She felt unloved.

There are a couple of unfair criticisms of game which I see fairly regularly.  The first is the idea that what game teaches is painfully obvious.  Deti took some heat on a previous post for pointing out that what game teaches goes against the programming men today are given:

…most men who came of age in the 1980s and 90s were not learning these things to be attractive to women. We were not taught any of these things.

I was taught there are absolutely no differences whatsoever between women and men wrt thought patterns, perceptions, the way they experience events, the way they process information, or their feelings. I was taught that any man who pursues women aggressively or goes after what he wants is a pig, a chauvinist, a possible rapist, and probably a criminal. I was taught that women find soft, caring, good-hearted, kind, and nice men attractive. I was taught never, never, NEVER to escalate sexually without express permission, and that doing otherwise would subject me to possible criminal prosecution.

I was taught that a woman’s thought processes are never to be challenged. I was taught that a woman’s feelings are paramount and that you must do everything possible to “make your woman happy”. I was taught that any man who challenges a woman is an aggressor, is probably physically violent, and is overbearing and domineering. I was taught that if my woman was unhappy it was because I was not being “nice” enough to her; I was not “doing enough” for her; and/or I was not being “sensitive enough to her needs/wants/feelings”.

In response he received a fairly standard rebuttal that of course everyone knew that women don’t like men who follow those rules.  But I agree with Deti, beta men have been taught exactly the kind of nonsense he describes;  because we are polite rule followers who want to please our wives and the other women in our lives, we very often follow the terrible advice nearly everyone would give us.  Once you understand why the advice is so terrible it is painfully obvious why it is wrong.  But for me, Deti, and I would guess a large number of other men this isn’t obvious until you learn game.

The other unfair indictment against game which I see fairly regularly is that it teaches men not to love women.  Blogger Bonald from Throne and Altar made this basic point in his recent post Pile up on social conservatives (emphasis his):

When we realize that true eros desires an I-Thou union, we see that Game is actually hostile to eros because it teaches the man to regard his partner as an It to be manipulated rather than a Thou to be communicated with.

As I mentioned in one of my very first posts, I’ve been married to my wife for over a decade and a half now and we have grown so close over the years that friends and relatives often tease that we are really one entity.  Even so, there have been times where our marriage has been under strain.  Even at its worst it has never been the kind of truly difficult marriage that I often read about though.  The first difficult period came fairly early in our marriage.  My wife was still in school and I had slipped into a more beta frame.  The combination of my increased betaness and her being surrounded by other men created some strain on our marriage.  She fitness tested me with some regularity, and while I generally passed them I didn’t always come through with flying colors.  During this period my wife actually figured out part of what was going on.  She would lay into me for something trivial, and after a period of trying to placate her I would eventually find something else to do which was away from her.  My thought process wasn’t to try to game her, but I figured why hang around the apartment for the weekend to get bitched out when I could be hunting or fishing instead?  On the weekends where she wasn’t testing me we were very close and I would stick around.  Then at some point she would test again and I’d be out the door with a gun or a fishing rod.  She actually figured out the pattern at some point and came to me about it.  She said she would get into a mood where she felt absolutely compelled to piss me off.  Every cell in her body was telling her she would feel better if only she provoked a fight.  Then she would do it, and I’d be out the door.  Once the fight was started but especially once I had left she felt miserable.  So she made a conscious effort not to give in to the urge;  we fought less and as a result spent much more time together.

After that things improved a great deal, and by normal standards we had a very good marriage.  However, for the first seven of the last ten years she was telling me she didn’t feel loved.  This was maddening to me because no matter what I tried it didn’t help.  I knew enough game intuitively to not go overboard on flowers, cards, etc, but when I surprised her with those it still didn’t help.  She is a natural leader so I also tried letting her make more of the decisions;  any time an opportunity came up I would make it a point to defer to her preference to show her that I loved her.  This only made the problem worse, although I didn’t make the connection at the time.  This wasn’t an acute problem, but it was a chronic one and I absolutely hated it when she brought it up because nothing I could do would make her happier.  She knew I loved her, but she didn’t feel it the way she wanted to.  It of course was equally frustrating for her as well because she kept telling me something was wrong and I wasn’t making it better.

About two years ago I stumbled onto Roissy’s site.  I knew some game informally from having watched my natural PUA roomate in college but I had not learned any of the theory.  What I had put into practice when I met my wife I had mostly lost in an effort to make my wife feel more loved.  Roissy was extremely painful to read.  I kept finding myself wanting to unknow what he had just explained, but I couldn’t stop myself from reading more.  My curiosity was more intense than my desire to hold onto the pretty lies.  After about four months of reading Roissy and the comments I had a rudimentary sense of how game worked and started experimenting on my wife with it (she didn’t even know I was reading about it).  I stopped sending her the frequent “I love you!” texts* which I had been doing in an effort to make her feel more loved.  Instead I started shooting for upped attraction.  I’ve never experienced the sexual denial that I’ve read about other husbands experiencing, but I figured a little more attraction wouldn’t hurt anything anyway.  I started objectifying my wife more, and treating her more like a possession.  I love you was out, C’mere woman! and Hey sexy wife! was in.   Instead of loving gentle hugs, I’d forcefully grab her and pull her into me;  I would mischievously cop a feel from time to time as well.

It wasn’t just my actions and words which changed however, my frame changed as well.  Had I tried these same things from my old more beta frame, they might have backfired spectacularly.  I struggle to define it, but my frame was more of a playful cocky/funny one.  This was actually fairly natural for me, but I had made the mistake of listening to the conventional wisdom on how to please my wife.  The results were as expected more attraction from my wife.  As I mentioned this wasn’t ever a real problem before but I could tell a difference in her response to me.  Then something very startling happened;  she thanked me for finally making her feel more loved!  I had given up on that goal for the time being, and yet along with more attraction I had also inadvertently filled that nagging void which she had been feeling for so many years.

This was a huge breakthrough for me, and as I’ve learned more about game I also am able to mix in more of the comfort/beta traits.  I still tell my wife I love her, and I do surprise her with flowers from time to time, but I also gently tease her and make sure she knows she is my woman.  We are both far happier now;  game has truly done incredible things for our marriage.

*Yeah, I know.  I hate to admit that I was that guy.

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404 Responses to She felt unloved.

  1. Will S. says:

    Thank you Dalrock, for your personal testimonial here. I hope that Bonald reads it, and learns how Game worked for you. Perhaps he’ll be less quick to judge Game and its users in the future.

    Nah; who am I kidding?

    [D: I don’t have any beef with Bonald. My guess is he came of age in a different era and didn’t get the kind of awful advice Deti and I received. He probably leads his family naturally and can’t understand why so many other men run astray there.]

  2. HeligKo says:

    I wish I had paid better attention to my parents. Married now for 39 years. I would have learned this. Instead I did this with girls I wanted to play with, but then changed when she became “wife” material. I don’t know if the outcomes would be different today, but I would certainly feel better about the last 14 years. Putting all things feminine on the altar and bowing down to it doesn’t only make her feel unloved, but it also seeps into all areas of your life and you become less masculine. She responds to me now the way I would have liked her to when we were together. The funny thing is I just don’t care because all women do now that I don’t seek to please them. I think too many social conservatives read too much into the motives of game, and fail to apply it to the man. A man is only as good as his morals and standards. Game in a good man’s hands is a tool as you have described with your wife. Keep on doing what you are doing, I am a bit jealous.

  3. 7man says:

    CL wrote about this issue from a woman’s perspective in her post
    If you don’t claim her, someone else will.

  4. GS Jockey says:

    Dalrock you and Deti are correct. I graduated high school in 1984 (product of a Catholic education which is even worse) absolutely clueless in these matters. I was basically taught “just be a good man, an honorable man, and you will have a long happy marriage.”. What nonsense. I was a classic Beta. Two divorces later (neither initiated by me) now I know better. All I will say is this: I’ll be damned if I let my son escape into the adult world without proper training!

  5. Miserman says:

    Darlock,

    Game is the best kept secret for men of the twenty-first century. I’m glad your marriage stayed intact. It’s kinda inspiring to hear a success story or two.

  6. Basil Ransom says:

    I looked at Deti’s comment and his detractor’s, and neither of them mention actual behavioral tactics that the latter-day Casanovas endorse, unlike your post. So while the things that Deti mentions might actually have been commonly advocated, like dressing nicely, the game tactics you mention weren’t, and still aren’t.

    And women don’t know with much consistency what actually attracts them, so their advice is still problematic; saying what women recommend is “common knowledge” can’t be, because half of it is false. For every bit of good advice that a woman gives, like “work out,” there is bad advice, like “you don’t need to lift weights,” often in the very same breath. You can’t really fault for men for ignoring their advice.

  7. DW says:

    Your wife is a remarkably perceptive woman, Dalrock; most could not connect “picking a fight” with “drives man away.” And it was also interesting how she described the feeling as every cell in her body compelled her to fitness test you, I’ve never read it put that way.

  8. Woof says:

    Game tells you how to make a woman feel good when she’s around you. Oh, how hostile to Eros it is, to make your partner feel good! Because the next thing you know, she’ll appreciate is so much, she’ll manipulate you by trying to make you feel good in return.

    If making people feel good is manipulative, then the nice thing to do is refuse to consider how the other person feels at all. But that’s absurd.

    Eros is not anti-erotic. If you think you’ve proven that it is, you are an idiot and your “proof” is a self-evident joke.

  9. Dalrock, this really resonates with me. Objectify (they love it from their husbands), keep the gifts and compliments limited, cocky/funny, lots of casual handling, smacks on the bum in passing. Laugh at her shit tests, or just ignore her.

    Pretty much do the opposite of standard marriage advice.

  10. flenser says:

    Yeah, I know. I hate to admit that I was that guy.

    I am just SHOCKED and APPALLED to hear it!

    No, in fact you strike me as being the typical MRA/neo-game-boy – somebody who once pedestalized women and who now is on the warpath against the sort of man you used to be. They say that ex-smokers hate smokers far more than non-smokers do.

    Many libertarians are former socialists. They used to think “collectivism good, individualism bad” and then they flipped over to “individualism good, collectivism bad”. The possibility that the truth lies somewhere in between is just too complicated for them. And in their new libertarian guise they see what they imagine to be “collectivism” everywhere.

    The truth with respect to women lies somewhere in between your former mindless worship of them and your current equally mindless criticism of them and of all men in whom you imagine you see your former self.

  11. Ulysses says:

    A few weeks ago my wife was in a mood because a euphamistic aunt arrived on a Friday afternoon and I hadn’t taken my dirty dishes from the table to sink after dinner. I’d actually cooked, so I wasn’t too worried about the fact that I was lounging while she was putting kids to bed. Instead of just letting her be petulant, I attempted to help. (There were some legit stresses in her life that I was paying too much deference to.) Of course that got her more wound up, so I stopped helping and started popping her in the ass with a dirty kitchen towel. She acted even more pissed for a moment, but was soon laughing.

  12. CL says:

    flenser, some criticism is deserved and far from mindless.

  13. flenser says:

    “I was taught there are absolutely no differences whatsoever between women and men wrt thought patterns, perceptions, the way they experience events, the way they process information, or their feelings. I was taught that any man who pursues women aggressively or goes after what he wants is a pig, a chauvinist, a possible rapist, and probably a criminal. I was taught that women find soft, caring, good-hearted, kind, and nice men attractive. I was taught never, never, NEVER to escalate sexually without express permission, and that doing otherwise would subject me to possible criminal prosecution.”

    If I had ever been this sort of person then I suppose that the discovery of so-called “game” would have seemed to me like the most profound and important discovery possible. Perhaps I’d hang out at blogs like this one extolling these incredible new insights. And that’s all perfectly understandable. It’s even understandable that you’d all burn with the zeal of the newly converted.

    Still, you have to realize that to many people who never suffered from those misconceptions, this all sounds a bit peculiar. And your enthusiasm often seems a bit zealous. Try to avoid over-correcting and flying off in the opposite direction.

  14. Bobby says:

    The sexual revolution was no revolution at all or as of now an incomplete revolution which created many male disasters,

    ¨And most men who came of age in the 1980s and 90s were not learning these things( manliness) to be attractive to women. We were not taught any of these things.¨

    So we created a beta bubble, and anything that is so plentiful and easily obtained is devalued. Maybe there is some value to the pleasing of women but in this buyers market it is all to often:

    boring, disagreeable, dull, monotonous, rude, unattractive, unlikable or unlikeable, unpleasant ( the antonyms to pleasing, funny huh?)

    As for the following,

    ¨When we realize that true eros desires an I-Thou union, we see that Game is actually hostile to eros because it teaches the man to regard his partner as an It to be manipulated rather than a Thou to be communicated with¨

    It is not my job to love any particular woman, it is her job to make me love her. Is it not?

    My job is to make her love me.

    ¨ Then something very startling happened; she thanked me for finally making her feel more loved! I had given up on that goal for the time being, and yet along with more attraction I had also inadvertently filled that nagging void which she had been feeling for so many years.¨

  15. flenser says:

    flenser, some criticism is deserved and far from mindless

    Dalrock-style criticism (“Trad-cons have been making social policy in America for the last FIFTY YEARS!”) is worthless. In fact it’s worse than worthless, it has negative worth. It makes people who read it more stupid than they were to begin with.

  16. Feminist Hater says:

    “I still tell my wife I love her, and I do surprise her with flowers from time to time, but I also gently tease her and make sure she knows she is my woman. ”

    Flenser, read that again. Dalrock, I think, already understands it’s in the middle somewhere. As with most things in life, balance is the crucial game we all play, excuse the pun.

    I also think he is not really “critising” beta men or alpha men. He is just laying the information out there for everyone to read and then giving his opinion. Heads up! That’s what bloggers do! Flenser, imagine for a second, if Deti or Dalrock never actually found out about the truthfulness of game. Deti would probably be miserable and Dalrock would probably be divorced.

    Now they are passing that information on the men who desperately need it, I certainly cannot fault them for that. Why are you so against them? Is it because “Game” objectifies women? Well, it should! For in the current climate of “marriage” that the liberals, feminists and Socons have created, men are nothing but fashion accessories for women, to be discarded when the women no longer wants them.

    I just have certain problems with the women of this generation.

    Do women even know why their grandfathers and fathers had careers? Do they really think that it was to “find themselves” or discover what it was they were born to do? No, these modern day women are mindless drones, their fathers and grandfathers didn’t work day in and day out for that. They worked to support a home, their wife and their children. That was the reason. The husband’s role was to provide financial and physical protection for his family. It was the backbone of society and allowed for Western Civilisation to flourish. Women today seem to have forgotten what their forefathers did.

    Women have to have the career first and think that marriage, their husband and children come second. It’s all about the career and “finding herself” no matter how many men she goes through to achieve that. Then most modern day women still expect some poor man to marry them, with all their baggage and loss of fertility, due to focusing solely on their careers . They didn’t realise, once again, that career is second to family. Not the other way around.

    Thank God for someone like Dalrock, who doesn’t push those who read his blog to use game to get multiple women in to bed, instead he gives you the choice. Use it to get a good woman to commit to you and greatly diminish the risk of divorce. Or use it to abuse the system. He realises he is not the gatekeeper to heaven, or hell, but merely the provider of information.

  17. Jeff says:

    So I feel a little stupid, sort of like coming in halfway in a conversation, thinking I get it, but not enough. The thing is, I’m not stupid, yet I’ve only recently had the scales start falling from my eyes. I “came of age” in the early 80’s, and been married for 23 years. I just read Athol’s book, and read his blog MMSL, which is where I found yours. I have liked EVERYTHING I’ve read Dalrock, and snerked at many of the comments. So I’m making some good progress…I think.

    But here’s my question: Is there a GAME 101 out there? I don’t want to take three years stumbling around, because I might not have it left. I need a Matrix download. Where would you send me…and guys like me for the Game Basic Training we need to knock the crap out of our heads that’s been there so long? I’ve perused the blogrolls, but I think some of it is just PUA-over the top.

  18. ruddyturnstone says:

    You left out Deti’s last paragraph, in which he claimed that, before reading it on the manosphere, he didn’t realize that a woman prefers a fit man to a fat, couch potato, a well dressed man to a slob, and an intelligent man to a man with nothing worth saying to say. That’s what I gave him “heat” for, anyway.

    As for the Gaming thing…I have no love for Bonald, and any blog called “Throne and Altar” is, by definition, going to make me sick. Still, nothing you’ve written after quoting him refutes the quoted material. Indeed, it sort of prove it. He says Game is manipulation, and then you go ahead and show how learning Game helped you to manipulate your wife. He says that Game is not about real communication between two people (an “I-thou union”), and then you go ahead and show how you LEARNED what to say and do to provoke the reaction you desired from your wife, rather than expressing what you really felt.

    All of this goes to show that Game, while it may be effective, is false, it is artificial. You claim that there was some latent Game in your attitudes and thoughts before you learned whatever it is you learned. But, for many men, and to some extent, for you too, Game means denying and hiding your real feelings, and doing what instead has been shown to give women gina tingles. If you love someone, one would think, you would like to be able to say “I love you” to that person, instead of sexier, “claiming” comments such as “C’mere sexy woman!” At least some of the time. Sometimes a guy feels all alpha, and Game may come naturally. But sometimes most guys don’t feel that way, and they want to be able to communicate those feelings to their wives too. If a guy genuinely loves his wife, it is sad that he has to worry about saying it too much, or about “going overboard” on giving her flowers and cards and such. Gaming your wife sounds like a lot of work, and a denial of self and one’s feelings, and it also makes one wonder what the purpose of marriage is. One would think that, being married, one could finally let one’s guard down. That one would not have to carefully measure and consider every word said to at least one woman, that one could open up and admit that one is NOT always confident, that one doesn’t always feel “cocky/funny,” that one has insecurities, and so on. That one could really have an “I-thou union.” Instead, it seems that a Gamed marriage is like a singn endless singles bar interaction. The shit testing never stops. The Gaming never stops. The guy has to be constantly on his toes, coming up with cocky/funny retorts, being careful not to let his real feelings (both feelings of love and feelings of insecurity) show. Is that an ideal for men to seek?

    And then too, you leave out part of what Bonald says…”It is the latter [Game], after all, that joins feminism in blaming the victim when a wife cheats; they say it means her husband wasn’t ‘alpha’ enough. We Christians have no trouble admitting that women have sex drives; we just don’t obsess over it like our adolescent detractors. We don’t give a fuck if the little princesses have lots of orgasms; what we care about is that their husbands know that their children are theirs. If women have to ‘repress’ themselves to meet this hardly lofty aim, so be it….Any society organized around female sexual fulfillment is going to be organized ass-backwards….Eros is a desire for a full interpersonal communion.”

    Rather than experiencing full interpersonal communication with another person, you instead are modeling your behavior and your words on what Game has taught you will give her gina tingles. Basically, and no matter how you cut it or sugar coat it, you are doing what you do to please her. To keep her from either being a bitch and driving you out of your own home or from cheating on you or divorcing you. You had to do a full depth analysis of why she threw her little tantrums. You had to refrain from sending her “I love you” texts or giving her cards and flowers. You say your wife is a “natural leader” (whatever that means), but still you couldn’t let her make too many decisions. You had to make sure that she “felt” that you loved her even though she already “knew” that you loved her. You had to do this, that and the other. There is nothing inherently wrong with pleasing one’s spouse, and a little bedroom role play certainly qualifies. But when it reaches the point that you are consciously acting out a role virtually 24/7, in and out of the bedroom, simply to keep her gina tingling, then I think that is fucked up. Do women do these kinds of things for their husbands? Very, very infrequently. You did this, that and the other, but what did your wife do other than what she should, by rights, have done along? Nothing.

    And Bonald is right about cheating wives too. Why should a man have to have a BA in PUA to keep his wife faifhful? Do most wives have BAs in the geisha girl arts of love? Basically a man has to alway be “a’courtin.” He has to constantly “woo” his wife with his Game, or it is his fault if she cheats. I know that you don’t personally subscribe to that last point, but it does logically follow from the Game philosophy, and many PUAs do subscribe to it.

    So, I’m not sure what you set out to prove, but if it was to refute this Bonald guy, then I think you have failed. Married game is not the answer to our “ass backwards” society; it is simply giving in to women and their patently unreasonable demands. And it does nothing to change the power relationship that exists in Marriage 2.0. Quite the contrary. Because women hold all the cards, legally, socially and culturally when it comes to marriage and divorce, a husband must constantly and endlessly Game his wife into not playing those cards. No thank you.

  19. Ulysses says:

    @Ruddyturnstone – What the hell are you talking about? You’re criticizing one set of learned behaviors, behaviors which are attuned to our inherent masculine proclivities, in favor of another set of learned behaviors, the effeminate PC ones. The whole argument that game is really a game undertaken to placate women and keep them superior is nonsense on stilts. Bully for you that you’ve got righteous helplessness, misguided righteousness I might add, on your side, but don’t try to pretend that everyone else is antisocial and hellbent on making normal humans bend to their whims.

  20. “I was taught that
    women find soft, caring, good-hearted,
    kind, and nice men attractive. I was
    taught never, never, NEVER to escalate
    sexually without express permission, and
    that doing otherwise would subject me to
    possible criminal prosecution.”

    *hangs head in shame* I grew up in the 90s and I (embarrassingly) remember going step by step asking a girl if it was ok to escalate.

    “ok, can I touch you here? There?” So scared was I of being considered a potential rapist 😦

  21. Feminist Hater says:

    I agree with Ruddy, you cannot be expected to “game” your wife for your entire marriage. That still lets her off the hook. It still makes potential divorce in future, your fault, for not “gaming” her enough or not having good enough “game”. In the end, Dalrock does need to explain something. Why is his wife not held to the vows she made? Marriage is a contract. A life contract. If Mrs Dalrock is Christian, does she not see that and how does she explain her view point with regards to that and “game”?

    [D: I don’t take that view at all. I addressed that in this post.]

  22. Random Angeleno says:

    ruddy, hate to break it to you, but Ulysses really hit your slow pitch out of the park. The behavior you and Bonald advocate is nothing more than one form of manipulation, albeit the one that has been taught to many of us in our youth. If only we were nice enough and Godly enough and humble enough and … she’ll love us for it. That form of manipulation that you and Bonald strive for has had a lot of disastrous results and broken families to show for it. Yet you keep hammering away in favor of it. SMH… did you know a functional definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

  23. Random Angeleno says:

    Feminist Hater, women aren’t logical creatures. How the heck do you expect them to apply male logic to this? The answer is, you can’t. To paraphrase Dalrock (interviewing prospective wife), the best you can hope for is she is moral enough in her own heart to stick with the marriage in spite of the social and legal environments. That doesn’t excuse men from acting to maintain their wives’ attraction.

  24. HeligKo says:

    Marriage 2.0 requires that a man not hold his wife accountable. Well he can but there is nothing that requires her to do it. Not honor, shame, or contract. If a man wants to be married, then he has to play her game, because it is his job in marriage 2.0 to keep her happy. It used to be she needed him for physical an financial security. It used to be she sought the comfort of someone who would still love her and care for her when she is old. Now women don’t think past tomorrow. They aren’t happy, so they won’t be happy tomorrow, so they leave. They don’t think that this pattern leaves them alone when men consider them undesirable, or at the very least they will trade down in the long run. This may not be true for the 20 something, but for increasing number of 30,40, and even 50 something women choosing this path, it is true. The cards are dealt, so men have to choose to gamble with a losing hand or not play the game.

  25. ruddyturnstone says:

    “You’re criticizing one set of learned behaviors, behaviors which are attuned to our inherent masculine proclivities, in favor of another set of learned behaviors, the effeminate PC ones.”

    No, I’m criticizing pretending, and having to pretend, to be something that one is not. Most guys, despite the PUA love of dichotomies, are neither all alpha or all beta. Most guys do feel cocky/funny/confident sometimes, do want to “claim” their woman sometimes, but also, at other times, don’t feel cocky/funny, but rather feel insecure, and sometimes want to say “I love you” rather than “C’mere you sexy woman.” But Game tells men to repress those latter feelings. Neither “proclivity” is totally “inherent,” neither is totally “learned.” But what is learned is suppressing the latter totally, or nearly totally, in order to keep a woman “happy.”

    “The whole argument that game is really a game undertaken to placate women and keep them superior is nonsense on stilts,”

    That might be true of singles bar PUA Game, and the like. But with Married Game I think not. Married Game is all about pleasing the wife. About doing what you think will make her happy, rather than what you want to do. About saying words that will push her buttons, rather than words that express what you really feel. If it wasn’t, then what is all the fuss about? Why does a husband have to learn Game, but a wife doesn’t have to do shit? In the singles bar, it might all be worth it, because a new, hot woman is potentially on offer. But in a marriage? In a situation in which the guy is already “forsaking” all other woman? Where the guy dutifully deposits his paycheck in a joint account? I don’t think so.

    “Bully for you that you’ve got righteous helplessness, misguided righteousness I might add, on your side…”

    I purposely left out all of the Christian “righteousnous” out of my explication of Bonald’s claim. Firstly, because I don’t believe in Chrisitanity, and secondly because they are not actually necessary to his argument.

    “…but don’t try to pretend that everyone else is antisocial and hellbent on making normal humans bend to their whims.”

    Not sure where you are getting that from. I don’t think people should be anti social and hellbent on making other persons bend to their whims. Thus, I don’t think a husband should have to bend to his wife’s whims. Similarly, I don’t think it is such a good idea for a husband to embark on a concerted camparing of subterfuge and manipulation to get his wife to bend to his legitimate desires (let alone his whims). Like the man said, honest communication in a I-thou union, not denial of oneself and not treating one’s spouse as an “it” rather than a “thou.”

  26. whorefinder says:

    Yes, and we were taught by pop culture as well as by our parents and our schools.

    How many damn movies aimed at “kids” or teens showed the good-guy-beta-nerd winning the girl’s heart and the nasty-mean-chauvinist-bully-male losing her for acting “like a pig” and having the nerd beat the bully at a contest.

    I can’t tell if it’s deliberate programming by lefties or else just the wishes and dreams of beta male screen writers brought to the screen.

  27. Anonymous123 says:

    flenser, that is one of the dumbest things ive ever read. in what way is collectivism ever good? it is a destructive impulse fueled mostly by envy. and for the wealthy redistributionists, it is fueled by self-loathing.

  28. ruddyturnstone says:

    “ruddy, hate to break it to you, but Ulysses really hit your slow pitch out of the park.”

    Appeal to authority much? If “Ulysses” hit my “slow pitch” out of the park, then you should be able to at least paraphrase or summarize his argument. Merely claiming that So and So has proved me wrong doesn’t amount to much, in the way of persuasive argument.

    “The behavior you and Bonald advocate is nothing more than one form of manipulation, albeit the one that has been taught to many of us in our youth. If only we were nice enough and Godly enough and humble enough and … she’ll love us for it.”

    I can’t speak for Bonald, but that is not what I am advocating for at all. I don’t think a man has to be unformly nice, nor “humble” at all. And I don’t belive in God. What I am advocating for is honesty in marriage. Without that, it hardly seems worth it. Again, most men simply don’t feel studly, cocky, funny, conifident, “claiming”, etc, etc, all of the time. But the Marriage Gamers would have them acting that way all or most of the time.

    “That form of manipulation that you and Bonald strive for has had a lot of disastrous results and broken families to show for it. Yet you keep hammering away in favor of it. SMH… did you know a functional definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?”

    How can what I am arguing for be “manipulation” when I am advocating expressing your own true feelings? As for the disastrous results, I would say that they are the result of women having impossible expectations, and when they are not met feeling fully justified in scrapping their marriages, even when there are children involved. And then having the law and society back her up.

    “She felt unloved.” Reall?. When I first saw that, I thought we were in line for another attack on EPL. Instead, it a screed in favor of a husband having to do back flips to make Mrs. Entitlement Princess “feel loved.”

    Shake your head all you want, but if you want to try something really different, try not marrying at all, instead of attempting to come up with some ever more demanding formula that husbands have to implement to keep Cupcake satisfied.

  29. Celeste says:

    ruddyturnstone

    “Gaming your wife sounds like a lot of work, and a denial of self and one’s feelings, and it also makes one wonder what the purpose of marriage is. One would think that, being married, one could finally let one’s guard down. That one would not have to carefully measure and consider every word said to at least one woman, that one could open up and admit that one is NOT always confident, that one doesn’t always feel “cocky/funny,” that one has insecurities, and so on.”

    Keeping my weight down takes a lot of work, and it is a denial of self and my feelings. I wish I could finally let guard down. If I’m a widow when I’m 80, I’ll eat tons of ice cream, but for now, he’s worth it.

  30. Celeste says:

    TFH:

    That seems about right.

    Also, Mrs. Dalrock is held to her marriage vows. Game makes it easier for her to hold them. It makes life more pleasant for her. But its lack would be no excuse for breaking a vow.

  31. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Always remember that 80% of men and 99% of women have no capacity to grasp what Game is, why it works, and why it is a toolbox of tools, more than anything else. You can explain it in the most profound and punctilious detail, and they will-never-get-it.”

    This is a common comment, and is quite smug and self satisfied. I “get” what Game is. I even concede that it works, on its own terms. But that hardly makes it a panacea, for a marriage or for a pastor or for society as a whole.

    How incredibly easy, and yet totally unpersuasive, is it for you to say, “well, if you don’t agree with me, you simply don’t ‘get’ it?”

  32. Feminist Hater says:

    RA, I don’t expect women to use male logic. I never said that. However, I do expect them to keep to their vows. Even in this current climate. I know women are not perfect like feminists describe them. That still does not excuse them from not keeping the vows they made when they got married. Dalrock cannot be expected, by his wife, to game 100% perfectly and all the time to satisfy her, that’s madness. She has to come to the party too. That’s the VOW she took when marrying him. Gaming works but only if the wife technically “games” her husband too.

    It’s a two way street that’s all I’m saying. And there should be enough trust and love to allow the other person to make mistakes without going off and cheating or filing for divorce. I know, once again, I’m using male logic. That’s why I asked for Mrs Dalrock’s opinion on this matter.

  33. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Keeping my weight down takes a lot of work, and it is a denial of self and my feelings. I wish I could finally let guard down. If I’m a widow when I’m 80, I’ll eat tons of ice cream, but for now, he’s worth it.”

    Keeping your weight down is good for your health, independ of your husband’s wishes. It also not quite the same thing as taking on an entirely, or almost entirely, false persona, and wearing that persona 24/7. And, then too, there is keeping your weight down and keeping your weight down. Suppose your husband insisted that you be as thin as Kate Moss, would you think that the constant struggle to do so would be “worth it?” Well, most women wouldn’t. Most women won’t do shit for their husbands. Yet here we are being told that it is just dandy for a husband to wear a mask throughout his entire married life.

  34. CL says:

    Bonald/ruddy/etc.: Manipulation = baaaahhhd.

    Dalrock: Manipulation = normal human behaviour.

    These arguments that put a negative spin on manipulation and learning are fallacious and lazy.

  35. Doug1 says:

    Yeah I think guys should respond to “I love you’s” from their woman with a return of the same about 1/3 the rate. It’s good to throw in an unexpected one now and again though, and a kiss on her neck, or lips, etc.

  36. Ulysses says:

    @ruddy – You’re arguing against a caricature. Dalrock himself has written about being a beta, he referred to himself as beta in this post. Dalrock has written numerous other articles about balancing the mixture of traits. But it is not subterfuge, it is a reclamation of traits which were taught out of us. Beyond that, where is the dichotomy? Who has written that you can’t say, “I love you, now bring that sexy ass over here”? You’re taking a framework, a mindset, and trying to reduce it to a fiendish instruction manual.

    My point regarding whims is that women have always been women, the layers one has to scrape away to find the woman is all that has varied. Expecting them to just be contractual partners who submit out of duty is a fool’s errand. They are sexual creatures just as we men are. Ergo, since we men like the sex, the smart thing to do is make our wives burn to rub it on us, not yield because they signed a contract.

  37. Celeste says:

    ruddy:

    But he doesn’t expect me to be as thin as Kate Moss. He just expects my reasonable best effort. And I expect the same from him, a decent effort at maintaining some dominance, but he can cry when his grandmother had a heart attack. I think a man ought to make a reasonable effort at some game, and some dominance. Nothing more.

  38. Feminist Hater says:

    Lol Doug1, that just made me laugh.

  39. Celeste says:

    And,

    I would imagine that a man’s professional relationships could be helped quite a bit by the application of some game.

  40. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Bonald/ruddy/etc.: Manipulation = baaaahhhd.

    “Dalrock: Manipulation = normal human behaviour.”

    If it was simply normal behavior, why would it have to be learned? Why is a programme of training regarding what is to be said and not said, what is to be done and not done, required? Normal human behavior is usually instinctual, or, at most, easily taught and impemented.

    “These arguments that put a negative spin on manipulation are fallacious and lazy.”

    Got an argument there? Or only a simple conclusory statement? Shorter you: “I win cuz I say so.”

  41. CL says:

    If it was simply normal behavior, why would it have to be learned?

    Did you read the comment that spawned the post? Because normal dominant manliness has been beaten out of these later generations of men. What was once just natural behaviour has become demonised by feminism and men have been fed a bunch of lies about “what women want”. Depending on the programming, some things are more or less difficult to unlearn. Think of it like a musical instrument – if you’ve developed a habit of bad form, it can take quite a while to correct it. Learning Game (i.e. normal male behaviour) is no different.

  42. Rmaxd says:

    @Flenser you clueless game virgin, quit whining & contribute something you jackass lol lol lol!!!!!

    We get it, you havent got a clue about game or social politics, sthu we’re not interested in your clueless idiotic trolling

    Your droning about conservatives is borderline moronic, conservatives, ESPECIALLY social conservatives are populist whores, they sell out to the most popular social crap at the time

    Christians are also essentially conservatives, selling out to everything from feminism to secularism, christianity in urban areas are a joke, they promote everything from promiscuity to abortion, no different from the standard moronic conservative

    In short Take your whining about conservatives to some nazi neocon site, where they actually give a crap

    Anyway Back on Topic

    Men are Beta EXACTLY because theyre taught NOT to escalate sexually with women

    The truth is women want you to escalate with them CONSTANTLY

    I’ve had so many women pissed off, who after cornering me on my own precisely because i didnt find them attractive

    Women want you to fondle & grope them, as long as they have plausible deniability, ie they dont look like a slut publicly

    Ironically one of my best & most effective techniques for skanks, is to act as if her looks are alot worse they really are, basically I just treat her exactly with the exact same revulsion i would to an ugly chick

    & no this works wonders with high self esteem girls, low esteem girls hilariously get upset & start crying for 2 minutes & then start rationalising why i dont find them attractive

    As Dalrock & other gamers have been saying for years, treat women with HIGH LEVELS of confidence & they magically fall in love with you …

    Yes women really are that retardedly simple …

    Again as I’ve said before, we live in a society designed to shelter INFERTILE women, which is WHY we have beta’s, which is why men are taught not to escalate women & not to treat women as logical retards

    Which is also WHY promiscuity is valued so much, as promiscuity is THE sexual trait of infertility, a traditional fertile woman is too busy having kids & trying to secure a husband

    What really seperates a beginning Gamer from an experience Gamer, is whats known as state game

    The KEY to being successful with women is to ensure ALL your levels of states, are higher then the womans, your levels of confidence, happiness, basically the state of ALL your emotions have to be higher then hers

    This forces her into your frame, this also allows her to rationalise her emotional state to your perception of the world, this prevents her from relying on the irrational emotional states she naturally falls back on

    In short HER emotional states depend on the high levels of confidence & rationality you create, most women dont have a reference point to stabilise their emotions, without a highly confident alpha as a reference point

  43. Doug1 says:

    Ulysses-

    @Ruddyturnstone – What the hell are you talking about? You’re criticizing one set of learned behaviors, behaviors which are attuned to our inherent masculine proclivities, in favor of another set of learned behaviors, the effeminate PC ones. The whole argument that game is really a game undertaken to placate women and keep them superior is nonsense on stilts.

    Well said and exactly right.

    I’m sick and tired of the MRA and SoCon twaddle against game. Game is the art of learning at turns playful and aloof dominance behavior with women. It’s about regaining male masculinity and confidence.

