Alpha Mail: blind Game

KC asks about how women perceive his blindness:

I have a question. I'm blind and a Christian, and I feel like this serves as an automatic disqualifier for 95% of the dates I've ever been on (but no women will EVER say this, especially not Christian ones in America.) Do you think my assumption is accurate? I feel like the best thing I can do is just live with it and keep going on dates (or just stay single, which seems like less work right now) but should I be doing anything to counteract this possibility?

I suspect KC is correct and his blindness is not only an auto-disqualifier for many women, but a disqualifier none of them will ever dare to tell him about for fear of how it makes them look bad.  The problem is that whereas blindness can appeal to the male instinct to protect, it detracts from the female instinct to be protected.

To counteract his socio-sexual handicap, KC would be advised to cultivate a stronger and more aggressive image.  He always should wear cool sunglasses of a kind that Hollywood villains wear, bulk up physically with weightlifting, and if he has a seeing eye dog, he should get a studded collar and harness for it.  Instead of using the conventional white stick, he should rock a black cane with a silver skull or bull's head on the handle, and in general, stylistically embrace his blindness.  Growing his hair long or shaving his head are also potentially useful options.

Many people tend to think of blind men and women as quasi-children; many would be amazed at the very idea that KC participates in discussions on the Internet.  But by aggressively blinging his blindness, KC can not only peacock but play Contrast Game.  Who wouldn't be fascinated by a blind guy who walks in with his dog as if the pair of them own the place?

Think about the difference in perception between a skinny little guy with his sightless eyes exposed, hesitantly walking along the sidewalk with his white folding stick sweeping back and forth, and a big, powerful brute wearing mirrored shades stalking confidently behind a Rottweiler in a studded leather harness and holding a cane that looks like a weapon.  The first guy makes you feel sorry for him.  The second guy makes you worry that his dog might take your hand off before he even notices you're there.  Now, which one are women more likely to respond positively towards?

Blindness is a socio-sexual handicap, but it can be overcome through aggression and confidence.  KC is a smart guy - he attends a good university - but he needs to significantly up the superficial Alpha to counteract the natural pity that women will feel for him.  Pity kills female attraction.

So, instead of accepting pity for his condition, he should use it, although not in the helpless puppy manner that most men instinctively would.  He can crack jokes about how his blindness is an advantage because every woman he sees is a supermodel. (Howard Stern is a good model here; women always responded to the way he would lower his voice and say things like: "oh, you're hot, aren't you, I can hear it in your voice.")  He can tell outrageously unbelievable stories every time he is asked about why he is blind. At no point should he ever accept sympathy from women; he should always deflect it with a wisecrack and a smile.  He should also ask a few trusted male friends if he has any physical habits that are better avoided, such as Stevie Wonder's oft-caricatured head roll.

The goal is to change the frame, so that instead of being seen as poor little blind Delta boy, he is seen as an Alpha who just happens to wear sunglasses at night.

Blindness sucks. But it's not the end of the world, it's not the biggest handicap a man can have, and it doesn't take a man out of the Game. I suspect it may not even be as big a socio-sexual handicap as being unusually short. It's just a challenge, and the man who meets it head on is only going to raise his status in the eyes of men and women alike.

A failure of principle

More than a few men around the androsphere are disappointed, if not openly disgusted, by former anti-marriage advocate Mark Minter's unexpected announcement of his upcoming nuptuals.  Roosh, in particular, was particularly displeased.

He is like the conservative politician who espouses family values while diddling young boys on the side. He is the PUA who sells products on how to get laid but can’t even approach a single woman, someone who creates a false character to gain either money or—in this case—praise, at the expense of everyone’s trust. For that reason, he has lost all respect from me. If he were to knock on my door, starving, begging for food and drink, I would only place the sustenance on my front step. He would not be permitted to enter my home so that the foul odor of hypocrisy that now trails him does not infect my place of sleep.

I hope his name will forever be synonymous with a man who doesn’t live by his own code. He deserves to be permanently exiled from the manosphere community. 

This is an illustrative lesson in the importance of discernment when it comes to those we accept as opinion leaders or even take seriously as commenters.  While everyone is fallible, and everyone is capable of changing their minds as they are introduced to new information, Minter's behavior is hypocritical and unprincipled to such an extent that it indicates he never genuinely held the principles he espoused.

The Chateau, on the other hand, is considerably more blase' about the matter:

What a slap in the face this news must be to the barbarian peasants who incessantly claim CH is about nothing but pumping and dumping bar skanks.  Excuse me, good haters, but I don’t see your blogs resulting in any nuptial engagements.

As for me, I'm not familiar with Minter and I have nothing for or against the man.  But I will note that his response to criticism was not only juvenile and disrespectful, it was irrelevant.  Minter's vulgar response doesn't provide any rational basis for his massive change of heart, it doesn't even begin to address any of the very criticisms that he himself had previously articulated,  or indicate sufficient integrity to admit the way in which his actions belie his previous words.

However, Minter's actions should not have taken so many people by surprise. Very, very few of the writers and commenters in the androsphere are natural alphas. Most are deltas or gammas who embraced Game in order to improve their success with the opposite sex, and as such, both their rhetoric and socio-sexual personas tend to be exaggerated to some degree.  Again, being unfamiliar with him, I can't say to what extent that was true of Minter, but it appears to have been a considerable amount, since so readily he abandoned his oft-professed principles for a mid-thirties divorcee.

