That’s why guys get married, so they can stop wooing. It’s exhausting to woo, you woo, you woo, and you woo, and then you’ve got to go: Whoa!
–Paul Reiser, Mad About You
Badger made an excellent point in his post Cattiness and the un-selected-man. He pointed out that when women like the Gizmodo blogger shred a date they deem unworthy they raise the risk level men perceive in traditional dating:
It’s not enough for a man to be politely rejected and sent on his way; you have to be humiliated, placed in the virtual stocks so that the world knows the insufferable wrong you’ve inflicted on her by not being good enough for her dreams.
…it only has to happen once before a guy replays the movie in his head every time he considers approaching a woman, and oftentimes decides not to even when he might be slated for success.
What women like Alyssa Bereznak are doing by punishing men they deem unworthy is raising the searching costs associated with finding a mate in the traditional way. They don’t perceive a loss to themselves by doing this because searching costs are born almost exclusively by men when women are young (at least under the traditional model). It isn’t just the threat of nuclear rejection which has raised the cost of traditional dating for men however, it is the additional uncertainty which men experience as women move more and more towards full fledged choice addiction.
Women traditionally were able to bask in the courtship process because they were the center of attention and men bore the financial, emotional, and social costs of the selection process. What men typically find grueling women find delightful. However, in cultures with traditional courtship men perceive the rewards to be high (lifetime commitment). In addition, in such cultures the risks are moderated by rules of decorum and formal and informal pressure on the woman to minimize the number of men she allows to court her. While the average woman might wish to be courted by 50 men, the average man is in no position to bear the expense of courting 50 women in order to find a wife.
Ever since the beginning of the sexual revolution women have perceived the incentive to prolong courtship in one way or another. The old rules no longer restricted them from extending the courtship period or required them to keep their lifetime commitment, and many men initially continued to play by the old set of rules. This is at the very heart of choice addiction.
Badger astutely points out that the changing sexual marketplace leaves unattached men who are interested in women with two main options. Option 1 is to continue bearing all of the risk and costs by dating in the traditional way, even though the costs are much higher and the rewards (in terms of commitment) are now much lower:
…take the initiative to set up a date doing something you hope she might enjoy, go on the actual date (hope she doesn’t flake), talk to her, try to figure out what she’s like and whether you’d be interested in a long-term partnership (and oh by the way pick up the bill with no expectation of her investment), and hope you don’t slip up and say something she’ll sneer at and have to start all over with somebody else. Then do the whole thing all over again two, three, four times until you no longer have to convince her every time you want to go on a date with her. She might hold off on sex saying “I don’t want to rush it because you’re so special,”when you suspect she had a one-night stand with an Axl Rose impersonator a month before she met you.
At best, you’ll suffer a long series of rejections – mostly silent ones, where your online messages go mostly unread and unreturned, your texts and phone calls fall on deaf ears and your invitations for follow-up dates go into the aether never to be accepted, never really knowing what straw broke her back.
But men have another choice aside from continuing to play by the old rules while women play by the new. Badger describes how men can use game to limit their searching costs:
Pursue a pump-and-dump lifestyle. Go hard into PUA game praxis, building a toolbox of seductive skills in accordance with your God-given personality while you emotionally firewall yourself from the betatizing effects of romance. Pluses of this strategy:
Within five minutes, you’ll know if she has rejected you out of hand.
Within thirty minutes you’ll have a pretty good idea if she finds you attractive.
Within two or three meetings (Mystery posits a seven-hour acculturation period) she’ll sleep with you, if she’s going to sleep with you at all.
Roosh advises this strategy for men in his post The No-Dating Challenge For Intermediate Players:
For three months, I don’t want you to go on a single date with a girl you haven’t already had sex with.
…I undertook this challenge last summer, and the results were telling: I got more bangs with the prettiest girls than any other summer in DC. Remember that I did all this without having to seduce a girl on a date (the “dates” I went on were with girls I had already defiled).
Note that in this scenario men are both reducing their own investment as well as forcing the woman to bear some of the searching costs. Women who don’t put out in a short period of time are written off by the man, who continues on his low investment search. Putting out becomes a sort of Sexual Market Place (SMP) earnest money, proving that the woman has some, er, well, skin in the game. I suspect the fact that women now bear some of the searching costs is what bothers traditional conservative women so much. It is bad enough that men come in with a lower initial investment, but not allowing women to string along man after man basking in the attention of being eternally chased is unacceptable!
Yet no one seems to come right out and say it. What is striking about the loss of courtship is that:
- It is largely un-mourned.
- It was lost by the choices and actions of women, not men.
I suspect there is a relationship between 1 and 2 above, plus a heavy dose of denial. Women fixated on the opportunity to string out the courtship process like an addict looking at a crack pipe. And as with crack, the first hits were free. Young women are diving enthusiastically into the hookup market because while they aren’t getting the full courtship deal, they are getting the excitement of attention from the most popular men.
Not all women looking to extend the courtship process choose to engage in hookups however. On the other end of the spectrum we see religious women saving their virginity (or sort of virginity) through their late twenties and even early thirties. They proudly wear the traditional mantel even though in a traditional society they would be considered old maids for extending their search for a husband for so long. Some of these women are simply too picky and being unrealistic about their own league. Others are also extending the process because at some level they enjoy the process more than they anticipate enjoying being married to their suitor. Other women marry and enjoy the attention, validation, and intense investment which comes with making a lifelong commitment, only to eject from the marriage when they become bored.
Whether the woman is a forever chaste damsel, carousel rider, or divorcée however, she will almost always grow exhausted by her own choice addiction. We hear most often from divorcées, who start with the assumption that their past failure to keep a lifetime promise won’t deter would be suiters from seeing them as a good potential investment for courtship. The blog Post Divorce Chronicles probably sums this frame of mind up best with the post Divorce: No Stigma – Just Four Rs (H/T slwerner):
The ideas that have been instilled in society that people who are divorced lack commitment and should feel shame and guilt need to be thrown out. There is no stigma in being divorced – instead, it should be considered an exciting period of rebirth…
Before you were married, you were single. Now that you are no longer married you are “re-singled.” This is where you have come full circle in the life that you were meant to lead.
What a wonderful marketing pitch! Divorce your husband and become re-singled, so men can start courting you again! But as with anything else often reality is different than the exciting brochure. Divorced women and women dating past their early 20s are finding that the men they want to date aren’t willing to foot the searching costs. All of a sudden finding a new mate goes from a process to be savored to an exhausting one. Divorced blogger Big Little Wolf describes this in her post Page 19:
You coffee date which really ought to be a verb because there’s Coffee Dating at Starbucks and Coffee Dating at Borders and Coffee Dating at Starbucks again because by this time the Bulgarian Barista knows you by name and the Poet Barista knows you from Open Mike Night and you feel safer with this parade of coffee dates at “your” Starbucks and finally one of the dates leads to a little something and it’s been years since anything and you’re relieved that something still works and then there’s a flurry of somethings.
But.
You weary of that pretty quickly because you’re not a kid and you have kids and it isn’t really your thing and you’re out of babysitting money anyway and losing your taste for Double Venti Skinny Lattes.
Of course, now the kids fly off for their dad’s wedding and you tell yourself Okay, maybe he’ll leave me alone…
She tells us in a separate post that it wasn’t always like this:
Once upon a time, I had a life as a woman. You know. Dates. Romance. Sex. And there were tokens of affection – little notes and cards, love letters, and even flowers. Signs of wooing, and eventually, love.
She isn’t the only divorcée to mourn the loss of courtship. Juliet Jeske describes how men are no longer willing to bear the cost of courtship in her Huffington Post article Dating After Divorce In a City of Sluts (H/T unclefred). Serial monogamy stops being so enticing when women bear the searching costs:
I have made failed attempts of hooking up with partners for something casual, but every time the results have been disastrous. For the most part I am let down by an experience that was supposed to be fun, and which ends up making my life more complicated….
So I realized, I am not this person, I need to be true to myself so I went back to my committed relationship roots. But no matter how much I keep trying to go for a relationship, the hook-up scenario keeps rearing its ugly head. I might start talking to a guy only to see him leave with a woman who has made it perfectly clear that a hook-up is about to happen. A situation I like to call survival of the sluttiest.
