Really nice post. I was waiting for a post like this when I read the post after the summer hiatus. Roosh, I'm really excited for you to keep fleshing out this new train of thought.
I think Roosh is right that pursuing notches solely for ego reasons after a while ends up being a vain attempt at real satisfaction and it is a problem that plagues all players. Roosh has touched on this before and many on this forum have come to this realization about the futility of pursuing sex for just another+1 in one way or another. I've posted on how I want to start pursuing more beautiful women even if I don't get as much fast, easy sex, even if I go a month without any new notches, and so on.
I know a couple of my bangs were for totally arbitrary, ego-based reasons and there was little other satisfaction other than, like Roosh said, the orgasm and updating a sex spreadsheet, keeping a streak alive of consecutive months with a new bang, and so on.
"Like a pendulum, I’ve swung from one extreme to the other, avoiding the path in the middle, where the game would be played to fulfill my biological urge for sex and female companionship while ignoring my ego’s attempts to compare my results with others or to have sex for the main purpose of sharing it with people I subconsciously want to impress."
I don't really know if it is so much as swinging between pendulums as a natural progression but I agree with Roosh's premise that you can go through a period of intense focus on being a player for a while. I think that pumping up your ego with a large quantity of bangs until it gets to a bit old is a normal phase in many guys' lives and it serves many important purposes:
* you can talk to beautiful women (8+) feeling like you've "graduated" from 6's and 7's and have an attractive demeanor and confidence that stems in part from your past success with women
* you can enjoy longer relationships with cute sweet, feminine, nurturing girls feeling like you aren't "missing out" on being able to go out and have one night stands with other girls because you've already sowed your wild outs, gotten tired of it, and can appreciate what you have more after having empirically experienced many and knowing that she has great characteristics
* you can not spend the time, energy, resources and frustration pursuing mediocre girls .. for example, you know you are doing something wrong if at the end of a first date with a girl you feel like deleting her number or insulting her if you don't get laid because the only reason you spent time with her was because you thought you had a good chance of getting sex.. or if you pass up girls that would be more enjoyable to interact with (in a club or a nice relationship or whatever) or get with girls for quicker sex.
However, I think the article fails to touch on other factors besides the three it implies: joys of relationships, the need for sexual release/pleasure, and validation of the ego. For example, this statement is only partially true: ".. but if they shut their blogs down, turn off the cameras, stop tracking bang metrics, stop tweeting, or stop sharing pictures, they’d be surprised themselves how quickly they would seek out traditional relationships"
Suppressing ego validation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for seeking a traditional relationship and giving up being a player.
I think that even once we suppress our ego, we still have other conflicting desires that prevent us from being perfectly happy with one girl. We have conflicting desires to feel the love, comfort and happiness of a relationship with a kind, nurturing, feminine girl; on the other hand, we desire multiple new women and the thrills of being single; we have the carnal desires to have sex with multiple women, especially new, young, hot ones (independent of any man's ego, it stings a man on some level to see a gorgeous woman walk by when he is holding his girlfriend's hand). Many of us seek to experience the adrenaline rush from going out and flirting with, dancing with, meeting and seducing women.. the chase, the conquest.. or even just acting crazy feeling like anything is possible.. When you are single, it's a thrill to leave your house and feel like truly anything can happen. That's not the case when you walk out the door with a girlfriend.
So I think we are all trying to find the balance that makes us happiest between
Love, comfort and stability
boosting our ego
physical sexual pleasure/release
satisfying a desire many new hot girls .. and ..
the thrill of seducing and feeling like anything can happen.
I think our natural likelihood of being a player depends on where we fall on the spectrum balancing all these five elements of the satisfaction of dating/seduction:
--- Spectrum of need for sexual pleasure ---
[ Low ---- High ] This could go both ways; I could see some guys needing the pleasure and release of sex so often that the dry spells and ups and downs of being single could be terrible for them. On the other hand, some guys with looks and game might need sex so badly that they need to build harems and fuck many girls a week, even two or more in the same day. A guy with a low sex drive could be content with a girlfriend or sporadic ONSs.
[ Love/comfort/stability -- no attachments/thrills/anything is possible ] tradeoff
We all value both; those who value thrills and the possibility of the unknown much more are not that likely to be players.
From what I have read about Roosh's game ("sniper" game, chatting girls up with dry humor, not getting too drunk, reading books until he leaves his house at 3 am to perfunctorily have sex with a girl in Iceland), he doesn't seem to make gaming into the epic crazy drunkfest that some people do and has at times described it as kind of a grind. I know I love going out and just getting into crazy shit -- running from cops, being the center of the attention in the dance floor, the life of the party, making people sing and air guitar along to songs with me and so on. Giving up the thrills not just of random sex but of just acting irresponsibly with the ever-present possibility of fucking a new girl at any second is really tough for me. But of course I love having someone who cares about me, is always there for me, and so on like most normal guys do.