I sincerely wish Mr. Minter and his bride-to-be well.  I hope their marriage works out well for everyone involved. I suspect they have a better shot than many given that his fiance is familiar with many of the potential pitfalls involved. But I also hope that Minter understands that he is finished as an individual who merits being taken seriously by the androsphere.  Like Edward VIII of England, Mark Minter will henceforth serve as a cautionary example of how readily men are capable of sacrificing their honor, their integrity, and their credibility for love of a woman.  One hopes that Mr. Minter will have the sense to follow the Duke of Windsor's lead in stepping away from participation in the public discourse.

I don't think one should be too harsh on Minter for violating his former principles.  This is hardly the first time a man has done something out of the ordinary for love.  Let the man live and love in peace and privacy. However, if he attempts to continue to maintain his position as an outspoken figure in the androsphere, it would be hard for anyone to be too harsh on him.

Nihilists vs Civilizationists

It's been interesting to see the blog comments devolve into a sort of petty war between what appears to be some flavor of MGTOW on one hand and a loose alliance of pro-male married women and traditionalist men on the other.  Based on some comments I've received from some leading Game bloggers, this dynamic has appeared on other blogs as well.

To a certain extent, it is something that was always inevitable.  To give one example, whereas Roissy and I obviously respect each other despite our different purposes, those who incline more towards his "fiddle while Rome burns" perspective are considerably less able to view those differences in the abstract than Roissy, while those who are more focused on saving civilization from itself, (or at least preserving the seeds of civilization as the fire sweeps through the forest), are considerably less able to view the fiddlers with the same sort of equanimity that I am.

What both camps have in common is a diagnosis. Where they differ is the prescription. This is why they are not functional allies in the long term.  Their immediate objectives and priorities have nothing in common and  their perspectives are fundamentally different. However, it should be kept in mind that neither side created the problem to which both are reacting, and it should be recognized that both have important roles to play before the course plays itself out.

It is the MGTOW who will ultimately destroy the Female Imperative society by removing its foundations.  The traditionalists tend to allay the destructive effects of the irrational while the hedonists exacerbate them.  This is why the MGTOW incorrectly tend to look on the traditionalists as white knights and useful idiots in the service of the Female Imperative.  They erroneously conflate the traditionalists who are simply doing what they have always done with the feminized Church and the female-biased State.

By withdrawing their services, their seed, their paternal support, and their economic surplus from the women and children of society, they render that society unsustainable.  They are responding rationally to the disincentives which that society has presented them. Theirs is a perfectly legitimate response to a society gone mad.  More than that, their response is a necessary one, it is part of the pendulum swing that is required before society can return to sanity and stability.

However, the hedonistic, self-centered MGTOW will never be able to build anything lasting or replace the society which they quite rightly hate.  They must rely upon the civilizationists to do that; without the traditionalists still stubbornly working, marrying, and having children despite all of the societal disincentives for doing so, there will be no eventual recovery from the chaotic, barbaric morass into which the equalitarian-corrupted West is rapidly sliding.

This is why the accusations of lotus-eating on the one hand and white-knighting on the other are both misplaced and ill-considered.  Both nihilists and civilizationists are necessary to the process of first destroying, and then replacing, FI society. One need not agree with the other to respect and understand his - or her - role in the necessary, desirable, and, I would argue, inevitable, process.

Gardening and the single woman

The Germans don't hold with it:

"We've had bad experiences with single women," said the chairman of the Fiekendorf allotment club, named only as Hans-Dieter H. "They can't do this, they can't do that. It never works out. I'm sorry. It only causes us trouble."

Speaking to Wednesday's edition of the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper, he explained that the club's communal work - like hedge-cutting - was especially beyond a woman's power, adding that there was already one single woman in the club and she was annoying.

He also said that there were several women who had been left with an allotment after the husbands had died and subsequently also caused "difficulties."

"They have to understand that," said Hans-Dieter H. "We're not going to invite the bother anymore."

One woman left particularly frustrated at the new rule is Nafize Ö., a farmer's daughter from Turkey who has just had her allotment application turned down by Hans-Dieter H. "He told me that he turns down all women who don't have a man. He said they can't manage the work."

I find it interesting that many women who have no problem with understanding the concept that young men should pay higher insurance premiums because they statistically tend to drive faster and crash their cars more often are so easily outraged by the same concept being applied to women.

"But I'm not the one who didn't do X!" they protest.  Which is true.  And yet, there isn't a single young man who has just received his driver's license that has racked up six speeding tickets in a year or overturned his car while driving 75 in a 35 zone. His treatment is based on the expectation of his future actions on the basis of the knowledge of other young men's actions.

And let's face it, in Germany there is no higher crime than failing to keep your garden allotment in order.

American Sheng Nu

I find it amusing that the "sheng nu" phenomenon is portrayed as a Chinese problem, as if American women aren't every bit as hypergamous as their Asian counterparts:

Feminists are concerned that some Chinese women in their late 20s who are doing well in their careers but are labeled “leftover women” for not having married yet, may be their own worst enemies.

While they may earn as much as their male counterparts they may still adhere to traditional beliefs that decree a man must earn more than his wife, and men generally share that belief. Either way, this attitude may limit their pool of potential mates.

“They are still living in a traditional mindset and values, even though there’s no way that those can solve their problem,” said Feng Yuan, a feminist and head of Beijing’s Anti-Domestic Violence Network, in a telephone interview. Other feminists agreed with her.

What is missing is a stronger awareness of the dynamics of gender, said Ms. Feng. “If they don’t gain gender consciousness then they can only rely on luck to solve their problem,” she said, meaning they can only hope to solve the problem if they meet a man who earns more than they do.

