Earlier this week I wrote about Romance as a form of male investment, and described how women generally have the option for sexual freedom or male investment, but very seldom both (at least in the long run). In that post I asked the question of why a man should be invested in a woman who wasn’t really committed to him, or showed from her history a lack of ability or likelihood to commit.
When I created the chart in that post, part of what I was thinking of was the R verses K reproduction strategies men can choose. If a man is going to invest in one woman to better ensure the success of albeit fewer offspring, he needs to have some confidence that his offspring will be his and that the woman shares his long view of high investment reproduction. If she isn’t on the same page, he is better off going for quantity over quality. So men with options are likely to show up at the marriage 1.0 section of the curve and the hookup section of the curve, but not as much in between. Women thinking they can hit the sweet spot in between are likely to be pulled down and to the right to the more stable hookup position. A few will overshoot even that and end up in craigslist status.
The Monogamy-Hypergamy Continuum
I think at some level men do consider this logically. Men are more and more starting to take into account a woman’s past sexual and marital history when deciding if they want to formally commit to her. But given that 90% of white women are still marrying by the age of 40, obviously many men still aren’t being very selective in that respect. The remaining 10% can’t all be promiscuous women. A significant portion must be either uninterested in marriage or have some non promiscuity related defect which makes them unmarriageable. Nor does it seem likely to me that we could squeeze all promiscuous women into the fraction of the 10% of women who don’t marry but are interested in marriage and not otherwise unmarriageable.
Plus, logic is rarely the sole motivation when we look at the behavior of large groups. Culture almost always has a powerful impact, although culture itself is often grounded in the wisdom learned over generations. But our culture has been severely disrupted as a result of prolonged feminist assault. If anything our culture now directs men to do the exact opposite of what would be rational for them. Men are told by our culture not to take into account risk factors like previous children, histories of promiscuity, or previous divorce. While men’s attitudes appear to be changing, the change is happening slowly.
I read an excellent and extremely funny blog post by Solomon II this week titled Drive Thru Boyfriends, which got me thinking more about the likely mechanism changing the attitudes of individual men. This in turn would then act as a force to change the culture of men. Solomon’s post tells the common tale of the carouseler who has a change of heart late in her 20s. However instead of showing her as hopping from one night stand to one night stand, she is hopping from short term relationship to short term relationship:
“Welcome to McFling’s. My name is Solomon II. May I take your order?”
“Uh, yes. I’ll have the three months of meaningless sex from the Boyfriend Lite menu, add extra self respect. Hold the judgment and consequences please.
“I’m sorry; we’re all out of self respect. Would you like to add a side of rationalization for only $1 more?”
“Yeah. That’s fine. Super size it please.”
“Thank you. Please pull up to the window for your total.”
While this may go against the more common perception of a carouseller hopping from alpha to alpha in a series of bar hookups, it does seem to better fit what I have observed. It also fits with the common desire many women have to trade “a little more freedom for a little less investment”, or having her cake and eating it too:
There she is driving down the road of life at her own pace. She’s young, independent, beautiful and has all the time in the world. When she’s horny, she swings into the closest drive thru and places her order. She does the same thing when she’s sad, lonely, happy, up, down, in, out, excited, needy, afraid, strong, weak, depressed, moody, joyful, exhilarated, stressed, etc. Any and every reason is valid because she’s being “true to herself”. Every three months on average she swings into McFling’s and orders up the best looking or most exciting thing on the menu (because she’s sooo selective). There’s also a couple of late night snack runs thrown in there for good measure, but not as many as some other girls, so you have no right to judge her.
If you imagine the men in this scenario, they aren’t the stereotypical bitter betas being passed over entirely. Nor are they the alpha player who defines the relationship on his own terms. These guys are somewhere in between. Alpha enough to be attractive, but totally at her mercy as to the terms of the relationship. She decides when it starts and stops, and her real level of investment in him is next to nothing. She demands investment from him, yet never considers offering it in return.
Over time, these guys have to be getting jaded. Not in the passed over bitter beta sense, but simply learning from experience that getting emotionally invested in women is a bad idea. Add to this the findings that men are more troubled than women by breakups, and I think the mechanism for men learning not to become invested in women who crave choice becomes clear. How many times do you have to smash your fingers with a hammer to learn that you have to be very careful driving in a nail? It isn’t bitterness towards nails or hammers, but just life experience. What these guys are learning the hard way is that for women just like men commitment is a form of investment; not just one form though, the single biggest form.
As a society we understand that commitment is a foundational component of male investment. But feminism has convinced the mass culture that it isn’t required the other way around. Married women openly engage in divorce fantasies, and feel entitled to do so. In reality, to the extent that the two are different commitment is more a sign of female investment than male investment. Like so many things, we have it backwards in popular culture.
But while the culture has it wrong the individual men are learning reality through life experience. This is probably yet another reason the unmarried women on Big Little Wolf’s blog post noticed a trend of less romance from men as time passed. As they got older the men they dated also got older. Available men therefore are almost exclusively going to be in one of four categories:
- Spent their dating career as takeout for generally un-invested women.
- Were married to a woman who they thought was invested in them until one day they learned the hard way.
- A player.
- An omega or lesser beta.
They would likely get all of the romance they can handle if they choose option four, but the rest of the guys aren’t likely to be naive when it comes to assuming a woman is committed to them. Add to this the fact that the woman finds herself uncommitted later in adulthood, and chances are she isn’t sending “I’m totally committed” vibes to the guys she is dating.
In other words; she isn’t invested in them, and they aren’t in her.
I’ll throw in another plug for Solomon II’s blog post. I only included the opening paragraphs. He takes it farther in the full post and I think many of you will find it quite funny.
“Available men therefore are almost exclusively going to be in one of four categories:
1) Spent their dating career as takeout for generally un-invested women.
2) Were married to a woman who they thought was invested in them until one day they learned the hard way.
3) A player.
4) An omega or lesser beta.
This might not be as bad as it seems, if a woman is able to identify in which areas non-investment is not so bad for them and in which areas male investment is important to them. Women who are undecided or who have not learned any lessons from life an still want it all will have a harder time.
For example a woman who is clear that she does not want children and to be supported (and who clearly can support herself and does not want more than that) will propably have a good chance of getting emotional investment from 1 or 2 if her emotional investment is equally high.
Thanks for the props! I have you in my google reader, and I always enjoy your posts. As far as your 4 types of men, I wholeheartedly agree, however (since I’m so darn special) I’d like to add the category I feel I fit in the most:
5) Has no idea what the heck is going on, and is trying to figure it out!
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It will be interesting to see what Susan Walsh has to comment. There is a way out of the fast food route, of course, it is to not start in the first place. That would require some humility, which appears to be lacking in many people today, and almost totally missing in many young women. It would also require young women to view young men as human beings, and that would go against just about everything that young women are taught today.