We see the same scenario described in the New York Post article
Cheap dates How the ‘price’ of sex has dropped to record lows:
researchers found a full 30% of young men’s sexual relationships involve no romance at all — no wooing, dating, goofy text messaging. Nothing. Just sex.
While this starts off as exciting and fun for young women, before very long they are no longer at the apex of their sexual power and hooking up stops being so appealing. By this time however, it is too late to go back and effectively pursue a traditional strategy. They may find a sucker willing to pay filet mignon prices for ground chuck, but these aren’t the same class of men they could have attracted for marriage or a LTR when they were younger.
What makes all of this more interesting is the slow motion changes to the SMP post sexual revolution. Men have been slow to adjust to women’s changing strategies, and likewise women have been slow to acknowledge that men’s behavior has finally changed. The whole process has taken decades. While hamster driven denial is a stubborn trait, eventually most women will have to acknowledge that men have adjusted and their dream of forever courtship is once again impossible. As this occurs I would expect women to more and more value their existing relationships. Women who overplayed their marriage hand may decide they are lucky to have a LTR at all, especially considering the cost of reentering the SMP looking for another man; serial monogamy just suffered a price shock. I don’t think many women are at this place of understanding yet, but over time it seems all but inevitable.
Flowers image by Ian Muttoo.
For myself – as one gets older – one realises fairly quickly whether a woman is or is not interested, and if she is interested she will go to bed immediately, (unless she just gets a sadistic validation-kick out of prick-teasing) so although I am not a PUA, I regard Mystery’s seven hour time frame as hopelessly lethargic, – and whilst on the subject of PUAs Krauser always strikes me as awkward with the women he tries to pick-up, although he obviously has success. One day: One girl, has been my motto for the last twenty years or so, and one reason for that is that I find women who will not sleep with me quickly are merely jerking me around – can’t decide what they want or just enjoy the (from my point of view) pointless attention. Worse still, wooing, these days, can also, be spun by the woman as sexual harrassement (the two are actually indistinguishable). Dating (like dancing – a woman’s answer to safe sex) is for gauche Teenagers – or White-Knights.
Perhaps it is just different over here.
I think Krauser is a bit of a fraud.
If you notice he’s only ever FaceBook closes the hot girls, then makes out that they are on the back-burner.
He only every confirms sleeping with the less good looking ones.
Opus-“Dating (like dancing – a woman’s answer to safe sex) is for gauche Teenagers – or White-Knights.”
@ 25 i couldn’t agree more.
All very true, Dalrock. The world of dating had changed into a meaningless hook-up culture. It’s a change mostly lead by women.
I’ve got a steady job, I make good money, I’m responsible, and I’m respectful to people: I suppose years ago that would have been enough for a gal. Its certainly not anymore, not for most young gals my age.
And honestly, I feel most sorry for women my age. They continue to pick the wrong guy over and over again, getting all the negatives that come with him (physical abuse, emotional abuse, single motherhood, etc).
Most men, mist smart ones that is, will learn from their white knight mistakes. Either they’ll become jerks to get women, or will pretend to be ‘jerks’ enough to string her along.
I’d say my dating life is a combination of traditional and pua; I still go on dates with women, but always split the bill. I don’t expect sex on the first date or two, but I push kino and watch for IOIs.
In a sick way, men who know game have won the most from the sexual revolution.
Sadly, everyone else had lost out.
‘better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven?’
An excellent post—really breaks it down.
What this situation also reveals is Breznak’s own unfamiliarity with male sexual attention…because she simply is not very attractive. Hot women tend not to make a big fuss about guys hitting on them. They’ve been getting male attention ever since high school and usually just shrug off betas without making too big a scene. The fact that Breznak had to subject this dude to a gauntlet of public ridicule is really an indication that she isn’t terribly accustomed to male attention, and has to shout from the rooftops that someone finally found her attractive and that she wasn’t interested. So much of feminism is really about ugly chicks being pissed off at not having sexual power, or completely misreading the few scraps of male attention they do get because they’ve been marinating in the illusory oppressor/victim paradigm for so long.
I think this is probably the endgame—but it’s still a ways off. Our culture does everything it possibly can to shield women from the consequences of their own foolish decisionmaking. Guys will continue to adapt slowly, but gynocentric pop culture will likely redouble it’s efforts to pedestalize women at the same time traditional conservatives ramp up their efforts to subject young men to obligation masculinity minus the payoffs. One day women will come to value their men—but that day is not yet at hand.
I hope I’m wrong though.
“As this occurs I would expect women to more and more value their existing relationships.”
Some, sure. Most women, I think, will continue to only value that which they don’t have. It’s just way too easy to take something for granted when you have it, no matter how little sense that makes. Sure, at 38 a two-time divorcee might very well value the man she’s with now… until she gets bored of him, too, and his formerly-endearing quirks become grating to her obviously-evolved female sensibilities. Six months later, single again, she’ll be wishing she had a man who would give her the time of day.
The good ones marry at 20 now. Most everyone after that find themselves single because of choice addiction, and because they never learn – neither from their mistakes, nor about their own nature.
Man Dalrock I never new that was happening to me. I’m 47 now and back when I had no idea of reality back in my mid twenties I naturally just didn’t date any woman I wasn’t sexually active with. One thing I did slowing with practice become aware was one of the most excited moments that you can see with a woman is when you first meet them. You could meet a woman in a night club at 10pm to 12am and be having sex with that same woman by 1 to 2 am (hooking up is what they call it today) Those were the women I would do things with. I always felt romance was degrading and humiliating for a man and I had another guy even tell me that and this was well before the days of the mens blogs and men actually talking about these things outside of the PUA type crowd. Courting and romance is gone because there is no pay off. women themselves have seen to it the only thing they have is physical attractiveness and a vigina. All men are reminded of this every day in all areas of society by how we as men are not reguarded as worthy humans even in how the laws are written and enforced. At best men will be lied to (blue pill ) so that they will accept what is happening as their fault and continue to work.
This is another Great article and insight on your part Dalrock.
Lots to digest here, will leave this first:
“Women traditionally were able to bask in the courtship process because they were the center of attention and men bore the financial, emotional, and social costs of the selection process.”
Women especially seem to susceptible to this false idea of nostalgia and the “men present, women select” model. My sense is that back in the day, men having the resources meant women didn’t have to worry about picking up a check – however, for that exact reason, there was still a madcap race among women to snap up the best men, which meant women were heavily involved in making a case for themselves. If your daughter had some personality trait (or physical deformity) that hurt her MMV, you had to come up with a plan to compensate for it.
Cf Pride and Prejudice, whose farcical backdrop is trying to get all these bitchy, shallow married off.
Hell, go back to my high school – the underground shenanigans girls undertook to get certain guys to ask them to prom was incredible. Imagine another order of magnitude of pressure as not just prom but a young woman’s ability to eat for the next 50 years was on the line.
It is amazinng the most acurate and valuable work in the field of clinical psychology of women and relationships is not coming from profeesionals but from average men looking for real answers to issues and problems will out pushing a political agenda.
@ greyghost:
We’re not limited by political correctness, feminist professors giving us grades, or (in most cases) a lack of anonymity; we are driven only by results. Apparently those things together are enough to outdo a four-year degree.
Badger
Hell, go back to my high school – the underground shenanigans girls undertook to get certain guys to ask them to prom was incredible. Imagine another order of magnitude of pressure as not just prom but a young woman’s ability to eat for the next 50 years was on the line.
Yeah imagine that. Are you old enough to remember the adoring way way women spoke of men. Think of the populars songs women wrote and performed. A woman it leaste made apretense of standing by here man.Even the the old television shows and movies. Even a silly comedy like national Lampoons Vacation had a silly father but he was still the center of the family and was the leader of the pack.(he was basicly respected by his family) Never going to happen like that again.
I used to counter this by making sure that the woman I pursued was actually interested in me first – by learning how to recognise the subtle clues, and the not so subtle clues like extended eye contact, body language etc. This often works, however I have noticed in the last several years the rise of the attention-hors – those women who give off those signals to even an attractive man, simply for the satisfaction of having caught the attention of the attractive man, but without any intent of following through on anything. This is why even good looking guys need to learn game, because they are most susceptible to attention horing from females. Indeed females like this Bereznak bitch would even pull this crap on an alpha – just so they can say they turned him down and further feed their massive egos.
