Socio-Sexual Hierarchy: the collective terms

A Pride of Alphas
An Enigma of Sigmas
A Wing of Betas
A Force of Deltas
A Creep of Gammas
A Stalking of Omegas
A Mince of Lambdas

Of course, the list above refers to the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy.  We still need terms to distinguish Roissy's binary sexual hierarchy. 

A Conceit of ALPHAS (Alphas and Sigmas)
An Orbit of BETAS (Betas, Deltas, Gammas, Omegas)

Alpha Mail: to fight or not to fight

Z requests a situational post-mortem:

I have a question about a fundamental aspect of game. Once, I was having some fun with a 7-8ish woman on the dance floor. Turns out she had a boyfriend (of course this wasn't stopping her from grinding on me). Needless to say the boyfriend punched me in the face without warning. It was a badly aimed, weak punch that caught me in the forehead and did no physical damage. He stopped after the first punch and we just stared at each other. I wasn't afraid of him in the least bit, but I also didn't feel like getting kicked out of my favorite club. I decided peace was the proper course. I offered him my hand and said honestly "I didn't know she was taken." After a moment he shook my hand, nodded, and walked off with the girl.

It bugged me a bit after the fact, however. I started to question if my decision to pursue peace was the right one. Was that an act of submission? Was that showing weakness? Should I have fought it out even though, in my estimation, not getting kicked out of or banned from the club outweighed the mediocre attractiveness of the woman?

In other words, in fundamental game theory, was that a Beta move, or worse.. a Gamma/Delta move?

It was a Beta move and it was also almost surely the right move in today's society. The Alpha move would have been to confront, because Alphas will risk almost anything rather than accept such a blow to their ego without immediately retaliating.  Remember, as hard as it is for men to understand it, women are instinctively attracted to violence and mindless thuggery. An Alpha will almost always choose to fight if challenged, let alone if actually struck.

The reason it was a Beta move is because Z didn't really back down. Extending a hand and making peace in that situation is not backing down, it is an offer to a mutually agreed-upon cessation of hostilities. He was entirely ready to fight, but was also willing to walk away if sufficient respect was proffered.  As is often the case, the Beta way is the one that leads to the easiest and most reasonable outcome.

This used to happen to my brother all the time. He was a very good-looking Beta, so a girl would smile at him, he would smile back, they would start getting cozy, and the next thing he knew, an angry boyfriend would punch him in the face. He never got into a fight because he had the combat instincts of a newborn lamb and it took him about thirty seconds to find an equally interested girl after walking away. And he never seemed to learn that he could save himself a lot of trouble if he simply opened with the question "are you here with your boyfriend?"

Walking away in a self-respecting manner isn't weak. A fellow Dragon was once accosted in a nightclub; he dropped into a fighting stance that indicated a recognizable familiarity with the martial arts, as did the other guy. They stared at each other for a moment, until my friend asked the other guy: "So, do you want to match styles?"  The other guy laughed and said "No, not really."  As with Z in the case of the forehead-puncher, they both recognized that the costs of fighting were simply too high. In a fight between two reasonably trained martial artists, even the winner runs the risk of being hurt pretty badly.

In Z's case, the risk of being arrested, kicked out of the club, or even shot rendered physical conflict undesirable. It's not the Alpha act, but then, Alpha is not synonymous with wise or optimal.

But neither is the act of walking away Delta or Gamma.  The Delta thing would be to chest up to the guy, shout at him, and basically make a scene until safely held back by others. Then the Delta would spend the next two hours growling how he would totally have kicked the other guy's ass if only he hadn't been prevented from doing so.  It's remarkable how many guys have "almost" been in a fight and yet somehow never seem to quite cross that fine line demarcating violence from mere confrontation.

The Gamma would likely pretend to be more badly hurt than he was, and hold his hands to his face while shrieking "you hit me", threatening to sue, and urging others to call the police.  He'd make wild threats about imaginary people he knew, from mobsters to military men, who would wreak deadly revenge upon his assailant. At no point would the thought of simply fighting the other guy himself occur to him.

