’m pretty sure that relationships didn’t progress to bed as quickly as we are told they do today, but otherwise I couldn’t say.
87. Every generation thinks they’re new and special. Glad to see you’re not breaking with tradition.
Obs. Wrt airborne and Tyrone and not being elite. The only thing between Tyrone and jump school is the recruiting sergeant. Metaphor alert. Meaning whatever makes a guy not ordinary is frequently available if he makes the move to do it.
I mean, hell, I didn’t even have to pay for it. Not like it was a big deal. Jump pay amounted to about $70 for that month. It wasn’t as if I took a big stretch in life. Got my eight hours sleep, weekends off, nobody bothering me in the evening.
I guess I would conclude by saying that there are considerably fewer women susceptible to game, if things are as they were, than some people think. Or, if there are more, nobody’s come up with a good explanation for the change.
I live in a lake house. If you look over my shoulder in the pic, you could see Milwaukee if the Earth were flat. My son and his family visit often and bring their friends, also young families with kids. They stay for a weekend or a long weekend–winters are slower for some reason–and I get to see family dynamics. No game. Good families. Good adults, great kids, good child-rearing practices.
So I have a window, even if a small one, into the generation born about the mid to late seventies. In fact, I watched them since the mid to late seventies.
Keep in mind that game is a good buy to the extent that there are large numbers of women on whom it will work. Those promoting game aren’t going to do themselves a disservice by underestimating that number.
There’s a whole bunch of fallacies and cognitive biases going on here so I’m going to try unpack just a few.
First, there seems to be a conceptualization of game as straight PUA or a recipe out of the Mystery Method executed mechanically without any calibration or limitation. We’ve talked so much about this it’s not really worth getting into, but that’s not at all how game really works in the field. Typically, through reading, a guy takes a combination of various game instruction and field reports and locates something that he’s doing wrong that is costing him either attraction points or ability to progress farther with women. He focuses in on addressing his weaknesses vis a vis what a good seduction looks like, or even just how to better chat up a woman you’ve just met in a way that makes her feel comfortable instead of creeped out.
“OTOH, the culture has changed substantially and if that makes the difference, then evpsych isn’t the issue.”
“Among other things, if game is tied to evpsych, then a cultural change isn’t going to be relevant.”
Both these sentences (really the same assertion) are false dichotomies and don’t compute. The idea that context (and thus culture) influences human behavior and social mores is already built in to even conventional psychology. Again this idea that human behavior is some kind of fixed script rather than the fascinating crock-pot stew of emotion and cognition.
In any case, I can’t say I’m particularly interested in a pedagogical or theoretical defense of game. My prime concern is what works wrt raising a man’s social value and improving his success with women (with various subcontexts like early dating, married game, gaming with no intent of getting to sex such as when you want to impress your girlfriend’s friends or the receptionist at work). What works tends to change over time, which critics seize on as evidence that game is bullshit, but even a cursory observer can see is applications changing as principles remain the same.
So while discussion of evopsych or evobio or whatever might be intellectually interesting, it’s a sidebar for me. I seriously doubt that any game technique was ever developed by someone reading Buss or another evopsych writer and then thinking “how can I come up with a tactic that exploits this quirk of human behavior?”
Rather, this was for the most part developed by observing interactions with women and their reactions to male behavior. For some guys that meant watching naturals. In the case of someone like Mystery or Roosh, the process was quite structured, with hundreds of experiments being conducted and the “results” being cheeseclothed for trends and basic generalities. It irks me to hear people talk about “game theory,” not only for the reason that that term is already defined for something else, but because game is highly empirical and didn’t grow out of any “theory” except the idea that there was a better way to succeed with women than what your mother had told you.
In some cases game knowledge has been augmented re-reading various social instruction given to previous generations, i.e. the Nichomachean Ethics or the Old Testament. Some say those texts are antiquated and shouldn’t be taken seriously; I say it’s a fool who can’t read classics and discern intelligently which pieces can apply to the modern world and which pieces are ornaments of their time. (Don’t get me started on Huckleberry Finn.)
Game is not really “based on evopsych” – that’s a common misapprehension of critics. Rather, evospych has sometimes been appropriated to give a holistic explaination of why game advice and observations work as they do. Evopsych is itself controversial as a field of study, and some game writers want no part of it at all – the most prominent is Vox Day who calls it a “fairy tale” and needs precisely zero evopsych reference to discuss game’s premises, applications and results.
“Thus, explaining game in terms of evpsych–as PUA merchants do because “It’s science”–is a dead end.”
I don’t know one serious game writer who has asserted that game is either factually “right” or philosophically “moral” or anything like that because it has some overlap with evospych – that would be the “naturalistic fallacy.” There have been appeals to quality scientific authority to defend blue-pill teachings that we know from experience are complete bullshit.
Re: “merchants” – sometimes there’s an attempt to discredit the idea of game based on the fact that someone people are trying to make money off of selling game knowledge or coaching, and dovetails with the accusation that “game is oversold.” However I’ve never paid a dime for any game knowledge save the Internet subscription, and the general opinion of the very good gamers I correspond with is that boot camps, etc are both a big waste of money and taught by substandard people. Critics are always getting out front with the “overpromising” angle – “game says that pasty fat guys can bang supermodels and that just can’t be true so you’re all wrong!!1″ They can of course never provide any real evidence that respected writers are saying any of this this, and I think they really just believe what they want to believe wrt what game people are actually writing. They build up strawmen in their heads because the basic premise that guys can learn to be better with women seems so silly to them.
“Feminism might be at fault, but seeing feminism making women more rather than less susceptible to game button-pushing would be hard to explain.”
This is actually quite easy to understand, and has been volumniously discussed on this very blog, and raises the matter of whether you’ve been paying attention on these threads or just waiting for your turn to speak. The short version: a feminist-influenced society thins the crop of “masculine” men, giving scarcity anxiety to women hunting for that quality and its signals in the SMP; the encouragement of sexual exploration and deferral of marriage as a life goal provides many years of prime youth for women to prioritize short-term pleasures rather than optimizing their search for a long-term mate (AFBB); finally, the dismantlement of “patriarchy” as a guiding force in young people’s lives opens further opportunities to make impulsive sexual decisions.
“Every generation thinks they’re new and special. Glad to see you’re not breaking with tradition.”
Your avuncular shaggy-dog stories become you, but a patronizing demeanor does not. There’s nothing positively “special” about the world I’m living in as a young adult. Most of my compatriots are frustrated and lost.
But to respond to your point, I would say right back at you – as I noted before, you’re fulfilling a stock role that Morpheus and Jimmy and I and others have heard dozens of times. It starts with the raised eyebrow of concern at the directness and emotionality of what we’re talking about, then proceeds to the snowflake anecdata about some couple you knew in college, or two lovers saw when you went out for Sunday morning coffee, and how some aspect of their relationship goes against the baseline game knowledge and so game must be bullshit because if game wasn’t bullshit then how could these people possibly be happy with one another. It also usually contains some riffing on flings that might have been and IOIs missed in some fleeting past period of one’s life (check). There’s a veiled threat that game will only get you a messed-up relationship with a screwed-up woman and that your children will be maladjusted (check).
*Badger Drops the Mic*
#191 “I don’t know that women were different forty years ago.” They weren’t; they were exactly the same. The sexual revolution, resulting in women feeling free to run around because of the Pill etc, occurred in the late 60s.
Aubrey has come down firmly on the side of historical “when I was young” inner (“real”) Game (“imo, you’ve got to have something real”) either Being completely dichotomous from outer (“fake”) Game, or that it Should Have Been dichotomous, I’m not sure. However, in the same way that the only real inner Game comes from knowing empirical success in Outer game (unless you’re gedanken interacting with imaginary women), the only real way that inner Game really manisfests itself in reality is in outer Game. There are no inner Game pheromones, sorry Charlie.
@ Richard Aubrey
Badger covered pretty much all of it, but here’s my take on the evo psych issue specifically:
There’s no question that culture interacts with evolutionary psychology. You’d be hard pressed to find an evo-psych researcher who claims otherwise. This interaction can mean a change in evolutionary incentives (for example relaxation or tightening of enforcement of sexual mores, leading to a change in paternity certainty, opportunity costs for casual sex, etc.). It can also be a direct over-riding of evolutionary programming (e.g. arranged child marriages negating individual mate choice).
It’s perfectly reasonable that, from an evolutionary psychology perspective, creating a promiscuous culture with less paternal investment and more non-paternal investment (i.e. welfare state) will result in greater incentives women to choose cads over dads (and conversely for men to pursue short term mating with sluts over long term mating with “good girls”).
Finally, as far as game people using evo-psych goes, most of the scientific evo-psych evidence that they point to is not theoretical, but rather empirical. Thus, it is irrelevant whether the evo-psych theory is correct or not – what matters is that the observations made by evo-psych studies are indeed real.
#188 “I think it’s somewhat of a shame that … many men learn sooner or later that they have to remove so much of that nurturing feeling if they want to have success with women.”
I think it’s the biggest shame in the world.
From HUS
It all comes down to the oldest Game advice ever.
Make her chase you …
Other than that, The Thorn Birds had a killer theme :
Re: 198
That’s not Game advice. It’s women’s standard advice: be alpha. When women give dating “advice” to men, what they actually do is describe how a man that is already seen as sexually attractive should signal his willingness to commit. Roissy has written about this before, and this latest nonsense from HUS is just another example. The alpha in the room signalled that he has high standards, so women competed harder for his attention. Yeah, color me shocked.
Imagine a computer programmer beta nerd meeting a homely female student and after several friendly chats declaring that he “doesn’t do casual”. The woman would probably just laugh her ass off and the guy would become the laughingstock of the entire campus. A beta chump who has high standards and seeks quality sex in a stable relationship, LOLOLOLOL.
Badger,
About the only thing you’ve said that I agree with entirely is that feminism has changed men to something less–studly, I guess–than women may want. Thining the crop of masculine men.
However, that is a huge operation to have happened in just, at most, forty years. Consider that the boomers were raised by 15 million men who had just kicked the world’s ass. I grew up an a subdivision of starter homes for young guys with families. Means almost every father/husband was a vet. As were our uncles, and our friends’ fathers and uncles.
Unless you posit that war has a demasculinizing effect on its participants’ conscious or unconscious view of themselves socially and emotionally, then we have a problem. Why would they raise demasculinized kids? Indeed, they were forever telling each other war stories in the presence of each others’ sons–but not daughters as I confirmed with my sister and later my father–because in their view, you graduate, they give a war. Wanted us to be prepared. We were not much surprised us when the next one came along. New weapons, same old bullshit. No biggy.
And feminism hadn’t gotten going. Not only were many of our high school teachers men, they weren’t invisible in el ed, either. And they were Sunday school teachers, scout leaders–of course–and they were all vets. Coaches in Little League. PT was military style.
I heard there were scout troops running squad problems–sans weapons–in the woods, although mine didn’t.
So, afaict, feminism had to start working on boomers’ kids.
The next problem was that we had a standing military of about 3 million from the end of the Korean War to sometime in the Seventies. Most guys were draftees or three-year enlistees which means millions more cycled through the military.
So it seems to me that it would have to be the boomers’ kids, which is to say those born from, say, 1970 at the earliest.
A massive change in society in what amounts to a generation and a half, say forty years. Huge. So while we see feminism doing its demasculinizing thing, it’s hard to see anybody older than Pajamaboy being an example.
As to peddling game, some people, see deAngelo, make money at it. Some people have their own blogs and talk about it as if they know something and hope to get traffic to sell ads, I guess. And some think they have something to say and the time to say it.
I spent some time looking at commercial PUA sites, and they have a problem. They have to make their case sufficiently well and understandably to attract $179 for The System without giving it away in the advertising. That means one thing for certain and that is they’re selling effective button-pushing. The Desperate need that. And they frequently explain their view by referring to evpsych. “It’s science.” Which is nice, since there’s nothing else remotely reassuring to the Desperate beyond the assertions of wonderfulness from the merchant.
Whether you paid for game or not is misdirection. Some people are selling in the $$ sense and some are buying, and some are selling in the metaphorical sense and some are similarly buying.
I experienced the generation beginning in the year, say, 1958 as an early adolescent. I had my own sweat and I watched other people and I know people were lost and unhappy then, too. Do you want to make the case things are worse now? Based on?
I knew guys in high school who never had a date. Even then, I was trying not to empathize too much because it must have hurt like hell.
This is not new.
If you define game as learning to be socially adept–the other end of the spectrum from button-pushing–people have been doing that for centuries.
Nobody just invented getting out of your own way. There are positive attractors and negative attractors. Dropping the latter is a huge move and you don’t need gurus to explain it to you. That’s what friends and brothers are for. Once you do that, the positive attractors are frosting.
Ex. Had a kid with us the week after Christmas. He’s from Mexico, going to school here and we know the family. They send their kids to the States for a year around age 12. I told him that, to impress the wealthy family of a beautiful girl who invited him for dinner, he needs to take his arm off the table when he eats. Food up, not head down. My son didn’t like advice from Dad at fourteen, but I figured this kid didn’t need to like a temporary grampa telling him what to do.
This is how it’s done, generation after generation.
I had a couple of other bits of advice, but his mother had been with us when she was twelve or thereabouts and I figured I’d let some things go. Harmony in the family.
Maybe society has stopped doing that, except in the venues of grumpy old farts like me, so when the guy gets out on his own he has to get a concentrated dose of getting out of his own way. You could call that game, I suppose.
Why would inner game not suffice? Is being a complete man–to whatever degree–necessarily invisible?
Regarding whether women have changed or not, I think they have. I lived through the ’70s and ’80s and I saw it.
Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that, certain bad traits/habits/instincts that are always lurking there were let out. Freed. Liberated. Incentivized. Encouraged. Etc.
So, you could argue it either way, “they changed” because their behavior and expectations have changed, or “they haven’t changed” because the things they are doing now are things they’ve always done to some extent and which, to some extent, are part of their nature.
But the behavior is different on a mass scale, that I can see quite clearly.
I’m out folks, I can’t even respond to this stuff.
#199 Re: “There was a young guy, very cute, and all the girls liked him. ”
1. Be handsome.
2. Be attractive.
3. Don’t be unattractive.
“Cmon all you handsome men, I know you’re out there somewhere. Come and get me!”
#201 Culturally it all changed from the 1950s to the 1960s. 1957 – guys with crewcuts made out with dress-wearing girls while parking in the dark, public drinking was furtive from a brown paper bag. 1967 – guys with long hair publically groped girls wearing ripped jeans and a Peace tshirt. The Pill (advertised for high school girls in 1967 – I was there), plenty of other pills and left-handed cigarettes, free love American style, Summer of Love, public sex, public drug-taking, bra burning, etc. The normalization of no fault divorce in 1969 was the dam giving way, but the flood had started a few years earlier.
@HH #199
Maybe so, but there’s another more sinister aspect to this … women have a desire to despoil the unblemished as much, and even more so, than men.
I want to offer something for conjecture. First, here’s a link that crossed one of my social timelines today:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/109670-comparison-russell-wilsons-colin-kaepernicks-instagram-accounts-shows-startlingly-different-priorities/
In it, we’re provided comparison/contrast between two NFL quarterbacks who faced off last night, based on some postings to their Instragram accounts.
The link struck me as poignant as I recalled some of the back and forth I’ve read in the comments. In a loose sense, I think the contrast between Wilson and Kaepernick highlights a parallel contrast in how “game” is perceived.
Before we even get into the pictures, one thing goes without saying: these are Alphas being compared. By default, we can reason that both approaches “work” for the QB’s.
Tying into the back and forth here: I admit that I often have thought of “game” as just the “bells and whistles”, though I understand now that I hadn’t seen the whole picture. However, when speaking to the usual layperson (pun intended) in the past I seemed to find a similar dichotomy in responses. What I’m referring to, is the “bells and whistles” dude saying, “you need better game!” versus the “better man” who’ll state, “improve; you need to be your best self.” And, yeah, both were correct, because “that”, whatever it was, had been working for them. The way they told me wasn’t conducive to any improvement. That led me to think: game is “bells and whistles” but how come this other guy is just being a “better man” and getting results? He’s not worried about game. It was just different sides of the coin of success.
“And knowing is half the battle!”
It’s pretty clear from the pictures that Wilson represents the “better man” while Kaepernick is the “bells and whistles” guy. BUT, they represent examples of ingredients that combine to make successful game.
The alpha part? Hmm, perhaps another QB analogy works well here.
Apex-Alpha: Peyton Manning type. Leader, Game manager, Gunslinger, Commands Respect
Alpha: Brett Favre type: Leader, Gunslinger, Respect commanded via dread
Greater Beta: Alex Smith: Leader, Game manager, Respect had to be earned
Again, conjecture. And maybe I’m forgetting something else, but I am damn hungry now and have a strong desire to stuff my face with a nice double bacon burger at Five Guys. It’s nice to have the day off.
While I don’t disagree that the 60s were the major turning point, it wasn’t just the 60s and it hasn’t been a straight line downward.
The 70s were wilder than the 80s and early 90s. Attribute it to Reagan or whatever you want but the conservative ascendance in this country (now long over, needless to say) had moral effects, too. The SMP described by the younger guys here does not reflect what I grew up with. It is much worse.
Looking back I can see things heading in this direction. But at the time it seemed like we might be going on the other direction, not back to the 50s, necessarily, but correcting some of the worst excesses of the SR. That obviously didn’t happen. My era was apparently just a pause.
Maybe so, but there’s another more sinister aspect to this … women have a desire to despoil the unblemished as much, and even more so, than men.
One interesting thing to ponder is the extent to which women discuss and/or criticize certain behaviors is simply a projection of their own motivations and thoughts.
Regarding Evo-Psych and environmental interaction, it should be noted that under certain conditions, grasshoppers completely morph and turn into locusts. If animals can change so dramatically to adapt to the evolutionary environment, then the much more psychologically complex humans certainly should be able to do the same.
http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/why-its-time-to-lay-the-selfish-gene-to-rest/
I’ve never really been into evo psych that much… Sure, it can provide some good background to help connect the dots, but it’s hardly the end-all be-all.
Quite frankly, all I need to know is what works in present day. How it got to that point is largely inconsequential.
Re: 1980s. Richard Pryor got burned freebasing in 1980. “Occasional use of cocaine is just a fraction of what it was in the 1980s.”
https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/policy/99ndcs/ii-e.html
What happened in the 1980s is that our major morality issues redounded to lower economic class urbanites, in vastly increased violent crime and drug arrests. After the 1984 sentencing reforms, the number of prisoners incarcerated in 1990 was 250% more than in 1980.
I have a hangover so with luck this will make sense:
a. I believe what we’re seeing today, in the rote entitlement many young women manifest, reflects behavior reinforced now through three generations. So feminism 1.0, within bourgeois family structures, emerged in the early seventies; this is when divorce first penetrated the community I lived in.
