Aleph One

Hitting Reset

2013-09-23T15:42:00.002-04:00

I've been lax about posting. This is my announcement that I intend to change that!

Look for more news from me in the coming weeks.

Fit for Duty, Part 2

2013-06-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

In a previous post we talked about the Marine Corps standards for body fat. But just being lean doesn’t mean you are fit for duty. There are performance standards, too. Today we are going to talk about those.

The Marine Corps fitness test has three parts: a three-mile run, pull-ups, and crunches. The manual says that these exercises are designed to “test the strength and stamina of the upper body, midsection, and lower body, as well as the efficiency of the cardiovascular system.”

The manual also says that you should take all three tests in a single session, with a two-hour time limit. So you can’t run on Saturday, do crunches on Sunday, and pull-ups on Monday. And you can’t rest for an hour between exercises.

Pull-ups

You are going to need a pull-up bar. I bought one at Wal Mart that hangs in a doorway. It’s ok for working out but really not suitable for this test, unless you are really short. You need a bar that’s mounted high enough for you to hang from it with your arms fully extended and your feet not touching the ground. I use the one at my YMCA, but if you don’t belong to a gym you can probably find one in a local park.

To perform the test, you may grip the bar with your palms facing you, or facing away from you. Facing you is easier, so I’d do that for the test (but train with them facing away). Start with your arms fully extended and your feet off the ground. Raise your body until your chin is above the bar, then lower yourself until your arms are fully extended. That’s one rep. This is a test of upper body strength, so no kipping or leg whipping is allowed. Repeat until you can’t do any more. There is no time limit, but once you let go of the bar you are finished.

Crunches

The Marines call these crunches, but the handbook description sounds like the sit-ups we did in gym class back in the 70’s. Lie on your back, knees bent, feet on the floor. Cross your arms across your chest. Arms must remain in contact with the chest or rib cage throughout the exercise. You can have someone hold your feet or legs below the knees, or do what I do: place your feet under the couch. Raise your upper body until your elbows or forearms touch your thighs, then lower yourself until your shoulder blades touch the ground. That’s one rep. This is a timed test. Do as many reps as you can in two minutes.

Run

Mark out a three mile course. You can use this handy map tool, or the odometer in your car, to mark off a three mile course through your neighborhood. Try to avoid hills. Or just go to your local high school or college and use their track. One lap around a standard track is a quarter of a mile, so you’ll need to do 12 laps for this three-mile test. Run as fast as you can for three miles. Be sure to warm up first!

Scoring

Your score is based on your performance in each event. To get the maximum score, you’d have to do 20 pull-ups, 100 crunches in two minutes, and run three miles in 18 minutes. The minimum to qualify to stay in the Marine Corps is based on your age. Marines further divide the scores into three classes, from 3^rd class (barely qualifying) to 1^st class (the best). Use the table below to determine your score, and your classification based on your age.

Points	Pull-Ups	Crunches	3-Mile Run
100	20	100	18:00
99		99	18:10
98		98	18:20
97		97	18:30
96		96	18:40
95	19	95	18:50
94		94	19:00
93		93	19:10
92		92	19:20
91		91	19:30
90	18	90	19:40
89		89	19:50
88		88	20:00
87		87	20:10
86		86	20:20
85	17	85	20:30
84		84	20:40
83		83	20:50
82		82	21:00
81		81	21:10
80	16	80	21:20
79		79	21:30
78		78	21:40
77		77	21:50
76		76	22:00
75	15	75	22:10
74		74	22:20
73		73	22:30
72		72	22:40
71		71	22:50
70	14	70	23:00
69		69	23:10
68		68	23:20
67		67	23:30
66		66	23:40
65	13	65	23:50
64		64	24:00
63		63	24:10
62		62	24:20
61		61	24:30
60	12	60	24:40
59		59	24:50
58		58	25:00
57		57	25:10
56		56	25:20
55	11	55	25:30
54		54	25:40
53		53	25:50
52		52	26:00
51		51	26:10
50	10	50	26:20
49		49	26:30
48		48	26:40
47		47	26: 50
46		46	27:00
45	9	45	27:10
44		44	27:20
43		43	27:30
42		42	27:40
41		41	27:50
40	8	40	28:00
39		x	28:10
38		x	28:20
37		x	28:30
36		x	28:40
35	7	x	28:50
34		x	29:00
33		x	29:10
32		x	29:20
31		x	29:30
30	6	x	29:40
29		x	29:50
28		x	30:00
27		x	30:10
26		x	30:20
25	5	x	30:30
24		x	30:40
23		x	30:50
22		x	31:00
21		x	31:10
20	4	x	31:20
19		x	31:30
18		x	31:40
17		x	31:50
16		x	32:00
15	3	x	32:10
14	x	x	32:20
13	x	x	32:30
12	x	x	32:40
11	x	x	32:50
10	x	x	33:00
9	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
6	x	x	x
5	x	x	x
4	x	x	x
3	x	x	x
2	x	x	x
<1	x	x	x

Class	Age 17-26	Age 27-39	Age 40-45	Age 46+
1st	225	200	175	150
2nd	175	150	125	100
3rd	135	110	88	65

There are also minimum performance requirements for the individual tests. If you run really slowly but do 20 pull-ups, you won’t qualify. Conversely, if you can’t do three pull-ups but run really fast, you might achieve the minimum score for your age, but you still won’t qualify. Here’s the chart that shows the minimum qualifications for each test, based on age:

Age	Pull-Ups	Crunches	3-Mile Run
17-26	3	50	28:00
27-39	3	45	29:00
40-45	3	45	30:00
>46+	3	40	33:00

Don’t feel bad if you can’t pass this test right now. Most men I know can’t do a single pull-up. Test yourself to see where you are, and then develop a plan to improve. If you fail miserably the first time you take the test, there’s good news: studies show that the worse shape you are in when you start a fitness program, the faster you will improve.