May I pick up on the conclusion to my earlier comment about it being different over here, as this very day The Prime Minister has announced that he is going to crack-down on forced marriages. Forced Marriage is surely the new name for Arranged Marriages, and of course Indians have always arranged marriages and very successful by western standards they are too. Two families of similar background (or caste) get together and without any form of courting their respective son and daughter (in full agreement) marry. No romantic expectations; no long courtship. Pragmatism.
Also: If I may make a comment on Bereznak, (and I agree with dragnet that not being very attractive she is obviously not used to male attention- and thus) by rejecting Finkel in so public a manner she was merely signalling to all, that her SMV was higher than he (or anyone else) might previously have supposed; but he has to be of a sufficient standing (as he is) in the first place for that type of attack to work as there is no cudos or rise in ones SMV if one rejects an obviously undesirable or unattractive man.
@Badger
I think you make a good case for the nostalgia women seem to feel not being in line with reality. However, I think you take it too far in your last sentence. This feels like feminist myth making. Women who didn’t marry generally did ok, but they didn’t have their own families and there wasn’t a sense that “career” would take the place of family. What was on the line was mostly status, which is of course highly motivating for women.
I also think that even if the ideal is closer to nostalgia than reality, women are far more obsessed with the courtship process than men. Turn on one of the cable channels for women and there is a good chance what is on is courtship porn. 50 first dates, anyone? And even if all of your prospects are awful for a year or longer, the next man you meet might just be a secret mulitmillionaire hunky handyman who falls madly in love with you.
In the middle stages of the sexual revolution serial monogamy looked for many women like courtship porn. Now it more closely resembles plain old porn.
Opus, I think there is a difference between ‘Forced Marriage’ and ‘Arranged Marriages’.
Though of course perhaps the former are trying to pass off as the latter.
From what I’ve seen of any arranged marriages, they do often have a period of courting/getting to know each other period.
That said, I agree with you that things are just different between the countries. I don’t think we have the courtship rituals they have/had in the US. Not for quite a long time anyway!
Perhaps it’s our pub culture. Or the banter culture.
Also, the ‘blokeyness’ amongst the working classes. There are some builders working in my road at the moment and they always stop (mainly their chatter) when I walk past to make a big deal that they are getting out of the way for me (when it’s quite unnecessary) and their alright darlings, if that fellow of you gives you any trouble, I’ll move in and look after your little uns etc, it’s all just said in high spirits and laughter, but I just can’t imagine them having much problems with ‘birds’.
“That’s why guys get married, so they can stop wooing. It’s exhausting to woo, you woo, you woo, and you woo, and then you’ve got to go: Whoa!
–Paul Reiser, Mad About You”
“Women traditionally were able to bask in the courtship process because they were the center of attention and men bore the financial, emotional, and social costs of the selection process. What men typically find grueling women find delightful. However, in cultures with traditional courtship men perceive the rewards to be high (lifetime commitment).”
Yeah, but the point that I think Reiser was making is that nowadays, not only single women expect to be “wooed,” but married women too. That makes the payoff for all that wooing for men to be significantly less attractive.
Assuming the wife does feel a “lifetime commitment” to you (and that is a big assumption), it is still unlikely that, in today’s world, she feels any obligation whatsoever to have sex with you. Women are taught from day one, from when they are still fairly young girls, that they are in control of sex. That when they say no, it must mean no, at least from the guy’s perspective (they, of course, are free to have it “really” mean “maybe” or “ask me later” or whatever). Women are taught that it is “wrong” for them to have sex, EVER, if they don’t want to or don’t feel like it. No matter what. No matter what signal they previously sent out to the man. No matter if they are actually engaging in the sex that she initiated when she changes her “mind.” Women are taught that any notion of them being obligated to have sex smacks of women being owned, “like chattel,” and of rape. It was a big part of the historical oppression of women, they are told.
And this as true for a married woman as a single one. The overwhelming majority of married women today reject the notion, find it abhorrant, even, that they should have sex with their husbands if they don’t feel like it at the time. That would be “marital rape.” Sex, according to them is for when they both feel like it. Anything else would “cheapen” it, or offend the Goddess, or whatever. Which in reality means that sex is for when they feel like it. The average husband, at least until age fifty or so, is ready for sex almost all the time. And, even when he isn’t, he gets it so infrequently that he won’ t turn it down. The average wife, on the other hand, is usually not all that into having sex with her husband. That means little or no sex for the husband. Some wives rationalize this by saying that HER husband wouldn’t want sex if she was not in the mood. But, of course, that is BS.
And that brings up back to “wooing” and the married women. Women want the wooing, married or not. I have literally heard wives tell their husbands that they want to be “wooed.” I think if a woman wants to be wooed, she should remain single. Married women should have sex with their husbands, barring disease or illness. A husband is not “wooed” into putting his check into their joint account, is he? He just does it. He feels an obligation to do it. I have had women respond to this argument by saying that money is not the same as sex. That sex is personal, is of the body and the emotions, and to equate the two is to reduce sex to prostitution. Fine. But a husband needs no wooing to give his wife a hug or a shoulder to cry on, to say “I love you” to her when she wants to hear it. And those things are personal and of the body and the emotions too. A husband does those things automatically, when he thinks his wife wants or needs them, without wooing and whether he “feels like it” or not. Women have no answer to this argument.
But, as we all know, that hardly matters. Married women simply refuse to put out, argument or no argument. So their husbands try to “woo” them. Bubble baths and massages, candles and chocolates, champaign, date nights, etc, etc. And they may get them laid marginally more often, but not enough to really matter. Some folks here will say that he should “GAME” his wife, and that may get him laid more often too. But it is still not likely to be enough. Moreover, even if it is, it is still “wooing.” It is still a pain in the ass. It is still exhausting. It is still jumping through a hoop to get something that should be part of the deal without any hoop jumping. If I were young and married, I would expect to have sex with my wife on a regular basis, without having to stop at the florist’s shop every night on the way home from work and without having to pretend to be Studly Dudly either. But that would not happen. Which is one of the many reasons I advise young men not to marry.
Given the way that men tend to think about things, most married men I know seem to have the attitude “Well, that is my part of the deal. I made the deal, and I am going to live up to it.” That is part of the definition of “commitment” in ,male-ese.
or, as Horton the elephant would say
“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, A husband is faithful 100%.”
Women: spare me all your anecdotes of unfaithful men.
Of course women love “RO-mance” – it is all about them. Men seem to consider “wooing” a project – it has a duration, and a goal.
Women seem to want it to be a lifestyle – even into their 60s, like Big Little Wolf.
Forgive my cynicism, but is it possible Ms. Bereznak dumped on Mr. Finkel out of simple pecuniary interest rather than anything directly related to the SMP? This article makes the case that she does:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2011/08/30/the-science-of-gawkers-nerd-baiting/
This is not to defend her–not interested in being a ‘devil’s advocate’ today, and either way she’s a…can we use the C-word here? Sorry, I’m still a bit new ’round these parts–she’s an “unpleasant woman,” let’s say. But before we hold her up as an example of any far-reaching sociosexual trends, it’s worth considering whether or not she was just trying to make a quick buck and get loads of hits above anything else. Never attribute to malice what can be laid at the feet of stupidity, and before blaming something on a woman’s hypergamy, see if you can’t pin it on her greed first…though I suppose the two may be interchangeable, lol.
“Can’t Understand Normal Thinking”
Isn’t seeking a quick buck and loads of hits a significant current sociosexual trend?
Reading Bereznak’s twitter account the other day, all I see is a shallow unrepentant bitch.
Isn’t seeking a quick buck and loads of hits a significant current sociosexual trend?
Well, I was thinking that this may be more representative of a social trend rather than a sexual one–i.e Ms. Bereznak ragged on Mr. Finkel because she wanted to stoke a lot of “nerd rage” (in the words of the article), not that she wanted to raise the costs of courtship, increasing her SMV, etc.
