As a trad gal myself, (and a successful one) this is my specialty! Although this piece is very interesting, the practical advice is go where they breed trad girls. You should be specifically looking between ages 24-30. They are typically bred in the rural corners of the world, particularly in the US. The thing about trad girls, not only are they looking for a long time commitment, they are also highly trained (and bred) to sniff out potential mates.
Here's how you sniff out the marrying type:
1. Her parents are still married or had a good marriage. 2. She likes her parents. 3. She gets along well with the rest of her family - unless she's Italian then family drama goes with the territory. 4. Her friend has a baby, and she likes it. Bonus points if she's jealous of the friend. 4. She works in or is studying the nurturing arts e.g. teacher, nurse, occupational therapist, etc.
My one caveat is, you may want to stay away from virgins. They go rogue mid-life.
Teachers can be scary ppl. But I'm thinking more like a nursery school cooperative teacher or private school or they teach a trade like nursing, cooking, etc. It's sort of like "works with animals" could mean a vet tech or it could mean a terrifying activist.
+1 on keeping a lookout for her relationship with her father. Specifically the level of respect she has for him is a great indicator of the level of respect she's inclined to show you long term.
I am a guy looking to start a family, to be the marrying type. What you described is more or less what I look for. (Replace #4 with goes to some type of Christian church regularly.)
But I have a specific problem. I did not have a good family. I am not on good terms with my family, and almost all the factors that made this were decided before I was born. So while I know all the traits you listed are important, I know I simply cannot have them to offer back to any potential partner. I suspect this is hampering my chances quite a lot. (Which are already slim as I have difficulty finding/meeting potential partners already.)
Is there anything that can be done about this? I value honesty too much to lie about it, and I can only make it so pleasant before its deceptive when asked on a date.
What traits in your experience are the ones that girls will sniff out of potential mates?
Dating apps seem... less than helpful for this kind of thing. Any advice on how to actually meet and find this kind of girl?
I was writing this big long thing and accidentally deleted it - but here it goes... hope this helps...
In terms of actually meeting girls -that's hard to say. Usually Christians have an easy time of this since meeting ppl usually means church involvement. If there are no young ladies there, perhaps there's a nice old lady who happens to have a lovely granddaughter.
Trad girls are typically looking for stability and reliability. So have your "house" in order. Can you provide financially? You don't need to be rich, but you should have a good job as a reliable employee - no flakey ambitions. Pay attention to things women don't typically pay attention to. Is her car running ok? Is her faucets leaking? These are psychic signals men put out that attract women.
Hopefully you're not burdened by your past and understand the fundamentals of a healthy relationship.
Trad girls are feminine and looking for a real man - in the trad sense. He's confident, reliable and can make decisions. He knows where he's going, but he's happy to have her along for the ride.
It's reassuring to know my work on fundamentals (health, job, life goals) will be put to good use.
I will keep working on the meeting bit and I did not think about the car and faucets type of thing. Instead I kind of went on the opposite approach, trying to notice things women usually pay attention to (do her shoes match her clothes, did her hair style change, etc...)
I am working on the fundamentals of a healthy relationship, I can read about it but I still haven't seen it. It's one of the reasons why it is so important for me to find a partner who has a stable family, so I can learn from them when in doubt.
If you got any recommended blogs or the like that offers more good advice I would love to catch up on those in my spare time. I need to learn from those who have had success.
"I kind of went on the opposite approach, trying to notice things women usually pay attention to (do her shoes match her clothes, did her hair style change, etc...)". Hmm, maybe OK, as long as it isn't creepy. It usually is.
If you simply display your competence, you'll be sending the right signal. I don't know if you care about cars and faucets; maybe you really get shoes and hairstyles, in which case - go with the shoes and the hairstyles. Although, I'm thinking of a coworker who once talked to me, very competently, about wrap dresses, and even though I thought it was an interesting conversation, I still found it creepy/simpy. It left a bad taste.
Thinking about it, your problem seems like a 'nice problem to have' from my point of view. I'm not at the 'advice to meet _this kind_ of girl' phase yet, I still don't know how to meet any women at all.
Most of the people in this thread are talking in a way that comes across like its easy peasy to bang random thots, but finding a woman of quality is difficult.
It's been closing on 3 years for me and not for lack of trying. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I have a good number of female friends (always of the "I'm only friends with guys" variety) and they routinely express surprise that someone as great as me is still single. Fit, wealthy, successful, independent, smart, funny, beloved in my communities. I lead things and make stuff happen. All of the commentary in this post and comments about spending your 20s working on yourself... I did that! And yet I've averaged 1 date per year since 2016, and I always get ghosted immediately
People tell me that there's women everywhere, you just have to talk to them. That's not my experience. Not by a long shot. I don't know where people are meeting dating-aged women but its not happening for me. What can I do to change my circumstances before it's too late?
What was it like in your 20s? (I'm assuming you're in your 30s since you're talking about your 20s in the past tense). When you say that you spent time working on yourself, what exactly do you mean?
I were a man and single, I would consider joining the Mormon church :D
IIRC, they have special singles wards for such cases. And if it works out, you fill your house with a bunch of kids.
22: First kiss, first lay, and first GF at 22. She moved in almost immediately, relationship started to sour because she was not a good partner, broke up at 24.
24 - 27: alone and living a miserable bugman life as a software eng in the bay area. This mostly consisted of either spending most of my spare time intoxicated while fucking around on the internet, or driving 2+ hours outside of the city to go hike somewhere nice.
27 - 29: second GF, who seemed a perfect match. Dated for a year and then lived together for a year. Then out of nowhere she dumped me and she is who I was referring to in my other comment about this post being a perfect descriptor of her
29 - 30: It took this long to get over second GF
30 - present day: mostly the personal growth as outlined below
> When you say that you spent time working on yourself, what exactly do you mean?
I have achieved wealth, financial stability, and career success, with a net worth that currently fluctuates between 600k and 800k depending how much Biden is fucking up the stock market any given week.
I started taking fitness seriously, stopped being fat, started lifting. I'm past a 2-plate squat, and very close to a 3-plate deadlift now.
I started taking health seriously. I prioritized getting a good night's sleep. I stopped eating lazy prepackaged things and started cooking healthier foods. I stopped procrastinating and took care of some chronic health issues that have been a drag on me for a long time.
I finally made progress on getting a green card, which was a blocker preventing me from most long-term life planning. If all goes according to plan, I should have permanent residency by the end of next year and possibly sooner.
I started building new friendships and community, filling up my calendar with a robust social life powered by people worth spending time with. I started creating meetup groups, organizing events, and bringing people together
I stopped investing time and emotional energy into people who didn't bring value to my life. I stopped trying to force myself to do things I don't like (ie parties where everyone just gets shitty drunk and act like hooligans) just because "that's what you're supposed to do". I started being deliberate about how I spend my social time instead of just doing whatever was available
I started taking pride in my appearance. I bought a bunch of well-fitting and stylish clothes and started dressing to impress more.
I did a lot of personal grappling with emotions and insecurities, became much more confident, and learned to feel good about myself. I stopped letting my insecurities cast a shadow over my social relationships and learned to accept when other people care about and value me
I reconciled things with some friends whose bridges I had previously burned. Several of whom are subscribed to Gray Mirror and will likely read this
I spruced up my apartment so it didn't look like a lazy bachelor lives in it.
> I were a man and single, I would consider joining the Mormon church :D
I've tried going back to church several times now but it seems that there is simply too much of a cultural gap between me and church people. I end up going somewhere for a while, don't really make any friends, get frustrated at how much I dislike most of what we're doing, and then give up and try a different church. I've decided that I'll go to a church now if and only if I have a friend who already attends that church who invites me, and I'm on the lookout for such opportunities
It's tricky to troubleshoot this from a comment section in a blog post, but ill take a crack at it. Of course I don't know you, so any guesses I come up with are only guesses and based on personal experience.
1. As I said before, it could be location. I have found the marrying type to be in the outer burbs (I think they call them bedroom neighborhoods?), or in rural communities. These girls are not worried about careers or binge sex because there's few careers to be had, and very few hook up spots. On the other hand, I can see many men falling victim to this community as eligible single girls are scooped up pretty quick. Your female friends who keep guys in the friend zone may be evidence of the location problem.
2. Perhaps you're either you're too aggressive or too shy on first dates. Maybe you're too earnest - maybe you treat the date as an interview? My advice is, just have fun! Take her to fun places, order for her, give her an experience. Build sexual tension but don't have sex. Think like a caveman, but behave like a gentleman - if that makes any sense! A lot of women are like 18 wheelers, it takes awhile to get them going. So mundane, "what do you do for work?" Sounds like a job interview and not a fun night out. So learn to be a fun date.
3. Again, confidence. Confidence can be tricky. If you dont have it you can't fake it, too much confidence looks arrogant and a giant red flag to a woman with any sense. If you talk about yourself too much you look like a narcissist - not enough and you look beta or not interested.
4. Broaden all social circles or create new ones. Join a country club or whatever. Even if it's predominantly male, you never know who knows someone. Plus it's something fun to do in your spare time.
5. If you haven't tried it, I actually know several happy marriages from sites like match.com.
I have had so many bad experiences with online dating, it could fill a blog. Suffice it to say: I've had such bad luck with dating apps/sites that I've now hired professional consultants to spruce my profile up three times. All three gave up on me.
I’d be careful of over taking responsibility. Sounds like you’re a good prospect who’s willing to do, and has, the work required to be so.
I just see women encouraged and enabled their entire lives, for generations now, to reject responsibility for their behavior and to always blame men. It’s a suicide course of mandatory authorization (of women as being owed authority in matters personal, economic, political) and complete lack of accountability. The counter part is men are always told they’re “dominating the space,” “entitled,” “toxic,” and need to relinquish any and all status or authority no matter how they may have earned it (#all men) and are endlessly held accountable (for women over whom they have no authority as well as themselves) like they are original sin itself.
The current environment is so hostile towards healthy relationships I don’t see what can improve it. Essentially the cathedral’s greatest faith contingent is modern women. I don’t blame women or think they’re bad. In other words the dysfunctional totalitarian regime of government, media, academia, culture also has an interpersonal wing that feeds on prospective stable relationships like a flesh eating virus.
Even top 10/10 Chad doesn’t seem to have great options for a stable, caring, cooperative, committed partner. Of course he has endless options for (ultimately degenerative it mostly seems) sex. Unlimited flesh buffet; a walk together on a path towards the transcendent is off the menu.
Women today bail (most divorces filed by women, as well receiving custody and support, alimony). Men get left holding the bag. It just doesn’t seem worth bothering anymore. A man’s life can also be ruined at anytime by false allegations. Even if they’re dropped or disproven they linger like stains in cheap hotel rooms.
Reputation assassination - the elite soldier of gender equality (who? Me?)
Sorry to be such a doomer. I want to be wrong, I just see what I see. Of course all of the above is not true in every case but it’s the norm. It’s also the norm to continue pretending 1950’s gender norms remain as a straw man to continue moving the goal posts (pussy hats? Wheee! Areeghhh! Orange men rape!)
I hope you have good luck but if having a family is really a life priority you may want to consider moving to a country with a more traditional family culture (culturally enforced monogamy) that doesn’t incentivize divorce and judges women and men both as responsible for staying the course and upholding their duties. The mission of the west it seems is to eradicate all duty for women. They’re always welcome to do anything on an optional basis, but always with a get out of jail free card. Men have to go down with the ship. These days, even someone else’s.
I view culture and mores as to blame; not women. They are agents though arguably men are more so for enabling all of this. (Not the talibro’s though! Just kidding, bit of dark humor).