There are a lot of exercise programs that will develop the level of fitness you need to ace this test. I’ve used a few of them. If you aren’t working out regularly, any of them will be an improvement over what you are doing now! My current favorite is Body of a Spartan. The e-book is inexpensive and the workout is very effective. I’ve gone from not being able to do a single pull-up to easily doing the three required to pass the test, and I’m aiming for ten. That’s not bad for a guy in his fifties!

Read this... it's important!

2013-06-06T17:12:00.000-04:00

No, not this, as in this blog or this post. I just read something over at MMSL's forum that I have to share. I'm not even going to quote it, because snippets wouldn't do it justice. You need to read the whole thing.

READ THIS

Are you fit for duty?

2013-05-31T17:29:00.002-04:00

Virtually every manospher writer agrees on one thing: if you are a man, an important part of your action plan should be improving your fitness. Being fat is not acceptable.

How far should you go? How fit is "fit enough?"

One organization that has very definite standards for fitness is the United States Marine Corps. If you are fit enough for duty in the USMC, then you are fit enough.

Today we're going to look at one aspect of fitness: body fat. A later post will look at the other part of the Marines' fitness test, which involves performance.

Are you too fat to be a Marine? To find out, you are going to need a few data points. The first test, which most American men will fail, only requires knowing your height and weight. Look at this table, find your height in the left column. Is your weight in between the numbers in the middle and right columns?

Height	Maximum Weight	Minimum Weight
58	132	91
59	136	94
60	141	97
61	146	100
62	150	104
63	155	107
64	160	110
65	165	114
66	170	117
67	176	121
68	181	125
69	186	128
70	192	132
71	197	136
72	203	140
73	208	144
74	214	148
75	220	152
76	226	156
77	232	160
78	238	164
79	244	168
80	250	173

If you weigh less than the smaller number, you're too skinny and need to bulk up. If, as is more likely, you weigh more than the higher number, you might need to lose some weight. Or you might just be very muscular. To find out, you need a more sophisticated measurement.

For this next step, you need some additional information. You need to measure the circumference of your waist, measured at your belly button with the tape measure level and flat against your skin. And you need to measure the circumference of your neck.

Once you have those measurements, go plug them in to this calculator:
Body Fat Calculator

This will give you an estimate of your body fat percentage. While it's only an estimate, it's better than most other methods of estimating your body fat, it's a lot cheaper than a DexaScan, and it's the method the Marines use.

How fat is too fat? That depends on your age. According to the Marine Corps, you are fit for duty if your body fat is below the listed number for your age range (these are all for men, women are allowed a higher number):
Age 17-26: 18%
Age 27-39: 19%
Age 40-45: 20%
Age 46+: 21%

If you are a member of the USMC and you are above those numbers, you will be placed into a program designed to reduce your body fat. If you don't meet the standards within six months, you'll be discharged. If you aren't a Marine, you might be able to get away with being a bit fatter. But if you reach this goal, you will probably live longer. And you'll be more attractive to women.

I'll fess up here: I need to lose about three inches off my waist to meet the body fat standard for my age. I'm working on it.

Alpha body language: chicks dig jerks

2013-05-29T13:58:00.002-04:00

You don't need to read a lot of the manosphere before you become aware of the importance of body language. In the photo above, the guy on the left is signalling his Alpha status and the guy on the right looks like a needy loser.

But the guy on the left may be signalling something else. A paper soon to be published in the academic journal Psychological Science, titled "The Ergonomics of Dishonesty," says that people who take on "expansive" poses are more likely to deceive others than people who take more "restrictive" poses.

"...individuals who engaged in expansive postures were more likely to steal money, cheat on a test, and commit traffic violations in a driving simulation."

For the academically minded, here is the Abstract from that paper:

Research in environmental sciences has found that the ergonomic design of human-made environments influences thought, feeling and action. Here, we examine the impact of physical environments on dishonest behavior. Four studies tested whether certain bodily configurations—or postures—incidentally imposed by our environment lead to increases in dishonest behavior. The first three experiments found that individuals who engaged in expansive postures (either explicitly or inadvertently) were more likely to steal money, cheat on a test, and commit traffic violations in a driving simulation. Results suggested that participants’ self-reported sense of power mediated the link between postural expansiveness and dishonesty. Study 4 revealed that automobiles with more expansive driver’s seats were more likely to be illegally parked on New York City streets. Taken together, results suggest that: (1) environments that expand the body can inadvertently lead us to feel more powerful, and (2) these feelings of power can cause dishonest behavior.

Of course, the real key to alpha is point (1) in the last sentence: expanding the body leads to feeling powerful, and feeling powerful makes you more attractive to women.

If you want all the details, here's a link to the full paper (in .pdf format).

The Ergonomics of Dishonesty: The Effect of Incidental Posture on Stealing, Cheating, and Traffic Violations

It appears that people who take up a lot of room without apologizing for their presence are, well, jerks. And we all know that chicks dig jerks. Therefore, taking up a lot of room is attractive to women. Go, therefore, and do likewise.

Don't be a bully

2013-05-24T09:19:00.000-04:00

I was having a snack in the break room at work this week when my friend, Frank, sat at my table. He had a worried look on his face, so I asked him what was up. He proceeded to tell me a story about a girl he’s known since high school, Yvette. (I should note here that while this is a true story, all identifying information has been changed.) Frank was worried about her because even though she’s been married for more than 20 years, he saw her profile on a dating website.

“Are you sure it was her?” I asked. He was. He said he had lunch with her a few days ago and she admitted it. She said that she no longer had any feelings for her husband, Jim, and hadn’t for quite some time. But she was determined to stay married to him, in part because of her religious upbringing. She also thought it was important for her kids to have two parents at home, at least until the youngest graduated from high school, and that was a few years away.

Yvette told Frank that she’d been sleeping on the couch for the last five years. She didn’t want to blow up her marriage but she felt the need to be touched, and was looking for someone with whom she could have a discreet affair.

Sensing the opportunity for a Red Pill lesson, I asked Frank to tell me about the husband. He took out his phone and pulled up Jim’s Facebook profile. The picture was worse than I expected. I saw a morbidly obese man, wearing a casual short-sleeve shirt and blue jeans. The shirt was a size too small, the buttons obviously straining to hold it closed, and his belly hung several inches over his belt. His hair looked like he had tried to cut it himself. He had thick brushy hair growing out of his ears.

