Category Archives: Relationships

Alternatives to Game

Lately, discussion of game and Christianity has been occurring in the Orthosphere, led by GBFM, Donal, Zippy, and Cane. I don’t disagree with many of the conclusions of the anti-gamers. There is probably a lot of the placebo effect to “game”. Although, there is also evidence that dark triad traits, which game attempts to mimic, are attractive, while being a nice guy isn’t.

I do find though,  that a lot of the Christian, “is game acceptable?”, debate really boils down to defining “game”. Nobody comes to terms before discussion, so the conversation almost always turns into a bunch of people talking past each other.

I myself have gone back and forth on game.

Either way, chasing flags and notches is an empty, joyless, if sometimes pleasurable, way to live. Roosh’s personal reflections over the last year or so provide ample example of that. No Christian should participate in it, and, even according to game advocates, even most non-Christians are simply not suited for it and would be better of finding an average girl and marrying. “Game” in the gimmicky, manipulative, player sense is something to avoid; at best it is a stop-gap.

But, men should instead focus on building themselves up. Instead of focusing on gimmicks, men should focus on improving themselves and being the kind of man who would have the kind of life they desire. Focus on the core, what some call inner game, and you will be attractive to the type of woman you want in your life.

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This being said, I don’t think all game is a placebo. While I avoid the immoral and gimmicky parts of game, some of the more straightforward and practical social skills and body language advice is useful.  One of the earlier posts which made me take Roissy seriously, was this post on contraposta. Simply standing differently, and having a way I could purposefully stand, did wonders for my confidence. Just off the top of my head, other such tactical posts that helped me immensely include Simon Grey’s eye contact post and Roissy’s statement-statement-question.

Little practical things like these can work wonders and give socially awkward men like me something firm to hold onto.

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All this being said though, whether you are pro-game, or anti-game, there is something you can agree on. So, what if, as Zippy says:

Game (understood as the pickup artist’s toolkit specifically) is actually pretty lousy in terms of effectiveness, right on par with placebo.  Doing something (and learning from the experience, and being persistent, and building confidence) is far better than doing nothing; but once you extract taking action at all, persistence, confidence, and learning through experience from the equation, the part of Game that is left over (that is, Game itself) – at least according to the “best of the best” PUA themselves – doesn’t do much for your percentages.

Let’s say game is mostly a placebo. Let’s say that its only real effect is to give awkward guys something to latch onto so they have a place to start developing confidence and acting. Let’s say, game is simply doing something.

This leads directly to the question, what else is there? As I’ve said before:

There is nothing else.

If you are an awkward, nerdy male, the only people willing and able to teach you practical advice for attracting women are the PUAs. I’ve checked. There is simply no one outside the manosphere teaching men how to meet a pleasant, moderately pretty girl for a stable long-term relationship.

I’ve read a number of Christian books and articles on dating, but they all assume a woman is attracted to you. They are either discussions of what kind of dating is appropriate and exhortations against sin or man up articles on how to avoid sex in relationships, how to avoid leading women on, and how to be firm in your intentions. There is almost no practical advice on how to actually attract a girl in first place so that the other advice has any relevance.

(For any Christian manospherians reading this, here’s a great book idea: write a guide to help awkward Christian guys attract a Christian wife. Market it in the Christian culture industry and you’d make a killing. I’d write it, but I’m not qualified at this point.)

Going outside the Christian stuff, everywhere else you look the socially awkward male is given the same advice: be yourself and be a nice guy, she’ll come… eventually.

Guess what?

We already do that: it doesn’t work. If it did work, we wouldn’t be looking for advice.

For women (and church leaders and others who may care): if you do not want awkward guys going to PUA’s for advice on attracting women, offer a viable alternative.

The only reason I started taking guys like Roissy or Roosh even remotely seriously was because they were the first people I found anywhere who gave enough of a shit to give some practical, useful advice. I haven’t adopted either game or playerhood, but I have tried some of their more morally neutral advice and it has been useful. (I’m now more influenced by the Athol/Dalrock approach).

How royally screwed up is it that self-proclaimed assholes like Roissy and Mentu are the only ones honest and selfless enough to give practical advice to the awkward guy looking for companionship (even if they mock us while they do it)?

Zippy, GBFM, Cane, and the rest can criticize game all they want, they might even be, probably are, right. But it doesn’t matter.

There is no alternative.

If I, as an awkward, nerdy Christian man, want practical, actionable advice on finding and attracting a nice Christian wife, game is the only place to go.

Without the game advice of these “low value dirt bags and sexual garbage collectors”, I never would have been able to approach this girl. I never would have gotten this date. I’ve had more dates in the last year than in my whole life prior, and a lot of it comes down to the advice and help I got from these “dirt bags.”

Without the advice and encouragement of them, without the practice from my previous dates, I probably would have awkwardly blown out the first date with the girl I’m currently courting.

None of these dates or approaches involved gimmicks, sleaze, or even anything resembling the popular perception of game. They were all simple, straightforward, well-intentioned interactions that nobody would or could think ill of.

But game advice gave me something to latch onto. It gave me practical steps I could take to improve myself. Was it a placebo? Possibly. But some of it was real. (The simple advice to not follow around a girl you like like a love-sick puppy alone was worth its weight in gold).

It was something practical I could do to improve myself and become better at social interactions with.

Roissy, Roosh, et al. may be self-professed degenerate scum but what is Zippy* providing?

This is the problem. What are the Christian man’s alternatives?

My Omega’s Guide was a start. I tried to make a practical guide to self-improvement anyone could use while avoiding “game”. Donal puts out a lot good theory, Chad’s stories are excellent sources of some Christian attraction principles put in practice, Vox throws out a fair amount of Christian game, and Athol puts out good, but non-Christian, advice for married men. A few other Christian blogs from my roll put out the occasional advice post.

Of these, Vox and Athol are the only names even remotely well-known and the only ones who have successfully found a wife and there sites is the gamiest and least Christian, respectively, of them all.

The awkward Christian man’s sources of information for attracting a wife without game are few unknowns who have plucked the pearls from the vast library of information the degenerates put out and have tried to apply it, but haven’t even found a wife for themselves.

So, give us something. Where is the church? Where is the help from the pro-marriage, anti-game moralizers to help us?

I don’t need another exhortation to man up, I’ve had enough of those. I don’t need another post telling me the greatness of marriage. I don’t need another lecture on servant-leadership; I’m drowning in those. I don’t need another sermon on avoiding fornication; I’ve been listening to those since before I knew what sex was. I don’t need more don’t do this, don’t do that; I need more do this.

Where is the practical Christian advice that will help me find a wife? Where can I find advice so the good Christian girl’s description of me to her friends isn’t “ew”?

Without that, all the rest of this debate over game is just noise and thunder signifying nothing. Awkward Christian men will go the degenerate dirt bags, because our choices are either try to pick the occasional nugget of truth from the hedonists and hope we don’t become corrupted by them or live the rest of our lives in grinding loneliness and sexual frustration.

If you don’t like game, give us an alternative.

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Being opposed to complaining without providing a solution, I will point any Christian men reading this and looking for answers to my Omega’s Guide. It should provide some good advice I’ve painfully learned through the last 7 or 8 years. At some point, I’m going to arrange it into a self-published ebook for easier distribution.

Once I’m married and can speak with real authority on the subject, I plan to write a book on finding and attracting a Christian wife (probably cribbing heavily from the Omega’s Guide). I might even try hocking this to the various Christian publishers.

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* I realize this is unfair to Zippy, and mean no offence, he’s not making a relationship blog and he isn’t professing to, but neither is anyone else.

Avoiding Damaged Goods

My holiday break is ending, so next week we should get back to regular posting. For now, here’s a comment from jack (h/t: Society of Phineas) in response to a woman asking “Am I “Too Damaged” to Have a Godly Marriage One Day?” It resonated strongly with me.

As a Christian, I have noticed one thing. Christian girls make “mistakes” with the exact same type of men that non Christian women do. Bad boys. “Hot guys”. Athletes. Musicians.

In short, the small contingent of men who really have what it takes to melt her butter, as they say.

I waited during my teens and early twenties for the girls to learn that these guys were only toying with them. I would have accepted being second choice.

But, receiving attention from such men only convinced the girls that they were tantalizingly close to landing such a man, if they just got the process down better. These are the girls buying Cosmo to learn tricks to “win his love”.

This took me through my late 20s. I would have accepted being third choice.

But by now, the standards were only raised: “I’m done settling for being treated like crap by hot but jerky guys. From now on, I will insist on hot GOOD guys.” This begins the “born again virgin” phase, or the phase of temporary celibacy, where they focus on their careers and wait for Mr Tall/Dark/Dreamy to materialize. Along the way, they may satisfy the occasional physical need with a discreet hookup. I began to weary, but still tried to keep my spirits up, thinking that I could be fourth choice.

By their mid-30s, they start to waver on their standards, and begin talk of “settling”. Use of the term settling occurs because it is not acceptable to admit that their standards were unrealistically high, so they have to couch the discussion in a way that makes them appear to be magnanimously considering a man that was once far, far beneath their “standards”.

I began to balk at the idea of fifth choice, especially when I was being regarded as a sort of last resort, a better-than-nothing option.

To the original question:

No ones sin takes them too far to achieve redemption. No one is beyond God’s love or the chance for a Godly marriage. We all damage ourselves through the sins that we allow into our lives.

The question is not whether you are “too damaged” to have a Godly marriage. The question is whether you have damaged your ability to love the kind of man you can get. What the Lord has declared clean let no man call unclean. Your sin, like mine, is washed away.

The hardest part of marrying for me, NOW, is knowing that my wife has been absent from my life all these years. Where has she been? Married to another man, being his helpmate instead of mine? Dating frivolously, spending time and attention with various men that were interesting to her?

I have spent 20 years making a successful life for myself without the benefit of a wife, her company, companionship, counsel, or intimacy. Is it fair for her to move into my life having built none of it? What man has benefited from her companionship and affection while I have worked alone?

