I didn’t make this joke up, but I think it fits well with topics on the manosphere.
A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York
City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the
instructions at the entrance is a description of how
the store operates:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors
and the value of the products increase as the shopper
ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a
particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor,
but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to The Husband Store to find a husband.
On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor 1 – These men have Jobs
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where
the sign reads:
Floor 2 – These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
‘That’s nice,’ she thinks, ‘but I want more.’
So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:
Floor 3 – These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely
Good Looking.
‘Wow,’ she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4 – These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead
Good Looking and Help With Housework.
‘Oh, mercy me!’ she exclaims, ‘I can hardly stand it!’
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 5 – These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead
Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic
Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor,
where the sign reads:
Floor 6 – You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor.
There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as
proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for
shopping at The Husband Store.
To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opened
The Wife Store just across the street.
The first floor has wives that love sex.
The second floor has wives that love sex, have money and can
really cook.
The third floor has wives that love sex, have money, can really
cook and are drop dead gorgeous.
The fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.
I’ve heard this before. Great summary.
What are your thoughts on this article? Sorry, it’s long.
http://www.helium.com/items/136495-dating-tips-for-a-successful-relationship
Lori Gottlieb quoted this in the beginning of her book, Marry Him. She had a list of things she wanted in a guy – it was 2 and a half pages long.
Guys? Any thoughts on the male upgrade rule in that article?
Funny. I had no idea it was in the book. To make the joke more realistic, they should reverse the order of the floors. Put the best choices on the first floor, slightly worse on the second, etc.
My guess is that some people get so used to dating that they start to feel like judges in a talent show. They forget that they are being measured too. This seems to be the case more with women but I’m sure some men do this too. But like we’ve said so many times before, these folks are the exception not the rule. The bulk of folks figure this stuff out just fine and go about their lives.
At first I was sure the author was a woman since he projects female qualities onto men. Men aren’t hypergamous, which is his hypothesis. Alphas cheat because they like variety and lack the oneitis of betas. If they found something truly better they would probably go with it, but it isn’t quite the same way of thinking. Betas tend to get attached (oneitis) and stop looking. I think he’s just trying to explain away his own bad behavior by saying all guys are like him.
He’s a guy from the ghetto who found god and changed his ways. I believe he has been on Ophra. I wonder if that article is an older one as some of the advice seems at odd with what he says now.
It did seem to me like that sort of behaviour was more about a certain type of guy i.e the worst type of ghetto guy, but then from what I read over at Roissyville, it seems a lot of PUAs whilst being frankly quite racist are also in their own lives seeking to emulate the worst type of behaviour). And I must say that the beta guys whom I know irl who have had flings/affairs seem to have had them with better looking women than their wives and usually higher socio economic class even if they don’t leave (despite their pleas and moaning to their friends of ‘sacrificing myself for my children – known in Lily speak as ‘having the both of both worlds and giving the two women the worst’).
Dalrock, I hadn’t heard this before – pretty funny.
As for that Tony Haskins article, what a douchebag. Honestly, what complete and total crap. Any woman who puts up with him deserves him. From my perspective, he DLVs like crazy, and his true character would be evident within a week of knowing him.
@Susan
Lol. Here is his twitter feed, which has a different vibe
http://twitter.com/tonygaskins
Lily,
One thing I’ve noticed is that alphas and betas seem to be reversed in your world. Guys who cheat are labeled beta, and guys who are available and can’t get a date all seem to be alpha. How is this?
Edit: Reading this once I posted it it appears somewhat harsh, which wasn’t my intent. I’m just curious what your thoughts are on this.
Hi Dalrock
Wondering what I’ve said to give that impression! Not at all. But I’m not the world’s best writer, sorry!
I don’t actually know anyone who is available who can’t get a date, well maybe one of my nephews, but, I’m talking about at my age (early thirties).
I tend to split people into alpha/beta by overall status (including looks, personality, job etc).