First generation children of divorce were born in the 50’s and 60’s. This was the advent of “I should have what I want when I want it and men are preventing me from achieving it.” These early divorcees might have had teenaged daughters (who built Feminism 2.0). Those daughters (Feminism 2.0 cohort) are now the mothers of young women (sex positive slut-walking Feminism 3.0 YAY) of the sort that we’re all familiar with. These latter have had two prior generations of authority figures (mother and grandmother), and the conversion of the educational system, and legal system, that has occurred since 1970, to instruct them in the virtue of female entitlement. Their only problem is that the poor dears (that would be the men) that comprise 50% of the population are just not keeping pace.
This is rational, as Rollo notes this week: as families and schools have been reformed to reflect female primacy, rights and benefits have accrued to women that did not exist in 1965. There is no corresponding reassignment of responsibility to reflect their emerging social primacy. Why wouldn’t the SMP today reflect (BB’s) call option on both sides of the trade? I’ll do any trade that is heads I win, tails you lose. These women may be unpleasant, but they are not all stupid.
b. Isn’t this really what Lena Dunham represents, or the discussion on HUS describes? A profoundly average figure (and I would say Dunham would be lucky to be in an average decile) demanding her very own top decile male, and why he shouldn’t he find her brave, brilliant and attractive? Isn’t this just what the famous OKC curves reveal: that 80% of women deserve men who only occupy the top two deciles of males? Isn’t this what the chatter about those dreamy Kennedy boys claiming to be preparing for the priesthood means? (Wiley, dreamy men are so desperate for randomized sex that they’ll wear the mask of celibacy; CAN’T HAVE THAT!)
Women who are raised within, and then educated within, family or educational systems that produce a Dunham humping her very own alpha stud on national television, weekly, are women with 3-4 decades of family, legal, social, and academic reinforcement and reward for their demands. And again, they are responding rationally to the only cues, routines, and sets of rewards they have ever known.
I admit it: I watched my first episode of Girls this week. I made it through the live-action fat-girl on fat-girl cunnilingus, if only because one of the fat girls was a good actress, and funny. (And you never know when you might learn something.) But watching Dunham’s bloated (it’s truly featureless it’s so bloated), tattooed back cowgirl-fuck her alpha stud, after telling him directly that it was his *job* to be a different person in order to make *her* experience of their “relationship” more successful: this is the very ideology that keeps that show on the air — and there *are* buyers. Though knowing all about her practice now, of stripping her shapeless carcass once a week for all the world to see, I was ill-prepared and I terminated the research and changed the channel.
Where did it come from, this idea that Dunham’s behavior and scripts will be rewarded? It came from a lifetime of being shown, instructed, and rewarded that such attributes are the way it’s supposed to be.
Actually, the better question might be where the hell would a dissident bunch like our crew come from?, because Dunham’s never known anything else. *Of course* her photoshopped picture is on Vogue (though they had to do something about the dimpled fat cells of her brave decolletage, and the fact that she doesn’t have a waist). Let’s be honest, gents, either we are brave insurgents, swelling in number. Or we’re the Zulu, and they’re a British Expeditionary force with repeating arms.
My conclusion: Obviously it’s not going to end well: she’s not a brave sexual outlaw of Paglia-esque dimensions; Paglia wouldn’t hire her to take out her trash. She’s too stupid, too self-absorbed, and too … *dull.* Everything she believes and tosses up on the screen is a graphic novel version of an Oberlin Womyn’s Center seminar. Want to have a head that hurts more than mine today? Picture Lena Dunham, and her work product, in 10 years. What horrors are we going to have to endure as she continues to push her brave envelope of sexual awakening?
The optimist in me says that if Lena Dunham is a voice for female transformation and transcendence, such transformation and transcendence, as a social movement, has jumped the shark. Lena Dunham can’t take her schtick any farther out on the epater-la-bourgeoisie curve without committing self-parody. (Alas, I’m sure she will do so.)
*****
The short version of this might be this snippet of conversation, recently recorded:
First speaker is the man:
“You talk tough, with all the feminist sexual outlaw stuff. But I don’t think it’s true.”
“I do. It’s not.” [Sex ensues. The End.]
So it would seem that the challenge, if one wishes not to be a Zulu at Rorke’s Drift, is to show leadership (inner game) that honestly reflects a social posture (outer game) that remains desirable for women. Then make sure she loathes Girls or GTFO.
208: Morpheus, I would agree and say, for example, “fat shaming” is not a problem men have. We just ignore fat women. (Proof: Girls actually has a very low rating.) It’s the female population is always going on about fat shaming.
When Dunham and Apatow went after a reporter two weeks ago because he had the temerity to ask “eh, what’s with all the nudity, each week, and how does that enhance your narratives?” he said nothing about it being unpleasant for him to watch Dunham embarrass herself each week.
But Dunham and Apatow’s responses, which were shrill, only made sense if one invented some different question, such as, “Do you think people want to see you naked every week?” They seem to be the ones with the problem.
Sir Nemesis.
Ref grasshoppers. They’ve had, what, a hundred million years? And that would be a hundred million generations. Or, so I’m exaggerating. Only fifty million generations. Each generation is an opportunity for evolution to impose one thing or take another away. Anatomically modern humans, 100,000 years or 4000 generations. Throw in Ergaster and Erectus, eight thousand generations. Give or take. Okay, double and halve. Sixteen thousand generations leading to H. Sap and twenty-five million for grasshoppers. Again. Thirty-two thousand generations for H. Sap and 12-13 million for grasshoppers.
I agree that in humans, with their relatively weak control by instinct, behaviors are manifested as propensities modified by experience.
If there is this huge change in forty years, then there must have been a huge change in available or imposed experience. Enormous.
What have we got? Feminists in the classroom in the last twenty to thirty years. Crooked divorce proceedings. ………..
Wimpy heroes in movies. Peewee Herman?
Anything else?
At HUS a year or so back, I made the point that, in looking at portraits of Civil War guys, I saw lots of what are supposedly high-T faces. Could be the British face not rounded by further immigration from, say, eastern Europe or something. But maybe not. We killed the current population equivalent of 8 million young men and ruined the standard multiplier by crippling, mutilating, blinding or driving insane in addition. Maybe we screwed ourselves out of a lot of T.
Looked at a pic of the local high school football alumni football team from about 1912. Bunch of hard-looking guys. As in take no shit hard, not mean hard. When my son’s team took the conference, they were just big kids.
Pic of the local lifesaving crew, before that service got taken over by the Coast Guard. Pretty formidable bunch in physiognomy and “the look”.
So I’ll accept the possibility that something happened, but a cultural earthquake in the last forty-fifty years doesn’t seem likely. We’ve had some cultural earthquakes but their application to the current SMP and its putative difference between now and forty years ago isn’t demonstrated.
I understand people need answers and dots exist to be connected, but I’m not seeing it.
My conclusion: Obviously it’s not going to end well: she’s not a brave sexual outlaw of Paglia-esque dimensions; Paglia wouldn’t hire her to take out her trash. She’s too stupid, too self-absorbed, and too … *dull.* Everything she believes and tosses up on the screen is a graphic novel version of an Oberlin Womyn’s Center seminar. Want to have a head that hurts more than mine today? Picture Lena Dunham, and her work product, in 10 years. What horrors are we going to have to endure as she continues to push her brave envelope of sexual awakening?
I’ve never watched the program, but I trust your take. Of course, this begs the question of what does it say about the women who watch the program and find it “smart, compelling, incisive” and some sort of “brilliant social commentary” on the plight of today’s young woman?
Then make sure she loathes Girls or GTFO.
Another bullet point to add to Deti’s list.
“Picture Lena Dunham, and her work product, in 10 years. What horrors are we going to have to endure as she continues to push her brave envelope of sexual awakening?”
A Bizarre Foods America inspired wide-screen TV dinner.
Tried watching it once & only made it about 15 minutes. Didn’t “get” it at all… Just weird stuff & people.
On the note of using it as a filter, a while back the sister of one of my acquaintances (who’s always struck me as high quality marriage material) posted on her Facebook: “Is this Girls show supposed to be funny or something? Just seems depressing to me. No thanks.”
Put a smile on my face.
I personally enjoy watching Girls because it shows just how vapid and self-centered so many of today’s girls are. All 4 girls in Girls are messed up and self centered.
Perhaps the issue is whether it’s celebrating or parodying modern girls. I imagine it’s intended as a bit of both but, regardless, it’s putting out the word that far too many of today’s girls are bat-shit crazy.
Girls is best interpreted as unintentional parody. Dunham would be more impressive if she meant it as a joke, but the show still works either way.
NB: I only saw three episodes.
@SirNemesis
Fascinating article about the grasshopper and the locust.
@Esc.
IMO, season 1 was pretty good, season 2 wasn’t as good and season 3 is pretty enjoyable again.
Of course, all are welcome to dislike it as much as they like. I’m not trying to proselytize anyone into liking Girls.
Every woman I’ve ever asked about the show has denied watching it, or at minimum, denied liking/respecting it. My daughter said, “Dad, you don’t need to be watching that show.” (We’re a bit embarrassed to be fellow alums, and she seemed horrified that I knew about it.) This would explain the ratings (they’re terrible) but does not explain the celebrity (Vogue cover).
When my daughter was in college Oberlin had a “burlesque” review for a few semesters. Translations: young girls in a putatively academic setting retailing at $60K per year were discovering the “empowerment” they felt by emulating strippers. (I’ve known college girls who moonlight as strippers, but not in the library basement.) It’s this impulse, graduated to HBO, that I see in the Girls phenomenon.
Or, I suspect, most women would say that Sex Positive Feminism is a great thing and don’t you dare criticize it — “only I’m not like that, of course.” Classic hamster stuff: kind of a double-reverse play on NAWALT, or some such shit. I saw a lot of 20-somethings with Lena Dunham bodies at the trendy diner this morning, so maybe they are her audience. I was pondering that. Then I stopped because it is unpleasant to ponder. (My date was a size 2 wearing Louboutins to breakfast.)
A lovely informational animation for the ladies seeking to understand the MGTOW phenomenon. So, more for the chickies than the dickies, but seeing as you lot are discussing ‘Girls’ (ffs you lot have strong stomachs. Not as strong as Lena’s but still.)…
(via http://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/m-g-t-o-w/the-princess-and-the-plow-horse/ )
Swithers, great story about the plow horse.
@Han, yes it’s for da ladies I think, but if you need to explain MGTOW to a woman in a femme-friendly way then this video should do it. It also explains that once freed, the horsie isn’t coming back. Despite what traddies might prefer, we will not be heading back to the fifties. It wasn’t just miserable for bored housewives it was miserable for their provider pack mule hubbies too.
(it also provides a balmy, calming, soothing chicken broth with added mind bleach effect after thinking about Lena Dunham’s cavorting about in her voluminous, hideously tattoed, saggy, oversized birthday suit)
Alison Tieman is/was Typhon Blue and AVFM regular. She currently to be found with Karen Straughn (GirlWritesWhat) and others on Honey Badger Radio. Honey badgers do swear a bit, by the way. http://www.honeybadgerbrigade.com/ xhttps://www.youtube.com/user/HoneyBadgerRadio
A horsey themed show of theirs; (look at da cute horsies)
Honey Badger Radio Bronies and the Shame Game
@Han
Seeing your comment caused me to ponder my instinct to correct your spelling, but it seems even an online dictionary gets turned about ‘plough horse pulls a plow’? [and then allows your usage]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plough+horse
I swear that English spelling is insane. But your Colonial stuff is little better (and looks ugly). Colour, odour, although, cheque, tyre, programme (and program)
here endeth the lesson (or style guide)
OMG that video is epic.
Swithers, they shall beat their plough horses into swords.
@Nemesis, so I was wrong about the chickies? I just must be too ancient and grumpy. My bad, brother.
@Han, sounds painful. If I see them doing that I’ll call the RSPCA (yeah, that’s Royal Society). And Don’t mess with the Honey Bashers, they don’t give a…
@ Spawny Get
Is there an alternate spelling?
Not a legitimate one, altho I’ve heard horrible rumours about colonial irregular forms.
Love me some Girls. Escof has it right: unintentional parody. It’s one of the few shows I watch on Television religiously, along with Community and Newsroom.
Family and friends do not understand it. It’s simple. So many people view modern women as some sort of cross between Rapunzel from Tangled, Taylor Swift, and Elle Woods. Most of them are actually like some cross between Hannah and Satan.
Lest someone think I am sexist, I think most men are barely better than George Costanza. However, he is funny.
I gather Duck Dynasty has eight times the viewers Girls has. Maybe more. Further, many of them are women, so go the reports.
My mother loves Duck Dynasty
Being urban and kind of scummy, not to mention what you shouldn’t watch before eating, Girls gets the hip, edgy nod.
Regular folks exaggerated, flyover country (our motto: Keep flying, our airport’s broken) bitter clingers….nope, nothing there.
[…] Marellus from Just Four Guys brought this to my […]
#187
Older men and tradcons tend to see these things in their own perspective. What they see is that men in their own days and before, even average men, has what Slumlord calls “executive function”. That is, they fixed their own cars (nowadays cars are generally too sophisticated technologically for the average person to fix), chopped wood (now houses are heated through other means), knew how to hunt and kill their own food, often had military training (now the threat of large conventional war is no longer assumed), knew how to fight with fists and knives (now violent male sexual competition has been suppressed culturally and legally) and were skilled in hard phsyical labour (now these jobs have disappeared or were outsourced). They also see that such men had no problems finding wives (because there was an entire legal and cultural regime geared specifically to pair off average men and women i.e. assortative mating was subsidized). They assume that the reason they had no such problems was that women saw all of them as sexually attractive, and they also assume the reason they saw them this way was due to their mentioned skills. In other words, they base their view of the current SMP on two assumptions that are both wrong.
Yep, HH. Entirely different world. Entirely. In most cases it really needs to go back a single generation. My father grew up on a farm and operated all the major machinery at age 8. When he knocked up Mother Dearest at age 18, he got some blue collar positions that paid as much as I do now in Fortune 50 corporate land (though obviously a pittance compared to UMC-glorified grasping land).
Meanwhile I spent 12 years at education making little poster boards, dioramas, binder projects, etc. By which I mean I did none of that stupid shit. This was one of my English projects: http://www.dicecollector.com/PAPER_D12_MY_DESIGN_RHOMBIC_DODECAHEDRON_PIPPED.jpg
Formal education is like 12 years of sitting through Pinterest punctuated with periods of intense busy-work to keep you off drugs, followed up with lots of extracurricular activities and sports. My neighbors, at age 10, were sat down and asked what instrument they wanted to play. When rambunctious Tight End said he didn’t want to play an instrument, Dutiful UMC parents responded “No, you don’t understand. What instrument do you want to play?”
Oh, and nothing too violent, mind you. Mother Dearest did not want us playing football, nor did most of the other mothers. Far, far too violent. They ADORE Cross Country, and you can pick that up at HUS-conversations. My brother-in-law runs Cross Country and he is skinny as shit. Good guy, still skinny as shit. Weight room in our schools was off-limits, and this was before the internet and the PE teachers made damn sure they never taught you how to use any of the weights because then you might actually use them, this in-between making sure we never played dodge-ball because it is a huge safety hazard.
My high school had a climbing wall. Was about 40 feet high. The guys had competitions to see who could scale it the quickest. TOO DANGEROUS. We got our times down to about 9 seconds before they screamed at us.
It sounds like military service was something to be respected in your time. Not in mine. Mother Dearest practically had a heart attack when I said I wanted to serve two years before starting college. Don’t get into West Point? Then disowned! Okay, that is an overstatement, but to 18 year old Beta Guy that is certainly what it felt like. Obviously, I did not get into West Point and therefore did not serve instead. But my parents grew up in post-Vietnam, my father-in-law was a fighter pilot, because it got him out of infantry service. That’s what they grew up with.
Even today, they are all anti-gun. WHY WOULD YOU WANT A GUN?!!! VIOLLEEENNCCEEE!!! Oh my god how they despise violence. From a young age they tell you how wrong it is, how you have to solve all your problems with WORDS, blah blah blah. These kids are tormenting me non-stop, make it stop please. Finally my father said it was okay to get into a fight if I warned them three times to leave me alone after they hit me physically. First week of 7th grade, took some kid and threw him into the ground. Off-hand, one arm: I wrestled, you see, he was scrawny and weak. I decided to turn my back and walk away, and he charged my back, which was dumb-ass level stupid on his part, because, again, I wrestled, and he was just ignorant. About eight seconds later, his face was back in the dirt.
They reallllllyyyyy wanted to suspend me, even though EVERYONE knew I was as close to non-violent as could be, and would NEVER instigate a fight. Because violence WRONG! I never technically threw a punch, so they couldn’t do it, so they called my parents to ground me. They laughed.
Flash forward to 22, post college. Talking about dating with my close friend in college, a girl who used to have a crush on me freshman year and still have some Unresolved Sexual Tension with, though it’s gone by now. She says, why can’t you be more manly?
Well, your society spent the last 22 years beating it the fuck out of me. Now you expect me to just turn it on, perfectly sanitized and just for your girls? But because there’s a whole generation of guys like me, yes, there’s a ton of girls who will go for those Game-Peddlers.
After learning SOME game-peddling, that girl who I was talking to age 22 now says “What a jerk!” One night I showed her some of the tricks, and she commented on how she never knew I could be so smooth. Just a few tricks, it’s all it takes, after you beat the masculinity out of an entire generation of men because masculinity is dangerous.
Meanwhile, two of my best friends from college went the Fast and Furious route. 40,000 cars, too in debt to save money now. Years of gym work, but because they are intimidated by women they just cannot connect with any decent looking girls. One finally found a girl, but god is she a f’in uggo, and with an attitude and Fortune 50 “my corporate job is so useful” pedigree to boot.
The other best friend is a *gasp* architect! Girls love that! And his suits. But he can’t get a second date. The girls that know him all know why, he’s boring and Beta and overly nice. Hell even his MOM tells him he needs to be more of a jerk.
That’s how it looks like for this crop of UMC-men. If you want to help, Richard. Don’t admonish US, and don’t admonish Gamers. Please tell Moms to shut the fuck up and back off and then take an active interest in the young men in your community. Please stop pedestalizing young women and watch some Girls to see how we view the majority of young women in our generation (and again I think of the men as George Costanzas).
Thanks dude! I think you’re a pretty awesome guy and I’m happy you are posting here. Time to get some work done.
H2
You related to the Kaiser, one way or another? Not sure I recall the vowel sequence.
Anyway, as to the skills, none of them have been necessary for most of us since WW II.
In fact, except for the military thing, maybe a hundred years.