This then, is the real issue. It is not whether a woman is too damaged to have a Godly marriage. It is whether her neglect of Godly men has left them malnourished and wounded, and whether these men are suitable for marriage any longer.

Malnourishment, left untreated, cannot be reversed, no matter how much food you feed that person. And right or wrong, I would always resent the fact that other men were having the benefit of her affection and company when she was young.

Godly men are not appliances that can be tucked away in a closet until they are need because the bad-boy-charming-jerk plan is not working. We are living beings who need care, same as you.

Emphasis mine. I’ve written about not marrying an older women multiple times before. My other reasons were generally rational ones, but on a purely emotional level, how could one not resent a “wife” who was spending her time and love with other men or on other things when your young heart was rending itself from loneliness? At least a young woman has the excuse of being too young to have been there with you.

You, decent young man who have built a life for yourself, have too much value to waste on such a woman. If she wasn’t there when you needed her, she does not have any claim on you now that she needs you.

Also related to part of the comment, Vox recently pointed out women always seem to be trying to fix the sociopath, never the decent, awkward, lonely young man.

Male Friendship

I came across these two discussions of the lack of friendship among males, particularly white, heterosexual males. The dearth of male friendship is a serious problem in our modern world. The average American has only 2 close friends. While, as per the Salon article above, white, heterosexual males have the fewest friends.

This lack of friendship comes from a variety of factors, but there are three specific to men. The first is the confluence of both philia and eros under the word love, and the resultant conquering of love by eros. Due to this, in our present language “manly love” might as well mean queer. Related to this is the rise of the homosexual lifestyle in popular culture.

The Slate article almost gets this:

Chalk this heart-squeezing shift up to our limiting ideals of masculinity, which define themselves in opposition to all things feminine. Friends are empathetic, affectionate, not afraid to leave their tower of self-reliance for occasional support. You know who else is like that? Women. “Being a good friend…as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly,” Wade writes, so the boys end up opting out.

Wade doesn’t mention the rainbow elephant in the room, but I wonder whether men are less afraid of girliness here than homosexuality. In many ways, it’s a distinction without a difference, since homophobes tend to imagine gay men as effete. But if a man ever is allowed to relax his stone face, it’s around his romantic partner. Being open, communicative, vulnerable—all of these behaviors evoke love relationships. It makes a sad kind of sense that boys trying to assert their masculinity would steer clear of playing the “boyfriend” around other guys.

But as usual, they miss the mark, and make a demonstration of the third reason:

Friends are empathetic, affectionate, not afraid to leave their tower of self-reliance for occasional support. You know who else is like that? Women. “Being a good friend…as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly,

Affectionate and empathetic? It just sounds queer.

The reason this sounds queer is these are not masculine friendships, these are feminine friendships.  (Not that the feminine mode of friendship is wrong; it’s good, but for women).

The third reason for the decline is male friendship is the colonization of the language of friendship by the feminine. The words used to describe friendships in the above articles are good examples of this: empathy, affection, intimacy, emotional support, etc. are all womanly or would be reserved for your lover; to apply these to a masculine relationship sounds gay.

If this is what friendship is painted as, of course men are going not going to have friendships. Who the hell wants to gather around in a sob circle with their male friends?

But by defining friendship as the feminine, the modern world is pushing out (has pushed out?) the ability to express male friendship through the English language.

To reestablish male friendship, we need to reestablish masculine relationships. We need to retake friendship, retake philia, retake manly love.

(Bro is a decent attempt at this, but bromance just sounds retarded and queer).

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For the theoretical framework of masculine friendship we can go back to Jack Donovan’s Way of Man. Male social bonds were formed as a part of the gang. Men bonded through hunting and war parties. They bonded not through faggy emoting, but through shared action, shared virtue, shared goals, shared suffering, and shared victory. They built each other up to work together against the common foe.

Obviously, we can’t go back to the old warband model. There’s no opposing tribes to make war against anymore outside of the ghetto (at least not until the happening), and if you tried to do so, you’d go to jail. But men can attempt to rebuild the same pattern through the creation of a gang. Read the Way of Man for more on this.

We can rebuild the male friendship without the need to go murdering our neighbours. Aristotle outlined the virtuous male friendship many centuries ago:

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have. For all friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both friends, and that which is good without qualification is also without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their best form between such men.

But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have ‘eaten salt together’; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.
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The friendship of the good too and this alone is proof against slander; for it is not easy to trust any one talk about a man who has long been tested by oneself; and it is among good men that trust and the feeling that ‘he would never wrong me’ and all the other things that are demanded in true friendship are found. In the other kinds of friendship, however, there is nothing to prevent these evils arising. For men apply the name of friends even to those whose motive is utility, in which sense states are said to be friendly (for the alliances of states seem to aim at advantage), and to those who love each other for the sake of pleasure, in which sense children are called friends. Therefore we too ought perhaps to call such people friends, and say that there are several kinds of friendship-firstly and in the proper sense that of good men qua good, and by analogy the other kinds; for it is in virtue of something good and something akin to what is found in true friendship that they are friends, since even the pleasant is good for the lovers of pleasure. But these two kinds of friendship are not often united, nor do the same people become friends for the sake of utility and of pleasure; for things that are only incidentally connected are not often coupled together.

Barring the fact that love in this case indicates philia, but likely comes across sounding closer to eros due to our fallen language in this modern age, does this sound gay? Does it sounds womanly?

No. These are not friendships of men getting together to whine about their woes. These are friendships of men testing each other for shared virtue and working towards the mutual good.

This is manly friendship. This is what we men need to return to: a masculine view of friendship based around shared virtue and goals, rather than emotionalizing.

We need to start speaking of friendship in words that don’t sound faggy. We need to move the language of male friendship from that of a romance or an AA support-group to that of a warband. ‘Bonds of brotherhood’ and ‘shared virtue’ rather than ‘affection’ and ‘intimacy’ and ‘test’ and ‘shared suffering’ rather than ’emotional support’ and ’empathy’.

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Now the question becomes, how do we retake male friendship?

We can’t on the cultural level, other than using masculine language for male friendship to reclaim manly love and friendship from homosexuals and women.

But you can do some things on a personal level. Start a gang.

First, you need to find some good men. If you’ve got some good, reliable friends already, that’s excellent. If you don’t, look through your church, your activities, your social groups, and find men of good character and virtue with whom to bond.

Try to avoid half-men, scalzified weiners, psychological eunuchs, pc nutjobs, those lacking virtue, emos,the easily offended, and the like.

Second, start some specifically manly activities together; exclude women from these activities. Some good ones are hunting, fishing, camping, shooting, poker, gaming, etc.

Third, when at these activities talk, but not just of girls, video games, and beer; talk of deeper things. Don’t get all emotional about it, but talk of philosophy, religion, metaphysics, goals, ambitions, virtue, politics,

Once you’ve gotten close to some men, you can talk of emotional things. Again, don’t get all sobby and faggy about it, but there’s nothing out of place with a matter-of-fact discussion of emotions that may be afflicting you once a close enough bond has been formed.

The goal is to build a solid group of men who have your back and whose back you have.

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As for myself, some of us our in a book club; when my choice of book comes it will be the Way of Man, to help put the idea of forming a gang in explicit turns in my social circles. I already have a couple solid guys I’ve been friends with for over a decade and whom I’m close to. This will form the core of the gang and there’re others whom could be a part. Over the summer I tried to arrange days in the woods shooting to move some of my friends towards a more warband-esque grouping; it never turned out, but one of the core is planning to buy a gun and the other really wants to but hasn’t been able to on the planned days; others have expressed interest in shooting as well. So come spring, I should be able to get some days in the woods going, and maybe even convince a few to hunt with me next fall. But beside that, we’ve started fishing over summer, we go camping once a year, and we game regularly. So things look well in that respect.

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So, go an do likewise. Read the Way of Man to develop an idea of masculine friendship, make some solid male friendships, and try to make those male friendships you do have into a stronger, deeper bond. Form your own gang, your own warband.

For friendship is important, and every man needs his comrades-in-arms.

Building a Life Together

Donal wrote a couple posts on men’s SMV and marriage conundrums and women’s complimentary conundrum.

I’m going to focus on the second, in particular. Not wanting to add to Sigyn’s compassion fatigue, I’m not going to talk of how its easier for women to find a marriage partner at this age than men, but rather I’m going to give advice to the young ladies who want to marry young but can’t find a worthy young man to marry.

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First, the reality: you won’t be able to.

For you, young woman of average beauty in your late-teens or early-20s, it will be almost impossible to find a worthy young man who wants to marry you. The vast majority of men your age are of naturally low value, they are unworthy. Most of those few that aren’t unworthy will either not desire marriage or would be a poor marriage partner.

To be worthy, a man must be a good man; he must also have experience,  be able to lead, have a mission, have resources, be skilled, be confident, have positive status, and having a little charm would help as well.

Notice what these all of these but being good have in common:

They all take a long time to develop.

A young man in his early-to-mid-20s will not have had that time. At best, most men will develop this in their late-20s or early-30s. Many men will never develop these.

A good young man near your age will not have discovered his mission yet, he will lack confidence, he will be inexperienced, he will be poor, he will lack status, he will be unskilled, and he probably won’t have developed charm yet. He has likely never been in a position of leadership in his life.

Those that do have status, charm, or confidence at this age will usually have it for the wrong reasons. These will be the petty drug dealers, the college sports stars, the rebel musicians, the budding Casanovas, the frat boys, etc. Most will not be desiring marriage because they will be drowning in easy sex from many fresh, young co-eds (you’re not the only girl trying to find a confident, charming young man) and they would likely make poor marriage partners even if they did.

