The Rational Male - Preventive Medicine - Rollo Tomassi 2015

Introduction

At the time of my writing this volume my first book, The Rational Male, is less than a year old. It was certainly an effort in experimentation to say the least. There were a lot of issues I hadn’t foreseen — font size issues, editing and grammatical issues, conversion to a digital format (twice) — and that was just with the book itself. I had severely underestimated the popularity of a digital format, and how most readers enjoy a book on their eReaders, especially in countries

where an Amazon printed copy was hard to come by.

Despite all of these issues, and in under a year, The Rational Male has become a success. Not because it increased the readership and popularity of the blog, nor because it’s still selling briskly, but because it has accomplished what I’d hoped it would.

I had hoped to reach a broader readership by putting these ideas, literally, into the hands of men who would otherwise dismiss them from a blog link. I wanted something tangible for men (and women) to share with other men. I purposely kept it as affordable as Amazon would allow so the book might be carried into a coffee house or on an airplane, where hopefully the title would spark a discussion

— even if just from scoffing at the title.

I’m often asked why I put so much effort into the printed version, particularly since the digital sales regularly exceed those of the printed book. I’ll admit that my artistic sense and design background had a need to be satisfied, but I wanted a book for the ’everyman’ — one that a guy working in a garage might find accessible, or one a soldier deployed in a very unfamiliar, inhospitable place might take along with him.

You can’t delete a book. You can burn a book, shred it or otherwise physically destroy that book, but you have to take it into your hands to do so. As melodramatic as this sounds, I fear that there may be a day when the authorities of digital publishing will become the authorities of permissible information. Deleting a book would be as simple as a keystroke.

I had actually intended this volume to be a standalone digital format book, however my sense of aesthetics, and a small bit of wanting to hold another book in my own hands won out. Of course there is a digital version to make it accessible, you may even be reading it now, but bear in mind that books and the ideas contained within are meant to be discussed — or at least that’s how I’d intend these ideas.

Terminologies

In The Rational Male I presented the core concepts of what I consider Red Pill Thought. A lot of people in, and familiar with, the collectively male blog-space known as the ’manosphere’ understand what “the red pill” is — a euphemism, courtesy of the Matrix movies, for a revelation of truth in a system that’s kept them blind to that truth.

For most people with fresh eyes to the manosphere this sounds exactly like the schlock they’ve come to expect from online communities. Using movie references, in-group jingoisms, and cryptic acronyms seems par for the course, but it’s important to remember that new concepts demand new terminologies.

It’s kind of hard to ask a new reader to try and read past these terms for the first time. A common complaint is a lack of reference for these terms or acronyms, and in the interests of helping the fresh eyes I’ve included an appendix of sorts at the end of the book to accommodate these new readers. That said, it’s important to bear in mind that terms, references and acronyms serve the purpose of labeling and outlining more broad or abstract concepts.

For instance one large point of contention most men unfamiliar with the manosphere or Red Pill thought chafe against is the concept, and categorization, of Alpha and Beta men. I dedicated a long section of The Rational Male to outlining and defining my interpretation of what constitutes the characteristics of both these types of men, and predictably, it often confuses or angers men’s ego-protection instinct. And just as predictably, an otherwise productive discussion of a broader idea becomes mired in an endless (sometimes hopeless) defining of mutually acceptable terms.

In this volume of Rational Male, bear in mind that terms ’Alpha’ or ’Beta’ or any other term you might find esoteric are meant to be placeholders for abstract concepts. While I’ve attempted to minimize the manosphere-specific references and jingoism, there will still be instances of core concepts that are just simpler to describe in terms of ’Alpha’ or ’Beta’ in order to outline a larger dynamic — or in this book’s case, how a man will be categorized by women at specific phases of her (and his own) maturation.

So, I humbly ask that any new reader struggling with these terms for the first time refer to The Rational Male for more specific definitions. This volume will presume you’re familiar with the ideas I put forth in The Rational Male, so con-sider this book an accompaniment to the core concepts therein.