My red-pill savvy readers have probably already jumped to the same conclusion that I did. “I bet he’s always trying to please his wife, let’s her run everything, and does whatever she says.” Frank quickly disabused me of that notion. “No, he’s quite the opposite. Everything has to be done exactly his way. When it’s not, he blows up. When they go out, if she makes eye contact with a man he accuses her of wanting to have sex with him. She has a very successful career and makes more money than he does, but he’s always telling her that she’s stupid and can’t do anything right.”

I had to mull this over for a while. The picture looked like an average Beta chump. But he didn’t exhibit the puppy-dog people-pleasing Beta behavior profile. Was this a case of excess Alpha, proving Athol’s point about needing a balance of Alpha and Beta for a successful long-term relationship?

But no, it’s not Alpha to seriously try to tear someone else down. Jim is, as I had guessed from the picture, low Beta. But rather than being the meek people-pleaser, Jim had taken the opposite tack: he’s a bully.

At first glance, a bully may appear to have some Alpha traits. But what he actually has are badly overblown caricatures of Alpha traits. And while a true Alpha comes from a place of supreme inner confidence, the bully is the opposite. The bully is motivated primarily by fear, and a complete lack of confidence.

Consider Jim’s behavior when he takes Yvette out in public. If she smiles at the waiter and engages in friendly conversation, Jim gets angry. He accuses her of wanting to have sex with the waiter. This, my friends, is not the behavior of an Alpha male. A real Alpha male would just smile, knowing that the waiter was admiring the beauty of his woman, and confident that the waiter was not an actual threat.

And of course, an Alpha male would not allow himself to become morbidly obese. He’d hit the gym, find a good hair stylist, and get his ears waxed. He would either enjoy the fruits of his high-earning wife’s labor, or he’d improve himself until he could out-earn her. But a real Alpha would never belittle her accomplishments in an attempt to feel better about himself.

I imagine that twenty years ago, Jim might have been more Alpha. He did, after all, manage to marry a woman who bore him children and was apparently faithful for many years. But somewhere along the way, he quit. He let his health and his appearance deteriorate, he gave up on advancing his career. He either lost, or never had, those good Beta traits that build comfort and trust in a long-term relationship. And he certainly lost whatever Alpha traits attracted his wife in the first place.

Don’t be that guy. Don’t be a bully.

More Housework, Less Sex

2013-01-31T10:52:00.003-05:00

Once again, science has confirmed what the manosphere already knows.

The Drudge Report today links to a story titled “More housework, less sex for married men.” The basic premise is that men who do too many of the traditionally female chores have less sex than men who do more masculine tasks.

"Our findings suggest the importance of socialized gender roles for sexual frequency in heterosexual marriage," said lead author Sabino Kornrich, of the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help out around the house. Ian Ironwood has mentioned in his blog that he does nearly all the cooking at his house, because he’s better at it. Frame is everything. Ian cooks because Ian decided to cook. He took charge of the kitchen and uses it to show off his skills. He’s cooking because he has decided that’s what works best, not because his wife wants him to do it. He’s the Captain of his kitchen, not his wife’s kitchen bitch.

Balance is important in Married Game. Beta isn’t a bad thing, but it must be balanced by Alpha. Washing the dishes is beta… which doesn’t mean you should never do it. But as a general rule, it’s manly to take out the garbage, to do maintenance on the family home and vehicles. Make sure those demonstrations of Alphadom get taken care of first. And when you do decide to help with the less-manly chores, do it in a manly way. Don’t get nagged and fitness-tested into doing things. Keep your alpha frame. Do the chores that you want to do, on your own terms.

It's just a kid's song... or is it?

2013-01-23T16:07:00.001-05:00

Once you take the Red Pill, you begin to see wisdom in unlikely places. Consider, for example, this simple children’s song:

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

Now look at it from a Red Pill viewpoint:

Row, row, row…

Nothing comes for free. You have to do the work. You aren’t going to get buff unless you go to the gym. You aren’t going to bang women unless you make approaches. It’s up to you to put in the effort.

…your boat,

Row your boat, not your neighbor’s boat. You have to focus on achieving your goals, taking care of your business. The only person you can change is yourself.

Gently down the stream.

Take it easy. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You have to do the work, but you don’t have to do it all today. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow instead of fighting against the current. You still have to row, you still have to steer, but you don’t have to fight your way upstream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

You see a lot of guys in the various forums who have received the Red Pill but are really pissed off about it. It’s understandable. Everything you were taught growing up is a lie, and it’s unsettling to have to learn a new reality. But once you’ve accepted the wisdom of the Red Pill, once you have changed yourself into the best man that you can possibly be, you should be having fun. Look at me: at age 55, I’m looking and feeling better than I ever have in my life. I’m having more sex (with my wife, of course) than I’ve ever had in my life. When I go out in public, women flirt with me. It’s a blast. If you aren’t having fun living your life, you aren’t doing it right.

Life is but a dream.

Whatever your religious/spiritual viewpoint, you’ll probably agree with this: our life on earth is but a fleeting shadow. Make the most of the time you have here, because it will be gone before you know it.

Alpha Tip: Switch Your Workouts

2012-11-20T11:59:00.003-05:00

An important part of the MAP is getting physically fit. For the past few months, I’ve been using the Stronglifts 5x5 program. It’s a great program, and it’s worked well for me.

Last weekend I was at a Barnes and Noble store with some time to kill. I remembered another blogger recommended the book “Starting Strength,” so I headed to the Health and Fitness section to look for it. They didn’t have it in the store, but they did have The New Rules of Lifting. It looked interesting, so I bought it.

Yesterday I did the first workout from the beginners section of The New Rules. On paper, this should have been much easier than the 5x5 workout I did the week before. It wasn’t. At the end of the workout my arms and legs felt like they were made of jelly. Today my abs are sore, especially at the top near my ribcage, an area that’s never felt sore before. This “easier” workout is using different muscles, and the same muscles in a different way, than my previous workout.