Now, there will be a very few good young men looking for marriage who have all this. Whether from inheritance, genetic blessing, exceptional parenting, and/or plain dumb luck some good young men will have many or all of these measures of worth, but these men will be very rare indeed. The young Christian sports star (the Tim Tebows of the world) or the grungy-looking worship leader would be the most likely bet.

If you want to have your own Tim Tebow, go back in time and be born a blonde bombshell with a beautiful face and measurements near 36-24-36C.

Don’t have a time machine? You’re not getting a Tim Tebow.

Unless you were born an 8 or a 9 and managed to keep your figure looking smashing, you won’t be getting the worthy young man. These young men are exceedingly rare and will have their pick of the church. Are you the prettiest in your church, your college and career group, and your Christian campus group?

Probably not, otherwise you’d already have one of these men and you wouldn’t be reading this.

Exception: A high-school sweetheart deal. An average young women in high school can snag a higher value man simply by being his first girlfriend and making it so pleasant for him that he marries her right out of high school before he even begins to understand his worth. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably missed that chance, but if you’re still in high school, give it a go; you never know.

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So, now that you, young woman who is not exceptionally beautiful, know that you will not be able to get a worthy, marriage-minded man near your age, what can you do to get a worthy husband?

There are two options: date older or build one.

Option 1: Date Older

There won’t be a worthy young man your own age, but there will be a few worthy, marriage-minded men in the 28-35 age range.

If you do this, you will essentially be joining the life he will have built up. He will likely be loathe to give up what he has already built, so it will be less a melding of lives together and more you inserting yourself into his pre-built life.

There is nothing wrong with this, but it is what it is.

Also, an age difference to 5-15 years may be looked at askance by society in this fallen age. Be prepared for that.

If you’re fine with both of those go for it. It should be fairly easy; most of these men will be very happy to have a young girl in her late-teens/early-20s interested in them. What man wouldn’t feel proud to have a cute wife 10 years his junior?

Find out where good young men in their late-20s, early-30s hang-out. Then go there, look pretty, be nice, and make yourself available. Or go on a dating site and express an interest in this age group in your profile; a few of the dozens/hundreds of men e-mailing you will be these kinds of man, it’s simply a matter of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

But if marrying a man 5-10 years older than you sounds unappealing, there is a second option: build a worthy man.

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Option 2: Build a Worthy Man

You won’t be able to find a worthy young man, but you can build one from an unworthy man. This is a 3-step process.

Step One: The Building Clay

Find an honest, good-hearted, marriage-minded young man who displays potential.

Potential is hard to define, but, essentially, is he a decent young man?

Remember, you are looking for a man who has a certain amount of natural virtue; focus on that and ignore the superficial things; you can work on that later.

Some things to look for:

  • Is he building for the future? ie.: Is he going to college, working on his own business, or taking trades training?
  • Does he have a good relationship with his parents?
  • Is he responsible with his money, his time, his gifts?
  • Does he express an interest in marriage and children?
  • Could he be handsome if he stood up straighter, had a better haircut, and lost those dorky-looking glasses?
  • Does he have plans for the future?
  • If you’re Christian, does he go to church regularly?
  • Do other adults who know him (his boss, church elders, his professors, etc.) respect him and speak well of him?
  • Does he have a group of friends who are decent people?

If the answer is yes to most or all of these, he has potential.

Now potential is just that, potential, it is not actuality. He is not going to have everything you want, now. But, if you choose the right base material, you can build the rest into him. So here’s some things to overlook because they will either develop with time, or you will help him develop it:

  • He dresses poorly.
  • He’s not a leader.
  • He’s socially awkward.
  • He’s currently poor.
  • He plays video games.

Choose the right base material and you can fix all these superficial deficits over time.

If you’re in doubt if the man you’re interested in is good base material, bring him to your parent’s home for a night of dinner and board games. Ask your parents about him afterwards (and demand they be honest). If they like him, you’ve got a decent candidate; if they don’t, dump him.

Step 2: Test Him

So, now you’ve found a decent young man, but he hasn’t proven himself yet, so you’re taking a risk.

Here’s a few simple tests of worthiness for a guy you’ve been dating for a few months or for one of those guys who’s been your close friend with for a while and there’s some mutual interest:

1) Tell him you want to spend a special day together and ask him to plan it. Don’t help him plan, don’t criticize, and go along with whatever he plans. His attitude is more important than what you actually end up doing. If he puts in some planning, pulls off something half-decent, and tries to lead while doing so that’s good. If he sloughs it off and phones you at the last minute asking what you feel like doing and you end up hanging out together as normal, that’s not.

2) Say you’d like to go on a day-long road trip to ???? (some park or attraction within an hour’s drive) and ask him to plan it. Look for the same things as #1.

3) Invite him to help you paint your room; tell him you don’t know what you’re doing. Does he show up prepared to work? Does he take the lead? Does he try to show you how? Is he patient? Does he avoid complaining? Look for his attitude.

4) If you’re planning to move, tell him you don’t have any men to help you (make sure to tell your dad, brothers, and male friends to be busy that day) and don’t know how you’re going to move all this big, heavy furniture by yourself. Ask if he can organize some of his friends to help. If he shows up with a couple friends in tow and takes the lead, you’ve got a keeper on your hands.

5) Have your dad invite him over to work on a project together; tell your dad why and let your dad arrange it. Listen to what your dad says about him afterward.

If he passes a few of these or similar tests, you’ve probably got good base material. It will not eliminate the risk of a dud entirely, but it will minimize the risks.

Onto the next step.

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Step Three: Build Him

He’s probably a bit dorky, awkward, or weird, but don’t worry, you’re going to change that.

Is he a poor engineering student now? Don’t worry; that means 10 years from now he will be a highly-paid engineer. Just let time take its course.

Does he dress like a dork? No problem. He doesn’t realize he looks like a dork, and he likely really doesn’t care how he dresses (as long as it’s not fruity). He’ll be happy to change for you, if you do it right.

Next time he goes clothes shopping, go with him. Recommend a few things you like; when he tries something on and it looks good in it, make it known. Compliment him on how handsome he is, smile coyly, lick your lips, make a big deal of how handsome, sexy, and manly he looks while rubbing your hand casually but enticingly up his arm. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but it will be almost impossible to go overboard. Most young men very rarely get complimented by cute, young girls, so the rush he’ll get from from your effusive praise will make him ignore such petty things as logic and reality. If possible, convince another female cashier to comment on how handsome he looks in those clothes. He will buy that outfit; if not this time, the next. He might not wear it for a while, but when he does, do it all over again; gush over how handsome he looks in it and get your other female friends to do so as well. Do this for one item a shopping trip; in a few years you’ll have replaced his whole wardrobe, he’ll be looking good, and he’ll think it was all his idea.

One important rule: Do not nag; do not ask or demand he buy or wear the new clothes. That will backfire and create resistance. Simply stay positive and compliment and encourage him; it will work wonders.

Does he have a dorky haircut, stupid-looking glasses, a nerdy watch? Do exactly what you did with the clothes and soon he’ll have contacts, a great haircut, and a stylish watch.

Does he lack confidence? No problem. With a cute, young girl like you telling him what a great man he is every day and supporting him in everything he does, he’ll gain some pretty fast. Nothing boosts a man’s confidence like a pretty young lady’s compliments. Make sure not to criticize him; remain positive.

Does he lack leadership? Don’t worry about it. He may not be a leader now, but when you submit to him, he’ll be forced to lead and, in being forced, will learn to do so. With a cute, young girl, like you, looking to him for guidance, submitting to his decisions, and regularly praising his decisiveness, great decisions, and excellent leadership, he’ll quickly become the dominant leader you’re looking for.  Whatever you do, don’t criticize his decisions when he does lead; that will backfire and he will be less likely to lead in the future.

Is he socially awkward? No problem. Get him to read this and this. Talk with him and make him comfortable talking with you. Bring him to hang out in large groups. With you at his side, supporting him in social situations, he’ll slowly gain the social skills you want him to have. A few years from now, you’ll look back and wonder whatever happened to the socially awkward man you once knew.

Does he have less ambition than you like? That’s a bit of a problem, but easily remedied as long as it’s not a complete lack. Encourage him to be proactive (again, no criticism).

Does he idly come up with a decent business idea? “That’s an amazing idea, honey, I’m sure you could make it work.” Then, when out socially with him, mention to your friends/family this great idea he had. Eventually, he’ll try simply because you’ve built so much positive expectation that he would feel horrible about not doing so. Then support him fully as he tries.

Is there a job or schooling opportunity you think he should go for? “Did you hear about this dear. It looks like an amazing opportunity and I think you’re so good at this that you’d be a shoe-in.” Then, when he does try, support him fully and unreservedly. When he gets the job, praise him and tell him how you knew he’d do it.

Again, do not nag. Remain positive.

Another important rule: If he tries and fails, do not complain about his failure or criticize him. A simple “some things are not meant to be” or “circumstances just weren’t right” is okay. Follow that up with a “You’re so amazing, I’m sure next time you’ll do it. Have you seen this? I’m sure you’d be great at it.”

Does he play too many video games? Understand an hour or two a day is not that big a deal. If he plays a lot more than that: find out what he likes doing otherwise, then sign you both up for it, or get him and one of his friends to sign up for it if it’s a male activity. Be supportive and positive, don’t nag. “You know how you’ve always wanted to ????, well I’ve signed us up. It will be so much fun doing this with you.”

Is he in poorer shape than you’d like? Cook him some good meals. Then join a gym, go a couple times, and mention how you wish you had someone to go with. If guys hit on you at the gym, be sure to let slip how you wish “there was someone to go to the gym with as guys are always hitting on me.” At other times mention how much more handsome he would look with a little less weight or a little more muscle.

Eventually, he’ll come with you. After the workout, mention how hot he looks when he’s lifting or dripping with sweat or something related to working out. After he’s been coming to the gym with you for a while, take care to notice that new muscle (“it feels so big and hard“, said admiringly while putting your hand over it) or the lost weight. After that, he’ll keep going with you.