Cutting wood–which I’ve been doing for forty years–is taught in the Boy Scouts and if you have a fireplace for the ambience, you do, is just a job. The visceral impact of striking something and busting it up and making the useless into the useful might be important, the first six times a woman sees you do it.
Got a friend who heats his house with steam heat/hot water heated by a state of the art wood burner. Thermostatically controlled fan and whatnot. The outbuilding with the boiler and wood is 80 yards from the house. He got sick so men from the church have been loading the thing–mornings and the wife in the evening. The novelty wears off in about a week, if you aren’t on the rota very often. And if the wife does it, it’s not a male preserve and thus has little executive function tingle inducing mojo.
Still, executive function is a useful concept. Problem is not, imo, that we don’t have so much of it as we did fifty years ago as a necessary thing. Problem is, it’s Not Nice. It does not fit the evolved New Man. See Pajamaboy. He is presented subliminally as absolutely useless and that’s A GOOD THING.
No,you can’t fix a car in your driveway, but back when you could–my friends always had their engines tore out, tore up, tore down, needing a ride and making me wonder if they had the whole transportation concept right side up, there was no apparent attraction to the half of the population which didn’t reward 10w40 on the hands with a BJ.
So, while the farm wife of a hundred years ago got to watch hubby doing his executive thing, she was out chasing a chicken in order to slash its throat for dinner. They were both right up there with doing actual stuff, and both were doing it so long it was probably boring. Yeah, hubby had to smack the mule with a stick every morning to get its mind right about the day’s work, making hubby a real dude. The first three times.
Two issues with the concept. First, they’ve been mostly irrelevant since before the Great Tingle Shift began. Second, they’re not always or sufficiently only male to be useful in the Quest.
And, I submit, there are executive items still to be done. Deciding is one of them. After all, the really rich didn’t have to do a single thing except show up for the wars. I recall being in uniform in 1969, running into an old guy who’d immigrated from the UK. I was helping his granddaughter with some luggage and he wondered where my batman was. So even in the military thing, the rich didn’t always do executive stuff except decide and sometimes kill.
Still, there is something about a soldier. See the women in
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/the-punishers-ball.htm
Saw Lone Survivor yesterday. At the end, they ran pix of the deceased in happier times, including SO and kids. Also in Luttrell’s book were pix like that. The SO were pretty much 8+.
#240: “Still, there is something about a soldier.”
I certainly think so.
I saw Lone Survivor a few days ago as well. My husband read the book a while back. Those were a very elite group of dudes though, most likely had a lot of “inner game”. Every person who thinks women should serve in frontline troops should be forced to watch that movie (and every politician who thinks so should have to serve in frontline troops).
At my HS, weightlifting was a mandatory part of PE. This was not all that long ago, or maybe it was, but it doesn’t feel like it was.
Yeah, Richard, I think you’re continually missing the point that ADBG and Badger continue to make. You are continuing to see things through your own perspective, which you seem to think is immutable. In your last post you seem to be saying that a man’s working with his hands or performing physical labor doesn’t endear him to women; or does until the novelty wears off. And then you seem to acknowledge that what women like changes over time. If that’s the case, why do you have a problem with younger men figuring all this out?
You sound like you are scorning younger men for resorting to a script or a trick bag; when all that’s really going on here is trial and error to find out what will work to raise a man’s value and will bring him some measure of success with life and women.
I’m with ADBG, HH and Badger on this one. The SMP you, Richard, grew up in looks nothing—NOTHING – like the SMP I came up in; and that in turn is peanuts compared to the thermonuclear war raging now.
As a boy I came up in the early to mid 1980s in high school. I was raised for a 1950s SMP because that’s what my parents came up in, and they had no idea what they were sending their own kids into. Mom was a ballbusting feminist who ruled the home with an iron fist in a velvet glove; Dad an alpha at work but a simpering beta at home. As a boy I was taught to be nice and good, and go to college and get a job making lots of money; and women would flock to me. Perhaps Mom thought her boy would go to college and become a “moral” Don Draper. But by the mid 1980s, younger women had already moved on; it was the sharp-talking bad boy; the athlete, the cocky-funny; who got the female attention. But according to my parents, the bad boy was immoral, the athlete had short lived appeal; and the cocky-funny guy was Not Nice and obnoxious. And, the 1950s SMP told us, girls who liked such men were stupid. All you have to do is wait around until those girls come to their senses, and then they’ll like you. THEN they’ll like you.
I am not interested in teaching my son about the SMP I grew up in, in which Izod preppy collars, parachute pants, and breakdancing were all the rage. It will do my son no good to learn that beta provider is “sexy”, when it is not and never has been.
@ADBG 238
Great comment.
deti,
I said nothing about women liking change. Or not liking change.
What I said was that the “executive function” as a male preserve as described by H2 disappeared considerably before the Great Tingle Shift. Probably a century before. More than half a century, at least. And it probably wasn’t as big a deal as described, either. Therefore, it’s unlikely the loss of or change in the executive function is the cause of the Great Tingle Shift. So, either the GTS didn’t happen or there’s a different cause.
And I am not saying about 98% of what deti is reproaching me for saying. I was simply discussing the executive function issue.
Per effing iod
Said nothing about SMP. My writing is not intended to be rohrshach test. Read what I write, not what you think an old fart should write.
ADBG’s family sounds like a real pair. Thing is, nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, to quote Julie Andrews. How’d they get to be like that?
Frank Shaffer (sp?) was a bubble-cocooned writer whose son went into the Marines. What his precious friends thought about it as retailed in the book, “Keeping The Faith” sounds like ADBG’s family. Not sure how many there are in the real world. Jeez. It is to puke to read that stuff.
My kids, boy-girl twins, graduated HS in 96. Both were in the Varsity Club–and the NHS I am constrained to add. I coached youth soccer and we were athletic boosters. My son was all conference football, basketball, tennis, captain and MVP of the latter two.
Plus my wife was sponsor of some non-athletic groups including foreign travel groups. And we worked with foreign exchange students.
I never found anybody whose upbringing sounded like ADBG from age eight to now. I did hear of a woman who wouldn’t let her boys play tennis because it involved strking something, but I never believed it.
Probaby be a good idea to sue the individual and collective asses off schools which punish kids for lethal poptarts and offer counseling to any other kids who might have been traumatized.
However, looking at the timing of this horseshit, I’m not seeing the necessary sequence.
This shit, including Ritalin, wasn’t happening when my kids were in el ed–my wife is a teacher and we knew lots of teachers and so forth. They had recess. They had PE. Weightlifting was part of an elective PE class and available for anybody after hours.
Oh, yeah. Church youth group, couple of six year olds wrestling. One’s mom came up and ended it. I was watching to see nothing serious happened, but neither was my kid so there wasn’t much I could say. Still, I don’t recall moms not doing that when I was duking it out with my little buddies, so perhaps that’s not new.
Group of the same age rolling around in pile. “The primate young at play,” I remarked to a lady standing nearby. “The male primate, you mean,” she sneered. I shaded my eyes to see better. “You’re right. I don’t see anybody knifing the absent.” Damn, I like remembering that. Wasn’t well received, as I recall hearing.
And I don’t see any pedestalizing (NTTAWWT) in my writing.
However. I have talked about cluelessness and IOI. I look for a lesson because my cluelessness removes one variable.
Example one of the worst. Twenty-three year old grad student. Working in a six-week field project in a dangerous area. My particular team partner was a hot, hotttt blonde. Fifteen in the conventional SMP scale. I needed to be particularly situationally aware when we were outside the wire and I had to straighten out a couple of project guys on manners, so to speak.
Toward the end, we were discussing splitting up the prep for the next activity and she said, apropos of nothing, “You have very attractive eyes.”
My response was to think, “Shit. My next stop is Ft. Benning and what I really need is the eyes of a pissed-off gorilla.”
I think you’ll agree that sets the curve for cluelessness.
I wasn’t doing anything. Didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know there was anything to do. But I got IOIs. Why? Has to be a lesson there.
And my guess is that I came across as so unneedy that it became a positive attractor, especially considering the context of college life with a bunch of importunate guys desperately wiping their flop sweat.
So, while I don’t wish anybody should be in my situation, I do think there is a lesson there. I think unneediness and the various issues it implies is it. YMMV.
The judo club thing is worse, but lengthier.
A friend of mine years ago used to go pick up his father at the VFW from time to time, when the old guy had been putting the stuff away for a while. Sometimes the old guy was outside, sometimes my friend had to go in and find his father. Rarely was there anyone under the age of 50 in the place, except for maybe a bartender.
My friend once commented that no matter what day or night of the week he went into the VFW, it seemed that the same conversation was going on, even though different men were there. “In our day … these young punks … can’t find ass with a map and a compass …. stupid young punks … did I ever tell you about the time … dumbass kids … ‘nother round?” etc.
Richard, have you confused this site with the VFW?
243: true.
245: Please construct sentences and use punctuation. I’ve stopped trying to read these things. I have no idea what this means: “Per effing iod Said nothing about SMP.”
You have a strange aversion to articles.
Anoymous.
No. But I guess that’s an excuse for some readers, isn’t it.
One of my points is that the generation born in or around the mid-late seventies, to my personal and direct knowledge, did not have the influences and outcomes we hear so much about in, among other things, this thread.
I have asked here and there why, if the blue pill is so awful, wher e it came from and why in continues. Even women don’t like it, supposedly. What institution has the power to impose it on us?
If you think about red pilling it, one of the things you’re supposed to fake is unneediness. So perhaps, according to my experience, it works, with the added scientific (snort) benefit of removing the variable of young Aubrey striving and contriving in the SMP and messing up the results.
My writing–I think I said this earlier–is hot to be considered a rorshach test. React to what I write, or I’m going to start analyzing your responses to the ink blots. You won’t like it when I do that.
However, if the generation born about the mid to late seventies is the old farts in your view, with things changing thereafter, then we have the Great Tingle Shift happening in the last twenty years.
You’d think that such a worldturnedupsidedown happening so fast would have generated an earthquake or a thunderstorm or something we’d notice for itself, not just the results sneaking up on us.
And, to make sure we all get the credit we’re due, it was H2 who introduced the subject of executive function no longer being an operating system for establishing dudeliness. Wasn’t my idea, although there may be something to it over the centuries. But as the cause for what happened so recently…not seeing the sequence.
Again, I’m not the one who started with ancient history.
BV. WRT articles. Must be my nephew with his interest in Russian theater. They don’t have any articles.
Per effing iod. Is a way of emphasing finality. Could be “I said fucking PERIOD, dammit. End of fucking subject. Said nothing more and nothing more is to be fucking constructed out of thin fucking air, fucking period.”
Sort of like that, but shorter.
I shouldn’t have said that. My wife said the “fuck” “fucks” and “for fuck’s sake”, and fuckin” in Lone Survivor were all justified and nothing happening around here rises to that level.
Liz. Tough film. I did notification a couple of times. Can I hope your husband has been spared?
#243 “Dad an alpha at work but a simpering beta at home.” Too true of the entire boomer generation. My 1950s SMP upbringing was a fairytale castle built on sand, washed away by the tidal wave of immorality of the sexual revolution. The instant that wives knew they could cheat without getting pregnant, and could divorce without giving up men forever, it seemed the majority of wives changed overnight into the brawling and contentious sort that supposedly were a minority in earlier generations.
#245 Re: nice eyes. I was cursed with a babyface which was cute enough pre-adolescence but put a definite crimp in my love life since it presented itself as feminine: long face, big eyes, full red lips, narrow jaw. The exact opposite of a truly gay face, as a matter of fact.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24132775
The difference between Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen, for example. Evidently even gay men don’t like soft features.
Long story short, the inevitable ruggedization produced by life makes ruggedly handsome young men turn into trolls by middle age, at which point the formerly pretty young men are doing better than them. By old age we babyfaced are just now coming into our prime.
jf12. I wasn’t babyfaced. Thin lips, shadowed eyes. Got the lead in Arms and The Man in high school, the Swiss mercenary officer.
I was born cuter than the Gerber baby and have pictures to prove it. Went downhill fast. Coming back to the fraternity house one afternoon, thinking of nothing, a friend asked what was wrong. Wrong? You look like you’re trying to figure out which knife to use to slash the throat of the next passerby.
Slight exaggeration and he should have known I never carry more than one knife anyway.
OCS buddy said…Aubrey, you look like a soldier. So the year before, I was not babyfaced.
Looking at my military ID in later years, it seemed that pissed-off gorilla eyes were issued by the Army.
Anyway, my point was that it didn’t occur to me that she was putting the ball in my court until maybe twenty years later. Even if she wasn’t, it was my civic duty to act as if she had so we’d both know where we stood and, going one way, reawaken the New Madrid fault or, going another, make sure not to make mistakes.
But I fucking missed it.
I was so lame in those days that the fact that I got IOI is, I submit, worthy of examination as a lesson. My takeaway was unneediness.
Anonymous.
I think it was Socrates,or possibly Hesiod who was grousing about the younger generation. I like to see tradition carried on.
#252 a gorilla pirate! I should have known; those dudes are invincible.
http://rayman.wikia.com/wiki/Robo-Pirates
Whether something is all encompassing doesn’t mean it is not pervasive or having an effect. During the Revolutionary War, there were as many Loyalists as there were patriots, but the Patriots happened to have more drive and more organization and were strong enough to make a sea-change.
How many people were actually radical communists in 1917 Russia? How many radical Chinese before the Boxer Rebellion? The Nazi vote share never rose above a third, IIRC, and those were just the ones who VOTED, not the ones who committed themselves to bringing about the Third Reich, mind body and soul.
I know some places might think 20% of the population might not matter. The books I read suggest that even a 1% chunk of the population, properly motivated, can be the radical change needed to shift political coalitions. 20%? That’s a nightmare.
I higgggghhhlllyyyyyy doubt that the change we have seen thus far has been REVOLUTIONARY: It is probably more fraying at the side. I also highly doubt that the majority of guys had an upbringing exactly like mine or a personality type exactly like mine. However, there are definitely common themes through a lot of the upbringings and they definitely have played a huge (negative) role in our SMP prospects.
I am not entirely convinced of any ONE narrative….not enough evidence. Based on what I see on the ground, I definitely see a demasculinization of a lot of guys, though. Very strong where I live. I grew up a few miles away from Ferris Bueller, although my family moved in during the 60s when most of the homes were single family and not mansions, and there were still some corn fields.
It’s not that there are no honest Beta Couples, or some genuinely nice people never form genuinely nice relationships. It’s that guys have lost social status relative to women, see the college enrollment and wage stats. It’s also that guys have lost a lot of their gumption to approach women. There’s a huge trend towards delaying marriage. Do the math. What do you expect to happen in this scenario?
@ BV
Heh, its a skill to learn to read article-less writing. Having Asian parents and a Russian work partner, I’ve pretty much mastered it.
@ADBG
I think your point about the highliy motivated group being able to inflict change really applies to both feminism and marxist policies of the past 50 years… I don’t think the vast majority of people really cared about feminism, but they also didn’t care enough to oppose it… just shrugged their shoulders and said “whatever.”
A big part of the reason why we are where we are today is because conservatives/traditionalists are usually loathe to rock the boat too much. It takes a huge event to really get them riled up.
The marxist camps (feminism included) seem to eat, sleep, and breathe their idealogies. Since they’re the loudest ones screaming, their ideas are the ones that get absorbed into popular culture.
ADBG
You talk about lost gumption to approach.
That means a change.
Do you have data about the years with high gumption? Or are you taking it on faith?
40+years ago I heard women in the top half lamenting the lack of approaches. I knew guys who were terrified.
Things could be worse now, but we need data to compare.
I GET your history, but Lenin had his battalion of Lettish gunmen to dump the Duma.
I saw everything talked about here going on half a century back. Question is proportion. Are we sure, can we prove it has changed?
#238
I’m not sure what to make of the concentrated campaign to completely root out any physical violence between male children. Maybe it has something to do with the very deep-rooted drive in women to separate alphas from the rest of males by all means. If a young man resists such indoctrination, all women will clearly know he’s an alpha. The carnage of two world wars and the threat of nuclear war probably also play a role in society’s zero tolerance policy towards male violence.
#239
I’m not German, only my online name is.
Yes, the executive functions I listed started disappearing after 1945. People tend to become less resourceful and more used to comfort in times of great prosperity. It’s the normal course of things, otherwise there wouldn’t be a point in striving for prosperity in the first place. People have no option but to be resourceful when mass poverty is the norm, and resourcefulness is not a virtue they want to practice all the time regardless of circumstances.
Technological progress and the decline of heavy industry in the West also played a role, obviously. But all this is behind us.
Which statistics would you like to see? I can definitely show you a decline in male testosterone over time: Whatever you had, my generation has less. I can show you the rise in mood-altering prescriptions: you might have had a pill-popper, I had the debate team and a thousand moms tossing Ritalin down our throats. I can show you the rise in female college enrollment and wage earnings: you have a wage gap, I don’t. I can show you the rise in female psychopathy in the Cluster B: for every one crazy you had, I have two.
On many of the relevant metrics, I can give you some data that suggests the average man will have a harder time than he did 40 years ago.
As far as I know, there is no misery index for the SMP, so I can’t give you one of those. To the best of my knowledge there has not been a substantial rise in the number of sex partners, just the marriage rate, which automatically suggests a SMP that is slower at forming matches. What I can do is test what I read in my own life, and see the positive or negative results.
ADBG
One’s own life is most important. Small sample, though.
Question was men approaching women. More? Less? Same? We know the answer how?
Marriage rates do not directly reflect approach rates. Women do not lament reluctance to commit when discussing non-approaching men. It’s the men already in a relationship who commit or not. So there was already an approach.
Re: testosterone. Almost all men have substantially more circulating testosterone than necessary, and the prior thought was that having such a large baseline smooths out the effects of rapid (hour) changes (similarly rapid hormone changes in women, although much smaller, have a much greater effect because of the lowered baseline). A generation or so ago, however, the discovery of the ubiquitousness of environmental estrogens, both natural and artificial, revealed the primary purpose of males’ great excess of T was to inhibit the demasculinization effects of environmental estrogens.
As it turns out, injecting normal average healthy males with additional T does not change behavior in any way whatsoever. None. Absolutely no changes, at all, in any way. In women, however, the first behaviorral effect of additional T is to increase masturbation rate. Not approach, not acceptance, just self stimulation.
BV,
How do you, an American, know about Rorke’s Drift ?
Marellus,
See “Zulu”, very popular movie back in the day. Also, on youtube, look for Men of Harlech. Among other hits you’ll get Charlotte Church, but also a bunch of examples of the last charge at Rorke’s Drift from the movie. ’cause the Taffies are singing it.
H2. You don’t mind me calling you that, I hope?