Both alphas and betas are capable of being unfaithful. But from the guys I know who have been unfaithful to wives/LTRs, the alphas seem to act a bit more honourably (as much as one can in those situations) than the betas. The latter seem more likely to string along a mistress with lies and at the same time pretend to their wife that the marriage is fine and that they are giving her/their children best attentions (but really not because constantly texting mistress and/or trawling the net for other encounters). I know some women who have been ‘gaslighted’ in marriages, which I think is one of the worst things one can do to another human being. I think these guys tended to get married younger, maybe to the first girl who accepted then when they start progressing in their career, realise they have more options whilst the alphas always knew they had options?
The alphas I know who are unfaithful seem to get more involved with a occasional or discreet fling. They seldom seem to have a long term mistress. And they don’t seem that comfortable with lying to their wives.
If I think of alphas and betas, and who is/has cheated then I think the percentages are about the same. Which is quite interesting as the alphas should have far more opportunities.
I think if you are an uber uber alpha, you can have a wife a mistress and have it all out in the pen, famous example that comes to mind is James Goldsmith who said when marrying his mistress, Annabel Birley that it was creating a vacancy, which he later filled with a mistress and accompanying children.
But I must say since I came across PUA and Roissysphere,
I suppose a lot of PUA is mimicking behaviour of proper alpha, without the substance where the behaviour originally came from. And maybe it’s more mimicking the so called alpha behaviour of the bad boy (physical, linked to testorone) than what I’d call alpha.
Hope that makes sense. Please note that this is most ‘regular people’ I know, varying in age from 30 to 55. It excludes any players I know.
Lily—
You know I like you, but I think it would be more accurate to say that you’re not the world’s most logical or clear thinker. As well your idiosyncratic and fluid/changeable way of using alpha and beta doesn’t help with communication.
Alpha means more gina tingle. Beta means intermediate amounts, but only when he really works at it, and probably only once you’re in love or at least real affection with him. Omega means forget it. Got that? That’s it period end of story.
The rest is things that tend to make these thing happen for girls. The rest is guys breaking it down so that THEY can tell when someone is or isn’t an alpha, and also how to become more alpha.
The strengths typical of some but certainly not all betas, but also present in many, but fewer alphas, really should be on a separate scale to lessen the endless confusion and talking around each other. That should be the mate/dad scale. The high numbers there will be for the kind of guy who will make an excellent husband and father, leaving the sex issue aside on this scale. So the leading qualities here are: loyalty, status, stability, loving nature, money, easy to live with.
Alphas tend to score less high on some of these things, especially loyalty, because they can get away with more, a whole lot more, especially in the feminist environment. Their more aggressive, narcissistic, somewhat sociopatic and Machiavellian attributes (not necessarily all in extreme amounts) also make them less likely to loving and easy to live with. But lots of natural alphas are high in the mate/dad scale. But probably more higher betas are. Middle betas might be bad on it too. Lower betas on down tend to just be all around losers in many ways.
Doesn’t thinking of it on two related scales make talking about this stuff clearly a whole lot easier?
Thanks Lily.
It does get confusing because everyone has their own take on what is alpha and what isn’t. In Doug1’s response to you (perhaps on another post) he said being alpha doesn’t mean they have to have the partner count/affairs to meet the definition, just that they could have. I’m not sure I’m sold on that idea. For example, imagine a rock star who marries and stays true to his wife despite throngs of groupies throwing themselves at him. In Roissyland this would evoke cries of beta, and I can’t say I would disagree. Maybe such a thing exists in the lab, but in my experience guys who are wired like that don’t stop. So I think as a woman you have to take the good with the bad or choose something else.
To me part of the definition of beta is the strong loyalty/oneitis that they possess in a LTR. As I’ve said before this can be either noble or farce, depending on how they express it. Part of an alpha’s personality is to always be ‘on the hunt’, even if in their mind they believe they won’t follow up on any opportunities.
Sure, can split into two scales. It’s kind of how I and many women I know think of men they are attracted to as either ‘fling/potential STR material’ or ‘husband material’ (and that doesn’t mean ‘beta provider).
