The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi 2013
The Soul-Mate Myth - There is no ONE
The Cardinal Rule of Relationships
You cannot negotiate genuine Desire.
This is a very simple principle that most Men and the vast majority of women are willfully ignorant of. One the most common personal problems I’ve been asked advice for in the past 10 years is some variation of “how do I get her back?” Usually this breaks down into men seeking some methodology to return his relationship to an earlier state where a previously passionate woman couldn’t keep her hands off of him. Six months into a comfortable familiarity and the thrill is gone, but in truth it’s the genuine desire that is gone.
It’s often at this stage that a man will resort to negotiation. Sometimes this can be as subtle as him progressively and systematically doing things for her in the hopes that she’ll reciprocate with the same sexual / intimate fervor they used to have. Other times a married or long term couple may go to couples counseling to “resolve their sex issues” and negotiate terms for her sexual compliance. He’ll promise to do the dishes and a load of laundry more often in exchange for her feigned sexual interest in him. Yet, no matter what terms are offered, no matter how great an external effort he makes so deserving of reward, the genuine desire is not there for her. In fact, she feels worse for not having the desire after such efforts were made for her compliance. Her desire has become an obligation.
Negotiated desire only ever leads to obligated compliance. This is why her post-negotiation sexual response is often so lackluster and the source of even further frustration on his part. She may be more sexually available to him, but the half-hearted experience is never the same as when they first met when there was no negotiation, just spontaneous desire for each other.
From a male perspective, and particularly that of an uninitiated beta male, negotiation of desire seems a deductive, rational solution to the problem. Men tend to innately rely on deductive reasoning; otherwise known as an “if then” logic stream. The code is often something like this:
I need sex + women have the sex I want + query women about their conditions for sex + meet prerequisites for sex = the sex I want.
Makes sense right? It’s simple deductive pragmatism, but built on a foundation that relies on a woman’s accurate self-evaluations. The genuine desire they used to experience at the outset of their relationship was predicated upon a completely unknown set of variables.
Overtly communicating a desire for reciprocal desire creates obligation, and sometimes even ultimatums. Genuine desire is something a person must come to — or be led to — of their own volition. You can force a woman by threat to comply with behaving in a desired manner, but you cannot make her want to behave that way. A prostitute will fuck you for an exchange, it doesn’t mean she wants to.
Whether in a monogamous marriage, LTR or a one night stand (ONS), strive for genuine desire in your relationships.
Half of the battle is knowing you want to be with a woman who wants to please you, not one who feels obligated to. You will never draw this genuine desire from her by overt means, but you can covertly lead her to this genuine desire. The trick in provoking real desire is in keeping her ignorant of your intent to provoke it. Real desire is created by her thinking it’s something she wants, not something she has to do.
The Desire Dynamic
A woman’s imagination is the single most useful tool in your Game arsenal. Every technique, every casual response, every gesture, intimation and subcommunication hinges on stimulating a woman’s imagination. Competition anxiety relies on it. Demonstrating Higher Value (DHV) relies on it. Prompting sexual tension relies on it. Call it “Caffeinating the Hamster” if you will, but stimulating a woman’s imaginings is the single most potent talent you can develop in any context of a relationship.
This is the single greatest failing of average frustrated chumps; they vomit out everything about themselves, divulging the full truth of themselves to women in the mistaken belief that women desire that truth as a basis for qualifying for their intimacy.
Learn this now: Women never want full disclosure. Nothing is more self-satisfying for a woman than to think she’s figured a Man out based solely on her mythical feminine intuition (i.e. imagination).
When a man overtly confirms his character, his story, his value, etc. for a woman, the mystery is dispelled and the biochemical rush she enjoyed from her imaginings, her suspicions, her self-confirmations about you are gone. Most guys with a Beta male mindset classically do exactly this on the first date and wonder why they get LJBF’d promptly after it — this is why. Familiarity is anti-seductive. Nothing kills Game, organic passion and libido like comfortable familiarity. Despite their common filibuster tactics, women don’t want to be comfortable with a potential (or proven) sex partner, they need their imaginations stoked to be excited, aroused and anxious to want sex with a potential partner.
In an LTR there’s an even more critical need to keep prodding that imagination. I would go so far as to say it’s imperative for a healthy relationship, but then you’ll ask, how do you go about that when your LTR girlfriend or wife already knows your story and the familiarity becomes cemented in?
The easy answer is never let it be from the outset - the health of any LTR you might entertain depends and survives on the frame you enter into it with. The foundations of a healthy LTR are laid while you’re single and dating non-exclusively. I’ve yet to meet the guy who’s told me he’s getting more frequent, more intense sex after his LTR / Marriage / Live-in situation was established.
The primary reason for this is the relaxation of the competition anxiety that made the
urgency of fucking you with lustful abandon in your dating phase an imperative to get you to commit to her frame. That’s the crux of the matter that so many guys fail in, they surrender the frame before they commit to an LTR. They believe, (thanks to their feminine conditioning) that commitment necessitates, and is synonymous with, acquiescing to her frame control. Combine this with anti-seductive familiarity and the growing commonness of your own value because of it, and you can see exactly why her sexual interest wanes.
So what do you do to prevent that?
First and foremost, understand that whose frame you enter into an LTR sets the foundation of that LTR. If you find yourself buying into an “it’s women’s world and we just live in it” mentality where your default presumption is that commitment means she wins by default, you lose and that’s just how it is, don’t even consider an LTR. She enters your world, not the other way around.
Secondly, you need to cultivate an element of unpredictability about yourself prior to, and into, an LTR. Always remember, perfect is boring. Women will cry a river about wanting Mr. Dependable and then go off to fuck Mr. Exciting. In an LTR it’s necessary to be both, but not one at the expense of the other. Too many married men are terrified to rock the excitement boat with their wives or LTRs because their sex lives hang in the balance of placating to her and her already preset frame. She must be reminded daily why you’re fun, unpredictable and exciting, not only to her, but other women as well. This requires covertly, tactfully, demonstrably implying that other women find you desirable. Women crave the chemical rush that comes from suspicion and indignation. If you don’t provide it, they’ll happily get it from tabloids, romance novels, The View, Tyra Banks or otherwise living vicariously through their single girlfriends.
By playfully staying her source of that rush you maintain the position of stimulating her imagination. Married men, who were defeated before they committed, don’t think that elements of Game apply to marriage out of fear of upsetting their wives frame, when in fact being cocky & funny, neg hits and many other aspects of Game work wonderfully.
Just kicking her in the ass or busting her chops, playfully, is sometimes enough to send the message that you’re fearless of her response. You can break her frame with cockiness and the imaginings that come with it.
Breaking from an established, predictable familiarity is often a great way to fire her imagination. Married guys will report how sexual their wives become after they get to the gym and start shaping up after a long layoff (or for the first time). It’s easy to pass this off as looking better makes women more aroused (which is true), but underneath that is the breaking of a pattern. You’re controllable and predictable so long as you’re pudgy and listless — what other woman would want you? But start changing your patterns, get into shape, make more money, get a promotion, improve and demonstrate your higher value in some appreciable way and the imagination and competition anxiety returns.
Imagination
There are methods and social conventions women have used for centuries to ensure that the best male’s genes are selected and secured with the best male provisioning she’s capable of attracting. Ideally the best Man should exemplify both, but rarely do the two exist in the same male (particularly these days) so in the interest of achieving her biological imperative, and prompted by an innate need for security, the feminine as a whole had to develop social conventions and methodologies (which change as her environment and personal conditions do) to effect this. Not only are men up against a female genetic imperative, but also centuries-old feminine social conventions established and adapted from a time long before human beings could accurately determine genetic origins.
