2013: On the way home from school, you pass the Starbucks–like you always do–when you see a cute girl from your school coming out of there with one her friends. They’re both wearing loose sweatpants, with your high school’s name emblazoned on the side, and tucked into one of those pairs of Ugg Boots all the girls are wearing these days. You immediately recognize her as Melissa, since she’s one of the girls you’ve been eyeing from a distance since middle school, and is one of the most popular girls in the tenth grade. Not only that, she’s co-president of your school’s “Young Activist Task Force,” which made waves in the school paper last year for their stunts at their annual “body-image workshop.” She and her fat friend are both carrying Starbucks milkshakes in one hand and looking down at their iPhones in their other hand.

1993: You crush down your nearly paralyzing nervousness to talk to her. “Hey, I recognize you. You go to Grant High School, right?” Your voice cracks a little, but you plug along.

2013: Unsure about how to get your girl’s attention–and not wanting to interrupt whatever important thing she’s doing on her phone–you let the two girls walk ahead before dipping into a side street a block later.

1993: Melissa’s icy at first, responding to your question with the most tepid of yeses.  But, with her bus nowhere in sight, and nothing to hide behind, she’s forced to field your weak game. You can see the anticipatory boredom in her face.

2013: You rush home, drop your bag without opening it, and boot up your computer. You load up Facebook, pull up Melissa’s page, and send her a friend request. You’ve been waiting for an excuse to add her, and this is perfect. You follow it up with a message that says, “Hope you enjoyed that frap today. ;)”

1993: You’ve picked up speed. After some stumbling in the beginning, you gained traction by bringing up music and dancing–which you pretended to not know she was into. Now you’ve realized that you have the same teacher for one class, at different times of the day. She’s laughing hysterically at your spot-on impersonation of Mr. Peterson and his infamous facial tick.

2013: You check your page three times that night, but no response. She’s probably busy. Or she set her phone down for a while.

1993: Melissa points out her approaching bus in the distance. Realizing that you’re running out of time, your voice trembles again as you say, “we should hang out some time.” When she smiles and gives you a sincere-sounding “yeah” in response, you ask for her phone number. She writes it down in big, girly bubble-writing on a piece of notebook paper, tears it off, and hands it to you. As she gets on the bus, you gingerly put the golden ticket in your wallet, having tried to memorize the number in case you smudge the magenta-colored ink with your body heat, drop your wallet, or get robbed on the way home. You’re so charged up, you actually run to your destination.

2013: Three days later, Melissa accepts your Facebook friend request. You’re relieved, but wonder why she didn’t respond to your message. You scroll through all 353 of the pictures in her profile and save your favorites in a folder on your hard drive. You masturbate to the ones from her recent beach trip.

1993: You’re scared shitless because it’s been a couple of days and you still haven’t called. You finally decide to bite the bullet that night. You tell your mom and dad that you’re going to make a call and ask them not to pick up the phone for the next few minutes, which prompts some annoying cutesy noises from your mom and an Arsenio-Hall fist pump from your dad. You then cover your bases by threatening your little brother with violence if he should so much as look at you while you’re on your call. You opt for the kitchen phone, since there’s more privacy there than in the living room. You dial the seven digits.

2013: Since your first angle didn’t work, you decide to try the side-door approach. You reason that commenting on one of her pictures or status updates should prompt the desired effect. But, no sooner had you started to look for the right place for your comment than you started to notice that all of her pictures have a long trail of comments from “random” dudes–most of them annoying compliments. You click through to their pages and see that she’s in a some of their pictures—at parties, out-and-about, or at school events. Is she “with” one of these guys? Who are they? What the fuck? You’re at a loss.

1993: A man’s voice picks up the phone. You immediately switch into adult phone-manner, which you were taught by your parents. “Good evening sir, is Melissa home?” You expected that to work, but he tells you Melissa is about to eat dinner and needs to finish her homework. You’re about to give up, but decide to double down, “Oh, I understand. I’m just calling about some school things. We’ll only be five minutes, I promise.” At your respectful tone, the old man softens up, despite his suspicions of your ulterior motive. He asks for your name and calls out,“Melissa, phone!”

2013: After having all but given up on Facebook, you strike gold a few days later. You get an invitation from her to one of her club’s activist events. You decide to go.

1993: You and Melissa have a surprisingly comfortable phone conversation. Gone is the iciness from the bus stop. You talk for about 20 minutes before before you start hearing her dad’s voice in the background. Before she gets off the phone, you roll the dice again and suggest you should hang out after school later in the week. She agrees.

2013: You get to the event late, but just in time to hear Melissa shouting a speech about “gender norms” and “female sexuality” and “rape culture” to her club, which is composed of fat girls, nerdy-looking hipsters, and a smattering of odd-balls. There are novelty cupcakes and other refreshments in the back. You figure you’ll get your chance to move in during the social part of the event.

1993: Your date with Melissa goes perfectly. You meet by the main gate after school and decide to go to a cool ice-cream place a few blocks away. After that, you go on a long walk along some of the quiet side-streets in the neighborhood, talking and laughing the whole way. At a certain point, with your fear completely evaporated, you decide to kiss her. As you move in, you can see she’s now the nervous one. It’s a magical moment you’ll never forget. You sleep like a baby that night, knowing you have her.

2013: After the rally, you make a beeline to the refreshments table, figuring everyone will funnel into that area. You plan on loitering there till Melissa swings through and then chatting her up. When she finally does show up, she’s surrounded by three of the hipster boys from the audience, boxing out any would-be interlopers like a presidential security detail. You recognize at least one of them from her Facebook wall. For the rest of the night, they never leave her side. You can’t tell how well she knows them, but she seems to enjoy being the center of their attention. The rest of the fat girls in the room talk amongst themselves. A few try to talk to you, but you deflect them deftly. Eventually, you concede defeat for the night and talk to a couple of them near the empty cupcake boxes. “How do you know Melissa?,” one of them asks. ”Oh, we’re friends.”

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Jim arrives and gets in Ryan’s car and immediately begins detailing his excitement to finally be in Los Angeles, ready to lay out in the famous beaches, walk along palm-tree ridden streets and of course go visit Access.  Ryan, a long-time resident, remains silent for now.  Jim tells Ryan about his flight and starts asking questions about LA, interrupted occasionally by Ryan’s car hitting potholes on the drive.  Jim is surprised how clear a night it is, because he swore he saw some cloud cover on the descent into LAX.  Ryan explains that was actually smog, not clouds.  “Oh,” Jim retorts.

After a 45 minute drive to go 6 miles, which Jim now learns is typical even though it was 9pm on a Wednesday night, they get to Access and valet their car for $8.  Once inside they are shown their table.  The restaurant has a nice decor, set to the perfect temperature.  Jim is very excited as he’s heard about Access from friends, the news and even some TV shows. In fact, Access is always portrayed in the media for having Boxgap Steak, a rather scarce but overly desired steak not only in California, but the world.  This steak is special.  It is generally very lean, but has some fat in all the right places.  It is tender, very moist and of course tastes like only something one can dream of.  It’s sourced from young cows between the ages of 18-24 months, as the 18 month mark is when California legally allows their slaughter.  After 24 months, the steak starts to spoil and isn’t as good as it used to be.  Although Boxgap Steak comes from cows that are raised all over the US and sometimes even internationally, it somehow always finds its way to LA soon enough.

The waiter comes by and before even asking for their food order, Jim blurts out that he can’t wait to try the Boxgap Steak.  The waiter makes a confused face and asks Jim if this is his first time here.  Ryan asks the waiter for a minute and turns to Jim and lets him know that unfortunately, he can’t have the Boxgap Steak.

Jim: Why?

Ryan: Well, even though Access is famous for the Boxgap Steak, not everyone can have it.  Only certain people can have it.

Jim: What are you talking about? Look at that table by the kitchen – every person there has a Boxgap Steak!  How’s that possible?

That of course was the prime table at Access, the one by the kitchen where everyone gets Boxgap Steak.  In fact, what Ryan and most LA residents know is that it is quite an illusion that anyone can come to LA and be eating Boxgap Steak right away.  Ryan told Jim to look around, nobody has the Boxgap Steak absent that one table.  So Jim asks why that table.  Ryan explains:

Well, you see that older guy?  That’s Don, he owns Access so of course he gets to have it.

That guy next to him is the promoter for Access, Dylan.  He goes out and finds people to come to the restaurant, promising them the opportunity for Boxgap Steak.  He also is the one that sources the Boxgap Steak from the farms, so he gets to have it too.

Next to him is some actor on TV.  He’s famous so he gets to have Boxgap Steak too.

Jim sees the man next to the actor, some ugly Persian guy with gold chains on and who is quite loud and obnoxious.  Jim wondered why he got to have some.

I see you looking at the Persian guy.  He is insanely rich and pays $1,000 to have a seat at that table, so he can eat Boxgap Steak.  Dylan found him.  Ridiculous, I know, but to him money means nothing and that type of wealth gets you that type of steak.

Then there’s the chef Alan, he takes bits from the Boxgap Steak here and there when available.

Billy is next to him, he works in the restaurant business.  Because he’s in the industry, he gets to have some Boxgap Steak too.

Then there’s Sergio.  He’s 6’5, 220lbs and ripped to shreds, and looks like a male model.  He doesn’t know himself how he got to sit at that table—he was just invited.

And the last seat is Calvin, he has the best kosher salt in all of LA.  He often hosts parties in his house in the Hollywood Hills, where he has an array of spices for the Boxgap Steaks.  You should see how fast those steaks absorp the kosher salt, it’s amazing.  So because of his varied spices, and especially the kosher salt, he gets to have it too.

This was getting to be too much for Jim.  He had grown up reading about and seeing all these stories about Boxgap Steaks and now he was finding out he couldn’t have it? The waiter brought over the steaks to that table one by one, and Jim just stared luringly.  The steaks were perfect.  They glowed with a light only found on meat aged as indicated above.  They smelled amazing, their aromas hitting Jim’s olfactory senses as they were carried past him.  They were very juicy and tender, glistening with what was likely some delicious butter.  It was quite honestly one of the best looking and well put together steaks Jim has seen — certainly he never saw this type of steak where he’s from.

Of course those sitting at the table by the kitchen didn’t seem to value the Boxgap Steak as much as Jim did.  They were laughing, eating their steaks callously, and he even saw the Persian guy fingering his steak.  The gall on that man, Jim thought, fingering that Boxgap Steak in public.  As Ryan explained however, they are used to the Boxgap Steaks.  They can have them on whim, and some of them don’t even pay for it.  It’s just because of who they are, who they know or what they can provide that they get it.

The waiter comes back and Ryan orders ground chuck hamburgers for both of them.  “So that’s what we get?  Ground Chuck?” Jim exclaimed.  Jim’s anger was seeping out.  Both him and Ryan were bright guys, spoke several languages, had good careers and were good-looking.  He should not be limited to ground chuck.  Ryan responded that while it is no Boxgap Steak, it’s decent and gets the job done.

After eating, Jim stated that it was maybe a 6.5/10.  Ryan agreed, and let Jim know it hovers in the 6-7 range, with maybe once in a while the ground chuck hitting an 8.  The bill came and Jim was again shocked.  “It’s that expensive for some ground chuck?!?”  Ryan explained that because of the market in LA, where only a select few get the Boxgap Steak and everyone else is left to fight for the ground chuck, it artificially inflates the price.  “Don’t feel too bad though,” said Ryan.  ”Look outside, see that guy eating out of the trash? If I didn’t take care of myself and improve myself to where I’m at now, I wouldn’t even get ground chuck.  I’d be that guy.”

On the drive home Jim asked Ryan if he’s ever had Boxgap Steak.  A few times, Ryan explained.  “Here it’s mostly luck.”  The first time was when he found a Boxgap Steak that had just arrived at the supermarket, before Access or the other restaurants found out about it and swooped it up.  “Sometimes” Ryan explained, “if you find some Boxgap Steak right when it arrives in LA, you can get to it.  After about 30 days though, like clockwork they are poached by the big restaurants here and you can’t get to them anymore.”

Ryan went on to explain that Boxgap Steak was much more regularly available outside LA, in places like New York and Miami.  This jogged Jim’s memory and he inquired of Ryan if what they say about the steaks in Europe is true. Since Ryan recently traveled to Europe, he confirmed Jim’s suspicion.  “Especially in Eastern Europe.  There’s a lot of Boxgap Steak there that is way more accessible.”  Ryan explained that it’s not impossible to get Boxgap Steak here, but you just have to be in the right type of industry, have unparalleled wealth or fame, and so on.  Jim was discouraged.