Here are a couple of basic rules for working out:

Do Something. Any workout is better than doing nothing. Buy a book, find a website, look at some YouTube videos. Pick a workout and get started.

Then Do Something Else. Don’t keep doing the same five or six exercises forever. Switch it up now and then. This not only has the physical benefit of stressing different muscles in different ways, it also has psychological benefits. The variety can keep you from getting bored, and that can motivate you to keep working out.

In addition to the workout plans mentioned above, here are a couple of others to consider:

Simplefit.org This website has complete exercise plans based on bodyweight exercises. No gym memberships or expensive equipment is required.

Scooby’s Workshop Home workout plans using minimal equipment, mostly dumbbells. Good videos showing proper form for the exercises.

Alpha Move: Be Prepared

2012-11-02T16:33:00.000-04:00

I’m kind of shocked at the number of people on Staten Island who are shocked that they aren’t getting any help, three days after Sandy hit them.

Maybe it’s because I grew up on the Gulf Coast, but I thought everyone knew certain basic facts about hurricanes and other natural disasters. One of those facts is that after every disaster, some people are surprised at how long it takes for help to arrive. This, in spite of the fact that it happens after EVERY disaster. You’d think people would figure it out.

As an Alpha male, or an Alpha in Training, YOU are the Captain of your family’s ship. That means the buck stops with you. Your family is looking to you to make sure they are safe, and you’d better do it because FEMA sure isn’t going to.

First, and I mean no disrespect to the people of Staten Island when I say this, if you live on an island, WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE during and after a hurricane? If your house is 10 feet above sea level, and the National Hurricane Center is predicting an 11 foot storm surge, the math isn’t that hard. The best way to survive a natural disaster is to not be there when it happens. West Coast residents have to deal with earthquakes, which give no warning before they hit. But everyone knew a hurricane was coming. They were warned that it was going to be bad. They had plenty of time to find somewhere else to be. And again, I’m not saying this to pick on these victims, just to point out that you shouldn’t make the same mistake.

I’m also amazed at the people who are running out of gasoline three days after the storm. That means they are either driving a lot, or they didn’t have the foresight to fill their tank the day before the storm. Look, storms knock out power. Sometimes it takes a while to get the power back on. You can’t pump gas with no electricity, so fill up ahead of the storm.

The other thing you should do is be prepared for whatever natural disasters affect your area. If you don’t live near the coast you may not have to worry about hurricanes. But winter storms can cause similar problems with widespread power outages, and inability to travel. Basic preparation is the same, whether you expect hurricanes, winter storms, or the Zombie Apocalypse.

There are certain basics that you just have to make sure you have on hand, all the time. They fall into a few basic categories:

WATER: My house has a well, so if the power is out, the water is out. Even in a city, if the power is out long enough the water will stop flowing. Water is bulky and heavy, so it’s not easy to store. But at a minimum you want a three-day supply of drinking water on hand. Figure a minimum of a gallon of water per person per day. Get a couple of those blue five-gallon water containers at Wal Mart and fill them up. Put a teaspoon of unscented chlorine bleach in each jug to kill any germs. Change it out every three months anyway.

That’s just for drinking. You’ll need water for flushing your toilet, too. One way to keep a good supply of non-potable water handy is to fill the bathtub before the power goes out.

FOOD: At a bare minimum, keep a two-week supply of non-perishable food in your house all the time. If your family eats canned and dried foods, this can be as simple as keeping stocked up on the stuff you normally eat. If you don’t eat processed foods, you might need to keep a survival kit of canned goods. Anything you buy at the supermarket needs to be rotated on a regular basis. Canned food doesn’t keep forever.

Make sure you have a way to cook this stuff after the power goes out. I come from a long line of campers, but if don’t already have a camp stove, get one.

This seems really obvious, but you’d be surprised: make sure you have a way to OPEN CANS without electricity!

For longer term storage there are better options. Do a web search on food storage, or ask a Mormon neighbor to help you out.

FUEL: Before a storm hits, fill the car with gas. I make it a general rule to never get below half a tank, but then, I’m paranoid. Make sure you have fuel for your camp stove. (Propane is the most convenient and probably the safest.) Have flashlights and extra batteries. If your house (like mine) is all-electric, figure out how you are going to keep warm in the winter. A fireplace or wood-burning stove can keep a room or two warm. There are propane camping heaters but they are meant for small tents. Kerosene heaters put out a lot of warmth but liquid fuel can be dangerous indoors. Whatever you use, keep adequate fuel available.

MISC: Paper towels, toilet paper, sanitary products, any medications you take on a regular basis.

DEFENSE: There always seems to be looting after a storm. Most of the time the looters are rummaging through empty homes and stores, but not always. If you follow the minimal advice I’ve given above, you’ll be in better shape than 90% of your neighbors. What are you going to do if they decide to partake of some freelance socialism and redistribute your wealth? As Captain, you need to be prepared to repel boarders.

There are lots of opinions on this, and mine is far from authoritative. But this is my blog, so I’m going to tell you my opinion. And in my opinion, if you are only going to have one weapon for home defense, it should be a pump-action 12-guage shotgun. Better: in addition to the shotgun, have a rifle in the thirty-caliber neighborhood, and a handgun in a minimum of .38 caliber or 9mm. Both the rifle and shotgun should have short barrels. Tell the sporting goods store you are going to use them for hunting deer in heavily wooded areas, and you’ll get something appropriate.

Stay away from scary-looking black military-style weapons. You want something that could be used for sports like hunting or target shooting. The reason: if you should ever have to defend your family with one of these weapons, you will eventually be sitting in a courtroom while an assistant district attorney shows them to a jury. You want the jury to see you as someone who was driven by circumstances to pick up his hunting gun and defend himself, not as a vigilante survivalist who was chomping at the bit to kill someone.

That list should get you started, or at least get you thinking along the proper lines. Remember that after any significant natural disaster, it’s likely to be a minimum of three days before any kind of help arrives at all, and up to two weeks before the situation stabilizes and serious reconstruction starts.