I’ve detailed in many of my blog posts that mate selection is a psycho-biological function that millennia of evolution has hardwired into the psyches of both sexes. So internalized and socialized is this process into our collective unconsciousness that we rarely recognize we’re subject to these motivators even when we repeatedly manifest the same behaviors prompted by them (ex. women having a second kid with the Alpha Bad Boy).
It’s simple deductive logic to follow that for a species to survive it must provide its offspring with the best possible conditions to ensure its survival — either that or to reproduce in such quantity that it ensures survival. The obvious application of this for women is sharing parental investment with the best possible mate she can attract and who can provide long term security for her and any potential offspring.
Thus women are biologically, psychologically and sociologically the filters of their own reproduction, where as men’s reproductive methodology is to scatter as much of his genetic material as humanly possible to the widest pool of sexually available females. He of course has his own criteria for mating selection and determining the best genetic pairing for his reproduction (i.e. “she’s gotta be hot”), but his criteria is certainly less discriminating than that of women (i.e. “no one’s ugly after 2am”). This is evidenced in our own hormonal biology; healthy men possess between 12 and17 times the amount of testosterone (the primary hormone in sexual arousal) women do and women produce substantially more estrogen (instrumental in sexual caution) and oxytocin (fostering feelings of security and nurturing) than men.
That stated, both of these methodologies conflict in practice. For a woman to best ensure the survival of her offspring, a man must necessarily abandon his method of reproduction in favor of her own. This then sets a contradictory imperative for him to pair with a woman who will satisfy his methodology. A male must sacrifice his reproductive schedule to satisfy that of the woman he pairs with. Thus, with so much genetic potential at stake on his part of the risk, he wants not only to ensure that she is the best possible candidate for breeding (and future breeding), but also to know that his progeny will benefit from both parent’s investment.
Side note: One interesting outcome of this psycho-biological dynamic is men’s ability to spot their own children in a crowd of other children more quickly and with greater acuity than even their mothers. Studies have shown that men have the ability to more quickly and accurately identify their own children in a room full of kids dressed in the same uniforms than the mothers of the child. Again, this stresses the subconscious importance of this genetic trade off.
These are the rudiments of human sexual selection and reproduction. Obviously there are many other social, emotional and psychological intricacies that are associated with these fundamentals, but these are the underlying motivations and considerations that subconsciously influence sexual selection.
Social Conventions
To counter this subconscious dynamic to their own genetic advantage women initiate social conventions and psychological schemas to better facilitate their own breeding methodologies. This is why women always have the “prerogative to change her mind” and the most fickle of behaviors become socially excusable, while men’s behavior is constrained to a higher standard of responsibility to “do the right thing” which is invariably to the advantage of a woman’s reproductive strategy . This is why guys who are ’Players’, and fathers who abandon mothers to pursue their innate reproduction method are villains, and fathers who selflessly sacrifice themselves financially, emotionally and life decision-wise, even to the benefit of children they didn’t father, are considered social heroes for complying with women’s genetic imperatives.
This is also the root motivation for female-specific social dynamics such as “lets just be friends” (LJBF) rejections and women’s propensity for victimhood (as they’ve learned that this engenders ’savior’ mental schemas for men’s breeding schedules — Cap’n Save a Ho) and even marriage itself.
Good Dads vs. Good Genes
The two greatest difficulties for women to overcome in their own methodology is that they are only at a sexually viable peak for a short window of time (generally their early 20s) and the fact that the qualities that make a good long term partner (the Good Dad) and the qualities that make for good breeding stock (Good Genes) only rarely manifest themselves in the same male. Provisioning and security potential are fantastic motivators for pairing with a Good Dad, but the same characteristics that make him such are generally a disadvantage when compared with the man who better exemplifies genetic, physical attraction and the risk taking qualities that would imbue her child with a better capacity to adapt to it’s environment (i.e. stronger, faster, more attractive than others to ensure the passing of her own genetic material to future generations). This is the Jerk vs. Nice Guy paradox writ large on an evolutionary scale.
Men and women innately (though unconsciously) understand this dynamic, so in order for a woman to have the best that the Good Dad has to offer while taking advantage of the best that the Good Genes man has, she must invent and constantly modify social conventions to keep the advantage in her biological favor, and in accordance with her pluralistic sexual strategy.
Reproductive Schedules
This paradox then necessitates that women (and by default men) must subscribe to short term and long term schedules of mating. Short term schedules facilitate breeding with the Good Genes male, while long term breeding is reserved the Good Dad male. This convention and the psycho-social schemas that accompany it are precisely why women will marry the Nice Guy, stable, loyal, (preferably) doctor and still fuck the pool boy or the cute surfer she met on spring break. In our genetic past, a male with good genes implied an ability to be a good provider, but modern convention has thwarted this, so new social and mental schemas had to be developed for women.
Cheating
For this dynamic and the practicality of enjoying the best of both genetic worlds, women find it necessary to ’cheat’. This cheating can be done proactively or reactively.
In the reactive model, a woman who has already paired with her long term partner choice, engages in a extramarital or extra-pairing, sexual intercourse with a short term partner (i.e. the cheating wife or girlfriend). That’s not to say this short term opportunity cannot develop into a 2nd, long term mate, but the action of infidelity itself is a method for securing better genetic stock than the committed male provider is capable of supplying.
Proactive cheating is the Single Mommy dilemma. This form of ’cheating’ relies on the woman breeding with a Good Genes male, bearing his children and then abandoning him, or having him abandon her, (again through invented social conventions) in order to find a Good Dad male to provide for her and the children of her Good Genes partner to ensure their security.
I want to stress again that (most) women do not have some consciously constructed and recognized master plan to enact this cycle and deliberately trap men into it. Rather, the motivations for this behavior and the accompanying social rationales invented to justify it are an unconscious process. For the most part, women are unaware of this dynamic, but are nonetheless subject to it’s influence. For a female of any species to facilitate a methodology for breeding with the best genetic partner she’s able to attract and to ensure her own and her offspring’s survival with the best provisioning partner is an evolutionary jackpot.
Cuckoldry
On some level of consciousness, men innately sense something is wrong with this situation, though they may not be able to place why they feel it or misunderstand it in the confusion of women’s justifications for it. Or they become frustrated by the social pressures to ’do the right thing’, are shamed into martyrdom/savior-hood and committed to a feigned responsibility to these conventions. Nevertheless, some see it well enough to steer clear of single mothers, either by prior experience or observing other male cuckolds saddled with the responsibility of raising and providing for — no matter how involved or uninvolved — another man’s successful reproduction efforts with this woman.
Men often fall into the role of the proactive or reactive Cuckold. He will never enjoy the same benefits as his mate’s short term partner(s) to the same degree, in the way of sexual desire or immediacy of it, while at the same time enduring the social pressures of having to provide for this Good Genes father’s progeny. It could be argued that he may contribute minimally to their welfare, but on some level, whether emotional, physical, financial or educational he will contribute some effort for another man’s genetic stock in exchange for a mitigated form of sexuality/intimacy from the mother. To some degree, (even if only by his presence) he is sharing the parental investment that should be borne by the short term partner. If nothing else, he contributes the time and effort to her he could be better invested in finding a sexual partner with which he could pursue his own genetic imperative by his own methodology.