They arrived back at Ryan’s home and Jim was not tired yet.  He asked Ryan if he would like to go out and have a drink.  Ryan has to break Jim’s heart again, telling him that “Unfortunately, it’s already 1:00 a.m. and the bars all close in 30 minutes, so there is nowhere to go.”  Jim then goes to bed, starting to wonder what Ryan already knows, that LA may not be as wonderful as it seemed.

Over the next few years, the real LA showed itself to Jim and started to wear on him.  There is traffic all the time.  Despite having great weather, Jim started to miss the seasons.  The lack of mass transit made it difficult to have fun nights out, always requiring a designated driver or the risk of a DUI.  He grew tired of the ground chuck, and always lacking the ability to have the Boxgap Steak despite seeing it on a daily basis and being tortured with its sight and smell.  He paid high taxes, the state had many unnecessary laws and housing was overpriced.

Eventually, Jim broke and left LA for greener pastures, like many before him.  On his way through security at LAX, another fellow named Chad walked past Jim to start his new life in LA, like many before him.  Chad arrives and gets in his friend Alan’s car and immediately begins detailing his excitement to finally be in Los Angeles, ready to lay out in the famous beaches, walk along palm-tree ridden streets and of course… visit Access.

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“Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that –because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career, your business – compared to what you would have known if you hadn’t swallowed that morsel of news.”

The author lists 15 compelling reasons to excise news from your informational diet. Among these are:

It alters your brain

Similar to the way porn rewires our brains to crave constant sexual novelty, news rewires our brains to crave constant informational novelty. I never felt the need for a Twitter account until a couple years ago. A few months ago I started checking it more often. Now I find myself checking it several times a day, almost compulsively when I’m idle for a few moments. This is not healthy. Our brains acclimate to increasingly unnatural levels of stimulation and then demand them when they are absent.

It inhibits thinking and prevents understanding

Becoming accustomed to the 30-second soundbyte prevents us from exercising the deeper analytical capabilities of our minds. Though most people fancy themselves expert multitaskers, true introspection on an idea necessitates concentration that a constant stream of news renders impossible. Some studies even suggest that consuming news makes us worse decision-makers.

It is manipulative

The media is used to planting ideas, often furthering the aims of equalism, feminism, and political correctness. Politicians and corporations alike use media campaigns to manipulate a public who considers it completely normal to spend several hours a day consuming news on their computers and televisions. The lack of context clues makes it difficult for the average person to detect whether a story has a particular bias.

I suggest you read the full article, which is available here.

News is a vicarious time waster similar to sports. Nothing you see on popular news is going to help you get healthy, make money, or get girls. Even if you find the occasional useful tip on science or nutrition, you would have discovered it much earlier with more targeted independent research. The New York Times may begin singing the praises of intermittent fasting on a paleo diet in 10 years or so, but I’ll have a decade’s head start based on reading books, consulting with experts, and careful self-experimentation.

News, of course, isn’t the only culprit in our ever-growing hunger for useless information. Some people are addicted to texting friends on their smartphones, reloading their Facebook pages, or checking for bikini shots on Instagram. These are all time-wasting activities, but occasionally they give us some insight about how to live or some superficial interaction with others. News fills your mind with wasteful thoughts without adding anything that will make you a more well-rounded, knowledgeable, or successful person.

The solution? Stop consuming the news. Cull your Google reader, switch your homepage from NYtimes.com, and bring a book to the doctor’s office. You may just find yourself happier, sharper, and better equipped to dominate.

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1. Jogging Game

Any runners in the house? As tipped off by one of the RVF’s daygame experts, Giovanny:

I’ve opened girls while jogging around tracks, jogging in the street, and most effectively…while running or hiking on popular trails and pathways. The type of trails and “walks” that are talked about in running magazines and listed in touristy travel guides. Many of them are in state, county, and national parks. These trails and other popular high traffic areas attract a lot of tourists. Jog in these high traffic areas if you want a lot of targets!

Think jogging at Venice Beach or Miami Beach. Or Ipanema. Or Central Park. Or The Magnificent Mile.

I once met a Canadian tourist while jogging along The Embarcadero in SF. She was taking pictures, I stopped and asked were she was from. The next day I took her for a ride on my brothers harley davidson. Bang.

I used to live near a popular high school in a swanky neighborhood. The school track was open to the public. Many people would go there to jog, run, use the pull up bars/dip bars/parallel bars/rings, or play soccer or football on the astro turf field. There was a bit of a pick up culture to that track. I met a russian milf (got #, date, no bang)

There was a running club there. The girls were amazing! Seriously, like two 9′s, four 8′s, and three 7′s in that running club. Running clubs are no joke talent wise!

I have even opened girls who were running on the treadmill at the gym. But, never successfully.

I think looking sharp is the biggest thing. You want a jogging outfit that “pops”. Ideally, it would show off your body and also be stylish. That’s the first thing that catches their eye. Then you have to come strong with your opener.

Edit: Jog at University track!

But won’t a man look too sweaty and disheveled to spit game while jogging?

When you are running and your heart is pumping. You often have adrenaline pumping through your body, sometimes you get a “runners high”. Your mind is clear and you feel charged and energized.

This is a good time to talk to chicks. You can sometimes spit your strongest game in this state.

There you have it. If you’re a runner, you have no excuses now!

Game Innovation Rating: A

2. Hospital Game

Now, technically, hospitals are necessary social institutions which takes care of the sick and injured. But who is to say can’t we use such a venerable institution for “other” purposes? RVF regular Lothario educates us:

Venue / University hospital: lets just say for example Jackson Memorial hospital @ Univ of Miami, Vanderbilt Univ hospital in Nashville, Georgetown Univ hospital in DC 

The bigger the hospital the better but any medium sized hospital will do, Univ hospitals have more targets because of the affiliated paramedical fields like pharmacy, nursing etc

Why ? Target rich…. more women work at hospitals compared to men (Certified Fact)… for example there are…….

Nurses, Nursing students, Physical Therapists, Radiology technicians, Medical Assistants, Residents, Interns, Med Students, Nurse Practitioners, Dietitians, Psychologists, Pharmacy students (Phramacy School deserves a special mention) and Students/Interns doing clinicals in medical related fields specifically at teaching hospitals.

Timing: Best time to go is around Lunch time, Hang out/eat lunch at the main cafeteria , also try benches/picnic tables in out door areas, Girls eating food/reading book .

Angles to Play: for those of you who know something about Medicine, fabricating any story should not be difficult depending upon the girl, For other playas …. come up with some thing like….

1. You are VP of sales for a Software company negotiating a deal on a Medical Billing software with the hospital….. and just getting lunch and have to meet some one later……..

2. You were visiting your Aunt who is getting chemotherapy etc…..

3. You work for a recruitment Company and visiting the Nursing College/ Pharmacy School’s placement office if some one is looking for a Job in a particular area such as CVC etc is looking for a pharmacist in that area/new medical office complex needs Certified Nursing assistants etc…..

4. I personally like this one “Working for a medical device Company and just moved here from Miami working out a deal with the hospital”

Chit chat /Banter whoever comes in the Target Zone, tell them you are new to the area and would like to make some new friends etc Get the numbers and set up drink dates for later in the evening….. You all know how to do the rest……..

Some of these girls are horny as hell and they never get approached and because of the Abundance Theory are DTF, There are more women then men in the hospitals, These girls like to see you in the Provider role, so make sure you DHV the hell out of them

Dress: Going suited will help , trust me on this one……. Thanks to G, Girls sometimes stop/stare on days I am suited….

or get a pair of Scrubs and make an excuse you were in the Operating Room volunteering etc……

Volunteering: If any one can spare time in summer , A lot of girls aspiring to go to med school, nursing school , pharmacy school volunteer during summer vacation to enhance their resumes.

Contact the volunteer dept at the hospital, even if you can volunteer for 2 hrs/week you will develop a lot more credible story and will also get to spit game on fellow volunteers……..

Starbucks: Do not forget ur latte at the hospital Starbucks/Coffee shop, you will always find targets there……..

GiftShop: Looking for flowers for ur Grandma……

Hospital Game can basically be an off shoot of Day Game and can provide playas with a fresh and target rich venue when you are running out of places to spit game……..Something to do, Give it a try and let me know how it goes………….

You’ll have to forgive the text-speak. Lothario probably wrote that down on his cell while inside of a hospital. However, the ideas are sound. After all, who would expect that the well-dressed man inside of the hospital is actually there because he needs some new poonani?

Game Innovation Rating: A

3. Tarot Card Game

We all know that the more irrational something is, the more women love it. That’s why tarot cards can be a worthy investment for the guy who loves to create a strong connection based on absolutely nothing. Hey, no one can help it that women are stupid. But we sure can take advantage! RVF poster Kwisatz elaborates:

I read an article in a psychology forum about the different thought processes that men and women generally go through. One contributor briefly touched on women’s propensity for “Magical Thinking”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking. Another contributor cited the almost exclusively women’s realm of Tarot Reading as a prime example of Magical Thinking.

I like to challenge myself with new and interesting ways to enthrall women so after an evening of scouring the internet I added a few decks of Tarot Cards to my Amazon Wish list. Less than a week later, a woman bought me a deck.

I can safely say this:

1) I am a complete fraud with Tarot!
2) 100 % of Spirit Mediums, Tarot Readers, and their associated disciplines are frauds as well!
3) I haven’t had this much fun at someone else’s expense in quite a while!

I read two articles that taught me everything I know about how to be a Tarot Reader. Its all Game and Set-Ups. In less than 5 minutes I have had every woman I have done this to convinced that I am supernatural and know things about them that demonstrate my ability to “really see inside a person”, that’s a direct quote.

Doug Bolden at http://www.wyrmis.com/journal/2009/11/19…-tips.html wrote the following:

“Some quick tips to improve a cold-reading session with tarot, tea-leaves, etc

Cold-reading, as the term is applied to various forms of fortune-telling, is just making stuff up. Sure, there is a knack and whatnot to it; but at its core, it is when someone sits down with the fortune-teller, and combinations of science and luck come together and the client walks away feeling a little dazed despite it being one big puppet show. They, by which I mean the types who make money off of this thing, all swear that you save cold-reading until those rare days you feel off, but it might be better to say that you rely on cold-reading except those few days you feel on.

There is a science to it, a practical con-man’s game of slicing bits of information out of conversation and then combining them with a thick pasting of inductions and guesses; but that is not what this entry is about. That takes natural talent and trained skill. This is about the sort of things that just about anyone can do. Here are my quick and easy tips to improve your cold-reading session, if you choose to have one (and yes, these come from actual fortune-telling types that I used to talk to and study from back in the day).

First, split your marks from your hard-makes. 

Some people only touch stuff like fortune-telling because they utterly disbelieve it and they want to prove it false. They can be confrontational, and will often mention “I don’t like this crap” early on. Skim them out of the process. Ham it up for them, play it to the gills, and then laugh at yourself. If you do it right, they get show. If you do it wrong, they feel justified. Either way, they feel happy, and that’s your job (assuming you are making money off of this). Those who want to believe, the easy-marks, they treat tarot-readings like a psychotherapy session. They are practically needing to spill their guts to someone, and why not $15 for a tarot-reader rather than $200 for a head-shrinker? They will also divulge too much information, which in the end, helps you to make them happy. At worst, though, they get a chance to be heard. Customer satisfaction.

Second, ritual ritual ritual ritual ritual. Ritual. 

I don’t care what, but you had best have a ritual. Take it slow, and steady. Knock on the table before picking up the cards. Only use your left hand. Something. Do not go into verbal discussions of the ritual, just make it known. It should take you ten or fifteen minutes minimum to do a good session. More time for them to talk, more time for them to be impressed, and more time for the hard-makes to expose themselves.

Third, mix clutter with a concentrated point. 

Scatter random bits around the room, and then focus the attention on the relatively uncluttered table (which, by the way, has clutter on the edges). Make them feel like they are finding order in the midst of chaos.

Fourth, make them touch it. 

If it’s a tea cup, they drink from it. If it’s a tarot deck, they cut it. They pull cards from it. They shuffle it. Whatever. Just make sure they think their vibe juice is all over the thing.