WRT executive function:
Seems to me there are several versions of it. Those which are related to, inversely, the improvement in our conditions of life might be seen as beta providerish. Example. Thirty years ago, family in the car getting home, Dad gets out in the sheeting rain to open the garage. Family stays dry. Now he uses the garage door opener. He does not sacrifice for the family, not having to get wet. But is getting wet for them not a beta provider thing? That was an example but I think it would apply to many of the items no longer necessarily a man’s thing due to improvement in the amenities of life.
Other examples: Our niece stayed overnight. This morning, about 12 degrees and a couple of inches of fluffy snow. I swept the car off and started it for her. Beta provider or executively functional alpha stuff?
Some years ago, my brother-in-law heated with a wood burner. We had annual cutting parties in the autumn. He would have a couple of stakebeds deliver eight-footers. We’d spend the weekend cutting and splitting, hauling and stacking. He and I, our wives and our oldest niece.
I’m not a woman, so this is likely a stretch. I think it is likely that the tingle-inducing quotient of an executive function is in inverse proportion to the extent it is seen as routine and/or women can and do do it.
As to fighting: There may be a difference between then and now about what men teach their sons. I think even our little buddies’ father might give us a tip or two. “Knuckles up. Not in the face, you’ll hurt your hand, etc….”
But it seems every second strip mall has a Tae Kwon Do academy.
I don’t recall much formal or informal training with knives until I got to college and then the Army. True, salles des armes are hard to find these days, but they were never very thick on the ground anyway. So I don’t know that that has changed much. Hard to say.
I was in one fight at a party and won handily because I knew what I was doing and he didn’t. Another time, I was called to break up a fight and did so without violence because the perp could tell the hold I got on him was dangerous. Also at a party.
Although my view of such things was charaterized by absolute cluelessness, neither seemed to have changed my social life at all, which brings up another question. Maybe fighting is a beta thing. You do it on behalf of the group and they give you a Gainesburger.
So, in sum, I think the reduction in the necessity for executive function is not necessarily an issue.
That which may be a tingle-inducer would–another stretch here–involve taking charge in a situation and managing it. And situations continue to come along.
Still, competence is useful, especially compared to guys who don’t have it. You still might have to jump a car, change a light switch, start a small gasoline engine, apply a tourniquet, looking off a guy’s attention with your eyes while you kick him in the balls, read a map, change a tire….
IMO, confidence is a tell or proxy for competence and the more competences you have….
Then you get out of your own way.
“No True Man relies on Outer Game.” is the fallacy here.
jf12. I don’t see the fallacy. If a guy is a true man, then what about that is necessarily invisible?
However, if he manages to get out of his own way–flosses regularly and can make conversation without pissing himself–he should be good.
The fallacy which concerns me–as a matter of curiosity–is that fake game will suffice and being a true man is a matter for later, if ever, if it doesn’t take a lot of effort, which it won’t because you don’t need it because fake game is taking care of business.
Outer game is pretending to be a true man. Easier in the short run. But it doesn’t do you much good outside of the situations where the situation can be impressed by fake game. Outside, it would be handy to be able to manage things, one way or another. Up to you.
If a guy is a true man, then what about that is necessarily invisible?
Richard,
Your assumption here, and I’ll suggest it is a terribly flawed one, is that women, particularly say young women from 16-25 can recognize a “true man” when they come across one. I would suggest that most women, especially younger women are terrible at distinguishing sizzle from steak and in fact are mostly oblivious to steak and instead think the sizzle is in fact the steak. I suspect this has always been true which is why as Deti points out for most of recorded history, parents and SPECIFICALLY fathers had a huge say in who their daughter’s ended up. The likely correct presumption is that an older “been around the block” man is better evaluate another (young) man than a young woman.
I don’t think many advocates of (Outer) Game suggest that man shouldn’t attempt to be successful or build value and competence in other aspects of life so it is a false dichotomy to suggest either/or. In any case, there is no harm and most likely substantial benefit in trying to develop at least some sizzle. That could catch and hold a woman’s attention long enough that presumably she might begin to recognize the underlying steak.
Real quick tidbit/anecdote…
When Warren Buffett was a young man long before he became a multi-billionaire many times over, he actually “courted” the PARENTS of his first wife to “win” her. I am trying to remember from the biography the exact details but to my recollection she essentially thought he was a boring, uninteresting, fuddy-duddy. I suspect a lot of young men with “potential” to be great successes in some area of life are pretty boring and uninteresting to the average young woman because even if they score highly on the “true man” composite score, there “tingle-inducing” ability is close to non-existent. Now eventually when most womens’ priorities shift to long-term provisioning capability as they get older, these men become more noticeable. This is what is happening when a woman says the man “got more attractive” as he aged.
#268 “I don’t think many advocates of (Outer) Game suggest that man shouldn’t attempt to be successful or build value and competence in other aspects of life so it is a false dichotomy to suggest either/or.” I agree. I think, having recently scanned around plenty of game sites, universally they advocate men seeking to improve previously lousy love lives:
1. Upgrade work out, exercise, more muscles.
2. Upgrade diet and other health, less fat.
3. Upgrade grooming and dress, in a word improve appearance.
4. Do interesting activities, especially making things and outdoors things, whether job or hobby.
5. Approach a lot of women anyway, even while upgrading self.
“In any case, there is no harm and most likely substantial benefit in trying to develop at least some sizzle. That could catch and hold a woman’s attention long enough that presumably she might begin to recognize the underlying steak.” I think so too. This is probably the most innocuous possible defense of Game, and it is difficult to see why someone would want to argue against it, except to “protect” women from validating the existence of some guy who is somehow No True Man.
Marellus, #264: It’s a seminal battle in western history, that’s why. And it’s expressive of the difference of western v. any other culture: some win, some lose. The westerners always win, because the guys are fighting for their liberty, their integrity as yeomen, their futures as owners of a democratic process. It has been thus since Cannae.
jf12
You make a good point about needing sizzle. Problem is whether actually being a true man generates sizzle by itsellf. Keep in mind that game is faking being a true man, as if the true man’s truenessity is not either obvious or sufficient.
Buffet may well have been an old fuddy-duddy and I wouldn’t have suggested my daughter date one. But there’s the old bride-price thing, I suppose. No idea if he had the scoots back then, but somebody in, say, pre-law or business might look like a prospect financial-wise.
Now, I don’t see a problem with improving oneself by getting fit and not dressing poorly. But if that’s game, it’s talking to people who are so far down, on purpose, that, imo, there isn’t much going to fix them. Getting fit if you’re not can be twenty-five pushups and the same of situps before a shower. It’s a start. Then you find someplace for chinups. If they’re not doing it already, or something more involved, they are not likely to be motivated to do things they, how can I put this, KNOW ALREADY.
The advice to do interesting things is a poser. If a guy isn’t already doing them, it’s because he’s not interested. In anything. Or he’d be doing it/them. Take a cattle prod with fresh batteries to get a guy like that off the couch. Interested people are interesting people and the fact that it rolls off the tongue doesn’t mean it’s simplistic. Stamp collectors not included.
Game, as self-improvement, is telling people to do what they already know they’re supposed to do, and why, and who are not doing it with a million excuses.
About the only thing that might help is encouraging them not to feel bad about being shot down. Presuming such encouragement can actually help, which imo, is doubtful.
Just to follow up on Morpheus’ point:
The role of parents and families in getting their kids married off in prior generations was huge, just enormous. Those prior generations understood you couldn’t send young adults between the ages of, oh, 17 and 22 or so out into the world, and expect them to make sound judgments about their sex partners, their dates and their eventual spouses. It just didn’t work that way because they didn’t have the life experience their parents and extended family did. It was pretty much assortative mating, a blend of the kids choosing each other, arranged marriages, and a heavy, heavy dose of patriarchy.
Young men pursued the girls they wanted; but had to run up against a number of guardrails, chief among them being the girls’ fathers, brothers and extended male family. Those young men knew they needed to show themselves worthy not just to the girls; but also to her male elders. Of course, the second guardrail they bumped against was whether she liked him or not. Young men then as now learned pretty fast where they fit into the sexual hierarchy. He figured out who was “in his league” and who wasn’t simply by the girls who liked him vis a vis the girls who didn’t. The men didn’t worry too much about the young men picking a girl he wanted or at least could live with. Most of them were pretty to him. He would learn to live with a girl who would have him if she were minimally pretty enough. And if he couldn’t find one he liked; he’d wait, or do without, or visit the local brothel now and then.
Young women had to have input from mom and dad mainly because of impulsivity. Mom and Dad both knew that if left to her own devices, she’d either (1) make poor decisions; or (2) fall prey to a rake/libertine/Rhett Butler type who would pump and dump her; and maybe even knock her up. Sure, she could date men she liked – as long as they also passed muster with dad. Dads and moms both understood there wouldn’t be a lot of time; so they needed to get her married off to a suitable man pretty soon, or it might be too late. And she was NOT getting married to ANY man unless Dad blessed the union. Dad wouldn’t “give” his daughter to a man he disapproved. It was shameful and dishonorable for a young man and his family to ignore the wishes of a young woman’s father. There were practical things to consider here – if she didn’t find a man to support her; dad would have to keep supporting her or she’d have to do it herself. Dad loved his girl and didn’t want her to be poor and fending for herself. And, families helped the homelier girls either find husbands from among the leftover men; or directed those girls into religious life.
Richard,
I think we just have to agree to disagree here.
jf12
You make a good point about needing sizzle.
Richard, that was actually my point, and jf was quoting me.
Problem is whether actually being a true man generates sizzle by itsellf.
I sort of assumed your “true man” position…we still would need to define exactly what that is. Personally, I’m skeptical of the “true man” concept because invariably it will be twisted to mean (especially by many women) that one neglects and ignores one’s own desires and needs and always puts others before himself. I much prefer BV’s concept of the Sovereign Man. The Sovereign man can be assertive and take charge.
Keep in mind that game is faking being a true man, as if the true man’s truenessity is not either obvious or sufficient.
I’m with Jimmy in that I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’ve found that for people who equate Game with “faking something” there is no changing their mind.
Now, I don’t see a problem with improving oneself by getting fit and not dressing poorly. But if that’s game, it’s talking to people who are so far down, on purpose, that, imo, there isn’t much going to fix them. Getting fit if you’re not can be twenty-five pushups and the same of situps before a shower. It’s a start. Then you find someplace for chinups. If they’re not doing it already, or something more involved, they are not likely to be motivated to do things they, how can I put this, KNOW ALREADY.
This makes no sense to me. This essentially says people cannot change. They cannot reevaluate their lives, change priorities, introspect, and take action to make changes. I’m a big believer in the Napolean Hill concept that if you can believe it you can achieve it. Sometimes in life, someone might not always realize exactly what they want from Day 1.
Let me ask you a genuine question…because I am curious. You do seem to fit the role of skeptic to any notion of male self-improvement. If you aren’t already doing it, then you must be a loser. What motivates your interest in this subject matter? What are you trying to takeaway from the discussion?
Morpheus.
Getting more attractive might mean losing some babyfat from around the chin and demonstrating an ability to deal with the real world. Provisioning potential might not be an issue.
If deti is correct, letting women out on their own without the family’s input is a major factor in such changes as we see, or think we see.
So what we’ll have to do is insist that there was a huge bulge in the number of single women living away from the family’s supervision in the ages of, say, nineteen to twenty-five, when they are supposedly starting to learn something. And it would have to have started maybe twenty years ago. Because, before that, the old SMP was still in play. Or pick thirty years. Same thing. Somebody’s going to have to prove something.
Point is, there may not have been as big a change in the time period in question, which is apparently the last twenty years or whatever.
These discussions have an awful lot of historical assertions about changes in culture and economics and society, ranging from the last fifty years to the last million years. Some can be addressed, like average marriage age, with known statistics. Others remain assertions.
I know we are supposed to hear a chamber quartet of caveats playing a continuo;
NAWALT, NAMALT, Some Exceptions, Degree of Change in Individuals Not Known.
Fact is, we don’t know much about what are the causes, and, with the possible exception of number of dates before sex, we don’t know much about what was really going on ‘way back when our older brothers and sisters were navigating their old, traditional SMP. We really don’t know the degree of change.
Maybe the plethora of acronyms provides a kind of pseudo-scientific certainty to a fog of stuff.
Somebody’s going to have to prove something.
Why? There is a difference between plausible hypothesis and “proof”. I’d suggest academics trying to get PhDs in sociology need proof, and even they mostly fail to reach that level. I think for our intents and purposes here plausible hypothesis is just fine.
Fact is, we don’t know much about what are the causes, and, with the possible exception of number of dates before sex, we don’t know much about what was really going on ‘way back when our older brothers and sisters were navigating their old, traditional SMP. We really don’t know the degree of change.
Well…I don’t know, I’ve been “off the market” for nearly a decade…I suspect you much longer. That said, I’m pretty aware of the degree of change from my college years in the early to mid 90s to the middle of the 00s decade. Now maybe some of the same stuff was going on in the early 90s and I just didn’t know about it, but I doubt it. I remember going to grad school in late 1999, and first weekend on campus going to the dance club and seeing hot young blonde coeds in the main stage area during the “Hot Body” contest stripping down to bras and panties and kissing each other on stage, and thinking “I am not in Kansas anymore”. That first year was interesting. I was 25 and apparently I generated quite a lot of attention in the gym. I still had a shit ton of Inner Beta, and no Game to speak of, and still managed to have some fun and adventures. Sometimes I’ll ponder what that first year would have been like if I also had the Game knowledge and Red Pill mentality. Oh well. 2nd year I had a girlfriend that was a long-distance relationship. Big mistake. But anyways that SMP bore no resemblance to the SMP from my undergrad years. I can’t even imagine how different it was to someone who went to college in the 1950s. You ever seen two women tongue kiss in front of you in person? I don’t know what constitutes proof but I suspect things have changed.
Morpheus
My wife was a HS teacher and I helped chaperone dances until the kids came along and she became a part-time adjunct at a nearby university. About twenty years later, she was back in school. I went to chaperone a dance. My mouth fell open. Part of the gym looked like fifth-grade recess and part like the footage cut from Dirty Dancing so it didn’t get an X rating.
The principal, who’d been in the pot right along and had gotten used to the temperature, was laughing at me. Call that 77-97 for the change. OTOH, we took kids to Spain and took pains to weed out the party kids. I got to know them and they weren’t like the others. Which I suppose is the point. What percentage weren’t like the other percentage? Other than public self-presentation, what was the difference over twenty years?
As to people changing: You don’t have to put GAME in front of somebody with a–metaphorically speaking–syllabus in three pages.
Nothing game suggests is new to anybody.
People have changed themselves, guys have changed and done this, that, or whatever There may be some guys who make dressing down their personal statement. Even they know what they’re doing. Pushups aren’t particularly inconvenient. If you want a neat haircut and don’t have time right now, level the ‘burns with a scissors. Takes seven seconds. The rest of the game list is the same. Not news.
Everybody knows this stuff and anybody who wants to do it can do it.
You’re preaching game to guys who know this stuff and didn’t do it.
The guys who would do it did do it and they’re doing okay, one way or another.
Big, big difference.
That being said, I knew or knew of women who were “good for it” on the first date. The public self-presentation was different, for sure. Otherwise….
What interests me…? Society needs men, not pajamaboys. Good women ditto. But before I start suggesting doing Big Things, I want to be sure they’re required. Long stretch: Twenty years ago, there was such a fuss over kidnappings that lost kids’ pix were on milk cartons. I wondered where the bone piles were. Where were the hundreds of kids coming in from the cold every month? Turns out to be hysteria. Stranger kidnapping is vanishingly rare. If you really want numbers, you count relatives, usually in custody cases, or because one parent is doing a horrid job and the relatives don’t know what else to do. Remember the ozone hole?
Do we have a difference or do we have a social construct agreed to as if it were truth? Said it before: I knew guys terrified of women forty-plus years ago and women in the top half lamenting the lack of approaches. “Do I have to shove my [substantial] chest in his face?”
I knew some pajamaboy candidates in the old days. Difference was, there was no social cohort who thought they were neato.
When I was in the SMP, I wasn’t even like the deer in the headlights. Deer notice the headlights. I was tall, fit, and busy.
I had braces, for heaven’s sake. Still got IOI. I wasn’t doing anything remotely related to what was later to be called game. Never knew I was supposed to. I’d hear a guy suggest going for a walk and hear him saying, actually, “Let’s go someplace and I won’t even buy you a cup of coffee but you’ll be rewarded with my company.” What a moron. The woman in question…?
I still got IOI. Overt. Embarrassing to think about. Had a stalker who later wrote me an apology which must have been humiliating to write.
So my experience, in the complete absence of game, reflected upon after twenty-plus years calls into question the premise.
Asked my wife about a possible fictional character some time back. He’s a grad student with it all going on, except he had a hand shot off in Viet Nam. Good? No. We were all looking for husbands.
Today? Maybe they’re still looking or have given up.
My son met his wife at an alumni event,although they hadn’t met in college. Story is, though, one of her friends wanted her to go to this club to see the hot bouncer…. But nothing until later.
They were married about ten years ago, to give you a date in the SMP.
Here’s something that I think of as a datum. Friend of ours enlisted about four years ago. He said there were people crying at night in Basic. We thought of Basic as boring, annoying, occasionally interesting and sometimes funny. Not stressful at all. Just one of those things. It concerns me.
I’ll take that as a datum. Game doesn’t apply.
As to what I had going on: Things came across my field of vision and I thought they’d be fun. So I did them. Never figured it would mean anything to anybody. Never thought about it. Did it have an effect? Didn’t think about it for twenty-thirty years, and by then there’s no way to know.
Here’s an anecdote which should have two different endings, depending on the era and SMP.
Playing football on the front lawn of the fraternity house. Next door was Farmhouse Fraternity, aka “farmers”. I caught a pass, over ballanced and went fasterfasterfaster trying to stay upright. Ran through the farmers’ fence. Fortunately, struck it with my head, so i wasn’t hurt. So we were off to the lumberyard to get stuff to repair the farmers’ fence.
Blind date that evening. A so-called frater said to me, after I’d introduced him and his date, “Hey, Animal[my undergrad nickname], tell Marsha how you broke the farmers’ fence.”
Marsha immediately got a headache and needed to be taken home. Probably still congratulating herself on her prudence.
Today, she’d have been all over me, right?
Not buying it.
One possibility not so far mentioned. Masculinity was a Bad Thing amongst the Movement, the counterculture, the hippies. Who, except for the obese, were usually pretty weedy. You could throw a football around in front of the dorm if you did so awkwardly and with an embarrassed grin. But power, economy of motion, grace; get you as smart-ass remark.
It was all in service of the anti-war movement. Masculinity causes wars. Amazing people believed it. But, if there is a major shift in guys, that might be the cause.
Still looking for the cause of the Great Tingle Shift.
Morpheus,
You make a great point about how quickly culture can change. I volunteer at a local HS, and can’t get over how different the culture is now vs when I graduated (only 8 years ago). A lot of it has to do with the rise of social media, cell phones, etc, but some of it is just the general pop culture of the times… but damn, things are even crazier now.
