The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi 2013

Social Conventions

Often I’ll be in the middle of some socio-psychological tear on a particular topic when I’ll come to a dead halt because I play my own devil’s advocate while I’m typing and reasoning aloud, and have to review and edit the paragraphs I’ve spent the last two hours constructing because I’d failed to consider how others might interpret my intent. Other times it may be I’d overlooked some element and had to go back and address that issue, or at the very least have a source ready to cite for the most predictable rebuttals.

Needless to say it’s an arduous process, however I’ve found that starting blog topics, in regards to certain theories and ideas, bearing in mind that I have to see what their intent will be read as helps me greatly. So with this in mind I’m presenting a particular section of my work here to see what the consensus is on what I’ve come to call Operative Social Conventions. I had originally titled the section Feminine Operative Social Conventions, and I may still go back to that, but after you read this you’ll see how these conventions (or contrivances) need Men to play along with them for them to exist in the first place, or so I’ve reasoned.

Operative Social Conventions

In the ’community’ we’ve become all too familiar with a standard set of problems that are commonly asked of us for advice — “Should I date younger/older women with/without children?””what about women with money/career?”etc. for example. So often are we petitioned for our take on these dilemmas that we have a tendency to repeat back a standard reply for them.

I count myself among those who do this as well. I’m very prone to see the forest for the trees so to speak and fire back with my stand by reply of Spin More Plates, or NEXT. While these response are novel to those reading them for the first time (and hopefully having their eyes opened for the first time too), I’d come to realize that I was guilty of not seeing the forest with regards to why certain topics are more frequently reoccurring problems for the Beta-AFC and the aspiring Game student alike.

For the most part, Plate Theory covers a multitude of AFC sins, but my concern was with understanding why these dilemmas come up so often and what their root cause is. To this effect I’ve attempted to ’distill’ down the symptoms (i.e. the commonly related problems) to the motivation behind them (i.e. the disease rather than the symptoms). This led me to a new theory of Operative Social Conventions.

I’ve posted on my blog and in more forum threads than I care to recall about these

conventions before, but never really explored the idea in depth. Essentially all of the symptoms of these conventions are manifested as the frequent problems guys come up with, but the disease is the latent purpose of these conventions. For every guy asking if it’s a good idea to date a single mother or an older woman, there’s a single mother or

older woman perpetuating the pro side of that convention in order to best ensure her capacity to secure a man capable of provisioning for her. I wont ramble off into the bio-psychological aspect of why this is such an all important drive for women (and men in some cases), instead I’ll focus on certain conventions, the way they operate and their latent operative function.

Shame

Perhaps the easiest and most recognizable form of social convention is shame. Not only this, but it is also the most easily employable and the most widely accepted — not just by women of all ages and descriptions, but also by popular culture and the media.

Examples:

“Men should date women their own age.”

“Men shouldn’t be so ’shallow’ as to put off single mothers as viable long term mates.”

“Men have ’fragile egos’ that need constant affirmation in an almost infantile respect.”

“Men feel threatened by ’successful’ women.”

As well as being popularized myths, all of these are subtle (and not so subtle) manipulations of shame. Each is an operative social convention that places a man into a position of having to live up to an idealized standard that simultaneously raises the standard for a woman, thus placing her into a better position of sexual selection and in some instances, leveling the perceived playing-field with regard to the feminine competition dynamic (i.e. single moms, older and professional women ought to be just as sexually marketable as the younger women men biologically prefer).

The ’Shallow’ effect — The useful myth of superficiality.

I’m mentioning this as an aside to the Shame methodology since it appears to me to be the root of the Shame operative. In all of the above examples (or symptoms) the burden of expectation that is placed on a man comes with the threat of being perceived as

“Shallow” or superficial. In other words, the very questioning of whether or not a man ought to date a single mother comes with the veiled threat of having women (mothers or not) tar the questioning man with being ’superficial’. This ’Shallow’ effect is so pervasive in so many AFCs, young and old, I’ve counseled that it becomes an automatic default defense. Even under conditions of complete anonymity, the Shallow Effect becomes so ego-invested in their personality that just the potential of being perceived as “shallow” is subconsciously avoided.