“Shengnu,” or “leftover woman,” a term applied to China’s well-educated, unmarried women, has long been hurtful for those labeled in that way.

"Gender consciousness" is not going to solve their problem either.  Hypergamy cannot be indoctrinated out of women, and sexual selection guarantees that it will never be bred out of women.  In fact, feminism is bound to strengthen women's natural hypergamy, because the Sheng Nu, both Chinese and American, are evolutionary dead ends.

And I encourage the androsphere to adopt the term "Sheng Nu".  Whenever meeting a woman who makes conventional noises about putting her education or her career first, don't hesitate to nod approvingly and neg her about her brave, feminist choice to embrace her Sheng Nu status.

Because they can

And because it is a lot easier than excelling at one's job. A woman asks why women still have sex with their superiors at work:

There’s a long and distinguished list of stupid boy things I’ve done over the years, but boffing my boss isn’t one of them. Actually, that’s not quite true. When I was 17 I started going out with my former manager at the branch of the well-known fast food chain we both worked at (golden arches anyone?). However, he’d already left to work in a call centre before we got together, so I don’t think it counts. Either way, I certainly didn’t get an extra star for my efforts.

Anyway, all my grown-up jobs have been in the female-dominated world of women’s publishing, so whether through lack of opportunity or design, I’ve never slept with my boss.

It’s possible I’m behind the curve here – in 2010, the US-based Centre For Work Life-Policy found that 15 per cent of women, even at executive level or above, admitted to sleeping with their boss. Just as tellingly, 37 per cent of workers surveyed felt that those women who had slept with their superiors improved their career chances by doing so.

If 15 percent admit it, you can be certain that the real number is closer to 45 percent.  Women have sex with their superiors for two reasons.  The first is hypergamy.  They want the situational alpha, and at the office, in most cases, that is the boss.  The second is preferential treatment.  Women know perfectly well that the easiest way to get ahead is to have sex with the person who is in charge of making decisions.  Those who can act on it often will.

And this is simply one more reason why the concept of workplace equality is an incoherent impossibility.

This is an area of Game that hasn't been much explored, but perhaps it could be called Executive Game.  Arrange to put yourself in a position of power over women and you will magically become more attractive to them.  Of course, it is a game fraught with danger, from women who receive preferential treatment but want more, to women who don't receive it and want it, and women who don't receive it, don't want it, but resent it being given to others.

A peasant upgrades his status

Leap of a Beta moves up to post-college alchohol and finds he likes it:

During last week’s brouhaha about the Yale SWUG article, the discussion at Dalrock’s place veered towards the poor taste in alcohol among college kids. Leap of a Beta opened it up with this:

Gotta h/t both Badger and Vox on the wine tip originally. Tried it for awhile after they pointed out beer being a drink of the peasants. I find I get more attention and don’t feel as sluggish without the carbs, which is worth a few extra dollars a drink. Depending on mood I now alternate between a red wine and johnny walker black on the rocks. I enjoy both and get comments almost every time I order.

He is referencing these posts by me (on avoiding the brotastic beer shield) and Vox Day (where he refers to beer drinkers as “peasants“), and he’s following up on an excellent point: in America at least, there’s a class distinction communicated by the alcohol you drink. Thus, you can quickly and easily raise your apparent social status by ordering better stuff.

Put simply, the social status ranking goes like this: light-colored beers < dark-colored beers < stiff cocktails < red wine.

Of course, this doesn't mean that you need to become a pompous wine snob obsessed with expensive French cabernets and overpriced, ironically titled Napa merlots. My favorite table wines are inexpensive Spanish tempranillos and Chilean carménères, although I won't turn up my nose at an Australian syrah or a Piemontese dolcetto if they happen to be on sale. Badger is absolutely correct to point out that one of the more interesting things about wine is that there is a story behind so many of them.

And let's face it, there are few ways to DHV than to be drinking a wine made from a grape the woman hasn't even heard of before. Particularly if you can tell an interesting story about first being introduced to it by local restaurateur in Valdepeñas or Le Langhe.

Black knighting and the BBC

Let reason be silent when experience gainsays its conclusions. This tragic report of a belated apology demonstrates that black knighting is a legitimate and viable tactic even in the organizations that most firmly support the female imperative:

The BBC has been forced to apologise 'unreservedly' today after an investigation found it failed to support a journalist claiming he was being harassed at work, who then later killed himself. BBC Coventry and Warwickshire reporter Russell Joslin, 50, suffocated himself last October despite being on suicide watch at a psychiatric hospital. His family claimed he was driven to his death by the Corporation as they failed to take seriously allegations that he was being bullied by a female colleague...

BBC West Midlands insiders had claimed the conclusions of a previous internal BBC inquiry last year, headed by an independent person, into 'bullying' complaints were never made public, and little was done.

A long BBC statement in response to the report today states: 'The BBC extends our deepest sympathies to Russell's family, friends and colleagues.

'Russell was a respected and much loved member of the team at Radio Coventry and Warwickshire and he is greatly missed. We would also like to thank the Joslin family for their participation in this investigation at a very difficult time.

'The BBC acknowledges that aspects of the handling of Russell Joslin's case were not good enough. We have apologised unreservedly to the Joslin family.

'It is clear from the report that a number of factors, including workplace culture, made it more difficult for Russell to raise concerns.

'Disappointingly, the report also refers to behaviour which falls below the high standards we expect of all those who work for the BBC.

'We would like to take this opportunity to re-iterate that the BBC will not tolerate any form of bullying and/or harassment and is committed to providing a workplace in which the dignity of individuals is respected.