The more I think about it, the more it really doesn’t even make much sense to think back to the big social upheavel of the 60s… because our culture has been thrown into a blender too many times to count since then.
As you aluded to, even the late 90s are starting to look a lot different than what we have today.
Jimmy,
Thanks. I think culture can change rapidly especially now with how quickly communication can take place 24/7 365 days a year globally across the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
I think there was a lot of change during the 90s. My childhood was the 80s while my teen and young adult years were the 90s. I am probably oversimplifying here a bit but I think it was really the mid to late 90s where you had the entire “sluttification” pop music movement with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. I think that sort of fed into the “empowered You Go Grlll” movement along with the whole “Girls Gone Wild”. And then just recently, in terms of pop music you have women like Kesha and Miley Cyrus who appear to be taking the whole “I’m an empowered slutty trashy girl” to a new level. I’ll admit I have no idea at all to what extent that depiction on the video/You Tube screen is translating into real world behavior of high school and college aged girls.
I agree that I don’t think the 60s have much direct influence today. I think the lasting impact is one of just making rebellion against norms more acceptable. Of course, these things go in cycles. The 1920s had a similar rebellion against cultural norms, but I think it was restricted to a very small percentage of the population in urban centers. I doubt there were many Flappers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapper) in Kansas, and even with Flappers I don’t think you had any fucking guys in bathroom stalls of bars.
The sluttification–there are different terms–after the Restoration was followed by the great increase in conservative Methodism. Then after the Regency came Victorianism.
No accident that historical romance novels are placed in the first of each pair.
Part of the reason is that the guy whose idea of a good time is a potluck and then missionary’s slides–wrong century, DVD–is going to show up to work in better shape than the guy who got drunk at the casino and lost $3k.
Difference is, however, that welfare pays the equivalent of $30/hr, which is considerably more than a lot of jobs.
Richard,
I am a persistent guy…I will break the code
LOL. I am finding Richard’s “protestations” highly amusing, and all for the reasons others here have noted. In the end, it won’t amount to much – as I’ve said before, anything that can perceive, can be deceived.
Anything.
There are quite a few guys who have deep and abiding problems with Game, because it poses a serious threat of strategic interference, but not always directly. Quite a few guys who have daughters, as Rich does, have problems with Game because they know and understand, however much they may be loathe to admit it, that a guy wielding it could woo his special little snowflake. And while its perfectly understandable, its also kind of pathetic.
They should get over the fact that their girl just ain’t that special.
Game, works.
End of.
O.
#279-280 In the 1960s our culture was poured into the electric blender for the first time. Yes, the settings have been adjusted several times since, grate, blend, shred, grind, mash, liquefy, frappe, stir, beat, puree, but it’s the same blender, and same blades: contraception and lack of other consequences for sexual license. Whatever manual mixer or churn your great granny used is totally irrelevant in comparison.
Hey, O.
You don’t know as much as you think. My daughter married a quiet, conscientious, loving man.
Try again. Keep you out of trouble.
How about this: You guys worrying about game are self-identified losers who want to quantify the phenomenon so you can feel you’re in control. And things haven’t changed all that much.
Are we even?
Most guys learning about Game would be failing. Goes without saying, pretty much. You do not try to fix what is not broken, you only undergo major changes to fix something when it does not work.
That said, we cannot say much about the direct approaching of men. We CAN say that diagnosed mental disorders have gone up, though, which might impact approach rates. And like I said, we can see delayed marriage rates, we can see the general rise in female narcissism, etc.
So we see a general change in certain things. What do you think is going on, and how do you think this impacts the dating landscape? I am interested in your thoughts.
As to whether Game works, I pose this article:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/how-to-hack-okcupid/all/
A guy “hacks” online dating the same way the Ted woman did. Guys can play the same marketing game women can, except we are all told that’s impossible, it must be Inner Game, period. Note that this guy, even getting first dates, still doesn’t get second dates….math only goes so far, he cannot make the spark with women.
Game works, period, End Of.
As to the general social issues surrounding it? More complicated.
Anyways, Richard, we are pretty much on the same side in terms of wanting men to be men. However, just yelling at men for not being men is not going to cut it. If Game works, it’s the fault of women. If men have not been raised to become men, it’s partially the fault of women (IE mothers).
If you are talking about the culture that created Pajama-Boy worship, you’ve been around a lot longer than I have, and had a lot more hand in creating this culture than I did. Me, I’m just trying to weather the stop and create SOME sort of foundation, because this wonderful society has experienced real wage decline for guys like me over the last 15 years.
Oh, and just look at the picture, Richard, and see the women comment “wow, you look so rugged” with a few superficial changes. Blame Women, Blame Women, Blame Women. Women are the ones who pick what men they will mate with and need to be held responsible for their choices
As to whether Game works, I pose this article:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/how-to-hack-okcupid/all/
A guy “hacks” online dating the same way the Ted woman did. Guys can play the same marketing game women can, except we are all told that’s impossible, it must be Inner Game, period.
ADBG, interesting article. One thing that caught my eye was the percentage of women who would have sex with a guy after 1-2 dates if she “really likes” him. Except for the “God” and “Diverse” groups the percentage is quite substantial. It certainly does NOT jibe at all with a statistic of 80% “restricted” who tend to ONLY have sex in relationships. I wonder what separates the guys that bang the girl on date 1 or 2 that the girls “really like” versus the guys that it might take much longer where they need to “get to know” the guy and let attraction “develop over time”?
Women are the ones who pick what men they will mate with and need to be held responsible for their choices
Nope. When they make bad choices, it isn’t their fault.
I might have to review those answers. I took a glance on lunch break today. Good god has work been nuts lately. You get ten billion in debt and suddenly everyone is worried about cash flow.
You get ten billion in debt and suddenly everyone is worried about cash flow.
Not good if those bond rating agencies downgrade the debt.
We’re solid on that front. This is really the first debt we have ever incurred and we outperform the industry on all key metrics by close to 50%. Really I think they underestimated how irregular the cash flow was and now that we have higher pay-outs (especially since dividends get increased non-stop), investment gets worried about their positions shrinking or rising every day.
But beats me. Just a Beta guy spitting out reports. “Oh, we overnight your our check!” Yeah, bullshit, I see the issue date and I see the date it gets put in the account.
ADBG great link! They sure do cluster. I would like to know how many fake profiles were created to get the 6 million answers.
ADBG
My hand in creating the culture which worships pajamaboy was pretty light. It was the other clowns, the Movement, the Hippies, the early feminists known as “bra-burners, those who said solemnly “They’re using football to sell the war,”
More recent example. Church youth group. Sixth-grade kid is being bullied at school. I talk to him about bullies, what they want, etc. Some playground combatives.
My opposition: Mom, who doesn’t know it. Winter nights, she takes him to the car with his parka buttoned up to the nose, and some flap across his face. She’s divorced. My DiL remarked, when I described it, as “Please give me a wedgie.”
So one night a four-year old runs into something and splits his lip when his folks were there to pick him up. Dad takes him into the men’s room to get the ice on him and what not. Meantime, he’s howling and shrieking and screaming and howling. His mom says he’s into drama. I go into the men’s room to see if things are okay. They are. Come out, catch my anti-bully-kid’s eye and roll mine. “We men,” I imply, “aren’t like that.”
Do the best I can.
You want to puke about this stuff, read The Good Men Project. Not just for my fiction, mind you, but what makes a Good Man.
As to diagnosed mental disorders, those are functions of expanded definitions and diagnoses until proven otherwise. Do we count ADHD in school? Big pharma and half-wit teachers.
Thing is, I knew bullies in the old days, and the guys who wouldn’t stand up to them.
Here’s my point: Things are as they are. It pays some people–financially, as a matter of egotism, etc. to insist that there has been a change. Superficially, it has been, in many ways. But whether the SMP has CHANGED–not what is it LIKE NOW–is not demonstrated.
In fact, why there is any interest in whether it changed is of interest. Why not deal with it as it is without worrying about whether there has been a change? What difference does it make if something was different even twenty years ago?
I’m telling you, I knew top-half women annoyed because of a lack of approaches, and guys terrified of approaching. Forty-five years ago.
I had a fraternity brother we called “Flash” for some reason, whom we renamed “Crash” for all the times he’d been shot down. Then there was this other guy running a small business involving…hell, no matter–whose pic was in the campus paper every week. We had to tell the women calling that he was reading to the blind or whatever.
Not fair. Besides, he was a player, in terms of a harem of women who didn’t know they were in a harem, although I recall the scene when one found out.
Seems to me the whole thing is about women being too picky for the guys in question. This is not new.
Perhaps another change is that, with the internet, we can hear all kinds of women telling men what they want. Maybe what they want hasn’t changed but now we get it shoved up our noses. Problem there is whether that speaks for all women. Or maybe what we see on the ‘net isn’t representative of what women in general want.
There is always confusion. Forty-fifty years ago, women said one thing and did another. Or, some women said one thing and other women did something else, but we didn’t make the distinction.
Susan Walsh has been going on about tall, buff, take-charge guys with dominance and the occasional stubble. Then we find scrawny, creative guys are HAWT!
Paying attention to what women say women want in men is probably a waste of time. How about the woman in front of you?
I keep saying I hate to talk about my days in the SMP. But they have a unique factor. I had no idea. None. Whatsoever. I got IOI from women I was not dating. Without the complicating variables provided by me trying to do something or other in the SMP, we have a cleaner picture. Except it tells little. Probably.
I was tall–genes. I was fit–some of the things I liked to do made me fit. I was busy with things which interested me, if not other people–because they struck me as something I’d like to do.
That was IT. What happened? No idea. But possibly my inability to conceive of getting with these women made me look unneedy which must iimply I had such a fabulous…social…life that I must have it all together like a million bucks. Or I couldn’t have this terrific…social…life to such an extent that the woman in question was merely a congenial colleague. Didn’t need her. Must mean I had something hot going on.
I have referred to my shrink buddy from twenty years ago and a couple of cases he talked about. He was a family and marriage counselor. His view, besides making me think about the little blue-pill events inescapable in marriage, included the football metaphor. The in-charge dynamic is dynamic. The ball can go back and forth, but should stay between the forty-yard lines. IOW, a guy sshould be “standing up for himself”.
Speaking of which, search for versions of “call me on my shit”, “crap” “stand up to me” “not let me push him around”. Women want that, they say, but there have been wimpy guys married to pushy men forever. It’s not a change that the ones posting have encountered the wusses from time to time. But nobody likes pushovers except con artists. No change.
One of the issues is, imo, the selection process involved in who posts on the subject(s) and whether they are representative of the population at large.
Maybe it was being required to read Catcher in The Rye, and being told that being a whiny loser who ends up in a rubber room is a coming-of-age novel.
OTOH, some teachers say that historical novels for kids and young adults are always Wonderwoman and the Wimp. I recommend Rosemary Sutcliff’s work instead.
Yeah, schools are trying to emasculate boys, using drugs when they can come up with an excuse.
But did that happen at the point you were at an age to be affected?
Another question is whether pop culture leads or reflects the culture at large.
The only datum I find sufficiently hard in terms of information and a major change is my young friend’s story of guys crying after lights out in Basic.
If other guys are wimps, and you’re not, you have an advantage in the SMP. The wimp issue is the one which bothers women, not you.
Society as a whole is a different issue.
One of my kid’s friends visited with her kids. The boy, under two, was absolutely freaked by our golden retriever. Terrified. So I got him outside and we did some familiarization. His mom said, “Dick’s training my son.” Well, yeah. If he’s not freaked by a golden, he has one more item in his life where he can be calm and not think he was freaked by a golden, which is a shameful thing to think about yourself.
Had a Mexican kid with us for a week. Never seen snow. Parents wouldn’t allow me to teach him to cut wood–never seen anybody do it–but I had him help me with a big woodburner, and we got him out of the house to snowboard and snowshoe. Walked on the winter beach at 10 degrees long after dark.
We have a lot of visitors. Last year, from mid-May to Labor Day, we had fifty-seven people spend one or more nights with us. I try to push our little visitors. Get them onto a kayak, teach them to paddle, walk back and forth in the shallows until they’re more relaxed. Some I get to handle an ax or build a fire. Depends on parents. More skills, more confidence.
As to wage decline, see “No Country for Burly Men”.
But I didn’t vote for those clowns.
Your hand was still more than my hand. I am a 26 year old Bachelor Degree-only male in an entry level corporate position. Practically no influence. Pajama Boy doesn’t have influence, either. We are both responding to the incentives created by people who came before us.
Sort of like yelling at a Toyota for not being a Ferrari. Goddammit, why don’t you have 500 horsepower! Because the production process said install this engine?
Anyways, I get what you are worried about, both WRT to a general decline in the quality of men (and women) and whether we can see any statistics to really observe a sea-change. Totally get it. And to be 100% honest, I do not have and have not seen statistics I would consider conclusive. HOWEVER, we have given you SOME statistics that show some changes: What do you think of those?
This thought of yours somewhat concerns me:
Says who? And even if we are expanding diagnoses, that still implies trying to TREAT those “disease.” Example: The US has better five-year cancer survival rates than Germany. This may be because we are extremely aggressive in treating cancer. Or it could be because our aggressiveness means we detect it earlier and therefore five year survival rates are higher by virtue of we catch it in year 1 and Germany catches it in year 3, and we are comparing Year 6 to Year 8.
But it does imply the US is still aggressive about SOMETHING. I would say the same for the increase in mental health diagnoses. How about this, we see more women smoking today. What does THAT imply to you? That’s not a defitional qualm, it is a simple statistic, readily observable.
There has definitely been SOME sort of change in the status of US gender relations. You simply cannot deny that, period. Hell, here’s simple labor force participation:
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2007/1207/01ecoact-1.gif
I cannot say WHAT impact this has had on the SMP, but you are simply hand-waving ANY SMP effects. That’s preposterous. I cannot say FOR SURE what the SMP effects are, and neither can you, but assuming there are NONE is VERY bad.
There has been a social change, and we know that with 100% certainty. We can assume there are SMP effects, though we do not know what they are with any great degree of certainty.
If you want to contest specific results, hey, no worries.
On the other hand, the Game discussion is separate from the above discussion. That’s whether Game works, not whether there has been social sea-change. From a quick summary of this thread, it sounds like you are suggesting that boys can become True Men, who should perform absolutely fine in the SMP. This automatically implies that any male failing is not a True Man. There is then discussion about becoming a Game Man, and suggestions that Game Men are inferior to True Men, etc.
And why not be a True Man because there is something underneath and it is more sustainable than being a Game Man.
This does not fly. What women value is not what you value and women can be deceived. Example: I know jack shit about wine, but I know more than 90% of women about there. I could not bullshit someone who actually owns a vineyard, and I should know, because I’ve tried. I can however bullshit pretty much any women about wine, and I should know, because I’ve tried. And women like to talk about the subject, because it makes them seem so sophisticated and other crap.
Same with travel. Have you ever been to the Church of the Bloodied Saint in St. Petersburg? Amazing place. The colors are so vivid. It’s a perfect blend of the ancient Russian archictecture with modern Western features. You walk in, and it’s so, so, SO vast: 10,000 people could be in there. Have you ever been there for a mass? It’s amazing, the organs pipe in music from all sides, 10,000 people all pray at once.
Okay, that’s all bullshit, too, but basically no woman is going to know that if I tell her that story. All she is going to do is look at my Facebook and see some pictures that I have travelled to a couple places, and, OH, he plays Guitar! And he cooks?! He builds FURNTIURE, too?! And this matching algorithim says he is above a 90% match for me!
Bullshit is an effective strategy. Same with work, where, as my supervisor says, never give too much detail, because that’s when the questions start. Okay, I am fine with questions, as long as I bullshit the answers. What’s with these new insurance payments? Well, blah blah blah legacy system, upgrades, etc etc, reached to contact, etc.
Okay, I didn’t call my contact….I called her the next day. Whatever. I get to say there is movement on the issue and I get a call back on Monday.
When it comes to work, it’s a no-brainer. We always tell people they undersell themselves, and are too nice, we especially say this about women. Why can’t it apply to dating, too?
@Richard #285:
LOL, you mad? Resorting to namecalling is a tacit admission that you’ve lost the argument – but you already knew that…
…right?
Game, works. Nothing you, or anyone else can do, will change that.
Get. Over. It. Already.
O.
Richard #285
How about this : You guys worrying about self-identified losers are quantifiers who want to game the phenomenon so you can feel you’re in control. And change haven’t done a thing all that much to you.
We are even.
O. We were even. Remember the snotty remark about my daughter?
You want to keep going?
#294
“I’m telling you, I knew top-half women annoyed because of a lack of approaches, and guys terrified of approaching. Forty-five years ago.”
Correct. The beautiful woman who sits by the phone waiting for someone to call her is an old stereotype true BECAUSE of hypergamy. The beautiful man never did have to wait, btw.
“Seems to me the whole thing is about women being too picky for the guys in question. This is not new.”
Correct. This … all of this [waving hands all around] … is BECAUSE of hypergamy.
“Perhaps another change is that, with the internet, we can hear all kinds of women telling men what they want. Maybe what they want hasn’t changed but now we get it shoved up our noses.”
Correct. Hypergamy was unleashed at the sexual revolution and rise of mass media, but it took the accelerated pace of social media to enable hypergamy’s feeding frenzy.
So, you agree with all the basic premises. Becuase this is reality.
@Richard:
Love to.
My point stands – some of the fiercest opposition to Game coming from the male side of the ledger is rooted in their being daddies to what they deem to be special little snowflakes – in fact, quite a few such daddies thanked me for this post on Facebook and want to use it in a misbegotten attempt to “inoculate” their girls from Men with Game, LOL. They only reveal their ignorance of such things that much more.
The problem you have is that you keep getting things twisted. You think a Man who uses Game is by definition a “loser”, or that any Woman who would be attracted to Game tactics is somehow damaged goods, when neither is true. You clearly have ideological issues with Game, something that is neither my nor anyone else’s problem in this forum to solve.
In the end, Game speaks for itself in terms of its successes. Those who keep complaining about it need to just let it go and move on to something else.
Any questions?
O.
ADBG
Some good points:
I don’t buy the comparison with cancer. For example, Asperger figured out the syndrome in 1944. So, eventually, it became a syndrome in the shrinks’ manual. So we started counting it sometime after 1944. New numbers, no proof of change in real life.
If you like ev psych, think about how nuts–who’s actually nuts here?–it is to put a six-year old behind a desk and expect him to stay there for at least twelve years. In the old days, kids might have left school, one way or another, at the age of ten. Or twelve. And negative sanctions were, by today’s standards, extreme. But they could get a restive twelve-year old’s attention. Today, a kid who can’t keep his attention on what interests the teacher has ADD, and if he fidgets, it’s ADHD. Up the numbers, no idea of actual change.