But I’m afraid I will have to respectfully disagree that alpha = gina tingle, period end of story. For example, a guy could just be very very good looking which would make the gina tingle but doesn’t make him an alpha. And I’ve been out with both alphas and betas, anyone I’ve been out with has given the gina tingles right at the outset or I wouldn’t have gone out with them to start with.
I liked the HSV and HMV split someone did on Roissy. But on the other hand, in this day and age of sexual liberalisation, there are plenty of betas are having lots of sex with lots of partners. Omegas obviously not but we were talking about alpha/beta.
I also think there are more attributes than you listed to being an alpha, positive ones, for example honour (though obviously the code of honour would be different on whether they were a captain of industry or a drug dealer).
Lily–
I didn’t see that and don’t know what those acronyms mean.
You’re right about honour, or as we Americans properly spell it, honor. heh. It does belong on both scales probably. Trouble is not all girls really value it that much, apart from loyalty to her and her family. I’m glad you do. Most men think it’s important.
I guess another way of looking at it is that it’s a component of status or should be. It’s often untested or anyway not publicly shown. If anyone’s seen to have no honor they do generally plummet in status though. Your idea is to be able to predict that I suppose, and that’s a good thing for women.
Lily–
I see your point.
A more refined way to put it is that the more gina tingle he can create and SUSTAIN in a girl after she gets to know him, the more alpha he is. If it’s just a handsome face and fit body that creates across the room gina tingles, which cease two minutes into her talking to him, he’s not any kind of alpha at all.
For players and puas of course the main thing they care about it the one off or few times shag, then on to the next one or put her in rotation while exploring next ones, so really long term rather than Potemkin village gina tingling ain’t their worry.
I think it was High Status Value i.e. what I’d call alpha, and it’s not class related 🙂 I think he may have defined it as leader of men. And High Mate Value, ability to shag a lot of women. And HSVs all have HMV but not all HMVs have HSV.
If we are looking at it just in terms of gina tingle, you make an interesting point on sustain. I was laughing at the thought of the guy I mentioned being alpha, because frankly he just muddles through life. Girls just want to shag him because he’s quite good looking and is a lot of fun (think Hugh Grant with blonde hair). But in both his one LTR and his marriage the GF/wife wore the pants.
He is probably the ‘pumper/dumper’ extraordinaire because he has a lot of sex and never calls afterwards as he doesn’t want to get involved in a relationship, but in my book being able to do that does not make him an alpha. He has ended up with some regular FBs but more through accident. And in terms of sustain, I think if he gets married again, he’ll be the same as he was last time. He’s already pining saying he just wants one special person (as are the other two).
Lily–
Actually, the guy you’re describing would likely profit enormously in sustaining LTR’s by reading widely at Roissy’s. He could learn how to keep hand.
As far as the muddling through life side, it’s possible to be alpha to some or many women without being a big financial or mainstream status success. That depends on what the woman wants. He’ll never be the most alpha in LTRs appealing to the widest variety of hot women, without a good bit of mainstream success though.
Since he’s so deficient in that area and since that’s damn hard to change once one’s in one’s thirties, his best bet is probably to study up on Roissy’s gender realism and game (Roissy’s politics don’t matter) and LTR with a highly compatible easy to get along with 6. She’ll initially be unable to believe her good fortune. Then he should introduce to her my ideas of limited permission to discreetly play while not neglecting her emotionally or sexually.
If he was more successful he could do this with some carefully chosen 7s or 8s.
@Doug
LOL, no I wouldn’t send him to Roissy, maybe Atol Kay.
IMO he doesn’t need to do much, he has the basic stuff there. I think if he did the following, he’d pretty much have it covered
1. next time he gets married, marry a nice girl not a bitch*
2. not supplicate
3. keep the sex up
*It’s not like he doesn’t know any, some of the girls he’s ‘pumped and dumped’ are known to me and his other friends and some of them are truly lovely, but when getting serious he tends to do go for real bitches. Seriously. We could all see his wife was trouble before they got married. But he was ‘in the fog’.