She just wasn’t trying to raise her sexual market value. She already had it. She was just being a normal female in a feral environment and showing off her high reletive staus at the moment at the expense of a popular person to beliitle with out critisism. a nerdy white male. She is a female blogger type she hangs out in the female writer world those are the people she is comparing herself to. the terms about the sexual market place and the like are terms we use in the mens world of logic and reason explainations of behavior. Those thoughts and reasons cannot and should not be applied to female behavior. There will be a strange predictable logic but not anything that is obvious.
Excellently written and insightful article (though no surprise from Dalrock)!
Side note: though I’ve been reading quite a few blogs and know or deduce a lot of acronyms’ meanings, occasionally there’s one that I can’t figure out. I even did a google search but nada. So pardon my ignorance, but what’s SMP? 🙂
Sorry, couldn’t edit my previous comment. I guess it’s Sexual Marketplace? 🙂
[D: Correct.]
I bet a static page on this site or elsewhere, linked to as ‘glossary’ at the bottom of most pages would really help newcomers. When first approaching this section of the internet, common use of NAWALT, MRM, SMV, MMP, MGTOW and the like can really leave a person baffled. It’s certainly possible to google around, but a single page widely linked to that explains the terms newcomers may not have previously encountered would be valuable.
Great article, Dalrock.
I can tell you from personal experience that you hit the nail on the head. In my more beta days, I took enough girls on expensive dinner dates to keep a good chunk of the restaurant business afloat.
Now my rule is I only pay for drinks (or consumables of similar cost). Once they sleep with me then I’ll take them out for dinner and buy flowers… if I genuinely feel like doing so.
‘Courting’ a girl with that old dating process from the forties and fifties just makes you into a tool. While you’re courting her, she’s getting pounded by guys she meets at a club or wherever. I once naively thought that there were “good girls” and “bad girls.” Now I realize that it’s much more of a bell curve with very few outliers, and whether a girl is “good” or “bad” depends on the alphaness of the guy in front of her. A median girl wants to appear to be a “good girl” to string along her beta suitors, and a “bad girl” when there is an alpha in front of her. She wants a taste of the alpha cock!
I’m jealous of guys who are in high school and college now who can just read all this great information on the internet for nothing. I burned a full decade after high school doing stupid beta shit before I even got a little bit of a clue.
Interesting point from your last paragraph there Dalrock, and one I had contemplated myself recently. The combined actions of two disparate groups of men, PUA’s and MGTOW’s, add up to improve conditions, not only for themselves, but a third group of males, those in marriages and other relationships. Those men in relationships have in the last 20 to 50 years been more exposed to the excesses of hamster driven decision making, but the interests of those men are now partially aligning with the pure self-interest of the females they co-habit with. And even a slow and small realignment such as this may often be enough for such males to reassert themselves somewhat, allowing both them and their partner to enjoy life a little more…
The growing percentage of Cads increase the value of dads – for those women who value them.
“Note that in this scenario men are both reducing their own investment as well as forcing the woman to bear some of the searching costs. Women who don’t put out in a short period of time are written off by the man, who continues on his low investment search. Putting out becomes a sort of Sexual Market Place (SMP) earnest money, proving that the woman has some, er, well, skin in the game. I suspect the fact that women now bear some of the searching costs is what bothers traditional conservative women so much. It is bad enough that men come in with a lower initial investment, but not allowing women to string along man after man basking in the attention of being eternally chased is unacceptable!”
This graf right here is the crux of the post. It also captiures the essence of today’s SMP. The breakdown this describes was inevitable after women’s sexual freedom was unleashed. Where do we go from here?
1. I think Dalrock is right that women in relationships might — MIGHT — value those relationships more as it becomes increasingly clear that more and more men either don’t commit or drop out altogether.
2. To equalize things, women will have to refrain from putting out easily. It’s just that simple. Women who want the man to invest will have to show there’s something worth investing in.
3. Social conservatives will need to accept that this is the current SMP and what its causes are. Hint: It’s not men needing to man up, quit playing video games, go to school and get jobs. There are a lot of men out there who did all those things and still can’t attract the interest of even one halfway decent woman..
4. Recognize there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage in the form of women never marrying and divorced women being unable to remarry. In fact we’re seeing the beginnings of that now. These women will be an enormous medical and social cost on the system. Women by far consume the most medical and hospital services and that only increases as women age. Many of those women won’t have husbands or hubby’s medical plans to pay for that medical care.
@Opus
Regarding Indian arranged marriages. These are widely practiced in the states within Indian communities. Sometime families here are arranging marriages between children already in the states, and sometime a sending the groom home to marry and return with his wife. I know of no cases where a daughter in the states was sent back to India to marry a husband, but it may happen. I have only anecdotal data on this from various good friends in those communities, but here in the state the success rate of arranged marriages is much poorer than in India. Further the failures tend to be rather spectacularly bad. Divorce generally is not as harsh on Indian men as on their non-indian counter parts. There is a strong sense that divorce is more the fault of the wife and her family. Families are embarrassed by divorce and often private settlements are negotiated by the respective families and then submitted for judicial approval. A divorcing man actually can use the embarrassment of suing for divorce as a strong bargaining chip in avoiding ruinous settlements. Divorced men are not viewed as “damaged goods” by indian woman nearly to the degree as are divorced indian women by indian men, so the wife’s family has a large stack in keeping things quiet.
@Lily
In the several cases that I know of where a son was sent back to India to marry his total exposure to his bride was two weeks. He went on an initial trip and spent a week there meeting her in the company of her family. Then after the families concluded negotiation and agreed to the arrangement, he returned with his immediate family for a week and married. In some cases after the initial meeting an arrangement was not reached and that process repeated when another suitable wife candidate was found.
Arranged marriages where both members were in the states did tend allow the prospective spouses more time (and time alone) together, so I perhaps the “courting times” where both were in India were longer as well.
Being in a completely different age range than it seems most readers of this blog are, and certainly than Badger is, I think I have a different take on it than what I think Dalrock means in the statement above.
I have read a lot of recent posts by members of this particular blogging community about how to raise the price women can charge men for sex. I can only assume that women believe that men will pay whatever “price” they can convince other members of the sex cartel to fix.
As someone who has reached the age when I think even the cheap seats are likely overpriced, my take on the Gizmodo blogger is “so this is the prize that is available to men for playing?” Not only does she increase the risk level that some men perceive, she GREATLY reduces the reward level that men perceive for playing the game successfully.
@ TFH
“We may not be far from a point where a pedestalizer pays $300 for a first date with a 6, and even drops her off at the PUAs house at the end of the data.”
I can confirm first-hand that this is happening. I have definitely had girls I was seeing dropped off at my place by the their beta orbiters or guys who were into them but the feelings weren’t mutual.
And then picked up the next morning. Swear to god.
@TFH
“We may not be far from a point where a pedestalizer pays $300 for a first date with a 6…”
Not to put words in your mouth I have a question. I see in this the notion that the amount acceptable for a man to spend on a date directly or strongly correlates with her SMV score? In other words that if it makes sense to pay X dollars on a date with a 7 then it make sense, or perhaps is defensible, to pay 2X dollars when with an 8.5 and 6X when with a 10?
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but it struck me as odd and I wanted to ask
tspoon
Interesting point from your last paragraph there Dalrock, and one I had contemplated myself recently. The combined actions of two disparate groups of men, PUA’s and MGTOW’s, add up to improve conditions, not only for themselves, but a third group of males, those in marriages and other relationships. Those men in relationships have in the last 20 to 50 years been more exposed to the excesses of hamster driven decision making, but the interests of those men are now partially aligning with the pure self-interest of the females they co-habit with. And even a slow and small realignment such as this may often be enough for such males to reassert themselves somewhat, allowing both them and their partner to enjoy life a little more…
outstanding comment and observation tspoon. That is the reason i push the PUA and MGTOW with the same enthusiasm. I even started trolling and giving positive comments on that very thing outside of the mens blogs. Once you fully understand Game and the PUA it will make sense in a world with laws of misandry. because this is where it is at “with the pure self-interest of the females they co-habit with”
Today must be greyghost day. The speahead just had an article (from zed) that i have been trying to write and explain for months in comments. And now dalrock and tspoon here.