'Employees raising a bullying and harassment grievance should be able to do so without fear of victimisation.

Now, one might erroneously point to the fact that nothing was done in response to Mr. Joslin's complaints, but that was because Mr. Joslin was obviously a psychologically frail individual who was entirely incapable of standing on his rights as an employee and was totally unsuitable for the position in which he found himself as an inadvertant black knight.  The significant fact was that Mr. Joslin was not retaliated against by anyone but his harasser, and that the organization was forced to retreat from its do-nothing posture due to the intrinsic appearance of unfairness of enforcing the rules when women are victims and not enforcing them when men are.

This shows that going to the media is a valid tactic for a black knight; whereas HR will be inclined to sweep bad female behavior under the table, the marketing department and the executives know they can't afford to be caught doing it in public.

Clarity need not be bitter

In one of his more important posts to date, Dalrock addresses some of the inevitable problems when truthful observation destroys male fantasies about women and produces what he describes as Red Pill Bitterness:

Understanding women left him with at worst an intense hatred for women, and at best a greatly reduced ability to feel love for women.  The first is an overreaction to starting from a position of overlooking all sins committed by women.  If you nurtured a fantasy that women are innately good then seeing their sins for the first time is bound to be jarring.  This is especially true given that the widespread pass given to women has encouraged an immense amount of bad behavior.  If you are struggling with this be careful not to paint all women with the same brush, and to understand the pass which modern men have offered women for what it really is, cruelty dressed as kindness.

This doesn’t mean there is no place for anger at injustice, but to keep the larger picture in perspective.  This means not seeing “woman” as a faceless collective, but making a serious effort to see individual women for who they are.  The “red pill” helps us understand their different temptations from ours, but understanding this should help us empathize and relate to our own imperfection.  Key to this process is keeping in mind the importance of repentance. 

From the logical perspective, the metaphorical cracking of the pedestal should be no more troubling than the realization that girls are not, in fact, literally made out of sugar, spice, and everything nice. The distinction between what we want and what happens to be is no more earth-shattering when it applies to women and their behavior than to any other application of the is/ought problem.

And yet, it is emotionally difficult, if not shattering, for many men to realize that their paragons of virtue are no more virtuous than they are, that said paragons may actually, in fact, be considerably less virtuous from the male perspective than the man himself is.  And how can a man rely upon a woman to inspire him to be a better man when he is already a more noble and virtuous individual than she has shown herself to be?

The answer is that if a man is relying upon a woman for inspiration, he is utilizing an unreliable crutch. A woman may be the prize, but she should not be the purpose. The runner does not run the race for the strip of colored silk that is his reward, it is the race and the victory that are the reward and the prize is only a reminder of it; the value of this sort of victory is not derived from the prize.

Honor, as was said in the movie Rob Roy, is a man's gift to himself. Virtue is his duty to God. Neither of these things are sexually appealing to women, they do not derive from women, and in their male form, they are not even necessarily relevant to them. Bitterness is not only not justified, it is the result of a philosophical category error.

It should always be kept in mind that the sabotaging that so many men suffer in their formative years at the hands of well-meaning women, clueless naturals, and deluded BETA males is not intentional. One must forgive them, even as one learns to completely ignore their advice, because they quite literally do not know what they are doing.  After all, if it is difficult for a man to accept the observable reality of female lack of virtue with equanimity, how much harder, how much more shattering must it be, for a woman to do the same?

The hallmark of the inferior

Laura Resnick proposes a simple test, and in doing so, inadvertently demonstrates why it is so hard to take people like her seriously:

I would propose the following simple test for everyone who wants to threaten someone else with rape and death:

Do =you= intend to rape, murder, and/or cause the death this person? Not in a “wishspeak” way, but in an “yes, it’s on my calendar for tonight” way?

If the answer is “yes,” then turn yourself in to the authorities, because you are a danger to society.

If is “no,” then just don’t say it. Not ever. Because threatening someone with a felony isn’t cool or funny or macho or a way to release your anger or express your disapproval; it’s just a good reason for the cops to find you and question you about your stated intent to commit a felony.

And if you want to call someone a “bitch,” slut,” “whore.” etc… Oh, come, ON. How LAME. How childish. How unimaginative. Why not give yourself a CHALLENGE? Replace every hostile schoolyard name you want to call a woman with a phrase that begins with, “The reason I don’t like your actions” or “my argument with what you’ve said is” or “what I dislike about your position on this matter is” and then finish the sentence with a substantive comment that’s devoid of sarcasm and facetiousness (because of you’re a name-caller, than these conversational techniques are WAY beyond your skill set) and completely eschews threats.

And if you can’t do THAT… then say nothing, because you clearly have NOTHING TO SAY.

It sounds nominally reasonable, if more than a little naive, and in truth, it is nothing more than the usual bien pensant posturing.  The important thing to note here is how Miz Resnick is firmly asserting that one should never joke about harming others, because it isn't cool or funny or macho.  Which is a little ironic in light of Miz Resnick's own admittedly felonious fantasies of last summer.

Whever I think “alpha male”… my daydream quickly becomes a Sweeney Todd nightmare in which I’m serving the remains to my dinner guests, disguised as some sort of heavy-seasoned stew beneath puff pastry, because I wound up killing said Alpha Male in sheer exasperation before sundown and need to get rid of the body….  Laura Resnick, August 17, 2012 at 1:12 pm

In addition to this, while Miz Resnick was more than eager to criticize unknown people on the Internet, she didn't see fit to criticize our fellow SFWA member, Lee Martindale, who wrote: "When I decided to run for re-election as SFWA South-Central Regional Director, someone asked me what I would do if Mr. Beale won the Presidential election. I replied, "Ask my friends to start a bail fund."