Why I wrote this book

Around mid-March of 2014 I endeavored to write a series of articles called Preventative Medicine on the Rational Male blog. I did so with the hope of providing my readers with a chronological outline of what to expect from women at various phases of women’s maturation throughout their lives. Consequently, this series was prompted by a 2010 article posted on the Château Heartiste blog titled The Difficulty Of Gaming Women By Age Bracket. In that post Roissy breaks down the pick-up artistry involved in using Game at various phases of women’s lives and how best to capitalize on what can usually be expected of western(ized) women.

I had read this post when it was first published and bookmarked it. It seemed like a seminal post from Roissy at the time and I’ve referenced it in various posts on my own blog occasionally. However, as I kept referring back to it I never really made the connection as to how women’s lives (and by association men’s lives) tended to follow a somewhat predictable series of phases. For a pick up artist, interested in maximizing his lay-count, the utility of knowing what to expect from a woman in a certain age demographic, culture (or subculture) and socioeconomic tier is fairly obvious — know your quarry, adapt your approach.

Something clicked for me after referring back to this article so often when I was doing consults for various men seeking advice about a specific woman and the circumstances they found themselves dealing with. As ever, one of the most common regrets (if that’s the word) men relate to me is that they wish they’d had the information I’ve offered in The Rational Male and on the blog when they were younger so as to have avoided some debilitating, life-affecting decision with a woman. It’s usually either that or some regret about the present situation they find themselves in and how horrible and regrettable the truth of the Red Pill has been for them.

It occurred to me that a more expanded version of a ’what to expect with a woman at this age’ post might be in order. This then developed into the four part series of Preventative Medicine articles, as well as being the inspiration for more than a few follow-up posts that further expanded understanding the “time line” of women’s life progressions.

The problem I ran into was that providing such an exhaustive outline for my online readership tends to be a test of their attention spans. I think one of the biggest obstacles to really understanding a blog post’s point is the ’tl;dr’ phenomenon — “too long; didn’t read.”

This wall-of-text a commenter painstakingly typed out may be a hidden gem of philosophical brilliance, but in one swift ’tl;dr’ act of desperation all that brilliance is distilled to a plea to a readers internet attention deficit disorder by summing it up in an easily digestible info-bite at the end.

So, in order to avoid overloading my readers with too much at once, it seemed like the best idea would be to break this progression down into a series of four (albeit long) posts to cover the ’points of interest’ adequately.

The reader response to this series exceeded anything I could’ve foreseen.

To say the comments were insightful would be an understatement. Many different perspectives were expressed, but all had more to add to the progression and all made an attempt to address some particular aspect of the progression (and what men might expect at that point in the progression) that they felt was vital to a full understanding of women at various stages of maturity.

I had men in every demographic adding their understanding to the collective purpose of providing other men with what they’ve experienced and what to possibly expect at that phase of life. Young men of 18 would relate their frustrations with having to deal with breakups after graduating high school and being torn between going to a university they thought was best for them or transferring to the school their ’soul mate’ high school girlfriend was going to attend in order to maintain (or rescue) the relationship.

Alternatively, I had men in their mid-sixties relate stories about the circumstances that led to their divorces and the issues they’d experienced in dealing with their ex-wives and the older (and younger) women they were dating at a time of their lives in which they never thought they’d be dating again.

After the second installment of this series one of my regular readers and Christian-manosphere blogger, Donalgraeme commented the following:

“Its amazing, when you consider it, to think of the various social constructs/conventions built up to support this female model of development. At each and every stage there are a slew of different organizations and support sources that encourage women along every step of the path. It would be a good thing to map them out, actually. You know, to peg different sources to different time periods in the ’life path.’ Starting from Teen magazines and the Disney channel all the way to various middle-age celebrity and gossip mags.”

This planted the germ of the idea that’s developed into the book you now hold in your hands.

So it’s with this in mind that I set out to detail as best I could a chronological time line in which men might be better prepared to understand and develop ways to deal with the particulars a woman would be experiencing at various phases of her life.