This is a major obstacle in transitioning from AFC to positive masculinity. AFCs all initially laugh at PUA technique (Cocky & Funny, Peacocking, Neg Hits, etc.) because they carry the potential of being perceived as ’shallow’. The truth of the matter is that individually we are only as superficial as our own self-perceptions allow, but the Shallow Effect is a useful convention so long as it keeps men doubting their ingenuousness and self-validity in exchange for women’s intimacy.

Selection Position Insurance

Examples:

Women are ’allowed’ to understand men, but women must necessarily always be a

mystery to men.

Getting “lucky” with a woman when referring to sex.

Selection position insuring methodologies revolve around fomenting the Scarcity

Mentality in men. If the value can be inflated, the value can be increased, thus ensuring a controlling frame. This convention holds fast to the Feminine Mystique or Female

Intuition mythology. So long as women remain ’unknowable’ there becomes less

motivation to try to understand them. In fact this convention actively discourages any

attempt to understand the feminine to the point that men have adopted it and parrot it back without being cognizant of it.

This is exactly the reason why guys will ridicule men seeking an applicable understanding of women when they search it out in “how to get girls” books, DVDs, PUA seminars or on the internet. It’s also why men who profess to ’know’ how women operate are ridiculed; it’s a perfect paradox — to attempt to understand the feminine or to profess to know the feminine is not only laughable, but it places a man into the Shallow Effect in either case.

Social Escape Clauses — A Woman’s Prerogative

Examples:

Women always have the prerogative to change their minds. Men must be resolute.

Proactive and Reactive Pseudo-Friendship Rejections:

LJBF rejections — “I already have a boyfriend” (boyfriend disclaimers) or “I’m not

interested in a relationship right now” rejections.

Default female victimhood

Escape clause conventions always offer an out to a woman and absolve her of, or dramatically reduce her responsibility of personal accountability by means of social reinforcement. A stripper can complain of her self-degradation by men, but be completely blameless for her decisions to strip by virtue of her social conditions, that are, again, the perceived result of a male controlled society.

The Feminine Prerogative has been an accepted social norm since the early Renaissance and the advent of ’courtly love’. Like the Position Insurance convention, this serves to ensure that the ’mysterious woman’ is validated in her ambiguity by socially plausible reinforcement. The opposite of this convention is enforced for men, they must be resolute while accepting that a woman “has the right to change her mind.”

This, and the cart-carrot of a woman’s intimacy reward, is exactly why it is socially acceptable for a man to wait hours for a woman to prepare/show for a date and the kiss of death for a man to be more than 5-10 minutes late. He must be punctual, she is afforded leniency.

I don’t think I need to go into too much detail regarding the LJBF (“lets just be friends”) escape clause, but I will add that the LJBF escape is perhaps the single most useful convention ever conceived by women. The LJBF rejection has classically ensured that a woman can reject a man yet still maintain his previous attention. It also puts the

responsibility for the rejection back on his shoulders since, should he decline the ’offer of friendship’, he is then responsible for entertaining this friendship. Of course this has the potential to backfire on women these days since the standard AFC will accept an LJBF rejection in the mistaken hopes of ’proving’ himself worthy of her intimacy by being the perfect ’surrogate boyfriend’ — fulfilling all her attention and loyalty prerequisites with no expectation of reciprocating her own intimacy.

Sexual Competition Sabotage

Examples:

“She’s a ’slut’ — he’s a ’fag’” and the sub-communications in the terminology.

Catty remarks, gossip, feminine communication methodologies

This convention is the reputation destroyer and it’s easy to observe this in the field. Since it also serves a woman attention needs, it is among the most socially acceptable and

widely flaunted, however the foundations and latent purpose of this convention takes some consideration to understand. When women employ gossip it comes natural since it is an emotional form of communication (men have a far lower tendency to use gossip), but the purpose of it is meant to disqualify a potential sexual competitor.

In terms of female to female gossip this satisfies the attention need, but when men are brought into the salaciousness it becomes a qualification tool. By saying a woman is a “slut”, the sub-communication is, “she sleeps with a lot of guys and should therefore be ineligible as a candidate deserving of a man’s long term provisioning capacity, due to her obvious inability to remain loyal to any one, individual male.” This then becomes the ultimate weapon in influencing a man’s (long term) sexual selection.