Don’t worry about things being too late. Your fertility window and attractiveness is not ending. You’ll continue to grow and mature and accumulate resources (knowledge, contacts, status, earning capacity). I would remain open to prospect of meeting someone but not expect to. Think what kind of life would you want to live if you couldn’t find someone, then dedicate yourself to that, always keeping open the possibility that you might meet someone. Men are still waiting for women to act according to the traditional script as we are still expected to do. Women don’t, haven’t been, and won’t until massive societal change. The state is a more stable, low demand protector and provide (husband) than a human male. Plus boys have cooties yuck! Girls just wanna have fun. The constant option to just get off the boring old bus ride whenever the mood strikes makes marriage (meaningful commitment) very unreliable. Add limitless sexualization and constant social media access from/to millions of people and the risk of cheating is massive; moreover it’s becoming completely de stigmatized. Slut shaming accompanies stable monogamous relationships and families. Have cake or eat, not both.
I’d say just try to focus on your goals, look at your freedom to choose exactly what path you want to walk like you won the lottery. That will be necessary to counter the black pilling experience of contemplating and accepting possibility of never meeting a competent partner in a culture which (intentionally or not) aims to totally decimate trad life, beginning with family. I hope I’m wrong but all my sciencing produces consistent conclusions.
Sorry for the rant, please take this grain of salt. It’s not all doom and gloom, we just ain’t in Kansas anymore. Life is still beautiful and a gift, disappointment, suffering and all.
> A man’s life can also be ruined at anytime by false allegations
The closest I've ever come to having my life ruined was when my coworkers discovered my pivotal involvement in a controversy centered on our distinguished Gray Mirror host. They failed. Twice.
Just so I'm not misunderstood; I'm in no way trying to place the blame at the feet of these gentlemen. I'm sincerely trying to help. Doing a courting dance is not just generations old- it's forever old. I know that lifelong partnership is very hard to find these days, much thanks to women and their boomer parents. However, as a married lady myself with a family I still value those timeless institutions and I feel they're worth fighting for. When I'm critiquing their dating styles, it should go without saying the things they should value too- hopefully they know this, but as for the women: can they cook,? can they keep tidy? are they nurturing?...By the way, modern feminism hasn't been hot shakes for women either - it's screwed everyone!
Both my great grandparents- (not that long ago) - their marriages were arranged or at least in one case, answered an ad to a widower and his motherless children - they had my grandfather and his older brother... So now what do ppl do?
But for every man wanting to make that contact there's a young lady waiting by her phone. It sounds fictional, but it's not.
I do agree with continuing to better oneself until the right one comes along and to enjoy life nonetheless. When we're enjoying the thrills of life the right one magically appears, and if not, no time wasted.
Appreciate both of your responses. TBH at this point I'd take some of that hookup culture as a consolation prize, but I can't even seem to pull that off. Over time it has become hard not to internalize this as a value judgement on myself. I will never be good enough, it seems, which is just made that much worse by the fact that they all keep getting worse and worse
Have you watched this Norwegian Netflix show, Home for Christmas? It's about this woman who is pressured to find a boyfriend by her family and out of desperation lies that she has one, then actually has to find one in time for the Christmas holidays. I kind of stopped watching after the episode when she has sex with the 17-yo, but the episode where she goes to a speed-dating event is really funny.
I'll have to check, but in the end, I think she ends up with her awkward coworker.
I guess, if you're a serious Christian, then you should try to meet people through church activities. If you're not, then some other hobby or social activities. The key here is to meet people who share your interests, and invest in those activities and relationships.
I met my husband at a summer job when we were in college (I second Teresa's "He knows where he's going" comment. I always hated that mealy-mouthed "romanticism" that what we now call "simping"), so I'm lucky to have escaped the dating world completely.
I have always been very, very nervous about going for teachers, because of the current state of our public school system. Do you have any tips (beyond the obvious ones) for finding the teachers who are good trad candidates and not just modern woke commissars?
Public school teachers are especially tricky. I would again say location matters, rural schools and/or if she was raised and educated in the same area she's teaching. That signals she's trying to establish roots.
Then, I have extreme doubts you actually like rural girls. How would you even know? I'm a big proponent of accepting your natural environment. Mine and yours is the city, with no social connections in any rural communities.
This advice boils down to "wait until women grow out of their youthful years in which they want alpha sex and shift into the phase in which they look for a beta provider". But this is not very good advice, insofar as the man's perspective is concerned. Curtis, I suspect that you are very familiar with the pua/manosphere literature and there are some real gems there, which you should be recommending instead of giving somewhat misleading relationship advice. For instance, I believe "The Rational Male" by Rollo Tomassi should be a required reading for every man.
As for the topic at hand - getting into a long-term relationship with a woman of the SAME (or similar) age when you are 30 is an absolute trap. For one, there is a massive sexual market value mismatch - she is exiting her prime years, and you are entering yours. She is getting a great deal, especially if you are a well-educated, fiscally independent man with good professional prospects. You on the other hand are getting a very bad deal - she has already nearly lost what men value most in women (youthful beauty) and she probably has a very high notch count after "partying" throughout her 20's, most definitely higher than yours. This is math (or did you nerds call it probability?).
The advice to your late 20's reader should be - for the love of God, do not even consider marriage before you are on the other end of 35 and do not even consider any form of long-term relationship experiments until you are on the other end of 30. At your age chances are you will not get a good deal out of any LTR, so just as "play the field" as it were. Date women, have sex, have fun, most importantly - acquire experience. But do not overthink it and don't make it into an obsession. Far too many men in their late 20's fall into the trap of panicking that they should be marrying ASAP, only to end up divorced and broke some 10 years later. In the modern day and age, with how society functions (not to mention divorce laws!), you shouldn't be hurrying at all.
And even then, when you are in your late 30's - should you be going for the women in their early 30's? Ugh, I don't think so, man. And before someone says I am referencing cringe pua literature - Aristotle said the ideal marriage for a man is 38 and 18 for a woman. And Aristotle, like, invented logic and shit.
For a myriad of reasons you should always be trying to go as young as possible in your mate choice. The "mature" 30-something woman is a lie >90% of the time. The reason why she seems more mature, is because she has realized that the biological clock for her ovaries is ticking and thus she has shifted her priorities from excitement to security. That doesn't make her your friend, on the contrary, this makes her a more dangerous partner than the 20-something girl looking for excitement, who is usually much easier to see through.
For one, the older a woman is, the more sexual partners she is likely to have had. Remember, sex is a very special thing for a woman. The more partners a woman has had, the more unreliable she is to hold a stable long-term relationship. We all know that, which is why every society on earth has had a slut-shaming social stigma. When you are in a relationship with a woman, you are implicitly competing with every single man that has been with her before you. Every woman is constantly comparing. The more partners - the tougher the competition. And what do we say in Sillicon Valley? That's right - "competition is for losers".
This doesn't mean that Aristotle's formula is always realistic nowadays. In fact, the vast majority of the time it obviously isn't. But these are things every man should always keep in mind.
I've been through a pickup phase, and there's a lot of good there, especially for nerdy low status guys. The huge perversion of mainstream is you have these male feminist types criticizing PUAs as immoral, when the inverse is true.
But there is another level beyond getting yourself in order and becoming a strong man. It goes something like nerd ---> strong individual ---> strong family (or strong community for those who choose a non-familial path).
If you plan to become a family man, there really is no point messing around in clubs and bars until you're 35. This is exactly what I did, and while I don't regret it per se, in hindsight I can see how I could've used that time more productively. Plus there is weakness in the victim-y MRA stuff. If you're not marrying because you're afraid of divorce, you are a pussy.
The advice I'd offer for most people would be to find a good one, get married, and start a family (unless you explicitly wish to follow a different path and have strong and well thought out alternative goals). You don't need to rush it as a guy, nor do you need to delay. If your only reason for delaying is you want to bang more random chicks, then just stop delaying, in retrospect you'll realize this was a (vaguely skeezy) waste of time.
There is a level of maturity you achieve after really committing to marriage, and another after having a kid. It's probably possible to achieve through alternative paths, but those other paths are difficult (not that family isn't difficult, but because it's built into us biologically there's an automatic quality to it that makes it hard to fail). You become less narcissistic, the world becomes clearer, you have more realistic intuition of the time available to you and how you should make use of it. You see the full cycle of life, you understand your parents better and your own childhood better. It's hard to sell to a young guy committed to hedonism (25 year old me would reject it, certainly), but if you're consciously delaying marriage, make sure you have a good reason and it's not just laziness, immaturity, kicking the can down the road, addiction to meaningless sex, etc.
This is was the point I was trying to make, however, you've conveyed it far better than I did.
Talern mentioned something I was going to include in my reply to Hurlock, which is at the end of the day, the Manosphere perspective often reduces relationships down to a materialist view and often seems to come at relationships from a similar view to Leftists.
I don't completely disagree with Hurlock. He's right that you have to be careful of settling for certain women and you're not settling for the sake of it. But hedonism will only get you so far.
While you general view is reasonable, I want to push back on the idea that it is a "waste of time" to bang more random chicks. Especially insofar as nerdy "non-natural" guys are concerned, this provides crucial learning experience with regards to how the opposite sex thinks and acts. For a woman, having little sexual experience is a plus, but the opposite is true for men.
Looking at a relationship as a purely transactional agreement makes sense from a materialist and evo-psych perspective, but ultimately it doesn't seem all that different from the leftist perspective that spiritualizes the commodification of sex and companionship as liberation and freedom. Except this reverses the terms. This state of affairs is not a consequence of freedom, but instead an inescapable natural reality which we can only accept and live with. The work surrounding (that I've encountered) reads to me much more like revolution in the opposite direction, which rather clearly isn't the way out of this sociopolitical dead end.
The foundation of relationships is transactional, and they often arise from simple proximity rather than an actual connection - people make friends by *finding* connections with the people around them. But the relationship itself is an idea layered on top of that material reality, and neglecting it is no small part of why community is dead in America.
A nation is more than just the land it occupies or the people who make up its living body. It's a set of traditions and ideas - a culture. It's the mortar between the bricks. A mason may stack bricks together, just as nature may scatter people together. But those bricks aren't a wall without mortar, just as those people aren't a community without culture. Bound only by gravity, they're just a collection of single entities, ready to be broken apart whenever nature or convenience bids it so. It's the idea of the relationship that gives them a reason to persist in the transaction, even when it may be tedious or annoying. This is as much true of a friendship, a family relationship, a relationship with a neighbor or one's community, or a lover.
While I appreciate your caveat at the end, I question in general how helpful it is to reduce relationships to purely materialistic concerns. Those can only ever be the foundation for a larger whole.
I think it provides good survival tips for navigating the present dating environment, but my concern is that it fails to provide a way to return to sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships. What I've read of the manosphere seems to explicitly reject that idea.
It is exactly the age 30+ women who have "grown out of" the excitement phase which are looking at a relationship as a purely transactional agreement when they are looking for a "serious guy with a serious job" to "settle down" with. Transactional relationships like this are exactly what I am warning against, not advocating for.
"I think it provides good survival tips for navigating the present dating environment, but my concern is that it fails to provide a way to return to sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships. What I've read of the manosphere seems to explicitly reject that idea."
Save from seceding and starting your own commune in the desert somewhere, there is no escaping these realities. We may larp all we want, but the world simply does not work the way we want to, the way we think it is reasonable and desirable to and this is not changing anytime soon. By now even christian religious communities (save for the most backward ones like the amish) are thoroughly "progressive" insofar as sexual and relationship mores are concerned, particularly with regards to women. I am sorry, but I don't think the western world is not going back to "sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships" any time soon. And to be honest, the east is not doing too good either.