Homework assignment: For the next three days, take note of everything that you eat, drink, consume, or use. Ask yourself if you would miss it in the aftermath of a storm. If you would, make sure you have it on hand in your “hurricane kit.”

Body Language

2012-10-06T08:49:00.000-04:00

A lot has been written in the manosphere about the importance of body language. An alpha male carries himself confidently. He takes up space without apology. He stands tall and looks people in the eye.

And the opposite: looking down is a sign of submission. A lot of words have been written about this, but here's just one example: Eye Contact Game

In that link, Danger and Play tell us "If a girl looks down, she views herself as lower status than you." And "If you look down, it means you’re submissive. If you look down after making eye contact with a woman, you have subconsciously told her that you’re a worm."

Pop quiz: Below is a split-screen image from the Monday night presidential debate. Which man looks like an Alpha male, and which one looks like a submissive pussy?

Even with the sound off, it was clear who won this debate. But this isn't a political blog, and I'm not making this point to influence how you vote. My point is, you want to look like Romney, not like Obama.

The overwhelming consensus that Romney won the debate has as much to do with his and Obama's body language as it does with anything that either of them said. This stuff is important. If looking at the ground can affect the outcome of a presidential election, just imagine how it can affect your chances of getting laid.

The night of the debate was the Obama's 20th anniversary, so the leader of the free world probably got duty sex in a Denver hotel room after the debate. But I bet Mrs. Romney's panties were dripping during the limo ride back to the hotel and Mr. Romney got righteously laid Monday night.

DHV: Have some credit

2012-08-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

When my first marriage broke up, my credit was awful. I had a pre-paid cell phone because even the phone company wouldn’t give me credit. In my defense, I must point out that I was married to a drug addict, but I must also accept responsibility for my own bad decisions – including the decision to remain married to a drug addict for as long as I did.

As soon as we separated, I formulated a plan. I eliminated all excess spending. After alimony, nearly half my take-home pay went to paying down some very old debts. I also worked on cleaning up my credit reports. I won’t go into details here, but I found a lot of useful information at the FICO Forum.

Three years after the separation, my credit had improved enough that I was able to buy a house. Three years after that, I was able to qualify for an American Express card. That green Amex card is a huge symbol to me, because Amex was the first credit card I ever owned, and the first one to be cancelled for missed payments. Having that card in my wallet reminds me that I am now a responsible adult.

You’ll hear a lot from guys like Dave Ramsey on why it’s important to be debt-free. And I agree with most of it. But being debt-free is not the same thing as not having credit, or not using credit. And sometimes, it’s really important to be able to pull out the credit card and handle a situation.

I was recently in just such a situation. My wife and I attended a family reunion on the other side of the country. It was an area we had never visited, and to maximize our time there we booked the last flight out of the airport the night we were scheduled to return home.

That’s where Murphy’s Law raised its ugly head. Due to mechanical problems, our flight was cancelled. Two hundred people de-planed and headed to the service counter to try to re-book their flights. When it was finally our turn, the very pleasant young man informed us that he could get us two seats on a non-stop flight home at 1:00 PM. It was currently a little after midnight.

“Don’t you have anything leaving earlier?” I really didn’t want to spend the next 13 hours in that airport.

He clicked on his keyboard for a minute. “I have a flight leaving at 9:00 AM. But you have to change planes in Chicago, with a two-hour layover. It arrives at [hometown] 20 minutes later than the non-stop.”

So we take the nonstop. “Can you provide us with a hotel room?” He explained that the airline does keep a block of rooms, but they didn’t have any more available. He gave me a pink slip of paper with an 800 number, and told me that if I called that number they could find me a discounted rate.

My wife, by this point, was getting a little bit nuts. We could see some folks from our flight bedding down in the corner at the next gate. CNN was blaring loudly on an overhead TV screen. I knew it was time to Alpha-up and be the Captain.

“Sit here with the bags,” I told her. “I’m going to go over there where it’s a little quieter, and make a phone call. Don’t panic, I’ve got this.”

I called the number on the card. They told me that they had a few rooms left near this particular airport, at a Marriott. $115 seemed like a good rate, under the circumstances. There was a free shuttle. I wrote down the confirmation number.

I went back to my wife. “Grab your bags, we’re going to the Marriott.” The relief in her eyes was visible.

Instead of a miserable night trying to sleep in an airport, wearing clothes we had been sweating in all day, we got to take hot showers and crawl between clean sheets in a comfortable bed. In the morning we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast overlooking the bay, while watching the airplanes take off from the runway that jutted out into the water. Then we took the free shuttle back to the airport, and the flight home went off without a hitch.

The “old me” wouldn’t have been able to make this happen. After carefully budgeting the trip down to the penny, I wouldn’t have had the resources to deal with the extra Benjamin for the hotel room, not to mention the extra $50 for breakfast. That little green Amex card in my wallet bought me much more than a comfortable night’s sleep and a pleasant breakfast – it let me be a hero to my wife.

And that is a great thing to be.

Alpha move: dress better

2012-08-06T09:44:00.000-04:00

Over on Hooking Up Smart, a commenter named Cooper had some questions about why he was attracting the wrong kinds of women. It seems that he has no problem attracting women, but he’s looking for a potential Mrs. Cooper.

I’m not going to suggest that Cooper’s wardrobe is entirely responsible for his problem. There’s a lot going on here, and his clothing choice is only a small part of it. But it’s probably the easiest part to fix.

Cooper says he’s partial to “Obey shirts.” Being of a certain age, I had no idea what an Obey shirt is, so I had to check out their web site. My immediate advice to Cooper was to stop wearing them. He’s in his mid-twenties, so he may be able to get away with wearing graphic tees for a few more years. But even as young as he is, such clothing is not optimal.

I think part of Cooper’s problem is that the graphic tees send a message about him, and that message says that he’s either an adolescent or a thug. That’s directly relevant to his situation, because Red Pill dudes know that adolescents and thugs have no problem attracting women. If he wanted to be like Heartiste or RooshV and tally up a string of one-night-stands, he’d be doing fine. But Cooper is looking for a long-term relationship. Women who are attracted to adolescents and thugs are not LTR material.