One could also write a similar text regarding young men, although only the alpha-cad types would be at restaurants at all. The rest would be eating a cold bologna sandwich at home. A sandwich they made themselves.
i think breakups are worse for men than women because for many women by the time she breaks up she has been rationalizing the knowledge that she has to break up for YEARS and is SO done with the relationship by the time she makes the actual move that she has no feelings left. this is what happened with my ex. we SHOULD have broken up after 2 years, but every two years something would occur to revive our reltionship (moving, career change, engagement) because while i think we genuinely loved each other there was a massive cultural incompatibility i couldnt overcome (irish drinking). our relationship was on life support for years but i couldnt bring myself to end it because i “loved him” and had spent my 20s with him etc. so by the time i did *I* was so ready and he was stunned. it wasnt a hypergamy move though, i had no thought of other men–it was genuinely about setting us both free from a mutually unhappy relationship neither of us seemed to be able to break out of–he went on to marry someone from his own ethnic/cultural background and i met the male version of me–in all the stories of break ups and divorces that end horribly i think people forget the ones that actually turn out beneficial to both parties.
Women may still be marrying, but by waiting they are reducing the quality of the man they could have. Super cute Dream Puppy with a shiny new coat was able to get a much better mate than sallow and grey future Dream Puppy with saggy ears. This is enough reason for me to lament- women, through sluttiness or over-choosyness or poor future time orientation are robbing themselves and their future children of the best man they could find. (This is not 100% true, but it’s a general truth).
My last hoorah of nagging my friends was a few years ago in the form of this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/marry-him/6651/
I was surprised at how candid it was. Some women know what’s up…
I am not sure Lori Gottlieb has “got it” yet. Here’s an interview with an ex.
http://jezebel.com/5467630/email-interview-with-lori-gottliebs-ex-tim
An extract:
“And this book is no different: it puts forward the persona of Lori Gottlieb as a famous anti-feminist writer of best-selling books and controversial Atlantic essays, which is a much more attractive persona than the 40-something single mother who could never commit to any of her boyfriends. And she’ll tell her husband-to-be that she thought she had to settle, but is glad she didn’t have to after all. And then that book will be Lori’s version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Committed.” Then there will be a book about her soccer-momhood, and how she does it better than the other moms or her own mother. Maybe even a book like Sandra Tsing Loh’s about leaving her husband for a more exciting guy after that. Not necessarily because there’s something wrong with her husband, but because it would make a much better movie deal if there was conflict and an arc.”
Wow. Ms Goitlebb sounds awesome.
“It was part of the criticism sessions we’d have about once a week where she would tell me everything that was wrong with me. It wasn’t enough that I was going to a gym, I had to go see a particular personal trainer, a particular therapist. My nutritionist put me on a 1600-calorie/day plan, and Lori was second-guessing that.”
You know, women like Lori disgust me. But frankly, the guys that put up with that type of violent emasculation disgust me even more. I put a lot of blame on the media and our courts system, but some of the blame does fall on the men who allow themselves to be so disrespected. The way most guys on the manosphere feel about fat entitled sluts is how I feel about withered mangina losers.
Godfather said it best: YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN!!!!
@ Dream Puppy:
Exactly. When I read that, I thought, dude, get a fucking pair. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can a make a MAN do shit like that.
I agree, but …
Men are conditioned to give in to women by the current culture. A huge number of men are raised without fathers, by feminist design. More are raised by feminist mothers who undermine the fathers, with family law as a sword against their husband’s necks, and emasculate the boys. The school system systematically emasculates all but the most natural of alpha males. The university system and corporate America’s HR departments do the same thing, keeping the institutional message consistent: masculinity is outmoded, feelings and empathy are in, get in touch with your “feminine” side, be aware of your “privilege” and deliberately abandon it and so on. Yes, this produces nutless men, but blaming the men themselves for this is absolute bollocks, in my opinion. There is a hugely powerful social machine operating to emasculate all but the most resistant men. Let’s not blame the ones who, at a tender age, fall prey to this system, aided and abetted by their ill-thinking mothers.
@nova
But then you could say the same thing about women. They were equally conditioned and given a set of incentives to follow….both are acting incorrectly.
It doesn’t follow that a history of “promiscuity” makes a person a less trustworthy partner. People like to sleep around when they are young and then settle down. The fact that a woman (or man) had a lot of pre-marital sex doesn’t indicate an inability to keep a vow. The relevant question in assessing a potential life mate is not whether the person has slept with a lot of people but whether the person has a history of cheating. Those are two different things.
There are four types of romantic investments based on unreciprocated vs. reciprocated, and four possible outcomes:
1) neither side invested (casual hook-up)
2) man invested, woman uninvested (man said to be beta, she treats him poorly)
3) woman invested, man uninvested (man said to be alpha, stringing her along)
4) both sides invested (healthy LTR to marriage)
My husband and I had experienced #2 and #3 when younger, but #4 had eluded us before we met each other. The same man or woman can experience any of these scenarios at any given time, which is why I find the labels “alpha” and “beta” to be insufficient, especially since “beta” seems to signal romantic investment.
A lot of men and women basically “take what they can get” and believe that #4 is a make-believe fairy tale that doesn’t last more than a year. Part of the issue is cultural, the lack of good role models in families and communities, and the other part is biological; the human motivation system didn’t evolve to “automatically” form lifelong pair bonds.
It takes conscious, willful, and continuous effort to romantically invest for the long haul, and it also takes a lot of empathy, compromise and love in a higher sense. These are transferable skills that can be taught and learned, like cooking or learning a new language, but in mainstream society it’s seldom done.
Funny thing is, whenever I get on this particular topic, people of both genders jump on me and tell me that I sound self-righteous and preachy, so I’ve stopped doing it. But I had to learn it, too.
Oh, and Lori Gottlieb, is a contemptible creep. I have nothing but disdain for that woman. She actively courts disdain. The woman intentionally debased herself for an easy buck. She is selling a fantasy that people want to believe — the fantasy that those affluent, Sex-in-the-City type women who sleep around are going to die lonely and crying into their pillows with only their cats to comfort them. She is selling the dream that that gorgeous girl who turned you down, who failed to see all your great qualities, is now suffering for it. She is making money off the desire of envious men and women to experience schadenfreude.
I don’t want to be blunt, but you sound like one of the idle middle-class, college-education earth-Goddess worshippers. I could be wrong, but your views of relationships appears “femcentric” and not truly considerate of the man’s perspective.
You say “A lot of men and women basically “take what they can get” and believe that #4 is a make-believe fairy tale that doesn’t last more than a year.” Actually, men like myself have a really good grasp of what investment truly means and aren’t as fickle as you portray us. We know that, in the age of n0-fault divorce, DV and family court bias etc that this isn’t a trivial investment. And when the relationship attains that level of scrutiny, things like a woman’s rebelliousness, entitlement, sense of justice, respect for the man etc are in full focus.