I guess I misunderstood. The manosphere and manosphere adjacent material that I've read looks at relationships in a very transactional way, and it can be boiled down to "women look pretty and provide sex, and men provide material security in exchange, and maybe the both of them get some kids out of the deal." There's also the angle of looking at oneself and others as commodities in a sexual marketplace. Which, while not incorrect in any natural biological terms, still fails to capture the conscious experience of the whole thing.
So this specific sentence
"For one, there is a massive sexual market value mismatch - she is exiting her prime years, and you are entering yours. She is getting a great deal, especially if you are a well-educated, fiscally independent man with good professional prospects. You on the other hand are getting a very bad deal - she has already nearly lost what men value most in women (youthful beauty)"
Colored my perception of the rest of your post. Which I see as being more reasonable now.
"I am sorry, but I don't think the western world is not going back to "sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships" any time soon."
I agree. But that's why it's important to think about how to play the long game. Ultimately, we're fighting thoughtless social entropy, which is just carried forward by human inertia. We're not fighting an intelligent enemy, and that's to our advantage. Moreover, everyone seems to be miserable, or some flavor of it - people are fed up, and that's good for anybody with an alternative. Young people are the target demographic, of course. They're the only people that can easily go out and build newer, better communities because they have nothing to leave behind. They don't have any stake in the present system.
I'm not really dating at the moment - I'm working on myself. Besides, the "dating scene" seems more like a hellscape. But when I think about my romantic future, it involves finding not just the right woman, but the right community in the right place. Not just trying to find my little slice of happiness or companionship, but finding it in a way and place where there's the greatest opportunity to make a positive impact towards the future. After Rome fell, it was the occupants of those distant villas who rebuilt Europe, slowly but surely.
Ultimately we can't turn back time. But there's still opportunity to build a future.
I am quite familiar with the Manosphere as it was my first "redpill", which lead me to the NRX spaces and those that overlap with it.
I will admit, I haven't spent much time in those spaces for a good few years, only checking in now and again. But I do think about the lessons I learnt in those spaces often. Particularly older men finding it easier to date younger women, so I'm not worried about reaching my 30s and still being able to attract women.
I certainly wasn't looking to marry this woman I dated for the last 3 months and in hindsight, she was quite damaged, or certainly needs to work on her issues. A lot of my friends and family have said I dodged a bullet and I'd agree at this point.
The concerns of the Manosphere about divorce and so, are valid concerns, one I take very seriously, which is why I am not rushing to get married anytime soon. However, as I mentioned in my question to Curtis, I've had my fair share of flings and causal sex. I'm no Warren Beatty, but I've not struggled to get laid and after a certain point, it gets tedious. I do often wonder how much is enough and when am I going to have some real skin in the game i.e. have children. Otherwise, what the hell am I doing.
Well it seems you are well aware of everything I said. As for it being tedious - nowadays trying to build a relationship usually is. This is not the Old Order when the roadmap from courtship to marriage was a very formalized and straightforward process. There are no rules anymore. And when there are not rules, there are only evolutionary rules, which, unfortunately, are not by themselves very conducive to building the particular type of monogamous relationship you are looking for in a world in which any exercise of male power (soft or otherwise) over women is Crime Against Humanity #1.
If you want to have a stable long-term relationship in which you build a family with kids, you have to "train" your woman. There is no other way around it. Nearly no woman nowadays comes already trained for that. If you do find one, the gods must love you. To be able to successfully train your woman, you must first make sure that she is 100% attracted to you on a primal level, purely as a sexual partner and considers you the best man she has ever had sex with. If the woman does not see you as the #1 alpha she has ever been with, you will be having an uphill battle. If you have that, you should be able to train her into being a good wife.
But the attraction part is key. The desire must be genuine and not because she is now in her early 30's, with her biological clock ticking out, looking for the best deal she can cash in while she has not completely lost her youth. This is why I said Curtis' advice is not very good. A woman like that is looking for a deal, she wants to transact - sexual access for you, resources for her. She is not looking to give genuine desire for another person, or at least she is prioritizing the transactional type of sexual relations above it. This is a clear way in which a 22-year old is better than a 32-year old. With the former you are absolutely certain that she is having sex with you because she truly wants to have sex with you. It is harder to know with the latter.
First off, if your name is really Hiroshi then consider going to Japan and finding a good women. Not just basing this on stereotypes, I spent a decent portion of my life in Japan, and even in the big cities women hold more traditional values. I remember this one girl, on the second date, brought up the topic of her duty to the emperor, and I was kinda like "ooookkaayy", while backing away slowly. But yeah, if you want someone who by default will expect to stay home and raise the kids, look towards your ancestral homeland.
The other huge point trad guys always overlook is their own role in the relationship. Trad guys often sound like 12 year old girls dreaming of prince charming: "if only I could find a woman who will whisk me away from this degenerate modern life". No --- if you want to succeed you need the inverse mindset. The vast majority of women will gravitate towards where they see status (and rightfully so). In the absence of a good man, that is Sex and the City, day care, the government, and so on. You need to change her frame by being that good man. You need to prove to her by example that there is a superior path that offers her and her future children safety, comfort, happiness, status, and a space to flourish. If you put in the work to whisk her away to a better place, she will follow, no matter how much she claims to be invested in that corner office making .ppts.
For example, if you're not making enough to provide her the basic lifestyle she expects, you're going to have trouble convincing her to quit her job and downgrade. Being able to provide is the primary role of the trad man, so don't step up if you don't meet the basic requirements yourself. If you yourself are struggling with porn, alcohol, or other addictions, get those under control --- if you are a mess, you cannot lead.
The good news is that, as Curtis points out, commitment to thottery is shallow. It is dissonant to human nature. Provided a superior path, most women will take it. Your job is not to argue but to lead. Women will resist verbally (because they've been taught it's dignified to do so) --- make your case calmly, but never argue, and, this is key, _never_ attempt to force her to adopt your values. That is nerd behavior, and one thing women are great at it, is sniffing out and avoiding nerds. You want to show her status, not a prison. Over time she will follow in her actions, and once her actions prove your case, she will follow in her values. The big caveat here is that you need to be making a real and persuasive case for her adoption of the trad lifestyle --- if your case does not line up with reality, she will reject it. You can't cut corners. She will follow strength and status, not hypocrisy and empty rhetoric.
Don't discount women who are just doing what's normal in Babylon --- these women will do what's normal in Jerusalem, too. Simply providing strong masculine leadership goes a lot farther than you'd think. Women are designed to be feminine in the presence of a strong man (and vice versa). A lot of this works itself it out.
Hiroshi, A very useful filter is a partner with one or more serious hobbies. Something that they have invested real effort in over a long period of time. You can tell if it is a real hobby if they are very good at it. It should be unique to them but the high skill is the real tell. I tend to think basic stuff may not count, but if you meet someone that is "VERY" good at one of those basic common hobbies it still works.
The good thing about dating a person who is or has mastered a skill and still practices it, is that you know for sure that they like you. If they didn't like you, they would go to their hobbies instead. Likewise get a hobby yourself and get good at it if you don't have one!
I guess it's also the signal that they are willing to put the work into something that isn't an instant result.
I'd say on the basic hobbies, the bar is so low these days that a basic hobby would be a win. Most 20-something women count binge-drinking and Netflix as a hobby.
Huge stuff. Been meaning to subscribe to Dom's Substack for a while now and ask him on one of the AMAs if he's familiar with CY -- this might be just the time for it.
He was the organizer behind the initial Brexit vote, and Johnson's landslide victory, which pushed Brexit through. So, he has plenty of credibility. He is miles outside the Tory Overton Window. He wants to actually get rid of the shit show and have a government that actually functions. Very consistent with Mr. Yarvin's call for a transformational US President who would exercise full Constitutional control of the executive branch and restore functioning government. It is worth subscribing to Cummings just for this post. It absolutely clearly cites to and relies on Mr. Yarvin's understanding of US political history.
Some background first: there are two different "redpill" groups in the manosphere: there's the game-derived redpill stuff, eg. TRP at Reddit, and the reactionary-type redpill stuff, eg. Jim (who needs no surname).
Anyway, the main difference between them is that, where they differ, the reactionary-type stuff is correct, and the game-derived stuff is wrong.
The reason why I explain this is because "hormonal birth control as irreversible material condition explaning rampant female promiscuity" exegesis is one of the conventional wisdoms of the game-type redpill (and I assume this is why you're asking).
And it's wrong, of course. If it were true, you'd see the most rampant female promiscuity in the places where you can buy hormonal birth control OTC (eg. Latin America). You don't, though. You see the most rampant female promiscuity where women have the most sociocultural power - something predicted by the reactionary-type manosphere.
So to answer your question: no (people would just use other contraceptives instead, and it's hard to imagine that makes much difference).
Have been reading Jim's blog for the last several days, mostly in the reverse order - starting with the latest posts and going back in time. But also sampled by topic some of his writings on the social benefits of treating women as property. Some observations so far:
(1) I mostly agree with him directionally and generally in diagnosing the ills of modern American (and therefore all first-world) society.
(2) I love the "holiness spiral" idea. I've seen it at work myself and it affected my life. I know first-hand it is real and dangerous.
(3) I think he plays fast and loose with the facts to fit his preconceived notions (e.g. Jews being snobby about getting their hands dirty and therefore not contributing to technology. And, of course, most of his appeals to Evolutionary Psychology - which are just so so stories under the guise of science.) And he drinks his own cool-aid. Thus his predictions, while directionally sound, do not come to pass. E.g. all of his Trump predictions.
(4) His idea of Stalin stopping the slide into the left singularity is very intriguing. It does fit many of the facts well.
(5) Unfortunately I tend to agree with him about what the future holds, contra Moldbug. Just because of the historical precedents. Although seeing how his predictions come out wrong, 2026 is also probably the wrong date. We will know better in 2024, though.
The reason I am asking about the pill has nothing to do with the manosphere. Any time I come in contact with almost anything in that space I feel slightly nauseous. Not necessarily because I intellectually disagree. Like, I do not intellectually disagree with someone making sweet love to a dead goat. I exaggerate, of course. Slightly. And when you say "Jim who needs no surname" I immediately think The Doors. Although when I googled him I realized that I had read some of his stuff before (e.g. Reaction 101) in passing.
There is an approach that if something hurts you should do it more. At some point I decided, however, that outside of my professional and family life I would strive to avoid negative emotions. I avoid depressing or abusive friends. And I do not watch horror movies. All of the above is of course about me. No disrespect for manosphere denizens meant or implied.
The thesis that the pill was at the root of the Sexual Revolution, which in turn is probably the cause of most of the angsts and tragedy in the modern relationship world, does not appear in one single place. It's a very attractive idea and I implicitly took it for granted. Until I started thinking about it. Not deeply, mind you, and more from the side. Here are the red flags I found:
(1) It's reductionist - reducing complex cultural phenomena to simpler lower-level causes.
(2) It's thoroughly materialistic.
(2a) Moreover, it smells Marxist. According to Marx ideas are the product of material conditions, and only of the material conditions.
(3) It is supported by The Cathedral dons (Tyler Cowen comes to mind)
(4) A significant part of the Sexual Revolution happened more silently and gradually in the aftermath of the AIDS epidemic which was used by the progressives to install sex education in schools. I do not know much about the latter (my kids are homeschooled), but my hunch is that it is not only about wearing condoms, it goes much deeper than that.
None of those red flags is a refutation or a strong direct argument against the thesis, though. As a matter of fact I am still not convinced that it's totally false.
The Latin America argument on its own does not refute it. The main point of the thesis is that the pill was at the root of women obtaining the Ring of sociocultural power, misuse of which is in turn "the cause of most of the angst and tragedy..." The pill just did not have enough force to tip over deeply conservative Latin American attitudes.