Fifth, skip rote but make it sound like you didn’t. 

You want to screw up a card reading? Try and remember what a Five of Wands means when it follows a Tower card. Skip it. The customer might know about the cards, and be willing to argue with you, but unless you are willing to point out your Little Book of Tarot they prefer to have symbols and images on the cards themselves pointed out. What does a Five of Wands mean according to said Little Book? Who cares? That means nothing next to pointing out the haystack in the background as a symbol of needing to start saving. The best thing about this whole thing? You need nothing but the cards or leaves themselves. Someone thrusts their palm into your hands, and you can blather on about the life line and such, but you want to especially notice the little knicks on the line, and the strange tapering.

Sure, 90% of palms have that tapering, but how many palms have they seen. Make. It. Up. And make it a little micro-epic. They are there because they want to matter. They paid you money for it. Say they matter because the cards never lie and there’s a haystack and that means they matter, and when you say it, make it sound like that the haystack is especially for them, while also a symbol everyone knows, as decreed by the cards. Which brings me to…

Finally, short declarative zen-master sentences.

Say something declaratively, but back off the definite unless the definite is somehow so precise as to be almost nonsensical. Do not say “Your recent girl troubles”, say “Underlying issues with personal relationships, not all of which you are aware of…”. Do not ask “Have you recently met someone?” (they always do this in the movies, alas) but instead say “The new person whose name you are not sure of…” Maybe bust out a “Keep an eye out for red flowers on a sunny day, a body of water nearby but of unsure size, and her name is Lisa” every once in a while. They’ll spend the next year remembering that line.

If you do it right, they will spend the next decade remembering that line.

Remember kids, have fun at parties, and never try any of these on the strange girls in black shirts sitting in the corner. Not unless you want to waste an afternoon.

Si Vales, Valeo”

The second article was about “The Forer effect, also called the Barnum Effect after P. T. Barnum’s observation that “we’ve got something for everyone.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect

Excerpt:

“You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.”

I used those two articles to form what I said for the first few times I used my Tarot. After that I realized I could say anything that came to mind and they’d eagerly swallow it down as gospel. I usually throw in a few gems about their “needing a change”, “looking for something more powerful than themselves”, and/or needing to “explore things once held as taboo”. Those there I remember, I generally make up whatever is necessary for the woman in question to hear at the time to have her do what I want to later.

While everything said above is pretty damn clever, I cannot see myself carrying around a deck of tarot cards, nor do I think the average guy will either. However, if I, or you, happen to see some tarot cards in her room, now we have the knowledge to lay it on thick and heavy.

Game Innovation Rating: B

You’re welcome.

Read Next: 3 Game Innovations You’ve Never Heard About

Young Women Can’t Cook

I mentioned this first because this is a troubling trend I have noticed in women age 26 and under as of late. It is also noteworthy because accepting this fact early on will help you to understand why you as a man need to know how to cook. Young women just simply can’t cook to save their life. It’s actually quite appalling that my mother’s generation were great cooks, and my grandmothers generation had excelled to the point where I was convinced that my grandmother used witchcraft to concoct such amazing meals. And then you have women in my generation who can barely boil water without burning down the kitchen.

The building up of the “American princess” is what I blame this problem on. As the expectation was that men would buy dinner, they simply never learned how to cook because after all they could go on seven different dates their entire life and never cook dinner themselves.

It’ll Get You Laid

Cooking a decent meal for a woman is an easy way to get laid. Especially if you keep her around for conversations while she can watch you cook. Trust me this is probably one of the most under-rated alpha traits known to men. Often times there is confusion between buying a woman a meal and cooking one. Buying her dinner puts her on a pedestal. Cooking her a meal puts you in the category of being a capable individual. Add in the fact that by cooking you’re offering a trait 90% of other men don’t have, or don’t display goes a long way in terms of how a woman will view you. Most importantly, you get her to within mere feet of your bedroom.

Physique

Knowing how to cook properly greatly assists with your ability to have a great physique. Fitness is the combination of diet and exercise in it’s simplest form. If you don’t feed your body right you won’t get the proper results. There are pre-cooked alternatives out there such as Nutrisystem, however the cost is over double what I spend on groceries myself for the month. If you can cook well you’ll build muscle a lot easier.

Wallet

Directly relating into the above, knowing how to cook will simply save you money. I eat steak dinners 2-3 times a week. At an average restaurant I’d be paying $20+ for an 80z steak meal. Cooking at home brings my average cost to $7 or less. Cooking for yourself will save you money, boatloads of it. This in turn means more “play” money, whether it be going out of on weekends, or taking extra vacations.

Being able to cook an amazing meal is rewarding on all levels. Like mentioned before, it can get you laid, and it can also help you with your fitness gains. Being able to cook a great meal as a man however, will also help your confidence. There will, at some point in your life, be a moment where cooking will play a pivotal role for a situation to assert your dominance as a man. And when that time comes you’ll be able to grab the bull by the horns and Superman whip it against a wall. And immediately after that moment happens, you’ll be glad you learned to cook. And you’ll be proud to say you’re a man who cooks well.

Read Next: The Kitchen Is A Window To A Woman’s Soul

Halle Berry’s recent pregnancy has generated a lot of discussion both in the manosphere and out. Some have gone as far as to mark it a crucial step forward for the “have it all” crowd, a sign that career women will soon be able to delay childbirth indefinitely without penalty. Halle Berry, they say, will become a model for women who wish to prolong their ride on the career track or the “Sex and the City” casual dating carousel for as long as possible.

These fears are exaggerated, and I will explain why.

1. Halle Berry’s pregnancy was, in all likelihood, extremely expensive.

IVF is pricy, even after over three decades of time for the medical community to perfect it. In the USA, costs for a single cycle of IVF can top $13,000. When you consider the fact that most couples undergoing IVF will require multiple cycles, you can start to see how astronomical these costs can get. The average woman simply will not be able to afford to follow in Halle Berry’s footsteps.

A pregnancy like Berry’s was likely made even more expensive by the following realities:

What are my odds of getting pregnant at 46 naturally?

Not good, said Klein. “Natural pregnancies—when a woman is trying to get pregnant with her own egg—do occur in women in their mid 40s, but it would be nearly miraculous,” he said. Even in women using the assistance of IVF (in vitro fertilization), there has never been a clearly documented case of a baby being born from an IVF pregnancy in a woman older than age 45 using her own eggs.

Klein estimated that the chance of having a baby at age 46 without intervention is probably about 0.01 percent or less.

In short, there is about a 99% chance that Halle Berry not only had to undergo multiple treatments for IVF, but then also had to pay for donor eggs. The acquisition and maintenance of said eggs is not cheap, and certainly far out of reach for the ordinary woman.

2. Subsidization for these high costs is limited, and will probably remain so.

Israel is one of the only nations on Earth that makes IVF somewhat affordable for the non-celebrity woman. In the USA, most states do not mandate health insurance coverage for IVF and those that do often attach significant limitations to the assistance (e.g., covering just a fraction of the cost and restricting the number of cycles and embryos involved).

These realities have kept IVF pricy even in nations with a much more liberal attitude to government subsidization of healthcare than the USA.

Political realities make further subsidization a very uncertain proposition. Western nations are aging, and with that reality comes an abundance of medical issues. When placed next to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, infertility stands out as an issue considered by most to be less than essential to the continuance of life, a more casual lifestyle problem of sorts. Though fertility issues can result in some emotional distress, they don’t carry the same danger or urgency posed by the likes of breast cancer, alzheimers, and many other ailments. This distinction has played a large role in keeping fertility treatments from getting the amount of government subsidization that other medical concerns receive, and I suspect it will continue to do so in the future.

This distinction is further enhanced by the perception many have of IVF users as women who “frittered away” their best years and now seek to have the taxpayer cover the cost of their indecisiveness and poor judgment. Though not all users of fertility treatment fit this bill (many have genuine fertility problems), the fact that many do will keep taxpayers and politicians wary of subsidization.

People are not interested in paying for consequences of somebody else’s “Sex and the City” fantasy carousel ride. Male opposition to this is obvious, but female opposition is likely to be strong as well. Keep in mind that those likely to be the most vocal about fertility treatment subsidization and most likely to take advantage of it are the same women served most directly by modern feminism: highly educated, affluent, and (usually) white women. Women who do not fit into some or any of these categories have plenty of reason to be suspicious of any plan seeking to use their tax money to subsidize those who do.

Combine these political realities with the high costs associated with the coverage of fertility treatment and the economic concerns facing the advanced Western nations most likely to consider providing it and you have a rather bleak picture of the future for fertility subsidization.

3. IVF is not foolproof.

IVF is challenging process without large guarantees of success, and those guarantees decline rapidly with age:

Because of the emotional, physical, and financial toll exacted by IVF, it is preferable that a couple undertake the process with the mindset that they will be in it for more than one attempt. If a couple can only afford one treatment cycle, IVF may not be the right course of action.

Recall that on average, with conventional IVF, there is only about one chance in three that it will result in a live birth, and there is a tremendous letdown if it fails. It is thus unreasonable to undergo IVF with the attitude that “if it doesn’t work the first time, we’re giving up.” In vitro fertilization is a gamble even in the best of circumstances.

Statistically speaking, a woman under 40 years of age, using her own eggs, having selected a good IVF program is likely to have a better than 70% chance of having a baby within three completed attempts – provided that she has adequate ovarian reserve, (the ability to producing several follicles/eggs in response to gonadotropin stimulation), has a fertile male partner (or sperm donor sperm) with access to motile sperm, and has a normal and receptive uterus capable of developing an “adequate” uterine lining. Women of 39-43 years of age who meet the same criteria, will likely have about half that chance (35%- 40%).

As mentioned earlier, multiple cycles are to be expected for IVF treatment. That means that even in nations where IVF costs are lower than they are in the USA ($3000-4000 in some parts of Northwestern Europe), a couple could still expect to fork out more than $10,000 for a pregnancy after three or more cycles of treatment. That is more than even many solid upper-middle class couples can reliably fork out.

These realities only get more dire with age. For a 35-year-old woman, three cycles could provide a 70% chance of a baby. Just four years later, those chances are cut in half. A woman at Halle Berry’s age almost certainly has to give up on the idea of using her own eggs and, by extension, having her own biological child.

Halle Berry’s pregnancy is not a sign of a future godsend for the carousel riders and wannabe Carrie Bradshaws among us. Such a godsend does not exist and probably never will. Berry is merely another in a line of expensive exceptions to the rule. Any woman looking to her experience as a reason to hold fertility treatments up as an insurance policy for her carousel ride will have to contend with exorbitant costs, relatively low success rates, and still limited time. Those who dislike these realities will not be able to count on change.

Read Next: When Female Ambition Clashes With Reality

1. Convenience & Options

You can’t beat having a fruit stand and a hot dog stand on every corner, as well as multitude of stores and cafes that are open 24 hours a day. No other city in the US offers that.  With the multitude of bars, clubs, and restaurants and coffee shops, the options for going out, having a good time and both day and night game are endless. Having a great subway system that can take you just about anywhere and five cabs on every block, makes getting around so easy. Yes, the winter is cold and miserable, but the summer months are quite nice and warm, especially if you don’t have to wear a suit every day.

2. Large Bookstores 

I was happy to see during my last visit to NYC that there are still several large Barnes and Noble stores still open and they seem to be quite busy. While in most other cities those social destinations have perished and have been taken away from people, NYC still has them. Bookstores are some of the best places for day game that our children will probably not get the opportunity we enjoy.

3. Less Attitude

You would expect New Yorkers to have a huge attitude problem and go overboard on the douche scale, since they live in one of the biggest and greatest city in the world, considered by many to be the center of the (civilized) world. However, I find both the people and the general vibe in bars, restaurants, and clubs to be far more pleasant than, for instance, in San Francisco. Perhaps it’s the infamous wanna-be effect that SF suffers from. New Yorkers don’t have anything to prove; hence less attitude.

4. Better & Hotter Women

It doesn’t take long after you come to New York to realize that you are surrounded by a large number of some of the most beautiful women in the world. It seems like Manhattan attracts the best looking women of every kind and race. While they might not be as sweet as their Colombian, Brazilian or Polish peers, the women in Manhattan seem to be friendlier, happier and less hostile to men. This is in large part due to a more favorable ratio of men to women, at least in Manhattan. It’s hard to be a bitch if there are ten girls standing behind you who are as hot or hotter than you are. You will also have a hard time finding fat women here (except for tourists from other states).