You’ll notice a them through all of this: positivity and support.

For most decent men, they will rise up to what is expected of them. If you go into a relationship expecting the best out of a good man and encouraging him to reach his full potential, he will rise to the challenge. There is nothing in life that will drive a man to self-improvement like having a cute, young woman support and compliment him in doing so.

Young lady of average looks, if you want to marry a man your own age who will be worthy:

Choose a good man with potential, test him, then build him up.

Do all this and in a few years you’ll be married to worthy man of whom you’ll be proud and he will love more than you could possibly understand for helping make him so.

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One other thing: make sure to improve yourself so that good men are attracted to you.

  • Keep fit; little will drive men off more than being fat.
  • Be happy and pleasant. Most men like a girl who’s positive and enjoyable to be around.
  • Be of good character. A man of good character wants a wife of good character.

See here and here for other things a good young man might be looking for in a wife.

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Finally some theory.

Today, marriage is treated as a capstone. People think getting married is something they do once they’ve completed all the others bricks in the wall.

“Once I finish college, get a good job, and buy a house, then I’ll be ready for marriage.”

This is not how marriage is supposed to be. Marriage is supposed to be a cornerstone.

Marriage is about building the wall together. The proper attitude is:

“We’ll get married, we’ll support each other through college, we’ll support each other in starting our careers, and then we’ll buy a house together and make a family. We’ll build a life together.”

When I recommend  building a man, this is what I am talking about.

You don’t have to try to go after the fully formed man who has it all together; you can marry the solid, young guy who has unrealized potential.

He may not be much now, but if you join to him while young and build a life together as he becomes a fully realized man, he will love you more than you can imagine, for he will not be able to imagine a life apart from you, because you will have been there with him building the wall together.

That is my advice to both young men and young women. Find a good person while young, if you can, and build a life together.

“The List” and My List

Donal makes a list of what he requires in and offers to his future spouse, and suggested others do the same. I will, but first I’ll talk a bit on lists.

Unlike many in the ‘sphere, I do not have a negative reaction to a list; in fact, I support “the list”. I think it is a positive if a woman rationally plans ahead and has a strong list of non-negotiables she would require of a spouse before marriage and even a list of negotiable preferences. I think every single person, both men and women, should have a list.

A woman should have high standards; in fact, I think women should demand more from men than what they currently do. Women should not settle and should refuse to settle. Many of our modern difficulties come not from women with “lists” or high demands, but rather from women lacking either.

Men should have high standards and a list as well. In fact, I encourage any man reading this who is considering marriage to go and make a list of non-negotiables once they’ve finished reading this post.

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The purpose of the list is something that should be kept in mind when making the list. The list exists, or should exist, for two main reasons:

1) To clarify what you are looking for in a relationship so you can focus your romantic efforts where they would be most valuable and avoid wasting time on people who are not what you need in a relationship.

2) To create a hard standard to prevent you from making a bad choice while being swept away in lust and emotion.

A list exists to protect you and your time from those who would use and waste both.

Leap stated:

The underlying subtext of this is all wrong. It’s a beta list for Beta’s and women who feel guilty about not dating them. She actively admits dating men that contradict these values.

He understands the proper subtext but misses the point of the list; the list, for women, is and should be to keep her from dating the alphas who would ruin her. It exists to protect her from her emotions so she doesn’t go through “alpha now -> beta later“.

A man’s list should exist to keep him from marrying the blonde bombshell with BPD. It serves as a firm anchor point when the tidal wave of lust overwhelms his good sense.

Every list should have this, not just as the subtext, but as the main point. Remember one of the main points of Proverbs, protect yourself from the adulteress.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23 (ESV)

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The problem is not the concept of the list itself, the problem is with some women’s poor and irrational attempts at creating a list. They go about it the wrong, resulting in the incorrect use of the list. Here are some of the errors people make:

1) Creating a list that is unmeetable, but still expecting to get married. Too many women make a large list that no man can possibly live up to, than wonder why no man lives up to it. You must accept the reality that the higher your standards and the longer your list, the less likely anybody will meet it and the less likely marriage will be. If your standards are too high, you might remain single for the rest of your life.

My list of standards is fairly high (at least for our modern world) and I’d be surprised if even 10% of the single female population met them. In fact, my original list had more points (13) than the list Donal criticizes (12) and my new list below has the same number. But I recognize that my standards are high and accept the reality that I might remain single for the rest of my life. I simply know that I would prefer singleness to marriage to a woman that did not meet these basic standards.

Rule of thumb: Something should not be on your list unless you would rather remain single for the rest of your life than compromise on it.

2) Focusing on frivolities, ignoring the important – What matters for a marriage is underlying character, behaviours, and values related to a successful marriage. A list should focus on these. A list should avoid things unrelated this.

Too many times, when people speak of standards, of demanding more, they think of the superficial standards (absurdly high income,  a height requirement,  unrealistic standards of attractiveness). You should demand more and have high standards, but of character, not the superficial.

3) Making a list, then ignoring it – It is my impression many women make a list, sometimes reasonable, sometimes not, then, if they don’t meet a man who meets that list, rather then reconsider some parts of the list or simply go without a relationship, they completely ignore the list out of desperation. Usually when they ignore the list, it is the more important parts (character, values) they ignore in favour of the more superficial parts that shouldn’t be on the list anyways.

The list exists for a reason; if you make a list, stick to it. A non- negotiable list should be just that, non-negotiable; if you can’t meet anybody who meets the list’s requirements, either modify the list to something more reasonable or accept that you may be single for life.

4) Vague emotional standards, rather than concrete rules – I know romantic love can not be reduced to a formula, but a list should primarily be of concrete attributes, not vague emotions. A list which focuses too much on how someone makes you feel is counterproductive. It violates the purpose of a list, which is protecting you from your own emotions and lust. One or two points about emotions and attraction may be fine, but the bulk of the list should be observable traits independent of your emotional state.

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Donal criticizes a particular list, but I don’t see much trouble with the actual points of the list in themselves. My only real problem with any of the particular point as written is #11 because it is theologically inaccurate, even though I have no problem with women expecting a certain, reasonable level of romance.

The problem is, as Donal mentions, the attitude behind this list and the way certain things on the list, particularly those related to emotions, may be (mis)construed could be problematic, but the list itself, as written, is not really offensive.

Also, the lack of concreteness is a problem: #7,10, and 11 can all be summed up as gives me good feelings. Good feelings should be one point on the list, if that, because good feelings are what the list should be protecting someone from; not a quarter of the list itself.

Irrelevant side note on the comments debate on attractiveness: The lady who wrote this is extremely attractive, both subjectively and objectively; a solid 9 at least (but I’m partial to blondes). On the other hand, I find Angelina Jolie unattractive, while I recognize she’s probably objectively attractive. There’s something I can’t quite identify about the fat lips that I find off-putting and her eyes always seem to look either cold, hard, or dead, none of which is attractive in a woman.

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I’ve created a list of indicators of a good wife and mother on here before and in rel life I made a list of my minimum requirements for a wife. I’m not sure where I left the RL list, so I’ll try to recreate it here.

1) Christian – I am not too particularly worried about denomination, as long as it is non-heretical and non-liberal (but I repeat myself). I would even be willing to seriously consider converting to Catholicism and Orthodoxy if that was important to her, given that I’ve been leaning more in that direction over time.

2) Virgin, or has a low count but is genuinely repentant – My wife has to have a right view of sex. A virgin would be ideal, but I would not absolutely rule out a low count non-virgin if I knew she was honest about it and genuinely repentant and had enough positive traits to make up for the deficit.

As I’ve said before, I find the problem with marrying a genuinely repentant ex-slut is how accepting the church is of female fornication. When even “Christian” women accept the slut culture, how much can you trust a woman’s repentance?

3) Sufficiently attractive and healthy – Essentially, is she attractive enough to arouse me to the degree sufficient to desire and enact the procreative act and will she be so 20 years down the road? Is she healthy? Healthiness and attractiveness are strongly interrelated, hence why they do together here. It’s not a particularly high bar; most white or Asian women who take care of themselves would probably meet it.

(Note: #3 effectively rules out marrying outside of the white or Asian races, as I am generally not attracted to any but the most unattainably attractive women from non-Asian minorities).

4) Pleasant – Is she a joy to be around or is she a pain?

5) Not stupid – My wife needs to be someone I can genuinely converse with. She doesn’t have to be super-intelligent, I phrased this point as I did on purpose, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life exasperated with and rolling my eyes at everything she says. Also, included under this would be sufficiently low time preference that she would not take drastic, unthinking actions that could destroy.

6) Not emotionally volatile – I am a calm, non-emotional INTJ. I simply can’t handle emotional outbursts all that well.

7) Prioritizes motherhood, family, and children – My wife who primary earthly goal will be motherhood and the family and she will need to be willing to have many children (I don’t have a non-negotiable number of children, but she’d have to be one amazing prize for it to be fewer than four).

8) Good mother – This is kind of vague, but does she demonstrate traits that indicate she would make a good mother?

9) Believes in traditional Biblical marriage – She needs to accept the model of marriage provided in the Bible. I am willing to date a Christian without this, given the sad reality of modern thought on marriage, but she must convert to this model before we marry. She also must be willing and eager to take my last name, no hyphens.

10) Willingness to homeschool – My children are not going to public school. Out of all of these this is the weakest on the list; it’s on the border between non-negotiables and strong preferences; I considered moving it to the top of my preferences list. I would be willing to accept alternatives such as Catholic private school or possibly Montessori education.

11) Responsible/Reliable/Loyal/Disciplined – Essentially, can she be relied upon. Marriage is essentially a business partnership based around running a household with the added bonus of sex; so, would I be willing to run a business with her? Does she wastefully spend and get into debt? Can she be counted on to keep her word? Can I depend on her to be responsible for those areas under her care? Etc.

12) Under 30 – I’ve written about this before, so I won’t say much more here. Under 30 is required, under 25 is a high priority, but negotiable.

