Tag Archives: Advice

Introduction to the Omega’s Guide

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ve noticed my contributions have generally been theoretical rather than practical. The reason being I am still a beta slowly working on self-improvement (with as much failure as success), rather than the patriarch I plan to be, and am thus not in a position to provide much practical advice on becoming alpha with any authority.

On the other hand, I think there is one area where I can offer some solid advice that is lacking. I have found that most of the advice in the manosphere is geared towards the beta, the average man of moderate social abilities with a circle of friends and the occasional success with woman. Very rarely is advice given that is addressed to the omega, the man with no social abilities, few, if any friends, and no success with women. I have mentioned I used to be an omega, in both the conventional and Voxian sense, who through years of effort, hard-work, and self-improvement became a better version of myself,  so I think I can help fill this gap.

Thus begins part one of the Omega’s Guide to Not Being a Loser (maybe someone can help me think of a better title).

First, some information on what this guide is and is not. This is not a guide for becoming an alpha male admired by all; it is a guide for becoming a socially functional member of society. This guide will not help you score dozens of chicks, but it will help you talk to girls and get the occasional relationship. This guide will not make you a leader of men, but it will help you acquire a circle of friends. This guide will not help you rule the club each weekend, but it will help it so that you have social activities to attend most weekends. This guide is not about changing who you are, but rather making you a better, happier, more fulfilled version of yourself; I am not trying to make an introvert into an extrovert, but even the most introverted need some social interaction.

This guide is for the omega, the loser, the socially maladjusted who wants to better himself and get more out of life.

How to tell if this guide is for you:

  • You spend most of your Friday and Saturday evenings at home playing video games or surfing 4chan rather than spending time with friends.
  • You have few friends, wish you had more, but don’t know how to make some.
  • You have few social activities that aren’t church, work, or school related; ie. places where people are more or less forced to accept you.
  • You spend 30-40 or more hours a week on the internet or video games.
  • You are unable to carry on a decent conversation with strangers, ie; Anything beyond “Hi.” “How are you?” “I’m doing well.” is awkward, if it happens at all.
  • You have unable to carry on a conversation with a girl.
  • You are unable to initiate a conversation with a girl.
  • You have liked a girl for months (years) and have never talked with her beyond the occasional hello or perfunctory, “How are you?”
  • You are miserable and lonely, but have no idea how to fix it.
  • You feel incapable of reading other people’s emotional states and the actions and emotions of other people confuse you.
  • You often bored with life in general.

Do a fair amount of these honestly apply to you? If they do, you are likely an omega and you are who this guide is aimed to.

Now, be honest with yourself. It may suck to acknowledge that you are on the bottom of the social hierarchy, but you can’t improve your life until you realize you have improving to do. You don’t have to tell me, but you do have to tell yourself.

So, this is the first step to no longer being a loser:

Acknowledge to yourself that you need to improve yourself.

It is not normal and not healthy to have no friends, to be lonely, to spend all your free times in your room alone on your electronic devices, and to be unable to talk to girls or strangers.

Don’t split hairs (I browse Reddit, not 4chan and three weeks ago I spent Saturday at Games Workshop). Don’t rationalize (I’m an introvert, I don’t need friends; I’m happy being alone). Don’t feel hopeless (why would anybody want to spend time with me?). You know perfectly well you are lonely and miserable and wish you could be different. So, let me help you help yourself.

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I have a loose plan for this project, but if you want something specific covered, feel free to ask.

With this series I am going to develop a plan to help Omegas and losers develop themselves into socially capable people with lives they can enjoy. Omegas (and Voxian gammas) are the target audience. If you are not an omega, I still feel free to read along, you might still get something out of it. As well, feel free to comment and provide any information you think may be relevant.

Once I’m done, I might compile the series into a pamphlet or short book if I think there is enough demand for it, and if I do so, I will use suggestions given to improve it.

Cable: The Cold, Dead Fire

This week I was reminded why I don’t have cable. I went on a two-evening business trip and was planning to do some reading in the evenings; I wanted to finish Economics in One Lesson and possibly Boston’s Gun Bible. I ended only getting most of the way through the former.

Why?

Both evenings, when I got back to the hotel room, I turned on the TV for what I planned to be a little relaxation before starting reading. The planned half hour, turned into an entire night. (I should have learned the first night, but didn’t).

Some of it I enjoyed, Duck Dynasty was very entertaining and filled with solid moral lessons; I do not regret watching a few episodes and wanting to watch a couple more was the reason I turned the TV on the second night. But in addition to Duck Dynasty, I ended up watching, among other shows, a multi-hour marathon of those storage auction shows, the movie Hook (which had a certain nostalgia value, but little else), and a few episodes of some retarded Nickelodeon comedy for teenagers, none of which I can say I actually enjoyed watching.

I’m fairly sure my books would have been not only more edifying, but also more entertaining, definitely moreso than the Nickoledean comedy. Yet, I watched these shows anyway.

I had this same problem back when I did have cable. It was so easy to sit down, then continue wasting away time even when I wasn’t enjoying myself or what I was watching. I would spend 15 minutes flipping through the channels, thinking to myself there’s nothing on. Then, thinking if I wait only 15 more minutes, new shows I like will be on. I could occasionally spend hours in this cycle of non-enjoyment

TV is manufactured to pulls at your senses and suck you in. After it sucks you in, it drains your energy and will to do anything else. The passivity of TV makes it unlike any other medium. Print require active reading, video games require active involvement, but TV requires nothing other than to lie down a shut up. It is so very easy to waste large amounts of time not enjoying yourself watching TV.

Cable makes it worse. With so much variety, it is always easy to find a show that is, if not entertaining, is barely watchable. It’s such a low threshold to reach, but the primal pull of the colours, the movement, the sound, the manufactured ‘relationships’, the ‘overheard’ conversation makes it difficult to resist the lure of the barely watchable. You are being manipulated on levels you are barely aware of; I was.

Cable TV is a soul-sucking distraction.

We could even say, it leaves you desouled, butthexed, and bernankified. lolzlollzozlolz

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This excerpt from Chapter 12 of the Screwtape Letters proves apt:

As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo (for that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure) you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”.

Is there any better expression of the compulsion to watch TV than that: “I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”

Can you think of anything worse to think to yourself at the end of your life? I can’t.