However, needless to say, there is no shortage of men sexually deprived enough to ’see past’ the long term disadvantages, and not only rewarding, but reinforcing a single mother’s bad decisions (bad from his own interest’s perspective) with regard to her breeding selections and schedules in exchange for short term sexual gratification. Furthermore, by reinforcing her behavior thusly, he reinforces the social convention for both men and women. It’s important to bear in mind that in this age women are ultimately, solely responsible for the men they choose to mate with (baring rape of course) and giving birth to their children. Men do bear responsibility for their actions no doubt, but it is ultimately the decision of the female and her judgment that decides her and her children’s fate
Schedules of Mating
Rejection is better than Regret.
While sifting through some of my past posts on the SoSuave forum it hit me; over 90% of what I advocate there can be reduced to overcoming a fear of rejection. 90% of the dilemmas AFCs find themselves in, and a majority of men’s concerns, with the opposite sex find, their roots in the methods and means they use to reduce their exposure to female rejection. These are buffers meant to reduce the potential for this rejection of intimacy.
Men of course aren’t the only ones who use buffers — women have their share as well — but I think it would be much more productive for guys to recognize this propensity in themselves and see the methods they use, and often ego-invest in their personal psychologies, to buffer themselves against rejection.
Virtually every common problem guys deal with finds its basis in these buffers:
LDRs - Long Distance Relationships. A guy will entertain an LDR because it was based on a previous acceptance of intimacy and being no longer convenient (due to distance) the guy will cling to the “relationship” because it’s a buffer against potential rejection from new women instead of accepting the relationship as being finished and maturely re-entering the dating pool. It’s a perceived “sure thing”, even if only rarely rewarding.
Playing Friends - Usually after an LJBF rejection where the perception is the potential love interest “might” later become an intimate with time and qualification. No matter how misguided, the time and effort spent by a guy in proving himself as the would-be “perfect boyfriend” is a buffer against further rejection by new potential females, which is then further compounded by a moralistic sense of duty to be an actual friend to his LJBF girl. In essence, his buffer against further rejection is his misplaced dedication to the LJBF girl. Another variation of this is the Cap’n-Save-A-Ho dynamic.
Emails, IMs and Texts - I should also add lengthy phone conversations to this list as well, but really any technology that seemingly increases communication serves as a buffer (for both genders) the more it limits interpersonal communication. The rationalization is that it keeps him in constant contact with his sex interest (which in and of itself is a mistake), but only serves as a buffer against her rejection. The latent perception being that it’s easier to read a rejection (or hear one) than to potentially be rejected in person. A lot of guys will counter this with how texts and IM’s are just how this generation plies it’s Game. The difference I’d argue is that when digital communication becomes your preferred method of interacting with women, it’s a buffer.
Facebook & Online Dating - This one should be fairly obvious for the same reasons as above — Online dating is perhaps the best buffer ever conceived — particularly for less than physically ideal women. In fact it’s so effective that businesses can be built upon the common insecurities and fear of rejection of both sexes.
Objectification of Gender - This might be less obvious, but both sexes objectify one another. Naturally when we think of this, the popularized notion is that men objectify women as sex objects, but women have a tendency to objectify men as “success objects” for the same reason. It is easier to accept rejection from an object than it is to take it from a living, breathing, human being. This is why we refer to intergender communication as a “game.” We “score” or we get “shot down” not personally or emotionally rejected; the buffer is in the language and mental approach.
Idealization of Gender - This is the myth of the “Quality Woman.” The buffer operates in perceived self-limitations based on a search for an ideal mate. Thus a tendency to fixate on one woman (ONEitis) or one type of woman (a gender Archetype) develops. By limiting to, and/or fixating on one woman (or type) the potential for rejection decreases, while insuring that any real rejection will come only from what will later be deemed non-qualified women. Rejection = ’Low Quality Woman’ and is thus disqualified. This works in a similar fashion to the objectification buffer in that the woman delivering the rejection is reduced to an object.
Scarcity Mentality - The “Take What I Can Get and Be Glad I Got It” mentality acts as a buffer in that it works opposite of the Idealization buffer. Deprivation is motivation, and by sticking with the “sure thing” as the “only thing”, the potential for new rejection is then eliminated.
Older Women, Younger Women - I should also include certain body types in this category as well, but the buffer is in certain types of women being less likely to reject a man due to their personal circumstances. The Cougar dynamic debate has been done into irrelevancy now, but the buffer is that older women, acting in accordance with their conditions, will be more inclined to accept the advances of younger men. In the same vein, very young girls will be more apt to accept the advances of older men due to naiveté and fat women are easier to become intimate with due to sexual deprivation. In and of themselves these preferences aren’t buffers per se, but an internalized preference for particular women develop by associating that particular type of woman with the minimization for potential rejection.
Leagues - This is the opposite of a “high standards” buffer which could be grouped with Scarcity. There is the woman some guys actually fear because she is perceived to be so much more socially valuable than the average guy estimates himself. Think of a hot, statuesque, corporate director who runs marathons, travels a lot, has good friends, dresses well, etc, etc, etc. The average frustrated chump tells himself “wow is she out of my league I would just get shot down because I would need to possess A, B & C to be her social status / physical status equal for her to even be interested”. Ergo, the internalized idea of Leagues is a useful rationalization buffer against rejection.
Pornography - I realize this will draw some fire from the masturbation / no-masturbation set, but porn (as men use it) is a buffer against rejection. Porn doesn’t talk back, porn doesn’t need a few drinks to loosen up nor does porn require any social skills to produce rewards. It’s convenient, immediate, sexual release that requires nothing more than a PC and an internet connection (or a magazine if you prefer the analog means). We can argue the obsessive-compulsive aspect of it, or the “my girlfriend and I enjoy porn together” reasoning, but for the single guy the root reasoning is its facility as a buffer. I should also add that it’s this very facility that makes women hate it (when they do). Porn gives a guy his reward for free; a reward that should be her single best agency is rendered valueless when a man can get off to an infinite variety of sexual experience at the click of a mouse. It’s unlimited access to unlimited sexual availability without the stress of learning methods to earn it from women as a reward.
These are really just a few notable examples, but once you become aware of how buffers manifest you’ll begin to see how and why they are useful against rejection. Buffers are generally the paths of least rejection that become ego-invested “preferences.” Buffers aren’t so much about those “preference” as they are about the rejection aversion motivations behind them.
At this point you might be thinking, “Well, what the hell, I don’t want to feel rejection, why not employ buffers against it?” The main reason for embracing rejection is that rejection is better than regret. Scan back through this short list of buffers; how many of these have become greater, longer term problems for you than a briefly painful rejection would’ve been? Buffers also have a tendency to compound upon themselves in that one tends to dovetail into another, or more, until you no longer realize that they were originally rejection prevention methodologies and gradually become associated with your genuine personality. After a long enough period, buffer become “just how I am.”
Lastly, experience teaches harsh, but it teaches best. Rejection, real, raw, in your face rejection stings like a bitch. It must be something so intolerable that human beings will devise countless social and psychological constructs in order to avoid it. However, there is no better teacher than getting burned by the stove. As a Man, you are going to face rejection in far more facets of your life than just dealing with a woman. The buffers you learn in one aspect of your life will be just as encumbering when they’re transferred to another aspect of your life. All of these buffers listed, and many more, become indicators of how you confidently deal with adversity. Some make you look like a Beta male pussy, others are subtle and nagging parts of an internalized personality, but dependence upon them incrementally reveals your real character to a woman. Are you Alpha enough to take a rejection on the chin, smile and confidently come back for more? Or will you run, will you block yourself, will you hide with convenient buffers?