This same tradeoff could be made for
[ Love/comfort/stability --- no feelings / satisfying desires for multiple new girls / unpredictable sex life ] tradeoff
Again, all guys want both, but which of these tends to be more satisfying to us is what makes us a satisfied player or not.
Ego validation is only a tradeoff between the joys of a relationship and the avoided hassles of being a player if you let it be. Taking ego out of the equation allows us to evaluate the true unavoidable tradeoffs between the joys of female companionship that we make when giving up a traditional, committed relationship or even less time intensive casual dating to be a major player.
If you focus only on the tradeoffs between the five elements of the satisfaction of female companionship, you may notice that you can get four out of five being a player and it seems like a good choice (even more so on this forum, obviously).
But, as Roosh notes, there are tradeoffs we make between the joys of dating/seduction and other sacrifices we have to make in life.
There are not too many shortcuts to getting girls to let you stick your junk inside them for free aside from being famous, so high notch counts and lots of +1s invariably mean financial costs, health sacrifices (alcohol/sleep), and above all tons of time -- lots of nights out drinking, day gaming, meeting girls for 1st and 2nd dates --- and that doesn't even count juggling girls after you've banged them. On one hand, I'm impressed by guys that talk about notch counts that average a girl per week, but on the other, I know from first-hand experience how much time it takes to be a serious player like that.. going out, staying up late to try to get SNLs, harvesting all those numbers, meeting all those girls… Being a major player is a full time job. For example, the two times in my life I've been in good enough shape to have a six pack and was objectively the most physically attractive, I didn't get any new sex (just one girl) because I was too focused on working out and eating right instead of drinking and chasing tail. When I've been a big time player, I ate and drank and slept badly and didn't put as much time or effort into my friendships. How many major players would say they have a handful of quality male friendships? How many of you have met a player who has no male friends and spends all his time trying to fuck new girls? What about the 50+ year old guys that sleep in hostels so they can go out in Medellin and try to hit on young girls? Guys that focus only on new pussy never end up being the great men that Roosh writes about in his book reviews.
Making the game a hobby, not a lifestyle is good advice. Being a major player is demanding on your money, health and time; taking a bit of a break from it can let you enjoy some of the joys of dating and seduction without going overboard. As the desires for novelty in our sex lives and excitement are pretty hard-wired (at least while we're younger), cutting ego validation out of the equation lets you make better decisions about the tradeoffs of the choice of how to date (dating/player) and how much to date (time and resources spent on meeting and seducing girls).
I think Roosh is right that pursuing notches solely for ego reasons after a while ends up being a vain attempt at real satisfaction and it is a problem that plagues all players. Roosh has touched on this before and many on this forum have come to this realization about the futility of pursuing sex for just another+1 in one way or another. I've posted on how I want to start pursuing more beautiful women even if I don't get as much fast, easy sex, even if I go a month without any new notches, and so on.
I know a couple of my bangs were for totally arbitrary, ego-based reasons and there was little other satisfaction other than, like Roosh said, the orgasm and updating a sex spreadsheet, keeping a streak alive of consecutive months with a new bang, and so on.
"Like a pendulum, I’ve swung from one extreme to the other, avoiding the path in the middle, where the game would be played to fulfill my biological urge for sex and female companionship while ignoring my ego’s attempts to compare my results with others or to have sex for the main purpose of sharing it with people I subconsciously want to impress."
I don't really know if it is so much as swinging between pendulums as a natural progression but I agree with Roosh's premise that you can go through a period of intense focus on being a player for a while. I think that pumping up your ego with a large quantity of bangs until it gets to a bit old is a normal phase in many guys' lives and it serves many important purposes:
* you can talk to beautiful women (8+) feeling like you've "graduated" from 6's and 7's and have an attractive demeanor and confidence that stems in part from your past success with women
* you can enjoy longer relationships with cute sweet, feminine, nurturing girls feeling like you aren't "missing out" on being able to go out and have one night stands with other girls because you've already sowed your wild outs, gotten tired of it, and can appreciate what you have more after having empirically experienced many and knowing that she has great characteristics
* you can not spend the time, energy, resources and frustration pursuing mediocre girls .. for example, you know you are doing something wrong if at the end of a first date with a girl you feel like deleting her number or insulting her if you don't get laid because the only reason you spent time with her was because you thought you had a good chance of getting sex.. or if you pass up girls that would be more enjoyable to interact with (in a club or a nice relationship or whatever) or get with girls for quicker sex.
However, I think the article fails to touch on other factors besides the three it implies: joys of relationships, the need for sexual release/pleasure, and validation of the ego. For example, this statement is only partially true: ".. but if they shut their blogs down, turn off the cameras, stop tracking bang metrics, stop tweeting, or stop sharing pictures, they’d be surprised themselves how quickly they would seek out traditional relationships"
Suppressing ego validation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for seeking a traditional relationship and giving up being a player.