Discovering that some people who are troubled have mental problems doesn’t mean there are more mental problems. Or defining being troubled beyond a certain point as mental issues doesn’t change the actual incidence of mental issues in the population. Only those in the more or less official statistics.
Used to have a neighbor who fought in the Phillipines. To the last day I saw him–used to have a drink with him once in awhile–he was troubled to the point of almost being unable to speak about what he’d seen the Japs do to prisoners or civilians. My father, an Infantry officer in the ETO has similar memories. Today, they’d be diagnosed as having PTSD. Then, that was what you brought home along with the physical scars. No label.
So, my point is, given that sort of thing, the expanded definition is the way to bet until proven most assiduously otherwise.
Age of marriage: To make an example of life expectancy. If you have a major improvement in infant mortality, you have a major change in life expectancy, without people necessarily living longer beyond, say, age sixty-five. So if the earliest marriages–pick seventeen to nineteen for grits–are no longer common or almost non-existent, the average age for marriage would increase without meaning lots of women wait lots longer. Now, it might be true, but it would take more drilling down in the figures.
In some other blogs, I see people referring to the Gramscian long march through the institutions and I recall that Bomber Bill Ayers was a tenured prof of education while is despicable wife was a professor of law. Some hippy, anti-war, anti-US, anti-West people I I knew in college are now, I find, retired from a career as college professors. I wonder if their attention was turned to the issue of masculinity.
If you want to find “oblivious” in the Unabridged, you’ll see “Ex. Young Aubrey; SMP”
I had no freaking idea.
Parenthetically, I would suggest not using various verb versions of “to be”. It’s not that I “was” able to take care of business. I obtained that with a great deal of effort and a few injuries. It’s not that I “was” Airborne. I volunteered for jump school and didn’t drop out.
It is not that one IS one thing or another. One DOES one thing or another.
That’s why my much earlier comment to O about elites is that what stands between Tyrone and jump school is the recruiting sergeant.
As it happened, I didn’t have to bullshit about being able to take care of business. I did it twice at parties. Each time, the women attending were the guys’ SOs, so I wasn’t going to poach, even if the opportunity had arisen, which I wouldn’t have noticed if it had kicked me in the shins. But the word got around. What effect? Don’t ask oblivious Aubrey.
I was a Serious Dude. Yeah. Two summers in Mississippi doing civil rights work. Don’t have to brag. But from time to time, “Nope, got a prep meeting for our trip this summer. Let’s try Friday instead.”
“What trip?” Makes bragging unnecessary, which would presume it was effective in the first place.
“Teach me the hip throw.”
To be gross, that means the woman in question was presenting her ass to me. I taught her the hip throw. Never occurred to me that might qualify as an introduction or anything.
The question is not my being oblivious. It’s about getting attention by doing. Even if it whooshes over your head. And you didn’t figure it out for a quarter century.
My family is from New England but I grew up in the Midwest. When we went east to see the folks, we would have a place on the Connecticut shore or Cape Cod. That’s pretty fancy back then, even if you didn’t mean to imply you were renting the Kennedy compound. We managed it by getting a big place with a lot of families participating. But no bragging. “What did you do this summer?”
I’m not saying the SMP hasn’t changed. As you say, when surrounding factors change, it may change. My point is two-fold: Has it changed sufficiently that game is now necessary where before it wasn’t? And how do we know?
Another direction regarding the SMP. I worked with a couple of tens, ‘way up there in the ten rate, too, back in the day. I did not find them entitled, stuck up, snotty bitches. Those women were always one degree of separation away. IOW, I had to take somebody’s word for it. And, when pointed out, their SMP place wasn’t all that far up. 8+, maybe. I figured the guys making the assertion backed into the idea that haaawwwt women were stuck up,etc, and since these women were stuck up–or uninterested which might look like the same thing–the women in question were honorary tens. Sort of to complete the logic chain.
The tens I knew well had things not so hot, and worse when you’re sporting a couple of extra cup sizes. Everything they did from looking into the closet to trying to grok some guy’s “hi” to where to sit to…..
I discovered they were desperate for a guy to treat them like a person. Since Mr. Oblivious wasn’t going anyplace with these women, I could do that calmly and without apparent tension or stress. Didn’t even drool. And enjoyed it. I wasn’t a beta orbiter. Orbiters plan on, eventually, dropping out of orbit, entering the atmosphere an slamming….. That metaphor has limits.
We were congenial colleagues and they were cheerful, personable, friendly, fun. What I took for kindnesses–“you have very attractive eyes”–were interesting. Yup. Interesting. Fun to recall. Uh huh.
OTOH, if people thought we were an item, other guys wouldn’t bother them. Maybe I was being used. Didn’t matter. We were stuck together by the organization of what we were doing.
Point is, if this was happening to me in the old SMP when I WASN’T DOING A FREAKING THING ABOUT IT, then game wasn’t necessary. As I said, I was tall, fit, and busy. Also had braces.
You should not want to be where I was which caused me to be oblivious. Which caused me to be easy with women compared to my flop-sweat-wiping contemporaries. You really don’t. It was not a good thing. But,for purposes of this discussion, it clears away a variable which could be confusing.
I was not all that much back in the day. The big deal is being oblivious and having no idea what I should be doing in the SMP, or that there was one, or things to be done in it.
Anyway, couple of conclusions: The SMP may have changed. Or not.
The SMP is what it is and what’s the point of discussing the change, if any?
My experience is that I didn’t have game or a lot of other things and stuff happened which supposedly requires game. And I wasn’t a natural, either. Perhaps women have changed, become more superficial. Might be. Another item difficult to demonstrate. They screamed and fainted for Elvis and a handful of other less masculine rockers. And did so at later ages than the Beliebers.
No telling.
JF12. The “top half” isn’t “beautiful” women. It’s from just above average.
Too picky for the guys in question. The appeal to hypergamy is a reason for the guys to rationalize being shot down. Beats feeling inadequate.
Hypergamy, if unleashed by the sexual revolution, got its jump fifty years ago. But now more people are talking about it. So?
The all-wise O missed regarding my daughter. Thought never occurred to me. And didn’t need to.
“”
The problem you have is that you keep getting things twisted. You think a Man who uses Game is by definition a “loser”, or that any Woman who would be attracted to Game tactics is somehow damaged goods, when neither is true. You clearly have ideological issues with Game, something that is neither my nor anyone else’s problem in this forum to solve.
In the end, Game speaks for itself in terms of its successes. Those who keep complaining about it need to just let it go and move on to something else.
Any questions?
“”
Missed again, O. I don’t think people who use game are losers. I’m beginning to wonder about game’s desperate defenders, though.
And I don’t recall asking anybody to solve my problem with it.
Why don’t you just keep succeeding with it and bother us about something else?
@ RA
Not a valid analogy.
The average age of marriage is a median, not a mean. Therefore it will not be significantly affected by changes at the margins. Median is literally a measure of when the average male/female marries. Life expectancy, on the other hand, is a mean, and thus will be highly affected by changes at the margins.
Sir Nemesis.
Mostly, average means mean. But if it’s a median, and you knock off the bottom, say, fifth, you’re saying the median does or does not move? Let’s say that you knock off all of the bottom fifth but one lonely girl, to make an exaggerated case. She’s still holding down the barely-legal marriage. But nobody else is. Okay. Median doesn’t move. And what does that mean wrt the rest of the world?
That’s why we use the mean, sometimes excluding outliers.
Okay. The age at which the “average male or female” marries. So we had to get the “average” male or female. How did we figure that? Not that any of us would cop to being average, of course.
@Richard #302:
The All-Wise O is just a weebit tired of your constant concern trolling, your constant bringing up stuff that no one much cares about, and your incessant discussions aboutyour wife, your retirement and your past military life. Precious little is actually relevant to life for Men in our time right now, and to date, you’ve had upwards of half a dozen guys here tell you this seven ways to Sunday and still you don’t get it.
W.T.F.???
So, I’m going to do you the compliment of being brutally frank for you Rich:
1. The vast majority of Men in America do NOT, and will NOT, EVER, serve in the US military. Discussing things along these lines, while perhaps entertaining, has no tactical value for most Men here, especially along mating lines. Please stop bringing it up.
2. Clearly, you DO have a problem with Game, which again, is fine, but to me is your problem, not anyone else’s. That doesn’t mean that there’s no room for critique of it or surrounding issues – there are – but to drone on and on about how “this” Woman wouldn’t be swayed by it, or how “a real guy” wouldn’t need to do thus and so in order to get a “real” Woman, is just downright silly. Once one gets to be a certain age they’re supposed to be just a weebit more pragmatic. There are all kinds of guys who do extremely well with Women who wouldn’t make it a week in bootcamp, who don’t workout, find “manly work” to be anathema, you name it. That tells us that clearly, the rules of attraction have to be just a weebit more expansive than we may want it to be.
3. Most Americans will NEVER ski, “slalom” or otherwise; at present, most adult Americans are NOT college educated, either. That means, that most Americans will NEVER be a foreign exchange student, most likely won’t travel outside the country in any event, and won’t do all the things you frequently talked about ad nauseum. Please stop discussing these things, as they have no place or utility in this forum. We must instead stay focused on what Americans, the majority of them, actually ARE doing, particularly along mating lines. This is why I have taken to discussing these matters in the way I have. I was hoping you’d notice by now.
4. That there are Women in this world who would not be swayed by Game, or the vast majority of attractive behaviors displayed by most guys, is a given not needing to be mentioned under any other circumstance. Indeed, that there are such Women around, receiving fewer and fewer approaches in our time, I think says more about them, than anything else, as many guys, regardless as to their own skillset levels, are coming to the correct conclusion that said ladies just aren’t worth the hassle of being bothered.
5. You have to understand thaat we live in a different world, and regaling us with how you did things back in the day really isn’t gonna get it NOW. Again, how many more guys in this very forum, need to point this out to you so you can finally get the hint?
Richard, I respect your service to our country, and I honor your life as a productive American citizen. But really, you cannot help guys of our age. Neither could my dad, or grand dad. This just ain’t their time.
Or yours.
For better or for worse, we live in a different age that for calls for a different skillset. It is, what it is, and us going back and forth over it ad infinitum, will not change a blessed thing, nor will it actuaally help the guys who come here for some insight and instruction. I get that’s not your thing, but it is mine, and when J4G ceases being forward leaning in that regard, is the day I’m heading for the exits.
I do want to thank you for one thing, though – you were so right about my needing to check going back and forth with folks, especially when it is clear that they ain’t trying to hear a blessed thing I’m saying. So, with that said, this will be my final comment on the topic.
I’ll give you the last word.
O.
#301: “I don’t buy the comparison with cancer. For example, Asperger figured out the syndrome in 1944. So, eventually, it became a syndrome in the shrinks’ manual. So we started counting it sometime after 1944. New numbers, no proof of change in real life.
If you like ev psych, think about how nuts–who’s actually nuts here?–it is to put a six-year old behind a desk and expect him to stay there for at least twelve years. In the old days, kids might have left school, one way or another, at the age of ten. Or twelve. And negative sanctions were, by today’s standards, extreme. But they could get a restive twelve-year old’s attention. Today, a kid who can’t keep his attention on what interests the teacher has ADD, and if he fidgets, it’s ADHD. Up the numbers, no idea of actual change.”
You’re right about the above, IMO.
The history of psychiatry is repleat with examples of mental disorders coming and going. To name a few: Social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, gender identity disorder, multiple personality disorder, anorexia, and chronic fatigue syndrome were once seen as rare or nonexistent, then suddenly ballooned in popularity.
This is not simply because people decided to “come out”, or became newly aware of their problems…It is because most mental disorders have a social component. Prozac isn’t prescribed like candy because so many more people than ever before are truly clinically depressed today. Nor are children so attention deficit that one in every six or seven boys truly needs ritalin.
Correction on the above ritalin statistic. Just checked. It’s up to one in every five boys now.
Liz,
That’s what I’d heard, five. Obscene.
O. Regaling is not for the point of pointing out my wonderfulness. It’s to make the point that one is not what one IS, but what one DOES. Airborne, exchange students, whatever. It does not descend upon you without effort. So if you want to BE something, you have to DO something. And once you have accomplished it, you are NOT it, you are one who DOES it or one who DID it
IOW, pointing out that people aren’t what I am, or haven’t done what I did is irrelevant. The point is that if Tyrone wants to BE somebody, he’s going to have to DO something. DO it. Whatever it is.
You missed the point on skiing slalom, as well. I said my DiL and her younger sister were champion barrel racers. What, I asked, do you have to do to impress them on the risk continuum? Ski slalom, maybe? [Won’t do it.]
Game does not particularly bother me on an emotional level. I do enjoy discussing the issue. Social issues and psychological issues follow my educational interests. So I am interested, and particularly in discussing the arguments made pro and con.
I am not giving advice. Not my problem.
One reason I talk about my early life in the SMP–which I didn’t notice–is that,, without my attempting anything in it, certain things happened. Which means they happened without my attempting them, meaning they happened without me. But they still happened, which clears up the discussion about the reason. Due to me being Captain Oblivious, this is a non-standard situation without a pesky variable messing things up. Might be something useful there. Had I been an average guy working his way through the SMP, there wouldn’t likely wouldn’t have been anything useful.
I saw guys trying to fake it, back in the day. Difference is, probably, that it now has a name.
I watched my kids and their friends in real time, and watched others when I worked with various groups including kids. Chaperoned dances and field trips and youth projects. I’m not completely without exposure to the issue from, say, 1992 onward.
The sluttification of society is apparent, but there were some “easy” girls back then. Difference was they didn’t advertise as they do today, not so obvious. As to numbers…hard to know.
But the reason for being concerned about a “change” seems odd. Things today are as they are. Why bother about a change?
Had a thought about Pajamaboy:
Ad agencies think they know their markets, thus they claim they can gin up an ad to appeal to the market the client wants. So somebody came up with Pajamaboy figuring it would appeal to…..somebody.
Some of the fuss about P-boy is the assumption that there is a market which would be impressed [gack!] by his appearance and the subliminal cues he throws off so we throw up.
What if they’re wrong? What if P-boy annoys practically everybody? In that case, our view of at least one subculture is off.
There’s another culture or subculture. People who make music videos try very hard to appeal to their target market.
See the folks in this video–not including the performers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skAOb_EUE_M
Okay, if that didn’t work, youtube to “Boondocks” and pick the one with the pic of folks on a pickup truck.
No metrosexuals there.
Maybe the people who put that together are right about our culture(s).
@ Richard
Well, things aren’t nearly so clear cut. Journalists/researchers often write about the “average age of first marriage” which sounds like it should be a mean, but it is actually the median. On the other hand, journalists/researchers often talk about life expectancy as “how long the average person lives” which sounds like it should be a median, but it is actually a mean.
To complicate things, there are different types of means, the most common being arithmetic mean, root-mean-square, geometric mean, and harmonic mean.
Actually, depending on what you mean by “knock off”, it could move. If the people in the bottom fifth all disappear from the sample, for example, then it would shift the median, as the person who used to be in the 60th percentile will now be the person in the 50th percentile (i.e. the median).
It means that any given person has a 50/50 chance of marrying before or after that. It’s a very simple way of capturing the reality for the non-apex/unicorn population.
Honestly, I find your hair-splitting here to be in bad faith. First, in response to your claim that culture/society perhaps has not changed all that much, ADBG pointed out that the age of first marriage has gone up dramatically. You then argued that the average age of first marriage could be affected by outliers and thus the typical age of first marriage might not have changed all that much. I then clarified that the average age of first marriage is a median, not a mean, so it shouldn’t be affected by the outliers. You then reversed your tune and complained that median doesn’t take into account the outliers…
Look, it’s true that summary statistics don’t always accurately convey the whole picture. Fortunately, we have a plethora of posts here at JFG breaking down the age of first marriage…
Sir Nemesis
Let’s take an extreme example: The average weight of the football team with and without including the defensive line. Big difference; mean or median. Nobody gains or loses an ounce by varying the math.
I have several points about this:
Let’s assume the earliest batch, say barely legal through nineteen, practically disappears. The median remains the same. The mean changes. What difference does this make for most guys in the SMP? Let’s presume the age at first marriage changes because, instead of graduating high school and marrying, they’re–both–graduating college. What difference does this make for the guys in the SMP? Among other things, I suppose, more chances to fool around on the way to marital bliss. And then, so? We now have the hi/lo N argument, the women four years closer to losing their sexual wonderfulness maximum, etc. But we’re talking about weddings here, not how marriages fare thereafter. You have to solve all those problems to get married in order to be in the stats about being married.
Couple of years ago, I heard a grrlpower woman talking to her grrlpower daughter–single–about how half of the women in the country are happily unmarried. By luck, I ran across the article she was referencing. It was so bad, by the NYT, that even the NYT noticed. They started with fifteen-year olds who, along with their sisters one and two years older, might be said to be unmarried for reasons other than doubts about the institution in general. Not enough, so they used widows. Still needed to get over 50% so they used women who were married but whose husbands were deployed.
Not the first or last example of why advocates’ numbers should be investigated to within a gnat’s eyelash.
I haven’t said society hasn’t changed. I’ve said that the assertion that it has changed in such a way that game is now necessary when it was not necessary before is not proven.
On top of which, I saw guys trying to make themselves look good when I started paying attention nearly fifty years ago, some effort which could be described as game. So trying now is not a change. The organization, if such it is, is new.
Let’s talk about median. It’s the middle. Not the mode which is the most frequent, and not the mean which is the arithmetic. Outliers.
Take a ruler twelve inches long. The median is six inches. Cut off two inches–outliers. The median is no longer the six inch mark.
So, if almost all the barely-legal decide to wait, the mean moves somewhat, but not the median. And it’s probably the mean which makes the most difference. If the legal age moves up by, say, two years, the median moves up quite briskly, but the mean does not move by much because there were so few in that cohort getting married anyway compared to the rest.
However, correcting for causes which do not make much difference for the guys in the SMP who, we presume, are not sniffing around the junior high, do we have a change which affects them much, if at all?
And, let’s say there’s a change in the age of first marriage which is significant. What does that mean?
I’ll say society has changed. My point is whether it has changed in such a way as to substantially affect the SMP.
And then, for better or for worse? Any of you want to go back to the putative SMP of, say, 1965? Yes? Why? No? Why?
Since guys were trying to make themselves look good one way or another back then, and they were, what is the difference?
One difference is that the practitioners of today’s game would say they are red-pilling it. Smarter than the blue-pill wimps back in the day when there weren’t so many wimps–no, I don’t understand it either–who were so unimpressive and who didn’t understand women’s real nature that they were getting married earlier. This is confusing.
The other issue is that the SMP, whatever it is now is whatever it is. What is the point about the change? What help is it in navigating the SMP to make assertions about a supposed change?