Compensation
One of the higher orders of physical standards women hold for men is height. There are countless threads in the manosphere community that address this, but I think that for the better part it’s not difficult to observe this in the ’real world’. I should also add that this is one characteristic that is central to the Social Matching Theory in that humans are sensitive to asymmetrics and imbalances.
Now, before I get told in so many ways that this isn’t always the case or the “not all girls are like that” exceptions to the rule, let me start by saying that this isn’t the point of this section. I don’t want to debate the logistics of why women prefer a taller mate or the tendency for like to attract like in this respect. What I’m on about is really the root of the infamous “short man’s disease.” That’s right, you know who I’m talking about; the ultimate in compensation for inferiority, the dreaded ’short man’s disease.’
You know the guy. About 5′ 6″, pounding out the weight on the bench press. Bad ass attitude, hangs with the bigger guys (which is pretty much all of them) and throws his
ego around. What a tool, right?
But if you think this is only limited to short men, you’re making a mistake. You see, in so many ways we all compensate for deficiencies. I once read a thread on another “non-community” forum that saw fit to start a topic asking why men lie and it got me to thinking why any of us lie, man or woman. At the time I’d also been fielding a lot of questions regarding issues we kind of take for granted after having discussed them to death in the manosphere; one of those being the nature of personality and one’s ability to change their own or have it changed by circumstance, or often both. I think it’s a tragic miscalculation on our part to think of personality as static, unchangeable or to question the ingenuousness of that change, but more tragic is the doubting of ourselves for that change.
One simple truism that a lot of people love to use as their convenient escape clause is the JBY (just be yourself) notion. This of course is just what ones says as advice when they really don’t know what else to say. Given that though, what is it that makes a personality shift ’genuine’? Any number of us probably know an individual who began acting differently at some point in their life. This can be the result of some kind of tragedy or trauma (think PTSD) or it can be that the individual felt a need to change their fundamental way of thinking and made the change of their own accord. Usually in these cases we think of them as posers or try-hards, trying to be something they’re not. They reflect this change in their appearance, their regular practices, their friends or the people they associate with, attitudes, behaviors etc. And this is what’s jarring for people who knew their prior personality.
What makes us doubt the sincerity of a personal change is what’s at issue. If their change is something we agree with or generally think of as positive, we are less inclined to doubt the ingenuousness of this change. But when their change conflicts with our own interests, when it dramatically clashes with what we’ve come to expect of that individual, this is where we doubt their sincerity. We say “dude, stop trying to be something you’re not”, we tear it down, we fall back on JBY platitudes because it clashes with our interpretations. And in this doubt, we fish for reasons as to why a person would want that change; essentially, what are they compensating for? It may be funny to presume someone driving a monster truck down the highway is making up for a small penis, but the root of that ’compensating’ is what makes us feel uncomfortable in our own internal compensating.
It’s a difficult enough task for an individual to critically assess their own personality, and even more so to effect a change in it, but the final insult is to have other’s doubt the veracity of it. What others fail to see is that at some point in the development of their own personalities, they themselves had to compensate for deficiencies, discontentments and prompts to grow and mature. This is a gigantic hurdle for most average men wanting to transition to being something more. I like the term positive masculinity, but the crux of all that is the ingenuousness of the actual change. Why are you changing?
There is a saying that average frustrated chumps (AFCs) are like a bunch of crabs in a barrel. As soon as one is about to climb out there are always half a dozen ready to pull him back in again. Add to this a self-doubt from societal conditionings that tell him to stay the same, not to aspire to more, he’s doing it right, and it’s amazing that any AFC progresses beyond what he was. This has been termed the ’Societal Cockblock’; they tell him he’s compensating, and in a way they’re right, but for the wrong reason. PUA skills, psychology, Positive Masculinity are all compensations for deficiencies. They go beyond behavior modification — that’s the easy answer. PUAs teach a set of behaviors and scripts to be aped in order to mask a deficit. These are easy pickings for the JBY apologists because they are actions that generally don’t match a person’s prior personality. They’re not “really” like that, so they’re posers, or worse, they’ve been duped by guys hawking the PUA brand of self-help tools. What they don’t see is the genuine desire to change and the reasons for it.
When we compensate, we improvise, we fake it till we make it; but who determines when we’ve stopped faking it? You do. I read all kinds of articles doubting the realized capacity a person has to adopt ’natural Game’ into their personality. It’s an internalization process for sure, but there has to come a point of transition where a Man’s default response is his Game response. That’s who he is now.
Buffers
ALPHA
What you’re about to read here is not going to make me any new friends. I know because any discussion of what constitutes Alpha Male characteristics in a Man always becomes clouded by the self-perceptions of how well we think we align with them. The ’community’, the ’manosphere’, the new understanding of gender relations that’s picked up momentum for the last 12 years has always generated it’s own terminologies for more abstract concepts. The danger in this is that these terms lack real, universal definition.
For purposes of illustrating a concept these terms are usually serviceable — we have a general understanding of what makes for a ’Beta’ or a Herb, or a man who falls into a sublimated ’provider’ mentality. Even ’Alpha’ in a specific context is useful as an illustrative tool, when the subject isn’t directly about ’Alpha-ness’. It’s when we try to universally define what constitutes the qualities and attributes of an Alpha male that the sparks start to fly. So before you continue on reading further, think about what you believe makes a man Alpha.
Got it in your head now?
Good, now put all of that aside, purge that from your head, and read the next few
paragraphs from the perspective that you don’t know anything about Alpha.
The Alpha Buddha
I was first introduced to Corey Worthington, the Alpha Buddha, courtesy of Roissy and his post “Umm, sorry?” You can go ahead and look this up and read this from the Chateau’s perspective, and I think the analysis is pretty good, but it might be easier for readers to simply search for “Corey Worthington” on youtube.
Corey Worthington was a teenage kid from Melbourne, Australia who made internet
infamy by hosting a raucous house party, unbeknown to his parents, resulting in $20,000 of property damage. He was later interviewed by an attractive local news anchor who made efforts to shame him into self-realizations and apologies. It’s probably better to simply watch the video (linked on my blog) to get an idea of Corey’s Alpha cred.
I call Corey the Alpha Buddha not in the hopes that men will aspire to his almost Zen-like ’being’ in Alpha, but rather to provide an example of Alpha in it’s most pure form. He literally is Alpha, unclouded by pretense, afterthought, or conscious awareness of any influence that could have a hope of prompting introspection about his state.
Corey Worthington is a piss poor example of a human being, but he’s a textbook example of Alpha. I could use a lot of adjectives to describe this kid, but “beta” wouldn’t be one of them. What’s funny, and a bit ironic, is this kid has probably never come across Mystery Method or “the PUA community” or even heard of ’peacocking’ and he gets naturally what millions of guys pay small fortunes at PUA seminars to acquire over the course of a lifetime. He’s a selfish little prick, but what makes him insulting to ’normal’ men is his having the natural, internalized Alpha bravado that so many AFCs wish they had. If you could bottle and sell this Alpha essence, you’d be rich beyond imagine.