This then results in a lot of fizzled relationships when they get past the physical stage because men and women are wide apart on the above-noted parameters. Men don’t care as much about ‘tenderness’ and ‘connection’.
oops. My comment was directed at Hope.
Lovekraft, like I said, I get comments like yours directed at me a lot. I’m often accused of being some kind of New-Agey hippy, head in the clouds, singing the usual tune. Except I know the facts, I’m pragmatic, I’m quite male-centric, and I’m empathetic toward men. I grew up around nerdy and outcast guys, who were my closest friends, not other females. And I completely understand men’s perspectives on the unfair court system, paternity testing, and their grievances about women. I listen to them and care about their feelings, and I’ve been this way since middle school. I continue to try to be as good as I can to my husband, and it’s not just through nice words and feel-good platitudes, but also lots of concrete actions.
That said, the past has taught me that I shouldn’t dwell on this topic. It’s better to focus on patterns #1-3 than to try to say anything about #4.
@Doomed Harlot
“It doesn’t follow that a history of “promiscuity” makes a person a less trustworthy partner.”
Click on link to “Social Pathologist” in Dalrock’s blogroll. Read the various “Infidelity” series of posts there (some of the other ones are interesting too). And eye opener, to say the least…
And yes, correlation is not causation, and NAWALT, all that. But if there info that tells that a particular dealership has a 50% chance of selling you a lemon, while another only 10%, I think that would make one more likely to shop at the second dealership…
A history of promiscuity absolutely makes someone a less reliable partner. No doubts.
I’m not exactly Mr. Loyal on that score, though I try. There are compensations. But I need to be clear about this:
Slutty girls are just less trustworthy.
All the time.
Hope
It takes conscious, willful, and continuous effort to romantically invest for the long haul, and it also takes a lot of empathy, compromise and love in a higher sense. These are transferable skills that can be taught and learned, like cooking or learning a new language, but in mainstream society it’s seldom done.
This is an excellent summary of what it takes to make monogamy work. It used to be that the virtues required for this were lauded by various social leaders, rather than scorned or ignored. But of course, empathy, compromise, humility, patience, are all things that get in the way of “doing your own thing”, so they have been out of fashion since 1968 or thereabouts.
Perhaps in the next 20 years, we will see the return of pseudo-arranged marriages, where religious families quietly work to put young men and young women who have actually been taught these skills are “accidentally” placed in close proximity during work and/or socializing. It would be a step up from the current way we do things, in some critical ways. If nothing else, by keeping the young men away from ball-busting entitled grrlz and the young women away from cynical pump-and-dump cads, some of the heartbreak of the world could be reduced in a tiny way.
masculinity is outmoded
It’s generally because masculinity is seen through the lens of violent alpha strongmen and mean heartless fathers, while femininity is seen through the lens of soft, warm, and loving mommy. Given that most violent crimes are committed by men, there will always be this viewpoint that the men are defective and that women are perfect because they avoid such activity.
I feel about withered mangina losers
Some of us like being withered mangina losers! 🙂
While this may go against the more common perception of a carouseller hopping from alpha to alpha in a series of bar hookups, it does seem to better fit what I have observed.
To a certain extent, it describes Athena’s pattern since the break up with her boyfriend. She’s a very good friend and in my drunker moments, if I was white, I’d consider marrying her because she has a very practical side and likes kids, but she’d cheat on me. She has admitted that she needs a “good bad boy” to keep her satisfied in a relationship, and I’ve seen her rag on the betas (which for some reason doesn’t include me) that she has met. At minimum, I do explain the beta point of view just to give her an idea of how some of us act.
Not in the passed over bitter beta sense, but simply learning from experience that getting emotionally invested in women is a bad idea.
Arguably, it’s the difference between myself and my Russian friend. While I have learned to become suspicious of any female attention on the look out for mythical golddigers and crazy women, he has become far more jaded and less trusting of women in any romantic context due to a breakup with a girlfriend that cheated on him. So he’s moved from an alpha with a desire for a girlfriend into a low level player gaming multiple women at the same time.
get all of the romance they can handle if they choose option four
Except those men aren’t attractive. Ooops.
i think breakups are worse for men than women because for many women by the time she breaks up she has been rationalizing the knowledge that she has to break up for YEARS and is SO done with the relationship by the time she makes the actual move that she has no feelings left.
I think this is very true. IME, women don’t leave relationships lightly and will stick around for a lot of unhappiness in an attempt to make things work, but once the decision is made, it’s made. Men are often taken by surprise, I think, because they assume that by staying and trying the woman has given consent to whatever is making her unhappy.
this is what happened with my ex. we SHOULD have broken up after 2 years, … so by the time i did *I* was so ready and he was stunned.
I would guess that because you stuck around for a decade that he thought you weren’t serious in your objection to his drinking. Actions speak louder than words to men. And alcoholics are really enabled by a partner sticking around.
it wasnt a hypergamy move though, i had no thought of other men
I think that happens more than the manosphere understands. I’ve never left one man for another. But I have left bad situations, generally years after I should have.
i think people forget the ones that actually turn out beneficial to both parties
Glad this was a win-win!
It takes conscious, willful, and continuous effort to romantically invest for the long haul, and it also takes a lot of empathy, compromise and love in a higher sense. These are transferable skills that can be taught and learned, like cooking or learning a new language, but in mainstream society it’s seldom done.
Absolutely!!
Funny thing is, whenever I get on this particular topic, people of both genders jump on me and tell me that I sound self-righteous and preachy, …
That’s because values are no longer a part of the culture, so people are confused and offended when they are brought up.
@Mister Y
Perhaps in the next 20 years, we will see the return of pseudo-arranged marriages, where religious families quietly work to put young men and young women who have actually been taught these skills are “accidentally” placed in close proximity during work and/or socializing.
Interestingly enough, that is sort of a RL hobby of mine just because “by keeping the young men away from ball-busting entitled grrlz and the young women away from cynical pump-and-dump cads, AND VICE-VERSA some of the heartbreak of the world could be reduced in a tiny way.”
I hope you are right that this is an emergent social trend. I can’t do it alone. 😉
@Doomed Harlot, Dream Puppy, et al.
It is interesting to see how people on both sides of the fence respond to Lori Gottlieb as a personality. The feminists dredge up her old boyfriends to discredit her because they don’t like the message. The manosphere calls her a bitch and shrew based on the word of a guy she broke up with. Everyone disregards the fact that she’s basically right; sooner or later, we all have to “settle” for less than perfection in a person of the opposite sex. Sounds rather realistic to me. I haven’t read the book yet, but I suspect that with so many people hating her, Lori Gottlieb must be right.