****

Now, this is not a blanket condemnation of TV; man should have some leisure and relaxation and some shows are genuinely worth watching even absent the entertainment value (I put Yes, Minister on the DE Reading List for a reason). But you should only watch, in moderation, what you actually enjoy or what may inform you or make you a better person.

Spending hours watching commercial-filled crap which meets the minimal requirement of not completely unwatchable simply because it pulls at at your laziness and other primal compulsions you don’t quite understand is a waste.

My advice, if you have cable or satellite TV get rid of it. If there’s a specific show you want to watch, stream it on Netflix or get the DVD’s, but having cable makes it far to easy to get sucked into a time-wasting vortex where you are neither entertained nor doing anything productive.

I’m almost glad I had that experience at the hotel, it reminded me of the cold dead fire. It reminded me of the dangers of cable and why I decided against it in the first place. It’s a lifeless, joyless way to waste your life.

Get rid of cable, buy a book, some ammo, or even some Simpsons DVD’s instead. You’ll get a lot more out of it.

Addressing Your N-Count

There was a strong reaction to a link I posted concerning some red pill women advising other women to lie about their N-count.The Ringmistress stated in the comments:

What I keep running up against is that while I can do a pretty good job arguing for remaining a virgin until marriage, I have no clue what a person who isn’t should say if they repent of their past and want to make a go at a chaste courtship.

So, as a young Christian man looking to find a wife, I’ll answer.

For any woman considering lying about how many men she slept with, the answer is always don’t (at least if you plan to have the relationship be long-term; if it’s a simple fling, it probably doesn’t matter).

I can not stress how important it is for women not to lie, dissemble, avoid answering, or otherwise conceal the truth about how many men they slept with prior to a partner they hope to be in a long-term relationship or marriage with.

A relationship built on a lie is not healthy. The truth will eventually come out (one of your friends will eventually accidentally mention Steve) and when it does, the consequences for lying will be what the consequences for lying usually are.

As for avoidant answers: any man with any self-respect and options who hears “it’s in the past”, “it’s none of your business”, “it doesn’t matter, I’m with you now”, etc. will consign you to the short-term, pump n’ dump, or just plain dump categories.

So, the question then becomes how should a woman inform a man she’s considering a long-term relationship with that she’s slept with many other men?

First, realize that he likes you. If he’s dating you and a long-term relationship is a realistic possibility, he is very favourably disposed towards you (or exceedingly desperate, but we’ll ignore that). A man in love with a women will look on anything she tells him in the best possible light; the haze of infatuation can cover many more sins than you possibly realize. If you address the issue properly, odds are it will cause some troubles (as sins do) but won’t end the relationship. If it would end the relationship, it is far better for it to occur now than during the engagement or after five years of marriage.

Don’t be afraid of telling him.

Second, don’t bring it up first. There’s no need to. If he asks, tell him, but some men honestly don’t care. If he doesn’t bring it up, there’s no need for you to go out of your way to volunteer the information apropos of nothing. If he doesn’t bring it up, and only if he doesn’t bring it up, he might simply prefer not to know or not care. If he doesn’t, don’t worry about it. If he does ask or even mention its, he definitely cares, so definitely tell him.

Third, be honest. Honesty is by far the most important thing. Do not lie, do not be evasive, don’t “be cute”, don’t underestimate, don’t exclude those times that ‘don’t count’, don’t conceal anything, etc. Tell the full and honest truth. Also, yes, oral sex and anal sex do count, as does sex that ‘didn’t mean anything’, one night stands, sex in foreign countries, and ‘just that one time in high school’. If it comes to mind, it counts.

Fourth, the exact number probably doesn’t matter, but do not lie about the number or give a false impression. Whether it was 6 or 8 likely won’t matter, whether if was 14 or 18 won’t matter. Unless he asks for a specific number, once it’s over five or so, the specific number if not really of importance, the range is. If it’s under five, just tell him the straight number. ‘Many’ is a legitimate answer for anything over 5 (‘a few’ is not; a few means less than five), but will likely prompt calls for clarification. ‘High single digits’ or the exact number works for anything under 10.  ‘About a dozen’ is a legitimate answer for anything from 10-15. ‘About 20’ will work for any number from 15-23. ‘A few dozen’ will work for anything over 24, but under 50. ‘Over 50’ or ‘over 100’ (really?) is sufficient for anything beyond that. You do not have to be specific, unless he asks for specifics, but you have to be truthful. If you would honestly use the descriptor in everyday life for the accurate measurement of the quantity of mundane things, then it’s fine to use as a descriptor here.

Fifth, realize exactly how important this issue is. You may try to delude yourself that it doesn’t matter, that it’s a small thing, etc. Many crooked souls and diseased minds will tell you the same. Do not listen to them. It matters.

If you’re a Christian, reading Deuteronomy 22 should be more than enough information on how important God views this issue as. Fornication is a sin against God, against yourself, and against your future spouse. Do not belittle exactly how sinful it is. All sin has worldly consequences; fornication is not an exception. There will be earthly consequences for violating God’s law.

If you are a non-Christian, know that the single biggest risk factor a woman has for divorce is the number of sexual partners she had prior to marriage. Having one premarital partner doubles the risk of divorce, two partners triples it. Sex has immensely strong neuro-chemical effects that bond you with sexual partners; the more you have bonded with, the less bonding will occur with further partners.

Whatever hedonists and libertines may tell you, having numerous sexual partners seriously hurts people’s abilities to bond with intimate partners. Your numbers prior to your current partner do matter. Do not take it less seriously than it deserves.

The amount of men you’ve had sex with does matter to your partner, it is his business, and he’s not being a judgmental asshole by asking. (The same goes for vice versa; men, if your long-term girl asks, answer truthfully). Trying to shame him into not inquiring as a short-sighted thing to do.

Sixth, be genuinely repentant. This matters a lot. Once you realize the gravity of your previous sinful actions, repentance should be your desire. You should be genuinely repentant and sorrowful that you have harmed your marriage through your actions prior to marriage and it should show through in both word and deed. There should be no pride, no excuses, no indignation that he would ask, no accusations of judgmentalism, no “born-again virgin” nonsense, etc. Simply ask his forgiveness. You should display be nothing but authentic remorse and humility for misguided actions. If you don’t feel genuine remorse and aren’t truly repentant, than you don’t understand the gravity of your prior actions. Read your Bible, particularly those sections on sexual sin, more and/or truly try to understand the statistics linked above until you do; you are not ready for marriage until you truly understand this.