Right about now all of those self-affirming preconceptions you had about Alpha-ness (that I told you to stow away before reading this) are probably yelling to be let out of the mental box you put them in. “,..but, but Rollo, how can you possibly think this arrogant douchebag kid could ever be an example of anything remotely Alpha?!”
You’ll be pleased to know I fully empathize your outrage. You work hard to be a “better man”, you put in the self analysis, you paid your dues coming to terms with unplugging and reinventing yourself. You’re a success, Corey is fuckup. Corey’s not a better Man than you are, however, he understands Alpha better than you do.
Alpha is mindset, not a demographic.
Alpha is as Alpha does, it isn’t what we say it is. There are noble Alphas and there are scoundrel Alphas, the difference is all in how they apply themselves.
There’s a tendency to approach every “Alpha” argument from what a guy thinks is righteousness; ergo, his personal definition of Alpha is what appeals best to his sense of virtue. He earned his Alpha cred, played by the rules, and by God people (women) should respect that. However, the sad truth is that prisons are full of Alpha males who simply channeled their drive toward destructive and anti-social endeavors. There are plenty of examples of indifferent Asshole Alphas who you wouldn’t say are upstanding moral leaders at all, yet women will literally kill each other (or themselves) in order to bang them because they exude a natural Alpha-ness. Just as Corey does here.
There are Alpha drug dealing gang leaders, and there are Alpha husbands, fathers and leaders of industry. It’s all in the application. Genghis Khan was Alpha as fuck, and a leader-of-men, but probably would be on most people’s douchebag list for that era. Here’s an illustration:
Guy’s like Corey infuriate men who have invested their self-worth in the accomplishments of what they think ought to be universally appreciated and rewarded. So when they’re confronted with a natural Alpha being undeservedly rewarded for brazenly acting out of accord with what they think the rules ought to be, they seethe with resentment.
The natural response in the face of such an inconsistency is to redefine the term ’Alpha’ to cater to themselves and their accomplishments as “real men” and exclude the perpetrator. The conflict then comes from seeing his new definition of Alpha not being rewarded or even appreciated as well as a natural Alpha attitude and the cycle continues. Your respect (or anyone else’s) for an Alpha has nothing to do with whether or not he possess an Alpha mindset. Three failed marriages and 100+ lays has nothing to do with a man having or not having an Alpha mindset. There are many well respected betas who’ve never had a passing thought of infidelity, or may have 300 lays either with prostitutes or because they possess fame or stunning good looks and women come to him by matter of course.
The take home message here is that you are not Alpha because of your achievements, you have your achievements because you are Alpha. You possess a mindset you either had to develop or it came naturally to you. I constantly field questions from young men asking me whether some action or behavior they displayed to a woman was Alpha, or Alpha enough. The real answer is that Alpha behaviors are manifestations of an Alpha mindset.
And just like Corey the Alpha Buddha, the introspect required to wonder if something was or wasn’t Alpha wouldn’t ever be a consideration enough to ask. You almost need to have a childlike understanding to really appreciate what Alpha really is. Kids get Alpha. Even the picked on, introverted, beta-to-be kid has a better understanding of Alpha than most adult men do because he lacks the abstract thinking required to rationalize Alpha for himself. Most men, by our socialization, and to varying degrees, lose this in-born Alpha mindset over time. The naturals, the Corey’s of the world, have a better grasp on it’s usefulness and re-purpose it; either to their adulthood advantage or their detriment.
Defining Alpha
I understand why guys, both of the red and blue pill variety have a problem with using the terms Alpha and/or Beta; depending on the perspective, terms that are definitive about what someone has an investment in make us uncomfortable. It’s much more comfortable to put those issues into more subjective understandings because when we’re objective about them we can’t help the wondering about, or we doubt, our own status within that definition. Objective terms are very close to absolutes depending upon who’s doing the defining.
From a generalized perspective, I feel that the terms Alpha and Beta are good reference points in assessing the characteristics that women find arousing (and attractive) in men for both short and long term mating strategies. However, I think that beyond these convenient terms, men need to be more realistic about how they apply to their own self-impressions in contrast with how women are interpreting the Alpha and Beta cues that they exhibit.
For the record, at points in my life I’ve personally been the worst, bottom scraping Beta, the douchebag Alpha rock star, and the strong (but lesser) Alpha father and husband. So it’s with this in mind that I think guys shouldn’t believe that their ’stars are set’ and they’ll never live up to the manosphere standard of Alpha.
Living Up
The reason that so many guys get so bent about what defines an Alpha is usually because they don’t fit that general definition very well. So it’s a logical ego defense to make necessity a virtue and redefine it to better suit their own conditions. It’s exactly the same dynamic as the debate over Looks vs. Game. Game takes priority for those without Looks and vice versa. A personal definition of “what’s Alpha?” becomes whatever plays to an individual guy’s strengths, and women who can’t appreciate them (i.e. all of them) are relegated to being less-than quality women. Sour grapes are sour, but deductively it makes sense; we want to be the embodiment of what we ’know’ is attractive to women and others. The worst beta schlub you know thinks he’s Alpha, because every woman he’s ever known has defined and affirmed for him that being Beta is what women want.
Ethics of Alpha
The problem then is looking at the definition objectively.
In an objective light it’s difficult to look at ourselves as not measuring up to an Alpha ideal. So it becomes the first recourse to cast suspicion on the whole idea of being Alpha at all. It’s a pissing contest between immature men then.
Or is it? There is a LOT of observable, provable evidence that many so-called Alpha traits do in fact elicit very predictable, desired, favorable behaviors (usually breeding cues) in women. From an evolutionary psychology perspective Alpha is just as unprincipled, just as efficiently ruthless and uncaring as it’s female counterpart — feminine Hypergamy.
So then the definition moves into an ambiguous moral ground; is it ethical to be / act Alpha? To be Alpha implies that you necessarily rise above a certain degree of common mediocrity depending upon the context — whether you do so like a guy from hotchickswithdouchebags.com or like a perfect “honorable” gentlemen is irrelevant, you still position yourself above “other guys”. To some extent this is selfishness or implies a self-importance that questions moral tenets.
At this point I should also add here that women never doubt themselves on moral grounds for outshining their own competition in the sexual market place — they just do so covertly and with a polite smile, unburdened by ethical doubts. Hypergamy is its own excuse.
Alpha Selectivity
And that brings us to the subjectively deductive end of defining Alpha. Every sexual competitor seeks to disqualify their rivals from breeding opportunities. Most animals fight for territory or harem rights. Humans generally (though certainly not exclusively) do the same combat in the psychological. We seek to disqualify sexual competitors by calling into doubt the sexual credibility of a rival. “Yeah, he’s really good looking, but that means he’s probably gay” from a man, or “You think that blonde with the big boobs is hot? Girls who dress like that are usually sluts” from a woman are both psychological, sexually disqualifying forms of combat.
This also applies to the observably, provably, sexually successful male capable of OVERTLY flaunting his high sexual value with two (or more) concurrent women. He must be of low moral character to so flagrantly manipulate his multiple girlfriends, right?
His observable success, as a sexual competitor, conflicts with what a Beta believes should constitute a Beta-defined definition of Alpha-ness as it characterizes him personally. Thus, the polygamist either must be disqualified as a sexual competitor based on subjective (moral) grounds, or a guy is forced to alter his own definition of Alphaness and therefore his own self-estimate.