For example, standing by the entrance to the Time Warner Center during the busier hours, you will see one hot woman after another walking in and out. Admittedly, I didn’t have too many interactions with women during my recent visit but my general impression is that there are plenty of professional, accomplished women who are also not masculinized and are very much interested in meeting guys and dating. Unlike in San Francisco, they don’t separate themselves from the world with sunglasses and headphones and they seem to be far less glued to the cellphones than the Bay Area female crowd. I am well aware of all the rough, ghetto girls who bless Brooklyn, Jersey and surrounding areas with their presence. However, Manhattan, in large due to the far higher cost of living, keeps that element away.

5. Clean & Safe

Manhattan seems to be surprisingly clean and safe. Given the population and the amount of traffic, the job that the city does these days maintaining its appearance is nothing short of impressive.  Women seem to be far more comfortable walking alone at nght, and they don’t have the same fear in their eyes that you would see in other big cities. There seems to be very little space left for petty criminals and gangbangers in an area where you won’t find a one-bedroom to rent for under $3,500.00.

If you haven’t been to New York recently, I highly recommend to visit – even if just for a weekend – to ingest some real city energy during the day and at night, and see some of the most beautiful women you might have ever seen.

Read Next: 3 American Cities Men Must Avoid At All Costs

While Conan Doyle was exaggerating “deduction” for literary effect, the fact remains that sharp powers of observation can pay huge dividends in social interactions.  Whether your goal is to improve your gaming skills, negotiation skills at work, or social abilities in general, training yourself to become an observer of people is a critical talent.  We can sharpen our powers of observation to a high degree by systematically focusing on a few areas.  For example, facial construction and clothing are two areas that can be studied in detail with great profit.  I enjoy names.  Let’s call it the Name Game.

Remember the Grimm’s fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin”?  What enabled the maiden to triumph over the evil imp was her discovery of his name.  Like many fairy tales, it can be interpreted allegorically as representing a subconscious psychological truth.  The imp knew the maiden had gained power over him by unmasking his name and, by extension, his identity.  The idea that names represent our inner selves is a very ancient one, probably going back to prehistoric days when totems and taboos surrounded place-names and certain objects.  When someone can hone in on our name, and learn something about us—however insignificant—that person can be seen to have gained a subtle psychological advantage over us.  I know from experience that, in the right circumstances, revealing some detail about a person’s name and place of origin can often give you an edge in a social interplay.  Even if you are totally wrong in your guess, the attempt alone demonstrates awareness of cultures and nations.  And that is what really matters.

The first and easiest step is to train yourself to recognize the ethnic origin of any name at a glance.  For example, Russian names often end in –ov or –in; Armenian names in –ian, Greek names in –os, -is, or –on; Latvian names in –ius.  These suffixes are often vestiges of inflectional endings in these respective languages.  Finnish, Danish, Norweigan, Polish, and Swedish are easily distinguishable with a little practice;  Arabic, Turkish, and Iranian names are also easily recognizable with some eye for detail.  Nigerian, Ethiopic, and Kenyan names all have specific flavors and forms, and these are often closely bound up with tribal affiliations in these countries.  Bosnian names have a South Slav “feel” but with Turkish overtones.  I could continue, but you get the idea.

Every country and ethnic group in the world has a specific “flavor” of surname.  Your job is to learn the flavor and be able to spot it instantly.  People with language talent do well at the Name Game.  You would be surprised how many people never bother to learn the basics of names.  But if you want to be mingle with international women, you need to develop this skill.

The next step, which is more difficult, is to be able to probe more deeply into the surname.  Can you associate a surname with a specific region in a country?  Does it bear a tribal or ethnic affiliation?  Does it have a specific meaning?   This is hardly an exact science, and the rules will vary from country to country.  But a bit of research and practice get you off to a running start.  If you know you are visiting a specific country in advance, it would be worth it to put in some effort to ethnographic geography.  For example, the Celtic nations (Ireland, Scotland, Wales) all have strong county and surname correlations:  specific surnames can be traced to specific counties.  The same holds true for the Scandinavian, Iberian (Spain and Portugal) and Mediterranean nations.  For countries in the New World, the name game work as well, since almost everyone is an immigrant, but at least you can display some ethnographic knowledge of the Old Country.  Take a look at the surname distribution in Spain by region:

Despite all the travel and intermixing in the modern world, tribalism still has very strong roots and remains a fact of anthropology.  A great many family names in any given country can be traced to specific regions in that country.  There are country-specific lexicons and resource books available that give the geographic origin of family names for many nations.  I have one for a country in the eastern Mediterranean, and it has detailed history of each family’s origin, religion, and various branches.

To demonstrate how this operates in practice, let us consider Italy and France as random examples.  Let’s look at France first.  In France, names that end in –ac are often from the southwest region (and some are from Brittany).  The German-sounding names are often from the Alsace region.  Typical Norman names (from Normandy) are Langlois and Duval, but most are similar to those of French-speaking parts of Belgium, Picardie, and Nord-pas-de-Calais.  Spanish sounding French names, of course, would originate in the Pyrenees region (bordering Spain).  With Italy, and the perhaps stronger connection between family and region, the rules are easier to lay out.  Shown below are various regions in Italy, and the types of surname suffixes that hail from that region.  In parentheses, some example names are provided for illustration:

Piemonte:    -ero/-ario (Barbero, Sobrario),  -esio (Gorresio),  -audi/aldi (Rambaudi)

Liguria:      -asco (Cevasco)

Lombardia:      -ago/-aghi/-ati  (Arconati), -atti/-etti (Orsatti),  -di/-oldi  (Soldi, Giraboldi),  -ingo/-engo (Martinengo)

Toscana:     -otti/-utti/-ut/-ot  (Bertolotti, Biasutti, Franzot)

Sardegna:    -au (Biddau, Madau),  -as (Cannas, Piras),  -u (Caffedu)

Sicilia:     -isi (Puglisi),  -aloro (Favaloro, Orghialoro)

Finally, some caveats are in order here.  I am not saying that the Name Game is going to be a deciding factor in any social interaction.  Alone, it is only of academic use.  It is not a magic wand that will enable you to compensate for weak social skills in other areas.  In fact, it is a very minor arrow in your social quiver.  Furthermore, the average person won’t be able to deploy the Name Game without some solid background work.  If you haven’t done the work, you’re better off keeping your mouth shut and practicing your “nodding game”.  But you never know when some piece of information can ride to your rescue.

When it comes to game, everything is part of everything else.  And everything matters.  Game is all about situational awareness, that intangible “feel” for the situation and the target.  So, don’t look for cure-alls, and don’t expect magic bullets.  I’m only offering a small bit of advice on a small part of the overall equation.  The right Name Game observation dropped at the right time can work wonders.

If the rest of your social skills are tight, playing the Name Game successfully can have a big impact on the interaction.  I remember one time I was talking to this beautiful Kenyan girl who was being very polite but noticeably cool to my approach.  After hearing her name, I was able to tell her what tribe she belonged to (Kikuyu) and what specific part of Kenya her family hailed from.  I could see her defenses melt in an instant, and from that point on I could do no wrong.

As chance would have it, I had recently finished a basic book on East African history and geography and had some of this information at my fingertips.  Africa is a great continent to play the Name Game, since tribal affiliation and regionalism there are still relatively strong.  Take note.  Nigeria, for example, is composed of very specific tribal and sectarian groupings, each with names that are easily identified.

Work towards being as well-read as you can be in geography, history, anthropology, and languages.  These areas all help.  Mastering the etymology of names for the country of your choice can be an interesting diversion that may help you where you least expect it.  And in a larger sense, if you train yourself to become an astute observer of human behavior in all its various habitats and manifestations, your effort will be rewarded.

Read More: Two Ways To Pursue Happiness

Those who do wish to change usually use hokey terminology talking about “energy” and the “universe.” They’ll seek guidance from another source so that they do not have to take responsibility for letting their emotions get out of check. People also seek a quick cure for a continual state of happiness, but what they do not realize is that happiness is transient.

I do believe there is a way to wrangle your emotions that relies on you, your habits and the power you have to respond to various stimuli. Essentially you must minimize the negativity and maximize the positivity in your life by altering certain habits.

Minimize Habits That Lead To Negativity

Take a moment to think about any time you’ve lost control of your emotions. When did you last get angry, depressed, hateful, etc.? What do you do when you’re out talking to girls that hurts your success? Do you have unreasonable limiting beliefs? Do you believe you always need to be happy to be successful? Do you get frustrated when you have anxiety because of any of the above?

If you think about the above long enough and are mindful when such emotional states occur you will begin to notice a trend in what triggers them.

For me the biggest habits that lead to a negative state of mind, in which I lacked motivation, was depressed, and stayed inside all day, were my nutritional habits. I started to recognize a pattern: I’d go out drinking or eat highly processed foods, I’d wake up the next day tired and dehydrated, then I’d stay inside all day watching movies because I didn’t want to go to the gym or talk to people. The cycle would just endlessly repeat until the natural ebb and flow of things took me to a high point.

Maximize Habits That Lead To Positivity

Repeat the exercise above. When was the last time you felt on top of the world, when did you last feel invincible, when did you last have no anxieties? When were you on fire when talking to girls, what were you doing that made you so successful? What were the thoughts running through your head?

Again if you pay attention you will begin to see patterns. You’ll start to realize what habits lead to a great mood.

For me I felt the best when ‘rewarded’ with something. Whether it was having great sex, sharing something with a friend, new PRs in the gym, busting my ass in the library and getting a good grade, or learning a new skill.

The Keystone Habit

Roosh brought up keystone habits in a recent article titled “One Approach A Day.” Essentially it is an innocuous habit that has a much larger effect than planned.

For me I started a few keystone habits: I started the day off with a nice cold glass of lemon water and my vitamins. In doing this I started drinking more and more water leading me to be less dehydrated, more energetic and making better food choices.

I also made a rule that as soon as I start talking myself out of something reasonable I would force myself to do whatever it was I was trying to rationalize my way out of. Maybe I’d start thinking “I’m kind of sore and I still haven’t seen the new episode of Game of Thrones, I think I’ll go to the gym later.” I know I wouldn’t go to the gym later so I would immediately get up and put on my workout gear. Just by doing this I started getting in the mood for lifting — I’ve also heard of guys packing a gym bag every night and leaving it in their car.

The peaks and troughs of our emotional state should not define us. As a man, whether it be through eliminating negative triggers or forming positive habits, you should be fully in control of your emotions. Use the power of a keystone habit to enact much larger scale change so you can be in a perpetual state of positivity, or at the very least, neutrality.

Read Also: How To Change Your Bad Habits

11PM Wednesday, at home: “I don’t know if I should break up with her,” my roommate states. Silent, he awaits my response.

1PM Saturday, on the phone: “How should I respond?” my cousin asks me. He is texting a girl he met last weekend.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Everyday I notice more and more examples of people living by social queues, a friend’s approval, and others people’s advice. They are essentially deferring their lives to others.

It is too easy to submit. To continue the trend. But are you really living?

We are all too familiar with the man who lives through other people. He has a boring, little life where the most exciting part of his day is listening to his friend’s latest adventure over a coffee. He is easy to recognize. But the man who lives under the influence of other people is not.

His life is structured around the preferences of others. And the scary part is that he doesn’t know.

Reaction vs. Creation

The book The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz is possibly my favorite. It centers around decision making and the idea that you must create your life. Fritz proposes that it is our default behavior to live unconsciously and simply react to life’s circumstances. If you have not read it, I strongly suggest you make it your next book.

His message echoes mine. Reacting is following. Following the norm. Following advice. Expectations. It is taking what life throws at you and allowing that to dictate your path.

Creating is leading. Choosing what you want to do. What you want to create. Where you will go.

The Crown Is Yours

You simply have to put it on. The moment you decide to think for yourself and make your own decisions, you free yourself from the chains of others. You must decide what you want and then consciously choose to obtain it.  Don’t fall for the natural trap and submit to society’s expectations (the path of least resistance, if you will).

The beauty of a creation-based lifestyle is that others will naturally gravitate to you. The sheep unconsciously recognize the shepherd. They come to him for advice. They seek his approval. They follow him.

Read More: Dear Mr. Shepard

In this book I would like to speak up for an ideal that is timeless but finds little accommodation today: manual competence, and the stance it entails towards the built, material world.