Seventh, do not bring up prior partners with him outside of this specific discussion. Never compare him in bed to anyone else. Never talk wistfully about past partners. Never idly wonder out-loud about past partners. Don’t have any keepsakes. Etcetera, etcetera. It’s simple, never bring up anything that has to do with previous sex partners.

(The widow is an obvious exception. It is fine to keep some momentos of a dead spouse and to occasionally mention him, but still avoid comparisons. The other exception is in a serious, humble talk with other women, to show them the error of licentious living.)

Eighth, have no expectations or demands. You do not ‘deserve’ to have him marry you (and he does not ‘deserve’ you). Just because he forgives you, because God’s forgives you, does not mean that there are no consequences. He is completely justified in breaking it off for your past actions. Do not guilt him for his reaction, do not demand he remain yours, do not pressure him, do not question his manhood, etc. Simply be humble, ask his forgiveness, await his answer, and accept his decision.

That’s it. In a nutshell, be honest, be repentant, be discreet, and recognize your actions for what they truly are.

Realize that there will be earthly consequences. He might break-up with you, you will hurt him, you will be hurt yourself, there may be long-term distrust or other long-term issues. The earthly consequences of sin do not disappear simply because you are forgiven by God, or even if you are forgiven by man.

Of course, all this can be avoided by being chaste, that’s by far the better option if you ever want to marry.

Dating and Verbalization

I have received a request to write on a topic. I’m always willing to entertain ideas for discussion on this blog, and if I believe I have time and anything of value to write concerning the issue, I’ll put something up. So, if any of my readers have something they’d like to be addressed, feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment.

I was asked by smoothreentry:

I am interested in articles that discuss women acting one way, and freaking out if the obvious is verbalized. If you have written on the subject, or read a good article on it, I would appreciate being pointing in the right direction.

But I am talking about the phenomenon of women acting one way, and being okay with it as long as the elephant in the room isn’t verbalized. This characteristic is causing me much grief as I continue to date.

First, I would direct you to Rollo’s two pieces, Female Dating Advice and Just Get It. Essentially, what both argue is that women want you to know how to approach dating and relationships, to “just get it”, without having to be told. By being told what she desires, you kill the “naturalness” of the relationship.

Having read that, we can continue.

The modern woman (at least until she’s hit the wall and is desperate) does not choose a mate for such practical reasons as reliability, provision, protection, fatherhood potential, etc. She has a surrogate husband, the state, to take care of all those things for her.

Instead, what she is looking for is “chemistry.” By chemistry, she means she is sexually and emotionally excited by you. But the modern woman can’t call “chemistry” by its real name, sexual attraction, because sexual attraction is what shallow guys who are only after immature, big-titted sluts rather than mature, ‘real women’ feel. She’s not shallow, she’s looking for “chemistry”, which is much deeper than looking for some young, perky slut.*

That little mind game aside, she wants to feel chemistry; she desires you to sexually and emotionally excite her. To be sexually and emotionally excited, your romance has to feel “natural” to her. Deliberate romance feels “artificial”, and artificial love can’t be “true love”. If you have to work at it or verbalize, it kills the “chemistry”. You need to “just get it”.

Essentially, the modern women wants spontaneity, to be “swept off her feet”. She wants it to “just happen.” As soon as you start verbalizing things, then it is no longer just happening, it is planned; it has become artificial. Verbalized romance is no longer “true love” (under this warped definition of love) because it is no longer “natural”.

As per one of the original examples from smoothreentry, by calling a date, “a date”, you are robbing the date of all sponteneity. It has become planned and no longer feels natural.

I’m going to guess the same with the example of sleeping over at her house. The times you slept over at her place, it probably “just happened”. It felt natural. When you assumed you were sleeping over, you killed the spontaneity of the sleeping over at her house. It became planned, and was no longer romantic. She didn’t feel excited about it.

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“Chemistry” is not the only possible reason, there’s also the issue of dating scripts. Back before contraception and feminism destroyed modern relationships, there were accepted dating scripts for society. While the details might differ between people, there was a general, socially accepted way of doing things. You’d go on a date: dinner, a movie, a walk in the park. You’d kiss on the third date, then you’d start going steady a date or two after. After dating for a year or two, you’d ask her hand in marriage, then get married, have kids, etc. Physical intimacy would escalate in conjunction with both emotional intimacy and commitment. Before this script other, more patriarchal, scripts existed, but there was usually a script of some sort.

There is no longer any generally accepted dating script, or societally accepted ways of doing things. Commitment, emotional intimacy, and physical intimacy have all be completely delinked. Depending on the individual, sex might occur on the first date, the third date, without a date at all, in a relationship, or not until marriage. Dating has been replaced by hook-ups, at least for some people at some times. Marriage has been replaced with common-law relationships, at least for some people. FWB has both physical intimacy and (maybe) emotional intimacy, but no commitment. The increased acceptance of close inter-sexual friendships creates emotional intimacy without physical intimacy or commitment. There is no accepted script; just chaos.

Everybody, including you and the girls acting weird, are all making it up as they go along. When do we first have sex? When do we get engaged (if we do)? When is a date a date? Are we friends, friends with benefits, or dating? At what point is sleeping over ok? How many dates until we are dating? Does going on a date imply anything? What does “it’s complicated” mean?

Who the hell knows?

I don’t, you don’t, and neither do the girls you are with. Dating has devolved from its earlier purpose of spousal selection and preparation for marriage into who the hell knows what.

Even apart the larger issues, there’s the more practical issues. Is holding a door open chivalry, good manners, or sexism? Is chivalry appreciated or insulting? Is this drunken sex going to be a good time or rape? Who pays for the meal? Is a kiss appropriate on the first date? Is sex?

Who the hell knows? It all depends on who you ask.