The Omega wouldn't have been in the nightclub at all. The Sigma, of course, wouldn't have gotten punched, as he would have already had sex with the girlfriend in the women's bathroom or the parking lot. There is a reason, after all, that Roissy refers to a certain kind of ALPHA as "the sneaky f-----".

Alpha: Exercises le droit du alpha by openly stealing girl or obtaining phone number in front of helpless, angry boyfriend.
Beta: Attracts girl, boyfriend confronts
Delta: Hits on girl, boyfriend confronts
Gamma: Hits on girl, girl is creeped out and asks boyfriend to confront
Omega: Levels up.
Sigma: Has sex with girl or leaves with girl, boyfriend has no idea.

The good news is that if you're forced to deal with angry boyfriends on a regular basis, you are almost surely a Beta or better.  The only men who have to put up with that sort of thing are men whom women deem worthy of actively trading up for. This is also why higher rank men tend not to behave in a very jealous manner; they know from first-hand experience how little use jealousy is once a woman's eye starts wandering. 

I lost one girl to the guitarist of the Black Crowes and another to the backup guitarist of Guns-N-Roses when both bands were at the height of their fame. I didn't protest in the slightest. Having usually been on the other side of that situation, I knew how pointless it was for the socio-sexually overmatched to attempt resistance.  And after all, there are always more girls on the girl tree.

Boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny

Ferdinand provides a surefire indicator of BETA status:

Whenever a halfway attractive woman does something, anything on the Internet, there’s always a coterie of sackless chumps ready to praise her just for being alive, in the vain hope that she’ll sleep with them. Even if the “woman” is 16 and lives in another country.

This is arguably the easiest means of identifying BETA status. How often do you offer unmerited praise for women that you would never provide a man? Unwarranted praise is supplication. If a woman is attention-whoring on Facebook or elsewhere, feeding the endless abyss is absolutely counterproductive if you are attracted to her.

It's hard for men to realize, since it is exactly opposite to the way that men think, but women tend to react much more strongly to negativity than to positivity. This is because they are other-driven rather than self-driven. I've seen this time and time again, in the office, in sports, and in the sexual marketplace. A woman will ignore 20 men praising her and focus like a laser on the one who shrugs her shoulders at her, whereas a man won't bother with the 20 women ignoring his existence, but will focus his attention on the woman who views him in a positive light.

Men and women make unnecessary inter-sexual mistakes because they wrongly assume that the sexes think alike. As a general rule, they don't. If you're a single guy, experiment with this principle. Try placing five "ooh, you so pretty" comments on the Facebook photos of five women you know, then five "Yikes! I didn't know you were part Bulgarian!" on five others. My estimate is that you won't even get a response from the first five women, but will get at least four responses from the second five.

Conversely, women should similarly experiment with building a man up rather than "putting him in his place". Do report back with results, if you give it a whirl. We're all about the science here.

Game and politics

It is a well-known fact that the taller candidate with better hair usually wins the presidential election. Based on this metric, Mitt Romney looks like a sure thing. But is it possible that those aspects of an alpha male are merely stand-ins for the candidates' socio-sexual status? If so, this personal anecdote may explain the tepid response among Republicans to Mitt Romney in 2008 as well as this election cycle:

Tagg didn't get it back then, but now at age 37 he finally understands why his father has been willing to suspend his regimented ways when it comes to his wife. ''When they were dating,'' Tagg says, ''he felt like she was way better than him, and he was really lucky to have this catch. He really genuinely still feels that way, thinks, 'I'm so lucky I've got her.' So he puts her on a pedestal.''

Mitt Romney is a tall, handsome, wealthy man with a big family. But based on this description by his son, he's also Beta at best. That incongruence between his superficial attributes and his genuine persona may explain why male and female voters alike tend to regard him with relative indifference.

Alpha Mail: the iron doesn't care

Marcus Marcellus somehow manages to completely miss the primary objective of Game:

The problem with you and those who self-consciously subscribe to this "game" concept are two-fold: 1) you were all obviously very bad with women before it dawned on you to so something about, which is to now over-compensate by being a soi-disant asshole. No real gentleman who is good with woman needs to be an asshole; just don't be a pushover. Typical American over-compensation and response: no subtlety; no class; no clue. Secondly, you are like someone who learned there is no Santa Claus - on your 21st birthday. By being so self-consciously "alpha" and studying "game," don't you see how your obsession makes you as pathetic as any other loser? Self-conscious nonchalance is still self-conscious.