Will go read Jim. It is to be hoped that the pain is worth the gain.
I was _this close_ to writing in almost the exact same question, but avoided doing so, as I'm trying really hard not to post my Ls online anymore.
This post hits entirely too close to home, and describes my last relationship, its eventual failure, and my ex's post-relationship trajectory, perfectly. Just when I thought I couldn't get blackpilled any more on modern dating, this one almost choked me going down.
I wouldn't be surprised if said ex subscribes to Gray Mirror. J, I hope you see this post, I hope you read this comment, and I hope you feel bad about it.
In other news, your friend Mary seems much, much wiser about relationships than most of the other people I've listened to on the subject. If she has a blog / substack / whatever, anything where I could read more of her insights, would you be willing to point me in the correct direction? Thanks in advance
> This also comes with the mature recognition that NO ONE is the ideal person.
A male coworker once told me he was afraid to commit to his girlfriend because he thought of relationships the same way he thought about cars: maybe there's a better one out there? How do I know this one is the perfect one for me?
I wasn't always happy in my relationship (the lowest point was actually when my then-future husband decided to change careers and take an entry-level job making 1/3 of what I was making at the time; very much to Vera Farmiga’s character's point; fortunately, he came to his senses after a few months). But, I can't get into the mindset of my old coworker. And I think it's just because I am a natural-born conservative: pessimistic, suspicious and cautious.
As corny as it might sound, my view of relationships is in complete agreement with what the fox says in The Little Prince: the people and things that are special to you are those that you invest in. "Ownership" automatically implies higher value.
> A male coworker once told me he was afraid to commit to his girlfriend because he thought of relationships the same way he thought about cars: maybe there's a better one out there? How do I know this one is the perfect one for me?
I fundamentally don't understand this mentality. I know what I like, I know what I want, I know what's compatible with me. If I meet someone who hits most of those beats, I don't care that there might hypothetically be someone out there who hits a few more. That's just hubris.
I once saw the Dalai Lama speak, yeah thats right, the 14th one. It was in SF - there was a Q&A and a woman got up to the mic and asked HH the DL about raising kids and his reply was literally -"Why are you asking a Buddhist Monk about raising kids?' Massive laugh from the audience - I kinda feel the same about asking Curtis about dating at this point in time but it seems like the community here has stepped up and posted some good advice.
Current partner and I, the first time we slept together, told each other we weren’t dating just for kicks and were dating people towards the intention of marriage, so this had better be serious or nothing at all. We started spending a lot of time together, but I felt like it was healthy and functional. One night a few months later we fought over something and he told me his best friend had told him that we seemed codependent (she has called 2 other happy long-term couples that we are friends with this). He took her seriously and that conversation basically ended the honeymoon phase of our relationship. Four months later and I still don’t feel like I can trust him as much. It really hurt, I am still trying to be all in, and I don’t know if he is. He’s still talking like he wants to spend his life with me, and I think we’re in many ways a good fit, but I’m realizing increasingly that I’m scared. He’s slept with a lot of our female friends and insists on me making some life changes that would be really hard.
The question now is whether I send him this blog post or whether that would be too crazy and emotional and fight-picking and reassurance-seeking and oh my god I’m probably insane haha
Speaking as a social retard - it sounds to me like you need to work through this with him. And if he's serious about it, he'll try to help you. Because it's one thing if a person is just insecure and trying to soothe their ego, but it's a very different thing if someone isn't sure they have the same definition of love or what a committed relationship is.
I don't know if I would send him this one though. I think that the more immediately relevant article to your problem would be the one where Curtis mentions the cold dead hand of the twentieth century reaching down his pants - where "love" is just a restriction of freedom labelled "unhealthy codependence." I think that does a better job of addressing the issue at play, which is fundamentally philosophical. What is love? Sending this article might address why his friend said that, but I don't think it would as clearly address why she's wrong. I personally would be hesitant to make it seem like it's about her rather than the philosophical issue. And that issue probably needs to be resolved, because it shapes the shared vision that you're both working towards.
But I have no practical real world relationship experience so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even so, best of luck. I'm sure in time you'll figure out what is right.
of all things I’m scared that my boyfriend is insufficiently trad for marriage but where would I find someone else so smart and creative and funny and good with kids and generally-ethically-oriented
as in I was scared he had the modern commitment-shy mentality discussed in the post- he doesn’t seem interested in other women at all. I was worried about him wanting to delay marriage indefinitely (something something buy cow milk for free)… but we talked it out to great success earlier after I realized I should be talking to my partner about these concerns instead of being anxious in the uncle yarv comments
Very obliquely, haha. He brought up some long-term personal financial plans, I responded by telling him my plans, and then mentioning how I’d thought about doing a certain long term financial thing that would be more or less mutually understood as a bet on our relationship continuing to marriage within a few years and divorce being completely off the table. He said it was too early to say yes to that immediately, but in a few years once we both finish college, he had actually been thinking about the same. Then we had a spirited text conversation for the next few hours about all the places we want to live and how to make them work for both of our careers, languages we will learn for work and travel, and how we would theoretically time both of our PhDs and having kids. I came out of it with my emotional needs for relationship security very much met, and he seemed to be in a good mood afterwards.
I think the advice you should take from this is that I never brought up the aforementioned concerns directly, because upon further thought a lot of it WAS because of me and my insecurities and my need for reassurance, and they didn’t need to be brought up and made his problem. He was literally just vibing and I thought myself into an angsty knot over an article I read online. Some things have to be made your partner’s problem and/or dealt with together, but the majority of things should be handled in a way that doesn’t start unnecessary conflicts by setting off the other person’s negative emotions too. If you can take shit off their plate emotionally without massive cost to yourself, do it, they do the same for you.
Overall if you’re looking for relationship advice, there’s a bit I had to do to fight my modern conditioning, and this helped me quite a bit to end up in a stabler relationship. What helped me was to just really try to grow empathy for myself and people I care about, and also to read some psychoanalysis. Carefully using metta meditation techniques helps you practice empathy and gain the ability to get over yourself, which helps you to see things from others’ point of view. Some psychoanalysis (not too much!) is helpful for understanding your own neuroses, which helps you understand others’ neuroses, which helps you get along with them better. A book that might help you understand why all this helps people our age is Chris Lasch’s culture of narcissism, if you haven’t checked it out already.
Can I leave a totally off topic comment? Is that allowed?
What do you all think about evacuating Taiwan? Like assuming "we" don't want the Red Chinese to get all that bleeding edge chip-making talent and hardware, is there another solution but for relocating the non-Communist Chinese Nation, intact, to some other place? I'm not actually sure *where* to put them, possibly Papua New Guinea, but basically get the people out, and turn Taiwan into a giant military base. This is a way of owning the ChiComs, I believe. Think of how pissed they would be.
I just spent $10 to finally subscribe to GM so I could leave this comment...
I figured that was $10 I would have otherwise spent on Hinge's "digital roses $3.33 each" or Bumble's "SuperSwipe from $1.53 each", or some other dating app's purported way to "stand out" from the pack of normies, bunched together like famished dogs in a chainlink-fenced, overgrown backyard, as their neglectful owner comes out on the porch once a day to heave some cheap kibble on the ground.
Pareto was right. Some 20% of women get 80% of the attention. But when it comes to a dating app, where attraction is not subjected to the limitations of face-to-face contact, it's probably more like 1% of the women getting 99% of the swipes. After all, it takes zero courage to "SuperSwipe" a dime, versus approaching her at Kroger and asking her if she knows where the triscuits are, and then saying jk, I just wanted to talk to you (while flattered, she informed me she was married and couldn't oblige).
So I buy a value pack of Hinge "digital roses" for $30, convincing myself that yeah, the last 50 mega-babes I sent one to didn't respond, but maybe this time, this one will actually look at my profile, and see that I may not be a strapping gigachad, but I've scored some 8s, 9s, 10s in the past; I'm in shape, a decent trad guy, pretty handsome (mom says), have most of my shit together, and just want to share life with someone else, have some good meaningful sex, and make some babies in the process.
But just like all the previous cyber-roses, mine just gets lost like a piece of confetti that showers these women all day every day. And even if I did get a response, what would come of it? A few months, maybe a year of fun, maybe some decent intimacy, but ultimately an amicable split at best, or boredom, infidelity, and an ugly break up at worst.
And as I hit my 38th birthday tomorrow, I lay in bed at 3am after being jolted awake—as I do nearly every night—by a strange mixture of guilt, anxiety, regret, and fear, wondering where the hell I went wrong, and if there's still time to have a normal relationship, and if so, praying that my parents live into their 80s so my kids will at least know their grandparents for a few short years.
I don't know why I'm still typing, but whatever. I'm not looking for pity here. My circling session is later today. I just know that stats show my experience isn't unique. There's something really screwed up with the romantic perceptions and expectations of our generation. I'm not sure what it is or how it gets fixed. I'm not a victim, but definitely a product of it. I've made a lot of mistakes. I dumped a good amount of girls I could have stayed with. And a good amount have dumped me that should have stayed with me. But whatever.
All that to say, let me try this: if there's a trad girl still reading this, and you live in the Nashville area let's hang out.
I am convinced that by the time men are pushing 40, it's too late for us to have any semblance of a normal healthy relationship or family. Hell, I'm pretty convinced that's true by the time we're 30.
All you can do is to hold on to your rage and never forget the society, and the people in society who did this to you. As the great prophet Sam Hyde once said, "The world is not dying, it is being killed. And those that are killing it have names and addresses"
I might be missing the grifty joke here, but all of these relationship problems are downstream of the whole living in a totally misruled society thing.
We all know this, but it's not a particularly useful observation
Because either a) we have to work around that factor, in which case asking for actionable advice on the immediate problems is useful; or b) it is not possible to work around that factor, in which case the only winning move is to give up and go out with a bang
I think that's a large part of the cause. But it's still necessary to understand the solution. The building and maintaining of communities is a lost art in much of the west. Stable families are the bedrock of all communities.
Once misrule is no longer a problem, there's a much larger task of community building ahead. Every person has a part to play in that, and retracing the steps of that forgotten dance isn't a terrible idea.
As a trad gal myself, (and a successful one) this is my specialty! Although this piece is very interesting, the practical advice is go where they breed trad girls. You should be specifically looking between ages 24-30. They are typically bred in the rural corners of the world, particularly in the US. The thing about trad girls, not only are they looking for a long time commitment, they are also highly trained (and bred) to sniff out potential mates.
Here's how you sniff out the marrying type:
1. Her parents are still married or had a good marriage. 2. She likes her parents. 3. She gets along well with the rest of her family - unless she's Italian then family drama goes with the territory. 4. Her friend has a baby, and she likes it. Bonus points if she's jealous of the friend. 4. She works in or is studying the nurturing arts e.g. teacher, nurse, occupational therapist, etc.
My one caveat is, you may want to stay away from virgins. They go rogue mid-life.
Thank you for the advice. I do try to look what the relationship is like with her family, as one of the main filters, especially her father.
On the teacher question: teachers are raging leftists in my part of the world, so that's often a red flag for me.
Teachers can be scary ppl. But I'm thinking more like a nursery school cooperative teacher or private school or they teach a trade like nursing, cooking, etc. It's sort of like "works with animals" could mean a vet tech or it could mean a terrifying activist.
Ah yeah, that's true. A bit of a difference between Nursery school teaching and Uni Professor teaching Gender Studies!
Trad girls are out there! Good luck!
+1 on keeping a lookout for her relationship with her father. Specifically the level of respect she has for him is a great indicator of the level of respect she's inclined to show you long term.
I think I might need your advice.
I am a guy looking to start a family, to be the marrying type. What you described is more or less what I look for. (Replace #4 with goes to some type of Christian church regularly.)