And nobody knows how to handle it; few people know what they are doing. The only two groups that really know what they are doing are the players/sluts who are just looking to score and the extreme traditionalists who are still following an even older script. The vast majority of people don’t really have a goal or a path to get there. They vaguely want a relationship (of some kind), vaguely want sex (in some manner), and maybe want to get married (at some point, for some reason) but don’t know the when, what, or how. Everybody is trying to navigate chaos without a map.

The girls you are with are trying to do this as well. Is that time with that guy really a date or are they just friends? Is getting together for coffee really a date? Does going on a date imply we are dating? Does going on a lot of dates imply I’m easy? Does him assuming he’s sleeping over mean we’ve advanced to a higher level of commitment? Am I ready for that? Is this a lead up to moving in together? Am I being taken advantage of?

She doesn’t know because she does not have a social script of what normal, appropriate relationship behaviour is. Just like you don’t know what’s up with her because you do not have a script.

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Another reason could be a form of cognitive dissonance. There is who she thinks she is and what she thinks she’s doing, and how it interacts with what she is actually doing, which may not be the same. So she engages in cognitive dissonance.

For example, only desperate and/or slutty women go on lots of dates. I’m neither desperate nor a slut. I go on lots of dates.

Obviously, at least one of these statements must be logically false, but there’s a problem: she can’t stop going on dates because she wants a man (probably desperately, even if she won’t admit it to herself), her “self-esteem” would be ruined if she thought she was either a slut or desperate, and she still wants to be able to judge Jenny, that desperate slut at the office, so they all have to be true.

The easiest, most psychologically appealing way to get around this contradiction between logic and emotion is to simply change the definition of “a date”.

I go out with men a lot, but I’m not a desperate slut (like Jenny), so it’s only a date if we know each other. Therefore, I’m not going on lots of dates, therefore, I’m not a slut and I’m not desperate.

Or it could be: I’m a nice person. Rejecting men you have dated is not nice. I’ve rejected many men I’ve dated. Therefore, they weren’t dates, we were just friends. no one was rejected.

This kind of cognitive dissonance could also works its way in as a cover for straightforward manipulation.

She’s simply embarrassed. She thinks going on a lot of dates makes her look slutty, desperate, easy, etc. to you, so she tries to manipulate you/herself into not thinking she’s been on a lot of dates by simply maintaining that she has not been. This works often enough, because most men find it too much of a bother to call women on this kind of silliness.

Or she wants a free meal/drink without feeling guilty about taking advantage of guys, so she’s not going on dates, she’s going out with “friends”.

If this is unconscious on her part, it’s cognitive dissonance and/or self-delusion, if it’s conscious on her part, she’s lying, a hypocrite, and/or engaging in self-justification.

****

As for smoothreentry’s other example:

Calling an obese women “fat”, or a women that sleeps with many men a “slut”, are more extreme examples.

That is something else. A modern woman does not like being judged, she does not like being held to standards. By calling a fat woman fat or a slut a slut, you are holding that woman to a standard and judging her by it. If you are holding another women to a standard, that implies you are also holding her to that standard, and *horror* you are judging her by that standard.

By thinking you might be judging her, you might cause her to feel shame or guilt about things she may be doing that are shameful. She doesn’t want to feel shame, therefore, you can’t judge her, therefore, you can’t judge other women either. Therefore, being judgmental is wrong, it says so in the Bible. Therefore calling a fat person fat or a slut a slut is wrong.

Read my post Fat Acceptance for some more of my thoughts on this.

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The actionable take-away (oh, corpo-babble, how you have ruined my writing):

If you are simply looking to fuck random sluts and have short-term relationships, do not verbalize things. Act. Let things “just happen”. This does not mean you don’t have a plan; you need to plan, you need to run game, but don’t let her see it, make it seem natural. Let her see the finished sausage, but not the killing floor.

As well, do not fight her hamsterizations, she’ll just get angry and block you on FB. Ignore them without buying into them like a dupe.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a wife, don’t date a modern woman. Find a nice traditional gal who’s hamster is mostly in check and who’s more rational in her expectations for a relationship.

If you’re looking for an LTR or a girlfriend. Just don’t; it’s stupid. If you want sex, get sex through an STR, FWB, or ONS. If you want companionship, get a male friend or a dog. If you want a family and life-partner, get a wife. Getting a girlfriend is the worst of all three worlds while minimizing the benefits of any of them.

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* As an aside, note the feminine imperative at work here. “Chemistry”, ie: that which sexually excites a woman, is something promoted as being important and is a perfectly acceptable reason on which to accept or reject a relationship. “Looks”, ie: that which sexually excites a man, is shallow and derided and any man who accepts or rejects a relationship because of looks is a shallow jerk. Society is trying to normalize female sexual attraction while marginalizing male sexual attraction.

On Advice Columns

I enjoy reading advice columnists. I check out Dear Prudence at Slate and a couple columns from my local papers regularly and Dear Wendy on occasion.

I do not read them for the advice. The advice tends to be either common-sense (don’t date that abusive, alcoholic, unemployed jerk seems to be a common theme), not applicable to anybody who isn’t insane or living near someone insane (and I try to keep only sane people within my circles), or fem-centric, liberal, and given to secular immorality.

Rather I read them for entertainment and insight.

It is highly entertaining to see the insane situations some people manage to get themselves into or how some people insanely overreact to the weirdest things. There is also a heaping dose of schadenfreude as people somehow manage to screw themselves and their relationships up in such novel ways.

But not only are these columns entertaining to read, they are also informative. You can learn so much about people’s rationalization hamsters, (un)thinking processes, emotional quirks, and such by reading these columns.

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One thing you notice about these columns is the female focus of them. Females seem to represent the large majority of the columnists and the majority of those who write into them.

One wonders why there is not a market for a male columnist for male issues. Slate has recently hired one, but, quite frankly, he writes like an overcompensating, intellectually pretentious twat. That and so far the problems he’s had posed have been rather simple and not very entertaining. (Maybe that’s why? Maybe men’s problems are mostly too straightforward and not insane enough to make an enjoyable column). There’s also Dan Savage, but as a flaming, liberal hedonist, I don’t know why any man would trust him.

Roissy, Athol, and some others on the manosphere will occasionally print answers to e-mails they receive, but you wonder if something more systematized could be useful to the manosphere. A place where (an) expert(s) could answer those specific, situationalized life, game, or relationship questions some might have coming from a place of masculine frame.