    It’s not work, it’s fun and satisfying as hell. It’s a very rewarding way of interacting with attractive women – or other women you want something from.

  44. zed says:

    @CL,

    Is that a Henry Moore sculpture in your avatar?

  45. ruddyturnstone says:

    “You’re arguing against a caricature. Dalrock himself has written about being a beta, he referred to himself as beta in this post. Dalrock has written numerous other articles about balancing the mixture of traits. But it is not subterfuge, it is a reclamation of traits which were taught out of us. Beyond that, where is the dichotomy? Who has written that you can’t say, “I love you, now bring that sexy ass over here”? You’re taking a framework, a mindset, and trying to reduce it to a fiendish instruction manual.”

    Of course, the more one undercuts the basic premise, the less onerous the programme seems. And I already said that there is nothing wrong with trying to please one’s spouse, and that even role playing has its place. But the idea that one needs to be constantly on guard, that one has to consciously ration the “I love you’s” and the cards and flowers, that one can never, or almost never, come right out and admit love or insecurity, does sound like a fiendish instruction manual to me. That’s where I am seeing the dichotomy. There is nothing wrong with “I love you, now bring that sexy ass over here.” But there is nothing wrong with a simple “I love you” either (nor with a simple “Bring that sexy ass over here.”).

    “My point regarding whims is that women have always been women, the layers one has to scrape away to find the woman is all that has varied. Expecting them to just be contractual partners who submit out of duty is a fool’s errand. They are sexual creatures just as we men are. Ergo, since we men like the sex, the smart thing to do is make our wives burn to rub it on us, not yield because they signed a contract.”

    To me, it is a fool’s errand to embark on a marriage as if it were a singles bar encounter. I simply don’t want to do the work required to make a woman constantly, over the course of decades, “burn to rub it in on” me. Nor do I want to deny my own feelings with the one person that I am supposed to be able to be honest with. If I was married, I would want a real relationship with my wife. What is being proposed here sounds like it has less intimacy than I can have with a male friend. And, yeah, I do expect women to do what they contracted to do, without any extraordinary extra effort on my part. Again, the husband pays the bills, right? He doesn’t have to be Gamed into it. The husband is faithful, right? No Gaming required. He does what he is supposed to do, even though it is against his nature, even though he might prefer not to. But women are to get special treatment. They have to be convinced, over and over again, to do what they agreed to do. Or else they will EPL.

    My view is that they can EPL all they want, but without me.

  46. deti says:

    Men can’t game all the time, every day. Nor are men expected to game all the time. Only the very worst women have to be gamed hard all the time, it seems to me. Everyone has an off day. And women have to bring their game too.

    Guy game: aloof, cocky-funny, straightforward, makes firm decisions, pursues what he wants without apology, claims what is his
    Girl game: physically appealing, kind, pleasant, nondemanding, compliant, submits to her man’s decisions, nurturing

    Guy anti-game: cloying, fishing for compliments, supplicating, asking for affection, nice, unassuming
    Girl anti-game: profane, vulgar, crass, pushy, demanding, insists on her own way

  47. ruddyturnstone says:

    “But he doesn’t expect me to be as thin as Kate Moss. He just expects my reasonable best effort. And I expect the same from him, a decent effort at maintaining some dominance, but he can cry when his grandmother had a heart attack. I think a man ought to make a reasonable effort at some game, and some dominance. Nothing more”

    The level of Gaming seemingly be demanded here goes quite a bit beyond that..

  48. Rmaxd says:

    @ruddyturnstone I’m guessing you’re the male equivelant to Lara …

    “If it was simply normal behavior, why would it have to be learned? Why is a programme of training regarding what is to be said and not said”

    Being Beta & not knowing how to dominant a woman, as CL points out isnt a normal state

    The fact is, you dont see it as abnormal precisely because you’re a typical beta …

    More game, less whine … lol

  49. Doug1 says:

    I read Dalrock as having built himself to lesser alpha, post his absorbtion of Roissy game theory and tips, and unlearning lots of American feminizing cultures bad relationship advice to men. I get a quite masculine, not backing down in a confidant way, he’s a rock sort of vibe from him. I suspect he doesn’t want to get any more alpha than that, seeing as how he wants to remain faithfully married and not pick up lots of hot chicks.

    Probably greater beta when he met and attracted his wife, then down to beta though maybe still bordering on greater beta (did leave the house when she ragged on him too much), then back up though greater beta after reading tons of Roissy game theory and practice.

  50. greyghost says:

    ruddyturnstone
    What you had to say about dalrocks article was right on the money. And you know that is the way it is supposed to be. God didn’t make women with a capacity to respond to what Deti was doing and what nearly every man in the blogosphere has or is doing. Nope god made woman get tinglely from game. To expect a woman to be rational and not be tinglely is being irresponsible as a man. That is why men and woman will never be equal and never have been they get the tingles and you get respect. the first thing god told adam in genesis after the apple tree incident was man was going to toil and sweat to get the dirt to bare fruit. It sounded something like that. God basicly said fuck you asshole you don’t get to live by the tingle and take that bitch with you. Dalrock is doing what a man is supposed to be doing look at his marriage and how he discribes it, he has been blessed for now with a happy wife and has a family that kids can grow in. All of that christian bullshit these religious clowns are clinging to is just pussy worship. Men don’t get to live by the tingle never could and due to adam listening to some bitch no man will ever live by the tingle.

  51. Doug1 says:

    ruddyturnstone–

    that one can never, or almost never, come right out and admit love or insecurity, does sound like a fiendish instruction manual to me.

    Who in the game community says you can’t ever tell a woman you love that you do?

    It is a good idea though to get her to chase, her to say it first, and for her to say it more often. Just is. That will make her happier in fact. After awhile it will probably make you happier – it certainly does me. Well having chase a bit is what does. But you have to calibrate and give her comfort and enough security as well to keep a good LTR humming along.

  52. Rmaxd says:

    @ruddyturnstone the male equivelant to Lara

    “a decent effort at maintaining some dominance, but he can cry when his grandmother had a heart attack. I think a man ought to make a reasonable effort at some game, and some dominance.”

    Dominance is NOT game, what she’s referring is to is a man with a backbone, having high standards & behaving like a man instead of a raging mangina, is not game, all men naturally act this way

    Unless of course theyre male feminists …

  53. deti says:

    “It’s not work, it’s fun and satisfying as hell. It’s a very rewarding way of interacting with attractive women – or other women you want something from.”

    Exactly, Doug1. And I’d add this: women manipulate, connive and scheme without even knowing they do it. Women use game just as much as men do. Women use sex, bat their eyelashes, tease, pitch their voices higher, and all other sorts of behaviors designed to attract men, or extract things they want from men. Women have been running game for hundreds, nay, thousands of years. So I see no problem with men learning and incorporating game to level that playing field. Game helps men get more of what they want from women, increase female attraction and attractive behaviors, and ease their lives.

    Game is useful. It increases attractiion. It helps me get what I want from my relationship with my wife. It helps improve work relationships. It helps me extract things from women that I want — help on a work project, information about people, things and situations, a break on a deal I’m trying to make. It’s lots of fun, and useful, to game the middle aged office workers who shriek “Oh, how you DO go on!” Those lovely ladies haven’t had that kind of male attention in years. They will do anything for me at work — and in return, they know if the chips are down I’ve got their back.

  54. Doug1 says:

    Deti-

    It’s work to learn game especially if you’re starting without much natural game (learned growing up but probably some genetic wiring and hormonal balance as well), and especially if you’ve ibibed deeply of the feminist and SoCon white knighting propaganda. It can be work to force yourself to do lots of bar game with many rejections esp. at first. But once learned it’s no work at all to do game in everyday life, with your wife or gf, or when meeting hot girls at parties, gatherings, at conventions, when out and about in stores or malls and so on.

  55. Mencken says:

    Ruddy does not appear to take seriously the notion that one’s “persona” can change.

    Objecting to the use of “game” because it is not “natural” has the same logical foundation as objecting to a Spanish speaker learning English so as to more effectively navigate US culture upon immigration.

    Suppose you want to have sex with your wife. You might say the “natural” thing to do is to say “Honey dearest, I would like to have sex with you. What do you think of that?” That body of knowledge colloquially referred to as “game” contains the wise revelation that such a tactic is unlikely to be very arousing to your wife. Game would counsel a different tactic – such as sweeping her off her feet and carrying her over the threshold.

    Likewise, the hungry Spanish speaker in the US will typically find “I would like a hamburger, please” to be more effective than “Quiero una hamburguesa, por favor.”

    It is simply a matter of using what works to reach mutual satisfaction. One who wants hamburgers and sex is well advised to use effective measures to obtaining them – such as the local language and game, respectively.

    Now, there are other options. A horny man could rape a woman off the street. A hungry Spanish speaker could rob a restaurant. But these actions are categorically different from language and game, because the imply a lack of consent on behalf of the acted-upon party.

    Which is why game is fundamentally ethical. Presumably, your wife wants you to turn her on and have sex with her – why not do that effectively? Likewise, restaurants want to sell their wares – why not ask for your hamburger in the language understood by the cashier?

    We are not Vulcans, and our sexuality reflects as much.

  56. anonymous female says:

    When my husband grabs my butt I feel annoyance because I don’t like being grabbed and satisfaction that he still finds my butt interesting enough to grab.

    One of my ongoing concerns is that my husband will bore of me. That is why “I love you” isn’t always enough to make me feel secure in the relationship. You can love someone and still be bored of them. Pair-bonds are great but I also want to know that he still gets a little dopamine spike from me. If he isn’t getting it from me then maybe he is getting it from the secretary.

    That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the pair-bond aspect. I do want to know his heart, but to feel truly valued I need to feel wanted in a carnal way and that requires that he act like a man on the hunt sometimes.

    I would not run off and divorce him if I was feeling undervalued but it IS nice to feel valued and I appreciate the effort to make me feel that way.

  57. Doug1 says:

    Deti–

    Didn’t really mean to address that last to you. Wrote you name down to tell you I thought your short list of game and anti-game behaviors for men girls was pretty good. The the point above came into my head.

  58. Feminist Hater says:

    Doug1, that’s one of the reasons I like reading this blog. I am one of those males still wanting a marriage, I know, daft as hell! However, I want it on terms I can deal with and I want it to last for my life and her’s, obviously. That’s a non-negotiable. Call me stupid, but that’s what I want. I don’t find fulfillment in my career choice alone. I don’t find enjoyment picking up single gals and sleeping with them. Besides sexual gratification, I find there is simply something missing. I find myself, after reading this blog and others, having to choose between a cave man lifestyle of sleeping with many women with no thought of tomorrow or having to choose marrying an aging slut and then getting divorced 7 to 10 years later! My mind boggles at those choices. That simply will not do! I know there are “other” choices, such as supposed “robot women” in the future or MGTOW but those don’t appeal to me on any level at all.

    However, this blog choice appeals to me the most, it has given me a new outlook on life. Perhaps there is a chance to find a women worthy of the effort, to marry her and make a life together. The feminists be DAMNED! If I have to game her, not all the time obviously, and make sure she knows shes mine, then that is what I shall do. I’m not a cruel person, so I know I’m not into abuse or rape her. I just want a life I can be proud of and to live that life with a woman I can be proud to call my wife. Is that really so much to ask?!

    Seems it is.

    [D: Made my day! Thanks.]

  59. Feminist Hater says:

    Ah…My last post was to Doug1’s post at 5:20pm. Hope there’s no confusion.

  60. deti says:

    greyghost:

    Right. The main problem is men and women aren’t taught attraction triggers or what makes one attractive to the opposite sex. I was taught to be a NiceGuy (TM). I was taught all the feminist tripe about how women really just want nice, sensitive men.

    And women are taught to be the exact opposite of what men really want. Feminists teach women they need to be strong, independent, ambitious, earn their own money, be well educated, be well traveled, have beautiful, expensive accessories, have a strong personality, be funny and witty, be excellent conversationalists, have a wide and lengthy variety of sexual experiences, and have a prestigious high-salary job. In fact nothing could be further from the truth, as we all know.

  61. Pingback: We Are Not Vulcans « H. L. Mencken II

  62. pb says:

    “Feminists teach women they need to be strong, independent, ambitious, earn their own money, be well educated, be well traveled, have beautiful, expensive accessories, have a strong personality, be funny and witty, be excellent conversationalists, have a wide and lengthy variety of sexual experiences, and have a prestigious high-salary job. In fact nothing could be further from the truth, as we all know.”

    Yeah, so if a woman is told to act more feminine, is that being dishonest or manipulative?

  63. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Think of it like a musical instrument – if you’ve developed a habit of bad form, it can take quite a while to correct it. Learning Game (i.e. normal male behaviour) is no different.”

    Yes, exactly, think of it like a musical instrument. Learning to play a musical instrument, especially as an adult, is a fairly arduous undertaking, at least for most folks. Men are expected to embark on a learning programme akin to learning a musical instrument. Women? To do nothing.

  64. ruddyturnstone says:

    “More game, less whine”

    Yes, not wanting to dance to a woman’s tune is “whining”

  65. zed says:

    Yeah, so if a woman is told to act more feminine, is that being dishonest or manipulative?

    Very few young women I know wouldn’t even have a clue about how to even start acting feminine.

  66. flenser says:

    flenser, that is one of the dumbest things ive ever read.

    Have I remarked yet on the low intellectual level of the commenters here?

    in what way is collectivism ever good?

    Families are good. Families are collectivist. Therefore there are times when collectivism is good. All sorts of human groupings above the level of the individual are good. Countries, for instance.

    And before you make some fatuously ignorant remark to the effect of “That’s not what libertarians mean by collectivism”, yes, that is exactly what they mean by collectivism. Whatever other faults they have, you can’t accuse them of failing to carry their ideas to their logical conclusions.

  67. CL says:

    I see ruddy didn’t bother addressing my answer to his question. He is only here to nitpick and argue, a.k.a. trolling.

    @CL,

    Is that a Henry Moore sculpture in your avatar?

    Yes it is, well spotted. It’s outside the Art Gallery of Ontario and I took the picture this summer.

  68. CL says:

    Oh, never mind, he did address my answer. This will make sense when my comment with two links is out of moderation. Sometimes I skim too quickly.

  69. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Ruddy does not appear to take seriously the notion that one’s “persona” can change.”

    Sure it can. And that might be a good thing. Unless one was doing it merely to please somebody else.

    “Objecting to the use of “game” because it is not “natural” has the same logical foundation as objecting to a Spanish speaker learning English so as to more effectively navigate US culture upon immigration.”

    Proving my point once again. Learning Game is like learning a foreign langauge. That’s hard work. What do wives do thats like that?

    “Suppose you want to have sex with your wife. You might say the “natural” thing to do is to say “Honey dearest, I would like to have sex with you. What do you think of that?” That body of knowledge colloquially referred to as “game” contains the wise revelation that such a tactic is unlikely to be very arousing to your wife. Game would counsel a different tactic – such as sweeping her off her feet and carrying her over the threshold.”

    Everybody understands that already.

  70. CL says:

    Men are expected to embark on a learning programme akin to learning a musical instrument. Women? To do nothing.

    Oh come off it, dude. I, Dalrock and many others are always calling women out for their poor behaviour. Grerp has a whole blog dedicated to giving good advice to women on how to be better women. There are others. Stop setting up strawmen and then whinging about them.

  71. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Game is very much a part of being in the self-actualized tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy.”

    Psycho babble. Most men are not naturally Gamers. Just as most men are not naturally alpha. It is not one’s true self that is being brought out, but rather that true selfr being bured, becaus it is not effective in turning the Mrs. on. That’s the whole pont.

    It is not merely feminist and PC indoctrinaton that makes some or most men not the naturally Gaming stud. It is human nature. Beta hood is part of human nature. For a beta to pretend to be an alpha is just that, pretending. And no amount of clever complications will change that.

  72. ruddyturnstone says:

    “So much of Game is learned from effective Sales tactics, rapport techniques, oratory skills, etc.”

    Which are all fake, especially the first two. And which are all hard to learn.

  73. ruddyturnstone says:

    “And I’d add this: women manipulate, connive and scheme without even knowing they do it.”

    And so the proper response to that just MUST be that men should consciously manipulate?

    Great marriage…two manipulators lying to each other, both pretending to be things they aren’t, to have feelings they don’t have.

  74. CL says:

    ruddy, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It often only takes a minor shift in behaviour, not a whole personality change as you seem to think. I advised my brother on passing shit tests – basically how to deal with his gf nagging him – and when he finally took my advice (which was basically Roissy’s advice), it worked like magic. And no, she is not an American slut – not even Anglo – but she is still female.

  75. flenser says:

    Flenser you clueless game virgin, quit whining & contribute something you jackass lol lol lol!!!!!

    We get it, you havent got a clue about game or social politics, sthu we’re not interested in your clueless idiotic trolling

    Simpering little fuckwit, ain’t you?

    lol!!! lo!!!! lol!!!

  76. Mencken says:

    I have now reached the point where I am not even certain what Ruddy is arguing. That the universe… should not require game? That men should not expend the effort required to learn game? That more should be required of women? That people in a relationship should never act consciously to achieve desired outcomes?

    That said, very often, when a man is new to game, there is a long period of intense denial and general negativity. Dalrock himself mentioned in his blog how much he wanted to unlearn the truths he discovered at Roissy in the early goings. I have obviously have no idea where exactly Ruddy is coming from, but I would not be surprised if this were it – in which case, compassion would be called for; and, ideally, some way to hasten the process.

  77. ruddyturnstone says:

    CL:

    This question?

    “Did you read the comment that spawned the post? Because normal dominant manliness has been beaten out of these later generations of men. What was once just natural behaviour has become demonised by feminism and men have been fed a bunch of lies about “what women want”. Depending on the programming, some things are more or less difficult to unlearn.”

    Yes, I read the post. And I have already answered that question. I don’t believe that being a Gamer is the normal state, and that PC indocrtination and feminism have wiped it out. Rather, I believe that some men are more beta and some more alpha. And that that was true long before feminism came on the scene. The difference is that, back in the day, a woman married a beta and accepted him for that. If she wanted alpah gina tingles, she married an alpha or didn’t get married at all. Now, women marry men they know are betas, but then “fall out of love” or “feel unloved” because their beta husbands are beta. And we can’t have that, can we? No, we must learn Game so Cupcake wil “feel loved.” Or else she’ll EPL on our asses.

    And, by the way, a poster is not obligated to answer each and every bullshit “question” that is addressed to him. Nor does it make him a “troll” if he fails to do so. I am not here to argue in the structure that you determine. Plus, you are only one of many folks arguing with me, and one of the least interesting ones at that.

  78. flenser says:

    Yes women really are that retardedly simple

    Like stupid little children, aren’t they?
    Honestly, I cannot imagine why some people say that the catty little bitches on this site despise all women and not just feminists.

  79. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Oh, never mind, he did address my answer. This will make sense when my comment with two links is out of moderation. Sometimes I skim too quickly”

    OK then. No harm, no foul

  80. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Oh come off it, dude. I, Dalrock and many others are always calling women out for their poor behaviour. Grerp has a whole blog dedicated to giving good advice to women on how to be better women. There are others.”

    Big deal. A few bloggers call them out on it. But the law and society and the culture as a whole do not. And that’s the reality a married man has to live with, not what reality would be if women took Dalrock’s, etc’s advice.

    “Stop setting up strawmen and then whinging about them.”

    Good advice. You should follow it.

  81. greyghost says:

    Very few young women I know wouldn’t even have a clue about how to even start acting feminine.

    Damn right on that zed. A woman under the tingle get real child like though.

  82. Ulysses says:

    Ruddy – Your arguments are very similar to a Harry who briefly hung around GLP, though your formatting is different. Are you and he one and the same?

  83. CL says:

    Mencken, ruddy is railing against what is with an argument of what should be. He says I’m one of the least interesting people here, yet continues to engage me in conversation while continuing to argue against a caricature.

  84. ruddyturnstone says:

    “ruddy, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It often only takes a minor shift in behaviour, not a whole personality change as you seem to think.”

    I “seem to think” that because that is the way it is always presented…”I was a beta loser, but then I learned Game and adopted a different persona, and now my wife is eating out of my hands.” That Hawaiin Libertarian guy said that he “literally plays the role of an arrogant bastard.”

    “I advised my brother on passing shit tests – basically how to deal with his gf nagging him – and when he finally took my advice (which was basically Roissy’s advice), it worked like magic. And no, she is not an American slut – not even Anglo – but she is still female.”

    Argument by unprovable personal anecdote. Anyway, no one said it doesn’t work, what I said was that it is fake and that it becomes tiring, and that a marriage based on it is not an intimate marriage.

  85. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Ruddy – Your arguments are very similar to a Harry who briefly hung around GLP, though your formatting is different. Are you and he one and the same?”

    Never heard of the guy, or of GLP. Does it matter?

  86. flenser says:

    very often, when a man is new to game, there is a long period of intense denial and general negativity

    No, very often when a man is new to game he thinks he’s uncovered the Philosophers Stone. Then he rushes about the interwebs annoying normal people with his dazzling new insights into The Secret Way Things Really Work and spouting infantile buzzwords – “beta! mangina! Gilligan!”

    Rather like Dalrock, in fact.

  87. ruddyturnstone says:

    “ruddy is railing against what is with an argument of what should be”

    Yes, what a marriage SHOULD be, to make it worthwhile.

    .”He says I’m one of the least interesting people here, yet continues to engage me in conversation”

    LOL! If I don’t answer you I’m a troll, if I do it proves your importance. Heads you win, tails you don’t lose.

    ” while continuing to argue against a caricature.”

    Wrong. I dealt with all of your arguments fairly and fully.

  88. hurpadurp says:

    Out of curiosity, Dalrock, if you’d forgive me for considering a critique of game from the other side of the gender wars, while you’ve criticized ‘socons’ and ‘tradcons’ as well as their blind spots when it comes to “marriage 2.0,” do you feel you’re practicing “game 2.0,” as PMAFT described here? Judging by the fact that you and your wife apparently have a strong relationship, do you think you’ve “sanitized” game or “made it safe” for her? Or do you think the comparison between marriage 2.0 and any sort of Game is fallacious?

    (sorry if this shows up twice, I wish there was a way to edit comments 😦 )

  89. Celeste says:

    Personally, I am willing to change, to an extent, to please my husband. Why others would expect that they would not have to do anything just to please another, is a bit strange to me. It’s the basis of manners, and living in relative harmony with others.

  90. ruddyturnstone says:

    “I have now reached the point where I am not even certain what Ruddy is arguing. That the universe… should not require game? That men should not expend the effort required to learn game? That more should be required of women? That people in a relationship should never act consciously to achieve desired outcomes”

    Pretty much all of the above. A man should not be required to expend the effort to learn Game. His wife should accept the man she married. Beyond that, a Gamed marriage is a marriage based on manipulation and, to some extent, even dishonesty. That is not a good marriage. A marriage should be based on intimacy and honesty. But, yes, if Game is to be required from men, then more should be required from women too. And it isn’t that people in a relationship should never act consciously to achieve desired outcomes, it’s that they shouldn’t, and shouldn’t have to, adopt an alien persona, wear a mask, for most of the time, simply to prevent the other person in the relationship from screwing them over.

  91. Dalrock says:

    @Ruddyturnstone

    Gaming your wife sounds like a lot of work, and a denial of self and one’s feelings, and it also makes one wonder what the purpose of marriage is. One would think that, being married, one could finally let one’s guard down. That one would not have to carefully measure and consider every word said to at least one woman, that one could open up and admit that one is NOT always confident, that one doesn’t always feel “cocky/funny,” that one has insecurities, and so on. That one could really have an “I-thou union.” Instead, it seems that a Gamed marriage is like a singn endless singles bar interaction. The shit testing never stops. The Gaming never stops. The guy has to be constantly on his toes, coming up with cocky/funny retorts, being careful not to let his real feelings (both feelings of love and feelings of insecurity) show. Is that an ideal for men to seek?

    I’ve addressed this in a previous post. My wife is the one who figured out she was shit testing me, and actually stopped most of it on her own. She also learned to come tell me when something is irritating her or she needs more attention, instead of doing something to provoke a fight like her instincts tell her to do. She says it still feels incredibly unnatural even after all these years, but she knows logically that it will work so she does it. But even if your wife doesn’t figure this out on her own, you can still dramatically reduce the frequency and severity of shit tests by passing them when they come up.

    As Doug1 and Deti have already pointed out, gaming in a marriage isn’t exhausting at all. It is actually quite enjoyable*. I don’t live in fear of letting my guard down either. As I stated in the post I linked in the beginning of this comment, she is responsible to keep her vows. If she can’t do that, then she isn’t a wife. I framed her shit tests as her problem in that post, but I also pointed out that I want to help her out with her problem. What husband wouldn’t? You can’t game your wife from a position of fear; it goes against the very foundation of what game teaches.

    * The exception would be if the woman never really loved you or if you had run really hard alpha game on her to court her. In that case you could end up marrying a woman who needed more alpha than you can comfortably deliver long term. Women often fear that when men learn game they will naturally morph into super alpha assholes. This isn’t true, which is what I hear you saying as well. Fortunately for me my wife doesn’t need more alpha than I’m comfortable giving.

  92. Dalrock says:

    On the question of whether it is the husband’s responsibility to keep his wife from cheating or frivolously divorcing, I wrote a post on this: That way rationalization lies

  93. ruddyturnstone says:

    “That said, very often, when a man is new to game, there is a long period of intense denial and general negativity. Dalrock himself mentioned in his blog how much he wanted to unlearn the truths he discovered at Roissy in the early goings. I have obviously have no idea where exactly Ruddy is coming from, but I would not be surprised if this were it – in which case, compassion would be called for; and, ideally, some way to hasten the process”

    Nice unfalsifiable argument you got there. If someone agrees with you, its cuz they “get” it. If someone doesn’t, its cuz they don’t get it, at least not yet. Denial and disagreement are not the same thing. To repeat, I don’t even deny that Game works. What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be the basis of a marriage. And please, spare me the fake, smug compassion. Not everyone is going to be convinced by you, or any other Game advocate. It might just be that folks who don’t see Game as the answer to every question have a legitimate, informed POV, and valid arguments too. Not everyone is simply going to be “hastened” along “the process” which ends in cult-like, unanimous, unquestioning agreement with you and your ilk. The arrrogance of Game advocates really knows no bounds…..

  94. CL says:

    Ruddy, emphasis added:

    A man should not be required to expend the effort to learn Game. His wife should accept the man she married. […] But, yes, if Game is to be required from men, then more should be required from women too. And it isn’t that people in a relationship should never act consciously to achieve desired outcomes, it’s that they shouldn’t, and shouldn’t have to, adopt an alien persona, wear a mask, for most of the time, simply to prevent the other person in the relationship from screwing them over.

    What is vs. what should be. I rest my case.

  95. bonald says:

    Hello Dalrock,

    Thank you for the reply to my Game criticisms. I’m very glad to hear that things are going well between you and your wife. I’m a bit surprised by the way you say things worked for you. One of the Game points I remember from Roissy is that you’re supposed to make your woman feel less secure (and presumably, therefore, less loved). Regardless, my point wasn’t that Game would make a woman feel less loved, but that it would make the man less able to relate to her interpersonally. I think, and certainly hope, that you have avoided this in your marriage by not buying into the “women are robots who follow their tingles” paradigm wholesale.

  96. Yes, you can have an “off day” or a soft or weak moment, and your wife won’t mind. Provided you are mostly dominant.

    I think it is hard for a normal man to overdo. I have really upped the alpha in recent years but my wife still says I am nicer now than when we were first together.

  97. Ulysses says:

    @Ruddy – It would have mattered if you were Harry, though I’m not interested in explaining why. I am interested in one facet of your argument. You see it all as lies and fake personas, but why must it be so stark? Others in this thread have mentioned make-up for women. Lipstick is not a persona, it’s an augmentation designed to show fertility. Game is the same way, it’s an accentuation of strength, of man’s ability to protect and provide. Is it essentially done on the women’s terms? Sure, but throughout history men have been the competitors. Eggs are more valuable than sperm. I think you’re conflating two issues. We could roll back the clock on no-fault divorce, loose morals, and all
    the rest. At the end of the day, though, it wouldn’t change what women find sexually attractive. Legally preventing them from straying is not the same as inspiring them to fuck your brains out and be genuinely, givingly, sweet and submissive.

  98. ruddyturnstone says:

    “I’ve addressed this in a previous post. My wife is the one who figured out she was shit testing me, and actually stopped most of it on her own. She also learned to come tell me when something is irritating her or she needs more attention, instead of doing something to provoke a fight like her instincts tell her to do. She says it still feels incredibly unnatural even after all these years, but she knows logically that it will work so she does it.”

    In other words, no Gaming required. She was being a bitch, but stopped being one, without you having to learn Game.

    “But even if your wife doesn’t figure this out on her own, you can still dramatically reduce the frequency and severity of shit tests by passing them when they come up.” orr

    Assume that’s true. Why should I have to? What do I do to her that it the equivalent of a “Shit test?” What, except the gynocentric concept of male/female relationships that inform the law and the society and the culture, give her the right to demand that I constantly pass her shit tests? Moreover, if answering her shit tests means my having to pretend to be someone I’m not, or to pretend to have feelings I don’t have, then it is doubly hurtful and wrong. How can I be intimate with a person who is demanding, even sub or un consciously, that I wear a mask that pleases her?

    “As Doug1 and Deti have already pointed out, gaming in a marriage isn’t exhausting at all. It is actually quite enjoyable”

    Perhaps, because as you stated in the other post, you were always a smart aleck wise ass. Not all men are like that. Perhaps you are really closer to alpha than you let on. So that, in your case, you don’t really have to do much pretending. But, again, not all men are like that. Some men really are beta, and they are beta not because their “masculintiy” has been repressed by PC or feminism, but because that is their nature.

    My view is that if a woman marries a beta, knowing that he is a beta, she should accept him as a beta. If she wanted alpha she should have married alpha, if she could, or not have gotten married at all. But to expect a man to change, or, more likely, to pretend to change, so as to please her? No way.

    ” I don’t live in fear of letting my guard down either. As I stated in the post I linked in the beginning of this comment, she is responsible to keep her vows. If she can’t do that, then she isn’t a wife.”

    Right, I mentioned that you always add that caveat. Still, you seem to think that it is a man’s job, responsibility, duty, whatever, to keep her gina tingling, so that she won’t break her vows. I disagree. And it is quite clear that letting one’s guard down, to admitting to feelings of vulnerability like love or insecurity is a defihite anti gina tingle.

    “I framed her shit tests as her problem in that post, but I also pointed out that I want to help her out with her problem. What husband wouldn’t?”

    I find that formulation to be a semantic dodge. A man has to “help his wife” with “her problem” by pretending to be cocky/funny/confident, even when he doesn’t feel like it. He has to dance to her tune. How about instead he “helps” her by telling her she is being a royal, fucking bitch and to stop it, now! That she married Mr. X, and that if she wanted Mr Y instead, she should have married him. No one forced her to get married, much less to marry a particular guy. She made her bed and now she should lie in it. But our laws and our society don’t permit that. Or, rather, to be precise, they do permit it but then allow her to rape you financially in divorce court, and take your kids away, if you have any. That’s the real problem. And it’s your problem, not hers, no matter how you “frame” it. Not that wives give shit tests, but that if you don’t pass them she can ruin you. And that’s your problem and every married man’s problem. Manipulate your wife or face ruin.

    “You can’t game your wife from a position of fear; it goes against the very foundation of what game teaches.”

    Given the state of the law, and of society and culture, what other position is there, for a husband? Being married is like handing someone a loaded gun, with full legal immunity if they pull the trigger. How can one help but be afraid? Game teaches you to pretend to not be afraid. But that’s not the same thing at all.

  99. ruddyturnstone says:

    “What is vs. what should be. I rest my case.”

    Fine, as I said all along that I was talking about what should be. What marriage should be. If marriage is not available on the terms it should be available on, and it isn’t, then it should be avoided.

  100. Anonymous says:

    Off-topic, but woman’s inhumanity to man (and pig)…

    “Virginia Woman Faces 50 Years Behind Bars For Decapitating Piglet,” CBS Washington, 21 Nov 2011
    http://washington.cbslocal.com/2011/11/21/virginia-woman-faces-50-years-behind-bars-for-decapitating-piglet/

    “Ashley Fowler, 22, was breaking up with the piglet’s owner… [his family] had to euthanize another pig who Fowler admitted to stabbing in the same incident. … [he] started raising them on the family farm as therapy after he suffered a head injury.”

    But she wasn’t “haaapy,” of course…

  101. Dalrock says:

    @Bonald

    One of the Game points I remember from Roissy is that you’re supposed to make your woman feel less secure (and presumably, therefore, less loved).

    Fortunately my wife doesn’t need that much alpha. I think there is some truth to the idea that women need to a certain degree to know that other women find you attractive. I assume this varies a good amount from woman to woman. Mine fortunately doesn’t need much in this way. In a marriage the way to look at this is if she really needs it, you should be delivering at least some of it. In the famous Dave from Hawaii post, Dave describes how he provides this for his wife:

    ME: “Of course she was talking to me! Most beautiful women do! That’s EXACTLY why you married me! What lady can resist these?” (Thrn I would just flex my biceps and like I’m the world’s baddest man…all with a smirk on my face.)

    HER: She rolls her eyes, chuckles and responds, “Yeah right…no woman would want you if you were the last guy on earth.”

    ME: “That’s not what your {name of her best friend} said the other night when she was begging me to kiss her…”

    HER: {giggling} “You’re so silly…”

    By doing this he actually prevents what was once a very common and painful fight with his wife. Roissy can be pretty dark, but this doesn’t mean you have to be like Roissy to use game.

    Regardless, my point wasn’t that Game would make a woman feel less loved, but that it would make the man less able to relate to her interpersonally. I think, and certainly hope, that you have avoided this in your marriage by not buying into the “women are robots who follow their tingles” paradigm wholesale.

    There is absolutely a balance here. My wife is my best friend; I’m not trying to con her into anything. Ironically if anything game does exactly the opposite of causing me to see her as a robot. Game helps you understand women, for me at least that has made me like them more; they aren’t frustrating because they aren’t always confusing me. The popular conception is that women are impossibly difficult to understand. In the past I would have agreed with this, but I no longer do.

  102. Brendan says:

    I think Ruddy is coming from the perspective that it isn’t quite “fair” for a man to have to do the work of learning and implementing Game in order to have a better marriage or avoid divorce.

    The thing is this, however. There are some guys are are more or less okay without having relationships with women. But the vast majority of men are not. The vast majority want relationships with women — whether married or otherwise. Game is a way for these guys to get what they are looking for. No, the current market isn’t “fair”. I agree. But the question becomes what one’s goals are, in an unfair world. Most guys do want relationships with women that succeed (as they define that), and in 2011, that means Game. It may not be :”fair”, but it is also reality in 2011. Again, for some guys, this sense of unfairness is enough to put them off relationships with women — and that’s fair enough. But most guys want some kind of success with women, however they want to define that. And that’s where Game comes in.

    It’s always easier to live if you don’t care about attracting the opposite sex. It’s that way for women, too. This is why some women go to seed after getting married or, even more commonly, after having children — hairstyles get chopped, clothes get simpler and less attractive, and various corners get cut because “she doesn’t have to attract a guy and can just be herself”. I don’t think most of their husbands like this (and, in fact, quite a few of them complain). Now it’s true that a guy complaining in these circumstances gets cut down while a woman complaining about her husband being a kitchen bitch gets supported in this culture — and that’s because the culture isn’t at all *fair* in issues like this, largely due to feminism. However, the reality is that men and women alike need to expend some effort, sometimes considerable effort, to keep themselves attractive to their spouse — it is always *easier* to “just be myself”, but it doesn’t work very well, for men or women, in terms of attraction. So, for men and women who want to have better marriages, more effort will be paid to making/keeping oneself attractive to one’s spouse. The degree to which you want to do that is based on the degree to which you want the relationship to succeed.