But I have a specific problem. I did not have a good family. I am not on good terms with my family, and almost all the factors that made this were decided before I was born. So while I know all the traits you listed are important, I know I simply cannot have them to offer back to any potential partner. I suspect this is hampering my chances quite a lot. (Which are already slim as I have difficulty finding/meeting potential partners already.)
Is there anything that can be done about this? I value honesty too much to lie about it, and I can only make it so pleasant before its deceptive when asked on a date.
What traits in your experience are the ones that girls will sniff out of potential mates?
Dating apps seem... less than helpful for this kind of thing. Any advice on how to actually meet and find this kind of girl?
Thanks in advance.
I was writing this big long thing and accidentally deleted it - but here it goes... hope this helps...
In terms of actually meeting girls -that's hard to say. Usually Christians have an easy time of this since meeting ppl usually means church involvement. If there are no young ladies there, perhaps there's a nice old lady who happens to have a lovely granddaughter.
Trad girls are typically looking for stability and reliability. So have your "house" in order. Can you provide financially? You don't need to be rich, but you should have a good job as a reliable employee - no flakey ambitions. Pay attention to things women don't typically pay attention to. Is her car running ok? Is her faucets leaking? These are psychic signals men put out that attract women.
Hopefully you're not burdened by your past and understand the fundamentals of a healthy relationship.
Trad girls are feminine and looking for a real man - in the trad sense. He's confident, reliable and can make decisions. He knows where he's going, but he's happy to have her along for the ride.
Thanks.
It's reassuring to know my work on fundamentals (health, job, life goals) will be put to good use.
I will keep working on the meeting bit and I did not think about the car and faucets type of thing. Instead I kind of went on the opposite approach, trying to notice things women usually pay attention to (do her shoes match her clothes, did her hair style change, etc...)
I am working on the fundamentals of a healthy relationship, I can read about it but I still haven't seen it. It's one of the reasons why it is so important for me to find a partner who has a stable family, so I can learn from them when in doubt.
If you got any recommended blogs or the like that offers more good advice I would love to catch up on those in my spare time. I need to learn from those who have had success.
Either way thank you again.
And of course, a sort of well known secret: these things tend to happen when you lest expect it. :)
Good luck!
"I kind of went on the opposite approach, trying to notice things women usually pay attention to (do her shoes match her clothes, did her hair style change, etc...)". Hmm, maybe OK, as long as it isn't creepy. It usually is.
If you simply display your competence, you'll be sending the right signal. I don't know if you care about cars and faucets; maybe you really get shoes and hairstyles, in which case - go with the shoes and the hairstyles. Although, I'm thinking of a coworker who once talked to me, very competently, about wrap dresses, and even though I thought it was an interesting conversation, I still found it creepy/simpy. It left a bad taste.
Thinking about it, your problem seems like a 'nice problem to have' from my point of view. I'm not at the 'advice to meet _this kind_ of girl' phase yet, I still don't know how to meet any women at all.
Most of the people in this thread are talking in a way that comes across like its easy peasy to bang random thots, but finding a woman of quality is difficult.
It's been closing on 3 years for me and not for lack of trying. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I have a good number of female friends (always of the "I'm only friends with guys" variety) and they routinely express surprise that someone as great as me is still single. Fit, wealthy, successful, independent, smart, funny, beloved in my communities. I lead things and make stuff happen. All of the commentary in this post and comments about spending your 20s working on yourself... I did that! And yet I've averaged 1 date per year since 2016, and I always get ghosted immediately
People tell me that there's women everywhere, you just have to talk to them. That's not my experience. Not by a long shot. I don't know where people are meeting dating-aged women but its not happening for me. What can I do to change my circumstances before it's too late?
What was it like in your 20s? (I'm assuming you're in your 30s since you're talking about your 20s in the past tense). When you say that you spent time working on yourself, what exactly do you mean?
I were a man and single, I would consider joining the Mormon church :D
IIRC, they have special singles wards for such cases. And if it works out, you fill your house with a bunch of kids.
> what was it like in your 20s
22: First kiss, first lay, and first GF at 22. She moved in almost immediately, relationship started to sour because she was not a good partner, broke up at 24.
24 - 27: alone and living a miserable bugman life as a software eng in the bay area. This mostly consisted of either spending most of my spare time intoxicated while fucking around on the internet, or driving 2+ hours outside of the city to go hike somewhere nice.
27 - 29: second GF, who seemed a perfect match. Dated for a year and then lived together for a year. Then out of nowhere she dumped me and she is who I was referring to in my other comment about this post being a perfect descriptor of her
29 - 30: It took this long to get over second GF
30 - present day: mostly the personal growth as outlined below
> When you say that you spent time working on yourself, what exactly do you mean?
I have achieved wealth, financial stability, and career success, with a net worth that currently fluctuates between 600k and 800k depending how much Biden is fucking up the stock market any given week.
I started taking fitness seriously, stopped being fat, started lifting. I'm past a 2-plate squat, and very close to a 3-plate deadlift now.
I started taking health seriously. I prioritized getting a good night's sleep. I stopped eating lazy prepackaged things and started cooking healthier foods. I stopped procrastinating and took care of some chronic health issues that have been a drag on me for a long time.
I finally made progress on getting a green card, which was a blocker preventing me from most long-term life planning. If all goes according to plan, I should have permanent residency by the end of next year and possibly sooner.
I started building new friendships and community, filling up my calendar with a robust social life powered by people worth spending time with. I started creating meetup groups, organizing events, and bringing people together
I stopped investing time and emotional energy into people who didn't bring value to my life. I stopped trying to force myself to do things I don't like (ie parties where everyone just gets shitty drunk and act like hooligans) just because "that's what you're supposed to do". I started being deliberate about how I spend my social time instead of just doing whatever was available
I started taking pride in my appearance. I bought a bunch of well-fitting and stylish clothes and started dressing to impress more.
I did a lot of personal grappling with emotions and insecurities, became much more confident, and learned to feel good about myself. I stopped letting my insecurities cast a shadow over my social relationships and learned to accept when other people care about and value me
I reconciled things with some friends whose bridges I had previously burned. Several of whom are subscribed to Gray Mirror and will likely read this
I spruced up my apartment so it didn't look like a lazy bachelor lives in it.
> I were a man and single, I would consider joining the Mormon church :D
I've tried going back to church several times now but it seems that there is simply too much of a cultural gap between me and church people. I end up going somewhere for a while, don't really make any friends, get frustrated at how much I dislike most of what we're doing, and then give up and try a different church. I've decided that I'll go to a church now if and only if I have a friend who already attends that church who invites me, and I'm on the lookout for such opportunities
It's tricky to troubleshoot this from a comment section in a blog post, but ill take a crack at it. Of course I don't know you, so any guesses I come up with are only guesses and based on personal experience.
1. As I said before, it could be location. I have found the marrying type to be in the outer burbs (I think they call them bedroom neighborhoods?), or in rural communities. These girls are not worried about careers or binge sex because there's few careers to be had, and very few hook up spots. On the other hand, I can see many men falling victim to this community as eligible single girls are scooped up pretty quick. Your female friends who keep guys in the friend zone may be evidence of the location problem.
2. Perhaps you're either you're too aggressive or too shy on first dates. Maybe you're too earnest - maybe you treat the date as an interview? My advice is, just have fun! Take her to fun places, order for her, give her an experience. Build sexual tension but don't have sex. Think like a caveman, but behave like a gentleman - if that makes any sense! A lot of women are like 18 wheelers, it takes awhile to get them going. So mundane, "what do you do for work?" Sounds like a job interview and not a fun night out. So learn to be a fun date.
3. Again, confidence. Confidence can be tricky. If you dont have it you can't fake it, too much confidence looks arrogant and a giant red flag to a woman with any sense. If you talk about yourself too much you look like a narcissist - not enough and you look beta or not interested.
4. Broaden all social circles or create new ones. Join a country club or whatever. Even if it's predominantly male, you never know who knows someone. Plus it's something fun to do in your spare time.
5. If you haven't tried it, I actually know several happy marriages from sites like match.com.
I hope that helps a little more.
Cheers
I have had so many bad experiences with online dating, it could fill a blog. Suffice it to say: I've had such bad luck with dating apps/sites that I've now hired professional consultants to spruce my profile up three times. All three gave up on me.
I'm sorry. 😔To me you seem very sweet. Good luck
I’d be careful of over taking responsibility. Sounds like you’re a good prospect who’s willing to do, and has, the work required to be so.
I just see women encouraged and enabled their entire lives, for generations now, to reject responsibility for their behavior and to always blame men. It’s a suicide course of mandatory authorization (of women as being owed authority in matters personal, economic, political) and complete lack of accountability. The counter part is men are always told they’re “dominating the space,” “entitled,” “toxic,” and need to relinquish any and all status or authority no matter how they may have earned it (#all men) and are endlessly held accountable (for women over whom they have no authority as well as themselves) like they are original sin itself.
The current environment is so hostile towards healthy relationships I don’t see what can improve it. Essentially the cathedral’s greatest faith contingent is modern women. I don’t blame women or think they’re bad. In other words the dysfunctional totalitarian regime of government, media, academia, culture also has an interpersonal wing that feeds on prospective stable relationships like a flesh eating virus.
Even top 10/10 Chad doesn’t seem to have great options for a stable, caring, cooperative, committed partner. Of course he has endless options for (ultimately degenerative it mostly seems) sex. Unlimited flesh buffet; a walk together on a path towards the transcendent is off the menu.
Women today bail (most divorces filed by women, as well receiving custody and support, alimony). Men get left holding the bag. It just doesn’t seem worth bothering anymore. A man’s life can also be ruined at anytime by false allegations. Even if they’re dropped or disproven they linger like stains in cheap hotel rooms.
Reputation assassination - the elite soldier of gender equality (who? Me?)
Sorry to be such a doomer. I want to be wrong, I just see what I see. Of course all of the above is not true in every case but it’s the norm. It’s also the norm to continue pretending 1950’s gender norms remain as a straw man to continue moving the goal posts (pussy hats? Wheee! Areeghhh! Orange men rape!)
I hope you have good luck but if having a family is really a life priority you may want to consider moving to a country with a more traditional family culture (culturally enforced monogamy) that doesn’t incentivize divorce and judges women and men both as responsible for staying the course and upholding their duties. The mission of the west it seems is to eradicate all duty for women. They’re always welcome to do anything on an optional basis, but always with a get out of jail free card. Men have to go down with the ship. These days, even someone else’s.
I view culture and mores as to blame; not women. They are agents though arguably men are more so for enabling all of this. (Not the talibro’s though! Just kidding, bit of dark humor).
Don’t worry about things being too late. Your fertility window and attractiveness is not ending. You’ll continue to grow and mature and accumulate resources (knowledge, contacts, status, earning capacity). I would remain open to prospect of meeting someone but not expect to. Think what kind of life would you want to live if you couldn’t find someone, then dedicate yourself to that, always keeping open the possibility that you might meet someone. Men are still waiting for women to act according to the traditional script as we are still expected to do. Women don’t, haven’t been, and won’t until massive societal change. The state is a more stable, low demand protector and provide (husband) than a human male. Plus boys have cooties yuck! Girls just wanna have fun. The constant option to just get off the boring old bus ride whenever the mood strikes makes marriage (meaningful commitment) very unreliable. Add limitless sexualization and constant social media access from/to millions of people and the risk of cheating is massive; moreover it’s becoming completely de stigmatized. Slut shaming accompanies stable monogamous relationships and families. Have cake or eat, not both.