But that’s well beside the point, I was originally meandering into, which was insight, entertainment, schadenfreude, and mockery.

I’m going to highlight a few letters from columns from the past couple weeks.

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Here’s part of the letter that inspired this post. It’s exemplifies too large a part of modern Western humanity.

My older sister is married to an abusive alcoholic asshole. She and I both grew up in a very conservative Christian household and neither of us have a close bond with our parents because they don’t like that we left home and formed our own adult lives that are very different from how we were raised. About 10 years ago, she moved 1500 miles away, met a guy, and got pregnant quickly. They both worked at a Christian school under a signed “morality clause” so they rushed to get married in an effort to not lose their jobs over the unplanned pregnancy. Well, they both got fired anyway and proceeded to have two more kids together.

I brought it up on a recent visit with my parents and they basically said she made a choice so they don’t care what happens to her. That made me so angry.

Revel in the hamster. Bask in its glory.

To fully understand this miracle of rationalization, I’ll run this through my universal hamsterlator:

We rebelled against our wise parents who tried to protect us from the poor choices we might make while young. In our rebellion, my sister ended up in exactly the situation our wise parents tried to protect us from. When, while still in a state of continued rebellion, I tried to force my parents to save her from her own rebellion they treated my sister like an adult capable of agency, just as we demanded they treat us. How dare they treat us like adults when we demand to be treated like adults.

This most perfectly sums up to many modern people. Complain when people don’t give you the rights you feel you deserve as an adult with agency, but complain about cruelty when people treat you like an adult with agency .

Of course, instead of slapping down the insanity of this, Wendy simply ignored the parent-child relationship.

****

Here’s one letter that exemplifies the misery some people inflict on themselves for the weirdest reasons:

Ten years ago a friend who I’ve known for 14 years told me her husband beats her. Through the years she’s continued to keep me updated but in the past few months she’s started texting me pictures of the abuse. He’s her high school sweetheart, they don’t have any kids, and he’s now the sole provider (which wasn’t always the case). The thing is she won’t leave him because she doesn’t want to leave her pets. I’ve tried to get her to leave repeatedly, but I don’t know what to do. I have these pictures, but no proof that he committed these acts because she won’t put his name on them, something that I gently suggested she should do for evidence or the police can’t prosecute him. I toss and turn, at night worrying that one day I’m going to get a phone call telling me he killed her. What can I do?

Remember that: she doesn’t want to leave her pets.

Insight: Some people don’t want saving. Don’t bother trying.

****

Here’s one illustrating why you should choose your marriage partner carefully:

My husband and I married a few years ago after just months of knowing each other. I have never once doubted our decision to marry, and on the whole, we are exceptionally happy. He is my perfect partner and an ideal father for our daughter—but, of course, there’s a but. During our very brief courtship, there is one habit he intentionally hid from me—online gaming. Apparently, he didn’t want me to think him nerdy. When he first disclosed this after the honeymoon, I thought it was funny and cute. A couple years later, I’m bitter—we have routine marital disagreements, but this is the only issue we ever fight about. He spends several hours a week (10-20) playing these online games! Every time we fight about it, he’ll cut back or promise to stop … but within a week or two, it’s back to at least a couple of hours every day. This is a man who has quit smoking and quit his pseudo-addiction to energy drinks, but can’t (or won’t) quit online gaming. I can’t imagine life without him, but this is making me miserable. I’m not willing to leave him over it; how can I get him to stop or change my own attitude to accept it? (For clarification, I have no suspicions of any online infidelity—it just bothers me that he spends his leisure time gaming instead of reading a book, watching TV with me, etc.)

2 hours!!! How dare he enjoy himself for two hours a day!?!

What a controlling, insane shrew. If I had the misfortune of marrying her, I’d probably be gaming a good 40+ hours a week just to avoid her.

On the other hand, some men find a keeper:

Re: Husband’s Gaming: My husband did this early in our relationship as well. I took a different tactic … I joined him. That way we spent time together and I learned something new about myself as well. Sometimes it takes giving a little to get a little.

And some women can be reasonable:

RE: Husband’s Gaming: I, too, am married to a gamer. And I’m completely happy with it, because it gives him an outlet to unwind after a stressful day. He’ll often play games while I watch a TV show in the same room. That way we’re still around each other, but we both get to do our own thing. (How much interacting would you do while watching TV anyway?) This really is no different than reading a book—you get lost in an imaginary world there, too.

It’s amazing how not being a crazy, controlling harpy can lead to an enjoyable marriage.

As an aside, what is it about women and TV? How is watching TV somehow better than playing video games?

****

Here’s one that illustrates the insane pettiness and nosiness of some people:

There’s a young woman at work who uses a ton of hand soap every time she uses the bathroom. If you are in the toilet, you can hear the auto dispenser chug 10 times while she is washing her hands. I never noticed this until someone pointed it out to me, and now it is driving me nuts. I’ll go to the sink and there’s like a foot of soap bubbles that she will have left behind. Should anyone intervene with her about her OCD tendencies and advise her that all the girls are talking about her and think she’s wasteful and weird?

Even more insane is that this is not just one woman, but multiple women gossiping about something so pointlessly insignificant. How this merits even a comment, let alone a letter to a national advice columnist boggles my mind.

Some women are insane.

****

Here’s a recent one that from which I have no lesson or insight to draw, but it really amused me in a WTF sort of way. It’s the kind of letter you read these columns for:

My parents and I are huge animal lovers and have been feeding a feral cat colony for a few years now (they are all spayed and neutered). Our neighbor however cannot stand them and has been very vocal about it to us. He trapped them for a while whenever they would come into his yard and take them to animal control. However, since they are microchipped to our address, animal control would call us and we would pick them up. Upon their return, the organization that got them spayed/neutered has tried working with our neighbor to no avail. However a last month two of the cats started acting funny. We took them to the emergency vet only to learn they had antifreeze poisoning and there was nothing we could do but end their suffering. We thought of our neighbor, but wanting to give him the benefit of doubt, we dismissed it as an accident. However two weeks ago a third cat acted the same exact way and another vet visit confirmed antifreeze poisoning. We now no longer think it’s a freak accident. Several friends and family are telling us to call animal control and report our neighbor. However we have no proof that it is actually him putting the antifreeze out, only a hunch based on past interactions and experiences. What should we do?