And so this philosophy book begins, using the backstory of an author who got tired of his job in a political think tank to become a motorcycle mechanic. From the title you can already guess the satisfied result. He goes on to explain the causes and effects of the decline in manual ability.

This book grows out of an attempt to understand the greater sense of agency and competence I have always felt doing manual work, compared to other jobs that were officially recognized as “knowledge work.”

[...]

Those who work in an office often feel that, despite the proliferation of contrived metrics they must meet, their job lacks objective standards of the sort provided by, for example, a carpenter’s level, and that as a result there is something arbitrary in the dispensing of credit and blame.

[...]

A washing machine, for example, surely exists to serve our needs, but in contending with one that is broken, you have to ask what it needs. At such a moment, technology is no longer a means by which our mastery of the world is extended, but an affront to our usual self-absorption.

The decline of work started in the early 20th century with the introduction of scientific management, where knowledge was concentrated in the hands of the managerial elite and then doled out in tiny parts to workers who barely had to think when completing tasks. Once you remove need for a worker’s judgement, you can pay him less and control him better.

The result has become a culture of workers who use a narrow spectrum of knowledge in their jobs. We’ve become generalists with no redeeming skills, and the more abstract our work, the more it must be judged subjectively by the emotions and whims of managers. We get less fulfillment from it as a result. The education system today does nothing but prepare students for a monotonous life of glorified clerkdom while wood shop classes of yesterday prepared the proles for Ford’s assembly line.

White-collar professions, too, are subject to routinization and degradation, proceeding by the same logic that hit manual fabrication a hundred years ago: the cognitive elements of the job are appropriated from professionals, instantiated in a system or process, and then handed back to a new class of workers—clerks—who replace the professionals.

[...]

The idea of opportunity costs presumes the fungibility of human experience: all our activities are equivalent or interchangeable once they are reduced to the abstract currency of clock time, and its wage correlate.

[...]

…self-estrangement… arises from a work pace that ruthlessly subordinates the intrinsic goods of the job to the extrinsic metric of profit.

The author also describes the overreach of corporations in our lives, where we must submit to the monolithic “corporate culture” whether we’re on duty or not. It’s not even a shock anymore if someone gets fired from their job for something they did in their personal lives or for something they wrote on the internet. In fact, job advice articles tell you specifically how to be an obedient peon that will not get turned down for a job due to having a life.

Shop Class as Soulcraft clearly shows how work affects life and vice versa, similar in flavor to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death. Perhaps you can call it a more readable version of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. It advocates for tradition, for fixing things, and for solving problems using our brains and hands instead of being mindless consumers. All I know is that after reading it, you’ll get the urge to make something. Recommended.

…once I had the master’s degree I felt like I belonged to a certain order of society, and was entitled to its forms. Despite the beautiful ties I wore, it turned out to be a more proletarian existence than I had known as a manual worker.

Read More: “Shop Class As Soulcraft” on Amazon

I showed up to your house, looking quite the gentleman. I even brought flowers to placate Mom. Your daughter, Stacy, showed me some family photos, and your wife is quite the MILF. You wore a stern, stoic expression, determined to show what a manly protective father you are. I could tell you were a controlling yet spineless prick, that you needed me to cower before you so you wouldn’t feel threatened by me. Mid-conversation, I’d recount one of your daughter’s glorious squirting orgasms in my head, and my eyes would flash with mischievous glee.

But no. I didn’t do that. I know that would set you off with rage. So I played the nice guy. I shook your hand, and gave you a weak handshake. I averted your gaze, and deferred to your authority. I knew that emotionally, you needed me to be a weak, sexless male. If I were anything more, you’d subconsciously suspect your daughter would become a raging whore.  Your suspicions are not unfounded, after all – you did raise her.

You, Mr. American Father, are a dime a dozen. You secretly wanted a boy, but you couldn’t even admit that to yourself. So when the ‘he’ you hoped for was a ‘she,’ you figured ‘Hell, there’s no reason I can’t treat her any differently than I would a son. Men and women are equal, after all, no reason it should be any different.’ You got that third party penis envy. You had her playing field hockey when all she wanted as a little girl was to help make dinner and read Mansfield Park.

Her participation in team sports would come in handy later, as she learned to ape her high testosterone teammates. One by one, they taught her to value getting railed by the cool guys at school. It’s like one of those bad reality TV shows, where a woman finds herself vying for a man’s favor, only because there are four other women doing it too. She’s lost her mind to the hive.  Invariably, these guys get bored and dumped her. True to form, her friends allay her heartbreak with healthy doses of booze, weed and Instagram attention whoring.

You Never Had The Heart To Say No

With that little cherubic face begging you for the latest Bratz doll, you couldn’t find it in yourself to say no. When your wife started dressing Stacy like a tramp at only eight years old, you wanted to say something, but you stayed silent. The Mrs. was bored after all, and she had started to live vicariously through Stacy, imagining all the male attention and outright dick that her daughter would be getting. She was bored in her sexless marriage, sure, but she saw no reason why she couldn’t live through her daughter.

The reality is that you had two choices with your daughter – you either had to go full Muslim and keep her locked down at all times. Or you could lurch to the other extreme, and instill her with a sense of responsibility as she matured – that she and she alone was responsible for staying out of trouble, that when she screwed up, you wouldn’t come and pickup the pieces.

Instead, you half-assed them both. You said yes to anything your daughter could ask for. You physically could not bear to see her cry, so the moment disaster struck, you’d placate her by telling her, “it’s not your fault,” over and over, as you fixed the mess she made. You were disturbed by female emotion; you felt it was your duty to contain, control and calm it, rather than seeing its ebb and flow as the natural province of the feminine. Her outbursts were like little waves coming to shore, and yet they overpowered your gutless self.

When she needed true direction and firm guidance, you wilted and bought her off with candy instead. Just like how you’d have to buy your wife jewelry just to get your dick sucked. You wanted desperately to be her friend and not her father, so you’d coo to her in a voice that made you sound like a flaming child molester channeling Barney. In your mind, you weren’t ‘Father,’ but ‘Dad,’ the fun guy who takes her to sports games and throws her birthday parties. Patriarchy is a dirty word to you.

Making A Rebel Of A Careful Man’s Careless Daughter

I know you’d throw a fit if you saw me so much as touch your daughter’s hand, so I waited until we all sat down to dinner to make contact. You didn’t notice? Oh, I was fingering her under the table as you were spooning your butternut squash soup. Bitch couldn’t even wait ’til the turkey came out – your penchant for spoiling her means she can’t wait very long. I’m a good guy, so I let up before she could come. I didn’t want her making a big wet mess right at the dinner table. Frustrated, she later asked me why I stopped short, I explained it was out of deference to you. So now she’s a little mad at you over her missed big O. She already blew me in the church pews, so I figured getting digital during dinner with the parents was the next step.

In your head, you’ve got all these violent little fantasies about what you’ll do to me when you discover the depths to which I’ve defiled your daughter. But come on. We both know you’re way too pussy to lay a hand on me. Even if you did, you’d be well on your way to tossing some salad at your local state penitentiary. I’m just sleeping in the bed you set, my heartfelt thanks, bro.

I love how you give her a curfew, as if her pussy only gets wet between the hours of nine to five. Noticed how she’s suddenly been going to the ‘library’ a lot lately? And that she’s hanging out after school with ‘Emma,’ the girl you thought she hated? I don’t need to explain what’s really going on. She’s such a darling, I hardly even need to leave my bedroom to see her.

Your ‘birds and the bees’ talk was crucial to my game. You explained to her what sex was, warning her to stay away from it until you said otherwise. If she did have sex, you told her, the lecher responsible would be swiftly punished, while you would be her emotional tampon support, there to offer your unconditional love. Well, when she found out how amazing it felt, unlike how you described it, she just couldn’t stop gunning for it. She had been bugging me about how all we do is have sex. And due to your little dinner, it’ll be months until she demands that we “go on a real date.” Thanks.

Read Next: American Men Are Fearful Of Their Women

Naturally, these teachers ran their classrooms in the old-school ways. My math teacher, a crusty frog- man with old-man spots, claimed to have fought in the Korean War—which was not thoroughly implausible. He’d actually retired and returned to teaching, since he had nothing else to do. When we asked him what good trigonometry would be in “the real world,” he claimed he’d used it to fire volleys into the enemy camp. When he’d catch us taking notes on basic concepts he say, “This is why this generation is so stupid.” If students seemed to be spacing out or dozing off, he throw pencil erasers at them or squirt them with a spray bottle, while hurling verbal abuse at the whole class.

Our woodshop teacher, a frustrated, angry dude with a heavy Southern accent, would facepalm (before that term was in wide use) every time a student did something he deemed to be dumb. He would take it upon himself to throw the brick of reality into our ninth-grade faces. When this gigantic fat kid refused to do his projects, he called him out in front of everyone.

Teacher: Tyrell, what do you think you’re going to do with your life, since you never do your work?

Fat Kid: I’m going to play professional football.

Teacher: Professional football players are fast—even the big ones. I’ll tell you what: I’m 62 years old. You’re 14 or 15. Let’s go outside and race. If you win, I’ll give you an automatic A in the class. If you don’t, you have accept that you’ll probably never make it onto a top college team, never mind the NFL.

The kid started crying. We didn’t say fucking shit.

The hallways were no different. Every time you heard “young man!” behind you, you knew you were in for some trouble. One time, I made the mistake of spitting in one of the (outdoor) hallways on the way to class. Almost instantly, I heard the trademark call of Mr. Pritchard, the school disciplinarian:

Pritchard: Young man!

Me: Yes? [with attitude]

Pritchard: I’m going to need you to pick that up.

Me: How do you expect me to pick that shit up? [with more attitude]

At the sound of the S-word, Pritchard grabbed my punk-ass by the shirt, two-handed, and slammed me against the lockers directly behind me, painfully jamming the lock mechanism into my back. Somehow, it suddenly occurred to me that I could use the paper towel in my backpack to wipe it up, which I promptly did while apologizing.

Nowadays, any one of these acts would get a teacher fired, maybe indicted. But, at my school, a complaint would have had you laughed out of the office. And, no one thought to complain. Parents, teachers, administrators, and students all had an understanding that this is how you operated a school effectively. The old-timers ran a tight operation and had the freedom (and, more importantly, the power) to teach and discipline us. My experience was a little anachronistic, because so many of my teachers were old, but this was just the norm in very recent history.

Times have changed.

This week, a cell-phone video taken in a Duncanville, Texas classroom made the rounds on the Internet. In it, Jeff Bliss—a long-haired stoner who looks like one of the ancillary bullies from the Simpsons—directs a tirade at his teacher after having been asked to leave the room. In the 87-second video, the former drop-out criticizes his teacher’s pedagogical technique, calling for her to “touch [her students’] hearts” instead of just handing them “freakin’ packets.”

You’d think that this rather ordinary event would go unnoticed. Instead, the video went viral. Even more surprisingly, the kid was showered with praise for his “courage” and “intelligence.” He appeared on the local news and was celebrated in a variety of online outlets. The teacher was held up as the paragon of everything that’s wrong with today’s education system: lazy, uncommitted, and incompetent. She was placed on administrative leave by the school’s principal in direct response to the reaction to the video.

But neither of them deserved what they got.

This pot-head slacker certainly deserves no praise. Defiantly parroting a few tired, heartwarming platitudes from a Robin Williams movie isn’t courage, it’s disruptive—and ridiculous. It isn’t the teacher’s responsibility to captivate you with her creative teaching style, or blow you away with some creative illustration of how amazing the subject-matter is—like in some Hollywood movie–just so that you’ll sit still in your chair. Being an 18-year-old man still in the tenth grade also evaporates any credibility you have in speaking on matters of learning and education. Furthermore, no one is talking about why Bliss was kicked out of the classroom in the first place. He’s likely displayed this pattern of disruptiveness, for which he clearly accepts no accountability. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Julie Phung, the teacher, is also receiving undue blame. Even if the claims are true, what else do you expect from teachers nowadays? There’s little incentive to do anything but the minimum, never mind scintillating daily presentations to keep the easily distractable engaged for an extra 10 minutes. The hours are long (contrary to popular belief) and the attitudes, nuisances, and outright risks you have to put with increase with every year. You’re constantly attacked from all sides: the increasingly degenerate students, shitty (or entitled) parents, the principal, society at-large.