Furthermore, I’ve endeavored to a marginal degree to account for outlying variables and experiences that may modify the more predictable aspects of women’s phases of life. Obviously I couldn’t exhaustively account for every circumstance, but I’ve attempted to address how the most common decision women make at these various stages affect the later phases, and then how men might best prepare contingencies for, or avoid entirely, the consequences of associating with the women making those decisions.

This time line wouldn’t be complete unless I also factored in the social conventions erected around each of these phases and how they modify, affirm or attempt to absolve the personal and social ramifications implicit to each phase. As such I’ve addressed the most common social conventions men might expect to encounter during these phases of women’s maturation.

I’ll point out now that my individual effort to make this time line is in no way intended to be comprehensive. I wouldn’t presume to be so thorough in my scope here to think I’m going to cover every aspect of this maturation process — I’m simply providing you with my best estimate as drawn from my own experiences and those of the men who’ve shared theirs with me over the course of my time writing in the manosphere.

As with the first Rational Male book, I ask that you understand I’m a connector of dots — I leave it to my readers to see the bigger picture.

I expect most men reading this work will disagree with certain aspects of my outlines of these phases as they apply to their own circumstances with the women they interact with personally. Some phases may not seem relevant to a particular phase men find themselves in presently, but may be relevant in their future.

Other men will likely nod in ascension or shake their heads knowingly when I cover a phase they’ve experienced personally. For all these men, understand that my purpose, as with all my writing, is to better inform men what they might expect at various phases of their own lives, why those expectations are likely and how best to prepare accordingly for them.

How to read this book

In the introduction of The Rational Male I made mention of a reader, Jacquie, who’s son she said was in need of being made aware of the ideas I’d written about online for over a decade. The point being her hope was that what I’d written might help him avoid bad life decisions based on his unfortunate, feminine-conditioned mindset.

My intent is much the same for this book as well, however, I’ve tried to be more comprehensive in outlining situations that apply to women at significant stages of their maturity. In doing so my intent for men is to help them not to simply avoid making bad future decisions, but to aid them in understanding what they’ve experienced up to the point of their particular circumstances with women in the now.

The purpose of this book is to help you better understand the circumstances of what’s led up to whatever part of this time line you find yourself on, what you’re currently experiencing with a woman (or potential women) and what you might expect from women at future points of their maturation.

The Time Line

The first thing you’ll be aware of is the time line graph I’ve established to help you get a visual grasp of various phases of women’s maturity. At certain points along this time line I detail what I believe are the most prominent periods of situational change, crisis, personal insight (both convenient and genuine) and the psychological and belief changes women most commonly pass through.

Also along this graph I’ve placed sub-periods of how I believe women prioritize the importance of what they find attractive, arousing and generally filter for in men during different parts of their maturation. Though this aspect of the time line has definite (Game) applications for men in adjusting how they might best appeal to women in these phases, my purpose in adding these sub-periods is to illustrate the ’how’s’ and the ’whys’ that motivate many of the decisions women are prone to make during these phases.

I’ve broken the time line down into four sections in four corresponding chapters; late adolescence through early adulthood, early twenties through early thirties, mid-life, and later life.

The temptation of course will be for readers to skip ahead to phases a man might be currently experiencing at his own point of personal circumstance, but I’ll urge you to read the chapters in order. Your understanding of a particular personal crisis, or why you might be enjoying a better relationship earlier or later

in life, are more or less contingent upon the general path a woman might take during her maturation to get to the point you’re experiencing now.

By all means, go back and re-read certain sections later, but getting a general understanding of the maturation process, and what may or may not apply to a particular personal situation is necessary first.

The Sexual Market Value Graph

Many of the significant periods I detail in the time line also correspond with my now infamous sexual market value (SMV) graph. I introduced this very generalized graph in The Rational Male in the chapter, Navigating the SMP (sexual marketplace). I’ve included it in this volume as well for convenience sake as I refer to it to illustrate certain points in women’s maturation. If you haven’t read this particular chapter from the first book I’d encourage you to do so as it will help your understanding of those references.