I’ll also add that this breeding sabotage isn’t limited to just women. What’s the first thing most men are apt to say about another, anonymous, extremely attractive male? “He’s probably a fag.”

Men have learned this convention from women, they sexually disqualify a man in

he most complete way possible; “this guy might be as attractive as a GQ model, but

he would never breed with a woman and is therefore disqualified as a suitor for your intimacy.”

Gender Role Redefinition

Examples:

Masculinity is ridiculous and/or negative with the potential for violent extremes.

“Men should get in touch with their feminine sides.” — Identification as false attraction.

Although there are more operative conventions to outline, I’ll finish with this, the most obvious and most discussed convention. There’s no shortage of articles dedicated to this convention, so I wont rehash what’s been stated. Instead, I should point out the latent purpose behind the popularity and mass cultural acceptance of this, the most damaging convention. The function behind this convention could be promoting androgyny as an idealized state, or a power struggle to redefine masculine and feminine attributes, or even to ensure women as the primary selectors in mating. All of those can be argued and are valid, especially considering how prone to accepting and perpetuating this convention is among men today, but I think the deeper purpose, the real latent function is a sexual selection process.

It’s the man who remains in touch with his masculine side, the guy who, despite all of pop-culture denigrating and ridiculing his gender and the very aspects that make it a

necessary, positive strength of human society, will endure and steadfastly resist the influences that want to turn it into something it was never intended; it’s this guy and his confidence that women all over the world find irresistible.

He embodies the masculine arousal that their feminine has been seeking and they can’t explain it. This is the ultimate meta-shit test in sexual selection — to discover or learn what it is to be positively masculine and remain so in a world that constantly berates his gender, that tells him he’s poisoned by his testosterone while confirming the same

masculine attributes as a positive for women.

It’s the guy who understands that it’s gender differences, not androgynous similarities, that make us strong. It’s the Man who can see that the sexes were meant to be

complimentary, not adversarial, who passes this shit test. Gender redefinition, as a social convention, serves as an Alpha filtering mechanism.

After detailing the Qualities of the AFC, I feel it’s necessary to illustrate that social

conventions aren’t the exclusive realm of the feminine imperative . AFCs have their own set of social conventions — those which are commonly practiced and self-reinforced by the Beta mindset. I realize that more than a few of these conventions are going to get under the skin of some readers, however, as you read this, please try to do so objectively. I’m writing this as an observation; it’s not intended to be a personal affront to anyone.

You could simply call AFC Social Conventions AFC ’rationalizations’, but I think this ignores the socially reinforcing element of these conventions. When I wrote the

Qualities of the AFC I outlined the characteristic traits, behaviors and core mental schema of what are commonly believed to be AFC qualities. This was a brief list to sum up a few root elements in identifying and dealing with a Beta mindset and aid in unplugging an AFC. Social conventions are different in that they are socially reinforced (usually by both genders) rationalizations for behavior. Technically some of the AFC qualities I outlined previously could be considered social conventions as well, but I was attempting to

address the symptoms rather than the disease.

I’m going to define a few more examples of what I’m most commonly noticing as AFC mental schema that are reinforced socially. A strong part of the internalization process of these conventions is that the reason they are socially reinforced is because they’re socially unassailable (or at the very least foolish to do so). In other words the common response to them would be to reinforce them more, rather than challenge them, and this then becomes an integral part of the internalization process.

The Myth of the “Quality” Woman

It seems like all I read about in the manosphere is the never ending quest for a “Quality Woman.” There’s always been plenty of articles and comment threads asking for clear definitions of what constitutes a “Quality” woman and most conveniently set women up into 2 camps — “Quality Women” and Whores, as if there could be no middle ground or grey area. How easy it becomes to qualify a woman based on her indiscretions (as heinous as they’re perceived to be) for either of these categories. This is binary thinking at its best — on or off, black or white, Quality woman or Whore.