A good rule of thumb is to dress one notch above those around you. If you’re a college student and your classmates are all wearing tee shirts, try wearing a polo shirt instead. If casual Friday at your office means all of the men are in polo shirts and khakis, then wear some nice wool slacks and a button down shirt. Don’t be afraid to put on a sport coat when going out to a club. If all the other men are in sport coats, wear a suit. If everyone is wearing a suit, be the guy in the bow tie or the guy with the brightly colored pocket square.

If you’re over 30 years old, save the graphic tees for doing yard work or changing the oil in your car.

If you need some help with your wardrobe, check out Tanner over at Masculine Style. Some of his suggestions are a bit too fashion-forward for a guy my age, but he has some good insights on how a man should dress.

Clothes may not make the man, but they do say something about him. What are your clothes saying about you?

Alpha Advice: Buy a Motorcycle

2012-08-01T13:03:00.000-04:00

I spent last Saturday driving my roadster much too fast on twisty mountain roads, with my wife in the passenger seat. Well, mostly in the passenger seat. I let her drive some, too.

My wife is an adrenalin junkie, so when we got back to our hotel room that night I was handsomely rewarded for scaring the crap out of her. It didn’t even matter that we were both dog tired, sunburned, and the walls were so thin we could hear the fat lesbians giggling in the next room. It was awesome.

But this post is not about getting your wife hot by riding her around in a sports car. It’s about motorcycles, and the women who love the bad boys who ride them.

One of the roads that we drove on that day is a particularly infamous stretch of US Highway 129, known as the Tail of the Dragon. At one end of this stretch of road, there’s a motel that caters to motorcyclists. And next to the motel there’s a pub and grill which serves the best burgers in the area. We ate lunch there, and since it was a Saturday in the summer time, the place was packed. We enjoyed some great people-watching along with our burgers.

There was a wide variety of people to watch. There were young dudes in leather jumpsuits driving crotch-rocket bikes, and grizzled old-timers on chopped Harleys. There were retired couples on Gold Wings, and of course, there were the sports-car guys in Polo shirts and Bermuda shorts.

The first thing that I noticed was the biker women. They ranged from the young and hot to the elderly and morbidly obese, but they all had one thing in common: No matter where they might fall on the hotness scale, every one of them was far hotter than the man she was with

Once I noticed this, I started searching in vain for the exception: surely that fat gray-haired lady… nope, her husband is wrinkled and missing half his teeth. This one looks kind of butch. Oh, that’s because her “boyfriend” is a girl. The 30-something with the bad haircut and lazy eye? Not a biker, she’s married to one of the sports car guys. In every case, if a biker dude had a woman with him, she was two to three points above him on the hotness scale.

The conclusion is inescapable: buy a motorcycle to increase your sex rank.

N.B. – I will not be taking my own advice. I owned a motorcycle years ago, for about six weeks. In that short span I had two accidents. The first was entirely my own fault, and resulted merely in a bruised ego and some scratched paint. The second could easily have killed me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could have done to prevent it. I’ll stick to hot two-seat convertibles, thank you very much.

A Find! (And a book review)

2012-07-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

I was out with my wife a couple of weeks ago and we stopped in a little consignment shop. While she was trying on clothes, I was browsing through the selection of used books on the back wall.That's where I made this remarkable find: The Game, by Neil Strauss. I'd have bought it if it was a ratty paperback, but was especially delighted to find it bound in leatherette, and decorated with gold leaf. The silk ribbon bookmark is an especially nice touch.

In spite of the binding, this is not a pickup-artist Bible. It's actually the story of how author Neil Strauss transformed himself into a pickup artist called Style, and moved into a Los Angeles mansion with Mystery. It's a memoir rather than a method, but reading it will give you some insight into the methods of the pickup artists.

The book reads like a novel, and it's a real page-turner. After Style develops the skills to pick up any woman he wants, he begins to question what it is he really wants. He notices that the group of PUAs living in Mystery's house are more concerned with impressing each other than actually meeting women. He discovers that pickup skills are great for one-night stands, but struggles with forming lasting relationships -- too bad he didn't have the benefit of Athol Kay's writings, or The Red Pill Room, to help him with that.

Eventually the infighting and rivalries cause the residents of the house to go their separate ways. Strauss' big insight comes at the end of the book, when his girlfriend Lisa tells him she wants him to be Neil, "balding, nerdy, glasses, and all."

He realizes that while Lisa liked "the real me," she would never have had the chance to meet him without the Game.

I needed Mystery, Ross Jeffries, David DeAngelo, David X, Juggler, Steve P., Rasputin, and all those other pseudonyms. I needed them to discover what was me to begin with. And now that I had found that person, brought him out of his shell, and learned to accept him, perhaps I had outgrown them.

Perhaps he had. And all of us in long-term relationships can learn from his experience. The PUAs have some information we can use, but we don't want to be them.

T-shirt Truth in Advertising?

2012-07-09T16:16:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why this woman chose to advertise her sex rank on her shirt, or why she's offering to show others how to achieve the same score, or why anyone would aspire to be a "3 or 4." But when I saw her in the grocery store I laughed. I just had to share this.

Like most women, she seems to over-estimate her own SR.

Road Trip!

2012-06-12T10:18:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I mentioned to fellow blogger Ian Ironwood that I was planning a road trip. I'd like to think that this was his inspiration for this post. If you haven't read that, you should. I'll wait right here...

OK, back already?

I have to say, Ian's advice is spot on. I won't go into a lot of detail on my road trip, but it was an epic eight-day trek through the deep south. What I do want to say is that giving my wife a chance to miss me seems to have paid off. The night I got home we had some of the best sex ever, and since then she can't seem to keep her hands off me.

Road trip: Highly recommended!

Scheduling Intimacy

2012-05-21T10:19:00.000-04:00

A link in my twitter feed this weekend led me to this post from Advocatus Diaboli.