A history of promiscuity absolutely makes someone a less reliable partner. No doubts.
I’m not exactly Mr. Loyal on that score, though I try. There are compensations. But I need to be clear about this:
Slutty girls are just less trustworthy.
All the time.
Of course it is. Especially from the male perspective, because men uniquely run the risk of being cuckolded — a risk women do not run, biologically.
It makes perfect sense that women like Doomed Harlot are running smoke for this, but the smoke will remain smoke. Most men find sexual history to be of keen interest in selecting a long-term mate.
Women can say what they want. The only men they can convince to give them a pass for being sluts are beta males and orbiters who they don’t want anyway. The same men that often describe themselves as “feminists” are the men the women never want, or who want the freedom to cheat on. They give this various names, but basically, these men provide comfort emotionally and then allow the women to fuck around freely. In other words, manginas.
Actual males aren’t going to give women a pass for being slutty. That’s just a fact. It’s instinctive.
Actually, other women will make the same judgments. Just listen to them.
No amount of social programming will erase this. You don’t need to worry about it. In actual society, this form of judgmental behavior will always remain.
these men provide comfort emotionally and then allow the women to fuck around freely. In other words, manginas.
I must admit, some of us do derive some pleasure in providing some emotional comfort while the women has sex with other men. Sometimes, we do receive some emotional comfort in return, which is better than nothing.
Gorbachev
Absolutely correct. I didn’t fuck sluts and I didn’t marry a slut.
@David Collard,
Yes, but Aussie girls are notoriously more slutty than girls elsewhere. Where did you find yours? You’re in Oz, yes?
My brother found his wife in a small town in New England, 30 miles from where we grew up; both he and she are genetically as old-school Yankee as it can possibly get. He’s army, but unlike many military he didn’t fall for some floozie; he picked a Star-Spangled Banner small-town girl with delusions of continued small-town-ness. Can’t get less slutty than his wife. I *thought* I chose well first time around. Alas, the whole college thing seemed to make me stupid.
Doomed Harlot:
It doesn’t follow that a history of “promiscuity” makes a person a less trustworthy partner. People like to sleep around when they are young and then settle down.
This looks a lot like “Everyone Else Is Doing It…”, an argument that most of us would not find convincing when offered by a 10-year old. It could also be a variation on the “letting off steam” or “getting it out of their system” argument, which boils down to a 19th-century notion of emotions that modern science demolishes.
We are all constantly in the process of rewiring our brains. Learning new things, acquiring new habits, or new vices, actually changes some small bit of the structure of the brain. It takes at least a month to learn a new habit, and can take a whole lot longer to unlearn a harmful habit. In the case of habits that are intimately involved with endorphins, or with powerful substances like oxytocin, it could take a very long time to “unlearn” such a habit.
I had a friend who used to fly small aircraft, 2-seat/4-seat ones. He said something interesting about it: he always used checklists, and he tried to make every flight as perfect as he could, as if he was passing an FAA inspection. Because, as he put it, every time he took an airplane off the ground, he was “training himself to fly”, and if he tolerated sloppiness in his flying he was training himself to fly sloppy. Which can get a pilot killed.
Some of my relatives were very firm on issues of politeness and manners; they demanded that the younger people do these things until they became second nature.
A woman who has a history of promiscuity can change, but it will be a lot of work for her and those around her; it might be best if she moves and doesn’t see her old friends anymore, in order to avoid falling back into her old behavior. Because it is likely, she’s become accustomed to a constant level of novelty in her love life. Thus it would be all too easy to become bored with any given man after a while, and seek out that novelty. This would lead to infidelity, with all that implies.
“i think breakups are worse for men than women because for many women by the time she breaks up she has been rationalizing the knowledge that she has to break up for YEARS and is SO done with the relationship by the time she makes the actual move that she has no feelings left.
I think this is very true. IME, women don’t leave relationships lightly and will stick around for a lot of unhappiness in an attempt to make things work, but once the decision is made, it’s made. Men are often taken by surprise, I think, because they assume that by staying and trying the woman has given consent to whatever is making her unhappy.”
Words of wisdom. Too bad I didn’t know that four years ago, when my ex dumped me. I haven’t been the same ever since. If I had known that, I would have behaved in a different way. Sometimes wisdom comes too late.
Gorbachev
I married a virgin. She was from a Catholic family, professional middle class, fairly conservative. Her mother is rather old school and strict. She was not a prude, my wife I mean, but she had kept her virginity. She was pretty ready when she met me.
Fairly religious girls who went to University were not usually sluts when I was in the dating market in about 1980. I went to a rural university here in Australia. I had three girlfriends, and knew a few other girls fairly well, and they were mostly virgins.
My wife was still living at home when I met her. She went from her parents’ home to mine. As I said, she is not a prude, but she had just shown some sensible caution before giving it up.
I was practically a virgin myself. I had had a few offers, but I had only slept with one woman before I met my wife.
I might say that I very much wanted to marry a virgin. Partly for religious reasons, and partly because I am possessive about my womenfolk. There is a family story that, when I was about five, I pushed an ashtray away in a restaurant with the words, “The women in our family don’t smoke.” I only saw the full humour of this very recently.
I don’t know that Australian girls are particularly sluttish. I suppose they have a reputation as “convict molls”, but they are actually mostly very nice women. I get on well with most of my female coworkers and acquaintances. Australian women seem more easygoing than some other women, and they are not generally “ballbusters”.
nothingbutthetruth
Do you mind my asking, what would you have done differently? Sorry for the personal question, but you sort of left the matter dangling …
Gorbachev
I think they do get a pass..if they are hot enough..
eg doesnt your new partner have more experience than your ex at her age..
And it’s all relative, I’m sure many in the manoephere would think she is v experienced indeed..it’s all horses for courses.
Well, David, I don’t think my story is important but since you asked…
I think this quote nails it: “Men are often taken by surprise, I think, because they assume that by staying and trying the woman has given consent to whatever is making her unhappy”.
The things I would have done differently are:
1. NOT TAKING HER LOVE FOR GRANTED
I assumed that she was committed to me: we were together for so many years. When she dumped me, I was sideblinded. I didn’t expect it. I was taught that women love more than men (one of the bigger lies of our culture). Since I knew she loved me, I assumed that we would always be together. Haha, what a chump.
(Maybe this happens with women from older generations like yours, David, but believe me that younger women are a whole different story).
When you are fed with bullshit all your life, you take bad decisions. You hear the same message from parents, sisters, female friends, movies, MSM and you believe it.
Women’s love follows self-interest. Unlike men who sometimes are willing to put more in a relationship than they get, women are practical creatures. If she is not getting what she wants, she will stop loving you, slowly but surely.