Not only that, you’re also a paper tiger with little power to maintain order or stand up for yourself—a fact the students are keenly aware of. Even if a kid punches you in the face, you run the risk of major legal troubles—never mind jeopardizing your livelihood—for so much as restraining them. If Ms. Phung can be placed on leave for not “touching kids’ hearts” enough, what do you think a slam against some lockers would get you? All of this for a job that pays shit–a salary so low that it’s not going to attract the best and the brightest, and hasn’t for years. Frankly, we should be thankful anyone is willing to do that job.

American education is in irretrievable decline for a laundry list of reasons: the willful de-funding of it, the decline of competent parenting, shrinking attention spans, large class-sizes, the criminalization of teacher-imposed discipline, the removal of trades (shop classes) from curriculum offerings, the McDonaldization effect created by mandatory standardized testing. The list goes on.

Teachers have been rendered into little more than a cross between babysitter and probation officer. We have to face the fact that the teaching profession, as we knew it, no longer exists. To blame teachers for systemic problems is not only unfair, it’s easy.

Read More: The Power of Shame

1.  Night owls are less healthy

People who stay up late and sleep late, even if they get adequate sleep, exhibit a marked increase in psychopathology, i.e. mental disorders.  Early birds, or morning types, also tend to have healthier lifestyles.

2.  Night owls are smarter

Friend of the manosphere Satoshi Kanazawa examined ethnographies of hunter-gatherer groups, and found that nocturnal activities were relatively rare in these societies.  Since smart people are more likely to behave evolutionary novel ways, he theorized that higher IQ individuals were more likely to be night owls.  A longitudinal study of American adolescents proved him right.

3.  Peak performance comes two hours after waking

A cross-cultural study of 2.4 million (!) users of social media showed that people post the most positive messages on twitter around two hours after waking.  Since a positive mood is important for “physical and emotional well-being, working memory, creativity, decision-making, and immune response” it’s probably best to schedule difficult tasks around this time.

4.  Night owls are more politically radical

This one made me laugh.  A 1988 study of 200 paid volunteers showed that political radicalism and anxiety were both positively correlated with staying up late.  The general habit of 2am manosphere blog posts is now totally understandable.

5. You probably need more sleep than you thought

Long days signal to your body that it’s late summertime.  In the late summer, mammals begin to store fat for the winter.  Humans “develop diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and severe depression on anything less than 9.5 hours of sleep a night for at least seven months out of the year.”  Yes, you read that right.  Nine and a half folks.

 6.  Sleep deprivation makes you crave carbohydrates

If you’ve tried any of the diet recommendations promulgated by ROK and other sites, you know how bad the carbohydrate cravings are in week two of paleo.  Sleep will help you through to the week three promised land.

7.  Computer screens are the enemy of sleep

When it’s time to sleep, your body produces a hormone called melatonin.  While all forms of artificial light damage melatonin production, the blue light of your computer screen or plasma television has a particularly large negative impact.  Staying off the web in the hours before bed is a smart move.

8.  Showering before bed helps you fall asleep

When you sleep, blood flows from the abdomen into your extremities, bringing down your overall body temperature.  The water evaporating from your skin after a shower mimics this effect, leading to drowsiness.  You can also mimic the heat flow to your extremities by placing a hot water bottle at your feet.

9.  Cooler ambient air temperature makes falling asleep easier

The same mechanism in fact number eight is at work here.

10.  Sleep makes you more attractive

Sleep debt causes your cortisol levels to rise.  Cortisol levels are a primary determinant in male facial symmetry and oxidative stress, both of which are profoundly correlated with perceived attractiveness.

Read Next: 60 Myths on Learning, Sleep, and Creativity

Person: You know I think I would have made a great lawyer.  I love to argue with people.

Me: Well it’s not all arguing.  There’s a lot more to this than just arguing in Court.

Person: Still, it’s so cool that you take on a case, look for the ways to win and defeat your opponent.  What a great job.

Me: It’s horrible.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m pretty damn blunt with people.  When I’m asked why I’m not married, I say because I have no rush to do so and there is no benefit to me as an American male.  When girls ask me why I’m not more flirty via text I respond because I don’t care.  So when people ask me about my job and there is no downside to telling the truth*, I tell them that simply, it sucks.

*Such situations include dates (projecting negativity never helps secure a bang) or business development (nobody wants to hire a lawyer who hates what he does).

So why is being a lawyer, and specifically in my case litigation, not all that it’s cracked up to be?

1.  It Never Fucking Ends

The above clip hits home to me.  Litigation is one case after another that follows the same damn path over and over again.  You get a case, you either have to sue or defend it.  Then you engage in “discovery” which is horrible, nothing but paperwork and taking depositions (testimony under oath).  Then you file motions, and oppose motions, and argue motions.  Then you try to settle.  Perhaps informally, perhaps through the use of a mediator.  If all else fails, in one to two years you will have trial.  And THEN, there is maybe an appeal that goes another year or two.

Finally though, the case is over.  You have won or lost and can now forget about it.  Except you have another 10-15 just like them at various points.  And you get another one and start the process over again.  I’m guessing most jobs are like this, but when you combine it with the other negatives it really takes a toll on your mind.

On a daily basis, you suffer from this as well.  There is no off time—I have clients calling me in the evenings and weekends.  My cell phone has to be available.  Often times I fantasize about having a normal job where people can shut it down mentally upon leaving the office.  Type in to google “lawyer suicide depression” and you’ll see that the added mental stress breaks many lawyers.

2.  Your Peers Are Assholes

I’m a very mild mannered guy.  I don’t raise my voice, I don’t engage in insults or name-calling.  I’m the guy that you meet and think there’s no way this guy will ever wrong me.  On dates countless times I’ve heard when I start escalating hard that “I never expected this from you!”  And so on.  I mention this because all the best attorneys I’ve ever worked with or against, have had this “grandpa” demeanor.  They are your best friend.  Everything will be okay, no need to argue.  In fact, this is the best demeanor to have when trying to elicit information from an adversary because people’s natural propensities are to open up to people they trust, not people that they think are attacking them.  But what makes a good lawyer is the topic of another day.

Sadly less than 10% of the attorneys in the real world are like this.  Many think that bravado and overexcitement are the cornerstones of good lawyering because of their days watching SVU and CSI.  Others think they are smarter than all the judges in the land and everyone is an idiot for disagreeing with them.  It really makes no sense to me.  I’ve had so many opposing attorneys say that “Between you and me I don’t see how your client will win.”  Somehow they think these poor excuses for negotiation really work.  Nonetheless these are the people you deal with.  Straight-up idiots that somehow managed to pass the bar.  And responding to an idiot’s motion is a lot more effort and pain than a well-thought out decent attorney’s paperwork.  Here’s an email I received today actually – another poor attempt at “negotiating”:

Literally, you have no idea how broke my client is.

Nevertheless, I also am tired of spending my own time and money dealing with this ridiculous case…

If not, as much as I can’t believe that I’ve spent even 10 minutes of time, much less 40 hours on small case for a client who can’t afford to pay a few dollars, I will take the trial and you and I can waste some more of our time.  Please tell your client, whether he wants to believe it or not, this ***** has NO MONEY WHATSOEVER!!!!! Not a dime.  Can’t afford rent, can’t afford gas, and is barely scraping by.  He will not get a single penny if he gets a judgment…

None of this has any impact on me whatsoever.  All I needed to know was the dollar amount of his offer.  Here’s another example:

Everything over $3,000 is coming out of my pocket. So, am I to tell my wife that we can’t go out for dinner for New Year’s eve? Maybe we’ll just drink water instead of wine.

***** wanted to know if you could take a credit card. Can you? Shame on you, robbing from the poor.

My response was as follows:

We unfortunately do not take credit cards.  I will email you a draft settlement agreement shortly.

Unfortunately when this profession loses its professionalism we have attorneys like the above that just add unnecessary annoyance to simple things.

3.  You’re Everyone’s Psychologist

Let’s be honest, the only reason anybody comes to you as a litigator is because they just got fucked.  Either someone screwed them out of some money or someone has just sued them trying to extract money from them.  The client always thinks his case is the biggest thing since the GM Ford Pinto case.  It doesn’t matter if the person lost his life savings in shady real estate deals to low level landlord-tenant issues, nothing is more problematic than that person’s case at that time.  So they call, email and repeatedly tell you all their problems.  And you have no choice but to listen.

Another manifestation of the same is that you undertake a lot of added mental “responsibility” for the outcomes of the cases.  Even if they have a losing case, I do feel for them when they lose.  Even worse is when they are supposed to win and they lose, of no fault of your own but of the legal system.  It’s a hard pill to swallow, trying to explain to someone that they either owe a significant amount of money, or that they will not be getting the amounts they were previously screwed out of.

4.  No Control

No matter how well I write, or how great my argument is in court, the final outcome is out of my hands.  It’s the judge and jury that will decide and all I can do is put in my best effort to sway the decision.  And I hate that.  Did the judge’s wife made him watch the baby last night?  No sleep means he’s cranky and doesn’t feel like listening to argument today.  Jury member randomly loves the city I’m suing?  There goes that verdict.  These are extreme examples but there is so many factors at play from scheduling dates through the court to a judge’s mood one day that no matter how hard you work, prepare or try you cannot control your end result.

5.  Debt v. Income

Unless you are going to one of the higher tier schools, you are not in the running for a high paying job.  I have had attorneys work for me for free, just to get it on their resume.  Top tier students are willing to intern for free for me during school.  As a business owner, this is wonderful.

But for those considering law school, it’s a bitch.  First of all it’s expensive as hell and you will be large debt coming out.  Second, the market is horrible.  You’d be looking at 5 figures for most of you, assuming you can even get a job.

Positives

As much as I dislike what I do there are positives.  The biggest one is money…but only in one scenario.  If you are good it’s relatively easy to make a lot of money.  There are not many jobs that start with a 6 figure salary or that you get paid nearly $400 an hour to do.  It’s an impressive job to women, be it girls you date or your mother’s ability to brag about you.  It’s much harder to be civilly fucked with as a lawyer.  You will be smarter and more logical than almost everyone around you just given your job.  If you decide to jump ship there are many corollary careers you can dive into.  This has kept me going for as long as I have, but with some tweaks to keep my sanity.

So Nobody Should Be A Lawyer?

There are plenty of people that have no business being a lawyer.  But the more relevant question is that if you can actually be a good lawyer, should you be? The answer is only if you truly and seriously love being a lawyer.  Otherwise it will kill you mentally.  A little piece of me dies everyday.  Sometimes I stare at my computer for what seems like an hour before I can gather up enough motivation to write another brief or call another attorney.  But I’m good at it, it funds my life and allows me to travel like I want.

And yes I’m aware of the purported belief that “everyone dislikes their job.”  But I hardly believe that is true.  I have friends that enjoy their jobs and I can likely find multiple examples that, while are not the norm, still evidences people that like their jobs.  My friend used to edit porn for a living, he was far from hating that job.  I’m pretty sure this guy’s job doesn’t suck either.  So to me that is bullshit.  Which leads me to my next point… who cares if everyone dislikes their jobs?  That doesn’t mean that you or I should as well.

The best advice I ever got from a lawyer was in response to my question about whether I should attend law school X or law school Y.  His response: “Don’t go to law school.”

Read More:  Life At The Bottom: A Law Graduate’s Experience

Silence works

Don barely talks about anything outside of business. Nobody knows about his past, his personal life, his love affairs, his likes and dislikes, nothing. Don understands that the more someone knows about you, the more they can use the information against you. Sometimes you are valuable enough that it doesn’t matter (as Pete Campbell found out in season one), but it’s best to give your competitors as little ammunition as possible. The idea of opening up and allowing people to know you as a means of building trust is largely Sensitive New Age Guy psychobabble designed to identify and subjugate lesser males.

Never show outward emotion besides anger

Don is human — he’s prone to the occasional depressive episode of laying in bed for hours and contemplating what it all means, but nobody is privy to this save for his wife and the TV audience. At the office he is always composed, an unshakeable paragon of efficiency with perfectly slicked back hair and a well-tailored suit. Don doesn’t talk about his “feelings” because he knows that, ultimately, men are alone in the world and nobody cares about his problems. The only thing besides his dry sarcasm is the occasional well-timed rebuke when someone royally screws up. Don uses anger surgically, providing a counterpoint to his normally aloof nature. A man who is always sad, angry, or jealous cheapens these emotions and makes them essentially meaningless.

