Since I first started reading Roissy and other sites in the manosphere, I’ve been talking about what I learned with my wife. Her reactions have varied from: I’ve always told you women were like that, but you would never believe me, like she said just today when I told her about Laura Grace Robins’ recent post on women’s friendships, to: that would never work, to: wow, I’d never have understood this if I didn’t know about game.
The last sentence applies to her friend(ish) who I’ll call Suzie. Mrs Dalrock met Suzie when she was guest lecturing at an East Coast university. Suzie was a grad student there and was married to another grad student. She was in her late 20s, pretty, and had a good husband and a nice comfortable apartment in a good neighborhood. Suzie’s life seemed to be on track and my wife had a great time with her while there. Suzie’s father was a surgeon and her mother was a former beauty pageant queen, so she had always run with the country club crowd.
This was several years ago, and in the interim Suzie decided she was bored and would be better off divorcing her husband and finding a better man. Her joining a feminist book club at the university may or may not have had something to do with this. Much to her shock as an early 30s divorcee she wasn’t able to attract anyone as good as her ex husband, let alone anyone better. She had a beta orbiter for a while, but he since married (and divorced) and in the meantime her SMV eroded at a brutal pace. Since then she has pretty much dragged along the bottom, dropping out of grad school just one or two courses away from her masters degree and even spending some time in a mental institution. More recently she has improved somewhat and now lives in low income housing and attends regular AA meetings.
She doesn’t actually have a drinking problem, but she has better luck finding men who want to date her there than anywhere else. Unfortunately the AMOG of the local AA meeting isn’t interested in her, and she’s feeling the sting of her ex husband being engaged to another woman. Her unemployed neighbor at the low income apartment complex also turned her down. So Suzie moved in with a mid to lesser Beta man she met who has been out of work for 5 years and lives at the YMCA.
My wife just heard from Suzie that she was kicked out by her YMCA boyfriend and has to move back to her apartment. Evidently Suzie irritated the AMOG of the Y, the guy who lives across the hall from her boyfriend. The AMOG threatened to have the boyfriend kicked out because women aren’t allowed to stay at the Y.
But even more interesting is that the AMOG of the Y himself has a different girl over every night. All of them very pretty women in their mid 20s. They are always buying him meals and bringing him baked goods and other gifts. One of them even bought him a car. All I can say is, that guy must have some seriously tight game!
Oh my god. That is one painful lesson.
http://elusivewapiti.blogspot.com/2010/11/desperation-to-maintain-sexual.html
Another story of dwindling sexual relevance.
Yep. Good story. I’ve heard & seen plenty like it myself. File under: “Eternal solipsicm of SWPL-y chick’s minds.” I’ve witnessed many such stories myself, but they all read the same, so there’s no reason to recount them here.
And yes, the dude at the Y has tight game. Evidences:
1. he dumped ol’ Suz for being irritating.
2. the other chicks bringing him gifts..massive DHV.
While I do believe the onus is mostly on the women to be realistic and appreciative of their current (LTR/married) situations, I can’t help but put a tiny amount of blame on the men. Without certain types of men out there, putting even slightly above average girls on pedestals, perhaps the unrestrained ID of the female could be a bit more constrained.
What got me thinking about this, even prior to this post was Roissy’s post on Paulina Porzikova lamenting her fading beauty. It led me to wonder, If I’m moderately attractive, and still manage to get all sorts of (unrequited) special treatment from men, what is the world that the girls on the 8-10 range inhabit? Can we blame them for their high expectations and irrational choices? Yes. But who propped them up on those pedestals to begin with? Better yet, who propped them up on pedestals for not cause other than the fact that they EXIST.
This woman made a stupid choice. But perhaps it was predicated by years and years of conditioning- that she was ‘special.’ And who did that? Not everyone is grounded enough to know the fleeting power of beauty.
We could much better in controlling female ID if men would also learn to control their libidos and not make such asses of themselves in front of pretty girls.
How bizarre, why move into the YMCA instead of have him move into her apartment (assuming she didn’t rent it out as she moved back there). Did she want to be surrounded by men? lol.