    Life is fundamentally unfair. That’s true. And the ways and means of marriage for men now suck to a large degree. But most guys *still* want relationships of some sort with women, whether married or not. Whether you are willing to/interested in expending that kind of time/energy to do so will depend on how much you want successful relationships with women. Here is where I differ from the most ardent Gamers in refraining from denigrating men who make the other choice as low testosterone losers, closet homosexuals and the like — that’s silly. There is a minority of straight guys who just can’t be arsed, because it isn’t that important to them. But the majority of straight guys care very much about their success with women — and that’s the whole point of Game.

  103. RICanuck says:

    Ruddy,

    First time commenter on this blog. Do not imagine your can reveal your thoughts, feeling and weaknesses to a straight woman. It goes against their evolutionary programming. Like the Bitch Calendar says, “Men have feelings too. But who gives a shit?” No woman gives a crap about your feelings, except your mother and only up to age six or so.

    Men don’t understand women, and we admit it. Women don’t understand men, and they are absolutely clueless about that fact.

    If you want to share your feelings with a woman, make friends with a 30 something or older butch lesbian. They get just as fed up with femmes as we do. And even they appreciate a bit of game. One time I was drinking with a butch co-worker and some woman made a comment about my friend. My reply was, “I may not stir her loins, but if any could, it would be me.” My co-worker laughed and paid for the rest of the drinks.

  104. Celeste says:

    ruddy:

    I think you have a point there. If the “is” is not good enough for you, and you are only interested in marriage if it fits your “ought” you are under no obligation to change it. For many of us, it is worth it. If it’s not for you, GYOW.

  105. Chels says:

    This is all good, but is there a female equivalent of this, like girl game?

    [D: At your service.]

  106. Dalrock says:

    @Jeff

    Is there a GAME 101 out there? I don’t want to take three years stumbling around, because I might not have it left. I need a Matrix download. Where would you send me…and guys like me for the Game Basic Training we need to knock the crap out of our heads that’s been there so long? I’ve perused the blogrolls, but I think some of it is just PUA-over the top.

    I wish there were. You are already on the right track reading Athol’s book and blog. The Dave From Hawaii post on Roissy is excellent if you haven’t already read it. I’m told all of the posts in that topic/week are worth reading as well. I’ve added a category to this site (top menu) for posts I’ve done on the topic. I’m not really the right person to learn game from though, so I created a page with links to game resources.

  107. ruddyturnstone says:

    “You see it all as lies and fake personas, but why must it be so stark? Others in this thread have mentioned make-up for women. Lipstick is not a persona, it’s an augmentation designed to show fertility. Game is the same way”

    Lipstick is hardly the same as changing your personality. Others have compared to learning a new language or a musical instrument. Those seem like much better analogies.

    ,”it’s an accentuation of strength, of man’s ability to protect and provide. Is it essentially done on the women’s terms? Sure, but throughout history men have been the competitors. Eggs are more valuable than sperm. I think you’re conflating two issues. We could roll back the clock on no-fault divorce, loose morals, and all the rest. At the end of the day, though, it wouldn’t change what women find sexually attractive. Legally preventing them from straying is not the same as inspiring them to fuck your brains out and be genuinely, givingly, sweet and submissive.”

    Under Marriage 1.0 a wife was required, legally,socially, and cutlurally, to have sex with her husband whether she wanted to or not. And that was true even with the evo psych notions being in place. A society was created in which beta males, who comprise the vast majoirty of males, had access to sex and to children. So I think you are selling short the importance of the context of marriage.

    As to what women find sexually attractive, that is besides the point. Of course they prefer alpha or, failing that, simulacrum Game alpha. But not every man can be that, at least not without a great deal of pretense. Pretense which, as Bonald points out, destroys the other aspects of intimacy. Sure, if what is most important to you is having a woman wanting to fuck your brains out, and you’re not naturally alpha, then you should learn Game. I would recommend though, in that case, that you not get married. Because you can’t have a real, intimate marriage if you are fronting all the time. And, really, I think many husbands would be much happier if their wives would simply fuck them on a regular basis, and do so without them having to learn Game, than they would be with even more enthusiasic sex, but with Gaming required. Moreover, a man should, at the very minimum, be entitled to sex with his wife even if he has no Game at all.

  108. ruddyturnstone says:

    “My wife is my best friend”

    And yet, you had to consciously learn techniques, things to say and things to do, to make your relationship with her work. Did you have to do those things to make your friendships with men work?

  109. anonymous female says:

    The foundation of the marriage is the commitment. The other stuff is what that makes the day to day living enjoyable rather than miserable.

    My husband has pretty high standards. He wants a clean house, sex on demand, food when he is hungry, and me looking as nice as I reasonably can at all times. Sometimes I am exhausted, stressed, or disinterested in doing these tasks but still I am obligated because that is the job of a wife. When my husband treats me the way I like to be treated these tasks are more enjoyable because I feel happier. Being happy doesn’t change my obligations but doing what he can to make life more enjoyable for me is a courtesy that I greatly appreciate.

    [D: Bullseye!]

  110. greyghost says:

    ruddyturnstone
    hey man don’t sweat it dude. Game is female psychology and it is very effective. It just doesn’t match current feminised PC. I think you have it together and you are more of the MGTOW type. This blog and these people here are into relationship in this modern hell of western society. It took Dalrock 2 years before he actually started writing about game. No reason to dog you out by you not jumping for joy. MRA’s need to learn game.
    http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/why-game-is-important-for-fathers/ I really need to get my dumb wife (when it comes to this kind thing) to see this http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/chicks-dig-jerks-game-is-its-own-status/ very important for parents to see this especially you so called christians.
    http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/wrapped-around-his-finger/ this last one here is just intertaining i need to be aware of this because I am a father.
    Bonald
    Learn game and grow your church.

  111. ruddyturnstone says:

    “This is why some women go to seed after getting married or, even more commonly, after having children — hairstyles get chopped, clothes get simpler and less attractive, and various corners get cut because “she doesn’t have to attract a guy and can just be herself”. I don’t think most of their husbands like this (and, in fact, quite a few of them complain).”

    Notice, though, that she changed after marriage. Unlike an upfront beta guy.

    “Life is fundamentally unfair. That’s true. And the ways and means of marriage for men now suck to a large degree. But most guys *still* want relationships of some sort with women, whether married or not. Whether you are willing to/interested in expending that kind of time/energy to do so will depend on how much you want successful relationships with women. Here is where I differ from the most ardent Gamers in refraining from denigrating men who make the other choice as low testosterone losers, closet homosexuals and the like — that’s silly. There is a minority of straight guys who just can’t be arsed, because it isn’t that important to them. But the majority of straight guys care very much about their success with women — and that’s the whole point of Game.”

    I more or less agree with that. But I would say that being married is not the same thing as having relationships with women. I guess I see it as conceivably worth it to go through these machinations to score a hot chick, but that the imbalance, the unfairness, becomes too much in a marriage, where so much is demanded from the husband anway, even without Game. And I also think that marriage is, or should be at least, fundamentally different from the dog eat dog, big shark eat the little shark, environment of the singles bar. If marriage can’t be a refuge of honesty and intimacy, then I don’t think it is really marriage. It is an endless pickup.

  112. ruddyturnstone says:

    “I think you have a point there. If the “is” is not good enough for you, and you are only interested in marriage if it fits your “ought” you are under no obligation to change it. For many of us, it is worth it. If it’s not for you, GYOW.”

    And so I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to explain the why of it, just as Dalrock is entitled to explain the why of it for him.

  113. modernguy says:

    Marriage is obsolete. People got married when it was a catalyst for a productive life, love was never the only, and probably usually not even the major motivating factor. Game itself is what is making it most clear. The essense of your story is that for women, love is physical. While you might feel overjoyed to have her and know that you love her even when you don’t engage with her, she can only “feel” it when you are engaging with her in a playful way with an undercurrent of sexual desire. But that has nothing to do with marriage, it doesn’t require it. Moreover, marriage demands commitment, which is incongruent with love as a context-dependant “feeling”.

    There is no incentive for women to get married anymore except to be cared for when they pass their years of peak attractive power. To get married and endeavour to game your wife into happiness is simply to tie yourself down in addition to the work that is already cut out for you if are interested in connecting with women.

    It would be akin to GM entering into a formal business contract with it’s suppliers only to find that if it wants them to live up to their obligations it has to make them “happy” too. In that case there is no need for a contract.

    If game creates desire, then game is exchanged for sex. So what is commitment exchanged for? It has to be for purity. So if your wife is not a virgin you’re paying too much by marrying her.

  114. Brendan says:

    Notice, though, that she changed after marriage. Unlike an upfront beta guy.

    I see what you’re saying. I think, though, at least based on my own experience in my own (former) marriage, and what other guys have written about theirs (Dalrock, Dave/HL, David Collard), the more common pattern is that the woman found you manly/dominant/sexy/alphaish enough before you were married, but that, after getting married, the guy begins to get a bit comfortable in the marriage and becomes more beta. This seems particularly common after children arrive, but it can also happen before. I’m sure that in some cases it’s a case of bait and switch in terms of the woman agreeing to marry a beta and then bailing later when he doesn’t Game her, but I think it’s at least as common for a guy to become less attractive to his wife during the course of the marriage (as it is for women to become less attractive to their husbands as well).

    If marriage can’t be a refuge of honesty and intimacy, then I don’t think it is really marriage. It is an endless pickup.

    It can be viewed that way, I think. Or endless courtship, probably more appropriately. Again, whether one is willing to do this depends, I think, in large part on how much one wants to have successful relationships/marriages with women in an environment like ours where the cultural and legal model is hedonic marriage.

  115. ruddyturnstone says:

    “Do not imagine your can reveal your thoughts, feeling and weaknesses to a straight woman. It goes against their evolutionary programming. Like the Bitch Calendar says, “Men have feelings too. But who gives a shit?” No woman gives a crap about your feelings, except your mother and only up to age six or so.”

    Then why marry? Why should a man marry a creature who can’t possibly care about his feelings? Why not just pump and dump, or, at most, have fun with short or medium term relationships?

  116. Dalrock says:

    @Ruddyturnstone

    “I advised my brother on passing shit tests – basically how to deal with his gf nagging him – and when he finally took my advice (which was basically Roissy’s advice), it worked like magic. And no, she is not an American slut – not even Anglo – but she is still female.”

    Argument by unprovable personal anecdote. Anyway, no one said it doesn’t work, what I said was that it is fake and that it becomes tiring, and that a marriage based on it is not an intimate marriage.

    My natural state isn’t to be a supplicating beta. I didn’t do it because I enjoyed it, I did it because I love my wife and everyone said that is how you show it. As for tiring, since it is pretty natural it isn’t tiring at all. It really is quite fun. I get to enjoy her being a woman, and she can enjoy me being a man. What is tiring (absolutely exhausting) is playing by the wrong instruction set.

    Perhaps more importantly, feel free not to follow any game advice if you feel it isn’t for you. If you like your life the way it is, why would you possibly want to change it?

  117. Omnipitron says:

    Question for you Dalrock et al

    So, Game could be construed as an emotional approach to your wife and marriage as opposed to logical? The reason why I ask is due to my having gone through something similar with my own wife years in the past. Logical discussions didn’t seem to wind up anywhere, but once my wife knew how I ‘felt’ about certain actions of hers, that seemed to open the floodgates so to speak.

    Also, while I’ve learned more of game concepts from this blog and Athol Kay’s and even David Collards comments when he was on the Spearhead, I can attest that I’ve seen some positive results.

    My question is, is that the failing of contemporary marriage counseling? To approach everything from a logical point of view which doesn’t yield what it says it’s supposed to?

  118. Rum says:

    Ruddy
    Here is a core principle of game. Women do not ever want to experience intimacy with a man to whom they feel no attraction. No gina tingle and they are incapable of wanting to know you better or be more open and honest with them, etc..
    Let this sink in. If you fail to be an attractive man to them nothing else you do will make any difference.

  119. ruddyturnstone says:

    “but I think it’s at least as common for a guy to become less attractive to his wife during the course of the marriage (as it is for women to become less attractive to their husbands as well)”

    Well, i don’t. At least not in terms of the guy being any different. Perhaps, in her fantasy world, she imagined him as less beta than he really was. But a real biat and switch on the guy’s part? Not likely.

    “It can be viewed that way, I think. Or endless courtship, probably more appropriately. Again, whether one is willing to do this depends, I think, in large part on how much one wants to have successful relationships/marriages with women in an environment like ours where the cultural and legal model is hedonic marriage.”

    Yeah, well, courtship is something that, typically, women like, not men. Courtship is the process by which a guy proves himself to a woman. Once having done so, one would think, he does not desire to have to continue to do so. Endlessly.

  120. ruddyturnstone says:

    If she wante to be endlessly courted she should have stayed single.

  121. ruddyturnstone says:

    “No gina tingle and they are incapable of wanting to know you better or be more open and honest with them, etc.”

    OK, but since feelings of vulnerability (love, insecurity, etc) are gina tingle killers, how can you ever open up? She fucked you, fine, so now she is receptive to intimacy (altough most theorists claim it is the opposite, that women want intimacy up front and men want it after sex, but let that go).Still if your intimacy includes beta traits,like vulnerability, then she will be turned off. So, basically, you can never “confess” your true feelings, for fear that the sex train will be permanently cancelled..

  122. Anonymous says:

    Game is what used to be manly knowledge passed down from father (or other older males) to son, or learned naturally by younger men observing older and/or more experienced males and their interactions within the home and society at large. As such, yes, it *should* be obvious. However, feminism and no-fault divorce created a situation where a significant portion of a generation of young men in the 70s-80s was raised without fathers in the home and was thus never taught or shown these things. That first generation of fatherless men has now been expelled from homes and separated from their children in even greater numbers, thus severing the link further and creating a second, larger generation of fatherless young men who have never known this ‘common sense.’ Add in the pervasive indoctrination and behavioral engineering by social conservatives, feminists and the media, and is it any wonder why gender relations are as screwed up as they are? Is it any wonder why marriage and the family continue to fall apart? Actions have consequences.

    Well, nature abhors a vacuum, and imbalances must eventually correct, else risk systemic collapse. Under these circumstances, the development and spread of Game is not only logical but to be expected.

  123. Brendan says:

    Well, i don’t. At least not in terms of the guy being any different. Perhaps, in her fantasy world, she imagined him as less beta than he really was. But a real biat and switch on the guy’s part? Not likely.

    It’s not so much a bait and switch as it is getting overly comfortable. Like the woman who cuts her long hair off into a more manageable (and less attractive) short style, starts dressing more “comfortably” (and less attractive), and so on, this is not really a bait and switch as much as it is getting comfortable and thinking that needing to act in an attractive way is no longer necessary. This happens to men and women alike in marriages. People get comfortable. When people are dating, they are putting their best foot forward and trying to attract the other person and impress them. Of course, when you are married, you are going to be much more intimate, and so it is never going to be exactly like that (well, maybe for a special night out or something like that), but what happens in many marriages is that people, men and women like, go to the other extreme and become overly comfortable in the marriage and the relationship — to a degree that they aren’t really attracting the other person any longer. How this plays itself out tends to be different when it comes to men and women, but it’s behavior I’ve seen in both, particularly beginning 1-3 years in, or after kids come along.

  124. ruddyturnstone says:

    “My natural state isn’t to be a supplicating beta. I didn’t do it because I enjoyed it, I did it because I love my wife and everyone said that is how you show it. As for tiring, since it is pretty natural it isn’t tiring at all. It really is quite fun…What is tiring (absolutely exhausting) is playing by the wrong instruction set.”

    Again, if it was natural, why did you have to “learn” anything? Why didn’t you simply stop doing all that unnatural stuff that wasn’t working anyway? For many man, doing Game is exhausting. Even if you’re not one of them.

    “Perhaps more importantly, feel free not to follow any game advice if you feel it isn’t for you. If you like your life the way it is, why would you possibly want to change it?”

    Of course, and the same goes for you. My real, intended audience is young men out there, who are thinking of GTOW but who are intrigued by the notion of Married Game. My goal is to point out what I see as the flaws in the latter strategy to those men.

    [D: I’m not in the camp which thinks that game will overcome the deficiency of an unsuitable wife, and obviously it doesn’t remove the legal risks men assume in marriage. In short, I’m not trying to talk men into marriage who are opposed to it. I have also argued strongly against those who would shame men into marriage.]

  125. Celeste says:

    ruddy:

    The manosphere has much material about combining the alpha AND the beta. Game is something our husbands can do for us to make things feel more pleasant (as anonymous female so nicely stated). But when push comes to shove, the man can cry, or show vulnerability, etc. Game, tingles, hotness when reasonable, vulnerability when needed.

  126. ruddyturnstone says:

    “When people are dating, they are putting their best foot forward and trying to attract the other person and impress them. Of course, when you are married, you are going to be much more intimate, and so it is never going to be exactly like that (well, maybe for a special night out or something like that), but what happens in many marriages is that people, men and women like, go to the other extreme and become overly comfortable in the marriage and the relationship — to a degree that they aren’t really attracting the other person any longer. How this plays itself out tends to be different when it comes to men and women, but it’s behavior I’ve seen in both, particularly beginning 1-3 years in, or after kids come along.”

    Thats true, but one need not use Game to address it. Especially if one did not Game during the courtship phase. Go back to doing what you did then, rather than what you fell into doing when you got too comfortable.

  127. Ulysses says:

    In hindsight, I was really an asshole when my wife and I started dating. Then I matured and became nicer. She didn’t leave, she didn’t cheat, but she didn’t like it. I was perplexed because I was behaving in a manner that was consistent with what I had been taught. I realized the error of my ways without blogs, but when I discovered the blogosphere, I had an eureka moment. Most here aren’t trying to become new people, they’re just thinking about how they themselves stay sharp and sharing those insights.

    So, yes, men do change too.

  128. ruddyturnstone says:

    “But when push comes to shove, the man can cry, or show vulnerability, etc. Game, tingles, hotness when reasonable, vulnerability when needed.”

    How easy you make it sound. And so it must seem, from a woman’s perspective. From a man’s perspective, with a wife who has a loaded guy and legal license to shoot him, it seems somewhat different, I can assure you.

  129. Rum says:

    It is OK to reveal vulnerability but only in tiny, carefully rationed doses. Always remember that she cannot help or control her reactions to men. It is her deep nature to want to be around strength. She will start to hate you the instant you totally forget that. Because you are denying her something that she craves.

  130. Chels says:

    Thanks Dalrock!

    I would also appreciate some advice on this–I’m soon going overseas with my bf for a few weeks, and I’m so nervous because I’m meeting his friends from there for the first time, I’m especially nervous of meeting his best friend, they’ve been friends since daycare! In addition to that, we’re going to be living with his parents during that time, and that is also nervewrecking :s

    I told my bf that I’m shaking in my pants, that I’m very anxious, and all he tells is to be myself (definitely not helpful). These are the people that actually count and that matter to him, so I don’t want them to dislike me, are there any dos/don’ts?

    PS: I’m not afraid of cultural differences, we have the same ethnicity.

  131. ruddyturnstone says:

    “In hindsight, I was really an asshole when my wife and I started dating. Then I matured and became nicer. She didn’t leave, she didn’t cheat, but she didn’t like it. I was perplexed because I was behaving in a manner that was consistent with what I had been taught. I realized the error of my ways without blogs, but when I discovered the blogosphere, I had an eureka moment. Most here aren’t trying to become new people, they’re just thinking about how they themselves stay sharp and sharing those insights. So, yes, men do change too.”

    Great. You were an asshole, and that attracted her. You should have stayed that way, but you didn’t. Still, you learned the error of your ways, and went back to being an asshole. All’s well that end’s well. You can be yourself and please your wife. And no Game required.

  132. Yes, good point Brendan. I know men who can’t be bothered with women. They may have a rich mental life and find women a bit beside the point. But there are also men who want a woman. If you are religious, like me, you have to marry and be faithful. So, you only get one chance. Game becomes self-preservation. But it is not that hard. It requires self-control. But it is probably easier than going down the nice guy supplicating route. Nothing worthwhile in life is easy. I don’t look down on men who can’t be bothered. But if a man wants a fairly happy marriage, he has to put some mental effort in.

    I look back over my marriage and I see the pattern in retrospect. I see why some tactics failed and others succeeded. One could arrive at the concept of game simply from induction. It is the kind of hard-won wisdom that a father would once have passed on to his son, “This is what I have learned from living with your mother …”

  133. ruddyturnstone says:

    “It is OK to reveal vulnerability but only in tiny, carefully rationed doses. Always remember that she cannot help or control her reactions to men. It is her deep nature to want to be around strength. She will start to hate you the instant you totally forget that. Because you are denying her something that she craves.”

    I don’t want a marriage like that. I doubt most men do.

  134. modernguy says:

    Game is exhausting. It takes work to be charismatic. And it has it’s rewards – sex and love from women. But once you start getting that the question becomes “why marry”? What can a particular woman offer you that is exclusive and contingent upon commitment? The answer is nothing, except her purity.

  135. ruddyturnstone says:

    “It is the kind of hard-won wisdom that a father would once have passed on to his son, “This is what I have learned from living with your mother …”

    Bah! Back in the days of Marriage 1.0 women simply put out. There was no need to pass on the secret formula.”

  136. Celeste says:

    ruddy:

    You’re right, that the reality is very different from what I described. I was describing the “ought” there, game and hotness and tingles when able, vulnerability when needed. See, game can exist in my “ought.”

  137. Rum says:

    Ruddy
    Slow down and repeat after me: Women only want intimacy with guys that make their ginas moist. Never skip over this simple foundational insight into the female brain.

  138. Ruddy, women have always nagged.

  139. Ulysses says:

    Bah! Back in the days of Marriage 1.0 women simply put out.

    “Just lie back, honey. I’ll be finished in a sec.”

  140. Ulysses

    Australian foreplay: “Are you awake?”

  141. Rum says:

    What is Irish foreplay? Yell, “Brace yourself, Mabel!”

  142. 7man says:

    I find Game easier than appeasement and 100 times more effective. I don’t have to use Game all the time. I can be vulnerable and honest and say anything with confidence and it is accepted. I do not seek her approval or affirmation. I am dominant enough and sometimes very dominant, but I don’t have to do that constantly. I never have to worry about what I say or her reaction. I don’t care about that, but I care about her heart.

    Game increases the emotional intimacy. I don’t fight her emotions and sometimes enhance her emotions. She can feel whatever she likes and I surf her emotions and do not get sucked under. Women thrive on emotional variablility and it is best for a man not to try and quensh that. It is a paradox, but by accepting and even leading her emotions, she will be much more rational and calm.

    If a man can accept a woman’s emotions and feel her heart he can mostly avoid the nasty arguments that happen in most relationships. Women often cannot articulate what they feel and need, so by reading her motivations and her insecurity behind her emotions, a man can meet her need and then his life is calm. Knowing Game and female psychology is really minimizes the stresses in a man’s life and in her life. She will love you for this!

  143. Dalrock says:

    You ever hear about the man whose wife was in bed and he walked up offering a bottle of aspirin?

    Wife: Why did you bring that? I don’t have a headache.

    Husband: Thats all I wanted to know!

  144. RL says:

    “Seven out of ten men are happy for the woman to be the family breadwinner”:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064422/Seven-men-happy-woman-family-breadwinner.html

    Will hypergamy allow it?

  145. RL says:

    Female alpha corporate bullbusting with beta man:

    – “Breaking the glass ceiling at home”: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ea15f318-f428-11df-89a6-00144feab49a.html#axzz1eOeHbPXz

  146. Dalrock says:

    Cowboy Foreplay: “Get in the truck, bitch!”

  147. greyghost says:

    TFH
    He’ll get it.

  148. Phil says:

    ruddyturnstone isn’t going to change his point of view. Neither will the righteous christian (I will protect the virginal women from these sleazy men!!!) Bonald. It is a waste of time responding to them. Just let them continue on with their cluelessness. It is Dalrock who is doing “gods work”. Great site, Dalrock, This website should be required reading for young american protestant men, who are so often taught absolute nonsense about women in their churches.

  149. Anonymous Reader says:

    Omnipitron
    My question is, is that the failing of contemporary marriage counseling? To approach everything from a logical point of view which doesn’t yield what it says it’s supposed to?

    Disclaimer: I have never been to any marriage counseling and do not plan to ever do so.

    Consider your question this way: who told you a bunch of big old nonsense about women, how they are, and what drives them? Now, who becomes marriage counselors?

    They aren’t approaching anything from a logical point of view, because they are basing their advice on a number of wrong premises about women. If anything, likely their advice comes from the same bogus sources that taught us all to be more beta and even White Knights.

    One day reading Athol costs far less than any marriage counselor and is bound to produce better results.

  150. Very, very few cultural authorities get this right. I am old enough to remember some ads and TV shows that were honest about what women really like, but in the last few decades, very little. Sometimes the truth slips out; some writer slips one past the censors so to speak; but other than that it is just the Manosphere and the Girlosphere (honest, friendly women like CL).

  151. ray says:

    What do I do to her that it the equivalent of a “Shit test?” What, except the gynocentric concept of male/female relationships that inform the law and the society and the culture, give her the right to demand that I constantly pass her shit tests?

    nothing, except yr complicity — which of course is what she wants, to engender more “testing” (and thus the Ongoing Soap Opera that most females wish to make of life)

    it’s not suffcient that the gynonation commands artificial masculine behavior in all its public spheres; now conscious metasocialization is also required in interpersonal relations (at a low low price, just for you!) :O)

    if my wife/g.f. kept shit testing me, shed be told to knock it the f off, with swift consequence for disobience

    end of game, b/c anything less means the crap will go on forever

    i would certanly not repsond to nagging with self-anaysis and an artificial modification of my behavior

    if a woman cant dance to my song, i’ll find another, or not, which is good too, but i’m sure not gonna walk around wondering when it’s time to spring my next neg

    that said i found the pull-quote by deti informative — p.u.a. is mostly a sub-thirty response to a deranged sistem, so my dislike of game goes wth that bushel of salt

    also, alpha beta should have stayed a grocery store, not a method for ranking masculinity

    my criteria for what makes an alpha (ugh) would include resisting the matriarchy, while george bush, arnie swarznegger, donnie trump etc wouldnt even fall on the alphabetic scale . . . so who decides who’s alpha etc? roissy and p.u.a. workshop organizers?

    i gotta lot of empathy for what young u.s. guys are up against right now, tho, so absolutely understand the search for alternative solutions — just not the one i’d recommend

  152. Rum says:

    Ray
    You may as well try to tell guys to lust after fat chicks. Nature is what it is. And there are good reasons for all of it.

  153. Omnipitron says:

    Thanks AR, I appreciate it.

    Don’t get me wrong, I was hardcore beta at the time and heard some absolute crap while I was there but my wife was smart enough to see between the lines despite some of her given advice. Although I hadn’t heard of the manosphere at the time, I had taken the red pill already and there where a few things I simply wasn’t going to compromise on as I knew that I was already making sure I was giving my wife the female equivalent in my marriage. I too have been to Roissy’s, here, David Collard’s commentary, and even Athol Kay’s and learned some game which has helped my relationship quite a bit. No lie, Game works, hate it if you want to, but that doesn’t change it’s effectiveness at the end of the day. I would also agree with your assertion about counseling. It doesn’t assist men, which (and some people may not understand nor comprehend this) also means that it therefore doesn’t assist marriage either in the long run.

  154. Sweet As says:

    Thanks for this.

    I just realized something funny about my husband’s “change of frame” whether it is “natural” or chosen. He generally keeps tidy, but sometimes does little things that annoy me. Example, he has this hook system for his worn-but-not-dirty jeans, which we discovered in scandinavia and he likes. Except that, since we came back and implemented it (yes, in 2002), he’s about 20% compliant with his own system. LOL

    Ok, so fast forward 10-ish years, and I got all pissy about some losses in my life (crunched for time/stress), and i asked him to be tidier. I still do most of the heavy lifting of household chores. He does a lot of the cooking, and 85% of dishes (he doesn’t wash jars, tupperware containers, and some silverware. I don’t understand men. 😀 ). He also does most laundry (turning on the machine, hanging on the line; i fold and put away.).

    Right, so, I get pissy. And he says “Ok, I hear that you are stressed.” And, he’ll help out if I ask. BUt get this. Every stinking day those pants are on the floor, not on the hooks. Today, it was 4 pairs of jeans! ARRRGH!

    So, I’ve been calling him in the Am and going “dude, where are your pants?” and he goes “on the floor, where they belong, woman!” Which of course is said with a double entendre. I cannot be upset about pants on the floor, my stress or whatever else. It works every time. And, I DO get more tingly than if he puts them on the hooks. They are literally, on the floor right beneath the hooks, obviously “where they belong!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    Go figure.

    Also, everything back on track these days and thank goodness. I was loosing my noodle there. And DH says ‘yes, exactly how I was raised’ to the comments above. Messy stuff. Our son is being raised with this experience. I will not let him leave the house without it. That, plus how i view body theology. Which, hopefully, will create a man who handles this material and himself well.

  155. Inertia says:

    Another first commenter here.

    Some background: my marriage is not the happiest. Just like the host, I came across the concept of married Game a couple of years ago and decided to give it a try. To improve my marriage, you know. The results ranged from useless to disastrous. Even after I abandoned it, it took supreme effort just to bring my wife’s bad behaviour down to its former level.

    Now, the Game proponents will say that I didn’t do it right. Perhaps. But it’s a non-falsifiable argument: Game always works, and if it doesn’t it means you do it wrong. I don’t buy it. In how many cases does the Game work, really? Is it even a majority of cases? We don’t know. I suspect there is a major selection bias at work here: Those for whom the Game works crow about it in the Internet forums, while those for whom it doesn’t work stay silent and simply move on…

    Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled nagging…

  156. Anonymous Reader says:

    Omnipitron
    Game works, hate it if you want to, but that doesn’t change it’s effectiveness at the end of the day.

    I think that most men in the Anglosphere who were fed certain pretty lies about women start off denying that Game could possibly be true, because the truth has some ugly parts. Like you, I applied some Game with a very skeptical mindset – “this can’t work, it can’t be true, because, because, well, because” – and when it did work, that was pretty upsetting to me. Accepting that women are “like that” is a jarring thing. For a while. Then, eventually, a man either has to get over it, or go live in a fantasy world. Dalrock has a very good point in this article: he gets to enjoy his wife as a woman and she gets to enjoy him as a man. That’s part of what IMO has made a lot of LTR’s and marriages so tepid in the last 40 years – men and women carrying around in their heads the feminist lie that “men and women are exactly the same except women can have babies”. Unloading that takes time. It is worth it. Because all of a sudden, what seemed like extremely dishonorable behavior that is clearly a challenge to a serious fight, turns out to be actually a very backwards compliment and a plea for, well, manliness. That clears the air. She’s not actually trying to run the whole world, she’s trying to get your attention – and to get you take charge of at least a part of her world.

    I would also agree with your assertion about counseling. It doesn’t assist men, which (and some people may not understand nor comprehend this) also means that it therefore doesn’t assist marriage either in the long run.

    I’m going out on a limb, but all modern counseling is obsolete, or downright harmful. Because none of it is based on the truth about men, and the truth about women. False premise ->> false conclusion.

    At best, they’ll “counsel” further betaizing. Nothing more helpful to a man barely keeping his head above water than throwing him 50 pounds of lead weight, eh? Worse than that, I’ve heard of counselors who basically tag-team with the wife in laying out a 400 point list of Herb’s faults. That’s more like dropping a depth charge in the water…

    And none of us men need that stuff, not for the run-of-the-mill, “stale marriage” problem. There’s some really damaged people out there who do need serious help – I’m thinking of some cases I’ve been on the very edge of where women were sexually molested by relatives in their early teens, and then when they are married 15 years later there are a lot problems in the marriage because of serious emotional damage that hasn’t been really dealt with. People like that need real help, and should get it. The average guy who has just become too beta after his wife has a kid, or as a result of working long hours, or other things – they don’t need counseling, they just need to Put On The Glasses and get on with life.

  157. Inertia, selection bias is a possibility. I would be interested in more details on your situation. I certainly don’t want to imply that my marriage has been easy. Over 25 years, a lot of bad moments come along. And we have had some major challenges. I can only say it has worked for me. I suspect some women are just too ornery. I picked a girl with some fairly obvious submissive traits, which has no doubt helped. But some women are naturally dominant. All my life, I have seen marriages, a few, sometimes quite happy, in which the wife seem more salient. They may follow traditional scripts, but the woman is clearly the brains of the operation. It is just not my preferred model, despite my lazy streak.

    One thing I have noticed is that the quiet girls are not always submissive and the noisy ones are not always dominant. My wife is noisy, but she is pretty easy to game. On the other hand, I had a very quiet fiancee who was as hard as nails. Incorrigible. I gave up on her.

  158. AR, absolutely. Once you accept your wife as a woman, with the weaknesses as well as the strengths, you like her better. You don’t blame her for acting funny and ragging on you. It is just a woman’s way of checking that you are still there and you have not been replaced by a feminised pod.

  159. Ulysses says:

    Inertia – Did you mold the tactics such that they were consistent with your personality? For example, I’m a smartass, so that works for me. But if I were not a natural smartass, then doing 180 into captain neg would be untrue, it wouldn’t be genuine. The key is to adapt the truths to your reality.

    Here is a piece I wrote on the subject, replete with my natural smart-assery.

  160. Good point, Ulysses. If you work with your natural traits that is best. I am naturally aloof and emotionally cool, and I have a line in sarcasm. I am also a bit arrogant by nature and am very much the family chauvinist. I just enhance those traits. But I am not extraverted, the player type or the life of the party. So, I don’t try to develop those traits.

  161. anonymous female says:

    There is always the possibility that a wife is just going through a mental illness. Apparently 1 in 4 American women are taking medication for mental illness.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062634/One-American-women-medication-mental-disorder.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

    If there is a mental illness at the root of the problem then too much alpha really is too much alpha. A woman who is experiencing extreme anxiety or is severely depressed is not going to respond well to negs.

  162. Yes, anonymous female, good point. If a woman is extremely emotional, best to back off.

  163. tweell says:

    Game is like a set of tools. Not all tools work on a specific car (woman), and you use the right tool for the job. Alas, these blogs are the nearest equivalent to a Haynes manual we have. There are men that have the knack, some that can learn, and some that are just plain inept. Professional ‘mechanics’ (ministers, psychologists and counselors) are incompetent most of the time, finding a good one is a much harder job than finding a decent car mechanic, so your chances are much better on your own. And yes, you can decline to learn. In which case, either you don’t make a purchase, get very lucky or pay a lot of money for a new model every few years. There’s a chance you won’t be able to deal with your ‘ride’ even if you are decent with the Game toolkit, but like with cars, your chances are better if you have a clue.

  164. Pingback: Stares at the World » Old Men, Take a Look at Our Lives

  165. whiskey says:

    Game only works because it entails doing things (behaviors) that women find attractive. If it did not work, no one would care about it.

    What I think SoCons are worried about is the effectiveness of Game. If you practice it, know it, and realize you must use it regularly if/when you get married, why bother … getting married? Why not simply game younger, hotter, tighter women? If guys figure they’ll spend the same amount of effort, why not have more variety? Be a baby daddy, a Levi Johnston or Kevin Federline. My guess is that is the fear of Social Conservatives and drives the critique of Game.

    Well, each sex gets what it deserves and created, according to Spengler. [I’d add the created part, human behavior responds to incentives.] I think that point of SoCons (guys widespread grasping the foundations/principles of Game and human social dynamics among the sexes will simply opt for a string of relationships and not marriage) is at least partly true and predictive, but you can’t stop knowledge any more than outlawing firearms by the Tokugawa Shogunate stopped Europeans from making ever more and better ones outside Japan. And this is not Edo Period Japan, either. I think the nuclear family was doomed when the pill, the condom, and anonymous urban living combined with rising female incomes and consumer media in the 1960’s.

  166. zed says:

    What I think SoCons are worried about is the effectiveness of Game. If you practice it, know it, and realize you must use it regularly if/when you get married, why bother … getting married? Why not simply game younger, hotter, tighter women?

    This gets at something which may be one of the hardest things for people to get their minds around regarding Game. It all seems like the value of the woman is a given and that it all falls on the man to make her like him more – to make her “feel loved.”