Hide the effort of your successes

This is a crossover from Law 30 of the 48 Laws of Power, which Don exemplifies. Don is regarded as a genius whose often-spontaneous brilliance has kept his company afloat on multiple occasions. At the office, he is the top player who is sought after by other firms and envied by his coworkers. Few will cross him because of the value he brings and the mystique of being able to come up with the perfect idea in the nick of time. Only the viewer is treated to scenes of him in his undershirt, getting drunk as he struggles to brainstorm another revolutionary idea. Don is a genius to be sure, but he also works tirelessly (and secretly) at his craft.

Happiness is transient

Don is a millionaire with a high-powered successful career in a big city, a gorgeous wife, and two kids he doesn’t have to see very often. Yet he is never happy for more than an episode or two at a time. He is overcome with a sense of emptiness, often trying to escape his feelings with spontaneous trips, alcohol, or sex outside of his marriage. Don understands at a basic level that all happiness is impermanent.

The employees at the ad firm know that their work is not selling products, but rather selling the feeling of happiness that people associate with their products. Like someone with autism who has to learn facial expressions by rote memorization, Don excels at this manipulation because he operates outside of a normal consumerist mindset and can understand it objectively. However, he is just as prone to the fleeting nature of contentment as the people he manipulates.

I normally advise against watching TV, but Mad Men is one of the two shows on television I make time for each week. In a whitewashed, PC entertainment world with few male role models, Mad Men subtly gives men a blueprint of how to act in the workplace, at home, and in the bedroom.

Read More: 4 Things One Man Learned About Relationships

Halfway through the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians decided to complete their hegemony over the Aegean Sea by capturing the only remaining island not yet under their control, the island of Melos. Melos was originally a Spartan colony, but as the war between Sparta and Athens raged on, Melos remained neutral. This was not good enough for Athens. The Athenians took a fleet to Melos to demand monetary tribute and, should they refuse, press war.

Before waging war, the Athenians sent an envoy to try and negotiate with the Melians. The envoys, instead of being given an audience in front of the people of Melos, were taken aside to speak with the magistrates and other powerful men of the island. When greeted in such a fashion, the Athenians opened,

Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still! Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you.

And the stage was set. Because the discussion would be held apart from the masses, there would be no need for rhetoric, flowery language, or flattery. This would be a frank and no-bullshit rejoinder with only self-interest as a guide.

Understanding the great danger they were facing, the Melians replied,

To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.

In other words, the Melians did not feel they had much of a choice – war or slavery. What could they do except resist in the face of such outcomes? But the Athenians were unmoved, and their reply tells a man everything he needs to know about humanity and morality:

For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses — either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us — and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Spartans, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

And the offer was made: do what the strong want, or be crushed regardless of any protests to the contrary. For what else was there to say? The Athenians ruled the Aegean Sea, and Melos was powerless to stop them.

The Melians then tried to persuade the Athenians to halt their invasion. They argued morality – that it would be wrong to attack a neutral nation, and should Athens lose the war the Spartans would show no mercy to Athens due to their treatment of their colony Melos. But the Athenians merely replied that they were less concerned with being defeated by Sparta and more concerned with appearing strong to the rest of the city-states they controlled in the Aegean Sea – for should they let Melos remain free, it may embolden other Athenian tributary states enough to revolt.

The Athenians commanded them to either pay tribute to the Athenian empire or be destroyed. The Melians refused, and told them they would hold out for Spartan assistance. The Athenians remarked,

…we are struck by the fact, that after saying you would consult for the safety of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned nothing which men might trust in and think to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and your actual resources are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you to come out victorious.

[…]

…it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate toward their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.

The Melians held against the Athenian siege for six months, until, as Thucydides reports,

Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves.

Then the Melians were no more. And the crimes the Athenians committed on that day were forgotten. At the end of the Peloponnesian War, with Sparta victorious, Athens was not punished in any significant way. It was Sparta who suffered the worst fate, as they were eventually conquered and utterly destroyed by the Thebians (who became strong because the Spartans eradicated the Plataeans). Meanwhile, Athens lived on, and continues to this day.

Out of everything I have discovered, there does not appear to be a truth more basic than this one. Forget notions of morality, karma, or afterlife justice – this world bows only to the strong, who do as they please, while the weak struggle to stay above the rising tides of history. If one wishes to take the advice given by the Kings here, then he must remember that the world he lives in operates according to this law, and, whenever faced with conflict, he must ask:

Who are the strong? Who are the weak? And to which category do I belong?

Therein will you find the answer to whatever situation you may be.

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(Note: For those who wish to read the entire dialogue written in masterful prose, I found a decent online translation here. Still not as good as a translation offered from Strassler’s edition, however.)

Pack up sweetheart…

We all desire a poosy paradise and many of you gents have combed the earth in search of this one city/town/village/island, you name it, where the women are abundant and they are easy. Well, there is such a place, in just about every decent size city on earth and it’s your local nightclub.

Unless you live in bum-f*ck (insert name of town where people have more beers on their porch than teeth), then you live within an hour’s drive to a popular club. Many of you may not be able to travel so listen up. For the sake of simplicity, if you’re more of a bar type, many of these 10 tips will apply to making a bar your poosy paradise as well.

Know Your Type

There’s no sense in getting a house club on lockdown  if you prefer hip-hop music. With music comes certain types of women. Hip-hop is associated with the African-American crowd and house music is associated with European types. If you hate the music you’re not going to want to go so make life simple: pick a spot where you know you’ll fit in and vibe with the music, even if it’s not the hot spot and focus on that one club.

Dress Appropriate

The suit seems to be working for James…hmmm…

I would move this into a Common Sense section but you’d be surprised how many guys get turned away for idiotic clothing at the door.

-Do not wear a fuzzy hat with eye shadow and a fucking cane. You will get slapped.

-Do not wear a t-shirt stating “Bitches Love Me” or anything of the like.

-Do not wear baggy jeans with your ass hanging out. This isn’t prison and unless you want to tell the world that your ass is available to be plundered, then pull your damn jeans up son.

-Do not always defer to the damn default button-up with jeans and square-toed dress shoes. This look has been around for so long it looks like some guys send out a memo to their friends and all show up looking like fucking clones. Maybe throw it in here and there but don’t always default to it.

-DO put some time into your clothing. Every venue ranges on dress code but here is a simple way to always stand out in a good way: Suit the fuck up. Not going to beat a dead horse and there are varying opinions on this but it works for every gent I’ve ‘converted’ and will make you stand out in a good way. Suits command respect immediately.

…and Tony Stark too…could there be something to this?

If you hate the idea of a suit, fair enough, so try this on for size: A pair of nice jeans that fit and a V-Neck shirt/sweater with some nice hip shoes. Shoes are so essential to the outfit so do yourself a favor and invest in a decent pair. If you don’t already have one Golden outfit that you feel confident in and you know you look good, then do that first before even thinking of starting to establish a rapport at a club.

Get To Know The Doorman/List Girl

The gent on the top right pointing his finger, while probably looking at some girl’s tits, Marc Benecke, ran the door at Studio 54 in the 1970′s. Lucky bastard.

This one is no effin joke. The gatekeepers of a club can ruin or make your night. No one likes to wait in line for an hour to be turned away at the door. It’s happened to everyone, even myself and it sucks. The key here is to be sincere but NOT needy. Neediness is the death of relationships both platonic and romantic.

-Don’t be ‘that guy’ begging to be let in.

-A warm smile and a simple greeting are quite effective. Confidence is the #1 player in this equation so don’t hold back. If there was ever a time to fake it even if you aren’t normally confident it’s now.

-Don’t extend your hand for a handshake whatever you do. This comes later after you have established rapport. The last thing a doorguy or list girl wants to do is shake a strangers hand.

-If you have to pay cover then do so with ease and not one iota of complaining. Will you have to pay cover in the future? No. Not if you follow my steps exactly. Even after you walk in, don’t turn to another club-goer and mouth off a stupid comment regarding any of the door staff, security, the color of the carpet or that girl in line who ignored you. Positive, positive, positive. I’ve seen people get blacklisted from clubs from running their mouth and someone overhears it. This is especially important for you cats who live in an area where there are a limited amount of clubs to go to. Those of you who live in a large city keep positive as well. Nightlife industry circles are small and word travels fast.

-Say ‘Thank You’ to whoever let you in. This goes so  far in establishing rapport. A simple ‘Thank you’ or ‘Much appreciated’, is rarely heard and comes across loud and clear. Doormen, lists girls, VIP Hosts, promoters ALL remember who says ‘Thank you’ and who is a dick. Guess who gets better service?

-At some point you will be able to initiate more conversation, but when you first go in this is not the time. When you exit the club is when you make your mark which leads me to my next Law.

Tip Well

Palm it gents

Making a nightclub your poosy paradise is an investment. Don’t expect to roll up to a club, be a cheap loser and have the red carpet rolled out for you next time. Doesn’t have to be much, but a $20 bill goes along way in most clubs. When you order drinks use the 25% Rule. If a drink costs $12, tip $3 with a smile and once again a ‘thank you’.

Tipping the bartenders well is standard issue and trust me will definitely get you on the road of free drinks. I’m going to share a Golden Secret with you guys which in the beginning will costs you a tad more, but in the end of this mission will have you getting more drinks than your liver can handle.  You ready…

Cheerful Kate

Once you have established rapport with the bartenders by tipping well, not laying your head on the bar and generating positive entertaining conversation when appropriate, then you can try this: Offer to bolster their tip for ‘free’ drinks.

Let’s say after a month of you attending every weekend you’re cool with the bartenders or maybe specifically one of them. Pick who you vibe with and naturally hit if off with and always order your drinks from them. Tell them I’ll tip you well if you can hookup a shot or a drink.

Bartenders with half a retarded monkey’s brain know where this is going and they LOVE it. They can pour free all night as long as CASH is being exchanged across the bar. It simply has to LOOK like you are paying. They hit a few buttons on the IOS screen and then drop the tip in the tip jar. They have this down to an art. Club owners will hate me for saying this but it goes on at every club. This is how this pans out for you money wise:

Using the original example of a $12 drink with a $3 tip brings your one drink tab to $15. Now under the Golden Secret you can give the bartender say $8 cash, get your free drink and you just saved yourself almost 50% off. This adds up. Over the course of the night say you buy 6 drinks at $15 total each, well you just spent $90. Using my method, you saved yourself $42 which is essentially, now another night out for yourself at the same club.

Another very important  reason for getting the bartenders on your side is that they can cover your ass at the end of the night when you have a cute filly on your arm but need just one more shot for her to turn her hamster off and you are out of cash. Last minute shots are absolute fucking gold in my book and have definitely helped me close. Generally the bartender will pour you a shot and wink. They know what’s up and if you’ve followed my formula then they have no problem comping you a shot here and there.

-When you leave for the night, tip the doorman and/or list girl. Why at the end of the night instead of the beginning? Well 99.9% of club articles about how to get in will say do it in the beginning. Wrong. If you tip in the beginning to get into the club it comes across as a bribe and even if they take the money and smile will deep down have less respect for you. Remember this takes some time. You’re building a relationship with the staff not going for the quick kill. Depending on where you live the tip amount will vary, but generally $20-30 folded up and palmed into the hand of the doorman and/or list girl when you exit for the night does two specific things:

1. You’ve already gotten into the club. You’ve had your fun and hopefully you’re taking a hot dame home with you who’s draped on your arm, so essentially you’ve gotten what you came to get BUT you STILL TIP THEM. You have no reason to from a simple perspective, but you’re not thinking simple anymore; you’re thinking long-term in setting up your poosy paradise.

2. This sets-up your next visit the following weekend or next night depending on how much you go out. They will generally remember you because it’s rare for people to tip at the end of the night and leaves them with a happy feeling about you. Next time you roll up to the club, don’t be surprised if they wave you to the front of the line and let you in.

You may still pay cover (will get to the comped cover in a bit), but guess what Mr. Nightlife? Now you’re not waiting in line with the minions. Never assume they will remember you and never expect it. Be confident, humble and go with the flow. Depending on the city’s size and how many people the club turns out a night it might only take one visit or three. I’ve never had to do this more than 3 times and that was a major club. If you live in a smaller city, say Indianapolis, then done once or maybe twice and you will definitely be remembered.