I think its just the case that the first para of this article is correct:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article3283690.ece
I’m not bitter, just burned out. There are only so many times you can go on a romantic break to Paris (the Starbucks example above is very sad…Starbucks!) and feel like it somehow will mean more than all the times you went before with different women. Just tired really, weary. This might come across as ‘PUA tactics’ or ‘hooking up’ but really it isn’t actually. I don’t know about pedestals but I used to like doing the whole wooing thing, I just lack the energy now and to be honest a ‘no’ is a ‘no’ whether you wait or not and it doesn’t seem to be anything you can ever have much influence over anyway.
@opus: “Worse still, wooing, these days, can also, be spun by the woman as sexual harrassement (the two are actually indistinguishable).”
If the woman perceives the man as attractive it is welcome flirting otherwise it is unwelcome and as thus sexual harassment.
“by rejecting Finkel in so public a manner she was merely signalling to all, that her SMV was higher than he (or anyone else) might previously have supposed”
This does not make sense to increase her SMV because most men decide with their own eyes not based on social proof. But sure it makes herself feel better to believe her own lie.
@ruddy:
“Assuming the wife does feel a “lifetime commitment” to you (and that is a big assumption), it is still unlikely that, in today’s world, she feels any obligation whatsoever to have sex with you.”
If you are married sex is part of the contract, the vows you gave. Especially, as Athol Kay gives as example: “I am of the firm belief that in sexless marriages, the spouse who denies sex is cheating the other out of their marriage agreement. I use the word “cheating” quite purposely and see it as minimally different from an “affair.” The marriage agreement is one of mutual sexual exclusivity and meeting each other’s sexual needs. A spouse who goes outside the relationship for sex denies the cheated on spouse their half of the marriage agreement. A spouse who denies the other reasonable sexual access cheats the other out of their half of the marriage agreement. Either way the marriage is under enormous difficulty. Seeing as I’m good with crass examples… If you became the customer of a cable TV company and they came and hooked up your neighbor’s house, or refused to hook your house up, but they still demanded payment, how long would you tolerate that? You would immediately demand the company stop billing you for the neighbor’s cable and come hook it up at your place, or you would threaten to immediately stop being their customer. Whatever you do though, you shouldn’t keep passively paying the cable bill hoping the cable company will give you cable one day.”
In particular, most women are very rationally aligned with opportunity rather the promise of assumed mutual support they gave that they should support each other in bad and good days. But apparently the support only applies to women. Here is an example by Rollo:
– http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/would-you-leave-if-she-got-fat/
“And that brings up back to “wooing” and the married women. Women want the wooing, married or not. I have literally heard wives tell their husbands that they want to be “wooed.””
Given the legal setup and little incentive to stay in the LTR/marrigage for women they expect to be entertained. It is funny how a depreciating beauty asset requires more attention although they should be happy to get any. I mean do you think your car gets cooler for each additional time you are having it?
@Uncle Fred
Very interesting
Strange to think of a country where following a divorce the man is sympathised with and the woman is seen as used goods! Over here, of course, your date for the evening only has to lose interest and everyone, men and women see you as a failure, and blame you for her freely-willed behaviour. This is Anglo Pedestalising – and I get VERY tired of it.
It occurs to me that one of the reasons arranged marriages work is because (and this is how speed dating works) two people can tell what they think of each other within ninety seconds to four minutes of meeting. As a friend of mine so rightly observes all the signs are there at the beginning if only you can read them. If only…
Having been married twice, once the usual way and the second time to a Russian bride, I would like to offer my take with the two biggest differences with the courtship process.
The first is that the courtship is much more compressed when looking abroad. Most Russian women (where my wife is from) are signing up on internet dating sights to look for a husband not to date casually. Many of these women are incredible beautiful but cannot find suitable husband material locally so like their Western male counterparts they cast a wider net. While the number of e-mails an 8, 9, or 10 might receive might be significant but the number of men who will actually show up to where they live (which is what you must do several times) is actually very small. This means they are really choosing from a small and unreliable supply of men so they must be decisive when the opportunity arises. The women who find a US, German, Australian husband are considered lucky not because of the stereotype that they are going to relatively affluent countries but because Western men are considered superior spousal material over the infamous local men. In spite of what you read or hear there is a very real risk to these women. Marrying a foreigner is quite scandalous and they have to separate from everything they have know their whole lives to live in a far off place with a man they barely know. This ups the risk to both parties but it is also what makes the process so successful if it works. There is no turning back. Being middle aged and wanting to have more children I was not interested in wasting a lot of time “dating”. Although I actually did pretty well locally I am very exogamic and have a thing for Russian women. Sure they talk a little funny but that is not what I was looking for.
The second half of this is that the Russian women who are looking for a husband have a much shorter list of what they will accept and what they won’t. It is basically the important things and none of the trivial. Once you get past that then you just focus on compatibility. Thanks to technology including phones, pictures, and the internet you have a very good idea of what the physical characteristics are before meeting (looks, age, education level, etc.) (And believe me, these women are unbelievably hot) so you are not wasting time on people on automatic rejects. Contrast that to the local women who have a laundry list a mile long of what they want in a man that they are truly setting themselves up for failure.
In the end I got what I wanted which was a young good looking wife to have more children with and she got what she was looking for which was a reliable secure husband to share her life and build a family with. It could not have worked out better.
@Prof Wolland
I feel compelled to chip in!
Your story is surely essentially identical to that of a friend of mine (so I confirm all you say). He is good looking, hard working and has done well for himself, (despite a divorce) but although he spent a lot of time on English Dating Agencies (before the internet), the women were just not interested, even though they were middle aged, and not particularily attractive. He is now married to a very petite 8 (ex soviet) who seems to be insanely jealous not just of his ex, but any other woman – not my cup of tea, but – he is happy, and of course when he walks in a room with her, all heads turn. She is also (being Russian) better educated than any of the English women he dated.
Maybe English women prefer cats, but it is hard not to think that that they failed to see what was on offer, were too demanding and overplayed their (limited) hand. I have not an ounce of sympathy.
Prof Woland, would you say your wife was/is ‘head over heels’ with you as been discussed recently? (and if by any chance, do you mind?)
@ TFH:
I don’t think it’d be popular in the media to say how much it’s actually happening, if you think about it. It’s probably larger than we think but smaller than it could be. There’s still some “shaming” of a guy that does it, here, but, frankly, it’s as solid a bet as much else, for most guys.
TFH I don’t thick culturally the russian women are in tune with getting the as we see in america the rich alpha. In russia that man is a crime lord or a thug and has a harem. Her thoughts in her head may be just for a working man that just wants a family. Very hard to even think that a woman can see anything like that after living in the west more than a couple of hours.
To paraphrase Gen. McArthur’s statement about victory, “there is no substitute for alpha”. Does not matter where you were born or where she was, there are somethings that are never lost in the translation. It is not that Russian women want to marry old ugly unsuccessful guys instead a young tall handsome rich guys. They are not all gold diggers either. Most would marry Russian guy if they could find one. But if you are trying to catch something with nothing you will be as disappointed there are you are here.
The whole age / looks / SMV thing is where it gets really interesting. Most men here have no idea how easy it is to find a “catch” or to use another fishing analogy; it is like fishing with dynamite. Starting with age, if you are an older guy (old is somewhat relative to fitness, looks, and health) and you marry a woman who is still unsure of what she wants then you are asking for trouble (which is true here as well). However, this can also go both ways. A woman in her early 20s who is single with a child might be extremely happy to find a nice guy who is 55. The bottom line is that both have to get what they want out of the marriage. The same goes for looks. If you are a six be happy with a seven or 8. Look for women shorter than you. If you want to marry a Russian tennis pro and you are a couch potato and smoke two packs a day then you are not a good fit either.
As for money, here is what you need to know. Russian women are looking for stability. For the most part, you do not need to be rich but you need to be able to provide. The minimal standard is a clean apartment for her and one child. That is also what they would expect back in mother Russia. Because you do not advertise money on the internet they will judge you not by how much you earn but by what you do professionally. Another rule of thumb is to marry women who have the same education level or less (the reverse for them). In other words, if you marry a doctor you should be a professional yourself and not a laborer. The fact that you need to fly over to Russia numerous times is like earnest money. If you are not prepared to spend $10 – 20k and a six months to a year to prospect for a wife you are not serious and will not be taken as such. If you are there and your competitor is in a bar in Cleveland you win.