My original list had 13 requirements, so this is not exactly the same, but I can’t think of anything that’s missing. The difference is probably because I mixed a few requirements together in this list that were discrete in the original.

Now, I don’t think I’ve made a list that is unreasonable. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that 100 years ago 90% of the single, white, Christian female population would have met this list. Even 50-60 years ago, I’m sure more women than not would have met this list (excepting some of the religious requirements).

In this fallen age, most women would not meet my list, but I think that says more about the decline of our civilization than any unreasonableness on my part.

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Lastly, what do I bring to marriage. I’ll start with Donal’s LAMPS:

1) Looks – I’m tall and broad-shouldered, with a decent jawline. I have some muscle mass but I also have a bit of a gut. I’ve been told I’m handsome by a number of older women from church and my family’s social circles; I’ve never really inquired about it from women my own age. I’d guess I’m above average in this regard (but one must always remember the Dunning-Kruger effect).

2) Athleticism – I participate in a few sports, but they are less intense ones, and a martial art. I started lifting recently, but my lifts so far are not all that spectacular. I have a strong handshake and have decent burst capabilities but I’ve always had low endurance; but it’s been improving these last few years. Again, above average.

3) Money – I have a respectable, but not particularly exciting, middle class government job. I’m not yet 30, but I have a salary significantly above my province’s average. My salary is about average, maybe small amount above, for my peer group. I own my own home, have a decent amount of savings, and have a gold-plated government pension. There is a good chance my current career path could lead to six figures by retirement.  Above average here.

4) Power – I am extremely confident, dipping into arrogant at times, but I am not particularly dominant and rarely take the lead due to my introverted nature and my natural apathy to the social hierarchy. I’m working on becoming more dominant though. Probably below average here.

5) Status – I have no idea. I have a respectable but unexciting job. I generally have the respect of my elders; among my peers, I’m thought of as a bit of a right-wing nutball. I’m Probably average to below average here.

Overall, I’m probably average to somewhat above average (hopefully, Dunning-Kruger isn’t rearing its head).

I scored a 4 on Roissy’s Dating Market Value Test, lumping me in the Classic Beta category.

As for the counterpart to my list above:

I am a conservative Christian who believes in traditional marriage Biblical marriage, a virgin (but I do have struggles with pornogrphy), moderately attractive and rather healthy. I am intelligent and emotionally controlled (perhaps too emotionally controlled, according to some). I earn enough to be an excellent provider.I’m also responsible, loyal, disciplined, etc.

I’m probably not very pleasant, but I am fairly easy-going. My major deficits are my social skills are sub-par, I am devoid of charisma, and many women find my views of marriage, society, politics, religion, etc. off-putting.

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So, am I worthy and capable of achieving the marriage partner I desire?

I’m not sure, but for now I’ll keep trying and improving myself and we’ll see.

Omega’s Guide – Women

We come to the last part of our guide, learning basic interaction with women. I left this for last on purpose; being attractive to women is primarily about demonstrating value to them and the prior advice will turn you into a (more) valuable man. (Game, or at least outer game, succeeds by mimicking the traits that demonstrate value; better to be than to mimic). If you’ve been implementing the previous parts of the guide, your value will already have increased, and you may have already noticed more success (or at least less failure) with women.

Before I begin, I’m going to be honest with you, as I’ve been rather uncomfortable about writing this part. I am mostly a failure in this area; I’m not sure if I’m even qualified to write this, but I have to, because this part is essential to any self-improvement guide for awkward males.

So, you should know that I’m not a player, a master of seduction, or any such thing. I’m not even all that successful with women. In fact, my romantic efforts have proven mostly fruitless in finding myself a wife and I haven’t been in a relationship in about four years. Everything I write here is stuff I’m still working on implementing (theory is a lot easier than practice).

What I do have is experience from being a total loser who wasn’t even in the dating game to having some success. I went from, literally, not being to speak with most women to, a couple of years later, having a couple short relationships. Now, I get occasional dates (one every few months) with moderately attractive women (6-8s). A vast improvement over the nothing I had prior.

So, the advice given here is not about game, it is not about becoming an alpha male, and it’s not about becoming king of the club. This advice will not help you find a smoking-hot 9 for a girlfriend or keep a rotating harem of 8s. I do not have the knowledge or experience to help you with that. If you’re looking for something like that try Roosh or Greene.

What this advice will help you accomplish is to go from being the loser who hasn’t had a date in three years (or ever for that matter) or is forced to date fat or unattractive girls to being a normal, socially well-adjusted man who can get the occasional date with a cute girl and, maybe, a moderately attractive girlfriend. If you’re the kind of person I’m making this guide for, that will be a large improvement over whatever you had (or more likely didn’t have) previously. Even if you’re not as total a loser as I was, some of the advice still might be useful to you.

This advice will not get into game in the sense of gimmicks, tricks, or “mind-games. It is simply about building yourself the social skills to be the kind of man a women of decent value might like to be with.

It will take a lot of work, and it will be a slow, grinding process. Don’t give up, keep trying. Simply remember how psyched you have been and will be in the future when you find yourself doing something you never thought you’d be able to do.

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Before we being, we’ll talk on the friendzone, a trap many men near the bottom of the socio-sexual hierarchy fall into.

The friendzone is a self-inflicted misery; stay out of it. If you value a woman as a friend, and only as a friend, be her friend and expect and desire nothing else. If something happens, it happens, but do not work towards it, do not look for it, do not desire it, and do not expect it.

It is highly unlikely you will get a relationship out of a friendzone friendship and it is very costly in terms of time and emotional effort. It is simply not something any reasonable person would pursue.

So don’t.

If you are friends with a women because you want a romantic relationship with her, then be forthright. Next time you see her, tell her straight, “I desire a romantic relationship with you. I can not remain friends with you because of my romantic emotions towards you.”

Maybe you’ll get a romantic relationship, maybe you won’t, but it is far better for you (and her) if you are rejected and end the “friendship”

If you don’t get the relationship, simply cut off the “friendship”. Stop spending time, resources, or emotional energy on her. You have better things to do with all three than waste it on a forlorn and pointless hope. Do not try to change her mind (you won’t); simply accept the rejection and move on.

If she asks why you cut her off, tell her the truth. You want a romantic relationship with her, not a friendship.

You can be friends with a woman, but only if the friendship is the end in itself. If the friendship is a means to a romantic relationship, it’s not a friendship; end it.

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The next little trouble many men who are are socially maladapted fall into is that of “nice guys finish last” while jerks get the girls.

The problem with this type of thinking is twofold: “nice” and “good” are not equivalent and the underlying factor is not jerkiness/niceness but rather a combination of manliness, charisma,and desperation.

Whatever their other flaws, the jerks who get women exude masculinity, which attracts women and often charisma (of a sort); they also rarely exude desperation. “Nice guys” are generally deficient in both, as rather than assert their own purposes, they defer to other’s, particularly women’s, purposes. This is decidedly unmasculine. Nice guys often also lack charisma, it’s boring to have someone who is always nice and agreeable with you and never challenges you.  Being nice often gives of a vibe of desperation as well. As with the friendzone predicament, if you’re willing to do many nice things for a woman, she will see you as trying to “buy” her affections because you are desperate for his attention.

You want to avoid that, but that does not mean you have to become a “jerk”. Simply, try to be a man with your own purposes and make those purposes good ones.

Be a good man dedicated to good causes; don’t be a nice guy willing to defer to everyone else.

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With that friendzone and nice guys nonsense out of the way, we’ll get to the actual meat of the issue.

The first thing you need to do is decide, “what kind of woman do I want?” and “for what purposes?” What kind of woman or women do you want to invite into your ideal life?

“I’ll take whatever I can get” is the wrong answer. It shows both that you are low value and that you are desperate for female attention, both of which are inner failings on your part which will repel women.

Women want a man of high value; what type of high value each woman will care for will depend on her particularity, but all women want a man of high value. The type of women you want to date will likely be of high enough value to be able to demand that.

Also, every women wants to feel like she was chosen because she’s “special.” If she thinks you stuck with her because she’s the only one you could get, she’ll reject you (unless she’s such low value herself that she thinks you’re the best she can get).

So, now be honest with yourself, what kind of woman do you want in your life? What kind of relationship(s) would you like to have?

Think on it a bit.

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Now that you have an idea of what you want, picture the type of man who has what you want. Look around at your friends, your church, your neighbourhood, your social group, etc. What type of men have the kind of woman you want?

Be that type of man.

Success with women starts well before you even say hi to any women.

It starts by being the type of man the type of woman you desire would desire.

This is nowhere near as easy as the little phrase makes it sound, but it’s the goal. You may never reach it, but work towards it.

I’ll repeat it, because I can not stress this enough:

To be successful with women, you should first be successful with the other areas of your life. Success is attractive to women.

There is no secret to attracting women, there is no shortcut, there is no magic technique; to attract a women simply requires

So keep on improving in all the other areas I’ve already written about.

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One last piece of theory before we get to practice.

Know your value on the dating market and act accordingly. If you are a short, ugly man, you will likely never get a “9” (barring becoming a billionaire). On the other hand, with enough self-improvement, social skills, and value-building you might get a nice “7”.

If you spend all your time pursuing those 9s who will always reject you, but ignore that sweet little 7 with a crush on you, you will die alone.

Shoot for something attainable, but don’t settle. You want to work on finding a women on the upper edge of what you are able to obtain.

Look for a winning hand, not a perfect hand. If you hold out for a royal flush, you’ll almost surely lose, but that three of a kind will let you take the pot.

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Theory is over, now for more practical advice.

The first thing you need to do is to talk with women. You’ll never get any romantic success if you don’t start talking with women.

Start with that girl you’ve been mooning over for the past 6 months, but have been unable to talk to (you know full well who I’m talking about). Next time you see her, go up to her, say “Hi, how’s your week been?” Then simply follow along, nod your head where appropriate, and ask questions or interject with your own stories (if you can). Let her carry most of the burden of conversation.