When women leave a relationship, don’t look back, like men sometimes do. Women are creatures of the present and this is all that counts. Women’s love is fragile and has to be taken care of on a daily basis.
2. NOT RELAXING WHEN THE RELATIONSHIP SEEMS TO BE OK
When women have taken the decision to go away, they hide it. They don’t give you a clue until they have everything ready to leave. Women are like monkeys: they never leave the branch of one tree without catching the branch of another first.
When she has the new man and has arranged everything, she tells you that she wants out. Then, there is nothing you can do: the decision has been taken long time ago and her heart has a new owner. She has no feelings for you.
But, while she is building her new life, she will behave like she is commited to you and feels the same about you as she has always felt. She will pretend that everything is OK.
So, if the relationship seems OK, you don’t have to relax. Sometimes it is the stillness that goes before the storm. This brings us to
3. CHECKING OFTEN THE STATUS OF THE RELATIONSHIP AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY
You know: 99% of the things women complain about are only the usual bitching, so you don’t have to pay attention. But hiding betweeen 99% of this complaining, there are 1% of things that are really important. You have to discover what this 1% is and you have to address it.
Finally,
4. NOT BEING A BETA CHUMP
Yes, we are fed up about the sensitive man, the new man. You have to wear the pants in your relationship. You have to show less affection than she shows for you. Be a bit aloof and have interests outside the relationship. Be slow about praise and quick about the neg (but make it with humor)
These are the things I would have done differently, if I have known them. Now it’s too late: she lives in another country, married to another man.
NBTT: Nothing to beat yourself up about. You know have knowledge that is hard to come by or even hard to *hear* if you are a Western middle class or upper middle class male, born before 1980 or something like that, especially when you have been in a LTR a couple of years and you are busy with other stuff than learning about these things.
I am truly amazed by thee minority of men who did not know these things earlier and who have come across this knowledge while still in a LTR.
As I see it there is no shame in not being the exception to the rule, most people aren’t.
@Laura,
You’re right, of course. It’s all about perspective. A hot girl gets a pass with most things in life; same for tall men. There’s a direct correlation for men with these things, too. I know several males who have said that X or Y was easy, etc., they don’t understand why others have trouble. They’re all tall (6′, at least), and (at least at one time) were in good shape. Literally everything came to them easily. They never understood, until recently, how hard it might be. One of them, a guy I work with, had aged badly and put on a few pounds; and at 40, he’s not quite the looker he once was. He no longer gets The Pass, especially as he’s married. He needs to work for it. I explained to him why this was, and he didn’t buy it. 8 months later he told me I’d been right: working in a mostly female world (weather and light news), he’d gotten a pass from the legions of women he was obliged to work with. No longer.
So for a hot girl, it’s the same. Alas, … eventually, her pass will be revoked.
And me – well, the same generally doesn’t apply to me. I know it may sound contradictory, but I like my nice with a little spice; I generally have a higher tolerance for slutty behavior, so long as, … it’s stopped. Or can be controlled. I’m now alpha enough in most of my life that I can at least walk away if necessary, so I have a mode of control I didn’t have before; I also have a healthy dose of reality when it comes to women, so little surprises me now. So I’m unusual in the RC sphere. A lot of these guys demonize or pedestalize women still, and both of these things are symptoms of the same thing.
I don’t do that any more.
But when I want a mate, I want a mate – I expect to do some mating. A virginal 25 year-old wouldn’t really turn my crank.
That said, as far as long-term commitment goes, … I’m cautious.
NBTT —
Very good pointers for guys who find themselves already in the midst of an LTR.
nothingbutthetruth:
“Yes, we are fed up about the sensitive man, the new man. You have to wear the pants in your relationship. You have to show less affection than she shows for you. Be a bit aloof and have interests outside the relationship. Be slow about praise and quick about the neg (but make it with humor)”
Yes, I think this is mostly true. The basic principle has many ramifications, but I think it is that the woman has to feel that she is, pardon the expression, inferior to the man. That gets her going. Women will work hard for a “boss” (I see this at work too) if they look up to him. A husband has to convey, somehow, the impression that he is a bit “higher” than his wife. That is what it is all about: negs, aloofness, slowness to praise, not many gifts, limited attention at times. I sometimes say that a husband should read marriage guidance books carefully, and then do the exact opposite.
Women are indeed creatures of the moment and the present. That is one reason why a wise man tends to ignore a woman’s fleeting moods and remarks.
As for the tall man’s pass. I am tall for my generation, a bit under six foot, and I am broadly built. I am not aware of receiving a “pass”. I have always been better looking than average too. But I am shy. I am usually rather polite to women, although I think there is something about meddling women that pushes my buttons. I said to my wife last night that I have only seriously lost my temper a few times publicly in the last year or so; and every time it involved a woman interfering in my 10 year old son’s business. I think there is something deep in my psyche that will not tolerate a woman interfering between a father and son.
Be that as it may, I am usually polite to women, but occasionally I am not, and the reaction I get is one of deference, so maybe I get a “pass”. Although at my age, 55, the pass you get as The Man starts to shade into the pass you get as an old guy.
I get a lot of “sirs” these days, but I suspect that may be my age, not my status. Although I have always noticed that shopgirls seem to defer to me a fair bit, when I am in business clothes.
But I agree that the “passes” we get we mostly don’t even notice.
It doesn’t follow that a history of “promiscuity” makes a person a less trustworthy partner. People like to sleep around when they are young and then settle down. The fact that a woman (or man) had a lot of pre-marital sex doesn’t indicate an inability to keep a vow. The relevant question in assessing a potential life mate is not whether the person has slept with a lot of people but whether the person has a history of cheating. Those are two different things.
Different but related. Obviously a history of cheating can be an indicator of future cheating, but racking up high numbers by members of either gender says something about ability to commit, to “settle” or to relate to people. If I met a man who had a number that was out of the ordinary, I’d be very cautious. It’s hard to belive a Cassanova would be faithful after marriage, likewise a sexual adventuress.
@NBTT
I’m sorry to hear that your marriage ended. Divorce is hard.
I think a factor that men don’t really understand about marriage in a post-feminist world is that for women, who can now do for themselves many of the things men used to do for them, the relationship itself becomes paramount. I think that women get stuck in the notion of a soulmate (realistic or not). At least, I know that when I married my DH, that’s what I was looking for. Often when you hear a bunch of ridiculous compliants what underlies them is the feeling that you have lost that soulmate thing. In fact, I think that sense of loss is what causes a lot of what looks like frivilous divorce. It’s not so much boredom, but the woman’s sense that the man used to be her soulmate and now is withdrawing that. OTOH, getting that soulmate feeling motivates women to put a lot effort into a marriage. Not getting it can be a lovekiller.