    Given the fact that a lot of it seems totally counter-intuitive for men, and often comes across like treating her like you don’t like her very much, is there anything about Game that makes a man like a woman more? Or, does it all boil down to sex and if he gets it then its worth putting up with a crazy bitch?

    With modern women, sex seems to be about all they have to offer – thus Whiskey’s question above.

    And, interestingly, understanding Game explains why the women I disliked the most and treated the worst were the hardest to get rid of, and the woman I liked the most and lapsed into my normal niceguy self always flaked on me.

    Unless a man is already completely sold on marriage, is there anything about Game that makes any particular woman any more pleasant to be around?

  167. Zed, yes. A woman seems to value a man most when he wants to be rid of her.

    Women are not just good for sex. They cook, do housework, sometimes are interesting to talk to, and they are company. I think they are worth the effort to game.

  168. greyghost says:

    Inertia
    You maybe anti-gaming. As a single man game is good because you can just get rid of a miss. Wives are a noose around the neck and are always there. Don’t push too hard and let things go. use game to direct your wife in a different direction and to talk about her fears. Do not try to game your wife into sex it will come off as another beta begging attempt. I know it is hard but find interest outside of your wife All of this takes years ans is a pain in the ass and sure as hell doesn’t look like a wedding vow I love you commitment from a wife. (and it is not) and it is these times when the laws of misandry and family court come in and force you and any other man to have to put up with this shit as a second class citizen.(this is where the marriage trap stuff comes from) This is the emotional place where the murders and suicides are found. It is also where men start to question the “rules” of being a man and start looking outside of the box. That is what brought a lot of men here. Divorce yourself from the beta and living with the tingle. Men don’t get that anyway. Game is primarily female psychology look at from that point of view and and keep running it you really have nothing to lose and learn what you can to teach your son or a friend.

  169. greyghost says:

    David Collard
    Women are not really worth the effort. Sex is all a modern woman has to offer and they want that removed accept they like sex too with an alpha otherwise they wouldn’t have that to offer. There is only a small percentage of women that even want to offer more than sex and about the same know that is all they have to offer. The rest close enough to be more right than wrong to say all woman think their presence is all they need to offer.
    Game for a free man feels and is different for the man than game for a slave or married man. A free man can’t choose to rid himself of too much trouble a married man must literally chew off a limb to get out of his trap.

  170. greyghost

    I have had success in gaming my wife for sex. I want less sex these days, but I get the kind I want.

  171. greyghost says:

    Your wife was a worthy wife. I think what is happening is a mistake is being made about game is that an unworthy woman can be gamed into a wife.

    [D: I agree. Game can’t do that. What it will do however is help a man better spot the unworthy wife material since it takes her off the pedestal.]

  172. Feminist Hater says:

    Zed said.

    “Given the fact that a lot of it seems totally counter-intuitive for men, and often comes across like treating her like you don’t like her very much, is there anything about Game that makes a man like a woman more? Or, does it all boil down to sex and if he gets it then its worth putting up with a crazy bitch?

    With modern women, sex seems to be about all they have to offer – thus Whiskey’s question above.

    And, interestingly, understanding Game explains why the women I disliked the most and treated the worst were the hardest to get rid of, and the woman I liked the most and lapsed into my normal niceguy self always flaked on me.

    Unless a man is already completely sold on marriage, is there anything about Game that makes any particular woman any more pleasant to be around?”

    I honestly don’t know, Zed. Reading these blogs the past few weeks has given me a wake up call. Honest truth. I never really thought of women as some sort of higher moral beings or anything like that; but neither did I really think about the extent to which feminists have become feral and taken their power trip, given to them by the Legal System, to new extremes. It’s disgusting to say the least.

    I don’t live in America or Europe, I live in South Africa. We have many different cultural influences with regard to women and men. I am a white South African, also known as a Boer/Afrikaner, and we have our main Dutch Protestant religion being our supposed “moral guidance” force. Although, as the experiences with your churches too, they have dropped the Gospel and taken up Multiculturalism instead. With all the faults that entails, with whites like me, leaving in droves and the churches standing empty in many cases. It’s funny, with Churches turning to Mammon, instead of God, the people have taken it upon themselves, those who were religiously brought up, to keep their promise to God but have stopped attending the proper Churches. That’s what gives me quite a bit of hope. We have a culture that is used to having to go through really tough crap. Such as constant fighting with African tribes who surrounded us during the Great Trek, to the Anglo/Boer war, to both World Wars, to the constant Propaganda fighting during Apartheid and the actual fighting in the Border War. Men and women from our culture, those that haven’t strayed to feminist adopted culture which entails leaving God behind because he just gets in your way from achieving your career goals, still have a really strong bond. We know we need each other.

    Then we also have the rather crude African customs that do treat women like cattle, literally, having to pay Lobola for a wife. It’s almost like we have two extremes, one treating women like Gods and the other treating them like real property. And guess what happens. The women from the feminist camp blame the men in their social/cultural group for what the men do in the other cultural extreme. As if those wimpy men could really do much about African Customs without physical interference. Then we have certain female leaders, like Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance, calling for a new law that charges men with Attempted Murder for sleeping with multiple partners without using a condom and thus possibly infecting them with HIV. Never mind that they don’t blame a women for being equally promiscuous. They always hold men to account but never women.

    We also have all the problems with legal ramifications too, no fault divorce and the Domestic Violence Act. And the real problem is the ranting from the feminists because, with the ANC in power, the Legal Justice system and the Police Service is shocking to say the least. In one way, the legislation is so harsh towards men with the most “progressive” constitution in the world, that if you’re a dutiful follower of the law you wouldn’t want to get married and be a good person but if you’re a law breaker, you couldn’t be happier since there is a 5 % chance they will catch you and an even lesser chance you will be convicted if you do commit rape and abuse. Rather tricky to explain that. Best explained in such a way. Laws come down like a ton of bricks on a good lawful person that marries and has children but the rule of law doesn’t have the professional skill with regards to policemen and women to actually catch the really, really bad people. And then the backlash from the feminists comes, not against the government who can’t catch the criminals, but against your average Joe Soap who committed zero crime. Then these same feminists push for even harsher laws.

    The real problem feminists face in South Africa is with regards to race. They cannot focus on the real abuse towards women because it’s mainly African Cultural practices. Feminists here are between a rock and a hard place. If they complain about Jacob Zuma having many wives and taking more in future, they are simply tarred with the racist brush. It can be quite refreshing to watch sometimes. Serves them right in my eyes.

    I just pray to God, trust in him and spend time with women who are dedicated to truly following God’s principles, instead of the next Twilight film.

  173. Rmaxd says:

    “Women are simply that retarded”

    For the raging mangina asshats, ie ruddy flenser etc., Dalrock calls Christian women whores PRECISELY because the AMOUNT of MEN the average CHRISTIAN WESTERN WOMAN sleeps with is the EXACT amount of men, a woman who moonlights as a PROSTITUTE sleeps with

    Lets do the math for the mentally retarded manginas …

    The average Western whore on the cock carousel for five years, who CONSIDERS herself a good girl, a chaste christian

    Lets say she ONLY has TWO one night stands a month, thats not counting the boyfriend, or the ltr she’s usually rotating

    That two one night stands a month, ie 2×12 amounts to 24 different men she sleeps with a month

    Multiply that over a period of 5 years, thats a TOTAL of 60 men she’s slept with

    EVEN if you conservatively assume for ONE night stand a month, thats STILL 30 men she’s slept with

    This is WHY men HAVE to learn game, EVEN the average woman with a SINGLE one night stand a month, by the AGE OF 25!!!, has on average slept with OVER 30 men

    The social circles the average woman moves in between the age of 19 to 25, usually consist of MASSIVE amounts of alpha men, or older guys with game

    The average Christian woman, has had sex with over 30+ men easily, at rate of ONE nightstand a month over five years, by the time they hit 30 & start trawling churches for a beta chump

    This is why these women are called whores & sluts …

    & yes ALL women are like that, do the math, on average over a period of 20 or 30 years, ALL women are sluts

    Of course theres the odd special snowflake virgin, who is so freakishly abnormal spawning blogs like dalrock & athol

    On average the girlfriend you’re in a SERIOUS ltr with, has slept with over 20+ guys by the time she’s 30, & by 40 the average slut is raising a catfarm, or trying to get her husband to learn game, so she can relive her past glories of alpha vaginal std accumulation

    Of course I dont expect the manginas to do the math above

    What complete moron BUT a mangina like ruddytwat for brains, tries to put men off from learning ame by stating inane crap like

    ” MEN shouldnt learn game because women dont have to learn game …”

    Newsflash you mangina twats, women are TAUGHT GAME by their MOTHERS, sisters, grandmothers, sororities etc.

    How the hell do you think women’ve been getting betas to slave away for centuries, while they grilled everything from the milkman, next door neighbour, local badboy alpha, as stayathome moms

  174. jack says:

    ruddy-

    As unfair as it seems, whatever it took to get her must be used to keep her. That is the way it is in our culture right now. The fact that women have been culturally conditioned to behave in this more feral state means that men must adapt (since we are the more adaptable sex).

    Lack of “game” (or whatever you mean to call it) still does not morally excuse a cheating wife.

    As far as seeing a relationship as a place where you can totally relax and be yourself, how far does one take that?

    Staying thin and dressing nice are things that many night-clubbers do also? Can we discard those? If not, why not? Most successful human activity relies on tension and opposition.

  175. Brendan says:

    Some background: my marriage is not the happiest. Just like the host, I came across the concept of married Game a couple of years ago and decided to give it a try. To improve my marriage, you know. The results ranged from useless to disastrous. Even after I abandoned it, it took supreme effort just to bring my wife’s bad behaviour down to its former level.

    Now, the Game proponents will say that I didn’t do it right.

    Not necessarily. I would agree with David Collard on this — some women really *are* more dominant by nature. It’s a small group relative to women as a whole, but that doesn’t mean any particular guy is not married to one. Mt ex-w is also not very Gameable — but, in fairness, she has an exceptionally masculine frame for a woman — a kind of outlier. This has helped her very much indeed in her career (although she hates working with other women, but that follows the frame, really), but in personal matters she suffers with both men and women alike because of her sex-incongruent frame. This is why Dalrock also emphasizes the importance of selection. There are *some* women who are not really Gameable by an average guy — that is, it’s likely that they are Gameable in theory, but the degree of dominance required is very high-octane, because they are so masculine/dominant themselves. And most average guys aren’t going to get to that level of high-octane, even if they learn to spit a bit of Game. It does matter whom you select to marry quite a bit, really — I learned that one the hard way.

  176. zed says:

    The women from the feminist camp blame the men in their social/cultural group for what the men do in the other cultural extreme.

    This is why the concept of “the personal is political and the political is personal” is so destructive.

    Or, it might be why learning Game is absolute essential to any man. I have a theory that men have a lifetime tolerance for listening to a woman bitch and complain. It works out for everyone that it is about equal to the amount of bitching that a single woman can generate in her lifetime. The fact that feminism gives any woman the right to bitch out any and all men for the sins of any and all men, uses up his tolerance for his wifes bitching and leaves her short.

    Which simply is evidence that Roissy is dead on target when he calls feminism a culture wide shit test. Women do seem to be trying to push men into saying “Shut the fuck up, bitch.”

    I guess that I feel a bit sorry for women because the men conditioned to be nice guys have a real hard time saying something like that to women they like. It is only when he has come to dislike a woman, or women in general, that the phrase falls off his tongue naturally.

    What did Susan Walsh call where all this is headed? “Total Douchebag Domination” or something like that?

  177. I think, and I am open to correction, that what most are calling Game is Just The Way Men Acted When They Were In Charge, say, before 1962. Before that, your Dad taught you to treat women a certain way, not to pay too much attention to their complaining, to keep them in their place, etc. Good men accepted this burden and did well by their wives and families. Bad men, not so well, but the common denominator was that men were in charge.

    The rerun never seems to play like the original broadcast.

  178. Anonymous says:

    Dalrock,

    I am a Socon – and very serious traditional Christian (I don’t think these necessarily are synonymous!) – who reads your blog. I think you are right about a lot of the problems that we have responded to feminism. Athol has made a huge difference in my marriage. I have had more intimacy with my wife in the past 6 months than my previous 12 years of marriage. Not kidding.

    I want to stay anonymous – and I don’t have time to stick around to talk (sorry!) but I want to say that I see a lot in game (esp. with you and Athol Kay) that is completely compatible with Christianity – and in fact, may even be able to help us understand Christianity better.

    I posted this at the socon blog you linked to above, and I will do it here to. Its a Christian reflection that shows how aspects of game can go hand in hand with tradtional belief.

    Here it is:

    Where does the most powerful bonding take place between a man and his wife? In consummation of course. Upon serious reflection, we see that all roads in marriage lead to this. At the very least – assuming that both a husband and wife share godly conversation, reflection and prayer – this “act of marriage” is the ultimate expression and strengthener of the shared love between a husband and wife (for conversation, reflection, and prayer can all accompany this).

    Insofar as I am in Adam, I desire this union for reasons entirely of the flesh. My desire is to consume and to possess – and to satiate my lust (even if I have success in limiting these twisted desires to my wife, both in my external behavior, and to a lesser degree, my inner thought-life). Eros. Insofar as I am a New Man, I desire this union – this conjugal union – that I may participate in one of the greatest and most powerful gifts that God has created, for by it, a husband and wife are made one flesh, and are bound together as one. Agape-driven eros.

    Now, a difficult question (at least is would appear to be, given the early Church Father’s writings about sex): As regards this unique communicative union, how often should one desire to partake? How often should one long to be united in this way? To “converse” in this way? Is this something that we should look forward to? That we should long for? That we should even work towards? This is a complicated matter, because one can find passages in the Scriptures that seem to go both ways (one thinks of the very interesting things said in Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and I Corinthians 7). And again, insofar as we are in Adam, we desire to pursue the pleasures this union allows for the mere purpose of fulfilling our appetites (some Christians – serious theologians – have even proposed that sex is a result of the Fall!) My opinion: Given the Holy Spirit’s re-orientation, why should this union not be pursued as often as the desires and possibilities arise? (to say otherwise would of course be using an argument akin to those made for infrequent communion in the Church).

    Each spouse may indeed work towards effecting this consummation, although, in general, it is the husband who finds himself doing so – and it is he who generally sets the tenor and tone of the relationship. Why should he not, with the help of God, unashamedly pursue it, aiming to pull his wife’s attraction – so that she desires to welcome him in the most trusting and intimate way…? A husband may do this both indirectly, by realizing that everything he says and does is inextricably tied to this potential consummation, and directly, through his clear and assertive advances… he attempts to woo his wife…. to ravish her…. so that she most willingly invites him into her vineyard, to use some Biblical imagery (at the same time if he vigorously pursues this and she makes it clear she is *not* interested or willing, he does not mope or whine but simply asks God that He would be content and thankful for all those gifts He has already received – even as he attempts to do what he can to effect change).

    This highly sought-after and one-flesh union not only binds the two into one and has meaning as regards this life, but also the life to come: it is powerful – not only in that it binds two into one and bears real, procreative fruit – but also in that it is one of the most vivid signs that we have of both the nature of the church and the event of the final consummation to come. When we speak of a man and his wife we speak of Christ and His bride, the Church – for this is the true marriage to which this “sacramental union” points towards. And just as nothing binds two people together more than this intimate act of finality, nothing will ultimately bind God and His people together more than that consummation that will occur on the Last Day, when the final fruits of Jesus’ death and resurrection are realized. There will be a great wedding feast – the final great union and fulfilled anticipation for all who believe. At the same time, while marriage may point to this feast in a sense, it is the Lord’s Supper that is an even greater sign and symbol of the marriage feast that is to come. There is a danger here: though the Lord’s Supper is the greater sign and symbol – and also involves its own flesh and blood reality – to our Old Man it seems to pale in compared to the more highly sensual (and almost overwhelming) act of marital consummation. We mark this danger – noting that this may be a reason why reflections like this one are uncommon – and go on to affirm that marital consummation is nonetheless a real sign of the final consummation, when the oneness of the Lord and His bride will be most fully realized.

    Can this final consummation become the most important thing that a Christian – particularly a Christian man – looks forward to? Without a doubt, the greatest sign of this final consummation – the greatest Promise – is the Lord’s very body and blood that He gives us in His Supper. That the eyes of our heart would continually be opened to this amazing reality! And yet, even as we fail to see and experience this as vividly as we should, any man, regardless of the maturity of his faith, will not fail to have an amazing experience of divine favor when he lays with his wife. And again – is it possible that for him this sign, as wonderful and as glorious as it is, can only pale in comparison to that greater reality towards which it points him -an eternity with our Lord? In truth, what greater thing could we work towards? What greater thing could we long for? What greater thing could we pursue? The overwhelming greatness, pleasure and power of the act of marriage are only a foretaste of the feast to come.

    But even here – God’s Kingdom comes without our prayer… It is He who pursues us! He is the One who really longs for us, His bride! He is the One who works – who is working all things for the good, leading up to the end. It is not we who pursue or try to effect the end – to bring about consummation – but He who does this. It is He who works all in all, and we can only reject His subtle and not-so-subtle advances. He will not be tamed as He does all that is necessary to protect, treasure, win, ravish and woo us. This includes crushing those other “lovers” who would lovelessly use us for their own empty purposes, that we may be His forever.

    And we are moved to sing of this great love – from this great Lover.

    That He might have us forever… for we are His.

    Come Lord Jesus indeed!

  179. Anonymous says:

    By the way, I totally could i.d. with the last 4 paragraphs of your post here…

    (same guy who did Christian/Game reflection above)

  180. TikkTok says:

    Love languages. Everyone has them. How you communicate your love may not be the same as what he/she needs to feel loved. I don’t think this has anything to do with game as much as language. If I didn’t know that someone expressed their love by doing things, and I was a verbal person, both of us could end up feeling unloved, even though we were both communicating love, just not in the way the other needed to receive it. And feeling sexually desired may be part of that equation for one, but those same efforts may be a total turn off for someone else.

    My .02; ymmv as usual.

  181. deti says:

    Dalrock: “Roissy was extremely painful to read. I kept finding myself wanting to unknow what he had just explained, but I couldn’t stop myself from reading more. My curiosity was more intense than my desire to hold onto the pretty lies.”

    Feminist Hater: “I honestly don’t know, Zed. Reading these blogs the past few weeks has given me a wake up call. Honest truth. I never really thought of women as some sort of higher moral beings or anything like that; but neither did I really think about the extent to which feminists have become feral and taken their power trip, given to them by the Legal System, to new extremes. It’s disgusting to say the least.”

    Join the club, FH. When I discovered Roissy through a link to a Kay Hymowitz critique, I was stunned, then intrigued, then horrified, then angry, then a little despairing, then hopeful. Roissy explained in florid, blunt yet easy to understand language why every one of my prior relationships had failed, and why my marriage was stagnant and our sex life was boring. I displayed every beta behavior in the book: going all in with investment and commitment on the first dates. Telling her I wanted a “relationship”. Supplicating with dinners, nights out, gifts. Giving in to every demand. Caving in during fights with “I don’t care, do what you want”. Effusive displays of emotion and declarations of love. Cuddling before and after sex. And I could never figure out why this wasn’t working because everyone in my life — parents, teachers, pastors, other women — told me that I needed to be “nice” and “respectful” to women, and that that meant subordinating myself to her.

    What was most difficult for me was learning that the people I most trusted as a boy and a young man to usher me into this most difficult part of manhood actually had not even the slightest idea what they were talking about.

    Roissy and blogs like this one demolish the pretty lies handily. It’s hard to learn the truth about women because it seems counterintuitive and contradicts everything everyone told you growing up. FH, you mentioned the “feral woman” and their power trip, and that it was “disgusting”. Well, yes and no. The power trip and the way feminism has gone overboard in maltreating men is disgusting. But women are just women, and their natures just make them what they are. And Game helps men to understand it, respond to it and handle it in the context of a relationship.

    We learned that women want sex. Not as much as men do, but they do want sex. They want sex from the most alpha man they can find. Women are hypergamous, i.e. they want the best man they can find and if her current man isn’t sufficiently alpha she subconsciously looks for a new one. Most women deep down like vigorous sex and want to be dominated during sex. “Nice girls” also like vigorous sex and dominant men. There really is no such thing as a “Nice Girl” who is saving herself for the One Special Man in her life. When a sufficiently alpha man comes along, many “Nice Girls” will shimmy out of their panties just as fast as the sluts will. Most men like ONSing or STRing sluts, but viscerally reject the idea of LTRing or marrying a slut. Most men consider sluts unmarriageable, because sluts have a difficult time bonding to one man, and because a man does not want to be her 15th, 20th or 30th partner. This is why women instinctively know to lie about their partner counts. Every woman has a “rationalization hamster” that can make sense out of any situation, emotion or feeling she finds herself in or experiencing. The hamster can spin it so as to make the woman look good (or at least better than any other participant) and extricate herself from any responsibiility or accountability. And finally: every woman has it within her to cheat. This is true of women married for decades down to the girl on her first boyfriend.

    Roissy does a good job of destroying the pretty lies.

  182. Feminist Hater says:

    AsinusSpinasMasticans

    I agree with you. However, I don’t think it’s that simple. Take my parents for example. My mother and father married young, she was 20 and he was 25. She has a degree in Physiotherapy and has worked her entire life. My dad never saw anything wrong with that. He’s an Engineer and has worked his entire life too. In fact, he and my uncle, on my mother’s side, decided to build onto my parent’s house, adding a practice for her to treat patients from. Thus allowing her to take care of my sister and I whilst he was away. Both my parents were involved in our upbringings, going to rugby games, plays, music concerts and many other extra activities.

    That’s what a marriage meant to them, their careers came whilst raising a family, not before. Luckily for them, you finished school when you were 16, not 18 like today. My father was also in the army, that’s where he met her, on the border. He had two years National service, straight after he finished school and then 3 months a year every year after that until the end of the war in 1989. This included actual combat time for my father who got injured and ended up in rehabilitation, where my mother was doing her internship. Most of her patients, during that time, where not white soldiers like my father but black children simply playing too far away from the “mine clear” zones and getting horribly injured.

    They never worried about stupid things like feminism, equal rights and so on. They raised a family and enjoyed each others company. With family and friends to help them through the tough times. That’s where I get my approach to marriage from, my parents.

    The current social climate has really screwed up thousands of years of men and women, those that cared anyway, working together to achieve civilisation in which one is safe, can raise and educate children properly and innovation, artistry and literature flourish. Pretty much destroyed, for the sake of some out of this world thoughts that sound nice.

    My father and mother both put the family first, that’s a big difference for me. I don’t have a major issue with a woman having a job, career and/or hobby she enjoys but the family comes first and fertility is a major component of that. Therefore she needs to be marriage orientated from a young age. In the same vain, I don’t want a stupid woman either, there needs to be substance to her life, I would rather her enjoy that substance of life with me, rather than trying to fulfill her life with a career and lots of LTRs, which are meaningless. I wouldn’t actually bother with a woman who decides career is priority number one. Which is a great screening test for me when talking to a woman I might fancy.

  183. deti says:

    “And, interestingly, understanding Game explains why the women I disliked the most and treated the worst were the hardest to get rid of, and the woman I liked the most and lapsed into my normal niceguy self always flaked on me.”

    I was in a four year relationship in college and grad school. I was NiceGuy, she was a complaining nag. We never married (thankfully). At the end of our relationship we just hated each other. I broke up with her very shortly after starting my first job in a new city. Suddenly she treated me kindly. She called me several times. She told me she was having a hard time accepting our breakup and tearfully said she was having difficulty “getting over” me. She wrote me a long letter wishing me well and telling me she had met someone new.

    I was surprised by all this because she seemed to hate me so much during our “relationship”. It dawned on me 20 years later while reading Roissy: she treated me better after I had broken up with her because I had finally stood up for myself and told her I wasn’t going to put up with her BS anymore. No man had ever done that to her before. And no one had ever broken up with her before. She had always been able to get any man she wanted. A man had rejected her; it was a completely new experience for her; and she was having a hard time processing the information.

  184. Brendan says:

    What I think SoCons are worried about is the effectiveness of Game. If you practice it, know it, and realize you must use it regularly if/when you get married, why bother … getting married? Why not simply game younger, hotter, tighter women? If guys figure they’ll spend the same amount of effort, why not have more variety? Be a baby daddy, a Levi Johnston or Kevin Federline. My guess is that is the fear of Social Conservatives and drives the critique of Game.

    In part, yes, there is a worry that this will be exclusively used that way because — why not? However, I think there is also the aspect that Slumlord describes over on his blog about how many socons have an overly idealized view of love, and the idea of “working a system” like Game is somewhat offensive to what they think love is — in other words, it’s viewed as being “base”. I think Slumlord is basically right in his assessment that there is a lack of realism among many socons about sex, and especially female sexuality, and this underlies some of the unease they have about game. You get socons, for example, who may acknowledge that Game works, but don’t like it because they see it as appealing to the base instinct — it’s that kind of thinking that Slumlord is talking about, and I think it also applies here.

  185. Feminist Hater says:

    In part, yes, there is a worry that this will be exclusively used that way because — why not? However, I think there is also the aspect that Slumlord describes over on his blog about how many socons have an overly idealized view of love, and the idea of “working a system” like Game is somewhat offensive to what they think love is — in other words, it’s viewed as being “base”. I think Slumlord is basically right in his assessment that there is a lack of realism among many socons about sex, and especially female sexuality, and this underlies some of the unease they have about game. You get socons, for example, who may acknowledge that Game works, but don’t like it because they see it as appealing to the base instinct — it’s that kind of thinking that Slumlord is talking about, and I think it also applies here.

    Brendan, if you’re interested in actual marriage to a woman, rather than just “gaming” for sex, wouldn’t it be about finding a balance between “gaming” and caring for your wife or girl friend? If that’s what being a SoCon is, I might be guilty of that. I too don’t like the absolute base instinct that “game” can bring to the table. I completely agree with the truthfulness of it and its uses. I just disagree with how one chooses to abuse that ability.

    I also think it boils down to choice. What do you want from life, what allows you to enjoy life? If that’s sleeping with “younger, hotter and tighter” women then that’s what one chooses to use “game” for. Gaming is not what is “wrong” with that scenario. It’s the choice that the person uses “game” for that SoCons should have an issue with, not game itself. That’s from a moral Christian view, so from a secular point of view, I don’t know.

  186. PuzzledTraveller says:

    My evolving thoughts…

    I agree with the premise that you shouldn’t have to become someone entirely different from who you are to keep your marriage intact or to attract and keep a woman that is suitable to you.

    You do however need to be the best version of you that you can be. Both spouses have to do that. So that means not turning into a bitchy tub of lard and dressing in sweats all the time (ladies), and guys, not handing over the reins to your wife and becoming a boring cubicle monkey, yes dear type.

    It doesn’t mean you that you as a man have to become 007, just continue to be the guy that attracted your wife or GF to start with. Which in all likelihood was sufficiently alpha/beta mix for her that she felt it was a good idea to marry you. She needs to continue to be the woman that attracted you to start with, which probably means not being fat, and giving a crap about her appearance and not being a total bitch to you 24/7. Guy game. Girl game.

    Where most guys go wrong (self included in my first marriage) is that after a period of time in a marriage, they tend to really let the alpha part slide. I don’t know why guys do this, but I see a lot that do, and it’s like a downward spiral of ever increasing miserableness for them. Yet crazily, they think if they just keep upping the beta and nice, it will all turn around.

    Now, when I say maintain your level of alpha am I talking Russian Mafia level alpha? NO. I mean whatever level of natural alpha you had in you when you attracted your wife. So maybe, all you need to do is get back to being the guy that always comes up with something fun to do on the weekend again. Maybe you just need to remember to swat her on the ass when she walks by. Maybe you just need to remember that there’s more to life than picking the kids up from sports or grinding out an hour at the grocery store together or whatever.

    Now personally, having F’ed up in my first marriage, everything from picking an appropriate wife, to managing the relationship, to dealing with all manner of relationship items. I have read a half dozen mainstream marriage or relationship type learning books. Not because my wife was not culpable for her behavior in the marriage (and it was outrageous – but I tolerated it at the time), or she bore no responsibility, but because I couldn’t change her, and when it was over, I could only seek to improve myself for the sake of getting better results in the future.

    After I had finished up with the conventional wisdom books, I read all the game stuff I could get my hands on after stumbling into the manosphere wounded from battle. I have purchased and read MMSL, Bang, Day Bang, Roissy, and many others, etc. I did this in an attempt to learn from the past because I intend not to make the same mistakes or to allow my sons out in the world of women with the same misconceptions I had. I intend to obtain a relationship with a woman that operates on the terms that are satisfying to me.

    Guess what? The only stuff that jives with my real life experiences of a fifteen year relationship’s rise and fall is the game stuff. The only information that I can observe working first hand or watch the ill effects when it is not applied is game stuff.

    I have observed a husband and wife getting out a pen and paper and listing ten things they like about each other and seeing if that solves their marriage problem. If you are at that point where you have to force yourself to write down shit you like about each other in an effort to stay together, you are F’ed. Wanna know how I know? Because I was the guy doing that gay marriage counseling type stuff trying to keep a marriage intact.

    Now at first, when I took the red pill, I was pissed, then frustrated at women in general and then myself. I was turned off to women as human beings actually for awhile and filled with a lot of anger. I also frankly, felt tricked by my elders, sold a bill of goods about marriage and used. But being mad at women for being attracted to masculine traits is like thinking your friends are weird because they like tits.

    The good news is all guys (99%) have masculine traits. Sometimes they just don’t know how to live with them or were trained out of presenting them and being comfortable with them in today’s cultural climate.

    So I started learning, not to become someone I am not, not to be some supa-playa-a-hole, but to recognize ideas which I was taught as a boy that were incorrect and not congruent with who I felt I was inside all along. For example, something just felt fucked up in me when I was following the programming of “Do whatever it takes to please your wife.” Like it literally felt wrong, degrading, whatever. But I went with it because all the conventional wisdom, teaching and advice was that that was “the right thing to do son”. They were very wrong. I had to unlearn all that.

    Initially, after the Red Pill, I thought I had to go full tilt Roissy A-hole, to ever have a woman or to be in a satisfying relationship, but that’s not correct at all. Besides, that’s just not naturally me, nor is it most guys. I think if it’s naturally you, you already know it, enjoy your harem. If not, you already know that as well. I think I have found what works best for me. I think of game in these terms now that I am dating again:

    Note: I date with the view of obtaining an LTR with a woman that meets the qualities I am looking for. If you date or only go out to get notches then my perspective will not be correct for your purposes.

    1. If I meet a woman and I have to run super asshole game to get with her or have any traction, and I am personally not inclined towards being super asshole in my temperament, I would be making a big mistake being in an LTR with her. Sooner or later I would have to “break character” so to speak, and then we all know what would happen sooner rather than later to that relationship. Not because she is a bitch, but because I put on a false front and I literally was not her type. From a man’s perspective it would be like being told you were your girl’s first and then finding out she used to be a sex industry worker. You’d be pissed and drop her because you found out she was something she was not, and she was not at all what you were looking for.

    So…

    2. If I use a modest amount of game, as a tool to accentuate my already present masculine qualities, and to be aware of social dynamics of male – female attraction. I am not being someone I am not. I am in fact being exactly who I am: A man smart enough to observe the world around him and to use my intelligence to learn ways in which I can ethically get what I want from the world. To bring my best qualities to the fore while minimizing my weaknesses. Not as an actor playing a part, not by pretending to be some super-a-hole, but by being a man that is consciously paying attention to what I’m doing because I want to present myself as well as I can, without straying into fakery.

    I am a very good man. I am kind and generous to people. I am a good father. I am trusted by other men in business. I don’t alter the ethics of the way I treat people. I just have boundaries with what I will accept from women and I have dusted off my masculine edge. I better understand how to present myself well when meeting a woman with an interest in something romantic. I have a more effective response when confronted by natural female behavior that confounds many. My natural best self.

    I believe that by doing this, I will be able to attract a woman to whom whatever level of alpha/beta mix I naturally have, will appeal to her naturally. Therefore in an LTR, I can operate within it being myself, with the caveat that I must remember to continue to be the best version of myself. That means sometimes hugging her and telling her I love her and snuggling on the couch. Sometimes that means I bang it out on her like she was a two dollar whore. Then when I’m done I give her a smack on the ass. Both activities I would enjoy.

    What I must not do as far as managing my relationship behavior is never let myself be all one or the other, or the worst thing you can do, slide right into pure beta/comfort mode. I made that mistake in my first marriage. Let me tell you. It’s one hell of a miserable way to live. Let me also tell you, how you act in a relationship is part instinct but also a large part conscious decision to do or not so something. People often choose, “not do something” because it’s the path of least resistance, until it catches up with you. Like choosing not to exercise, eventually you get fat or weak.

    So Ruddy, if you want to be married, if you want the best chance of it to be successful, you have to do certain things. Like my brother says, “If you want chicks, you have to do some work.” No one rides for free, no one can coast.

    I think if you just approach it not from a point of frustration but from a sense of relief at knowing you have the proper perspective and tools to manage the relationship so that it stays positive you will be in a better state of mind to consider a relationship. Every relationship with the opposite sex has to be managed to some degree.

    If you are with a chick that will bang your best friend if you fail one shit test, did you pick the right girl for you? Nope. Is that her fault? Nope. You were in charge of that. She’s culpable for being a whore, but you picked her. Men control commitment.

    I advocate only using enough game to where you are presenting your natural self in the most positive manner and being aware of any behaviors you have that are frankly, just whiny and unattractive and working to eliminate them like you would any other bad habit. While working to always be the best man you can be. Then, the kind of women you would like to be with, will just naturally be attracted to you. You will probably also develop a healthy amount of self respect and self care, and learn to stay away from users, flakes, whores, psychos and the lot. Then from the remaining 3% of women left on the planet, you can choose your bride. (I kid)

    Unless you just like bar rats or bitchy chicks that require super A-hole game. Then earn an Oscar for your acting my friend and bang away, bang away….

  187. Anonymous Reader says:

    Inertia
    Some background: my marriage is not the happiest. Just like the host, I came across the concept of married Game a couple of years ago and decided to give it a try. To improve my marriage, you know. The results ranged from useless to disastrous. Even after I abandoned it, it took supreme effort just to bring my wife’s bad behaviour down to its former level.

    +1 on David Collard’s observation. We cannot totally “cookbook” this application of psychology, the approach needs to fit his personality and the situation. It does not necessarily work to pick, say, the “Mystery” method and run with it if a man doesn’t feel really able to pull that off.

    There is another aspect. I don’t know your situation, if a man has been getting ground down into lower and lower betahood for a long time – years, for example – then the first reaction he may get to Gaming his wife/LTR can very well be a form of pushback. She’s gotten used to a certain degree of subservience from him, and all of a sudden that’s going away or gone, and she doesn’t like it. So she doubles down on the bad behavior that used to get her what she wanted in the short term. It looks to the man like Game has made things worse.

    Let’s assume, just for the moment, that she’s an anger queen. Anger works to get what we want, in the short term. She has a short fuse at work and at home, flying off the handle over just about anything, yelling at cars in traffic, etc. The result is that everyone around her is walking on eggshells, and trying to please her to varying degrees. She’s getting what she wants, and yet is very unhappy about it, which feeds back to her anger. Now suppose that her husband/LTR reads about game and starts putting it into effect. Sooner or later she’ll have a display of temper and instead of cringing & scurrying around to maker her happy, he’ll just laugh and make a cocky remark, or agree & amplify, or some other technique, and then walk away. The reaction will almost certainly be fury – because he’s not following her “script” anymore, he’s framing things very differently. But if he’s acting as he used to act in the start of the relationship, with variations, in time she’ll come around. It may take a while. Consciously facing the anger with confidence will, in time, convince the back of her head that she ain’t gonna get what she wants anymore with bad behavior.

    The same applies to drama queens and other bad behavior. It can take time to convince her subconscious that the bad behavior isn’t getting what she wants anymore and she has to give itup. In the mean time she may amp up the bad behavior, that does mean the man has to work harder to maintain his frame. Let me be totally frank: Gaming in an LTR/marriage can mean more work, both intellectual and emotional, for a time, but it is not forever. Remaining beta in the face of bad behavior does mean endless trouble and even misery for both the man and woman.

