[Icarus]

Gents,

Back in February 2010, female commenter Black Flag posted several extremely interesting comments on Roissy's blog. I often re-read them to understand some mistakes I made in my beta days. You may find them interesting as well. Here they are in chronological order:

February 18:

Quote:

Looking strictly at the observable behavior, it does seem that way, doesn’t it. Women appear to be cruel, heartless, and at times even sadistic. But if you subscribe to the theory of Game, you should see you’re making a series of false assumptions about the motives that drive their romantic/sexual behavior.

You think that women base their actions on conscious decisions they make in a considered, cerebral way. They don’t. Not only do they not understand why they feel as they do (e.g. an escalating disgust for their beta boyfriends/husbands who cater to their “capricious whims”); not only are they incapable of changing those feelings; they are not–and this varies depending on the woman–entirely able to control the way they react to these feelings. It follows that women are not wholly responsible for the pain they cause: it’s, well, it’s Cruelty in the Third Degree.

You must be getting irritated right about now. But bear with me.

Game posits that the core of a woman’s sexual nature is innate, the result of thousands of years of evolutionary trial and error, and that it is this inner core that compels her sexual impulses, emotions and behaviors. She can’t understand why she feels as she does and does not like it, as these unaccountable feelings and emotions often compel her to make decisions she knows are not rational, not moral, and NOT in her considered best interests:

Do you suppose a woman married to a man who is gentle, who adores her, who provides for her and her children, and who rushes to indulge her every whim *wants* to feel disgust for him, to hurt him, to divorce him? Of course not. Particularly as she rarely has the opportunity to leave him for an Alpha. She just wants out; she can’t stand his sucking up any more. And rage about the divorce laws all you like, gentlemen; the fact is, for most women divorce is a big fat pay cut. On the other hand, do you imagine a woman is pleased to find herself helplessly attracted to a man who can be cruel and unfeeling, who acts the tyrant, who demands that she indulge his every whim, who refuses to be faithful to her even though she hasn’t the slightest desire to be unfaithful to him, and who she knows will leave her flat as soon as something better comes along?

She does not want any of these things, and yet, as practitioners of Game know, she does. And she does so against all reason and in spite of very intense countervailing social conditioning. The power of biological determinism to effect love and attraction is beyond astonishing. Some women are effected more than others, but some are almost powerless to resist it.

And you should know it. If you practice Game, you’ve seen it. And yet still, understanding all that, you imply womankind must be collectively reviled for acting on instincts hard-wired into their brains–simply because the resulting behavior often results in the cruel and unfair treatment of men. Naturally there is no recognition of the misery and guilt these very women live with as a consequence of the shameful conduct their maladaptive biological impulses drive them to. And certainly there is no recognition that it is the spineless, sackless, utterly risible behavior of their beta boyfriends that triggers the disaster in the first place.

Women don’t “get off” on emotionally devastating a man when they break up with him–they wouldn’t have chosen him in the first place if they never had any liking for him at all. And even when a woman reaches her breaking point she often intends to be as nice as possible in sending him packing. But for the most part, she fails. Because at that point, she despises him.

February 19:

Quote:

Thank you very much. I want to be very careful not to over generalize here. I think all women share the same core nature (which is why women had a better shot at a happy marriage before Feminists decided to emasculate our men). But in many women this essential sexual self is deeply buried and exerts only the most mild effect on their emotions and behavior. Some women are actually quite tolerant of beta behavior and can be deeply happy with such a boyfriend/husband. They may experience the odd, barely perceptible twinge of irritation here and there when their beta overdoes it, but they simply write it off as part of the grumpy mood they’re in. I would say that most women feel it more strongly than that, but they are still perfectly capable of suppressing their negative reactions and not allowing such feelings to poison their love for their betas. Because what irritates them? The adoring, solicitous behavior of their men. That’s that sort of thing a woman is supposed to want, so how could such a thing possibly annoy? It could not. Must be PMS. These sorts of women don’t want Alphas (unless we’re talking about younger girls and the Alphas are hot–looks are paramount at that age). They sense they are dangerous and will never give them the settled, secure life they truly do desire. Alphas can run Game on them all day long–they may be tempted, but in the end they’ll take a pass.

It’s a continuum, and some women have better control over their emotions than others. That said, there are some women who are very powerfully affected by their core natures, and you’re exactly right: they do destroy many lives, including their own.

For the purpose of illustration, I will tell you the tale of Miss X, a very sad case indeed. For years–until quite recently–she believed there was something horribly wrong with her, some hideous flaw in her character that made her incapable of feeling sustained romantic love. She imagined that her heart was this tiny, black, desiccated thing, so twisted and perverse that she was cursed to eventually hate every man she loved.

As a girl she prided herself on her perfect record of fidelity. When one boy got too annoying and another caught her fancy, she wasted no time dumping Annoying and taking up with New Guy. She could always do it in a carefully composed letter, since all parties were cloistered at single-sex boarding schools. She thought herself both honorable and polite.

In college she was still honorable but found politeness impossible to maintain, as the boys there were so profoundly irritating. Then, twelve years ago her nancy boyfriend de jour introduced her to a friend of his, who was the hottest guy she’d ever seen up close. She moved in with Hottie two weeks later.