****

I might have been somewhat unfair earlier. Sometimes, the advice columnists actually do take some idiots to task:

I am a second wife to my husband who for years was married to a very difficult woman. A couple of years ago, he finally divorced her and married me soon after…At the same time, his adult children, a son and daughter, both in their 20s, have been a bit withdrawn around me, and I very much want them to be as close to their new younger sibling as possible…

The response:

What is wrong with his kids? Dad finally dumps their shrew of a mother, finds someone younger, hotter, nicer (and fertile to boot!), and they’re not celebrating. What ungrateful little beasts.

Hehe.

Although, really this should not have needed to have been written. Is it really so difficult for a replacement wife to understand why the children of the wife she replaced don’t care for her that she needs to ask a professional?

****

Anyway, the prime point of this post: advice columns are an endless source of entertainment and insight. Human stupidity is the most boundlessly renewable resource we have; if only we could harness its energy for electricity we’d be set.

The secondary point is simply this, the vast majority of the problems in these columns could be avoided simply by following traditional values: be responsible, don’t be crazy, mind your own damn business, don’t shack up or get knocked up, marry someone responsible, don’t divorce, raise your kids right, and choose decent, responsible friends.

Be the Kind of Man that Would Have the Kind of Life You Want

I had a sort of mini-revelation a few weeks ago. I was gonna write about it then, but didn’t get around to it, so I have no idea what inspired it. If someone else had this idea and I’m ripping you off without acknowledgment, I apologize.

But anyway, the mini-epiphany is a fairly simple concept, but it’s not something I ever put together. Here it is:

To get what you want in life you have to be the kind of man who has what you want.

It’s simple, no? Yet, it’s an elusive thought.

You can run through the approved life script, you can work hard, you can develop yourself, you can learn game, you can lift weights, you can expand your intellect, but in the end, it will all be for naught if it is not helping you progress towards your goal.

The first part of this is determing your goal. What do you want out of life? You need to decide where you want to be before you can get there. I’m still working on this myself, but I’m inching closer.

But once you’ve decided where you want to be, how do you determine what you should work on to get where you want?

Know the type of man who will have what you want, then become him.

Is there a career or job you want to have? Become the kind of employee an employer in that field would hire.

Do you want a promotion? Become the type of man your boss would promote.

Do you want your own business or to become rich? Become the type of man who would run a successful business.

Do you want to master a skill? Become the type of person who has mastered that skill.

Do you want to attract a certain type of girl? Become the type of man that type of girl couldn’t help but swoon over.

Do you want to live the life of an international player? Become the type of man who would quit his job, travel everywhere, and attract attractive women.

Whatever you want to have in life, find out what type of man who has it, then become that man.

****

To do this, find out who has the type of life you want. Find as many of them as you can. You have the internet, it shouldn’t be hard; there’s probably a part of the blogosphere devoted to it.

Study what they all have in common; what virtues do they share? What defines them as a group? What have they all done the same? What experiences do they share?

Once you understand what makes that type of man that type of man, become that type of man. Develop those virtues. Do those things. Have those experiences.

****

There is a corallary to this.

When you consider doing something (or not doing something), ask yourself the question:

Would the man who has the life I want do this?

Would a successful, rich business owner spend his evening watching TV? Or would a successful rich business owner spend his evening working on his business? What would Bill Gates do?

Would the martial arts master lie sleep-in, then laze about the house for the morning? Or would the martial arts master get up early, exercise hard, then practice his forms? What would Musashi do?

Would the successful novelist spend an hour on Facebook? Or would the successful novelist spend that hour on the next page of his novel? What would Orson Scott Card do?

Would the type of man who attracts a pretty, traditional young girl looking to be a mother spend his day masturbating to pornography? Or would he be reading his Bible and spending time developing himself as a man? What would the elder at your church with a loving wife and 6 children do?

Would the international player stay home surfing the internet? Or would the international player go to the club grinding approaches? What would Roosh do?

When you do something, you must ask yourself whether the type of man you want to be would be doing that something.

If the answer is no, maybe it is time to change your behaviour.

****

I admit I make it sound easy. It isn’t. I struggle hard with this. Even St. Paul had this problem.

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

But finding out and acknowledging what you should be doing is the first step you have to take before you can accomplish your goals. Actually carrying out what you should, will require harnessing your willpower and ability.

In conclusion, become the type of man who has the type of life you want.

Friend Zone: Wherein I Agree with a Feminist

I came across this article by a feminist on the “friend zone” concept. My anti-feminism is readily apparent to any reading my blog, but this time I have to give her credit, she’s right.

The friend zone, for those of you older folks not hip to the jive, refers to:

a platonic relationship where one person wishes to enter into a romantic relationship, while the other does not. It is generally considered to be an undesirable situation by the lovelorn person.”

The vast majority of the time the man is the one being friendzoned. (Although, I did end up friend zoning a female friend once).

Anyway, she posits three reasons why the friendzone concept “sucks”:

1) It ignores the actual wishes of the woman
2) It displays an entitled attitude to a woman’s body
3) It posits that the worst thing ever is to be “just” friends with a woman
4) It’s a go to complaint of guys who are actually deeply misogynistic

I agree with her on all four.

Remember men: you are not entitled to sex.* A women’s body is her own, as your body is yours. You have not claim on hers, she has not claim on yours.

Being a “nice guy” no more entitles you to her vagina than it does to my labour or freedom.

If you want sex, win it. Develop yourself as a person to the point where women want to give you sex.

By being friends with a women solely to get in her pants you are disrespecting her and manipulating her. You are using her as a means, not an end. You are not actually her friend, you are an ass. You are not a “nice guy”, you’re an entitled jerk.

I know all the women, movies, TV shows, and authority figures in your life have told you to just be yourself, make friends with her, and you’ll get the girl. That’s bollocks.

If you want a romantic relationship, develop romance first, friendship after (or grow both together). If you want a wife, same thing.

If you simply want to use a woman for sex, than be honest about it. Game the shit out of her, sex her, then dump her the morning after like a proper player. Use a woman who wants to be used. Don’t screw around pretending to be friends with a women and hoping to prey on a moment of weakness, you ass. It’s not only a jerk move and immoral, it’s also a waste of your time.