  188. Yes, AR, when she starts screeching at you, that can be scary. You have to pretend not to care. Ignore her, laugh at her, or tell her to fuck off. Whatever. But for God’s sake, don’t cower or supplicate. And don’t bicker with her. Don’t try to get the last word either. State your view firmly and then shut up. Think of it like this – does a confident boss bicker with his subordinate?

    And don’t be afraid to be a bit hard sometimes. I visited my wife in hospital last night, after an operation. I let HER get me a cup of tea. Somebody mentioned the Russian Mafia. A little bit of gangster and his moll dynamic does not hurt. In fact, a lot of women are turned on by the thought of what a hardass a man is. Think of it like this – most of us can act a bit and most of us react to acting. You can be a perfectly decent man and still play a role for mutual enjoyment sometimes.

    And yes, cuddles AFTER sex.

    I am sorry to say this, but what destroys a lot of men in an LTR seems to be moral cowardice. It IS scary when a woman emotes at you, and your first instinct is to supplicate. It is like any area where manly courage is needed. Resist your first instinct to capitulate, show moral strength and courage. Stand your ground calmly and her respect for you will escalate.

    Men should have laughed at feminists and told them to fuck off a generation. Instead we, collectively, supplicated. As Americans say, how is that working out for us?

  189. Anonymous Reader says:

    Dalrock, it seems to me the reason SoCon/TradCons don’t like Game is simple: they put women on pedestals, and Game demolishes pedestals. The Trad/SoCon men don’t like the truth about women, and the Trad/SoCon women don’t like losing their hold over men. Game doesn’t fit well with that whole Victorian fiction so many “traditionalists” are fond of, it seems to me.

    It’s ironic, really. One of my very traditionalist male relatives, now long dead, suggested to me as a young man to read Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”- in particular the “Tale of the Wife of Bath” – to really understand women. He was fond of the 1950’s musical “Kiss Me, Kate”, based on “Taming of the Shrew”, too. There’s more truth in those two works of fiction than in all the “advice to men” that I’ve seen over the last 20+ years from any source, most especially the advice handed out by “traditional Christians” & other Churchianity sources to any young man for a long, long time.

  190. “told them to fuck off a generation ago.”

    Oh, and “Ain’t Momma Happy – Tough Shit.”

  191. AR, there is no biblical or traditional basis to pedestalise women. There is evidence all through scripture of women’s moral weakness. I sometimes wonder if pedestalising Christian men have actually read the bible. Agree competely about The Taming of the Shrew. A classic of Game and the Shakespeare feminists hate the most.

  192. Doc says:

    I’m pushing the half-century mark and women were pushing the same non-sense back then that they are today. Fortunately, experience is a wonderful teacher. Having not drank the kool-aid I would regularly meet and get involved with women, then switch to “beta” to try to “keep them happy” with the inevitable out-come. Finally toward my sophomore year I punted on looking for anything other than fun – and suddenly, women that I wouldn’t have had a chance with, were mine. Now, being a “science guy” I found this interesting – so started doing experiments to test things. I found that if I were “an ass” I would get women, if I was a “nice guy” I wouldn’t. Now, I had to put in an effort to be the “nice guy” so the solution was simple – I stopped trying to be anything other than who I was, and I never looked back.

    I have seen younger men fall into this trap, and today more and more have poisoned themselves. Heck, in grad-school I would regularly bed women who had a beta on the line for marriage. She was “saving” herself – at least when it came to him, for me there wasn’t anything left to save. I learned a lot, and did a lot of things women tell me I should be ashamed or, or regret, and of course I don’t. I loved every second of what I did, when I was doing it, and will never lie – although a lot of women seem to feel a need to try to get me to.

    But I learned – a woman has to feel she is accomplishing something by keeping you interested. If you have no other options, how does that make her feel good about herself? If she isn’t competing for you, she will grow bored and look for someone to work to get. The key is to make her work for you. So today – I’m a lot older than the women I date, and they still tell me how “the boys my age just don’t get it” – of course, I couldn’t care less. As long as they look good, and give me what I need, that is all that I care about.

    At some point, I will probably settle down and start a family – doubt that I’ll ever marry though. If you marry – she has you ,if not – she knows you can walk, so will work to keep you interested. I believe in keeping my women happy – and the way to do that is to make them feel good about themselves, and that they can keep my interest. The fact that it works to my advantage shows how wonderful life really is.

  193. tweell says:

    So, why buy the cow if the milk is free? Why indeed settle down with one woman if you can have many?
    1. For the children. Guys may not have the same drive to reproduce like women do, but it’s there. We want the best for our children, and being reared by a loving heterosexual couple is the best home environment for children, as far as I know. There may be better, but it certainly isn’t a single mom.
    2. For the assistance. A biblical good wife is a treasure. Two people working in harmony with shared goals can do more than either alone added together. As has been noted, it often takes marriage to bring out the greatest striving, the best work of a man, and the same is true of a woman. I’ll certainly admit that since my wife has passed away, I don’t have the same ambition.
    3. For the companionship/friendship. With a good marriage, you have each other’s backs. Pain shared is lessened and happiness shared is magnified.
    A good marriage is as close as we come to Heaven on this earth. Conversely, a bad marriage is certainly Hell on earth, for there’s no one more suited to rip you to shreds, no one that knows you better.

  194. PuzzledTraveller says:

    Tweell, I like the way you think I just believe that for 90-ish% of people, that’s as much a fantasy as Cinderella or winning the lottery. Tweell if you had all those good things in your marriage, you were truly blessed and fortunate. You were also the exception not the rule. I’m sorry for your loss.

    50% of marriages are so bad, they end in divorce. Of the remaining 50% what portion are just “okay”, what portion are “bad but not divorce bad” what percentage are “SUPER!”. Very small percentage are super from what I see around me everyday.

    I’m on board with Doc. I want a woman around, but I will not get married again. I believe what Doc says, if you don’t marry her, she has an incentive to play nice. I will never, ever, ever, again put myself, my kids or my property at the mercy of the state and at the whim of a woman.

  195. Tweel, yes. I like children and you need a woman for that. I also dislike housework, and like to have a woman for that function. Yes, I know you can hire a maid etc. etc. but there is something satisfying about fucking the cook.

  196. Another good thing about changing your attitude is that you can Game yourself in a way. Over time, you can deprogram the inner man. For example, I like watching boxing. It is the last thing people would expect of me, and indeed that I would expect of myself. But I do. Once I would have denied this. Now I just watch boxing. I don’t care what people think, and I don’t care that it doesn’t fit my internalised nice guy self-image.

    Another thing. I don’t self-censor as much now. Some of my sexual attitudes used to really bother me. I struggled with my desire to dominate a woman. Now I just accept that it is constitutive. Admitting that you like dominating a woman is the modern equivalent of coming out of the closet. But I don’t fight it anymore.

  197. MarkyMark says:

    Thanks again for reminding me that women and wives are simply TOO MUCH WORK! I don’t need the trouble or aggrivatrion, thank you very much…

  198. zed says:

    Because I was the guy doing that gay marriage counseling type stuff trying to keep a marriage intact.

    I also frankly, felt tricked by my elders, sold a bill of goods about marriage and used.

    I had that exact same feeling a couple of times during the 80s when I went to “counseling” with a woman I was dating. Yes, that is right, dating was so bad in the 1980s, that some people resorted to them just to keep from ripping the throat out of the person they were dating.

    My experience in those days was quite different than I hear guys talking about today because I never lost the attitude of masculinity that I was brought up with in the 1950s and 60s. Young women were a lot more dedicatedly feminist then, and dating was mostly a battle for control of the relationship.

    Anyway, a lot of my hostility toward religious socons came from seeing one of these counselors who teamed up with the woman and bitched me out for not giving in to whatever she wanted. I felt totally betrayed and sold out by him, and was totally aghast that any person who called himself either conservative or religious would support her.

    My story is very different than a lot of guys here. I’ve never been married, never wanted to be, never wanted any kids, and I’ve never had any woman break up with me – I have always been the one to break up. (Although I did get pumped & dumped a few times in ONS that I would have liked to continue.)

    I guess I was pretty much your archetypal cad, but didn’t enjoy it all that much. I sort of kept hoping that I would meet a woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but never found one that I wanted to spend more than a few months with.

    Eventually, I just got sick and tired of feeling like the bad guy and just dropped out.

  199. zed says:

    However, I think there is also the aspect that Slumlord describes over on his blog about how many socons have an overly idealized view of love,

    What’s his blog? You have mentioned that he and I seem to agree on a number of issues.

  200. Brendan says:

    It’s socialpathology.blogspot.com.

    He has two posting names, and Slumlord is the older one so some of us call him that.

  201. Ulysses says:

    Zed: Slumlord sometimes comments as Slumlord and sometimes as Social Pathologist. Here is his blog. http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/

  202. Ulysses says:

    Novaseeker beat me to the punch.

  203. That Hawaiin Libertarian guy says:

    “That Hawaiin Libertarian guy said that he “literally plays the role of an arrogant bastard.”

    Ruddy sure is an obstinate bastard. He was repeating this exact same argument at my blog 2 years ago. Back then, there was only myself blogging about my experiences with “Game” and marriage. But now we have more and more men coming out of the woodwork and blogging about how they too studied this thing called “game” and as Ulysses notes, had a “Eureka” moment. Many many things that used to befuddle men suddenly come into sharp focus. You suddenly understand precisely why that hot girl you started dated in high school “fell out of love” and left you. Or why you got the “let’s just be friends” rejection. Or why your own parents got divorced.

    Some people get it.

    Some never will.

    “That Hawaiin Libertarian guy said that he “literally plays the role of an arrogant bastard.”

    TFH is correct. Some people are simply incapable of understanding “game.”

    But an even more important point by TFH was that much of this thing called “game” is really more about “unlearning” emasculated behavior.

    That is what “playing the role” of arrogant bastard did for me. Supplicating, appeasing, afraid of her emotional state. Always asking how to make her happy. Always asking for her approval in every decision. In short, after a few years of marriage, I fell into a “son trying to please and appease his mommy” role..

    Discovering this thing called Game made me realize just how much I had changed from the guy who pursued and seduced her when we first began dating, into the complacent, compliant and subservient schlub.

    One of the ways to unlearn this beta-ized, supplicating, spineless, sackless wimp was to start “acting like an arrogant bastard.”

    This is where ruddy get’s most obstinate.

    What he misses here is the nuance of it. By “acting” like an arrogant bastard, I was not “becoming” one — which seems to be his main objection here. That game simply means a “nice, normal guy has to become this asshole to attract women”. As the example quoted about “flexing my muscles” and saying something cocky, I was “acting like an arrogant ass” in an over the top, exaggerated and playfulmanner….aka “Agree & Amplify.”

    In other words, I “play” the role and I have fun with it. And when I have “fun” with it, she does to. Gee, is that really so hard? Apparently to a guy like ruddy, it is. It’s being “fake.” It’s a constant “struggle” to be “gaming your wife at all times.” Better to be “true to yourself” and simply tell the wife “you said I do, so you are contractually bound to put out tonight.”

    We now have a number of guys who are attesting to how understanding the reasons behind “game” worked to transform their marriages to get back to the romantic relationships they had in the courtship phase of their relationship before they exchanged vows and rings. Yet ruddy has spent years now telling us guys that somehow we’re wrong. That our anecdotal experiences don’t mean what we think they mean.

    Whatevers.

  204. Dalrock says:

    @Inertia

    Some background: my marriage is not the happiest. Just like the host, I came across the concept of married Game a couple of years ago and decided to give it a try. To improve my marriage, you know. The results ranged from useless to disastrous. Even after I abandoned it, it took supreme effort just to bring my wife’s bad behaviour down to its former level.

    Now, the Game proponents will say that I didn’t do it right. Perhaps. But it’s a non-falsifiable argument: Game always works, and if it doesn’t it means you do it wrong. I don’t buy it. In how many cases does the Game work, really? Is it even a majority of cases? We don’t know. I suspect there is a major selection bias at work here: Those for whom the Game works crow about it in the Internet forums, while those for whom it doesn’t work stay silent and simply move on…

    I don’t have any doubt that this kind of thing happens. Athol Kay’s program strikes me as aimed at the heart of this kind of (seeming) lost cause. Traditional game says “fake it til you make it”, but Athol’s MAP strikes me more as “make it til you fake it”. Even then, he only promises to change you into a man which women in general respond to. He comes out upfront and warns that the woman who becomes the wife you are looking for might not be the woman you are already married to. Blogger Mormon Men had a similar tale of a wife who was too far gone. There is an obvious moral question here which is beyond the scope of game.

    With all of this said, I am not entirely convinced that Inertia is the real deal. Like I said, his story of game not producing positive results strikes me as plausible. Yet his delivery is suspect. Men who face this kind of misfortune typically want to warn others away. Typically he would want to share his wisdom (in hindsight) on what he should have noticed in his bride to be and warn young unmarried men to be on the lookout for those traits. I would think he would also want to explain what type of game he attempted and why he thinks it didn’t work well in his case. Yet he hasn’t offered these insights, even after being specifically asked for more information. He seems solely intent on warning men away from using game at all.

    Either way, a note of caution is a good thing. For those men who identify with my story or that of Dave From Hawaii, game is probably an extremely powerful tool which you can use to improve your marriage. If your situation is more dire, get a copy of Athol’s book ASAP and read it through to decide if you are willing to put in the one or two years of hard self improvement work he suggests and if you are willing to walk at the end if she never actually comes around. Either way Athol’s book is very good for the introduction into the basic concepts we are discussing here, and well worth the price for that alone. For those who want to try a more traditional gaming approach, I would suggest starting small and managing the risk. Stopping doing negative beta traits strikes me as the least risky. As you get in the right frame and learn more you can try small subtle experiments to see how your wife responds and progress from there. Jumping in whole hog strikes me as too risky.

  205. zed says:

    I think, and I am open to correction, that what most are calling Game is Just The Way Men Acted When They Were In Charge, say, before 1962. Before that, your Dad taught you to treat women a certain way, not to pay too much attention to their complaining, to keep them in their place, etc. Good men accepted this burden and did well by their wives and families. Bad men, not so well, but the common denominator was that men were in charge.

    The rerun never seems to play like the original broadcast.

    @ Mule,

    There’s a lot of truth to that, but there is more to it as well. My older brother was about as conventionally and socially acceptable Alpha as it was possible to get in the late 1950s – 3 years state champion debate team, 2 years national champion debate team, boys state, boys nation. By 1962 he was married to a morose, depressive, woman with a perpetually broken wing – (“I can’t, because I have a broken wing.”) Strangely, she had a Master’s degree in chemistry despite the fact that before Betty Friedan “liberated women, men kept them all barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen – chained to the stove.

    She was pretty much useless and he would come home to her sitting on the couch dithering and the kids running around wild. He would bark a few orders, get dinner, get the kids bathed and put to bed, and then collapse. She was just another kid that he had to look after. Within a few years he really began to detest her and began having an affair with an extremely competent Alpha woman. He waited until the last kid graduated from HS, and then filed for divorce. The divorce drug on for years because his wife fought it tooth and nail, but eventually he sweetened the pot enough to get her to capitulate. This went on for about 5-7 years and took so much of his income that he lived in a studio apartment behind his law office.

    When the divorce was final, all his income went to alimony and paying off the marital debts, which included a business that he bought her just to give her something to do with her time and keep her out of his hair, that she ran into the ground.

    In terms of the older men teaching younger men what they needed to do in order to have a successful marriage – well, supplication was pretty much the order of the day. I think that came about when all the soldiers returning from WW II got funneled first through college using the GI bill, then into corporate America, and then into the suburbs. These were men who had spent their entire lives being told what to do by other people and any who had aggressive wives were broken by military discipline to not be “insubordinate.”

    Add to that the fact that trust between generations of men was totally destroyed by the Vietnam war, and men of my age did not trust anything a man (or woman) over 30 said.

    Actually, I think Game is a significant improvement on the stagnation of the 1950s and early 60s. I had ample helpings of the Dark Triad, which may be why I never had the same issues with not being able to attract women, but back in those days the PTB did everything they could to beat the DT out of any guy who showed any of it. The entire culture was built around anti-Game. Real Game would get you shot at, thrown in jail, or at least socially ostracized.

  206. zed says:

    Slumlord sometimes comments as Slumlord and sometimes as Social Pathologist.

    No wonder we have a lot in common, he is a Social Pathologist, I am a Pathological Socialist. 😉

  207. deti says:

    “For those who want to try a more traditional gaming approach, I would suggest starting small and managing the risk. Stopping doing negative beta traits strikes me as the least risky. As you get in the right frame and learn more you can try small subtle experiments to see how your wife responds and progress from there. Jumping in whole hog strikes me as too risky.”

    Here’s what I did:

    I was quite the beta supplicant. After sufficient reading here and at Roissy, I first started saying “I love you” much, much less. I did not kiss her. I waited for her to kiss me. I stopped calling her from work. I stopped the overly sappy declarations of love. I stopped the begging for sex. If I wanted sex, I made a move. If she said no, I stopped and walked away.

    A couple of months later, she was acting like a bitch. She finally said to me “you know, I guess sometimes I’m not physically attracted to you.” I had to respond immediately. I told her something like this: “If you’re unhappy being with me, then perhaps you’d be happier without me. I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect myself. I don’t have any intention of staying married to a woman who is unhappy being with me and who does not want to be with me.” The turnaround was immediate. She immediately became kinder. The sex improved. I continued telling her that things would need to continue improving. In response, I started hitting the gym and feeling better. I also sexed her up regularly.

  208. Keoni Galt says:

    Gee deti, that just sounds like too much work.

    You should stop trying to be something you’re not.

  209. PuzzledTraveller says:

    @Keoni,

    That’s what I’m talking about. Some dudes think being aware of and implementing relationship game is like a 100% personal transformation and you have to be this cardboard cutout of another dude or some gangsta pimp wannabe. Sure, you can go that route, if it suits your aims and goals and you enjoy it. But a 100% total personal transformation is really not needed unless the guy in question truly is a basement dwelling, mouth breathing, super WoW clan leader type, or let himself turn into one. For your average guy, who is basically socially competent enough to get a girl, girlfriend or wife, it’s more about, reclaiming the nut sack and putting it back to use. Without being scared of her reaction.

    Sooner or later fellas you just have to come to terms with the fact that in life and relationships there are NO GUARANTEES. No matter what she promised, you promised, whatever. It can all end on a whim, with a bang or a whimper. And that’s scary and people don’t generally like scary and unpredictable when they have skin in the game and a lot to lose. However, the fear of losing that or her to be more precise, her, is what keeps some guys paralyzed from changing up anything and taking a shot on having a better marriage, or making a new life with a new wife. Pursuing peace at any price ends you up in a situation where Hitler is on the channel coast peering at you through binoculars.

  210. Brendan says:

    In terms of the older men teaching younger men what they needed to do in order to have a successful marriage – well, supplication was pretty much the order of the day. I think that came about when all the soldiers returning from WW II got funneled first through college using the GI bill, then into corporate America, and then into the suburbs. These were men who had spent their entire lives being told what to do by other people and any who had aggressive wives were broken by military discipline to not be “insubordinate.”

    Add to that the fact that trust between generations of men was totally destroyed by the Vietnam war, and men of my age did not trust anything a man (or woman) over 30 said.

    Actually, I think Game is a significant improvement on the stagnation of the 1950s and early 60s. I had ample helpings of the Dark Triad, which may be why I never had the same issues with not being able to attract women, but back in those days the PTB did everything they could to beat the DT out of any guy who showed any of it. The entire culture was built around anti-Game. Real Game would get you shot at, thrown in jail, or at least socially ostracized.

    Yeah, this strikes me as right on point.

    The silent gen marriages (like my parents and the parents of many of my friends) were often featuring domineering women and supplicating men. This was also the 1970s. There were contra examples, too, of course, but there were at least as many where the woman was fully in charge and open about that.

    The differences were the law and the expectations, I think. That is, I think men being supplicating betas in marriage isn’t new and isn’t something that came about post-1975. What changed was (1) sexual revolution and (2) family law. The first led to the blossoming of fully-blown, free-form hypergamy and the second led to marriage being converted (legally and socially) into a state-benefitted LTR as long as both people wanted in. Both of these combined to raise the bar a LOT in terms of relationships/marriages — in terms of expectations (so many more men to choose from, so much easier to be discriminating) and actions (so much easier to leave beta hubby, both legally and socially). So was born “hedonic marriage”, where if you don’t make your spouse happy, (typically) she can walk for no stated reason and on favorable terms, quite easily. Therefore, the expectations have been upped for marriage in terms of personal happiness and satisfaction. That is, I am fairly certain quite a few of these pre-1975 marriages weren’t “happy” for the same reasons pre-divorce marriages aren’t happy in 2011: beta husband, wife leading by default, nagging, no sex, unhappy wife and husband. What has changed is that now if you act like that, you’re going to be divorce raped (as a man). And that’s where marital Game comes in, if you want to be married. You actually have to be much *more* manly on average than you did before, because expectations have jumped (just like they have in other areas) in order to avoid the big D.

  211. Keoni Galt says:

    Pursuing peace at any price ends you up in a situation where Hitler is on the channel coast peering at you through binoculars.

    Brilliant analogy.

    What many people fail to grasp is that sexual chemistry between a man and a woman is intrinsically based on conflict. Friction.

    This is the essence of female hypergamy and “shit tests.” It is her base nature to find a mate who can best her in conflict…not physically, but mentally and socially.

    The pursuit of peace at any cost is the precise mindset of the fearful beta in an unhappy marriage. He just wants to get along to go along, and begins to accede to her every stated desire. This kills her attraction because there is no longer any conflict. And it begins to fall into the son to mother relationship role. Mommy is upset, what do we have to do so she is no longer upset? That way to beta-ization.

    No conflict, no friction. No friction, no passion. You just fold when she demands it, and she is no longer attracted, as you are now beneath her, running afoul of her hypergamous instincts.

    A woman shit tests in a relationship most likely because things have become to comfortable, routine, predictable and boring. Men can very easily adopt to comfortable routine without a problem. I work hard all day. I come home, and sit down and wanna drink a beer and watch my favorite TV programs while waiting for dinner to get cooked. From a husband’s perspective this kind of pattern is very, very easy to fall into and take for granted.

    But it drives women crazy.

    As a husband, simply being unpredictable is enough to satisfy that inner need for crazy. It will give her just enough “conflict” to inspire desire.

    Now that doesn’t mean all routines or patterns are bad…just that occasionally breaking up the routine in an unpredictable way will go a long way to keeping her inner need for romantic conflict mollified and make her feel “loved.”

  212. Joshua says:

    I think this thread may have turned me into a misogynist.

  213. Keoni Galt says:

    Better to view women as the fallen creatures like their fellow men than the goddess on the pedestal.

  214. PuzzledTraveller says:

    @Joshua

    This thread should turn you into a long range thinker who engages in critical analysis of the kind of women you select for and how you personally interact with them in a relationship. The first may not match up with the second with bad results. Seek to influence good outcomes in your favor by controlling what is under your control. You.

  215. deti says:

    I used to hear these things from my wife so often early in my marriage but it didn’t sink in:

    “Don’t tell me you don’t care and I can do what I want. Please care.”

    “Why don’t you stand up to me?”

    “Don’t just give in!”

    “Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”

    She was practically begging me to take charge, to show alpha, to show dominance.

  216. Brendan says:

    I think this thread may have turned me into a misogynist.

    There’s no point in that, really. Women are how they are because they are women. You can decide that you want to deal with them or that you don’t want to deal with them, but if you want to deal with them you have to understand them to do so successfully — otherwise you’re cruising for bruising, really, in this culture.

  217. jack says:

    Flenser is a woman, or a liberal, or both.

    I vote woman.

  218. zed says:

    @deti,

    One time I allowed a woman to live with me for a couple of years. It was mostly a nightmare. In September of the 2nd year she announced to me that she would not be attending my family’s Christmas celebration because “she was Jewish, and Jews don’t celebrate Christmas.” I was sick to death of her, and when she said this I just said “OK.”

    Well, she used this as an excuse to throw a major shit hemorrhage – “See, you don’t care about me!!” Even way before I knew anything about Game I knew this was a shit test. She would look for anything I valued, and use it to hold hostage so that I would supplicate to her trying to convince her to do it. (she was the one to whom I responded to one of her shit tests of “Do you love me?” with “Love you!?!?! Hell, I don’t even like you.” )

    Anyway, this Christmas thing turned into a shit-war, not just a shit test. Low level hostilities ruled the day until early December when they escalated to high level hostilities which lasted until 3 days before Xmas. Then things turned really ugly, culminating after 3 days of open hostilities in a 7 hour screaming match on Xmas eve. The “token” argument here was not whether she was going to go (that was settled months ago), but whether I was going to take the complete dinner she had prepared – even though she was not going – so she could play martyr.

    At one point I was so pissed off that I put my fist through one of the kitchen cabinet doors. She then got in my face and started screaming at me – “Don’t hit that, HIT ME, HIT ME!!!

    Maybe she was just trying to get me to put her in her place with my fist, and knock her on her ass, but as Brendan pointed out above, the laws had changed significantly. My first response then was that she way trying to sucker me into hitting her, so she could call the police, have me carted away to spend Christmas in jail, and maybe lay claim to my house.

    Instead, I went totally malignantly cold, and said “You need to get the fuck out of my house. You have until the end of January to find another place to live and get out.”

    So, maybe I didn’t have the right kind of game then. I don’t know. But, I do know that some bitches aren’t worth gaming. Some bitches just be crazy.

    Gotta learn to tell the difference.

  219. Tim says:

    My own personal take on these threads the past few days:

    As a never-married, 42 yr old bachelor who was raised Catholic, I always assumed that the purpose of life was to marry and have children. But this assertion is merely spiritual; it has nothing to do with “power”. I assumed this because it appeared that my mother and father were fulfilling natural roles, roles that came natural to them. My father was the breadwinner and my mother worked part time as a bank teller. However, I can recall my mother sometimes venting that her desire for her daughter – my sister – was that she become autonomous and not have to rely on a man. (My parents are the same age as Bennett, 70).

    What happened next is a complete clusterfuck. My sister did indeed become autonomous. So autonomous that none of the boys (men) in my country were good enough. She vamped it up like a Sex and the City Bitch Goddess and obtained her Bachelor’s Degree at the same time. All of her boyfriends were cads, and none of them treated her respectfully. So she went to Cuba and found a guy that treated her like a Queen. She married him and brought him to Canada, and then he promptly dumped her.

    What I find interesting and what seems to be supported in this thread is that my parents actually doubled down and insisted that the problem was men. Men were the source of my sister’s unhappiness. The only solution, according to my mother and father, was that she needed more autonomy. Now, my father, being a patriarch, is cowed by my mother. Which makes sense. My mother and father married in 1964 and rarely did a woman have a full-powered career back then. So it was considered “chivalrous” for a man to acquiesce to a woman in domestic matters. After all, if a man ruled the external world, and he came home and ruled the domestic sphere, that would be a total power imbalance. That would mean wives would be virtual slaves.

    Here is where it gets bizarre. My parents do have a loving marriage. It’s been going strong since 1964. However, *in my mother’s fantasy world, her daughter is an empowered, sexy, autonomous bitch.* My father acquiesced. Basically, my father just went along with whatever my mother wanted, a trait of the silent generation. How odd is it to profit and benefit from a traditional marriage but to also detest the limits it places on one’s autonomy, when it is precisely those limits which lead to greater happiness and edification?

    So here we are. My sister did finally find a nice guy at the age of 40. It is to laugh, isn’t it? She is divorced, has no kids, and settled for a nice guy who is 50 years old. After twenty years of vamping it up with the other bitch goddesses – something my parents told her to do – she finally settles for a nice guy who is 50 yrs old. Does anyone recognize a pattern here? The Silent Generation sucked it up, did the right thing, and lived by a moral code. They then cheered on their daughters to drop that same moral code in the pursuit of hedonism. And so here we are.

    My guess is we have to ride this thing out in its entirety, and that will take decades.

  220. deti says:

    @ zed:

    What a story. (BTW I’ve read some of your older stuff. Excellent, brother. Excellent.)

    Yeah, your story tells of batshit crazy. Mine was just telling me to stand up. And there’s no way I’m going to have a screaming fight for 7 hours on Christmas Eve with anyone.

    True, you gotta know the difference between the ones who are worth it and those who aren’t.

  221. deti says:

    This is one of those “Women just are how they are” stories.

    My wife isn’t really “high maintenance”. She doesn’t spend a lot of money on stupid stuff, she doesn’t need lots of attention, and she isn’t screwed up in the head.

    She is, however, highly emotional. She is given to crying at the drop of a hat. She feels negative emotions (anger, fear, despair, frustration, hopelessness, sadness, regret) exceedingly intensely. She can fill buckets with her tears. She lies prostrate and heaves sob after sob for at least 10 minutes and sometimes up to an hour. She goes through box after box of tissues. If she feels it in public, she won’t let me touch her and she won’t look at me. If she does, she literally disintegrates into weeping. When she finishes her face and eyes are a swollen mess. Sometimes she is so exhausted she has to nap afterwards.

    All this was quite unnerving to me, a young husband, who had seen this only a couple of times before we married. She had warned me about it but a verbal warning didn’t prepare me for the enormity and length of her crying jags. At first I thought I needed to do something to fix it. After I learned that talking, pleading and “counseling” did nothing to stop the crying, I figured that this was just how she was and I needed to stand back and let her feel whatever it was she was feeling.

    This was the first piece of “Game” I learned, without knowing anything about Game. Most of the time the crying had nothing to do with me. I just stood by, got the tissue boxes and a glass of water, and stood like an oak tree until the storm passed.

  222. Yes Deti. And some signs that I was in a chump slump: her saying several times, “you used to be so macho”. Lately, things have been a lot better, but I still sometimes get, “you are much nicer than you used to be”. This worries me, but maybe I just have it about right in terms of Athol’s mix of alpha and beta. Listen carefully for these occasional wifely remarks. When I get “arrogant” or “pleased with yourself” or “arsehole” or even “pompous”, I feel I am on the right track.

    I can support the social historians here. Actual marriages in the 1960s and 1970s in Australia were not all husband led, and when they were the men were often hugely job-stressed. What has changed is that the ethos of male dominance and the laws have changed since then, tho’ to a lesser extent in Australia than America evidently.

  223. Joshua says:

    @ Brendan-“There’s no point in that, really. Women are how they are because they are women. ”

    Your preaching to the choir. I’ve been red pill for a while. I just didn’t think ALL women were like this. I thought there may be like a 3% minority that weren’t. I now understand women are women, and I understand they are ALL fucking disgusting. ALL OF THEM! I just figured that out with this thread.

  224. Brendan says:

    The Silent Generation sucked it up, did the right thing, and lived by a moral code. They then cheered on their daughters to drop that same moral code in the pursuit of hedonism. And so here we are.

    Tim —

    Very true. It’s probably because the silents weren’t always very happy with their situation, and chafed somewhat against it, and wanted something different for their own kids. This created a shitstorm, but I suppose that they (especially the women of that generation) were so unhappy with their situation that even a shitstorm was preferable to recreating the same.

    This relates to my own experiences with the silents when I was growing up. The women were really, really unhappy, in many cases, with marriage. I doubt this was *new*. But what was new were the changes that came about in the 60s/70s, which enabled them to want a different life for their daughters, now that it was *possible*. In other words: women are no less happy in marriages today than they ever were, really, on average. It’s just that now they can walk on favorable terms. Most men don’t make most women *happy* in marriage without expending a significant effort to do so. Here is where I disagree with some of Game theory. I really do not believe that men who are marrying today are any more beta *in the home* than men were in the silent generation and probably 1-2 generations before at least. The difference is women have more options now, which means if they are not kept happy (not in a supplicating way, but in a Game way) you are running a great risk of being divorce raped. In earlier generations this was not a risk that was run by men for simply having bored wives. The whole meaning of marriage changed from an institution primarily about raising the next generation and passing on wealth to one primarily about self-actualization, fulfillment and happiness. And you have to realize that if you want to enter it today.

  225. Ulysses says:

    It’s not disgusting. If women were like men then what would be the point? The balance is what makes relationships worthwhile.

  226. zed says:

    However, I can recall my mother sometimes venting that her desire for her daughter – my sister – was that she become autonomous and not have to rely on a man.

    Sounds like Kate Bolick’s mother. And, your sister sounds like Kate, except that Kate hasn’t snagged a husband yet.

    The Silent Generation sucked it up, did the right thing, and lived by a moral code. They then cheered on their daughters to drop that same moral code in the pursuit of hedonism. And so here we are.

    My guess is we have to ride this thing out in its entirety, and that will take decades.

    My siblings are a little older than your parents, both of them Silents. Interestingly, the whole “turbulent 60s” meme which has become associated with the Baby Boomers was far more of a Silent Generation phenomenon. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were silents. Hugh Hefner, probably more than anyone else the godfather of the sexual revolution, was a silent.

    One thing I have noticed about the Silents is that the old saying about “leading lives of quiet desperation” really seems to apply to them. You almost get the picture of them showing up at the side door of a theater and someone handing them a package and said “This is your life. There is a dressing room over there. Put it on.”

    I think that maybe the reason that so many Silent parents stressed autonomy and self-determination for their children is because they felt like they had so little. They may have lived by that moral code, but they chafed under it. Their lives were handed to them, and they did their “duty”, but I think a lot of it was done resentfully. My brother cheated on his wife for over 25 years until he dumped her in an unceremonious divorce. She didn’t drink, wasn’t a drug-addict, and didn’t beat the kids. But, he wasn’t haaaaappy in his marriage to her. My sister’s husband walked out one day after 37 years of marriage, and didn’t even leave a note. Apparently, he wasn’t haaaaappy in his marriage, either.

    Some days I just have to think about that old bumper sticker –
    “This is only a test. If this were your real life, you would have been given better instructions.”

    Really good thread taking shape, here.

  227. laceagate says:

    All this was quite unnerving to me, a young husband, who had seen this only a couple of times before we married. She had warned me about it but a verbal warning didn’t prepare me for the enormity and length of her crying jags. At first I thought I needed to do something to fix it.

    No one tells young men about this. Since men are naturally inclined to want to fix, the thought that you cannot intervene is probably very unsettling.

    After I learned that talking, pleading and “counseling” did nothing to stop the crying, I figured that this was just how she was and I needed to stand back and let her feel whatever it was she was feeling. This was the first piece of “Game” I learned, without knowing anything about Game. Most of the time the crying had nothing to do with me. I just stood by, got the tissue boxes and a glass of water, and stood like an oak tree until the storm passed.

    As a wife, I can say that is what most women would want.

  228. Elspeth says:

    It’s not disgusting. If women were like men then what would be the point? The balance is what makes relationships worthwhile.

    This. Thank you, Ulysses.

  229. Doug1 says:

    Brendan–

    the more common pattern is that the woman found you manly/dominant/sexy/alphaish enough before you were married, but that, after getting married, the guy begins to get a bit comfortable in the marriage and becomes more beta. This seems particularly common after children arrive, but it can also happen before.

    Some of his growing more beta probably usually is him getting too comfortable after being married for a bit. If he puts on some fat that’s probably mostly for that reason and well not taking the time and finding the discipline to work out.

    But a bunch of it is that 1) his wife will be instinctively trying to make him more beta to increase her comfort, decrease the risk of him cheating on her with hotter women, and so on; and 2) American feminist mass entertainment culture is suffused with messages that men should defer to their wives, apologize for anything and everything that she gets upset about, placate their wives, and always tell their wife in or certainly after any argument that she was right and he’s sorry – all of which are terribly beta.

  230. zed says:

    I now understand women are women, and I understand they are ALL fucking disgusting. ALL OF THEM! I just figured that out with this thread.

    @Joshua,

    That disgusting taste is the candy coating of “sugar and spice, and everything nice” dissolving in your mouth and the sometimes bitter taste of reality coming through.

    Women are no more – or less – disgusting than men are. They are flawed human beings capable of some nobility and a great deal of perversity.

    I think that women cracked you on the head when they fell off the pedestal. You’ll get over it once you get used to the idea.

    And that, right there, is the harm that pedestalizers and white knights do to women by pretending they are so perfect – creating bitter disappointment in men when they realize the truth.