He says:

If you are scheduling something, it is almost guaranteed to be a chore.
Taking your garbage out on time, vacuuming your house regularly or doing laundry on a schedule is a chore not a need. We are talking about stuff that nobody really wants to do, or is strictly necessary at that moment, but performed for satisfying imaginary social expectations.

To which I say: bullshit!

Healthy adult human beings schedule a lot of things that are not chores. We schedule special events like birthday parties and attending concerts. We schedule recreational activities like rock climbing or poker nights. We schedule vacations and weekend getaways.

Don't get me wrong; I'm completely in favor of unscheduled, spontaneous sex. And surprising the wife is always fun... but even that takes planning and preparation. (For the ultimate example of this, read Ian Ironwood's series on the ultimate Red Pill date.)

I have a successful career. I'm also finishing my college degree, learning to play the guitar, and this summer I'm taking a welding class at the local community college.

My wife is equally busy. She also has a successful career, and hers involves a significant amount of out of town travel. She's also an officer in a professional organization.

We have to schedule intimacy; it's the only way it's going to happen. Or at least, it's the only way it's going to happen as often as we want it to.

In our life, there are basically two kinds of scheduled sex: maintenance sex, and OMG that was amazing sex. Maintenance sex is what Athol Kay refers to as Below Average Sex. (By definition, half of all sex is below average.) "OMG that was amazing" is anything that takes more planning than grabbing the lube and jumping into bed. Role playing, fetish play, B&D, anything that takes props, costumes, and significant time, is going to require some advance preparation. And if it's going to happen, we need to set aside some time for it.

All this is not to say that married professionals never have spontaneous sex. It happens, and when it does it's a wonderful thing. But scheduled sex is not comparable to taking out the garbage, either.

Irony

2012-05-08T14:38:00.000-04:00

My wife sent me a text to let me know that a package arrived in the mail. It was Androgel, a testosterone supplement, from my prescription plan.

The irony is that the auto-correct on her phone changed "Androgel" to "shrivel." Uh, quite the opposite, actually.

War On Men -- College Edition

2012-04-25T15:41:00.000-04:00

Minding the Campus has a story on the University of North Carolina's response to the Obama education department's notorious "Dear Colleague" letter.

Under the current system at UNC, if an accuser simply files a sexual assault claim through the university but doesn't go to the police, the accused student has no right to outside counsel. "Neither a licensed attorney nor a person who has passed a state bar examination may serve as the investigator or defense counsel or be present during proceedings." If the accuser has simultaneously filed a criminal charge, "the accused student may be accompanied to the hearing by a licensed attorney who may confer with the student during the hearing so long as the attorney does not address the hearing panel, those hearing the appeal, or other parties or witnesses, and so long as the attorney does not delay or disrupt the proceeding." [emphasis added] And in either case, the right of the accused student to present evidence to clear his name is severely limited by a clause that prohibits presentation of evidence that "does not otherwise infringe the rights of other students." This is the procedure that Dean Manning had considered unfairly tilted against the accuser.

There's a mistake in that quote... evidence is only ALLOWED (not prohibited) if it "does not otherwise infringe the rights of other students."

More importantly, the new policy removes accusations of sexual assault from the UNC Honor Code, and treats them differently. Under the Honor Code, guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, just as in a criminal trial. But now, sexual assault accusations only need to be proven "by a preponderance of the evidence." That is, the most serious charges only need to be shown to be 50.1% likely to be true.

A male student at UNC can be expelled, have is educational career and his life destroyed, on the flimsiest of evidence and without the benefit of legal counsel. How could any man choose to put himself into such a situation? How could any parents allow their sons to be put into such situations? Did we learn nothing from the recent events at Duke?

To be fair, this is not unique to UNC. The Tarheels are merely the first school to go on record as complying with the Obama administration's mandate.

As one commenter on Minding the Campus said, "How in the world do you teach an 18year old boy that he has to protect himself from any woman he meets...that at the whim of a partner his life can be ruin?"

Chivalry is only dead if you let it be dead

2012-04-16T12:46:00.000-04:00

Dalrock has a new post today, in which he takes a writer at the Canadian Post to task for her article on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking. Of course, the CP was asking for it when they titled the article: Titanic Anniversary: Is a man brave or condescending if he lets women and children go first?

How dare those awful men let themselves drown in the icy North Atlantic! Equality demands that men fight their way into the lifeboats, "women and children first" be damned!

I grew up reading tales of male gallantry from King Arthur and his knights, right on down to the Hardy Boys. Call me old-fashioned, but I still think it's the man's job to slay dragons (and spiders). Men are the rescuers, and women are the rescued.

It took a while, but I eventually managed to get my wife trained to wait for me to open her car door. It's a small gesture, but it's symbolic. A feminist would say that it's symbolic of my need to control my wife, or that I'm suggesting she's not capable of opening her own door. That, like most things that feminists say, is bullshit. It's a gesture of kindness and respect. It's a masculine duty, although modern society deprecates such notions.

You also won't see my wife pushing a lawn mower or taking the trash can down to the curb. Those are "man jobs" at our house. I'm aware that my wife is plenty capable of opening doors, pushing lawnmowers, and toting trash. She does much tougher jobs, like putting in a new flower bed, for fun. But if I sat on the porch with a beer in my hand while she mowed the yard, my grandfather's ghost would pay me a nocturnal visit to ask where my genitals had gone.

What does this have to do with Game? Why, everything! Game, properly understood, IS a modern version of Chivalry. Like the knight on a quest, the man who has taken the red pill must go his own way. Like the medieval man, the man who knows Game knows the weakness of women, and the need to protect them. Contrary to feminist rhetoric, you are stronger than your wife; or at least, you should be.

Chivalry is noble by it's very definition. As John Huizinga said, "the source of the chivalrous idea, is pride aspiring to beauty, and formalized pride gives rise to a conception of honour, which is the pole of noble life."

So have some pride, and give rise to honor. Don't let the feminists take away chivalry.

What Men Want From Women

2012-04-09T17:28:00.000-04:00

This was posted on The Private Man. It was actually a comment someone left on another blog, but he felt it was worth reposting. And he's right, it bears repeating, over and over again.

What men want from women:

We want you to celebrate with us when we’ve triumphed.