I just had a child at 50. If you are a younger guy and find the local scene not to your liking don’t fret. Focus on your career and go over in your mid-30s or 40. You can easily find a nice 22 year old who is easy on the eyes and glad to know you and you can have two or three kids.
Dragnet,
“What this situation also reveals is Breznak’s own unfamiliarity with male sexual attention…”
Holy shit, I didn’t even consider that but I think that’s exactly it. It’s Steve Carell bragging about sex to the other guys in 40-year-old Virgin and getting it just wrong enough that they can tell he’s bullshitting. She’s desperate for approval from other women.
Good teaching moment for those women, but I think what’s-her-name got over-Lewinskyed.
@Prof. Woland
Interesting testimony. I like you clarify that is not about gold digging for the majority of the brides, but the news of American men being good faithful husbands ran across the world, so many women sick of the Alpha’s overflown in their own countries look for something better. Also acknowledging the “burning your bridges” that women that are going to marry a foreigner need to face once they make the choice. I personally lost at least 50% of my friends after I moved back they even defriended me in Facebook 😦
I think one of the reasons American women are so blind to this is that they have the perception that good men are a dime a dozen and available in demand, but the “exciting” men are the scarse so she might as well try for a couple of them before going to “man mall” and shopping for a provider, once USA becomes douche bags land it will be harder to see having yet another overgrown gorilla cheating on you as everyone else as “hot”, YMMV..
Why don’t these Russian women, if they are well-educated, pack up and immigrate to the US, UK, etc? Even if on a student visa, if nothing else.
Had you ever tried to get a visa? Is nearly impossible unless you are rich. Immigration is a HUGE barrier for many people to go to USA, My then boyfriend asked me to spent Christmas with him after he did the first trip and I got my visa denied, when I consulted a lawyer she told me that a woman my age (28) will need at least 100,000 dollars in the bank, a car, a house and a high paying job for them to even consider the possibility of a Visa (and I was a college graduated with a literary award and a government job that was six times over the minimum salary) her advice was to keep getting to know him and if thinks went well marry him and ask for spouse visa that “only” take 2 years to get after you get married. What doesn’t adds up is that getting a Visa is nearly impossible even my own family can’t visit me here because they won’t get a visa unless they get a better position in life back in my country.
@Anacaona:
Because of the Welfare state, the simple truth is most wouldn’t leave. Just the truth. There’s also an older issue of Dominican women flying to Florida, having children there, then flying home with the new born. Kid was a US National as a result and the State of Florida paid for the costs of the birth.
Most of the rules are the results of people abusing the systems, unfortunate to say. 😦
@LG
Of course I know but I was explaining that is not easy for people to go the USA so is not a reason to be suspicious. I do agree that one shouldn’t assume all women that date online are angels and should check them as well as you will do an American woman (I probably talk about that in my blog), but trust me USA migration doesn’t have a bag of student visas to give away to any woman asking for one.
Indeed, India is a vastly successful nation, and has been so for centuries. When the advanced Indians invaded Europe, it was only their moral superiority that stopped them from slaughtering the lesser races.
I’m so very tired of people.
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Very interesting. My take is that monogamy and the nuclear family are dying if not dead. Dead, dead, dead, as the Eisenhower Administration. Why?
One: far too many women are poor bets for marriage. Partner counts past two or three means no real attachment, high probability of divorce, or at least unfavorable comparisons to past lovers who will be idealized. Any guy with Game can do better than that.
Two: women moving to single motherhood, as Charles Murray notes outside the Upper Class, this is increasing. Novaseeker noted how Upper Class men and women are wealth builders, mostly, eschewing sex with the contractor (except Laurie David) because the break-up cost is too high. No more Hamptons, Summer is a season not a verb, etc. But for most women, with men earning less, there’s every incentive to just go it alone, no compromises, sex on the side with whatever bad boy comes along. That Axl Rose impersonator.
Three: obesity is so widespread, most men would prefer porn to what Kirstie Alley called “fat sex.” Porn is so widely and easily available through the internet, that it has undercut a lot of women’s power in the sexual marketplace. Particularly fat ones.
Four: many men don’t achieve financial/career success until their mid/late thirties, by which time their peers are divorced single mothers with a lifetime of baggage, issues, and fairly unattractive, and the ever smaller (birth dearth and obesity) pool of actually desirable women (around 26 years and younger) is fought over like crocodiles at a shrinking water hole.
You can have a nuclear family, but it requires a good deal of (female directed) sexual repression and mandated early choice (when women are still desirable). Women don’t want this, they much prefer single motherhood with guys like Levi Johnson (two illegitimate kids at 20) or Kevin Federline (five kids, only two legitimate) than anything else. That women keep having kids with Federline (model/volleyball player Victoria Prince for example) says to me there is a huge market for “total Douchebag Domination.”
Women will fight to the death, politically and culturally, to keep having kids with Kevin Federlines. When a guy that much of a joke keeps getting women pregnant (in this day of cheap/effective contraception and abortion) something is going on.
Family is a mother and kids by whatever bad boys got her pregnant. That is just how it is. Shrug.
THOS VIDEO BY DAVE CHAPEELE SUMS IT UP http://youtu.be/5ZRflz-93JA
“On the other end of the spectrum we see religious women saving their virginity (or sort of virginity) through their late twenties and even early thirties. They proudly wear the traditional mantel even though in a traditional society they would be considered old maids for extending their search for a husband for so long. Some of these women are simply too picky and being unrealistic about their own league.”
I think that passage just blew up several hundred servers hosting ‘Christian’ dating advice sites!
Does not compute, does not compute…..
@Marduk Conspiracy
I think its just the case that the first para of this article is correct:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article3283690.ece
Good reference, just for those too lazy to click:
British women in their thirties want mates. They can’t find any. Why? Because most eligible males are selfish, mixed-up man-boys chasing no-strings sex, says our correspondent.
Not clear enough, yet? Just swap several words and things cannot be clearer (a.k.a. dumbass edition):
British women in their thirties want mates. They can’t find any. Why? Because selfish, mixed-up man-boys chasing no-strings sex are [by definition] most eligible males, says our correspondent.
What else do betas need to wake up? If this is not enough, then what?
“There is another option, of course. And that is that the whole generation of single man-boys start behaving like men.”
Hmm, she’s asking someone (men in their thirties) who’s just gained a lot of power/value to treat someone who’s just lost (women in their thirties) a lot of power/value with no accord of this new power balance.
What she forgets is that the opposite situation happens first (female power and lack of male power in their twenties), and is the one she must address (“start behaving like women and get married to a stable man long, long before you start losing power/value”) for the second situation not to happen to many people.
Lavazza said: “What she forgets is that the opposite situation happens first (female power and lack of male power in their twenties), and is the one she must address (“start behaving like women and get married to a stable man long, long before you start losing power/value”) for the second situation not to happen to many people.”
Thats going to be a bitter pill to swallow for many young women in their twenties at the peak of their SMV basking in all the attention they are getting from multiple suitors/bad boys.
Krakonos, regarding the timesonline article, the authors complaint is that in the UK at least that men in their 30’s are unwilling to conform/comply to womens mating preferences (which is have fun riding the carousel at the height of their SMV in their 20’s and then find a willing stable [boring] dependable beta in their 30’s to marry and have children with when their SMV is lower).
Will, it’s not only the carousel that is wasting women’s opportunities. There’s also university, career building, gap years, travel, consumtion. I wonder how much the women not getting married because of education and work are saving up. A woman with no debt and even some capital saved up is more eligible than most of her same age sisters.
Will: “Thats going to be a bitter pill to swallow for many young women in their twenties at the peak of their SMV basking in all the attention they are getting from multiple suitors/bad boys.”
When or if this happens women in their thirties will be in a lot of trouble. And women in their twenties seeing women in their thirties in this trouble will help them making the right decision (if they want to marry and have kids).
Lavazza said: “When or if this happens women in their thirties will be in a lot of trouble. And women in their twenties seeing women in their thirties in this trouble will help them making the right decision (if they want to marry and have kids).”