I sympatize with men in that I think the rules have changes as a result of feminism. Whereas a “good guy” in the past just had to provide, he now has to do some relationship needs he probably isn’t even aware of. I don’t kow if that is what your wife’s problem was, but obviously she did not communicate her real needs to you.
Because I think the soulmate thing is so important to women, I would tend not to advise playing games with affection. Obviously you don’t want to be a chump and fall all over an inaffectionate woman, but aloof game in a LTR seems very counterproductive to me.
BTW, I disagree that women as a rule have another guy on the line before they leave. I do believe that most women leave with a plan for life without the man they are leaving; I’m just not sure that the plan always includes another guy. I personally have had long celibate stretches between relationships. Hopping from guy to guy can really detract from dealing with a woman’s own issues.
Finally, I’d add that you are not alone in being taken by surprise. I think men often are. There is somethng that goes in the communications between men and women where women often think that they’ve communicated their unhappiness to the man and that the man is indifferent. That really pains woman. I can tell you that in the 20+ years I’ve been with my husband, it’s only recently that he was become sensitive to this sort of thing and that I’ve realized that, when he seems indifferent, he really is actually oblivious. It’s been really helpful to us both.
“Aloof game” and keeping cool works extremely well for me in my marriage. Withholding affection sometimes also works. It did a short time ago this morning. I won’t give details, as it would be TMI. But I got what I wanted.
J, you and your husband may be elite people, with well-controlled emotions. But my wife is very volatile, and I have come to see that I am “no picnic” either. We may be more the basic model. And natural and learned “game” is what keeps our marriage OK and bubbling along.
My personal sense on the whole “taken by surprise” issue is that what is remaining unspoken is how often women will start a relationship (or worse marriage) without ever really being in love with the guy. She’ll say it because she wants to be in a relationship, but she isn’t feeling it.
Often I think it isn’t so much that she falls out of love and he doesn’t notice, but that she never did in the first place. But a woman will never say she is breaking up because she never loved him. She would have to admit to herself and others that she used him until a better man came along (real or imaginary) or she tired of the charade.
J, you and your husband may be elite people, with well-controlled emotions.
Elite? LOL. If we were to write each others biographies, we would have to call them “Up From White Trash.” But that is ironically how we both learned self-control.
D: My personal sense on the whole “taken by surprise” issue is that what is remaining unspoken is how often women will start a relationship (or worse marriage) without ever really being in love with the guy. She’ll say it because she wants to be in a relationship, but she isn’t feeling it.
J: Really? You think a lot of women you that? Being stuck with some guy you don’t love strikes me as the ultimate hell. I could have been married a dozen times over if I’d been willing to do that.
J: Women get married for lots of reasons, most of them not love.
Money; timing; security; pressure; because everyone else is doing it; because the guy likes her ;having been tooled by some Alpha who pumped and dumped her over the course of a rocky relationship; age; maternal instincts.
None of these mean she needs a *particular* man. Just a man to fill the job.
This is how most marriages are, I suspect. Compromises.
Love rarely enters into it. It’s often comfortable or reliable or easy.
When there’s real love, it’s rare and we all know the couples in our lives who have this. There aren’t that many.
My wife’s roomate when we were first dating was dating a guy and later married him and it was pretty clear to everyone but him that she didn’t love him. One of my wife’s brides maids married a guy after getting knocked up that she didn’t love (later to divorce because “she didn’t love him any more”). She also knows a woman on the East Coast who gets into relationships with guys she really doesn’t care about because she doesn’t want to be alone. (look for upcoming YMCA post)
I’m sure if I gave it more thought I could come up with more than 3 examples. Haley has also written several posts defending the idea, and I don’t think she is alone there. See also, McFlings.
I don’t know of any guys who have or would do such a thing. I don’t know any guys who struggle to feel reciprocal love like so many women seem to though.
Thank you all for your kind comments
“She would have to admit to herself and others that she used him until a better man came along (real or imaginary) or she tired of the charade.”
It’s not as simple as that. When a woman marries a man despite not loving him, there isn’t usually a conscious decision to wait for another man to come. The woman usually is hearing her biological clock tick and she has lost hope to get commitment to an alpha. So she settles for the man she can get commitment from. She rationalizes this by thinking that she loves him when the only thing she wants from him is commitment. (Mark my words: Women want commitment more than love).
Then, when she has had what she wanted (sometimes marriage, sometimes kids), the man loses his usefulness to her. So she rationalizes this thinking that she does not love him anymore, when, in fact, she never did. Then she looks for a man that she can be attracted to.
There is not a cold plot to use the man and discard him. The rationalization hamster makes sure that the woman fools herself thinking it is about feelings when the fact it is about commitment and its usefulness.
Dalrock,
You’re exactly right: Women are fooled by their own rationalization hamster. They confuse security and comfort with love. Often, friendship is confused with love, too.
No answer for it.
You just need to know what you’re doing with women: not that you can’t trust them because they’re evil, it’s that you can’t trust them because they never know their own motivations or their own minds.
BTW, this topic fits with my post for tomorrow. I have it set to auto publish at 6:00 AM (Central I think).
@nothingbutthetruth
Just to clarify, I wasn’t speculating on your situation. I was just commenting on the issue in general. I think many women who do this know at some level what they are doing. But as Gorbachev said there is the hamster, and also we tend to give women a pass if there is a judgment call.
NBTT, Dalrock, Gorb–
Wow! I must some sort of outlier then. I’m not much on all this submissive crap (Surprise!!!) , but I actually do love and admire my husband. I know some housewifely types who married for security, but most of my fellow career virago friends married for love/thought they found a soulmate, etc. For us, the struggle is recognizing that one person can’t be responsible for another’s emotional needs, but not forcing one’s self to love a man.
J
I must some sort of outlier then.
Ya think?
I know some housewifely types who married for security, but most of my fellow career virago friends married for love/thought they found a soulmate, etc.
Have you ever heard of the term “selection bias”?
Hey Anon,
Let’s drop the bullshit for a minute. Are you saying that my loving my husband makes me an outlier or that you just find me odd?
“I don’t know of any guys who have or would do such a thing. I don’t know any guys who struggle to feel reciprocal love like so many women seem to though.”
I don’t know any guy who would marry just to “be married,” but there have been cases (some have been posted on this blog, e.g. the Stella story) in which the man uses the woman for monetary or visa purposes, in other words being an opportunist. My mother is convinced that my father did this to her, because he divorced her as soon as he was more established and got his medical degree (with help from her parents’ money).
For some reason, this thread is reminding me of Somerset Maugham’s Painted Veil lol
Following on from what Hope said, whilst I can’t think of a man who would admit to get married for the sake of getting married (though I can’t think of a woman who would admit it either, but it does happen), I do find it interesting that men seem to get married when their friends get married (I’m talking about male groups of friends where the women don’t necessarily know each other so it’s not marriage virus amongst female friends).