We want you to help us through when we’re down.

We want you to stay with us when we’re down.

We want you to not be constantly looking for a better model.

We want you to encourage us when things aren’t going well.

We want a simple, heartfelt “I love you” at the end of a tough day.

We want you to show us and tell us that we satisfy you sexually.

We want you to show us that we are still attractive to you physically.

A man NEVER gets tired of hearing from his woman how great she thinks he is. NEVER. You can’t say it enough. If you do say it, you will have his undying love.

He will work himself into an early grave at a job he hates for you and your children. He will gladly throw himself in front of speeding cars for you. He will gladly lay down his life for you. He will give you all he is, all he has, all his money, and all the resources he can bring to bear.

And all he asks in return is for tenderness, a pleasant disposition, physical affection at reasonable intervals, and that you stay with him.

Why is that so hard to figure out?

The Private Man also offers the answer to the question "Why is that so hard to figure out?" It's because women (and men) fall into the vicious circle of lies and misinformation.

Temptation

2012-03-30T10:12:00.003-04:00

There are an ever increasing number of blogs about the use of Game in marriage and other long-term relationships. This is a good thing.

At some point, they all touch on the topic of temptation, because it’s eventually going to happen to any man working the Plan. You’ve gotten physically fit, you’ve improved your appearance, you’ve increased your self-confidence. One day, in the midst of an innocent flirtation, you realize the possibilities. “If I just escalate here, I could easily get this woman in bed.”

If you have ever taken a self-defense class, you know the importance of drills. You have to imagine yourself in a difficult situation, and practice your response until it becomes a reflex. When a bad guy attacks you in a parking lot at night, you don’t have time to look up what to do in the textbook. You have to have drilled enough to respond instantly, without thought. You have to practice until you develop the right reflexes.

I’m self-aware enough to know that if I suddenly found myself in a situation that could easily lead to sex, my first instinct might be to do something that I would later regret. So I contemplate the possibilities, and rehearse my responses.

An important part of my preparation for the inevitable temptation is simply to Know Who I Am.

I am a tall, attractive, intelligent, spiritual, happily-married man. And, quite frankly, my sexuality is too valuable to be shared with the sort of woman who would knowingly bed a married man. (Yes, I know… shades of Grouch Marx. “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”)

I haven’t always been this way. As my previous marriage was going down in flames, I slept with a lot of women. Most of them were married, too. A large part of my motivation was seeking validation. My self-esteem was shot, and I needed them to prove to me that I was still attractive.

In spite of my comment about “the sort of woman who would knowingly bed a married man,” I don’t look down on any of the women I slept with during my first marriage. In fact, I am now married to one of them. (I’ve changed a lot since I met her, and she has, too. We aren’t the same people we were then.) I don’t look down on them, and I don’t look down on myself for sleeping with them, either. As my spiritual advisor/guitar teacher says, “We all do the best we can with what we have at the time.”

But I’m better now. I can recognize my own self-worth. I don’t need a woman, or a string of women, to validate me. I know who I am, and I’m too valuable to waste on casual flings.

Don't be a sorry guy

2012-03-26T10:35:00.001-04:00

I ran across an idea a few weeks ago that had to do with using the words “I’m sorry.” I’ve been doing so much reading lately, that I’m not sure where I saw this. It might have been in Athol’s book, or it might have been one of the manosphere blogs, but I’m not sure.

I do know that since reading it, I’ve become acutely aware of how often I say the words “I’m sorry.” And most of the time, I haven’t done anything wrong. My wife is going through a long and painful recovery from surgery, so I have a lot of occasions to express sympathy and concern.

But there’s the rub. English being a compact language, most words have multiple meanings. Sure, one of the meanings of ‘sorry’ is “sympathetic,” or “compassionate.” But take a look at some of the other synonyms for sorry:

Remorseful
Regretful
Apologetic
Despicable
Pathetic
Contemptible
Disgraceful
Insignificant
Miserable
Vile
Worthless

If you keep telling your wife that you are pathetic and contemptible, how long do you think it will be before she starts to believe you?

Of course, there are times when no other term will do. When you screw up, admit it. Take the blame, apologize, do what you can to set things right, and move on. Sometimes, you do have to say you’re sorry, because life isn’t a 70’s novel.

But apart from actual apologies, resolve now to banish the phrase “I’m sorry” from your vocabulary. Here are some other ways to express sympathy and compassion without claiming to be vile or disgraceful:

“I know this is very difficult for you.”

“We’re in this together. You are not alone.”

“This must be so painful for you.”

“How can I help?”

“I don’t know what to say, but I care.”

“That must be terrible.”

“I can’t imagine that kind of pain.”

Also remember this: As a man, confronted with a problem, your instinct is to search for solutions. But most of the time, when your woman has a problem, she doesn’t want you to solve it. She just wants to know that you understand her, and that you care. If you immediately jump to offering solutions, she will likely interpret that as a lack of caring. Give her your emotional support first and foremost.

It's funny, because it's true

2012-03-22T09:11:00.000-04:00

It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog: Chicks dig jerks.

Steve Sailer has published a review of Whit Stillman's "Damsels in Distress." In his blog post, he quotes a character from The Last Days of Disco, an earlier Stillman film.

Christopher Eigeman on Disney's Lady and the Tramp: What's the function of a film of this kind? Essentially as a primer on love and marriage directed at very young people, imprinting on their little psyches the idea that smooth-talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls from sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house, their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why. Films like this program women to adore jerks.

Several reviews of Disco mention this quote. One calls it "...a hilarious deconstruction of Disney's Lady and the Tramp..." I can't argue with that. It's certainly funny. But it's also true.

One could turn this into a big nature/nurture discussion. Do chicks dig jerks because evolutionary biology has wired them that way, or because our culture has programmed them that way? Do films like Lady and the Tramp create culture, or merely reflect it?

Such things may be fun to think about, but the important thing to remember is simply this: Being the perpetual nice guy will only get you so far in life. To keep your woman feeling all tingly when she looks at you, you have to balance it with a bit of being a jerk.