Every guy has a Game. Everyone thinks they are Alpha in their own way. Even the worst doormat Nice Guy, hammered flat by women for a lifetime, thinks his supplications or Cap’n Save-a-Ho mindset is the best way to win a woman’s intimacy. He’s invested in thinking he’s unique in his understanding of how best to arrive at sex with a woman. Likewise, Alpha-ness is a moving target that’s conveniently applied or disparaged based on personal circumstances.
Personally I believe Alpha-ness can, and does, have a concrete, objective definition. The problem arises when anyone asserts that they can definitively outline Alpha traits when it conflicts with the subjectiveness and ego-investments of those who define it personally for themselves.
So we get a wide variety of what makes a man Alpha — he’s the guy of high moral
character, princely ambition and integrity, as well as the self-important cad banging his wife and “their” girlfriend. They are both Alpha. Thus I would propose that while
certainly contextual, objective Alpha-ness is NOT exclusive to social status or personal integrity, but rather an attitude of expressly manifested traits. These can be innate or learned, but the definition is not dependent on moral grounds (or a lack of).
A scoundrel and a champion can be equally Alpha or Beta in their own psyche.
The Origin of Alpha
“Safe sex, safe clothing, safe hairspray, safe ozone layer,…too late! Everything that’s been achieved in the history of mankind has been achieved by not being safe.”
— Lemmy Kilmister, Mötorhead
A Rational Male reader Jeremiah presented me with a well worn question:
“ My question is, Tomassi, do you think alpha traits are usually learned or genetically inherited? What percentage of modern men “get it” and of the men who “get it” how many of them have always “gotten it” and how many of them learned to adapt? It is hard to believe there are still naturals out there when feminism is being rammed up the anus of every man before he sprouts his first tooth.”
I don’t think distilling the essence of Alpha ’presence’ in a Man is as subjective as most people feel compelled to qualify, enumerate or otherwise yammer on about in as personally identifying a manner as they can muster. In my estimation Alpha is a state of mind, not a demographic. The manosphere will endlessly debate the qualifications of what is Alpha, but I think for the most part, the influence of an Alpha mindset (whatever the qualifiers) is more or less agreed upon.
However, with this in mind, I think it’s a perfectly valid question to ask whether an Alpha is born that way or molded into his Alpha mindset. This is actually the classic debate psychology has always put to its various schools of thought; Nature vs. Nurture — is a dynamic influenced by inherent, biological, environmental prompts or is that dynamic a learned, socialized and acculturated phenomenon? And of course the equally classic conflict comes from people attempting to define various dynamics in terms of absolutes, when to greater or lesser degrees a dynamic is influenced by both nature and nurturing elements.
While the Tomassi school of psychology is firmly planted in the nuts and bolts of behaviorism, it’s also important to take into account that external influences can and too often do modify innate, inborn predilections — even inborn self-preservation instincts.
So with this in mind, my perspective on the origin of Alpha is that biology determines the starting point for Alpha, what happens to it from there is modified by a man’s environmental conditions. Alpha ’energy’, for lack of a better term, is to varying degrees, part of a male human’s biologically determined “starting package”; from there, through social feedback, it’s either refined and developed by his upbringing, acculturation and social affirming, or it’s repressed, constrained and mitigated by his social environment.
When I was in art school one of my most influential teachers told me, “There are two types of artists; those who were born with a natural, innate gift for art, and those who lack that gift, but possess such a passion for art that it drives them to be good at it. The true masters are the artists that combine both natural talent and the drive that comes from a passion for it.” I’ve always referred back to this model in my creative efforts, but I believe this model can be extended beyond just the artistic sense.
The Learned Alpha
Manosphere godfather, RooshV has an excellent breakdown of The Myth of the Natural that perfectly encapsulates the learning theory of Alpha. The premise behind this is that Alpha behavior, and consequently facility with women, comes as a set of modeled behaviors based upon trial and error:
If I were forced to agree on what a natural is, it would be a man who’s a prodigy of sex—someone who gets laid way above other men with no formal instruction in game. This means he was not exposed to any 12 DVD “Cocky Humor” sets or seminars in a hotel room with three dozen other guys. You look at him and think, “Wow, he gets laid automatically. He was born to get laid!”
But he wasn’t. Just because he didn’t read a book doesn’t mean he didn’t learn through trial and error like you did, practicing his game on a large number of women. It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t conscious and deliberate with his behavior, incrementally improving his moves and tactics over a long period of time. He has experimented like you have experimented, and he has also connected his attempts with results to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
He may not be obsessive about it enough to log his data into a spreadsheet, but he’s mindful and aware of what he’s doing. He understands the mechanism behind charm and can often turn it on or off depending on what he wants. He has learned the type of humor and story-telling that gets a positive response in women. The last thing you can say about him was that he was born into the world with the “automatic” ability to fuck a lot of girls.
Essentially what Roosh explores here is a very basic behavioral psychology premise — macro-psychological dynamics to micro-psychological schema are developed, deliberately or unconsciously, through a process of deductive trial and error management. Whether you’re aware of it or not, everyone has Game to varying degrees. Every man you know has some concept of behaviors and mental attitudes he believes will best help him arrive at sexual intimacy with a woman. Even the worst Blue Pill Beta believes he has some idea of how best to get with a girl.
All of this proto-Game has been in a constant state of trial and error management since you were five years old and had your first interaction with the opposite sex on the kindergarten playground, right up to the point when you started reading in the manosphere and discovered the Red Pill. And you will continue to modify your old behavior and mental sets based upon the new information available to you after you adopt formalized Game.
In fact, in its rawest sense, the PUA community, the manosphere and all its permutations are really a meta-effort in behavioral modification by way of experimentation and information feedback.
For some this learning process comes easier than it does for others.
Again Roosh:
The reason he blows you away isn’t because of his genetics, but because of how early he started. A unique set of circumstances threw him into the sex game years before you, during a time he was lucky enough to be surrounded by giggly schoolgirls. By the time you did your first approach, he had already practiced his game on hundreds of women.
While I do agree with this from a behavioral standpoint, this is where I have to depart from accepting Roosh’s theory entirely. There are far too many biological and environmental determinants involved in developing an Alpha male to ascribe an Alpha status based solely on learned behavior. The simple, observable, fact is that a genetically better looking, more physically arousing male is going to statistically have more opportunities to experiment and develop his Alpha Game prowess than a less physically impressive male. In theory, a man with a more advantageous physical presence will “start earlier” in his process of deductively evaluating behaviors since his efforts will be more frequently encouraged by the women who are naturally attracted to his physique.
Unfortunately all of that assumes developing a behavioral set in a vacuum. There’s literally a world of environmental conditions and variables that would predispose a man towards behavioral development of Alpha status or (more often) limit him from it. Roosh touches on this:
At this point you may be thinking, “Well, there have to be guys who were born with it. Look at Mozart!”
Nobody questions that Mozart’s achievements were extraordinary compared with those of his contemporaries. What’s often forgotten, however, is that his development was equally exceptional for his time. His musical tutelage started before he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer, was a famous music teacher and had written one of the first books on violin instruction. Like other world-class performers, Mozart was not born an expert—he became one.
I don’t think this example excludes for a natural, innate talent, but it does help to illustrate the environment’s role in molding a person by limiting or encouraging his behavioral development and ultimately his personality. In the Mozart example we see the success story (the story of a master artist) of a natural talent encouraged and developed to potential by favorable external conditions. Mozart was the perfect storm of natural talent and an ideal environment for nurturing it, thus giving him the advantage of an “early start” in his behavioral trial and error efforts.