Your first time will probably be pathetic and you’ll probably be scared the whole time.

Good; face the fear.

Next time you see her, do the exact same thing, but a little better. The next time, do the same thing. From now on every time you see that girl, go up to her, ask her how her week (or day, or month, or whatever) has been, and try your best to talk along. (Remember your Dale Carnegie).

After a few weeks have gone by and you’ve talked with her a few times, ask her out. It’s simple: “Would you like to go for coffee (or in summer, ice cream) with me this Friday at 7?”

She’ll probably say no because you didn’t interest her enough with your pathetic attempts at conversation. Accept that she’s going to reject you before you ask and don’t worry about it.

She’s rejected you: that’s great. I know it hurts, but what is far more important is that you tried, you asked her out.

Accept her answer, accept that she doesn’t like you, hurt for a few days or a week or two. Then get over it.

One woman rejected you and there are millions of cute girls out there. Go find another one.

If there is a women you moon over, who you already talk with regularly, just ask her out. A simple, “Wanna go for coffee with me Tuesday night at 6?” will do. See my advice in the friend zone section above.

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So now we’re at the point where you don’t really have any girl you particularly like, because “she” rejected you.

Good. Time to meet some women.

If you’ve been following along in the guide so far, you’ve probably been meeting lots of new people at your new social activities; I’m sure at least a few of them are pretty girls. Talk to them.

Do exactly what you did with the first girl. “Hi? How has your week been?” Nod where appropriate, ask questions about her (remember your Dale Carnegie), and talk when you can.

Your conversations with women will be awkward and painful at first. Don’t expect success right away. Simply talk as best you can. Every conversation you have will make you slightly better at it. Over time, without even really realizing it, you’ll become proficient. Just keep at it.

Talk with as many girls as you can. The more practice the better.

If you develop a particular fondness for a girl after a few conversations, simply ask her out. Same as above: “Let’s go for coffee for Sunday afternoon.”

You’ll probably get rejected a number of times before you get success. That’s fine, simply accept it and move on.

Don’t get too attached to any particular girl. If you find yourself getting attached to a girl, ask her out. From personal experience I know it is far less painful to be rejected immediately then to drag it out.

Keep talking to the girls in your social circles and keep asking out the ones you like; keep getting rejected.

As you do this, remember what you learned about body language and try (as best you can) to observe the body language of the girls you talk to. It can be a great help to pick up on her tells of whether she’s attracted to you or not.

Then, at some point one will accept your offer of a date.

****

So, now you have a date. Here’s how to go about a first date.

Depending on where you and her live and your transportation systems, you can either pick her up or meet her. Either works, but if she doesn’t have a car and you do either pick her up or meet near her. She will not appreciate having to bus or walk long distances to meet you.

Arrive on time, but do not arrive more than a minute or two early (wait in the car or around the corner if you have to). Arriving early makes you seem desperate and is rather awkward for her. If you’re picking her up, get out of your car and get her; don’t just sit outside and honk.

A good general idea for first dates is gelati/ice cream in the summer or hot chocolate/coffee in the winter for a few reasons:

  • They’re cheap, this avoids the “who pays?” awkwardness. $4 coffee won’t cause you much fiscal pain and she won’t feel bad about it. Simply pay for both of you; don’t ask her, don’t consult her. Simply tell the clerk you’re paying for both of you and ignore her “objections”.  Pay in cash if possible; little will be more embarrassing than your debit not working because the bank is undergoing maintenance.
  • The atmosphere around these is relaxed, unlike dinner dates which are more formal, and ideal for talking, unlike movies.
  • Girls love ice cream; I’ve never met a girl who didn’t like ice cream (or a vegan alternative). Go for gelato if you can though. It’s enough like ice cream that everybody loves it and it won’t be off-putting, but just foreign enough that a lot of girls haven’t tried it, giving you a tiny amount of “worldly man” edge.
  • Everybody loves hot chocolate on a cold day; it just feels right. Most places that serve coffee serve hot chocolate and vice versa. Order the hot chocolate, and let her choose whatever drink she wants.

When choosing an ice cream/coffee place choose one that is either near a larger park or is in a “walkable”, attractive neighbourhood, preferably a place you’ve been around before.

Once you have your beverages, don’t sit down, instead, go for a walk through the park/ neighbourhood. This has a few advantages:

  • You’re doing something. Awkward pauses in conversation are far less awkward when you can both simply walk and admire the scenery.
  • Walking lends itself far easier and more naturally to playfulness and energy than sitting at a table or on a couch.
  • The scenery lends itself to creating conversation topics. Point out the cool looking dog, laugh at the garish colours of that odd house, remark upon that beautiful tree; whatever. There’s a lot more to talk about when walking around then when sitting down.
  • If you know the area, if lends itself well to telling stories showing you have a full life (which is attractive to women). You can talk about the great pizza you had with your friends at Luigi’s, about the soccer game you won at the field over there, about that amusing story with your friends at that pub, or whatever other experiences you’ve had.

Note: If it’s winter or a blustery day, make sure to mention to her that you plan on going for a walk either when you ask her out or when you pick her up so she can dress appropriately. The walk will not happen if she’s not dressed for it.

Now that you’re out walking, what to talk about:

  • Do not talk about politics, economics, religion, or other controversial issues unless she brings it up first or you know (for certain) that she’s really interested in them. If you both share the same core religious beliefs, you can talk about that, but avoid deep theology, unless, of course, she brings it up.
  • Do not talk about your hobbies that women find boring (ex. video games, science fiction, Warhammer), unless you know she shares those interests. You can mention them if she asks what you like to do, but don’t spend any time on them. Nobody cares about your lvl 17 Orc Paladin.
  • Avoid talking about your job, unless it’s very interesting. If she asks mention it, but most of use have relatively uninteresting jobs; don’t bore her by dwelling on them.
  • Do ask questions. Ask about her about herself, her family, her hopes, her dreams, her hobbies, etc. (remember your Dale Carnegie), but avoid it being an interrogation. After you ask about her family, tell her a bit about yours or remark about . If you find yourself asking two questions in a row you’re probably doing it wrong.
  • Talk about yourself. Let her get to know you. Talk about your (interesting) hobbies, your sports, your family, your recent trip, what you read recently, your friends, etc. But make sure to include her in the conversation; if you’ve been talking for more than few minutes without her saying anything (unless it’s a long, but good story) you’re doing it wrong.
  • Talk about stuff you see or stuff going on around you.

All these conversation “rules” are solely to help you get conversation started (or restarted after an awkward pause). Once it’s started, let the conversation flow naturally. If you’ve got a good conversation going don’t ruin it by trying to hard or trying to stick to a set of rules. Simply go with the flow.

End the date at the right time. If things are going well and conversation is flowing, keep going, let the date continue, don’t cut it off when things are going well. On the other hand, if there’s a natural end point and you’re running out of things to say, end the date. (Ex: “There’s my car” or after a longer pause “I have things to do, we should head back”)

Don’t try to awkwardly prolong the date; end it a bit before it becomes awkward, and try to end it naturally.

Finally we get to parting. If you’re dropping her off, get out of the car and walk her to her door. If you met up, walk her to her car or bike. If you both walked, don’t just awkwardly walk away; make a definite part.

So how do you part?

That depends on a large number of factors such as how well the date went, your comfort level, her apparent comfort level, how much you like her, her apparent like for you, and your (and her) views regarding physical intimacy.

Whatever it is do not draw it out. Once you are at the parting point, make it short, a few sentences and a parting hug/kiss. Do not keep blathering away like an idiot; it makes things awkward.

If you don’t want to see her again, a hug or handshake, and a thanks for the date will suffice. Do not tell you’ll call her if you won’t. Thank her for the date and tell her you enjoyed meeting her.

If you do want another date, then tell her you enjoyed the date. Then either tell her when and how you’ll contact her again (something like, “I’ll call you in the next couple days) or if you know your schedule, lock down the next date (“I’d like to see you again, how about next Friday night?”).

Follow this with some physical contact, depending on how the date went and your comfort level. A few types of contact are always bad, such as a parting handshake or a side hug (the way I too often end a date). Here’s some good types of physical contact to end a date with:

  • A full kiss. This is high risk. If you go for this and get it, you can be sure the date went well, but not all girls are comfortable with it and there’s a good chance it could flame out. As well, some, such as myself, may think it is too high a physical ecalation for such an early time. Go for this if you’re both really digging each other and you’re comofrtable with it. If she turns her cheek, that’s fine; if she pushes away you’ve blown it.
  • A full hug. This is the safe move; it’s neutral and won’t win you any points but its positive, will rarely be rejected, and won’t lose you points (except among the most licentious of women). Make sure you lead and make it a confident chest to chest press with both your arms around her. Don’t lean over, don’t fumble awkwardly trying to avoid her breasts, don’t do a side hug, don’t make it awkward, and don’t be tenative about it. Commit to it fully and just go for it. Hold it for two or three seconds, but no longer.
  • A light kiss on the forehead or top of the head. This has some intimacy to it and can be positive, but it has a sort of paternalism to it, which may backfire on you.
  • Take her hand and give a light kiss the back of her hand, like an old school gentleman. This is usually positive, as it harkens back to chivalry and most women get a little giddy from that, but the traditionalness of it can occasionally backfire, especially with more feminist women.
  • A peck on the cheek. Fairly safe for a date that has gone well. It shows a bit of intimacy, but is not as forward as the full kiss. It can possibly end awkwardly depending on how conservative she is or if she’s not as in to you.

Then tell her “See you later” and part. Don’t wait around after the goodbye contact; it makes things awkward.

****

Now you have a second date (or third or fourth, your first few dates should all be similarly casual and give you the chance to get to know each other).

Choose something else relaxed, fun, and inexpensive, preferably something you know she likes. In a pinch, ice cream can work again, but may look a little stale.