Suppose the first-encounter shit test likelihood has doubled. So? It is what it is.
Are you pleased things have changed or are you envious of us old farts’ fun times?
When did hypergamy take off? Everybody has an idea, if they’re interested. Mine would be that, if it really did, it would have been when women’s numbers in conventional employment–offices and retail and suchlike–increased so that their exposure to many more men allowed them to see what was out there. You need the exposure to free up the urge, I suppose some would say. And that might start taking off late in the nineteenth century. It would accelerate when women went away to college. Even more exposure. The Thirties, maybe. Add in travel now financially available to young people for vacations and fun weekends. Even more exposure. So maybe it got its last boost starting maybe twenty years ago. So?
It is what it is. The history of the change, should there have been a change significantly affecting the SMP does you what good in the current SMP?
I suppose it depends on what you want out of the SMP. From what I hear, a quick bang is easier arranged than in the old days. Anything else?
A quick bang is only easier to obtain if your an Alpha or if you apply some game. For the average beta guy it’s actually no easier, and possibly harder. Make the bastards wait until they’re 30-35 before the women notice them and the now acceptable plan B guys are faced with an SMP and MMP where the bulk of the offerings are warmed over left-overs, and used scratch and dent families, unless these guys learn some game and chase after younger women. If the guys don’t figure out the game and get some game before they hit 40…well it’s pretty much game over.
The big change in the last 50 years that has only been touched on is the economy. In the past women didn’t compete for jobs with men. Now, everyone competes for work. Everyone is economically independent. The ability of a man to sell himself as stable, reliable provider based on a middle class income is zero. A single middle class income doesn’t support a family. Women won’t settle for a wage disparity that makes them equal to or greater than the man. Men are now expected to exceed the woman’s income level, and compete with them for the honor of earning that income.
Add to that the fact the economy doesn’t like men. HR departments, sensitivity training, sexual harassment policies that have no objective definition of harassment and the work place is a mine field. Even job fields still dominated by men have been tainted by anti productive pro-woman policies. Throw in affirmative action, which favors white women the most, and you’ve got a situation where men generally are handicapped when comes to getting a job. Look at scholarships designed to increase the number of women in male dominated fields at a time when more women are in college than men. The message is clear men aren’t wanted.
And let’s not forget this economy sucks with teeth and spits it back in your face. Between the avarice of BIGCORP. and the incompetence of government there is little likelihood of growing out of this mess. If your job doesn’t require you to be physically present to get it done it will be sent to India, China or where ever BIGCORP. and the Gov. can find a favor and a dollar.
With all that has changed because of women’s lib and the economy the things that stay the same are that men still take all the risks of approach, buy the drinks, still pay for dates, and do most of the work in getting something started. Women just have to show up.
Badpainter.
That’s a useful compendium of changes which might affect the SMP.
However. Later marriages mean more single women around at any given age. Good? Bad?
Women don’t need men as support? I suppose that’s true, but for how long have pink-collar jobs been sufficient for support for a single woman–presuming she rooms with another single woman? That would require some stat research including cost of living over time back a couple of decades, or even half a century. So if it were possible, it wasn’t a question of marry or starve. About all I remember is minmimum wage $1.85, gas thirty cents and a stamp three cents. That was in the mid-sixties. Not much help.
So I guess the question is…who would prefer then to now as guys wandering around the various SMP? And why?
Now, if it were necessary to marry some clown in order to eat–as in early nineteenth-century agriworld and earlier–but ten or twenty years have passed, where are the divorces as a matter of women suddenly figuring out they don’t have to screw for room and board any longer?
Yeah, I know. MRA and all that. Point is numbers of divorces, not results. According to the MRA, gettig divorced is fat city for women. If it were economics, hardly anybody would still be married.
Something else going on.
Maybe there was something besides economics involved?
Given that the gender wage gap doesn’t exist and hasn’t for 20 years or more there is no reason to assume an economic disadvantage for women. In fact for younger people women now exceed men in earning power.
Divorce rates are legacy data. Why get divorced if you can first never get married.
Look at a increase in rates of out of wedlock births for women who are definitely old enough to know better.
Economics is not the sole driver but it is a foundational driver as it especially impacts the traditional role men play, abd how they play that role in society and within the SMP/MMP.
Whether Game is “necessary” really distracts from the issue of whether:
1. Game Works
2. You should learn Game
Oft-times I mention my one friend who gets 2 or 3 first dates a month, but rarely manages to pull a second date. His mom even tells me act more jerkish, and has suggested he reads Fifty Shades of Gray to learn more about women and learn to be more dominant. Note: a suburban house-wives group told me the same exact same thing.
Quite frankly, it did not teach me anything, but did encourage me to become more dismissive.
Anyways!
This friend finally went on an unheard-of third date. Stop the presses! Men don’t need Game! Nice Guys do finish first! Etc!
I have not met the new girl yet, but apparently she is a geeky science girl. Small pool to fish in, if that’s all guys like him can pull. You can say he doesn’t “need game” based on this one success story, but that ignores the YEARS of shelling out for dinner on first dates. It ignores the months he mourned specific girls with one-it is. It ignores that he could not find girls IRL and had to resort to online dating.
Most guys are good enough to get SOME play once in a while. The species would not have evolved otherwise. All our pertinent ancestors have been cocky enough, dominant enough, attractive enough, etc. to find someone to have sex with.
Hell, even I was not entirely without female attention. However, the girls were often ugly as sin, and I would often squander any attraction I had with girls that were even remotely attractive. That is not the story today.
The overall social question is whether the SMP has become harder for run-of-mill the guys and whether they need to try harder and need some extra skills to get the same results previous generations had.
I can’t prove that, one or way or another. What does your intuition tell you?
“According to the MRA, gettig divorced is fat city for women. If it were economics, hardly anybody would still be married. Something else going on.Maybe there was something besides economics involved?”
Divorces with children are usually catastrophic, financially, for both parties (so are long term breakups with kids….basically, when kids enter the equation everything changes).
It’s a lot cheaper to run one functioning interdependent household than two broken independent ones. The big problem: Most women don’t think about the consequences of divorce when they demand one (accountability and personal responsibility is a bitter pill, and it comes too late in life for a lot of people, the more coddled the person the later it is, and she’s receiving all kinds of positive reinforcement to leave that awful man and “you deserve more girlfriend!” no coincidence that divorces tend to happen in pairs and groups)…
I’ve seen a LOT of buyer’s remorse on that front, long after the horse was kicked out of the barn so violently he eventually bolted. That horse is gamboling away happily in the fresh air eating apples and now she’s trying to bring him back with sugar cubes, when he doesn’t come back she’s throwing rocks at him and demanding more money and blaming him for her poor life choices.
Back to the topic…as I’ve said before I do think women like men to lead them. They are instinctively distrustful of mates that they feel they have to lead. Taking this argument to an extreme: That “independent woman” might talk a big game but imagine the moment there’s a bump in the night and SHE has to be the one to check on things while he shivers in the bed and yells “Is everything okay out there, honey?”
And I do think there’s a sort of underlying agenda that hates all things male which has tried to push men into becoming pajama boys. I see it in the school system with my sons. One of my sons was competing at the district science fair yesterday (junior level). When the highschool level went up to the stage, the female principal stated, “I’m proud to notice that every single one of these winners is a female! Isnt’ that great!” and the audience applauded. I wondered if I was the only one in the room to note the different levels of irony within that short statement.
The closer men are to being just like women physically and emotionally, the easier it is to dismiss them as irrelevant. So I’d tell pajama boy to fake it on the outside if he has to, because no one is going to respect him if he stays in those pajamas sheepishly sipping hot cocoa for rest of his natural life.
#313 “A quick bang is only easier to obtain if your an Alpha or if you apply some game.” Yes, this discussion revolves around whether or not Game improves some non-alpha’s chances in the SMP (not necessarily the MMP).
Historically, pre-Pill, pre-women’s lib etc, I believe there were quite bit smaller percentages of women being whorish, i.e. being quite active participants in the nonMMP SMP, than there were men. The percentage of men that women ALLOW to be quite active (e.g. more than sexless < 10 times per year) in the nonMMP SMP has been variously pegged at 20%. I don't think that has changed as much, maybe from 10 or 15% historically "all the way" up to now 20%.
In contrast I think the available young women's whore percentage has increased dramatically, from below 10% to over 50%. The allowed-to-be-active guys now get many more quick bangs than they usta could (usta with a long u), but the majority of men still get none.
In fact, the study of Game is probably EXACTLY the study of what that extra 5% of non-alpha men were doing that upped their chances in the SMP.
#316 “The overall social question is whether the SMP has become harder for run-of-mill the guys and whether they need to try harder and need some extra skills to get the same results previous generations had.”
I truly don’t think so. I think run-of-the-mill guys had a slightly *harder* time in the SMP in previous generations, albeit a much easier time in the MMP. Imagine, if you will, Don Draper’s (or whoever) skinny mailroom clerk in the 1950s tryna score with the laydees at the club. What club? What laydees?
Our society’s problem is that the MMP for young people has decayed away, like last Halloween’s pumpkins, the rottenness in its hulk (correct usage, btw) increasing the sheer volume of the mushy furzy smelly gunk that is the SMP in which ancient reproductive practices flourish quite nastily.
#317 “The closer men are to being just like women physically and emotionally, the easier it is to dismiss them as irrelevant.” Yes. The men’s manly workplace achievments “I revolutionized entire industries plural! But I have a pencil neck.”, manly accoutrements “My glasses can beat up your glasses! But I have a weak chin.”, dominance of conversations “I tell the best stories! But sympathetically.”, etc etc etc. None of it is relevant to women treating a man as a man, except his brute physical strength and his brutish emotional states. That is all.
#320: Are you disagreeing with my point? Hard to say.
Really, I’m not sure if it’s some intended backhanded sarcasm…
The woman’s feminine achievements “I sew the best quilts in five counties! But I have a thick, burly and hirsute neck.” Accoutrements “I have scores of the best Prada purses…but I have a man-jaw” Submission in conversations “I’m a great listener! But have a deep bellowing laugh like Quasimodo swinging from a churchbell.” etc ect. None of it is relevant to men treating a man like a woman, except her weakness and unstable emotional states. That is all.
Sorry, a woman like a woman for the last. Freudian slip I’m sure.
#321 I am agreeing that women dismiss, as irrelevant to women, those men who fail to be sufficiental brutal. I consider that a fault of women, however, and not a fault of men.
#324: Then you are “agreeing” with something I neither said, nor implied.
I don’t equate masculinity with brutality. I don’t equate “being like women” with “un-brutish” and being unlike women as brutish. That sounds very much like something out of Jezebel.
When I look at the men in the photo at the top of this forum I see a group of masculine looking men, not brutes who are either “brutal” or “brutish”.
When I see this guy: https://twitter.com/BarackObama/statuses/413079861922508800
I see a person who needs a lifesaving testosterone patch.
Some things may have changed. Visiting some friends for dinner. I inquired as to the identity of the guy in the picture frame. “My great grandfather, killed at Shiloh. Twenty-fourth Tennesee Infantry”
Just looking at the guy. I don’t care what kind of stud you are, you’d break eye contact first. And he enlisted at the age of forty-four. literally, you don’t see many physiognomies, or eyes, like that any longer. If you think guys need to maintain a frame, this guy had it sleeping off a drunk.
#326 Masculine physical strength is more brute strength than female physical strength, so “less like a woman” physically is more brute-like. ‘Tis. Similarly “less like a woman” emotionally means more ALPHA male-ish which by definition is more forceful, dominant, and dark triad-ish i.e. more brutal. I understand your discomfort.
Strange then that when first-world modern society was more masculine it was also comparatively less brutal.
Men disregard women who look and act like men. Clearly then women who hope to attract men must be sufficiently emotional unstable and feeble.
#329 Not strange.
1) Monogamy is when men are in charge. The men don’t like being brutal to each other; it hurts. So they have a gentleman’s agreement to be civilized and divvy up the women equitably. Everyone is happier being civilized, but the feminine imperative is leashed and muzzled.
2) Effective polygamy is when women are in charge. The men have to be brutal to each other, and parenthetically brutal to women, to get any women. Everyone is unhappier being uncivilized, but the feminine imperative is loosed and rampant.
Mannish looking women who treat men well are the first to get married.
“Mannish looking women who treat men well are the first to get married.”
Surely you are joking.
You did share your first marriage courting story.
Sure didn’t sound like you were in eager pursuit of Mrs Mannish. Not many are, in my experience.
Liz. Once in a while you see a couple that makes you go, ‘hmmmm”.
#332 and I thank you for reading it. I had asked out over a dozen girls in high school, racking up a solid string of about twenty no-hitters. Total absolute zero, despite solely concentrating on girls rumored to not be totally repulsed by me. Since a lot of them were in my advanced classes, I have to say their looks weren’t highly weighted in my decision. In college, I didn’t bother asking out hardly any girls more than once, so by the time of my junior year I had only had been turned down even for a date, even for a coke and a smile, only about fifty times. Still total absolute zero, 0-for-50. I probably would have eagerly pursued any woman that first said yes, as evidenced by the fact that I did.
My high school valedictorian (I was third, for reasons beyond my power) was a handsome but mannish looking girl who won state awards in home ec. She got married before our senior year, and took no actual classes that spring (she had more than enough hours to graduate already; I had the record for the most number of hours.) and she was nine months pregnant when she gave her well-received graduation speech.
One of the many faults of the sexual revolution is that it destroyed the inculcation of young women to become happy homemakers and sandwich-makers. It gave false hope to unattractive women that, just like attractive women, they could spread their legs and ensnare a man.
#332 also wife goggles. I must admit any girl that I was in love with was the most beautiful girl, not vice versa necessarily. I am not, um, something-able (autonomous? self-aware? good enough?) to correct my own perceptions for having been in love. It is beyond my power to calibrate for infatuation, to deconvolute the effects of limerence. However I can say for a fact that it was signs of a woman’s appreciation of me, her apparent desire to please me, that seemed to cause my falling in love.
#335 slight correction. I also shared my second marriage courting story, in which her offputting behavior was insufficient to put me off pursuit, and yes my pursuit in part was because of her unmannish looks. But I aver that in the previous decade I had dated some better looking women (some; maybe a half dozen out of several dozens) but never pursued any of them because they showed no interest in pleasing me and showed too much interest in pleasing other men. Hence the other part that powered my pursuit was knowing she had not been interested in other men but seemed to warm up to me relatively quickly (relative to other women).
I am here wondering about the wife goggles concept, as applied to each woman I have felt in love with. I’m not sure the wife goggles ever go away totally. despite what some men have said about suddenly waking up next to an old woman. Or maybe I’m just feeling sentimental, sniffle.
Interesting debate/discussion in the commments of this post:
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2014/01/cane-caldo-is-not-chesterton.html
Richard, looks like you have a compatriot in newtonsfoot
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2014/01/cane-caldo-is-not-chesterton.html?showComment=1390770652150#c6292360359359110047
Grandpa didn’t need to know game to know that he needed to portray an image of strength and vitality.
Morpheus:
Those commenters need a hobby.
That said, normal masculinity is not born, and normal males are necessary to a boy’s growth.
To the extent they are not available, bad things are more likely. As it happens, the single-mom kids are more likely, across SES, to have unfortunate life outcomes. Most of those involve either bearing kids out of wedlock, or dropping out of school, or encountering the criminal justice system, or promiscuity.
There are no stats for the increased number of passive betas. So, as with other issues, we don’t know. We can certainly presume.
A passive-beta approach to life in general is surely unfortunate. No doubt it sloshes over to the SMP activities. Not sure that faking it in bars and clubs is going to do it for any length of time. Eventually, the beta and the woman are going to encounter a situation in which beta is not recommended and All Will Be Made Clear.
More or less on point: Had some folks over for dinner the other night. The guy said that about thirteen years ago, he spotted an old trumpet in an antique shop. Bought it and decided to learn to play it. So he did. I prefer guitars. Practice on guitars isn’t so annoying, but it wasn’t my basement.
So he plays happily in several local groups.
This was an alpha-life move which, according to Game, would cause a woman to be more interested in him than otherwise. Not exactly taking life by the throat, but right up there. Beats being able to recite blocks of NCIS dialogue, although some guys might argue.
But hauling around a trumpet and accidentally aiming the spit valve at your intended while trying to do the Maynard Ferguson thing–high-C over a cat figh–probably isn’t quite the thing.
Now, I don’t know about Grandpa knowing he had to maintain an appearance of vitality and masculine energy. That was probably him, on account of that’s how you got through life. The real him.
Those commenters need a hobby.
Richard, like us?
That said, normal masculinity is not born, and normal males are necessary to a boy’s growth.
So what is your suggestion for men who reach adulthood without the proper development of masculinity?
Probably too late.
They can learn to fake game. Might help, here and there.
Not sure how to make them mature men.
richardaubrey-
“Probably too late. They can learn to fake game. Might help, here and there.
Not sure how to make them mature men.”
Which when I read it says:
“You’re fucked. Deal with it. But don’t even try to fix it. You’re not worthy. Have you considered suicide?”
Badpainter.
I didn’t say don’t try to fix it. But, among other things, the guy is unlikely to know what, exactly, is the problem. It looks different from the inside, I expect.
You have any ideas?
Keep in mind that we don’t know whether growing up sans male role models increases the prospect of betaness. Could be we’re increasing the number of blustering bullies who encounter the criminal justice system at the age of twelve or something. In fact, we know that’s what happens. Any thought about more betas is sheer presumption.
My father was a hell of a male role model, but, birds and bees notwithstanding, he never said a word directly about the SMP or women in general.
I don’t know if was because of this that I had my odd time in the SMP, but it may have been. OTOH, could have been something else. Considering the issue, it probably was something else.
He knew the score. He had a friend with four daughters. One fixed activity in preparing for college for each of them was to go to lunch with my Dad and get the scoop about guys.
But I guess he figured I was doing okay in high school–which I suppose I was–and could take care of myself later on.
But, anyway, there are people who are the way they are and there’s no fixing them.
Keep in mind that we don’t know whether growing up sans male role models increases the prospect of betaness. Could be we’re increasing the number of blustering bullies who encounter the criminal justice system at the age of twelve or something. In fact, we know that’s what happens. Any thought about more betas is sheer presumption.
I think it can go either way depending on a variety of factors. FWIW, I know two guys raised by single mothers, no father or strong male role models, and they both are the quintessential supplicating betas. Their daily life philosophy is basically “Yes Dear”. One is actually a close friend, but I have not yet spoken of Red Pill stuff to him. He is not ready yet, and I tend to be very careful what I say to who regarding this entire topic. I have an extra copy of Rollo’s book sitting in my home office for him, when he is ready for it.