I think the term ’Quality’ woman is a misnomer. Guys tend to apply this term at their leisure not so much to define what they’d like in a woman (which is actually an idealization), but rather to exclude women with whom they’d really had no chance with in the first place, or mistakenly applied too much effort and too much focus only to be rebuffed. This isn’t to say that there aren’t women who will behave maliciously or indiscriminately, nor am I implying that they ought to be excused out of hand for such. What I am saying is that it’s a very AFC predilection to hold women up to preconceived idealizations and conveniently discount them as being less than “Quality” when you’re unable to predict, much less control their behaviors.

The dangers inherent in this convention is that the AFC (or the even the ’enlightened man’ subscribing to the convention) then limits himself to only what he perceives is a Quality woman, based on a sour-grapes conditioning. Thus, they’ll end up with a “Quality” woman by default because she’s the only candidate who would accept him for her intimacy. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by process of elimination. Taken to its logical conclusion, they shoot the arrow, paint the target around it and call it a bullseye, and after which they feel good for having held on to a (misguided) conviction.

So why is this a social convention then? Because it is socially unassailable. Since this convention is rooted to a binary premise, no one would likely challenge it. It would be foolish for me to say “Yes Mr. Chump I think you ought to avoid what you think of as Quality women.” Not only this, but we all get a certain satisfaction from the affirmation that comes from other men confirming our assessment of what category a woman should fit into. Thus it becomes socially reinforced.

Beware of making your necessity a virtue in making a Quality woman your substitute for a ONEitis idealization.

The Myth of the Dodged Bullet

In my lifetime I’ve had sex with over 40 women and I never once caught a venereal disease, nor did I get anyone pregnant. I can also point to men I know who contracted Herpes from the only women they’d ever had sex with. The fact of the matter is that you can equally be a rock star and tap hundreds of women without any consequence and you can be a virgin saint and contract a disease on your wedding night.

The myth of the dodged bullet is a social convention that’s rooted in the rationalization that monogamy serves the purpose for controlling sexually transmitted diseases and thus fewer partners are more desirable than many. From a statistical standpoint this may seem logical on the surface. Fewer opportunities for sexual intercourse would indeed decrease the risk from a single individual, but unfortunately this isn’t a practical estimate. You’ll also have to base the numbers not only on how many sex partners you and your monogamous partner have had, but also how many prior partners they’ve had and how many those partners had as well and so on exponentially. Despite all this, the odds that you’ll die from a form of cancer, heart disease, smoking or obesity related diseases, or even an alcohol related traffic fatality far outweigh any risk of dying from a venereal disease in western society. The mortality rate for contracting gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, herpes and even HIV pale in comparison to many — in some cases more easily preventable — diseases.

Of course, since this is a social convention, I would be grossly negligent and

severely lambasted by the public at large for even implying that I’m condoning, much less advocating, that a man explore his options and open his experience up to having sex with multiple partners. Again, this social convention is unassailable. It sounds like it makes good sense, “boy, am I sure glad I got married/shacked up/stayed with the only girl I’ve ever had the opportunity to bang and didn’t catch a disease, pffew!” It sounds like conviction, when in fact it’s a rationalization for a lack of other realistic options with women or an inability to deal with a fear of rejection from multiple sources. Again, necessity becomes virtue.

Location, Location, Location

Another common contrivance is the presumption that less than desirable (low quality) women will necessarily be found in bars & clubs (or other places of “ill repute”). Thus the chump will only too eagerly avoid these places. This is, yet again, another example of the binary logic of an AFC and completely ignores that A.) women with whom they might make a successful connection with do in fact frequent clubs and B.) less than desirable women can also be met in “alternative” meeting places too (coffee house, university campus, library, Bible study or any number of other “safe places”). However, making approaches in a club are difficult for the inexperienced Game adherent and AFC alike. There’s a lot of competition and a lot of potential for ’real time’ rejection for the

unprepared. By masking this deficit in Game with condemning such places, the AFC thinks he’s killing two birds with one stone — he’s protecting his ego from very real

rejection and he’s lauded by “proper” society (see people who go to clubs anyway) for being an upstanding individual for avoid those “dens of iniquity.”

The Myth of ’Other Guys’

This is perhaps the most dangerous AFC social convention.

We’d all like to think we’re unique and special individuals. It’s a comforting thought, but our uniqueness means nothing if it isn’t appreciated. We’d all like to be beautiful, talented, intelligent and extraordinary in some way to some degree and have others notice these qualities unequivocally.