One thing I find quite interesting is that often men who get married later seem to marry women less ‘nice’ than women they dated earlier in their lives.
J,
I’m sure your perceptions are honest and valid. I’m also sure you and your friends are decent and typical. I might just suggest that, … we don’t really know what’s in the minds of other people, even our closest friends and even our spouses, and most definitely our children or parents. Your friends certainly have private lives and private decisions that will always seem opaque to you – and when they up and do things, they can shock and surprise you.
Your friends may have the same symptoms or syndromes, but may choose not to act on their feelings, or may not even be aware of them. You never know.
For that matter, the same could be true of you; I know of women who just wake up one morning and their world has changed. Almost no men do this. But many women do. You need a fair bit of self-delusion to be able to experience this, and it’s when the spell of self-delusion wears off that it all goes. And it’s not necessarily self-delusion. Women *choose* to be in love. Men just have it happen to them. We’re stupid that way. Men are also often stupidly loyal; even when their wives are old and nasty. We’re more like dogs that way. Easily trained.
Women have more than one program running, so what seems like self-delusion is really just one program giving way to another. It can be painful for the woman, as well; and shocking. I know. My wife experienced this.
My ex-wife, for example, was a fine woman, truly, I harbor no ill-will against her. Actually, I quite like her as a human being, I always have. She’s profoundly decent in a very amorphous kind-of way. We dated for a year, fell madly in love, when I was 26 and talented and full of promise and she was charming and hot and we steamed up the bedroom like two propane-filled torches; our friends honestly thought we were the perfect couple.
She loved me; I know it. But the shit-tests never stopped. As I failed, they got worse, and I failed them more spectacularly. I tried to placate her. I should have told her to fuck off, gone out, come back and complained about how she was being a monster and then just taken her upstairs and fucked her brains out. It wouldn’t have solved the proximate problems, but it would have tingled her hard. But I didn’t. I was utterly beta, a feminist-trained man, to the core. I deferred. I supported. I was loyal to a fault. i was deeply self-reflective and blamed myself. She grew tired; the counselor gave me tasks, I did them, they drove us apart even more. Listen to the marriage counselor and then do the opposite (in a calculated way). She wanted a Real Man to just own her. Not a best buddy, friend and pal and emotional support.
When she left, she essentially cried for me to fix it, but in all honesty she had no idea what was wrong. I much later learned the truth.
She went through 3 different men, the third a truly horrible piece of work, a bastard and a sociopathic nightmare. He was a well-known local musician (I won’t mention anything else, because if you know New England you might be able to identify him without much difficulty), had a following, was a little bit older than she was and tooled her like he did all his women. She followed him, helped him with contracts and performances, and then he fucked around more or less with impunity and treated her like utter shit.
I may have philandered (in the sense that I wouldn’t commit) after my divorce, and had strings of STRs with women, and was more than a bit of a player (I say *was*, in a hopeful voice – this is not a guarantee, it’s more of a hope), and got pretty good at picking up women in various social situations; in Asia, I discovered the Bored Housewife syndrome, and drank far more than my fill. But one thing I NEVER did; I never tooled, disrespected, lied (generally), or maltreated any woman, ever. I was still too much of a feminist and humanist to do that. I actually *like* women. I maybe liked them a little much, but I *like* them. I also like understanding them.
But this guy – he fucked her over (and I assume in every other way) until she was a bitter, broken shell. When he ditched her, it was unceremonious and cruel.
She dated one more fellow, a guy I knew long ago (9 years ago?) when we were married. He always had a thing for her, even when we were married, but was even more beta than I was at the time. But he’s so profoundly decent that in my bitterness I even thought they should get together. Truly a great guy. Accountant for media personalities. Makes massive amounts of money, though you’d never guess, he’s modest and forthright and upfront and not materialistic and not showy. He donates at least 20% of all his pre-tax earnings to several charities, all anonymously – I know this because one of his ex-GFs told me this at a dinner once (before he hooked up with my ex-wife).
He asked my ex to marry him. She was older; he could literally have anyone he wanted (based on everything but game). But as I said, my ex is a very decent woman, but after tasting the hard life, I guess she needs what all women want – the good bad boy. The Alpha who will commit. Now 37, single, bitter, and aging badly. She was a 7 when we married, quite hot enough for me, maybe a 6 when we got divorced, then she lost weight, and then just aged hard.
I’d love to have a talk with her about what motivated her, because looking back I can see it all, very clearly. I don’t know that I’d change things now – but I harbor no ill-will and I wish her life would sort itself out happily. She does deserve better.
So there’s one anecdotal story about a woman who lost herself because one program overrode another, and her man wasn’t playing into both the way he was supposed to
You bet your bottom dollar I’m doing that now. I have a massively hot potato that if dropped would be difficult to replace and is hard to handle anyway. She needs to be thoroughly tooled all the time – she drips for it. But she also needs a decent man. it’s fucking hard to maintain it, though I’m getting into the pattern.
She’s also 10 years younger than me, has infinitely more options than any woman I have ever met, barring maybe two, and has decided I’m hard enough and deep enough to keep. But I’m under *no* illusions that her love won’t wither should I decide to flip all Alpha or all Beta. Fuck her over, and she’ll be gone; go beta, and she’ll test me, but she’ll be gone.
Men tend to do one or the other. The Alphas do better than the Betas. They at least get to live their own lives.
The first woman I was with after my ex (and a 5-month period of miserable, self-hating loathing in which I was hard-pressed to shave or get up or smile) was a waitress at a place I used to go to all the time near where I worked, for lunch. I went there for dinner twice – once with a hugely fat guy I worked with, nice guy but wow, and then alone. She came over, sat in front of me, and said,
“You seem awfully depressed.”
I said no – I wasn’t.
She said – I watch you all the time. You get divorced?
I said – yup.
She said – I can smell it. Bad one?
I said – no, not that bad, just you know – one of those things.
She asked – long ago?
I said – 5 months.
She then said to me:
Well, I get off in two hours. Pick me up and I promise I won’t make you run around the track until I break you in.
She was joking, of course, but it was the first time *any* woman had approached me like that. She was also black – did that have anything to do with it? I have no idea.
She later told me she liked my aloof coolness and my severe sarcasm (I’m very sarcastic in speech and come back quickly with quips – moreso when I’m depressed).
So took me home that night and, aside from fucking my brains out until I could barely walk, and despite the fact that we both knew there was no chance of any serious relationship (for various reasons – mostly me being a mess and her having to go Georgia to finish a degree, where by the way she met a great guy and they have two kids now, we’re still close and I love her husband – he and I hang out whenever he’s in the area, because he comes up a lot for business; massive black guy, master electrician, also works for mostly media properties, great laugh and completely disarming, always has hilarious stories), … where was I?