If any early 30s divorcees are reading, please don’t be completely disheartened. I’ve done fine and the AMOG of my bf’s group of friends (and he would be super AMOG in a group of regular guys) is about to marry a..wait for it shudder.. late 30s divorcee. She is pregnant with his baby but they’ve been together a year and he proposed before. Though I recommend it helps if you are not full of yourself (if you’re American pls think about this 3x as much) & don’t sleep around.
(if you’re American pls think about this 3x as much)
o___O
It’s true.
“This woman made a stupid choice. But perhaps it was predicated by years and years of conditioning- that she was ‘special.’ And who did that? Not everyone is grounded enough to know the fleeting power of beauty.”
Unfortunately, if someone would warn her about stupid choices, such advice would be dismissed as ‘patriarchal oppression’ or something similar. Advice from a woman would be dismissed too, because it would mean the other woman is not ’emancipated’ enough.
It is difficult to hear unpleasant truths after you have been conditioned that people, who speak unpleasant things, are somehow evil and trying to harm you. You have a RIGHT to be a princess, and you have a RIGHT to stay princess forever. How dare they say otherwise!
Generally speaking, I don’t approve of divorce because I believe it is morally wrong to break promises.
From a purely amoral cost-benefit standpoint, however, it doesn’t follow that a woman has made a “stupid” choice just because she winds up single after a youthful divorce. Maybe being single, even lonely, is preferable to her than being with her ex-husband.
Some (but certainly not all) of the divorced women I know are lonely and pining for a man. I don’t believe, however, that any of them would want to go back to their ex-husbands. I think “she’ll be sorry some day” is a fantasy.
I just finished reading this book, written by a female Christian author after she interviewed over 1,000 men, most Christian, but not all. It was eye-opening to be sure. The men were quite honest. It was very interesting, and my own husband corroborated much of what she found.
Another blogger I admire and have had the pleasure of meeting coincidentally just wrote a review of the book where she said her husband confirmed the author’s findings as well. It’s written to help married women, but I thought you might find it interesting to ponder. I think the results of her survey are at the link I provided.
Doomed Harlot, you have a point. I don’t believe that Suzie would admit that her life trolling for men at Alcoholics Anonymous and living in low income housing is worse than she had it when she was married. It isn’t that she had a bad marriage (she didn’t), but who would admit such a thing? That would be absolutely crushing.
“I think “she’ll be sorry some day” is a fantasy.”
Just like ‘Suzy’ or Caroline Gates-Fleming isn’t sorry is only a fantasy, right? Justifications doesn’t make the truth go away, no matter how much we want it too.
But Suzie isn’t in low-income housing because she got a divorce. She is in low-income housing because she dropped out of grad school and spent time in mental-health institutions.
And again, it still doesn’t follow that she would prefer to be with a man she left just to have a more comfortable house or have some companionship. Isn’t it a bit presumptuous to assume we know what is best for her? Surely only she can define that, no? Maybe she’s thinking, “As bad as things are, at least I am not with my ex-husband anymore!”
Look, I am quite sure there are plenty of people in the world who have regretted divorce or wished to return to their partners. But the idea that this is always or often the case seems unlikely. Usually people leave marriages because they REALLY don’t want to be married to that person any more. I am not saying that’s a good thing, but the idea that women who divorce will get their comeuppance some day is not necessarily true.
Doomed Harlot,
As we established a few threads ago, you and your associates are outliers (as are a bunch of Dalrock’s commentors male or female). For your own health and well-being that’s a good thing, but all of us would do well to recognize that our anecdotes are even LESS representative of general reality than most people’s are. “She’ll be sorry some day” is absolutely the truth for Suzie, the Frivolous Divorce woman, and a large cohort
When women file 70% of divorces, most of which are filed without complaint for abuse or adultery, it’s just simple stats that a good number of those are going to involve buyer’s remorse down the road. Of course Dalrock is correct in saying that people in general are very loath to admit poor decisions, especially ones that take you from comfortable apartment living to shacking at the YMCA. (That damn song lied to me, I thought only gay guys stayed at the Y.)
dream puppy
This woman made a stupid choice. But perhaps it was predicated by years and years of conditioning- that she was ‘special.’ And who did that? Not everyone is grounded enough to know the fleeting power of beauty.
This is where modern “empowerment” doesn’t benefit women in the long run.