That will be the clear demarcation line. Those women who value getting married and having children will marry young. Wether they will remain married is another question of course.
Just found this little ‘gem’, relevant, I guess, to the article and discussion here, and other posts on this blog:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Au2G6aKrO_vZmbYdRGw.O2HD7BR.;_ylv=3?qid=20111010233848AANGOFt
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/07/why-does-america-have-so-many-peter-pan-men/
The latest in man-bashing from the social conservatives. The theme: obligation masculinity with all of it’s duties, sacrifices and responsibilities—with none of the benefits young men actually care about.
And, of course, no mention of the economic, social and legal climate contributing to it all.
Guest, re your link,
I think it just demonstrates the emotional immaturity of so many [younger] women that they need to be teased/entertained or fight to feel any sexual attraction. Any man that doesn’t do that is “boring”. They’re like children.
You want to see what happens when the shoe is on the other foot? When the men have the market power and the women are over 30? You have to read this. Holy Smokes!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/juliet-jeske/dating-after-divorce-the-_b_979989.html
I really meant the bit about men turning 35 and giving up on marriage and wooing.
Delaying and then answering the call of the biological clock might work for women in their own minds, but unfortunately they forgot that men might have their own thoughts and feelings that add up to a ‘trajectory’ (I don’t really like sociobiological accounts but it does seem a bit of a coincidence how the timing works here). It does seem that many women expect that while they can change their minds, men must remain forever simple and constant in their motivations and behaviour. Back in reality, the music stops and all the chairs have been taken away.
Marduk: Well, it worked for a while. Men were slow to catch up, so less reflecting women did not see any potential problems in their observations what was happening around them.
@Will
Krakonos, regarding the timesonline article, the authors complaint is that in the UK at least that men in their 30′s are unwilling to conform/comply to womens mating preferences (which is have fun riding the carousel at the height of their SMV in their 20′s and then find a willing stable [boring] dependable beta in their 30′s to marry and have children with when their SMV is lower).
What you are missing here is the phrase “most eligible”. The paragraph, or title?, says that commitment, ability to provide and protect, emotional support etc. are somewhere far behind other values men can bring. That shows women’s priorities. The article is just whining.
@ PuzzeledTraveler
I saw that article. I actually feel sorry for Jeske regarding the circumstances of her divorce. I’m not sure a woman could’ve done too much to avoid want happened there.
But I take the rest of the article as a good sign—men are finally waking up and transferring the costs of misandry back onto women. Given everything we know about women, divorces rates, family court and the consequences of marital breakdown, any man at the peak of his earning power who was toiled for years to acquire wealth and assets who doesn’t put a prospective wife through a rigorous qualification process is a fucking fool.
And some of the comments are just ridiculous. Like the chorus of women who are telling her that having children isn’t a big deal and that she should get on with her life. This is what feminism has become—telling women not to desire what is an obvious biological imperative for the overwhelming majority of human beings that have ever existed.
‘Cause wanting children is really just the patriarchy.
@ Dragnet. Agree. Her husband hid that he was gay so her divorce from him was 100% justified on many grounds. I do feel bad for her because she seems fairly okay by NYC standards and is an example to all the men out there, that yes some women opt for an EPL divorce but there are some women that get divorced because of legit things.
So, I guess I’m saying if you are a man back in the ring and going for round two, it might be wise to get the whole story before outright dismissing someone as a potential match because she is a divorced woman. She might have had just a crummy time of it as you did.
But yeah, I do like to see what she relates in her article from the standpoint that guys are finally wising up and being very, very careful. The old no ring for sluts. Do feel bad for her circumstances though.
@PuzzledTraveller
I feel for her too, and there is no question that the divorce was warranted. My question though would be what was going on with her in the first place to marry a gay guy? How much alpha aloof did this woman need? Given her looks I’m assuming plenty of straight men were interested in her. So why did she walk past them to pick the gay one?
Also given the nature of her stand up routine, I would say she isn’t a good bet for a wife.
uncleFred – ”I see in this the notion that the amount acceptable for a man to spend on a date directly or strongly correlates with her SMV score? In other words that if it makes sense to pay X dollars on a date with a 7 then it make sense, or perhaps is defensible, to pay 2X dollars when with an 8.5 and 6X when with a 10?”
What you are suggesting would best be described as an aspect of Anti-Game, as there is no clearer way to signal to a woman just how much lower you feel you are beneath her (on the SMP scale) than how much extra you are willing to spend to get a little face time with her.
It’s all but certain that if the women wasn’t already attracted to you, she will be all the more contemptuous of you (sexually speaking). She might well allow you to shower her, but you are not going to win her affection. Even given an extreme situation in which a woman needs the money, and will have sex with you if you provide for her financially, you are just buying sex – you are not “wooing” her into a sexual relationship with you. If you do manage to evoke any relationship interest on her part for you, it will be a financial rather than romantic consideration (see “Gold Digger”).
So, if you do somehow manage to spend enough on her to have bought a sexual encounter with her, or even start a “relationship”, what you really need to calculate is how much you over-spent for that sex compared to what it would have cost you to have sex with a woman in you own SMP value-range if you simply had the little bit of Game necessary to spark some attraction in her.
The other comments about this are dead-on. If you are or can make yourself attractive to a woman, the “cost” to you need be nothing more than the price of a drink to get the ball rolling.
If you truly believe that the company of a high SMP woman is worth the exponential cost of her time, then you will likely become the subject matter between her and her high SMP-value friends. Or, more precisely, the butt of the joke about how much some schmucks are willing to pay to try to get sex.
And as for what they do after the date with you that you spent so much on… well, the guys here are right. Plenty of woman do go out on dates with nice guys, who treat them well; and then after a peck goodnight, are all too willing to answer the “Booty call” of some other guy she’s actually sexually attracted to (who, BTW, will spend nothing to take her out trying to buy sex with her).
On the other hand, if you have a woman who does find you sexually attractive, then spending more than “minimum” on a date might actually help to endear her to you. The key is to be sure that she is interested in you before you commit the money.
Even stranger, Jeske isn’t the only female comedian on Huffington Post to marry a gay guy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mara-shapshay/i-didnt-ask-he-didnt-tell_b_1004114.html
Dalrock, WRT to Juliet Jeske – ”My question though would be what was going on with her in the first place to marry a gay guy? How much alpha aloof did this woman need? Given her looks I’m assuming plenty of straight men were interested in her. So why did she walk past them to pick the gay one?”
Jeske completely sold-out to the idea of being a “performer for the liberal/leftist/socialist cause”. Joel Jeske was something of a “big man” within that limited social circle she chose. He was a virtual alpha, and her hypergamous nature lead where it always does.
I agree that she was deceived, and essentially robbed of her chance to have children. But, she was totally committed to a cause that kept her eyes off the real “prize” until it was far too late.
This is but one example of where Mark Richardson’s attempt to take the issue of “autonomy” outside the realm of a relationship with God falls flat on it’s face. Jeske surrendered her autonomy to what she believed was a greater cause, forgoing her own (very natural female) inclinations (not unlike Richardson et. al. were suggesting for young men to ignore the dangers and hurry up and get married and start making babies – before , of course, being forced to “modify” their message in the face of insurmountable realities).
Had Jeske retained some of her personal autonomy, she might have been more willing to press Joel on the matter of her desire for children. Instead, she spent her fertile years dressing up as a clown (both figuratively and literally)to push the leftist message.
Well, so much for the notion of completely surrendering ones own personal autonomy to what one believes (or is told to believe) to be a higher calling as something positive.[/snark]
Having dealt with dozens of liberal herdbeasts like her, my guess is that her ideology over-rode her biology when searching for a mate. I’m sure that her husband was somewhat short of that dreaded masculinity that she learned to hate and run away from during all her “Wimminz’s Studdees” classes.
As you said, she doesn’t seem like good wife material, and took one for the sisterhood and spared some decent guy the agony of living with her.
@ Dalrock
Yeah, I thought that marrying the gay guy thing was strange pattern. I hear what you’re saying.
As to Jeske, just using her situation as an example that there might be a divorced woman out there who is pretty normal as it goes (maybe not her) that you should gather further info on prior to just dismissing out of hand. Maybe Jeske is kind of being force fed her own Red Pill now as she is back out in the market and seeing what it’s like for a mid-thirties divorced woman. Will be interesting to see further blogs from her.