I can’t say for certain what the answer is. But I do know for a certainty that anyone who is not, nor ever has been in this situation is almost certainly incapable of giving useful and actionable advice. I find the discussion about how this came to be to be both interesting and often of no actual use in finding a solution. The only thing that matters is the now and how to fix the immediate problems. Problems which exist today and which are personal. We/I can’t wait for the best solution to arrive.
I haven’t a damn to give about people in general, or society, or any other group construct. But I am happy to join like minded individuals in the common cause of finding the answers and more importantly working, actionable solutions. Anything that works for me is good. If it works for me I am happy to share that information with others who need/want it. I have no interest in the approval of people who disagree, don’t understand, or simply find the status quo to be OK.
My issue with you’re statement is the characterization of “fake game” there is no such thing. All game is real. Some of it is ineffectual, but still no less real. A man who never has to consciously use game tactics will not understand. Denial of the efficacy of game is denial of reality. Only by trial and error and practice can someone gain a skill. We of the Beta class were never given the tools to learn these skills. There is no effort on the part of others to provide us this information. In fact there is great outside resistance to us learning these skills. In my case there was intentional lifelong programming to achieve the opposite of game aware and masculine, I was raised to be a Beta by design. Men without, who didn’t have, good role models and mentors have no options but to solve these problems ourselves. We have to be our own fathers.
I would go further still and say there is terror in the hearts of non-beta men, most plugged in betas and most all women that we might actually internalize these skills. Why? Because the first axiom of game is that one must believe in himself, trust his own instincts and be ready to ignore any and all outside opinions, and dispense with useless people with extreme prejudice. The mystique of the natural alpha is erased, when everyman can learn the skill, they might not get as much pussy, or have as much power over lesser men. Women presenting themselves as mysterious and mercurial is the only power they have. Without it they have to do uncomfortable, unpleasant things like act responsibly and with agency.
When a man is desperate to find a meaningful purpose to his life a tool that works is valuable. When a man uses that tool successfully he gains the confidence he is told he needs. When he takes responsibility for his successes and failures he become self directed. He no longer needs, nor wants to be controlled by others, no longer is he an a object of pity. The best part is he no longer cares about all that. Because he is free.
Badpainter.
“When a man is desperate to find a meaningful purpose….”
I suspect you’re right. However, the man who feels desperate is not necessarily aware that he is desperate for a purpose in life. No telling how that might play out. That’s why there is a bottom shelf at the liquor store. Some things are clearer….
My point about fake game is that which is about picking up women. IOW, the game most closely associated with PUA.
None of your last graf has to do with that kind of game.
Problem. ( I don’t want to scroll around looking it up because sure as God made green apples I’ll lose my place). But one commenter referred to his GF as wanting him to tell her what to do about a job, possibly including relocating.
I am reminded of the Promise Keepers–who may still be around but I don’t know–who said they unfairly ceded leadership to their wives and thought they should take it back. Supposedly, the wives thought this was a good idea because leadership requires….responsibility. And work. Why should they do it all? There was some talk about given roles and so forth, but the main point was…work.
A lot of people would rather have a total-body workout with a patch of poison ivy than make any decision which might have even the most miniscule downside. And when you have a decision like that, you have to know the territory, so to speak. Which requires work. And then you have to make it work, whether it’s starting a business or deciding which grandma to see first on vacation. And take the heat if it doesn’t work, or if it does work but somebody’s annoyed anyway. And repair things if it doesn’t work.
My father was an Infantry officer in the ETO. I asked him what he thought about it and he said if he’d known what it would be like, he wouldn’t have taken a commission. You get to decide who dies today, or possibly in the next hour. He has three Purple Hearts, and he has a Silver Star, which means he wasn’t too shabby at it. His citation ends with saying the German attack was repulsed “with minimal loss”. which is different from “no loss”.
That’s the high side. Whether or not to rejigger the family to home-school. Change jobs. Which treatment for childhood cancer. How to arrange vacation. All less, or at least somewhat less, stressful.
But not without the stress of knowing that, at least, one of the kids is going to piss and moan about the vacation.
Beta isn’t without its comforts.
You have to be self-sufficient because from time to time, everybody’s going to be annoyed with you. And if things work out, the likelihood anybody will apologize for giving you a hard time is pretty slim. I made up a saying: Virtue is its own reward because there isn’t any other.
Being a supplicating beta in a marriage is pretty bad to see, but you never know if the guy is comfortable not taking alpha roles. Maybe he shouldn’t have done that. Maybe he was potential wasted. Maybe from time to time he gets annoyed about something he can’t quite pin down. It’s unlikely he’s going to start using alpha/game tools to move himself up unless he is truly unhappy about it. And that might mean looking that the prospect of, metaphorically speaking, getting a commission.
richardaubrey- “My point about fake game is that which is about picking up women. IOW, the game most closely associated with PUA.
None of your last graf has to do with that kind of game.”
It’s all connected. Every. Last. Bit.
I think concerns about fake game are a sort of white knighting that needs to cease. Game can only be learned when it’s applied in the field. That means some number of silly girls are going to fall for it. That’s life. Women have agency, and responsibility and if they don’t want to be gamed they don’t have to be.
When I read “The Game” I already had a passing familiarity with the PUA subculture. I thought they ridiculous fools. I didn’t believe what they were saying was or could be true. In reading that book I was both entertained and provoked to consider some of the ideas that underpinned their actions.
Now I am the type guy who doesn’t read like everyone else. I see connections that may not exist except in my own mind. As a result I think of Total Quality Management, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and The Game as being the same book told in different languages for different audiences for different purposes. All contain information that is sort of an instruction manual, or recipe, but all of them are more about finding a mental space to address a particular set of problems. Addressing those problems first requires an awareness of the problem. Solving a problem requires knowledge either gained through experiment or borrowed from others who face similar problems. If one wants genuine long term solutions there need to an internalization of both awareness of reality as it is, awareness of one’s own self in the most honest terms, and knowledge of the skills necessary to act in a way that will generate positive results. The magic understanding is that the problems never entirely go away they will always be there ready to harsh one’s mellow. The goal isn’t to fix everything but to be aware of how to deal with reality in a self directed way.
The game aspect of knowing the alchemy of gina tingles is more than just scoring hot chicks. Although that is the short term goal of the PUA, and many non-PUAs obviously. It’s crucial that that set of skills be developed. Being a guy that never wins with women only teaches that guy how to be a loser…in everything. Winning, with the knowledge of why, is what allows a guy to decide if the game is worth the effort, the energy, the time, and the agony of defeat. Never winning is a slow road to misery and the complete loss of self worth. The desperation of loneliness is the cause of oneitis, and many failed marriages. Because the Betas lack game as a tactic and game as a philosophy they are slaves to their dicks, and their hearts. I sure was, hell I still am to some large extent.
I don’t go about evangelizing game of any kind or the red-pill, after I am still just a student and I have long way to go to claim any sort of mastery or show meaningful results. BUT if I get the chance I’ll drop little bits of received wisdom, maybe send a friend in need an link to a blog post with note that says “I thought this was interesting what do you think.” Since I’ve been doing things like that for years with all manner of subjects it’s not out of character for me. The poor schlubs that remain plugged in are sadly sort of on their own. They’ll either reach a breaking point where they find game or they’ll find the cheap booze. I hope this site and the others are here when they when they reach that point. They deserve a choice.
#346 “The desperation of loneliness is the cause of oneitis” Yes and no. Oneitis also causes the desperation of loneliness since a man in love is automatically beta.
[…] the cards when it comes to the mating dance. As I’ve previously shown in my post about the false dichotomy between Inner and Outer Game, such “myth busting” notions actually gives us Manospherians a golden opportunity to […]
Female comment
This blog is very interesting and I have learned much about how life looks from the male point of view. What men secretly feel, need, want in the way of a romantic/love/insert appropriate phrase partership. In many cases touchingly so. I wanted to share my story w game, from the female perspective. I recently ended a 5 month dating relationship mainly because of some behaviors that were confusing to me at the time but I now see we’re game tactics like make her jealous, be hot/cold, disappear occasionally, the neg, and others. I couldn’t understand why this really neat guy who I was really interested in and he seemed really interested in a LTR w me, would act in these ways that created mistrust and anxiety, needlessly. The game tactics actually poisoned the well so to speak, building walls and shells that eventually led to me walking away from a guy who I otherwise adored, thought was an amazing, intelligent, and interesting man. A man I could have seen myself easily handing the reins to and following for life. Except for the behaviors I now see were game david deangelo style. I wish he could have seen I liked (loved!) who he was, he didnt need game to get me or keep me. In fact it did the opposite, it drove me away. I made mistakes apleanty too and wish i could have seen his game for what it was and told him from a soft space its ok, i love you, you dont need that stuff to keep me. In fact, its hurting me, and us. Instead I just got mad and confrontational which pushed him away And the spiral was on. I agree dating and relationships in this day and age is all kinds of messed up. Gender confusion plus so many people coming from divorced or dysfunctional homes themselves thanks to that confusion make it really hard. Talking about all that, how messed up the male/female dynamic is today like in this blog, is a great step in the right direction. Hopefully we can get beyond game, or games, and get back to a place where women and men admit we need the other and it’s ok. It’s not weak, or anti female, or anti male. Pretty much Everyone wants true, deep, real love and passion, that once in a lifetime, that two halfs make a whole connection. Or at least I know I do. I like the writing of David Deida which I discovered after my breakup and am studying now. What he describes is really beautiful. I hope I can be that woman and find that man and both of us spend the rest of our lives loving the heck out of each other. Wouldn’t that be grand? So in short, game with caution. It can be really destructive and counterproductive if what you want is a partner and mate, not just another breakup, short term thing, or ultimately frustration. Use game to reel her in perhaps but if she’s a keeper, land the catch, celebrate your luck, and stop fishing! 
just my two cents.
@Bloom
The key with “game” is knowing when to use which pieces. If you were really into him and he kept pushing you away and attempting to neg you (most men suck at negs and should avoid them and simply tease sometimes in a way that puts a smile on her face) then he didn’t understand game. Game is simply meant to increase your chances of getting a girl (for whatever your purpose is, long or short term).
If he already had you then he was a fool for not recognizing that (though I have no idea how clear you made it to him). And if all he did was clumsily push you away with excessive things like making you jealous, ignoring you and so on then it’s on him for not properly applying game.
Most guys are too needy and so they need to implement more push because their tendency is to only pull and that excessive interest, especially too soon, drives women away. The push, the teasing, the negs (negs were developed to get a woman to lower her bitch shield, not to continually bombard her with them once she opens up), etc. should be used as antidotes to the typical man’s neediness and falling in love sooner than most women do. The more pushful sides of game (like disappearing, dread, etc.) aren’t meant to be a steady diet once the woman is really into the man.
Relationships evolve and as the woman is more into the man he can and should be more loving himself while still maintaining his boundaries and self respect and not becoming a whipped pussy that does anything the woman demands. Whereas at first the compliments and affection should be tempered back a lot, as the relationship develops then the aloof and push aspects of game should be pared back a lot, though not entirely dispensed with. And good-hearted teasing that makes her smile should be continued.
It sounds like your ex was more ham-handed than skilled with game.
Good luck with the next man and glad you enjoy reading the blog. Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.
Han, not that I am saying this about Bloom (ahem), but one must always take into account that posts such as this are “false flag” operations meant to convince men that “game doesn’t work.” You and I have, after all, seen plenty of the same thing elsewhere. More often than not, it is even intended genuinely. But it’s still not producitve advice for the average man.
“take into account the possibility”
#351: It does sounds a little smarmy. I thought Han’s post is really apt though. I think it’s a fine line to maneuver. I’m reminded of my highschool boyfriend (“first kiss” boyfriend, I was 16, he was 18). Game didn’t exist then (to my knowledge). He never gave me a real compliment…it was always a back-handed insult (examples: “I always thought it was better to be too thin than too fat until I saw you in a swimming suit” and “a friend was very impressed when I told him you’re my girlfriend today…I said you have to find them when they’re ugly”, and “I don’t know how to describe you to people. You’re a blue-eyed blonde, but you’re not what people think of when someone says blue eyed blonde”). He actually asked me to marry him. I said yes at first, but shortly after gave the ring back because I was sick of the 24/7 condescension. Strangely enough though, there was always something of a spark…unlike the relationship I had with two other men before I met my husband. They were comparatively supplicating…the last REALLY supplicating. Even exasperation offers more of a passion spark than bland apathy, I think. That ex has been married and divorced three times since (ouch).
BTW, that’s cool that your dad went to school with George Lucas! I noticed that but didn’t have anything to add to the thread at that time.
And also Anne Veneman, former US Secretary of Agriculture and head of UNICEF. She is actually related to Lucas. I worked for her for about 3 months, but that is neither here nor there. Very nice lady.
@Esc.
It is possible but it is also true that some men can F things up by being too cocky or jerkish or whatnot.
David DeAngelo, of cocky funny fame, said that a lot of guys did way too much cocky and not enough funny, that if she wasn’t laughing they were doing it wrong, and that they should emphasize the funny a lot more than the cocky.
He said that a lot of guys learning game think they have to bust all women’s balls at all times.
Perhaps that’s what happens when guys learn something is they think they have to correct so much that they go from one extreme to the other.
As with most things in life, there is an appropriate balance. Most men are too far to the “beta,” submissive side and need to add some “alpha” but going too far and just being a disagreeable asshole (with nothing attractive to make that tolerable and attractive) will drive women off.
I think it also varies with the times. I take you yung-us’ word for it that things have changed. Girls in my youth probably had the same basic urges as girls do today. But it was not necessary back then to game them 24/7 in order to get (and keep) a GF. The hottest/highest status ones, yeah, probably. In fact, the hottest girl I ever dated required so much game that I had to dump her. Not that I knew what game was, I just knew she was out of my league and I didn’t know how to handle her.
A guy today is probably inured to about 100x the bitchiness level that I had to deal with (which was not inconsiderable). In my day, you avoided bitchiness by focusing on “nice girls,” who were not unicorns. Sounds like today, they are.
So, it’s perhaps not surprising that some guys err on the side of more game rather than more “nice.” Still and all, it’s probably only like 2% who do.
And, “advice” from women saying “drop the game, we just want you to be you” sounds disingenuous to me.
He actually asked me to marry him. I said yes at first, but shortly after gave the ring back because I was sick of the 24/7 condescension. Strangely enough though, *****there was always something of a spark*****…unlike the relationship I had with two other men before I met my husband. They were comparatively supplicating…the last REALLY supplicating. Even exasperation offers more of a passion spark than bland apathy, I think. That ex has been married and divorced three times since (ouch).
Liz,
Obviously, it is possible to err on either extreme, complete total cocky asshole dickhead, or complete supplication. But your description is very telling in that it indicates if you are going to err which side you should choose to err on.
I want to repeat with more definiteness something I’ve alleged several times before: It is practically impossible for a man in love to truly game any woman. If you are being negged, he is not in love with you. If he is condescending, he is not in love. If he is aloof, or making you jealous, or creating fear/Dread, he is not in love.
I want to repeat with more definiteness something I’ve alleged several times before: It is practically impossible for a man in love to truly game any woman.
I disagree. But I would include in “gaming a woman” things like playful teasing and agree and amplify, especially playful teasing.
I would say that a man truly in love with a woman will tend to move away from any “darker” type of game (if he even used in the first place) and more into the lighter stuff. The playful teasing and maintaining strong boundaries, good sex and not totally pussying out will usually be enough to keep things healthy, assuming she’s also in love. He’ll be less aloof because she’ll be less aloof and there will be a greater openness and ease between them.
I think you ignore how temperamental some of us guys can be.
Just like there are good and bad diets, exercise advice, and so on, there is good and bad game, there is effective and ineffective game. The whole cannot be branded by the part.
A bit more…I was only sharing my personal account, not trying to make an overall statement on the vue of game or to discredit it. Thank you to those who reaffirmed that once true relationship begins, game shouldn’t be directed at creating anxiety and mistrust but rather toward productive tension that fuels the attraction. I fully acknowledge that both of us blew it, falling for the typical “battle of the sexes” trope rather than going for the win-win. I too hope I will someday meet one who understands what “the game” is truly about — the yin and yang and the perfect bliss and depth that Male/female unity can truly create.
Value, not vue. Excuse the autocorrect.
[…] Learn game. […]
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Speaking of the false dichotomy between “outer” and “inner” game as the title of this post says, I’d like to say that in order for a man to demonstrate high value in front of the woman that he wants to attract, his “outer” game always has to be the natural outcome of his “inner” game for the following 3 reasons:
1. Being congruent with your true feelings and beliefs forms the basis of any kind of attraction material that comes out of either your mouth or your body language. And, this is fully backed up by the following fact:
“Your beliefs control your emotions, and your emotions control your body language.”
The latter statement backs up the truth on why most women trust a man’s body language more than the words he says to them in order to attract them. In other words, what women are truly and really attracted to in a man are his positive emotions about anything he says and does to them because they know that his emotions must be based on his core beliefs that are rooted in his current reality. And, a man’s beliefs never lie for the fact that his beliefs-supported emotions coming out of his body language are true representative of what he really finds the right thing to say or do at any given moment during an interaction with women or anybody else.
So, even if a man says a canned opener to a woman and she gets a sense that this opener feels totally natural and fun to him, he’ll stand a good chance of attracting her.
2. Being a high value alpha man in a woman’s eyes is all about being your true self around her because by being yourself, you sub-communicate to her that:
a) you have the confidence to be yourself and freely express your true feelings toward her no matter what she really thinks about you and your real feelings.
b) you have a very high opinion of yourself, because if you didn’t have a very high opinion of yourself, you’d most likely hide your real sexual feelings from the woman that you’re attracted to. As a result, you’re demonstrating high value because you happen to possess a very rare personal quality that most today’s men don’t possess since most men shy away from freely expressing themselves and their true sexual feelings on a large scale.
c) you’re totally free, calm and relaxed in your interaction with any woman because you’re never outcome-dependent that’s you never approach women with the intention to pick them up.
3. Boosting up and maintaining your natural happiness and excitement not on the basis of a woman’s reaction to your approach but purely on the basis of you just spontaneously taking action of approaching her. In other words, you don’t get trapped in making those two common dating mistakes men make such as being needy and validation seeking but instead, you decide to be the real man who says and does whatever feels natural and right to him in any given moment or point in time. In short, what turns us men on is just doing the things that we truly want to do all based on our true intent, feelings or desires.
On that note, I’d like to wrap up my comment by saying that Mahatma Gandhi’s happiness quote says it all when it comes to understanding why a man’s “outer” game must always be in line with his “inner” game if he really wants to be successful at naturally attracting women:
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.”
Bruno Babic
founder of Pickup Flow
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[…] to run across yet another “myth busting” diatribe that supposedly shown in my post about the false dichotomy between Inner and Outer Game, such “myth busting” notions actually gives us Manospherians a golden opportunity to set the […]