This is the root for the Not Like Other Guys convention. The idea is that the AFC can and will be appreciated in a greater degree for his personal convictions and/or his greater ability to identify with women’s stated prerequisites of a man by comparing himself to the nebulous Other Guys who are perceived not to abide by her stated conditions for

intimacy. The intent is to, in essence, self-generate social proof for attraction while

substituting a real social element with social evidence.

The fallacy in this schema is that it’s always better to demonstrate social proof than to explicate it, but this is lost on the AFC subscribing to this convention. This only becomes more compounded by the reinforcement he receives from other AFCs (and really society at large) sharing his desire to outshine the phantom Other Guys. He’s patted on the back and praised by men and women alike for voluntarily molding his personality to better fit a woman’s perceived ideal and told in so many words “oh AFC,..I’m so glad you’re not like Other Guys.” You can’t fault the guy. He genuinely believes his Nice Guy personal conviction and everyone applauds him for it.

I’d argue that 95% of men aren’t even aware that they’re repeating / reinforcing a social convention at all because the convention is so embedded into our social fabric that it’s taken for granted. The most effective social conventions are ones in which the subject willingly sublimates his own interests, discourages questioning it, and predisposes that person to encourage and reinforce the convention with others. This is the essence of the Matrix; anything can become normal.

I encounter AFC mentalities all day long in my line of work, and I don’t encounter them strictly from men either. More often than not I find myself in some social/work environment where it’s women fomenting an AFC attitude and it’s men who jokingly play along with them in an attempt to identify with these women in order to qualify for female intimacy. It’s this pop-culture ’agreeability’ factor that is taken as an unquestioned norm. It’s expected that female-centric social conventions should simply be a matter of fact without any need for critical thought.

For a positively masculine Man there is no better opportunity to set yourself apart and start to plant the seeds of critical thought into AFCs than when you’re presented with these social situation. I think most men lack the balls to be a fire-starter at the risk of being perceived as some caveman, but it’s a good opportunity to truly set yourself apart from ’other guys’ when you do.

The concept of commitment is a fantastic utility for women. Men can be simultaneously shamed for not sticking to a commitment that benefits them and still be shamed for steadfastly adhering to a commitment that doesn’t. The social convention is so developed there’s even a cute term for it — “commitment-phobic” or “commit-o-phobe”.

There’s an interesting control of the message here; the principle of commitment is cast in feminine-centric perfection. The idea is that commitment should only have meaning in a feminine defined reality. Ironically, it’s Men who commit far more readily to ideals, family, military, business ventures or partnerships, and servitude than women have the capacity to appreciate, because recognizing this doesn’t serve their imperative. In other words, a commitment to anything that doesn’t directly benefit the feminine isn’t

commitment; answer? Redefine commitment to uniquely reflect feminine interests.

Whenever I get into these debates about infidelity (albeit usually from the male

perspective), and it becomes an immoral / amoral / moralist menage à trois, I wonder, what is the greater “moral” imperative; to remain faithful to your morally obligated

commitment with your spouse in spite of a loveless, passionless, sexless partner, or to break that commitment in order to pursue the obligation and commitment you owe

yourself as a “superior” Man deserving of a better “quality” partner?

What has moral priority, a commitment to yourself or a commitment to marriage? You see it’s easy to wave the flag of self-righteousness when the issue is a right vs. wrong issue. It’s much more difficult when the question is right vs. right. I have no doubt that all the answers to this will be entirely circumstantial, rationalized twisting in the wind, and maybe that’s what decides for you, but think about it for a moment in the terms of what one must sacrifice for the other.

Whatever you cannot say ’No’ to is your master and makes you it’s slave.

This is a favorite go-to trope for moral arguments where there’s a clearly defined right and wrong, however, by this definition then, does not commitment make you a ’slave’ by default? If by the circumstances of a commitment you cannot, figuratively, say “no” to the that (or due to that) commitment, are you not then a slave?