Hottie quickly sorted out her life, made her go to class, and weaned her off hard drugs. She was head over heals in love. The years passed and they settled into a pattern: He paid her bills so she wouldn’t have to bother with it. He forgave her every time she broke into her yearly hysterics and announced she’d got drunk and cheated on him. (It was always the same: awful, joyless sex with some random faceless guy she’d met at a party or some skanky bar. But he never asked for details). Cheating is a form of displaced drug addiction, he’d say, he would help her work through it. And he took her to Amsterdam every Spring, because it was her favorite place in the world.

Her last year in law school he proposed there. She wanted to strangle him and toss him in the Amstel; but she couldn’t, because she loved him, right? And he took such good care of her, how could she possibly refuse him? She jilted him two days before their wedding. She couldn’t bear the thought of trying to smother her contempt for him for even a single more day.

What a bitch! What the fuck was wrong with her? She figured she was either the most vile person in the world or the craziest. She immediately engaged a therapist to determine which. He still hasn’t figured it out. For the last five years the fraudulent buffoon’s been banging on about how she must have a daddy issue.

Hottie was treated abominably. He probably hates Miss X and he has every right. And she’s hated herself on his behalf for a very long time–a lot longer than he has. And if she could have forced herself to feel differently, taken some drug, had some operation, she damn well would have. But she couldn’t.

So yes, X is a good example of such a woman and she has caused a great deal of trouble. Dire indeed. But I don’t know what “external control” could have prevented such a catastrophe, unless X had stayed in boarding school until she was 30. I’m absolutely certain, however, her school would never have agreed to that.

February 19:

Quote:

I don’t know. I’m still reflecting on it. But I’m pretty sure all he needed to do was show me the back of his hand the first time I cheated on him and I never would have left his side. I remember that the fourth or fifth time around I actually requested that he do so and he refused. It was nice of him.

February 21:

Quote:

That’s a good question. I think it would have depended solely on him. In fact, the more I consider the situation in its entirety, the more blindingly obviously it becomes. I’m such a primitive little thing. If the knowledge weren’t so liberating I’d be absolutely mortified.

You see, it’s the cheating that’s always puzzled me the most. It was so out of character. I’d always considered loyalty to be my best virtue–prided myself on it in fact. So why make the sacrifices necessary to be faithful to every trivial boyfriend I ever had and then repeatedly betray the only one I ever really loved? And such an odd sort of cheating it was. I can’t even even claim the excuse of pleasure, for there was none. And what sort of cheater rushes home to immediately report herself? Isn’t that sort of thing supposed to be done covertly–sneaking about and constructing an elaborate tissue of lies to evade detection?

I’ve spent vast sums and countless hours trying to unravel my tortuous logic in the matter. It’s quite amusing really. I should’ve gone to a vet instead. I dare say he could have cleared the matter up in about five minutes:

I found my mate to be insufficiently dominant, and it was eating away at my feelings for him. So to revive my flagging love I need to provoke him into a substantial display of dominance. I’d like to think I employed somewhat more subtle tactics before I decided to go straight for his throat, but there it is. I challenged him in the most aggressive way I possibly could. He needed to meet it with teeth and claws, instead he showed me belly.

Because neither of us understood what it was really about (displaced drug addiction, what rot), the problem could not be solved. Had I simply told him I required much, much rougher handling in order to be happy with him I don’t doubt he would have set aside his distaste for that sort of thing and managed it.

February 23:

Quote:

Oh dear, that’s rather ironic. Because I did give him a cave–as a condition of my moving in with him. His place had a big master bedroom and a smaller bedroom. Previous experience with men led me to suspect that for any sort of successful shack-up I would need a grotto of my own. Someplace I could retreat to gather my wits and suppress any feelings of annoyance that might come geysering up unexpectedly. I didn’t want him to ever sense he got on my nerves occasionally. I’d only known him for two weeks at that point, but I no matter how in love I was at the time, it was only prudent to assume history would eventually repeat itself, and I wanted everything to workout with us.

He was furious, of course, because the grotto was the master bedroom–where our bed was. I suppose he had visions of himself sleeping on the couch at night. Naturally I would never permit that. He was only ever expelled during the day, and most assuredly never on the cusp of any sort of romantic interlude. It would be impossible to find him annoying at such a time–glorious man that he was.

But he did like to hang out in there: polishing his guns, fussing with paperwork, and doing all his MBA stuff. So I guess we both had our “fortress from the annoyance of the moment.”

But this: “whoever next of that type that you have a relationship with.” Never. Never ever ever. I can easily deal with living my life never having another LTR. It’s enough for me just to know that under the right circumstances I truly am capably of falling in love long term–of feeling romantic love untainted by any trace of contempt or hatred. Because the way he looked at me when I gave him that ring back, I don’t want to describe it. He asked me why, and my glibness chose that moment to desert me. Lacking any other option, I told him the truth: “I don’t love you anymore, I’m so sorry.” He said, and I can quote him verbatim because I’ll remember it till the day I die, “A person who can’t love isn’t a human being and might as well be dead.”

I actually would rather be dead than hear that again. And I have a feeling that the fellow who could “rein me in” must be the rarest of men. So I don’t have the slightest expectation of ever meeting him. But that’s something I can absolutely live with. The other? No way.