And yet, are we not reliably informed that threatening someone with a felony isn't cool or funny?  Are we not told that it is grounds for being questioned by the police.

The hallmark of the inferior being is not hypocrisy, or the mere appearance of hypocrisy.  Everyone with ideals fails to live up to them at some point or another.  One's failure to live up to a standard is not at all the same thing as denying the standard applies to oneself.  The hallmark of the inferior, the sure sign of the self-admitted inferior, is the individual who demands others live up to standards that he refuses to accept for himself.

If you do not hold yourself accountable to the same standards you apply to others, you are not only an anti-equalitarian, you are a self-declared and admitted inferior to those to whom you hold to those higher standards.

I don't know if Ms Resnick is a hypocrite, a failure to live up to her own standards, or a self-confessed inferior being.  But rather than speculate or call her names, I shall simply follow her advice.  The reason I don’t like her actions is that she purports to be my equal, and yet, she appears to hold me and many others to a standard she does not appear to apply to herself or to her fellow SFWA member.

Female-friendly industry

Every so often, the technology industry is given an object lesson in the foolishness of trying to be female-friendly.  The recent affair at PyCon, in which one, and possibly two, male developers lost their jobs for the crime of holding a private conversation within earshot of a woman, is only the most recent example.  But what got me thinking was the response of some technology white knights, who lamented how the woman's action "damages the reputation of everyone trying to make this industry more female-friendly."

And yet, what is the point of making an industry "more female-friendly"?  Consider the television, film, and publishing industries.  I don't think anyone would dispute that all three are considerably more "female-friendly" than they were 30 years ago.  And yet, all three of them are also suffering from declining revenues and observably reduced quality despite their female-friendliness.  Has Hollywood benefited from imitating When Harry Met Sally instead of Star Wars and The Godfather?  Has fiction improved because authors increasingly aspire to be the next JK Rowling or Anne Rice instead of the next JRR Tolkien or Frank Herbert?

Meanwhile, the supposedly female-unfriendly game and technology industries appear to be doing rather well in comparison, the current cyclical downturn in the game industry notwithstanding.  This leads to the obvious question: what is the expected benefit of these proposed female-friendly policies to either an industry or its consumers?

UPDATE: It appears game and technology companies are not the right place for would-be thought police to seek employment.

"Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its employees, and our customers. As we continue to process the vast amount of information, we will post something more comprehensive."

Equality vs the female imperative

Dalrock has done some excellent work of late on the female imperative.  On a related note, when monetary push comes to financial shove and the female imperative comes into conflict with the principle of sexual equality, guess which loses:

Women’s very unfair Christmas present: car insurance price hike

Jo Swinson, Minister for Women and Equalities, is outraged at the higher car insurance premiums young women now face, as a result of new European rules.

 As both minister for consumer affairs and equalities I want to see everyone in this country get the fairest treatment possible when they’re parting with hard-earned cash. So you can imagine how disappointed I am by the ruling from Europe that will mean that women will no longer benefit from cheaper insurance premiums – despite all the evidence still pointing to the fact that women are safer on the roads.

Historically, men – particularly young men - cost more to insure than women because industry statistics show that they have more frequent accidents and their claims are more expensive to settle.

I'm not disputing that men are statistically inclined to get in significantly more, and more expensive, car accidents than women.  In a rational world, insurance companies would be permitted to discriminate upon the basis of sex-based probabilities and require men to pay more than women for their car insurance.

However, we also know that women are statistically more likely to work fewer hours, work fewer days, use more sick days, go on maternity leave, quit, and in general, work less, and less effectively, than men.  Does this mean that women like Jo Swinson, Minister for Women and Equalities, therefore believe that EU employers are justified in discriminating upon the basis of sex-based probabilities and paying men more than women for exactly the same job?

It seems highly probable that suggestion would be considered outrageous and sexist.  After all, how can one reasonably judge the job performance of an individual woman by the job performance of all other women?  (Never mind that it is equally silly to judge the driving performance of any one man by the driving performance of all other men.)  So, what we're seeing here is that even in the eyes of an official who is employed in order to assure societal equality, the commitment to the female imperative remains the priority.

Note in particular the way that genuine equality is described as "very unfair" here.  What this means is that for most women, "equality" is merely a useful rhetorical device, and unless it is proven otherwise, should be regarded no more than that by men.

The feelings slut

Susan Walsh lists seven reasons why women reject over-eager men.  But she probably could have quit after number one:

1. Women understand the male role as the gatekeeper of commitment, just as we are the gatekeepers of sex.

In the same way that a man may question the long-term potential of a woman who grabs his junk on the first date, women are wary of men who are “emotionally promiscuous.” 

Certain it is I liked her, 
And boarded her i’ the wanton way of youth: 
She knew her distance and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint, 
As all impediments in fancy’s course 
Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine, 
Her infinite cunning, with her modern grace, 
Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring;
Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

What men need to understand is that when they leap to profess their feelings at the first opportunity, they are viewed by women as being akin to the male version of the woman who doesn't hesitate to make herself sexually available on the first date.  In other words, in the same way that men feel no responsibility to reward a physical slut with a relationship after she presents them freely with her body, women feel no responsibility to reward a feelings slut with sexual relations after he presents them freely with his emotions.

From the female perspective, the highly indifferent man is the male version of the highly chaste woman.  He is a trophy worth the hunt, the virgin for whom great sacrifices are both required and merited.  To be free with ones feelings is to be sluttish and despicable.