Social Conventions

Following the outline of each phase of maturity, I’ll cover what I’ve found to be the most common social conventions a feminine-primary social order has established to justify, affirm or excuse the experiences and decisions women make during these phases — as well as to be used to condition men to be accommodating of that feminine-primacy.

While each phase has operative social conventions unique to that stage of a woman’s maturity, there are some that span several. Furthermore, some conventions affect the consequences, outcomes or even the likely occurrence of women subscribing to other conventions that follow from an earlier originating convention.

Needless to say accounting for every eventuality that comes from these conventions is not really feasible to outline, but the overall progression of those conventions is the important point. With a good overview men will have the tools to better grasp the progression of conventions, and the present convention, that color and influence the circumstances of a particular woman at her phase of maturity.

Outliers

In the interests of being as thorough as I can I’ve added some considerations for what I refer to as outliers at various parts of each section. These end notes are meant to account for some of the more common outlying personal situations which women may experience that, for whatever reason, may disqualify

women from following the more predictable paths a certain phase of maturity will generally predispose most women to.

In most instances these outliers don’t change a woman’s larger experience of the phase of maturity, but the outlying circumstances and decisions a woman makes often modify the progression.

In addition, these outliers also create or modify social conventions to accommodate, affirm (often with male participation) and absolve the consequences of the decisions women make as a result of those outlying circumstances.

Book II — Supporting Chapters

Finally, I’ve added several supporting chapters I hope will answer some of the more common questions and issues that will inevitably follow for certain, significant phases of this time line. Most of these topics originated as follow-up posts on The Rational Male blog, but I’ve reviewed and reconsidered many aspects of those posts and felt they deserved a greater mention in the whole of this work.

Many of these support chapters directly reflect or help explain the various dynamics of a particular phase, while others present a broader perspective that may span several, or sometimes all, phases of maturation. I selected these particular sections with the consideration that they serve a cautionary or informative purpose that will help men to grasp the larger aspects of the time line itself.

I’ve included most of this support in the second half of the book (Book II), but I’ve begun with the chapter Understanding Hypergamy because I feel this very base-nature dynamic serves as the cornerstone for every man to really come to terms with feminine nature.

It is my sincere hope that this work will benefit your personal situation and interactions with the same impact and gravity that The Rational Male provided men with. As I began in the first book, I consider myself a connector of dots; and for the most part I always make an earnest attempt to present my ideas in as honest an observation as I’m able.

So once again I’ll stress that The Rational Male — Preventive Medicine is not intended to be the final, definitive word on any of the issues or phases you’ll read hereafter. This volume is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather an outline to prompt even further discussion and understanding of these phases of maturity.

As with everything I write, you’ll likely grate against and disagree with various aspects of what I describe, and later some aspect will resonate so strongly with you that you’ll only be able to shake your head at yourself for not having considered it in the same light when you first experienced that aspect with a woman at that phase of maturity.

This is the intent of this book. I want you to be angry. I want you to nod in agreement and shake your head when you don’t. I want you have questions and I certainly want you to consider the validity of what you’re about to read and how they apply to your past, present and future interactions with women — as well as how they might apply to men you know or are related to who have yet to experience them.

It’s only preventive medicine if you can pass along the warning.

I’m always flattered when readers think I’m some phenomenal interpreter of psychology, the nature of women, intergender relations and a model upon which men should aspire to in order to get laid and still have a great (now 18 year) marriage. I honestly wish I was that guy, but that’s not Rollo Tomassi.

I’m a student of life just as much as you likely are, and as such I understand the value of knowing that I know nothing really. These are my observations. They are not cannon, they are not law. So with this in mind I ask again in this book that you read with an open mind and with any luck we’ll both become better men (and women) for the time you consider these observations.

As always, I’m as accessible as a comment on The Rational Male blog or a quick email (on my About page) if you have any questions or maybe a consideration you think I haven’t considered.

Rollo Tomassi — February 2015