  • If you share a hobby, doing that together would be a great idea.
  • Minigolf is good. It’s fun and relaxed. So is bowling.
  • A hike in the woods, a stroll in a large park, or a walk at the zoo or aquarium can be a good adventure. It’s relaxing, fun, and there’s plenty of interesting stuff to see, talk about.
  • Ice skating is great for the winter; it allows a great interplay between playfulness and getting to know each other.
  • Museums, art galleries, etc. can be a good trip. Make sure to choose something she might be interested in.
  • If you have a local touristy area, checking that out can be a good idea. You can walk around, admire the sites, check out the stalls, and have some casual snacks.

All of these can also work well as first date ideas.

After the first few dates, you can try dinner and a movie or, even better, cook her a meal and watch movies at your place.

After that, you’re on your own. You should know enough about her by this point to be able to figure out how to spend time together. Let things work from there.

****

Lastly, cold approaches.

This is not something you’ll be able to do right away and will always be troublesome. You’ll probably need to build up to it. I still have difficulties with it. But here’s some exercises to help you build up to it.

Start by simply looking girls in the eye and smiling (make it a confident smile), as you pass them in the streets. In fact, try to make it a habit. Do this for every girl you see for two weeks.

The next two weeks, do the same, but say hi as well. Then keep walking (unless she makes a point to start a conversation with you; in which case talk to her).

The following two weeks, do the same, but if she smiles or says hi back, ask her how her day is going.

The following two weeks, if you see a girl you think is really pretty talk to her. If the clerk at Target is cute, as her about her day. Ask the gal on the bus what she’s reading or where she’s going. Ask the girl in line with you at the coffee shop how her day has been.

If any at any time, these turn into real conversations, and it seems like she might be interested, ask for her number.

If you get it, phone her two days later and set up a date. Then go to first date protocol.

Start small, and work your way up.

****

Random Tips

  • Remember your Dale Carnegie: smile. When interacting with women, be happy, be energetic, be positive. Nobody is attracted to the morose loser. (The brooding loner can be attractive if pulled off right; but if you need my help, you aren’t going to pull it off right).
  • Remember your body language. If you can’t be confident, at least look it. Also, look to women’s body language. I can not stress enough the importance of body language.
  • Take advantages of opportunities. If a girl says she really wants to go to a new restaurant, or see a new museum exhibit, or visit some place, or try some activity, she’s handing you an opening, use it. It’s a simple, “That does sound like fun, how about we go see that local play next week?” If she hands it to you, take it.
  • No movies or dinner for your first few dates. Save movies until after you’ve known each other a while, because they don’t let you to talk during them. Save dinner until you’re actually dating, as it costs a lot, is too stereotypical (and thus “boring’), and looks try-hard.
  • Don’t be desperate. Avoid phoning her more than once a day, and don’t phone her more than once between each date for your first half-dozen dates. Don’t text her twice in a row. After a date, wait a day or two before contacting her again. You can relax on these rules once you’re in a steady relationship.
  • On the other hand, don’t go too far the other way. If you wait to long, she’ll simply not respond.
  • Try to be natural. Don’t try too hard, don’t look like you’re trying to hard. Don’t try to put on a false persona. Act natural and confident.
  • Practice. Social skills are like any other skill; you need to practice.
  • Keep eye contact.

****

Your goal:

Your goal for the week is to look every girl you pass in the streets in the eyes and smile at her.

Also, if you see “her” this week who you’ve been unable to talk to, ask her how her day is going.

If “she” is a friend or acquaintance you have talked to, ask her out.

One More Condom in the Landfill

I was reading through some advice columns again and came across this nugget. It’s your typical story, a decent, young guy likes a girl and gets in a relationship. She’s not feeling it, so he piles on the beta-provider behaviours, so she ends it. The guy is such a great bloke that the ex’s mom loves him enough to invite him to a family day at Six Flags as a friend (probably with the ulterior motive that her daughter will date the guy again). The kid asks whether he should go and if he can get her back. The story’s not particularly interesting, but the columnist’s response is.

You are right not to go to Six Flags with your ex and her family. You are right to give her space. And though I wish I could tell you that time and absence will make her heart grow fonder, the truth is it probably won’t. Because the thing with 20-year-old girls is that 80% of the time, they don’t go for the guy who takes a bus six hours so they don’t have to drive home alone and they don’t go for the guy who sends them rice pilaf in the mail or the guy whom their moms are crazy about. They go for the guys who ignore them and cheat on them and break their hearts. Not always, of course, but a lot of the time.

And for a while, it seems like no one is happy because guys like you are pining away for girls like your ex and those kinds of girls are pining away for someone else and everyone is sad and a little lonely and wishing they could just love the people who already love them back. The good news is that eventually the 20-year-old girls turn into 25-, 30-, 35-year-old women and they’re tired of longing for the guys who don’t treat them well. And they long for the kind of guy who will go on a family vacation with them and help them move and bring them their favorite food. And you’re going to be in luck when that happens because you’re going to have your pick of the litter. In about 5 years or so, the kind of girl you like is going to be looking for someone exactly like YOU. And then it’s all just going to be a matter of timing to find the right match.

I know that doesn’t help you much now. It doesn’t do much to soothe your broken heart and make you feel less alone. And the only thing I can say to that is that it WILL get better. As long as you remain the sweet, thoughtful guy you are — the kind of guy moms love and girls want as their “friend,” it won’t be too long before they’re going to want so much more than that. And who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and you’ll find the rare breed of young woman who has no interest in dumb games and already understands the value of a guy who wants nothing more than to be a great boyfriend.

This has been said a thousand times around these parts, but I’m pointing it out again:

If you are decent guy, most everybody expects you to get shit on romantically and just take the lumps for a decade, then get the used-up, washed-out, emotionally-wrecked left-overs of the assholes’ pillaging.

Wendy just dismisses this, like it’s just the way it is. There’s no condemnation of the attitude, no real thought as to how thoroughly poisonous this is.

Does nobody else think there’s something disastrously wrong with this attitude?

Does nobody realize what a destructive message this sends to young men?

Does anybody even care?

How can we just casually accept that anti-social assholes get the prize, while the decent, honest builders and maintainers of civilization get the dregs, if they’re lucky?

This is how civilization dies, tiny cut, by tiny cut.

****

A commenter illustrates this perfectly:

this reminds me a lot of my own relationship as i left for college. my boyfriend was a wonderful person, and i just… didnt want to do it anymore.
…
above all, dont do what my exboyfriend did: he became a total douche. i dont know what happened, if his heart was broken so much, or if he would have turned that way regardless, but when he went off to college the year after me, he could give a shit about studying and almost failed out his first year after being top in his class, he started dating my good friend and then cheated on her all the time (and continues to, i think? yikes), after never wavering with me ever… i mean, at my joint birthday dinner, he was talking about how this random girl just started having sex with him on the lawn in front of some house at a college party. he was not that person when i knew him. so, just be you. dont get jaded, dont intentionally change just to become something you believe that girls want or whatever- just be you, and you will find someone who genuinely wants to be with you.

He’s the douche?!?

He’s just a normal guy who realized the score, being a good guy gets you rejected and your heart destroyed for no real reason at all.

Being a “douche” gets you you easy sex with strangers at a party; it gets you a loyal woman who sticks with you while you jam your cock into all varieties of foreign vagina.

She’s the one who torched a perfectly good relationship with a wonderful man so she could get her holes plugged by assholes in college. Yet, somehow he’s the douche for wanting to be one of the assholes doing the plugging rather than the loser on the outside watching the girl he loved get plugged?

You get what you incentivize.

If you learn nothing else of economics, of politics, of sociology, of psychology but this one fact, you have more understanding than most of the fools with doctorates and fancy titles. If you never get anything else from this blog, remember that phrase:

You get what you incentivize.

If you incentivize douchebaggery, you get douches. If you incentivize decency, you get decency. If being a decent fellow gets you a broken heart and being a douche gets you blown by young co-eds, any rational man is going to be douche.

So, we have more douches who fail to do do anything useful for civilization because who cares? when being an ass is enough to get you sex. We have fewer decent guys willing to pick up the burden of civilization because all it gets you is heartache and loneliness.

Thus, civilization dies as parasitism becomes the norm.

****

What’s especially, ironically funny is that a good portion of the letters at Wendy’s site are some variation of “how do I get my boyfriend to commit to me?”

These short-sighted women don’t even realize they’re destroying their own chances of commitment by rejecting the commitment-minded types in their youth and chasing the douches.

So, to men here’s the warning: if you’re a decent, commitment-minded man, don’t ever commit to a woman over 30, and be wary of committing to a woman over 25. She had her chance when she was young; she chose some asshole over you (or some other decent fellow like you) to give her youth to, why should you waste yourself on her now that its gone and she’s desperate.

No matter how much your girlfriend begs for commitment, no matter how much your mother pesters you for grandchildren, no matter how much shaming older women heap upon you, no matter how much your pastor demands you man-up, do not marry an older woman. They are simply not worth it.

If you want commitment go for those young women who are decent enough, smart enough, and love civilization enough to find a decent guy and marry young.

Demand more for yourself; demand better for yourself than the leftovers of assholes.

Demand better of the girl you want than someone who will let herself be the leftovers of the assholes.

To women, here’s the warning: if you love civilization, if you want to marry a decent, commitment-minded man, find him while you are young and don’t waste your youth on assholes. If you do, you could be one of those women in her mid-30s scheming over how to get their confirmed bachelor boyfriend to commit.

Demand better for yourselves than drunkenly blowing some cheating jackass on the lawn or being the cheated-on girlfriend.

****

I know this post and this story are not particularly insightful or novel.

It’s just another brick in the wall, just another condom in the landfill.

Just another decent young man whose heart was broken being told to suck it for a decade so he might have a shot at the leftovers.

Just another overlooked story of a once-great civilization dying, tiny, unnoticed piece by tiny, unnoticed piece.