This shows where and how Susan and other women have gotten the "male slut" concept completely backwards.  The "male slut" is not the man who has indiscriminate sex with numerous women and yet remains emotionally aloof; he is ironically more akin to an analogical "male virgin".  The real "male slut" is the man who declares his love on first sight, who wears his heart on his sleeve, and who engages readily in grand romantic gestures.

Holidays: Ignore the experts

This is the Alpha Game Holiday Survival Guide part III.  Regarding gifts, here are several "helpful" suggestions offered by the experts on women in the mainstream media:

• Anything that suggests that the recipient is anything less than perfect will go down worse than Frankie Boyle at a kid's Christmas party.
•  Never buy a woman an iron for Christmas unless you want to get hit over the head with it.
•  Guys, this is 50 shades of WRONG. Don't even think about it - or anything else tenuously linked to 50 Shades of Grey for that matter.
• Nothing says "I don't really think that much of you" quite like a handbag by 'Louis Vilton'. If you can't stretch to a designer bag, better to opt for the (genuine) perfume.

Translation: don't buy a woman anything that might be sexy, affordable, useful, improving, or popular.  Only gifts that are rare, expensive, and useless will be appreciated.  Except, as we already know, buying the perfect gift is the worst thing you can possibly do since it will create an unwanted sense of obligation.

It's fascinating, too, that apparently physical violence is deemed a reasonable response to an unwanted gift.  I wonder what the reaction would be if it were suggested that a woman should not buy a man a tie unless she wants to get strangled by it?  Does anyone suppose that the average man wants yet another tie any more than the average woman wants a new iron?

So, ignore the experts.  If she said she wanted X at some point during the year, then buy X.  Don't overthink these things and stop striving for the nonexistent perfect gift.  Remember that presents don't fix relationship problems.

Holidays: postprandial labor

This is the Alpha Game Holiday Survival Guide part II.

The holidays are a time of tremendous stress for women.  They feel a pressure to perform that is driven by the media, their own expectations, and their awareness that they will be judged on their performance by other women.  After all, how is a woman supposed to compete with the Martha Stewart clones who are baking special cinnamon cakes in the shape of each of their family member's faces using spice they personally flew to Sri Lanka to harvest by hand?

Throw in the decorating, the wrapping, the cookies, the meals, the entertaining, and the prospect of having to put on a smiling face for family members they don't particularly enjoy being around, and it should be no surprise that the holiday spirit can prove burdensome to women.  But there is one thing self-respecting men can do to ease that burden, if only a little, and make the holidays more happy for everyone, since there are few things that will spoil them more thoroughly than everyone having to tiptoe around a woman boiling over with holiday rage just waiting to explode.

Don't bother offering to help with anything.  You're not going to be able to do anything her way or to her standards.  Besides, she's going to be judged on her performance, so even if you are a competent cook or gift wrapper, any assistance on your part will not count and thereby is rendered invalid on its face.

But someone has to do the dishes and this is an opportunity at which you should leap.  First of all, your tackling clean-up lets a woman kick back and actually enjoy the meal she's prepared with everyone, without feeling the burden of clean-up looming over her shoulder.  Having gone to the effort to provide such a feast, shouldn't she be able to enjoy it in peace?  Second, it permits you to politely escape the postprandial conversation that, unlike most conversations of the holiday season, necessarily involves the "participation" of both sexes seated at the table, which in practice usually involves the women repeatedly interrupting each other while the men sit in silence wondering when they can escape the performance art and turn on the game.

(Do you think I'm exaggerating?  This Christmas, I challenge you to time the male silence if there are at least three women at the table.  The record thus far stands at 15 minutes of complete silence on the part of the men.)

This is a device I learned from that man among men, the Marine's Marine, my grandfather.  I used to marvel at his selfless generosity, and the way after every holiday meal, he would quietly excuse himself and disappear into the kitchen.  By the time everyone had left the table, the dishwasher would be running, the kitchen would be spotless, and everyone was happy and well-loaded with alcohol.  Including, of course, my grandfather.  When I asked him why he felt he needed to do the dishes, when at his age he deserved to take it easy, he laughed and pointed out that while he'd been happily cleaning up, watching the football game, and polishing off the rum, I'd been sitting there for 20 minutes, nursing my wine glass, staring into space, and listening to people ramble on about other people I couldn't identify if my life depended on it.

The man was a genius.  I've since added my own spin to it, which is first making sure that everyone's wine glass is full.  If you do it right, you'll have everything done before anyone even notices you've been missing from the audience.  Women seldom appreciate it, perhaps because they realize on some level that you're doing it for yourself, or perhaps because it makes you look too subservient to others and thereby lowering their own perceived value, but that's irrelevant.  Everyone is happy, everyone wins.  Be a little Christmas miracle.

Holidays: the gift-denigration ritual

This is the Alpha Game Holiday Survival Guide part I.

A significant amount of male stress over the Christmas season can be eliminated by keeping in mind one simple fact: women do not feel gratitude in the same way men do.  This is why they so often receive gifts in a manner that men find irritatingly ungrateful.

How many times have you seen this happen on Christmas?  A woman receives a gift from someone, anyone, and immediately begins to explain what is wrong with it, why it isn't exactly what she wanted, or that she really would have preferred something else.  If she's polite, she'll preface this with a broadly smiling "thank you".  If she's not, she'll launch directly into what men tend to hear as the "here is how you fucked up even though you bought me precisely what I said I wanted in November" speech.  Every single man I know has found himself, at one time or another, thinking "Merry fucking Christmas, why the hell do I even bother?"