And yes, you’re damn right I’m shaming you.

Because, here’s the thing, the friend zone is not only disrespectful to the woman, it’s far more disrespectful to yourself.

You are showing how low you think your value is (very low), as you are willing to waste so much of yourself on nothing more but a very low probability chance of romance with a woman.

You are showing how worthless your friendship is, by offering it solely in the hopes of getting sex.

You are emasculating yourself by putting yourself under the power of a woman.

By being friendzoned, you show your time and effort are worthless, as you have so much of it to waste on faking a friendship you don’t actually want.

You are showing how desperate you are as your only hope of romantic success is to spend your life hoping to prey on a moment of weakness.

Remember, you will be treated exactly as you believe you deserve to be treated in life. By allowing yourself to be friend zoned you are showing you deserve to be disrespected and are not worthy of a real romantice relationship.

I’m shaming you. By allowing yourself to be friend zoned you are showing yourself to be worthy of shame.

The friend zone is for losers. Don’t be a loser.

Don’t be this guy.

If you are, you deserve the pain you get.

Have some some self-respect.

So, here is the remedy, here is what you need to get from this post:

If you are currently in the friend zone with a woman, stop spending time with that woman. Cut her off from your life and stop being “friends” with her. Stop thinking about her. Do not spend your time, effort, or resources on her. Do not respond to her requests for your time or effort.

Be like Mike.

If you ask a girl out, and she says no, cut off contact with her. Don’t go out with her as friends, don’t spend time with her, do not get into long phone calls or text exchanges with her, etc.

If you are in the friend zone or about to be put in the friend zone by any woman, cut her out of your life. Do not be “just friends” (how I hate that phrase).

If she asks why she’s being cut out of your life, tell her the truth. You want to be romantic partners with her and do not desire and will not accept anything else.

Man up and stop disrespecting yourself (and others).

****

Also, a sidenote:

While writing this I almost (did?) wrote or implied that a romantic relationship is more than a friendship and that being friends is settling for less.

It is not.

No relationship is higher than that of a virtuous friendship, the highest form of relationship you can have. A marriage is also the highest form of relationship you can have.

A marriage and a virtuous friendship are equal in value. They fill different needs in your life but both are equal, neither is better, neither is more.

A romantic relationship that is not a marriage (or becoming a marriage) should always be worth less than a friendship.

If it is not, your priorities are wrong. Fix them.

It is sad commentary on modern society that friendship has somehow become worth less than romance. The general acceptance of the phrase “just friends” is a tragedy.

Do not devalue the value of your friendships by being friendzoned.

****

None of this is to say you can’t have a friendship with a woman. Some (not many, but some) women are worth having as friends. Some women can be enjoyable, productive friends without drama, BS, emotional games, attention whoring, etc.

You just have to choose carefully and make sure you are not romantically interested in her.

But do not befriend a woman when you do not value the friendship in and of itself. Friendship is an end, it is not a means to a further end.

Despite my ‘romance first, then friends’ declaration above, you can have friends first, then romance, but only in very narrow circumstances. If the friendship is the end in itself and the romantic relationship evolves naturally with no attempt or desire from yourself to try to force it, then there’s no problem.

****

For those women (and men) who have “friends” that you know are in a friend zone relationship in regards to you, my advice is the same, stop spending time with them.

They are not your friend, they are using you. Even if they are your friend, being in the friend zone hurts, end their suffering.

As I said, I put a women in the friend zone (and knew she was there). At the time I didn’t realize it, but after it all came to a head and the friendship ended because of the friend zone thing, I realized I had been hurting her through the whole time we were friends, simply by being friends. I regret allowing it to get to the point, I should have cut it off earlier.

Learn from my example, do what’s best for both of you, and end that friendship.

If you have a friend-zoned “friend” and do not want to give it up because of the attention you receive, because you get free stuff, because you like the unrecipricated adulation, or some other selfish reason. You are an asshole. Stop it!

Anyone who manipulates a friend-zoned “friend” for selfish benefit is a horrible person.

****

* Excepting where you are biblically married and/or you and your wife got married on the agreement not to deny each other sex, in which case you are both obligated to provide sex to and entitled to sex from each other.

Lessons from Dating a Fashion Model

From Slate, “What is it Like to Date or Marry a Fashion Model? (No, I didn’t date a fashion model, sorry to disappoint). It’s an interesting article and there are a number of things to be learned from it.

First, the obvious for women (and for men):

I met her when she was 25, and we dated nearly four years until finally breaking up just a couple months before she turned 30. I know I’ve sounded pretty negative in this answer, but in the first couple years the relationship was so good that I thought she was marriage material, but her insecurity and negativity became such a problem later on that despite my attempts to be supportive and make it work, we eventually had to part ways. I really thought we were meant to be together so I probably let things go on for much longer than was wise, in retrospect. At one point, I thought maybe we could make it work as a joint venture, with her doing the modeling and speaking and industry relationships, and I would handle the finance and “business” pieces, but her negativity and insecurity about everything had totally poisoned things between us so much by then that I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

For women, just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you are attractive for long-term relationships. Physical beauty gets you in the door and it will definitely get you random sex; it will not, by itself, get you love or commitment. If you want either, concentrate on things more worthy (without abandoning the former).

Also, negativity and insecurity are unfeminine and horribly off-putting to men. Be positive and be secure in yourself (which does not mean be bitchy; bitchiness and confidence are not the same).

For men, remember the Biblical proverb:

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. (Proverbs 31:30-31)

Do not let a women’s beauty blind you to her faults. This guy didn’t, but if he had he’d be in for one doozy of a rough ride.

Second lesson:

Not only this but they are, by dint of their profession, an expert in terms of how to dress and apply makeup, so you are basically dating a walking Photoshop commercial. Despite this, she would obsess about what I could only perceive to be completely invisible fat on her thighs and just-as-invisible wrinkles around her eyes. She would literally ask me, “Do I look fat?” or “Don’t you think I look old?”

Women are naturally insecure about their looks. Even a women who’s so objectively attractive she gets paid solely for being beautiful is insecure about her looks.