My reader Jeremiah laments, “It is hard to believe there are still naturals out there when
feminism is being rammed up the anus of every man before he sprouts his first tooth” and of course this is a negative example of an environment (deliberately) averse to nurturing an Alpha mindset. There’s no shortage of examples, but feminization from a behavioral psychology perspective, is nothing less than a socialized effort in deliberate behavioral modification of men’s natural drives and predilections to better fit the feminine imperative.
As men socialized in an all-encompassing, pervasive, fem-centric reality, we tend to see “Natural Alphas” as outliers because somehow, through some combination of innate gift and external development, these Men have developed themselves into an Alpha state despite the meta-environment we find ourselves in.
The Natural Alpha
A lot of people call my credibility into question when they read my holding Corey Worthington up as an example of an apex Alpha. Guys who believe that Alpha should necessarily mean “virtuous leaders of men” are understandably insulted by Corey’s indifferent Alpha swagger. The ’Qualities of Alpha’ debates aren’t going away, but I think there’s an overall consensus among the manosphere and legitimate psychologists alike that there is an innate (probably testosterone fueled) Alpha drive that manifests itself in human males.
No one has to teach the average, healthy, five-year-old boy how to be Alpha — he gets it on his own. In various contexts that ’lil’ Alpha’ wants to explore his surroundings, take risks, see what works and see what doesn’t, even when the consequences may be endangering himself or destroying the thing he took apart to see how it worked. It may manifest as a boy attempting to ride wheelies on his bike or a kid tinkering with his dad’s computer, but that unrefined, irrationally confident, Alpha swagger, is by order of degrees, an innate element unique to the male condition.
When a boy is unencumbered with an adult capacity for abstract thinking (ages 3-21 progressively) he is as Alpha as he will ever be. He is unapologetically Alpha and it takes a lifetime, and an entire world of feminized social conditioning to repress and/or crush that Alpha vigor and turn him into the pliable Beta the feminine imperative needs to insure its social primacy. This is precisely why the raw, irresponsible, irrepressible, obliviously un-self-aware Alpha energy of the Alpha Buddha/Corey Worthingtons of the world offend our sensibilities so well.
All of the Game theory, PUA techniques, even feminine-serving appeals to Man-Up! or any other effort designed to help men better mimic or internalize an Alpha behavioral or mind set, all of those efforts’ latent purpose is to return a man back to that primal Alpha energy the five-year-old you had in spades.
The Contextual Alpha
In March of 2012, James Hooker, a 41-year-old married father left his wife and kids for his 18-year-old-student. He resigned from his job at Enochs High School in Modesto, California over the scandal that shook up a community and put one mom on a crusade to save her daughter from a man she called a “master manipulator.”
The girl, Jordan met her teacher as a freshman, but both maintain nothing physical happened until she turned 18. Hooker claimed he saw Powers as “just a student” and had no romantic feelings toward her at first, but when her 18th birthday came around, things changed.
They changed so much, in fact, that Hooker, left his wife and three kids (one of them a 17-year-old Enochs high school student as well) so that he could move in with Jordan.
Well, as is manosphere godfather Roissy’s (now Heartiste) wont to do, the Chateau (Roissy’s blog) boldly nominated James Hooker as Alpha of the Month.
As expected the post’s comments got heated, but that’s not the end of it. The SoSuave forum discussion thread created by the (sometimes overly) passionate members in response really gets down to the meat of the matter:
How “Alpha” will Mr. Hooker be seen by the general public?
How “Alpha” does the 18 year old’s friends think he is? (If she has or had any at this point.)
What about new employment for the infamous Mr. Hooker? Will he take his ’soulmate’ to work functions he may be required to attend?
There are probably loads of weird situations they will find themselves in. Or will they become a pair of social recluses?
Think about it. That dude isn’t Alpha he’s more of the Little Rascal’s Alphalpha. Pathetic nerd.
Before I launch into my take on this situation I feel it’s incumbent upon me to throw out this disclaimer; I do not condone Hooker’s actions. At my time of writing this I have a daughter who will turn 15 in April and if there is any better indictment of the delusions of empowered single mothers and the inherent necessity of a strong, positive, masculine influence in a child’s upbringing, of either sex, I can’t think of it. Kids need the resolute, protective Fathers that far too many ’strong, independent women®’ emphatically resist, run off, or covertly despise — only to further shame them for a lack of presence when an incident such as this occurs.
That said, I agree with the Chateau’s assessment — Hooker is an Alpha, but only contextually so.
From Roissy seminal 16 Commandments of Poon (emphasis mine):
XII. Maximize your strengths, minimize your weaknesses
In the betterment of ourselves as men we attract women into our orbit. To accomplish this gravitational pull as painlessly and efficiently as possible, you must identify your natural talents and shortcomings and parcel your efforts accordingly. If you are a gifted jokester, don’t waste time and energy trying to raise your status in philosophical debate. If you write well but dance poorly, don’t kill yourself trying to expand your manly influence on the dance floor. Your goal should be to attract women effortlessly, so play to your strengths no matter what they are; there is a groupie for every male endeavor. Except World of Warcraft.
As a teacher, James Hooker is afforded a default status authority. To students in a classroom, being the teacher confers a contextual presumption of mastery and thus a de facto social proof is conferred upon that person. In that theater, in that environment, the teacher is Alpha. A uniformed police officer is perceived as Alpha in his given role, despite his personally being a chump when off duty.
As Roissy illustrates, Hooker was playing to his strengths. In virtually any other social setting he’d be perceived as a beta. The SoSuave forum and damn near every other casual observer peg this guy for the Beta-Symp he undoubtedly is, but in that classroom, to a 14 year old girl who gradually matures into an 18 year old woman, Hooker is Alpha, and probably the only Alpha she’d ever experienced.
How “Alpha” will Mr. Hooker be seen by the general public?
In all likelihood, he’ll be more publicly reviled than legitimate sexual predators when the genders are reversed. The great unwashed masses in the pop culture narrative don’t recognize the legitimacy of Alpha influence as it is. To them it’s psychological manipulation, and to a calculated extent it really is, but the real question that nags them is why that manipulation is effective. They’ll blame it on the naiveté of the girl, and her seeking a father figure, as well as the lasciviousness of Hooker, but what’s really uncomfortable is why the Alpha influence works.
What about new employment for the infamous Mr. Hooker? Will he take his ’soulmate’ to work functions he may be required to attend?
It’s precisely because of Hooker’s subscription to the soul-mate myth that he reeks of Beta. I have no doubt that he fluidly convinced himself of his noble intent narrative,
casting himself as the savior for his adoring princess. White Knights are very prone to using their delusions of chivalry to rationalize good intent into the same behaviors they’d condemn in Players, PUAs or typical ’other guys’ in general. To venture a guess I’d expect that Hooker buys his own bullshit, and because of this he hasn’t given an afterthought to how it will affect his career, his relationship with his family, his kids or any future social circle.
As an extension of this, along with his teaching job, Hooker has lost his contextual Alpha cred. As his young chippy matures more, she’ll begin to see that contextual Alpha status erode with every progressive shit test he fails — and removed from the environment that made him Alpha, fail he will.
Alpha is as Alpha does
In context, James Hooker parlayed enough Alpha mojo to land a solitary 18 year old girl; one he had to invest in for at least 4 consecutive years to consolidate on. In fact, I
sincerely doubt he had any idea that he was situationally an Alpha to the point that he thought he could intentionally manipulate this girl with it.