I’d say just try to focus on your goals, look at your freedom to choose exactly what path you want to walk like you won the lottery. That will be necessary to counter the black pilling experience of contemplating and accepting possibility of never meeting a competent partner in a culture which (intentionally or not) aims to totally decimate trad life, beginning with family. I hope I’m wrong but all my sciencing produces consistent conclusions.
Sorry for the rant, please take this grain of salt. It’s not all doom and gloom, we just ain’t in Kansas anymore. Life is still beautiful and a gift, disappointment, suffering and all.
This is a tangent but it's funny
> A man’s life can also be ruined at anytime by false allegations
The closest I've ever come to having my life ruined was when my coworkers discovered my pivotal involvement in a controversy centered on our distinguished Gray Mirror host. They failed. Twice.
Just so I'm not misunderstood; I'm in no way trying to place the blame at the feet of these gentlemen. I'm sincerely trying to help. Doing a courting dance is not just generations old- it's forever old. I know that lifelong partnership is very hard to find these days, much thanks to women and their boomer parents. However, as a married lady myself with a family I still value those timeless institutions and I feel they're worth fighting for. When I'm critiquing their dating styles, it should go without saying the things they should value too- hopefully they know this, but as for the women: can they cook,? can they keep tidy? are they nurturing?...By the way, modern feminism hasn't been hot shakes for women either - it's screwed everyone!
Both my great grandparents- (not that long ago) - their marriages were arranged or at least in one case, answered an ad to a widower and his motherless children - they had my grandfather and his older brother... So now what do ppl do?
But for every man wanting to make that contact there's a young lady waiting by her phone. It sounds fictional, but it's not.
I do agree with continuing to better oneself until the right one comes along and to enjoy life nonetheless. When we're enjoying the thrills of life the right one magically appears, and if not, no time wasted.
Sincerely,
T
Appreciate both of your responses. TBH at this point I'd take some of that hookup culture as a consolation prize, but I can't even seem to pull that off. Over time it has become hard not to internalize this as a value judgement on myself. I will never be good enough, it seems, which is just made that much worse by the fact that they all keep getting worse and worse
Have you watched this Norwegian Netflix show, Home for Christmas? It's about this woman who is pressured to find a boyfriend by her family and out of desperation lies that she has one, then actually has to find one in time for the Christmas holidays. I kind of stopped watching after the episode when she has sex with the 17-yo, but the episode where she goes to a speed-dating event is really funny.
I'll have to check, but in the end, I think she ends up with her awkward coworker.
I guess, if you're a serious Christian, then you should try to meet people through church activities. If you're not, then some other hobby or social activities. The key here is to meet people who share your interests, and invest in those activities and relationships.
I met my husband at a summer job when we were in college (I second Teresa's "He knows where he's going" comment. I always hated that mealy-mouthed "romanticism" that what we now call "simping"), so I'm lucky to have escaped the dating world completely.
I have always been very, very nervous about going for teachers, because of the current state of our public school system. Do you have any tips (beyond the obvious ones) for finding the teachers who are good trad candidates and not just modern woke commissars?
Public school teachers are especially tricky. I would again say location matters, rural schools and/or if she was raised and educated in the same area she's teaching. That signals she's trying to establish roots.
Is there an effective way to find _homeschool_ teachers? Or is that not really a thing?
Homeschool teachers are called moms :)
Although I think the wealthy hire private tutors for homeschooling? I've never known any.
And also, you should like her family, too (and she - yours). 10-15 years on, you kinda realize you're married to them, too.
What if you don't like rural girls?
You should go for an immigrant, then. The first 2-3 points still apply (what rest of her family? we live in the nuclear family world).
As for 4, I dunno. Do you think he's looking for someone woke?
If she's a child of immigrants, she's probably studying in some STEM field.
What if you do like rural girls but you are a city person with no social connections in any rural communities?
Then, I have extreme doubts you actually like rural girls. How would you even know? I'm a big proponent of accepting your natural environment. Mine and yours is the city, with no social connections in any rural communities.
I've liked the few I've met a lot more than the city people I'm constantly surrounded by
This advice boils down to "wait until women grow out of their youthful years in which they want alpha sex and shift into the phase in which they look for a beta provider". But this is not very good advice, insofar as the man's perspective is concerned. Curtis, I suspect that you are very familiar with the pua/manosphere literature and there are some real gems there, which you should be recommending instead of giving somewhat misleading relationship advice. For instance, I believe "The Rational Male" by Rollo Tomassi should be a required reading for every man.
As for the topic at hand - getting into a long-term relationship with a woman of the SAME (or similar) age when you are 30 is an absolute trap. For one, there is a massive sexual market value mismatch - she is exiting her prime years, and you are entering yours. She is getting a great deal, especially if you are a well-educated, fiscally independent man with good professional prospects. You on the other hand are getting a very bad deal - she has already nearly lost what men value most in women (youthful beauty) and she probably has a very high notch count after "partying" throughout her 20's, most definitely higher than yours. This is math (or did you nerds call it probability?).
The advice to your late 20's reader should be - for the love of God, do not even consider marriage before you are on the other end of 35 and do not even consider any form of long-term relationship experiments until you are on the other end of 30. At your age chances are you will not get a good deal out of any LTR, so just as "play the field" as it were. Date women, have sex, have fun, most importantly - acquire experience. But do not overthink it and don't make it into an obsession. Far too many men in their late 20's fall into the trap of panicking that they should be marrying ASAP, only to end up divorced and broke some 10 years later. In the modern day and age, with how society functions (not to mention divorce laws!), you shouldn't be hurrying at all.
And even then, when you are in your late 30's - should you be going for the women in their early 30's? Ugh, I don't think so, man. And before someone says I am referencing cringe pua literature - Aristotle said the ideal marriage for a man is 38 and 18 for a woman. And Aristotle, like, invented logic and shit.
For a myriad of reasons you should always be trying to go as young as possible in your mate choice. The "mature" 30-something woman is a lie >90% of the time. The reason why she seems more mature, is because she has realized that the biological clock for her ovaries is ticking and thus she has shifted her priorities from excitement to security. That doesn't make her your friend, on the contrary, this makes her a more dangerous partner than the 20-something girl looking for excitement, who is usually much easier to see through.
For one, the older a woman is, the more sexual partners she is likely to have had. Remember, sex is a very special thing for a woman. The more partners a woman has had, the more unreliable she is to hold a stable long-term relationship. We all know that, which is why every society on earth has had a slut-shaming social stigma. When you are in a relationship with a woman, you are implicitly competing with every single man that has been with her before you. Every woman is constantly comparing. The more partners - the tougher the competition. And what do we say in Sillicon Valley? That's right - "competition is for losers".
This doesn't mean that Aristotle's formula is always realistic nowadays. In fact, the vast majority of the time it obviously isn't. But these are things every man should always keep in mind.
I've been through a pickup phase, and there's a lot of good there, especially for nerdy low status guys. The huge perversion of mainstream is you have these male feminist types criticizing PUAs as immoral, when the inverse is true.
But there is another level beyond getting yourself in order and becoming a strong man. It goes something like nerd ---> strong individual ---> strong family (or strong community for those who choose a non-familial path).
If you plan to become a family man, there really is no point messing around in clubs and bars until you're 35. This is exactly what I did, and while I don't regret it per se, in hindsight I can see how I could've used that time more productively. Plus there is weakness in the victim-y MRA stuff. If you're not marrying because you're afraid of divorce, you are a pussy.
The advice I'd offer for most people would be to find a good one, get married, and start a family (unless you explicitly wish to follow a different path and have strong and well thought out alternative goals). You don't need to rush it as a guy, nor do you need to delay. If your only reason for delaying is you want to bang more random chicks, then just stop delaying, in retrospect you'll realize this was a (vaguely skeezy) waste of time.
There is a level of maturity you achieve after really committing to marriage, and another after having a kid. It's probably possible to achieve through alternative paths, but those other paths are difficult (not that family isn't difficult, but because it's built into us biologically there's an automatic quality to it that makes it hard to fail). You become less narcissistic, the world becomes clearer, you have more realistic intuition of the time available to you and how you should make use of it. You see the full cycle of life, you understand your parents better and your own childhood better. It's hard to sell to a young guy committed to hedonism (25 year old me would reject it, certainly), but if you're consciously delaying marriage, make sure you have a good reason and it's not just laziness, immaturity, kicking the can down the road, addiction to meaningless sex, etc.
This is was the point I was trying to make, however, you've conveyed it far better than I did.
Talern mentioned something I was going to include in my reply to Hurlock, which is at the end of the day, the Manosphere perspective often reduces relationships down to a materialist view and often seems to come at relationships from a similar view to Leftists.
I don't completely disagree with Hurlock. He's right that you have to be careful of settling for certain women and you're not settling for the sake of it. But hedonism will only get you so far.
While you general view is reasonable, I want to push back on the idea that it is a "waste of time" to bang more random chicks. Especially insofar as nerdy "non-natural" guys are concerned, this provides crucial learning experience with regards to how the opposite sex thinks and acts. For a woman, having little sexual experience is a plus, but the opposite is true for men.
Looking at a relationship as a purely transactional agreement makes sense from a materialist and evo-psych perspective, but ultimately it doesn't seem all that different from the leftist perspective that spiritualizes the commodification of sex and companionship as liberation and freedom. Except this reverses the terms. This state of affairs is not a consequence of freedom, but instead an inescapable natural reality which we can only accept and live with. The work surrounding (that I've encountered) reads to me much more like revolution in the opposite direction, which rather clearly isn't the way out of this sociopolitical dead end.
The foundation of relationships is transactional, and they often arise from simple proximity rather than an actual connection - people make friends by *finding* connections with the people around them. But the relationship itself is an idea layered on top of that material reality, and neglecting it is no small part of why community is dead in America.
A nation is more than just the land it occupies or the people who make up its living body. It's a set of traditions and ideas - a culture. It's the mortar between the bricks. A mason may stack bricks together, just as nature may scatter people together. But those bricks aren't a wall without mortar, just as those people aren't a community without culture. Bound only by gravity, they're just a collection of single entities, ready to be broken apart whenever nature or convenience bids it so. It's the idea of the relationship that gives them a reason to persist in the transaction, even when it may be tedious or annoying. This is as much true of a friendship, a family relationship, a relationship with a neighbor or one's community, or a lover.
While I appreciate your caveat at the end, I question in general how helpful it is to reduce relationships to purely materialistic concerns. Those can only ever be the foundation for a larger whole.
I think it provides good survival tips for navigating the present dating environment, but my concern is that it fails to provide a way to return to sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships. What I've read of the manosphere seems to explicitly reject that idea.
It is exactly the age 30+ women who have "grown out of" the excitement phase which are looking at a relationship as a purely transactional agreement when they are looking for a "serious guy with a serious job" to "settle down" with. Transactional relationships like this are exactly what I am warning against, not advocating for.
"I think it provides good survival tips for navigating the present dating environment, but my concern is that it fails to provide a way to return to sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships. What I've read of the manosphere seems to explicitly reject that idea."
Save from seceding and starting your own commune in the desert somewhere, there is no escaping these realities. We may larp all we want, but the world simply does not work the way we want to, the way we think it is reasonable and desirable to and this is not changing anytime soon. By now even christian religious communities (save for the most backward ones like the amish) are thoroughly "progressive" insofar as sexual and relationship mores are concerned, particularly with regards to women. I am sorry, but I don't think the western world is not going back to "sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships" any time soon. And to be honest, the east is not doing too good either.
I guess I misunderstood. The manosphere and manosphere adjacent material that I've read looks at relationships in a very transactional way, and it can be boiled down to "women look pretty and provide sex, and men provide material security in exchange, and maybe the both of them get some kids out of the deal." There's also the angle of looking at oneself and others as commodities in a sexual marketplace. Which, while not incorrect in any natural biological terms, still fails to capture the conscious experience of the whole thing.