  231. zed says:

    It’s probably because the silents weren’t always very happy with their situation, and chafed somewhat against it, and wanted something different for their own kids.

    I just said almost exactly the same thing, Brendan. Our observations of the situation seem to concur.

  232. Doug1 says:

    Brendan—

    @ruddyturnstone—“If marriage can’t be a refuge of honesty and intimacy, then I don’t think it is really marriage. It is an endless pickup.”

    It can be viewed that way, I think. Or endless courtship, probably more appropriately. Again, whether one is willing to do this depends, I think, in large part on how much one wants to have successful relationships/marriages with women in an environment like ours where the cultural and legal model is hedonic marriage.

    Hedonic marriage is a really good point. Feminists brute out the message that if women are feeling strongly IN LOVE and greatly sexually attracted to their husbands anymore a number of years into a marriage, even if there are kids she “owes it to herself” to find happiness again, with the fantasy that she’ll land a faithful alpha lover and then new husband.

    Except it’s a one way hedonic cultural message. Men are culturally expected to remain committed to their marriage, work harder on it, please their wives, and make it work. If they divorce to find fresh love again with another woman, particularly if younger, men are reviled as faithless cads and terribly selfish, bad fathers. The double standard is thick as hell.

  233. Inertia says:

    Dalrock, that’s not fair. I only posted yesterday night; how soon do you want me to reply? Some of us have this thing called work, which we have to do before we can get to the really important stuff.

    Ulysses: of course the tactics were consistent with my personality, how else could they be. I also try to make them consistent with her personality.

    So what went wrong? I don’t want to go into too much detail as this is not a therapy session. But I will say this. But I will say this. When perusing the posts/comments about the married Game I get a strong impressions that the Game proponents either had no kids when they turned to Game, or were getting serious help with child care. This was not my situation. Now I love my kids, which I suppose is my weakness, Game-wise. My wife exploits this to the hilt. Great majority of her shit tests / power trips and the bad behaviour in general — is her demanding I do this or that for the children. And these are clearly shit tests: “You will do exactly as I say or else!!!” (exact quote on multiple occasions). So how do I pass these tests? Do you refuse to give in to her — and deny care to my child?

    Well, I tried that, at least with some of the more pointless and humiliating demands. Those were the experiences that tended toward the disastrous end of the spectrum. The end result? You know, the litany of my sins that my wife uses to hit me over the head with? It now has a new item — “bad father.”

  234. Doug1 says:

    Dalrock–

    My natural state isn’t to be a supplicating beta. I didn’t do it because I enjoyed it, I did it because I love my wife and everyone said that is how you show it. As for tiring, since it is pretty natural it isn’t tiring at all. It really is quite fun. I get to enjoy her being a woman, and she can enjoy me being a man. What is tiring (absolutely exhausting) is playing by the wrong instruction set.

    Yeah, well put. Just so.

    As TFH and I and many others have said a lot of learning game is unlearning bad American feminist programming and propaganda transmitted in schools, entertainment media and very possibly homes.

  235. Brendan says:

    I just said almost exactly the same thing, Brendan. Our observations of the situation seem to concur.

    I think so, Zed. There really was no “golden past”. It’s all relative, really.

  236. Joshua says:

    @ Ulysses

    Who said i wanted women to be like men. Yes their behavior is disgusting. Regardless if it is natural or not, its disgusting.

    @ zed

    im not new to the manosphere, been here 3 yrs strong. I haven’t had women on the pedestal in a while. so im not exactly sure how to respond to your post. I understand everyone here is saying women are women. But everything here is disgusting. everything. any person acting in these manners is a disgusting person. How are they not?

  237. Doug1 says:

    Rudeyturnstone—

    Again, if it was natural, why did you have to “learn” anything? Why didn’t you simply stop doing all that unnatural stuff that wasn’t working anyway? For many man, doing Game is exhausting. Even if you’re not one of them.

    Because he didn’t know what aspect of what he was doing was having opposite effect from what he wanted. He didn’t know that women want men to pass shit tests by being non chalant about them in various ways, rather than appeasing them and supplicating. And so on.

    You don’t know enough about game to object to it or evaluate how much “work” it is once you’ve learned it.

    I’ll grant that for guys like you learning decent game will be hard work. But it isn’t when and if you get it down and it all makes sense to you. Learning game will change you some, if you get good at it. It will make you more socially skilled and confidant, especially but not only with women. However not all betas can make it to less alpha. Still getting up to a sold 7 greater beta ought to enable you to attract and keep attracted a pretty marriage minded girl. Not so much for fast casual sex. That’s one hell of a lot better than e.g. a lesser beta 4 can do. Remember also that game isn’t the only attractor. Roissy lists them in order of importance (and I think he’s about right) as being status, game, looks (mostly fitness and height, and having a strong kind of look), and money or the potential for it. For marriage the last two might often be reversed.

  238. zed says:

    But everything here is disgusting. everything. any person acting in these manners is a disgusting person. How are they not?

    They aren’t if you don’t hold them up to standard of perfection that no one can live up to, and accept them as imperfect human beings, Joshua.

    I didn’t intend to talk down to you, Joshua, and I apologize if you felt that I was.

    Over at HUS a poster (I think it was Dogsquat, but it could have been Badger or even Private Man) said that “men will punish women for not being sugar and spice and everything nice.”

    My own personal interpretation of that is that men will take out their disappointment on women when women turn out to be less perfect and morally superior than they, women, or their white-knight/mangina cheerleaders claim they are.

    In other words, we are suing them emotionally for false advertising.

    For some reason, I never pedestalized women, and always believed that good and evil were equally distributed among both sexes.

    Perhaps having to come to terms with the fact that my own brother dumped his wife who never did anything at all harmful that I knew of, and the worst thing anyone could say about her was that she was a disappointment to my brother. I either have to accept him as a flawed human being, or estrange myself from him. I chose to maintain our relationship, even though it is strained for other reasons.

    The only women I really think are disgusting are the really sanctimonious ones – like the one that just got fisked by 7man over on his blog, or the wife in Fireproof. Those who set themselves up as high and mighty are quite gratifying to watch being brought low.

  239. I don’t think women are any more disgusting than men. Men do bad things, typically in public. Women save their worst behaviour for private life.

    Inertia, I have three children. They certainly affect the dynamic, but they have not stopped me getting what I want for them and myself. You have to have boundaries with your kids too. I am firm with my 17 y.o. daughter. It is like with one’s wife; you worry that being firm will make them not love you. But they still love you. Some of the Game principles apply with children.

    Or perhaps you meant something else. I certainly accept that having babies and toddlers around tends to feminise a man (I have seen claims that testosterone levels actually fall).

  240. Joshua says:

    @Zed-“They aren’t if you don’t hold them up to standard of perfection that no one can live up to, and accept them as imperfect human beings, Joshua.”

    I don’t think i hold out for anyone to be perfect mainly because i am not. But i think you all have lowered the bar through the floor for woman. All of the behaviors everyone is saying are normal are disgusting. All of it. explain to me how these aren’t. I’m just talking about the behaviors not the women themselves.

  241. Doug1 says:

    Rum—

    It is OK to reveal vulnerability but only in tiny, carefully rationed doses. Always remember that she cannot help or control her reactions to men. It is her deep nature to want to be around strength. She will start to hate you the instant you totally forget that. Because you are denying her something that she craves.

    Yeah. Your overall frame or personality in her eyes must be strong, and male dominant.

    I don’t know about hate unless she’s a real drama queen, but yeah she will definitely feel a lot less attracted to you and or even a bit creeped out. Women have glimmers of understanding when they taking about not wanting to have to mother a boyfriend or husband, but that’s an extreme caricature of the behaviors that will turn by far most women off. So much so that men don’t realize it applies to their asking their wives to make decisions as to where to eat etc. all the time.

  242. deti says:

    Inertia:

    I’ve been in the manosphere about 8 months. Had two kids. Wife is a stay at home mother.

    You have a tough situation. Does your wife work? Why is she so unwilling to compromise or see your side of things?

    A few observations:
    1. Some observed upthread that some women are not amenable to Game. Your wife might be one of them. Some women are outliers in that they have a very masculine frame. It’s great for work but not so for a marriage. If that is your situation, the amount of Game she’d need would be very, very high. If either of these is the case, my prayers are with you, because I think it will be very very difficult to save your marriage.

    2. In a marriage, the spouse’s needs come first, then the kids (or at least that’s how it should be). If she doesn’t have that attitude, something is very wrong.

    3. I don’t know that “You will do exactly as I say or else!!” in conjunction with denying care to your child is a fitness test. It depends on the context. If you have to have someone to care for the child, either scheduling or otherwise, then it doesn’t sound like a fitness test. If she’s using the children to manipulate you into doing what she wants, it’s worse than a fitness test.

    4. The “You will do exactly as I say or else!!” and calling you a bad father is borderline abusive in just about any context. What’s her problem? Is she diabetic and in a sugar fit? Does she have brain chemical imbalances? Is she in therapy? Under a lot of work stress?

    5. She plays the “all the bad things you are/did” game with you. This is where she throws back in your face that terrible thing you did/said 5 or 6 or 10 years ago. No amount of supplication, apology or repentance is ever enough. I stop these with “I told you I was sorry. That is the end of it. I’m not going to talk further about ancient history.” And when you apologize for something wrong that you did, you apologize once and only once, and it is not to be spoken of again.

  243. zed says:

    All of the behaviors everyone is saying are normal are disgusting. All of it. explain to me how these aren’t. I’m just talking about the behaviors not the women themselves.

    Le’s drop the subject, Joshua. Just chalk it up to the fact that being disgusted takes a lot of energy, and I’m too old and tired to get all fussed about it.

  244. Tim says:

    @David Collard,

    For those awfully nasty remarks the other day, my apologies. Sometimes I am an ass, but it won’t happen again.

  245. Doug1 says:

    ruddyturnstone–

    Game isn’t the only thing you need to have to up your odds of not being ass reamed in marriage and divorce 2.0. You need to choose your wife very carefully and have some strong understandings with her. She has to be very anti divorce, even if the marriage goes through hard periods as most do, especially if there are kids. She has to not have been a slut. The has to realize that in all likelihood her feelings of being intensely in love, as opposed to loving her husband partly as a matter of commitment and will, will dissipate a number of years into marriage. That happens in by far most marriages and to some extent in all of them if they entered the marriage in an intense feeling of being in love. In other words she has to be firmly committed not divorcing if their are kids simply because she’s no longer madly and involuntarily in love. Dalrock’s got a real good post on choosing a wife which you could find using google site search.

    But also you need a prenup. It will be easier to get her to go for it if you’re living together. You should be reluctant to marry, instead preferring to continue living together instead. Then when she keeps hinting / pressing you, tell her you’d only be willing to marry her or any other woman you loved if she’s sign a prenup which more or less mimicked living together in the event of a divorce. You can’t specify child custody or child support=also stealth alimony in a legally binding way in a prenup, but you can split property according to who has title or has possession or bought it if it’s not clearly a gift, and so on. You can both waive alimony. If she won’t sign a prenup that gets at least pretty close to this, tell her you won’t marry her. Women file for divorce 2.5x as often as men do and divorce lawyers say that in college educated couples with kids, women are behind divorce about 90% of the time. She’s the one that needs to be deincented towards divorce, and you’re the one that needs to be protected from divorce theft.

  246. Doug1 says:

    Brendan–

    Here is where I disagree with some of Game theory. I really do not believe that men who are marrying today are any more beta *in the home* than men were in the silent generation and probably 1-2 generations before at least. The difference is women have more options now, which means if they are not kept happy (not in a supplicating way, but in a Game way) you are running a great risk of being divorce raped. In earlier generations this was not a risk that was run by men for simply having bored wives. The whole meaning of marriage changed from an institution primarily about raising the next generation and passing on wealth to one primarily about self-actualization, fulfillment and happiness. And you have to realize that if you want to enter it today.

    I agree with all of this except the bolded (by me) part. I strongly disagree with that. I think each of the three generations since the WWII fighting silent one has become progressively more beta, less masculine and more pussy whipped at home in marriages. The baby boomers (which I’m at the tail end of) didn’t grow up under strong erasing sex differences by emasculating boy’s instinct towards roughhouse and dominance over girls feminism at elementary and middle schools nor in feminist households by and large, but they faced relentless pro feminist propaganda in university if they were in the middle to late part of it anyway. Gen X was immersed in feminism from the get go in schools and mass entertainment, and middle and above class whites grew up in fatherless homes as teens at least far more than before. Gen Y just extended these trends further plus if white and middle class or above their parents had been thoroughly feminism indoctrinated as to what’s the right way for boys, and girrrrl power girls to behave toward the opposite sex and generally. I.e. male dominance of girls was evil and criminally suspect even.

  247. That’s OK Tim. I can be annoying at times, I know.

  248. Doug1 says:

    David–

    Some of the Game principles apply with children.

    I think about all the game principals work with daughters and some with sons. More in a role model way with sons but yeah also being firm but encouraging. Of course with daughters more comfort and less aloof than with wives, but teasing works great, as does playful strong but caring, loving male dominance etc.

  249. Doug1 says:

    ruddyturnstone–

    I don’t want a marriage like that. I doubt most men do.

    I do and have it. Or rather a 5+ year live together LTR. It’s how I naturally am, after I self unleashed from some internalized feminist and white knighting propaganda decades ago. I did so by closely observing guys who were best at getting hot and popular girls, and what did and didn’t work for me, starting in middle school. I guess I was probably a greater beta starting middle school, due to that bad propaganda. I never bought into or liked the feminist effort to make the personal sexual relations of people be political, i.e. subject to feminist propaganda and an effort to remake male and female intimate relations and power dynamics. I always STRONGLY want to be dominant with women, and was once I was in a relationship, but it took me awhile to figure out how to start things out in a game (which I thought of as the art of seduction back then) effective way.

  250. Doug1 says:

    ruddyturnstone–

    I sounds to me like you can’t / won’t understand game even at a rudimentary level, and probably aren’t even with lots of effort you’re not willing to put in, any kind of alpha or probably greater beta material.

    Good luck with that in the American relationship scene, unless you’re happy going after 4’s and south.

  251. 7man says:

    @Inertia
    Game will not work on a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) woman and will make it worse. Some of what you wrote is extreme behavior typical of BPD traits. Maybe 5% to 10% of women are BPD or show moderate BPD behavior. I suggest you spend some time reading at shrink4men.

    It is quite a shock to read some of the stories. It is possible you might find some answers there but if so the implications might be difficult to accept. Whether you learn the truth or not will in no way change the truth.

  252. Inertia says:

    Here is another thing I learned from my gaming attempts.

    If all you need to game your wife is teasing and an occasional slap on the butt, then you have what in earlier ages had been referred to as “happy marriage”.

    If, on the other hand, your marriage is positional warfare with maybe occasional ceasefires, then Gaming = forcefully and CREDIBLY letting your wife know that you could, and would, walk away at any moment. And being prepared to do so. That’s what all these techniques amount to.

    I was not willing to go that far. Perhaps I should’ve been. Maybe, if I did, I would’ve had a sweet and compliant wife by now (or, more likely, would’ve been divorced). If my wife lived with this sword over her head, this knowledge that I can take off at any time, it would probably improve our relationship. But here is the problem: my oldest is now old enough to understand these things. I shudder to think what this knowledge might have done to him.

  253. I noticed that my late brother used to get fawning love from my mother and grandmother despite his low level of criminal and feckless behaviour. I used to wonder about their tolerance. I now think that some of it was his unconsciously gaming them. He had wonderful street smarts. I once found him in bed with a gorgeous young uni student. Apparently, she was besotted with him. He wasn’t a thug. He just used to charm their panties off. I suspect he was a natural. In the end, it caught up with him, and the charm must have worn off. But when he was young, people loved him.

  254. deti says:

    “If, on the other hand, your marriage is positional warfare with maybe occasional ceasefires, then Gaming = forcefully and CREDIBLY letting your wife know that you could, and would, walk away at any moment. And being prepared to do so. That’s what all these techniques amount to.”

    Yep. I’ve let my wife know subtly that I don’t want to, last resort, absolutely would try to avoid it but — if it really came down to it, there are things she could do that would end our marriage. No woman is irreplaceable.

    I would walk if I had to.

  255. Pechorin says:

    Bonald uses Martin Buber’s I / Thou distinction to distinguish between manipulating and communicating with a women. He should remember that Thou was used in two different ways: when addressing God, and when addressing inferiors. Pedestalizers think that a thou-relationship with a women is like the former – in fact it is at least as much like the latter.

  256. Höllenhund says:

    @Ulysses

    I highly doubt anyone here or any other blog in the so-called Manosphere would implore women to become more like men. Women seem to become very bad and insufferable caricatures of men whenever they try to do something like that.

  257. Höllenhund says:

    @TFH

    I’d argue men and women both tend to be disgusting but in different ways.

  258. Dalrock says:

    @Inertia

    Dalrock, that’s not fair. I only posted yesterday night; how soon do you want me to reply? Some of us have this thing called work, which we have to do before we can get to the really important stuff.

    Fair point on the timing, but it is still true that you gave us nothing to work with beyond “game doesn’t work” in your original comment.

  259. Ulysses says:

    Hollenhund and Justin – I wasn’t suggesting that women should act like men or that anyone here wants them to. My only dispute was with the idea that normal female behavior is disgusting.

  260. Dalrock says:

    @TFH

    Always remember that 80% of men and 99% of women have no capacity to grasp what Game is, why it works, and why it is a toolbox of tools, more than anything else.

    You can explain it in the most profound and punctilious detail, and they will-never-get-it.

    I don’t have a lot of data points here, but my own observation is that in general women are more open to the basic concept of game than men are. Where they tend to get stuck is they can fairly easily see where other women are like that, but they themselves of course would never respond that way. Even here though it is specific to some of the harder to swallow parts of game. Most men seem to have a stronger investment in the nonsense they have believed about women their entire lives. The older they are, the more invested they are in their lifetime accumulation of knowledge which just doesn’t happen to work very well.

    The Ptolemaic Model of astronomy seems like a very close analogy. If you spent your life learning esoteric fix after esoteric fix to a fundamentally flawed model, you have an incentive to believe that all of your years patching the broken model weren’t wasted.

  261. tiredofitall says:

    As a teen until my late 20’s I did my best to find a woman to share my life with, but ultimately I realized something.

    It was way too much work for so little reward.

    Every, and I mean every relationship I was in seemed to be nothing but a struggle and a fight with the woman. I could do no right, no matter what I did. Shower her with love, I was smothering her. Ignore her, and I was a heartless jerk. Even with game all it did for me was barely help manage a woman’s expectations in a relationship.

    I understand there are people who believe that there is one person out there that is right for them, but in my experience it’s simply not worth it if I have to run myself through hoops and pretend to be something I’m not just to maintain a relationship.

  262. Lily says:

    Doug, have you ever read any Somerset Maugham? If you haven’t, I recommend strongly should be able to get collection of short stories on Amazon.com. Some people may have seen the film, the Painted Veil which was based on one of his books, but really need to read the stories.

  263. Paragon says:

    ‘Game’ is entirely dependent on other ‘gina-tingling’ variables that have nothing to do with game – it is *not* a proxy for attraction.

    So, all ‘game’ can conceivably do, is ‘maximize’ a man’s opportunities on a case by case basis(no gina tingle, no ‘game’ optimization opportunities).

    Dominance simply doesn’t factor into this assessment, in any shape or form(beyond spurious, tingle-mediated attribution affects).

    Game merely tries to indoctrinate males on how to establish psychological leverage(by bluffing females, and learning to appreciate subtleties in female duplicity).

    Ergo, for the vast majority of low (mating)status males, it is game of negligible value.

  264. greyghost says:

    Inertia
    I was not willing to go that far. Perhaps I should’ve been. Maybe, if I did, I would’ve had a sweet and compliant wife by now (or, more likely, would’ve been divorced). If my wife lived with this sword over her head, this knowledge that I can take off at any time, it would probably improve our relationship. But here is the problem: my oldest is now old enough to understand these things. I shudder to think what this knowledge might have done to him.

    This is where you need to focus.Teach game to your son. Learn as much as you can and go out into public and “game” women in public. Listen to converstions and see if you can predict what will be said next. Learn to have fun with “game’ (female psychology) and be able to sniff out bad women for marriage. Or just plain learn to pull ass to enjoy and get rid of until you find one worthy. You can give your son a skill and a head start in life Have fun and enjoy the time with your boy..

  265. greyghost says:

    Dalrock
    I don’t have a lot of data points here, but my own observation is that in general women are more open to the basic concept of game than men are. Where they tend to get stuck is they can fairly easily see where other women are like that, but they themselves of course would never respond that way. Even here though it is specific to some of the harder to swallow parts of game. Most men seem to have a stronger investment in the nonsense they have believed about women their entire lives. The older they are, the more invested they are in their lifetime accumulation of knowledge which just doesn’t happen to work very well

    I’ve been really spending a lot of time coaching my wife In her new career as an elementary school teacher. Most of my game knowkedge is spent explaining the behavior of her fellow teachers and how she is just as dumb as they are. The status competition among grown college educated women is unbelievable. I spent the first year on leadership and explaining to her how to lead her class room without having to spend effort on disciplining. make classroom discipline a no factor. She has done wonders and has had a lot of success.
    One of the things i went over with her was a concept i had no word for but came up with for her was the essence of who you are. Some people learn things as part of culture or invironment and it becomes part of who they are. reguardless of how illogical or painful it is. Because to change is like admitting your life and not just a concept or idea was wrong. Some people find it more comfortable to live a lie than to live the truth when the essence of who they are is questioned or shown to be a lie.

  266. pb says:

    “I spent the first year on leadership and explaining to her how to lead her class room without having to spend effort on disciplining. make classroom discipline a no factor. She has done wonders and has had a lot of success.”

    I’m curious – how does she handle the true behavior problems then? And how does she handle normal energetic boys?

  267. Paragon says:

    I would also like to question ‘shit-testing’, as any kind of a fitness test.

    In order for a fitness test to be reliable, it must screen for ‘honest’ signals.

    And in order for a signal to be ‘honest’, it must entail high and differentiable costs while communicating some quantity of evolutionary/fitness value(thus, resisting falsification).

    The problem with the shit-test-as-a-fitness-test, theory, is that it fails to specify what quantities of evolutionary value a shit-test is effective in screening for(in a way that eliminates obvious confounders).

    Is it a question of energetic investment?

    If so, then the successful negotiation of these ‘tests’ should be strongly mediated by differential investment in a ‘particular’ female(and thus begs the question of why ‘stalking’ is not seen as a fitness display).

    Or, is it ‘wit’, or general sociality?

    If so, then this theory likewise begs for a more rigorous test methodology to support it(esp given that shit-testing is not obviously suited to screening for sociality in a way that incurs enough cost to justify its relative scrutiny).

    It occurs, that shit-testing is not a test at all, but is either a strategic bluff in embellishing female sexual value(in context of a male approach).

    Or, an expression of resentment in being entangled in a LTR, which poses obvious trade-offs in short-term goals(ie. she resents having a long-term mate who ‘tingles’ her less than other prospective mates).

    Thus, I believe that many cases where a husband purports to be successfully ‘gaming’ his wife, is nothing more than a spurious observation in ego validation(ie. after a period of anxiety and ambivalence over conflicting, time-variant, evolutionary concerns, *she* makes a value-judgment to preserve his long-term investment at the cost of *obvious* extrapair mating/carousel riding).

    And this all underscores my main issue with game, in that it has an unfortunate tendency to circulate fashionable *nonsense*, at the expense of knowledge(even amongst those in the manosphere who, I would think, should know better).

    I mean, if you want to appreciate the subtleties of probability and statistics, should you necessarily inquire upon someone who won the lottery?

    Of course not!

    Likewise, if one wants to appreciate behavioral phenomenon with a basis in sexual evolution, don’t inquire upon some douchebag PUA, but rather make inquiries into a synthesis of scientific basis(like honest signalling theory, zoology, sexual evolution, etc).

  268. John Robie says:

    “I also gently tease her and make sure she knows she is my woman.”

    It’s almost like gently teasing and running away from women works better than chasing them for sex…! Pretty deep post, thanks.

  269. Paragon

    I have argued here that shit testing is costly signalling:

    http://davidcollard.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/game-as-costly-signalling/

    Here is an interesting recent BloggingHeads discussion, in which Roy Baumeister (who I think has written on men’s issues) discusses his work on self-control. He points out that self-control is lowered when a human being is immunologically challenged and unwell (with the flu, for example). One possible value of shit testing might be to check if the man is fit and able to control his emotions and actions to a normal degree.

    http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/39950

    No doubt there are other possible aspects to shit testing as a fitness test, but this is the kind of possibility to look at perhaps.

  270. Paragon says:

    @ Zed

    “And, interestingly, understanding Game explains why the women I disliked the most and treated the worst were the hardest to get rid of, and the woman I liked the most and lapsed into my normal niceguy self always flaked on me.”

    You needed ‘game’ to infer that some population of sufficiently unattractive women lower their expectations accordingly, and persist out of a perceived limit in opportunities?

  271. mjay says:

    Marriage is joke. Have a girlfriend or two or three, keep one or two in rotation and enjoy life.

    The wage-slave betas who are in legal bondage to their wives are the only ones happy in marriage, happy because the burden of being free and making decisions has been taken from them.

  272. HeligKo says:

    Bah marriage 2.0 sucks. I am glad Dalrock found something good with game, but I am much happier 10 minutes away from my BP wife, and so is she. Feminism has broken marriage. I was a true believer. I wanted a wife and kids, and life ever after with her, but she doesn’t want that, and after years of fighting it, I am done. I am not willing to game my wife every moment to have harmony. I can game a few women when I am around them and get what I want. I blame the church for fucking this shit up. I was on top of my game until I decided to settle down, and then I bought all the preachers BS and became a “Nice Guy.” I am done with it. I will accept that women are at their core looking for serial monogamy. What they don’t know won’t hurt them, so I will play two to four at any time. They can be monogamous, and I can not. What sucks is my 4 kids have to deal with the fallout of not living with both of us at the same time. They break my heart. Kids stay the fuck away from marriage until things change, and get your the V, so no dumb ass princess can trap you.

  273. Paragon, I have a comment on signalling in moderation. It has some links.

    On the matter of women liking you more as you like them less, this applies to attractive women of whom one tires. I saw this plainly when I was trying to dump an attractive but bitchy girl.

    The best piece of girl advice I ever heard was a casual remark from a bloke in college – “Treat them mean to keep them keen”. There is more wisdom in those seven words than in a library of standard books on marriage for men.

  274. greyghost says:

    pb
    I’m curious – how does she handle the true behavior problems then? And how does she handle normal energetic boys?

    Believe it or not the leadership principles my wife uses in the classroom are the same ones i learned and used in the marine corp. Most of the ideas and the explainations behind them come from a deployment on an aircraft carrier. First thing people (men and children. A lot of this stuff doesn’t seem work the same with woman) will play It almost seemed just natural. It may be just young men because at 27 i was an old guy. They will get in their fuck off time it doesn’t matter how hard and assholish you try to be. What marines will do is hide out by taking longer than normal to finish task, argue about all of the stuff they have to do and generally have to be looked for. Kids are the same way what kids do is act out. they become noisey. make jokes, and seem to misbehave ,for the hell of it. Another source for discipline problems and was something I learned from talking with my wife was masking from low academic ability or from high ability. Another facter is the majoriity of the kids are black kids and the social bagage that comes with racial politics
    So what she does is teach all of the kids at a high level and with high standards. She uses a lot of out of your seat up and about in classroom involvement. Also very important to constantly teach no sit still and be quiet stuff. By her style of teaching it allows her to notice issues the high functioning kids are discipline problems and the the poor teaching style of the sit still be quiet and do your work will create kids that can’t read that are pushed to keep up appearances. What I have found is black kids in general culturally do not sit still and be quiet very well and will quickly become “bad kids” It was funny how her “bad kids” with actual teaching turned out to be some of her highest scoring students. due to the universal nature of testing in Texas. I was happy but not surprised to see that “at risk” black kids can score as well on standized testing as any kids reguardless of who they are and where they come from.
    Overall she is like the the character in bad teacher opposite Diaz’s character combined with ‘major Pane’ sprinkled with all of the observed and discussed female nature from attention whoring to childish competition (never stops)

  275. greyghost says:

    Oh one more thing She has found some of her smartest students are the little boys. (2nd grade).

  276. Timmy says:

    One thing that annoys me about the peddlers of “game”, are the ones like TFH who treat it as some sort of miracle, fix everything solution to all life’s problems. Bad enough we have people who think PUAs are helping the average beta (ie, loser) male, and not just benefiting from the downfall of our society.

  277. SamIam says:

    Jeff –
    But here’s my question: Is there a GAME 101 out there?

    Hawaiian Libertarian recently put up a nice piece which links to some articles written by John Ross (who apparently did not writer much on the subject) which I thought were a great introduction:
    post from Keoni: http://hawaiianlibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/11/got-game.html
    and the articles he links to:
    http://web.archive.org/web/20070503123349/http://www.john-ross.net/abby.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20070110024257/http://www.john-ross.net/advice.htm

    Roissy’s 16 commandments are also required reading.

  278. Doug1 says:

    Chels–

    I would also appreciate some advice on this–I’m soon going overseas with my bf for a few weeks, and I’m so nervous because I’m meeting his friends from there for the first time, I’m especially nervous of meeting his best friend, they’ve been friends since daycare! In addition to that, we’re going to be living with his parents during that time, and that is also nervewrecking :s

    I told my bf that I’m shaking in my pants, that I’m very anxious, and all he tells is to be myself (definitely not helpful). These are the people that actually count and that matter to him, so I don’t want them to dislike me, are there any dos/don’ts?

    PS: I’m not afraid of cultural differences, we have the same ethnicity.

    Be nice, complimentary and loving to your bf in front of them, with too much open sexual PDA’s. Be friendly to them. Pretty simple really.

  279. Doug1 says:

    Anonymous Female–

    A woman who is experiencing extreme anxiety or is severely depressed is not going to respond well to negs.

    True. Calibration to the particular woman as well as adaptation to your own strengths as Ulysses pointed out is always important.

    Such a woman is likely to respond well to your being her oak tree though, as well as to comfort and warmth — but not making it into your fault.

  280. Doug1 says:

    Zed–

    Unless a man is already completely sold on marriage, is there anything about Game that makes any particular woman any more pleasant to be around?

    No, but there’s plenty about individual women that does. I definitely want girls for more than sex and only get into relationships with them if the offer more, a lot more.

  281. Dalrock says:

    @TFH

    Before the Internet, a man could be forgiven for never seeing reality. But at this point, a man who still has not discovered Game (let alone discovered it and rejects it), is someone who never did a basic Google search along the lines of ‘doing better with women’ or ‘attracting women’.

    Whenever I want to learn about *anything*, doing such a search is Step 1. For a man to never have even done such a search reveals a very incurious mind, and one who is unlikely to adapt well to a world that increasingly separates the ‘knows’ from the ‘know nots’.

    If all of the advice you have ever been offered on women turned out to be nonsense, why would you seek out even more advice? Unless men know there is something else they aren’t likely to come looking for it. I think game will spread most quickly by word of mouth amongst high school aged and to a lesser degree college aged men. The internet will be the method by which the details and more advanced concepts are learned, but the basic communication of game will come from word of mouth.

    In the simplest sense, the question to ask is : “Are the attributes that make a man attractive to women learnable skills, that improve with practice?”.

    Now, if ‘yes’, then there is at least a chance of a dialog. But if ‘no’, then it is not worth wasting another minute on the man in question.

    Good point. Those men who are close to having success with women are probably the bottom threshold of those willing to listen to game. At some point it probably becomes easier to rationalize that failure isn’t your fault and/or success isn’t worth it than to learn how to get better at something. To be fair, not all men would benefit equally from learning game anyway. Like anything else there is the question of aptitude. I have a rudimentary understanding of game, and with more study and practice could certainly get better. But some here like Doug1 and Gorbachev have an obvious talent. Their solutions to game related problems are far more elegant than the ones I would ever come up with myself. Odds and his answer to the Game for Pastors question comes to mind as well.

    Interestingly though even the young men who resist the basic premise of game seem to still soak in some of the basic depedistalization. They approach it from a place of bitterness, but they still learn that women aren’t the morally superior sex which our societal messages constantly blast out.

  282. pb says:

    Thanks greyghost!

  283. Doug1 says:

    Lily–

    Doug, have you ever read any Somerset Maugham? If you haven’t, I recommend strongly should be able to get collection of short stories on Amazon.com. Some people may have seen the film, the Painted Veil which was based on one of his books, but really need to read the stories.

    I read Of Human Bondage many years ago, and also saw the movie. Saw Painted Veil.

    Basically the types of relationships he wrights about make me shudder.

  284. greyghost says:

    Anonymous Female–

    A woman who is experiencing extreme anxiety or is severely depressed is not going to respond well to negs.
    reply from Doug1
    True. Calibration to the particular woman as well as adaptation to your own strengths as Ulysses pointed out is always important.

    try to remember game is femalale psychology. a woman in the stae of being as described by Anonymous Female will need to be just told. Get decicision making out of her hands. and she needs to be made aware the being depressed is an easy way to find herself alone. But unless she has hostages to hold against you only i would only spend time with a woman like that to develope a style to deal with depression so you can use what is learned or just have a starting point for some one that matters like one of my daughters a few years from now. Other wise I wouldn’t waste time on the attention whore.

  285. Paragon says:

    @ David Collard

    “One possible value of shit testing might be to check if the man is fit and able to control his emotions and actions to a normal degree.”

    To a normal degree?

    This suggests that shit-testing should be trivially negotiated by the average male.

    But it raises a further question, in how is ‘shit-testing’ a relatively efficient, and reliable measure of evolutionary value, beyond it’s circular premise of a fitness-test(ie. how did these male traits under scrutiny *evolve* – what advantages did they confer *before* they became correlated with female ‘shit-testing’)?

    But, allow me to further clarify my position.

    I believe the only male fitness test mediated by female-choice, is *reproductive success*(obviously correlated with sexual success).

    The amount of bullshit a male has to wade through(ie. where factors in sexual conflict mediate the frequency of successful males who ‘pass’ the test), is simply a proxy measure of *handicapping load*.

    Thus, less energetically liable males(those for whom sexual-conflict-mediated handicaps are mitigated by indications of genetic quality, like physical attractiveness, etc), are displaying *higher* fitness.

    This explanation also unifies the observation that men can get laid without incurring any obvious form of shit-testing(again, unless we stretch definitions to where they become meaningless – which seems to be an unfortunate requirement of reconciling ridiculous PUA notions about the way evolutionary systems actually work).

    I really think the Manosphere would have more credibility if it stopped pandering to demonstratedly spurious PUA conventions.

  286. Paragon says:

    @ David Collard

    “On the matter of women liking you more as you like them less, this applies to attractive women of whom one tires. I saw this plainly when I was trying to dump an attractive but bitchy girl.”

    One could argue that if you were displaying sufficient indications of genetic quality, she would have made for more agreeable company.

    Thus, perhaps she was sabotaging the relationship, in passive aggressive terms(which is a strategic optima of females – considering inferior aptitudes – given that passive aggression shifts the energetic onus onto other parties).

  287. zed says:

    Well, Dalrock, you certainly have tapped into a major ripple in the zeitgeist. Much of the manosphere is talking about the topics that your last few posts have focused on. I have read quite a few blogs this week beating at one aspect or another of what I call the “Game Dilemma.”

    There are two glaring divisions between men that stand out in every discussion I read – between secular and religious men, and between young and old men.

    Interestingly though even the young men who resist the basic premise of game seem to still soak in some of the basic depedistalization. They approach it from a place of bitterness, but they still learn that women aren’t the morally superior sex which our societal messages constantly blast out.

    Sorry, Dalrock, I do my best to respect the fact that you are a believer, but it is not our “societal messages” which blast it out – it is the religious belief that sex is bad and that women are morally superior to men because they don’t like sex – or at least as much as men like it. And, just in case any woman out there actually admits to liking sex, she has to be slammed by slut-shaming.