We could much better in controlling female ID if men would also learn to control their libidos and not make such asses of themselves in front of pretty girls.
Plenty of men don’t make asses of themselves in front of pretty girls or women. However, because those men don’t make asses of themselves, they are beneath the notice of the women in question. I wager there were men that didn’t particularly notice Paulina Porzikova the way she craved, but she did not notice them.
Beautiful women have suffered from their vanity for ages. The difference is, that now with unleashed hypergamy, the merely pretty or even ordinary looking women can get attention from handsome cads for a few years, thus teaching those women that level of attention is the norm. Then when their looks fade, suddenly the level of attention drops. And of course, that’s all men’s fault, too.
The truth is actually none of us really knows what goes on/went on in someone else’s marriage. I just made a wild guess at one in the anonymity of the net
http://alpharivelino.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/one-reason-many-men-resist-the-teachings-of-game/#comment-3778
but none of us really know.
And the women filing for divorce without necessarily claiming unreasonable behaviour or adultery it doesn’t mean anything. Most people don’t want to air their dirty linen in public.
@Dream Puppy
This woman made a stupid choice. But perhaps it was predicated by years and years of conditioning- that she was ‘special.’ And who did that? Not everyone is grounded enough to know the fleeting power of beauty.
I agree. I wrote about the same issue in The curse of female power.
I don’t know the answer though. The solution you appear to propose is that men not pay attention to young pretty women. This has the same problem that I raised in Sex Cartel. There would be no way to enforce such an arrangement, and great incentive to break it. A few young women may read sites like this and figure it out themselves. More likely parents of daughters will recognize this and teach it to their daughters from a young age. Once the woman is in the throes of sexual power, any argument that she should use caution will ring hollow to her. And of course there will be a band of feminists nearby eager to tell her that the patriarchy is just trying to spoil her fun.
In the end they are adults though, and therefore responsible for their own choices whether we would agree with them or not.
Dalrock:
Once the woman is in the throws of sexual power, any argument that she should use caution will ring hollow to her.
I think you mean “throes of sexual power” here.
[D: Thanks! Fixed.]
And what you say is true. I have seen it. I have also seen where it can lead, once a woman is over 30 and not as pretty anymore. Women alcoholics generally die younger than men who are alcoholics.
Thank you Badger, and this is the point I was trying to make. Sure I know some women who have divorced and actually successfully remarried after, but they where the exception, not the rule.
Stats do not have feelings, they do not have an agenda, they only have a story to tell, whether we like the story or we don’t is completely irrelevant and depending on that story, we can make choices as to what it is how we live our lives.
Heck, I’ve got a buddy who had appendicitis and had it, and some of his small colon removed. Why you ask, because his appendix ruptured 3 MONTHS before he went into the hospital.
Now then, how responsible would I be if I told people that appendicitis isn’t serious since my friend didn’t die and is healthy and happy right now?
Looking into my own life and the lives of others, I’m with Badger Nation and Evolutionary, women end up on the losing end of this situation far more than men, and saying that she would be happier without him is simply feeding into a justification. Dalrock already stated that her marriage wasn’t that bad, and unless her ex was an absolute rat bas—-, she probably could have fixed the sitch rather than strike out on her own, living with the leavings of society.
“And the women filing for divorce without necessarily claiming unreasonable behavior or adultery it doesn’t mean anything. Most people don’t want to air their dirty linen in public.”
What was it that Dalrock had posted earlier in terms of frivolous divorce? It means quite a bit in this day and age, unless one wants to turn a blind eye and the behavior of ‘entitled’ women. While even I know about some really irresponsible men, I also know quite a few women. This situation makes quite a few women look bad and it’s getting harder and harder to blame men for this situation.
@Doomed Harlot
But Suzie isn’t in low-income housing because she got a divorce. She is in low-income housing because she dropped out of grad school and spent time in mental-health institutions.
Only my wife’s impression, but I would say her divorce really was the start of it all. She had expectations of being the belle of the ball once single based on the whispers of her divorced friends. When that didn’t happen she couldn’t accept reality.