So this specific sentence
"For one, there is a massive sexual market value mismatch - she is exiting her prime years, and you are entering yours. She is getting a great deal, especially if you are a well-educated, fiscally independent man with good professional prospects. You on the other hand are getting a very bad deal - she has already nearly lost what men value most in women (youthful beauty)"
Colored my perception of the rest of your post. Which I see as being more reasonable now.
"I am sorry, but I don't think the western world is not going back to "sane, normal, well adjusted human relationships" any time soon."
I agree. But that's why it's important to think about how to play the long game. Ultimately, we're fighting thoughtless social entropy, which is just carried forward by human inertia. We're not fighting an intelligent enemy, and that's to our advantage. Moreover, everyone seems to be miserable, or some flavor of it - people are fed up, and that's good for anybody with an alternative. Young people are the target demographic, of course. They're the only people that can easily go out and build newer, better communities because they have nothing to leave behind. They don't have any stake in the present system.
I'm not really dating at the moment - I'm working on myself. Besides, the "dating scene" seems more like a hellscape. But when I think about my romantic future, it involves finding not just the right woman, but the right community in the right place. Not just trying to find my little slice of happiness or companionship, but finding it in a way and place where there's the greatest opportunity to make a positive impact towards the future. After Rome fell, it was the occupants of those distant villas who rebuilt Europe, slowly but surely.
Ultimately we can't turn back time. But there's still opportunity to build a future.
I am quite familiar with the Manosphere as it was my first "redpill", which lead me to the NRX spaces and those that overlap with it.
I will admit, I haven't spent much time in those spaces for a good few years, only checking in now and again. But I do think about the lessons I learnt in those spaces often. Particularly older men finding it easier to date younger women, so I'm not worried about reaching my 30s and still being able to attract women.
I certainly wasn't looking to marry this woman I dated for the last 3 months and in hindsight, she was quite damaged, or certainly needs to work on her issues. A lot of my friends and family have said I dodged a bullet and I'd agree at this point.
The concerns of the Manosphere about divorce and so, are valid concerns, one I take very seriously, which is why I am not rushing to get married anytime soon. However, as I mentioned in my question to Curtis, I've had my fair share of flings and causal sex. I'm no Warren Beatty, but I've not struggled to get laid and after a certain point, it gets tedious. I do often wonder how much is enough and when am I going to have some real skin in the game i.e. have children. Otherwise, what the hell am I doing.
Well it seems you are well aware of everything I said. As for it being tedious - nowadays trying to build a relationship usually is. This is not the Old Order when the roadmap from courtship to marriage was a very formalized and straightforward process. There are no rules anymore. And when there are not rules, there are only evolutionary rules, which, unfortunately, are not by themselves very conducive to building the particular type of monogamous relationship you are looking for in a world in which any exercise of male power (soft or otherwise) over women is Crime Against Humanity #1.
If you want to have a stable long-term relationship in which you build a family with kids, you have to "train" your woman. There is no other way around it. Nearly no woman nowadays comes already trained for that. If you do find one, the gods must love you. To be able to successfully train your woman, you must first make sure that she is 100% attracted to you on a primal level, purely as a sexual partner and considers you the best man she has ever had sex with. If the woman does not see you as the #1 alpha she has ever been with, you will be having an uphill battle. If you have that, you should be able to train her into being a good wife.
But the attraction part is key. The desire must be genuine and not because she is now in her early 30's, with her biological clock ticking out, looking for the best deal she can cash in while she has not completely lost her youth. This is why I said Curtis' advice is not very good. A woman like that is looking for a deal, she wants to transact - sexual access for you, resources for her. She is not looking to give genuine desire for another person, or at least she is prioritizing the transactional type of sexual relations above it. This is a clear way in which a 22-year old is better than a 32-year old. With the former you are absolutely certain that she is having sex with you because she truly wants to have sex with you. It is harder to know with the latter.
On fucking point. Bravo.
First off, if your name is really Hiroshi then consider going to Japan and finding a good women. Not just basing this on stereotypes, I spent a decent portion of my life in Japan, and even in the big cities women hold more traditional values. I remember this one girl, on the second date, brought up the topic of her duty to the emperor, and I was kinda like "ooookkaayy", while backing away slowly. But yeah, if you want someone who by default will expect to stay home and raise the kids, look towards your ancestral homeland.
The other huge point trad guys always overlook is their own role in the relationship. Trad guys often sound like 12 year old girls dreaming of prince charming: "if only I could find a woman who will whisk me away from this degenerate modern life". No --- if you want to succeed you need the inverse mindset. The vast majority of women will gravitate towards where they see status (and rightfully so). In the absence of a good man, that is Sex and the City, day care, the government, and so on. You need to change her frame by being that good man. You need to prove to her by example that there is a superior path that offers her and her future children safety, comfort, happiness, status, and a space to flourish. If you put in the work to whisk her away to a better place, she will follow, no matter how much she claims to be invested in that corner office making .ppts.
For example, if you're not making enough to provide her the basic lifestyle she expects, you're going to have trouble convincing her to quit her job and downgrade. Being able to provide is the primary role of the trad man, so don't step up if you don't meet the basic requirements yourself. If you yourself are struggling with porn, alcohol, or other addictions, get those under control --- if you are a mess, you cannot lead.
The good news is that, as Curtis points out, commitment to thottery is shallow. It is dissonant to human nature. Provided a superior path, most women will take it. Your job is not to argue but to lead. Women will resist verbally (because they've been taught it's dignified to do so) --- make your case calmly, but never argue, and, this is key, _never_ attempt to force her to adopt your values. That is nerd behavior, and one thing women are great at it, is sniffing out and avoiding nerds. You want to show her status, not a prison. Over time she will follow in her actions, and once her actions prove your case, she will follow in her values. The big caveat here is that you need to be making a real and persuasive case for her adoption of the trad lifestyle --- if your case does not line up with reality, she will reject it. You can't cut corners. She will follow strength and status, not hypocrisy and empty rhetoric.
Don't discount women who are just doing what's normal in Babylon --- these women will do what's normal in Jerusalem, too. Simply providing strong masculine leadership goes a lot farther than you'd think. Women are designed to be feminine in the presence of a strong man (and vice versa). A lot of this works itself it out.
“ Provided a superior path, most women will take it.”
Never thought of it like this before. Never thought of “training a woman to be ideal“ instead of “finding an already ideal” woman.
Kind of a paradigm shift.
I know this is old, but your comment seems to have changed my entire life — for the better.
Thanks
Hiroshi, A very useful filter is a partner with one or more serious hobbies. Something that they have invested real effort in over a long period of time. You can tell if it is a real hobby if they are very good at it. It should be unique to them but the high skill is the real tell. I tend to think basic stuff may not count, but if you meet someone that is "VERY" good at one of those basic common hobbies it still works.
The good thing about dating a person who is or has mastered a skill and still practices it, is that you know for sure that they like you. If they didn't like you, they would go to their hobbies instead. Likewise get a hobby yourself and get good at it if you don't have one!
I guess it's also the signal that they are willing to put the work into something that isn't an instant result.
I'd say on the basic hobbies, the bar is so low these days that a basic hobby would be a win. Most 20-something women count binge-drinking and Netflix as a hobby.
any female born after 1993 can’t cook… all they know is mcdonald’s , charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual , eat hot chip & lie
and social media, travel, eating out. consuming/hedonistic pleasure
The movie clip is outstanding. Makes me almost think that Hollywood entertainment products are not entirely garbage.
Off topic: Dominic Cummings just mentioned you, and is clearly channeling a lot of your political thinking, in his most recent post: https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/regime-change-2-a-plea-to-silicon/comments
Huge stuff. Been meaning to subscribe to Dom's Substack for a while now and ask him on one of the AMAs if he's familiar with CY -- this might be just the time for it.
Cummings specifically says:
I haven’t paid much attention to US politics for a long time and have just started looking at it again. A few people I’ve found interesting are:
Scott Alexander
Richard Hanania
Marginal Revolution
David Shor
Andrew Sullivan
Curtis Yarvin
That's about my list as well minus David Shor...
The trouble with Cummings, was he went into the Civil-Service thinking he could reform it and quickly found out who actually runs the show.
Interesting man though, who seems to be willing to entertain ideas outside of the typical Tory Overton Window.
He was the organizer behind the initial Brexit vote, and Johnson's landslide victory, which pushed Brexit through. So, he has plenty of credibility. He is miles outside the Tory Overton Window. He wants to actually get rid of the shit show and have a government that actually functions. Very consistent with Mr. Yarvin's call for a transformational US President who would exercise full Constitutional control of the executive branch and restore functioning government. It is worth subscribing to Cummings just for this post. It absolutely clearly cites to and relies on Mr. Yarvin's understanding of US political history.
How much of what you are describing here is due to the pill? Would the situation be substantially different had it not been invented?
This is a long one to answer.
Some background first: there are two different "redpill" groups in the manosphere: there's the game-derived redpill stuff, eg. TRP at Reddit, and the reactionary-type redpill stuff, eg. Jim (who needs no surname).
Anyway, the main difference between them is that, where they differ, the reactionary-type stuff is correct, and the game-derived stuff is wrong.
The reason why I explain this is because "hormonal birth control as irreversible material condition explaning rampant female promiscuity" exegesis is one of the conventional wisdoms of the game-type redpill (and I assume this is why you're asking).
And it's wrong, of course. If it were true, you'd see the most rampant female promiscuity in the places where you can buy hormonal birth control OTC (eg. Latin America). You don't, though. You see the most rampant female promiscuity where women have the most sociocultural power - something predicted by the reactionary-type manosphere.
So to answer your question: no (people would just use other contraceptives instead, and it's hard to imagine that makes much difference).
Have been reading Jim's blog for the last several days, mostly in the reverse order - starting with the latest posts and going back in time. But also sampled by topic some of his writings on the social benefits of treating women as property. Some observations so far:
(1) I mostly agree with him directionally and generally in diagnosing the ills of modern American (and therefore all first-world) society.
(2) I love the "holiness spiral" idea. I've seen it at work myself and it affected my life. I know first-hand it is real and dangerous.
(3) I think he plays fast and loose with the facts to fit his preconceived notions (e.g. Jews being snobby about getting their hands dirty and therefore not contributing to technology. And, of course, most of his appeals to Evolutionary Psychology - which are just so so stories under the guise of science.) And he drinks his own cool-aid. Thus his predictions, while directionally sound, do not come to pass. E.g. all of his Trump predictions.
(4) His idea of Stalin stopping the slide into the left singularity is very intriguing. It does fit many of the facts well.
(5) Unfortunately I tend to agree with him about what the future holds, contra Moldbug. Just because of the historical precedents. Although seeing how his predictions come out wrong, 2026 is also probably the wrong date. We will know better in 2024, though.
I appreciate your response, thank you.
The reason I am asking about the pill has nothing to do with the manosphere. Any time I come in contact with almost anything in that space I feel slightly nauseous. Not necessarily because I intellectually disagree. Like, I do not intellectually disagree with someone making sweet love to a dead goat. I exaggerate, of course. Slightly. And when you say "Jim who needs no surname" I immediately think The Doors. Although when I googled him I realized that I had read some of his stuff before (e.g. Reaction 101) in passing.
There is an approach that if something hurts you should do it more. At some point I decided, however, that outside of my professional and family life I would strive to avoid negative emotions. I avoid depressing or abusive friends. And I do not watch horror movies. All of the above is of course about me. No disrespect for manosphere denizens meant or implied.