It is understandable that men tend to find this superficially ungracious response to be dispiriting, if not soul-killing, which is why most men absolutely hate, hate, hate buying anything for women at any time.  Those guys you see out on December 24th aren't necessarily idiots or procrastinators, (although they may be), they may simply be putting off what they know from experience to be a painful and humiliating experience as long as possible.

However, it doesn't have to be that way.  Enduring the ritual female response to receiving gifts is a lot easier to bear once a man understands that women see gifts as being, first and foremost, obligations.  Think about how a woman responds whenever another woman gives her a gift.  In most cases, she immediately starts talking about how the gift wasn't necessary and promises that she will somehow do something for the gift-giver in the future, presumably because she knows if she doesn't respond in kind, she loses a point in the eternal game of woman versus all women on the planet.

Think about that.  What man ever responds to an unsolicited gift by saying that it wasn't necessary?  Of course it's not necessary, says the male mind, that's why they call it a gift and not a debt!  Why would anyone even imagine that I HAD to buy it?  No one pointed a gun at me and said: give her that there tweed coat or die!  But that's logic, and we're dealing with feelings here.

The promise to repay the newly imposed obligation is one tactic, but it is one that isn't applicable on formal gift-giving occasions such as Christmas and birthdays.  Hence the reliance on the alternative tactic, which is to verbally reduce the perceived value of the gift of to nothing, thereby eliminating the sense of obligation that the woman feels.  I posit this as the source of the ritual gift-denigration; once a man recognizes this pattern at work, it can be tremendously amusing to watch a woman desperately try to find a way to somehow disqualify a gift so that it doesn't count as an obligation on her.  In fact, the truly generous man will always buy women gifts that he knows are imperfect in some way; this will make it easier for her to disqualify the gift and thereby make it possible for her to enjoy it.

It is important to understand that this behavior has absolutely nothing to do with you or your choice of gift.  It doesn't even have anything to do with her per se!  The gift-denigration reaction is sub-rational and instinctual; most women are appalled and embarrassed if they ever come to realize that they are habitually behaving in what appears to be an ungracious manner.  So relax, don't let it faze you, don't let it irritate you, and by all means, don't try to argue with her when she starts nonsensically babbling that although the Porsche you bought her is her favorite color and she really loves it and she doesn't know how to drive stick, she really wanted a manual transmission because this would have been the perfect opportunity to learn how to drive one.

(Of course, if you had bought her the car with a manual transmission, she would have complained that you clearly don't know anything about her, since she doesn't even know how to drive stick.  Women can always find a means of disqualifying a gift; they can be geniuses in this regard.)

The good news is that the fact she's denigrating a gift means that she feels a sense of obligation from receiving it.  So, the ideal response is to smile and say "I'm glad you like it."

It's her tragedy

Doorstop makes an perceptive observation in the comments:

I've noticed number of women emoting with variations of "Heartsick and crying my eyes out, and just want to hold (children's names) and never let them go." Another example (albeit harmless) of female solipsism? 

Precisely.  This is further evidence that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that female solipsism cannot take and make about the woman who stands at the center of life, the universe, and everything.

It can actually become rather amusing to watch the clash of solipsistic universes, as women - and a number of men as well, don't think they don't - posture in an attempt to one-up each other concerning who feels the tragedy more closely.  This is why you'll see all sorts of comments concerning how the events of yesterday struck so close to home because their ex-boyfriend's cousin once had a niece who attended a school that played a softball game against the junior high into which the elementary school concerned feeds.

There are few things the solipsistic love to do more than wallow in the emotional pain of others and pretend it is their own.  This explains a good deal of the nature of female-oriented television.

Every woman is the White Queen

Possibly the most controversial Game-related advice I give to men is my maxim of never placing any significant import on what women say, particularly concerning anything related to themselves.  And while it's understandable that some women might find this to be offensive, the observable fact of the matter is that my advice is arguably irrelevant because it is quite often impossible to take them at their word.

Why?  Because their word is so often at odds with their other words.  Consider this fascinating pair of recent assertions by a woman (correction: two different women) at Susan's place.

I can’t flirt for the life of me either....  I’m a champion flirt when I want to be.

Now, this particular example turned out to be a bad one, (the second woman was apparently quoting a different woman in the first part), but the topic is worth contemplating even so and I'll replace it later with an actual self-contradiction when one inevitably surfaces.  I'm not sure what the reason for this tendency towards self-contradiction is, but my impression is that a) it begins at a very early age, as I've seen it exhibited in girls as young as three, and, b) it features some sort of connection between the expressed female perception of reality and the way that she wishes others to perceive her at the moment.

What I find remarkable is that if questioned with sufficient delicacy, a woman will often admit to simultaneously believing two intrinsically contradictory things.  This may help explain why women are very credible liars who nevertheless tend to unnecessarily expose their own lies over time.  If they actually believe what they are saying in the interests of convincing their audience of it, they cannot have any awareness of the fact that what they are saying now directly contradicts what they told someone, sometimes that very same audience, previously.

If it feels true, it is true.  But since feelings change, what is true now is not necessarily what was true before.  So, if we apply that concept to the obvious contradiction presented by Susan's commenters, and combine it with what we know to be the female tendency towards negative communication, we can retroactively "read her mind" to a certain extent.

"I can't flirt for the life of me either" = I don't want women to think I am shallow, submissive, or overly obsessed with pleasing men like those flirtatious women are."

"I’m a champion flirt when I want to be." = I don't want women to think I am incapable of influencing my husband in a feminine way at will.