And again, it still doesn’t follow that she would prefer to be with a man she left just to have a more comfortable house or have some companionship. Isn’t it a bit presumptuous to assume we know what is best for her? Surely only she can define that, no? Maybe she’s thinking, “As bad as things are, at least I am not with my ex-husband anymore!”
I just asked, and according to my wife in Suzie’s moments of greater clarity she has all but said she wishes she could go back to how things were. But at other times she claims she is very happy now.
As to the quality of the marriage and the specific reason for divorce, I asked my wife for more clarification on that. She said that Suzie was unhappy that he didn’t bring her breakfast in bed anymore, among other minuscule gripes. The specific context of the breakup was when she found another woman’s stocking in the laundry basket after he returned from doing their laundry in the apartment building’s communal laundromat. She accused him of having an affair and moved back to her parent’s house and refused to speak with him any more. They had been married for about 5 years and there were no other signs of him ever being unfaithful.
Dalrock says
I just asked, and according to my wife in Suzie’s moments of greater clarity she has all but said she wishes she could go back to how things were. But at other times she claims she is very happy now.
All human beings have the ability to rationalize. It’s inborn within us. Some have it to a greater extent, others to a lesser extent. It would be interesting if there were a reasonably reliable test for rationalization tendency, as there is for narcissism, and to use it in a longitudinal study on a cohort of college students. Test them in college, then follow them for 10 years or so. I speculate that those people with a greater tendency to rationalize their behavior would be more likely to be among the married-and-divorced-within-5-years group, for a start.
Doomed Harlot
Generally speaking, I don’t approve of divorce because I believe it is morally wrong to break promises.
That is a very good thing, for you and for other people around you. However, you may be projecting your own belief onto other women, and unconsciously assuming they believe the same. Because it appears you do not believe that there are women who file for divorce for frivolous reasons.
Without certain types of men out there, putting even slightly above average girls on pedestals, perhaps the unrestrained ID of the female could be a bit more constrained.
So true. Read this:
http://www.inmalafide.com/2010/11/09/the-necessity-of-game-in-one-picture/
This old woman thinks that she is a sexual bomb and that she makes the rules, because men allows this to happen. Her delusion is only possible because it is fed by men.
We could much better in controlling female ID if men would also learn to control their libidos and not make such asses of themselves in front of pretty girls.
Well, as you see in the above link, they don’t even have to be pretty. They only have to be women and to hint about the possibility of free sex.
I don’t know the answer though. The solution you appear to propose is that men not pay attention to young pretty women.
The solution is for men not to mythify sex. Being a foreigner, I have always been amazed at the insane importance that sex have for American men. They will do JUST ANYTHING for any kind of sex. Women use sex to manipulate men, inside and outside marriage.
Don’t get me wrong. Every man in the planet loves sex. We are wired this way.
But sex has its place and there’s something in American culture that makes it more important than it is. You see some expressions they use: “if I don’t do that, I don’t get laid”, “If you marry, you will get a steady supply of sex”. Sex is often spoken as an inanimate matter, like water or money, which was shocking to me (for example, “players have lots of casual sex”). In my culture, we always refer to sex in connection to other person as in “I want to have sex with her” or rather “I want to f*ck her or to get laid with her or make love with her”. Sex is an action (a verb), not a concept (a noun).
Players like Roosh or Roissy have decided that the goal of their life is bedding thousands of (mostly average) girls (look the pictures).
Yawn. How boring. Pussy is pussy and there is no need to put so much effort for something so trivial. A man can have better things to do with his life than to look for the thousandth hole to stick his willy in. Sex is not a big deal. It is a fleeting pleasure. It wears off very quickly. For every pretty woman, there is a guy who is fed up with f*cking her.
But American men will do ANYTHING for any kind of sex. Women know it and they manipulate men with this. So they feed their ego with all the things men are willing to do for sex with her. Other cultures know better.
So the solution is to have some standards. When you are tempted to disregard this standards only to have a bit of sex, think of the times you have get bored of having sex with the same woman.
I don’t think I believe the YMCA AMOG and even it it’s true, I’m not impressed by him.
Nothing but the truth, you should have your own blog!
Thank you, Lily. I am glad that you like my posts. I would like to have my blog but I am a very busy man.
As always in these discussions, we shall have to agree to disagree. .