For women, this means don’t obsess over your looks; you’ll feel insecure, but if you’re thinking overly negatively about yourself, there’s a good chance it’s probably just in your head. Note: This does not mean you should not take proper care of yourself; if you are actually overweight as measured by a somewhat objective source, then take care of that. Be objective about your beauty.

Men, learn how to handle a women’s insecurity for both your benefit and her benefit. Athol has shown much better than I could how to handle insecurity for mutual benefit, while Roissy has outlined how to exploit it. I would recommend the former, but your moral choices are up to you.

Which leads directly into lesson three:

She would literally ask me, “Do I look fat?” or “Don’t you think I look old?” and of course as a man with a good sense of perspective about what I’d managed to snag, at first I would enthusiastically answer, “Of course not! You’re the most beautiful woman on the planet!” which as far as I could tell was 100 percent the truth. The problem was, none of these really assuaged her insecurities (of course) so she would keep asking over and over, and there is a limit to how many times you can enthusiastically exclaim about how beautiful your girlfriend is, even if you do believe it to be the truth. Obviously, she noticed this difference in the enthusiasm of my answers, and it didn’t help her insecurity about her supposed fading looks.

Betaness doesn’t work. I have no idea how alpha this guy is, but he did date a model for four years, so probably more so than me, but his answer to this particular fitness test was very beta, as per both Athol and Roissy. The result: his women was perpetually dissatisfied with his answer, remained insecure, and continued repeatedly testing him to exasperation.

But then again, he did date a model for four years, so who am I to criticize his game.

Fourth lesson:

Finally, I met someone when I was home for Christmas when my mom, before I could stop her, introduced me as “my son, who is dating the supermodel” to a girl I’d been friends with in high school, which of course got her to talk to me. She now says she was impressed not because I was dating a supermodel, but because I was helping her with her finances and “good with business,” and now she is my fiancee.

More confirmation that pre-selection works and that women naturally know this. Also confirmation that women (and often men)will rationalize to themselves and others so as not to appear shallow.

Fifth lesson:

Dating a model is pretty interesting. As a couple and as a man, you are immediately accorded utterly absurd amounts of social consideration. Any time we were out, we’d get special treatment. Not just from service people but just regular people. People would regularly offer to let us cut in front of them in lines at restaurants, grocery stores, even once at the DMV(!) when we happened to go together… Airlines look for well-dressed people to offer first-class upgrades to when seats are open, and dating my girlfriend had led me to up my game in terms of dress so I always wore a jacket and tie when flying, so we were a pretty good-looking couple (well, she was—I was a chump in a nice suit), and we would always get offered the first-class upgrades.

He goes on a bit more about specifics, but this is enough for our purposes: Looks matter. No matter what well-meaning relatives and friends may tell you, they matter a lot. More for women, but also for men (note the suit).

If you are beautiful you will almost always have a strong social advantage. It’s not fair, and it may not be “right”, but it is reality. However much you may not like it you cannot deny reality.

If you are beautiful be aware that you have this advantage. If you are not, be aware that you don’t. And whatever your looks, you can always try to capitalize on this reality by looking your best.

Sixth lesson:

I dated a model during what you might call her “declining” years. I put that in quotes because to a normal person the idea is absurd. Models have a shelf-life of maybe 10 years, 15 if they are lucky. Once a model hits 30, the modeling industry considers her old and used up, and there is no shortage of eager 15- and 26-yearolds from Eastern Europe who are willing to work longer hours, fly more places, and get paid far less.

Again for women. Looks fade with age: modelling illustrates that well. As for looks in dating, modelling is simply a harsher model of the reality for most women. If you’re young and at all attractive, you have a strong social advantage, but only for now. By your mid-20s it will start fading, the time you’re 30 it will start declining rapidly. Most younger girls who will be more attractive then you, not matter how good you looked in your youth (some subjective conditions apply).

This leads into the seventh lesson:

Almost every model in her late 20s (including the woman I dated) begins to worry incessantly (when she isn’t worrying about nonexistent eye wrinkles) about how to make herself into a “brand” and transition into being a supermodel, which is pretty much the only postmodeling career available to you in this line of work.

Your beauty fades; so when you have it, use it to the best long-term advantage you can. Also, develop yourself as a person even though people will like you even if you don’t because of your beauty.

If you are hoping to get married and have a family, start now. Your youthful looks will allow you to snag the best mate you are capable of landing. If you wait, you only hurt your chances in the long-run. Developing yourself as a person will allow you to provide value to yourself and others after your looks fade.

Then you become like the model in the story: alone, broke, and with less of a hand then you held.

Which then goes into the eighth lesson:

As a result of this, she became gradually more demotivated, insecure, and would complain often that she was “over the hill,” which is pretty absurd at 28 or 29 (although I hear it sometimes from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, which I consider equally absurd) and it became a continual source of negativity in our day-to-day interactions.

While the author denies it as absurd, being an entrepreneur past your twenties is difficult. Entrepreneurship requires vigor, drive, ambition, freedom of action, the ability to go on little sleep, etc. Essentially, it requires a ruthless single-mindedness you only truly have when you are young.

A lot of this is tied to biology, hormones, and testosterone production. As a male ages the production of testosterone fades, so you lose your drive. Commitments of adulthood begin to wear at your freedom of action.

So, for all you men, re-read all the earlier lessons and replace beauty with vigor. (For women, all the warnings I gave to men about watching out for beauty, heed the same warning for young men with ambition).

Do not waste your youthful vigor.

Ninth lesson:

After being together for a couple years, I got a good sense of how much she earned over time, and I tried to explain to her what she should try to think of as her average income stream over time and to keep weekly expenses in line, but it was something she just wasn’t very interested in. Instead she would go on partying and shopping binges in the weeks following getting paid and the rest of the time scraping by when she wasn’t. Luckily, I made the wise decision to keep our finances completely separate even when we started living together and “splitting” the rent, which more often than not turned out to be me footing all of the rent for that month and her paying me back months later when she got paid.

Never, ever join financially with someone incapable of handling finances responsibly. If you plan to get married, make sure your potential spouse is responsible with finances. If you do not plan to get married, do not become financially entangled with your paramour.

The article was very blue pill, but very informative. Even through the blue pill sheen put on everything by the author, the red pill realities leak through quite clearly.

Edit -2012/09/20: Seems I couldn’t count yesterday. Lesson numbering changed.