    Strangely, the aftermath of the sexual revolution is turning the culture into a modern day version of the Skoptsy – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy

    Gucci Little Piggy covers the issue fairly well from a secular perspective, http://glpiggy.net/2011/11/22/pegs-in-a-holy-world/ and the social pathologist approaches the same issue from a more religious perspective – http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2011/11/there-are-some-people-who-state-that.html

    What I’m not advocating here is sexual abandon, rather, rather an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of female carnality within the context of Christian marriage. A lusty but faithful wife is a good wife, not abnormal of impure in some way. If we recognize the legitimacy of this female carnality it becomes incumbent upon husbands to cater to it.

    If I could summarize Game in just one or two sentences, it acknowledges that female carnality exists, and is legitimate. And. it teaches men how to cater to it – whether that occurs within a “Christian marriage”, or not.

    And, I will follow that up with a very ugly challenge to Christian men – if you do not cater to your wifes, or acknowledge your daughter’s, LEGITIMATE carnality, it is somewhat likely that she will find a man who does, slut shaming or not.

    It is not the least bit surprising that younger men are starting to really hate older men – particularly the ones who reflexively and without thinking oppose admitting that women actually have a sex drive.
    http://www.staresattheworld.com/2011/11/old-men-take-a-look-at-our-lives/

    There’s a singular narrative I keep hearing from everyone over the age of 45; the same message, the same story, the same prescription – and I have one thing to say to all of you Old Men and Women:

    Shut the fuck up about our sex lives.

    You turned gender into two armed camps, full of traitors, with every incentive in place to betray one another at the drop of a hat. Sex used to be an itterated Prisoners Dilemma, where cooperation was the Nash Equilibrium; now it’s a single shot, every Sex Organ for itself, and the defector always wins… if you can call [Divorced Mother]/[Lonely PUA] winning.

    You started off by poisoning the wells.

    A quote from Deti, commenting on the blog of the esteemed Dalrock:

    …most men who came of age in the 1980s and 90s were not learning these things to be attractive to women. We were not taught any of these things.

    Well, deti, I hate to break it to you, but men who came of age in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s weren’t taught those things, either.

    We were taught – both sexes – to behave in a socially constructive manner. Men were taught to behave in an honorable way toward both women and other men, and women were taught that they should value men who behaved in that way.

    Unfortunately, for both sexes, all that teaching had to be based on one monstrous fiction – that women had no “legitimate” sex drive. Christian boys treated their girlfriends like Madonnas, while their girlfriends turned bitchy because “she felt unloved.” Now we have Christian women like Haley scratching their heads, and dozens of young Christian men enviously watching PMAFT’s success in the Sunday Morning Nightclub and wondering why their faith is punishing them for following it,

    As a guy who has been around MRA circles for years, the social values I learned during the 1950s gave me a knee-jerk aversion to the PUA phenomenon when I first encountered it. To me, it at first sounded like the gender equivalent of men turning into a cross between Leisure Suit Larry and Bernie Madoff.

    It took listening to younger men to understand the world that they had faced – the world that we had left them without realizing that was what we were doing because we were too busy bailing out the leaking boats of our own lives.

    I think Frost_25 puts it very well –

    Paul, let me tell you what it’s like to be a young man today.

    Women’s sexual liberation has turned the sexual marketplace into a winner-take-all jungle, and we have been dropped into this quagmire dick-first. The problem is compounded by our culture’s demonization of healthy masculine values, and the viciously anti-male bias in our social norms and justice system.

    Wow, why do I all of a sudden feel like some redneck spitting on anti-war protesters back in 1970 or so?

    Bill Price, who happens to be something of a believer, recently asked – Is Christianity Salvageable? http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/11/21/is-christianity-salvageable/

    I think a better question is whether a truce between true-believing Christians and secular men can ever be negotiated.

    Game is the innovation men needed to respond to feminism. The reason it was needed is because the sexual Luddites and modern Skoptsy have failed to keep all women as “Female Eunuchs.”

    As long as religious men refuse to acknowledge your wives, and your daughter’s, legitimate carnality, there will be men like Roissy, PMAFT, and Solomon to make hay with them by acknowledging it.

  288. Yes, Paragon, I probably could have gamed her harder, but I think Game is best for keeping in line a basically decent woman you want or have. You can game a bitch all day, but at te end of the day she is still a bitch. Game is best for managing a worthwhile woman.

  289. Cadders says:

    I am struck by how many other men here have described the trajectory their lives have taken since swallowing the red pill and adopting, to a greater or lesser extent, the precepts of Game – struck by how similar their experiences have been to mine as I have also travelled this path. The fury, the anger, the realisation, the acceptance, the adapting – it seems we all ride the same emotional roller coaster. And I for one am grateful for this forum (among others) for helping me understand that other men are also experiencing this and that these emotions and reactions are normal, natural and appropriate. Sometimes, it has felt that it is I who am out of step with reality, rather than society itself which is largely living a delusion.

    As for Game – it is simply a toolset that has allowed me to reclaim the man I was born to be.

  290. Eric says:

    Dalrock:
    I think the most obvious criticism against ‘Game’ is the fact that it doesn’t work and is based on pseudoscience.

    This whole nonsense about ‘archetypes’ was discredited years ago. If one believes in Creationism, then Man was created in the image of God; God being a Unity; He couldn’t be both ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’. If one holds the Evolutionary Theory, the same applies. There’s no evoultionary purpose for a so-called ‘beta’ and they would have been extinct long ago.

    The second obvious problem is by simple observation: women in our culture DO NOT pursue the strong, confident, masculine, so-called ‘Alpha’ male. They pursue the weakest and most dysfunctional males possible. The reason for this is sociological; not genetic. Women in our culture are taught to despise ALL males as inferiors; and consequently don’t seek men unless they (the women) can be the dominant party in a relationship.

    Game is just a rationalization. Men have to have some motive for continuing to pursue American women—and none exist in reality. But by convincing oneself that women really want—sexually or otherwise— a strong, confident male, men can delude themselves into thinking the relationship is successful and that she really cares about him &c. Wrong. Women in our culture care for nobody but themselves; and see men as expendable appendages. This is why Roissyism is so dangerous for men; it’s setting more men up for disaster and encouraging them to pursue what they should actively flee.

  291. 7man says:

    Eric,
    Now I am in quite a quandary. I can continue to use what I think I learned from Game in becoming a better man, which I think is working very well. I think being more dominant and confident has developed my alpha side and I think it is working because she says she likes it and me. We never argue and I think it is going well. But based upon your statement that this does not work and women don’t respond to it, I better become more wussy so the relationship really works even if I then think it doesn’t.

  292. Eric says:

    7Man;
    My point is that women hate us either way. If we act like so-called ‘Alphas’ they resent us because our culture teaches them to compete with and be superior to men. If we are so-called ‘betas’ women despise us as inferiors. It’s a lose-lose situation. Your best option is get out of relationships with American women altogether.

  293. Paragon says:

    @ David Collard

    Forgive myself for not making myself clear.

    I meant to imply, that a man who is displaying sufficient value(for example, through genetic quality indicated in physical attractiveness), will not be hindered/handicapped by ‘shit-testing’.

    It is also important to note that ‘shit-testing’ is not a test per se, in cases where it is not a determinant of sexual success(which I contend is the general case).

    But rather it is a symptom of handicapping, where ‘shit-testing’ is communicating something about a male’s disposability(in a relationship), or is an affectation for the purpose of embellishing a female’s sexual value(in the context of an approach), or an outright repudiation(again, in the context of an approach).

  294. Paragon says:

    @ 7Man

    “Eric,
    Now I am in quite a quandary. I can continue to use what I think I learned from Game in becoming a better man, which I think is working very well.”

    Correlation does not imply causation.

    “I think being more dominant and confident has developed my alpha side and I think it is working because she says she likes it and me.”

    There are no two more disparate quantities, than between what females ‘claim’, and what demonstrates as a true state of nature(ie. don’t be so quick to take what she says at face value).

    “We never argue and I think it is going well. But based upon your statement that this does not work and women don’t respond to it, I better become more wussy so the relationship really works even if I then think it doesn’t.”

    False dichotomy.

  295. Paragon says:

    @ Zed

    “Sorry, Dalrock, I do my best to respect the fact that you are a believer, but it is not our “societal messages” which blast it out – it is the religious belief that sex is bad and that women are morally superior to men because they don’t like sex – or at least as much as men like it.”

    This misconception had little to do with religious indoctrination, and more to do with the fact that before females were sexually liberated(or at least fully cognizant of the latitude that such liberation accorded them), they were compelled to trade-off short-term mating concerns for the security of long term mating benefits – meaning that females would often be mated to males for whom they felt no gina tingles(lending to a naive male culture that supposed female frigidity was a natural state).

    ” Sex used to be an itterated Prisoners Dilemma, where cooperation was the Nash Equilibrium; now it’s a single shot, every Sex Organ for itself, and the defector always wins…”

    Exactly, and that’s because the parameters of the game was changed, so that it no longer punishes defectors and free-riders, allowing these strategic morphs(anyone contributing to, and invested in the carousel-riding dynamic) to invade, and prosper at the expense of others.

    The thing about the dynamic of an altruistic system that rewards defectors, is that it is evolutionarily unstable, and will collapse once it falls below a critical density of altruists to support it(which will happen, as altruists incur such high fitness handicaps, that their relative frequency drops precipitously over evolutionary time).

  296. Paragon, I suspect women monitor their man’s morale fairly constantly (as men monitor their woman’s appearance.) If she is a good kind of woman, and you are low because you are unwell or work-stressed or whatever, she will not dump you if you fail a shit-test, because she has a commitment to the LTR, but she may let you know that she is worried about the situation. They like to feel you are coping. I think cocky/funny works because it signals that you have excess energy, that you are coping well. That you are fighting fit. Many typical male behaviours are honest or costly signalling. Have you read Jared Diamond’s essay, “Kung Fu Kerosene Drinking”? Singing, whistling, cracking jokes, horseplay, all signal an abundance of health in men.

    I do agree that evol psych explanations are a bit too heavily used these days but they are more productive than the Freudian or the PC tabula rasa approach to understanding “the battle of the sexes”.

    BTW, my wife and I went to a C&W concert recently, for her birthday, and a lot of the messages for men in the lyrics are very bad game. The best game in a song I ever heard was the Irish song, Eileen Og.

  297. A discussion of the song Eileen Og and human nature. It is quite an old song but it illustrates the use of game very well:

    http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php?a=topic&t=9004

  298. Paragon says:

    @ David Collard

    “Paragon, I suspect women monitor their man’s morale fairly constantly (as men monitor their woman’s appearance.)”

    Actually, female sexual choices are even more particular in terms of a man’s appearance.

    “If she is a good kind of woman, and you are low because you are unwell or work-stressed or whatever, she will not dump you if you fail a shit-test, because she has a commitment to the LTR, but she may let you know that she is worried about the situation.”

    Then what you are describing(in such a case), is not a fitness test per se(because it is not determinate), but an expression of fitness handicapping.

    The idea of a ‘fitness test’ is merely an abstraction of a system which mediates reproductive success – where determinacy is rarely observed in any particular interaction.

    So, I think the term ‘handicapping trial’ is often more apt, but I wish I were better at explaining this subtle distinction.

  299. greyghost says:

    Off topic but maybe not. Looks you fellas in Australia Are going to have to learn to starve your beast or get some big time game. http://www.f4e.com.au/blog/2011/11/22/labors-male-hate-anti-family-law-amendments-become-law/ too bad you guys don’t have a 2nd amendment.

  300. The Gillard government is very unpopular and is expected to fall at the next election. I think they are trying to ram through this kind of leftist legislation while they still can. As far as I can see, it does not actually roll back joint custody in Australia.

  301. Paragon says:

    @ TFH

    “When tons of men say that applying even some of the concepts and principles of Game has made a dramatic improvement in their lives, and this includes men who have no reason to make this up, it is funny that others insist ‘it doesn’t work’.”

    It is trivial to claim something ‘works’, even following from false premises.

    But, since game is not a ‘skill’, but rather a system of knowledge, the question is not whether or not it ‘works’ so much as which parts of this system are justified, and which parts are spurious.

  302. Anonymous Reader says:

    Paragon
    But, since game is not a ‘skill’, but rather a system of knowledge,

    Really? What leads you to that bifurcation?

    Is carpentry a skill, or a system of knowledge?

  303. Paragon says:

    @ Anonymous Reader

    “Really? What leads you to that bifurcation?

    Is carpentry a skill, or a system of knowledge?”

    A skill necessarily implies utility, where knowledge does not.

  304. Paragon says:

    @ TFH

    “A ‘system of knowledge’ does not take practice, but a skill does. The skill is in the application of this system of knowledge. A person can know 80% of the system of knowledge, and still not get results, due to insufficient practice and key elements not being done properly.”

    It is my position that the dependencies which mediate the useful application of this knowledge(where the knowledge is in fact justified, and not spurious, as is often the case with ‘game’ doctrine), limit the utility of this knowledge, to where it’s effects are vastly overstated by the hyperbolic gamer cult.

    How often do we hear ‘game’ being trumpeted as a definitive solution to the dilemma of low (mating) status males?

    That is the ‘culture’ I take issue with.

  305. George says:

    @paragon,

    This is why I think logically the concept of the shit-test is utterly false and makes no sense whatsoever, and only people who have not thought about it carefully can possibly fail to see how this is so. I am curious what you think.

    It seems to me that the shit test cannot be a test of male fitness because if a man agrees to participate in a test designed by females he is clearly indicating lack of mating fitness. In other words, a high-fitness male would refuse to participate in a shit-test; he would terminate his encounter with the woman conducting the test.

    First, a high-fitness male has many other female options, so he simply has no need to put up with even the slightest bit of misbehavior from women. On the contrary, women should be on their best behavior around him, knowing full well he has many options. Second, a high-fitness male simply does not allow himself to be – even mildly and temporarily – abused.

    So a test where the only way of passing is to terminate the encounter with the woman cannot possibly be a test women use to judge male mating fitness; women who conducted such a test would be eliminating themselves from the mating pool in favor of women who did not conduct such tests!

    Now, some gamers might say that a woman might shit test initially to be assured of high male fitness value, and once assured, would cease shit testing. Well, if this were so, then the shit tests would have to be extremely mild to avoid alienating the proud, high-fitness male with many options, and if the test is extremely mild, then average males should be able to easily pass. So a mild shit-test would seem to have almost zero utility in screening for a high-fitness male because mild tests are by definition ones average males can pass. And less mild shit-tests would simply alienate a high-fitness male, who has many other women available to him.

    So a shit test, even if done only in the initial stages, cannot possibly be effective in screening for anything.

    Furthermore, most gamers say that the shit-test is not something for the initial stages only, but something one must be constantly on ones guard against. However, no high-fitness male would put up with consistently being tested. He would be out of there in a flash.

    No, shit-tests are not screening for male quality, and the poor guys who buy into the theory and make elaborate efforts to pass female tests, are simply perpetuating female mis-behavior and signaling strongly a complete lack of male mating fitness.

    That is the sad quandary of the low-fitness male; part of the reason he is of low mating quality is because he accepts the idea that he has to prove himself to others (women) and that it is an appropriate thing to learn to elaborately pass womens tests. This is the mindset of the low status male. He cannot escape it. The more he tries to *prove* to the woman that he is *worthy* of her, the more he signals that he is of low mating fitness.

    The high-fitness male does not have to do anything at all. If you ever witness hook-ups between high status, high fitness male, what is remarkable is the incredibly low investment of energy and effort into it. The high fitness male pretty much does extremely little.

    So if a woman behaves in a way where things are not *going smoothly*, or does not immediately respond well to you, she has concluded that you are a low mating fitness male. Ironically, the more you try to convince her otherwise, the more energy and investment you put into an encounter or relationship where the woman is not effortlessly enthusiastic about you, the more you are signaling that you are a low status male.

    That is why game cannot possibly work. Either a woman respond well to you, or not. If yes, then she has concluded you are high mating fitness value, and so game is pointless. If not, then anything else you do is further signaling that you of low mating status.

    Thoughts?

  306. Rmaxd says:

    “How often do we hear ‘game’ being trumpeted as a definitive solution to the dilemma of low (mating) status males?

    That is the ‘culture’ I take issue with.”

    If your alternative is the MRA, the mra movement has ZERO applications for relationships with women

    MGTOW will not make your relationships any better, then a beta is atm

    Game & PUA are the only games in town for young men, precisely because as zed pointed out, their mangina fathers & bitchy mothers sold them out to feminist whores

    Yes game & pua are definitive solutions for low status males, precisely because it destroys the virgin woman complex so completely, manginas & feminists can no longer brainwash their boys

    The vast majority of men who learn game dont turn into manwhore’s

    Clueless Anti-gamers like paragon are simply another breed of mangina’s, happy to bat for teamwoman when it comes to game or pua, while deliberately ignoring the massive advantage it gives men

    Real Leverage over a manhating anti-male society

  307. Brendan says:

    The point, though, Paragon, is that there are factors that make you more or less attractive to a woman that stand apart from physical appearance/fitness. I don’t think anyone argues that looks are not important with women — they are. But women also are attracted to behaviors/personae within the particular physical “type” they prefer. So, yes, if you are tall, good looking and fit, you’re starting out in a better place than if you are short, bald and fat — Game/charm/persona works only incrementally based on where you are starting from. But it pretty much always improves regardless of where you are starting from.

    I tend to agree with some of the critiques of Game on the basis that it can be overblown. It can be. Some people make it sound like miracle whip. But if we move away from the overblown claims, and drill down to what it basically is — relearning masculine confidence and being comfortable with asserting masculine dominance in a playful way — it really is simply augmentation of behavior. In other words, it doesn’t need to be grounded in evo psych or any other scientific theory in order for it to be helpful. Dressing well is also helpful with women (and is actually a part of what the Game people talk about) but isn’t scientifically-based.

    So, yes, your own physical set/fitness/type plays a huge role. But what comes out of your mouth and your “frame” play a huge role as well, and that is where Game comes in, whether it follows from evo theory or not.

  308. Anonymous Reader says:

    Paragon
    A skill necessarily implies utility, where knowledge does not.

    Doesn’t skill require knowledge?

    More specifically, many men find “Game” has utility and therefore skill is implied.

    Are you asserting that you are sole judge of utility?

  309. SamIam says:

    Game is not so much behavior or knowledge. It is an attitude shift, an interpretation of life and relationships. The knowledge and behavior follow naturally.

    This is why for people who ‘get it’, it seems natural. They accept the game attitude as an accurate explanation of relationships, and the associated behaviors are therefore a natural and healthy expression of human behavior. Those who cannot see game as an explanation for their observations of human behaviors – those who do not get it – will obviously see the knowledge associated with game as a misrepresentation, and the behavior as manipulative and fake.

  310. Rmaxd says:

    I see nothing manipulative about improving your levels of confidence & social intelligence as a male

    All I see are antigamers, complaining about pussy begging & being manipulative, being socially intelligent by using lines & routines or running natural game, requires alot more intelligence & skill then the average guy

    Who relies on friends introducing them to chicks or getting led endlessly by chicks who cant figure out why they’re “not in love”

    Game & PUA are game changers for men, beta’s & the socially intelligent beta nerds get a chance at rising up the food chain

    What i find hilarious in the PUA corner, anti-gamers are a fringe group, usually beta’s who’s beliefs hang on not being able to get hb9’s or 10’s

    Prior to game men simply settled, out of a lack of options, for those who follow even the basics of game, can easily bag a hb9 or 10, the male competition out there’s that bad

    The question is do you want to bag a hb9 or 10, & their 101 cocks, or go for the harem of 20 yr old virgins, monogamy only ever benefits women

    If you want to a monogamous relationship with a woman, who’s window of youth & fertility is only around 5 years, unless you get her at 19+, dont go to deep into game

    Which is why you dont see dalrock or athol teaching the more advanced concepts of game

    Advanced game, teaches you women have a shelf life, & they reach it faster then you think

    Polygamy & polygyny are the only ways round a womans short shelflife, which is why as evidenced by david deangelo, & his polyamorous marriage

    If you’re looking for love or monogamy, game will eventually lay bare your relationship to the point of pinpoint predictability

    Then again once you learn how predictable women are, you can take the relationship to new levels of intimacy

    Make sure you have incredible chemistry & connection, game ultimately depends on how driven you are to be with someone in a monogamous relationship

    For the rest of us, we’ll stick with the 20 yr old tight virgins … preferably asian with a culture of respect for men

    It might sound shallow, but you dont need love with a hot chick, just chemistry, hundreds of times more enjoyable & satisfying then having to maintain a relationship with an aging woman

  311. Paragon says:

    @ Anonymous Reader

    “Doesn’t skill require knowledge?

    More specifically, many men find “Game” has utility and therefore skill is implied.

    Are you asserting that you are sole judge of utility?”

    No, I am making a fuzzy assessment – the context in which it is most popularly appealed(a determinant factor in sexual success), is where game demonstrates of negligible utility, and thus, operates more as knowledge than skill.

  312. Paragon says:

    @ Brendan

    “The point, though, Paragon, is that there are factors that make you more or less attractive to a woman that stand apart from physical appearance/fitness. I don’t think anyone argues that looks are not important with women — they are. But women also are attracted to behaviors/personae within the particular physical “type” they prefer. So, yes, if you are tall, good looking and fit, you’re starting out in a better place than if you are short, bald and fat — Game/charm/persona works only incrementally based on where you are starting from. But it pretty much always improves regardless of where you are starting from.”

    I agree with this – my point is that these other dependencires are so limiting, it renders game of negligible value to already low-status males.

    “I tend to agree with some of the critiques of Game on the basis that it can be overblown. It can be. Some people make it sound like miracle whip. But if we move away from the overblown claims, and drill down to what it basically is — relearning masculine confidence and being comfortable with asserting masculine dominance in a playful way — it really is simply augmentation of behavior.”

    I contend that the whole ‘confidence’ meme is (generally)a spurious observation, in that we observe that other males with justified confidence(ie. those whose confidence has some justified basis in some prior history of success) tend to attract women – they are not successful *because* they are displaying confidence, but rather they are confident because they have a justified expectation of continued success(thus, this meme is reversing the direction of causality).

    “Dressing well is also helpful with women (and is actually a part of what the Game people talk about) but isn’t scientifically-based.”

    I think it is reasonable for a female to assume that a well-dressed man speaks to some measure of disposable income.

    “So, yes, your own physical set/fitness/type plays a huge role. But what comes out of your mouth and your “frame” play a huge role as well, and that is where Game comes in, whether it follows from evo theory or not.”

    I am of the opinion that game merely tries to indoctrinate males on how to establish psychological leverage(by bluffing females, and learning to appreciate subtleties in female duplicity).

    Can this be parlayed into tangible benefits in terms of male-advantage in courtship/mating interactions?

    Absolutely.

    But it is *far* from being the silver bullet it is touted to be.

  313. Paragon says:

    @ Rmaxd

    “If your alternative is the MRA, the mra movement has ZERO applications for relationships with women”

    We need to talk about taking the ‘black pill’, meaning to reconcile that there are no personal solutions to systemic problems – which can only resolve over evolutionary time.

    And any solution will very much entail steep trade-offs, in that males can’t have their cake and eat it too – a prosperous population of deferred ecological pressures(like we currently enjoy), without an expectation that this prosperity will increase the mating latitude of females(dramatically perturbing the breeding population, to the point of near evolutionary instability).

    One will always follow the other, as male consensus on these matters is practically impossible in terms of inter-sexual competition(as opposed to the broad accord females enjoy through an abundant wealth of sexual opportunities, courtesy of their reproductively limiting function).

  314. Paragon says:

    @ George

    This is why ‘shit-testing’ makes more sense in terms of fitness-handicapping – meaning that low-quality males will incur more ‘resistance’ than high-quality males(thereby helping to mediate frequencies of sexual success accordingly).

    But, it doesn’t make sense as a ‘test’, because it is so frequently indeterminate in any given interaction.

    And your point about females being reluctant to risk alienating high-quality males with a ‘shit-test'(of an obstinate variety), is very astute.

    In these cases, any affected/token disinterest on a female’s part would be very transparent, and her receptivity would come through loud and clear(in essence, her affectations would resemble that of playful ‘flirting’ – quite different from a conventional shit test connotation).

  315. Brendan says:

    Paragon —

    I agree with this – my point is that these other dependencires are so limiting, it renders game of negligible value to already low-status males.

    It depends on where you are on the scale. If you’re a very Omega (just to use a letter as a proxy for low status) type of guy, physically and otherwise, Game isn’t going to improve you that much. I don’t think that the Game guys would say otherwise, either — at least not most of them. I think Game is most useful for guys who are average and higher physically to bump themselves up a bit and get more opportunities. It isn’t a panacea for omega males — omega males are going to have a hard time mating under any ruleset, I think.

    I contend that the whole ‘confidence’ meme is (generally)a spurious observation, in that we observe that other males with justified confidence(ie. those whose confidence has some justified basis in some prior history of success) tend to attract women – they are not successful *because* they are displaying confidence, but rather they are confident because they have a justified expectation of continued success(thus, this meme is reversing the direction of causality).

    Everything begins somewhere, however. Confidence comes from success, that’s true. But if your success improves, you will have more confidence due to that success. Again, for guys who need some tweaking and who see it working for them, their increase in confidence is genuine. It’s like they say in AA — “fake it till you make it”. If you don’t try, you’ll always remain a drinking alcoholic, per that view. So you “fake it” at first, and after a while it isn’t fake any longer. Of course that depends on developing a track record of sobriety. In the case of Game, it depends on developing a track record of increased success — and if that happens, confidence, which at first may be forced or projected, simply becomes real. People *can* improve themselves. AA is one example, toastmasters is another, and there are many others. Again, I agree with you that the change is incremental rather than fundamental, but for guys who are midpack and up, it can be quite the change.

    Can this be parlayed into tangible benefits in terms of male-advantage in courtship/mating interactions?

    Absolutely.

    But it is *far* from being the silver bullet it is touted to be.

    It isn’t a silver bullet, I agree. Your overall level of success is going to be dependent as well on your appearance, your status and the like. Game guys focus on this to some degree, as well, advising men to eat a different diet, work out with a focus on weight training, dress better and so on. But I agree that if you are 5 foot 3, and you don’t have some other superstar quality going on, you’re pretty limited. Game can still make you *less* limited, but it may still not feel like success to you, relative to guys who are starting in a higher place to begin with. This is why I think Game is better suited to guys who are midpack and higher, for the most part.

  316. Rmaxd says:

    “in that males can’t have their cake and eat it too”
    Theres no such thing, males are designed to biologically have their cake & it too, they have a much larger window of fertility well into to their 70’s, plus they have no children to conceive

    Women on the other hand are ridiculously limited biologically, they have a ridiculously short window of fertility of about 5 years compared to men, & their main features, their looks fades rapidly after the age of 30

    No amount of evolutionary time will ever resolve the biological advantages men have over women

    This is precisely why it is to a womans disadvantage to ride the carousel, while it is to a mans advantage, & always has been a mans right to be polyamorous, as evidenced by most of the world today being polygamous

    Men are biologically designed to be polygamous, while women are hypergamous precisely because of their short window of fertility & youth

    Hence game for men always leads to harems, while women attempting to copy alpha men by riding the carousel turn into used up whores, with no biological or relationship worth whatsoever

    Women are simply too retarded to function correctly sexually without social & cultural restraints

    Also women dont have a broad window of sexual opportunity, what women have today is a broad window of MISOPPORTUNITY, they have misopportunities

    There is nothing opportunistic about destroying the best part of a womans youth & prime, it is a disgusting tragedy

    We live in a culture where virgin women NEVER get over the first guy who takes their virginity, pining for him years after he pumped & dumped her

    We live in a society where a man’s natural biology is violated, just so some infertile hag doesnt feel lonely, after she becomes barren at the age of 35+

    While virginal women are getting pumped & dumped & discarded, by alphas, thanks to a womans retarded lack of braincells

    If you want to fix societies gender war against men, you have to allow a mans natural biology to be polygamous

    Polygamy is simply another word for a nuclear family

    Also there is NO way to stop men from being polygamous, ALL ultra-succesful rich men are ALWAYS polygamous, sportstars, athletes, billionaires, etc., ALL of them polygamous

    Men do NOT want monogamous relationships, nor do women, women simply want the ILLUSION of a monogamous relationship, but they despise men who DONT sleep around

  317. Richard says:

    I’m single so I would not know for sure, but it sounds like the challenge for those men who are married is to do both of these things (ie. one day give her a kind card, and on an other day be decisive and say let’s go here).

  318. Rmaxd says:

    @george
    “It seems to me that the shit test cannot be a test of male fitness because if a man agrees to participate in a test designed by females he is clearly indicating lack of mating fitness. In other words, a high-fitness male would refuse to participate in a shit-test; he would terminate his encounter with the woman conducting the test. ”

    In game & pua the correct way to pass a shit test, is NOT to participate in the shit test, ignore it, belittle it to the point of it being neglible

    You dont pass a shit test, which is why you have concepts such as negs & google more advanced concepts such as “hoop theory”

    Game is all about MAINTAINING your frame over a woman, you maintain your frame in game, by not participating the shit test to begin with

    When i get shit tested, i laugh at the bitch for shit testing me in the first place, or i ignore it, or i neg the crap out of her

    Basically you NEVER acknowledge a shit test, you maintain your frame of confidence at all times, unless of course when you’re intimate

  319. Rmaxd says:

    @Brendan
    “Your overall level of success is going to be dependent as well on your appearance, your status and the like. Game guys focus on this to some degree”

    Wrong, your overall success is ALWAYS dependant on the level of CHEMISTRY you have with a person

    Your attraction to a person will always drive the performance of game, the more chemistry & attracted you are to a person the better you perform

  320. Paragon says:

    @ Brendan

    “Everything begins somewhere, however. Confidence comes from success, that’s true. But if your success improves, you will have more confidence due to that success. ”

    Which is why it is reasonable to infer that confidence follows from success.

    However, I don’t think initial successes have much at all to do with projecting confidence, per se.

    Rather, it has to do with the opportunities that follow from a greater investment in courtship effort(ie. by communicating sexual interest, a male can make himself more ‘visible’ to potentially receptive females).

    This kind of behavior isn’t necessarily attractive to women, but it does make a man more visible.

  321. PT Barnum says:

    But a 100% total personal transformation is really not needed unless the guy in question truly is a basement dwelling, mouth breathing, super WoW clan leader type, or let himself turn into one. For your average guy, who is basically socially competent enough to get a girl, girlfriend or wife, it’s more about, reclaiming the nut sack and putting it back to use. Without being scared of her reaction.

    “Social competence” is required for a 30 year old man to marry a 29 year old ex-slut? Really now, let’s not be stupid. The willingness to be a doormat and spend all your time tending the ex-sluts needs before the divorce is what is required.

    The WoW player is unacceptable for the very reason that he is seen as UNWILLING to spend all his time and money tending the ex-slut.

    Being women, they don’t say that he is UNWILLING to worship them, they say he is UNFIT to worship them. But everyone who is not an idiot knows the truth. If WoW boy WANTED TO, then he certainly could be a good little beta-drone.

    Quit acting like being a beta-drone is some impossibly hard task.

  322. George says:

    @rmaxd

    You say game says you should ignore or belittle the shit test. A high fitness male would not ignore repeated disrespect, even if mild. Heck, he would not ignore a single instance of it. He would walk away. A high fitness male would not belittle it and pretend that it is cute, he would be annoyed and go off with one of the many other girls he has waiting around for him. Why should he deal with it? He has tons of options.

    Thats from the mans POV. By *not participating*, I mean WALKING AWAY. Sticking around in any way shape or form after a girl *shit tests* you is in some measure participating in the shit test. This is especially true of the *shit test* is REPEATED. A guy who is in a relationship where he is constantly shit-tested is in a relationship where the woman simply does not consider him high fitness material. Sticking around after she shit-tests merely reinforces her conclusion. It is a harsh conclusion, but it is the truth.

    See the distinction here? Game non-participation is not TRUE non-participation.

    From the FEMALE POV, a girl who likes a guy is going to be on her BEST behavior and go in fear of alienating him. She will NEVER shit test.

    Shit testing as a test of male fitness makes no sense – it could not possibly have evolved. Sticking around after a girl shit tests you would screen for chumps, it would screen for guys who have few female options – in short, for low fitness males.

    @ Paragon

  323. George says:

    @rmaxd

    You say game says you should ignore or belittle the shit test. A high fitness male would not ignore repeated disrespect, even if mild. Heck, he would not ignore a single instance of it. He would walk away. A high fitness male would not belittle it and pretend that it is cute, he would be annoyed and go off with one of the many other girls he has waiting around for him. Why should he deal with it? He has tons of options.

    Thats from the mans POV. By *not participating*, I mean WALKING AWAY. Sticking around in any way shape or form after a girl *shit tests* you is in some measure participating in the shit test. This is especially true of the *shit test* is REPEATED. A guy who is in a relationship where he is constantly shit-tested is in a relationship where the woman simply does not consider him high fitness material. Sticking around after she shit-tests merely reinforces her conclusion. It is a harsh conclusion, but it is the truth.

    See the distinction here? Game non-participation is not TRUE non-participation.

    From the FEMALE POV, a girl who likes a guy is going to be on her BEST behavior and go in fear of alienating him. She will NEVER shit test.

    Shit testing as a test of male fitness makes no sense – it could not possibly have evolved. Sticking around after a girl shit tests you would screen for chumps, it would screen for guys who have few female options – in short, for low fitness males.

  324. Paragon says:

    @ Rmaxd

    “In game & pua the correct way to pass a shit test, is NOT to participate in the shit test, ignore it, belittle it to the point of it being neglible

    You dont pass a shit test, which is why you have concepts such as negs & google more advanced concepts such as “hoop theory””

    The whole point was that the highest quality males won’t incur obvious ‘shit-testing’ – which is just a manifestation of fitness handicapping(negligible as it is taken on its own), and a way for females to communicate(or strategically bluff – in leveraging for maximum gain) their disinterest(but, again, something they will rarely risk in alienating high-quality males).

    The other point was that ‘shit-tests’ aren’t worthy of recognition as discrete fitness tests because negotiating them is not costly in any obvious way(evidenced by their equivocal nature in determining sexual success).

  325. dhurka says:

    “The Gillard government is very unpopular and is expected to fall at the next election. I think they are trying to ram through this kind of leftist legislation while they still can. As far as I can see, it does not actually roll back joint custody in Australia.”
    David Collard

    I have posted this link here before but like any delusional white knight you ignore evidence that disagrees with your feminist world view:

    http://www.f4e.com.au/blog/2011/02/01/australias-shared-parenting-laws-have-failed-to-increase-shared-parenting-arrangements-new-study/

    The reason the shared parenting is not being repealed is because it was never actually instituted in real life, just on paper. And with the changes she has made to domestic violence laws any woman who wants the father out can make it happen no problem.

    I am quite sick of you pretending Australian laws are better Mr Collard. Tell that to the 62 year old man I know that got a 15% divorce settlement. Half the super none of the house. All children grown up and left. Or the homeless man I know who was paying child support for a child living out of home and earning more than his dad. No one thinks the laws are better except you.

    Are you going around telling young men that our laws are alright? If so I hope your wife divorces you so you stop spreading your feminist evil. I doubt you will have the guts to respond and defend your view that australian laws are better. After all you didn’t last time. Gutless wonder, liar and scumbag.

  326. Rmaxd says:

    “A high fitness male would not ignore repeated disrespect, even if mild. ”

    A shit test & disrespect are two completely different subjects

    A woman will get dumped or told to show some respect, if she disrespects a person

    A shit test isnt a sign of disrespect, its a biological fitness test, it has ZERO social value, as its a biological trait of a woman, asking for a man to establish clear boundaries of authority for her

    The act of ignoring or laughing at her lame shit test, PREVENTS her from receiving an emotional reward for acting irrationally, ie deprive her from the drama she’s obviously looking for

    You NEVER respond to a woman acting irrationally in a pickup, you’re going for the lay, not a relationship

    In a LTR you literally have to lay down the law for her, if she shit tests, dominantly put her in her place, if you’re not running aggressive game she will test you continously

    Ignoring shit tests, or belittling are SHORT term strategies designed for pickup, in an LTR you have to let her know you’re not going to tolerate her shit tests

    If she persists dump her

    In an LTR if she persists you ramp up the assholeness, as dalrock pointed out, objectify her, grab her ass, be cocky, funny etc., run & maintain a certain level of game until she stops acting like a shit testing retard

    A shit test isnt much compared to the other idiotic crap a woman gets up to when she’s “in love”

  327. Rmaxd says:

    Aggressive game, is zero tolerance for irrational bullshit from a woman

  328. dhurka, the article you cite itself suggests that you are overstating your case.