One very good point is the excessive praise and adulation some women receive for their looks during youth. I had that experience myself. I can absolutely relate to the feeling of intoxication a young woman feels when boys and men of all ages and stations in life appear to swoon at one’s feet. It is a heady experience to be just a slip of a girl and have older, more important men light up at the sight of you. So yes, I understand why some women base their identities on their looks — and can’t quite cope with the loss of youthful beauty. If you are pretty, young, and female, the whole world constantly, daily, impresses upon you that your looks are the most important, most impressive, thing you have to offer — and that your looks are very important and impressive indeed.
I might have gone down that road myself, the road of basing my entire sense of self worth on my sex appeal, or believing that it was important to preserve at all costs. What saved me was a long childhood of reading girl’s books populated by bright, feisty heroines who were not necessarily pretty. (Harriet the Spy, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Women were a few examples.) So by the time men started pursuing me, I had already internalized the notion that being smart and achieving things was far more important than being pretty or popular. I think that is a very important message to start inculcating in girls young — not only for the homely girls, but perhaps especially for the pretty ones. Of course, it is a bit of a feminist concept.
@D “She said that Suzie was unhappy that he didn’t bring her breakfast in bed anymore,”
Oh my god, well you didn’t say anything about that in the OP!! It all makes sense now…
@Truth “I don’t know the answer though. The solution you appear to propose is that men not pay attention to young pretty women.”
That is not what I am saying at all. It is important for men to approach women they are interested in. What I am getting at is a whole different beast. It is men, usually betas, who will go out of their way to please a woman who is either 1) a total stranger 2) taken 3) has no interest in them. This makes women believe they are entitled to special treatment, just for giving the world the gift of them. It is not a healthy worldview to reinforce.
There are so many little examples, discounts and freebies and asking you if you “want a drink.” I once made a purposely unfunny racist joke to a group of men (at a party), only for them to laugh like I was Chris Rock. I was next to a guy at a bar and said, “Buy me some cigarettes.” He did. A guy approached me, cold, at a store while I was looking at purses and said he’d buy one for me if I went on a date with him (I don’t look like a prostitute). Guys at work bring me chocolates. And this is the day in the life of slightly above average female- so 51% of the female population is more or less getting this type of treatment. Compounded with the rationalization hamster already built in, and I do kind of understand why women think they’re so great (not all women can look at the true reason as to why men do this. They think it is internal and not external.)
We should have a moral compass to not take advantage of men. And we should have logic and understanding that beauty fades and we should work on being kind and moral individuals because eventually you won’t have your looks to fall back on. But I can’t still help but think that the blame is shared. Men need to have some self respect!!
I would suggest men stop treating women like they are special. If they are interested in them then they should approach them and ask them out on dates and so forth, but they should not go out of their way to treat a woman who has not expressed any interest in them like she’s god’s gift to earth and the rules don’t apply to her.
I agree with Dream Puppy. What I think that Beta men, the ones who want to end up married need to do is to start realizing their self worth.
Hard to do in this current misandristic climate.
They need to realize that they aren’t LUCKY to simply have a woman, and they aren’t lucky to be in a relationship either. Alphas don’t need to wine, dine or commit to women, they do what they want and then leave when they are done. Beta’s don’t have the skill, or the confidence, so they will give their women the world in order to have from one woman what an Alpha can have from several.
Beta males need to simply leave the situation when a woman begins to act entitled, realizing that he will have yet another woman in time, but currently they think that the woman they may currently have is the best deal they will ever get, and they are crushed if and when she ever leaves.
Propaganda fills this need well with all the articles about how women don’t need men or how fathers are useless, so Beta’s feel they have less of a reason to open their mouths and contradict the current paradigm as they feel they have no leverage.
Drinking the Purple Kool Aid in massive gulps the West is doing, both male and female.
And the women filing for divorce without necessarily claiming unreasonable behaviour or adultery it doesn’t mean anything. Most people don’t want to air their dirty linen in public.
Lily, you make an interesting point here. The initial purpose of no-fault divorce laws was to let couples who simply didn’t want to married any more out of the marriage without trumping up adultery or abuse charges. It may be that we are seeing more of what looks like frivilous divorce because people would rather get out of a marriage quickly and cleanly without arguing about who was at fault.