When the last, violent, death throes of whatever is left of our civilization come, I’m going to revel in their suffering, for it will be well-deserved.

Let it burn.

An Example not to Follow

The above came courtesy of Roissy’s twitter feed.

I’ve been a bit busy lately, but here’s a short comment on the video.

Obviously the girl’s an adulteress and tries her best to reframe it as his fault, but nothing more needs to be said about that. We’ll focus on the guy.

He’s obviously geeky-looking, desperate, and weak.

He gets up some spine there at the beginning, than at about 1:15, you can hear his balls completely dissolve. What little self-respect he displays disappears when she phones his mother and he almost cries. He later does break down and cry, while wondering how she could possibly say he’s not man enough. Not everybody has self-awareness. He tried to to humiliate his wife and was himself humiliated.

Obviously, don’t be this guy.

He has two main problems that far exceed his generally dorkiness and from which his desperation and weakness flow.

His repeated refrain “I changed my life for you,” “I gave everything for you,” etc. He says this repeatedly, like she should be grateful.

Men need to know that just because you do something for a woman does not mean she will be grateful, it certainly does not mean she will be attracted to you. You could spend a year literally taking care of her while she’s bedridden, nearly dead, in the hospital and she will still have no gratitude and paint you as a creeper.

A woman does not want you to change for her, she does not want you to give up everything for her, whatever she may say. If you do, do not expect gratitude; she will probably despise you for it.

Be a man; stick to your mission. Girls are nice, but they are not the goal.

His second problem is his mental slavery to the approval of the women in his life. You can hear him absolutely shatter emotionally when she calls his mother. Throughout, he remains mostly calm, if very desperate and a bit angry, but you can hear in his voice that the core of his emotional world being sundered when the women phones his mom. At the end, the fact that she called his mom takes precedence over her calling him weak.

Throughout the video, even as he catches her red-handed cheating on him, he still is desperate for her approval. She leaves, he chases after her. Throughout he remains desperate for the approval of this adulteress.

Do not seek the approval of a woman, any woman. It is nice to have your mother, your wife, your girlfriend think highly of you, but that should not be your goal. It will lead to being a snivelling wreck of a “man” like him.

Two lessons: Do not change everything for your woman and do not seek the approval of women.

****

Side note, the fat homosexual makes this video worthwhile all on his own. Hilarious. (Although, he sounds like he might be mentally handicapped, which almost makes me feel guilty).

Christian Marriage

Man was created to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. It is not good for Man to be alone, so Woman was created from Man as Man’s helper. Once united in marriage the two become one flesh, indivisible. This union is as the union of Christ and the Church. The sex act, by itself, is enough to create this union. Any sexual relation outside of this union of this is a sin against God and against one’s own body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and is taken very seriously by God. Marriage is to be held in honour by all and the marriage bed is not to be defiled by sin.

The fall led to Man’s work being unyielding and ultimately fruitless and Woman’s submission being to a fallen Man who can never fully be what she needs. Yet, in Christ and His kingdom, Man can build a home eternal where his treasures never rust or decay. In Christ, Woman can submit to Man as to Christ.

Marriage is not eternal; it is made for this world. The dead and the resurrected do not marry for they cannot die. Marriage does not carry from this world to the next; marriage ends with death, and with death alone.

Some men are meant to be alone; they are made eunuchs by birth, by men, and for the sake of the kingdom. It is good for a man not to have sex and not to marry, for he can devote himself fully to the Lord. But not every man is given the gift to remain chaste, remember, Man was not meant to be alone. It is better to marry than burn with passion; if a man cannot exercise sexual self-control, he should marry. Each man unable to do so should each take his own wife. Both marriage and celibacy are good, neither is a sin, but neither Man nor Woman should primarily be focusing on either marriage or being free from marriage. Young women, particularly widows, are given extra encouragement to marry. One should not be burdened or restrained whatever one’s choice, as the choice of whether to marry is for a person’s own benefit, to best promote order and devotion to the Lord. Those who forbid marriage are deceitful; each man should live as he is called. The unmarried should be devoted to the Lord, while the married will necessarily split their devotion.

Marriage has two biblical purposes: to sate passion to avoid sin and for man to have a helper in his mission (to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth). In addition to the commandment to be fruitful, Women will be saved from responsibility for the fall through child-bearing. Any marriage taken should be for one, but optimally both, of these purposes.

To marry a divorced man or woman is to commit adultery. For a man to marry a prostitute or non-virgin or marry more than one woman is less sanctified and may prevent a man from having a position of leadership, but is not necessarily sin.

Christ is the head of man and the husband is the head of his wife for Woman was created for Man.  A wife is to submit in everything to her husband, as the Church to Christ, for the Church is Christ’s bride. No woman should have spiritual authority over a man, yet a wife has authority over her husband’s body, while the husband has the same over hers.  Likewise husbands should love their wives as Christ does the church and as they love their own bodies. A Christian’s submission to Christ and God is to be total and absolute, so should a wife’s submission to her husband. As well, Christ’s love for the church was absolute and self-sacrificing, so should a husband’s love for his wife. Neither man nor women are independent.

To divorce and remarry is sin. A woman is bound to her husband until he dies and a husband should not  divorce his wife, for it is to commit violence. There are only two acceptable justifications for divorce and remarriage: adultery and abandonment by a unbelieving spouse. Separation without remarriage and with attempts to reconcile is acceptable, but not recommended.

****

With all the discussion of marriage around these parts I decided to create a summary for myself of what I could find in the Bible on the issue.

Marriage is both a less important and more important than much of modern Christianity makes of it. It is less important In that being married is not necessary to the faith, as some seem to advocate.

But it’s more in that if you do become married, it is a major dedication for both men and women. Men are to be as Christ, women are to fully submit; there are no outs and there is Biblically no such thing as asking too much in a marriage, for either men or women. Also, Simon is right, Woman was created for Man, and a married woman does not submit to God and is not accountable to God, but to her husband.

The common manosphere meme of divorcing if your wife doesn’t provide sex does not seem to have any support, unless adultery is defined far more broadly than would seem prudent. You have to love her anyway.

So, before you marry, count your costs and be prepared to carry your cross. Biblically, it is a huge, irreversible step with very limited escape clauses.

Marketing Marriage

f you follow Dalrock you’ve seen is recent posts on this little advertisement on Mark Driscoll’s new man-up and marry series:

Dalrock has already pointed out the moral problems with the ad, I’m going to focus the advertisement aspects. Dalrock argues that the ad is aimed at churchian feminist woman, and I agree because otherwise, the proponents of marriage suck at advertising.

Instead of making marriage look like something men would want to pursue and would be willing to sacrifice for, they make it look horrible.

In the little skit in the middle, the man is the thoroughly henpecked, seemingly unhappy husband of a fat, dumpy, controlling wife. He’s so thoroughly beaten down that he’s afraid to have a little masculine bonding time with his son, with the video implying that there’s something wrong with him wanting to do so.

Watching this, my main thought was”is this really how they want to advertise marriage to men?”

I’m lean more towards the more pro-marriage part of the manosphere, but this would drive me away from marriage more than any other possible effect it could have. What kind of man would desire to become that husband?

What young man could possibly watch that and say, “yeah, I want to man-up and marry so I too can be a the ball-less husband of an ugly, dominating shrew who’s afraid to play pool with his son.”

C’mon guys. If you want men to man-up and marry how about making marriage look good? How about making marriage seem like a rewarding experience?

In fact, I’ll give you guys an awesome marketing campaign. A marketing idea this good would generally cost thousands of dollars from a slick New York agency, but I’ll give it to you for free because I love western civilization and we need working marriages to keep the remnant chugging.

Here’s my ad campaign for a man-up series:

It starts with an average-looking man in a suit, someone most guys could identify with, coming home from a day at the office. He looks kind of worn-out and stressed. He parks his car, sighs a bit, then walks up to his house. He opens the door.

The first thing seen when the door opens is his non-offensively pretty wife dressed femininely. She looks up from working in the kitchen and sees he’s stressed, so she comes up to him with a smile on her face and gives him a hug and quick kiss on the lips. She takes his bag and says, “Dinner is almost ready, why don’t you sit down?” He gets into his recliner and leans back, his stress visibly fading away. She joyfully brings him a small plate of freshly made cookies and some milk. He thanks her with an expression of mingled gratitude and relief and takes the cookie. While he snacks she says, “How about later…” and bends over and whispers something in his ear while brushing her hand up his leg. The man responds with a large, expectant smile.

Cut to her calling out that dinner is ready. The man goes to the table to find a delicious home-cooked meal of steak and potatoes, his cute, happy children run up to the table. His wife wipes the dirt smudges off of one of the rascals as they sit down. The man looks on proudly as he sits at the head of the table. His wife sits to his right. She looks at him with an expectant smile, her hand on his arm, and he proudly says grace for the family.

During the prayer fade to black and end with the tagline: Worth being a man for.

Boom. I’d want buy that product. I don’t know a man who wouldn’t.

I’d happily man-up to come home to that; I’d happily work 70 hour weeks to come home to that; I would happily sacrifice quite a bit to come home to that. So, would most men. Most men would willingly sacrifice their left nut for that.

So, some marketing advice to Mr. Driscoll. If you want men to man-up and marry, make marriage seem like something rewarding for men.

McDonald’s doesn’t sell cheeseburgers by having a fat, ugly man eat them in his dingy basement while playing WoW and sobbing to himself. They sell cheeseburgers by showing groups of realistically attractive people having fun together while eating cheeseburgers.

Likewise, you don’t make men desire to man-up and marry by showing marriage as a demasculating process of having your pride, virility, and freedom slowly drained from you by an ugly, domineering shrew. You make men want to get married by showing marriage as a refuge from the cares of the world occupied by a pretty, loving, nurturing woman.

Then again, my campaign might be false advertising for most men. Driscoll might get sued.