    Go and look at my blog and see if I am a feminist.

    I will not reply to you again. You seem deranged.

  329. George says:

    @rmaxed, you are tying yourself up in contradictions.

    What do you think crossing appropriate boundaries IS if it is not disrespect? I do not see how you can say that a shit test is not an act of disrespect when the whole point – as you admit – is to test a mans boundaries, to see what he will put up with. Why do you think we call it a shit-test? What do you think the phrase *taking shit from somebody* means? What does the word *shit* mean here? Obviously, it means something obnoxious, rude, disrespectful. How else can you test if a man is willing to assert his boundaries and stand up for himself if not through some form of disrespect or rudeness?

    I think what you mean to say that a shit test is merely a mild form of disrespect, which brings us back to the point that if it is mild, weak men can pass it, and men with options wont stick around even for mild disrespect.

    Point is, the woman is making things difficult for the man. She is challenging him. A high fitness male does not remain with a woman who makes things difficult for him. Why would he? He has options. If the challenge is weak, then weak men can easily pass it. If it is a strong challenge, then it will alienate a man with options. Get it?

    A shit-test is a sign of dislike on the part of the woman, and continuing the encounter merely confirms her opinion.

  330. Rmaxd says:

    @George

    A shit test is not disrespect precisely because its a biological fitness test, as i stated it has ZERO social value

    & i already stated in an LTR shit tests are not to be tolerated

    If you want to argue the fact a shit test isnt a biological function of a woman, go ahead, but it is NOT a dislike on her part

    A shit test is a sign of INTEREST

    Go learn some game, educate yourself on the subject matter correctly, if you want to argue a point

  331. Rmaxd says:

    @david Collard

    Dhurka has a point, you were trying to minimize australian divorce law, by trying to state its superiority, australia is a hideous feminised state

  332. K(yle) says:

    I contend that the whole ‘confidence’ meme is (generally)a spurious observation, in that we observe that other males with justified confidence(ie. those whose confidence has some justified basis in some prior history of success) tend to attract women – they are not successful *because* they are displaying confidence, but rather they are confident because they have a justified expectation of continued success(thus, this meme is reversing the direction of causality).

    Home schooled I assume. On what basis do the swaggering, overconfident teenage virgins base their confidence on? What about the whole Dunning-Kruger effect/Illusory Superiority thing? No, most confidence is irrational. People who are extremely confident are often so despite no basis for it at all. Many people are confident of their own ability to succeed despite demonstrable inability to do so.

    Women are weeding out guys without that irrational confidence; in other words weeding out ‘spergy faggots who think too much, act too little, and talk like nerds.

  333. Paragon says:

    @ K(yle)

    ” On what basis do the swaggering, overconfident teenage virgins base their confidence on?”

    On the fact that females are encouraging such males through very overt receptivity signalling(flirty smiles, extended eye contact, etc).

    “Many people are confident of their own ability to succeed despite demonstrable inability to do so.”

    Then you are not talking about real(ie justified) confidence.

    “Women are weeding out guys without that irrational confidence;”

    Are they?

    Or are their selective behavioral cues, forming the basis of this ‘irrational’ confidence?

  334. jmperry says:

    Then you are not talking about real(ie justified) confidence.

    So if the confidence isn’t justified, it’s not really confidence? No True Scotsman…

  335. Great article. I like to call the “programming” men of the last few decades received, Hollywood Morals. It’s written to entertain teens.

    As a young guy on the verge of marriage, I appreciate your honest discussion of marital issues and how you dealt with them.

  336. Paragon says:

    To reiterate – females are selecting for confidence insofar as confident males tend to be more ‘visible’ in communicating their interest to select females, but this confidence must be justified by prior indications(either by personal successes, or by tacit receptivity signals and other relative indications which justify initial male investments).

  337. Paragon says:

    @ jmperry

    “So if the confidence isn’t justified, it’s not really confidence? No True Scotsman…”

    Do you understand the implication of costly signalling?

    It is so that it can avoid falsified fitness signals?

    So much for ‘fake it till you make it’ – this simply doesn’t agree with the way sexual evolution has been demonstrated to work.

  338. Paragon says:

    @ George

    “Point is, the woman is making things difficult for the man. She is challenging him. A high fitness male does not remain with a woman who makes things difficult for him. Why would he? He has options. If the challenge is weak, then weak men can easily pass it. If it is a strong challenge, then it will alienate a man with options. Get it?”

    Yes, that’s why it makes sense to look at shit-testing as an indication of handicapping – *negative* feedback communicated through female signals of relative aversion.

    For those whom a female has a strong aversion, ‘shit-testing’ would be very palpable.

    On the other hand, females could not afford to risk alienating high-quality males with the same averse signalling(as such a tactic would be maladaptive to their reproductive interests of mating with high-quality males).

    So, it does not make sense that females would offer high-quality males anything but the most token(ie transparent) resistance in the form of obvious flirtation(ie. nothing even remotely resembling a ‘shit-test’).

    Is shit-testing a negative indication written in stone?

    No, because females can and do re-evaluate their assessments.

    But, neither is it reasonable to assume that shit-testing is a positive indication of anything.

  339. Paragon says:

    @ Rmaxd

    “A shit test is not disrespect precisely because its a biological fitness test”

    What is it testing, then?

    And please describe the mechanism of this test?

  340. Rum says:

    Paragon, George

    There are lots of guys here willing to teach. That will happen more often when the student does not keep making jejune assertions.

  341. Keoni Galt says:

    There is something some of you are missing here in a discussion about a wife shit testing her husband.

    Many times, a wife does a “shit test” which is essentially nothing more an invitation for seduction….especially if you deal with shit tests for which you respond with “agree and amplify.” What better way to respond to a challenge to your manhood (which is what a shit test really is…to see if you’re still the man) than to banter with sexual innuendo that results in you throwing her down and tearing off her clothes and getting down to business?

    LOL

    When you begin to recognize the pattern of shit testing in your wife…you just might notice that she seems to do it a lot more during a certain phase of her cycle. Then you’ll realize that a shit test from her is essentially an invitation…

    So why would you want a wife that never “shit tested” you? Once you know it for what it is, and why she does it, a wife’s shit tests are actually nothing more than an opportunity for you as the husband, rather than something you wish she never did.

    Finding a woman who would never shit test her husband is like hoping that one day the sun will rise in the West and set in the East.

  342. George says:

    @rmaxed, you did not respond to the logic of my argument. That you end by telling me that I have to go read about game sounds like someone in a religious debate saying the question can be settled by appealing to scripture, when the entire debate is about the validity of scripture. I realize game supports what you say – my point is game “truths” make no sense. But we seem to have reached the limits of your capacity for intellectual honesty on this subject, so perhaps it is better to leave things where they are. Cheers.

    @ Paragon, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Shit-testing is an indication of female aversion that a female would never risk doing to a high-fitness male. Its is characteristic of the low-status male to interpret signs of aversion as an opportunity to “prove” himself to the female, as Keoni Galt does below. A man with few options will respond to female aversion with a desperate attempt to convince her she has made a mistake, while a high status male would simply move on to one of the many other options available to him, and would balk at the nee to “prove” himself to anyone. Rather it is females who view for HIS attention. That is why doing ANYTHING other than terminating the encounter in response to a shit-test merely reinforces the females opinion of you as low-status.

    By the way, you say that women often re-assess men, but there is lots of evidence that female assessment is made within minutes of meeting a man and is irreversible. Lots of studies involving speed dating have confirmed this.

    I also like your point about confidence and how it pertains to sexual attraction – you reverse the causality, if I understand you correctly. It is not confidence that is attractive, it is that men who have experience of being attractive to women become confident an perhaps develop a swagger. I have actually seen this dynamic first-hand with un-confident men who travel to poor countries where the women lavish attention on them. After a few months they develop a “swagger” and exhibit all the signs of extreme sexual “confidence” as described by K(y)le, but clearly it was never the confidence that made them attractive, because the female attention occurred before the confidence was developed. These men sometimes return to their home countries full of swagger and confidence only to find the women as unimpressed with them as before.

    Roosh has an interesting report on this right now. Roosh was popular in Poland but is now in Latvia, where his type is not appreciated, and is discovering that all the swagger and confidence he developed from having it so easy in Poland does not make the least bit more attractive to Latvian girls. I find Roosh one of the most fascinating writers on game out there, because he has an honesty that is stronger than his intellect and grasp of game theory. An enormous percentage of his posts, if read intelligently and between the lines, clearly demonstrate the utter invalidity and pointlessness of game, yet Roosh seems to lack the intellect to draw the correct conclusions from his own experiences. To an intelligent person, his blog reads like a running rebuttal of his theories. Yet he is oblivious to this. It’s quite fascinating. His honesty simply gets the better of his intellect.

  343. Paragon says:

    @ Keoni Galt

    “Many times, a wife does a “shit test” which is essentially nothing more an invitation for seduction…”

    You are making spurious inferences from post hoc conclusions, rather than sound evidence.

    That might be a reasonable assumption to make if bitchy wives were more receptive to sex, but I see nothing to indicate this beyond your blind assertion.

    Game doctrine would seem to endorse the notion of the shit-test as a false-dichotomy(good outcomes=pass, bad outcomes=fail), while ignoring alternate/independent explanations that remove ‘shit-tests’ from the chain of causality.

    But, any time someone identifies an inconsistency, the game cult conjures another tier of overwhelming exception, in an interminable exercise of ad-hoc justification.

    It really is tedious.

  344. Keoni Galt says:

    Calling the sharing of observations between men about female behavior and the biological/instinctual motives that may drive that behavior a “game cult” is really tedious. Your failure to understand the concepts does not mean they have no validity.

    good outcomes=pass, bad outcomes=fail

    This is your false dichotomy and failure to understand what the debate over this topic is really about.

    Good outcome = keeping your frame, whether you “pass” her test or not.

    Just because she throws out a test, doesn’t mean you have to take it.

  345. Paragon says:

    @ Keoni Galt

    “Calling the sharing of observations between men about female behavior and the biological/instinctual motives that may drive that behavior a “game cult” is really tedious. Your failure to understand the concepts does not mean they have no validity.”

    The problem with many of these concepts is that they are ambiguous, and self-contradictory.

    For example, ‘shit-tests’ are defined as being *either* challenges(ie. tests), *or* indications of disinterest.

    But these are two distinct concepts, and if the definition can’t usefully distinguish between
    them, then it is meaningless – it might as well be gibberish.

    Concepts like these entail post hoc explanation sets that aren’t analytically useful.

    And that’s why I can’t see ‘shit-tests’ as ‘fitness tests’ – because the intervals of ‘shit testing’ are frequently indeterminate(ie. failing to present), and otherwise equivocal, in mediating sexual interactions, and thus cannot be seen as obviously costly(a necessary requirement for any trial of honest signals).

  346. Keoni Galt says:

    The problem with many of these concepts is that they are ambiguous, and self-contradictory. No, the problem is that many of these concepts are confused and conflated, leading to a simple dismissal as nothing more than a “cult.”

    For example, ‘shit-tests’ are defined as being *either* challenges(ie. tests), *or* indications of disinterest.

    No, an indication of disinterest is called a blow out or flat rejection. Your looking at a “shit test” with an eye towards identifying logical coherency in the words she employs, and miss the subtext of what is actually going on. A woman could use the exact same words, but with her body language and tone either challenge a would be suitor to see if she would consider submitting to him (allowing him to penetrate her), or she could be simply telling him to get lost.

    “Oh, and what makes you think I’d ever want to do that with you?” said with her head cocked, an eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip, waiting to gauge your reaction to her challenge, has one meaning.

    Shit test.

    Saying the same thing with a bored sigh, rolling her eyes, and turning her back to you and walking away could mean an entirely different intent – rejection. Exact same words, but not the same thing in it’s delivery or intent.

    Watch what they do, instead just listening to what they say. Action louder than words and all that.

    Your appeal for some kind of hard proof seems to imply that you are seeking some kind of mathematical formula or equation that boils down to “Game principle x = result y.” Without such concrete proof….than you just dismiss it as nothing more than another cult brainwashing it’s members.

    This concept of “Game” is like discussing strategies in fighting. You could have the perfect game plan, get the best possible training, and get as prepared as you can be, and still get your ass kicked come fight time.

    That’s because you have uncontrollable variables (the other party) that will alter the outcome, in a dynamic, fluid event for which no outcome is assured.

    I.e. Game is like teaching a man how to throw a series of punches like a boxing combination. You can teach him. Drill him on it. You can tell him that if he lands all of his punches, he will knock out his opponent.

    But when it comes to fight time, can he avoid his opponents combinations, and time his own to land them effectively? And what if he does all that, but his opponent is tough as hell and doesn’t go down? He has to adjust, adapt and come up with a new attack on the fly.

    That is essentially all that “Game” is. A bunch of guys exchanging techniques and strategies to prepare for the next time they face their opponent. It’s about scouting out the opposition. You notice that when the opponent always bobs his head to the right when you jab, so next time you face him, try and throw a feint jab and follow up with a lead left hook and catch him moving his head right into that hook.

    Great strategy. Could work. Might not.

    You can’t “prove” that a 1-3 ~ jab/hook wins fights. But you can certainly tell someone how it worked for you the last time you fought, you can teach them how to throw it themselves so they can practice doing it, and maybe he should try it and see if he can get it to work for him, too. Might work. Might not. Neither outcome would offer definitive “proof” that the 1-3 combination wins fights.

    It’s the same thing with this debate about “Game” and “shit tests.”

    There’s no contradiction here…just a miscommunication regarding terminology and meaning.

  347. George says:

    Right, so if the woman says in an obviously flirtatious way, it is hardly a challenge. When it is obvious that a woman is flirting with you, every guy can *pass* the shit test. There is no challenge. There is no test. The woman is conveying through tone and body language that she is not being entirely serious when she says what she says. In other words for a man to respond in a flirtatious, playful way back in no way demonstrates that he is dominant because the woman made clear in her tonality that her challenge is not authentic. She is undermining the authenticity of her own test through her body language and demeanor, thus rendering the *test* useless as a genuine challenge.

    This has been covered already by both Paragon and me. I see where this going, in endless loop to loop arguments where the gamer admits a,b, and c, then when you get him to admit d, he goes back and denies every having admitted a. Then you get him to admit a again, and then get him to admit b,c, and d again, he then denies having admitted b. You go through the process again and then he again denies having admitted to a. This is where it always ends up when you argue game with its devotees.

    Game is quite mainstream these days with over 80% of men being *true believers*, and all popular mass movements or belief systems take on the quality of a religion with few being able to challenge their beliefs rationally. It is only about 20% of men who have the intellect and honesty to grasp that game is beta.

    There is always the point with gamers where you reach the limit of their intellectual honesty and arguments just get circular and pointless. I always bow out when the argument reaches that point, so it is time for me to do so here.

    Good luck, paragon. You are fighting a hopeless battle, though. The masses have always been addicted to their drugs and pacifiers. Strength and honesty are always for the few.

    Cheers.

  348. Anonymous Reader says:

    George, Paragon, what you appear to be struggling with is the natural differences between men and women. You are essentially saying this:” Game can’t work because if it did, it would mean that women are different from the way I think about them being.”

    Your model of reality does not actually correspond to reality. But rather than change your model, you are arguing that reality is somehow “wrong”. Well, good luck with that.

  349. Paragon says:

    @ Keoni Galt

    “No, an indication of disinterest is called a blow out or flat rejection.”

    Not according to this:

    http://www.pualingo.com/pua-definitions/shit-test/

    If I am confused, then so is the game community – and such widespread confusion does not bode well for the credibility of a theory.

    “Your looking at a “shit test” with an eye towards identifying logical coherency in the words she employs, and miss the subtext of what is actually going on. A woman could use the exact same words, but with her body language and tone either challenge a would be suitor to see if she would consider submitting to him (allowing him to penetrate her), or she could be simply telling him to get lost.

    “Oh, and what makes you think I’d ever want to do that with you?” said with her head cocked, an eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip, waiting to gauge your reaction to her challenge, has one meaning.

    Shit test.”

    So, here you are claiming that ‘shit-testing’ would be merely flirtation(ie. which is strategic in maintaining some token measure of plausible-deniability, while still communicating tacit interest)?

    If so, why bother with superfluous ‘game’ lingo?

    But, it occurs that the game community is trying to conflate contradictory concepts of ‘Flirtation’ and ‘Repudiation’, for ad hoc utility(ie. to be able to claim that persistance despite negative indications is ‘keeping your frame’ during a ‘shit-test’, when it can actually mean failing to take a hint from a foregone conclusion).

    “Your appeal for some kind of hard proof seems to imply that you are seeking some kind of mathematical formula or equation that boils down to “Game principle x = result y.” Without such concrete proof….than you just dismiss it as nothing more than another cult brainwashing it’s members.”

    No, my appeal is for for consistent indications that lend to testable predictions – in other words, reliable evidence of what it is you claim to be observing.

    Facets of game theory which are not amenable to testable predictions are analytically useless, and should be dismissed as such.

    “This concept of “Game” is like discussing strategies in fighting. You could have the perfect game plan, get the best possible training, and get as prepared as you can be, and still get your ass kicked come fight time.”

    This is a terrible analogy, because observing the effects of a punch are trivial, but not with the purported mechanisms of ‘shit-testing’, where we cannot observe(or reasonably infer) any difference between a test and a foregone conclusion.

    Thus, the reasonable assumption is that these are not ‘fitness tests’ of any kind(because legitimate fitness tests must be both common, and their determining effects obvious), but rather elaborate, stylized repudiations, for the purpose of ego-validation, and strategic embellishment of female sexual-value(ie. ‘wow! it’s going to take a special guy to get with her’).

  350. Paragon says:

    Edit: Thus, the reasonable assumption is that these are not ‘fitness tests’ of any kind(because legitimate fitness tests must be both common, and their determining effects obvious), but rather flirting, or elaborate, stylized repudiations, for the purpose of ego-validation, and strategic embellishment of female sexual-value(ie. ‘wow! it’s going to take a special guy to get with her’).

  351. Paragon says:

    @ Anonymous Reader

    “George, Paragon, what you appear to be struggling with is the natural differences between men and women. You are essentially saying this:” Game can’t work because if it did, it would mean that women are different from the way I think about them being.”

    Strawman.

    “Your model of reality does not actually correspond to reality. But rather than change your model, you are arguing that reality is somehow “wrong”. Well, good luck with that.”

    My arguments are the ones both in agreement with evolutionary convention, and amenable to testable prediction.

    Too many concepts in PUA derive from spurious observations and cargo-culting phenomenon.

  352. Keoni Galt says:

    TFH is right. A percentage of men are simply incapable of understanding Game theory.

    Nevermind, Paragon.

    Let’s just be friends.

  353. Anonymous says:

    “for the vast majority of low (mating)status males”

    This is true, but there’s no doubt that game can immensely help a small subset of men – typically nerds. However, you’re right that for the majority of men, game won’t make much of a difference, from what I’ve seen…

  354. Anonymous says:

    Paragon, what do you mean by this:
    I am of the opinion that game merely tries to indoctrinate males on how to establish psychological leverage(by bluffing females, and learning to appreciate subtleties in female duplicity).

  355. Paragon says:

    I mean that, all other things being equal(which they rarely are), females may allow affectations of sexual confidence to skew their expectations(ie. of sexual performance), and ultimately their choices(but again, my argument is that this effect will be subtle, and rarely determinate – they still won’t opt for a swaggering ugly guy, over a shy handsome guy).

    Also, game teaches males to be critical of what females ‘say’, and thus be wary of female deception – which is always useful in interactions where males and females have subtly conflicted agendas.

  356. Anonymous says:

    I have to disagree with you, Paragon. Game does have its limitations – I don’t beieve it can ameliorate class diffences or (significant) differences in IQ. But Roissy is right when he says “game is its own status”. And your example about an “ugly guy with game” is bad, since looks are one of the things game *can* ameliorate.

  357. Paragon says:

    @ Anonymous

    “I have to disagree with you, Paragon. Game does have its limitations – I don’t beieve it can ameliorate class diffences or (significant) differences in IQ. But Roissy is right when he says “game is its own status”. And your example about an “ugly guy with game” is bad, since looks are one of the things game *can* ameliorate.”

    The you clearly aren’t observing the same patterns that I am – on this last point in particular, please consider that what males often suppose, and what females actually prefer in terms of physical attractiveness, often differs dramatically(ex. one might not think that a prematurely balding male ectomorph with chicken legs and Acromegaly features would constitute an ideal of male physical beauty, but, at least with females in the western world, this would often seem to be the case when controlling for other variables).

  358. Alphalady says:

    I read your bio, Dalrock, and I couldn’t help but notice that you describe your wife as “sexy.” Hmmm. Is that because you base your self-worth on having a hot wife, as opposed to an “uggo,” as David Furtelle pondered? (You know him,,,one of the many ‘manginas’ you love to bash.) Your “sexy” wife must feel very loved, indeed.

    I am wondering if you will compassionately prepare your now-sexy wife for the “soft landing” (as one of your brethren described it) of amorphous grandmother-hood when she inevitably ages and “is no longer sexually desirable to men” (see quotes from the aforementioned brethren), then claim your manly right to bang hot young ‘uns because, after all, what self-respecting “man” wants an old, shriveled up ‘gina?

    My hubbo (who, of course, I am sure you will conveniently envision as fat, ugly, dumb and poor…whatever makes you feel more comfortable and secure with yourself) are anxiously awaiting your reply.

    [D: You are as smug as you are clueless.]

  359. YBM says:

    what self-respecting “man” wants an old, shriveled up ‘gina?

    Truer words have never been spoken.

  360. Well this sounds great. I gotta check this out.

  361. Rmaxd says:

    Guys I think i figured out paragon ..

    Who wants a bet, Paragon is a Novy sock puppet …

    ie., “We need to talk about taking the ‘black pill’, meaning to reconcile that there are no personal solutions to systemic problems – which can only resolve over evolutionary time.”

    Classic Novy bullshit

    You get these fanatical armchair evolutionary fundamentalist fanatics all the time, especially on science blogs

    Novy is pretty easy to spot, as he’s one of them … chck out his blog for word to word similar writing … lol

  362. Anonymous Reader says:

    Paragon
    My arguments are the ones both in agreement with evolutionary convention, and amenable to testable prediction.

    This is laughable. All your objections to the concept of shit testing displayed ignorance. You persisted in framing shit tests by women & male response to them in binary, crisp-logic “Pass/Fail” terms, which is utter nonsense and totally out of agreement with any aspect of reality.

    The reality of a shit test is simple: women can accept a man, reject a man, or say ‘maybe’. It is not at all a crisp logical outcome, it is fuzzy. If you posit a response space that consists of a line from 0 to 1, with 0 being “Fail” or “Rejection” and 1 being “Pass” or “Acceptance”, there is a huge region in between, from around 0.1 to 0.9 that is labeled “maybe”.

    So when a woman initiates a shit test, she’s down in the low “maybe”, close to “rejection”. A man who passes the test in a way amenable to her personality changes her response to a higher ‘maybe”, possibly even “acceptance”. Different women will generate different shit tests, different men will respond to them differently, and the responses will be more or less successful. One woman may respond best to cocky/funny, another may require a lot of Alpha and so she only would respect some sort of angry tirade. The variations are many.

    But the gist is this: your characterization of women’s behavior does not match observation. Your hypothesis doesn’t match reality, and you are demanding that the rest of us ignore reality & accept your foolish, wrong ideas instead.

  363. YBM says:

    Rmaxd:

    I would defult to giving Paragon the benefit of the doubt as a legitimate “identity” unless shown to be otherwise. That said, I don’t understand why Alek Novy is treated somewhat like Voldemort in this part of the internet. As if you invoke his name this supervillian will descend upon your site and steal your soul. I read his blog occasionally, and aside from him saying game hasn’t been proven, I don’t really see anything controversial on his website. He seems to say the same thing as ‘Real Made Men’ says. Hardly controversial to me.

  364. Pingback: The Player’s Anthem; It wasn’t me | Dalrock

  365. Alistair. says:

    When I teach game to men, many of whom are burnt out of women for precisely the reasons discussed above (what do you want, for christ’s sake!) I tell them that it’s not what they say, or even what they are thinking, but it’s what they respond to that is important.

    And interestingly enough, I was working with one of my female clients who has a husband who doesn’t talk much…if at all, and I explained this to her and a light went on for her.

    She went home and flirted with him mercilessly that evening, and they had sex the way she hoped they could for the first time in over a year.

    And regarding proving game works or not, I get the same challenge regarding hypnosis. Some people don’t want to be convinced. Who cares, we know it works like a house on fire, and I certainly don’t need to beg someone to understand.

  366. jrc says:

    “She said she would get into a mood where she felt absolutely compelled to piss me off. Every cell in her body was telling her she would feel better if only she provoked a fight. Then she would do it, and I’d be out the door. Once the fight was started but especially once I had left she felt miserable.”

    I would appreciate a little more digging into the psychology of your wife if you/she are up for it. I know most gamers write you can’t trust what a woman says, and even women don’t know what they really want. Your wife seems like she might be more self-aware than most. What did she think would make her feel better? Was she really hoping for you to fight back and stand up to her, or was there something more and maybe a bit more complex?

    “for the first seven of the last ten years she was telling me she didn’t feel loved … she kept telling me something was wrong and I wasn’t making it better … she thanked me for finally making her feel more loved! I had given up on that goal for the time being, and yet along with more attraction I had also inadvertently filled that nagging void which she had been feeling for so many years.”

    Again, more psychological introspection would be appreciated. I know most would say something like, “women want to be loved by alphas, so when you were more alpha she felt loved.” Do you/she really believe that was the core issue? Usually, the story goes more like the wife starts falling out of love with the man but she knows he loves her a lot. Your situation sounds a little different. Maybe something like your love for her was so strong it motivated/changed you to be a better man? I think these issues are important for men to get a better handle on so they don’t despise women after ingesting the red pill.

  367. Rmaxd says:

    @jrc

    The whole point is to be more aware of how a woman really is, you’re never to realise it by smothering it with emotional bullshit

    The red pills supposed to be bitter to swallow

    You’re supposed to come to terms with the real truth about women, & in the bitterness, & disillusionment, doing so discover your true vastly more aggressive masculinity

    The whole reason her reaction’s so pronounced, is precisely because you dont realise how vastly more aggressive you’re supposed to be, in order to address her problem

    The red pills supposed to build masculinity & destroy your idiotic emasculation

    The effects your feeling about women, are necessary to build the needed traits to treat your new found beliefs

    Revel in it & be pissed off at women, they have had it coming … lol

    Its important to put the blame where it belongs, back at women for their years of being sluts & evil conniving bitches …

    Vent or kick ass …

  368. Suz says:

    “Vent or kick ass …”

    Then use what you’ve learned. Becoming bitter after disillusionment is part of the process. Remaining bitter is a problem. If you hang onto your shattered illusions, you may as well stock up on cat food. It’s when you turn in a new direction and start MOVING, that you leave your bitterness behind.

    ” wife starts falling out of love with the man but she knows he loves her a lot.”

    The “love” she knows he feels for her is not enough. Not that it’s not enough love, but that love itself is not all she needs. Her kids and her dog and her friends love her too, but they don’t slay dragons for her. A woman needs the security of a dragonslayer, she needs to be reminded (or taught in the first place) that her man loves her in heroic proportions. How is she to know he can dominate the world if he can’t dominate her? She knows she’s not much of an opponent, if she can emasculate him, how can he protect her children from the big bad world? She measures his strength through (usually) unconscious shit testing; if he consistently fails by bending to her will, THEN she “falls out of love with him,” even if she still feels deep affection for him, and commitment to him. Eventually disdain will overcome any affection, but that takes time. She will never feel that contradiction with a man she KNOWS is a strong protector. She needs constant reassurance (reminders) not because she “forgets,” but because the world keeps getting scarier and more complicated. She needs to know her man can keep up with the new dangers she continues to discover in the world.

  369. Rmaxd says:

    @Suz

    Excellent analogy, women want a sacrficial lamb as proof of their social intelligence, their ability to control their social web & turn it on its head, to serve their whims

    Ironically the red pill the manosphere refers to, is in fact the game pill …

    All pua’s & gamers start from bitterness & resentment about the true nature of women

    Ironically game stops you from chasing pussy, it stops you from seeing women as these innocent creatures waiting to be loved, when in fact theyre getting reamed by a baseball wearing penis

    Also it shows you the moral & integrity compromise. you’re going to have to make to have sex with a woman that degenerate & deranged

    It stops you from forgiving women, & it forces you to hold women responsible

    Theres always a price to pay for promiscuity, & its always the man who pays it …

    Bitterness & hating women is part & parcel of being a pua & mra

    You will always be bitter & resentment about women, as every woman will always remind you

    Make no doubt, every shit test is an act of betrayal, as she weill eventually betray you if you dont pass her shit test

    A shit test is simply a sign of things to come

    Women might hit the wall, but their ability to sucker some beta, is infinite

    Men have to put on a zero tolerance policy

    I’ve dumped so many women, before even banging them, literally approaching hundreds, as soon as a woman gives me attitude or acts irrational, no matter how trivial, she’s kicked to the curb, irrespective of her looks or body

    A zero tolerance attitude, is necessary for voracious & predatory women

    In fact I just dump a woman on sight, if shes not submissive, or feminine

    Game & pua is not about banging everything in sight, its about gaining a layer of zero tolerance policy

    The bitterness & resentment you feel, is you raising your standards & integrity

    Bitterness & resentment are the natural side effects of holding women to a standard, only you approve of

  370. jrc says:

    Dalrock, just wanted to ask again if you would be willing to address my questions. Sometimes things are too personal to put on the internet, so I can understand that decision. I would also appreciate a more detailed explanation of your frame/mentality change. All answers so far only add to the contempt, not the direction I believe God wants for men.

  371. Just now reading this post. This should be required reading for any man before marriage.

    Last [type]: The Root of Your Dating Issues

  372. Pingback: Why Christians need game. | Dalrock

  373. Pingback: Biblical vs Churchian Sex in Marriage (and why Christians need game) | Dalrock

  374. Me says:

    Maybe a poster with some money could set up a foundation to fund male law students to go into family law. There needs to be some political action.

    Something that would help would be laws that require grounds for divorce, and laws that instruct judges to penalize adulterous spouses and spouses who divorce frivolously by allowing them only a small share of community assets. By default, the spouse who files could get only visitation rights with the children unless some evidence that the other partner is an unfit parent is found or that parent wants to give up main custody.

  375. Pingback: Romance 101: How to stop frustrating your wife. | Dalrock

  376. Pingback: Backlash against the Christian Manosphere | Dalrock

  377. Pingback: - Sunshine Mary’s third pearl of wisdom: Don’t be a quarrelsome shrew. | The Woman and the Dragon

  378. Pingback: Red pill bitterness | Dalrock

  379. Pingback: The original Dalrock post | Save Capitalism

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  388. valor says:

    if she’s so unevolved that she responds to psychological manipulation, my attraction for her would instantly drop to 0. i’ve studied game, and it’s brought me some results, but my problem now is that i think of a woman as a disposable object when she responds too well to game. i expect her to hold herself to a high standard and not fall for the first scumbag who knows how to make her lady parts tingle. what can i do to regain respect for women in my new red pill context? i went from a beta “nice guy” who women despised to the kind of man who would want to pump and dump a bitch just to show her that she’s a worthless slut. thank god for my restraint because i know that i would more than regret it if i gave in to such dark emotions. please help me dalrock, this yoyo between beta and alpha isn’t good for my mental health.

  389. Have to admit but “game works”. It took awhile to figure it out and “keep it clean”.
    Many thanks !

  390. Luke says:

    valor says:
    April 28, 2014 at 10:53 pm

    “if she’s so unevolved that she responds to psychological manipulation, my attraction for her would instantly drop to 0”

    So, you’re completely unattracted to any women? That’s either an asexual, or sexually attracted to other things (men, animals, unliving fetish objects, etc.).

    Look, essentially ALL women are affected by game, even when they know it’s in play. (It works better as a rule if it’s not blatantly mentioned to them at the time, to be sure.)

  391. greyghost says:

    Valor
    The problem you are having is what being a man is all about. You are now a mature man living with the truth. You were never meant to live in blissful ignorance as a child. Placing women on a pedestal is wrong and always has been. The fact that you feel the way you do is clear evidence that you are a solid beta male. the back bone of civilization. It also shows the foolishness of the church for not teaching the true nature of women (“game”) to its members.

  392. valor says:

    greyghost i understand what you’re saying, i have to undo years of social conditioning combined with my own nature as a softie. my father was verbatim the kind of man that feminists claim all men are minus the rape, and that heavily shaped my views growing up on what being a man meant. once i found things like red pill i came to understand that my mother was the one at fault for falling and marrying a degenerate rather than a decent human being. i could see the cycle of abuse where he would fuck with her head and then game her later to placate her. he was a deadbeat with nothing going for him, that was my male role model growing up. i will admit that i am much stronger now that i am more aggressive and assertive. anyway my reasoning for the whole 0 respect 0 attraction to someone who is too responsive to game is because when i started using game, i decided that i would try when i was getting to know a woman i would basically leave out anything about me that made me a strong choice as a partner, see just how much i can get away with, how much bs game can make up for. the farthest i went was to say i lived with my parents and had no job or car, no formal education or training, giving some retarded excuses. i had women who felt connected to me, who became attached to me, who were willing to give themselves to me, who became distraught when i refused them. i painted myself as a fucking scum with a shiny attitude, and that made women 500x more responsive than if i presented myself as a solid man who was heading somewhere in life, that i wanted a family and a commited woman to share moments with. that disgusted me. thanks for calling me out though i should hope that i just got some freak luck with women who literally had 0 standards, i doubt that all women have such an utter lack of respect for themselves, or is that my beta talking? it just had me thinking “wow this bitch wants to be like my mom where she financially supports a deadbeat while he abuses her”.

    it does help me to read sites like this, knowing there’s happily married guys out there who make it work. marriage is off the table for me of course, i have better things to do than put my balls under a guillotine with a rope that can decide it doesn’t wanna be tied down anymore.

  393. valor says:

    i’m being a bitch aren’t i. time to man up some more. women can have their fun with their tingling vagina. i’ll just keep doing my thing and eventually i’ll find a few who i like enough to stay with.

  394. elovesc34 says:

    Glad I stumbled across this post Dalrock. It helped me understand “game” better than any thing I have read to this point. I was even able to work a little of it into this mornings parting between my bride and myself with positive results.

  395. elove,
    How do you work game on your wife?
    I’m new to this “manosphere” information and find the information men like Dalrock provide critical and I’m learning many new things.

    Yes, I think I was a beta, but one who wised-up (at least enough) to attract my wife in my early 30s.
    Today, she wants nothing to do with sex and it’s killing me.

    She seems to take me for granted and always reacts negatively to my entreats for sex.

    I know it’s wrong to “ask” your wife for sex, that only makes a guy look even more beta, but whenever I approach and attempt to initiate, I’m always shot down.

    I’m tired of playing this “nice guy” and I want some things out of this marriage.
    It’s been YEARS since I’ve made love to her.
    My fantasies don’t suffice, I want the real thing, the thing she promised @ the altar.

    Maybe someone can start a blog post with tips that might work.

    Thanks in advance for any assistance.

  396. Katya says:

    You are a genius…thank you. these are things I always knew instinctively and started figuring out intellectually by the time I was in my late 20’s, but still couldn’t figure out how to explain to my husband why I was so unhappy. I even said at one point that I wish he would objectify me and that I was afraid he just loved me for my mind! Gotta figure out how to get him to study this site…

    [D: Welcome. Thank you. You may want to have him start here.]

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