You can even take marriage out of the equation; if I’m in a committed LTR with a

girlfriend and over the course of that relationship I realize that she’s not what I’m looking for (for any number of reasons, not just sex), even though she’s 100% faithfully

committed to me and the LTR, should I then break that commitment? If I do, am I then being unethical for having broken that commitment irrespective of how I break it? Should the commitment to my own personal well being and future happiness be compromised by another commitment?

What’s my obligation; neglect myself in favor of a bad commitment or to the principle of commitment itself?

It’s my take that commitment ’should’ be a function of genuine desire. Ideally, commitment should be to something one is so passionate about that the limiting of one’s own future opportunities that come from that commitment is an equitable, and mutually appreciated exchange. This is unfortunately rarely the case for most people in any form of commitment because people, circumstance, opportunity and conditions are always in flux. A commitment that had been seen as an equitable sacrifice at one time can become debilitating five years after it depending upon circumstance.

So what I’m getting at is where do you draw the line? People go all kinds of crazy when I suggest a guy NEXT some girl that’s obviously showing all of the indications that she’s using him (or has proven so) and then two comments down suggest that it’s Men’s obligation to vet women by “walking away.” If I have one life to live and one precious lifetime to do it in, what is more important; a commitment to oneself in learning and securing the best options for a lifetime or being committed to the principle of self-sacrificing commitment?

In the ’community’ we brazenly tell freshmen chumps to dedicate themselves to self-improvement; to seek out and accomplish what’s best for them — in other words, to uncompromisingly commit themselves to their own cause in as positive a manner as possible.

I’d argue that genuine desire is a necessary precursor to this, but in advocating this self-concerned improvement, are we not then doing them a disservice if their duty ought to be focused on the principle of commitment, even when that commitment is (or becomes) deleterious to their commitment to a positive self?

What holds more water, being a martyr to chivalrous commitment, or a steadfast

dedication to ourselves? Should we not then hold AFCs in the highest respect when they selflessly sacrifice their futures due to their devoted commitment to a ONEitis girl who’ll never reciprocate on, much less appreciate, that commitment? We’d call them chumps, but in contrast to their devotion to the principle of commitment, maybe they’ve got it right? You can’t doubt their (albeit misguided) dedication to their convictions.

Operative Social Conventions

AFC Social Conventions

The Paradox of Commitment

When men can be convinced to participate in women’s

social conventions half their work is done for them.

One of the surest indicators of an AFC-beta mindset is the automatic presumption that anything remotely critical a man would say about women, or the feminine, is by default, equated with misogyny.

All a man need do is open his mouth, in the most objective way he can muster, about anything critical of the feminine and he’s instantly suspect of sour grapes. He must’ve been burned, or is bitter and on the verge of desperation just for even a passing mention of some critical observation of women’s incongruent intents and behaviors.

What an amazingly potent social convention that is — when a man will censor himself because of it on his own. The most successful social conventions are ones in which the subject willingly sublimates his own interests, discourages questioning it, and predisposes that person to encourage others to participate in it.

“You’re just bitter because you got burned by some bitch in the past and your misogynist ideology is just your way of lashing out.”

I hear this a lot from both men and women. It’s an easy response to parrot and it’s very useful. It foists the responsibility of confronting one’s critical ideas back on the man, all while shaming him for forming an ideology based on what he (and now a community of many other men) confirms by observations. It’s like a JBY (just be yourself) response; it sounds right, everyone uses it to the point of cliché, and it misdirects and discourages any further critical analysis.

This is a feminine social convention that’s in the same vein as shame. Any guy that has a point about the feminine, no matter how valid, can always have his argument poisoned because he’s a guy, most guys are frustrated that they aren’t getting laid, and this is his petty way of venting. When men can be convinced to participate in women’s social

conventions half their work is done for them. In presuming a default state of male

misogyny, it implicitly denotes a default state of ’correctness’ or blamelessness of the female. In other words, you’re guilty by association and must prove innocence.

The Protector Dynamic

The protector dynamic has evolved into a beta breeding methodology. It’s like a

Darwinist version of Cap’n Save A Ho — so at the slightest critical word about a woman or the feminine in general it’s, “See how quickly I come to a woman’s defense? What girl wouldn’t want a great protector like me? I’m unique. I’m not like those bitter ’other guys’ so your best emotional/sexual/parental investment would be coupling with me as evidenced by my example.” Of course that isn’t their conscious, cognitively recognized reaction, but it is the subroutine that’s running in their unconscious. When this psychological schema is a practiced breeding methodology it becomes second nature; so much so that when any opportunity arises to display it (even under the conditions of anonymity), the guy snaps to attention. It’s really a Beta attempt to DHV (display higher value), and in and of itself it’s not necessarily a bad impulse, it just that it’s used to further a feminized social convention.