The thesis that the pill was at the root of the Sexual Revolution, which in turn is probably the cause of most of the angsts and tragedy in the modern relationship world, does not appear in one single place. It's a very attractive idea and I implicitly took it for granted. Until I started thinking about it. Not deeply, mind you, and more from the side. Here are the red flags I found:
(1) It's reductionist - reducing complex cultural phenomena to simpler lower-level causes.
(2) It's thoroughly materialistic.
(2a) Moreover, it smells Marxist. According to Marx ideas are the product of material conditions, and only of the material conditions.
(3) It is supported by The Cathedral dons (Tyler Cowen comes to mind)
(4) A significant part of the Sexual Revolution happened more silently and gradually in the aftermath of the AIDS epidemic which was used by the progressives to install sex education in schools. I do not know much about the latter (my kids are homeschooled), but my hunch is that it is not only about wearing condoms, it goes much deeper than that.
None of those red flags is a refutation or a strong direct argument against the thesis, though. As a matter of fact I am still not convinced that it's totally false.
The Latin America argument on its own does not refute it. The main point of the thesis is that the pill was at the root of women obtaining the Ring of sociocultural power, misuse of which is in turn "the cause of most of the angst and tragedy..." The pill just did not have enough force to tip over deeply conservative Latin American attitudes.
Will go read Jim. It is to be hoped that the pain is worth the gain.
Thank you, again.
I was _this close_ to writing in almost the exact same question, but avoided doing so, as I'm trying really hard not to post my Ls online anymore.
This post hits entirely too close to home, and describes my last relationship, its eventual failure, and my ex's post-relationship trajectory, perfectly. Just when I thought I couldn't get blackpilled any more on modern dating, this one almost choked me going down.
I wouldn't be surprised if said ex subscribes to Gray Mirror. J, I hope you see this post, I hope you read this comment, and I hope you feel bad about it.
In other news, your friend Mary seems much, much wiser about relationships than most of the other people I've listened to on the subject. If she has a blog / substack / whatever, anything where I could read more of her insights, would you be willing to point me in the correct direction? Thanks in advance
It's rough out here in the modern dating world. As I often say to my committed friends "it's chess, it ain't checkers!".
> This also comes with the mature recognition that NO ONE is the ideal person.
A male coworker once told me he was afraid to commit to his girlfriend because he thought of relationships the same way he thought about cars: maybe there's a better one out there? How do I know this one is the perfect one for me?
I wasn't always happy in my relationship (the lowest point was actually when my then-future husband decided to change careers and take an entry-level job making 1/3 of what I was making at the time; very much to Vera Farmiga’s character's point; fortunately, he came to his senses after a few months). But, I can't get into the mindset of my old coworker. And I think it's just because I am a natural-born conservative: pessimistic, suspicious and cautious.
As corny as it might sound, my view of relationships is in complete agreement with what the fox says in The Little Prince: the people and things that are special to you are those that you invest in. "Ownership" automatically implies higher value.
> A male coworker once told me he was afraid to commit to his girlfriend because he thought of relationships the same way he thought about cars: maybe there's a better one out there? How do I know this one is the perfect one for me?
I fundamentally don't understand this mentality. I know what I like, I know what I want, I know what's compatible with me. If I meet someone who hits most of those beats, I don't care that there might hypothetically be someone out there who hits a few more. That's just hubris.
I once saw the Dalai Lama speak, yeah thats right, the 14th one. It was in SF - there was a Q&A and a woman got up to the mic and asked HH the DL about raising kids and his reply was literally -"Why are you asking a Buddhist Monk about raising kids?' Massive laugh from the audience - I kinda feel the same about asking Curtis about dating at this point in time but it seems like the community here has stepped up and posted some good advice.
You should let Mary guest-post more often.
Current partner and I, the first time we slept together, told each other we weren’t dating just for kicks and were dating people towards the intention of marriage, so this had better be serious or nothing at all. We started spending a lot of time together, but I felt like it was healthy and functional. One night a few months later we fought over something and he told me his best friend had told him that we seemed codependent (she has called 2 other happy long-term couples that we are friends with this). He took her seriously and that conversation basically ended the honeymoon phase of our relationship. Four months later and I still don’t feel like I can trust him as much. It really hurt, I am still trying to be all in, and I don’t know if he is. He’s still talking like he wants to spend his life with me, and I think we’re in many ways a good fit, but I’m realizing increasingly that I’m scared. He’s slept with a lot of our female friends and insists on me making some life changes that would be really hard.
The question now is whether I send him this blog post or whether that would be too crazy and emotional and fight-picking and reassurance-seeking and oh my god I’m probably insane haha
Speaking as a social retard - it sounds to me like you need to work through this with him. And if he's serious about it, he'll try to help you. Because it's one thing if a person is just insecure and trying to soothe their ego, but it's a very different thing if someone isn't sure they have the same definition of love or what a committed relationship is.
I don't know if I would send him this one though. I think that the more immediately relevant article to your problem would be the one where Curtis mentions the cold dead hand of the twentieth century reaching down his pants - where "love" is just a restriction of freedom labelled "unhealthy codependence." I think that does a better job of addressing the issue at play, which is fundamentally philosophical. What is love? Sending this article might address why his friend said that, but I don't think it would as clearly address why she's wrong. I personally would be hesitant to make it seem like it's about her rather than the philosophical issue. And that issue probably needs to be resolved, because it shapes the shared vision that you're both working towards.
But I have no practical real world relationship experience so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even so, best of luck. I'm sure in time you'll figure out what is right.
> He’s slept with a lot of our female friends
They need to stop being friends.
of all things I’m scared that my boyfriend is insufficiently trad for marriage but where would I find someone else so smart and creative and funny and good with kids and generally-ethically-oriented
In the replies of a Gray Mirror post, obviously! 😂
as in I was scared he had the modern commitment-shy mentality discussed in the post- he doesn’t seem interested in other women at all. I was worried about him wanting to delay marriage indefinitely (something something buy cow milk for free)… but we talked it out to great success earlier after I realized I should be talking to my partner about these concerns instead of being anxious in the uncle yarv comments
Very obliquely, haha. He brought up some long-term personal financial plans, I responded by telling him my plans, and then mentioning how I’d thought about doing a certain long term financial thing that would be more or less mutually understood as a bet on our relationship continuing to marriage within a few years and divorce being completely off the table. He said it was too early to say yes to that immediately, but in a few years once we both finish college, he had actually been thinking about the same. Then we had a spirited text conversation for the next few hours about all the places we want to live and how to make them work for both of our careers, languages we will learn for work and travel, and how we would theoretically time both of our PhDs and having kids. I came out of it with my emotional needs for relationship security very much met, and he seemed to be in a good mood afterwards.
I think the advice you should take from this is that I never brought up the aforementioned concerns directly, because upon further thought a lot of it WAS because of me and my insecurities and my need for reassurance, and they didn’t need to be brought up and made his problem. He was literally just vibing and I thought myself into an angsty knot over an article I read online. Some things have to be made your partner’s problem and/or dealt with together, but the majority of things should be handled in a way that doesn’t start unnecessary conflicts by setting off the other person’s negative emotions too. If you can take shit off their plate emotionally without massive cost to yourself, do it, they do the same for you.
Overall if you’re looking for relationship advice, there’s a bit I had to do to fight my modern conditioning, and this helped me quite a bit to end up in a stabler relationship. What helped me was to just really try to grow empathy for myself and people I care about, and also to read some psychoanalysis. Carefully using metta meditation techniques helps you practice empathy and gain the ability to get over yourself, which helps you to see things from others’ point of view. Some psychoanalysis (not too much!) is helpful for understanding your own neuroses, which helps you understand others’ neuroses, which helps you get along with them better. A book that might help you understand why all this helps people our age is Chris Lasch’s culture of narcissism, if you haven’t checked it out already.
Can I leave a totally off topic comment? Is that allowed?
What do you all think about evacuating Taiwan? Like assuming "we" don't want the Red Chinese to get all that bleeding edge chip-making talent and hardware, is there another solution but for relocating the non-Communist Chinese Nation, intact, to some other place? I'm not actually sure *where* to put them, possibly Papua New Guinea, but basically get the people out, and turn Taiwan into a giant military base. This is a way of owning the ChiComs, I believe. Think of how pissed they would be.
I just spent $10 to finally subscribe to GM so I could leave this comment...
I figured that was $10 I would have otherwise spent on Hinge's "digital roses $3.33 each" or Bumble's "SuperSwipe from $1.53 each", or some other dating app's purported way to "stand out" from the pack of normies, bunched together like famished dogs in a chainlink-fenced, overgrown backyard, as their neglectful owner comes out on the porch once a day to heave some cheap kibble on the ground.
Pareto was right. Some 20% of women get 80% of the attention. But when it comes to a dating app, where attraction is not subjected to the limitations of face-to-face contact, it's probably more like 1% of the women getting 99% of the swipes. After all, it takes zero courage to "SuperSwipe" a dime, versus approaching her at Kroger and asking her if she knows where the triscuits are, and then saying jk, I just wanted to talk to you (while flattered, she informed me she was married and couldn't oblige).
So I buy a value pack of Hinge "digital roses" for $30, convincing myself that yeah, the last 50 mega-babes I sent one to didn't respond, but maybe this time, this one will actually look at my profile, and see that I may not be a strapping gigachad, but I've scored some 8s, 9s, 10s in the past; I'm in shape, a decent trad guy, pretty handsome (mom says), have most of my shit together, and just want to share life with someone else, have some good meaningful sex, and make some babies in the process.
But just like all the previous cyber-roses, mine just gets lost like a piece of confetti that showers these women all day every day. And even if I did get a response, what would come of it? A few months, maybe a year of fun, maybe some decent intimacy, but ultimately an amicable split at best, or boredom, infidelity, and an ugly break up at worst.
And as I hit my 38th birthday tomorrow, I lay in bed at 3am after being jolted awake—as I do nearly every night—by a strange mixture of guilt, anxiety, regret, and fear, wondering where the hell I went wrong, and if there's still time to have a normal relationship, and if so, praying that my parents live into their 80s so my kids will at least know their grandparents for a few short years.
I don't know why I'm still typing, but whatever. I'm not looking for pity here. My circling session is later today. I just know that stats show my experience isn't unique. There's something really screwed up with the romantic perceptions and expectations of our generation. I'm not sure what it is or how it gets fixed. I'm not a victim, but definitely a product of it. I've made a lot of mistakes. I dumped a good amount of girls I could have stayed with. And a good amount have dumped me that should have stayed with me. But whatever.
All that to say, let me try this: if there's a trad girl still reading this, and you live in the Nashville area let's hang out.
I am convinced that by the time men are pushing 40, it's too late for us to have any semblance of a normal healthy relationship or family. Hell, I'm pretty convinced that's true by the time we're 30.
All you can do is to hold on to your rage and never forget the society, and the people in society who did this to you. As the great prophet Sam Hyde once said, "The world is not dying, it is being killed. And those that are killing it have names and addresses"
I might be missing the grifty joke here, but all of these relationship problems are downstream of the whole living in a totally misruled society thing.
We all know this, but it's not a particularly useful observation
Because either a) we have to work around that factor, in which case asking for actionable advice on the immediate problems is useful; or b) it is not possible to work around that factor, in which case the only winning move is to give up and go out with a bang
I think that's a large part of the cause. But it's still necessary to understand the solution. The building and maintaining of communities is a lost art in much of the west. Stable families are the bedrock of all communities.
Once misrule is no longer a problem, there's a much larger task of community building ahead. Every person has a part to play in that, and retracing the steps of that forgotten dance isn't a terrible idea.
You frustrated trad guys should move to Asia. Get some skills and then try China, Cambodia, Japan, Taiwan, India, Burma, etc. Anything but America.
Of course, marrying a foreigner is anything but trad, but life offers limited options.