Notice that there is no contradiction between the two negative desires.  It is the process of translating the negative wish to the positive assertion that produces the contradiction.  So, in addition to being useful in the avoidance of acting on false information, observing these contradictions and understanding what lies beneath them can serve as a useful window into a woman's mind.  Or, on occasion, two different women's minds.

When the pedestal collapses

Although we are repeatedly assured by women that a man does not and should not care about his prospective wife's sexual history, it is not terribly hard to find evidence suggesting that some men will care a great deal about it regardless of female opinion on the matter:

When I met my husband 40 years ago I knew he was ‘the one.’ He had firm opinions on sex before marriage (outdated even then) and was a virgin.  As I got to know him, it became clear that he’d never consider marrying somebody with ‘history.’ He thought sex special and wouldn’t want to imagine his wife having it with others.  But, by 22, I’d been having sex for four years. Madly in love and wanting him to marry me, I lied....

We had two children and a very happy and successful marriage. But a few weeks ago, an old friend contacted me over the internet, and I invited her round.  My husband left us to talk and went off to the garden. Inevitably we talked of the past.  After she left, I found my husband looking devastated. He said he’d gone into the conservatory to read and heard everything.

He said he felt utterly betrayed, as he had a right to expect honesty, but our entire marriage had been based on a fundamental lie.  I said we’d had a wonderful 40 years, so what could it matter what I did before I met him?  He moved in to the spare room and avoided me. A week later he moved to a bedsit and told me he wanted a divorce. 

This is one of the problems with men prone to pedestalization; it can be ugly indeed when the pedestal finally comes crashing down.  It is not surprising that the advice columnist's instinct is to be irritated at the man's principled position, to find it "stupid", and to declare the very concept of virgin marriage to be outdated.  But it is a little surprising that she nevertheless sees a modicum of substance to his position, as she writes: "I know no one who would discover that they had been lied to for 40 years, and think it didn’t matter."

And it's not so much the fact that the woman lied about her sexual history - I'm hardly the first man to observe that most, if not all, non-virgin women reflexively lie about N - but the fact that she knew perfectly well that this was a major matter of principle to him and she proceeded to purposefully deceive him about it anyhow.  It was more than a deception meant to be justified by the eventual ends, it was also a total lack of respect for the man, for his principles, and a shameless manipulation meant to prevent him from being permitted to make a very important decision about his own life.  Notice that even now, she still fails to respect his principles.

Does that deception, manipulation, and lack of respect justify walking away from four decades of marriage?  I couldn't possibly say.  Perhaps the marriage was considerably less happy than the wife imagines and the man is simply taking a convenient way out.  Perhaps he is so disgusted by her past that he truly wants nothing to do with her.  It's not for me to say, it's really not for any of us to say.  I am confident that I would not react that way, but then, I was considerably less principled on the matter than this man.  As Mises asserts, only acting man can assign motivations to his actions.  On the other hand, I also know that any contract based on fraud is intrinsically invalid, and there is a perfectly reasonable case to be made that the marriage was never legitimate in the first place.  The woman cannot appeal to forty years of something that did not, properly speaking, ever exist, especially in light of the Marriage 2.0 principle that unhappiness is an acceptable reason for unilaterally ending a marriage at any time.

However, I'm not really interested in hashing out what the ideal response to this situation is, my purpose is merely to point to this example in underlining the fact that one cannot assume that the passage of time will necessarily erase past deceptions and betrayals.  It is hard, but it is always better to be honest and risk the possibility that the disclosure of one's health, one's debt, one's family, or one's sexual history will cause the other person to walk away than to attempt to deceive them into a long term relationship in the hopes that the deception will never come to light or will be overlooked in the future.

A request is not a test

Athol outlines the difference:

If I’m doing the morning routine with the kids, I bring Jennifer a cup of tea. I’m already making me coffee, we have a Keurig thingy so it only takes me a minute to make her something while I’m making my own. She always says thank you and actively enjoys the Act of Service. She also knows that all she needs to do once is say, “Where’s my tea?” in a snarky tone and she’ll get a whithering look and a big cup of make-your-own-fucking-tea.

Something to watch is whether or not small acts of service are also returned to you. I do nice things for Jennifer, but she also does many nice things back to me. For which I also say thank you.

If it’s all a one way flow of your energy into your partner… even if they are being nice and appreciative about it… that just means you’re doing everything they want for nothing but praise. Which is simply talk and not action. If they are performing actions for other people though… hmmm.

The fiery fervor of the convert often leads to overreaction, in Game as in religion or the conquest of an addiction.  For many men, the discovery of Game causes them to start seeing negative female behavior in everything, sometimes when it isn't even there.  For example, when Spacebunny is comfortably ensconced in front of the television and asks me if I'll pour her a glass of wine when I'm in the kitchen making myself a late night coffee, I don't react as if she's angrily demanding that I throw myself down into a puddle so she can walk over my back without getting her shoes wet.  Her request is a perfectly reasonable one and I am perfectly happy to grant it.

A reasonable rule of thumb is this:  If a woman is making a request of a man and it is the sort of request that you would normally grant if one of your close male friends was making it, it is not a test and should not be treated like one.  On the other hand, if a woman makes an uncivil demand of you, it may or may not be a test, but in either case, it is best treated with contempt and ignored.

The fact is that most women know, from a very early age, how to make themselves difficult to resist when they want something.  They flutter their eyelashes, make their eyes big, raise their voices, and say PLEEEEESE.  So, if a woman can't even bother to be civil, if she can't even bother to ask for something, she wants, that is a pretty reliable sign that something has gone awry in the relationship.