I think that even once we suppress our ego, we still have other conflicting desires that prevent us from being perfectly happy with one girl. We have conflicting desires to feel the love, comfort and happiness of a relationship with a kind, nurturing, feminine girl; on the other hand, we desire multiple new women and the thrills of being single; we have the carnal desires to have sex with multiple women, especially new, young, hot ones (independent of any man's ego, it stings a man on some level to see a gorgeous woman walk by when he is holding his girlfriend's hand). Many of us seek to experience the adrenaline rush from going out and flirting with, dancing with, meeting and seducing women.. the chase, the conquest.. or even just acting crazy feeling like anything is possible.. When you are single, it's a thrill to leave your house and feel like truly anything can happen. That's not the case when you walk out the door with a girlfriend.
So I think we are all trying to find the balance that makes us happiest between
Love, comfort and stability
boosting our ego
physical sexual pleasure/release
satisfying a desire many new hot girls .. and ..
the thrill of seducing and feeling like anything can happen.
I think our natural likelihood of being a player depends on where we fall on the spectrum balancing all these five elements of the satisfaction of dating/seduction:
--- Spectrum of need for sexual pleasure ---
[ Low ---- High ] This could go both ways; I could see some guys needing the pleasure and release of sex so often that the dry spells and ups and downs of being single could be terrible for them. On the other hand, some guys with looks and game might need sex so badly that they need to build harems and fuck many girls a week, even two or more in the same day. A guy with a low sex drive could be content with a girlfriend or sporadic ONSs.
[ Love/comfort/stability -- no attachments/thrills/anything is possible ] tradeoff
We all value both; those who value thrills and the possibility of the unknown much more are not that likely to be players.
From what I have read about Roosh's game ("sniper" game, chatting girls up with dry humor, not getting too drunk, reading books until he leaves his house at 3 am to perfunctorily have sex with a girl in Iceland), he doesn't seem to make gaming into the epic crazy drunkfest that some people do and has at times described it as kind of a grind. I know I love going out and just getting into crazy shit -- running from cops, being the center of the attention in the dance floor, the life of the party, making people sing and air guitar along to songs with me and so on. Giving up the thrills not just of random sex but of just acting irresponsibly with the ever-present possibility of fucking a new girl at any second is really tough for me. But of course I love having someone who cares about me, is always there for me, and so on like most normal guys do.
This same tradeoff could be made for
[ Love/comfort/stability --- no feelings / satisfying desires for multiple new girls / unpredictable sex life ] tradeoff
Again, all guys want both, but which of these tends to be more satisfying to us is what makes us a satisfied player or not.
Ego validation is only a tradeoff between the joys of a relationship and the avoided hassles of being a player if you let it be. Taking ego out of the equation allows us to evaluate the true unavoidable tradeoffs between the joys of female companionship that we make when giving up a traditional, committed relationship or even less time intensive casual dating to be a major player.
If you focus only on the tradeoffs between the five elements of the satisfaction of female companionship, you may notice that you can get four out of five being a player and it seems like a good choice (even more so on this forum, obviously).
But, as Roosh notes, there are tradeoffs we make between the joys of dating/seduction and other sacrifices we have to make in life.
There are not too many shortcuts to getting girls to let you stick your junk inside them for free aside from being famous, so high notch counts and lots of +1s invariably mean financial costs, health sacrifices (alcohol/sleep), and above all tons of time -- lots of nights out drinking, day gaming, meeting girls for 1st and 2nd dates --- and that doesn't even count juggling girls after you've banged them. On one hand, I'm impressed by guys that talk about notch counts that average a girl per week, but on the other, I know from first-hand experience how much time it takes to be a serious player like that.. going out, staying up late to try to get SNLs, harvesting all those numbers, meeting all those girls… Being a major player is a full time job. For example, the two times in my life I've been in good enough shape to have a six pack and was objectively the most physically attractive, I didn't get any new sex (just one girl) because I was too focused on working out and eating right instead of drinking and chasing tail. When I've been a big time player, I ate and drank and slept badly and didn't put as much time or effort into my friendships. How many major players would say they have a handful of quality male friendships? How many of you have met a player who has no male friends and spends all his time trying to fuck new girls? What about the 50+ year old guys that sleep in hostels so they can go out in Medellin and try to hit on young girls? Guys that focus only on new pussy never end up being the great men that Roosh writes about in his book reviews.
Making the game a hobby, not a lifestyle is good advice. Being a major player is demanding on your money, health and time; taking a bit of a break from it can let you enjoy some of the joys of dating and seduction without going overboard. As the desires for novelty in our sex lives and excitement are pretty hard-wired (at least while we're younger), cutting ego validation out of the equation lets you make better decisions about the tradeoffs of the choice of how to date (dating/player) and how much to date (time and resources spent on meeting and seducing girls).