Oh, yeah, despite the fact that there was no chance of a relationship, this woman (we’ll call her T for Therapist) reminded me how to 1) Fuck a woman like she’s a woman, not your best friend, 2) How to tell a woman what to do and what I want, and not to take shit (“See, there you go again, you’re not supposed to take my shit, I say stuff like that you should say get the fuck out”), 3) Stop being so damned nice *all* the time, and 4) look at other women sometimes to keep her guessing.
Then she put me on to Game. She told me that I was funny and smart and with good game I’d be able to score with all of her friends and none of them would care. And she was right (theoretically).
And everything she taught me I put into use. And then I learned much more.
The MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS were *how* women think. Not with their forebrains – with their hindbrains.
Long before Roissy, I had instinctively worked out how this shit goes on in a woman’s brain. They say one thing – do another. Make nice – but hate the other girl. They’re capable of calculated cruelty on a scale far beyond the norms in a man’s world. There’s actually no real comparison on that score. Women can be unadulterated, raw evil – it smells a lot like psychopathy, the way they deal with each other, sometimes. You need to find some pretty twisted men to be able to compare men to the poisonous viper’s nest that most groups of women are.
And then there’s how they deal with men.
So when I was basically working my way through progressively more attractive women in Asia, and enjoying not just some very fine specimens and enjoying myself, but learning how to actually enjoy the FACT of the company of women – talking, conversation, quiet times, beautiful moments, …
I was doing it without the delusions I had previously suffered from. You know what?
It was more honest – more straightforward – and sometimes (though not often) more purely … something … than it had ever been. Because I could see through the self-delusions and lies that a woman didn’t even understand.
I could tell why X was cheating on her husband/boyfriend. I felt no guilt: She was going to do it with me or someone else. At least I treated her with respect, and I needed the experience (or I just wanted to go to bed with her – sue me).
I started to really get it.
Women who look one way to the whole world will sing you a different tune in bed. In the quiet moments when you’re just two people, maybe both a little lost, not sure why you’re doing what you’re doing, when it stops being about touching each other in one way and for a moment, there’s just two humans in one place: and then, … then you can start to get it.
Roles – places – names – status – experience – labels.
We play to all of them, and they play to us. Ultimately, we rarely understand our own motivations.
One motivation I understand: I want a remarkable woman. I like sex, so I want to want to have sex with her. I want to be loyal, so she *has* to be interesting and not just a cipher (despite what various Game writers and conservatives say). And I want a companion. But I ALSO want a family and I want it sooner rather than later – so there’s a motivation for you.
I know how much each of these things counts for me. It varies by the time.
I guarantee you that most men will be more conscious of these things, these needs and desires, than most women. I don’t give a fig’s fart for what society thinks I should have: These are things I want for me. That’s one difference between men and women. Most women run fully on what their society or group of friends project. Most men don’t. Men want to fit into a hierarchy and perform in it; women want to fit in and blend. There’s a massive difference when you think about it.
So – all to say, J, that you can’t be sure about anyone who isn’t you, and much of the time, you can’t even be sure about you. I remind myself of this all the time.
@Hope,
Yeah, men can be dicks, too. They might have other motivations for marriage.
Remember – woman and men are different, but we share much of the same psychology. Lots of female sociopaths, maybe even more male ones.
A friend once said this to me about dogs:
You know, dogs have distinct personalities, like people.
Take that one, for example.
(dog barking, picking on other dogs, whining, then doing the same thing).
It’s not that it’s a dog, per se, or that this is the same for all dogs, and this is why it’s doing it.
Sometimes, a dog is just an asshole.
@nothingbutthetruth
Just to clarify, I wasn’t speculating on your situation. I was just commenting on the issue in general.
Yes, my last post was also about the issue in general. My previous posts obviously weren’t so: they were about my situation.
I only wanted to point out that most times women don’t marry men they don’t love while knowing it. The rationalization hamster makes them believe that they love them. That’s all.
Gorbachev, you have certainly had a more colourful love life than me, but I can second some of what you say. I have always mixed alpha and beta, before I had heard the terms, and it has worked for me. My wife and I have had some quite serious problems, but we have survived. And she gave me exactly what I want in bed this morning, as usual. Even at 55, I still want regular sex.
Ration your time with a woman, and she will feel privileged talking to you. Ration affection, and she will come to you and offer sexual favours in return for the gold currency of women, attention from a man she respects.
I have never done “friend” fucking. When I fuck her, she knows she is being fucked.
I do “chores” around the house, even some of the feminine ones like vacuuming, but in my own way and in my own time. She has learned to say “please”.
As I have said, read the marriage advice in books and magazines; and do the opposite. She called me “mate” recently, a casual Australianism. I told her, “Don’t call me ‘mate’. I am not your ‘mate”. I am your husband”. I suppose that is “maintaining frame”.
Maybe this does not work with all women, or even most women. But it works with mine.
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This post is so good! It illustrates perfectly the attitude that girls have these days – they are not all such degenerate sluts as you might come to think reading Roissy, but the attitude is there! What has happened – and we should have known this! – is that we have given women freedom and all we are finding out is that they are fickle and reluctant to make a binding decision! We should have known this! We gave them choice and they feel entitled to it.
I think there’s a strong sense of entitlement on the part of both men and women and that both sexes are probably too quick to hook up instead of getting to know the other person before jumping into bed. Both men and women do this to the detriment and degradement of themselves. It makes it harder to settle down with one man or one woman when you’ve been accustomed to a sexual smorgasboard.
Both men and women generally want fidelity in a partner. They want to be treated fairly. What I’m saying here is that Solomon II, in his post, has no problem giving the woman exactly what she asked for upfront and then judging her for it. She’s the slut. He’s not. At first, she tells him exactly what she wants: a short term commitment. Both people agree to that, so we don’t have an invested, broken hearted man in this scenario. She has not taken advantage of him. We just have a man who’s enjoying a woman sexually, then judging her harshly, and eventually lying to her about her chances of commitment. And you all seem to think this is okay and proper behavior.
Proper behavior would be if men and women came to an agreement about what they were looking for ahead of time and then honored that. Also, judging by the SAME standards on both sides would be great. Ideally, we should all be making reservations at the steakhouse and waiting to eat.
[D: I salute your valiant hamster.]
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D:
You’re REALLY good at this. Gonna tweet this to my readers tomorrow. It’s hard to appeal to logic when emotion is so strong and you want to be diplomatic. Keep up the great work.
E
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you saw sagacious Solomon
you know what came of him–
to him complexities seemed plain
he cursed the hour that gave birth to him;
and saw that everything was vain
how great and wise was Solomon!
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It’s wisdom that had brought him to that state
How fortunate the man with none!
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