Whiners and Losers.

“Game Blogs, PUAs, MRA guys, they’re all a bunch of whiners who’d rather kvetch about feminism and real or imagined wrongs than just get up and get along.”

The problem I think most people have with the tone of what Game has, or is evolving into, is that essentially Game is a masculine response to what feminism (really feminization) has evolved into. While I can empathize with the feeling that Game can assume a plaintive tone at some blogs — particularly MRA oriented ones — contemporary Game is really a countermeasure to the social conditions feminist ideology has embedded in our culture for the past 50+ years. However, the social framework has been established as such that even my pointing this out makes me suspect of complaining or “bitter”. See how that works? My belief is still, ’don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better’, but it’s been built into feminization that to even analyze and have critical opinion of it makes you a whiner.

There is no going back.

One dynamic I encounter from guys who’ve experienced the ’community’ in varying degrees is a desire to go back to their previously comfortable, ignorant bliss. The reality they become exposed to is too much to bear and they spit the red pill back up. They want to plug themselves back into the Matrix.

No person both frightens and disgusts me more than one who understands truth, but willfully opts for denial. It’s not the desire to do so that disgusts me, I understand the desire, it’s that there is no going back.

Even if you never read another post or blog and regressed back to your old ways, you’ll still make the associations, see the signs of what others have analyzed in your own

periphery, in women’s and the world’s behaviors and motivations, and you’ll be

reminded (even if subconsciously) of that truth, or at least the uncomfortable push to get at the truth. You will only get what you’ve gotten if you keep doing what you’ve done. There is no going back now. Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.

There comes a point of conflict (or revulsion if you want) after a guy has been unplugged from the Matrix long enough where he begins to doubt himself and what he’s seeing go on around him. All of the gender dynamics and the complex, but discreet, interplay between the sexes that’s been such a mystery for so long starts to become apparent to him. The Neg Hit PUA techniques he never would’ve dreamed of attempting in his AFC days become so predictably reliable at sparking interest that it becomes depressing. A backhanded compliment shouldn’t work; it goes against everything any girl has ever told him will endear him to a woman, but once he musters up the courage to experiment, he finds that they do work.

What’s depressing isn’t that a well delivered neg, or being Cocky & Funny, or harnessing the attractive Alpha Asshole energy could actually generate sexual interest in women, it’s the principle behind them — the reason why they work — that prompts the internal conflict.

Are women, generally, more like this than not? So a guy experiments a little more, and tests other theories, and discovers that with some minor variations, yes, for the most part the principles are valid if not predictable. This then becomes a real tough pill to swallow, especially when you consider ideas like the ruthlessness of feminine hypergamy. It’s very despairing, almost nihilistic, to a man fed on a steady diet of the flowery tropes of

feminization for the better part of a lifetime. It’s very hard to measure oneself up and adjust to a new understanding of how women think and behave. He can’t reconcile what he’d been told and conditioned to believe before (the soul mate myth, pedestalize her, just be yourself, etc.) with this new paradigm. So either he learns to live with this new understanding, benefit from it and grow into a new role for himself, or he rejects it and vilifies it wholesale.

“Women are really not as bad as these misogynists, these bitter, burned men would all have us believe. They’re shallow and soulless to think women are all out to get them. They over-analyze everything when they should all just be themselves and let fate or some divine force pair them up with their soul mates. I pity them, really I do.”

I’ve heard all of these regressive rationales from boys as young as 14 to men as old as 75. It’s a comfortable ignorance to believe that things are just unknowable and beyond one’s control or efforts to really understand. And to make matters worse, there’s a long established system of social conventions ready to reinforce and affirm these rationales; ready to reinsert him back into the Matrix and tell him he’s unique and special (“not like other guys”) and will be rewarded with female intimacy for rejecting it.