When my parents split up in the early 60s, we lived in a state that only allowed divorce for things like adultery and abuse. Although my mother could have made a case for abuse, she choose instead to get a Mexican divorce. It was quicker, easier and less emotionally traumatic than dredging up painful events in court. Now that no fault divorce is the standard, why would people seek to draw out an already ugly process by making and having to prove allegations when you can divorce with less rigamarole?
[D: Have you ever met a divorced woman who didn’t insist on telling you everything that was wrong with her ex husband? Um, that’s nice lady, but I’m just waiting for the bus.]
D,
Based on your description of this woman flipping out over not getting breakfast in bed or being paranoid about the stray socks turning up in the laundry, I’d say that she had major issues that caused the divorce as opposed to vice-versa. A normal person does not move back to her parent’s house after finding another woman’s stocking in the laundry basket when the laundry is done in a communal laundromat. A normal person would assume that the stocking belonged to whomever had used the dryer before her husband. The fact that “Suzie” has been hospitalized since then, leads me to believe that she has a long-standing problem, probably a borderline or histrionic personality disorder. That’s what broke up her marriage and what prevents her from forming new relationships with men who aren’t themselves rather marginal.
[D: It is always tough to say what causes what. She obviously isn’t a sterling example of good mental clarity. My wife and I were talking about it more this evening and she mentioned that Suzie’s mother had been whispering to her that she needed to “get her freedom back”. Now that the ex is on track to marry someone approved in the social scene her mother has changed her tune and is saying she never should have divorced him. Either way, plenty of craziness and bad decisions, no matter which caused which.]
“Men need to have some self respect!”
Forgive me if I get the image in my head of a young man or boy, kicked to the ground, being told “why don’t you just get up” while the beating continues unabated.
Lily and J, I think you are both misunderstanding my point.
Doomed Harlot alleged that “she’ll be sorry someday” was “a fantasy” – the suggestion being that most women are happy with their post-divorce lives, or at least are not likely to regret it.
I countered with the fact that when 70% of divorces are filed by women (that’s a huge imbalance, btw – two divorces filed by a woman for every one filed by a man), at least some of those divorces are going to be frivolous or ill-considered, leading to regret. Will some be legit no-fault mutual divorces? Sure. Will some be cases where a couple doesn’t want adultery or abuse stories spread through the legal system? Sure. Will some be frivolous? Absolutely.
I’m not saying all divorces are frivolous. I’m just saying some of them will no doubt be rash, ill-considered decisions – like this case: no abuse, no adultery, no cruelty, simply a chick who couldn’t stand a good thing she had going.
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D: Have you ever met a divorced woman who didn’t insist on telling you everything that was wrong with her ex husband?
J: A few. OTOH, I have loads of divorced men lambast their ex-wives to me too. It’s rare that anyone, male or female, doesn’t bad mouth an ex. You have to repsect that when you see it.
D: It is always tough to say what causes what. She obviously isn’t a sterling example of good mental clarity. …. Either way, plenty of craziness and bad decisions, no matter which caused which.
J: I’ve worked in mental health. The insurance climate for the last 20 years or so has been such that no one is admitted who doesn’t really, really need it. When I hear that someone has been hospitalized, that says it all to me.
[D: Have you ever met a divorced woman who didn’t insist on telling you everything that was wrong with her ex husband? Um, that’s nice lady, but I’m just waiting for the bus.]
Got a friend who went through this, in fact I grew up with her. She was bossy and very demanding and many of the guys she hung with wouldn’t have touched her with a 10-foot cattle prod. She met a guy and later married him and things where kosher…for a while. They had a child and then things hit the skids.
Everything which went wrong was his fault, never hers, and she always telling anyone who would listen that counselors needed to ‘fix him’. Even her mother one day had told her (while I was present) that she wasn’t anywhere near as perfect as she would like to think.
Unfortunately she never listened.
I’m friends with both her and her ex, and his story is very different. While I understand that both sides will embellish, every issue that he has told me about her are things I have seen for years. While no one is perfect, he had tried to meet her halfway, but she refused to change, telling him right out that “I will never change, so you need to deal with that.”
He did, he left.
He’s dating right now and is much happier that he is alone, she OTOH, not so much.