There is a vast difference between the contextual Alphaness of Hooker and the subconscious Zen mastery of it in Corey Worthington — the Alpha Buddha. Both of these guys are an affront to the sensibilities of the “Alpha = Leader-of-Men” faction of Alpha definers, but both tap into a common root of Alpha energy that women naturally respond to.
It’s discomforting to think that the brave Marine fighting in Mogadishu, commanding the noble respect from his country and peers taps into the same Alpha energy that makes a guy like James Hooker attractive to women. Same Alpha, different context.
Hypergamy is a cruel mistress.
Jerry Seinfeld dated and married his wife when she was 18. And while it caused a brief stir in the press, Jerry’s wider Alpha appeal pushed this story out of the headlines. Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, both were banging and/or marrying underage girls, but were given an Alpha pass then and now. As I stated, I’m not condoning it, in fact I find it deplorable, but I do understand why it occurs.
Plate Theory
Spin more plates.
This is the main premise behind Plate Theory. Imagine for a moment a plate spinner. They’re kind of like jugglers, but require a real finesse and dexterity to maintain a spinning plate atop a long, thin stick.
Just like the plate spinner, a Man needs to have a lot of simultaneous prospects spinning together. Think of each plate as a separate woman you are pursuing. Some fall off and break, others you may wish to stop spinning altogether and some may not spin as fast as you’d like, but the essence of plate theory is that a man is as confident and valuable as his options. This is the essence of the abundance mindset — confidence is derived from options.
This principle is the key to solving so many of the problems that dog the heels of Beta AFCs and recovering AFCs. In fact I would say that this ideology should be the cornerstone to success for a man in many facets of life, not simply attracting and keeping women. A man with options has power, and from these options and this sense of power, a natural sense of confidence will manifest itself. A man without options becomes necessitous and this leads to a lack of confidence and a scarcity mentality. Necessitous men are never free.
As we progress through this section, keep in mind the Cardinal Rule of Relationships:
The Cardinal Rule of Relationships
In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least.
When a man spins more plates, when he has irons in the fire, when he is pursuing multiple women simultaneously, when he has options equally worth exploring, a man will have a natural, subconscious (but not exclusively) understanding that if one prospect does not expand, others very well may. This understanding has manifestations in a man’s behavior that women key on covertly. There are mannerisms and attitudes that a man with options will subconsciously convey to prospective women that they interpret, and give this man a value as a commodity to be competed for with other females.
On my blog and in the PUA community, men are taught to emulate this behavior since it is a key element in attraction and interest. Being Cocky & Funny is one such technique that trains a confidence behavior that (more often than not) essentially masks a deficit of options. In other words, C&F is a natural behavior for men with options that must be compensated for by those who don’t. This is why the ’natural’ Alpha male seems to exude C&F effortlessly while those without the benefit of more plates spinning (or the confidence in the ability of spinning more) struggle with simple things like eye contact or initiating approaches. This is also a fundamental principle in the “I don’t give a fuck” mentality that pervades community technique — it’s much easier to actually not “give a fuck” if you have other prospects going simultaneously.
Shotgun Logic
One very important benefit that Plate Theory provides for a man is that it greatly curbs
the propensity for ONEitis both in and out of an LTR.
Outside of an LTR, most guys subscribe to what I call the Sniper mentality. This is the AFC that applies all of his time, effort and resources to patiently waiting out his target, waiting for that perfect opportunity to summon enough courage in the most precise of conditions to take his one shot at the girl, who by then is the focus of his ONEitis.
This process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years in extreme cases, but all the while he voluntarily sacrifices his most valuable of resource — potential opportunity. The man who subscribes to Plate Theory can more easily avoid this situation as he goes hunting for women with a Shotgun; scattering as much influence across the broadest area possible. While the AFC fishes with a single line and a single hook, the Plate Theorist fishes with a trolling net, selecting the fish worth keeping and tossing back those who aren’t.
Inside an LTR, Plate Theory becomes more specified. The AFC placates and identifies with his partner because the balance has shifted to her advantage since he reinforces her understanding that she is his only source of intimacy. I can’t think of a better recipe for ONEitis since he become progressively more dependent on her as his only source of intimacy.
The man who maintains, at the very least, the covert perception of options, either professionally or on an intersexual level (i.e. social proof that other women will compete for him) maintains this power balance. Most successful men have an innate understanding
of this and this explains their popular reservations for committing to marriage,
In an LTR (long term relationship), Plate Theory becomes a subtle dance of perception and recognizing how your partner interprets understanding a particular man’s options,
but regardless, it reduces a guy’s tendency to regress into ONEitis in an LTR from his own self-perception and the confidence it inspires.
Natural Selection
Spinning more plates allows you more opportunity to select from the largest pool of
prospective choices and date them or drop them as you see fit. This has two benefits. First, it serves as valuable, though non-committed, experience for learning what a man requires for his own personal satisfaction. Experience teaches harsh, but it teaches best and the breadth of experience serves a man well. Who’s insight is more beneficial, the man who’s sailed the world over or the man who’s never ventured beyond a lake?
Secondly, opportunity and options make a man the prize. Rock stars, professional athletes and movie stars aren’t irresistible to women because of their celebrity, but because they blatantly, and with the highest form of social proof, prove they have options that other women will jealously compete for as well as the confidence that this unconscious knowledge naturally manifests itself in them.
What Plate Theory is not
Critics of Plate Theory will often take a binary stance in their arguments with this idea stating that “they could never be with more than one woman at a time out of respect for her” or “so I should just lie to her and see other girls on the side?” to which I’d argue that these are feminized social conventions that attempt to thwart a man’s options in order to establish and / or maintain women as the prime selectors in intersexual relations.
If it can be conditioned into a boy / man to ’feel bad’ about seeing more than one woman at a time, or non-exclusivity in his relations with women, it only better serves the female-as-chooser dynamic. To be sure, women are naturally the filters for their own intimacies, but it is essentially men who do the sexual selection. The common trope that women do the sexual selecting is false — it’s just that men’s side of the sexual selection equation is a threat to feminine primacy in sexual selection. The latent purpose of social conventions that sublimate men’s sexual choosing are designed to put selection of intimacy on a conditional basis that favors women, and as long as men will internalize this women will have a preconstructed social high-ground.
The way to circumvent this dynamic is brutal honesty and a commitment to truthful, non-exclusivity with the plates you’re spinning. If you keep your options above board and are honest with any one girl and yourself about your choice to be non-exclusive, you not only remove the teeth from this convention, but you also reinforce yourself as a man with options (or at least perceived options).
Further, critics will offer “well gee, if I did that with any woman she’d push off and dump me” to which I’ll refute — not if you establish this honestly from the outset. Most guys who’ve swallowed the ’female power’ convention are too afraid or to preconditioned to even consider this as an option for seeing women. Letting a woman know, or covertly perceive, that you wont be exclusive to her pushes your commodity level up and implies options and potential success she’ll compete with other women to be associated with.
That said, Plate Theory is also, most definitely not, a license to be indiscriminate with women. Just because you can spin a plate doesn’t necessarily mean you should spin that plate. Some aren’t worth spinning and a man with options should have no reservation about letting one go for a better one or two. In fact a man ought to be more discriminating in this regard since it affords him the best available from the largest selection.