@slwerner
“Jeske completely sold-out to the idea of being a “performer for the liberal/leftist/socialist cause”. Joel Jeske was something of a “big man” within that limited social circle she chose. He was a virtual alpha, and her hypergamous nature lead where it always does. ”
That my friend, is called karma, and Ms. Jeske is gonna get a lot more of it to deal with.
Thank you for the link back to my post about dating leagues. I would love to have some of you guys join our discussions. I think the women who post there could benefit from your insights.
Thanks again for the cross link. You’ve got yourself a new regular reader.
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I made the regrettable mistake of reading through this article over my lunch hour today at the behest of Susan Walsh’s blog:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/1/
She links it on her blog today because she’d been impressed with herself getting a passing mention in the article for having met the author (she basically steals Roissy’s 80/20 rule). Five page later of an interminably long read and I can make an interesting compare & contrast analysis between Dalrock’s essay and Kate Bolick’s. Women have no idea of the straits they’re truly in. Dalrock’s break down is pretty much the distilled analytical version of Bolick’s anecdote riddled, overwritten piece – which is typical I suppose since self-impressed ‘mature’ women of her age often need to vent their never-married status rage as their personal form of catharsis.
The take home message is simply this – waking up unmarried (or divorced) on the opposite side of the Wall is a special kind of hell for women sold on the notion that their education and professionalism should’ve been enough to qualify them as prime choices for wives and mothers. And now, at 39, the dating lanscape’s changed to where she’s forced to ‘hook up’ with the 20 y.o.s who completely outclass her. She plays their game, or she fades off into her 40s alone.
Don’t weep for these women. Never forget, you are merely an Alpha agent of righteous karma.
@TFH: Your have been so impolite to chase them away with your call for explicit practical MRM action!
Yay – way to go TFH
Colour me unsurprised. Women don’t seem to realise that every time a decent man gets crushed … a decent woman is going to find it much harder to connect with him because he’s learnt to associate sincerity with a view to courtship with:
pain, deceit, derisive laughter, rolling eyes, snippy monosyllabic comments, cackling teeheehee friends, relational aggression and “let’s just be friends”.
And for every woman who says “you decent men overlook the ordinary girls”.
Um. No.
Even controlled testing supports the idea that large numbers of women, are only receptive to a small group of men – the desirable ones.
How can women, who never “allow” the men they claim they want to interact with them, then say that “decent men overlook the ordinary girls”?
How can women, who never “allow” the men they claim they want to interact with them, then say that “decent men overlook the ordinary girls”?
1. Apex thinking, where they only see the men they are attracted to as actually existing
2. “Daddy Can Do Anything”, i.e. any problem is the fault of men, and it’s up to them to fix.
And to answer the next question: yes, these are childish qualities.
Like all feminist claims – projection.
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“I don’t think many women are at this place of understanding yet, but over time it seems all but inevitable.”
Especially since there are so many of Roissy’s ilk who are heeding his infamous exaltation to “choke the beast.” Put differently, the women we pump-n-dump now will serve as warnings to a future generation.
Another great analysis, blogger.
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@Dalrock I really don’t get the husband was gay bit. Historically lots of gays formed families. They had sex with men on the side and still raised their own children. Families are and always have been for reproduction, not sexual pleasure. The modern world has twisted the meaning of marriage from family to making sure mamma is sexual fulfilled.
Mark Zuckerberg is probably perfectly happy with his Chinese girl. She was his woman before he became famous and rich, I understand. She looks nice dressed up; she is probably bright enough to keep him interested. Not all men want the “hottest” woman.
Wives want affection. Men want sex. I find that I can bargain affection for the sex I want from my wife. LTR game has improved my marriage a lot since I became consciously aware of it. Game makes her want affection, which leads to sex.
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You are mistaken David Collard. What women want is sex. That’s the whole reason they chose the alphas. Because alphas understand that dealing with women is first and foremost about sex rather than propriety. Also, men was sex and affection as well. If men really were the cads society accuses them of being, there wouldn’t even be blogs like this because everything said in this blog would be patently obvious to all men.
Women want attention from alphas. Sex will do. Women only focus on the quality of the sex when the man lacks quality. If the man has quality, the quality of the sex matters less. Which is why any sex with an alpha is better than the most “considerate” sex from a beta.
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“I don’t think many women are at this place of understanding yet, but over time it seems all but inevitable”.
Dalrock, I think you are giving women, who lag behind men evolutionarily due to millenia of coddling and being protected from their own decisions like children, entirely too much credit. They largely lack introspection and the ability to understand/control their impulses. Catch-up will involve several generations of culling.
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I’m a stranger here, and what’s worse, I’m a gay male: that gives me some objectivity when it comes to you guys, but considerably less opportunity to collect data. I can, however, identify with the concept of Nuclear Rejection: back when I was still hoping to pull heterosexuality out of the fire, some nasty little bitch named Renée made it so obvious I didn’t belong in what promised to be a 1950’s multi-partner adolescent make-out scene, that I was never able to try again. Fortunately (unlike you guys), I had an escape route. 🙂
Here’s the main thing I want to say about the thesis, repeated thruout these excerpts, that men bear all the courtship costs: it’s true the way you mean it, but women bear the enormous courtship cost of making themselves attractive (let’s face it: some of them are complete dogs before they get The Treatment): the makeup, the hairdo, the perfume, the little black dress, the lingerie, the perky bra, the Manolo (or quasi-Manolo)-style shoes, the diets, the yoga classes.
Just sayin’,
David Shea
So, I was looking up some words/acronyms used by a poster–kino and ioi. Aha! I remembered something like those happening yesterday. I was wearing my wedding ring like a good beta. I’m over 50. I was in a swing dance lesson. Ladies rotated partners. There was this mid-20s very pretty chick dressed to attract attention who rotated to me. We danced a bit for the lesson and got the step. I was excited about our success and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, then toyed with her hair and giggled. Then she rotated to the next partner. Partners kept rotating around the circle. I’d catch her looking at me from time to time. Not always, but occasionally. So, apparently, it seems that I gave her a PU signal without realizing it and she gave three ioi’s. Oh, I vaguely remember some other young chicks who also giggled when they danced with me and played with their hair. I’m a decent beginning dancer. Maybe being able to dance somehow raises the SMV? Have any other dancers experienced this?
Last Sat. I was dancing a lot with one lady about my age and she started leaning on me one dance. Probably because of the music and the mood, but she felt comfortable doing it. Not pretty, not ugly, but fun, so I had a good time dancing with her. Then she asks if I’m coming back next time. Sounds like an ioi again. I usually get serious ioi’s from two-to-three ladies per week without even deliberately flirting. Maybe my smile is just flirtatious enough? I thought that wearing my wedding ring would make a difference, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Are chicks all that desperate–even the hotties? Yeah, I’ve been working out a lot with free weights and eating lots of protein and fats and few carbs, so maybe my testosterone level is pretty high.
Oh, again, I’m autistic, so I miss lots of cues and need feedback in order to understand a lot of social situations. So, all you manosphere guys, am I misreading all this stuff? Help! Do betas really get hit on all this often?
“Maybe being able to dance somehow raises the SMV?”
It most certainly does!
She posted bikini pics to attract men, receives too much positive validation from men, becomes famous for her ‘beauty’ and is so angry she sues… for $1.5 Billion. $1,500,000,000 U S
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/25/model-sues-match-fake-profiles-yuliana-avalos_n_4337660.html
“researchers found a full 30% of young men’s sexual relationships involve no romance at all — no wooing, dating, goofy text messaging. Nothing. Just sex.” This quote is proof of the 80/20 Pareto principal rule right there. Some guys puff up their accomplishments so I’m guessing it’s like 15-10% of guys who are getting the no strings sex in youth (when it is the most pleasurable too). This is the bed that the ladies are laying in fellas. Imagine millions of women acting in lockstep over the generations and you wonder why men cannot find suitable women, men go crazy from sexual starvation and men only experience “bitches.” All of the worthy women, not the old, fat or uninteresting ones, give themselves to the 10% of men until it’s too late.
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