When you tip them say something like, ‘Thank you, had a great time. First time here and I’ll definitely be back soon”. This establishes that you are new, you’re appreciative and you’re coming back to spend money again. Doormen and list girls love to hear this. Depending on the friendliness level of the door staff, you might be able to ask for a card from them and exchange contact info, but generally it’ll take a couple visits before they’ll be open to this. Feel it out and go with your gut.

Lastly, on this subject, make sure you respect and take care of the bathroom attendant. This cat has the essentials for your night all for a measly couple bucks. If you drop a $5 bill in his jar he’ll wash your car. Cologne, hair gel, breath mints, condoms, he’s got you covered. If doing lines is your thing, then definitely tip him. Don’t take care of him properly and just ask Bruno Mars how that worked out at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas.

Roll Solo

I’m sick and fucking tired of wannabe players bitching about how hard it is to roll solo dolo. No shit. But guess what? If you want to move into the minority of gents with real battle-field game then man the fuck up and look in the mirror and realize that you have the perfect wingman: Yourself. Look at this as a chance to work on two aspects of your game:

1. Building confidence by rolling solo, realizing no one can ever hold you back again but yourself.

2. It’s much, much, much easier to establish rapport and get a club on lock–down this way. The #1 Question a Doorman or List girl will ask you right away is, “Who are you with?”. This immediately helps them analyze the situation quickly and decide if you’re getting in. When you’re solo its so much easier to slip you in and a complete bitch for them to let in two guys. Ratios baby.

For some of you, your best friend may not have his shit together. He may prefer to sit at home playing World of Warcraft and falling asleep on his bean bag chair with a bottle of lotion and some used tissues on the floor beside him. Get my drift? Just because he’s your best friend doesn’t mean he’s right for this mission.

Think of getting a club on lock–down and making it your personal poosy paradise as a Mission. Not everyone is cut out for it. Even if your buddy is Mr. Cool, I still highly suggest rolling solo to build more confidence. Sure, you might feel odd at first standing in line alone, but spit some bullshit about how you’re ‘meeting your friends inside’ etc. This also forces you to engage with others and the staff. I don’t care how many books you read and videos you’ve watched on getting laid, nothing will ever beat getting in the trenches and putting in the time.

Ah yea…

If I don’t drop dead from exhaustion and dehydration, stay tuned for Part 2 with five more commandments, including: don’t get naked with the staff and understanding who the most important person in your new poosy paradise actually is.

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1. Location

If a company is in a poorly located city, it will struggle. If it is in a great location however, it can excel. No one wants to go get $100 plate of dinner in the ghetto, and no one in Beverly Hills is seeking goodwill. Game works the same way. For me, I had to block out my entire home state, but for most people this is as simple as blocking out “Joe’s Pub.” While “Joe’s Pub” offers $1 beers, “The Oar House” has triple the price, but it also has triple the girls. In the end being in the better location will get you better results.

2. Statistics

In business everything is about the numbers. You are rarely asked at a company how you did something. Companies want minimal effort, minimal cost, and maximum results. Game is no different. While it’s great to brag about always going home with a 9, if you can leave the bar with consistent 8′s with significantly less effort, that should be your target. Only when you reach a significant level will anyone attempt to look beyond your numbers. More numbers and more stories equal more success.

 3. Dress for Success

I’ve always been told that you should dress the part you want, not the part you have. The better you dress, the quicker you’re noticed, and the more you seem motivated. If you go sit in your cubicle and hate your job but smile and wear a suit, you’ll be noticed. In retrospect if you show up to work in your cubicle job that you love, happy as hell, and you wear ripped up jeans, shoes that are falling apart, and a coffee-stained button-up, no one will care that you love your job because you look like you don’t have your shit together. Same goes for game. While you don’t need to wear a suit at every venue, you should be finding ways to dress respectable and above the relative standard of those around you. Dressing to impress makes you stand out and more often approached for promotions at the office. It’ll also get you laid.

4. You’re Just A Number

At a decent sized corporation, you are just a number. When you go to the bar (unless you’re running small town game) you are the same. Whoever you hit on has already encountered 18,000 other men just like you. That means you need to run your game and be you. Eventually employee #867443 may be the CEO of Americorp and the most powerful person in the world. But today you’re a number. So just do your job.

5. Marketing

Companies put a lot of money into finding ways to sell their products. If you can find a way to help them sell their products in more creative and effective ways you’re likely a valuable asset and will be well compensated for your services. Game is the same way. Women need you to sell yourself to them. And if you can do that, you’re gonna get laid.

6. Ulterior Motives

While every CEO want’s to hear what you can do for them, it’s ultimately what can they do for you. This directly correlates with marketing. You should be selling your product, but you should only be selling that product to better yourself. By coming up with a better plan you’ll get a promotion, which means more money for yourself. With game you’re basically selling yourself to women, but only for your own gain. Whether its business or game, always have an ulterior motive. It’s how you get promoted.

7. Scandal (Haters)

In any office there is always someone more envious of you. Whether it’s you who finds ways to advance quicker, or just doing your job with less effort, people get pissed and try and take you down with them. In the game world this is the obvious cockblocker. Whether it be an envious friend who’s pissed you get laid, someone at the bar who just sees you leave every weekend successful, or the jealous fat friend of the woman you’re trying to have sex with, haters are everywhere. If you’re good at covering your tracks in the office to avoid confrontation, scandals, or punishment, you’ll be fine at handling cock blockers.

8: Networking

Lastly is networking, probably the easiest and most overlooked way to success. The more people you meet through your company, or conventions with other companies, the more alternate opportunities will be presented to yourself. Game is the same way. While it’s great to go out with your usual set of friends, finding alternate friends or even just other regulars at venues you frequent will give you a larger network to work with. Jack, who goes to your regular bar, might decide to throw a kick ass house party with a bunch of women he met in Toronto, and now you have an invite. Had you not decided to network, you’d be fighting the same crowds at your usual spots once again.

So there you have it. Now go get that office promotion.

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“Young women are looking for love. Men are dogs.”

This is a myth that seems widely accepted in mainstream society. Stories discussing any difficulties faced by females in the mating game usually seek to blame men first and foremost. Media regularly plays up the myth of the male as the uncommitted predator or the rowdy oaf without as much interest in romantic pairings as his female counterparts. Society has said that men are dogs, and many have accepted this.

The reality, of course, is quite a different story. Red Pill takers will have been quicker to realize this, but the past few years have finally started to see the mainstream media itself unearth this reality:

A new portrait of single Americans, drawn from a major new survey, suggests the attitudes and behaviors of today’s singles are quite unlike their counterparts just a few decades ago. Data show men are quicker to fall in love and more likely than women to want children: 54% of men say they have experienced love at first sight, compared with 44% of women; among singles without children under 18, more men (24%) than women (15%) say they want children.

And, across every age group, women want more independence than men in their relationships: 77% of women say having their personal space is “very important,” vs. 58% for men; 78% of women say the same about having their own interests and hobbies (vs. 64% for men). And 35% of women (vs. 23% of men) say regular nights out with the guys/girls are important.

Sara Barrett, 34, of Washington, says she and her women friends — both single and married — do talk about maintaining their individuality to make sure they don’t get “totally lost in their relationships.”

“The independence is really, really important to us,” she says, noting that the “girls’ night out” for a handful of friends is usually once a week.

“With some friends, it’s been an issue. They dated a guy who was clingier than they wanted.”

“I think men are more needy for a relationship than women,” says June Ashley, who married at 17 and was divorced after nine years. She remarried and was widowed after seven years.

Sherri Langburt of New York, founder of SingleEdition.com, a lifestyle website for singles, says she has noticed the changes in what men and women ask the site’s panel of experts.

“Men are writing us more about the emotional relationships than women. Women are writing us about the one-night stands,” Langburt says. “Women are (asking) if it’s OK — ‘Can I have a one-night stand?’ Men are writing, ‘I’m single and I’m lonely and want to find love and can’t admit it to anyone.’”

Romantic love is increasingly a notion bought into by young men first and foremost. Like Rollo Tomassi said, men are the true romantics. Despite the presence of pervasive myths that put romanticism in an almost exclusively female realm, the reality is that young men are falling in love faster and harder than young women are today.

What does all of this mean for your typical young guy in the modern dating scene? Basilransom, a young man who frequents Roosh’s forum and other destinations in the manosphere, summed up the reality perfectly in a comment over at Dalrock’s a while back:

When girls are attracted to me, they are often quick to peg me as a cheeky asshole, or whatever. And if I do anything to intimate I’m interested in anything more than sex, their disappointment is visceral, if subtle.

Women are extremely turned off by men who want any sort of relationship before they do. It’s the surest sign of being a loser in their eyes. Even for “good girls.” They strongly believe that quality men need to be pinned down and snared into a relationship. I don’t think young attractive women want exclusive LTRs with studs, at least initially.

Also, girls are so used to socializing in mixed groups that dates freak them out. The slightest prospect of a relationship and thus a loss of independence scares them. I’ve had many girls tell me they feel weird talking on the phone to a man. They live in perpetual fear of ‘awkwardness,’ and will do their best to avoid situations that might give rise to it. Intimacy prior to sex is impossible for them.

Maybe, after several bouts of sex, she will desire slightly more. She will ask that you stop banging other girls.

I would ask girls out on dates in college – not because I wanted to make them my girlfriend, but because I wanted to bang them. Because it made getting sex easier than if I had done the usual “let’s meet up together with our friends drunk Friday night” which is a logistical nightmare. And these dates would often consist of just a glass of wine in my room – not that I promised it’d be anything more. You couldn’t have a clearer way of saying “I just want to bang you,” but I could feel girls seeing me as less of a man for not trying to do what every other cool guy does, which is to haphazardly try to bang her drunk one night.

In short, the advice for young men is simple: DO LESS.

I’ve offered precisely that piece of advice before, and it remains true now. Independence is very important to young women today. The larger and more visible the investment you make in any girl, the greater a threat you will appear to her independence. The young, modern woman is increasingly likely to value that independence much more than she values your company, which means that you will be on the outs if you threaten it.

The script has flipped: young men are increasingly becoming the ones chasing commitment from women, and it is now the girls who are batting them away.

These realities must be internalized by young men when it comes to the young women they are pursuing:

1. They don’t want a provider (don’t act like one).

2. They don’t want your commitment (unless they’ve already offered you theirs, don’t give it to them).

3. They don’t want traditional dating (don’t give it to them).

4. Most of them aren’t all that excited about the idea of having a family or anything serious like that (make sure she doesn’t think that you are, especially early on).

This is where the importance of self-improvement as a focus for young men becomes abundantly clear. In a world where more commitment-oriented men are looked down upon, the man who has invested more heavily in himself is at a distinct advantage. As Basil noted above, you do not want to be the guy who pines for a relationship before the girl he is interested in does. When you have poured all of your effort into improving yourself financially, physically and spiritually, you will not have the time or the inclination to be that guy. You will be too busy working, exercising, learning and traveling to bother with that.

This, in turn, plays into another very important observation Basil made above: girls believe that quality men must be chased and pinned down. This means that if a girl ever did decide to compromise her independence to any degree for the sake of a man, it would be for what she would consider a “quality male”. Who is that quality male?

In all likelihood, he is a man who has interests of his own (e.g., business, exercise, travel, etc), invests heavily in them and probably doesn’t appear all that concerned about relationships. Neediness is a foreign concept to him.

In other words, he is the man who embodies the goals of any male looking into self-improvement. Women who generally value their independence very highly and shy away from commitment are likely to commit to… a man who values his independence very highly and might be inclined to shy away from or pay little mind to the idea of commitment. As you would expect from a reality so closely in line with classic theories of female hypergamy, only a small minority of men fit this bill. Your goal should be to become one of them.

These truths are difficult for a lot of men to accept. Many were raised to be precisely the man women now seek to distance themselves from. They were raised with images of more ‘traditional’ relationships in their heads (fueled in part by Disney and the rest of Hollywood), and told to get in touch with their feelings and be more open to expressing them. Many grow up and are shocked to learn that behaviors they considered ordinary and par for the romantic course now mark them as “clingy” and low value.

Difficult as it may be, change has come and these new realities are here to stay. Women want their independence. To this end, they are looking for an increasingly more independent, self-assured man. Become that man and give them what they want—nothing more, and nothing less. Adapt or die.

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