Marcus here indicates that he understands neither Game nor women. His first point is objectively incorrect. While RM, having started as a self-identified Omega, has been consciously using Game to improve his socio-sexual rank, I was openly recognized as an ALPHA by men and women alike long before the concept of Game was articulated. Game wasn't ever a means to an end for me, it was merely the coherent articulation of inter-sexual behavioral patterns that I had already recognized and utilized.

The statement "no real gentleman who is good with woman needs to be an asshole; just don't be a pushover" is not only absurd, it is a tautology. Marcus might as reasonably have said: "No Beta needs to be an asshole, he should just be content with Beta status and be careful not to engage in Gamma behavior". That's fine and all, but it is both sub-optimal for Betas and totally useless for the Deltas, Gammas, and Omegas of the world. And it is downright laughable to the Alphas and Sigmas of the world, some of whom are assholes and some of whom are gentlemen. I further note that a "real gentleman" almost surely does need to be an asshole, or at least be able to convincingly simulate one, if he is to improve from being good with women to being great with them.

The most useful way to think of Game is through a free weight analogy. Those who are naturally strong often tend to think of weightlifting as unnecessary, even though weightlifting will make them stronger and allow them to lift more weight than they ever could naturally. And it is downright necessary for the weak, who will never increase their strength by being "real gentlemen", "just being themselves", or "not being a pushover". In further support of the analogy, the naturally strong not infrequently refer to those who have built themselves up through weightlifting as being "puffed up" and "not having real muscles".

But the only relevant metric is if the bar moves when you try to push it up. The iron doesn't care if you come by your strength naturally or through a wide variety of artificial means. It either moves or it does not move, depending solely upon the amount of strength you have to bring to bear. The lift counts the same regardless of the amount of effort involved.

Think about how remarkably silly Marcellus sounds when applying his perspective to any other aspect of self-improvement. Don't you see how your obsession with [losing weight] makes you as pathetic as any other [fatty]? Self-conscious [weight loss] is still self-conscious. This is true, but Marcus is failing to recognize that the whole point of the exercise is to lose weight! Or, in the case of Game, increase your socio-sexual rank. He is attacking a strawman of his own device here since a lack of self-consciousness is not the goal of Game. This should be obvious in that an important aspect of Game involves simulating the Dark Triad traits, including narcissism, which women find so powerfully attractive. In fact, it is the lack of other-consciousness that is one of the more central objects of Game.

Like many men who find their socio-sexual rank to be satisfactory, Marcus finds Game distasteful for three reasons. First, it challenges his sense of superiority. He doesn't like the idea that a rising Omega like RM might one day be able to score more attractive women than he himself does. Game means more competition from those who previously never had a shot. Second, it shakes his sense of reality. He believes that women respond to men being "real gentlemen" and "not being a pushover" and it is troubling to consider the possibility that he is, despite his present satisfaction with his socio-sexual rank, simply misguided and has been all along.

Third, and most important, is the simple distaste for change that is always inherent to those satisfied with the status quo. If Game is correct - and it is - then Marcus would be well-served by modifying his thinking and his behavior, which he quite naturally is loathe to do. For men of high socio-sexual rank, there is very little to be gained from Game, except perhaps reducing the speed with which time and age naturally tend to reduce their rank. Thus, their interest in Game is either nonexistent or intellectual; the Alpha could not care less about the possibility of the Omega moving up to Delta. For men of moderate but satisfactory socio-sexual rank, on the other hand, their complacency as well as their ability to compete against other men of similar rank are materially threatened by Game, which is why they react in such a hostile manner to it.

Whenever one sees a nonsensical, emotion-laden criticism of Game by a man who considers himself to be good with women, particularly one who decries the possibility that high status women could be attracted to men who don't behave like he does, you can be almost certain that he is either a Beta or a High Delta.